Callisto: A Novel

Odell Deefus, who's not the sharpest tool in the shed, has one goal: to "try my hardest to be a good soldier against the mad dog Islamites." But while driving to an army enlistment office in Callisto, Kansas, his '78 Chevy breaks down on the side of a country road, and it's only the beginning of his troubles. When he accepts a local's offer of shelter until the car is repaired, things go from bad to worse—worse as in murder, drug dealers, tenacious televangelists . . . and finding himself a prime target of the FBI, which thinks he's a member of a terrorist sleeper cell. And none of it bodes well for his unrequited crush on Condoleezza Rice. But fear, rash judgments, and extreme reactions are simply the norm in a post-9/11 world. Odell will just have to deal with it.