The Far Empty
If it was down to cover alone, J Todd Scott’s effort might just end up as book of the year. But it’s what’s inside that really matters and The Far Empty is set in the outlaw country just inside Texas on the Mexican border. The…
Last Light
CJ Lyons immerses us in small town Texas in this cold case thriller. Ex-FBI agent Lucy Guardino is head hunted by a consulting agency that tries to solve cases the authorities couldn’t… or at least the ones they couldn’t resolve properly. Down in Blackwell County, Texas,…
The Far Empty by J Todd Scott
It’s hard to believe this well-crafted crime thriller is a debut novel. The author’s experience as a DEA agent lends authority to his prose, and his meticulous rendering of the Big Bend country south and east of El Paso, Texas, and its fictional town, Murfee,…
Last Light by CJ Lyons
Some of my favourite novels are set in small town America. Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher tale, Make Me, has most of the action taking place in a tight knit community and that sense of claustrophobia plays a huge part in marking the book so gripping….
Sunset City by Melissa Ginsburg
In poet Melissa Ginsburg’s debut crime novel, her home town of Houston becomes as much a character as the protagonist, Charlotte Ford, a young woman in her early 20s. Houston’s suffocating heat and dark corners, its breakneck freeways, its seedy bars and lush suburbs –…
La Frontera by Sam Hawken
Sam Hawken’s The Dead Women of Juarez and Tequila Sunset set the ball rolling for this popular author who takes a look at the perils of life on both sides of the border between Mexico and Texas. We last reviewed Missing in 2014, but we missed the 2013…
NTN: The Dark Inside by Rod Reynolds
The debut novel from Rod Reynolds arrives with a curious comparison: ‘for fans of True Detective’ has been added on the cover. You can understand the marketing motivation, but this book doesn’t really resemble the modern-era crime drama tinged with cosmic terror that was created…
Life or Death
Michael Robotham’s Life or Death not only received five stars when DeathBecomesHer reviewed it during the summer, but it has also picked up the CWA Gold Dagger for 2015. Though Robotham is Australian, this story is set in Texas where Audie Palmer has been in prison…