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The Other Side of Bad
Tucker, a problem-solving gunfighter still reeling from the bloody death of his childhood sweetheart wife, must contend with his survivor's guilt while dodging bullets in the increasingly violent Music City.
Weeks after Tucker foils an assassination attempt on a client, he’s confronted at his remote country home by men intent on killing him.
Meanwhile, Tucker is forced to relive his secret violent past during an interview with a Nashville billionaire who wants his wife's "accidental" death investigated.
But, before Tucker can take on a new assignment, he must deal with who wants to kill him and why.
370 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 11, 2013
50 people are currently reading
411 people want to read
About the author
R.O. Barton
3 books24 followersR. O. Barton lives in middle Tennessee in a stone house he built overlooking Barren Fork Creek. He is currently working on the sequel to "The Other Side Of Bad," "Valley Of Redemption."
He lives with his beagle Angel and the famous "Hank" the hawk-headed parrot, a force to be reckoned with.
He lives with his beagle Angel and the famous "Hank" the hawk-headed parrot, a force to be reckoned with.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
October 3, 2015
Tucker to his friends and Mr. Tucker to the rest of us, is a very bad man. The product of a broken home, living with a military father that's unwilling or unable to show love or emotion. A story as old as time and with results just as predictable. Tucker's primed to follow the fate of so many boys from the same background. Death...prison at the least but it’s the love of a women that can alter the fate of even the most wayward of men.
A love forged early but containing a fire hot enough to consume all obstacles, a connection so strong only death can break it. Young love comes with trials and tribulations and this case is no difference. An unplanned event tries to separate them and even an almost unthinkable loss can't keep them apart. When events conspire to separate them once and for all the young couple make a decision that cannot be reversed setting them on a separate path, a dark and dangerous path but survivable as long as they are together.
Tucker, older now but still a baby, trying to become a man and a provider, succumbs to the inevitable. A penchant for fire arms, an innate intelligence, and a crooked cop brings rise to that presence that lurks under the surface only kept buried by the always present and ever grounding love of his wife.
Years later and Tucker is drifting, ungrounded and with little ties to keep him afloat. An unexpected job offer will cement a new path in his life. Bullets will fly, blood will be spilled, and men will die. Famed for his shooting abilities Tucker isn't a man to be trifled with but no one ever said that criminals were smart and when Tucker needs to make a point you can be sure that that it will be received loud and clear.
There are many characters that Tucker can be compared to, and many authors, but I won't make those comparisons. It would be an injustice, Tucker and Mr. Barton deserve to stand on their own.
I have had the pleasure of reading some fantastic books from indie authors, Claude Bouchard and his Vigilante series, Robert Bidinotto and his Hunter series and Stan Mitchell and his Nick Woods series to name just a few, so I can recognize quickly when there is a series that I will not be able to put down. This is for sure one of those series.
This book popped up on my Facebook feed as a sponsored link and I fully admit that what grabbed me first was the author’s last name. Being the same as mine I read the post, clicked the link to Amazon, looked at the number of reviews and its rating and bought the book. Sometimes it’s those little unexpected things that can give us great pleasure and this was one for me.
If you've made it this far in my review stop reading and buy the book. You won't be sorry and the only down side might be that you'll have to buy the next book and then wait anxiously for the next Tucker release.
A love forged early but containing a fire hot enough to consume all obstacles, a connection so strong only death can break it. Young love comes with trials and tribulations and this case is no difference. An unplanned event tries to separate them and even an almost unthinkable loss can't keep them apart. When events conspire to separate them once and for all the young couple make a decision that cannot be reversed setting them on a separate path, a dark and dangerous path but survivable as long as they are together.
Tucker, older now but still a baby, trying to become a man and a provider, succumbs to the inevitable. A penchant for fire arms, an innate intelligence, and a crooked cop brings rise to that presence that lurks under the surface only kept buried by the always present and ever grounding love of his wife.
Years later and Tucker is drifting, ungrounded and with little ties to keep him afloat. An unexpected job offer will cement a new path in his life. Bullets will fly, blood will be spilled, and men will die. Famed for his shooting abilities Tucker isn't a man to be trifled with but no one ever said that criminals were smart and when Tucker needs to make a point you can be sure that that it will be received loud and clear.
There are many characters that Tucker can be compared to, and many authors, but I won't make those comparisons. It would be an injustice, Tucker and Mr. Barton deserve to stand on their own.
I have had the pleasure of reading some fantastic books from indie authors, Claude Bouchard and his Vigilante series, Robert Bidinotto and his Hunter series and Stan Mitchell and his Nick Woods series to name just a few, so I can recognize quickly when there is a series that I will not be able to put down. This is for sure one of those series.
This book popped up on my Facebook feed as a sponsored link and I fully admit that what grabbed me first was the author’s last name. Being the same as mine I read the post, clicked the link to Amazon, looked at the number of reviews and its rating and bought the book. Sometimes it’s those little unexpected things that can give us great pleasure and this was one for me.
If you've made it this far in my review stop reading and buy the book. You won't be sorry and the only down side might be that you'll have to buy the next book and then wait anxiously for the next Tucker release.
October 9, 2013
Thoroughly enjoyed the first Tucker Novel. I've read about lots of men, but not one has been as gutsy, talented, diverse, honest, tender, or as hard-hitting as Tucker! What a ride! Looking forward to the sequel . . . Peewee
January 15, 2014
This is the first of a series for a new character - TUCKER. If Mr. Barton continues to write books about "Tucker" that are similar to his first novel ("The Other Side of Bad"), then he's going to have a huge success story on his hands. I'm a big Lee Child / Jack Recher fan; Tucker is as much fun as Reacher, but more believable. I'm a big fan of Robert Crais and his characters Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. "Tucker" is perhaps a similar character to Joe Pike but somewhat more sociable. Mr. Barton does a superb job of writing an exciting page turner about a very talented gunsmith and pistolero, but all the while creating a down-to-earth atmoshpere around a believeable character in a believable story. I intend to read everything Mr. Barton writes in the future. Excellent read! Five stars! Two thumbs up!
February 7, 2016
His name is Tucker, just Tucker. The rest of his life should be so simple. He's not a cop or a PI. He's not a drug dealer or assassin. In fact, he seems to have the ability to get out of potentially deadly situations without someone getting killing. He is a gun fighter who learned honesty and honor from Louis L'Amour books. "A bad man isn't always mean, but a mean man is always bad". Tucker is a one man security firm, quick to act and control the situation. A good deal of the book deals with his past and his hard upbringing. More than enough excitement to go around. If you are planning on reading this book, plan on reading Valley Of Redemption too, as the story continues there.
October 16, 2013
A fast paced story of a man's man by the name of Tucker. If I could give it six stars I would. Great main and secondary characters, lots of tense moments, and lots of action. A very fun read from cover to cover. Can't wait until book two comes out!
January 23, 2014
loved this book !! being a Lee Child, Harlen Coben , and the likes fan I must say this was a great page turner. I finished it in hours great characters and loved the detailed locations and settings. Can hardly wait for the next book!!
December 28, 2013
Lousy first paragraph....
Rest - absolutely brilliant. I can see a fine series. More Rachel as well please.
Rest - absolutely brilliant. I can see a fine series. More Rachel as well please.
April 19, 2014
Finally a good mystery that has new words and is well told.
September 20, 2014
Where to start. I can’t quite believe all the positive reviews on here and Amazon, not to mention the endorsement from Lee Child, which is what compelled me to spend actual money on this book. I can only assume that Mr Child hasn’t read it. Or R.O. Barton. Or anyone with an ounce of English knowledge or creative writing ability. I only read until the end because I feel duty bound to inform people of the truth. So this is a warning. Spend your £8.67 on something else, it never did anything to you.
It would take another entire book just to simply list the things that are so, so wrong with this self-published novel; I will try to give a helpful overview.
1. GRAMMAR. Mr Barton, please take some English lessons. Your countless errors of grammar, punctuation, spelling and sentence construction are only eclipsed by your adroit command of utter nonsense. Or maybe it’s the other way round.
Examples: So many sentences begin with ‘But,’. Yes, commas are often a subjective tool, but ‘but’ does not need a comma after it. Ever. Plus the book is riddled with shockingly bad use of commas, quotation marks, and other punctuation throughout. The worst one for me is his complete incompetence using apostrophes – Barton seems to think that if there’s a number (such as his favourite ‘.45’) then he needs to put a possessive apostrophe to indicate a plural. Not to mention the many ‘it’s’ instead of ‘its’ when something belongs to ‘it’. Barton: ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘its’. Memorise it. Although I suspect it is already too late for the next self-publication.
Also, at least three times, Barton puts a completely unnecessary narratorial comment in brackets within the speech marks, and therefore WITHIN SOMEONE'S SPEECH. See page 17.
2.TENSES. There are numerous incidences of random slips from the past tense into the present and back again, often in the same sentence.
3. ABBREVIATIONS. Many words are abbreviated, even in speech. Such as ‘Old Hickory Blvd’, and ‘Lt. Colonel’. This wouldn’t be quite so annoying if it was at least consistent. It’s not. Nor are his descriptions of times, sizes, weights and so on. Barton actually writes ‘2x8’. Seriously. He also doesn’t seem to understand that ‘100’ is ‘a hundred’, or ‘one hundred’, not just ‘hundred’; he writes ‘a 100mph’. How is such idiocy possible? It’s almost commendable for being so uniquely moronic.
4.TYPOS? The question mark is because I can’t quite decide if they are typos or spelling mistakes. Some of these mistakes must be spelling, because they are incongruously consistent: ‘delt’ comes up twice, ‘baddest’ is correct but previously is seen spelt ‘badist’. ‘Badist’! Amazing.
R.O. Barton is a badist.
There are literally hundreds of other errors and inconsistencies, such as Barton’s weird use of ellipsis (eg. ‘That sat me down... hard.’ p129), his forever-changing chapter heading format, and general structure of the plot. Which is almost non-existent.
It’s as if the author doesn’t really know which story he wants to tell, with relentless protracted flashbacks that add nothing to the plot. I was half way through before something actually happened, and then the whole middle section was a story of a drug deal from Tucker’s past. There is so much irrelevant information foisted on the reader that it becomes extremely frustrating. Someone needs to explain to Barton about the old ‘showing/telling’ technique. Nothing is left to the imagination, everything is shoved down your throat with no subtlety, from Tucker’s troubled childhood and haunted past to his skill with every kind of fighting style Barton thinks is cool.
This is how Barton contrives to tell the story of Tucker’s oh-so-checkered-past-in-which-he-is-shown-to-be-ridiculously-tough-yet-so-emotionally-vulnerable-and-therefore-painfully-cool-and-attractive-to-women:
A character called Carr wants someone to investigate the death of his wife. Instead of simply asking Tucker based on the fact that he works in security and has police contacts and a reputation, he has Tucker’s entire life story dug up and transcribed by his employees. Then he has his own ex-military bodyguards randomly follow Tucker around until he spots them and points a gun at them, at which point they shit themselves and drive off. Obviously military personnel in America are going to panic and need counselling at the sight of a gun. Then huge parts of the book relate random episodes from Tucker’s life which have no bearing on anything, anywhere, ever.
Barton tries so hard to make Tucker cool that he is a tiresome cliché in the style of a cheesy Baywatch character.
One of the main problems I have with this book is that the whole thing comes off like some kind of childish fantasy autobiography. There is a photo of Barton on the back cover, and Tucker is described as looking exactly like Barton. To compound this, Tucker’s wife and son have the same names as Barton’s, and his pseudo-philosophic bumbling attempts at pondering ‘life’ come across like some self-therapeutic catharsis for Barton.
Dude, it’s sad about your wife, but this is supposed to be fiction, and fiction is supposed to be a pleasure.
Finally, this book is racist. The depiction of the Japanese guy, Pok, and the Mexican, Teemo, are so poorly realised that it reads like Barton is ignorantly mocking the way they might speak English. Pok pronounces Colorado ‘Cororado’ for Christ’s sake. Ironically, most Japanese and Mexicans could probably write better English than R.O. Barton.
My dog could write better English than R.O. Barton.
To compare this author to the likes of Lee Child and Robert Crais is an affront to the very notion of language and storytelling.
That is all. Well, it’s not, but life’s too short. Just don’t read the book.
p.s. Guns just aren’t that cool.
It would take another entire book just to simply list the things that are so, so wrong with this self-published novel; I will try to give a helpful overview.
1. GRAMMAR. Mr Barton, please take some English lessons. Your countless errors of grammar, punctuation, spelling and sentence construction are only eclipsed by your adroit command of utter nonsense. Or maybe it’s the other way round.
Examples: So many sentences begin with ‘But,’. Yes, commas are often a subjective tool, but ‘but’ does not need a comma after it. Ever. Plus the book is riddled with shockingly bad use of commas, quotation marks, and other punctuation throughout. The worst one for me is his complete incompetence using apostrophes – Barton seems to think that if there’s a number (such as his favourite ‘.45’) then he needs to put a possessive apostrophe to indicate a plural. Not to mention the many ‘it’s’ instead of ‘its’ when something belongs to ‘it’. Barton: ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘its’. Memorise it. Although I suspect it is already too late for the next self-publication.
Also, at least three times, Barton puts a completely unnecessary narratorial comment in brackets within the speech marks, and therefore WITHIN SOMEONE'S SPEECH. See page 17.
2.TENSES. There are numerous incidences of random slips from the past tense into the present and back again, often in the same sentence.
3. ABBREVIATIONS. Many words are abbreviated, even in speech. Such as ‘Old Hickory Blvd’, and ‘Lt. Colonel’. This wouldn’t be quite so annoying if it was at least consistent. It’s not. Nor are his descriptions of times, sizes, weights and so on. Barton actually writes ‘2x8’. Seriously. He also doesn’t seem to understand that ‘100’ is ‘a hundred’, or ‘one hundred’, not just ‘hundred’; he writes ‘a 100mph’. How is such idiocy possible? It’s almost commendable for being so uniquely moronic.
4.TYPOS? The question mark is because I can’t quite decide if they are typos or spelling mistakes. Some of these mistakes must be spelling, because they are incongruously consistent: ‘delt’ comes up twice, ‘baddest’ is correct but previously is seen spelt ‘badist’. ‘Badist’! Amazing.
R.O. Barton is a badist.
There are literally hundreds of other errors and inconsistencies, such as Barton’s weird use of ellipsis (eg. ‘That sat me down... hard.’ p129), his forever-changing chapter heading format, and general structure of the plot. Which is almost non-existent.
It’s as if the author doesn’t really know which story he wants to tell, with relentless protracted flashbacks that add nothing to the plot. I was half way through before something actually happened, and then the whole middle section was a story of a drug deal from Tucker’s past. There is so much irrelevant information foisted on the reader that it becomes extremely frustrating. Someone needs to explain to Barton about the old ‘showing/telling’ technique. Nothing is left to the imagination, everything is shoved down your throat with no subtlety, from Tucker’s troubled childhood and haunted past to his skill with every kind of fighting style Barton thinks is cool.
This is how Barton contrives to tell the story of Tucker’s oh-so-checkered-past-in-which-he-is-shown-to-be-ridiculously-tough-yet-so-emotionally-vulnerable-and-therefore-painfully-cool-and-attractive-to-women:
A character called Carr wants someone to investigate the death of his wife. Instead of simply asking Tucker based on the fact that he works in security and has police contacts and a reputation, he has Tucker’s entire life story dug up and transcribed by his employees. Then he has his own ex-military bodyguards randomly follow Tucker around until he spots them and points a gun at them, at which point they shit themselves and drive off. Obviously military personnel in America are going to panic and need counselling at the sight of a gun. Then huge parts of the book relate random episodes from Tucker’s life which have no bearing on anything, anywhere, ever.
Barton tries so hard to make Tucker cool that he is a tiresome cliché in the style of a cheesy Baywatch character.
One of the main problems I have with this book is that the whole thing comes off like some kind of childish fantasy autobiography. There is a photo of Barton on the back cover, and Tucker is described as looking exactly like Barton. To compound this, Tucker’s wife and son have the same names as Barton’s, and his pseudo-philosophic bumbling attempts at pondering ‘life’ come across like some self-therapeutic catharsis for Barton.
Dude, it’s sad about your wife, but this is supposed to be fiction, and fiction is supposed to be a pleasure.
Finally, this book is racist. The depiction of the Japanese guy, Pok, and the Mexican, Teemo, are so poorly realised that it reads like Barton is ignorantly mocking the way they might speak English. Pok pronounces Colorado ‘Cororado’ for Christ’s sake. Ironically, most Japanese and Mexicans could probably write better English than R.O. Barton.
My dog could write better English than R.O. Barton.
To compare this author to the likes of Lee Child and Robert Crais is an affront to the very notion of language and storytelling.
That is all. Well, it’s not, but life’s too short. Just don’t read the book.
p.s. Guns just aren’t that cool.
October 12, 2023
A very intriguing and interesting story well told.
The story did both a present and past so that one get to see Tucker in his early years with his wife and in the present as he deals with several difficult issues.
The story did both a present and past so that one get to see Tucker in his early years with his wife and in the present as he deals with several difficult issues.
August 17, 2017
I enjoy books with a good level of detail and a character i can connect with, even if I have not been through the things they have. This book had both.
January 12, 2018
Another good read, by R.O. Barton
Read
December 6, 2019Fabulous!
January 8, 2014
This is the first of a series for a new character - TUCKER. If Mr. Barton continues to write books about "Tucker" that are similar to his first novel ("The Other Side of Bad"), then he's going to have a huge success story on his hands. I'm a big Lee Child / Jack Recher fan; Tucker is as much fun as Reacher, but more believable. I'm a big fan of Robert Crais and his characters Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. "Tucker" is perhaps a similar character to Joe Pike but somewhat more sociable. Mr. Barton does a superb job of writing an exciting page turner about a very talented gunsmith and pistolero, but all the while creating a down-to-earth atmoshpere around a believeable character in a believable story. I intend to read everything Mr. Barton writes in the future. Excellent read! Five stars! Two thumbs up!
January 30, 2014
Great read a real page burner non stop action with real down home charm with brass balls to boot.fast pace with hooks that keep pulling you in deeper.love how it goes back in time and developes the deapth of character so you see why he is the way he turned out.Great story line with a lot of help with back up characters interwoven in the story.Lee child's,Michel Connelly,Vince Flynn,James Paterson,Patricia Cromwell ,r o barton ranks right up there with the best of them can't wait for the next book I want it now damn it!
November 19, 2015
Tucker
Tucker, everybody calls him Tucker! Except for his dear wife, who died in a car accident and he still grieves her death all these years later. She called him Tuck. He's fast with a gun and vicious at hand to hand. And most everybody fears him or are in awe of him. This novel talks about how he came to be the person he is now, from his relationship with his father and uncles to his marriage and his drug running days. A good book with interesting characters!
Tucker, everybody calls him Tucker! Except for his dear wife, who died in a car accident and he still grieves her death all these years later. She called him Tuck. He's fast with a gun and vicious at hand to hand. And most everybody fears him or are in awe of him. This novel talks about how he came to be the person he is now, from his relationship with his father and uncles to his marriage and his drug running days. A good book with interesting characters!
March 12, 2018
I thought early in the book that this was going to be a boring look back and forth between Tucker's past and present life. I was right except for the boring part. This was very well-written and fast-paced about an exceptional character. Looking forward to others in the series. I rated it 4.7 stars.
June 30, 2016
Certainly the best free Kindle book I've read....actually the only free Kindle book that I made it past the first chapter. Ignore the silly title and the absurdly bad first few pages, and it turns out to be a good first effort. Lots of action makes up for the excess angst and compulsive introspection of the hero. It's entertaining - I read it in a day and I'm not a fast reader.
Read
December 30, 2015Love this writer. His main character is name Tucker. You are immediately taken with him. He is smart, fun and grieves the death of his wife. When hired for a job, Tucker will get this done. I love the way his brain works....I recommend this writer to all readers.
July 31, 2016
Surprised
I had not heard anything about this book or author before reading it. Wow! I'm all in and hope there are more. The characters and story are quirky, engaging, even somewhat enlightening. Well done.
I had not heard anything about this book or author before reading it. Wow! I'm all in and hope there are more. The characters and story are quirky, engaging, even somewhat enlightening. Well done.
October 3, 2016
A good read...
as long as you skip over the monotonous details. What he's wearing, what brand and color it is, and so much unrelated back history on the guys life, it makes up 75% of the book. I enjoyed the writing style and the subtle humor, though.
as long as you skip over the monotonous details. What he's wearing, what brand and color it is, and so much unrelated back history on the guys life, it makes up 75% of the book. I enjoyed the writing style and the subtle humor, though.
February 23, 2016
Really enjoy the story and characters. It was a fun read with interesting aspect of character development that was were new and engaging for me.
June 30, 2016
Not up there with Lee Child but I like the character. I'd read more of these books
July 22, 2016
Kept me riveted
There was never a lull or boring moment. I always wanted to read the next word, paragraph, page. A remarkably told story.
There was never a lull or boring moment. I always wanted to read the next word, paragraph, page. A remarkably told story.
August 15, 2016
if you like lee child's reacher, you'll like tucker
June 14, 2015
Looking forward to the second book.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews