12/05/2026
Here's the full review from —
author of At the Wake, The Great Clivette, and Voyager.
Scott Welvaert’s Grayduck is equal parts gritty and soul, with a scooch of supernatural mixed in. Think Stand By Me meets Sn**ch, with a few mysterious artifacts thrown into the mix. The result is a novel that tells the story of three friends—Danny, Amber, and Jimmy—in 1988, the discovery they make, the realities of growing up in the late 80s, the way trauma bonds you for life, and then their adult versions in 2010 who can’t shake the past. The parallel timelines work well together, revealing characters and clues, as the reader pieces it all together.
While adult Jimmy—the star of the show—is now a gangster in Chicago, he has a code of ethics (and secrets) that keep him from becoming an unfeeling thug. Welvaert tempers the gritty reality of mob-thuggery with humor and a beating heart that complicates the story and Jimmy’s work and life. Grayduck is a novel that can feel funny one moment, brutal the next, and constantly driven by the sense that the past is never as buried as we hope it is. While mob-novel-purists might initially frown at the inclusion of the small dose of supernatural, the items (and the story behind them) really do serve to make the novel unique and, while important to the plot, are used sparingly.
If Stand by Me is about the bonds that shape us and Sn**ch is about the reckless momentum of the criminal underworld, Grayduck sits somewhere between them, adding its own darkly Midwestern, slightly mystical spin. It is a tough, engaging read with real heart under the bruises.
