The Dogs of Winter [Paperback]

Heart Attacks is California’s last secret spot—the premier mysto surf haunt, the stuff of rumor and legend. The rumors say you must cross Indian land to get there. They tell of hostile locals and shark-infested waters where waves in excess of thirty feet break a mile from shore. For down-and-out photographer Jack Fletcher, the chance to shoot these waves in the company of surfing legend Drew Harmon offers the promise of new beginnings. But Drew is not alone in the northern reaches of the state. His young wife, Kendra, lives there with him. Obsessed with the unsolved murder of a local girl, Kendra has embarked upon a quest of her own, a search for truth—however dark that truth may prove to be.

The Dogs of Winteris a portrait of two men and an appealing yet troubled young woman set against an unforgettable background of stark and violent beauty. The Dogs of Winteris a sharply focused story about good and evil....There is a lot going on in this supercharged tale of...crankster gangsters and sneaker waves, shape-shifters and great whites. There is witchcraft, insanity, savagery, and in the end, a peace that may indeed surpass understanding....Like the novel's legendary surfer, who builds extra-long redwood 'guns' to ride the big waves of the Pacific Northwest, Nunn has fashioned his own gun -- a plot sturdy enough to carry a fair amount of intellectual cargo a long way toward shore....Nunn has a keen ear for the jabber of lowlifes and nincompoops. His riffs on the argot can be wickedly funny.
-- Frank Clifford,Los Angeles Times Magazine Novelist Kem Nunn is the most accomplished practitioner of California noir writing today, the principal heir to the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Nathanael West....The Dogs of Winter...is Nunn's best novel yet....There's probably not an American novelist working today who is better at choreographing and describing physical action, and few who so capably combine thrills with clelħ