Hola Fahrenhistas,
We’ve got a special treat for you today.
We can finally reveal that ALL of the legendary Billy Lafitte novels by Anthony Neil Smith have found a new home with our new supercool Fahrenheit Pocket Noir imprint and the 1st in the series YELLOW MEDICINE is published TODAY.
Here’s what it says on the tin…
Welcome to Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota—a frozen wasteland where the meth is pure, the music is loud, and the lawman enforcing order is barely holding it together.
Deputy Billy Lafitte used to be a cop on the Gulf Coast. That was before Hurricane Katrina washed away his badge, his family, and his reputation. Working now as a small-town deputy, he's bent the rules enough to make himself useful—and dangerous—to just about everyone.
When Drew, the bassist of local psychobilly band Elvis Antichrist, asks Lafitte for help with her meth-dealing boyfriend, things spiral fast. Trouble kicks the door in and Lafitte finds himself caught between the band, a meth ring, and a homegrown terrorist cell. When the FBI comes knocking, they don’t want justice—they want someone to blame. And Lafitte is the perfect fall guy.
Yellow Medicine is a breakneck noir thrill ride with a hard-boiled heart and a twisted soul. From sleazy bars to backwoods terror camps, it barrels toward a showdown where survival means crossing every line.
Dirty. Dark & Addictive. Welcome to the beginning of the Billy Lafitte saga.
This really is a classic of the hard-boiled noir genre, but don’t take out word for it, here’s what people have to say about it.
“On my list of the most original voices in crime fiction today, Anthony Neil Smith easily makes it into the top five. YELLOW MEDICINE is a terrific read, a crime noir bullet-train ride on unsafe tracks.”—Scott Wolven, author of Controlled Burn.
“YELLOW MEDICINE gets its hooks into you from its first turbulent pages. It is the novel's complicated, captivating hero, Deputy Billy Lafitte, who holds you from beginning to end. He’s a liar, a cheat and a pretty bad guy, but so richly rendered that, before you know it, you find yourself following him through the darkest of terrains, and eagerly.”—Megan Abbott, author of the Edgar-nominated Queenpin
“YELLOW MEDICINE starts with one of the most memorable and engaging anti-heroes in recent memory. Mix in bent cops, a psychobilly band called Elvis Antichrist, meth cookers in the Minnesota sticks, and a truly nasty pack of wannabe jihadists. Add a liberal helping of guns, knives and explosives. You're gonna love it.”—J.D. Rhoades, author of A Good Day in Hell and Safe and Sound.
“Anthony Neil Smith has taken the stark, freezing landscape of rural Minnesota and brought it to life with an injection of Louisiana Hot Sauce in the form of Deputy Billy Lafitte. A violent, bawdy, thrilling, edgy, gut-churning masterpiece.”—Victor Gischler, author of Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse, Pistol Poets, and the Edgar-nominated Gun Monkeys.
“Smith deserves credit for taking a risk by creating a character like Lafitte, whose private code of honor-if any-is far more obscure than an antihero like Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.”—Publishers Weekly
“Smith has a powerful voice and delivers quite a romp, offering along the way a sort of Tony Hillerman glimpse into a part of the country that is not often the subject of crime fiction.”—Steve Glassman, Booklist
The next 3 books in the Lafitte series will be appearing over the next few weeks (and there’s even a rumour that Anthony Neil Smith is working on Book No. 5 as we speak).
This series is proving to be wildly popular with you - turns out they’re EXACTLY THE POCKET SIZED BALLS OF FUN we all needed right now - we’re getting some great feedback for the format so this series is definitely gonna run and run…
COLLECT THEM ALL….
We’ll leave it there for this week but we’ve got more announcements on the runway so keep a look out on our socials.
Have a great weekend,
We kiss you.
xx
P.S. - Oh and that ‘Gatsby Thing’ that The Boss did continues to delight & confound readers in equal measure - we think this review from The Irresponsible Reader about sums it up so far…
