Description
FACT ...in 1989, federal authorities cracked the Cornbread Mafia, the largest domestic marijuana growing operation in American history, capturing 182 tons of pot with a street value of $400 million. Federal marshals arrested 56 men in five states...but they all came from one small town in Kentucky. ALSO FACT . ..in 1989 I ran the newspaper in that small town. I saw with my own eyes the incredible destructive power of greed and easy money when I covered the Cornbread Mafia story, which quickly became national news, on front pages from coast to coast. In the decades after I left that newspaper, after I left journalism behind and became a novelist, the seed of a story from that time took root and began to grow. Even though it would be set in the 1980s, I wanted it to feel contemporary. Women would relate to Sarabeth Bingham but I wanted it to be more than women's fiction. I wanted to write the kind of mystery thrillers and suspense story that would grip the hearts of men, too, a crime drama for people of all ages and backgrounds based on the true story of the Cornbread Mafia empire.xa0 Books like The Barrel Murder convinced me that Ixa0could weave the history of a crime with fiction and braid the two into a gripping tale. From the Inside Flap Marijuana trials where the jury refuses to find the defendant guilty of a crime.xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 A sheriff, prosecutor and judge fed up and worn out with the lack of action and the obstruction of justice.xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 Little kids who accidentally stumble into an incredible mystery--who left a pile of money on the floor of an abandoned building?xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 A doper whose defense in court is turtle fishing.xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 Suicides on the riverbank. Bessie Bingo. Small town Christmas parades.xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 All these things are FACT, too.xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 They really happened in the community where Ninie Hammon ran the newspaper. She took these facts and weaved them with fiction to produce Home Grown. Sarabeth Bingham is a college journalism professor who comes home to take over her father's weekly newspaper when he is murdered, only to discover that crime and marijuana growing's big money have corrupted the idyllic little Kentucky town where she grew up. Is a woman who's never run a newspaper tough and brave enough to take action, to stand up the the dope-growers and rescue her community. Bubba Jamison is the biggest dope-grower in the county--not a decent man that greed and vice corrupted but a caged monster that wealth and power set free. A hulking giant whose cunning shrouds an unspeakable mystery, will Buibba's monstrous plan save his criminal empire? Billy Joe Reynolds is a simple farmer who had no idea marijuana's easy money would breed evil like a fly breeds maggots. The loving husband and devoted father made one bad choice and now he must decide if he's willing to pay a terrible price to protect what's left of his shattered family. Seth McAllister owns a historic bourbon distillery that's been in his family for five generations. Can he keep the beautiful newspaper editor from discovering the secret of his business's financial success? Can he keep the sputtering flames of their romance burning? If Ninie Hammon had to choose between telling stories and eating, she would starve to death. Ninie spent a quarter of a century as a journalist before she tried her hand at writing mystery, thrillers and suspense novels and women's fiction and discovered it was a whole lot more fun to turn the stories she'd covered over the years into crime drama and contemporary fiction than to report the facts. Since then, she has published axa0 biography, God Said Yes, and six novels: Sudan, The Memory Closet, Home Grown, Five Days in May, Black Sunshine and The Last Safe Place. Her seventh novel, When Butterflies Cry, will be released in the fall of 2014. Some are contemporary novels about women, others explore the pain buried in the hearts of men. Some are historical suspense or crime thrillers based on the realities from her newspaper days and all are fast-paced, and deeply moving tales. But however diverse, they all share one characteristic: they are peopled with gloriously complex characters who drag the reader into the story to live it with them. A small town girl from Muleshoe, Texas, Ninie now lives a mildly vagabond life. She and her husband, Tom, travel between their home in Louisville, KY and one in the village of Great Linford in Buckinghamshire north of London where Tom directs Young Life in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scandinavia. The couple has six children and eight grandchildren. Read more
Features & Highlights
- DON'T MESS WITH A WOMAN WHO BUYS INK BY THE BARREL
- FACT...
- In 1989, federal authorities busted what they called the Cornbread Mafia, the largest domestic marijuana growing operation in American history. They confiscated 182 tons of pot with a street value--in 1989!--of $400 million. Federal marshals arrested 56 men in 5 states...but they all came from one small town in Kentucky.
- FICTION...
- Somebody murdered Jim Bingham, shot him dead in front of his own newspaper office in the small town of Brewster, and now his heartbroken daughter must abandon the world of academic journalism for the real world of running the newspaper he left behind. But Sarabeth Bingham soon discovers that marijuana-growing has corrupted the idyllic small town where she grew up. The sheriff can't get a marijuana conviction because the county's jury pool is tainted. Her cousin grows weed and has lost his wife and daughter to the world of drugs. Sarabeth finds herself falling for a handsome bourbon distillery owner she's convinced is financing his business with dope money. And a ruthless farmer named Bubba Jamison will do anything--absolutely
- anything
- --to protect his empire. After 3 children find dope money in an abandoned building and the dopers kidnap them to get it back, Sarabeth heeds the words on the plaque that has hung above her father's desk for as long as she can remember: "Don't mess with a man who buys ink by the barrel!" In a blazing front-page editorial in the next issue of the
- Callison County Tribune,
- Sarabeth declares war on the marijuana-growing industry! Now, the growers have to shut Sarabeth up and she soon learns a terrifying lesson: dopers fight dirty.
- * * *
- Home Grown isn't the true story of the rise and fall of the Cornbread Mafia, not from a historical perspective; thrillers like this are too intricately woven to stick to the facts. But the novel is as real as what actually did happen, a mystery thrillers and suspense story with a female protagonist who grabs the reader by the lapels and drags him into the action to live it with her. Sarabeth Bingham isn't the stereotypical heroine of sappy contemporary women's fiction. She is flawed, human and real. She has multiple sclerosis and a past filled with the kind of pain that's the mortar for building walls. Home Grown gives crime fiction a heart--and the face of a red-haired woman who didn't set out to be a hero.
- READERS
- praise
- Home Grown
- (
- Goodreads and
- Amazon.com)
- Her books will entertain you and keep you flipping the pages. She pulls no punches, and no characters are safe. But she will also move you emotionally. This is the 4th Hammon novel I've read, and I can't wait for her 5th. Bestselling author Eric Wilson, Top 100 Amazon Reviewer
- Her books will entertain you and keep you flipping the pages. She pulls no punches, and no characters are safe. But she will also move you emotionally. This is the 4th Hammon novel I've read, and I can't wait for her 5th.
- Bestselling author Eric Wilson, Top 100 Amazon Reviewer
- Ninie has a way of sharing the real happenings of that time period through fiction and protecting the real people involved. I know because I live in the small town she wrote about. ohsolma
- Ninie has a way of sharing the real happenings of that time period through fiction and protecting the real people involved. I know because I live in the small town she wrote about.
- ohsolma
- Mystery, thrillers and suspense stories and historical thrillers are the genres I most enjoy, and Home Grown has a reality and believability that's rare in crime fiction. I felt like I knew Bubba Jamison and I wanted to choke him. I hurt for the children caught up in it all. The novel may be billed as women's fiction, but I'm a man and it's one of the best dramas I've ever read. B.J. Frye
- Mystery, thrillers and suspense stories and historical thrillers are the genres I most enjoy, and Home Grown has a reality and believability that's rare in crime fiction. I felt like I knew Bubba Jamison and I wanted to choke him. I hurt for the children caught up in it all. The novel may be billed as women's fiction, but I'm a man and it's one of the best dramas I've ever read
- . B.J. Frye
- The fact that this book is fiction, but based on events that actually took place makes it all the more gripping. I was hooked from the very first chapter. This is the first book of Hammon's that I have read. I shall definitely be reading her others. Shirley Ford
- The fact that this book is fiction, but based on events that actually took place makes it all the more gripping. I was hooked from the very first chapter. This is the first book of Hammon's that I have read. I shall definitely be reading her others.
- Shirley Ford
- Home Grown is based on a true story from 30 years ago but the greed and evil felt very contemporary. Women will identify with the female protagonist, Sarabeth Bingham because she's no superwoman. Her vulnerability moves the book beyond typical crime fiction. Sarah Bridges
- Home Grown is based on a true story from 30 years ago but the greed and evil felt very contemporary. Women will identify with the female protagonist, Sarabeth Bingham because she's no superwoman. Her vulnerability moves the book beyond typical crime fiction.
- Sarah Bridges
