THE TICKS WILL EAT YOU WHOLE

by Anthony Smith

Cowboy Jamboree Press is pleased to bring you a new collection of stories from the inimitable Anthony Neil Smith.

Praise for Anthony Neil Smith & The Ticks Will Eat You Whole

“Anthony Neil Smith is a short story virtuoso, and The Ticks Will Eat You Whole is the most vibrant and visceral collection I've read in the past year. If I could write like this, I'd compose love letters to the world."
–Sheldon Lee Compton, author of Oblivion Angels

“You know when you pick up anything by Anthony Neil Smith you're going to get some of the best hard-hitting prose produced today. The Ticks Will Eat You Whole is a stellar addition to an oeuvre already filled with an embarrassment of riches. Smith's writing can be alternately muscular and subtle, he can hit you with a jab, a roundhouse, or dance around and back you into the corner of the ropes silently, inevitably. The stories in this collection grab from the first words of the first sentence and refuse to let go, suffused all the while by a deep intelligence that is Smith's calling card. It's as if Frank Bill's Crimes in Southern Indiana had had a moment to think things through...and went on with its desperate attempts to figure shit out. Five stars from me, a great read filled with stories that reward the reader with each reading.”
–Ted Flanagan, author of Every Hidden Thing

"Anthony Neil Smith is a massive talent. One of the best crime writers I've ever read."
–Allan Guthrie, author of Kiss Her Goodbye

Cowboy Jamboree Press
good grit lit.

201 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 8, 2025

Reviews

[M.E. Proctor]

There are shades of Cronenberg’s “body horror” in Anthony Neil Smith’s short story collection “The Ticks will eat you whole”, but not only. I’ve always appreciated Smith’s unflinching style. He presents a scene and the protagonists with a clear non-judgmental eye that can be uncomfortably realistic, yet keeps you from looking away. In this collection he shows his impressive range in both themes and technique. My favorite story is probably “Seville”, an entire man’s life in a few pages soaked in humanity, the good, the bad, the desperate, and the beauty too. The writing is remarkable, accomplished, the work of an author who dares to give it all. This is a magnificent collection.

[Gunter]

I enjoyed these short stories. Stories of getting by, hanging on, and surviving. Stories of redemption or, for the most part, eating shit. Yet the best part is that Anthony Neil Smith makes all of it read fucking epic - guns blazing, blood on the floor. balls to the wall. Brilliant, masterly, fiendish!