Yow!

Gonna be some powerful punches thrown your way early next week by your ol’ pal, Honest Jim. So, suck it up, Pilgrim. Glove up and get ready for the bell to ring.

First off, something I call the Dreamland Express. An uppercut. Straight from the floor to the pointy tip of your jaw. Bam! Lights out. Flattened by the official release of that instant classic of hard-boiled Texas crime thriller goodness, the fifth Ed Earl Burch saga, THE FATAL SAVING GRACE.

Both the paperback and Kindle versions go live Monday, December 15, on Amazon. Since I also published this rowdy and raunchy tale via IngramSpark, I know other fine outlets like Barnes & Noble have had their editions available for a few weeks now.

But Amazon is the 800-pound gorilla. And it’s sitting on your chest as you stay stretched out on the canvas like a cold-cocked mackerel. Those of you who pre-ordered their paperback copies — they’ll be winging their way toward your home or post office.

Of course, the Kindle version will magically appear in your various electronic devices via the whispery magic of Al Gore’s brain child, the Internet. Ain’t modern life just PEACHY and GRAND?

Instead of bothering you out with a followup haymaker, ol’ Honest Jim is going to be merciful and mosey over to my neutral corner and let your crew carry you out of harm’s way. Maybe get your cut man to let the blood out of that swollen eye and get that trainer of yours to snap that dislocated jaw back in place.

Let you dream a little dream of Ed Earl Burch and all that hard-boiled craziness and trouble he gets into. All those bad hombres trying to snuff his candle. And all those wicked women who want to bed him down. Study on that and forget all about the big, bad El Lobo Maximo who just rang your bell.

You just keep dreamin’ right through Tuesday. Don’t pay me no mind. Study on getting your hands on that latest Ed Earl book.

But know that while you’re doin’ that, I’ll be in the middle of the ring again mid-morning Tuesday, around ten in the ayem Central Time, throwing rapid-fire combos, high-stepping through dazzling footwork — all rhetorical, of course — on Terrance McCauley’s award-winning podcast “Spies, Lies and Private Eyes.”

Yessir, Brother McCauley and I are old friends. And we know how to put on The Big Show that causes the true crime fiction aficionado to howl and chortle with unfettered delight.

We’ll dish on our latest literary efforts, amaze you with some tradecraft secrets, take you inside the innards of Ed Earl’s world as well as my host’s crackerjack thriller, THE TWILIGHT TOWN: A DALLAS ’63 NOVEL that centers on that fateful November day when shots rang out and Bad Back Jack Kennedy was killed.

Ahem. Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to channel James Ellroy’s AMERICAN TABLOID. Or did I? Honest Jim will never tell. Or will he?

You’re going to have to wait to find out because there’s a tape delay on Brother McCauley’s podcast. We’ll record it Tuesday morning for a release later this month. I’ll let you know when and give you the link. Or, you can look for updates on his website or the show’s Apple podcast page.

Guaranteed to be a humdinger, kids. Ain’t sellin’ no wuff-burgers here. Just a straight shot of hunnert proof.

Trust Honest Jim.

Below is author buddy Terrence McCauley. Handsome devil, ain’t he? Almost as stylish as Honest Jim.

Here are the Amazon URLs for the Kindle and paperback editions of THE FATAL SAVING GRACE:

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Saving-Grace-Hard-Boiled-Thriller/dp/0998329479

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Saving-Grace-Hard-Boiled-Thriller-ebook/dp/B0FZXKHF83

And HERE is the URL for a giveaway I’m running for two signed copies of THE FATAL SAVING GRACE.