Poisoned Pen Press
July 2014
On Sale: July 1, 2014
250 pages ISBN: 1464202605 EAN: 9781464202605 Paperback Add to Wish List
In October of 1967, The Summer of Love is history, rock and roll is dark and revolutionary, and people in the small east Texas community of Center Springs simply want to live their lives as quietly as possible. But a handsome darkness in the form of Las Vegas gangster Anthony Agrioli has left the business to hide out in the tiny backwater settlement with his blond bombshell girlfriend. Two years earlier, Agrioli met newlyweds Cody and Norma Faye Parker in a Vegas casino and heard their enthusiastic descriptions of the perfect place to settle down and raise a family. At least it was perfect, before their peaceful world found itself directly in the crosshairs of a coming confrontation. Back in Center Springs, thirteen-year-old Top Parker has what his grandmother, Miss Becky, calls a Poisoned Gift. His dreams, though random and disconnected, always seem to come true. This time Top dreams heโs a wagon hub with spokes converging from all directions. To him, the spokes symbolize that something is coming, but he doesnโt know their quiet community will soon be a combat zone when the gangsters arrive, but theyโre after something else and not Agrioliโฆyet. A sheriff crooked as a dogโs hind leg, an unsolved murder in the river bottoms, counterfeit money and a bank robbery all wrapped in a country Shakespearian comedy once again brings together Constable Ned Parker, Constable Cody Parker, Deputy John Washington, Judge O.C. Rains, and the rest of Worthamโs real and sometimes wacky cast of characters.
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