Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You (31 page)

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Authors: Laurie Lynn Drummond

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About the Author

L
AURIE
L
YNN
D
RUMMOND'S
short story collection,
Anything You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You
, was published by HarperCollins in February 2004 and won the 2004 Violet Crown Texas Book Award in Fiction. Laurie's stories and essays have been published in
Story, Southern Review, Fiction, Black Warrior Review, New Virginia Review, Louisiana Cultural Vistas, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre
, and
River Teeth
, among others, and translated into Farsi for
Golestaneh: Iranian Cultural & Arts Monthly.
She was a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction and a Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and she received an AWP Intro Award in Fiction and two fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is working on a novel,
The Hour of Two Lights
, also for HarperCollins, and a book-length memoir,
Losing My Gun
. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

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P
RAISE
FOR
Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You

“Rivetingâ¦. [Laurie Lynn Drummond] makes all of the crime novels and television shows seem like amateur guessworkâ¦. So compelling that it's difficult to stop reading.”

â
USA Today

“Tough, scary, and riveting.”

â
Entertainment Weekly

“A superb debut sheaf of procedurals about policewomenâ¦. With marvelous command of fear and sensuous involvement, Drummond sucks us into ten storiesâ¦that hint at only the faintest suggestion of fiction. Prose that weighs like a gun in your palm.”

â
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“In very few words, a short story must convey a sense of place, character identity, and plot. The five tales in this debut collectionâ¦do these things successfully. This is an exceptional body of writing.”

â
Library Journal
(starred review)

“Combining Southern grace and urban brutality, ex-cop Drummond debuts with ten short stories grouped into five blistering fictional portraits of Baton Rouge policewomenâ¦. Choosing original characters over clichÃ©s and gritty detail over simplification, Drummond continually surprises with her profiles in courage, which focus on a captivating minority on the force.”

â
Publishers Weekly

“[Drummond is] writing what she knows, in an elegant, graceful, unexpected, and completely haunting fashionâ¦. [Her] details capture us and won't let go. Drummond brings a major new talent to the crime fiction scene.”

â
New Orleans Times-Picayune

“Forget all the police novels you've read. If you want to know what a cop's life is like, read this book.”

â
Arizona Republic

“Drummond has a forceful, straightforward detective-novel style that is well suited to her materialâ¦[she] manages to make the daily routine of cops fresh and engaging and her characters complex enough that the stories hold pleasures beyond those of a standard whodunit.”

â
San Francisco Chronicle

“In her powerful debut collection of short storiesâ¦former police officer Laurie Lynn Drummond eloquently captures the spirit, emotion and feeling of her eight years patrolling the streets in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”

â
Deseret News

“Strong and wiseâ¦like the memory of a loved one passed, these stories linger long past their last breath.”

â
San Diego Union-Tribune

“Drummond is writing what she knows in this gripping debut collectionâ¦. For readers who like their crime fiction raw and flavored by moral dilemmas, these stories are intriguingly fresh.”

â
New York Daily News

“Sincere praise from Elmore Leonard is the equivalent of striking literary gold, and that's just what Laurie Drummond has done here.”

â
Bellingham Herald

“Searingâ¦eye-openingâ¦. [Laurie Lynn Drummond] is a deft storyteller. She has excellent control over language, a deep reach into her characters' psyches, and an ear for irony.”

â
Contra Costa Times

“Drummond's clear voice shuns distracting, overtly literary first-book flourishes. The author's mapping of complex terrainâ¦keeps the pages turning.”

â
Time Out
(New York)

“Drummond's tough, stark prose, her powers of description, and her subtle readings of character combine to bring her protagonists' world to raw, vigorous life.”

â
Seattle Times

“From now on I'll read whatever Drummond writes. She's awfully good: describes astonishing crime scenes with an ironic twist on the book's title.”

âElmore Leonard

“These aren't police stories, they're human stories, filled with the visceral fact of our own immortality, and touching, too, at the sublime available to us all: the quality of sharp-edged love that can only be forged in a job where everything is a matter of life and death. These are beautiful stories, beautifully told.”

âBret Lott, author of
Jewel

“This chronicle of uniformed policewomen on the job is gritty but also romantic, as high on adrenalin as it is dark with inside knowledge about the bleak reaches of the soul. It is an index of sorrows, a guided tour of compassion, and a gripping adventure by and about strong women.”

âFrederick Busch

“These stories are powerful and amazingâas immediate as Joseph Wambaugh at his best, and like Flannery O'Connor, profoundly Southern, unmistakably female, unafraid to tackle the morally ironic. This is a brilliant book. I couldn't put the damned thing down and hated having finished it.”

âDavid Bradley, author of
The Chaneysville Incident

“Good, insightful, and interesting stories that step a reader into the characters' livesâ¦. [Drummond is] so good that you don't even notice the writing. Reading these first-person narratives is almost like having a conversation with the main characters. Drummond is a wonderful talent.”

â
Baton Rouge Advocate

“Laurie Lynn Drummond is the real deal, a former police officer who knows intimately how cops work, think, play, and suffer. What's more, she's a gifted writer and a talented street psychologist. Her stories sizzle.”

âJoseph Wambaugh

“Invitingly intimate stories full of instant action and reflective thought. Written with a savage clarity of image and emotionâ¦. As sharp and beautiful as a fine sword, [Drummond's] writing style reflects an almost photo-realistic quality as she spins her readers into abrupt confrontations with danger and death.”

â
South Baton Rouge Journal

“Gripping readingâ¦packed full of taut, vivid fiction that appeals to the senses, the heart, and the gutâ¦. A book you can't put down.”

â
Buffalo News

“In
Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You
Laurie Lynn Drummond evokes the lives of women police officers with such heartrending moral complexity that I felt as if I too were a member of the force. The pages of these brilliant, utterly absorbing stories made my life larger in the best possible ways.”

âMargot Livesey, author of
Eva Moves the Furniture

“Stories that [put Drummond's] insider's knowledge to work, offering fresh insights into the lives of police officers and women.”

â
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“This astonishing debut collection makes it clear that Drummond was a writer long before she was a police officer.”

â
Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Breathtakingly freshâ¦remarkable for its clarity of vision, its quality of description and its deft use of language. Drummond is a master stylist.”

â
January
magazine

“The stories are surefooted and fascinating in their insight into the specifics of a cop's realityâ¦. Drummond is a fine writer, and her knowledge of police work, and empathy for those who live it, make for compelling truths.”

â
Portland Oregonian

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU
. Copyright Â© 2004 by Laurie Lynn Drummond. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ePub edition April 2008 ISBN 9780061732591

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