SERPENT GIRL

Filmmaker and playwright Carnahan's gleefully deranged tale of drugs, deception and bad decisions feels like something Hunter S. Thompson might have written if he'd taken a course in narrative economy. Bailey Quinn, a 22-year-old college dropout, wakes up in the Columbia River Basin high on peyote and sans pants. A scabbed slash across his neck reminds him that his buddies threw him over after they robbed the payroll at Bailey's place of employment, Circus Maximus, a poor man's Ringling Brothers ruthlessly run by its freak show performers. Bailey sets out to find his duplicitous crew and recover his money so that he can once and for all give up "copping free"—a way of life that revolved around robbing insured businesses. What stands in his way are the circuses' Freaks ("the nastiest, most tweaked-out group... I had ever come across"), led by the titular flipper-armed Serpent Girl, whom Bailey had seduced in order to ferret out information for the heist. Several tender scenes between Bailey and the Serpent Girl prove first-timer Carnahan's talent for odd yet poignant juxtapositions, and throughout the novel, he renders both his characters and the geography of the American West in vibrant high style (a heavily tattooed gangster looks as if he'd "rolled in a pile of wet comic books"). Will lovable screwup Bailey finally turn a corner with the help of ex-smackhead and prostitute Sissy? The bang-up ending is pretty happy, and cinematic enough for the silver screen. Agent, David McCormick. (Mar. 8)

Forecast: Carnahan's Hollywood connections (he's in the business, and he's Helen Hunt's partner) net him a blurb from Mike Myers, whose name may draw in those more likely to rent DVDs than buy books, while praise from Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard should attract the rest .