Thin Blue Smoke ─ A Novel About Music, Food, and Love

This title is an epic American redemption tale about love and loss, hope and despair, God and whiskey, barbecue and the blues. LaVerne Williams is a ruined ex-big league ballplayer, an ex-felon with an attitude problem, and the owner of a barbecue joint he has to run. Ferguson Glen is an Episcopal priest, a fading literary star with a drinking problem, and a past he is running from. A.B. Clayton and Sammy Merzeti are two lost souls in need of love, understanding, and another cigarette. Hilarious and heart-rending, sacred and profane, this book marks the emergence of a vital new voice in American fiction.

Doug Worgul is the director of marketing at Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que and a nationally recognized authority on American barbecue traditions. He has worked as an editor, features editor, and senior book editor at The Kansas City Star. He is the author of The Grand Barbecue and A Table Full of Welcome. He lives in Leawood, Kansas.