No Good Brother

No Good Brother
Tyler Keevil

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE 2018'A great, gripping story, ferociously well-written, with characters that live and breathe' STEF PENNEY, bestselling author of Under a Pole StarThe Coen Brothers meets Patrick deWitt in this glorious novel from award-winning author Tyler Keevil: a high-stakes adventure of love, loss and morality, introducing two unlikely outlaws…Tim Harding has spent the fishing season in Canada working as a deckhand, making an honest living. When his hot-headed younger brother tracks him down at the shipyards in Vancouver, Tim senses trouble. Jake is a drifter, a dreamer, an ex-con, and now he needs help in repaying a debt to the notorious Delaney gang.So begins an epic, unpredictable odyssey across land and sea as the brothers journey down to the Delaney’s ranch in the U.S., chased by customs officials, freak storms and the gnawing feeling that their luck is about to run out. But while they may be able to outrun the law, there’s no escaping the ghosts of their tragic family past and neither is prepared for who and what awaits them at the other end…

NO GOOD BROTHER

Tyler Keevil

Copyright (#uaf892698-7729-5f8b-a57a-586e470e3c0a)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Tyler Keevil asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Tyler Keevil 2018

Excerpt from 'Highway Patrolman' by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1982 Bruce Springsteen (Global Music Rights). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Cover photographs © Tim Robinson/Arcangel Images (man); Valeriy Shvestsov/Arcangel Images (man with horse mask); Shutterstock.com (https://www.shutterstock.com) (all other images)

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008228880

Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008228903

Version: 2018-10-16

Praise for No Good Brother: (#uaf892698-7729-5f8b-a57a-586e470e3c0a)

‘Keevil’s writing is unmissable . . . quite simply a brilliant writer’

Viv Groskop, author of The Anna Karenina Fix

‘No Good Brother is a paean to brotherly loyalty and a meditation on the things we can change and the things we must learn to love regardless. It is also the funniest and most exciting book I’ve read in years. A grand adventure in the spirit of Mark Twain, it is reckless and wild and beautiful, like something dreamed up by Cormac McCarthy and Hunter S Thompson on a drunken camping trip. It’s as big and as perfect as the prairie sky’

D.D. Johnston, author of Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs

‘A tender and at turns thrilling novel about grief and the way it seeps unshakably into the lives of the living. Keevil’s storytelling is both elegant and meaty and his prose stunning as per; I could almost taste the bitter sea air of Vancouver’s North Shore’

Rachel Trezise, author of Fresh Apples

‘Quite a story. Keevil’s prose proceeds with the laconic madness of a patient horse, and the same ability to buck and kick’

Cynan Jones, author of The Dig

Dedication (#uaf892698-7729-5f8b-a57a-586e470e3c0a)

For my brother

Epigraph (#uaf892698-7729-5f8b-a57a-586e470e3c0a)

‘For I know that in me, that is,

in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.’

Romans 7:18a

‘Man turns his back on his family,

well he just ain’t no good.’

Bruce Springsteen

Table of Contents

Cover (#ua736dd37-a175-5779-8037-b4c3fdb11a13)

Title Page (#u51d02a42-1ef0-5aba-81d4-3f5ddec912dc)

Copyright (#ufeadad76-5ade-522b-9f46-3b623bf2cc31)

Praise for No Good Brother (#u912ac90c-2e1b-56eb-b6eb-4e2b82a05720)

Dedication (#u53f96d18-dbb1-5672-980a-08836ff90a79)

Epigraph (#u2b5b968c-87f1-55ad-9e27-0768b9526cec)

Chapter One (#uddae1c1d-a582-576d-adb9-415e42b1c238)

Chapter Two (#u6dbc9e45-f5ca-56fc-9aa4-3b27332fd5e9)