Down Don't Bother Me

Product Description [Read by Johnny Heller] A hugely entertaining debut - the first novel in a wickedly funny gothic mystery series set in the withering landscape of the southern Illinois coal country known as Little Egypt. In the depths of the Knight Hawk, one of the last working collieries in downstate Illinois, the body of a reporter is found, his mini-recorder tied around his neck and a notepad stuffed in his mouth. The Knight Hawk's owner, Matthew Luster, isn't happy. He wants answers - and he doesn't want the cops or any more press poking into his business. To protect himself and the operation, he turns to Slim, a mine employee with a reputation for ''bloodhounding'' - finding lost souls when the police can't or won't. Luster needs Slim to locate a missing photographer named Beckett, a close associate of the victim ... who just happens to be his son-in-law. A hard-working single father barely making ends meet, Slim accepts the job after Luster offers him a guaranteed pension and job security for life. But when you make a deal with the devil, you're going to get burned ... and now Slim is all too close to the flames. Circumstances have lead him into the grimy underworld of Little Egypt, Illinois - a Babel's Tower of rednecks, rubes, freaks, tweakers, gun nuts, and aging hippies - and it quickly becomes clear that he's much more involved in the murder than an innocent man should be. Down Don't Bother Me marks the emergence of a wildly assured mystery novelist, and of a series set in the fresh and brutal landscape of southern Illinois. Review ''Mine owner Matthew Luster asks Slim, a miner who has a reputation for finding lost people, to locate Guy Allan Beckett…Slim must quickly determine whether Guy is a victim or the killer and, if so, what the motive was…The author does a good job evoking the bleakness of life in Illinois coal country.'' --Publishers Weekly ''Fans of Daniel Woodrell's 'Ozarks Noir' books and FX's Justified TV series, as well as the show's Elmore Leonard source material, will welcome the tough-talking Slim and the eccentric cast of characters he meets along the way in this series launch by the coauthor of the graphic novel Redball Six. The violence is authentic, if heightened - there's no shortage of grisly deaths in the mines, but they're in keeping with dangerous work.'' --Library Journal (starred review) ''Long stretches of this unusual first novel would seem to require guitar accompaniment. The genre conventions-treacherous women, double-crossing friends, greedy moneymen-seem fresh in Miller's sensory-rich language….Here's a strong talent just getting under way.'' --Booklist About the Author Jason Miller is the author of Down Don't Bother Me, the first in a series of crime novels set in what were once the coalfields of southern Illinois. He is a RiffTrax contributor and, with his brother Ian, writer of the Redball 6 and Philosopher REX series of graphic novels. His Twitter has been featured on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and online in Playboy, Heavy, Splitsider, and Mandatory, among other places. He lives in Nashville with four tom cats and a college professor.