Assault, armed robbery, and the occasional blackmail: life is pretty damn good for Terry Hickerson. He's got a dog, a best friend, enough cash to get him drunk, and a teenaged son to carry him home. Sure he's a constant pain in the local law's ass, but Sheriff Jimmy Mondale's got enough to worry about, what with his estranged daughter on a tear, and the District Attorney being onto his partnership with ex-biker, meth kingpin, and tackle shop owner Chowder Thompson. When tragedy hits their small town of Spruce, Missouri, Terry's peckerwood bullshit will push the three of them into a volatile whilrwind complete with bullets, bodies, and broken bones.

"A masterpiece of dirty, down-low rural noir. Read it and sink a little further into the muck." Scott Phillips, author of RAKE and THE ICE HARVEST

"PECKERWOOD is intensely original and harrowing country noir. Ayres delivers sharp-edged prose that lands like a knife under the ribs." - Dennis Tafoya, author of DOPE THIEF and THE POOR BOY'S GAME

"Some people find comfort in religion, booze, sex, drugs. I don't judge. But I find comfort in Jedidiah Ayres." - Benjamin Whitmer, author of PIKE and co-author of SATAN IS REAL: THE BALLAD OF THE LOUVIN BROTHERS

"Jedidiah Ayres combines a crooked worldview and a dark turn of mind with a genuine, increasingly rare pulse of humanity to create stories that stand apart." - Sean Doolittle, author of THE CLEANUP and LAKE COUNTRY

"One of the most innovative crime writers currently on the scene." - Litreactor