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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 right here �� this book is more of the latter than it is the former, although enough bad deeds, violence and mayhem take place to give it a hard-boiled edge.

At the heart of Birtcher’s grim tale is rancher Ty Dawson, a Korean War veteran with a dark and troubled history that is obliquely hinted at. He wants to be left alone to punch cattle on his family ranch, the Double Diamond, tucked in the river valleys and mountains of southern Oregon and fictional Meriwether County. And those cattle are what give the novel its title �� a breed so deeply black they have a purplish tint when the sun hits them just right.

Dawson is old school in his ranching �� wouldn’t be caught dead rounding up cattle with a chopper. A third-generation rancher, he’s also old school in his sense of duty to his family, the land and the way of life he and his neighbors have carved from this special place.

Those values set him up to be badgered by a smarmy sheriff into taking on a job he doesn’t want �� the deputized lawman charged with keeping the peace in the southern end of the county. The sheriff is cagey and plays up the threat of bikers, dope dealers and violent agitators drawn to a grassroots protest over a Bureau of Land Management roundup of wild mustangs for sale and almost certain slaughter.

The story is set in 1973, the year Saigon fell and the American economy was poleaxed by the Arab oil embargo. President Richard Nixon was caught in the glare of the Watergate scandal and federal agents and Native Americans clashed during the bloody occupation of the Wounded Knee, South Dakota reservation by the American Indian Movement.

The Kennedys and Martin Luther King are dead and America is torn ragged by a decade of often-violent turmoil over the Vietnam war and civil rights. It was a time when Americans were sharply divided and learned to distrust their leaders, turning deeply cynical about the country’s future.

This is where Birtcher hits the high ground, in the telling of these events through Dawson’s eyes and the rancher’s desire to protect his family, his ranch and his rural community from the turmoil he sees tearing up the country he loves. At the same time, Dawson is no law-and-order reactionary. He values the rights of the protestors to speak their mind and demonstrate their opposition to the mustang roundup, no matter how much he thinks they and the local political activist who organized the protest are wrong-headed and naïve.

Birtcher’s prose is lean and semi-terse, but lyrical in his descriptions of the land and the tumult of the times. His style also serves him well in describing Dawson reluctantly stepping into his tin star role and the rapid escalation of violence that unfolds, from the murder of one of his ranch hands on the far reaches of his ranch to the grisly murder of two young men filming a documentary about the protest and Dawson’s confrontations with a biker gang that include a barroom shootout.

He serves up some rough, Old West justice that stops just short of hot lead when he and two of his deputized ranch hands take down the bikers at a local motel where the lawmen find a local girl getting gang raped. That arrest will have violent consequences aimed at Dawson, his wife and his college-age daughter.

Throughout the story, Dawson is very much an Old West lawman sticking to his code and his sense of right, wrong and duty as he wades through the corruption, incompetence and bankrupt morals of modern times. He has a strong sense that he is being set up as a patsy by unseen hands that are part of a larger conspiracy that involves state and federal officials. It is a hunch underscored by the appearance of a chopper-riding ex-Navy SEAL who backs his play during the barroom shootout and makes cryptic references to forces larger than Dawson.

Unlike far too many authors these days, Birtcher keeps a tight rein on the conspiracy angle and the actions of unseen and shadowy government players, keeping both the narrative and the action firmly centered on Dawson, his family and his ranch hand stalwarts. That reinforces the Old West feel of a novel set at the dawn of New West times, with a character in Ty Dawson who echoes a Gary Cooper striding down a dusty street alone at high noon.

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Here’s The Mule’s Review of Dick Belsky’s Gil Malloy suspense thriller, Blonde Ice:

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.

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 name is Victoria Issacs and her husband was a prominent corporate attorney. They lived in a townhouse on Sutton Place and had two beautiful children.

Malloy knows her by a different name �� Houston, a legendary New York prostitute desired by every high-roller in the city during her carnal heyday. He wrote a sensational profile of Houston that had only one flaw �� he never met her or interviewed her. He strung together interviews from people who claimed they knew her and made it seem like the quotes and anecdotes came from Houston herself �� a huge journalistic transgression he somehow survived.

Malloy agrees to help her and again compromises himself by not writing about her past as Houston even though it would partially vindicate his earlier story about her. It is a decision that forces him to walk an ethical tightrope with his bosses �� and the cops who are letting him ride along on the case of the husband’s murder.

The bodies start to pile up and the trail leads to a sexy blonde private investigator, Melissa Ross, who specializes in tracking down wayward husbands for the wives she meets through a women’s empowerment group run by a woman psychiatrist. The killer contacts Malloy, leaving him e-mails that give a lethal twist to dumb blonde jokes that taunt the cops. These notes also keep him ahead of the pack on this big story, fulfilling the round-the-clock demands of a modern-day reporter who has to feed the online beast as well as the old-school print edition �� and in his case, a starring role as an on-air contributor to a TV news show, Live from New York.

He’s also juggling another major story �� the political ambitions of a powerful deputy mayor, Bob Wylie, in charge of the city’s law enforcement agencies and eyeing a run for his boss�� job. He wants Malloy to join his team, an offer the reporter shrewdly lets dangle to gain inside access to pursue both big stories. When Wylie’s top aide winds up dead in the trunk of his car as the next victim of the Blonde Ice Killer, the two stories become intertwined and Malloy is determined to track down the connection.

This is where Belsky’s inside knowledge of New York journalism and politics really adds meaty context to his tale, with authentic nuggets seamlessly woven into the narrative based on the author’s experience as former managing editor of the Daily News and metropolitan editor of the New York Post.

Belsky tells his tale in the rat-a-tat-tat staccato of a veteran print journalist, with sparse, but detailed narrative, snappy dialogue and colorful, well-developed characters. It is a style this reviewer found both familiar and appealing, given his own past as a former ink-stained wretch. To borrow an old journalism phrase, Belsky’s book is fast copy.

The story takes a surprising twist about halfway through the book, one that places Malloy squarely in the killer’s crosshairs. To find out how it ends, you need to buy a copy of Blonde Ice �� you’ll be glad you did.

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

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Snap up a paperback copy of my hard-boiled Texas crime thriller, THE RIGHT WRONG NUMBER, for $2 off the list price.

Click on this link to hear my recent interview on The Richard Beene Show:

Don Rico is a huge Ed Earl Burch fan and it’s always a pleasure to make an appearance on his powerhouse radio talk show, blasting out to the good folks of the greater Bakersfield metroplex. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take him up on his offer to fly out his way to scarf up a couple of 32-ounce tomahawk steaks. Boy, Howdy. Many thanks, brother.

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Catch me at the Killer Nashville crime fiction conference Aug. 24-27 in Franklin, TN, where I’ll be reading a passage from my first hard-boiled Texas crime thriller, THE LAST SECOND CHANCE, a Silver Falchion finalist, signing copies of both my Ed Earl Burch thrillers and yakking about how to write tough guy crime novels and the critical importance of creating an evocative sense of time and place in your work. Thanks to , Killer Nashville honcho, for calling my number on these events.

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ANOTHER FIVE-STAR DINGER FROM A SATISFIED READER OF “THE RIGHT WRONG NUMBER.�� Kathy Reader writes: “Wow! This book has it all. A riotous race across Texas by a private investigator (Ed Earl Burch), who used to be a cop, chasing an ex-wife, money and criminals, who is being pursued by Cider Jones, a police officer who has it in for Ed Earl. Rodeos, Vietnamese criminals, a crazy ex-wife, and assorted others make this a book you can’t put down. Absolutely worth every single one of FIVE STARS.�� Many thanks, Kathy. or

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Click this link to read a stunning review of my first hard-boiled Texas crime thriller and Silver Falchion finalist, THE LAST SECOND CHANCE, penned by fellow Athens author John Davis, a former intelligence operative and great writer in his own right. Check out his latest book, RAINY STREET STORIES at . And you can grab a copy of my books at

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[image error]Just found out THE LAST SECOND CHANCE has been named a finalist in the thriller category for the Killer Nashville crime fiction conference’s Silver Falchion award, the third time it’s been an award finalist. Thanks to all of you who voted for my first Ed Earl Burch hard-boiled Texas thriller. And by the way, the book is available in a Kindle Countdown Deal. or or

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Here’s The Mule’s five-star review of Mike Pettit’s latest Jack Marsh adventure saga, KEY WEST FLASHPOINT, also posted on Amazon and ŷ������:

When you pick up Mike Pettit’s new adventure novel, KEY WEST FLASHPOINT, check your sensitivity at the door and forget about getting in touch with your feminine side.

Pettit, an author with a prodigious number of books that span a wide variety of genres, serves up a classic men’s adventure tale in the latest of the Jack Marsh series. Marsh, once a Marine, always a Marine, leads a rag-tag group of seadogs and brigands in the hunt for gold looted from the Venezuelan treasury by the late socialist strongman Hugo Chavez, rumored to be sent to Cuba aboard an aging Soviet-era sub that sank en route.

Marsh knows a guy who knows where the sub sank, an esteemed oceanographer and treasure hunter with a glossier reputation courtesy of his work for the oil and gas industry. But this guy, Captain Burke, knows only a guy with Marsh’s guile, willingness to break or bend the law and cojones will be able to find the sub, salvage the gold and spirit it away without alerting watchful intelligence agencies and every pirate in the Caribbean.

One of the marks of a great storyteller is their ability to deliver authentic details without turning the tale into a technical manual. It’s clear that Pettit, a Marine who saw combat in Vietnam, knows his stuff about seamanship, ships and boats. He also knows a thing or two about Key West, guns, owning a bar and the relationship merry-go-round between men and women. He deftly doles just the right dollop of each to give his story heft and context without weighing down the fast-paced narrative and snappy dialogue.

He knows what motivates men of action and adventure and writes about this knowingly. When reading Marsh’s motivations, a Tom Sizemore line from the epic heist movie “Heat,�� came to mind: “For me, the action is the juice.��

Pettit also creates several memorable and well-developed characters who surround the protagonist, Marsh. These include his faithful band of irregulars as well as opponents with nasty streaks only Idi Amin could love. Comic relief is provided by one of the irregulars, a cab driver and cook named Max, a chicken-hearted Brooklynite who worships Marsh but annoys him mightily. There is also a hilarious and corrupt Belizean customs agent named Loyal who is anything but unless he’s bought and paid for by Marsh.

If you haven’t read any of Pettit’s books before, do yourself a favor and pick this one up. You’ll get hooked and will want to dive into his other books.

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Further thoughts on the importance of plot:

I think you need to think through what the book’s about, where you’re going to place it and who the characters are. You have to have a rough idea of how you’re going to get there and how to keep the pace lively through narrative and dialogue. But over the years, I’ve quit doing detailed outlines and notes because I found it strangled the story and those surprising moments when characters and scenes pop out of nowhere �� those moments when you finish writing and say to yourself ‘where the hell did that come from, who wrote this?�� I’ve never used anything all that intricate but remember the line from an old Hollywood produce �� “You get them up a tree and then you get them down.�� Of course, you have to be prepared to kill those brilliant babies if they DON’T serve the story you’re trying to tell.