R. Scott West

ABOUT THE BOOK

Based on a true story.

Deep in the hills of East Tennessee, Huck and Tommy West were raised on moonshine and family loyalty. But bootlegging isn’t enough anymore.

When they step into the world of drug smuggling, the stakes turn deadly fast. One bad deal, one wrong move, and everything unravels.

Then there’s Clementine Wynn. Brilliant, rebellious, and impossible to ignore. She doesn’t just join them, she pushes them further, faster, deeper into a life they can’t outrun.

From backwoods stills to the streets of Knoxville, their lives collide with crime, ambition, and love. Loyalties fracture. Lines blur. And every choice comes with a cost.

Because in this world, nobody gets out clean. Based on a true story, Smoke Rings is a gritty Southern crime novel packed with outlaw family drama, high-risk deals, and reckless decisions that refuse to stay buried.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott West helped transform downtown Knoxville, Tennessee alongside his wife, Bernadette, turning a fading town center into the vibrant Market Square locals know today. Their efforts to preserve historic buildings came with headlines, controversy, and eventually federal indictments tied to a multi-state marijuana conspiracy that cost them their businesses and freedom.

After starting over, the couple rebuilt what they lost and eventually bought back the same properties that had once been seized. Today, Preservation Pub and Scruffy City Hall are still standing and packed with people. West’s novel Smoke Rings: A Scruffy City Novel draws on those wild chapters of his life, blending the area’s moonshine legacy, punk rock, weed smuggling, and the fight to save both natural plants and historic places.

TALKING POINTS

• The “good-intentioned bad guy” paradox. West owns the label a federal prosecutor gave him (“You’re not the good guy. You’re the bad guy.”) and reframes it. He used multi-ton marijuana smuggling profits to save condemned historic buildings on Knoxville’s Market Square. Does that make him a criminal, a preservationist, or both?
• 20th-anniversary launch date. The book will be published on July 16, 2026, exactly 20 years after federal agents raided their home and arrested dozens of friends and family. Let’s unpack this deliberate, full-circle moment.
• Crime vs. immorality. West distinguishes breaking the law from doing something unethical. He served his time but doesn’t feel the need to repent, given that marijuana laws have shifted. Good fodder for conversations about drug policy and changing cultural attitudes toward cannabis.
• The Appalachian Bonnie and Clyde. West describes Smoke Rings as a love story where young lovers use “skunk weed profits to help save their tumbleweed town” — a useful one-line pitch that blends romance, crime, and place.