Cornbread Mafia

Series · 3 books · 2021-2022

By Ninie Hammon

Books in series

Fire In The Hole

2021

Family loyalties and deadly feuds are brought to life in Ninie Hammon’s new intergenerational romp through the history of The Cornbread Mafia in rural Kentucky. Nobody remembers anymore who started the generations-old feud between the two families of moonshiners and bootleggers. But in 1933 a carload of McCluskys ambushed a carload of Hannackers and six people died. The families would have turned the Kentucky hills scarlet with Hannacker and McClusky blood if four women hadn’t ended the war before it began. Their “Crow’s Pledge” stopped the killing, but the hatred lived on. When the county’s National Guard unit is called up thirty-five years later, the Hannackers and McCluskys take their feud to Vietnam with them. It's possible that some of the soldiers who came home in black body bags weren’t killed by the Viet Cong. After discovering marijuana during the war, both families are determined to grow it in the States, setting them at odds again. But there’s no Crow’s Pledge to stop the bloodshed this time. Fire In The Hole is the first book in Ninie Hammon's new Cornbread Mafia series, a fictionalized retelling of the real Cornbread Mafia that sprung up in picturesque Marion County, Kentucky, and grew into the largest illegal marijuana-growing operation in U.S. history.

Blowin' Up A Storm

2022

Family loyalties, deadly feuds, and international drug wars are brought to life in Ninie Hammon’s new intergenerational tale inspired by the story of the Cornbread Mafia in rural Kentucky. Nobody knows what started the feud between the Hannackers and the McCluskys, but they’ve been enemies for generations. Now that the cash crop of choice for both is marijuana, the stakes have risen – and Riley Hannacker joins other Vietnam vets from Callison County to form a marijuana-growing co-op called the Cornbread Mafia. But Jackson McClusky harbors a dark secret from the war. It was he, and not the Cong, who fired that rocket into a bunker, killing and maiming his buddies. When Riley begins to remember what happened, Jackson sets out to kill them all. It’s not just Jackson plotting their deaths. They outsmarted Kentucky State Police Detective Booth Graham—now he is out for blood. And a competing Colombian drug cartel is sending a hit squad to wipe out the whole Cornbread Mafia in a hail of gunfire. Will the death plots by the McCluskys and the law succeed? Can they survive the cartel’s attack? And can they pull off an elaborate ruse to prevent future bloodshed by convincing all the South Americans that a handful of former soldiers is really an army of ruthless, blood-thirsty hillbillies? Will the other drug cartels buy the hoax? Will they believe the Cornbread Mafia really is the meanest dog in the junkyard? Blowin’ Up A Storm is the second book in Ninie Hammon’s new Cornbread Mafia series, a fictional story inspired by the real Cornbread Mafia that sprang up in picturesque Marion County, Kentucky, and grew into the largest illegal marijuana-growing operation in U.S. history.

Ridin' For A Fall

2022

Family loyalties, deadly feuds, and international drug wars are brought to life in Ninie Hammon’s new intergenerational tale inspired by the story of the Cornbread Mafia in rural Kentucky. The year is 1978. Riley Hannacker is running the Cornbread Mafia and he has expanded it beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Teams of workers grow weed in eight states. The strains they produce have become the gold standard for marijuana. Some of the seeds, like Righteous Weed, are worth kidnapping, dying, and murdering for. But their success has not gone unnoticed. An FBI task force sets up an office in Bardstown, Kentucky, and Agent Bradigan has vowed to take the Cornbread Mafia down. The FBI doesn’t know they’re walking into a buzz saw. Riley, Jessie Monaghan, and Willie Ray Taggart tried to kill Jackson McClusky five years ago when they found out he’d fired a grenade into a bunker in Vietnam, murdering and maiming their loved ones – but Jackson escaped. Now, he is back, determined to kill the three of them and steal Righteous Weed seeds. He teams up with crime maven Mama Bert, who harbors her own dark, secret murder, and together they use kidnapping and intimidation to get their hands on the seed. Meanwhile, the county prosecutor, Winona McClusky, and Detective Booth Graham hatch a plot to trick Riley’s promiscuous wife Sherry Lynn into providing information they can use to blackmail Riley for a million dollars, hoping to cash out before the Cornbread Mafia collapses and takes everyone down with it. Will Agent Bradigan put Riley, Jessie, and Willie Ray behind bars without getting caught in the crossfire? Will any of them survive long enough to see the inside of a prison? Or is the Cornbread Mafia too powerful to defeat? Ridin’ For A Fall is the third book in Ninie Hammon’s new Cornbread Mafia series, a fictional story inspired by the real Cornbread Mafia that sprang up in picturesque Marion County, Kentucky, and grew into the largest illegal marijuana-growing operation in U.S. history.

Author

Ninie Hammon

Author · 13 books

I was born in Socorro, New Mexico, sometime shortly after the earth cooled off. It’s clear that from the outset my parents never intended for me to amount to anything. How could I? With a name like “Ninie?” Please. Fame and fortune do not come to people named Ninie Bovell (My maiden name.) Gabriella Bovary? You could work with that. Even something as pedestrian as Madeline Bovell or Rebecca Bovell or (though you’d lose points here for lack of originality) Elizabeth Bovell. But Ninie? I never had a chance. If I sound a mite hostile, bear in mind that in one decisive stroke my parents sentenced their precious newborn daughter to a lifetime of explanations that began my first day at Muleshoe Elementary School. (Yeah, Muleshoe. The hits just keep on coming.) After a painful week, I had a rap down that I still use today: “No, it’s not Ninnie like skinny and penny. It’s Ninie—rhymes with tiny and shiny. 9e…get it? And no, it doesn’t mean anything, it isn’t short for anything, long for anything, or a substitute for anything. It just is. (Pause here for the inevitable ‘Why?’) You got me, pal, I couldn’t tell you.” I grew up in Texas, got a BA in English and theatre from Texas Tech University and snagged a job as a newspaper reporter. Didn't know a thing about journalism, but my editor said if I could write he could teach me the rest of it and if I couldn't write the rest of it didn't matter. I hung in there for a 25-year career as a journalist. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but as soon as I figured out that making up the facts was a whole lot more fun than reporting them, I never looked back. Now, I write suspense—every flavor except pistachio: psychological suspense, inspirational suspense, suspense thrillers, paranormal suspense, suspense mysteries. In every book I write I try to keep this promise to Loyal Reader: I will tell you a story in a distinctive voice you'll always recognize, about people as ordinary as you are—people who have been slammed by something they didn’t sign on for, and now they must fight for their lives. Then smack in the middle of their everyday worlds, those people encounter the unexplainable—and it's always the game-changer."