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.
Thanks for stopping by! What attracted you to the crime fiction genre?
I remember the first Hardy Boys cover I ever saw, in second grade. These guys were in a Cessna, heading for a crash, and I just had to know what happened next. From there I moved on to the Three Investigators series, and not long after that, I started reading adult detective novels. I think I’ve always liked how they took real life and made it feel more dangerous, more vivid, and just more interesting. But it all came together in 1994, really cementing my decision to write crime fiction – a mix of James Ellroy’s White Jazz, Walter Mosley’s Black Betty, and the film Pulp Fiction. I didn’t know it could be so stylish and experimental. I wanted to try some of that.
Do you write in any other genres?
In grad school, I wrote what would be called literary fiction, I guess. Since I’d “backslidden” out of the Pentecostal church by then, I wrote a lot of stories about
my experiences in church, fictionalized, of course, now that it was in the rearview. I still had a lot of hurt and confusion left over from that. But then I moved into some more dark comic and transgressive stories, which I ended up blending into my crime fiction anyway. I was able to publish a lot of the literary pieces, though.
What inspired you to write The Butcher’s Prayer?
The inspiration was a real life murder from the Mississippi Gulf Coast back in the 90s, and I knew the killer a bit. He’d gone to my church for a couple of years. By the time he ended up killing this guy, he’d become a drug dealer, but his day job was butcher at the local grocery store. To get rid of the body of the guy he and his accomplice shot, he got his butcher tools and went after the body like a side of beef. That story has haunted me for a long time, but I couldn’t figure out how to write something fictional inspired by it. But once I saw the detective in my head – a fall preacher and the butcher’s brother-in-law, the pieces fell into place.
Can you give us your book blurb so others can find out what your book is about?
A butcher at the wrong place,
wrong time. A
madman ready to break everyone and everything in his way. A fallen preacher turned police
detective, a choice between family, faith, and justice.
Called to a crime scene when
a terrified woman raises the alarm on a horrifying murder, Detective Hosea
Elgin finds the victim’s body has been dismembered with professional
precision.
Very quickly, two small-time
drug dealers are identified as the probable assailants and a manhunt is
launched to bring them into custody.
With the two suspects on the
run, the consequences of their actions continue to spiral out of control and it
becomes clear that while one of them is focused on survival, the other wants
only revenge.
As the net begins to tighten
on the fugitives, Detective Elgin finds that the case begins to move very close
to home and what began as just another murder investigation is developing into
something much more personal.
The decisions he makes and the actions he takes may well solve the case and bring the criminals to justice, but in the process he might just tear his family and his church to pieces.
How can readers discover more about you and your work?
You can visit me
at….
My website, anthonyneilsmith.com, and you can find me on twitter @anthonynsmith, and on Instagram @anthonyneilsmith.
Where can readers buy your book?
You can pick up a
copy of my book at…
The Fahrenheit Press website (https://fahrenheit-press.myshopify.com). I think it’s the best place to order because the price is great, and every print sale gets you a free download of the ebook. You’ll also be able to get it via Amazon and other online retailers. If you beg your local indie bookshop, they might get it in. Maybe.
Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview. What’s next for you?
Happy to talk with you! I have a new novel coming next year, but the details are a secret at the moment. I hope there’s an announcement soon.
Also, Fahrenheit
13, home of Butcher’s and Slow Bear, will publish my second
novella in the Slow Bear series, called Slower
Bear. Look for it in early-ish 22.
