{"title":"Chris McGinley","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"coal-black-stories-paperback","title":"Coal Black: Stories - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCoal Black is unfiltered mountain crime. Set in the hills of eastern Kentucky, these tales lay bare the dark realities of the region. Sometimes the backdrop is the opioid epidemic and all the human detritus and bloodshed that comes with it. Other times it's poachers or petty thieves who take center stage, people whose wild desperation invite danger everywhere they go. High in the hills the action takes place, alongside the rarely seen animals who hunt up there, and sometimes alongside the \"haints\" and spirits of popular folklore.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe stories are full of action, twists and turns, and characters on both sides of the law who navigate the treacherous, often violent terrain that spares so few. Coal Black is a collection of gritty crime stories-cleverly drawn tales with sometimes savage surprise endings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePraise for COAL BLACK: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Chris McGinley's aptly named Coal Black grabs the reader by the shirt collar and doesn't turn loose. These stories are as dark as the coal that is no longer in the mountains McGinley writes about, channeling the haints of Donald Ray Pollock and Frank Bill while speaking in a hard-edged voice that is undoubtedly the author's own. These are tough tales about tough people and I can't imagine someone picking up this book and not being impressed. I know I was.\" -Charles Dodd White, author of In the House of Wilderness\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Mesmerizing and intense, the stories in Coal Black are a treat to read, every honed sentence reminding us that we're in excellent hands as we travel into the darkness of haunting crime and equally haunted countryside. This collection rocks.\" -Rusty Barnes, author of The Ridgerunner and The Last Danger\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Brutal yet beautiful, sparse but with moments of lush emotional resonance, Chris McGinley's debut collection of short fiction, Coal Black, heralds a new and necessary voice in crime fiction. The prose is so sharp that it begs to be read slowly, to linger with the reader, as McGinley's stories explore the effects of a lost industry and the devastation of opioids in rural Appalachia. Rarely have I come across a debut so assured. This is a book that deserves an audience, and stories that deserve to be remembered.\" -E.A. Aymar, author of Unrepentant\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"These stories offer some of the best rural noir you'll ever read. They are a pitch-black journey into the heart of America.\" -Nick Kolakowski, author of Maxine Unleashes Doomsday\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Oh. My. God. Have y'all read Chris McGinley's Coal Black: Stories? If not, hasten to them. This shit is brilliant, this shit is real. It launches with 'Hellbenders' and doesn't slow down. Lord, this is great story telling. It's Appalachians trying to survive, trying to get past the mines. If that means drugs, so be it. As McGinley writes in 'These Hills, ' 'All this shit around us. Drugs, poverty, sickness. The forest is the only good thing left around here.' Beautifully written stories; this is a stunning collection.\" -Rob Peirce, author of Tommy Shakes\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Artfully crafted crime and horror set in Appalachia's mountains-with prose that hits like Thor. McGinley mines the veins of early American bedrock writers like Irving, Poe and Hawthorne. His tales burn hot and dark.\" -Jesse \"Heels\" Rawlins, crime writer and editor at The Flash Fiction Offensive\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50104759419103,"sku":"9781956957297","price":15.07,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/kMwvBJKrb89781956957297.webp?v=1781111259"},{"product_id":"once-these-hills-paperback","title":"Once These Hills - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1898, life on Black Boar Mountain in eastern Kentucky is quiet for the small settlement of farmers and drovers who work the land around their little cabins. But when ten-year old Lydia King and her father unearth an ancient, preserved body up on the seep bog, a curse is let loose . . . or so some believe. Once These Hills is a gritty, historical crime novel aimed at fans of rural noir. It's set in the hills of Appalachia, a place where spirits, dangerous animals, and escaped criminals roam the terrain right alongside the settlers who seek only to live simply.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLife first begins to change for the hard-working mountaineers when the railroad lays track to support the timber company, hell bent on clearcutting the entire forest despite the damage caused to people and the landscape. To keep costs down, the railroad uses convict labor. Problem is, a trio of violent prisoners feel the work isn't exactly to their liking, and so they decide to kill a guard and take to the hills. Guided by their ring leader Burr Hollis, a predatory, sadistic man whose name inspires fear amongst the hardest of criminals, they sneak onto Black Boar under cover of night. There they murder Lydia's father and terrorize the family. But Lydia, now thirteen and deadly with a bow and arrow, slays one of the marauding convicts and sends the other two running.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf course, the town sheriff works hand-in-glove with the railroad, and he puts more effort into protecting the company from bad publicity than into tracking the escaped prisoners-a fact that doesn't sit well with those on Black Boar. Clytie Noe, a whiskey-sipping friend of the King family, handy with a rifle herself, encourages Lydia to pursue the convicts along with her--using evidence from a tintype one of the rouges has accidentally left behind. But in the meantime, Lydia falls in love, and after a few years she marries a mountain boy named Cole Clemmons, someone as skilled and at home in the woods as she. Lydia discovers an intimate part of herself with Cole, and she experiences both a sexual and spiritual awakening that allows her to put the tragedy behind her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOr so she thinks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot surprisingly, the timber company continues to ravage the hills, and game becomes increasingly hard to find. It's a standoff between the mountain community and the \"woodhicks.\" In time, Lydia's young husband realizes he can no longer provide for his wife through hunting and farming, even with her able help. Against Lydia's wishes, he signs on to work at the sawmill in the valley. When he's killed in an accident that could have been prevented, Lydia suffers a breakdown and nearly loses the baby she's long tried to conceive. On top of this, further ills threaten the little community, like forest fires and a rattlesnake infestation-courtesy of unchecked clearcutting. A duplicitous country reverend in the pocket of the company tries to convince the mountaineers that their struggles are a warning from God, and he encourages them to flee before the devil takes hold of Black Boar. With the support of the company, and through use of some underhand tactics, he does all he can to remove them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt becomes clear to Lydia that the timbermen will stop at nothing to chase off the people of Black Boar. With the death of her husband-which she rightly blames on the company-her grief turns to rage. Around this time, one of the the escaped convicts is ensnared by a clever deputy. Lydia uses the lost tintype (in a wily cat-and-mouse game) to solicit information on the other man still at large. It works. Burr Hollis is captured and brought to jail in the valley below Black Boar. But when the cagey, deranged Burr escapes from the holding cell, panic ensues. Burr knows that it was Lydia whose ruse helped to capture him, and he heads up onto Black Boar for a reckoning.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50104798413023,"sku":"9781956957242","price":18.31,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/8sErZ0Lx7f9781956957242.webp?v=1781111342"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/chris-mcginley.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}