DODGERS is a heavy, wonderful dose of dark fiction, as stark and realistic as a wrong turn late at night. Author Bill Beverly’s keen eye for detail and characterization, combined with his innate pitch-perfect pacing, makes it a shortlist candidate for one of the best novels of 2016.

The book begins on the rough streets of South Central Los Angeles. We are introduced straight away to East, a 15-year-old gang member. East is used by his gang as a “yard boy,” set up in front of a drug house as a lookout to warn of the approach of law enforcement. When a complex early warning system consisting of homeboys and cell phones breaks down, however, the house gets shut down and the arrests ripple throughout the gang fabric. East finds himself out of a job but is quickly tasked, along with three others, to “step up” to the next level --- that being a gang hit on a judge.

"DODGERS is a heavy, wonderful dose of dark fiction, as stark and realistic as a wrong turn late at night. Author Bill Beverly’s keen eye for detail and characterization, combined with his innate pitch-perfect pacing, makes it a shortlist candidate for one of the best novels of 2016."

There are multiple problems with this. The judge is vacationing in Wisconsin, necessitating a road trip. East has never been outside of Los Angeles and is wholly unfamiliar with the world behind the southern California environs, other than for what little he has learned in school. He may be a criminal, but somewhere along the line he has acquired a rudimentary conscience from which has sprung a rough code. He is not truly suited for this task. Fin, East’s “uncle,” the gang leader who has given him the assignment, seems to be aware of this and implies that the job is to be a rite of passage for East, which will establish his street credit with the gang.

East’s major problem is the rest of the “team.” Michael Wilson is the oldest at 20 and ostensibly the leader. Although he has attended (but not finished) college, he is crippled by impulsiveness, a tendency to play the clown. Walter, a heavyset youngster with perhaps the most potential to rise above his raisings, seems to have wandered into the group thanks to his interest in science and computers. The wildest card, however, is Ty, East’s younger half-brother, who is a silent, smoldering mix of contradictions and mayhem. It’s an unlikely hit team, and with each state line they cross, it seems less and less likely that the center will hold. It doesn’t, of course, either before or after they reach their goal, as disaster follows mishap. The truism that no plan of battle survives the first encounter with the enemy is starkly illustrated here, and is particularly true when the enemy is you.

Beverly gives more than half of DODGERS over to the road trip to Wisconsin, but the aftermath is every bit as suspenseful and exciting as the leadup. The mission, and its effect on East afterward, will stay with you, echoing in your head long after the haunting conclusion.

Beverly gets everything right, from the impulsive behavior that leads to disastrous consequences to the rustbelt status of the Midwest. One gets the feeling while reading large portions of DODGERS that Beverly is not writing fiction. So much of what occurs here rings true, from the deadly road trip from Los Angeles to Wisconsin, where everything goes wrong, to East’s hard landing, which, as bad as it is, is too good to last. Those who enjoy reading George Pelecanos and Cormac McCarthy, or viewing Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, will find much to love here.