Bøger af James Hime

The mystery writer James Hime made his mark with THE NIGHT OF THE DANCE (an Edgar finalist) and SCARED MONEY, both heralded by other novelists and reviewers for memorable characters, taut prose, and a comedic take on how things and people work. Hime nailed dialects as if no one else had ever listened to Texans talk, and readers settled back to await more adventures of Jeremiah Spur and Clyde Thomas. WHERE ARMADILLOS GO TO DIE followed in 2009, and more mysteries with Spur and Thomas are promised, but Three Thousand Bridges is of a different order of achievement, not a mystery novel but a novel with mysteries. Its unlikely and at first unlikable hero, a Viet Nam veteran, is the outrageous and outraging Texas oil supply man, Cole Simms--a belated cousin, we recognize, of Mark Twain's Pap Finn. In sculpted prose, pacing his revelations, Hime traces his bedeviled hero's journey across the South just after 9/11, toward Ground Zero and toward self-insight. Hime, who escaped from the South Tower of the World Trade Center with a printout of The Night of the Dance after witnessing the crash of American Flight 11 into the North Tower, has created a classic narrative of transforming American experiences, personal and national. After its wide initial popularity, I predict, Three Thousand Bridges will endure in college classrooms as a powerful, accessible testimony about an unthinkable time. Hershel Parker, Melville biographer.

Sylvester Bradshaw owns the Bouree restaurant, home of the best catfish within a hundred miles of Brenham, Texas. Besides being known for his cooking and for being one of the town's nastiest residents, he also happens to have invented a machine that several venture capitalists and one former NFL star would like to invest in at almost any cost. But Bradshaw---stubborn and miserly---can't be enticed no matter what offer they put on the table. Nobody gets a look and nobody gets to know how the device works, not even his family.When the restaurant is ransacked and he goes missing, the only person willing to take his disappearance seriously is Jeremiah Spur. The retired Texas Ranger and rancher is a dedicated customer, if not a friend, which makes him the only man on whom the Bradshaws can pin their hopes.James Hime's Where Armadillos Go to Die eloquently captures the voice and spirit of a small Texas town with troubles every bit as big as the whole state, making for some of the most engaging crime fiction on bookshelves today.