Nominated by Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar Award, Best First Novel

Shortlisted for the 2009 John Creasey "New Blood" Dagger Award.

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick;
Borders Original Voices pick

SWEETSMOKE - A NOVEL
by David Fuller
Nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar Award, for Best First Novel by an American Author

The year is 1862, and the Civil War is in full flame. Cassius Howard, a slave and carpenter on a tobacco plantation, risks everything – extreme punishment, sale to a cotton plantation, even his life – to learn the truth concerning the murder of a freed black woman, a woman who secretly taught him to read and once saved his life. No one gives a damn about her small, rude, unimportant death in the midst of a brutal and hellish war. No one but Cassius, who braves unimaginable dangers to escape the plantation and avenge her death.

Sweetsmoke is Cassius’s journey into knowledge, knowledge that tests him and very