Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Between Black and White: McMurtrie and Dale Thrillers 2 by Robert Bailey

Between Black and White: McMurtrie and Dale Thrillers 2.  Robert Bailey. Thomas and Mercer. March 2016. 399 pp.  ASIN#: B013FS57KG. 

Pulaski, Tennessee was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan between 1865 and 1866.  Bocephus Haynes saw his father murdered by the Klan one hundred years later, in 1966, in the most gruesome way one could imagine, a way that scarred Bo forever.  For years he returned to the place where his father died on every anniversary of the horrendous death.  For years he swore he would have revenge. 

Pulaski is a town that had a certain pride in the Ku Klux Klan but also a definite contemporary embarrassment about it all.  So on the night when Bo gets viciously drunk and goes to the infamous place for the awful anniversary visit, Andy Walton is found murdered.  Bo had believed Andy was the person whose voice Bo recognized the night his father was killed.  Now, after Bo has been heard raging about an “eye for an eye…”, he is accused of murdering Andy and  the prosecution is aiming for the death penalty.

But a crack lawyer, Rick McMurtrie, is determined to defend Bo, also a former successful lawyer, and sets about to prove Andy’s death was a framed killing.  The reader will be amazed at the facts that bit by bit are revealed, some that are utterly astonishing as to who was actually at Bo’s father’s death.  It also emerges that there’s a lot of pocket-to-pocket support and crime happening in Pulaski and those who get in the way are judged to be quickly and easily dispensable.

To say more would spoil a lot of twists and turns that keep this crime thriller dynamically vibrant and skillfully moving.  The reader is never sure as to how it will all, or if it will, be resolved on the final page.  McMurtrie is a skilled investigator whose inquiries make him a target as well from the involved ne’er-do-wells of Pulaski, Tennessee.  Hope lies in the few decent human beings who still believe in justice by legal means and not by individual action.  Fine novel that is a terrific read!


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