Doe Run

by Sean Jacques

Deer hunting season starts in three days, and nearly everyone in the Ozarks is preparing to gun down a big buck. But in the backwoods town of Doe Run, Missouri, wild game won’t be the only target.

A desperate drifter on the run, Pen Cullen, reluctantly returns home after a thirteen-year absence for the sole reason to pick up a family inheritance, and he discovers that his no-good father had squandered it all before dying. He also surprisingly learns that his former flame, Tara Hawkins, had ended up marrying his childhood buddy, Byron Tisdale, but their relationship recently derailed after they’d tragically lost their little boy to an accidental shooting by the hands of a hot-headed farmer.

Grief-stricken Tara has since gone to religion. Byron has turned into a hallucinating drunk and maniacal recluse. And as Pen reacquaints himself with the town and these two old relations, their secret obsessions over greed, guilt, revenge, and redemption slowly ignite into a violent reckoning on the opening day of the hunt.

244 pages, Paperback

Published June 17, 2024

About the author

Sean Jacques was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks. Currently, he resides in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles with his wife, two daughters, and a bird dog named Rye. An author across multiple genres, he has contributed short stories, essays, plays, and poems to several literary publications, including Starlite Pulp Review, Shotgun Honey, Across The Margin, Cowboy Jamboree, and 34 Orchard. He also has written screenplays and television projects for TNT, John Woo, Maverick Films, and other film producers, plus, he previously served as a creative executive for The Weinstein Company and worked as a script analyst for Miramax Films and Walt Disney Studios.

Reviews

[Andrew Monge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doe Run by @seancjacques is another of those gut-punches of a book, bringing together a cadre of hard-luck characters that desperately wants something different for their lives, yet it never seems to go their way.

The story centers on Pen Cullen, a man who fled the town of Doe Run thirteen years earlier to escape an abusive father. After the father dies, he comes back to town in hopes of an inheritance, and instead sets off a chain reaction of past hurts and betrayals.

Fans of last year’s Hurricane Season by Mark Powell (also from @ShotgunHoney) or the classic Gold Medal fiction from #VinPacker (in which she winds up her characters before they explode on each other in the finale) will enjoy Doe Run.

[M.E. Proctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pen Cullen’s great love is his car, the Firebird he calls his “Black Beauty”. In a sharp summary of what Pen’s life has turned out to be, in the first pages of Sean Jacques’ book, he puts her (the car is definitely a “she”) in a ditch. It isn’t his fault, a doe crossed the road. That too is like everything else in Pen’s life, things happen to him that he has very little control over—A mother dead too soon, a brutal father, involvement with Russian goons, running out of places to run to. And mostly being born in the small town of Doe Run where to feel alive kids fight, drink too much, drive too fast, smoke weed and pop pills while the grown-ups talk about hunting. The three main characters—Pen, Tara, and Byron—are only adults on paper, inside they are still kids looking for an escape hatch. Doe Run, Missouri – On the Leading Edge of Progress! In flaking paint … The billboard and everybody in town have given up. They just don’t know it.
Sean Jacques’ writing style is crisp and dry, supremely effective for a tale of dead ends and desperation that is everything but quiet. On the first day of deer season.

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic first novel! We follow Pen Cullen as he returns to his small Midwest hometown after being away for 13 years. His father passed away and he may have an inheritance coming. He will be returning to reconnect with an old friend and a girlfriend from his past.

The story is so well told that I was 100% in it from the start. It flows along at a fast pace and I liked all the interesting characters along the way.

I liked the ending and would definitely read more from Sean Jacques.

I will now confess that I attended The LA Times BookFest April, 2024. I was in a line to get some books signed and the guy in front of me, and I, started talking. I found out he had just written a book and it would be out in a few months. I asked for his autograph as I have 400 signed books. To my surprise he said “no”. I guess he was shy? Not sure. Anyway, it was Sean Jacques and I just now read his book Doe Run. Even though I did not get an autograph (have not forgiven him) to put in my copy, I still recommend to anyone that likes thrillers, real life characters, crime stories, urban drama tales, read Doe Run. You will not put it down till it’s over!

[Edna Yeghnanyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, through its attention to detail, makes readers feel like they know what its like to be in the shoes of the protagonist, to grow up in Doe Run and want to outrun the versions of ourselves we want to forget. It explores complex themes of religion, generational trauma, and addiction in such a realistic manner and through the differing perspectives of the various characters. Read it!

[John Seymore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was immediately immersed in this story. The book starts right out with poetic descriptions of a lonely late car drive.
All descriptions of the protagonists home town are so vivid, you can see and feel the flora and fauna as if you are there. On the cover a writer compares Doe Run to Cormac Macarthy but I also felt a bit of Stienbeck in there as he describes a down and out American small town. I can see how this would be a great movie. The action and plot really builds to its conclusion. Throughly enjoyed it.

[Lew Clifton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A damn fine debut from Sean Jacques and another high caliber release from Shotgun Honey! Much like the Firebird driven by protagonist Pen Cullen, Doe Run muscles through the Ozark countryside with speed and masterful maneuvers. Buckle up for a rousing ride!

[Stuart Ashenbrenner]

READ MY ENTIRE REVIEW AT BEST THRILLER BOOKS

[Carol Ann Tack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was invested in this story from page one. Beautifully written, cinematic. Don’t miss it.

[Ilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

What becomes a criminal most? DOE RUN has some poignant answers to this question.

[John May · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling book about broken people doing terrible things. Since Sean is my neighbor, I really hope he didn't base anyone in this book on himself

[Jeff Jacques · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spoiler Alert....I lived among the fictional and non-fictional people and places in this story. The author has perfectly captured the heart and soul of the place and time with a compelling narrative with perfectly timed twists and surprises. If you haven't lived it, a reader can easily imagine it. If you have lived it, you will recognize the hard edged realities of a hard scrabble Ozark tale.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice premise. The character of Byron Tisdale is genuinely great; a sort of American Dickensian figure, wandering the forests pursued by ghosts. Sadly, the rest of the book is riddled with cliches and predictable turns: the standard bad-ass loner, a poorly written simpering female lead, and a painfully written romance subplot. This is a new author, though, so plenty of time to improve. More like Byron please!

[Thomas Trang · Rating 5 out of 5]

"he began to wonder why it was that every decision and every direction he'd taken in his life turned out to be an act of straddling over a new desperation that he never saw coming."

Rural crime fiction is not what I instinctively reach for as a reader - guess I've always been a city slicker, and I'm definitely a sucker for those stories set in the mean streets of wherever. But a good book is a good book, and Sean Jacques has written a GREAT one.

We meet Pen Cullen - a hard living Ozark native who's come back to the town he'd left behind years before. Ghosts lurk on every corner of the place. Old flames, old friends, old grievances. What grabs you with Doe Run is the absolute vivid detail of the writing. This is a place you can see and smell, brought to life through tactile imagery and dialogue that crackles like the embers of a brush fire.

Unlike some of the recent Shotgun Honey books like The Mountain Mystic by Russell W. Johnson which cut through some of the hardscrabble grit with moments of levity, Doe Run is a book that flies out of the gate with pain and tragedy and a sense of doom on the horizon - it rarely (if ever) lets up.

Gradually we learn about why Pen left, where he's been, and what is waiting for him when he returns. All the while, the story is on a collision course with deer season and a reckoning with the past. There's an inevitability about how everything comes together (or falls apart) by the end, but a final zag that I didn't see coming. I'm not sure if it's a shot at redemption of a stay of execution.

Doe Run reads like Cormac behind the wheel of a Pontiac Firebird with a Colt .45 chugging Budweisers and chain smoking Camels - one eye on the road in front of him, the other watching his rearview. It's not pretty, but it's beautiful.

Thanks to Shotgun Honey for the ARC.

[Coy Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doe Run is a crime tale that captures the baggage of rural ways. The novella explores what it is to leave a small town and return to it after long absence, the anguish of bad memories and the balm of good memories, and the mixed feelings of familiarity and resentment in a place where you were a child, and where you suffered. In a small community like this, knowing someone is knowing their history, knowing their secrets, spreading their rumors. It’s as powerful as a caste system. The people with power use that knowledge to keep power. The people without power rot in the cancer of being known.

In Doe Run, Sean Jacques digs up the latent, untouchable violence that beats like a turbulent heart beneath all small towns.

Pen Cullen is a hard-edged, frustrated man, and he’s a desperate man. He smokes angrily. He carries a Colt. He blares music in a Firebird like a teenager locked in a man’s body. He has a want of violence. And, fair or not, life has made him intolerant. He’s a complex character that drives the narrative and pulls you into the muck and mire of Doe Run. An engrossing, quick read at under 150 pages, with plot progression the mirrors the beats of a hundred-minute film.

[C.W. Blackwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a distinct joy in reading about a down-and-out drifter cutting a swath of road through the Ozark hills in his Pontiac Firebird, hungry for a slice of the American dream but finding nothing but crumbs. In Doe Run, Sean Jacques has assembled an entire slate of lonely characters yearning to find their way in a broken world, and he tells their stories with depth and compassion. This rural noir tale is full of pathos and grit—and it absolutely deserves your attention.

[Adam Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! I didn’t expect it to end the way it did. Not uncharacteristic, I just didn’t see it going down like that. Well done.

Very creative story that could be true of any few troubled youths. I grew up in small Pennsylvania rural town before moving to rural Missouri and pretty much grew up with some people who could have been these characters.

The writing style is colorful and engaging. I look forward to the next novel by Sean Jacques!

[Gracchus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got this e-book from Netgalley. The core of the story is a love triangle. A guy comes back to his little hometown for his inheritance from his father. He left his father in a brawl with him. In the beginning, he crashes into a doe with his car. The buddy of Doe-Crasher married his girlfriend and the pair had had a boy who had been shot. I couldn't see a conflict at the beginning, but the thrill increases during the continuing of the story. The backdrop of the story is an important element. We have a local area in the downturn. The author describes the circumstances and the people of the Ozarks area with little dialog and anecdotes. There is brawling in a saloon, a child's death, violence in a family, murder and screwed-up lives. I was compelled by the fates of the protagonists. Not a simple read but rewarding.

[Andrew Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. A drifter returns to his small town in the Ozarks (a setting Jacques clearly knows well) and confronts his demon-filled past. DOE RUN is intense, full of expertly realized McCarthy-esque atmosphere, an unpredictable plot, and deeply haunted, human characters I loved spending time with. Highly recommended.