J M Gulvin on John Q Texas Ranger

The second book in the John Q Texas Ranger series, this bears no relation to “Walker” on TV. I stress that because some people have asked me about it and I never watched the series back in the day. That’s not to be disparaging, just to say there is no comparison. John Quarrie was born out of a desire to write a character with old west values (such as they were) that embody the honesty, toughness and integrity you still find in small town Americans today. Having spent an inordinate amount of time in such locations all across the west, I’ve always found people with a spirit of adventure and lack of cynicism, that echoes the pioneering spirit of yesterday.

So many fictional heroes are beset with demons and issues (my own previous characters included) that I decided I would try to write someone who knew exactly who he was and what his role in life was. That had to be both as regards work and his relationships, and when people read John Q novels they’re as keen on his home life with his son as they are his work as a Texas Ranger. Living on a ranch in the Texas panhandle, he’s surrounded by friends he’s known since he was fourteen. A widower, he promised his wife he would always take care of their son. He does that whilst answering calls to various crime scenes large and small. In the first book THE LONG COUNT, John Q deals with a tragic family situation and its grisly repercussions, whereas in THE CONTRACT he's out of state and perhaps a little out of his depth, in the murky world of 1960’s New Orleans.

I’ve spent a lot of time in The Big Easy, more so than in Texas actually, so far, and always found myself in difficult and often dangerous situations. The people I know down there are largely either cops or criminals. There’s a whole sub-culture surrounding the French Quarter that regular tourists never get to see. I’m lucky enough to have been out and about with the FBI and the Department of Corrections, as well as a private detective who doubled as a rock n roll singer.

Back in the late 1960’s a real-life Ranger called Joachin Jackson was in New Orleans investigating a link to a crime at a country club in Texas. He had no jurisdiction down there, but when you kill a man in Texas (as John Q says) you have to pay. I knew about Jackson and used his experience as the original inspiration for this book, though the plot couldn’t be any more different. Recently I watched a Robert Duval movie called “Wild Horses” where Jackson had a cameo as himself, he died in 2016.

There’s something about Rangers that just appeals, their no nonsense, “The law is the law” approach has gotten under my skin. Although John Q is fictional, I gave him a veracity that John “DELIVERANCE” Boorman recognised, by making him godson to the most famous Texas Ranger of them all. Brought out of retirement to take down Bonnie & Clyde, Captain Frank Hamer wrote King George VI at the beginning of World War II. Long since retired but still tough as old boots, Hamer offered the king a personal bodyguard of retired Texas Rangers in case the Nazi’s rolled into London. Some people might think that was a bit naff, but I’ve always found it cool. A personal letter from John Q’s godfather to the King of England, he meant every word and - would have been as good as it - if he’d been called.

Now I think about it, perhaps that’s the reason an Englishman is writing about a Texas Ranger!

The Contract by JM Gulvin is published by Faber & Faber in April (£12.99)

Books to Look Forward to From Faber & Faber

January 2017

 

Her Every Fear is by Peter Swanson. Following a brutal attack by her ex-boyfriend, Kate Priddy makes an uncharacteristically bold decision after her cousin, Corbin Dell, suggests a temporary apartment swap - and she moves from London to Boston. But soon after her arrival Kate makes a shocking discovery: Corbin's next-door neighbour, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police begin asking questions about Corbin's relationship with Audrey, and his neighbours come forward with their own suspicions, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own. Jetlagged and emotionally unstable, her imagination playing out her every fear, Kate can barely trust herself. so how can she trust any of the strangers she's just met? 

February 2017

My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mick. They're not my real parents, but they tell me what to do, and what to say. I'm supposed to say that the bruises on my arms and the black eye came from falling down the stairs. But there are things I won't say. I won't tell them I'm going to hunt for my real parents. I don't say a word about Shadow, who sits on the stairs, or the Wasp Lady I saw on the way to bed. I did tell Mick that I saw the woman in the buttercup dress, hanging upside down from her seat belt deep in the forest at the back of our house. I told him I saw death crawl out of her. He said he'd give me a medal for lying. I wasn't lying. I'm a hunter for lost souls and I'm going to be with my real family. And I'm not going to let Mick stop me.  The Doll Funeral is by Kate Hamer.

When a distressed young woman arrives at their station claiming her friend has been abducted, and that the man threatened to come back and 'claim her next', Detectives Carrigan and Miller are thrust into a terrifying new world of stalking and obsession. Taking them from a Bayswater hostel, where backpackers and foreign students share dorms and failing dreams, to the emerging threat of online intimidation, hacking, and control, The Intrusions explores disturbing contemporary themes with all the skill and dark psychology that Stav Sherez's work has been so acclaimed for. Under scrutiny themselves, and with old foes and enmities re-surfacing, how long will Carrigan and Miller have to find out the truth behind what these two women have been subjected to?  The Intrusions is by Stav Sherez

March 2017

On a normal Wednesday afternoon, Judge Scott Sampson is preparing to pick up his six-year-old twins for their weekly swim. His wife Alison texts him with a change of plan: she has to take them to the doctor instead. So Scott heads home early. But when Alison arrives back later, she is alone - no Sam, no Emma - and denies any knowledge of the text ...The phone then rings: an anonymous voice tells them that the Judge must do exactly what he is told in an upcoming drug case and, most importantly, they must 'say nothing'. So begins this powerful, tense breakout thriller about a close-knit young family plunged into unimaginable horror. As a twisting game of cat and mouse ensues, they know that one false move could lose them their children forever. Say Nothing is by Brad Parks.

April 2017

In New Orleans, Texas Ranger John Q is out of his jurisdiction, and possibly out of his depth. It seems everyone in Louisiana wants to send him home, and every time he asks questions there's trouble: from the pharmacist to the detective running scared to the pimp who turned to him as a last resort. Before John Q knows it, he looks the only link between a series of murders. So who could be trying to set him up, and why, and who can he turn to in a city where Southern tradition and family ties rule? Infused with the rhythms of its iconic setting, The Contract is by J M Gulvin.

May 2017

The Quiet Man is by James Carol.  In Vancouver, the wife of a millionaire is dead following an explosion in her own home.  Everyone thinks her husband is responsible, but former FBI profiler Jefferson Winter isn’t so sure.  He method is too perfect; the lack of mistakes, uncanny.  He’s seen a series of carefully orchestrated murders – once a year, on exactly the same day, a woman dies in a situation just like this one.  That date is fast approaching and Winter knows another victim has been selected.  Can he identify the quiet man before he strikes again?

June 2017

Find the boy. Bring him home. Keep him safe. Keira Lynch is a lawyer who's used to trouble, but she's only just landed in Albania, and already, she's neck deep. She thought money would help her find the boy, in an underworld where bribes are as common as bent cops, but his kidnappers want something else. They want the freedom of one of their gang members. A man Keira is about to help bring to trial back in the UK; a man who once put three bullets in her chest. Can she stay silent, and save the boy? Or will she have to play the game in a brutal world where anything can be bartered - trust, loyalty, even lives?  Walk in Silence is by John Gordon Sinclair.

A Day in the writing life of JM Gulvin.

Today and on the first stop of his The Long Count blog tour J M Gulvin talks about a day in his writing life.

It’s January 1968 and it’s snowing. Not here in Wales where I live, it’s snowing over the Fort Worth Turnpike in Dallas, Texas where John Q is meeting with his father to collect his son’s belated Christmas present.

I’m on the third John Quarrie novel, he’s an old school Texas Ranger and my landscape is the flat lands of Wilbarger County in the Texas panhandle. I’m at my desk in the Welsh town of Crickhowell, my view the River Usk and the Llangattock Escarpment. It’s a stunning landscape, a holiday town and people ask me how I can sit in one country and write about another in another time period altogether. I just tell them I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time and it’s easy for me.

Actually, I think coming away from one’s subject matter isn’t a bad thing, because a novelist’s most powerful tool is their imagination. It’s the way one adds a sepia tint to the work in order to make sure the flavour is exactly as it should be.

I’m not good at mornings so I’m up just before nine, at my desk ten minutes later with the first of many cups of Americano filtered coffee. Today I’m looking at a scarred Welsh skyline, though it matters little. As soon as I turn to the page I’m in Texas fifty years ago driving a 1965 Buick Riviera with a Wildcat 425 under the hood, a radio fixed to the dash, and carrying a pair of single action army pistols.

 

From that moment on nothing matters except a sip of “gone cold” coffee. My day is spent in Texas, the only interruption, to get up and microwave that ailing cup of coffee.

The Long Count, by JM Gulvin, is published on 5th May by Faber & Faber (£12.99)

In The Long Count, the first book of JM Gulvin’s masterful new crime series, we meet Ranger John Quarrie as he is called to the scene of an apparent suicide by a fellow war veteran. Although the local police want the case shut down, John Q is convinced that events aren’t quite so straightforward.  When his hunch is backed up by the man’s son, Isaac - just back from Vietnam and convinced his father was murdered - they start to look into a series of other violent incidents in the area, including a recent fire at the local Trinity Asylum and the disappearance of Isaac’s twin brother, Ishmael. In a desperate race against time, John Q has to try to unravel the dark secrets at the heart of this family and get to the truth before the count is up...