"Scott Wolven's "Barracuda" defies expectations at virtually every turn, as willfully shapeless as life...cuts from scene to scene with the nervous energy of a hand-held camera. Equally memorable stories by Wolven have appeared in the last several volumes* of The Best American Mystery Series, each an exploration of violence among men who have been marginalized, and thus as dangerous as rogue elephants, in an economically ravaged society that places little value on traditional masculinity. For Wolven's men-loggers, tree poachers, corrupt cops-the impulse to do terrible damage to one another is as natural as watching pit bulls tear one another to pieces for sport." -Joyce Carol Oates

"Tough, gritty, and honest-reminiscent of Hemingway with a little bit of John Steinbeck. Scott Wolven writes about an America that few of us have ever seen-and he writes about it from firsthand experience." -Nelson Demille

"Wolven has turned raw, unreconciled life into startling, evocative, and very good short stories. He draws on a New England different from Updike's and even Dubus's, but his fictive lives-no less than theirs-render the world newly, and full of important consequence." -Richard Ford

"Scott Wolven's tales are tough, unsentimental, and completely earned." -George Pelecanos