In August of 2014, a deer hunter stumbled upon a hundred thousand marijuana plants growing in untended woods in Southeast Texas. The DEA would estimate the plants’ worth at close to $175 million dollars. The setting was enough to make any crime writer drool: a beautiful woods with acres of lacy green plants, an abandoned…
Earlier this year, Carmen Amato and Jeanine Kitchel introduced us to Narco Noir, a literary gamechanger that continues to grow, and now they return with a follow-up account of the women in Narco Noir and the various roles they play in both real life and fiction. They are cops and robbers. Do-gooders and badass babes.…
Dave Richards reviews 1987’s comically action-packed Miami Connection, in which a rock band whose members are proficient in Taekwondo stand up against a band of motorcycle ninjas who have tightened their grip on Florida’s narcotics trade. Feudal Japan’s ninja may have a reputation for being invisible warriors, but in the 1980s they stepped out of the shadows…
Meet narco noir, the new category muscling to the top of the mystery mountain, fueled by drug cartel violence, layers of corruption, and the jagged line between justice and revenge. Narco noir is rising fast and hitting hard with gritty tales ripped from today’s headlines. Real events and real people are recast through the lens…
I was late to the party on Sons of Anarchy, FX’s hit series that ran from 2008-2014. I watched the pilot and wasn’t super impressed by it, and I was also wrongly under the impression that a show about a biker gang wasn’t for me. Thankfully, enough buzz built up after the first season, and…
What is money, exactly? Back in the day, before coins and cash and credit cards, we used to exchange goods and services based on perceived value. A bucket of corn for a day’s work. Two potatoes for a head of lettuce. A dime-bag of marijuana for a drink? According to Omaha World-Herald, a 24-year-old man…
Leadfoot by Eric Beetner is the 2nd fast and furious thriller featuring the McGraws—a family who will transport anything you require and won't ask any questions. The Dukes of Hazzard. “Thunder Road.” White Lightning. The moonshine-running driver hitting the backroads with suped-up Detroit iron and a trunkful of corn liquor, racing the revenuers, the sheriffs,…
The More They Disappear by Jesse Donaldson takes us to the front lines of the battle against small-town drug abuse in an unnerving tale of addiction, loss, and the battle to overcome the darkest parts of ourselves (Available August 2, 2016). When long-serving Kentucky sheriff Lew Mattock is murdered by a confused, drug-addicted teenager, chief deputy Harlan…
The More They Disappear by Jesse Donaldson takes us to the front lines of the battle against small-town drug abuse in an unnerving tale of addiction, loss, and the battle to overcome the darkest parts of ourselves (Available August 2, 2016). I grew up in the 80's during the “Just Say No” era, so the earliest…
The Jones Men was a thrilling novel to discover. A lost “cult” novel from the 1970s, written by veteran journalist Vern E. Smith, it is a story of the drug trade on the streets of Detroit, and it absolutely blew me away when I read it forty years after its initial publication. The novel crackles…
