<p>From the author of <i>Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit</i> and <i>Foozlers</i> comes another tale of madcap human folly.</p><p>Louella Debra Poule is doing an eighteen-month stint on a weapons charge at a minimum-security institution up the Fraser Valley. Her drug-dealing, sometime-boyfriend Jimmy Flood and his sidekick, Blacky Harbottle, should have taken the rap, but their list of ?priors? would have put them in the slammer for quite a little stay. Louella ?did the right thing? and took the fall.</p><p>Six months into Louella?s sentence, her mother, whom she hasn?t seen in years, dies suddenly. After Louella?s early release, she discovers she has inherited a fair bit of money and a nice condo in a treed and quiet suburb of Vancouver. It is here that Louella sits in relative safety and obscurity, here that she decides to take some time away from the influence of her prior associates, reassess her life, tend her mother?s garden, and work through the agonizing steps from addiction back to the world of ?normal? living.</p><p>But, needless to say, her past comes a-callin? ?</p><p>Praise for <i>Budge</i>:</p><p>?<i>Budge</i> is one of the more quirky, unconventional, picaresque novels to come along in a while. ? To fully appreciate <i>Budge</i>, we must relinquish our trust to Osborne, a somewhat loopy shaman. ? Tom Osborne warrants a great deal of praise for freshness of content, viewpoint, and plot. He knows how to use language with skill and verve. ?? (<i>Foreword Reviews</i>)</p><p>'Writer's latest entry full of grit. Tom Osborne?s new novel explores friendship, betrayal, rehabilitation, and addiction. Tom Osborne?s third novel <i>Budge</i> centers around a female character who took the fall for her sometimes-boyfriend, and ended up doing an 18-month stint in a Fraser Valley prison. A few of the central characters in Tom Osborne?s latest novel <i>Budge</i> are so gritty, readers may feel the need to wash their hands after leafing through a few chapters. That may just be the desired effect of <i>Budge</i>, an unabashed fictional effort that draws you in and then smashes you square in the mush. The story explores Vancouver and the Fraser Valley?s seedy drug and crime.' (<i>The Maple Ridge Times</i>)</p><p>Praise for <i>Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit</i> by Tom Osborne:</p><p>??Only connect? was E.M. Forster?s advice to writers, and Osborne connects like a mad electrician in a power plant.? (<i>The Vancouver Sun</i>)</p>