The story opens in the first-person viewpoint of KT, a troubled young man from a corrupt and abusive family. He is in hiding from his father, who is involved in serious criminal enterprises. With him is his lover Turn, sort of stepbrother by marriage. Turn, steady and enigmatic, offers the resourceful but scattered KT the stability and unconditional love that he needs. However, KT still feels that Turn keeps him in the dark about most things, including Turn’s mysterious job with the FBI. When Turn is abducted, KT narrowly avoids the same fate. He pursues, following clues across the southwest, into Arizona, and finally into the wasteland of the Mexican desert where drug lords fight wars over territory and kill as many people as they want. KT will have to stay alive long enough to locate Turn and pull off a rescue.

Turncoat by Amber Green is another original, nonconformist read from an author who always manages to surprise me. This is book two in a series about KT and Turn, and you will get more out of the book if you have already read the first book Turner & Turner One Good Turn. Some readers may find the writing style too different for their tastes in that it can be enigmatic, making you work through a tricky plot, figuring things out and wondering how far to trust the first-person narrator. But KT is an engaging and complex narrator, and you may find his story as unputdownable as I did.

I especially appreciate the author’s trademark attention to sensory detail and location, often in a vivid northern Florida landscape. Here, much of the action happens in the anarchic Mexican desert in nameless, cartel-controlled towns. The sense of danger, powerlessness, and imminent death at the hands of psychopathic drug lords is a thrill a minute. A couple of scenes edge toward non-consensual sex, just so you know. Meanwhile, KT continues to evolve in his relationship with the very likable Turn, and I’m looking forward to the next installment in their story.

Val for AReCafe ( )