Memphis Ribs
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From Brash Books
Brash Books publishes "the best crime novels in existence"!
Original Publisher: Salvo Press, May 1999
Memphis in May. The International BBQ Contest, the Cotton Carnival, and now four bloody murders: a conventioneer is stabbed at an ATM machine, a gang leader and his girlfriend are executed, and a wealthy local businessman is killed in his own home while his bodyguard is napping. It's all on the shoulders of failed cotton farmer & current Memphis homicide detective, J. W. Ragsdale. He must solve both crimes before the tourists start leaving in droves. J.W. & his partner, Tyrone Walker, sift through an unusual cast of characters, ranging from black gangs dealing crack, to a hier apparent son of Southern aristocracy, to the newly crowned Maid of Cotton. To make matters worse, someone is intent on turning out mass market bad BBQ, the unpardonable sin in Memphis. Through all this, a power struggle for gang leadership has left bodies strewn about the bluff city. J.W. must take the investigation to his home home country, the Mississippi Delta. What he finds could change his life forever...or end it.
Selected Reviews of Memphis Ribs
"With his unerring ear for dialect, and his artful filleting of the Delta social order, Duff slow-roasts a tangy tale of murder, gang warfare, crack cocaine, and barbeque." --Entertainment Weekly
"Duff hits the jackpot...prose as laid-back Southern as a hound dog napping under the porch. With J.W.'s dry wit keeping readers chuckling, Duff folds a vivid picture of the South into a solid, well-plotted procedural. As sweet and satisfying as a barbeque dinner, without the fat." --Booklist
"Memphis Ribs combines enough crime and dark humor to make readers guffaw and hope no one heard them." --Associate Press
"Tense action...realistic dialogue. Murder, vandalism, some wild barbeque, and a few secual escapades keep the novel jumping." --Library Journal
"Memphis Ribs is a wonderful ride, by turns suspenseful and explosively hilarious. Gerald Duff has a great ear for dialect and a wickedly accurate knowledge of the Delta social system." --Madison Smart Bell
"I love Memphis Ribs. Duff is a Southern Elmore Leonard, only he's a lot funnier." --Lee Smith
"Can detective J.W. Ragsdale solve these seemingingly unconnected crimes in time to save the Barbecue Fest? Only time will tell -- but in the meantime, there's plenty of pork shoulder to go around. And laugh-out-loud humor, most of which originates in the banter between Ragsdale ... and his partner, Tyrone Walker..." --John Klyce Minervini, Memphis Flyer

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