In this gamble, more than a few poker chips are at stake.
When an Army Air Force Major vanishes from his Top Secret job at the Fort Worth airbase in the summer of 1947, down-on-his-luck former Ranger Jefferson Sharp is hired to find him, because the Major owes a sizable gambling debt to a local mobster. The search takes Sharp from the hideaway poker rooms of Fort Worth's Thunder Road, to the barren ranch lands of New Mexico, to secret facilities under construction in the Nevada desert.
Lethal operatives and an opaque military bureaucracy stand in his way, but when he finds an otherworldly clue and learns President Truman is creating a new Central Intelligence Agency and splitting the Air Force from the Army, Sharp begins to connect dots. And those dots draw a straight line to a conspiracy aiming to cover up a secret that is out of this world⎯literally so.
PRAISE QUOTES:
“[In this] intriguing debut . . . clear crisp prose . . . morphs from a western into a detective story with an overlay of conspiracy theories.” —Publishers Weekly
“Sparkling 1940's dialogue, wry humor, an unpredictable yet coherent storyline, and a breezy style all his own, make Colin Holmes' somewhat spooky novel, Thunder Road, a winner. I'll be on the lookout for his next novel.” —Rob Leininger, author of Killing Suki Flood and the Mortimer Angel "Gumshoe" series
“This genre-defying and enormously entertaining romp is Mickey Spillane meets Whitley Strieber meets Woody Allen. I can’t remember when I’ve had so much plain old fun reading a book and just didn’t want it to end.” —Historical Novel Society, Editor’s Choice
“A carefully crafted and original suspense thriller of a read, Thunder Road by Colin Holmes is the stuff of which block-buster action/adventure movies are made. With many and unexpected plot twists and turns, Thunder Road is an inherently fascinating and entertaining novel . . .” —Midwest Book Review
HALL WAYS AUDIO BOOK REVIEW: Coming soon, but WOW! Colin Holmes's story + Grover Gardner's narration of it...WOW again. I listened to this straight through and may very well do it again.
Before the pandemic, Colin Holmes toiled in a beige cubical as a mid-level marketing and advertising manager for an international electronics firm. A recovering advertising creative director, he spent far too long at ad agencies and freelancing as a hired gun in the war for capitalism.
As an adman, Holmes has written newspaper classifieds, TV commercials, radio spots, trade journal articles and tweets. His ads have sold cowboy boots and cheeseburgers, 72-ounce steaks, and hazardous waste site clean-up services. He’s encountered fascinating characters at every turn.
Now he writes novels, short stories and screenplays in an effort to stay out of the way and not drive his far too patient wife completely crazy. He is an honors graduate of the UCLA Writers Program, a former board member of the DFW Writers Workshop and serves on the steering committee of the DFW Writers Conference. He’s a fan of baseball, barbeque, fine automobiles and unpretentious scotch.
An interplanetary mystery and a searing critique of the contemporary billionaire quest for Mars. The year is (still) 2188 and Crucial Larsen is officially done with Mars. But just as he’s set to head back to his beloved Earth, meteors crash into the orbital platforms, ravage the luxury domes and knock Halo—the powerful AI running Mars and Earth—offline. And this is no random cosmic event. An invading force has the technology to redirect space rocks at will and intends to level the Five Families.
Their first act? Put a bounty on missing Staff Scientist Melinda Hopwire, Crucial’s ex-lover—the only person left alive who can find the back-up servers to introduce the AI empathy hack, the endgame of the beleaguered Resistance. Crucial has to claw his way across the deadly Choke armed with nothing more than a glue gun, expired maple rum and Sanders, a malfunctioning cybanism, to find Mel and her synthetic perma-kitten Wisp. If he fails, it’s the end for both planets.
“A compelling saga, edgy and different…the personal, political, and social issues create a Mars story that is thoroughly absorbing. Other books have attempted to blend the genres of an investigative detective piece with sci-fi, but few achieve such a seamless integration.” – Midwest Book Review
With a Category 4 hurricane about to make landfall, boat safety instructor Kate Parks is running out of time. Bodies are piling up--and they're not from the raging storm. An injury may have ended her career as a Fish and Wildlife officer, but nothing can keep her away from the investigation.
And it doesn’t take long for her to see that the clues have one thing in common: a connection to the recent death of her five-year-old nephew.
In a brewing storm of rage, guilt, and family secrets, Kate fights to protect her grieving sister just as the hurricane threatens everything she knows and loves. But before her world is completely ravaged, she must uncover one final truth:
Run from the water.
Hide from the wind.
Flee from the shadows where a weeper seeks revenge.
HALL WAYS REVIEW: For anyone who regularly reads my reviews, it'll come as no surprise that I wanted to read this book because of 1) the cover, and 2) the creepy premise. To elaborate on the latter: all the creepy business is happening in a town on the Gulf Coast as a Cat 4 hurricane is approaching. The hurricane, an ominous force inching ever closer throughout Darkness Hides, took that premise next level. There will be death and destruction: but will it be by Mother Nature's hand or a killer of the human kind?
Author JC Gatlin peppers Darkness Hides with a cast of quirky characters that will keep reader interest piqued. Main character Kate has a menagerie of rescue animals that nearly steal the show. Truly, the animals are almost the only characters I really like, and their antics provide wonderful comic relief when the tension runs high -- and oh, my! Does the tension run high! Whether it's the weather, the complex relationships, or the body count, readers will feel engulfed -- even alarmed -- as the story unfolds. When I had to step away from reading, the story stayed with me. I felt like I needed to DO something to help; the story blanketed me with unease and a real desire for resolution.
Gatlin does a great job nailing mood, tone, and setting. No qualms there. Where the story fell short for me may not bother others. For this reader, I was asked too often to suspend my disbelief, and most of the characters weren't likable and made some unlikely decisions. Also, the book needs editing to fill those plot holes and eliminate the typos. Even so, reading Darkness Hides is a complete escape, which is always a good thing, and time between the covers is time well-spent.
As the hurricane creeps towards making landfall, the action in Darkness Hides ratchets up with edge-of-your-seat suspense. It's here that the multiple sub-plots collide, and the detritus scatters. Author Gatlin pieces it all together with many loose ends tied up and an ending that puts readers at ease and feels hopeful. (Much appreciated because I was distressed!)
Gatlin has written several other books (there's a free download of one on his website), and I'll be perusing those and hoping for audio versions -- Darkness Hides would be great to read with your ears! I recommend Darkness Hides for readers looking for a quick-hit mystery that has all the elements of satisfying fiction. Don't miss it.
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Meet the Author:
JC Gatlin lives in Tampa, Florida, and writes mystery novels that include sunny Florida locales and quirky locals as characters. His last novel, H_NGM_N: Murder is the Word, won the coveted Florida Royal Palm Literary Award for Best Mystery in 2019. He is active in the Florida Writer’s Association and is a board member on the Florida Writer’s Foundation, a charity organization that fights illiteracy.
