The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

Hardback (25 Mar 2025)

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Publisher's Synopsis

"Literary thrillers just don't come any better than Ron Currie's The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.  It's profoundly serious and terrifying in equal measure." -Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Somebody's Fool

A mythic, propulsive novel about the tangled fates of a matriarchal crime family in Maine.


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



Babs Dionne, proud Franco-American, doting grandmother, and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town of Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet struggling with addiction.

When a drug kingpin discovers that his numbers are down in the upper northeast, he sends a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs's youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn't seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs's wrath.

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne is a crime saga like no other, with a ferocious matriarch at its bruised, beating heart. With sharp wit and profound empathy, award-winning author Ron Currie, delivers an unforgettable novel exploring love, retribution, and the ancestral roots that both nurture and trap us.

Book information

ISBN: 9780593851661
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Imprint: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Pub date:
DEWEY: 813.6
DEWEY edition: 23/eng/20240229
Language: English
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 548g
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Spine width: 23mm