Publication Date: July 6, 2026
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.
Two brothers find their way into trouble while sticking together.
Author R. Scott West pens an adventurous saga in Smoke Rings. Based on a true story, the setting takes readers back to 1973 and continues through 1986.
Brothers Huck and Tommy West hail from East Tennessee. Rather than sticking with the family business of moonshining, they opt for a more dangerous alternative and jump into dope smuggling.
Huck and Tommy take turns as narrators, along with Clementine Webb, who manages to get the brothers even deeper into trouble.
With song lyrics interspersed throughout the story, the end result features a trio of main characters whose antics continue to draw mixed reactions between head shaking and belly laughs.
Smoke Rings offers a quirky read for those interested in outlaw family drama, Southern style.
 
R. 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.
