Scotch-chugging, squirrel-skinning Smoke Redmond is hiding out from the law in the middle of the Ozarks. His brother Doyle -- a novelist, car thief, and our narrator -- is sent from Kansas City by his parents to talk Smoke into copping a plea. But Smoke's having none of that; "I got plans that require my presence on this side of the jail house bars," he drawls. "So I reckon that wraps that up." The two brothers hole up in the hills with Smoke's girlfriend, Big Annie, and her hillbillyette daughter Niagra -- whose "red cowgirl boots went up her bare legs like flame licks from hell" -- where they eat mescaline, play cow pattie golf, and bide time until their plan pays off. But the Dollys, a resident rival clan and meanest snakes in the county, have other ideas.

And so does Daniel Woodrell. "With Give Us a Kiss," his fifth novel, the Ozark-born and -bred author has written a fast-talking white trash libretto about the eternal two-step between genes and karma. Doyle, frustrated by life and love, looks for answers in his past lives and his ancestor's portraits, and he's assured by both that the chip on his shoulder isn't going anywhere. "I carry a bunch of anger around," he says. "Who I carry it for rotates." Woodrell uses these elements to create a darkly comic crime dance where the mystical and the murderous make out in the corner: "I was born for this," Doyle says. "Again, I mean." The result of all these genre shenanigans is charmingly (and terrifyingly) good, dirty fun.

-- A. Scott Cardwell