Billy Lafitte, former Deputy-Sheriff and motorcycle gang enforcer, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. For some of his enemies, that’s still not enough punishment. Agents Colleen Hartle and Franklin Rome want Lafitte dead so bad, they’ve put a price on his head - eighteen grand to the first prisoner who takes him out. Gang leader Ri’Chess and Head Prison Guard Garner want to collect, and they don’t mind who gets run over while they try - like inmate Bryce West, a pawn for whoever hurts him the most. Lafitte’s church-going ex-mother-in-law believes in redemption... for everyone except Billy, perhaps. But she still believes a son has a right to see the truth about his father, so she brings his boy Ham for what she expects to be their final visit. When they all converge on a half-finished prison on the North Dakota prairie during a blizzard, something bad is bound to happen. The third chapter of the Billy Lafitte saga (following Yellow Medicine and Hogdoggin’) tests the limits of everyone whose life revolves around this man and all his deeds. He’s a shadow of his former self, but he still fights to survive, if only for spite. Sometimes, being the baddest ass of them all isn’t worth it. Praise for THE BADDEST ASS: “It’s gonna get bad up in here and it’s gonna get sad and it’s gonna get just plain nasty. Right now, this sits at the top of my ‘Best Thrillers of 2013.’” —Les Edgerton, author of The Rapist, The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping and others “There are going to be the hardcore crowd who fucking love it, and there are going to be people who will never buy Smith’s stuff again…I think it’s a tremendous novel, the kind of book that would never be published by NY, one of those nasty little underground books that people hold onto with both hands.” —Ray Banks, author of the Cal Innes novels and the Farrell & Cobb books