Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Missouri Homegrown
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: c. 1972
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: MO
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1972.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and veteran.
MIILITARY:U.S.A. Army, Tenth Mountain Division Light Infantry, veteran.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Jesse James Kennedy is an American writer. He is a veteran of The Tenth Mountain Division Light Infantry U.S. Army. Kennedy lives south of St. Louis, Missouri.
Missouri Homegrown is Kennedy’s first novel. A contributor to Publishers Weekly wrote that Kennedy exhibits “impressive storytelling chops in this high-action, heavy-body-count page-turner.” Kennedy wrote the book as a way to entertain his nephew, who was serving time in prison. The book focuses on the McCray family in southeast Missouri. The family makes its income by growing and selling a particularly popular variety of marijuana in the backwoods of Missouri.
As business grows and income increases, the McCrays begin to attract unwanted attention from other drug dealers in the area. One group in particular, a Mexican cartel, plots to assassinate the family and steal their land and crops. The cartel assumes that grower Jay and his nephew Jack will be easy targets. Fortunately for the McCrays, they have two advantages over the invading drug dealers. First, Jay McCray is a combat veteran, and has the skills and knowledge to defend his family’s business through deadly means. Second, the McCrays have lived and hunted on the land for many generations. As a result, they know every single wood path, tree, and landmark, and can use this knowledge to their advantage.
While the Mexican cartel forms their plans, they are approached by the FBI. The FBI is out to end the McCray’s illegal marijuana business, so they form a secret alliance with members of the Mexican cartel. When the group attempts to storm the McCay’s operation, they are immediately met with shockingly violent resistance.
As the book progresses, so does the death toll. Despite the cartel’s best attempts, Jay and Jack assassinate all eleven members of the Mexican cartel, as well as the undercover FBI agent sent to attack the McCays with the cartel. Refusing defeat, the cartel sends in its deadliest members, alongside as a small army of foot soldiers. At the same time, Jay’s brother, Jimbo, escapes from prison. With similar tendencies toward violence as his brother, Jimbo murders the guards that had been watching him and joins his family to fight for the McCay’s land and livelihood.
Don Crinklaw in Booklist noted that Missouri Homegrown is “vivid and rich in character, but he does adhere to one genre convention: the McCrays are smart and funny, while those out to kill them are dumb.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2017, Don Crinklaw, review of Missouri Homegrown, p. 23.
Publishers Weekly, February 27, 2017, review of Missouri Homegrown, p. 78.*
Missouri Homegrown by Jesse James Kennedy
MARCH 31, 2017 by ITW 0
When the McCray’s, a family of backwoods Missouri marijuana farmers, signature strain begins to infringe on the St. Louis market, a Mexican Cartel that had recently taken over the city’s drug trade, sends a dozen Cartel soldiers to dispatch the small time growers. The McCray’s slaughter the hit squad and desecrate the bodies, kicking off a war between the two crime families. Unbeknownst to the McCray’s, one of the Cartel soldiers they killed was an undercover F.B.I. agent. Jill Murphy, a bi-racial F.B.I. agent, is chosen to lead a team to the McCray’s hometown to investigate them for the murder of the agent, Jill assumes the identity of a local girl who left town as a child by blackmailing the girl’s father to pass her off as his long lost daughter. With her cover established, she is accepted into the community and quickly establishes a surprisingly easy and comfortable bond with the McCray’s. Things come to a head on a steamy Missouri night when the McCray’s, the Cartel ,and the F.B.I. collide in an explosion of violence that will change all of their lives forever and end some altogether.
Author Jesse James Kennedy took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss MISSOURI HOMEGROWN with The Big Thrill:
What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
I hope they wipe their brow and say, “Wow! That was a ride. I wonder what happens next.” The book is meant to be the first in a three book series.
How does this book make a contribution to the genre?
Most organized crime stories centre around east coast mafia types or west coast gangs. I tried to show what organized crime looks like in the rural middle of America.
Was there anything new you discovered, or surprised you, as you wrote this book?
Mostly just the process of writing, and what an act of faith it is.
No spoilers, but what can you tell us about your book that we won’t find in the jacket copy or the PR material?
My nephew did some time in prison, and spent a lot of time in the hole. He asked me to send him some short stories to help him pass the time. He read all them and asked me to write something longer. I began writing a longer story, sending him chapters as I wrote them. He got out of the hole, passed the chapters around to other inmates and a couple guards, they all liked them and asked for more. I kept going and those chapters ended up becoming my novel.
What authors or books have influenced your career as a writer, and why?
I still think Dostoyevsky is the best writer, the way he showed you every corner of his characters subconscious made me want to be a writer. Daniel Woodrell showed me that I could write the kind of stories I wanted to, about the kind of people I know.
*****
Jesse James Kennedy is veteran of The Tenth Mountain Division Light Infantry U.S. Army. He lives just south of St. Louis.
Missouri Homegrown
Don Crinklaw
Booklist.
113.14 (Mar. 15, 2017): p23.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Missouri Homegrown.
By Jesse James Kennedy.
Apr. 2017. 270p. Perfect Crime, paper, $15 (9781935797746).
The McCray family has a sweet operation going in southeast Missouri, growing and selling an especially fine strain of
marijuana. They're so successful that a Mexican cartel wants to kill the McCrays and take their crop and customers.
The FBI would like to eliminate the McCrays, too, and so enters into a corrupt alliance with the Mexicans. Their
bollixed attempts to put away these country boys form the plotline of this fast-moving, wildly violent novel. Their
problem? The McCrays have lived and hunted these backwoods all their lives, and they "know every tree and trail." So
there aren't enough body bags to handle the corpses that pile up as the raids go wrong. Kennedy's novel is vivid and
rich in character, but he does adhere to one genre convention: the McCrays are smart and funny, while those out to kill
them are dumb. Readers should know that some of the carnage gets really specific, as when an exposed brain is stabbed
with a hunting knife. Still, this is strong, well-realized country noir, much in the manner of Daniel Woodrell's Give Us a
Kiss (1996). --Don Crinklaw
Crinklaw, Don
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Crinklaw, Don. "Missouri Homegrown." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2017, p. 23. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA490998442&it=r&asid=ad29090bc15af37c7790de05c23cfc62.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A490998442
10/8/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1507504261712 2/2
Missouri Homegrown
Publishers Weekly.
264.9 (Feb. 27, 2017): p78.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Missouri Homegrown
Jesse James Kennedy. Perfect Crime, $15
trade paper (270p) ISBN 978-1-935797-74-6
Debut novelist Kennedy shows some impressive storytelling chops in this high-action, heavy-body-count page-turner.
When members of a Mexican cartel arrive in rural Missouri intent on taking over the area's drug trade, they figure
backwoods pot grower Jay McCray and his nephew Jack will pose no great threat. What they don't know is that the
McCrays have been raising hell in this region for generations and that Jay, a combat veteran, is as ruthless and as
deadly as they come. The violence quickly takes on medieval proportions, and all members of the 12-man Mexican hit
squad sent to assassinate the McCrays are killed, among them an undercover federal agent. Meanwhile, Jay's equally
psychotic brother, Jimbo, has just escaped from prison, leaving a bunch of dead guards in his wake. FBI agent Jill
Murphy, working undercover as a bartender in a local watering hole, finds herself in the midst of an all-out war, as the
cartel soon sends in one of its deadliest enforcers, along with legions of foot soldiers. Not for the faint of heart, this
book should appeal to Don Winslow fans. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Missouri Homegrown." Publishers Weekly, 27 Feb. 2017, p. 78. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA485671173&it=r&asid=833ecb2c2ab7a962b4761c3a08951474.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A485671173