Ɗẳɳ 2.☊'s Reviews > Donnybrook

Go ahead and toss this one onto the pile of yet another solid entry into what is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres - Hick Lit. I’ll be damned if it don’t pack one hell of a punch (pun intended). This book is intense, brutal, ultra-violent, and just relentless. And, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at times it was a bit overwhelming. However, the writing was so ridiculously good that you might need to elevate this into the realm of literary fiction.

Looking for a redeemable character or somebody to root for? Good luck! The story is told through a rotating point of view that leaps around between a few nasty individuals whose paths cross on the road to Donnybrook - a winner-take-all bare-knuckles tournament in the backwoods of Indiana. Fade in to Jarhead Earl as he’s pistol-whipping a shop owner to collect his $1000 entry fee. Cut to Chainsaw Angus and his sister Liz as they watch their small-time meth operation go up in smoke. Their switch to Plan B doesn’t go much smoother because murdering an ol’ boy indebted to the Chinese mob is damn near suicidal with a fixer like Fu Xi waiting in the wings. He’s a martial arts expert and all-around badass tasked with collecting that debt by any means necessary. And then lastly, with arguably the toughest job of all, Deputy Sherriff Ross Whalen has to try to corral all the madness. The only problem is that things are about to get personal!

Sprinkle in a bit of:


A dash of:


And what you’re left with is one crazy, ruthless, nonstop tale, that don’t ever let up. With precise writing and absolutely no filler, the amount of plot Bill’s able to squeeze into such a short novel is utterly remarkable. He’s also got a hell of a knack for turning the darkest, nastiest passages into something quite eloquent. Take for example this early scene:

Angus ran a hand into his bibs. Removed a tool for killing.
“The shit you doing?” Flat demanded.
“Putting your mutt brother out of his misery.”
Beatle’s begging moistened and bounced from the soil. Angus turned the pistol to Beatle’s singed hair and words found silence.
Flat stutter-stepped. Said, “Motherfuck—”
Angus raised the .45 to Flat’s ash-smudged face. Pulled the trigger. Red parted white. Flat lost his shape, fell to the earth.

This was an easy 5-star read right up until he ruined things by inserting some supernatural mumbo-jumbo into the narrative towards the end. He also lost me by going a little too Hollywood when bullets exploded gas tanks and shotguns blasted folks across rooms and whatnot. Even still, this was a damn fine tale that stands out among its peers due to the exceptional writing.

Not sold? Check out what one of his peers had to say about it:

“Frank Bill’s Donnybrook is a backwoods, gut-punch masterpiece. Bill manages to imbue his characters with a full and deep range of human emotion in spite of the fact that their lives come in only two styles: hard and harder. Read and get schooled.”
—Reed Farrel Coleman