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Fellow author Robert Crawford just honored your ol� pal, Honest Jim, by picking me as his Author of the Month. Much appreciated, Robert. Check out Robert’s Facebook author page and give it a like. I sure did:

Robert writes historically-based thrillers � his latest is Gods of Our Fathers and is available on Amazon. Here’s the link:

And take a gander at his political blog:

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Writer buddy Dana King just reminded me of a great passage Raymond Chandler wrote about the importance of a writer developing a unique and distinct voice, a style that is their signature:

“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.�

There’s a lot of pressure on writers � particularly young writers � to conform to template and expectations and ‘what sells.� And you have to walk a tightrope between carefully considering criticism that might contain nuggets that will make you a better writer and peer pressure aimed at pushing you back into the herd.

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Stellar cowboy noir author Baron Birtcher just gave THE LAST SECOND CHANCE one helluva five-star review. Many thanks, Baron � it’s like Dick Belsky always says, you are ‘the world’s most interesting man.�


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Here’s Baron’s review:


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This is Jim Nesbitt’s first novel, but you’d never know it. In fact, there are times at which revered names like Crumley and Thompson come to mind as you turn the pages, immersed in the hot and dusty Texas that is the stalking ground of Ed Earl Burch, the flawed and battered former vice and homicide detective that is the hero of this fast-paced hardboiled noir.


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And make no mistake, this is hardboiled with a capital “H.�


And not simply noir, it’s Texas noir.


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It’s cold beer in cloudy glasses, flickering neon tubes and slow-moving fan blades blowing channels in the smoke inside a roadside blind pig; the kind constructed out of cinderblock, landscaped with sachuilla, mesquite and tumbleweeds, and a gravel parking lot jammed with rusted pickup trucks with mismatched quarter panels.


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Nesbitt’s gifted ear for dialogue and eye for fascinating detail, make his characters as memorable and real as your first backseat encounter. You can feel the ache in Ed Earl’s lousy knees, smell the stale whisky in the wrinkles of his clothes, and when the violence erupts—and it does—it’s blood-flecked poetry.


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If you like your mysteries lowdown, dirty and mean, you’ve found what you’re looking for. In fact, I dare you to read this one and not dive right into the follow-up, The Right Wrong Number.
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[image error]George Fisher just posted a helluva introduction of my two hard-boiled Texas crime thrillers in his blog on UltimateLitRPG.com. He says I’m a cross between Rooster Cogburn and the late conspiracy theorist Jim Marrs. Flattery, I think. The Mule could be wrong, though. Check it out direct by clicking .

Or read it below:

My Daily Chatter � Jim Nesbitt Hardboiled Noir

Good day, fellow serial readers�

I want to introduce you to indie author and publisher Jim Nesbitt.Ìý He writes crime drama and has two books out.Ìý Both are exceptional reads, underpriced and are on Kindle Unlimited.

I’m going to cut to the chase: go to Amazon and buy the damn books.Ìý If you’re like me and have a Kindle Unlimited account, by all means, read them through that app.

Jim’s a cross between Jim Marrs and Rooster Cogburn.Ìý His writing is rustic and raw—which makes him a pleasure to read.Ìý I think you’ll agree.

Nesbitt’s first book, “The Last Second Chance,â€� introduced me to hardboiled noir even though it’s been around since the 1920s.Ìý Gino Cox wrote a review that is 100% spot on:

The Last Second Chance is a thoroughly enjoyable tale of two men on a collision course, each blaming the other and seeking violent retribution and revenge. The author is a gifted storyteller with a flair for allusions and an eye for detail that combine to make relatively commonplace settings seem fascinating and unique. The characters are three-dimensional with intricate histories and believable motivations. Some characters are familiar, but with unique backgrounds. Others are unique characters one would not ordinarily encounter in a thousand lifetimes. But they all seem authentic. The story is character driven. Half a dozen characters are pursuing conflicting goals, each of which is fairly simple and straightforward in its own right. Taken together, the story is filled with unexpected twists and turns as the characters and plots intertwine and conflict.

It is not a difficult read; however, it is not a quick read. The prose is crafted with such skill that it needs to be savored. The allegories and allusions give the descriptions a unique texture.

Another reviewer said this about The Last Second Chance:

I checked the author’s bio twice while reading the novel finding it hard to believe he hasn’t published a dozen other award winners. The character development was rich and deep. The pace of the story kept me interested. And the plot made the book impossible to set aside.

Jim Nesbitt “The Last Second Chance� and “The Right Wrong Number�

I bought the paperback of The Last Second Chance.Ìý ÌýIt’s definitelyÌýa 5-star read.

Author Bio:

For more than 30 years, Jim Nesbitt roved the American Outback as a correspondent for newspapers and wire services in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. He chased hurricanes, earthquakes, plane wrecks, presidential candidates, wildfires, rodeo cowboys, ranchers, miners, loggers, farmers, migrant field hands, doctors, neo-Nazis and nuns with an eye for the telling detail and an ear for the voice of the people who give life to a story. He is a lapsed horseman, pilot, hunter and saloon sport with a keen appreciation for old guns, vintage trucks and tractors, good cigars, aged whiskey and a well-told story. He now lives in Athens, Alabama.

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Here’s the Mule’s review of Michael Ludden’s terrific new hard-boiled thriller, TATE DRAWDY, a prequel to his first novel, ALFREDO’S LUCK:

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Like a tasty meat-and-three plate at a Southern diner, there’s something simple and satisfying that sticks to the reader’s ribs in the straight-up way author Michael Ludden serves up his latest hard-boiled crime thriller, TATE DRAWDY.

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This is a prequel to Ludden’s first crime novel, ALFREDO’S LUCK, the book that introduced readers to Drawdy as a loose-cannon, take-no-prisoners Miami-Dade County detective. That book was a sweeping and violent tale with a host of characters and a complex plot that portrayed the nasty politics of Miami’s Cuban exiles and captured the high and sleazy weirdness of Florida without diving into caricature.

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In this book, Ludden writes a leaner more linear story about Drawdy’s earlier years as a young detective in Savannah, a rich boy from Atlanta who decided to become a cop instead of following the easier and more comfortable course his parents had in mind for him. Drawdy is still learning his trade from an older mentor, Jimmy Patterson, but shows flashes of the smarts, the penchant for violence and the instinctive full-bore pursuit of his quarry seen in the author’s first book.

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He’s also a wiseass, the kind of guy who pisses people off just by walking into a room, then doubles down by being blunt and refusing to back down or compromise. There’s no go-along-to-get-along in Tate Drawdy and it gets him in early trouble with some corrupt cops on the force, providing one of the main threads to this violent tale. It also gets him shot at and beat up � a lot.

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The other thread runs through the murder of Precious Gardner, a young black woman, picked up while walking home from the Piggly Wiggly by four drifters who toy and torture her before stabbing her to death. The drifters are led by a megalomaniacal psychopath named John Robert Griffin, who quickly singles out Drawdy for adversarial attention of the personal kind.

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Throw in the double murder of a priest and his teenaged girl lover, Griffin’s escape from a doctor’s office and Drawdy’s pursuit of the killer to his hometown near Pittsburgh, where the young cop meets a crew of retired detectives who like to keep a hand in the law enforcement game, and you’ve got a rollicking tale with plenty of gunplay, suspense, ribald banter and plot twists that brings you to the final chapter way too soon.

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Ludden has created a winning character in Drawdy. Pick up both of his books and hope he writes another one real soon.

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Acapulco detective Emilia Cruz has one stylish foot poised in the opulent comfort of one of her city’s luxury hotels, a beach-front high-rise run by her boyfriend Kurt. The other is mired in the hyper-violent world of a cop trying to solve murders in a Mexico ruled and riven by rival drug cartels and corrupt politicians and fellow officers.

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Cruz is the only female detective in a squad room of uber-macho males, some of them corrupt, some of them openly contemptuous of her and blatant with crude commentary and sexual come-ons. She’s tough and gives as good as she gets, but doesn’t get caught up in a game of trying to out-macho the machos.

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Instead, author Carmen Amato has created a compelling, complex, well-rounded and durable character for the fifth book in the series, PACIFIC REAPER. As in Grim Reaper. As in a damn good whodunit that has Cruz and her tough-guy partner, Franco Silvio, on the trail of a murderous drug gang known as El Machete warring with a Santa Muerte cult that has some nasty criminal sidelines.

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Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, is a syncretic folk religion that borrows from Catholicism and Aztec religious beliefs. The Death Goddess is strongly tied to the Day of the Dead tradition and its reverence for departed family members and ancestors. It is also the fastest-growing folk religion in Mexico, popular with the poor, outlaws and outcasts.

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The action starts with the discovery of a beheaded El Machete member in a bloody tent pitched near a run-down beach hostel, the body surrounded by Santa Muerte images, muertos figurines and talismans. With its overt cult overtones, the grisly murder spooks Cruz and even shakes Silvio’s hard-guy façade. This gruesome scene is matched by bodies found hanging upside down from billboards along the city’s major thoroughfares, seemingly a tit-for-tat exchange between El Machete and the Santa Muerte crew.

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Cruz and Silvio catch the killer not long after finding the beheaded body. He’s the son of a prominent and corrupt Mexico City politician, missing for months from an exclusive boarding school. He dies in his jail cell from a pre-existing medical condition, casting suspicion on Cruz and Silvio and leaving them with the unanswered question of how a prep-school rich kid wound up being a Santa Muerte cult killer.

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The Santa Muerte angle is fascinating stuff, providing well-researched passages that give an added dimension to gangland killings. Amato, who clearly knows Mexico and its rich and multi-faceted history and culture, handles the material with discipline and an eye to keeping the story on-track.

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The author also strikes a nice balance in showing other aspects of Cruz’s life � her relationship with Kurt and the luxurious life they share and the difficulties dealing her mother, a traumatized soul shattered by the long-ago death of her husband and Cruz’s father. These may seem like side stories, but Amato deftly ties them back to the murder case and the end-game revelation of a dark family secret that leaves Cruz battered and questioning her own identity.

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PACIFIC REAPER is a great read � and a great reason to pick up the other books in Amato’s Emilia Cruz series.

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Here’s the Mule’s review of Peter J. Earle’s terrific noir novel, PURGATORY ROAD:

VELDT-NOIR: ANOTHER NAME FOR HARD-BOILED SUSPENSE EXCELLENCE

The hallmark of a Peter J. Earle novel is the vivid and evocative sense of place he effortlessly weaves into the fabric of his story. For Earle, the place is southern Africa and one of his earlier novels, PURGATORY ROAD, is a shining example of a singular skill other authors would be wise to develop.

The story is a classic noir fugitive tale of John Stafford, a South African farm supply salesman who, in a raging impulse, murders two crooked traffic cops who catch him in a late-night speed trap and strong-arm him for a bribe. Nerves rubbed raw by the pain of a wayward wife and fear of a sudden end to his career, he shoots both rogue cops dead with a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver.

Horrified by what he’s done and knowing it will only be a matter of time before police track him down, Stafford, a veteran of the South African army who saw combat in Angola, makes plans to stage his own death and assume the identity of a distant cousin to flee to Rhodesia and join the fight against black nationalists.

Stafford is a product of his times � born in South Africa well before the end of apartheid and white-minority rule in that country, drawn to again take up arms to defend white-minority rule in Rhodesia as a death-wish penance for his horrible crime. Earle makes no apologies for Stafford being on the wrong side of history and portrays the time and place of his novel with unblinking frankness and the same absence of apologia.

Earle keeps the story focused on Stafford’s flight from the law � in this instance, a friend who has been assigned to solve what rapidly becomes a cold case as his final duty before leaving the force to spend more time with his dying father. Stafford’s scheme to stage his own death is complicated by an unexpected affair with an Australian scuba diver and the return of the wayward wife.

His expectation of joining the Rhodesian army is detoured when he is befriended by Colonel Barnes, the head of a cattle ranching family with extensive holdings and saves them during a guerilla ambush, getting wounded in the process. Barnes takes him on to run one of the fortified section compounds on his ranch, a job that melds the post of ranch foreman and security force leader into one, neatly tapping Stafford’s military and civilian experience.

However, the colonel and his sons don’t buy Stafford’s cover story or his assumed identity. They’re torn between valuing his loyalty and bravery and suspicions that he is a fugitive who has committed a serious crime. Back home, the old friend doggedly pursues the cold case, slowly closing in on a man he thinks is dead.

Stafford knows he is caught in a vise and that’s what makes this such a classic noir tale. The setting may be the veldt, but the feel is the concrete urban jungle of American noir. Earle deftly ratchets up the fear and pressure while masterfully bringing to life one country well before its dramatic change and another that no longer exists. That’s what makes PURGATORY ROAD such a crackling read.

The author provided a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[image error]Check out mystery and suspense author Carmen Amato’s five-star review of THE RIGHT WRONG NUMBER. Many thanks to Carmen, author of the terrific Emilia Cruz detective series. See for yourself what the fuss is all about at

“Ed Earl Burch is a not-quite washed up Texas cop turned PI with a notch collection on his bedpost and bad knees. In debt to a shyster, he takes a job to find out what happened to an old girlfriend’s husband. Not surprisingly trouble ensues, wrapped in a great mystery plotline. Ed’s world is crude and rude and he punches through it with a pack of Lucky Strikes and a glass of Kentucky bourbon. A brisk pace, sliding points of view, shades of gray crooks, and dialogue spit out of the corners of everybody’s mouth make this series a real gem for hardboiled genre fiction fans.�

Here’s the Mule’s review of a great New West/Old West thriller by Baron Birtcher. Damn fine book.

NEW WEST SAGA WITH OLD WEST VIOLENCE AND VALUES, says JIM NESBITT who wrote this review:

At their best, the Western and the hard-boiled crime novel are distinctly American art forms that rise above the conventions of genre, the clash of good guys and bad guys and the word maze of the whodunit.

They hit this literary high ground when their authors tell a tale that not only entertains the reader, but provides trenchant and penetrating commentary and observations on everything from politics and the foibles of social expectations to music, the culture of a time and place, the frequently dicey interplay between men and women and the impact of the land on the people trying to wrest a living from it.

Chalk up Baron R. Birtcher’s South California Purples as a book that punches well above the weight of a crime thriller or modern-day Western. And let’s settle something�

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My review of Dick Belsky’s great thriller, BLONDE ICE, on Peter J. Earle’s marvelous Bookpostmortem book review blog.

A JIM NESBITT REVIEW.

Dick Belsky’s Blonde Ice is a classic, fast-paced thriller that serves up it’s sex-laced mayhem straight up and strong, like a double-shot of bourbon, easing the burn with wry humor and wisecracks from the story’s narrator and protagonist, star New York reporter Gil Malloy.

STRAIGHT MAYHEM WITH A WRY CHASER

Malloy finds himself not only chasing the big story of a homicidal rarity � a knockout blonde serial killer preying on wayward husbands she lures to their deaths � but also reliving the scandal that nearly wrecked his career and cost him his marriage to his ex-wife Susan.

The scandal he barely survived is revived when the wife of the killer’s first victim comes calling at the offices of the Daily News to ask Malloy to help find her missing husband shortly before his body is found stabbed to death in a mid-town Manhattan hotel. Her�

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