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Bad Country
- Author
- CB McKenzie
- Narrator
- Mark Bramhall
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 4 November 2014
- Run Time
- 10 hours 37 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize, Bad Country is a debut mystery set in the Southwest starring a former rodeo cowboy turned private investigator, told in a transfixingly original style.
Rodeo Grace Garnet lives alone, save for his old dog, in a remote corner of Arizona known to locals as the Hole. He doesn’t get many visitors, but a body found near his home has drawn police attention to his front door. The victim is not one of the many illegal immigrants who risk their lives to cross the border just south of the Hole, but is instead a member of one of the local Indian tribes.
Retired from the rodeo circuit and scraping by on piecework as a private investigator, Rodeo doesn’t have much choice but to say yes when offered an unusual case. An elderly Indian woman has hired him to help find who murdered her grandson, but she seems strangely uninterested in the results. Her indifference seems heartless, but as Rodeo pursues his case, he learns that it’s nothing compared to true hatred—and he’s about to realize just how far hate can go.
Capturing the rough-and-tumble corners of the Southwest in accomplished, confident prose, with a hard-nosed plot that will keep readers riveted, Bad Country not only won the Hillerman Prize but also the Spur Award for Best Western Contemporary Novel and was a finalist for a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel, and the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
Critics Review
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“Terrific crime/suspense/mystery novel, but the real revelation is his fresh and original voice.”
Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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“A charged and unique southwest story that rings with an authenticity rarely seen in crime fiction.”
Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author
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“This dirt-filled noir debut about a former rodeo cowboy turned private investigator has already earned comparisons to Cormac McCarthy, and the stark Southwestern setting might hold you over if you’re still suffering from Breaking Bad withdrawal.”
Esquire
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“Bleak but elegantly told…as dry and gritty as desert sand, just right for scouring this harsh landscape of cheap motels, run-down trailer parks, and Indian trading posts selling polyester blankets.”
New York Times Book Review
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“One of the strongest debuts to come along in years.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“An outstanding first novel written with clarity and authority and featuring a Southwest whose spare beauty covers unspeakable crimes and a detective who’s tough, honorable and authentic to the core.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“Drawing on [a] mélange of quirky personalities and southwestern settings, McKenzie offers the reader an intriguing mystery and a new hero.”
Publishers Weekly
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“This edgy noir offers a master class on how to create a vivid sense of mood and place. Rodeo is a hard-nosed, hard-drinking man who searches for the truth as he understands it. Fans of the late, great Hillerman will cheer the arrival of a promising newcomer.”
Library Journal
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“Garnet is a protagonist who’s private to his core as he operates in the worlds of the Anglo and the Indian but seems to belong to neither…This is a fine example of southwestern noir.”
Booklist
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“A hard-boiled noir crime thriller…Tony Hillerman would have loved it. So did I.”
Michael McGarrity, author of Backlands
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“The pages of Bad Country race by like a dust cloud across the plain. The pleasure of Bad Country comes in chasing that cloud to see where it’s going to end up, and there’s no way of knowing until you get there.”
Michael Farris Smith, author of Rivers
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“A rare gem of a novel: a literary page-turner with a thrilling plot, compelling characters, and a palpable sense of place.”
Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- CB McKenzie
- Narrator
- Mark Bramhall
- Duration
- 10 hours 37 minutes
- Release Date
- 4 November 2014
- ISBN
- 9781483026336
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Crime and mystery: private investigator / amateur detectives, Crime and mystery fiction, Crime and mystery fiction, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction
Synopsis
Winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize, Bad Country is a debut mystery set in the Southwest starring a former rodeo cowboy turned private investigator, told in a transfixingly original style.Rodeo Grace Garnet lives alone, save for his old dog, in a remote corner of Arizona known to locals as the Hole. He doesn’t get many visitors, but a body found near his home has drawn police attention to his front door. The victim is not one of the many illegal immigrants who risk their lives to cross the border just south of the Hole, but is instead a member of one of the local Indian tribes.Retired from the rodeo circuit and scraping by on piecework as a private investigator, Rodeo doesn’t have much choice but to say yes when offered an unusual case. An elderly Indian woman has hired him to help find who murdered her grandson, but she seems strangely uninterested in the results. Her indifference seems heartless, but as Rodeo pursues his case, he learns that it’s nothing compared to true hatred—and he’s about to realize just how far hate can go.Capturing the rough-and-tumble corners of the Southwest in accomplished, confident prose, with a hard-nosed plot that will keep readers riveted, Bad Country not only won the Hillerman Prize but also the Spur Award for Best Western Contemporary Novel and was a finalist for a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel, and the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
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