Holding Smoke
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The final novel in Steph Post's acclaimed Judah Cannon trilogy
Judah Cannon. Sister Tulah. It all comes down to this.
Before the final showdown with Tulah Atwell, the Pentecostal preacher responsible for his father’s death and his own return to a life of crime, however, Judah still has a few more fires to walk through. The dust may have settled after the shootout that left a string of bodies—including that of ATF agent Clive Grant and drug runner Everett Weaver—in its wake, but that doesn’t mean a quiet life is on the horizon for Judah, his girlfriend Ramey, and his two brothers, Benji and Levi.
A power struggle within the Cannon family soon erupts, placing Judah in debt to Sukey Lewis, a crime matriarch from across the creek, just as an irresistible scheme to steal a thoroughbred stud stallion falls into the Cannons’ lap. Trying to solve all their problems with a single heist, Judah agrees to trust Dinah, an enigmatic drifter, even as Ramey’s faith in him begins to waver.
While Sister Tulah returns to her old tricks, running a swampland scheme and intimidating everyone in her path, and Brother Felton returns to Florida a changed man with a mystic mission, Judah finds the foundation of his family crumbling and only hard choices in sight. Will Judah and Ramey survive Sister Tulah—and the darkness within their own hearts—or are such dreams impossible in Bradford County, nothing more than holding smoke?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The terrific conclusion to Post's Florida crime trilogy (after 2017's Walk in the Fire) finds Judah Cannon released from jail five months after a dramatic gunfight that left an ATF agent and a competing drug runner among the dead. As Cannon emerges ready to assume the lead of his family's underworld enterprises, his longtime love, Ramey Barrow, must decide whether she's ready to follow him down an increasingly violent, criminal path. Meanwhile, Judah's brother, Levi, has made a rash move that has put the Cannon clan in debt to crime boss Sukey Lewis. Desperate to repay the debt and avoid an unnecessary war, Judah agrees to participate in an ill-advised scheme to steal and ransom a thoroughbred horse. In the background is Sister Tulah Atwell, the psychotic Pentecostal preacher responsible for Judah's father's death. Atwell has a new lucrative online scam selling worthless Florida swampland and has plans to crush the Cannon clan for good. At the heart of this memorable cast is Brother Felton, Sister Tulah's snake-obsessed nephew, who returns after disappearing into the swamps a changed man with a new vision. A born storyteller, Post expertly weaves these disparate plot strands into a wholly satisfying if inevitable ending.