Winston “Wince” Fisher Jr. is in a rut. After his daughter was born, Wince tried to leave his high-octane life of crime behind for a safe career in wealth management, but then his business partner forced him out, and he signed a two-year noncompete clause. Now, the former criminal and three-time divorcé has nothing to do but laze around his rental home in Austin, Texas, watching action movies and consuming massive amounts of cocaine. Everything changes when his dealer’s son invites him to assist on a drug run, which makes Wince miss his old ways. Soon enough, he’s building and selling AR-15s to Mexican cartels, leading to another decision that could jeopardize his chance at ever having a normal life. Smith’s second novel, following Arcade (2016), is a significant pivot, offering a portrait of red-blooded Southern masculinity. It’s hard to tell exactly what sort of satire is intended; Wince’s highly traditional worldview is rarely subverted or challenged, and many of the women and nonwhite characters are little more than thinly drawn caricatures. Still, the book is compulsively readable, building an air of paranoia and dread that persists whether Wince has been caught in a shootout or simply talking on the phone with his mother. The story shines in its asides, from footnotes detailing the intricacies of gun barrels and drug laws to brief flashbacks that fill in Wince’s outlandish backstory—complete with DeNigris’ occasional charming hand-drawn illustrations. The tale is certainly not for the faint of heart, taking readers on an antihero’s journey through a wasteland of sex, drugs, violence, and organized crime. But as a snapshot of a very specific type of man in the 2020s, it transcends its standard revenge-thriller trappings to offer a compelling character study.