Cheating Side

"Appelman writes with soul and swagger. The Cheating Side ignites from the very first page and burns everything in its path. A truly breathtaking read."

―Alex Gansa, creator of Showtime's Homeland series.

When Idaho private investigator Jimmy Chinden’s murder investigation threatens a land deal worth millions, the politically protected Aryan mob comes gunning for his family―but the old money outlaws might be outgunned.

From the cheating side of Boise in Garden City, where Idahoans hide their dirtiest secrets, empty-nesting private investigator Jimmy Chinden is tracking a stolen 1961 Impala when he follows a column of smoke into the sagebrush to discover the vehicle―on fire, and with a body in the trunk.

The victim is a reviled swindler, who Jimmy suspects murdered his mother after bilking her out of the no-tell motel she owned. The body’s discovery awakens generational demons and sets off a chain of dark events as Jimmy’s theft case turns into a murder investigation, threatening to upend a land deal worth millions and putting Jimmy’s family at risk as North Idaho white supremacists and their drug cartel associates come gunning for him.

With a cast of characters evoking Elmore Leonard’s society of goons, and a connection to the landscape that is vivid, visceral, and reminiscent of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels, Appelman’s The Cheating Side provides a genre-pushing, socially relevant reinvigoration of the American crime novel protagonist, with a challenge to pervasive masculinity tropes and a biting, no-holds-barred attack on the bigotries of the American West.

J. Reuben Appelman’s crime writing has received “best of” awards by the NYT Book Review, Newsweek, People Magazine, Oprah Daily, Elle, Bustle, USA Today, and dozens of other media outlets. He has written and produced multiple feature documentaries, and executive produced Children of the Snow, the docuseries based on ten years of research for his true-crime memoir, The Kill Jar, about the Oakland County Child Killings. Appelman is a two-time State of Idaho Literature Fellow, and works as a private investigator.