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Burrows

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

Lyndon B. Johnson is President, Beatlemania is in overdrive and gasoline costs 30 cents a gallon when Ned Parker retires as constable in Center Springs, Texas. But his plan to live a quiet life as a cotton farmer is torpedoed. A phone call leads Ned to a body in the Red River and into the urgent investigation headed by his nephew, the newly elected constable Cody Parker. Together they work to head off a multi-state killing spree that sets northeast Texas on fire.

As the weeks pass, Ned's grandchildren, ten-year-old Top and his tomboy cousin Pepper, struggle with personal issues resulting from their traumatic experiences at the Rock Hole only months before. They now find themselves in the middle of a nightmare for which no one can prepare.

Cody and Deputy John Washington, the law south of the tracks, follow a lead from their small community to the long abandoned Cotton Exchange warehouse in Chisum. Stunned, they find the Exchange packed full of the town's cast off garbage and riddled with booby-trapped passageways and dark burrows. Despite Ned's warnings, Cody enters the building and finds himself relying on his recent military experiences to save both himself and Big John. Unfortunately, the trail doesn't end there and the killing spree continues...

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 14, 2012
      Wortham’s outstanding sequel to The Rock Hole (2011), likewise set in 1964 East Texas, finds Ned Parker uncomfortably adjusting to being merely a retired constable. Ned’s nephew, Cody, is settling into the job of new constable, while Ned’s grandson, Top, and great-niece, Pepper, are enjoying being bright, inquisitive 11-year-olds. Rural life isn’t exactly easy, but it’s predictable; people know themselves and what to expect of each other. The discovery of a headless corpse in the Red River and a butchered farm family nearby, the handiwork of an escaped lunatic, shoves the Parkers into a vortex of insanity that culminates in Cody and Dep. John Washington getting trapped in boobytrapped tunnels burrowed through the junk, including leftover bales of cotton, that fills the huge Cotton Exchange warehouse. Wortham 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. Author tour. Agent: Jeanie Pantelakis, Sullivan Maxx Literary Agency.

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from December 1, 2012
      Another stroll down memory lane to Center Springs, Texas, where life in 1964 is a lot more eventful than you remember. Kendal Bowden's therapist said that laying the ghosts to rest would help. So Kendal's embarked on a murder spree, killing Randal Wicker and Josh Brooks, former schoolmates who tormented Kendal as a child, along with Josh's wife, Beth, and his mother, Onie Mae. A headless body found in the creek turns out to be that of Kevin Jennings, whom Kendal broke out of a Tulsa asylum before tiring of his company. Although Ned Parker has retired as constable in favor of his son, Cody, it's Ned who gets called to the scene and pressed into service when it becomes clear that Kendal is the killer. Even so, Cody, who served as a tunnel rat in Vietnam, will see plenty of equally nerve-shredding action on the homefront. When the trail leads to the home that Kendal's abusive stepfather, retired mortician George Hart, shares with his invalid brother Alvin, a rookie deputy's mistake triggers a device that turns the house into a deathtrap. Now it's up to Cody and Big John Washington, Lamar County's only deputy of color, to make their way through a dark, deadly interior labyrinth rendered disgusting by George's inability to throw anything away and harrowing by the booby traps someone's set. 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.

      COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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