Southside Hustle by Lou Holly

Southside Hustle by Lou Holly

“Every tough guy has a weak spot, and Trick’s is his love for his son.” Lee Graham

About the Book:

When a Mexican gang threatens his son, ex-con Patrick Halloran must turn back to crime.

Ex-con Patrick Halloran is trying to get a job and go straight. He missed out on his child’s early years, now all he wants is to spend more time with him. Getting back with his fiery ex, Ginger, would be a bonus.

In jail, Patrick concentrated on one thing: getting his head in order to do right by his son. He trained, studied and kept out of trouble; now he is hoping he can lead a normal life.

However, under pressure to pay off a debt, and unwilling to turn snitch, Patrick takes a risk, and ends up on the wrong side of a Mexican gang.

Having to raise cash quickly takes Patrick straight back into Chicago’s dangerous underworld where life is cheap, and deeper and deeper into an impossible predicament until he gets an offer he can’t refuse.

If you like tense and gritty crime fiction, look no further than SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE.

Published by The Book Folks crime action thriller publishers, March 27, 2016

E-book $2.99

Print $12.99

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A brief interview with the Author

What do you love about this book?

The thing I like most about Southside Hustle is the realism. Some of the most outlandish things that take place are based on real life situations from the era, the mid-1980s. Southside Hustle was my attempt to write a crime novel that would appeal to women as well as men. Judging from the reviews that I’ve received from women, I succeeded. I like to think of Southside Hustle as a crime novel with a heart. Often, novels are either plot driven or character driven. I try to get a nice balance of the two in my stories.

Introduce us to your most difficult character.

The most difficult character to write was the protagonist, Patrick ‘Trick’ Halloran, because he walks a fine line between good and bad. He’s a thirty-year-old man who has just been released from prison after serving a term for a cocaine conviction. Now that he’s a free man again, all he wants is to reestablish a relationship with his now five-year-old son and work to pay off a financial debt he owes to an impatient, ruthless drug dealer. His attempts to stay out of trouble go terribly bad when an unusual situation draws him back into the dangerous world of crime in the southside area of Chicago.

Share some things you learned during the writing and publishing process for Southside Hustle.

The thing I learned most in writing Southside Hustle was the vast number of rewrites that it takes to polish up and complete a novel. The fun part of a project is the initial writing. The work is in the fine details.

What I’ve learned most about publishing is that you have to be willing to let your publisher make changes to the book that you’ve labored over for many months. Sometimes the changes can be minor, but sometimes they can be as major as writing out a character. There is a lot of negotiation that takes place. But hopefully, you can trust your publisher in their efforts to make your book as good as it can be. They are the experts, after all.

What are you reading now?

I just finished reading a 1957 paperback, Some Slips Don’t Show by A.A. Fair, who as many will know is a nom de plume for Erle Stanley Gardner of Perry Mason fame. I love the intricate plotting and the surprise parallel plot that is revealed later into the story. I’m now reading Suitcase Charlie, published 2015, by award winning writer John Guzlowski. John, like myself, is drawn to noir inspired tale telling.

What's next?

I recently finished writing another crime novel titled Razorback. It's about a bank robber named Vint Mercurio, who hops off a freight train in a small town in Arkansas, 1953. Vint gets into an altercation in a diner and accidentally kills a man in self-defense. While stuck in the town awaiting a hearing, he gets involved with two very different women, a shady English lawyer and two separate nefarious schemes. After he is cleared of the killing, the marshal wants Vint out of town, the brothers of the man he killed want him dead, but the temptation of a big score makes him stay when he should leave.

About the Author

One of six children, Lou Holly grew up on the southside of Chicago. As a young man, Lou worked in a number of factories to pay for community college classes. Otherwise, he has been self-employed most of his adult life. He owned a very successful band-booking agency in the 1980s and started his own limousine business in the 1990s, which attracted an array of celebrity customers. Lou’s writing career began as a reporter for a local newspaper in the late 1980s. His next foray into writing was a self-published book titled How to Succeed in the Limousine Business. With the success of the self-help book, he was invited to contribute articles to limousine publications in exchange for advertising and was awarded a bi-monthly column in Limousine Digest called "Chauffeur’s Corner." In 2009, Lou and his wife, Liz, launched the high-quality publication Keep Rockin’, a 1950s and 60s nostalgia magazine. Keep Rockin’ had subscribers in all 50 states and 11 countries. Lou retired in 2013 to become a full-time novelist. His first novel, Southside Hustle, was published by The Book Folks of London in 2016, and is receiving excellent reviews. Lou lives in Naperville, Illinois with his wife.

Facebook: Lou Holly Author

Twitter: @louholly_sr

Web: www.louholly.com