Bait Dog — Chuck Wendig

“Atlanta Burns is a troubled teenage girl who’s scared, angry, and not taking s--t from anybody. -- Stephen Blackmoore, City of the Lost(Note: this edition features the novella, SHOTGUN GRAVY, and the follow-up novel, BAIT DOG.)The last time shotgun-wielding Atlanta Burns tangled with the town bullies it seemed like she and her friends has won the day. But then her cohort Chris Coyne ended up dead -- dead by his own hand if you believe the reports.Atlanta and her pal Shane are not so sure. Atlanta, afraid of once again stirring up the hornets by investigating her friend's apparent suicide, instead focuses her efforts on looking into the death of a local teen's beloved dog. But solving a dog's murder is no easy task, and soon Atlanta ends up embroiled in a rural dog-fighting ring. Stranger still, looking into the events surrounding the dog's death sheds new light on the death of her friend.Once again she finds herself face-to-face with bullies of the worst sort, staring down a corruption that's seeped into the town like a septic infection. It's all too much for one girl to handle and she knows that she and her trusty .410 squirrel gun must again go up against the cruel and callous malefactors of her world. No good can come of this, and yet, Atlanta cannot abide letting bad men do awful things to those who don't deserve it. This, then, is Bait Dog: one girl, her single-barrel Winchester shotgun, and a whole town full of terrible that deserves her brand of teenage justice.