The Redneck Detective Agency

The title seems to say it all about this private-eye mystery set on Alabama’s Elk River. But not quite. The Redneck Detective Agency isn’t a detective agency at all (later it fulfills its own destiny). And its proprietor, fifty-five year old Rusty Clay, asserts he is no redneck. His old friend and new lover, Gloria Davenport, begs to differ. Rusty has married and divorced the same woman three times, makes his own whiskey and dynamite, and as a kid grabbled (catch with one’s bare hands) a catfish greater than his own body weight.

When Rusty is accosted by a mysterious man with five thousand dollars in cash to find out who stole his two hundred fourteen pound catfish, the story begins. Complications arise when news of the big man’s death appears in the local paper. Rusty estimates himself to be last person to see this rich owner of a catfish restaurant chain alive.

If that’s not complicated enough, the surgeon fiancée of Rusty’s ex-wife is blown up in a classic two-seater Mercedes. Rusty knows he has to stay out of jail long enough to find out who weighs in a two hundred fourteen pound catfish at the annual catfish grabbling rodeo on Elk River—because that is the real multiple murderer, Rusty is sure.

The Redneck Detective Agency is the start of a trilogy (or more). The subsequent two volumes The Elk River Blues and Gothic Gray may soon be found at my PQM Books.