Bøger af Ron Rhody

A prominent newspaper columnist kills the man mostly likely to be the next Governor of Kentucky - and gets away with it. Ten years later, the death of his mentor brings him back to the scene of the crime. When Theodore O'Hara Clark arrives he finds he's inherited a fortune and is made responsible for a newspaper, racing, and farming empire he doesn't want and doesn't know how to run. Almost immediately he becomes embroiled in a fight with the new governor and is threatened with blackmail by a young graduate student who has found a document that can exposure him as the killer in the long ago murder. And he must at last face Allie -- the love he walked away from but has never forgotten. The action takes place mostly in Kentucky's fabled Bluegrass section and in Frankfort, the state's capitol city, which is in turmoil in the midst of policies put in place by the new governor that are crippling the city. The story moves at a riveting pace through San Francisco to the canyons of Manhattan to the mountains of southern Appalachia where snake-handling cults still thrive. What happens when Theo comes home is not what anyone expects - most particularly Theo. "The characters are richly drawn. The action runs at a riveting pace. What happened When THEO Came Home is a helluva read and a fine, fine story." - Ian Kellogg When THEO Came Home is the concluding novel in the THEO Trilogy. The other books in the series are: THEO's Story and THEO & The Mouthful of Ashes.

A prominent widow is found dead at the foot of the cellar stairs in the family home on a farm in the lush Bluegrass section of Kentucky. Her head has been bashed in by an old flatiron found near the body and her mouth stuffed full of ashes. The county is shocked - horrified at the brutality of the murder and mystified at the use of the ashes. Theo Clark, a young Marine veteran of the Korean War, working part time at the local newspaper while finishing up his interrupted college career, is assigned to cover the story because no experienced reporters are around when the tip comes in. A band of wandering Gypsies are suspected, as is another young Marine veteran of Korea with drug and alcohol problems. Even the victim's married daughter, her only child, is a suspect. Theo has never covered a murder but if he can unravel this mystery it can be his ticket to the start of an exceptional career. On the surface a mystery tale, Theo & The Mouthful of Ashes is also an exploration of the social and political dynamics at play in an important small town in the mid-1950s and of the draw home-place has on individuals. It is the prequel to Theo's Story and carries Theo from his return from the war to the beginning of his career.

"The child that is born on the Sabbath Day is bonnie and blithe and good and gay." (Traditions of Devonshire, Nursery Rhyme, 1883) He brooked no insult, would not be cheated, would not be pushed around. He bent a knee to no man. He was the King of Craw and the powers-that-be wanted him gone. The story is set in the Roaring Twenties in Kentucky's Capital City. It spins around John Fallis, a legendary figure in Bluegrass folklore, and two boys who fall into his orbit. A successful businessman, a political power, a gambler, a bootlegger, movie-star handsome, and charismatically compelling, John Fallis was the champion of the poor and powerless and the scourge of the Establishment. The story begins just before the night of the The Big Shoot-Out when JF takes on the entire city police force and ends with his bullet-riddled body on a craps table in Craw in what was said to be a gambling fight - but what many believe was a hit ordered by powerful forces in the city. Though this is a story, not a history, most of it happened. John Fallis, Craw, Crawfish Bottom are names that still resonate and questions about his death are still unanswered. This is the first piece of fiction built around the man and the place. It is rich in action and drama, most particularly for readers drawn to the mystery of why men do the things they do, and to the never ending struggle between good and evil. Whatever you ultimately decide about JF's place on that scale - and the particulars of his death - you won't be bored.