The Cheating Side

From the cheating side of Boise, where locals hide their dirtiest secrets, empty-nesting private investigator Jimmy Chinden is tracking a stolen 1961 Impala when he follows a column of smoke into the sagebrush to discover the vehicle – on fire, and with a body in the trunk. The victim is a reviled swindler, who Jimmy suspects murdered his after bilking her out of the no-tell motel she owned. The body’ s discovery awakens generational demons and sets off a chain of dark events as Jimmy’ s theft case turns into a murder investigation. As more bodies drop, Jimmy enters into a dangerous world of drug cartel associates, all seem to be gunning for Jimmy as his investigation threatens a land deal worth millions and puts the safety of his family at risk. With a cast of characters evoking Elmore Leonard’ s society of goons, and a connection to the landscape that is vivid, visceral, and reminiscent of James Lee Burke’ s Dave Robicheaux novels, Appelman’ s The Cheating Side provides a genre-pushing, socially relevant reinvigoration of the American crime novel protagonist, with a challenge to pervasive masculinity tropes and a biting, no-holds-barred attack on the bigotries of the American West.

J. Reuben Appelman has published across genres and has written/produced multiple feature documentaries. He executive produced Children of the Snow, the docuseries based on his research of his true-crime memoir, The Kill Jar, about the Oakland County Child Killings. The Kill Jar was named among the best true-crime books of the year by the NYT Book Review, Elle, Bustle, and USAToday. Appelman has been an ongoing special lecturer on the issue of Human Trafficking for the Honors College at Boise State University, is a two-time State of Idaho Literature Fellow, and works as a private investigator.