South, America - Softcover

Davis, Rod

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1603063153 ISBN 13: 9781603063159

Publisher: NewSouth Books, 2014

Synopsis

On an early Sunday morning walk through the empty streets of the Faubourg Marigny downriver of the French Quarter, maverick journalist and Big Easy transplant Jack Prine discovers the body of a well-dressed black man with a bashed-in skull. Soon Jack is drawn into an emerging web of violence threatening Elle Meridian, the victim's beautiful, complicated sister, burdened with a past she can barely confess.

They begin a dangerous, desperate flight through Alabama, the Delta and back to New Orleans searching and evading button men, goons, racists and family secrets. Deadly ties extend to the Dixie Mafia, priceless stolen art and debased Southern aristocracy. A final, violent showdown in the Arts District of New Orleans uncovers one last nightmarish revelation that may bind Elle, Jack and a mob enforcer named Big Red for years to come -- if anyone survives.

"South, America may be set in the Deep South--New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta--but writer Rod Davis takes us into that classic hardboiled territory once claimed by James Cain: a man with a wandering eye drawn to a femme fatale who promises nothing but trouble, then delivers it." -- Christopher Cook, author of Robbers and Screen Door Jesus & Other Stories

"Jack Prine is about as tough and gritty as Mike Hammer, especially when he has a lady to protect; corner him on a deserted back road at night and find out. A story that plays on black and white relationships over the generations, gay sexuality, the mean streets of New Orleans and the remote remnants of towns in the Mississippi Delta, South, America, is an honest, tough book and a riveting read. Rod Davis has given us a rugged and real character. I hope he keeps roaming the South in more episodes to come." -- Tony Dunbar, author of Crooked Man and Tubby Meets Katrina

"This down-and-dirty yarn is a powerful evocation of pre-Katrina New Orleans and as absorbing a tale of love and evil to come out of this old town since Ace Atkins and Tony Dunbar hit the scene a few years back. South, America is a triumph of Southern noir, populated with characters who'll stay with you long after the last page, including sometime PI Jack Prine, Elle, his brainy and brave new love, and an all too-real supporting cast of thugs, low-lifes, and Southern degenerates. You heard it first here: In South, America, Rod Davis is the new mayor of the mean streets!" -- Julie Smith, Edgar Award-winning author of the Skip Langdon and Talba Wallis series.

About this title

About the Author:

Rod Davis is the recipient of the inaugural Fiction Award of the PEN Southwest Book Awards in 2005 for Corina’s Way, described by Kirkus Reviews as “a spicy bouillabaisse, New Orleans-set, in the tradition of Flannery O’Connor or John Kennedy Toole: a welcome romp, told with traditional Southern charm.” He also is author of American Voudou: Journey into a Hidden World, selected as one of the “Exceptional Books of 1998” by Bookman Book Review Syndicate. A six-part series on the Texas-Mexico border, “A Rio Runs Through It,” appears in Best American Travel Writing 2002. His PEN/Texas-award-winning essay, “The Fate of the Texas Writer,” is included in Fifty Years of the Texas Observer and his Texas Monthly story, “Wal-marts Across Texas,” is excerpted in True Stories by David Byrne. Davis has received numerous awards as a magazine editor and writer. He earned an M.A. in Government at Louisiana State University and studied at the University of Virginia before joining the Army in 1970, serving as a first lieutenant in South Korea. He lives in Texas.

Review:

"Author Rod Davis had me right from the start of his new novel, South, America. By the way, don't miss the comma in the title. That pause is important. Davis sets a lively pace...Throw in some voodoo, the mob, race relations in the pre-Katrina South (the book is set in 2000), as well as some classic and modern art, and you have a recipe for a good page-turner."--Gary Jacobson, The Dallas Morning News

"What Rod Davis tackles masterfully in this faux hard-boiled mystery is the capturing in a simple plot of murder, investigation, solution, and deserved punishment of the essential truths of what it is to be born, nurtured, schooled, and acclimated to existence in the American South. [Jack Prine's] struggle to understand the nature of where he truly lives provides this powerfully fascinating novel with energy, soul, and a hope that he'll return in another narrative to 'the hard shadowed streets of the Vieux Carre, the American landfall for the fallen." -- Gerald Duff, Southern Literary Review

"There is much here that brings to mind the Dave Robicheaux novels of James Lee Burke, and Burke’s norteamericano version of magical realism....For readers’ sakes, if not for Jack Prine’s, I sincerely hope those sequels are on the way.”  —Jim Sherman, The Texas Observer

"A fine Southern crime noir novel.... evokes the uniquely beautiful but sometimes deadly topographies of New Orleans, the Delta and the Deep South."--Annette Clifford, Montgomery Advertiser

“...suspense and drama in this gritty volume of Southern noir....The backdrop of pre-Katrina New Orleans is perfect for this novel. Davis paints it in tones that show an abiding admiration for the place and its people, and a respect for its enigmatic beauty.”
—Yvette Benavides, San Antonio Express-News

"Rod Davis' new thriller is labeled 'A Jack Prine Novel,' and introduces its world-weary hero, savvy and muscular enough to carry on his back what promises to be an engaging Southern noir series... Like the coy comma in the book's title that redetermines its meaning, the novel proceeds by indirection and sly tangent, through sudden explosions of violence into meditations on Southern history and its persistent burdens on the present.” --Mike King, The Austin Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1603063153
• ISBN 13: 9781603063159
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 258