Poisoned Pen Cover Reveal!

(I'm going to get to share new—and usually awesome—covers for my fellow Poisoned Pen Press authors on my site occasionally. This is the first one ... and let's all wish the inimitable Reavis well!)

Vengeance is Mine: A Red River Mystery

by Reavis Z. Wortham

July 2014, Poisoned Pen Press

In October of 1967, The Summer of Love is history, rock and roll is dark and revolutionary, and people in the small east Texas community of Center Springs simply want to live their lives as quietly as possible. But a handsome darkness in the form of Las Vegas gangster Anthony Agrioli has left the business to hide out in the tiny backwater settlement with his blond bombshell girlfriend.

Two years earlier, Agrioli met newlyweds Cody and Norma Faye Parker in a Vegas casino and heard their enthusiastic descriptions of the perfect place to settle down and raise a family. At least it was perfect, before their peaceful world found itself directly in the crosshairs of a coming confrontation.

Back in Center Springs, thirteen-year-old Top Parker has what his grandmother, Miss Becky, calls a Poisoned Gift. His dreams, though random and disconnected, always seem to come true. This time Top dreams he’s a wagon hub with spokes converging from all directions. To him, the spokes symbolize that something is coming, but he doesn’t know their quiet community will soon be a combat zone when the gangsters arrive, but they’re after something else and not Agrioli…yet.

A sheriff crooked as a dog’s hind leg, an unsolved murder in the river bottoms, counterfeit money and a bank robbery all wrapped in a country Shakespearian comedy once again brings together Constable Ned Parker, Constable Cody Parker, Deputy John Washington, Judge O.C. Rains, and the rest of Wortham’s real and sometimes wacky cast of characters.

(Order Vengeance is Mine!)

About the Author

As a boy, award-winning writer, Reavis Z. Wortham hunted and fished the river bottoms near Chicota, Texas, the inspiration for the fictional setting for The Rock Hole and The Red River Mystery Series. He was born in Paris, Texas, but lived in Dallas. "We grew up in the city and went to school there, but every Friday evening my parents put us in the car and made the 120-mile drive to Chicota, where we truly lived at my grandparents' place in the country until Sunday evening, when we came back to the city. Our real home was that little scratch farm in Lamar County."

Author Reavis Z. Wortham's first novel, The Rock Hole, is described by Kirkus Reviews as "an unpretentious gem written to the hilt and harrowing in its unpredictability." Kirkus also listed it as one of the "Top 12 Mysteries of 2011." 

Burrows, the second Red River Mystery, received a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly, "Wortham's outstanding sequel to The Rock Hole (2011)... combines the gonzo sensibility of Joe R. Lansdale and the elegiac mood of To Kill a Mockingbird to strike just the right balance between childhood innocence and adult horror."

In a recent Starred Review by Kirkus Reviews says of Burrows, "As in Ned's debut (The Rock Hole, 2011), his grandchildren, Top and Pepper, are on hand to provide welcome humor and lend perspective to the acutely and unobtrusively observed small-town landscape. The result is that rare bird, a mystery with something for everyone.

Book three, THE RIGHT SIDE OF WRONG, was released in July, 2013, and is now gaining such reviews as "A sleeper that deserves wider attention." ~ The New York Times
Reavis also penned Doreen's 24 HR Eat Gas Now Café. More than 1,500 newspaper and magazine articles bear the byline of this award-winning Texas writer. The Rock Hole was recently a finalist in the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award presented by the Independent Book Publishers Association, is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Writers' League of Texas, International Association of Crime Writers (North American Branch), and International Thriller Writers.

He lives with his wife, Shana, in Frisco, Texas. Find out more.