Spanish Fly - Hardcover

"The book's joy lies in the succession of inventive cons the trio engage in, before they go one step too far" (Arena)

"The dialogue is razor-sharp and laced with dry wit ... this is a terrific novel - complex but fun, philosophical but sharp, perceptive but ambiguous" (Sunday Herald)

"It would make a good movie... in the tradition of The Sting or The Grifters" (Observer)

Will Ferguson takes us on a wild romp across the dust bowl of West Texas. The year is 1939. The world is on the brink of war, and the American Dream is rusting out from the inside.

Jack McGreary is adrift in the faded boomtown of Paradise Flats. Raised by his eccentric and increasingly erratic father, Jack has learned to live by his wits. He outsmarts the local businessmen, out-argues the local priest, and even outplays a gang of hardened carnies at a seedy fairground. And when a pair of fast-talking swindlers named Virgil and Miss Rose blow through town, Jack falls in with them. Together they go on a crime spree across the American Southwest, staging a series of elaborate and often hilarious cons. Young Jack is swept along into a world of hot jazz and cold calculating crimes of the heart, as the sexual tension between him and Miss Rose comes to a boil. Someone is being set up. Are Miss Rose and Virgil playing Jack? Or is Jack playing them?