Huddy Marr, the proprietor of Bluff City Pawn in Memphis, is good at what he does: He knows jewelry, he knows guns, and he knows guitars. But the neighborhood is changing. A blood bank is set to open across the street from the retail space he leases from his brother, Joe, and Huddy wants to move to a less seedy part of town. A pawn shop should stay right on the edge of seedy.

When a longtime client dies, his widow calls Huddy to come appraise his considerable gun collections. If he can buy up the guns, Huddy knows he can make a killing, possibly change his fortunes for good. But he needs cash up front, and for that, he needs brother Joe. Soon the youngest sibling, restless Harlan, gets involved—they could use the manpower to move the haul, after all—and slowly the brothers’ original family dynamics reassert themselves. Needless to say, a change of fortune can’t come easy.

This is Stephen Schottenfeld’s first novel. He is a graduate of U-M and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; he teaches English at the University of Rochester.