Pigsville

Lake City has a lot of heavy weather, and it’s not just in the air. Eduardo “Vince” Negron has a regular table at a bar-restaurant in Pigsville called El Perro Llorón, from where he runs El Manojo, a motley assortment of hoodlums. Negron is minor league, but across town former gangster gone legit Lloyd Frend is thinking big: perhaps he will run for office one day; he will certainly make a lot more money. Men will be caught in the crossfire between Negron and Frend as they battle for territory, not least Walt Hargrove, an appliance store salesman drawn to El Manojo by curiosity and the desire to make an extra dollar or two. Told with a tongue in various cheeks, Pigsville is a gripping tale full of sex, drugs, and violence—and not a little black humor.

The number of possibilities for violence were limitless. He didn’t really want to get mixed up in it. Then he told himself he was already standing right in the middle, favors were favors and he’d exchanged them with all sorts of people in Lake City, big and small. He wished there was another way, but there wasn’t.

—Excerpt from Pigsville