Chocolate Lizards by Cole Thompson (No Exit Press, £6.99 in UK)

Set in the West Texas oilfields, this is a good-ole-boy, hard-drinking, rumbustious tale of a wild-catter oil driller's fight against big business. Merle Luskey is the larger-than-life driller about to lose his rigs and his ranch to the banks. Aided and abetted by various weirdos, including a Harvard-educated aspiring actor down on his luck, a drunken rancher who owns every issue of Playboy ever published, and Tex-Ann, whose charms literally hit you in the eye, Merle fights the good fight against corporate interests, a corrupt sheriff and a rival drilling company. Will he or won't he hit pay dirt before the foreclosure goes through? Well, read on, folks. And in case you're wondering what "chocolate lizards" are, they're a particular kind of cowboy boot, only available in West Texas. Think what a hit you'd make at your next line-dancing session, wearing a pair of those.