It Dies with You
A Novel
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Scott Blackburn’s searing literary debut explores the dangerous world of secrets threatening to upend a rural Southern town, perfect for fans of David Joy and Brian Panowich.
For nearly a decade, twenty-nine-year-old Hudson Miller has made his living in the boxing ring, but a post-fight brawl threatens to derail his career. Desperate for money, Hudson takes a gig as a bouncer at a dive bar. That’s when life delivers him another hook to the jaw: his estranged father, Leland, has been murdered in what appears to be a robbery-gone-bad at his salvage yard, Miller’s Pull-a-Part.
Soon after his father’s funeral, Hudson learns he’s inherited the salvage yard, and he returns to his Bible-belt hometown of Flint Creek, North Carolina, to run the business. But the business is far more than junk cars and scrap metal. It was the site of an illegal gun-running ring. And the secrets don’t end there; a grisly discovery is made at the yard that thrusts Hudson into the fight of his life.
Reeling for answers, Hudson joins forces with his father’s former employee, 71-year-old, beer-guzzling Vietnam vet Charlie Shoaf, and a feisty teenage girl, Lucy Reyes, who’s fiercely seeking justice for her own family tragedy. With a murderer on the loose and no answers from the local cops, the trio of outcasts launch an investigation. The shocking truth they uncover will shake Flint Creek to its very core.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hudson Miller, the narrator of Blackburn's strong debut, had a promising boxing career until the North Carolina Boxing Commission suspended his license because he threw a punch in a post-bout melee that seriously injured an opponent's trainer who had taken a cheap shot at him. Miller, who now supports himself as a security guard at a seedy bar, is shaken out of his doldrums when he gets the news from an officer of the Flint Creek PD that his father, Leland, has been fatally shot at Leland's salvage yard business in the town. The emptied cash register suggests a robbery gone wrong, but Miller's troubled that, shortly before the killing, he ignored two incoming calls from his father. He digs into the crime after a search of the salvage yard yields a surprising discovery—an array of guns stored in a hidden cache under a floor—that casts a different light on the homicide. Blackburn does a fine job evoking his leads' conflicting emotions and the pace of small-town life in this carefully crafted mystery. Lou Berney and Michael Kardos fans will look forward to more from this gifted author.
