Best Selling Books by Pete Hautman

DIVA lottery jackpot winner decides to turn one of her millions into a bounty for the man who left her/divDIV Barbaraannette is decorating a cake when the Powerball numbers come in. They sound suspiciously familiar, but she finishes the cake before checking her ticket, knowing that if she wins her hands will be too shaky to handle the icing. This quiet Midwesterner has just won nine million dollars—and nine million kinds of trouble to go with it./divDIV /divDIVAccepting her money on national television, Barbaraannette promises a cool million to anyone who can bring her runaway husband home to her. When he hears of the reward placed for his return, Bobby decides to claim it himself—but first, he’s got to get past a pair of bounty hunters, a psychotic pretty-boy, and a lovelorn humanities professor who won’t take no for an answer. Getting her husband home safe will be tougher than winning the lottery. Whether Barbaraannette will want him when he gets there is another question altogether./div

Consumption of alcohol: Illegal. Football and other "violent" sports: Illegal. Ownership of guns, chain saws, and/or large dogs: Illegal. Body piercings, tattoos: Illegal. It''s late in the twenty-first century, and the United Safer States of America (USSA) has become a nation obsessed with safety. For Bo Marsten, a teenager who grew up in the USSA, it''s all good. He knows the harsh laws were created to protect the people. But when Bo''s temper flares out of control and he''s sentenced to three years of manual labor, he''s not so down with the law anymore. Bo''s forced to live and work in a factory in the Canadian tundra. The warden running the place is totally out of his mind, and cares little for his inmates'' safety. Bo will have to decide what''s worse: a society that locks people up for road rage, or a prison where the wrong move could make you polar bear food.

Competitive eating vies with family expectations in a funny, heartfelt novel for middle-grade readers by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman. 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.

DIVTo save a friend’s daughter from a bad marriage, Joe Crow confronts cultists, carnies, and cocaine wackos/divDIV Poker-playing ex-cop Joe Crow has been dealt some rotten hands in his life, but he’s survived them all. When Axel Speeter starts begging for help, Crow suspects his luck is about to run out. A taco-dealing former poker pro, Speeter’s worried about his girlfriend’s daughter Carmen. She’s the sexiest trouble magnet the state of Omaha has ever seen, and she’s about to drag Crow down with her./divDIV /divDIVCarmen has just gotten engaged to Hyatt Hilton, a onetime drug pusher who’s currently scratching out a living selling bootlegged Evian. Speeter wants Crow to make sure he’s staying on the straight-and-narrow. And it looks like Hilton’s involved in something much more dangerous than designer water. He’s about to cross the Amaranthine Church of the One—a New Age cult convinced that it’s found the secret to immortality, and doesn’t mind killing to prove it. /div

Originally published: New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2007.

"Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion?" Fed up with his parents'' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town''s water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting -- and dangerous. When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.

A new and enigmatic student named Shayne appears at high school one day, befriends the smallest boy in the school, and takes on a notorious drug dealer before turning himself in to the police for killing someone.

Doug and Andy are unlikely best friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a bond that nothing can sever.

A teen develops a gambling addiction in this risk-heavy read—in trade paperback for the first time. Sixteen-year-old Denn Doyle’s troubles begin with a seemingly harmless—and extremely profitable—game of poker with some neighborhood kids. Eager to join the adult world, Denn realizes that casinos and poker are a means to do exactly that. His “hobby” progresses to a habit and then to an addiction that threatens relationships with his parents, girlfriend, and best friend. Hautman explores the escalation of Denn’s gambling without preachiness, dealing with his problem in a straightforward and knowledgeable manner.

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.

Is there any greater thrill than staring down your opponent across the poker table, waiting for the card that will make or break your hand? Acclaimed YA novelist Pete Hautman would know—he’s been a poker fanatic for thirty years. And with poker now an international TV phenomenon, the time seems right for an anthology about this most exciting game. From a contest that pits a hapless teen against his girlfriend’s redneck family, to a midnight game with the Devil, to an Internet poker scheme gone horribly wrong, the stories here brilliantly reveal how poker can both irrevocably affect and eerily imitate teenage life.

In this captivating story about loss, love, and changing your ways, National Book Awardu00ad–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 took 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.

Sixteen-year-old Lucy Szabo is Undead -- at least according to her own theories about vampirism. Lucy believes that the first vampires -- with their pale skin, long teeth, and uncontrollable thirst -- were dying diabetics. And she should know. She''s a diabetic herself. When Lucy becomes involved with Draco -- a self-proclaimed "real" vampire she meets in the Transylvania Internet chat room -- her world begins crashing down around her. Caught up in late-night parties and Goth culture, she begins to lose control of her grades, relationships, and health. Lucy realizes she needs to make some important choices, and fast. But it may already be too late.

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.

In 2028, a deadly Flu virus ravages the earth. Only one in two thousand survive the virus, and these "Survivors" are rarely left unaffected. By 2038, only 38 million people remain on Earth. Most of them live in small communities, ever fearful of outsiders who might bring the deadly Flu. Ceej Kane lives with his uncle and his Survivor sister Harryette in an abandoned hotel on the rim of the Grand Canyon. His quiet, boring life suddenly becomes a desperate adventure when Uncle and Harryette disappear. Searching for them, Ceej and his only friend, Tim, are attacked by the Kinka, a renegade band of half-mad Survivors who spread the Flu to make more of their own. Worse yet, it appears that Harryette has joined them. Fleeing deep into the Canyon, a narrow land of ghosts and ancient secrets, Ceej and Tim meet Bella, a mysterious Hopi girl. She has been searching the canyon for the Sipapuni, a mystical portal that the Hopi believe leads to another world. Tim thinks Bella is crazy, but Ceej is not so sure. Maybe there is a way out of this Flu-ravaged world. But first they must find out what happened to Uncle, and they must save Harryette from the Kinka -- if she wants to be saved. As with his earlier novels, Mr. Was and Stone Cold, acclaimed author Pete Hautman pushes the boundaries of young adult fiction. Combining action, science fiction, and spirituality, Hole in the Sky is the rarest of novels: a thrilling page-turner that will make you think.

DIVTargeted by drug addicts, a carnival taco vendor must defend his fortune/divDIV After years playing professional poker, Axel Speeter knows not to trust people. Retired from the table, this no-nonsense old salt makes ends meet by selling tacos at the Minnesota State Fair, and he’s got two things on his mind: developing a state-of-the-art burrito, and keeping an eye on the $260,000 he’s got squirreled away in coffee cans inside his room at the Motel 6. He’s so busy perfecting his Bueno Burrito that he doesn’t even notice when James Dean walks into the carnival./divDIV /divDIVThis James Dean isn’t famous, but he’s certainly wild. A drug addicted ex-con with a taste for mayhem, he’s got his eye on Speeter’s coffee cans, but quickly finds that the old hustler is not as brittle as your average taco shell. When a crook meets a carny, someone’s bound to get hurt./div

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.

Suppose you quit your job, took out a second mortgage, and borrowed every penny of your in-laws'' nest egg to start up a surefire new business. What if your partner ran off with all your money? What if you caught up with him? These are the questions Pete Hautman''s hero faces in Rag Man, a wryly funny, Faustian tale of a good man going bad. Mack MacWray''s new clothing manufacturing company was wildly successful -- until the day his charming, street-savvy partner, Lars Larson, disappeared with all the assets, leaving Mack stuck with nothing but debts and shattered dreams. Devastated, Mack thinks he has nothing left to live for until, at the edge of a cliff on the idyllic Mexican resort of Isla Mujeres, he comes face-to-face with his former partner. Mack discovers something about himself that fateful afternoon -- that maybe he''s not such a nice guy after all. After push comes to shove, Mack must live with what he has become. Mack returns to the U.S. with his moral compass demagnetized and discovers a world of opportunity. Without the ball and chain of guilt and accountability, making money is all but guaranteed. He transforms himself from bankrupt loser to hard-nosed success story -- but at what cost? His wife wants the old Mack back; her best friend wants Mack in bed; Lars''s widow wants money (or revenge); and Detective Jerry Pleasant wants answers -- or maybe more. As the pace quickens and tensions rise, these characters begin to surprise even themselves. Pete Hautman treads the line between psychological darkness and laugh-out-loud funny as he asks tough questions about the nature of good and evil -- and offers some unexpected answers.

National Book Award winner Pete Hautman delivers a fast-paced mystery set in the torrid, unforgiving Southwestern desert, where the stakes are sky high and all bets are off. Peeky Kane is a prop player at an Arizona casino owned by the Santa Cruz tribe. Her job is to play poker. She makes a handsome living off the suckers who populate the card room. Life is sweet. But something''s not right at Casino Santa Cruz. When Peeky inadvertently finds herself in a fixed game and comes away a couple thousand dollars richer, she finds herself drawn unwittingly toward the dark side of professional poker. Peeky has always thought of herself as a straight shooter, but now things aren''t so clear. And they''re about to get a lot murkier. When a band of clown-masked robbers makes off with millions of the casino''s dollars and leaves behind four corpses, Peeky recognizes one of the robbers as a casino employee, and fears that one of her closest loved ones might also be involved. That same day, Peeky''s son-in-law turns up to tell her that Jaymie, her beloved daughter, has been stealing money from Peeky for years to feed a crack habit. Numb from these revelations, Peeky is compelled to action by an unlikely source when the most powerful member of the Santa Cruz tribe calls upon her to help him save his troubled casino. Peeky must draw on her years of reading poker faces and playing the odds to save the casino, her daughter, and herself.

DIVDesperate for cash, small town cop Joe Crow takes a security job that could cost him his life/divDIV Joe 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./divDIV /divDIVHe 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./div

"Ginger Crump solves the mystery of why people in her town are forgetting things they should definitely know"--

Tackling faith, doubt, and transformation, National Book Award winner Pete Hautman explores a boy’s unraveling allegiance to an insular cult. Twelve square miles of paradise, surrounded by an eight-foot-high chain-link fence: this is Nodd, the land of the Grace. It is all seventeen-year-old Jacob knows. Beyond the fence lies the World, a wicked, terrible place, doomed to destruction. When the Archangel Zerachiel descends from Heaven, only the Grace will be spared the horrors of the Apocalypse. But something is rotten in paradise. A wolf invades Nodd, slaughtering the Grace’s sheep. A new boy arrives from outside, and his scorn and disdain threaten to tarnish Jacob’s contentment. Then, while patrolling the borders of Nodd, Jacob meets Lynna, a girl from the adjoining ranch, who tempts him to sample the forbidden Worldly pleasures that lie beyond the fence. Jacob’s faith, his devotion, and his grip on reality are tested as his feelings for Lynna blossom into something greater and the End Days grow ever closer. Eden West is the story of two worlds, two hearts, the power of faith, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Nick Fashon is having a bad day. He''s just found out his estranged grandfather has died mysteriously in the Arizona desert. Then he meets his potential father-in-law, who turns out to be an ex-cop with a screw loose and a penchant for bean dip. To top it off, he returns home to find his successful clothing shop has just burned to the ground and taken his upstairs apartment with it. Love & Fashion was Nick Fashon and Vince Love''s thriving clothing store until it went up in flames -- the work of an arsonist, police say. Suddenly Nick is homeless and disillusioned, and both the insurance investigators and the police want a word with him. Where can he turn for help? He''s wearing out his welcome with his archaeologist girlfriend, Gretchen, who''s developing her own suspicions about him. His business partner and best friend, Vince, isn''t much help either, as Nick discovers more and more disturbing clues that point to Vince as the one who set the blaze. Things begin to look up when Nick finds out his eccentric late grandfather has left him an unusual inheritance: a thriving pet-coffin business and a barn full of peculiar inventions, including one particularly interesting doohickey called the HandyMate. The HandyMate is the ultimate kitchen gadget -- a simple tool that can cut, core, chop, slice, and potentially transform the domestic world. Full of entrepreneurial zeal, Nick is determined to see one in every kitchen drawer in America. But Nick isn''t the only one planning to strike it rich with the HandyMate. Yola Fuentes, Nick''s grandfather''s irresistibly sexy business partner, is so determined to get the HandyMate that she makes Nick an offer he can''t refuse. And Robo Fuentes, her jealous ex-husband, has a bullet with Nick''s name on it if he takes her up on that offer. Nick quickly finds himself caught in a situation where a twisted thing of plastic might end up costing him his girlfriend, his self-respect -- and his life. With the help of a cast of colorful characters, master storyteller Pete Hautman delivers a stylish and funny mystery with more twists and turns than the HandyMate itself.

National Book Award winner Pete Hautman weaves several diverging time streams into one satisfying masterwork in this stunning and revelatory series finale. In a far distant future, Tucker Feye and the inscrutable Lia find themselves atop a crumbling pyramid in an abandoned city. In present-day Hopewell, Tucker’s uncle Kosh faces armed resistance and painful memories as he attempts to help a terrorized woman named Emma, who is being held captive by a violent man. And on a train platform in 1997, a seventeen-year-old Kosh is given an instruction that will change his life, and the lives of others, forever. Tucker, Lia, and Kosh must evade the pursuit of maggot-like Timesweeps, battle Master Gheen’s cult of Lambs, all while they puzzle out the enigmatic Boggsians as they search for one another and the secrets of the diskos. Who built them? Who is destroying them? Where — and when — will it all end?

"This might be Hautman’s most daring book yet. . . . Well-developed and complex characters, a fascinating time-travel framework, and a heart-stopping conclusion." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) Tucker Feye’s family has disappeared. He suspects that the disks of shimmering air he keeps seeing — one right on top of the roof — hold the answer to finding them. But when he dares to step into one, he’s launched on a time-twisting journey — from a small Midwestern town to a futuristic hospital run by digitally augmented healers, from the death of an ancient prophet to a forest at the end of time. Inevitably, Tucker’s actions alter the past and future, changing his world forever. The first in a riveting sci-fi trilogy by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.

National Book Award winner Pete Hautman explores a friendship like no other—and the universal truth that dogs make life better, especially for underdogs. Evan doesn’t seem to fit in at school or at home. He goes out of his way to avoid attention. He sits at the back of the bus, keeps his head down in class, and keeps to himself. But when a burr-covered border collie—a survivor with a gut instinct about the Boy—starts following him around and joining him on his runs, Evan’s simple duck-and-dodge existence becomes a lot more complicated . . . a lot more like life. Evolving from wary companions to steadfast friends, Evan and the dog run fast and far together, thwart an abusive dog breeder and the school bully, and find the courage to stand up for themselves and to open up to those who matter most. Narrated in alternating viewpoints, this relatable contemporary novel with classic coming-of-age themes has all the hope, pathos, and emotional complexity that mark Pete Hautman’s books for middle-grade readers—and is a deeply satisfying read for animal lovers.

DIVAfter losing a poker hand to a sleazy stockbroker, an ex-cop must work to pay off his debt/divDIV Before cocaine, Joe Crow had a wife and a job with the Big River Police Department. Now he has neither—and he’s left behind coke, too. Sober, quiet, and reflective, his only vice is poker. One night he gets into trouble, and winds up in debt to the drug-addled slimeball Dickie Wicky. As repayment, Crow agrees to do Dickie a favor./divDIV /divDIVDickie thinks his wife, a slender young thing called Catfish, is running around on him. He wants Crow to find her lover and pay him to leave her alone. But Catfish has charms and troubles of her own, and she will draw Crow into the underbelly of Minnesota—a world of drugs, murder, and the dangerous business of counterfeit comic books. This girl is one fish that Crow should have thrown back./div

From award-winning author Pete Hautman and Mary Logue comes a lively mystery series. When high school student Alicia Camden suddenly disappears, the small town of Bloodwater is in shock. And it’s up to Roni Delicata, reporter for the school newspaper The Bloodwater Pump, and her brilliant sidekick, Brian Bain, to figure out what’s going on. With suspects all around them and suspicions high, Roni and Brian risk their lives -- and a few groundings from their parents -- to get to the bottom of things. But can they find Alicia and solve the mystery before it’s too late? Full of suspense and humor, readers will love to watch the hilarious relationship between Roni and Brian as they save the day.

"For Annies tenth birthday, her papa gives her a pad of paper, some colored pencils, and the Klimas family secret. Its 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 Annies 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, Anniecaught in a cycle of purging her misdeedsbegins to stop growing. It is only when she travels to her familys home country of Litvania to learn more about the burna that Annie uncovers the magnitude of the truth"--Provided by publisher.

Fifteen-year-old, suburban high school student Kelleigh, who has her learner''s permit, recounts how she began stealing cars one summer, for reasons that seem unclear even to her.

A funny, clear-eyed view of the realities of teenage love from National Book Award winner Pete Hautman. 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...

High school newspaper reporter Roni finds an age-progressed photograph on a missing children''s website of a boy that looks just like her sidekick Brian, throwing the pair into an investigation of Brian''s past and family heritage.

Thirteen-year-old Ginger investigates a series of weird events taking place in her home town of Flinkwater, Iowa, beginning with people falling into comas while using their computers.

Brian and Roni are looking for another case to crack when Roni finds an age-progressed picture of a boy who looks alarmingly like Brian on a missing children website. Brian is sure it is only a coincidence?after all, he?s lived happily with his adoptive parents for as long as he can remember. But then again, his parents have never really told him about his adoption . . . Could there be more to his family history than he knows? As Roni and Brian piece together the clues, other people emerge from the shadows of the past and suddenly Brian isn?t just a detective on the case?he?s the key to a mystery that everyone is after. Can he and Roni uncover the truth before it?s too late? Featuring the strong plotting and offbeat humor that won the Bloodwater Mysteries a prestigious Edgar nomination, Doppelganger is full of twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

While on a class field trip, Roni Delicata and Brian Bain find a local archaeologist unconscious in a cave. Professor Andrew Dart is trying to find evidence of an Indian burial ground to stop the Bloodwater family from developing the site. But it is Dr. Dart who has been stopped first, in this exciting follow-up to "Snatched."

Sixteen-year-old Denn finds himself alienating both friends and family when he becomes obsessed with playing high-stakes poker with adult gamblers.