New York, NY: Soho Press | Random House (On Sale April 4, 2023)

First Edition. Signed on the title page.

As new in dust jacket.

In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.

After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his teenage granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Arkansas junkyard. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but when the girl goes missing, Jeremiah fears the dreaded Ledfords, fanatical white supremacists and notorious meth dealers, have finally come to collect a long-overdue blood debt.

Loaded to the hilt with weapons from his past, Jeremiah sets his sights on the last person who saw his granddaughter: her new boyfriend, Colt. With the young Romeo in tow, Jeremiah plunges headlong into the heart of the Ozarks, but Jeremiah isn’t the only one with an arsenal of secrets—the star-crossed couple has been hiding something too.

Eli Cranor, author of the critically acclaimed Don’t Know Tough, brings his ferocious storytelling power and deep knowledge of his native Arkansas to this unforgettable Southern noir about family and how far some will go to honor, defend, or—in some cases—destroy it.

Eli Cranor lives and writes from the banks of Lake Dardanelle, a reservoir of the Arkansas River nestled in the heart of True Grit country. His work has won The Greensboro Review's Robert Watson Literary Prize and been featured in Missouri Review, Oxford American, Ellery Queen, The Strand and others. Eli also pens a weekly column, "Where I'm Writing From" for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and his craft column, "Shop Talk," appears monthly at CrimeReads. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Don't Know Tough, won the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest.