Title: Pigeon River Blues
Series: A
Sam Jenkins Mystery
Author: Wayne Zurl
Publisher: Iconic Publishing
Publication Date: May 31, 2014
Pages: 258
ISBN: 978-1938844027
Genre: Mystery
/ Police Procedural
Format: eBook / Paperback / PDF
Book
Description:
Winter in the Smokies can be a tranquil time
of year—unless Sam Jenkins sticks his thumb into the sweet potato pie.
The retired New York detective turned
Tennessee police chief is minding his own business one quiet day in February
when Mayor Ronnie Shields asks him to act as a bodyguard for a famous country
and western star.
C.J. Profitt’s return to her hometown of Prospect
receives lots of publicity . . . and threats from a rightwing group calling
themselves The Coalition for American Family Values.
The beautiful, publicity seeking Ms. Proffit
never fails to capitalize on her abrasive personality by flaunting her lifestyle—a
way of living the Coalition hates.
Reluctantly, Jenkins accepts the assignment of
keeping C.J. safe while she performs at a charity benefit. But Sam’s job
becomes more difficult when the object of his protection refuses to
cooperate.
During this misadventure, Sam hires a
down-on-his-luck ex-New York detective and finds himself thrown back in time,
meeting old Army acquaintances who factor into how he foils a complicated plot
of attempted murder, the destruction of a Dollywood music hall, and other general
insurrection on the “peaceful side of the Smokies.”
Review:
4/5
This book was refreshing. I loved the mystery and the relationships between the characters. Sam is thrust into protecting some one who refuses help. A plot to hurt the famous singer CJ Profitt because of her lifestyle is uncovered. Sam and some of his old buddies have to stop this before someone loses their life.
I loved reading this story. It was written so well and kept me turning the pages. It was a nice change from all the romance mysteries that focus more on love than mystery. Defiantly going or be reading more.
Book Excerpt:
Prologue
An oddball named Mack Collinson sat
in his mother’s office discussing the upcoming auction of farmland straddling
the border of Prospect and neighboring Seymour, Tennessee.
Jeremy Goins, part-time real estate
salesman at the Collinson agency, defrocked federal park ranger, and now
full-time maintenance man in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, walked
into the room and tossed a newspaper on Mack’s lap.
Collinson, a short, dark man in his
late-forties, had close-cropped, almost black hair, a single bushy eyebrow
spanning his forehead, and a thick beard that covered his face from just below
his eyes and disappeared into the collar of his sport shirt.
“You seen this article in the Blount County Voice?” Goins asked.
Mack shrugged. His mother neither
commented nor gestured.
Goins sighed and continued,
seemingly unimpressed with his male colleague. “’Bout how Dolly’s havin’ a
benefit show and that lezzy bitch—‘cuse me, Ma—C.J. Profitt’s comin’ back home
fer a week a’forehand.”
People showing deference to her age
referred to Collinson’s mother as Miss Elnora. Those who knew her more
intimately, called her Ma.
“Lemme see that,” Elnora snarled,
screwing up her wide face, one surrounded by layers of gray, arranged in a
style the locals called big hair.
“Yes, ma’am.” Anxious to please his
employer, Jeremy snatched the newspaper from Mack and handed it to Mrs.
Collinson.
The Collinson Realty and Auction
Company occupied an old and not very well maintained building on McTeer’s
Station Pike just below the center of Prospect. Sixty-five-year-old Elnora
Collinson had been a realtor for more than forty years, first with her late
husband and now with her son. In either case, Ma represented the brains of the
operation.
After allowing the woman a few
moments to read the article, Jeremy Goins continued the conversation.
“I hated that bitch back in
hi-skoo,” he said. “And I hate her even more now that I know what she is and what
her kind means ta the rest o’ us.”
Goins
was a stocky, rugged-looking man, approaching fifty, with a liberal mix of gray
in his dark brown hair. The gray hair was the only liberal thing about Jeremy
Goins.
“I
s’pose she’s fixin’ to stay around here and mebbe bring some o’ her pur-verted
women friends with her,” Mack said. “This world’s goin’ ta hell when ya got ta
be subjectedsta the likes o’ her on the same
streets good Christian folk walk on.”
“Amen
ta that,” Jeremy said.
When Ma finished
reading she snorted something unintelligible, rolled up the paper, and threw it
at a wastepaper basket, missing by a foot.
“Boys,
this is shameful.” She took a long moment to shake her head in disgust.
“Downright shameful.”
Both
men nodded in agreement.
“When that
girl went ta Nashville an’ become a singer, I thought Prospect was rid o’ her
and her kind once’t and fer all. Lord have mercy, but we’re doomed ta see her
painted face on our streets ag’in.”
“Momma,”
Mack said, “we ain’t gotta take this.”
He spent a
moment shaking his head, too. Then he decided to speak for the rest of the
population.
“Don’t
nobody here want her back. Mebbe we should send’er a message if the elected
leaders o’ this city won’t. We kin let her know.”
“You’re
rot, son. Ain’t no reason why that foul-mouthed, lesbian should feel welcome
here.” Ma Collinson, who resembled a grumpy female gnome, sat forward in her
swivel chair and with some difficulty, pulled herself closer to the desk.
“Jeremy, git me that li’l typewriter from the closet. I’ll write her a note
sayin’ as much.”
Goins nodded and moved quickly.
“And Jeremy, afore yew git ta work at
park headquarters, mail this in Gatlinburg so as ta not have a Prospect
postmark on it.”
Goins
stepped to a spot where he could read over her shoulder and said, “Yes, ma’am,
I’ll do it.”
After
inserting a sheet of white bond paper under the roller, Elnora Collinson began
to type:
Colleen Profitt we know you. We know what
you are. All the money you made don’t make no difference about what you have
became. You are a shame to your family and the city of Prospect. Do not come
back here. We do not want you. God does not want you.
SIGNED
The Coalition for
American Family Values
That was the first of six messages
sent to country and western star C.J. Profitt. The last letter, typed almost
two weeks later, said:
CJ
Profitt you have not called off your visit to our city. We repeat. You and your
lesbian friends are violating God’s Law. You must not come here. If you do you
will regret it. The people of this city will not suffer because of you. Your
ways are the ways of Sin. Your life is a life of SIN. If you come here YOU WILL
suffer and then burn in Hell. Do not show your painted face here again. If you
do you better make your peace with GOD. You will face HIM soon enough. Sooner
than you think.
The Coalition for
American Family Values
<><><>
On Friday morning, February 2nd,
Mack Collinson slammed the front door to the real estate agency, shrugged off
his brown canvas Carhartt jacket, and tossed it on an old swivel chair. He
spent a moment blowing his nose in a week-old handkerchief and stormed into his
mother’s office.
“Well
she’s here,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “She never done took your
warnin’s serious-like.”
Ma Collinson looked at her son over
the tops of reading glasses she recently purchased at the Wal-Mart Vision
Center.
“This mornin’ Luretta and the kids
was watchin’ that Knoxville mornin’ show,” he said. “And there she was—film o’ her at the airport
‘long with some others goin’ ta perform at Dolly’s benefit thing. She never
listened ta ya, Ma. Now she’s here.”
At five after nine, a coo coo clock
in Elnora’s office struck eight.
Mrs. Collinson pulled off her
glasses and tossed them onto the desk. She wrinkled her brow and puckered her
mouth in disgust. Elnora did not look happy.
“She’ll be talkin’ ‘bout her ideas
and her ways like she always does,” Mack said. “It’s un-natural is what it is. Against God’s way. Why does God let
people like her live, Ma? Makes me jest so gat-dag mad. Makes me think we ought
ta kill her. Kill her our own selves.”
Purchase
The Book:
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pigeon-river-blues-wayne-zurl/1119700073?ean=2940149660490&itm=1&usri=pigeon+river+blues
About the Author
Wayne Zurl grew up on Long Island and retired after
twenty years with the Suffolk County Police Department, one of the largest
municipal law enforcement agencies in New York and the nation. For thirteen of
those years he served as a section commander supervising investigators. He is a
graduate of SUNY, Empire State College and served on active duty in the US Army
during the Vietnam War and later in the reserves. Zurl left New York to live in
the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee with his wife, Barbara.
Twenty (20) of his Sam Jenkins mysteries have
been published as eBooks and many produced as audio books. Ten (10) of these
novelettes are available in print under the titles: A Murder In
Knoxville and Other Smoky Mountain Mountain
Mysteries and Reenacting A Murder and Other Smoky
Mountain Mysteries. Zurl has won Eric Hoffer and Indie Book Awards, and was
named a finalist for a Montaigne Medal and First Horizon Book Award. His full
length novels are available in print and as eBooks: A New Prospect, A
Leprechaun's Lament, Heroes & Lovers, and Pigeon
River Blues.
For more information on Wayne’s Sam Jenkins mystery
series see www.waynezurlbooks.net. You may read excerpts,
reviews and endorsements, interviews, coming events, and see photos of the area
where the stories take place.
Connect with Wayne Zurl:
Thank you for hosting the virtual book tour. - Kathleen Anderson, PUYB Tour Coord
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