Shorts: "On the Corner" by Ben Boulden

On the Corner by Ben Boulden   *          *         *         *   JACK HAD SHOWN UP TWO YEARS AGO with a cardboard sign lettered in what had once been black marker, but had since faded to brown by Vermont’s harsh sun. The sign, in a shaky hand that slanted upwards from left to right, read: STRANDED! NEED AID! ANYTHING HELPS! The sign never changed in those two years Jack stood at the intersection of U.S. Routes 4 and 7, a bounce south of Rutland. His clothes never seemed to change, either. They were always clean, if a little ragged around the edges, and more than one motorist made a flippant remark that always sounded something like, “That lazy bastard dresses better than I do!” Of course, it wasn’t true. Jack dressed like a pauper but he was proud enough to keep his three outfits, which he called “costumes” when no one was listening, as clean as he could without benefit of a washing machine or even warm water. In the summer, everyone knew, Jack camped in a shady thicket of trees a mile south of his roadside work place on a bend of Cold River. He washed his clothes in the icy water, hanging them to dry on the dead branch of an impressive Eastern Hemlock. In the winter, well—the winter was different and no one seemed to know exactly where Jack slept. He sure didn’t take advantage of Vermont’s benevolent motel program that allowed its unhoused residents a free room. He rode, just as he did all summer, his squeaking and rusty Schwinn bicycle south at 5 pm. His summer camp abandoned from November to March with nary a clue as to where he went during those cold months. More than one of Rutland’s finest, both civilian and police officer, had taken it on themselves to follow Jack but none had been able to track him past the intersection of Routes 7 and 103. Right about where Rutland’s tiny airport sat. It was a mystery everyone in town talked about. A few figured he was a ghoul sent to chasten Rutland’s Godless denizens. While others thought him to be an eccentric millionaire with nothing better to do than stand on a street corner and look sad, which everyone agreed he did quite well. But most people figured Jack for an addict, a headcase, or as one old man with a scraggly beard said, “A lazy shit.” They also agreed Jack worked that corner like a job. He peddled into the intersection every morning at seven, stood with his tattered and unchanging sign until five, stepped back onto his bike and disappeared down the road. He did okay, too, since Rutland’s residents were mostly kind. He averaged $15 a day and never spent a nickel on alcohol or drugs. But his sign’s message became something of a joke to those commuters with a sarcastic sense of humor. A few liked to laugh and say, “Just how long can a person be stranded before they call where they are home?” Which is exactly what Janet Walters, a nurse at the local hospital, said to her teenage daughter—slumped down with embarrassment in the passenger seat—after passing Jack an Abe Lincoln through the window of her Kia Soul. It was December and the outside air was sharp. Even as Janet’s window was rolling up, Jack heard every word. He said to himself (but loud enough for Janet and her daughter to hear), “How long, indeed?” Janet’s daughter slumped even lower, and a crimson blotch of embarrassment spread across Janet’s face. She took her finger off the automatic window button before the window had fully closed and looked at Jack. His breath crystalizing in the frigid air. A puppy dog smile decorating his homely face and a benign curiosity in his bovine eyes. Janet said, “I’m sorry. I—” Jack hushed her with a finger to his lips. “No harm meant, ma’am.” “Mom…!” said Janet’s daughter. “It’s—” Janet began. She looked at the bumper of the car ahead of her, studied it for a moment as if an answer to an unasked question would reveal itself. Then she turned to Jack and said, “What are you doing for Christmas?” Jack cocked his head like the mutt Janet’s ex-husband had stolen in the divorce. He said, “Christmas,” like he had never heard the word before. His puppy smile grew bigger, his eyes seemed to dance, and Janet could have sworn Jack was wiggling his hips like a dog wagging its tail. “We always have dinner—” “Mom!” Janet’s daughter sounded alarmed. “We—” The car behind Janet gave an angry honk. She flinched and tightened her grip on the wheel. “Mom,” her daughter said again, “the light’s green.” Janet reached into her wallet and pulled out another bill and pushed it through the window towards Jack. Jack shook his head. “No ma’am,” he said. “You’ve already given me plenty.” “But—”  A second and then a third horn joined the chorus behind Janet. “You better go along, ma’am,” Jack said. “You’ll be late.” He stuffed the five dollars into a front pocket and turned away. Janet sighed and accelerated through the light and turned left onto Route 7. Her daughter pushed herself up in the seat. She said, “Geez, Mom. You almost invited that…that homeless man to dinner!” Janet smiled, just a little. “I’ll have to finish the invitation when I see him again tomorrow.” But no one ever saw Jack again. Two hikers—a woman and her husband—found Jack’s old Schwinn leaning against the Clarendon Gorge Bridge the next spring. The husband posted a photograph of the five-dollar bill with its note clearly in focus on Clarendon’s Neighborhood Facebook page. But it didn’t make sense to anyone— THANK YOU JANET. I FOUND WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. NOW I CAN GO HOME. —because Janet lived in a neighboring town and never saw it. But what made Jack’s story, and Janet’s too, truly remarkable is a twelve-year-old boy and his father swear they saw a flying saucer hovering over the tree line on a moonless night just before Christmas. That same day Janet had spoken with Jack about Christmas dinner. Its lights flashing blue and red and white before it zipped impossibly fast towards the star-laden sky and disappeared into the heavens. Fin

Ben Boulden is the author of two novels, several short stories, and more than 400 articles, book reviews, and columns. His latest book, Casinos, Motels, Gators, is available for Kindle, and as a paperback everywhere. Click here to see it at Amazon.

© 2025 by Ben Boulden

 

I made a favorite books of the year list!

The new year started with some good news. Author, editor, publisher, and all-around good guy, James Reasoner, listed my collection, Casinos, Motels, Gators, as one of his favorite books of 2024. Check out his post at Rough Edges here.                     Thanks, James!   Take a peek at Casinos, Motels, Gators at Amazon here.

Shorts: "Nambu Type B" by Ben Boulden

Nambu Type B Ben Boulden   *     *     *     *     TOM BOLLINGER HAD LIVED IN P—, UTAH, for 42 years. The only other place he had ever been was Iowa on a two-year proselytizing mission for the Church of the Martyr. He had been nineteen when he arrived in the Hawkeye state and anyone who knew anything about Tom knew he hated Iowa and Iowans. One reason for this hatred was because a missionary’s value is judged by the number of converts he baptized and Tom had only finagled one in two years—and that one had been a middle-aged woman with four cats and no hope of ever getting married or having children and so she didn’t count in Tom or the Lord’s eyes. The other reason is because Iowa was the first place Tom ever really saw the lives of other people. In Utah, Tom only saw the masquerade Martyrs’ put on at church every Sunday. All the men were patient, God-fearing, and hardworking capitalists and the women were pure, happy, and sweet. So Tom enjoyed telling the guys at the Patriarchal Quorum every Sunday that Iowa was a playground for fornicators, adulterers, drug users, and fags. Boy, did Tom like the word, “fag”—he used it as a substitute for “lame,” “stupid,” “feminine,” and of course as a derogatory term for gay men and drag queens. You should have heard him when a “gay family” moved into a house on the very same street where Tom lived. His “brothers”—as Martyrs’ call their male membership—in the Quorum never paid Tom much attention. Sure, he was off, a little weird, he made them uncomfortable but he was harmless. Everyone said so. He lived with his widowed mother, too, which provided his peers with a litany of tiresome jokes. Never when Tom was around, of course, because that would have hurt his feelings. Plus, in their quiet moments, Tom’s “brothers” knew he was right about the world’s dirty and sullen ills and they feared it would encroach upon their perfectly cultivated and inspired lifestyle as God’s chosen people. The thing is, Tom was mostly harmless. Sure, he had a strange obsession with his late-father’s gun collection. A collection that filled an entire room in the aging but well-kept house on Oak Summit Lane where Tom lived with his mother, but he never threatened anyone or even mentioned shooting animals. His favorite gun in that room had belonged to his grandfather. The benevolent and much loved, Lamar Bollinger. “Grandy Lamar,” as Tom had called him as a boy, had taken the little pistol from a dead Japanese soldier on Saipan in 1944. It was called a Nambu Type B and it looked like it had come off the set of a World War 2 movie. The round barrel nakedly sticking out of the blocky frame like an old-fashioned water pistol. And the grips, which were Tom’s favorite part of the pistol, were Philippine Mahogany and best of all Grandy Lamar had carved his initials into the wood so his tent mates wouldn’t get sticky fingers. “L” on one side and “B” on the other. It was a beautiful pistol but one nearly impossible to get ammunition for. It was an 8mm, which has never been popular in the United States. Tom’s mother, she could be a real bitch Tom often thought, wouldn’t let him use her credit card to order a box from a California dealer that specialized in rare ammunitions. She said it cost too much—in that squeaky high-pitched voice of hers that drove Tom crazy—so he had been forced to work extra hours at his job waxing floors at the local University to earn the $100 himself. Since Tom had ruined his credit a few years earlier he made a bargain with the dealer. He’d mail cash for the 8mm bullets, 20 came in every box, and upon receipt the dealer would mail the bullets to a gun store in Provo where Tom would pick it up. The actual cost went from $100 to $150 because of tax, shipping, and a handling fee that made Tom call the dealer a “fag” after he’d disconnected the call. That had been two years ago and Tom still hadn’t shot his grandfather’s old war trophy because he was saving those 20 bullets for something special. He didn’t know what, but he figured it would be obvious to him when the time came. It was even more obvious than Tom had thought it would be, because on September 21, 2020, an apostle of the Church of the Martyr gave a speech at the University where Tom worked. The gray old man said every believer should defend the Church against the gay mob threatening to knock down the walls and sodomize the faithful. He’d used the metaphor of a trowel for building the faith and a musket—which Tom knew was an old word for a gun—to defend it from its many enemies. Tom’s favorite line from the speech, or “talk” as the Martyrs liked to say, went, “a volley of fire is necessary to defend God’s Kingdom.” The speech’s underlying context was how the university’s faculty weren’t doing enough to suppress—and in some cases even supporting—the LGBTQ+ lifestyle on campus.    But what the apostle meant as metaphor Tom took as literal and that line about “a volley of fire” rang in his ears over and over. So Tom set to make the world a better and brighter place. He took Grandy Lamar’s Nambu Type B semi-automatic pistol from the gun room, cleaned it, loaded its narrow magazine to capacity with seven rounds, rammed it into the pistol’s grip, and pulled the slide back to load an 8mm round into the chamber. The slide slammed home with a satisfying clunk. Tom knew the gun was ready to shoot. He walked past his mother watching her absurd television game shows—the crowd applauding like lunatics—opened the front door and walked into the pleasant early-autumn afternoon. He didn’t bother responding when his mother asked where he was going. Instead he walked down the driveway, its crumbling surface crunching beneath his boots. The crisp air as unnoticed as the setting sun. He turned left at the sidewalk. Tom knew where he was going. He had known without understanding this was his destiny since the two “fags” had moved in three years before. But it had taken those carefully crafted words the apostle used for Tom to truly understand what the Lord wanted him to do. When he reached the family’s house, Tom paused a moment. He looked down at the pistol in his hand. He flexed his pointer finger and laid it against the trigger guard like his father had taught him so many years ago. A neighbor getting out of her car after a long day at work saw Tom with the gun in his hand. She squeaked and rushed to her own front door, the key shaking so badly it was impossible to get it into the lock. Tom’s hands were remarkably steady as he walked up Mark and Roger Dawson’s driveway and stepped over a short hedge of privet bushes onto the concrete porch. He saw there were lights blazing inside and from somewhere a piano played a simple and familiar tune. Tom stopped at the front door, which had been painted purple in the spring. He reached for the knob and twisted it—it was open, just like he hoped it would be. After all, no one locked their doors on Oak Summit Lane. A rich and delicious smell of cooking wafted across the threshold. Tom could see Roger in the kitchen, his back turned. On his left a girl whose name Tom thought was Rosie or Rachel looked up from the piano. Her hands frozen in mid-air, her mouth open in surprise. Tom stepped toward her. He raised his grandfather’s prized war souvenir with the same ease as if he were pointing a finger at her. He pulled the trigger. The Nambu’s sharp crack muted the girl’s shouts like they had been so much useless white noise. Tom couldn’t be sure, but he thought her last word had been, “Please.” From the kitchen Tom heard Roger shout. Tom turned as the man rushed toward him. A single phrase flashed in Tom’s mind: Kill the fag! And he did. The little Nambu pistol bucked with the trigger pull and Roger stumbled forward two steps before collapsing face down on the hardwood with a floor rattling thump. A shout came from the second floor. Tom ascended the stairs in three longs strides. At the top he followed a hallway into the rear of the house. The first door went into an empty bathroom. The second opened onto a bedroom and inside Mark Dawson was frantically trying to load a small black revolver. When he heard Tom at the door, Mark turned and threw the gun at him. It smacked against the door jamb and caromed to the floor with a bounce. Tom raised the Nambu Type B. His mouth razored into a tight smile. Mark said, “Why?” Tom pulled the trigger. The gun shimmied in his hands and Mark fell onto his back. In a beat of gleeful worship, Tom whispered, “Thy will be done.” Behind him a baby cried. Tom turned away from Mark’s bleeding form and walked towards the crying. At the back, in a tiny room, a toddler stood in its crib. The boy’s face was crimson with terror. A forgotten binky hung from a ribbon attached to a pocket of its blue pajamas. A mobile turning a parade of shapes—squares and circles and rainbows—glittered with the room’s overhead light. The toddler shook with emotion and if you listened, he was shouting, “Daddy, Daddy!” again and again. A chill ran down Tom’s back. His skin prickled with goosebumps. He drew the pistol up from his side and looked at it. He extended his arm and pointed the Nambu at the baby. He squeezed his finger on the trigger but his hand shook with the gun. He closed his eyes and breathed with a conscious effort. When he reopened them Tom saw the child—as the first responders would learn later the boy was named Colin—for what he was. A scared, hurting little boy. An orphan. In the distance Tom heard sirens. He knew they were coming for him and he began crying. For a beat he understood the monstrosity of what he had done. As the sirens grew closer, Tom raised his Grandy Lamar’s prize to his temple and pulled the trigger. He faded to blackness as Colin cried with pain. And Tom knew it was too late for redemption and he hoped there would be no God on the other side, waiting to judge him. Fin

Ben Boulden is the author of two novels, several short stories, and more than 400 articles, book reviews, and columns. His latest book, Casinos, Motels, Gators is available for Kindle, and as a paperback everywhere. Click here to see it at Amazon.

© 2024 by Ben Boulden

 

Shorts: "The Grieving Husband" by Ben Boulden

The Grieving Husband Ben Boulden   *     *     *     *     “WE THINK”—I sighed my long-suffering policeman’s sigh—“she died early this morning, Mr. Shaw.” Mr. Shaw crumpled into the oversized recliner positioned in front of the behemoth flat-screen television mounted on the wall. The chair’s springs moaned at his considerable girth. An ugly whistle of air whooshed from between Shaw’s lips. When his eyes fluttered, I thought he would faint. He didn’t; instead he patted his rounded belly, drew a deep breath, and stared up at me with sorrowful cobalt eyes. I waited for him to ask the obvious questions: the how, the where, the why of his wife’s death. When it became clear he wasn’t going to, I asked him, “How long had you been married, Mr. Shaw?” “She was—” Shaw paused to wipe his dry eyes with the back of a hand. I offered him a tissue. He took it and squashed it into a ball and then dropped it onto the hardwood floor without using it. When he regained control—and I was certain now his performance was fakery—he said, “She was my soulmate, mister, uh—is it, officer?” “Malone,” I said. “Detective Jeff Malone.” The grieving husband smiled, brushed a meaty finger across the end of his nose and tried snuffling but there wasn’t enough mucus to make it work. So I asked him again how long he and Jane Allison had been married. He leaned forward, the chair creaking with his shifting bulk. “Geez, it will be—” A suffering smile settled on his face. “It would have been sixteen years next month.” I thought he was going to giggle, but he yawned instead. “I’m sorry,” I said. Shaw glowed at my sympathy like he’d won the Powerball. I flipped to an empty page in my notebook and studied it for a beat, before saying, “Were there any problems in your marriage, Mr. Shaw?” Shaw’s eyes inflated. He gasped with theatrical glee. “No, sir!” he said with righteous zeal. “She—we were wonderful together, err, uh…detective. All our friends said they were envious of us, they really did. They said it all the time and they meant it. We were wonderful together, everyone said we were the best couple they had ever seen….” Shaw’s Trumpian monologue faded away, as though even he couldn’t believe anyone would believe him. And for the first time I noticed a subtle odor in the house. Something like bad breath and feces. A combination that made me ponder Jane Allison’s missing dog. I asked Shaw, “Do you have a dog?” The fat man shook his head. “No—” I narrowed my eyes with a policeman’s practiced skepticism. “—I mean, I don’t have a dog but my wife.” Shaw rubbed his dry eyes again. “Oh, Jane, how can it be you’re gone?” His acting was as bad as the dialogue; like Liam Hemsworth playing Hamlet. I flipped another page in my notebook and asked, “What’s the name of your wife’s dog?” His eyes burned cold. His mouth shut in a tight line. Finally, he said, “Why?” “She had dog treats and”—I pulled a purple and white unused poop bag from a pocket—“and this in her left hand. Like she had been walking a dog but there was no dog with her, Mr. Shaw.” I paused for a moment and listened to a clock clacking in another room. I looked back at Shaw and said in a soft voice, “I thought maybe the dog came home.” Shaw’s mouth opened and closed. He looked like a bloated fish that had washed ashore. After several uncomfortable seconds he blurted, “Fluffy!” “Fluffy?” I said. “Is Fluffy here, Mr. Shaw?” “Well—” His eyes darted toward a closed door at the entrance of a hallway leading into the back of the house. “He—” Shaw looked back at me, a smile blossoming on his face. “He’s been missing all day.” As an afterthought he said, “Maybe whoever killed Jane took him.” If I’d had a partner, this is where we would have exchanged knowing looks, but since I didn’t, I shrugged and asked, “Did you like Fluffy, Mr. Shaw?” “Well—” He stuttered. “He—Fluffy, I mean, has never really liked me.” A bead of sweat popped out on his forehead. “I—I was always good to Fluffy and that little”—he paused to find just the right word—“hooligan made my life hell. His incessant barking, his biting.” Shaw’s glacial eyes caught fire. “Do you know what that devil did?” I shook my head. “He pissed on my pillow three days in a row! Three days in a row! And that damned Jane. That bitch! She just laughed when I complained about it.” “Is that why you killed your wife, Mr. Shaw?”  Shaw mumbled to himself. He sat back in his recliner and crossed his arms. At precisely that moment the door at the back of the room bumped and rattled. Shaw’s face molted gray. “Your wife laughed at you, Mr. Shaw? Is that why you killed her?” “No!” His exclamation was compromised by an unmistakable squeak in his voice. The door rattled again; this time louder than the last. I took three quick steps and pulled the door open. The odor of shit and a hairless terrier erupted from within the tiny bathroom. The dog’s resemblance to Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies was remarkable. The duct tape wrapped around its snout was all that had kept it from barking. I turned to Shaw. “Fluffy?” Shaw glared at the dog as it growled and pounced on his feet. Fluffy lifted a hind leg and urinated on Shaw’s ankles. Shaw barked, “You little bastard—” and kicked at Fluffy. The dog bounded away with a cacophony of click-clacking on the hardwood floor. Shaw looked at me and said, “You see! You would have too, Mr.—ah, detective, umm…. I’m sorry, but I forgot your name again.” I hunched my shoulders and nodded with sympathy. Shaw said, “That goddam dog.” But the vitriol and menace were gone. “He’s going to piss on my pillow again.” He shook his head and I could see the despair on his pale face. After a moment I said, “Why not just get rid of the dog, Mr. Shaw? Drive him to a shelter and pretend he ran away? Why kill your wife?” “She—Jane would have known what I’d done.” Shaw leaned back into his recliner and rubbed his belly with a mindless hand. In a whisper, he said, “It should have been that dog, but…those dammed cow eyes of his.” Shaw scowled. “I just couldn’t do it.” I arrested Paul Shaw for murdering Jane Allison. As I handcuffed him, he said, “I loved my wife. I really did.” I really believed Paul Shaw thought he loved his wife. I also believed the best punishment for the crime would have been for Mr. Shaw to spend the rest of his natural life with Fluffy. But the court disagreed. Fin

Ben Boulden is the author of two novels, several short stories, and more than 400 articles, book reviews, and columns. His latest book, Casinos, Motels, Gators is available for Kindle, and as a paperback everywhere.

© 2024 by Ben Boulden / All Rights Reserved

Praise for "Casinos, Motels, Gators"

 

I’ve been holding onto this bit of news for so long, three months and a day for anyone counting, that it feels (almost) sacrilegious to post about it now. But I’ve never been one to let a little discomfort keep me from annoying my three loyal readers. So…I’m sharing this wonderful review novelist and blogger James Reasoner wrote for my collection, Casinos, Motels, Gators, all the way back on June 5. He liked it, and from his kind words I’m comfortable saying, he really liked it. Here’s a sampling of some of my favorite parts of James’s review: “I really like Ben Boulden’s writing. His prose is as terse and tough and hardboiled as any you’ll find these days.” “I’d previously referred to “121” as a Manhunt story for the 21st Century. Having reread it and read the other two Jimmy Ford stories, I’d say that not only would the series have worked in Manhunt, it would have been right at home in the late Seventies/early Eighties issues of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. With some adjustment to the trappings, they could have even been Black Mask stories in the early Thirties. Boulden’s writing has definite echoes of Paul Cain, Raoul Whitfield, and Frederick Nebel.” “Casinos, Motels, Gators is one of the best books I’ve read this year.” You can read James Reasoner’s entire review here. When you’re done reading the review, do yourself (and me) a favor and read Casinos, Motels, Gators.

Casinos, Motels, Gators is available in Kindle, including Kindle Unlimited, here and as a trade paperback here.

Now Available! — "Casinos, Motels, Gators" by Ben Boulden

 

Now Available!

My latest book, Casinos, Motels, Gators, which is part of 3 Play’s lineup of story collections, is available now. CMG is a collection of four crime stories—hardboiled, noirish, and darn good—which originally appeared in anthologies and magazines between 2019 and 2021. These four stories are some of my best writing and I think pretty much anyone who enjoys crime fiction will have a good time reading them.   This is how the publisher described CMG:   This exciting new collection, by cult favorite crime writer Ben Boulden, is a modern take on the hardboiled crime story. New York Times bestselling author James Reasoner called “121”—the first story in Casinos, Motels, Gators—a “Manhunt story for the 21st Century.” A high accolade indeed! All four tales are set in the cruel landscape of Utah’s West Desert between Salt Lake City and the Utah-Nevada border town of Wendover. Three stories find the burned-out former FBI agent, Jimmy Ford—a security consultant for a corrupt casino owner—working the wrong side of the street with better intentions than it first appears. The last story, “Asia Divine,” is a bleak murder investigation that reveals a dark secret about love and expectation. Casinos, Motels, Gators is an exemplary collection full of surprising twists, vivid settings, and powerful storytelling—certain to please every reader.

Casinos, Motels, Gators is available in Kindle—it is free with your Kindle Unlimited membership—and as a trade paperback everywhere. Click here for the Kindle version and here for the paperback on Amazon.   If you enjoy Casinos, Motels, Gators—do me a favor and review it on Amazon and/or Goodreads.   Thanks for your support!

Available for Pre-Order: "Casinos, Motels, Gators" by Ben Boulden

 

Available For Pre-Order

Casinos, Motels, Gators by Ben Boulden 3 Play, 2024   Big news at Maison Boulden. Casinos, Motels, Gators, which is a collection of four of my crime stories—three Jimmy Ford tales and a standalone—is available for pre-order now and scheduled for release in a week and a day: May 28, 2024. The Author’s Note tells it better than I could, so… The four short stories in Casinos, Motels, Gators were written between 2017 and 2020 in a broom closet-sized office in my former home in Salt Lake City, Utah. I worked fulltime and wrote in the early mornings and late at night. I conjured the character Jimmy Ford, appearing in the first three stories, during a long ago visit to the casinos of the Utah-Nevada border town of Wendover.      Wendover is a desert town nestled in a desolate valley about 120 miles west of Salt Lake City on I-80. It started life as a railroad town in the early-20th Century and boomed during World War Two when an Army Air Corps training base was built. The Enola Gay and the rest of the 509th Composite Group, which were responsible for dropping Fat Man and Little Boy on Japan, trained there. After the war, the old Air Corps base was largely left to rot and Las Vegas-style casinos came in, luring both the respectable and seamier residents of the City of Saints into their gambling pits.      These three Jimmy Ford stories—“121,” “No Chips, No Bonus,” and “Junkyard”—were all published in 2019. I think they work well as modern updates on the hardboiled detective genre, something like the old pulp Manhunt would publish if it was still around. Jimmy Ford as a character isn’t exactly likable—he is too violent, a bit smug, too easily manipulated by his unsavory boss, Jenkins—but he usually ends up doing the right thing even if it’s done the wrong way. These three stories are all of the Jimmy Ford’s misadventures, but who knows, Jimmy may rise from the page again. I should also tell you, the Wendover of my imagination and the real thing are different places. The Desert Diamond casino, where Jimmy is a security consultant, doesn’t exist, and as far as I know, no one like Jimmy Ford or his unscrupulous boss, Jenkins, exist, either.      The fourth and final story in the collection, “Asia Divine,” was written for a tribute anthology honoring the late-writer and all-around good guy, Bill Crider. It was published in 2021 with a table of contents filled with writers outside my weight class. There were stories by Joe R. Lansdale, William Kent Krueger, Charlaine Harris, Bill Pronzini, and Sara Paretsky. But—and I say this with all humility—I think “Asia Divine” held its own. “Asia Divine,” like the Jimmy Ford stories, is set in Utah’s West Desert but none of the action is as far west as Jimmy Ford’s Wendover.      Now, let’s get to the stories… *           *           * Oh, I should add. The New York Times bestselling author, James Reasoner, called “121” a “Manhunt story for the 21st Century.” A high accolade indeed!

Casinos, Motels, Gators is available here for pre-order as an ebook at Amazon. A paperback edition will drop either May 27 or 28 everywhere and the Kindle edition will be available on Kindle Unlimited with a subscription.