A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar

Lee, a high school shop teacher in Evergreen, Colorado, managed to survive his messy divorce only to hurtle into what some might call a full-on midlife crisis. Looking for a way to spend his weekends and the now painfully long summer vacation, Lee buys a gold mine off the internet—a real, honest-to-God mine, complete with tall tales of riches, a history of disappointment, and a couple of Pakistani-by-the-way-of-Jackson-Hole prospectors willing to kill for its contents. With the frequently unwanted help of a band of locals, Lee becomes a weekend warrior, attempting to work the mine and keep himself distracted from his other midlife disturbances. There are the Pakistanis, of course, along with his mercurial brother Grant, just released from prison, who is trying in his typically perilous way to pull Lee from his midlife funk. There is his ex-wife Lorraine and her slick boyfriend, Stan Beachum, and the lovely yet mysterious Rayna, the first woman Lee’s wanted to date since his divorce. In Daniel Pyne’s sharp, fun, and raucous style, A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar is part mystery and part gold-infused tall tale with a cast of refreshingly quirky characters and one highly unexpected payout.

Daniel Pyne, a visiting professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Film and a writing advisor for the Sundance Institute, is the author of the novel Twentynine Palms. Pyne wrote the acclaimed scripts for The Manchurian Candidate, Pacific Heights, and Fracture, among others. He lives in Los Angeles.