Books You'll Want to Read

AN EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER II OF THE WINE RED ROAD 

The Wine Red Road, the newly released fictional murder/mystery by Jim Perkins, takes a small-town newspaper publisher and his teenage son and unites them in an unexpected odyssey when they respond to a police broadcast about a vehicle crash and fire that turns out to be more than a routine accident. In fact, this “accident” reveals itself to be an attempted cover-up of a murder.

Mr. O’Brien, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory, shot his wife, her lover Ed Vargas and a Livermore police officer when he came home early from work one day.

He caught Mrs. O’Brien and Mr. Vargas, Sunday school teachers at Livermore Valley Four Corners Church, committing adultery - getting to know each other in a more biblical way, so to speak.

Dad knew Mr. O’Brien pretty well, because Livermore Valley Four Corners Church was where we attended services.

Mr. O’Brien shot Chad Brown, the Livermore police officer who tried to arrest him, after shooting Mrs. O’Brien and Ed Vargas. Shooting Chad Brown was what got Mr. O’Brien the death penalty. In California they took a pretty dim view of killing cops.

My dad said, “Mr. O’Brien probably would have spent only a few years behind bars for shooting his wife and Ed Vargas, because he was in a jealous rage when he shot them and the jurors probably would have sympathized with a temporary insanity plea. But killing Chad Brown proved to be a fatal mistake.

“Mr. O’Brien said during his trial that he was real sorry for killing Chad Brown. He said he didn’t know what came over him, but when he caught his wife and Ed sprawled on his living room couch, committing adultery, he was just so overcome with rage, killing them was all he could think of.”

“Then that cop came busting through the door and I just turned my gun on him too,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I never cheated on my wife,” Mr. O’Brien told the jury. “I never stayed out late carousing with my friends. I came home every night right after work. I always gave my wife my paycheck. I didn’t gamble or drink too much. I let her decorate the house however she wanted. We traveled places.

“She could have done so much worse than me but no, she couldn’t be satisfied. She had to go and commit adultery.”

Adultery. My dad had told me many stories about the terrible consequences of adultery. In his business, he came across examples all the time of what happened when people violated God’s seventh commandment. They seldom thought things were going to turn out as badly as they did when they decided to cheat on their spouses, but something bad always happened.

The Wine Red Road can be downloaded on Kindle readers for $3.99 via Amazon Whispernet
The soft cover print version is available from Amazon or at www.westbowpres.com for $13.95.
The ASIN # is B007ZLD3K6
A downlooad on your Barnes & Noble Nook Book costs only $3.43. 
Softcover at Barnes & Noble is $13.95

AN EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER II OF THE RED JACKET

The Red Jacket is, "An enjoyably insightful story that gives readers a glimpse into the heart and mind of a young man on his way to making life-changing decisions." Kirkus Reviews

"Do not let its plain cover deter you. The Red Jacket is a straightforward, almost charming novel about a young man growing up in the 1960s. Readers who want to dive into rose-colored nostalgia and don’t mind some religious musings should give The Red Jacket a try." Sacramento Review & the San Francisco Review

Being the oldest of eight kids I was usually the first one my mom yelled at. In fact, when my mom cut loose on me, her voice was so powerful you could hear her from one end of the block to the other. You know that saying, “It ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings?” Well, the saying should go, “It ain’t over ‘till the fat lady yells.” When my mom cranked her voice up to its full potential and yelled “Francis!” trust me, it was over.

She really ticked me off sometimes! I’m ashamed to say it, but I spent a lot of my hours in solitary confinement daydreaming of bad things happening to her so I could escape this prison I was in.

Ever since I started recovering from my illness, I’d start to ask her if I could do something fun and she’d say, “No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” I’d protest.
“Go ahead then ask,” she’d say.
“Can I go outside and play baseball?” I’d say.
“No.”
“Can I go over to Jimmy Foster’s house?”
“No.”
“Can I . . .?”
“No.”
"But mom . . .!”
“The answer’s no. Now quit asking.”
“But you just said . . .”
“Never mind what I just said.”
Her voice would be pegging at least eighty decibels on the Ear Drum Damage Meter at this point and I would be conjuring up a vision of a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater (like in that song) dangling my mom in front of his huge stiletto teeth preparing to rip her apart for lunch. I liked that image a lot.
“If you eat her you have to keep her down,” I warned the dragon. “No upchucking allowed.”
My mom was flailing at the dragon with her fists and yelling at me, “You’re not taking one step out of this house until I know you’re not going to have a relapse.”
“I’m not in danger anymore,” I argued. “The doctor said I was fine.”
“The doctor said not to overdo it. What about not overdoing it did you not get Mr. Smarty Pants? I’m your mother and I say you’re not fine ‘til the doctor isn’t worried about you overdoing it.”
She’d be hitting ninety decibels on the Ear Drum Shatter Meter now and I’d be visualizing her tied to a train track while Old Smokey Number 99 bore down on her hard and fast. Or I might conjure up an image of her jamming on the car brakes while rounding a sharp curve on a steep hill, and the brakes didn’t work . . .

The Red Jacket can be downloaded to your Kindle reader via Amazon Whispernet for $3.99.
ISBN # 0615543146. The softcover version sales for $7.99
Download to your Barnes & Noble NOOK Book for $4.99
ISBN # 9780615543147. The softcover version sales for $7.19