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To Save the Golden-Cheeked Warbler: Austin, Texas Crime Thriller
After barely avoiding becoming a casualty of his boss’s financial fraud at National Airlines and the break-up of his second marriage, Lonny Jones passes on a promotion to Vice President and relocates to Austin, where he’d attended college twenty years ago, to recharge and figure out his future.
By chance, he rents a house owned by a politically active couple and is unwittingly drawn into a down-and-dirty mayoral primary election campaign where the powerful, charming, and corrupt mayor uses his office to dispense favors to developers. The challenger is an upstart political novice with an eye for his sharp-elbowed, married campaign chairwoman whose cuckold husband is oblivious to their affair.
When a mysterious international conglomerate seeks the mayor’s assistance to grease the skids with the city environmental and zoning committees to ensure the approval of a controversial new facility in an environmentally fragile location and a nesting area of the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler, the mayoral race tightens and the environmental protests mount. Surprisingly, an FBI investigation into the international conglomerate and proposed development is already underway. Suspense builds as the election nears and the conglomerate exerts more pressure to obtain development approvals leading towards an explosive conclusion.
The Fastball Series (books may be read in any order):
Book 1: Fastball
Book 2: Heygood Gambit
Book 3: Mitra’s Last Hustle
Book 4: To Save the Golden-Cheeked Warbler
By chance, he rents a house owned by a politically active couple and is unwittingly drawn into a down-and-dirty mayoral primary election campaign where the powerful, charming, and corrupt mayor uses his office to dispense favors to developers. The challenger is an upstart political novice with an eye for his sharp-elbowed, married campaign chairwoman whose cuckold husband is oblivious to their affair.
When a mysterious international conglomerate seeks the mayor’s assistance to grease the skids with the city environmental and zoning committees to ensure the approval of a controversial new facility in an environmentally fragile location and a nesting area of the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler, the mayoral race tightens and the environmental protests mount. Surprisingly, an FBI investigation into the international conglomerate and proposed development is already underway. Suspense builds as the election nears and the conglomerate exerts more pressure to obtain development approvals leading towards an explosive conclusion.
The Fastball Series (books may be read in any order):
Book 1: Fastball
Book 2: Heygood Gambit
Book 3: Mitra’s Last Hustle
Book 4: To Save the Golden-Cheeked Warbler
- GenresFiction
187 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 28, 2020
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 1, 2022
Fastball, the fourth pitch takes protagonist Lonny Jones to Austin TX so he can sort out some life issues that emerged on pitch # three. He plans to decompress, reprioritize, and watch his son play a few Longhorn baseball games. Ah, Austin, street names like Speedway and long-time establishments like Schultz’s conger up some special memories of a simpler time. Several characters in this series are linked to Lonny, and each other, by the halcyon days they spent together coaching Little League baseball.
I would assume that Fastball in ‘Fastball Series’ alludes to those days. But it could also be a metaphor for author Phil Beck’s fast-moving plot, which like a good fastball has movement. And to keep the reader, I mean the batter off balance the pitch count includes a few curves and changeups.
Mr Beck writes solid crisp, clean sentences and doesn’t spend any unnecessary time trying to impress the reader with his vocabulary or how well read he is. Nor does he waste our time on flora, architecture or room design. No his freshman English teacher wouldn’t be impressed because it was written for you and me — entertaining and page turning.
I will say this, Mr Beck understands the human condition, his characters are flawed. Their flaws evoke compassion not judgmental shame, and it seems to me this old world needs more of that, and that is a real talent. 4 stars, recommended reading.
I would assume that Fastball in ‘Fastball Series’ alludes to those days. But it could also be a metaphor for author Phil Beck’s fast-moving plot, which like a good fastball has movement. And to keep the reader, I mean the batter off balance the pitch count includes a few curves and changeups.
Mr Beck writes solid crisp, clean sentences and doesn’t spend any unnecessary time trying to impress the reader with his vocabulary or how well read he is. Nor does he waste our time on flora, architecture or room design. No his freshman English teacher wouldn’t be impressed because it was written for you and me — entertaining and page turning.
I will say this, Mr Beck understands the human condition, his characters are flawed. Their flaws evoke compassion not judgmental shame, and it seems to me this old world needs more of that, and that is a real talent. 4 stars, recommended reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review