Read It! – Yellow Medicine

Like tough-guy anti-heroes? They don’t come much tougher or more morally ambiguous than Deputy Billy Lafitte.

I asked Kent Gowran to recommend a few good crime novels a while back, and Yellow Medicine by Anthony Neil Smith was on the list. I ordered it, read it, loved it. Smith’s first-person narrative is top-notch, providing a great picture of Lafitte’s character as well as sucking the reader into the story. The plot and action pull no punches, and my horror readers who enjoy a good thriller would do well to pick this one up.

The plot itself is simple: terrorists come to small-town America. Lafitte bends the law to his advantage from time to time, and when an old partner from New Orleans tells the members of a terror cell that Lafitte can help them make inroads into the meth trade, they waste no time proving they mean business. Lafitte soon finds himself stuck between the feds and the terrorists, but he’s not one to waste time catering to either.

I’d like to see this one hit the big screen, too. It reminds me a bit of Fargo and A Simple Plan, but it would hold its own. Assuming, of course, the Lafitte character makes it through the studio intact…

Give it a read, folks. You won’t be disappointed.