We Will See You Bleed

Currie’s sterling prequel to The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne unfolds in the final days of a yearlong labor strike at a paper mill in 1980s Waterville, Maine. Production at the mill, long the backbone of Waterville’s economy, has ground to a halt, pushing the community to the brink of ruin. Babs Dionne, a 29-year-old labor leader, and her husband, Rheal, know they can’t hold out for much longer without support from other unions. When Babs’s best friend Rita returns to town after years in New York City, she puts a radical idea in Babs’s head: if the system won’t fight for them, they’ll have to wage a war against it. After discovering that the mill’s owner has enlisted a criminal network run by local drug kingpin Harold Aucoin to break the strike, Babs retaliates, forcing Aucoin’s crew out of town, stealing their drugs, and seizing his territory. As tensions rise between neighbors over crossed picket lines, the Dionnes form an uneasy alliance with Waterville’s crooked police, bending the law in a desperate bid to put money back in locals’ pockets. With muscular prose and palpable empathy, Currie deepens his already epic crime series. It’s a winner. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (July)