Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

1.24.16   Miles Arceneaux offers another gripping tale

One of my favorite Texas authors — or should I say three of my favorite authors — is/are back with another fast-paced mystery novel.

I’m talking about Miles Arceneaux, the nom de plume of Texas writers Brent Douglass, John T. Davis, and James R. Dennis. Together they’ve now produced four Arceneaux offerings from the Texas Gulf Coast.

The latest is North Beach ($11.99 paperback), set in the Corpus Christi area in 1962 and featuring teenage brothers Johnny and Charlie Sweetwater and their fishing and boxing buddy Pete Lopez.

Readers may recall the Sweetwater brothers from the previous Arceneaux novel, Ransom Island, although they had only minor roles in that mystery. The island itself — Ransom Island — is still a factor in the new story.

I don’t want to state that this is necessarily a “guy” book, but it certainly has plenty of masculine themes. Boxing, fishing, gangsters, international espionage, and murder all figure into North Beach, as the Sweetwater brothers get themselves into some big-time jams trying to solve a mystery, help clear a friend, and bring a killer to justice. But there’s also a softer, romantic side to the story as well.

If you haven’t read any of the Arceneaux books, this is a good one to start with. This one, or Ransom Island, would be my suggestions. Either way, you’re in for a treat.

First novel: Abilene’s Lloyd Glynn Ray has penned his first book, The Man Who Loved North Wind ($14.95 paperback), a novel set in the 1930s in New Mexico.

Ray hooks the reader right off with a rousing first chapter as Alberto Luís Garcia sets out to exact revenge on the Mexican Federales involved in murdering his family as part of a systematic cleansing of the proud Yaqui Indian Nation in Mexico. By the end of the first chapter, Alberto has left headless bodies all over the canyon as he heads for safe refuge in New Mexico.

The other principal character in the story is Maria Esperanza Rodriguez, the first from her prominent New Mexico family to graduate from college.

Ray does something at the end of his novel that I wish more novelists would do: he includes an index and brief description of characters featured in the book, alphabetically by first name. It’s helpful when reading a 300-plus page novel to be able to go back and be reminded who the characters are. The four-page listing also gives readers a glimpse into the variety of occupations and lifestyles that come into play in the story — from a Chicago mobster to a Franciscan priest to an oil operator, a handyman, a nurse, a bank manager, and a lamb buyer.

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Glenn Dromgoole is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.