"With expert pacing and ever-escalating danger, Ruland keeps all the subplots spinning as the crime spree rumbles to a surprise conclusion. It’s a rollicking and whip smart tale of wannabe outlaws."
Description
What do a gambler, a poet, a punk, and a writer of westerns have in common?
Four college professors embark on a crime spree in Northern Arizona in 1993. They start by robbing an off-campus bookstore, but when things don't go as planned, the book bandits are drawn into a bigger, bolder caper involving corrupt university officials, drug-dealing frat boys, Navajo ex-cons, and a mysterious golden pen. Steeped in the lore of the West, Mightier Than the Sword is a twisty, pulp take on the dirtiest job of them all: working as a part-time professor in a college town.
Reviews
"Zane Grey saddles up with Donald Westlake in the Old West of 1993 when four broke English professors, who ought to know better, decide to become knockover artists. The heists may go sideways, but Ruland pulls off this rollicking mountain town caper in spectacular fashion, with one quickdraw move after another. Hats off to Lonesome Cowboy Jim, the Flagstaff Kid."
"I haven't been this knocked out by a heist novel since the Parker series. Hell, even more so, because the crew is made up of frustrated writers, gamblers, addicts, and eccentrics—in short, the kind of friends I had in my twenties. (Hard relate, as the kids say.) Jim Ruland rules!"
"I screamed and leapt and punched the air. Holy smokes, this novel. Jim Ruland's Mightier Than the Sword is a campus noir with a punk fuse and a poet's ear, an ingenious heist novel and searing critique of the American grind that's a blast to read. Four adjunct professors plan a crime so brilliant and bonkers I couldn't stop reading. Funny, salty, exquisitely weird, this book is a roundhouse kick. 'Having transgressed against herself, which is the best kind of feeling there is.' The real effing deal."
