River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

A little while ago, I was putting together a list for my SF/F book club about heists. My first pass ended up being all male authors, so I frowned and tried to do better. I ended up adding two books I'd never read, and this was one of them, when it was described to me as "Leverage, if the crew were told to steal a lake."  I was in at pretty much that moment.

Then, when it was nominated for a Hugo for novella, I had even more reason to read it. And it was pretty much exactly as advertised - a thoroughly enjoyable alt-U.S. romp, in a world where a crazy plan to import hippos for meat worked, but led to a lake infested with feral hippos that can kill a man in seconds - and do, regularly, which is used by the mustache-twirling bad guy when people cheat on his casino steamship.

The main character used to have own hippo ranch before he lost it and almost all his hippos to a fire, and when he decides to take this job for the U.S. government, to get the hippos out of that lake and disperse them down river, he thinks he'll be able to get revenge on the person who caused the fire.

Of course, we start off with a traditional "getting the crew together" montage, where Winslow Houndstooth, our protagonist, finds the people he's going to need to pull this particular heist off - Archie, a large woman who is a master thief; Hero, a nonbinary person who can blow up anything; Cal, Winslow's former ranch hand who knows the territory, and Adelia, a pregnant hired killer who has more going on than anyone realizes.

These are all delightful characters, and that's another important aspect of a good heist story - you need to care whether or not these people manage to rob the bank or hoodwink the rich, or...blow up a dam and unleash a flood of hippos on the river below the lake. Because that is the plan, with each member of the crew providing a valuable service as they set out to unleash a flood of feral hippos without getting eaten by them.

Which is a bit of a trick - described are many eaten-by-hippos moments, and it sounds like a fairly terrifying way to go. Each of our heroes also has their own hippo (or hop, I think the term is), to which they are greatly attached - one is an albino, all are fiercely loyal to their owners, and seem to be hardy steeds - as long as you are relatively close to water so they don't dry out.

Not everyone on the team is working for the same person, which I'm sure surprises you all tremendously!  There are betrayals, the beginnings (and ends) of love affairs. There are twists and turns. People are eaten by hippos.

I don't have a lot else to say about the book, but I really did enjoy it tremendously. I don't think it's going to top my Hugo ballot, but it was rollicking fun, and I look forward to discussing it in my book club when it rolls around. I'm ahead of the game for once!