Pigeon
river blues
Wayne
zurl
September
15 – October 31, 2014
Virtual Book Tour
About
The Book
Title:
Pigeon
River Blues
Series:
A Sam Jenkins MysteryAuthor: Wayne Zurl
Publisher:
Iconic Publishing
Publication
Date: May
31, 2014Pages: 258
ISBN: 978-1938844027
Genre: Mystery
/ Police ProceduralFormat: 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.”
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:
Website: www.waynezurlbooks.net
Facebook: http:/www.facebook.com/waynezurlTwitter: https://twitter.com/waynezurl
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/WayneZurl
Discuss
this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE
My review:
I just finished reading Pigeon River Blues and I liked this Sam Jenkins Mystery story. Sam Jenkins is trying to keep a wonderful singer safe while she comes back home and to sing . But there are some that do not want her there. They have started to threaten her. His job won't be easy and he needs to solve the case and find out who is behind these threats against C.J. Profitt. I give this book a 4/5. I was given this book for the purpose of a review and all opinionsa are my own.
Sounds like an interesting mystery! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it with us.
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