American Skin

At the beginning of Bruen's dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. Blake has the money and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent and his skin and pass as an American. But John A. Stapleton, contract killer for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag—and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen ( The Guards) effortlessly moves his storyline back and forth in time, all his trademark pop-culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loudly.