Bøger af Monte Dutton

Novelist Monte Dutton has long dabbled in songwriting. Most of his songs tell brief stories derived from observations of everyday life. It occurred to the author that some of his songs could be expanded into short stories. Dutton spins a yarn of a hapless but talented hitchhiker, of an old baseball coach charged with straightening out a spoiled slugger, of a co-ed who takes a walk on the wild side, and the owner of a fruitstand who tries to give some advice to a friend's grandson. Longer Songs consists of eleven such tales, all of which grew out the author's songs.

Ennis Middlebrooks and Harry Byerly are warriors, and the time for fighting is past. They're cowboys, and when they get back home to Texas, the time for cowboys is passing, too. Monte Dutton's fifth novel, Cowboys Come Home, begins on the island of Peleliu, where the two privates somehow manage to save themselves when cut off from their fellow Marines by the Japanese. Ennis and Harry come home to a hero's welcome, but life gets complicated after that. The Middlebrooks ranch, east of Janus, near the Oklahoma border, is rundown, and Ennis's father is dying. Harry moves in, Mama Middlebrooks moves out, and Ennis takes a job as a deputy sheriff under a wise but aging lawman, Judson Lawson. His little sister, Becky, is wild beyond her years and takes an immediate shine to Harry, who is haunted by the war and prone to violence. The closing of an Army base, Camp Ammons, is causing the town to die. The county loses nearly forty thousand infantry trainees and gains nearly sixty thousand acres. The ranchers it displaced are either long gone or too poor to purchase their land back. Men with political clout and money move in like vultures. Money buys influence and, with it, elections. Ennis Middlebrooks goes from sheriff in waiting to disgraced lawman. He and his old Marine pal, Harry Byerly, decide to do something about it.

Chance Benford is in need of redemption, even though, at the beginning of Monte Dutton's Crazy by Natural Causes, he doesn't know why. Even while coaching the Elmore County Mustangs to their best season in twenty-one years, Benford is a wreck. His wife's left him. He's losing whatever morals he ever had, and one result is a crushing upset achieved disgracefully by him and his charges. In the beginning, Benford is a bad man, and bad things happen to him. After being fired for hosting a scandalous party at his Kentucky hilltop home, Benford smokes marijuana with his team's best player, hops in his pickup truck, pulls out of the school parking lot and, almost immediately, a coal miner, drug-addled himself, runs his car head-on into Benford's truck. The coach has to be transported by helicopter to a Lexington hospital, where there he lapses into a coma. The miner wasn't so fortunate. From rock bottom is Benford born anew. While repairing him, doctors discover the reason for Benford's amorality: a benign tumor in his brain. He recalls nothing of the thirty days leading up to his near-death. During a long process of arduous rehabilitation, Benford occupies himself by reading the Bible, cover to cover. What interests him most is Jesus in the context of man, not Son of God. The Lord's wisdom, not His miracles, inspire Benford's recovery. Benford doesn't know what he's going to do. The school board never went through with his firing, given the accident, and Benford just drifts along. Two of his former players, Wally Ruff and Zeke Runnels, come to his rescue, as does Keely Packson, the single mother of another. Reluctantly, Benford accepts an invitation to speak of his ordeal at a local church. Wally captures his inspirational talk on video, which then goes viral on Youtube. All of a sudden, Benford is in demand. His story reaches the attention of a major television network after a local TV reporter latches onto it. Wally heads off to play college football. Zeke goes on the road and becomes Benford's man Friday. Keely gives up her job at an insurance agency and manages his affairs. Chance makes peace with his ex-wife, and he and Keely become lovers. Success brings with it complications, however, and the skeletons in Benford's closet rise up against him. Never mind that he doesn't even remember them. Benford's saga is a fable of life's absurdity. He is a survivor, repeatedly knocked off his stride by a series of unexpected events and changing his playbook on the fly. By the end of Crazy by Natural Causes, Chance Benford's struggle is that of a good man, but not a holy one. "I thoroughly enjoyed [Chance] Benford's unique journey. Whatever his motivation, he's a character one cannot take their eyes off of. Dutton obviously loves his star coach, and it shows in this novel. He writes with confidence and a sharp eye to the southern experience. A sense of place resonated strongly with me, as did the ambience of the Bible Belt. The state of Kentucky also played a starring role along with Benford. This is an entertaining book that goes off on guitar riffs from time to time, but stick with the concert because the promise is fulfilled." -- Joseph Souza, author of Need To Find You

At the age of nineteen, Barrie Jarman has grown up in a hurry. He is poised on the edge of stock car racing stardom. He's making ten times as much money as a year ago. He has a top-flight ride with a top-flight team in the top flight of the sport. He is exactly where he wants to be. Life Gets Complicated. It's veteran motorsports writer Monte Dutton's sequel to Lightning in a Bottle, the acclaimed novel about the kid with the character of his generation but the spirit of stock car racing's rowdy past. At the end of Barrie's frantic first year, he parties with his girlfriend, Angela Hughston; his best friend, her brother Errol; his new pilot, Rafe Trujillo; his teammate, veteran Jay Higbe; his estranged father, Big Jim; and a boozing old relic from the sport's past. He befriends a pro football player at a Las Vegas awards ceremony. Life is good, and Barrie is often stoned. Uncle Charlie, his friend, companion, confidante and source of perspective, quietly tries to keep Barrie headed in the right direction. Barrie confronts the distinct possibility that he is a corruptive influence on those around him. He has little doubt about his own capacity to straighten up. He's worried about Errol, though, who's getting more bad influence on the side. Errol doesn't know that Barrie is in a position to help him. Barrie doesn't know if Errol is ready for a chance to join the Jerry McCarley Enterprises driver lineup. When Barrie gets down to business, when he puts on his firesuit and climbs into Number 59, all seems well again. He puts his new Ford Fusion on the front row for the sport's biggest race. After his new sponsor throws a party to celebrate, a pair of thugs beat Barrie senseless in a remote parking lot. Barrie has more riding on the upcoming races than those outside his circle of friends know. He has to race. He can't call the cops. He can't let FASCAR, the ruling body, know how badly he's injured. He drops out of sight. While he receives treatment in a condo on the beach, a fake excuse for his absence is circulated. Other excuses show up in a gossip sheet that has targeted him for some reason. Obviously, Barrie has enemies. Pain steels his resolve. Like the icons he grew up idolizing, Barrie does what it takes.

Barrie Jarman is the hope of racing's future because he is a link to its past. The teen-aged native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, is talented, articulate, intelligent, brash, and mischievous. To the image-conscious braintrust that runs the sport, Barrie is a wild Mustang - and, yes, he drives one - who must be broken. Ain't no way. The yarn is told mostly through the narration of Uncle Charlie, a racing veteran who took in Barrie at age 16 and helped him get a shot at the big time. Only Charlie, it seems, can nudge Barrie in the right direction, and only Charlie knows when it's time to get out of his way. Monte Dutton's sixth novel is an ode to his acknowledged field of expertise. For twenty years, Dutton crisscrossed the country, writing about automobile racing.

Monte Dutton's fourth novel is a tale of the corrosive effect of patronage and a prominent man's rise and fall. Denny Frawley is a corrupt prosecutor with political ambition. Hal Kinley, who has known Frawley since the two played high school football together, is a good cop who has watched his old friend grow into an unscrupulous monster. Among the obstacles in Frawley's path to the governorship are an alcoholic spouse, a scheming mistress, and his drug-dealing twins. Frawley's two teen-aged kids are as awash in corruption as their father. Kinley's son has been drawn into their orbit. Kinley is determined to save his son and stop his old teammate. The odds do not favor him. Be forewarned: this is hard-hitting, dark and often depressing. But that's the quality I like most about it, and a quality that the author was trying to achieve. Dutton never checks his PC meter at the door. He grips it and rips it in a careless but controlled manner, allowing his maniacal characters to act out their most violent fantasies in the most roguish manner. Even the good guys are messed-up and damaged by the end of this perilous ride. No, they're messed up before it, as well. If you like your crime novels gritty, depressing, drugged-out and with a good dose of sodomy and violence, you'll surely enjoy Forgive Us Our Trespasses. But to be sure, I don't think even God could see it to forgive these lowlife bastards. Highly recommended! -- Joseph Souza, author of Need to Find You

Clyde Kinlaw is a washed-up baseball coach who wants to prove it isn't so.Kinlaw was a good ballplayer who became a loyal company man once he retired. He managed his old team, the Portland Loggers. Now he's a scout who doesn't feel as if the new generation of talent evaluators puts any stake in his judgment anymore. He wants to prove them wrong but doesn't know how.Then Kinlaw stumbles upon Taiquon Wattson.Kinlaw's only ally in the Portland front office, Frank Staley Jr., sends him to evaluate Ryne Standback, a first baseman considered one of the country's top high-school prospects. Standback doesn't impress Kinlaw, who dismisses him as a privileged white kid with all the skill money can buy. What draws Kinlaw's attention is a catcher on the other team. Wattson has all the tools but none of the attention. He's a poor kid who lives with his grandmother in a predominantly black town on the banks of the Savannah River. He's known locally for his football, not his baseball, skills. He's a catcher because it's the only position he can play without owning his own glove. Teams always provide a mitt. Taiquon is as raw as the crappie he hauls out of the river to help feed the family. All he knows about baseball is approximately how to play it.Stay away from Sandberg, Kinlaw advises Staley. Let Kinlaw take Wattson under his wing and make him a player. Wattson's not ready. The minor leagues would chew him up and spit him out. Staley finds a place for Kinlaw and Staley to hide. They get to know each other on a long, gradual drive to Texas, where Wattson is playing semi-pro ball and Kinlaw is coaching him.Kinlaw is not rid of Standback, however. Drafted first by Houston, Standback predictably flops in Triple-A, where his agent insisted he be assigned. All of a sudden, Staley smells a bargain and dispatches Kinlaw, already in Texas, to Corpus Christi for a second look. The humbled Standback, his life in ruins, sees that Kinlaw is the only scout who ever dealt with him honestly.Both young men change. Wattson loses his innocence. Standback loses his arrogance. Kinlaw regains his respect.

A veteran sports columnist unexpectedly loses his job.A rebellious young writer takes a weed-clouded trip to Southern California with a tawdry dropout.An English teacher at a prep school toils in vain on a breakthrough novel, watching his teen-aged pupils grow rebellious and decadent.All are related. All are drawn together as they gradually learn they are pawns in a vast illegal conspiracy.The columnist's new job is not one he chooses. The young writer mistakenly believes she is selling drugs by choice and rationalizes it in the name of writing a tell-all novel. The teacher sees in his charges mistakes he has already made.One is another's daughter. She is the other's lover.Everything will be fine as long as they are obedient. Don't Ask, Don't Tell.Against the backdrop of a presidential election, a group of powerful men work to corner the market on the illicit sale of marijuana. They have members with ties to tobacco, entertainment, law enforcement, national security, and politics.Innocent people are being shot down in the streets by policemen who never are punished. Could this be more than a coincidence?The plan seems perfect ... until the election of Martin Gaynes, a man as corrupt as those who run the Consortium. Extreme measures are necessary as a potential dictatorship rises in the tumult.No one, no matter how far from the center of power, is safe. No one can afford to mind his (or her) own business. Don't Ask, Don't Tell becomes dangerous, impractical, and deadly.

An irreverent but informed look at the colorful personalities, exciting places, and devoted fans of stock car racing

Straight from the mouths of the world's most famous drivers and entertainers comes a unique and hilarious volume of NASCARUs wit and wisdom. Contributors include Kyle Petty, Jeff Foxworthy, Jeff Gordon, and many others. Illustrations throughout.

Charts the coordinates of Americana music with a series of interviews and intimate portraits. This title profiles Grammy-nominated performers, such as Brad Paisley and Pat Green, as well as those who sing for tips in local bars and bands such as Those Guys, Reckless Kelly, and Cross Canadian Ragweed.