THE BUTCHER'S PRAYER
By Anthony Neil Smith
The inspiration for The Butcher’s Prayer has haunted me for over twenty years now. There was a real crime down on the Mississippi Coast – a butcher who killed a drug dealer he owed money to, then hacked the body apart like a side of beef. He tried to get rid of the pieces in the bayou behind his house (gators, you know). But the dead man’s girlfriend escaped and found help.
And I knew that butcher. He used to go to my Pentecostal church.
The seed was there, but I didn’t want to write the story of the actual crime. I wanted to fictionalize it to explore several different angles: what drives a person to do that to someone? How does a religious person cope with that horror? What drives people more – faith, family, or justice?
I finally realized how to write it when I visualized the detective, a fallen preacher turned cop named Hosea Elgin. He still wore his snazzy suits from his time as an evangelist, so I imagined him in his Sunday clothes and expensive loafers at the crime scene, trying to keep the blood off. He was the key to the story.
I’m no longer Pentecostal. My faith now is…complicated. But revisiting this world after not writing about it for twenty years reminded me of the things I liked (the music, the energy) and the things I hated (an obsession with “the end times,” the pressure to conform, the control the church wants over you), picking at scabs to make them bleed again.
But this
book actually helped me climb out of a long period of depression. After some
missteps with my “career,” I thought I was done with writing novels. I don’t
think I wrote a word for six months. But once this story starting boiling on
the back burner, I knew I had to try. I had an opportunity to show the partial
to a superstar agent, who called and said he liked my writing, but things
didn’t work out. His encouragement, and that of the writer who recommended me
to him, helped me cross the finish line with the book. I had thought it might
be too personal to share, but I can’t help it. I’m eager to hear what readers
think!
Rodney Goodfellow watches his friend kill a man, and then volunteers the unthinkable – to carve up the body with his butcher’s knives in order to get rid of the evidence. But the victim’s girlfriend escapes halfway through the butchering, sending Rodney and the triggerman, Charles, on the run.
Charles is unhinged, flying high on meth. When it’s clear that escape isn’t a realistic possibility, he chooses chaos. He goes back looking for a little revenge, with Rodney and the girlfriend first on his list.
Hosea Elgin is a fallen preacher turned police detective…and Rodney’s brother-in-law. When he realizes Rodney is involved, he’s sickened, but he’s got to keep searching for his fugitives. He weighs loyalty to his job against loyalty to his family.
Rachel Goodfellow is Rodney’s wife and Hosea’s younger sister. She worries that Rodney might come looking for her in his time of need. He’s the father of her two children. Could they ever be a family again? Will her love for him overcome her revulsion, or will she be the one to turn him in?
And what about Hosea’s father, a Pentecostal pastor, and older brother, the pastor’s right hand man? Would they choose family over justice and give Rodney refuge in spite of Hosea?
Hosea and his partner are on the prowl, trying to find Rodney and Charles before they can kill again, but he never expects his own family to stand in his way. Ties are strained, faith is tested, and there has to be a breaking point.
You can order your copy at Amazon.
Anthony Neil Smith is an English professor and crime novelist, born and raised in Mississippi, now teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University. The Butcher’s Prayer is his fifteenth novel. He loves cheap red wine and Mexican food.
You can visit his website at http://www.anthonyneilsmith.com or connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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