Anthony Awards Best First Novel (nominee)
Barry Awards Best First Novel (nominee)
Edgar Awards Best First Novel (nominee)
Macavity Awards Best First Book (nominee)
Dagger Awards Best Book (nominee)
Dodgers is a dark, unforgettable coming-of-age journey that recalls the very best of Richard Price, Denis Johnson, and J.D. Salinger.
Itis the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.
Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.
Winner of the LA TIMES Book Prize of 2017 for Best Mystery/Thriller
Winner of the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger 2016 for Best Crime Novel of the Year
Winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger 2016 for Best Debut Crime Novel
Winner of the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award
Finalist for the PEN/Heminghway Award 2017 for Debut Fiction
Longlisted for Andrew Carnegie Medal 2017 for Excellence in Fiction
Nominated for the Edgar Award 2017 for Best First Novel
Genre: Mystery
Itis the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.
Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.
Winner of the LA TIMES Book Prize of 2017 for Best Mystery/Thriller
Winner of the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger 2016 for Best Crime Novel of the Year
Winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger 2016 for Best Debut Crime Novel
Winner of the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award
Finalist for the PEN/Heminghway Award 2017 for Debut Fiction
Longlisted for Andrew Carnegie Medal 2017 for Excellence in Fiction
Nominated for the Edgar Award 2017 for Best First Novel
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"Dark, edgy and riveting and, for all that, deeply, humanly serious, Dodgers is white knuckles for the mind. I love this book and will closely follow Bill Beverly forever hereafter." - Robert Olen Butler
"A terrific novel, urgent, thrilling, and dangerous from start to finish. In East, Mr. Beverly has created a character who stays in the mind after the book is finished, an Odysseus straight out of Compton. His venture into the unknown lands of the American Midwest has a classic, mythic shape and scope. And the writing throughout is lovely, economical and exact. You could read this for the sentences alone." - Kevin Canty
"Bill Beverly’s wild and auspicious debut takes off from page one and never lets up. Dodgers, a kind of modernized and urban take on Theodore Weesner’s The Car Thief, is lightning-quick and world-wise, full of pitch-perfect dialogue and criminal misadventure. Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun." - Tom Cooper
"In Dodgers, Bill Beverly delivers with honesty and empathy as he takes us into the hope-killing shadow of LA’s street-level drug kingdom. His prose are a perfect match for young East’s life-altering journey; spare, clear-eyed and with the cutting edge of flint. Beverly leads us into the heart of a young man molded by circumstance and, much as Richard Price’s The Whites, gives a view that will change the way you look at the world." - Susan Crandall
"Bill Beverly’s gritty and propulsive debut novel, Dodgers, is more than a riveting read; it is a stunning literary achievement. Our hero, East, a fifteen-year old hit man, drives across America on a deadly mission, from the mean streets of LA to the heart of the heart of the country. East is a character as memorable and as haunting as any I’ve met in contemporary fiction. And he’s not alone in that van, but there is room for one more. So hop in, but strap on your seatbelt and hold on to your hat. The road’s a little bumpy—and more than a little terrifying— up ahead." - John Dufresne
"The main protagonist's voice is both touching and engrossing, a modern version of Holden Caulfield had he been born in Compton and a generation or so later, and his itinerary both geographical and mental is a poetic as well as profane, delicate joy to behold. A character study of the highest quality as well as a thriller as addictive as crack. Without the shadow of a doubt, a book that will come to be seen as a landmark in US crime writing." - Maxim Jakubowski
"Reading Dodgers is like having the veil lifted from your eyes: the world is more vivid, more intense, more exquisite, and more terrifying than you ever knew. Bill Beverly is a conjurer, a poet of the dark arts, and his novel is a spell: when he sends his young drug-world protagonist on a deadly errand in the alien landscape east of L.A.—that fat swath of America known to him only by its names and its shapes on maps—it is you who makes the journey, who is the stranger in a strange land, a watcher who now feels the eyes of others wherever you go, and who must pay the devastating tolls of crossing boundaries. Hypnotic, breath-taking, bruising, beautiful, important, true—choose your adjectives, this is a great novel." - Tim Johnston
"Dodgers is a wickedly good amalgamation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Clockers that stands firmly on its own as a remarkable debut. A Harrowing road trip into the heart of America that will shock you, move you, and leave you marveling at its desolate poetry. A real accomplishment: a book that makes you see the familiar through new eyes. It will stick with me for a long, long time." - Richard Lange
"Propulsive, brutally honest and yet unexpectedly tender, Dodgers is one of the best debuts I've read. I was absolutely gripped by the voice, the world of East and his brother, and surprised at nearly ever turn. I audibly gasped at the end." - Attica Locke
"Akin to William Gibson in its staccato blizzard of sentences, each as taut and tight as a drumhead, and reminiscent of James Ellroy in its sense of social injustice and of a life and upbringing etched caustically across the pages. A compelling debut." - Luke McCallin
"I try not to read thrillers because they tend to keep me up to all hours of the night, and I don’t have the time. Bill Beverly’s Dodgers (No Exit Press) broke through my wall of self-denial and, yes, I did stay up late for two nights to finish it. Four black boys in a gang from Los Angeles are given a job: drive across the country to carry out a hit on a black judge. What can go wrong? Everything, of course. The prose is tight, the dialogue rhythmic, the pacing fast, the violence measured, and the ending unexpected. So what if I lost some sleep?" - Viet Thanh Nguyen
"Not only is the fast-paced and masterfully plotted Dodgers one of the greatest literary crime novels you will read in your lifetime, Bill Beverly has also created, in the teenage boy, East, one of the most unforgettable and heartbreaking characters ever encountered in American fiction." - Donald Ray Pollock
"Dodgers transcends genres. Its main character East, is part Kerouac's Sal Paradise, Part Wrights' Bigger Thomas, and even part Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The hero's journey is an American story." - Ernesto Quiñonez
"The sentences will snare you, and the story keeps you hooked — a thrilling cross-country journey that takes on the poetry and resonance of myth." - Adam Sternbergh
"I knew before I'd gone very far into Bill Beverly's superb first novel that I was about to lose some sleep, since putting it down seemed to be beyond me. To say it's a page-turner doesn't do it justice, though it certainly is. It's also much more. His characters are vivid and real, and yes, sometimes they'll break your heart. The world they inhabit--no matter where they may be at a given moment--all but leaps off the page. It's a winner. So is its author." - Steve Yarbrough
"A terrific novel, urgent, thrilling, and dangerous from start to finish. In East, Mr. Beverly has created a character who stays in the mind after the book is finished, an Odysseus straight out of Compton. His venture into the unknown lands of the American Midwest has a classic, mythic shape and scope. And the writing throughout is lovely, economical and exact. You could read this for the sentences alone." - Kevin Canty
"Bill Beverly’s wild and auspicious debut takes off from page one and never lets up. Dodgers, a kind of modernized and urban take on Theodore Weesner’s The Car Thief, is lightning-quick and world-wise, full of pitch-perfect dialogue and criminal misadventure. Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun." - Tom Cooper
"In Dodgers, Bill Beverly delivers with honesty and empathy as he takes us into the hope-killing shadow of LA’s street-level drug kingdom. His prose are a perfect match for young East’s life-altering journey; spare, clear-eyed and with the cutting edge of flint. Beverly leads us into the heart of a young man molded by circumstance and, much as Richard Price’s The Whites, gives a view that will change the way you look at the world." - Susan Crandall
"Bill Beverly’s gritty and propulsive debut novel, Dodgers, is more than a riveting read; it is a stunning literary achievement. Our hero, East, a fifteen-year old hit man, drives across America on a deadly mission, from the mean streets of LA to the heart of the heart of the country. East is a character as memorable and as haunting as any I’ve met in contemporary fiction. And he’s not alone in that van, but there is room for one more. So hop in, but strap on your seatbelt and hold on to your hat. The road’s a little bumpy—and more than a little terrifying— up ahead." - John Dufresne
"The main protagonist's voice is both touching and engrossing, a modern version of Holden Caulfield had he been born in Compton and a generation or so later, and his itinerary both geographical and mental is a poetic as well as profane, delicate joy to behold. A character study of the highest quality as well as a thriller as addictive as crack. Without the shadow of a doubt, a book that will come to be seen as a landmark in US crime writing." - Maxim Jakubowski
"Reading Dodgers is like having the veil lifted from your eyes: the world is more vivid, more intense, more exquisite, and more terrifying than you ever knew. Bill Beverly is a conjurer, a poet of the dark arts, and his novel is a spell: when he sends his young drug-world protagonist on a deadly errand in the alien landscape east of L.A.—that fat swath of America known to him only by its names and its shapes on maps—it is you who makes the journey, who is the stranger in a strange land, a watcher who now feels the eyes of others wherever you go, and who must pay the devastating tolls of crossing boundaries. Hypnotic, breath-taking, bruising, beautiful, important, true—choose your adjectives, this is a great novel." - Tim Johnston
"Dodgers is a wickedly good amalgamation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Clockers that stands firmly on its own as a remarkable debut. A Harrowing road trip into the heart of America that will shock you, move you, and leave you marveling at its desolate poetry. A real accomplishment: a book that makes you see the familiar through new eyes. It will stick with me for a long, long time." - Richard Lange
"Propulsive, brutally honest and yet unexpectedly tender, Dodgers is one of the best debuts I've read. I was absolutely gripped by the voice, the world of East and his brother, and surprised at nearly ever turn. I audibly gasped at the end." - Attica Locke
"Akin to William Gibson in its staccato blizzard of sentences, each as taut and tight as a drumhead, and reminiscent of James Ellroy in its sense of social injustice and of a life and upbringing etched caustically across the pages. A compelling debut." - Luke McCallin
"I try not to read thrillers because they tend to keep me up to all hours of the night, and I don’t have the time. Bill Beverly’s Dodgers (No Exit Press) broke through my wall of self-denial and, yes, I did stay up late for two nights to finish it. Four black boys in a gang from Los Angeles are given a job: drive across the country to carry out a hit on a black judge. What can go wrong? Everything, of course. The prose is tight, the dialogue rhythmic, the pacing fast, the violence measured, and the ending unexpected. So what if I lost some sleep?" - Viet Thanh Nguyen
"Not only is the fast-paced and masterfully plotted Dodgers one of the greatest literary crime novels you will read in your lifetime, Bill Beverly has also created, in the teenage boy, East, one of the most unforgettable and heartbreaking characters ever encountered in American fiction." - Donald Ray Pollock
"Dodgers transcends genres. Its main character East, is part Kerouac's Sal Paradise, Part Wrights' Bigger Thomas, and even part Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The hero's journey is an American story." - Ernesto Quiñonez
"The sentences will snare you, and the story keeps you hooked — a thrilling cross-country journey that takes on the poetry and resonance of myth." - Adam Sternbergh
"I knew before I'd gone very far into Bill Beverly's superb first novel that I was about to lose some sleep, since putting it down seemed to be beyond me. To say it's a page-turner doesn't do it justice, though it certainly is. It's also much more. His characters are vivid and real, and yes, sometimes they'll break your heart. The world they inhabit--no matter where they may be at a given moment--all but leaps off the page. It's a winner. So is its author." - Steve Yarbrough
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