It Dies with You: A Novel

by Scott Blackburn

Overview

Scott Blackburn’s searing literary debut explores the dangerous world of secrets threatening to upend a rural Southern town, perfect for fans of David Joy and Brian Panowich.

For nearly a decade, twenty-nine-year-old Hudson Miller has made his living in the boxing ring, but a post-fight brawl threatens to derail his career. Desperate for money, Hudson takes a gig as a bouncer at a dive bar. That’s when life delivers him another hook to the jaw: his estranged father, Leland, has been murdered in what appears to be a robbery-gone-bad at his salvage yard, Miller’s Pull-a-Part.

Soon after his father’s funeral, Hudson learns he’s inherited the salvage yard, and he returns to his Bible-belt hometown of Flint Creek, North Carolina, to run the business. But the business is far more than junk cars and scrap metal. It was the site of an illegal gun-running ring. And the secrets don’t end there; a grisly discovery is made at the yard that thrusts Hudson into the fight of his life.

Reeling for answers, Hudson joins forces with his father’s former employee, 71-year-old, beer-guzzling Vietnam vet Charlie Shoaf, and a feisty teenage girl, Lucy Reyes, who’s fiercely seeking justice for her own family tragedy. With a murderer on the loose and no answers from the local cops, the trio of outcasts launch an investigation. The shocking truth they uncover will shake Flint Creek to its very core.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643859392
Publisher:	CROOKED LANE BOOKS
Publication date:	06/07/2022
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	613,806
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Scott Blackburn is an English instructor and a 2017 graduate of the Mountainview MFA program. He lives in High Point, North Carolina with his wife and two children. When he is not writing and teaching, Scott enjoys training in combat sports such as boxing, Muay Thai, and Ju-jitsu, in which he holds a black belt.

Editorial Reviews

04/04/2022

Hudson Miller, the narrator of Blackburn’s strong debut, had a promising boxing career until the North Carolina Boxing Commission suspended his license because he threw a punch in a post-bout melee that seriously injured an opponent’s trainer who had taken a cheap shot at him. Miller, who now supports himself as a security guard at a seedy bar, is shaken out of his doldrums when he gets the news from an officer of the Flint Creek PD that his father, Leland, has been fatally shot at Leland’s salvage yard business in the town. The emptied cash register suggests a robbery gone wrong, but Miller’s troubled that, shortly before the killing, he ignored two incoming calls from his father. He digs into the crime after a search of the salvage yard yields a surprising discovery—an array of guns stored in a hidden cache under a floor—that casts a different light on the homicide. Blackburn does a fine job evoking his leads’ conflicting emotions and the pace of small-town life in this carefully crafted mystery. Lou Berney and Michael Kardos fans will look forward to more from this gifted author. Agent: Martha Wydysh, Trident Media Group. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for It Dies With You:
“Lou Berney and Michael Kardos fans will look forward to more from this gifted author.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An engaging tale of redemption wrapped in a gritty crime yarn.”
—Kirkus

"[The characters'] chemistry is dynamite. Fans of the TV series Ozark will love this book"
—First Clue

“This is a great novel about bad decisions and second chances. Scott Blackburn has a burner of a book on his hands. He's a crime writer whose name you need to remember, and if you read It Dies with You I can guarantee you won't forget it. Fans of Michael Farris Smith, David Joy, Daniel Woodrell, and Chris Offutt, this is the new writer you've been waiting for.”
—Wiley Cash, NY Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind than Home and When Ghosts Come Home

“Blackburn writes with the same ferocity as Hammett and James M. Cain and It Dies With You is a heavyweight gut punch of hardboiled badassery. This book will leave you with bloody knuckles.” 
—Brian Panowich, LA Times Book Prize Finalist, Georgia Author of the Year, and award-winning writer of Bull Mountain, Like Lions, and Hard Cash Valley.

“It Dies With You is a satisfying gut-punch of a story. Gritty and surprising, the small-town Southern mystery is populated with big characters that make this novel truly special. I was rooting for Hudson Miller, the disgraced former prizefighter turned dive bar bouncer, from page one, and I still want to buy Charlie Shoaf a beer or six. Lucy Reyes is an absolute teenage badass. I’d happily spend more time in this world. I can’t wait to read whatever Scott Blackburn writes next.”
—Tiffany Quay Tyson, award-winning author of The Past is Never

“Desperate people, in a hardworn landscape, with the smoke of emotional fires filling the Southern sky, that's what you'll get when you settle in with It Dies With You. Scott Blackburn pushes his characters to the extreme, while offering them grace and humility, the careful touch of a careful writer not afraid to go for the knockout.”
—Michael Farris Smith, author of Nick and Blackwood

“It Dies with You is a novel with a plot that keeps the pages turning. It’s a whodunnit with grit and heart. I wanted to stay with these characters after the final page, because even when faced with tremendous loss, they fight for what might not be in their best interests, but for what is right. In a cluttered market of antihero protagonists with no redeeming qualities, Hudson is a man I see myself in, and root for. Blackburn’s debut is a must read. It’s sentimental, absorbing, and fun as Hell.”
—David Moloney, author of Barker House

"Scott Blackburn's It Dies with You is a stunner. It hits hard right out of the gate and burns with that same intensity all the way through. Crackling prose, great characters, and a killer sense of place. Blackburn's written a gritty tale full of heart."
—William Boyle, author of Shoot the Moonlight Out  

“Scott Blackburn’s debut novel is a brutal, heartfelt story rooted deep in the rural South, told with an arresting new voice. Blackburn announces his arrival on the literary stage with a strong, right cross, straight to the jaw. Imagine if Ron Rash, David Joy, and Wiley Cash all stepped into a steel cage match and bled all over the page.” 
—Eryk Pruitt, filmmaker and author of Dirtbags and What we Reckon
 
“Scott Blackburn wields prose like a scalpel, using it to peel apart a small Southern town with surgical precision. Gun-running, fisticuffs, murder—this debut novel has it all. Blackburn bobs and weaves between humor and heartbreak with a sure-footed confidence that will make Joe Lansdale green with envy. Equal parts laugh-out-loud funny and gut-wrenching, It Dies with You will live on in readers’ imaginations long after the last page.” 
—J.G. Hetherton, author of Last Girl Gone

“Scott Blackburn’s It Dies With You is a southpaw of a thriller that starts with a slow burn, stuns with a one-two punch of family drama and murder, lands a hook into small-town politics, and closes with an uppercut of an ending. With the most unusual sidekicks this side of a Stephen King novel, ex-boxer Hudson Miller must deal with the legacies left by his father’s death—if he survives. As a writer of Southern rural noir, Blackburn is one to watch.”
—Christopher Swann, author of A Fire in the Night

From the Publisher

2022-03-16
An unexpected inheritance from his father thrusts an ordinary Joe into a shady criminal world.

After a post-prizefight brawl leads to a suspension for rising North Carolina boxer Hudson Miller, he decides to keep body and soul together by taking a job as a bouncer at the Red Door Taproom. The news that Hudson’s father, Leland, has been shot and killed in an apparent botched robbery hits Hudson hard despite their estrangement. And why had Leland called the night before? Visits to Mom and to Tammy, Dad’s coarse, chain-smoking wife, produce few answers, but the police offer a more complete picture of the murder scene as well as the speculation that Leland, who ran a salvage yard in rural Flint Creek, may have had a side hustle as a gun dealer. When Hudson inherits Miller's Pull-a-Part, he decides that his current dead-end situation makes it worth a try to run it himself, especially since Leland’s old pal Charlie is there to shepherd him. Hudson’s smoothly flowing first-person narrative allows the reader to explore a hardscrabble new world full of sleazy characters in tandem with him. The appeal of Blackburn’s debut novel rests mostly on the Everyman credentials of its two-fisted hero as he navigates the hard knocks life has thrown his way. Mystery fans may be disappointed, though, that the criminal aspects of his story simmer slowly and come to fruition only gradually. A last-minute subplot involving feisty Lucy Reyes provides a welcome jolt of adrenaline and hints at further adventures for Hudson.

An engaging tale of redemption wrapped in a gritty crime yarn.

Kirkus Reviews