Redneck Press: Home of TOUGH

  Detective Novel by Craig Rodgers, 100 pages Death of Print Books, $15.00 by Hugh Blanton R eaders of Craig Rodgers have come to expect having more questions than answers at the end of his books, and Detective Novel (Death of Print Books, 2025) is no exception. Rodgers's prose is sometimes compared to Cormac McCarthy or Don DeLillo, and while his style is indeed very similar to both, he writes without the peacocky vocabulary. He opens Detective Novel with a man on a rickety, aged bridge over a river removing his shoes and watch. He ensures there's no witnesses around and jumps (he didn't see the vagrant camped in the brush of the riverbank). The vagrant climbs up to the bridge, puts on his new shoes and watch, and returns to his camp. No body is discovered, the vagrant says nothing, and Calvin Lond is reported missing. Detective Novel takes place in Oriel, a fictional town that has appeared in previous Rodgers books. A man sitting on a cot inside the building of the l...

Murderapolis Anthony Neil Smith Urban Pigs Press 12.99 O n January 9, 1925 the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder ran a story under this headline: "Minneapolis Faces Rising Homicide Rates Amid National Decline." In 2024 the US homicide rate had fallen approximately 16%, marking a return to pre-pandemic levels. However, in Minneapolis there were 76 homicides in 2024, up from 72 in 2023, making its homicide rate more than triple the national level. Among Minneapolis homicides for which the age of the offender was known, about 10% were committed by children under the ago of 18 and about 40% by those under 24. The age group of the killers isn't too much of a surprise—it's not like geriatrics would be out running around committing murders, right? However, a Brookings Institution report in December of 2024 found that the homicide increases that had been recorded in 2020 were "directly connected to local unemployment and school closures in low-income areas." Also, more t...

 They All Fall the Same Wes Browne Crooked Lane Books Publication Date: ‎January 7, 2025 Kindle: $14.99/Hardcover $29.99 Burl Spoon’s daughter is missing, and that’s just the start of his troubles. Wes Browne’s new novel, They All Fall the Same , wastes no time immersing us in protagonist Burl Spoon’s life of intimidation, outlaw code, and having the world grasped firmly in his fist, just when that world starts to go to shit. Burl, a Kentucky weed dealer in a state where it’s still illegal, has built a life where he gets whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. We find him as a man now in his mid-50s with an ambitious younger mistress and a longtime wife (Colleen) who is fed-up with his fooling around. He has two adult children, both estranged from their father in their own ways, and a grandchild who is the apple of his eye. His son, Darron, a promising high school basketball prospect came out in college, causing the homophobic Burl to disengage and treat his only son as something...