River Bottom Rum

For his first foray into fiction after his FBI memoir James Botting jumps into what he knows best, a collection of gritty police procedural short stories based on thirty years as an FBI agent and police officer. Not for those with a weak stomach or a strong sense of morality, his blunt copspeak, unforgiving descriptions of the players, black humor and surprise endings will keep the reader turning the pages looking for justice that sometimes fails to show up. A senior citizen with a diabolical homicide plan for her husband, ex-cons bumbling an armored truck robbery, kidnapping at an interstate rest stop, a homicide suspect who beats the cops at their own game, a fly fishing excursion turned into a nightmare of revelation and tragedy, a bus ride from hell, a pair of rogue cops who turn a street robbery from bad to worse and then to much worse, a high riding CEO living (and dying) with a secret, a mind numbing letter that sucks the life out of you-literally, and the slow motion death of a marriage. The anchor story follows a band of homeless outcasts-drunks, dopers and dealers, hookers, thieves, child molesters, schizos, and a human IED-living beneath the grid in the river bottom desperately trying to survive. These wounded and broken souls, who live each day on the edge of danger and death, are as amazing as rats and cockroaches in their adaptability and resiliency. It's hard not to take sides and hope one or the other will make it. Botting, who seems to have a penchant for losers, uncovers a world of human conflict, violence and tragedy that most of us, thankfully, will never experience. You may feel a little voyeuristic and uncomfortable but it's impossible to look away from the human train wrecks found in these stories.