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The Richard Carter Novels #8
Road Shrines
Updated cover edition found here.
Road Shrines
An unauthorized exhumation in Hawthorn County unearths the body of a girl whose abduction riveted the nation and sparked a nation-wide search eighteen years earlier. As federal investigators and national media descend on Blue Creek, Richard Carter is frozen out of the case, but not out of the spotlight. He is held up as an example of rural ineptitude by a news pundit demanding a quick solution to what appears to be a serial killer who has been operating undetected out of the area for decades.
Meanwhile, he tries to track down a missing girl who may or may not have been a victim of the killer now known as “The Gardener.”
What better place to hide a body but in a cemetery?
What better way to remember a treasured one than with a shrine?
Road Shrines
An unauthorized exhumation in Hawthorn County unearths the body of a girl whose abduction riveted the nation and sparked a nation-wide search eighteen years earlier. As federal investigators and national media descend on Blue Creek, Richard Carter is frozen out of the case, but not out of the spotlight. He is held up as an example of rural ineptitude by a news pundit demanding a quick solution to what appears to be a serial killer who has been operating undetected out of the area for decades.
Meanwhile, he tries to track down a missing girl who may or may not have been a victim of the killer now known as “The Gardener.”
What better place to hide a body but in a cemetery?
What better way to remember a treasured one than with a shrine?
392 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 16, 2014
5 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
A.R. Simmons
16 books59 followersAR Simmons grew up in the Missouri Ozarks. He walked a gravel road to a rural school evocative of “Walton’s Mountain.” His parents did factory work to buy things not provided by their subsistence farm which was passed down from his grandfather who cleared the land from the native forest. He and his wife (beta reader, illustrator, and muse) still live on that farm. So his roots run deep in the Ozark soil. Using the culture, language, and mores of this "Bible Belt" region, he writes culturally immersive stories of obsession set amidst the small-town and rural life that he knows and loves.
He began writing seriously with a suspense novel which he serialized around the turn of the millennium on his website www.bluecreeknovels. It took until 2013 for him to publish the first Richard Carter novel (Bonne Femme) as an e-book. The series now includes fourteen mystery/suspense stand-alone stories that also chronicle Richard’s life with each story spaced about a year apart. This required a year-by-year update to the technology available to the characters because time marches on.
PS. Simmons is a rather common drudge, so once considered changing his nom-de-plume to “Bess Sellers.”
He began writing seriously with a suspense novel which he serialized around the turn of the millennium on his website www.bluecreeknovels. It took until 2013 for him to publish the first Richard Carter novel (Bonne Femme) as an e-book. The series now includes fourteen mystery/suspense stand-alone stories that also chronicle Richard’s life with each story spaced about a year apart. This required a year-by-year update to the technology available to the characters because time marches on.
PS. Simmons is a rather common drudge, so once considered changing his nom-de-plume to “Bess Sellers.”
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 14, 2019
A. R. Simmons remarkably maintains suspense up to the last page in his eighth outing for Richard Carter, a cop in rural Ozark sheriff’s department. An unauthorized exhumation leads to the discovery of the body of a missing teen girl. The FBI gets involved after more bodies are found, and it becomes clear that a serial killer is large at hand. But it’s up to Carter to get to the killer before the latter claims another victim. Methodical, obsessive and driven by his OCD to some extent, Carter works his way painstakingly through a multitude of clues while the FBI sits.
Maintaining high suspense throughout, Simmons brings forth a compelling whodunit that readers will devour in no time. Worth mystery buffs’ money and time. A keeper.
Maintaining high suspense throughout, Simmons brings forth a compelling whodunit that readers will devour in no time. Worth mystery buffs’ money and time. A keeper.
Displaying 1 of 1 review