THE TEXAS JOB

The latest case for Texas Ranger Tom Bell takes him back to the dawn of his career in 1931. It’s quite an eventful time.

Tom’s been sent to Pine Top in search of Clete Ferras, who’s wanted for a murder in Laredo. Pine Top and environs, however, turn out to be so corrupt that a single homicide barely registers. Together with his pal Quinn Walker, Ferras is bent on acquiring drilling rights to every farm in the area by hook or by crook, and some of those crooks are mighty crooked. Not to be outdone, Walker is dosing his wife, Mallie Whitehorse Walker, with wood alcohol and oleander because he has no intention of waiting till her natural decease to assume control of her extensive land holdings. Capt. Enrique Delgado has already arrived to rein in the criminal conspiracy fostered by oilmen like octopus O.L. Caldwell, but clearly there’s far too much crime in Pine Top for just one Ranger to handle. Tom’s mission is instantly complicated by the news that a local woman named Hazel Freeman has been shot to death. The conspiracy, however, has roots that reach far beyond Pine Top to Chicago gangster Cherubino Moretti. When Tom shoots the three men Walker and Ferras have hired to kill him, they ask Moretti for help, and he dispatches six of his most reliable professionals. Readers who’ve already seen Tom grown old in earlier installments of Wortham’s Texas Red River series will be rubbing their hands in eager anticipation of what happens next.

A familiar but powerful tale of a solitary hero confronting a web of conspirators against hopeless odds.