Troy D Smith was born in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee in 1968 He has waxed floors moved furniture been a lay preacher and taught high school and college He writes in a variety of genres achieving his earliest successes with westerns his first published short story appeared in 1995 in Louis LAmour Western Magazine and he won the Spur Award in 2001 for the novel Bound for the Promise Land being a finalist on two other occasions He is currently teaching American history at Tennessee Tech and serving as president of Western Fictioneers the first national writing organization devoted exclusively to fiction about the Old West Troy D Smith was born in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee in 1968 He has waxed floors moved furniture been a lay preacher and taught high school and college He writes in a variety of genres achieving his earliest successes with westerns his first published short story appeared in 1995 in Louis L Amour Western Magazine and he won the Spur Award in 2001 for the novel Bound for the Promise Land being a finalist on two other occasions He is currently teaching American history at Tennessee Tech and serving as president of Western Fictioneers the first national writing organization devoted exclusively to fiction about the Old West site_link A Roy Carpenter short story. Roy Carpenter is a blues musician in 1957 Nashville and a private detective on the side Most of his cases are pretty mundane jealous spouses and insurance scams But then a wealthy real estate magnate hires Roy to find his missing maid a stunningly beautiful woman with a terrible secret Or two His pursuit of the truth will lead Roy into the seamy underside of Nashville s juke joints and blues clubs and the even seamier world of the wealthy elite Stomp Boogie The Roy Carpenter Mysteries .