Anthony Neil Smith is an English professor and crime novelist, born and raised in Mississippi, now teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University. The Butcher’s Prayer is his fifteenth novel. He loves cheap red wine and Mexican food.
You can visit his website at http://www.anthonyneilsmith.com or connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
10 Things You Might Not Know About The Butcher's Prayer
By Anthony Neil Smith
1.
Inspired by a true crime – a butcher who dismembered his victim and tried to
throw the parts in the bayou behind his house.
2.
I knew that butcher. For a while, we went to the same Pentecostal church. My
butcher, Rodney, is definitely not like the real life one, but his crime was
the seed of this thing.
3.
Two other considered titles: The Killer’s
Prayer, and Son of a Preacher Man.
4.
Writing this book helped me climb out of a funky pit of depression in which I
thought I was done writing novels. My last few hadn’t sold so well, and I was
frustrated with the whole business. So this story that’s haunted me for years
on the back burner started boiling over, and I figured out how to write it.
Since then, I’ve written two other novels and a novella.
5.
A part of this book was written in an AirBnB in Cleveland, Ohio at what my
friend Victor Gischler and I call “The Box of Wine Writers’ Retreat.” There had
been one before I missed out on, when Victor and Sean Doolittle wrote in the
morning, played golf in the afternoon, and drank wine at night. But this time
Sean couldn’t make it. Also, there was no box, just bottles. And no real golf,
just Golden Tee video golf.
6.
Hosea’s French bulldog, Pecan, was inspired by our rescued Frenchie “Idgie,”
who had one of the most vibrant personalities I’ve ever seen in a pup. My wife
flew to Atlanta to get her because she’d been bounced around several houses.
She also had a bad skin allergy. But we took her in, gave her love and care,
and it healed up. Sadly, after four years with us, she passed away suddenly
while at the vet. Her poor heart gave out. It was fun to imagine her as Pecan
during the writing here, a chance to spend some time with her again in my mind.
7.
This novel is set back in the 90’s, well before Hurricane Katrina blew in ten
years later and massively changed the whole area. At the time it’s set, I was on my way out of the
Pentecostal church, heading towards grad school in creative writing.
8.
While working for the Mississippi Review lit journal, the real butcher sent us
a letter from prison wanting to tell his story. Of course, he didn’t know I
worked there. We didn’t respond, but I asked my professor and boss at the
journal if I should think about writing something the actual case and getting
in touch with the guy. He said he wouldn’t touch it with a ten mile pole. So I
never talked to the butcher, and he was eventually executed by lethal injection
in 2012.
9.
In the book, I mention how the Elgin kids, years before, had played hide-and-seek
in the church. We did that when we were teenagers, my friends and I. I was
friends with a preacher’s kid, and when his folks were out of town, we’d head
over and play D&D style games, then turn off the lights and play
hide-and-seek. It was creepy, stupid, and did I mention creepy?
10.
If you flip the pages under your nose, you can even smell the swamp water.
Title: THE BUTCHER’S PRAYER
Author: Anthony Neil Smith
Publisher: Fahrenheit 13
Pages: 275
Genre: Crime Fiction/Noir
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BOOK BLURB
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Rodney Goodfellow watches his friend kill a man, and then volunteers the unthinkable – to carve up the body with his butcher’s knives in order to get rid of the evidence. But the victim’s girlfriend escapes halfway through the butchering, sending Rodney and the triggerman, Charles, on the run.
Charles is unhinged, flying high on meth. When it’s clear that escape isn’t a realistic possibility, he chooses chaos. He goes back looking for a little revenge, with Rodney and the girlfriend first on his list.
Hosea Elgin is a fallen preacher turned police detective…and Rodney’s brother-in-law. When he realizes Rodney is involved, he’s sickened, but he’s got to keep searching for his fugitives. He weighs loyalty to his job against loyalty to his family.
Rachel Goodfellow is Rodney’s wife and Hosea’s younger sister. She worries that Rodney might come looking for her in his time of need. He’s the father of her two children. Could they ever be a family again? Will her love for him overcome her revulsion, or will she be the one to turn him in?
And what about Hosea’s father, a Pentecostal pastor, and older brother, the pastor’s right hand man? Would they choose family over justice and give Rodney refuge in spite of Hosea?
Hosea and his partner are on the prowl, trying to find Rodney and Charles before they can kill again, but he never expects his own family to stand in his way. Ties are strained, faith is tested, and there has to be a breaking point.
PRAISE
“The Butcher’s Prayer is wine-dark noir, with a hammering and bloody heart. This is Smith at his bleak and soulful best.” — Laura Benedict, Edgar-nominated author of The Stranger Inside
“Anthony Neil Smith is a massive talent. One of the very best crime writers I’ve ever read.” — Allan Guthrie, author of Kiss Her Goodbye and Hard Man.
“Visceral, propulsive writing that cuts like a razor. Think Elmore Leonard with an injection of Southern Gothic. Heady stuff.” — Dan Fesperman, author of Safe Houses.
“Crime-fiction veteran Anthony Neil Smith wields a smooth yet serrated style that’s carved him two decades worth of fierce material, now being re-discovered by a younger upstart audience of modern noir enthusiasts. He possesses such an acute, vivid feel of time and place in his subjects, his stories immediately burrow into my memory and remain long, withstanding the static storms of our contemporary attention-deficits. It’s challenging stuff, yet wholly accessible; with spiking dark humor that confirms sure you still have a pulse.” — Gabriel Hart, author of Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell
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