The Latest Bloodshed: Novel Targets Drug Wars in Todays Deep South
In this suspenseful mystery, a momentous day catches up with a young South Georgia police detective whose life and community lie at a fateful crossroads.
San Antonio, TX (PRWEB) October 3, 2005 — Jim Stallings, published by iUniverse, Inc., the leading provider of independent print-on-demand publishing, announced today the release of The Latest Bloodshed, a mystery novel focused on the social and criminal problems of the contemporary, agricultural Deep South. In this tension-building novel, a momentous day catches up with a young South Georgia police detective whose life and community lie at a fateful crossroads.
In The Latest Bloodshed, Jelly Lovejoy, a weary young police detective in Warden, Georgia, takes off a mental health day at the demand of his chief. Jelly decides to wander about his hometown and county talking with lover, friend and foe, listening for clues, current and legendary, about the mysteries that confront him and his hometown.
Near the Florida line, semi-tropical Warden struggles with festering social problems beneath the postcard veneer of a sleepy old county courthouse, a restored downtown commercial square and the apparently prosperous retail franchise sprawl of its outskirts. Immigration of Mexican field labor has largely replaced black and white workers on the rich agricultural lands of surrounding Strickland County. Large farm corporations, remotely owned, are buying small family farms unable to compete globally. Old and new social issues jockey for local attention; while overt crimes of racism fall, thefts of property and acts of personal violence rise; an epidemic of drug use, including deadly, homemade methamphetamine, scars the police blotter weekly; turf wars between ethnic drug dealers claim lives in ruthless attacks.
Detective Jelly Lovejoy has reached a professional and personal crossroads, and commitment questions, long held in suspension, now fall to earth with the swift relentlessness of gravity.
Jelly Lovejoy, in taking his overdue inventory of his life, performs an anatomy of his social world in the Deep South and its changing underbelly. Kith and kin, friend and foe, strike against his Friday meander, sparking flashes of insight, some present, some ghostly and legendary.
Why at age thirty hasnt he been able to commit to his job or to Connie his lifelong love? In answer, theres Snake, the meth addict informant; Matt, petty thief selling boiled peanuts and stolen beef; Jellys Granny Rose with glimpses of an Ax Man who rises from the old lime sinks to deal out Old Testament justice; his retired parents huddled about the TV in their overheated farmhouse; his older brother Bill with his small farmer rage against global agricorps; Tito, jefe of the Mexican drug gang with his deadly wise guy cool; Sammy, Jellys bookstore brother, the Lovejoy family historian…These characters and more, act as guides in his fateful, one day odyssey. As one reviewer put it, the novel reads more like …an intense ghost story revealing the myths and madness of the social pressures on todays Southern cultures.”
Jim Stallings is an anthropologist, writer and editor. His other books include Tales for Commuters & Other Time Travelers, Hunters in the Fog: War Diary to Screenplay, Neon Nirvana: A Romance of the New Age, and the New England mystery, Devils Hopper. See his website: http://www.jimstallings.com for more on his bio, philosophy, other works and contact info.
About The Latest Bloodshed. Published October 2005, .95 paperback (ISBN: 0-595-36363-6); hardcover, .95 (ISBN:0-595-67371-6); & e-book, from iUniverse; available direct from iUniverse.com or on web bookstores like amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, booksamillion.com, as well as special order through your local bookstore, or off the authors website: http://www.jimstallings.com/
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