A darkly funny crime thriller where one bad day spirals into a bloodbath. Karl Lankester just needs three things to go right: a job interview, a full tank of gas, and a day without marital stress. He gets none of them. Instead, his next-door neighbor's girlfriend jumps into his car with a stolen gym bag stuffed with cash and cocaine-and refuses to get out. Tempest Stanley, an English au pair who traded an English housing estate for a black eye and a controlling boyfriend, has finally had enough. Her boyfriend, Czech Downes, is a mid-level drug dealer with a short fuse, a loaded gun taped under the kitchen sink, and absolutely no sense of humor about being robbed. What follows is one scorching, blood-soaked day across the New Jersey highways: gas station standoffs, a dodgy car-loan company that won't stop calling, a washed-up drug contact living in his parent's basement, and a hitman with a taste for opera and mutilation. Karl just wanted to provide for his wife and kids. Tempest just wanted out. Neither of them counted on how far desperation would carry them.¿¿Fast, brutal, and blackly comic, Keep the Motor Running is a white-knuckle crime novel about bad decisions, worse men, and the price of a single reckless morning. Fans of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, and Guy Ritchie's crime capers will tear through this one in a single sitting. Buckle up. The engine's already running. What readers are saying about Keep the Motor Running "Beech doesn't sacrifice momentum as he develops the players on the page into high-resolution characters. Well recommended." - Murder in Common "Great characters, each with their own agenda and goals... one minute aligned, the next at each other's throats." - Colman Keane "This is gritty, alive with character, and relentlessly compelling." - Joanne Clark Read Keep the Motor Running now.
