‘The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne’ by Ron Currie; Putnam; 368 pages; $29
The Babs of Ron Currie’s unwieldly titled “The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne” is a lesson in contrasts — a fiercely loving, protective mother who is the ruthless head of a crime syndicate in small, economically depressed Waterville, Maine. She regularly gets together for coffee and chats with a group of women who’ve been her friends since high school. They also are “lieutenants” in her vast criminal operation.
Currie delivers a searing action-packed crime tale with a heartfelt family drama in “The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.”
Babs has no illusions about her children. She knows her daughters are burdened with emotional baggage. Her oldest, Lori, a Marine veteran, has had several near-fatal overdoses and struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. Lori is now charged with finding her missing younger sister, Sis, whose husband, Bruce, finds out how far Babs’ wrath can go after he gives her grandson a black eye.
Currie balances the problems in her home life with the troubles in her business. One of her lieutenants is challenging her authority. A regional drug kingpin blames the decrease in his business on Babs so he sends the violent “The Man” to investigate.
Grief, guilt and revenge spiral through the matriarch’s decisions. As brutal as Babs can be, Currie keeps the reader firmly on her side.
The characters are shaped by the area that fuels their choices and way of life. As Currie writes, people could say the area “had seen better days, except it never really had.” In the past, writes Currie, “people had more trouble than money,” and that never seems to have changed.
“The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne” is the first of a planned trilogy that should follow a theme Currie sets early in the novel: that generations are a chain, “one link leading to and binding the next.”
Meet the authors
Ron Currie (“The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne”), Brendan Slocumb (“The Dark Maestro”) and Dan Chaon (“One Of Us”) will discuss mysteries and thrillers during the Miami Book Fair beginning at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., Room 2106, Building 3, second floor, Miami. Visit miamibookfair.com.
Leave a Reply