Book cover titled "Outside the Law" by Phillip Thompson. It features a man in a cowboy hat and dark clothing, with a bridge and trees in the background.

Outside The Law

Colt Harper is back in a big way in Outside the Law. Harper lives by his own moral code, and his relentless crusade against drug crimes in his rural Mississippi county infuriates a Memphis mobster who sends Hack, his cold-blooded assassin, to stop him. ATF Special Agent Molly McDonough, looking to save her troubled career, follows Hack’s trail of corpses to Harper’s turf. The fates of Harper, McDonough, and Hack collide in a bloody, brutal showdown for justice, redemption, and survival that can only be fought outside the law.

Featured Reviews:

Sheriff Colt Harper, as the title of Thompson’s tough, fast-paced sequel to 2013’s Deep Blood suggests, takes a Dirty Harry approach to law enforcement. In his first term as sheriff of Mississippi’s rural Lowndes County, Colt has shot several people, and his office stands accused of using excessive violence. He’s unsure whether he should run for reelection. At the scene of a convenience store robbery, a teenage boy, whom Colt places under arrest, tells him that somebody has been taking down drug dealers. When drug dealers start turning up dead, Colt suspects that a serial killer is at work. Molly McDonough, an ATF special agent, helps him investigate. Colt and Molly, who have each become disillusioned with their jobs, are seeking redemption for past mistakes. Meanwhile, a Memphis crime lord has ordered Hack, a hit man, to stop Colt. Hack, too, expresses a desire for redemption. Fueled by either remorse or revenge (or a combination of both), Thompson’s convincing characters race toward an inevitable and explosive showdown.

—Publishers Weekly

Through the deeply flawed character of Sheriff Colt Harper, Phillip Thompson explores Larry Brown’s rough south, digging deeper and seeking a truce with the interloping outside world, and Harper’s tormented inner world as well. Thompson writes about the tendency of a good man toward violence. The need to seek redemption for the sins of the past—even if that redemption is through more violence. Maybe especially. Outside the Law is my kind of book, and Phillip Thompson’s Mississippi is a rough south indeed. One I hope he’ll revisit.

— Grant Jerkins, prize-winning author of  A Very Simple Crime

Outside the Law is a winner in the tradition of Justified and Walking Tall. There’s right, and there’s wrong, and the no man’s land in between. Thompson explores them all, but it’s the reader who gets the big payoff in the end.

— Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times bestselling author of Robert B. Parker’s Debt To Pay

If you’re a fan of Justified, you’re going to love Outside the Law. Sheriff Colt Harper is an old-West gunfighter in the modern world. The action doesn’t stop.

— David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of First Blood

Outside the Law needs to be savored and enjoyed. Read it for the action, but also read it for the sense of place. Thompson’s writing is sparse and brilliant, no flowery speeches, no unnecessary actions.

–The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature