Review: CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA by Frank Bill

Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories by Frank Bill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You might try to comfort yourself by thinking that Frank Bill's exaggerating for dramatic effect in these short, tightly written tales of country meth addicts, domestic brutality, dog-fighters, unpredictably vicious rednecks, and rural ultra-violence. You might try to tell yourself that things this grim and lurid could never happen in real life. But I can tell you, they do.


This is not a book for the faint of heart; it's pure distilled essence of redneck noir, and there are few happy endings. But the quality of the writing keeps you coming back for just one more page, then another, until it's all gone, like a bottle of cheap whiskey that you can't put down and that's gone all too soon.


I got this book for Christmas, and Frank Bill just made it to the top of the "Buy As Soon As It Comes Out list."


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You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Folks

NYTimes.com

HOUSTON — The highest criminal court in Texas ruled Wednesday that a man facing the death penalty for murder could not have a new trial despite a love affair between the prosecutor and the judge who tried his case.

In a 6-to-3 decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said the convicted man, Charles D. Hood, should have raised in earlier appeals the argument that the love affair had tainted his trial.

The affair had been rumored for years in Collin County, just north of Dallas, but was confirmed only a year ago when Mr. Hood’s lawyers compelled the judge, Verla Sue Holland, and the prosecutor, Thomas S. O’Connell Jr., to give depositions under oath. Both officials had since retired.

Let me get this straight. Hood should have raised an unconfirmed rumor that the judge and the prosecutor were having an affair, a rumor that wasn't confirmed till 2008, in an appeal way the hell back in 1990? Do I have this right?

It's like Bill Crider always says: once again, Texas leads the way....