Flowers in the Desert — T.K. O'Neill; Nick Cohen

​It's 1977 and Frank Ford is running from his life and for his life.  Following the suspicious suicide of his brother Ray and Frank's own role in the death of twin sisters clearly culpable in Ray's demise, he hits the road, leaving Minnesota for the promised land, California–with a dog-eared paperback copy of Kerouac's On the Road as his roadmap. True to its protagonist's journey, Frank makes a stop in Denver to look up an old friend–in his case high school buddy and former Arizona Amateur Tennis Champion, Larry Richards, now a divorce attorney allegedly raking in the cash, hand over fist.  Larry's seemingly successful life was anything but, and Frank gets caught up in Larry's fraying web of deals and deceit, leading him farther away from California and closer to the same muck he left behind in Minnesota.