Dark places

Format:

Book

Title:

Dark places

Author:

Wortham, Reavis Z. author

ISBN:

9781464204227

9781464204241

Edition:

First edition.

Publication:

Scottsdale, AZ : Poisoned Pen Press, [2015]

Physical Description:

358 pages ; 23 cm

Series title(s):

Red River mystery.

Number in series:

Summary:

"At the tail end of 1967, the Parker family once again finds it impossible to hide from a world spinning out of control. Fourteen-year-old Top still can't fit in with their Center Springs, Texas, community or forget recent, vicious crimes. His near-twin cousin Pepper, desperate to escape her own demons, rashly joins the Flower Children flocking to California--just as two businessmen are kidnapped and murdered in the Red River bottoms on the same night a deadly hit and run kills a farmer. Constable Ned Parker wonders if these crimes are connected, but he goes after Pepper, leaving the investigation in the hands of Sheriff Cody Parker. Parker hires Deputy Anna Sloan, an investigator with an eye toward detail as everyone is eyeing her. Yet it is instinct that propels her after killers through a world nearly forgotten ... What of Pepper? Out on Route 66, the Mother Road to California, a man named Crow isn't what he seems. Lies, deceptions, and a band of outlaw motorcyclists proves to the Parkers that no matter where you turn, no matter what you do, the world is full of such darkness that even grandmothers are capable of unspeakable deeds."-- Jacket flap.

Subject(s):

Police -- Texas -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Runaway teenagers -- Fiction.

Texas -- Fiction.

United States Highway 66 -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Texas -- Fiction.

United States Highway 66 -- Fiction.

United States -- United States Highway 66

Texas.

Genre:

Detective and mystery stories.

Detective and mystery fiction.

Fiction.

Historical fiction.

Mystery fiction.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Salem Main Library	MYSTERY Wortham, R.	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Top 10 Modern Westerns for 2016 by True West Magazine

Top Books for 2015 by Strand Magazine

"Reavis Z. Wortham is the real thing: a literary voice that's gut-bucket Americana delivered with a warm and knowing Texas twang." --CJ Box, #1 New York Times bestselling author

At the tail end of 1967, the Parker family once again finds it impossible to hide from a world spinning out of control. Fourteen-year-old Top still can't fit in with their Center Springs, Texas, community or forget recent, vicious crimes. His near-twin cousin Pepper, desperate to escape her own demons, joins the Flower Children flocking to California--just as two businessmen are kidnapped and murdered in the Red River bottoms on the same night a deadly hit and run kills a farmer. Constable Ned Parker wonders if these crimes are connected, but he goes after Pepper, leaving the investigation with Sheriff Cody Parker.

Parker hires Deputy Anna Sloan, an investigator with an eye toward detail as everyone is eyeing her. Yet it is instinct that propels her after killers through a world nearly forgotten, the hunt's backdrop one of continuous rain, gloomy skies, and floods. When she's ambushed, the investigation accelerates into gunfire, chases, and hair-raising suspense.

What of Pepper? Out on Route 66, the Mother Road to California, a man named Crow isn't what he seems. Lies, deceptions, and a band of outlaw motorcyclists proves to the Parkers that no matter where you turn, no matter what you do, the world is full of such darkness that even grandmothers are capable of unspeakable deeds.

Best Small Fictions of 2015 by The Dallas Morning News

Will Rogers Medallion Award 2016 Honorable Mention, Western Fiction

Author Notes

Reavis Z. Wortham is the critically acclaimed author of the Red River Mysteries set in rural Northeast Texas in the 1960s. As a boy, he hunted and fished the river bottoms near Chicota, the inspiration for the fictional location. He is also the author of a thriller series featuring Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke. He teaches writing at a wide variety of venues including local libraries and writers' conferences. Wortham has been a newspaper columnist and magazine writer since 1988, and has been the Humor Editor for Texas Fish and Game Magazine for the past twenty-two years. He and his wife, Shana, live in Northeast Texas. Check out his website at www.reaviszwortham.com

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Set in 1967, Wortham's engaging fifth Red River mystery (after 2014's Vengeance Is Mine) focuses on two cousins: aptly named Pepper Parker, the feisty 14-year-old granddaughter of Constable Ned Parker of Center Springs, Tex., and Top Parker, Ned's grandson, who's a little older than Pepper and is often mistaken for her twin. Bored with small-town life, Pepper decides to run away to California and manages to talk Cale Westlake, a boy she likes, into going with her. Ned and Pepper's father get on the trail of the clueless hitchhikers, who run into scam artists, hippies, and bikers on their journey west. Meanwhile, a robbery by three town wastrels goes bad and two visiting strangers are killed, a crime that Sheriff Cody Parker and his new deputy, Anna Sloan, try to solve. Wortham nails the time period, the hardscrabble town, and the people, for whom family loyalties are paramount. Agent: Anne Hawkins, John Hawkins & Associates. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

1967: a fifth trip back to Center Springs, Texas, focuses on one regular's attempt to bust out of the place for good. "Focuses" may not be the best word, since once all the cylinders start firing, Wortham interleaves four different stories. Pepper Parker, still recovering at 14 from the traumas visited on her by earlier installments (Vengeance Is Mine, 2014, etc.), yields to Baptist preacher's son Cale Westlake's suggestion that the two of them hit the road together, bound for San Francisco. Pepper's same-aged cousin, Top, tells his own story of missing her while he tries to stay out of the way of all the grown-ups looking for her and convinced that he knows where she's headed. Pepper's father, James Parker, and his own father, Constable Ned Parker, fan out along the winding road to California looking for the missing girl, making new friends and enemies at every turn. Anna Sloan, the new deputy Top's uncle, Sheriff Cody Parker, has brought from Houston, makes increasingly pointed inquiries about the hit-and-run death of inoffensive farmer Leland Hale. The first story, in which Pepper fights off both menacing bikers and the folks who rescue her from them as she chases the Summer of Love, is the one most deeply rooted in the period; the second is the one most obviously calculated to appeal to series fans; the third, tangling Ned with a Comanche who calls himself Crow, is the most eventful; the fourth packs the most mystery and, despite all indications, the biggest surprises. Once again, Wortham supplies something for everyoneespecially fans of summer movies who love chase sequences so much that they don't care who's chasing whom. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

In the summer of 1967, everyone is headed to the Haight to wear some flowers in their hair, including Pepper. There is nothing to do in Center Springs, TX, and even 14-year-old Top, Pepper's cousin, wants out. On the night Pepper leaves, two businessmen are murdered and a local farmer is killed in a hit-and-run. Const. Ned Parker, Top's grandfather, heads out after Pepper, leaving Sheriff Cody Parker, Top's uncle, in charge of the investigations. Cody has hired a former Houston police detective to be his lead investigator. But no one in small-town Texas takes a lady investigator seriously, so Dep. Anna Sloan has to forge her own way to bring the bad guys to justice. VERDICT Replete with period details and a strong sense of place, this winning fifth series entry (after Vengeance Is Mine) is as much a coming-of-age story as crime fiction. This series is comparable to Rick Riordan's "Tres Navarre"or Joe Lansdale's "Hap Collins and -Leonard Pine" books. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.