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
What a wild ride this book is! Jeff Sharp, WWII vet, ex cop, cattle rustler investigator loses his wife and job in short order. An offer for private investigative work seems like a good direction. His first assignments are to run down information on a Dallas mob boss and catch a cheating husband in an affair. Both lead to trouble.
On the bright side, Jeff reunites with a childhood friend, Roni Arquette, a war widow. When Roni’s new boyfriend, Army Air Force Officer Jerry Cartwright disappears, under mysterious circumstances, Jeff and Roni are determined to find him. Their search leads them to Roswell, New Mexico and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Set in the 1940s, the story is full of period details from cars to gambling dens in Fort Worth, Texas and the crash of an alien spaceship. The narrative has a noir detective feel with a heavy dose of Sci-Fi. There is a fair amount of violence. Poor Jeff is on the wrong end of several nasty beatings.
Well written with an unusual story line, I was sucked in from the beginning. I really enjoyed the story and would recommend it to readers who like detective/mystery/thrillers in a historical fiction setting.
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.
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