"Absolution" by Sloane Kennedy

This is book one in The Protectors Series and deals with three men who've all suffered some form of trauma.  Jonas was kicked out of his home at age 14 for being gay and spent several years as a teenage prostitute before having even more tragedy befall him.  Mace's son was kidnapped and murdered by a killer.  Cole faced the traumas of war before losing his sister, who was Jonah's best friend.  Now someone has hired Mace to kill Jonah for bogus reasons, and Cole gets involved.  This novel was full of angst and heavy and was not quite believable at times, but it was a compelling story.  356 pages (Kindle edition.)

Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin

Charley is 15 years old. His mother went away when he was a baby. He and his father move around a lot. He has no other family except an aunt he knew when he was a child. But he doesn’t know where she lives now; when he was 11, his Dad got mad at her, and that was the last Charley ever heard of his aunt.

Right now, he and his Dad live in Portland, Oregon. His Dad stays gone a lot, leaving Charley on his own with nothing to do, and often, nothing to eat. Charley starts hanging out at a nearby race track. He meets an old man named Del Montgomery who agrees to let him work for him, tending his horses and stalls.  One of the horses is named Lean on Pete.

Then one night Charley’s philandering Dad is assaulted by an irate husband, and eventually dies from his injuries. Charley doesn’t know what to do or where  to go, so he keeps working for Del, until he finds out that Del is going to send Lean on Pete off to be slaughtered. Charley steals Del’s truck and trailer, loads Lean on Pete up and sets off for Wyoming to find his aunt.

304 pages