Loaded guns, ladies of the night, broken neon, broken dreams. Here is a world that is immediately recognizable - through a shot glass at three A.M. This is life with rough edges, in a novel that gives you the straight goods - point blank - one cold, snowbound Christmas Eve in Kansas. One single night, defined in shadings of black and white, when everything changes.For most, the city is closing up. For a few outsiders, this night, Christmas Eve 1979, is just beginning. Charlie Arglist is a lawyer saying good-bye to Wichita by revisting the landscape of his used-up life: the cold stare of his angry ex-wife, the empty strip clubs and bars where loneliness turns a profit, the frozen glare of ex-lovers and cops long snuggled in his deep pockets. Club owner Renata, a woman too elegant for the smoky dive she owns, dreams of financial prosperity and holds a single frame of stolen film that could help her achieve it. And there's Vic. He's got a reputation, a bad temper, and a secret worth half a million dollars. Not to mention a knack for bringing people together...for the last time. Before the night is over, the decisions they face and the choices they make will irrevocably alter the course of their lives - if they can live long enough to see Christmas Day sunrise. Read Less