Down Don't Bother Me

January 19, 2015
The discovery of the body of reporter Dwayne Mays, in a Southern Illinois coal mine, with a minirecorder wrapped around his neck and a notepad stuffed in his mouth, kicks off Miller’s uneven first novel. Mine owner Matthew Luster asks Slim, a miner who has a reputation for finding lost people, to locate Guy Allan Beckett, Dwayne’s photographer and Luster’s son-in-law, who’s gone missing. Lured by the promise of a guaranteed pension, permanent security for him and his 12-year-old daughter (for whom he’s the single parent), Slim takes on the assignment, despite misgivings. Slim must quickly determine whether Guy is a victim or the killer and, if so, what the motive was for Dwayne’s murder. The author does a good job evoking the bleakness of life in Illinois coal country, but the author’s heavy-handed attempts to make Slim quirky may annoy some readers. Agent: Anthony Mattero, Foundry Literary + Media.

Starred review from March 1, 2015

It's hard to escape the grime and grit of coal in Little Egypt, a tiny southern Illinois town with some of the area's last working collieries, including Knight Hawk, which employs Miller's quirky narrator, Slim. A lifelong miner who is equally adept at raising his young daughter as a single father and finding people who'd rather stay hidden, Slim gets roped into tracking down a missing newspaper photographer after the man's reporter partner turns up dead. The clues aren't subtle--a recorder is tied around the victim's neck and a notepad is shoved in his mouth--but Slim suspects there's more to the story than just a disgruntled reader, and he's right. Mining executives' dirty dealings--emphasis on dirty--are just part of the shady practices Slim uncovers as he digs deeper into a story that everyone seems to want buried. VERDICT Fans of Daniel Woodrell's "Ozarks Noir" books (Tomato Red) and FX's Justified TV series, as well as the show's Elmore Leonard source material, will welcome the tough-talking Slim and the eccentric cast of characters he meets along the way in this series launch by the coauthor of the graphic novel Redball Six. The violence is authentic, if heightened--there's no shortage of grisly deaths in the mines, but they're in keeping with dangerous work.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
Long stretches of this unusual first novel would seem to require guitar accompaniment. There's a lovely, ear-friendly property to the prose, which flows along to an iambic rhythm ( a great and calamitous ruckus was spreading its way ). The setting is new: southern Illinois coal country. And the setup has a sadly modern twist. A mine worker is promised that his pension will be saved if he'll help the owner locate his missing son-in-law. Slim, the one-named narrator-hero, belongs in the hard-boiled tradition: abandoned by a wife, trying to raise a daughter alone, never enough money, and a reputation for bloodhounding finding lost souls when no one else can. The genre conventionstreacherous women, double-crossing friends, greedy moneymenseem fresh in Miller's sensory-rich language. Breathing mine air is like sucking on a dirty nail. Sometimes his glee in these turns leads to misfires: a room is dark as an exorcist's jokes but not as funny. And one slam-bang finale is followed by another and another, until the reader is wearied out. But be patient. Here's a strong talent just getting under way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)