From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman comes a mysterious modern-day fairy tale about developing a moral compass—and the slippery nature of conscience. For Annie's tenth birthday, her papa gives her a pad of paper, some colored pencils, and the Klimas family secret. It's called the nuodeema burna, or eater of sins. Every time Annie misbehaves, she has to write down her transgression and stick the paper into a hidey-hole in the floor of their house. But Annie's inheritance has a dark side: with each paper fed to the burna, she feels less guilty about the mean things she says and does. As a plague of rats threatens her small suburban town and the mystery of her birthright grows, Annie—caught in a cycle of purging her misdeeds—begins to stop growing. It is only when she travels to her family's home country of Litvania to learn more about the burna that Annie uncovers the magnitude of the truth. Gripping and emotionally...

National Book Award winning author Pete Hautman lets us in on the secret.Lita is the writer. Adam is the entrepreneur. They are JUST FRIENDS.So Adam would never sell copies of a self-help book before he'd even written it. And Lita would never try to break up Adam's relationship with Blair, the skankiest girl at school. They'd never sabotage their friends Emily and Dennis. Lita would never date a guy related to a girl she can't stand. They'd never steal each other's blog posts. And Adam would never end up in a fist fight with Lita's boyfriend. Nope, never.Adam and Lita might never agree on what happened, but in this hilarious story from Pete Hautman, they manage to give the world a little more insight into what boys and girls are really looking for.

In this captivating story about loss, love, and changing your ways, National Book Award­–winning author Pete Hautman imbues the classic road trip novel with clever wit and heartfelt musings about life and death.Steven Gerald Gabel—a.k.a. Stiggy—needs to get out of Minnesota. His father recently look his own life, his mother is a shell of the person she used to be, and his sort-of-girlfriend ghosted him and skipped town. What does he have left to stick around for? Armed with his mom's credit card and a tourist map of Great River Road, Stiggy sets off in his dad's car. The only problem is, life on his own isn't exactly what he expected and, soon enough, he finds himself at a crossroads: keep running from his demons, or let them hitch a ride back home with him.

Joe Crow thinks he's one hell of a poker player. An ex-cop who dresses halfway between a slob and a nerd and looks a little like Wayne Newton when he's surprised, Crow has almost forgotten what it feels like to lose. But then he lets Laura Debrowski - a spike-haired, leather-clad burst of rock'n'roll in a Muzak world - play a few hands with his stack. The next thing he knows, a drug-addled stockbroker named Dickie Wicky is holding an IOU with Crow's name - followed by too many zeros. Crow figures he can pay off the marker eventually, but Dickie has another idea. He wants Crow to tail his sexy wife, Catfish, find out who she's been shacking up with, and then get rid of him. That is, pay the guy to go away - not kill him. But some other people have different ideas. Freddy Wisnesky, a mildly retarded, oversized thug with a face like a pot roast and a passion for floral neckties, is also looking for Catfish's lover. Two con artists named Tom Jefferson and Ben Franklin - or is it Tom Paine and Ben Cartwright? Thomas Aquinas and Benjamin Disraeli? - also find their way into Crow's neighborhood, peddling shares in a $12 million rare comic book collection that just might not exist. A small-time Mafioso/car dealer/poker player, who calls himself Joey Cadillac ("new or used, cash or stash"), is on Tom and Ben's trail, looking for revenge. And when Catfish shows up one night and invites herself into Crow's bed, Crow finds himself sucked into the underbelly of Minneapolis, where card hustlers, con men, comic books, and cocaine combine in a crazy comic caper. Crow thinks he can rise above all this, live right, and leave all these unpleasant people behind. But then he has a better idea. Drawing Deadis a zany, fast-paced thriller by a wickedly clever first novelist who combines the outrageous wit of Donald E. Westlake and the comic suspense of Elmore Leonard.From Publishers WeeklyA prolific children's nonfiction author (under the pseudonym Peter Murray) turns to adult fiction in this first-class caper novel, which involves a truly unique scam and enough memorably shady characters to fill several volumes by Elmore Leonard. Tom and Ben are fast-traveling con artists who prey on novice collectors in the comic book collectibles market. When they make the mistake of selling a bogus Batman #3 to smalltime Chicago hood Joey Cadillac, they're forced to flee to Minneapolis, where they set up another scam in cahoots with questionable investment counselor Dickie Wick and his oversexed wife Catfish. Former cop and ex-cokehead Joe Crow, in debt to Wick after a bad round of poker, gets caught up in their shenanigans, much to his regret. When his gal pal, the very punk Laura Debrowski, is beaten up while trying to help him, Crow gets mad and decides to con the con men. How it all turns out makes a wonderful story, tartly told. Hautman's knowledge of the comics field and its collectors' manias gives verisimilitude to the goings-on; his two legitimate dealers, Fatman and Natch, will prompt a smile of recognition from anyone who's ever visited a comics shop. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalEx-cop and ex-druggie Joe Crow is forced into using his investigative skills to pay off a gambling debt owed to a stockbroker of dubious reputation. Teaming up with his neighbor Laura Debrowski, Crow takes on the underworld of Minneapolis card hustlers and the lucrative genre of comic-book trading. Along the way, we are introduced to a variety of strange and interesting characters, relationships, and high-finance scams. In both characterization and plot intricacies, this novel strongly resembles the high comedic novels of Donald Westlake. Written in a breezy style, with broad strokes of understated humor, it becomes a fast-paced suspense thriller with a satisfying ending. One hopes that this novel is the start of a series of equally outrageous adventures played out against the background of Minneapolis and vicinity. Recommended for general fiction and browsing collections.- Erna Chamberlain, SUNY-BinghamtonCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman, the story of a girl who acts out by stealing cars.Some girls act out by drinking or doing drugs. Some girls act out by sleeping with guys. Some girls act out by starving themselves or cutting themselves. Some girls act out by being a bitch to other girls.Not Kelleigh. Kelleigh steals cars.In How to Steal a Car, National Book Award winner Pete Hautman takes teen readers on a thrilling, scary ride through one suburban girl's turbulent life - one car theft at a time.

A funny, clear-eyed view of the realities of teenage love from National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.Jen and Wes do not "meet cute." They do not fall in love at first sight. They do not swoon with scorching desire. They do not believe that they are instant soul mates destined to be together forever.This is not that kind of love story.Instead, they just hang around in each other's orbits...until eventually they collide. And even after that happens, they're still not sure where it will go. Especially when Jen starts to pity-date one of Wes's friends, and Wes makes some choices that he immediately regrets.From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman, this is a love story for people not particularly biased toward romance. But it is romantic, in the same way that truth can be romantic and uncertainty can be the biggest certainty of all.

People all over Flinkwater are losing their memories—and it's up to Ginger to figure out what's going on—in this sequel to the "quirky, dryly funny" (Booklist) The Flinkwater Factor from National Book Award–winning author Pete Hautman.Absentmindedness in Flinkwater, a town overflowing with eccentric scientists and engineers, is nothing new. Recently, however, the number of confused, forgetful citizens has been increasing, and no one seems to know why. Ginger Crump figures it's none of her business. She has her own problems. Like the strange cat that's been following her around—a cat that seems to be able to read. And the report for school due Monday. And the fact that every digital book in Flinkwater has been vandalized by a fanatical censor, forcing Ginger to the embarrassingly retro alternative of reading books printed on dead trees. But when Ginger's true love and future husband Billy Bates completely forgets who she is, things...

Ginger must save her high-tech hometown from robots gone rogue in this hilariously quirky science fiction novel from National Book Award–winning author Pete Hautman.Welcome to Flinkwater, Iowa, home of the largest manufacturer of Articulated Computerized Peripheral Devices in the world. If you own a robot, it probably came from Flinkwater. Meet Ginger Crump, the plucky, precocious (and somewhat sarcastic) genius who finds herself in the middle of a national emergency when Flinkwater’s computers start turning people into vegetables. Mental vegetables, that is. In Ginger’s words, they’ve been “bonked.” When Ginger’s father is bonked, she recruits her self-declared future husband, boy genius Billy George, to help her find the source of the bonkings. Soon they’re up against a talking dog, a sasquatch, and a zombie, while Flinkwater is invaded by an army of black SUVs led by the witless-but-dangerous Agent Ffelps from...

David can eat an entire sixteen-inch pepperoni pizza in four minutes and thirty-six seconds. Not bad. But he knows he can do better. In fact, he'll have to do better: he's going to compete in the Super Pigorino Bowl, the world's greatest pizza-eating contest, and he has to win it, because he borrowed his mom's credit card and accidentally put $2,000 on it. So he really needs that prize money. Like, yesterday. As if training to be a competitive eater weren't enough, he's also got to keep an eye on his little brother, Mal (who, if the family believed in labels, would be labeled autistic, but they don't, so they just label him Mal). And don't even get started on the new weirdness going on between his two best friends, Cyn and HeyMan. Master talent Pete Hautman has whipped up a rich narrative shot through with equal parts humor and tenderness, and the result is a middle-grade novel too delicious to put down.

Jack Lund figures a good day is when his dad's too drunk to beat up his mom. For Jack, Bogg's End is the end. The end of the turbulent, see-saw years of watching his father go on the wagon and fall right back off gain. Once it took two years, but the inevitable inevitably happened. Now it's just Jack and his mom starting over in the strange old house his grandfather left them. But the ride's not over yet. Jack's father returns, full of apologies and promises, and for a little while, things are looking up. Then in one terrifying, sickening moment, everything comes crashing back down again. So Jack runs. He runs through a strange hidden door that takes him back in time to before his parents were born. Before he was born. Maybe with a second chance he can stop the inevitable. At least he's got to try. What Jack doesn't understand, though, is that he can't change his future until he faces his past.

Desperate for cash, small town cop Joe Crow takes a security job that could cost him his lifeJoe Crow celebrates his thirty-third birthday in his patrol car, watching for speeders and sniffing fat lines of cocaine. A depressed cop with a faltering marriage, a rotten stomach, and an increasingly expensive drug habit, Crow is just looking for a drink and a poker game when he steps into Birdy's. Instead, he meets a man who might be able to save his life—or destroy it. He first notices Dr. Nelson Bellwether when the liposuction expert has a chair smashed over his head. A surgeon with a big mouth, a gambler's personality, and some serious debt to the IRS, he's on his way to deep trouble, and he's going to bring Crow along for the ride. Dr. Bellwether needs a bodyguard, and Crow is his man. Pretty soon, this small town cop will wish he had a bodyguard of his own.

You could say that my railroad, the Madham Line, is almost the most important thing in my life. Next to Andy Morrow, my best friend. Lots of people think Doug Hanson is a freak -- he gets beat up after school, and the girl of his dreams calls him a worm. Doug's only refuge is creating an elaborate bridge for the model railroad in his basement and hanging out with his best friend, Andy Morrow, a popular football star who could date any girl in school. Doug and Andy talk about everything -- except what happened at the Tuttle place a few years back. It does not matter to Andy that we live in completely different realities. I'm Andy's best friend. It does not matter to Andy that we hardly ever actually do anything together. As Doug retreats deeper and deeper into his own reality, long-buried secrets threaten to destroy both Doug and Andy -- and everything else in Doug's fragile world.

The much-anticipated sequel to The Obsidian Blade transports readers to the terrifying and thrilling world of Lah Lia, the enigmatic girl who changed Tucker Feye’s life. More than half a millennium in the future, in the shadow of the looming Cydonian Pyramid, a pampered girl named Lah Lia has been raised for one purpose: to be sacrificed through one of the mysterious diskos that hover over the pyramid’s top. But just as she is about to be killed, a strange boy appears from the diskos, providing a cover of chaos that allows her to escape and launching her on a time-spinning journey in which her fate is irreversibly linked to his. In this second volume of the Klaatu Diskos trilogy, Tucker Feye and Lah Lia each hurtle through time, relating their stories in alternating viewpoints that converge at crucial moments. Fans of the first adventure will be intrigued by the chance to see the world through Lah Lia’s eyes — no matter how disturbing the vision might be.ReviewMiddle books in trilogies are tricky, but this taut science-fiction thriller pulls it off with panache...Hautman continues to write mind-expanding adventures and nail-biting suspense to probe big questions of faith, destiny and personal responsibility. The next book can’t come soon enough.—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) About the AuthorPete Hautman is the author of many books for young adults and adults, including the National Book Award winner Godless and The Big Crunch, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award. About The Cydonian Pyramid, he says, "I could never resist a tough, spunky, conflicted heroine. Following Lahlia through the diskos was an incredible journey. She still scares me a little." Pete Hautman splits his time between Wisconsin and Minnesota.