Rod Davis’s forthcoming South, America is being compared to the works of James M. Cain and Mickey Spillane, and described as “a powerful evocation of pre-Katrina New Orleans and as absorbing a tale of love and evil to come out of this town since Ace Atkins and Tony Dunbar.” The soul-searching and trouble-finding protagonist, ex-TV reporter Jack Prine, was once an Army intelligence officer in Korea and it shows in both his skills and his penchant for taking risks.
It’s no accident that Davis, himself a veteran of Korea during the Vietnam Era, stays involved in advocacy and remains interested in the fates of those who have left the military. In the September issue of The Texas Observer, Davis shows that interest in his review of Making War at Fort Hood by Kenneth MacLeish, a fascinating study of the true effects of military service on those whose lives are forever changed by it.
Rod Davis’s South, America will be released by NewSouth Books in December. While you wait, don’t miss Davis’s debut novel, the PEN Southwest fiction award-winning Corina’s Way, which Kirkus Reviews called a “spicy bouillabaisse, New Orleans-set … romp, told in an old-fashioned style and with traditional southern charm.”