God, drugs, corruption, and morality come together in this gripping tale of desperation. In Gasconade County, Missouri - once called the meth capital of the world - Deputy Sheriff Dale Banks discovers $52,000 hidden in the broken-down trailer that Jerry Dean Skaggs uses for cooking crystal. And he takes it. Banks knows what he did was wrong, but he did it for all the right reasons. At least, he thinks so. But for every wrong, there is a consequence. Jerry Dean can't afford to lose that $52,000 - he owes it to his partners and to a crooked cop. He also can't afford to disappoint the crazed and fearsome Reverend Butch Pogue, who is expecting Jerry Dean to deliver the chemicals the reverend needs for his next batch of meth. To avoid the holy man's wrath, Jerry Dean sets in motion a series of events that will threaten Banks's family, his life, and everything he thinks he knows about the world.
"Matthew McBride's new novel, A Swollen Red Sun, is rough and ready suspense, encompassing a wide array of characters from the sour side of life, and smashing them together with vigorous and blunt prose."
Daniel Woodrell, author of The Maid's Version and Winter's Bone
"The words practically vibrate off the page in Matthew McBride's amped-up and intricately plotted novel about meth freaks and dirty cops, A Swollen Red Sun. Filled with scenes of both tremendous brutality and heartrending compassion, it is the best fictional depiction of the current drug epidemic raging across the Midwest that I have ever read."
Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff and The Devil All the Time
