cover image The Devil’s Country: The Drifter

The Devil’s Country: The Drifter

Harry Hunsicker. Thomas & Mercer, $15.95 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-5039-4190-8

Hunsicker, the creator of a series about a Dallas PI named Lee Henry Oswald (Crosshairs) and another about disgraced ex-cop Jon Cantrell (The Grid), introduces another underdog, former Texas Ranger Arlo Baines, in this gritty crime novel. Baines, whose wife and two children were murdered less than a year earlier, drifts into the small West Texas town of Piedra Springs, where he encounters a frightened woman, Molly, and her two children in the parking lot of a bar. Two men in cowboy hats are chasing them. Baines disables the cowboys in a brief fight, but when it’s over, Molly and her children have disappeared. Sheriff Quang Marsh advises Baines to leave Piedra Springs, but then Molly’s body is found and her children are missing; Baines won’t leave until he finds the kids. The tale of his family’s slaughter emerges in bits and pieces as this admirable hero takes on a town paralyzed by fear of a deadly cult and struggles to emerge from his nightmarish past. [em]Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment. (Mar.) [/em]