Just in case you’re wondering, we’ll be re-running some of our best and most popular book reviews every other week from now on.  They will be described as our Legacy Mysterious Book Reports.  Send us a quick request if you have a favorite that you’d like to see again and we’ll do our best to re-publish it.

Legacy Mysterious Book Report No. 39

Published February 24, 2020

This Side of Night

Mysterious Book Report No. 394

by John Dwaine McKenna

It is an undeniable fact that the entire southern border of the United States is in a crisis of epic proportions.  Drugs and illegals are pouring into America, while unbelievable amounts of currency, and firearms of all shapes and sizes are flowing south.  At the same time, the government of Mexico is being overwhelmed by the drug cartels with endless amounts of cash and sicarios, or gunmen, to do their dirty bloody work.

Now, in an electrifying crime fiction thriller entitled This Side of Night, (Putnam/Penguin Random House, $26.00, 454 pages, ISBN 978-0-7352-1291-6) by J. Todd Scott, the drugs and violence are spilling across the border . . . into the lonesome, wild and remote part of west Texas that’s known as the “Big Bend Area,” where the Lone Star State nestles up against the Rio Grande River . . . just a hard stones throw from Ojinaga, Mexico, where the Nemesio Cartel and it’s aging leader, Fox Uno, are clinging to power.

When a busload of protestors is massacred in the Mexican borderlands, the finger of blame is pointed at the Nemesio Cartel, which controls the region.  But as the outage grows and public pressure increases for the government to step in, clear out the cartels and return law and order to the land, El Patron, the aging and feared head of the Nemesio Cartel, sees the atrocity for what it is . . . a naked attempt at a takeover.  The question is, by whom . . . another cartel, or someone closer?

As the violence, and the drugs, and the people begin spilling across the river from Ojinaga into the small town of Murfee, Texas, Sheriff Chris Cherry and his deputies, America Reynosa and Danny Ford are all caught up in Fox Uno’s war and his struggle to survive the legions of murderous assassins sent to kill him and his six-year-old daughter named Zeta.

Stamped with authenticity and the iron ring of truth on every page, This Side of Night announces in a loud and clear voice the arrival of a distinct, authoritative, and compelling fresh face in crime fiction!

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