Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Right Side of Wrong by Reavis Z. Wortham


First Line: Constable Cody Parker's phone jangles him from a sound sleep at one in the morning.

Constable Cody Parker has to fight his way through an unusually heavy snowfall to answer a domestic violence call, but he never makes it. Instead, he's ambushed on a lonely country road and almost dead before he's found.

As Cody recovers, his uncle Constable Ned Parker begins piecing together disjointed bits of conversation and adding them to seemingly unrelated murders. As 1965 ends and 1966 works its way toward summer, Ned tries to keep his grandchildren Top and Pepper from getting underfoot. This is serious business. Somehow his peaceful little town of Center Springs, Texas is no longer a safe place to live, and Ned Parker intends to do something about that.

Reavis Wortham's Red River mystery series continues to solidify its position as one of my favorites. I'm torn between wanting to get caught up (I'm within one book of that goal) and wanting to save Vengeance Is Mine as one of my "go to books" in case I have a string of bad reading luck. Decisions, decisions!

In the mean time, I read The Right Side of Wrong much too quickly. I couldn't help myself. It has all the characters I've grown to love: Ned Parker, his wife Miss Becky, his grandson Top, his nephew Cody Parker, Deputy John Washington, and Judge O.C. Rains. An added bonus in this book is a new character, the mysterious Tom Bell, whom I immediately liked. For any of you already acquainted with this marvelous series, you will have noted that I didn't include Pepper in the group of characters I love. That little girl just plain annoys the stuffing out of me, and I wish Top would grow a spine and say no to her hare-brained schemes! 

Wortham's Texas in the mid-1960s is pitch perfect as always. Growing up in a rural farm community as I did, he can put me right in the middle of a scene with just one well-chosen word. (The word this time was "bobwire." That's what folks where I grew up always called barbed wire.) Center Springs is a microcosm of our country during the '60s, and The Right Side of Wrong shows us the beginnings of a problem that haunts us to this day and its effects on a small community. 

It also shows us how strong prejudice was then and that bigots still had the upper hand; however, we're also shown that the wall is beginning to crumble due to the behavior of people like the Parkers, Judge Rains, and John Washington.

Wortham knows how to write action scenes that will make your hands shake as you try to find a faster way to turn the pages. This time, our heroes travel across the Rio Grande into Mexico in an adventure so dangerous it curled my hair. Wow.

Now this time the Bad-Guy-in-Charge was rather easy for me to deduce, but as in all well-told tales, it's not always the who that makes the story, sometimes it's the how. Watching the judge and the Parkers figure out how to bring him down put a smile on my face.

Reavis Wortham can make you laugh. He can make you cry. He can make you remember your own childhood. He can also make you hunker down so deep inside a story that you don't want to come up for air. You can read these Red River mysteries as standalones and enjoy them, but I don't recommend taking that path. These characters are so wonderful that I strongly urge you to start at the beginning (The Rock Hole) because once you have, you won't want to miss a single chapter in their lives. Do you like Craig Johnson? Peter Bowen? C.J. Box? Donis Casey? William Kent Krueger's Ordinary Grace? If you do, chances are excellent that you'll like Reavis Wortham, too.

Now if I could only make myself stop staring at that lone Red River mystery sitting over there on that shelf....
 

The Right Side of Wrong by Reavis Z. Wortham
ISBN: 9781464201486
Poisoned Pen Press © 2013
Paperback, 307 pages

Historical Mystery/Thriller, #3 Red River mystery
Rating: A
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

 
  

15 comments:

  1. Omigod! Another series. I was breezing along, reading this review, thinking about whether or not I had to read these books, when I thought of Ordinary Grace, which I liked. And then see that you compare Wortham's series to that book.

    So, I guess I have to read a few. It depends what the library has.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I truly hope you enjoy reading these books if you get a chance, Kathy. They are very special.

      Delete
  2. I was introduced to this series from your reviews. I have read the first two books and The Right Side of Wrong is the next book for me to read. I am enjoying this series very much.
    I find for me that many book's story or details fade after reading them. Not so with this series. Scenes from the Cotton Exchange featured in The Burrows are still with me months after reading it. That is a good book to me where the scenes or story are so haunting, visual, and unique that they remain in memory. Thanks for introducing me to this series.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're very welcome, Lynn. I'm so glad you're enjoying them. The Cotton Exchange lives on in my memory, too. So does the Rock Hole. And so does the trip across the Rio Grande in this book. I am so looking forward to Wortham's next book coming out later this year-- and the opportunity to see him at The Poisoned Pen!

      Seems to me that I remember that some of the action in this book-to-come takes place on Route 66, and I have a particular fondness for the Mother Road.

      Delete
  3. I keep hearing good things about this series, Cathy, and haven't (yet) tried it. Seems I'm really missing out on something! The setting and context do sound intriguing, and I like that balance of 'home life' and 'work life.'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, you are most definitely missing out on something, Margot. You need to do something about it!!!

      Delete
  4. OK, I know, I know, I need to read this series. And I will. You may ask, why haven't you read it yet. It's set in Texas after all. I say - too many series to keep up with. I totally understand the 'last book' syndrome. I do that myself. And I will get to this one and the one by Havill soon. I'm thinking about doing a 'Texas' mysteries read with my mystery group next year. Or maybe 'Texas, New Mexico, Arizona' theme. What do you think? There are enough mysteries set in those 3 states to hold up, right?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's definitely more than enough to conduct a read of TX, NM, AZ mystery read, butbutbut.... next YEAR?!?!? *thud*

      Delete
    2. OK, I am a far range planner. Plus I've already got the rest of 2015 scheduled. I think I've mentioned before on the blog that the library system that we are part of - well, let's just say that they bought 12 copies of Louise Penny's last book and had bought something like 42 copies of the previous one. We had to postpone the discussion and then still some didn't get the book in time. Since it's a library program, can't make people buy the book. Though some do. Me included in that. Anyway, I plan way ahead. I'll likely pass out the first half of 2016 reads in September. And I'm always mulling what to read next for the group. It's a big group. LOL

      Delete
    3. With what you do, long range planning makes sense. Outside of the ARCs I receive, I read by the seat of my pants-- which probably goes a long way in explaining why I don't belong to any book groups! LOL

      Delete
  5. I don't think I can start another series. It's not possible with all these books around here and blog recommendations.
    Can you recommend one book in this series to read? The one featured?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I found this one at the library catalogue and I put it on hold.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's too bad you couldn't find the first in the series, but this one's a good'un, too.

      Delete
  7. The library only has The Rock Hole is large print, not my thing. Though I'm having trouble with small fonts, the large ones in these books is too big and also makes the books weigh a lot because there are many more pages.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to make a comment. I really appreciate it!