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Kahlo and Crowe Mysteries #2
Hau Tree Green
Sometimes secrets are too big to live with. Sometimes dying is a relief.
Beatrice Stone came to the west coast young and delectable, with high hopes and big plans for a long career on the silver screen. It hasn’t worked out. She has a secret—she loves someone she isn’t allowed to. It’s a love that’s forbidden, and it ruins her. Pretty dreams don’t always come true, and she descends into the streets, living for the next bottle of gin. A prostitute and a thief, she gets by any way she can. She steals something without knowing how valuable it is, and the people she stole it from want it back badly enough to kill her.
The last man Beatrice Stone ever propositions is private eye Nate Crowe. He turns her down, but something about her touches him. He gives her ve bucks and watches her walk away, not knowing that she’s going to haunt him, or that he’s going to haunt her murderers.
Crowe has a secret of his own. The love of his life is an eccentric artist; the beautiful, exotic Annie Kahlo, who died in a ery crash at the end of a police chase. She’s earned a trip to the gas chamber, but nobody is looking to execute a corpse. Annie isn’t dead, though, and she’s more than a little crazy. She has a gun in her purse, a strong sense of right and wrong, and her own quick way of dealing with injustice. The worst people never see her coming.
Scented with cinnamon and suntan oil, soaked in neon and bourbon, Hau Tree Green is the sequel to Girls in Pink. From the sleazy beach motels on Cabrillo Boulevard to the gated, palm-shaded mansions in Montelindo, this is southern California in the winter of 1947, fresh, real and colorful as today.
Beatrice Stone came to the west coast young and delectable, with high hopes and big plans for a long career on the silver screen. It hasn’t worked out. She has a secret—she loves someone she isn’t allowed to. It’s a love that’s forbidden, and it ruins her. Pretty dreams don’t always come true, and she descends into the streets, living for the next bottle of gin. A prostitute and a thief, she gets by any way she can. She steals something without knowing how valuable it is, and the people she stole it from want it back badly enough to kill her.
The last man Beatrice Stone ever propositions is private eye Nate Crowe. He turns her down, but something about her touches him. He gives her ve bucks and watches her walk away, not knowing that she’s going to haunt him, or that he’s going to haunt her murderers.
Crowe has a secret of his own. The love of his life is an eccentric artist; the beautiful, exotic Annie Kahlo, who died in a ery crash at the end of a police chase. She’s earned a trip to the gas chamber, but nobody is looking to execute a corpse. Annie isn’t dead, though, and she’s more than a little crazy. She has a gun in her purse, a strong sense of right and wrong, and her own quick way of dealing with injustice. The worst people never see her coming.
Scented with cinnamon and suntan oil, soaked in neon and bourbon, Hau Tree Green is the sequel to Girls in Pink. From the sleazy beach motels on Cabrillo Boulevard to the gated, palm-shaded mansions in Montelindo, this is southern California in the winter of 1947, fresh, real and colorful as today.
282 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 13, 2017
2 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
About the author
Bob Bickford
13 books20 followersFINALIST: International Thriller Writers 2017 Best First Novel
When I was little, the library was my favorite place.
I was born in Lone Pine, California. My parents liked to move and so did I, for a while. I have roots throughout the United States, but I was mostly raised in Toronto, Canada.
My father was a psychiatric social worker who grew up in the slums of Boston. He was a tough guy who got an education on the GI bill and pulled himself out of his birthright. He married twice, the first time to a woman who left him a widower. Alone with a toddler, I suppose he was determined that it wouldn’t happen to him again, because the second time he married a woman much younger than he was.
She was the product of a Southern family; royalty that included the same Duke family that bought a university and named it after itself. Wilful and rebellious, she scorned Southern convention, rejected the closeted skeletons and wide streak of alcoholism that hid behind decorated formality. She disowned her family, converted to Catholicism, marched for civil rights, and married the older man from a poverty-stricken background. I am the oldest of the seven children she bore, one after the next.
We were brought up in curious contrasts. There were the economies that so many mouths to feed on a middle class income made necessary; (hand-me-down clothes, Tang and powdered milk, peanut butter for ten thousand consecutive school lunches), but my mother’s background dictated private schools, music and dance and art lessons.
I attended St. Michael’s Choir School and studied piano and organ at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. I hated studying anything at all; my mother was determined that I should be a doctor and despaired over my future. I only wanted to read fiction, and did so endlessly. The library was my favorite, enchanted place (it still is). I didn’t realize I was in fact studying for what I wanted to do most.
My father’s plan to not be widowed again fell through, and my mother was suddenly gone when I was 16. He had been ill equipped to raise one child the first time, and now there were eight of them; the youngest only three years old. In some sense we lost him, too.
Life changed, just like that. My behavior guaranteed me a quick expulsion from my exclusive school. I did manage a high school diploma (by the skin of my teeth) but I was mostly happy to leave school for good. I lost an early love, and wandered to Los Angeles. I learned about the streets, and about living in the places that cause most people to lock their car doors when they drive through. I was blessed with the same genes that took my father through life in the mean part of Boston, and survived.
Eventually, I grew up and moved again, first to Atlanta and then back to Canada. I made a living in the 'fixing cars' arena. I live in a very old house on a wooded lot that is infested by dogs and turtles and parrots, and perhaps the ghost of a young girl. My teen-aged son is a light in my life who wants to be an author and a professional football player. I never tell him that both are nearly impossible, because they aren’t.
The library has continued to haunt me. When age said the possibility of a university degree was long past, I decided to try my hand at a novel anyway. Somehow I finished it, and have produced one a year since. I’m working on my tenth.
When I was little, the library was my favorite place.
I was born in Lone Pine, California. My parents liked to move and so did I, for a while. I have roots throughout the United States, but I was mostly raised in Toronto, Canada.
My father was a psychiatric social worker who grew up in the slums of Boston. He was a tough guy who got an education on the GI bill and pulled himself out of his birthright. He married twice, the first time to a woman who left him a widower. Alone with a toddler, I suppose he was determined that it wouldn’t happen to him again, because the second time he married a woman much younger than he was.
She was the product of a Southern family; royalty that included the same Duke family that bought a university and named it after itself. Wilful and rebellious, she scorned Southern convention, rejected the closeted skeletons and wide streak of alcoholism that hid behind decorated formality. She disowned her family, converted to Catholicism, marched for civil rights, and married the older man from a poverty-stricken background. I am the oldest of the seven children she bore, one after the next.
We were brought up in curious contrasts. There were the economies that so many mouths to feed on a middle class income made necessary; (hand-me-down clothes, Tang and powdered milk, peanut butter for ten thousand consecutive school lunches), but my mother’s background dictated private schools, music and dance and art lessons.
I attended St. Michael’s Choir School and studied piano and organ at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. I hated studying anything at all; my mother was determined that I should be a doctor and despaired over my future. I only wanted to read fiction, and did so endlessly. The library was my favorite, enchanted place (it still is). I didn’t realize I was in fact studying for what I wanted to do most.
My father’s plan to not be widowed again fell through, and my mother was suddenly gone when I was 16. He had been ill equipped to raise one child the first time, and now there were eight of them; the youngest only three years old. In some sense we lost him, too.
Life changed, just like that. My behavior guaranteed me a quick expulsion from my exclusive school. I did manage a high school diploma (by the skin of my teeth) but I was mostly happy to leave school for good. I lost an early love, and wandered to Los Angeles. I learned about the streets, and about living in the places that cause most people to lock their car doors when they drive through. I was blessed with the same genes that took my father through life in the mean part of Boston, and survived.
Eventually, I grew up and moved again, first to Atlanta and then back to Canada. I made a living in the 'fixing cars' arena. I live in a very old house on a wooded lot that is infested by dogs and turtles and parrots, and perhaps the ghost of a young girl. My teen-aged son is a light in my life who wants to be an author and a professional football player. I never tell him that both are nearly impossible, because they aren’t.
The library has continued to haunt me. When age said the possibility of a university degree was long past, I decided to try my hand at a novel anyway. Somehow I finished it, and have produced one a year since. I’m working on my tenth.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 20, 2017
A consummate storyteller whose star is on the rise!
Incurably romantic but a dangerous man to cross, private eye Nat Crowe becomes embroiled in a desperate plot to recover an invaluable Egyptian antiquity with magical properties. He’s usually on the wrong side of the law himself and counts local gangland boss Danny López as his closest friend. He’s picky about his clients but Beatrice Stone- a naïve young actress fallen on hard times fits the bill. Crowe’s guiding star is his inviolable sense of integrity and his passion for the elusive artist Annie Kahlo who was supposed dead in a fiery car crash. Throughout “Hau Tree Green”, Bickford keeps readers right where he wants them – on the edge of their seats. Fast-paced, atmospheric and with superb characterization, he skillfully draws together the threads of this intriguing story. No doubt about it, Bob Bickford is a writer to watch out for. Can't wait for the next one!
Incurably romantic but a dangerous man to cross, private eye Nat Crowe becomes embroiled in a desperate plot to recover an invaluable Egyptian antiquity with magical properties. He’s usually on the wrong side of the law himself and counts local gangland boss Danny López as his closest friend. He’s picky about his clients but Beatrice Stone- a naïve young actress fallen on hard times fits the bill. Crowe’s guiding star is his inviolable sense of integrity and his passion for the elusive artist Annie Kahlo who was supposed dead in a fiery car crash. Throughout “Hau Tree Green”, Bickford keeps readers right where he wants them – on the edge of their seats. Fast-paced, atmospheric and with superb characterization, he skillfully draws together the threads of this intriguing story. No doubt about it, Bob Bickford is a writer to watch out for. Can't wait for the next one!
January 5, 2018
A review of Bob Bickford’s latest Nat Crowe Mystery, Hau Tree Green.
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1926
The time is winter 1947. A sadistic mobster has continued to escape justice and there is little the protagonist can do that is legal to bring him to his just desserts.
“’I don’t make the rules Annie,’ I said. ‘ I can only work with what I’m given. I have to play by at least some of them’”
“’Well I don’t have to play by any rules except the ones I make up,’ she said, and got out.”…
“She slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder as she walked away. The saloon’s headlights came on and silhouetted her as she walked across the lot. She took her time, like a dancer walking onstage. She was beautiful when she moved, and O’Meany had time to get a good look at her. When she reached his car, she bent and leaned into the driver’s window. I knew she didn’t want an audience for whatever she had to say to him, but I also didn’t think she understood how dangerous he was.”
“I cursed under my breath and got the Browning out and held it in my lap. I sat with one hand on the door handle.”
"There was a sharp cracking sound and the LaSalle’s windshield lit up whiter than the headlights. The flash disappeared as quickly as it had come and then the headlights went out and the big car turned dark again. Annie got back in on her side bringing a cloud of perfume mixed with burned powder. Her eyes shone.” - Bob Bickford, Hau Tree Green
Justice served.
They’re back. 1947 has been a busy year for Santa Teresa Private Detective Nat Crowe and his elegant but lethal inamorata Annie Khalo. In the second installment of this polished detective series, author Bob Bickford weaves a dark and lurid tale of jealousy, theft, the love that cannot speak its name, and, of course, murder.
In this sequel to Girls in Pink, Crowe, recently returned to town from Mexico, is haunted by the ghost of a woman whose broken dreams have led her on a downward spiral to her untimely death at the hands of a ruthless killer. But along the way she meets Nathaniel Crowe for a fleeting yet meaningful moment just before her end and Nat, like some Knight errant, takes up the now deceased lady’s cause and resolves to find the truth of the matter no matter what it takes. As he delves deeper into the mystery, he uncovers the lady’s secrets, is hired by a possible killer, advised by a poisonous Fixer, warned off by a friend, framed for a murder, and nearly killed. Will he find the truth? Nothing is without a price. In the end what will it cost him? Perhaps it will cost him, like his client, everything. “Figs a dance Mr. Crowe.”
In Hau Tree Green we have a stylish Noir with elements of Magical Realism that though a sequel, stands on its own. Bickford is an imaginative writer who creates vivid scenarios, as we can see from the scene quoted above, and characters with depth and complexity in a plot worthy of the best noir writers. I recommend it to those who like a good hard boiled mystery and eagerly await the next installment, The Violet Crab, due soon.
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1926
The time is winter 1947. A sadistic mobster has continued to escape justice and there is little the protagonist can do that is legal to bring him to his just desserts.
“’I don’t make the rules Annie,’ I said. ‘ I can only work with what I’m given. I have to play by at least some of them’”
“’Well I don’t have to play by any rules except the ones I make up,’ she said, and got out.”…
“She slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder as she walked away. The saloon’s headlights came on and silhouetted her as she walked across the lot. She took her time, like a dancer walking onstage. She was beautiful when she moved, and O’Meany had time to get a good look at her. When she reached his car, she bent and leaned into the driver’s window. I knew she didn’t want an audience for whatever she had to say to him, but I also didn’t think she understood how dangerous he was.”
“I cursed under my breath and got the Browning out and held it in my lap. I sat with one hand on the door handle.”
"There was a sharp cracking sound and the LaSalle’s windshield lit up whiter than the headlights. The flash disappeared as quickly as it had come and then the headlights went out and the big car turned dark again. Annie got back in on her side bringing a cloud of perfume mixed with burned powder. Her eyes shone.” - Bob Bickford, Hau Tree Green
Justice served.
They’re back. 1947 has been a busy year for Santa Teresa Private Detective Nat Crowe and his elegant but lethal inamorata Annie Khalo. In the second installment of this polished detective series, author Bob Bickford weaves a dark and lurid tale of jealousy, theft, the love that cannot speak its name, and, of course, murder.
In this sequel to Girls in Pink, Crowe, recently returned to town from Mexico, is haunted by the ghost of a woman whose broken dreams have led her on a downward spiral to her untimely death at the hands of a ruthless killer. But along the way she meets Nathaniel Crowe for a fleeting yet meaningful moment just before her end and Nat, like some Knight errant, takes up the now deceased lady’s cause and resolves to find the truth of the matter no matter what it takes. As he delves deeper into the mystery, he uncovers the lady’s secrets, is hired by a possible killer, advised by a poisonous Fixer, warned off by a friend, framed for a murder, and nearly killed. Will he find the truth? Nothing is without a price. In the end what will it cost him? Perhaps it will cost him, like his client, everything. “Figs a dance Mr. Crowe.”
In Hau Tree Green we have a stylish Noir with elements of Magical Realism that though a sequel, stands on its own. Bickford is an imaginative writer who creates vivid scenarios, as we can see from the scene quoted above, and characters with depth and complexity in a plot worthy of the best noir writers. I recommend it to those who like a good hard boiled mystery and eagerly await the next installment, The Violet Crab, due soon.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews