Anthony Neil Smith
Born and raised on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Anthony Neil Smith now lives on the frozen prairies of rural Minnesota, where he teaches at Southwest Minnesota State University. He’s the author of three novels: Yellow Medicine, The Drummer and Psychosomatic. He’s also the editor of the online noir fiction zine Plots With Guns.
Books by Anthony Neil Smith
Yellow Medicine
Smith has a powerful voice and delivers quite a romp ~ Booklist
Deputy Billy Lafitte is not unfamiliar with the law--he just prefers to enforce it, rather than abide by it. But his rule-bending and bribe-taking have gotten him kicked off the force in Gulfport, Mississippi, and he’s been given a second chance--in the desolate, Siberian wastelands of rural Minnesota. Now Billy’s only got the local girls and local booze to keep him company. Until one of the local girls--cute little Drew, bassist for a psychobilly band--asks Billy for help with her boyfriend. Something about the drugs Ian’s been selling, some product he may have lost, and the men who are threatening him because of it. Billy agrees to look into it, and before long he’s speeding down a snowy road, tracking a cell of terrorists, with a severed head in his truck’s cab. And that’s only the start.
North American English and World French rights: Bleak House Books
All other rights: JBA
The Drummer
A rock’n’roll love song to New Orleans as it was before the hurricane’s devastation.
Calvin Christopher, the millionaire drummer of a highly successful heavy metal band, disappears. His house torched, but no body. Fifteen years on, the IRS have stopped chasing him for the millions of dollars he owes them. But his lead singer has tracked him down and is pitching a reunion. Calvin (now ‘Merle’) wants no part of it, just wants to live his new life in New Orleans. Then the singer ends up dead and Merle’s life suddenly becomes a gonzo episode of BANDS REUNITED. He struggles to keep one step ahead of the people who pulled the singer’s strings. As we follow the chase, we also glimpse the history of the band and the relationships that tore it apart. Secrets, sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, all stirred together in a Big Easy gumbo.
North American English rights: Two Dollar Radio
All other rights: JBA
Psychosomatic
The darkest song I’ve ever read
Ken Bruen
“Because Lydia didn’t have arms or legs, she shelled out three thousand bucks to a washed up middleweight named Cap to give her ex-husband the beating of his life.”
But the beating turns to murder, and the murder into lust and desperation between Lydia and an underworld clean-up man. Meanwhile, overgrown frat boy car thieves take up cop killing as a side hobby. When their paths cross, a horror show of violence unfolds as they all slide into a hell of their own design, surrounded by the neon and noise of the casino strip on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Violent, vivid, life at hyper-speed. This debut novel is a noir nightmare that asks: how much is too much in a relationship, and what is the cost of leaving?
World English Language rights: PointBlank Press
Swedish rights: Härnqvists Bokförlag
All other rights: JBA