Shifty’s Boys By Chris Offutt

Army cop-turned-small-town-investigator Mick Hardin returns to the Kentucky hills in this second vividly atmospheric thriller from acclaimed literary crime novelist Chris Offutt.

A literary master across genres, award-winning author Chris Offutt’s latest book, Shifty’s Boys, is a compelling, propulsive thriller that returns to Appalachia.

Mick Hardin is an Army CID officer home on leave, recovering from an IED attack and flirting with prescription painkillers, when a body is found in the center of town. It’s Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard. But when Barney’s mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, it seems there’s more to the killing than it seems. Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers, and getting out of town–and most of all, staying out of the way of his sister Linda’s reelection as Sheriff–but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he’s getting shot at himself.

A dark, pacy crime novel about grief and revenge, and the surprises hidden below the surface, Shifty’s Boys is a tour de force that confirms Chris Offutt’s Mick Hardin as one of the most appealing new investigators in fiction.