Meet the band

Here's the cast of characters you'll get to know a whole lot better if you read my new novel Runaway Train:

Bobby Trane - A talented boxer in his youth, he's a fan of paperback Westerns and a devout preacher. But after 10 years serving congregations in Montana, Father Bobby grows frustrated with their inattention and his inability to see any tangible results of his preaching. So he leaves, wants to meet the sinners on their turf and minister to people who might never step foot in a church.

Momma Badlow - Vivian is the queen bee of a Satanic cult that would like to make Buffalo Gap their compound. She's accused of burning churches, welfare fraud, killing dogs and makes a living selling drugs.

B.B. Badlow - Vivian's adult son is addicted to teeth whitening, but that's his only virtue.

Jupiter Badlow - Vivian's beautiful, but nasty, adult daughter is so unBadlow-like in appearance that it's suspected she was stolen at birth. She has "more curves than the Norbeck Scenic Highway" but unfortunately "she was about as well traveled upon."

Tracy Jordan - She moved to Buffalo Gap with her husband and bought the local bar with high hopes of hosting wedding receptions, dances and a nice bar. But then the town went to hell and her teacher husband is doing time for manslaughter after killing a kid in a traffic accident after one beer too many after school.

Mudflap McGee - Semi-retired from a local outlaw motorcycle gang, his home often hosts his brothers. He's old, still chiseled from his year's lifting weights in prison, and drinks enough to help Tracy make her house payment. He's questionable.

Ed Flair - A local rancher, he gets off on the wrong foot with Bobby. He's had a tough go of it, losing his wife to cancer and his daughter gone missing for a year. He suspects kidnapping. Some rain would help his mood too.

Faye Flair - Ed's missing daughter is being held captive with two other girls, cooking meth in an underground bunker for somebody somewhere. She's the glue holding the girls together.

Stanley - Only the greatest dog in the world, with an eerie resemblance to my dog. He's Faye's dog and still waits every day at the end of the driveway for the school bus that never stops anymore. He's hobbled by a blow he took defending her, barely eats, but is nursed back to health by Bobby, and does a mean Lassie impersonation.

Fathers Tyler and Simon - Two priests of opposite personalities, they are on the secret POWA team assigned by the Bishop to find Bobby, the Priest Out Wandering Around. Both coming off tough assignments, one in Iraq, the other on a reservation, they use the POWA duties to wind down; but trying to find Bobby is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But they try, from the oil fields to the Sturgis Rally. He's not helping them unwind.

All these folks interact with some other doozies, and I think you'll enjoy them all.

The paperback version is available now. You can buy it here. You know you want to.