Lowcountry Boil

Lowcountry Boil is set in the lowcountry of coastal South Carolina. The novel explores the corruption and moral inequities in a small southern town. Not typical of the conflicts in so many novels of the small town South, Lowcountry Boil is a story of legal and personal conflicts, political intrigue and complex personal relationships played out by a colorful cast of characters. Carl T. Smith combines lyrical writing and a compelling plot with strong characters—both men and women—to create a powerful novel that will grasp the reader until the final page.


Sam Larkin is an enigma. A high school dropout, he joined the Merchant Marine, later earned a college degree in biology and worked as an environmental officer in Louisiana until he was unjustly sent to prison by Judge Thornton Hunnycut, who has eyes on the United States Senate. Released under extraordinary circumstances after serving four years of a fifteen-year sentence, Larkin moved to Covington, South Carolina, to begin a new life teaching school and painting. He has set on a path of non-involvement and a search for peace, which is shattered when knowledge of a conspiracy of major proportions falls to him. Despite efforts to ignore it, he is ultimately drawn in.


Karen Chaney, working undercover for the federal government, learns of Larkin’s past and seeks to make him an ally in her investigation. Amidst a set of circumstances that include a questionable drowning, a corrupt school superintendent, two children whose lives are put in danger by an innocent discovery, a scandal involving bankers, lawyers, doctors and a law enforcement officer, a major conspiracy is exposed. During the course of the investigation, an improbable and impossible relationship develops between Karen Chaney and Larkin.


Driven by passions, fears and internal conflict, Smith’s characters will pose a number of personal questions for the reader.