Imagine my surprise and delight in finding this wonderful jewel in my inbox during a final, midnight scroll before hitting the hay — a marvelous review by author buddy Geri Dreiling of the second book in the Ed Earl Burch hard-boiled Texas crime thriller series, The Right Wrong Number.

As I told Geri while profusely thanking her, this is my guilty favorite Ed Earl saga, banged out shortly after I finished the first tale, The Last Second Chance. It’s full of the wretched excess I learned to embrace from reading the late, great James Crumley, author of ultra gritty crime thrillers laced with graphic sex, violence and substance abuse. And bitter humor.

Here’s Geri’s review. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find links to this book and Geri’s latest Debbie Bradley mystery, The Poison Dart.

Bullets. Bourbon. Bedlam.

Empty bottles, spent bullets, and stiff bodies dog Ed Earl Burch like the smell of cigarettes on yellowed curtains in a half-empty roadside motel in South Texas.

 

Once a Dallas homicide detective, Burch is now a “pee eye” with money problems. Enter Savannah Crowe, a dangerous ex-lover whose lawyer husband may or may not be dead.

 

Savannah offers to solve Burch’s money woes if he helps her uncover the truth behind her shady husband’s disappearance, only she’s not the only one searching for the supposed-to-be-dead shyster. Underworld figures trying to find their money and contraband are also after the man, and by extension, his wife.

 

The Right Wrong Number is the second book by Jim Nesbitt in the Ed Earl Burch Hard-Boiled Texas Crime Thriller series. Many of the characters from the first book, The Last Second Chance, reappear. However, you don’t have to read the first book in the series to jump into the second.

 

Burch is a flawed man fighting demons from the past and bad knees in the present. With a Lucky cigarette between his lips and a Colt 1911 at the ready, he occasionally slips in a bit of social commentary, delivered with a Texas twang. “Tito’s dead and so’s his country. There ain’t no Yugo in the Yugo anymore—damn good start to a honky-tonk tune.”

 

This is a gritty crime fiction read, not a cozy mystery. There are no sweet old ladies serving tea and cake. Instead, The Right Wrong Number is a graphic piece of noir fiction with plenty of sex, violence, and bad guys.

 

Nesbitt’s prose packs a punch. If you’re looking for a fast-paced, bed-‘em-down, shoot-‘em-up novel full of heart-pounding action and double-dealing scoundrels, look no further than Nesbitt’s The Right Wrong Number.

You can pick up a copy of The Right Wrong Number at: https://www.amazon.com/Right-Wrong-Number-Burch-Novel/dp/0998329401

Geri’s The Poison Dart is available at: https://www.amazon.com/Poison-Dart-Bradley-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/1735030333