The Longest Death

This atmospheric crime debut is a nod to ’50s pulp noir, a daring heist thriller and sensitive chronicle of the life on the margins of the postwar American dream.

Mild-mannered and terminally bored loner Richard works a dead-end job at Eddy & Dowd, a safe deposit company in small-town, postwar Riverton. Richard’s is a humdrum existence made marginally better when he realizes one day he can skim money from Eddy & Dowd’s accounts and even get away with it. When handsome, smooth-talking Marlon rolls into town, it’s love at first sight for both. Together they concoct a plan to rob the vault the company’s vault and make a run for it to the Big City, where freedom—hopefully—awaits. If they can make it.

But Richard and Marlon’s plan is complicated threefold: by Gloria, a recent divorcée and the apple of the town’s eye, who wants in on the plan; by Frank Todd, a disgraced cop desperate to restore his reputation; and by Mr. Dowd, the paranoid tycoon of Eddy & Dowd. As the lives of these characters’ fatally and explosively intersect, the stakes are raised and the prospect of freedom all the more urgent.Kevin Jagernauth was born in Ottawa and currently resides in Montreal. He is a freelance film critic and has covered festivals around the world including Cannes, Berlinale, and TIFF for The Film Verdict, Ioncinema, and The Playlist. He also works as a script coverage consultant for feature-length screenplays. The Longest Death is his first novel.