The Weakley County Examiner

Shannon Taylor
CEO/Publisher

After spending 19 years as an investigator with the Weakley County Sheriff’s Department, Eric Smith is telling a different kind of story.

Smith, who now works in security, has released his first crime novel, County Law, a fast-paced thriller set in Weakley County that draws on his years of experience in law enforcement. While the story is fictional, Smith said many of the conversations, situations and emotions throughout the novel were inspired by real experiences from his career.

Many residents already know Smith as the author of the children’s book Sheriff Smith and Justice Investigates the Bedroom Monster and as the founder of the nonprofit Shop with Sheriff Smith and Justice. The program, launched in 2016, has helped provide Christmas gifts for hundreds of Weakley County children through annual fundraising efforts and a community shopping event involving local law enforcement agencies and volunteers.

Now, Smith has turned his attention to adult fiction.

County Law follows county narcotics investigator Silas Boone, whose routine methamphetamine investigation takes a deadly turn after a confidential informant is executed, a deputy is kidnapped and murdered, and Boone’s own family becomes a target. Faced with impossible choices, Boone is forced to decide how far he is willing to go to protect the people he loves.

Smith said the idea for the novel grew out of years spent investigating narcotics cases.

“I always had in the back of my mind, ‘What if they came to my house? What if they tried to hurt my family?’” Smith said. “I was always paying attention, always thinking about those possibilities. Eventually, I thought it would make a pretty good book.”

Although the novel is fiction, Smith intentionally kept the story grounded in situations that could realistically happen.

“I wanted officers to read it and think, ‘That probably could happen,’” he said. “I didn’t want to get too far-fetched with the action.”

Unlike many crime novels that take place in fictional towns, Smith chose to set his story in Weakley County.

“I thought it would be cool to have a story based in Weakley County or West Tennessee,” he said. “You always hear stories set in New York or California. I wanted people to read about Weakley County.”

While readers will recognize the county as the setting, Smith said he created fictional roads, businesses and many of the characters to avoid portraying real people. However, a few familiar names and personalities inspired characters throughout the novel, and some stories woven into the book are based on actual experiences from his years in law enforcement.

Smith hopes the cinematic style of the novel will one day attract the attention of film producers.

“I wanted it to read like a movie,” he said. “My hope is that eventually some producer reads this and thinks it would make a really good movie.”

The project has already grown beyond a single book.

Smith said a second installment in the series is nearly complete and that he had already begun writing it while finishing the editing process for County Law.

County Law is available in Kindle, paperback and hardcover editions through Amazon. An audiobook version is also available on Spotify.