Publishers Weekly
04/22/2024
Edgar winner Cranor (Ozark Dogs) delivers another top-notch Southern noir, this time centered on two families who cross paths at an Arkansas chicken processing plant. Luke Jackson hopes his successful efforts to increase productivity at Demter Foods’ largest poultry facility will land him a promotion. His ambition comes at the expense of his overworked employees, who aren’t allowed overtime pay or bathroom breaks. After Gabriela Menchaca becomes so dehydrated it causes her to miscarry, her partner, Edwin Saucedo, organizes a strike and files complaints with the company against Luke. When Luke fires Edwin in retaliation, putting his and Gabriela’s already fragile finances in further jeopardy, Edwin devises a desperate plan to win his job back and pay his rent. Before long, that scheme—which targets Luke’s wife and young son—leads to devastating violence. Cranor depicts the inhumane conditions of America’s industrial food system with a vividness worthy of Upton Sinclair, and he matches the novel’s gritty realism with an anguishing and suspenseful revenge plot. Cranor continues to impress. Agent: David Hale Smith, InkWell Management. (July)
From the Publisher
Praise for Broiler
CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2024
Deadly Pleasures' Most Anticipated Mysteries and Thrillers of 2024
“Cranor paints a vivid, devastating portrait of the cruelty surrounding an imbalanced system, all while maintaining a wicked level of tension that drives this powerful story forward. He is a writer at the top of his game.”
—Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads
“Not many writers would draw inspiration from such disparate subjects as postpartum anxiety and the squalid conditions in a chicken plant, and fewer still could do the two together justice, but Eli Cranor does one better: he makes them roar. Broiler is the most powerful kind of crime novel—relentlessly tense, ruthlessly observed, and deeply illuminating. It will sing you a lullaby as it grips you by the throat. I loved this novel.”
—Katie Gutierrez, author of More Than You’ll Ever Know
“Eli Cranor has a restless imagination that serves him—and his readers—well. Broiler is his latest Trojan Horse of a novel, a satisfying hunk of noir that tells us far more about the American South than those endless newspaper think pieces set in diners and gas stations. Want to understand what's going on in the United States right now? Read Eli Cranor.”
—Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Prom Mom
“Eli Cranor proves all the promise of his Edgar-winning debut and doubles down on it with each new effort. Broiler is grit and muscle on the surface, but it hits deep, populated with characters who linger. Cranor delivers the thrills while in pursuit of bigger game, those special stories born at the intersection of desperation and hope. Don't miss his work.”
—Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of An Honest Man
“Broiler is the kind of dark, unflinching noir that readers will not be able to ignore, shedding light on the forgotten corners of the American South through the eyes of people so real they leap off the page. It’s hard to believe, but Cranor keeps getting better. His raw prose serves as the perfect messenger for a story that paints a bleak picture—weaving around you slowly before pulling you in tight and refusing to let go. Powerful.”
—Alex Segura, bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity and Alter Ego
“Taut, harrowing, and charged with profound insight, Broiler pushes four unforgettable characters to the brim. What happens when hard work isn’t enough? Exploring class, ambition, mobility, and desire, Eli Cranor uses bolts of linguistic electricity to show how the things we want can sometimes blind us.”
—Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution
“Eli Cranor is one of the new big 'uns. I don't have the proper term for what he does with words, calm but knowing prose, and nearly Steinbeckian concern for his characters, their woes and petty victories, dreams and shitty jobs. There is conflict and tension and sorrow, but it's his people who stick.”
—Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone
“Cranor delivers another top-notch Southern noir . . . Cranor depicts the inhumane conditions of America’s industrial food system with a vividness worthy of Upton Sinclair, and he matches the novel’s gritty realism with an anguishing and suspenseful revenge plot.”
—Publishers Weekly
Praise for Eli Cranor
“A major work from a bright, young talent.”
—Tod Goldberg, USA Today, **** out of **** stars
“Sweeps the reader in from the first page . . . Ozark Dogs is a gritty, authentic triumph, one howling to be turned into a film or TV series.”
—Financial Times
“Eli Cranor has an eye for catfish country and an ear for its voices.”
—The Times (UK)
“Raw, gritty, and darkly beautiful noir at its finest. Cranor digs deep into the hard places, the hard choices that crush and grind. And he does so with great tenderness for his flawed and broken characters as they seek revenge, cling to honor, and sacrifice everything for family. This is a writer to watch.”
—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
“Eli Cranor is that rare writer who can make you gasp, cry and cheer often in the same paragraph.”
—S.A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland
“A story of family burdens and dark legacies, it’s thrillingly told, deeply wrenching,not to be missed.”
—Megan Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of The Turnout
“Cranor is one of the South’s best contemporary chroniclers, and his keen eye is onfull display here.”
—Gabino Iglesias, author of The Devil Takes You Home
“Scorching country noir... There is not one character on either side of the familydivide who doesn't bring the reader up short by displaying an unexpected layer of complexity—and even, sometimes, compassion. In only his second novel, Cranor has transformed a familiar noir theme into a multidimensional tragedy of great power and beauty.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
Library Journal
05/01/2024
Edgar winner Cranor (Ozark Dogs; Don't Know Tough) returns with a timely thriller that shines a light on the hidden and often-demonized underclass of immigrant meat-packing workers who keep the United States fed. Gabriela and her boyfriend Edwin have worked as undocumented laborers at Luke Jackson's chicken plant in northwest Arkansas for seven years, processing thousands of broilers a day for little pay and no bathroom breaks. While Gabby plans for a future far beyond Detmer Foods, Luke strives for a coveted promotion, and his wife Mimi tends to their infant son and her growing postpartum depression. These two couples, who might as well occupy different universes for how rarely they interact, are brought into sudden and violent conflict when Luke fires Edwin to impress his higher-ups, leading Edwin to hatch a desperate scheme that will allow him and Gabby to truly begin their lives together. Edwin's act of revenge is unforgivable, but Cranor's ability to find the humanity in all his characters will keep readers from losing sympathy, and his unshakable depiction of the brutal conditions in the chicken plant would make Upton Sinclair proud. VERDICT A third winner by a rising star of Southern noir.—Michael Pucci
Kirkus Reviews
2024-04-20
A kidnapping throws the lives of several people attached to an Arkansas chicken-rendering plant wildly out of control, even as it echoes the brutalizing rhythms of their ordinary lives.
Ever since her parents brought her into the country from Mexico, Gabriela Menchaca’s never had it easy. Her job as a chicken plucker at Detmer Foods is physically grueling and emotionally draining. She and her partner, Edwin Saucedo, are three months behind in their trailer-park rent. The two of them have worked so many overtime shifts that Detmer Foods now owes them $50,000 Gabby never expects to see. And her inability to take bathroom breaks at work forced her to deprive herself of the water that would have kept her pregnancy years ago from turning tragic. When Edwin arrives two minutes late for work one morning and is summarily fired by Luke Jackson, he seizes Tucker, the plant manager’s 6-month-old baby, and flees, demanding a ransom of $50,000 for his return. Jackson doesn’t go to the police because he’s afraid to jeopardize his imminent promotion to executive officer of poultry. But he does rise far enough above his belief that “secrets were the secret to a happy marriage” to tell his wife, Mimi, that he’s convinced that the man he just fired is behind the abduction and that he’s taken an appropriate revenge. Although the mounting complications eventually stall, leaving all the leading characters flailing dangerously about, one dominant pattern emerges: Mimi, who’s just discovered her husband’s infidelity, perversely bonds with Gabby as the two women struggle to reckon with the ways they’ve been victimized by the men they love.
The string of felonies can’t compete with the chicken-plucking background for intensity and horror.
