The Django Jake Shepherd Series

Django Jake Shepherd brings a whole new slant to the Noir and Mystery Genre.
Not your average “nifty guy with a gun,” though he is an ex-Marine, Jake has spent
the greater part of his adulthood living life for a song. He’s seen the Highs and Lows
of both Life and the Music world and his sardonic, yet poetic outlook reflects that. A
flawed anti-hero, he is still a knight-errant, a modern-day Don Quixote who follows
his heart and his gut, even though they sometimes lead him down the darkest of
roads. His stories are full of humor, music, romance, violence, action, darkness, but
always in search of the light.

Django’s Tunetown Shuffle: A Hard-Boiled Hillbilly Tale, the first book in the
series, is set in the 1990’s, the end of the analog era and the beginning of the digital
world. Jake has hit bottom, his songwriting career appears to be over, he’s reduced to
tending bar in a gentlemen’s club, still hoping for that comeback. Just as things can’t
get any worse, he becomes a suspect in a criminal investigation that could land him a
long-term gig performing for a captive audience at a Tennessee state prison, unless he
can prove his innocence. A great read for fans of Classic Country Music, and a
glimpse into the seedy underbelly of the old Nashville most folks know little about.

Dupree’s Delta Double Down picks up with Jake several years later, after he’s left
Nashville to live the troubadour’s life roaming up and down the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts. An old friend needs a favor and Jake is eventually convinced to take up his
cause, a journey that takes him from the casinos of North Mississippi to the heart of
the Delta, from the cotton fields that gave birth to the Blues to the smoky juke joints
and Hoodoo hideaways, a mystic world where every man comes to his Crossroads
with a chip and a chair to ante up his soul against a stacked deck…and the Devil is
Dealing. Music-Murder-Voodoo-and a Black Cat Mojo bone.