{"id":18662,"date":"2023-09-05T00:01:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T07:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themysteryofwriting.com\/?p=18662"},"modified":"2023-09-04T14:36:42","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T21:36:42","slug":"reckoning-a-neo-western-crime-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themysteryofwriting.com\/2023\/09\/05\/reckoning-a-neo-western-crime-thriller\/","title":{"rendered":"Reckoning A Neo-Western Crime Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reckoning<\/b><\/em> by Baron Birtcher<\/p>\r\n

Book Review +Excerpt + Book & Author Info + Giveaway!<\/h2>\r\n

Don\u2019t miss any blog tour posts! Click\u00a0the link here<\/a>.<\/h3>\r\n
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Reckoning<\/em> by Baron Birtcher<\/h2>\r\n

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Ty Dawson is a small-town sheriff with big-city problems, in this riveting crime thriller from the award-winning author of\u00a0Fistful of Rain<\/i>.<\/h4>\r\n

As lawman, rancher, and Korean War veteran, Ty Dawson has his share of problems in the southern Oregon county he calls home.<\/p>\r\n

Despite how rural it is, Meriwether can\u2019t keep modernity at bay. The 1970s have changed the United States\u2014and Meriwether won\u2019t be spared. A standoff looms when the US Fish & Wildlife Service seeks to separate longtime cattleman KC Sheridan from his water supply\u2014ensuring the death of his livestock.<\/p>\r\n

If that\u2019s not enough trouble, a Portland detective is found dead in a fly-fishing resort cabin. Though the Portland police, including the victim\u2019s own partner, are eager to write off the tragedy as a suicide, Ty has his own thoughts on the matter\u2014as well as evidence that points to murder.<\/p>\r\n

His suspicions soon mire him in a swamp of corruption that threatens nearly everyone around him. Turns out that greed and evil are contagious\u2014and they take down men both great and small .<\/p>\r\n

Book Details:<\/h3>\r\n

Genre:<\/b>\u00a0Neo-western crime thriller<\/p>\r\n

Published by:<\/b>\u00a0Open Road Integrated Media<\/p>\r\n

Publication Date:<\/b>\u00a0June 2023<\/p>\r\n

Number of Pages:<\/b>\u00a0300<\/p>\r\n

ISBN:<\/b>\u00a0978-1-5040-8280-8<\/p>\r\n

Series:<\/b>\u00a0Sheriff Ty Dawson Series, #3<\/p>\r\n

To purchase\u00a0Reckoning<\/em>, click on any of the following links: Amazon<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Barnes & Noble<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Goodreads<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Open Road Media<\/a><\/h3>\r\n
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My Thoughts on Reckoning<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\r\n

Baron Birtcher beautifully marries the mystery, western, and literary genres in the latest installment of his Ty Dawson series.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

\u201cOrdinarily, Autumn in Meriwether County would come in hard and sudden, like a stone hurled through a window. But this year it snuck in slow and mild, lingered there deceitfully while we waited for the axe to come down.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

And how the ax comes down.<\/p>\r\n

Sheriff of Meriwether County Ty Dawson receives a call from local cattle rancher KC Sheridan, setting off a string of events that could scream from today\u2019s headlines as easily as the 1970s when the series is set.<\/p>\r\n

The battle between rural and city lifestyles echos throughout this spine-tingling mystery, as personal and political agendas place a hardworking rancher in the middle of a covert war. KC could stand in for every farmer facing the loss of water and grazing rights, while Ty Dawson could stand in for every morally outraged law enforcement officer struggling to protect his community from the long reach of corrupt bad actors and those out to benefit from someone else\u2019s loss.<\/p>\r\n

But the fight to protect KC\u2019s cattle is just the tip of the iceberg as Birtcher weaves multiple threads of a story together into a complex plot featuring a complex hero.<\/p>\r\n

In addition to his lawman duties, Dawson also maintains his own ranch, bucking hay and running his own cattle, allowing him to understand the seriousness of KC\u2019s position.<\/p>\r\n

Moving between crime scenes and city hall, and from his ranch to the courtroom, Dawson carries his own history of combat missions in Korea and late nights with ailing breed cows. After years in law enforcement, he\u2019s equally at home in the saddle, behind the wheel of his pickup truck, and staring down the sights of a gun.<\/p>\r\n

Practical to a fault, and haunted by history, Dawson wears his cowboy status like a mantle. The West builds rugged individuals, who also understand the need to protect those unable to protect themselves, often at a great personal cost.<\/p>\r\n

Following in the lyrical footsteps of the cowboy poets, Baron Birtcher also spins a darn good yarn.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

For fans of Craig Johnson\u2019s Longmire series and Justified<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Read an excerpt of Reckoning<\/em>:<\/h3>\r\n
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Reckoning<\/h4>\r\n

Prelude:<\/b><\/p>\r\n

A TRANSITIVE NIGHTFALL<\/b><\/p>\r\n

NO CHILD IS brought into this world with any knowledge of true evil. This they learn over the passage of time. In my experience as a Sheriff, and as a rancher, I have found this precept to be true.<\/p>\r\n

Time passes nevertheless, even if it passes slowly. Here in rural southern Oregon, sometimes it seemed as if it hadn\u2019t moved at all, advancing without touching Meriwether County, except with glancing blows.<\/p>\r\n

That is, until the day it caught up with us all, and came down like a goddamn hammer.<\/p>\r\n

CHAPTER ONE<\/b><\/p>\r\n

ORDINARILY, AUTUMN IN Meriwether County would come in hard and sudden, like a stone hurled through a window. But this year it snuck in slow and mild, lingered there deceitfully while we waited for the axe to come down.<\/p>\r\n

The sky that morning was turquoise, empty of clouds, the altitude strung with elongated V\u2019s of migrating geese and a single contrail that resembled a surgical scar, the narrows between the high valley walls opening onto a broad vista of rangeland some distance below. I had expected ice patches to have formed on the pavement overnight, but the weather had remained stubbornly dry, even as temperatures closed in on the low thirties. I tipped open the wind-wing and let the chill air blow through the cab of my pickup as I stretched, and drank off the last dregs of coffee I had brought for the long southward drive from the town of Meridian.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

I had received a phone call at home the night before from an unusually distressed KC Sheridan. I had known KC for as long as I can remember, a pragmatic and taciturn cattleman whose family history in the area dated back to the late 1800s, much like that of my own. Three generations of Sheridans had stretched fence wire, planted feed-grass and run rough stock across deeded ranchland that measured its acreage in the tens of thousands, and whose boundaries straddled two separate counties, one of which was my jurisdiction.<\/p>\r\n

But the decade of the \u201970s thus far had not been any kinder or gentler to cowboys than to anyone else, and KC and his wife, Irene, had found themselves increasingly subject to the fulminations and intimidation of both local and federal government. While the Sheridan ranch had once numbered itself among a dozen privately held agricultural properties in the region, KC now found himself surrounded on three sides by a federally designated wildlife refuge that had swollen to encompass well over three hundred square miles<\/i>; a bird sanctuary originally conceived under the auspices of President Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s white house. All of which would have been perfectly fine and acceptable to the Sheridan family, given the understanding that the scarce water supply that ultimately fed into the bird sanctuary belonged to the Sheridans by legal covenant, as it had for nearly a century.<\/p>\r\n

I turned off the paved two-lane and onto a gravel service road, headed in the direction of the ridgeline where KC sat silhouetted against the bright backdrop of clear sky, mounted astride his chestnut roping horse. KC climbed out of the saddle as I parked a short distance away, switched off the ignition and stepped down from my truck. KC trailed the horse behind him as he moved in my direction, took off his hat and ran a forearm across his brow, then pressed it back onto his head. His hair and his eyes shared a similar shade of gunmetal grey, and the hardscrabble nature of his existence as a rancher had been recorded in the deep lines of his face.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhat the hell am I supposed to do about these goings-on, Sheriff?\u201d KC asked, and cocked his brim in the general direction of a reservoir that was the size of a small mountain lake. Two men wearing construction hardhats were surveying a line on the near shore where a third man studied a roll of blueprints he had unfurled across the hood of his work truck.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIs that who I think it is?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThey aim to fence off my water. My cows won\u2019t last a week in this weather.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cHave you talked to them, KC?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

He nodded.<\/p>\r\n

\u201c\u2019Bout as useful as standing in a bucket and trying to lift yourself up by<\/p>\r\n

the handle. It\u2019s the reason I finally called you, Ty. I didn\u2019t know what else to do.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The vein on KC\u2019s temple palpitated as he cut his eyes toward the foothills and spat.\u00a0 <\/span>
\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI\u2019ll have a word with them,\u201d I said. \u201cYou wait here.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

A wintry wind had begun to blow down from the pass, pushing channels through the dry grass and the sweet scents of juniper and scrub pine. A harrier swept down out of a cluster of black oaks and made a series of low passes across the flats.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

I averted my eyes as the sun glinted off the US Department of Fish & Wildlife shield affixed to the driver side door of a government-issue Chevy Suburban. The man studying the blueprints didn\u2019t bother to lift his head or look at me as I stepped up beside him.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cCare to tell me why you and your men are trespassing on private ranch land?\u201d I asked.
The man sighed, scrutinizing me over the frames of a pair of steel-rimmed reading glasses. He had a face that put me in mind of an apple carving, and a physique that resembled a burlap sack filled with claw hammers.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWho the hell are you now?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cTy Dawson, Sheriff of Meriwether County. That\u2019s the name of the county you\u2019re standing in.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

He took off his reading glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket, hitched a work boot onto the Suburban\u2019s bumper and offered me an approximation of a smile.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWell, Sheriff, I\u2019m with Fish and Wildlife\u2014that\u2019s an agency of the federal government, as I\u2019m sure you\u2019re aware\u2014and I have a work order that says I\u2019m supposed to put up a fence. And that\u2019s exactly what me and my crew are doing here.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

I gestured upslope, where KC Sheridan stood watching us, his arms crossed in front of his chest.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou\u2019re on that man\u2019s private property,\u201d I said.<\/p>\r\n

The government man made no move to acknowledge KC.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI don\u2019t split hairs over those types of details, Sheriff. The work order I\u2019ve got lays out the metes and bounds of the line, and me and my crew just install the fence where it says to. It ain\u2019t brain surgery.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cScoot over and let me have a look at that site map.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI oughtta radio this in.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou do whatever you think you need to,\u201d I said. \u201cBut do it while I\u2019m looking at your map.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

He lifted his chin and looked as though he was conducting a dialogue with himself, then finally stepped to one side. I studied the blueprint for a few moments, looked out across the rock-studded range and got my bearings.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cLooks to me like the boundary line for the bird refuge is at least a hundred yards to the other side of this reservoir,\u201d I said. \u201cYour map is mismarked.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThe agency doesn\u2019t mismark maps, Sheriff.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThey sure as hell mismarked this one. You need to stop your work until this gets sorted out.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cCare to repeat that? There\u2019s clearly been a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNo mistake. You need to step away, Sheriff.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cLet me explain something to you,\u201d I said, removing my sunglasses. \u201cIt\u2019s the law in the State of Oregon that the water that comes up on Mr. Sheridan\u2019s property belongs to Mr. Sheridan. Period<\/i>. If you fence off his reservoir\u2014especially this late in the season\u2014you\u2019re not only stealing his water, you\u2019re murdering his herd.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The agency man lifted his foot off the bumper, set his feet wide and faced off with me. He slid both hands into the back pockets of his canvas overalls and rocked back on his heels.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s my turn to try to explain something to you, Sheriff: I been given a job to do, and I intend to do it. If you don\u2019t walk away right this minute and leave me to it, I will be forced to radio this in. Long and the short of it is, the guys who will come out here after me will have badges, too. And their badges are bigger than yours.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI won\u2019t allow you to trespass onto private property, steal this man\u2019s water and kill his livestock.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

He glanced at his two crewmen staking the line then turned his attention back to me.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou going to arrest us?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhat is it with you agency people? Why is it that your first inclination is to slam the pedal all the way to the floor?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhen me and the boys come back out here, it won\u2019t just be the three of us no more.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI\u2019m finished talking about this,\u201d I said. \u201cPack up your gear and go.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

I could feel his eyes boring holes into the back of my head as I picked my way back up the incline where Sheridan stood waiting for me.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI can tell by your stride that you had the same kind of dialogue experience I had with that fella,\u201d KC said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cBureaucrats with hardhats.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t no cupcake, Dawson. But, you know that those sonsabitches have been tweaking my nose for years.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThose men are part of a federal agency, KC, make no mistake. If you\u2019re not careful, they\u2019ll try to roll right over the top of you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhat do you call what they\u2019re doing right now? I don\u2019t intend to lay down for it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying you should.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhat, then?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cGet on the phone and call Judge Yates up in Salem,\u201d I said. \u201cAsk him if he can slap an injunction on these clowns until we get it sorted out.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Sheridan\u2019s horse pinned back his ears and began to shuffle his forelegs, responding to the tone our conversation had taken. KC calmed the animal with a caress of its neck, dipped into the pocket of his wool coat, snapped off a few pieces of carrot and fed it to the gelding from the flat of his palm.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\u201cI\u2019ll do it, Ty, but I swear to god\u2014\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cKC, you call me before you do anything else, you understand?\u201d<\/p>\r\n*** Excerpt from Reckoning by Baron Birtcher. Copyright 2023 by Baron Birtcher. Reproduced with permission from Baron Birtcher. All rights reserved. <\/i><\/div>\r\n

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Baron Birtcher<\/h3>\r\n

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Baron R Birtcher is the LA TIMES and IMBA BESTSELLING author of the hardboiled Mike Travis series (Roadhouse Blues, Ruby Tuesday, Angels Fall, and Hard Latitudes), the award-winning Ty Dawson series (South California Purples, Fistful Of Rain, and Reckoning), as well as the critically-lauded stand-alone, RAIN DOGS.<\/p>\r\n

Baron is a five-time winner of the SILVER FALCHION AWARD, and the WINNER of 2018’s Killer Nashville READERS CHOICE AWARD, as well as 2019’s BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR for Fistful Of Rain.<\/p>\r\n

He has also had the honor of having been named a finalist for the NERO AWARD, the LEFTY AWARD, the FOREWORD INDIE AWARD, the 2016 BEST BOOK AWARD, the Pacific Northwest’s regional SPOTTED OWL AWARD, and the CLAYMORE AWARD.<\/p>\r\n

To learn more about Baron, follow him at either of the following links: Instagram<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>.\u00a0<\/h3>\r\n

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Giveaway: This is a giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Tours for Baron Birtcher. See the widget for entry terms and conditions. Void where prohibited. The giveaway is for:<\/p>\r\n

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