Dane Bahr, "The Dead Ringer" with conversation partner Michael Welch

ABOUT THE BOOK: Montana, 1935. Bludgeoned and buried alive by his bank-robbing partner and half brother, Benjamin Kilt should have been a corpse. But now very much on this side of heaven, Kilt’s quest for revenge will be unlike anything the West has ever seen. Kilt is joined on his journey by Bonnie, a thirteen-year-old Indigenous girl he somewhat reluctantly rescues from her abusive “keeper.” It is through Bonnie’s recollections in old age of Kilt’s thorny quest for justice that Dane Bahr’s masterful tale unwinds, showcasing the tragic, complicated history of the two brothers and leading to a showdown at the very ranch where they were raised. For readers of Charles Portis, Elmore Leonard, and Annie Proulx, The Dead Ringer explores the slippery justification of questionable deeds done for honorable ends, a bold and haunting novel featuring a man brought back from the dead to exact revenge, only to discover that the world is capable of good no matter how tragic the end may be. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dane Bahr was born in Minnesota. He is the author of The Houseboat and Stag. He lives in Washington state with his wife and sons. ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER: Michael Welch is the Editor-In-Chief of the Chicago Review of Books. His work was named the winner of the 2024 Salamander Magazine Fiction Prize (selected by Kevin Wilson) among other awards and has appeared in Electric Lit, LitHub, Scientific American, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, and elsewhere. He is also the editor of The Great Lakes Anthology, forthcoming from Belt Publishing in 2026. Michael received a MA in Creative Writing at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He lives in Chicago, where he was born and raised.