Security: A Peebo Grizzle Short Story

by Dayne Sherman

For Peebo Grizzle, life is supposed to be simple: a good wife, a loveable bulldog, a Mack log truck to drive, and plenty of cold beer to drink on the weekends. But this Louisiana paradise falls apart after too many tickets and a personal fight with the Department of Public Safety. The conflict has him fired from his job and separated from his wife. He plots his revenge and tries to get back what is his, both job and family. “Security” is about survival, and Peebo nearly triumphs in his own wickedly funny way.

This is the first story in a series of Peebo Grizzle fiction. More stories will be released in the near future, and the full novel will be published as a print, ebook, and audio. “Too Stupid to Love” is Story No. 2 in the series.

“Security” was first published in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi Valley at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

Endorsements of Dayne Sherman and his fiction:

“Dayne Sherman writes like I wish I could if I was still young enough to change.”
--Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin’ & Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story

“Dayne Sherman’s exciting fiction takes us down a dusty Southern road to a place where both honor and ties of blood are more important than breath itself, and where even the religion is violent.”
--Tim Gautreaux, author of The Missing & The Clearing

“Sherman’s promising debut chronicles a young man’s thorny return to his Louisiana hometown… Sherman brilliantly reunites a land with its own set of vicious rules with a native of that land who, as a changed man, simply wants peace. Weaving his way through a series of complex characters and a terrain fertilized with a proud but bloody history, Sherman tells a spirited and engaging tale.”
--Publishers Weekly

In Zion, his second novel, Dayne Sherman has proven he is one of the best writers of Southern fiction today. From his knowledge of guns to carpentry to nature Sherman misses nothing in the world of Baxter, Louisiana, a town filled with a cast of characters I’ll long remember. It’s good versus evil in an intense and riveting story where long withheld secrets tear at the very fabric of family ties. This is the story of Tom Hardin, a man with a conflicted heart whose lamentations strike the deepest veins of the heart. It’s one of those rare tales that readers will continue to ponder long after the last page is turned.
--Bev Marshall, author of Hot Fudge Sundae Blues & Right as Rain

38 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 5, 2014

About the author

Dayne Sherman is a high school dropout. He has worked a variety of jobs as a grocery store clerk, carpenter's helper, door-to-door rat poison distributor, watermelon salesman, itinerant Baptist preacher, English as a second language teacher in Russia, fitness instructor, and most recently as a reference librarian (full professor of library science). At 18 years old, he took the GED and went to the university in his hometown. A member of Phi Kappa Phi, Sherman earned master's degrees from LSU and Southeastern Louisiana University.

Zion is Sherman's latest novel, a Southern mystery. His first novel, Welcome to the Fallen Paradise, was published released in 2004. It was named a Best Debut of the Year by The Times-Picayune and a Notable Book by Book Sense. Recently, Welcome to the Fallen Paradise was the sole "Louisiana" pick for Booklist's "Hard-Boiled Gazetteer to Country Noir."

His writing has appeared in many literary magazines, and one of his short stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sherman lives in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, with his wife and son. His website is daynesherman.com.