What do you think?
Rate this book
Ragsdale and Walker #2
Memphis Luck
The long awaited sequel to MEMPHIS RIBS Homicide detectives J.W. Ragsdale and Tyrone Walker are back...investigating what appears to be a simple home invasion robbery gone fatally wrong. The clues lead them to an autistic teenager, an aspiring gang member, who talks to the ghosts of Martin Luthor King Jr. and singer Ricky Nelson for guidance. The troubled, homicidal teen has fallen into the thrall of cowboy preacher Jimbo Reynolds, a slick, bible-thumping, Stetson-wearing conman who has based his cash-cow ministry on ideals plundered from John Wayne movies. What Jimbo doesn't know is that he's the target of a gang of misguided ex-cons, led by a psychopathic Native American, who are plotting to take all of his cash...with the help of his greedy publicist and his conniving housekeeper. All of these colorful characters collide in a fateful day of darkly funny, brutal mayhem that's pure Memphis Luck. A substantially different version of this books was previously published as Memphis Mojo “Brilliantly convoluted, wholly satisfying. Pretentions are skewered while Memphis is celebrated in the wry, wicked and completely winning 'Memphis Luck.' Gerald Duff has proven himself a Southern treasure. “ Anniston Star “This book is really a sly skewering of the racial, social and religious constructions of the American South disguised as a detective novel. The best thing about Memphis Luck is the dialogue. The dialogue! Ragsdale and Walker are like George and Gracie, Ralph and Alice, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. The dialogue between these two is intricate and seamless. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of conversation.” Texas Booklover Blog
241 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 1, 2018
6 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 18, 2020
In 2015, I read and reviewed Gerald Duff’s Memphis Ribs, the opening book in the Ragsdale and Walker series. It was irreverent but hilarious, and although it straddled the line between edgy but funny and straight-up offensive, it didn’t cross over, and I was still laughing out loud when it ended. I figured I was a Gerald Duff fan for life. All of us love the great literary talents, but a writer that can produce a good, hearty belly laugh is worth his weight in gold. With that in mind, I decided I’d keep an eye out for whatever else he might publish.
When Brash Books offered this second book in the series for review, I leapt on it. I’m sorry to say that I don’t love it the way I did the first. Many of the same components are there—colorful bad guys, snappy banter between the two detectives—but the overall quality is lacking in places, offensive in others.
The mix includes a group of rip-off artists that are stalking an evangelical preacher, and a special needs teenager that the blurb tells us is autistic and also homicidal. I’m glad the blurb clarified these things, because although the character obviously has issues, none of them would suggest autism to me or as far as I can see, to anyone that has worked with autistic teens. So there’s that.
What I do like is the snappy banter between the two cops, which is one of the aspects of the first story that made it work for me. And the bizarro characters—the preacher that uses a cowboy theme to the extreme in his sermons, the odd teenager that appears to idolize him—at the outset seem pretty damn funny too.
But the corrupt Southern preacher schtick has been done quite a lot, and it’s in danger of becoming a trope. I might have locked into the whole cowboy thing, which is unique, but then there are the race jokes. And it’s the way Duff approaches race that tips this book over a deal-breaking boundary. Yes, I get it that the nasty racial remarks are all made by bad guys, but do we need so many of them? It’s as if Duff has studied every racist he’s ever known and catalogued every ugly racial insult for his future use. Less is more, but there are passages where they’re on every page, almost as if the author is looking for a good excuse to dust them off and make ample use of them. At times it’s cringeworthy; then at other times, it’s just sickening. I’m not having a good time anymore at this point, and were it not for my fondness for Brash Books and the previous book in the series, I would have quit reading it midway through. There’s lots of dialogue and it’s a quick read, but then it would be even quicker not to read it at all, and I wouldn’t have this sour feeling in my gut. Sad to say, I think Duff and I are done.
I cannot recommend this book to you.
When Brash Books offered this second book in the series for review, I leapt on it. I’m sorry to say that I don’t love it the way I did the first. Many of the same components are there—colorful bad guys, snappy banter between the two detectives—but the overall quality is lacking in places, offensive in others.
The mix includes a group of rip-off artists that are stalking an evangelical preacher, and a special needs teenager that the blurb tells us is autistic and also homicidal. I’m glad the blurb clarified these things, because although the character obviously has issues, none of them would suggest autism to me or as far as I can see, to anyone that has worked with autistic teens. So there’s that.
What I do like is the snappy banter between the two cops, which is one of the aspects of the first story that made it work for me. And the bizarro characters—the preacher that uses a cowboy theme to the extreme in his sermons, the odd teenager that appears to idolize him—at the outset seem pretty damn funny too.
But the corrupt Southern preacher schtick has been done quite a lot, and it’s in danger of becoming a trope. I might have locked into the whole cowboy thing, which is unique, but then there are the race jokes. And it’s the way Duff approaches race that tips this book over a deal-breaking boundary. Yes, I get it that the nasty racial remarks are all made by bad guys, but do we need so many of them? It’s as if Duff has studied every racist he’s ever known and catalogued every ugly racial insult for his future use. Less is more, but there are passages where they’re on every page, almost as if the author is looking for a good excuse to dust them off and make ample use of them. At times it’s cringeworthy; then at other times, it’s just sickening. I’m not having a good time anymore at this point, and were it not for my fondness for Brash Books and the previous book in the series, I would have quit reading it midway through. There’s lots of dialogue and it’s a quick read, but then it would be even quicker not to read it at all, and I wouldn’t have this sour feeling in my gut. Sad to say, I think Duff and I are done.
I cannot recommend this book to you.
June 30, 2018
JW and Tyrone are at their wise-cracking finest as they deal with murder, a missing teenager, and a new love interest for JW. Some of the writing in the early part f the book was a little confusing, but the style straightened out as the action started to take place. The teenager is mentally ill, and talks to people that only he can see or hear. A number of interesting characters pass through the story, adding to the ambiance, but not really playing a role. The story is so fun to read and so interesting that I sat down and read it in one sitting.
July 13, 2018
This was a formulaic procedural in which two Memphis Detectives work several murders and a major robbery. The plot is well done and the characters are what hold the novel together. The interaction between the detectives is the highlight. One is an educated African American man and the other isn’t. Both frequently slip into comedy routines with each other and occasionally with the people with whom they come into contact. They are true partners and it is well demonstrated throughout. Thanks to the Author and Brash for an ARC for An honest review.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews