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The Lucky Clover
After burning through his first six-pack of the night, The Narrator decides it’s time to take back some semblance of control in his life. The next morning, he breaks into his ex-wife’s house and steals the taxidermied badger he’d given to her as a token of their marriage.
With the badger back in his control, The Narrator returns to The Lucky Clover, his old haunt in the town of Paradise, a reservation bordertown in western South Dakota. Soon he finds himself entrenched in the town and with a wild and rough group of individuals, most prominently Nanny, a six-foot redhead and amateur Madam with a fascination with all things illicit.
One night, The Narrator discovers and takes a sizable amount of cocaine, and is marked for death by Ray Kennedy, a man haunted by his own racial background. Broke, and with no other options, The Narrator turns to crime to repay his debt, devising a scheme that involves the betrayal of his new girlfriend, Laura.
Desperate, The Narrator undertakes his plan, only to find his misstep had been counted on by those closest to. He soon finds violence is the only language spoken in this sparse and hard country he calls home, and his one action has set off a chain of tragedy that cannot be reversed.
With an unforgettable cast of characters surviving in a world where debts are never truly paid off, The Lucky Clover achieves a stark and realistic look at life along the reservation border. With insight and grace, Nick Heeb composes a life-like mural of people who struggle daily against a fate lesser people would simply resign themselves to.
Praise for THE LUCKY
“Some of us, by simple grace, sit on the merry-go-round enjoying the ride while others struggle just to stay on. The damned thing’s going too fast, their legs keep getting away from them, everything they have slides over the edge and is gone. These are the folks Nick Heeb writes about. Don’t try to make writing like this safe by saying it’s gritty or transgressive or classic noir. Those are words, and this is real.” —James Sallis, author of Drive and the Lew Griffin cycle
With the badger back in his control, The Narrator returns to The Lucky Clover, his old haunt in the town of Paradise, a reservation bordertown in western South Dakota. Soon he finds himself entrenched in the town and with a wild and rough group of individuals, most prominently Nanny, a six-foot redhead and amateur Madam with a fascination with all things illicit.
One night, The Narrator discovers and takes a sizable amount of cocaine, and is marked for death by Ray Kennedy, a man haunted by his own racial background. Broke, and with no other options, The Narrator turns to crime to repay his debt, devising a scheme that involves the betrayal of his new girlfriend, Laura.
Desperate, The Narrator undertakes his plan, only to find his misstep had been counted on by those closest to. He soon finds violence is the only language spoken in this sparse and hard country he calls home, and his one action has set off a chain of tragedy that cannot be reversed.
With an unforgettable cast of characters surviving in a world where debts are never truly paid off, The Lucky Clover achieves a stark and realistic look at life along the reservation border. With insight and grace, Nick Heeb composes a life-like mural of people who struggle daily against a fate lesser people would simply resign themselves to.
Praise for THE LUCKY
“Some of us, by simple grace, sit on the merry-go-round enjoying the ride while others struggle just to stay on. The damned thing’s going too fast, their legs keep getting away from them, everything they have slides over the edge and is gone. These are the folks Nick Heeb writes about. Don’t try to make writing like this safe by saying it’s gritty or transgressive or classic noir. Those are words, and this is real.” —James Sallis, author of Drive and the Lew Griffin cycle
ebook
Published January 18, 2019
3 people want to read
About the author
Nick Heeb
1 book3 followersNick Heeb is a native of western South Dakota. His work has appeared in the South Dakota Review, BULL: Men’s Fiction, and elsewhere. The Lucky Clover is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 21, 2022
If you enjoy Breaking bad, westerns, requiem for a dream, and/or Hemingway, you’ll love this book. It’s a beer drinking, chain smokin’ dive bar dirty south tale of a good ol’ boy gone bad. It’s not my normal genre but I tore through it. The characters felt very real to me. Like I’d met them
In real life. I particularly liked George the owner of the Lucky Clover. He reminded me of a bar owner who liked us/owned our favorite dive just after college. It was a nice departure from the Deep South novels with female main characters I’ve been reading which are all about putting on airs/manners. There are social rules and ‘right and wrong’ in this one too, but told from a much more ‘cowboy’ rough and tumble blue collar perspective. Very suspenseful. Worth reading.
In real life. I particularly liked George the owner of the Lucky Clover. He reminded me of a bar owner who liked us/owned our favorite dive just after college. It was a nice departure from the Deep South novels with female main characters I’ve been reading which are all about putting on airs/manners. There are social rules and ‘right and wrong’ in this one too, but told from a much more ‘cowboy’ rough and tumble blue collar perspective. Very suspenseful. Worth reading.
January 18, 2024
This Shotgun Honey published novel came out 5 years today and satiated my weakness for a noir in the bar. Our narrator is a regular at The Lucky Clover who knows when to push the buttons of bartender George and when to leave well alone. The novel views our protagonist's life through the filter of those he's friends with from the bar as he deals with a cuckolding he's been subject to.
Heeb manages to write something that is both irreverent and profound across the pages. This isn't your standard crime novel as it places the characters to the fore with plot skirting in and out of things as our Narrator finds a night of fun comes with consequences.
Great to play catch up with one from a favourite publisher and did not disappoint.
Heeb manages to write something that is both irreverent and profound across the pages. This isn't your standard crime novel as it places the characters to the fore with plot skirting in and out of things as our Narrator finds a night of fun comes with consequences.
Great to play catch up with one from a favourite publisher and did not disappoint.
May 4, 2019
This book was not for me. Did not care for the writing style, story or characters. Was about halfway thru before the main story started.
April 20, 2019
Nick Heeb did a hell of a job with this noir novel. From the first sentence I knew it was gonna be my kind of novel, and the more the story went on the more I had to finish reading it.
It's novels like this that make me love noir as much as I do, and I hope to read a lot more from this guy in the future. If you love gritty noir that grabs you by the balls, then this is gonna become a favorite of yours, too.
It's novels like this that make me love noir as much as I do, and I hope to read a lot more from this guy in the future. If you love gritty noir that grabs you by the balls, then this is gonna become a favorite of yours, too.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews