Moses Kincaid goes by many names and job titles throughout David Tromblay’s noir novel, Coydog, but one thing remains the same: he’s not someone that anyone wants knocking on their door. As a former Military Police officer in the army during Desert Storm and Haiti, Moses feels adrift. He embraces the drift by chasing bail jumpers.
As Moses continues his pursuit of his target from Kansas City, KS into Oklahoma, it becomes clear that the bail jump is tied to a drug ring that goes all the way to Oklahoma’s high security prison, Big Mac, and the only way to crack the case is from the inside.
Throughout Coydog, Tromblay demonstrates that even though Moses is a big guy with solid self-defense skills, he’s also vulnerable because he doesn’t fit in anywhere. As a veteran, he’s an outsider. As a minority, he’s an outsider, and as Bail Enforcement Agent working across state lines, he’s breaking the law. When Moses goes to sleep in a cheap hotel, he knows he could wake up in a dumpster or to a dismayed housekeeper covering his nethers with a hand towel.
A Native American as an outsider has a different flavor from the characters we typically see in a similar role in noir. Typically, those characters are people who pass through life unnoticed either out of the stealth required for keyhole photography or because they’re just low achievers. Coydog packs a punch with dark humor, violence, and gritty details as well as toilet humor that my inner twelve-year-old adores. Overall, it’s an interesting experiment, but at times feels underdeveloped and off-putting.
Tromblay is known for his sharp and concise style. I appreciate a writer who sticks with the exciting parts and doesn’t dwell on details that detract from pacing. However, Coydog has one gear and it’s always in fifth. Not only does that become exhausting as a reader, especially when Tromblay transitions from one David Lynch-esque situation to another with almost no notice, it can feel disorienting to the point of prompting me to question, “What did I just read?” Some of this is intentional, and is effective at points throughout the novel, but certain events are treated so lightly one wonders if Moe is just a jerk.
When his girlfriend dies in a car accident, he says, “Elise marrying the steering wheel was the end of our love story.” He does say he sheds tears after that and has multiple moments throughout the remainder of the story where he indicates that he misses her, but that line left a bad taste in my mouth. It didn’t help that Moses supplied her father with opioids that he ultimately overdosed on. His description of the repast? “It shapes up to be a typical affair: out-of-context scripture followed by finger sandwiches and funny stories. Very little crying. Indians have an incurable habit of laughing in the face of tragedy and trauma and loss.” While this all makes sense, it still doesn’t seem like he feels any remorse for coming into this woman’s life and upending it.
David Tromblay gambled with this novel after the Kirkus Reviews named his memoir As You Were on their list of best nonfiction books of the year. Embracing the pulp-noir aesthetic is quite a departure from that and overall, Coydog is entertaining and thought-provoking, albeit a bit cold. Tromblay’s dark tale of morally gray characters driving fast cars, doing hard drugs, and chasing beautiful dames will delight fans of S. A. Cosby, particularly Blacktop Wasteland (2020) and All Sinners Bleed (2023).
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Release Date: November 10, 2025
Reviewed by Amy Armstrong
Amy Armstrong is a psychotherapist in Aurora, CO. She loves to write and read in her spare time. Amy has been a selector and judge for the Colorado Book Awards for the past two years. She is currently co-editing the 2026 anthology for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.