This blog post is a call to action made directly to you, loyal readers. This is not tangential, though funny, information
placed in your general direction, so you can snark at Taco-Drunk Florida-Man, make appropriate plans to hide your beer from rampaging feral hogs, and know to avoid bootleg butt-injections with fix-a-flat
(seriously, don’t do that).
No, this is a direct, though possibly delayed depending on how you choose to order, call to
action.
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| Proof copy above - your book will be available for resale |
My new novel, Ghosts
of the Mid-Country is coming out in about a week and a half. On June 1, it will drop. It will not drop on Memorial Day weekend because
you will be eating far too much barbecue to read a thrilling murder mystery,
drug and human-trafficking caper, with a side of serious (un)requited love
story thrown in, just to even things out and push the story along.
Some of you know – though not enough based on the Amazon
statistics of books sold recently – that my first novel, Devils Walk Through Galveston, is a page-turning crime-law novel
that follows schizophrenic murderer from Mississippi, down to the Texas coast where
the city of Houston is in an uproar over unsolved murders being linked to one
man. It’s the story of the cops who hunt the killer in an atmosphere where ends
justify means, until it gets in front of a jury and the means are examined
under a microscope by attorneys with their own motives and side-deals that
break down in the heat of battle. It’s a
page turner. Everyone who reads it loves it – all five-star reviews. Buy it here on Amazon.
And turn some pages because Ghosts of the Mid-Country is the sequel. It stands on its own. But
it stands even better, Rocky II style, on the shoulders of the first novel. In Ghosts
of the Mid-Country, an overworked attorney wakes up in jail with amnesia
brought on by job stress and his marriage falling apart. At the same time, there
is a quadruple murder in Southwest Houston with one witness that no one believes. The police, searching for the murderer or
murderers uncover links in an international drug and human trafficking ring operating
on both sides of the border and up into the heart of the country, circling
around the fulcrum of Houston. It is the
story of an unlikely hero, pushed to the brink and set up as bait to draw the evil
closer to those trying to stop it. It
answers the questions of Devils Walk
Through Galveston. You’ll love it. A
teaser is below.
You have less than two weeks to read Devils Walk Through Galveston to get ready. If mass amounts of barbecue and beer are not in
your immediate future, you have time. If
you are going to get bloated on sweet, salty brisket and Bud Light next
weekend, then pre-order Ghosts of the Mid-Country from the publisher, SNR Publishing, division of SNR Creative: http://www.snr-creative.com/snr-publishing/.
Or put it on your calendar to order from Amazon June 1. Anyone who orders from SNR Publishing, and
wants it, will get a signed copy, just ask when you email them. Anyone who orders from Amazon and gets me the
physical book (by sending it to SNR Creative), I’ll sign and send back at my
cost.
Here’s your teaser: Ghosts of the Mid-Country, Ch 3.
Houston, two weeks before, seven a.m.
A warm morning in Southwest
Houston. Early fall and the temperature was in the sixties, summer finally
calming down. Windows down on Fondren Street. A few mothers in yards idly
glancing over at children playing in the grass in the early morning, watching
to make sure they didn’t get near the sidewalk. The street a mix of businesses
and homes. Massage parlor brothels and transmission shops. The neighborhood a
mix of Latin and Southeast Asian. Tricked out Hondas and low- riding Impalas
sleeping off the night before.
The metal roll-top door to
Taitz Body Shop was down. The business was set to open in half an hour. Four
cars in the parking spots to the side, the chain across the driveway still
closed. Music played inside. The muffled beats crept out through the one open
window of the office. Traffic picking up at Laredo Taqueria down the street.
People were walking and stumbling into the line that stretched outside. Four
uniformed policemen waited patiently for their turn. They ignored the stink of
last night’s weed on the plaid cotton shirts and torn jeans of the laborers
getting breakfast before walking down to the empty lot to wait for a day’s work.
Four muffled shots came from
the garage. Deafened by the distance. High pitched, low caliber. They sounded
like a hammer hitting metal. Hammers hit metal at the body shop all the time.
No one on the street stirred. No one in the taco line moved.
The garage door raised up a
foot and slammed down. Two more shots. A little fat man rolled out bleeding
from a shot to the back of his shoulder. He got up and ran, staggering, off
balance, to the taqueria, collapsing in front of a pick-up screeching its
brakes an inch from his leg. The police ran to him, turned him on his back. One
asked, “Where?” He pointed at the garage down the street. Three ran toward it.
One stayed behind, radioed in an ambulance. The laborers in line moved away slowly.
Walked down the street. Trying to disappear from the onrush that would come.
The three cops ran to the
garage. Saw the bullet holes at the bottom of the garage door. One dropped to
the ground, pointed his gun toward the bottom of it. One squatted down and
lifted. The one on the ground shouted, “Police.” He kept lifting as the third
rolled in, pistol drawn.
There was no more danger
apparent. Four men were slumped on the floor, hands bound behind their backs
with zip ties. Bleeding from their noses and ears. A single bullet wound to the
back of each head. No one else in sight.
The cops pulled the door all
the way up. They fanned out and checked the garage office, the parts room, the
outside perimeter. Found nothing. Found boot prints leading everywhere. Found
tire tracks going in and out. It hadn’t rained in a week. The gravel chert
around the back gave no clues. No tracks seeming fresher than the others. The
chain across the back entrance down.
The sound of sirens came
closer. The ambulance came to the taqueria and the shot man on the ground
writhed in pain, not talking, not answering the questions of “Who did this? Who
shot you?” The marked cars came in, fanning out across the neighborhood to
start questioning anyone who was out. No one walked toward the garage. No one
came over to ask what had happened.
The police found the office
locker open, emptied out on the floor. The desk drawers closed. They’d
fingerprint the dead men. They’d run fingerprints over the locker handle, the
drawer handles, the garage itself. They’d brace the neighbors.
They looked around. They saw
the ice cream truck in the lot next to the garage move slightly. They saw the
weight shift. They went over and knocked on its door and announced. It opened
to the smell of weed and a man with bloodshot eyes in his boxers, terror
growing at the sight of their blue uniforms. He came out and sat on the ground.
They asked if they could search the truck. He said, “There’s nothing in there
but my ice cream and clothes.”
“There’s weed.”
“Not no more.”
“There’s weed in your system, in your bong.”
“You’re busting me for weed
with three cops at six a.m? For real? I don’t got none. Look around. I don’t
care.” He knew he’d smoked it all.
They asked, “Did you hear
anything?”
He said, “What? The sirens?
You all waked me up.”
“Did you see anything over
there?” The pointed to the open garage door.
He stared, getting used to
what light there was. He saw the bodies on the ground, said, “Oh, shit. No,
man. Shit.” He crossed himself, said, “Dios mio.” He crossed himself again and
started to pray the Rosary in Spanish. He stayed sitting cross-legged in the
dust and gravel as the marked cars pulled up. He swayed. He finished, looked up
to see them still standing there, said, “You can search my truck. There’s
nothing in it.” He asked, “Can I get some pants?” He knew he’d be there a
while. He hoped he wouldn’t be taken in.
The man on the taqueria
driveway waited for the ambulance. He waited for the day to come to him. He
repeated his story silently in his head.
The police fanned out. It
would be a long day. There’d be many more to
come.
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