A battered boxer springs his young daughter from an orphanage and they hitchhike to Las Vegas, seeking a better life, in the gritty You've Got Something Coming by Jonathan Starke.
Wisconsin. Winter. A 41-year-old washed-up boxer named Trucks sneaks into the children's home where social services placed his deaf daughter, Claudia. He has $30 in his pocket, and big dreams of steady work and a stable life for himself and his child.
Trucks and Claudia cling tightly to each other as they flag down their first of many rides traveling west. Various strangers along the way offer help to improve their situation, but a prideful and untrusting Trucks turns down what he sees as handouts. Claudia begins to lose faith in Trucks's ability to provide for them. Things go quickly from bad to the very worst as the two each separately realize how ill-prepared they are for both the weather and their lot in life.
Starke's novel is peppered with heartbreaking father-daughter moments, such as when Claudia stops to touch each of her sleeping friends before leaving the orphanage, but refuses to take her own father's hand, and when a desperate Trucks tries to explain to Claudia the difference between "need borrowing" and outright stealing. You've Got Something Coming suggests some people create good karma, some sow bad karma and that there is a balance to all things, but the outcome for these characters obliterates all that. The novel is a slap in the face of every happy ending ever written, but will resonate with readers long after it's finished. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer