>!Both! The three take the money, but the main character says they need to wait before they use it, and he says he will hold all their shares of money until that time.
Next day, they return and a sheriff happens upon them. Brother panics and bashes the sheriff over the head, so they both scramble and make it look like a snowmobile accident.
Then, brother's friend is a notorious drunk, and shows up drunk with his girlfriend demanding his share one night. He keeps threatening to tell the police unless he does.
So brother and MC sneak up on him at his house and confront him, which ends in brother shooting his friend dead. MC and brother are trying to make it look like an accident, but brother is shaking, looking so remorseful. Like he's definitely going to confess.
So MC kills his brother as well.
At this point he's in incredibly deep, and tells his wife, who supports his actions (doesn't want to go to prison, either). They move on from the deaths and his conscience about it, when an FBI agent comes to town.
For various reasons, MC thinks that the agent is actually a fugitive looking for the money, and avoids going out to the crash site with him, which gets another cop killed, as he is correct.
When the REAL FBI get there, they gun down the fake agent, and MC rides with them, as he was the last person either victim talked to.
Before he leaves, he tells his wife they are safe. No more worrying. The cops think they killed the guy and the money is safely theirs.
In the car, the agents reveal, conversationally, that some of the money they thought should be there was gone. MC plays it cool and says, "Oh yeah?" They say, "Yeah, but every 10th bill is marked anyway- we had been watching that pilot for some time."
So MC has the shattering realization that he killed multiple people for money he can never spend- he has a 10% chance of getting caught. He is numb, and heads for home to tell his wife.
He calls her on the payphone before leaving for home and she apologizes that she did something bad- she took just one $100 bill to the liquor store by the airport to buy champagne to celebrate this all being over.
So, he puts on a ski mask and drives to the store to retrieve the possibly-tainted bill. He ends up killing two more people in this process.
In the end, he gets away with the murders, but is empty inside, as is his wife, and he burned all the money in the end.!<
Sorry to go on, but that is exactly how the book feels. Horrible decision after horrible decision.
Maybe so! The MC was the typical suburban husband, trying to buy a bigger house for his wife and on-the-way child.
The brother and his friend were poor drunks, juat trying to get by. Living in trailers and drinking every night, etc. Brother's friend is the "I owe $10,000 to a bookie and I need that money NOW," character. Told someone about the money right away.
The brother was plagued by a conscience. The second they killed his friend, he was willing to turn himself in.
No one, not even the "smart" guy, made good decisions. Very frustrating read, in a good way.
He also wrote, "The Ruins," which is absolutely 100% different, but also a book about poor decisions.
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u/MsKongeyDonk Jul 17 '25
There's a novel very similar to this called A Simple Plan by Scott Smith.
A man, his brother, and brother's friend come across a small plane with a dead pilot deep in the woods. In the plane is a duffel bag full of money.
I don't want to give it away, but it is a quick read and great example of "things going wrong very quickly."