Pete Hautman

Targeted by drug addicts, a carnival taco vendor must defend his fortune After years playing professional poker, Axel Speeter knows not to trust people. Retired from the table, this no-nonsense old salt makes ends meet by selling tacos at the Minnesota State Fair, and he's got two things on his mind: developing a state-of-the-art burrito, and keeping an eye on the $260,000 he's got squirreled away in coffee cans inside his room at the Motel 6. He's...

To save a friend's daughter from a bad marriage, Joe Crow confronts cultists, carnies, and cocaine wackos Poker-playing ex-cop Joe Crow has been dealt some rotten hands in his life, but he's survived them all. When Axel Speeter starts begging for help, Crow suspects his luck is about to run out. A taco-dealing former poker pro, Speeter's worried about his girlfriend's daughter Carmen. She's the sexiest trouble magnet the state of Omaha has ever seen,...

Only a chain-link fence separates 17-year-old Jacob from the horrors of the world beyond. Passing his days in the land of the Grace, a paradise-like place known as Nodd, Jacob faces temptation when an enchanting girl from a nearby ranch encourages him to engage in the forbidden pleasures that test his faith in the wake of a wolf's invasion.

A lottery jackpot winner decides to turn one of her millions into a bounty for the man who left her Barbaraannette is decorating a cake when the Powerball numbers come in. They sound suspiciously familiar, but she finishes the cake before checking her ticket, knowing that if she wins her hands will be too shaky to handle the icing. This quiet Midwesterner has just won nine million dollars-and nine million kinds of trouble to go with it.   Accepting...

Winner of the National Book Award, Pete Hautman pens a futuristic satire brimming with wry humor and honored by a Booklist starred review. Welcome to the United Safer States of America in 2076! Here, prisoners perform all manual labor. And the country is finally safe. Sixteen-year-old Bo ignores governmental protective devices capturing every action and word. He endures the avalanche of safety regulations. But when he's accused of spreading a rash...

Hoping to win a cash prize in a pizza eating contest after racking up a tab on his mother's credit card, David must juggle his competitive eating training with the responsibility of looking after his autistic younger brother.

A new and enigmatic student named Shayne appears at high school one day, befriends the smallest boy in the school, and takes on a notorious drug dealer before turning himself in to the police for killing someone.

In this captivating story about loss, love, and changing your ways, National Book Award—winning author Pete Hautman imbues the classic road trip novel with clever wit and heartfelt musings about life and death.

Steven Gerald Gabel—a.k.a. Stiggy—needs to get out of Minnesota. His father recently look his own life, his mother is a shell of the person she used to be, and his sort-of-girlfriend ghosted him and skipped town. What

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