Only Way Out
A Novel
Will be published approx. on 1. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
367 pages
978-1-6625-2562-9 (ISBN)
Description
A luckless thief's wrong turn becomes a crooked cop's fortune in a wild ride of a thriller by a New York Times bestselling author.
Failed lawyer Robert Green has such a good plan: Crack three hundred safe-deposit boxes and sail off to South America with his brilliant, morally flexible sister, Penny. If it weren't for the damned freezing rain.
In the dying resort town of Granite Shores, cop Jack Biddle is self-appointed king-mostly of bad decisions. Between his family's crumbling legacy, a wife who just joined the city council, and life-threatening gambling debts, Jack's looking for a way out. Then he spots a van spinning off a mountain road into the valley below. In the wreckage, Jack finds a very dead Robert, millions in heisted loot...and opportunity.
All Jack has to do is clean up the mess, disappear Robert's body, make off with the fortune, and not get caught. One hitch is Penny. Another is Mitch Diamond, a wild card ex-con who knows more about the missing fortune than he lets on. Jack, Penny, and Mitch each have an endgame. But there's only one way out, and they're crashing headlong toward it.
Failed lawyer Robert Green has such a good plan: Crack three hundred safe-deposit boxes and sail off to South America with his brilliant, morally flexible sister, Penny. If it weren't for the damned freezing rain.
In the dying resort town of Granite Shores, cop Jack Biddle is self-appointed king-mostly of bad decisions. Between his family's crumbling legacy, a wife who just joined the city council, and life-threatening gambling debts, Jack's looking for a way out. Then he spots a van spinning off a mountain road into the valley below. In the wreckage, Jack finds a very dead Robert, millions in heisted loot...and opportunity.
All Jack has to do is clean up the mess, disappear Robert's body, make off with the fortune, and not get caught. One hitch is Penny. Another is Mitch Diamond, a wild card ex-con who knows more about the missing fortune than he lets on. Jack, Penny, and Mitch each have an endgame. But there's only one way out, and they're crashing headlong toward it.
Reviews / Votes
"[Goldberg] does an uncanny job of keeping multiple plot elements in the air, shifting among unholy alliances of mobsters and do-gooders turned bad with cutting humor...Internecine noir, done just right." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"With comic flair, shocking violence, and a capacity for surprise, this recalls the noir-tinged films of the Coen brothers." -Publishers Weekly
"Small-town crime, big-time stakes, and the twists and turns aren't only in the plot. If there's an inheritor of Elmore Leonard, it's Tod Goldberg." -Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author
"In Only Way Out, Tod Goldberg takes us to the washed-out edges of the Oregon coast, where lost souls, small-time hustlers, and true believers collide in a derelict resort town. This is a story about escape-what we'll do to get free, who we'll become to stay gone-shot through with black comedy. Sharp, strange, and unexpectedly moving." -Ivy Pochoda, author of Ecstasy
"Tod Goldberg has redefined the noir genre with Only Way Out. An unapologetic gripping view into criminal schemes gone bad, bad lives gone even worse, and sad lives redeemed. No beat is skipped as the exquisitely drawn, tragic characters repeatedly cross paths along an epic crime noir journey." -Steven Konkoly, USA Today bestselling author
Praise for Tod Goldberg
"Goldberg is one of the best (and funniest) crime writers working today." -Orange County Register
"Tod Goldberg is the literary offspring of Elmore Leonard and Charles Portis, which means he's smart, deep, and profoundly funny." -CrimeReads
"Tod Goldberg is a terrific writer." -Don Winslow
"Tod Goldberg is one of this nation's sagest storytellers." -Attica Locke
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Seattle
United States
Publishing group
Amazon Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 212 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
378 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-6625-2562-9 (9781662525629)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels, including the Gangsterland quartet: Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize; Gangster Nation; The Low Desert, a Southwest Book of the Year; and Gangsters Don't Die, an Amazon Best Book of 2023 and a Southwest Book of the Year. Other works include The House of Secrets, coauthored with Brad Meltzer; Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and the Burn Notice series. His short fiction and essays have been anthologized in Best American Mystery and Suspense and Best American Essays and appear regularly in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Alta. Tod is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, where he founded and directs the low-residency MFA program in creative writing and writing for the performing arts. For more information, visit www.todgoldberg.com.