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Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories

Frank Bill

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Sep 02, 2011 Steve rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, crime-mystery-noir, eye-for-an-eye

After the first three stories (which will quickly sift out the Eat-Pray-Love lightweights), it's hard not to think of a Tarantino movie. Murder, rape, revenge, drugs, guns (lots of guns), dogs, meth labs, pot, booze, hard men and hard women, living in a hard land during a merciless time (the 1980s to the present). Characters in previous stories show up again (though in this grim landscape, you only have so many bites at the apple), as Frank Bill populates (and de-populates) his little blood soak ...more

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Apr 10, 2023 Tony rated it it was ok

Shelves: short-stories, crime, setting-us, unfinished

I picked this short story collection up during my one and only visit to Indianapolis and have just gotten around to reading it about a decade later. Looking at the back, I realized that I've read books by four of the five dudes blurbing this collection of seventeen pulpy short stories, so I guess it's theoretically right in my wheelhouse. However, after reading the first third of the book, I think maybe my wheelhouse has shifted -- I can imagine my younger self being quite taken with these viole I picked this short story collection up during my one and only visit to Indianapolis and have just gotten around to reading it about a decade later. Looking at the back, I realized that I've read books by four of the five dudes blurbing this collection of seventeen pulpy short stories, so I guess it's theoretically right in my wheelhouse. However, after reading the first third of the book, I think maybe my wheelhouse has shifted -- I can imagine my younger self being quite taken with these violence-filled stories of heartland poverty and crime, but my middle-aged self was less impressed.

The book opens with a story ("Hill Clan Cross") of two men trying to deal drugs from a motel room without the right permission, and getting raided by rivals, people are killed. The next story ("These Old Bones") has the relative of one of the dead men from the first story selling his granddaughter to some other criminals for the cash to buy cancer medication for his wife. When the wife finds out what he's done, she kills him. The third story ("All the Awful") picks up the story of the granddaughter who has been sold into sexual slavery -- but before that happens, she has the grit to escape, and in a grindhouse blur of knives, axes, and shotguns, another four bodies hit the ground.

At that point, I was kind of done with the whole hard-boiled farmland pulp vibe but decided to try one more. "The Penance of Scoot McCutchen" was more interesting, following a man drifting through small towns, picking up odd jobs, on the run from the law for the murder of his beloved wife. It's a little longer and has a little more depth to it. Next up was "Officer Down (Tweakers)" about a Conservation Officer who, in trying to help an old man who hit a deer with his truck, ends up exchanging gunfire with some backwoods meth heads. "The Need" revisits the Conservation Officer, this time as he encounters a traumatized veteran from Afghanistan who's carving ears off people. That one was again, just too over-the-top for me to engage with and was the end of the line for me with this collection. ...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Vesra (When She Reads) marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, e-book, c-white, short-stories, author-b, c, mystery-thrillers, anthologies, pc-200-299, tbr-2013

Oct 17, 2017 Keeley marked it as to-read

Shelves: literary-hub

Sep 06, 2023 Paula marked it as to-read

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