Loser Baby

Jasmine Frank is missing. It's a humid summer morning in Santa Ana, California, and Jasmine's twin brother Jordan finds himself on a desperate search-fearing the worst. The party last night got way out of hand, and his brain is still chemically fried. But this is Jasmine's story. She's awakened far from home to her own mystery: She's unwittingly stolen something from the most dangerous person she's ever known. Tommy Strafe. And now Tommy is raging through the sunbaked streets, gathering illicit forces to seek brutal retribution. But all Jasmine really wants is to get out of Orange County, escape her past, and find a measure of redemption.

Loser Baby is a propulsive blast through the streets of the SoCal melting pot, a breakneck dark-comic neo-noir populated by misfits and malefactors, criminals and innocents, down-and-outers and spun-out dreamers. Prepare yourself for an adrenaline rush of rat-a-tat he-said-she-said narrative twists-all in service of a giddily slam-bang shock ending.

"Jason Bovberg's Loser Baby is a beautiful noir novel for the 21st century! It's a wild, frantic ride through shady Southern California, a desperate drug-fueled search for a girl who only wants to escape a sordid life."

-Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest and That Left Turn at Albuquerque

"Loser Baby is one cool book! Bovberg writes characters who get into your head and under your skin. You won't shake this one easily: It'll stay with you long after you read it!"

-Terrill Lee Lankford, author of Shooters and Angry Moon

"Jason Bovberg's Loser Baby is a high-octane thriller that moves like greased lightning! The beauty of this book is its motley collection of despicable characters whom you come to love by the end. Loser Baby is Bovberg's greatest book and one of the best of the year.

-Gary Phillips, author of Blood and Asphalt and Birds of Fire