The Walkaway

Noir master Scott Phillips's The Walkaway explores the far-reaching consequences of the deception and violence of its predecessor, The Ice Harvest. Summer 1989: Retired cop Gunther Fahnstiel walks out of the dementia ward of a Wichita nursing home to track down the pile of cash he stashed away a decade ago. The money isn't exactly his; on Christmas of 1979, Gunther and his wife accidentally ran over a stranger with their RV and found the stacks of bills in his bag, along with plane tickets, a .22-caliber pistol, and a bottle of Johnnie Walker. As Gunther evades his well-meaning pursuers-family, old friends and the law-his thoughts keep returning to 1952, when he was moonlighting as the muscle for a sex ring operating out of an aircraft plant and protecting its ringleader from her estranged psychopath of a husband. As Gunther's memories unravel, the past and present will collide in a devastating reckoning. This Soho Crime reissue, a dark comedy that is at once prequel and sequel to Phillips's award-winning debut The Ice Harvest, proves that no walkaway can truly escape.