The Savage Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie (PB)

There’s something special about a story set right here in our home state. And this one? It’s a stunner.

Named a Best Book of the Year by Vulture, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, and Real Simple. A Wall Street Journal Best Mystery Book of 2025. A 2025 NPR Book We Love.

Even Stephen King himself couldn’t put it down. “Terrific in-your-face crime story, featuring the unlikeliest drug family you’ve ever met. It’s like the second coming of Elmore Leonard.”

Meet Babs Dionne. Proud Franco-American. Doting grandmother. And the vicious crime matriarch who rules Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her lifelong girlfriends and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet wrestling with addiction.

Then a kingpin sends a shadowy enforcer known only as The Man to investigate. And Babs’s youngest daughter goes missing. Within twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will brace itself for Babs’s wrath.

What follows is a crime saga like no other, with a ferocious matriarch at its bruised, beating heart. Darkly funny. Shocking. Deeply human. With sharp wit and profound empathy, Maine author Ron Currie explores love, retribution, and the ancestral roots that both nurture and trap us.

Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance.

A homegrown thriller worth lingering over, salt air and all. Stop by the shop, or let us tuck a copy into your bag. We’d love to help you find your next favorite read.

Additional information