Burn Cards

"BURN CARDS is a gritty, gut punch of a novella that rides like a rocket. A vivid postcard from loser town."
-Roger Smith, author of Man Down, Mixed Blood and Wake Up Dead

Set in noir-rich Reno, Nevada, Burn Cards is a dark crime novella inspired by Christa Faust's Money Shot and Megan Abbott's Queenpin.

Mirna Fowler believes she has been cheated in life, growing up in a broken home alone with a drunken and gambling-addicted father. Now she works at a small hair salon in Reno, doing her best to survive while she saves money for school. Hoping to get a degree that will take her places.

But in the wake of her father's death, Mirna inherits his extravagant debt, an amount of money she can never repay. As her fractured world begins to crumble, the search for the truth sets her on a path where life hangs on her every move.

More praise for BURN CARDS:

"With a character you care about and a momentum you can't avoid, BURN CARDS is aces. This fast-moving novella pulses with enough energy to power all the casinos in Nevada."
-Steve Weddle, author of Country Hardball

"the shit-kicking streets of a dead end desert town have never been meaner."
-Joe Clifford, author of Lamentation

"This bare-knuckle noir pulses with energy and punches hard."
-William Boyle, author of Gravesend

"Irvin illuminates the city of Reno itself, casting the flickering glow of his sharp observations into every dark corner of the city and bringing forth a rogue's gallery of gamblers, dreamers, and burnouts who are all heading for the same bitter end."
-John Mantooth, author of The Year of the Storm

"With Burn Cards, Irvin has crafted a gracefully hardboiled novel, one that boldly eschews convention by actually having a beating heart at its center. This is some of the finest storytelling I’ve come across in some time."
- J. David Osborne, author of Black Gum and Low Down Death Right Easy