Paper: "Tijuana Mean" by Jesse James Kennedy

Paper: Tijuana Mean by Jesse James Kennedy, 2019, 9781724161628.

Someone online plugged Kennedy's first novel Missouri Homegrown and it was violent anti-heroes in the Ozarks. I enjoyed that novel a decent amount and I bought this one for work.

Be aware that if you don't want read this if you don't want the bad guys to win. Most everyone here is a bad guy except for one or two FBI guys. I suppose Kennedy putting his trio of killers in narcocorrido land makes sense because this is the same thing but (all) fictional.

Anyhoo. Jimbo, Jay and Jack McKay killed off a bunch of Police Officers and narco traffickers in the last novel and fled their Missouri marijuana farm. Tijuana has the three teaming up with a Mexican drug lord after a truce at the end of the last novel. The four of them are driving cross country to get to Mexico. Along the way they steal some cars and murder a couple state troopers.

Meanwhile, their cousin WhatsHerFace is back in MO and taking over their marijuana outfit. She takes in a couple young cousins and has to fight off a new biker gang that is moving in to fill the vacuum left by the McKays.

The FBI undercover from the last novel and her partner are drinking too much and paired with a new supervisor who is chasing the multi-murderer Mckays. FBI Undercover Woman has the hots for one of the McKay men.

Things happen as the McKays participate in a private MMA fight. Kill people. Do heroin, alcohol, weed, and pills. Ambush narcos with IEDs. Continue to team up with the Mexican narco as the narco battles against his own uncle for supremacy in Tijuana.

There is:
1. Lots of violence.
2. Lots of swagger and boasting.
3. Lots of both casual and calculated cruelty.
4. Child abuse.

This is a popcorn and soda story. This is not Rust Belt drama or Daniel Woodrell family trouble.