J.C. Patterson – Lemuria Books

Tag: J.C. Patterson

By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 22)

Over the years, Nevada Barr fans have grown to love the author’s sleuthing park ranger Anna Pigeon. However, in Barr’s new novel, What Rose Forgot, the protagonist is a sixty-eight year-old woman with memory loss who wakes up next to a tree in the middle of the night. Wearing only a hospital gown, cold, disoriented and very thirsty, Rose Dennis is not her usual self. But what was her usual self?

Rose is discovered by two teens who call Longwood Nursing Home’s Memory Care Unit. She’s greeted by very stern staff members, two big orderlies and her 13 year-old step-granddaughter Mel. Seems like Mel is the only one who really cares for her “Gigi.”

Back inside Longwood, before her medication is administered, Rose realizes one thing: she doesn’t belong here…and she must escape for good this time.

In a daring and slightly crazy plan, Rose breaks out of Longwood. But this time, she knows where to go. Her stepson Daniel lives nearby. Rose hides out in Mel’s old playhouse, only to be discovered by her very clever step-granddaughter. Let’s hide out from the adults, Rose begs. They may be part of the conspiracy.

With the aid of an Uber driver, Rose revisits and breaks into her home. Boxes from the move still lie about. Fragments of Rose’s memories start to resurface. She and husband Harley recently changed addresses from New Orleans to Charlotte, North Carolina to be near Harley’s granddaughter, Mel. Something bad happened to Harley, but Rose can’t quite remember what.

Mel Reminds “Gigi” that she was a lucrative painter and a published poet. Rose dressed in artsy, wild fashions, the kind that would seem normal in New Orleans. What contributed to the decline and fall of Rose Dennis’s sanity? Why was she in a memory care unit, her mind fogged with drugs?

More questions come grippingly fast as Rose battles for her life inside her home and on the rooftop. Someone wants Rose permanently erased from memory.

With the aid of Mel, Mel’s best friend Royal and Rose’s sister Marion, a reclusive computer hacker, Rose plots her revenge. Adding in questionable ex-con Eddie Martinez only makes matters weirder.

Is her family plotting against Rose? With two unscrupulous stepsons, a fiery ex-daughter-in-law and a sneaky ex-wife, the bets are wide open. And then there’s the staff at the memory care unit. Several seniors have died there after very short stays. Could Rose’s new friend Chuck be next on the hit list?

Get ready for a reading romp that only Nevada Barr could deliver. Told in her campy tone with wisecracks and barbs, What Rose Forgot reads like Nancy Drew meets The Keystone Cops with digital access. Barr shines a light on nursing home abuse, family greed and the bonds that bring young and old together.

The author, formerly a Clinton, Mississippi resident, divides her time between Oregon and New Orleans. Rose shares so many of Nevada Barr’s traits, it’s easy to channel character and creator. I missed a National Park visit with Anna Pigeon, but a romp with Rose Dennis is fresh and exciting, even for an old lady with memory loss.

J.C. Patterson is recently retired from WLBT and the author of the Big Easy Dreamin’ series.

Ace Atkins’ latest Quinn Colson novel, ‘The Shameless,’ uncovers mystery decades old

By Guest Author

On July 23, 2019

In Mystery, Southern Fiction

By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 14)

It’s hard to believe that Ace Atkins’ acclaimed Ranger series has logged book number nine with The Shameless. Summer has officially arrived for a trip to north Mississippi and the heroics of Quinn Colson and his sometime accomplice Lillie Virgil. It’s like watching a John Ford movie with a twist of Faulkner.
Atkins’ fictional Tibbehah County, Mississippi is a magnet for greed, corruption, racism, and dirty deals radiating from the coast to the capitol to the North Mississippi hills.

Retired Army Ranger and reluctant sheriff Quinn Colson is up to his neck in drug and human trafficking, stolen goods and prostitution, run by a criminal Syndicate on the Gulf Coast. At the forefront is truck stop madam Fannie Hathcock, a notorious redhead with very little scruples. Politically speaking, Senator Jimmy Vardaman has his eyes on the governor’s mansion. The Syndicate has Vardaman and his creepy Watchmen bodyguards in their pocket. If Vardaman wins the governor’s race, the Syndicate will rule the state. Add in self-righteous county supervisor Old Man Skinner and his attempt to resurrect a sixty foot cross and you have a typical day in Tibbehah County.

Two young women have recently come to town looking for answers to a twenty year old mystery. In 1997, missing teen Brandon Taylor was found in the Big Woods after a long and arduous search. His death by shotgun was ruled a suicide, but Tashi Coleman and her friend Jessica think otherwise. Summoned to Mississippi by Brandon’s family, the New York duo run a podcast called Thin Air. Throughout the novel, Tashi conducts interviews with local townfolk defaming those involved and implicating those who may not have been, including Sheriff Quinn.

Tashi and Jessica uncover past history on Quinn that has only been hinted in previous novels; his rebellious youth and arrests that former sheriff and Quinn’s uncle Hamp swept under the carpet. Could these discoveries keep Quinn from getting re-elected?

On the Colson family front, Quinn’s sister Caddie is seeing a rich Jackson socialite who’s contributing to her ministry, The River. But are his intentions less than honorable? Quinn’s best friend Boom, seriously injured in last year’s The Sinners, has fallen back on the bottle while trying to heal. And now it’s uncovered that Quinn’s new wife Maggie has ties to the possibly murdered Brandon from twenty years back.

A daring jailhouse break-in silences a prisoner who has ties to the Syndicate. U.S. Marshall Lillie Virgil returns to her old stomping grounds to help Quinn track down the killers. And not a moment too soon. There’s a contract out on Quinn. Vardaman and the Syndicate want the true grit sheriff out of the picture for good.
Atkins takes the reader from political speeches at the Neshoba County Fair to seedy Memphis bars and even a hearty breakfast at The Fillin’ Station in the tiny town of Jericho. The Shameless is rife with corrupt politicians, God-fearing sinners, pole dancers, Native American hitmen, Elvis-lovin’ mamas, snoopy podcasters and a twenty year old mystery that just won’t die.

The last thirty pages of The Shameless will leave you breathless when Quinn answers a call from hell. Not since his service in Afghanistan has The Ranger been up against such bloody odds. Pull out your political fans and buckle up. It’s a fight to the finish between good and Old South evil. The longest of the Quinn Colson series, The Shameless is 446 pages of raunchy redneck misbehavin’. And one of Ace Atkins’ best works by far.

JC Patterson is the author of the “Big Easy Dreamin’” series.

Janet Brown’s ‘Deadly Visits’ creates cold, creepy read

By Guest Author

On April 3, 2019

In Mystery, Southern Fiction

By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Monday print edition (April 1)

For a seemingly demure and grandmotherly-type lady, Janet Brown knows how to scare the crud out of you. Her fourth thriller, Deadly Visits, conjures ghostly visions, creepy critters and elemental disruptions amid a high-tech whodunit.

Brown spent several years in the shivering climes of South Dakota, where the temps make this part of the country laughable. Bundle up and head north, where Emily Dunham, hunkered down in rural Aberdeen, South Dakota, spots a ghost treading down her hallway. It’s a young girl in an old fashioned, long yellow dress, who vanishes as quickly as she’s spotted. Emily’s job-driven husband Alex shrugs the vision off; he’s more interested in dinner.

The call comes at 4 a.m. that night. Emily’s brother Carl relays the bad news: their father is near death. Emily flies south to her childhood home in Jackson, Mississippi, just a hair too late to say goodbye to dad.

After visitation, Emily meets former boyfriend Richard at Old Trace Park. He comforts her and asks that Emily drop by and his tell his wife hello. Emily finds the request strange, especially when she learns the truth about Richard. And his daughter resembles the ghost girl.

Back in South Dakota, Marlis Peterson speaks with the ghost of her childhood friend while waiting in line to pick up her kids from school. Soon more people are seeing dead students walking the halls of the school.

While Emily’s husband Alex argues with fellow worker George Kwivinan, George spots strange lightning closing in on the car they’re travelling in. Yet only George can see it. George also comes across a terrifying mist around his kids’ ankles in the play yard. And what’s with the odd triangles?

If you feel like you’re in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, that’s certainly the vibe Deadly Visits puts forth.

Still in Mississippi, Emily tells a local priest of her odd visions. The priest refers Emily to a local detective who’s dealt with stranger things in his career. M.A. Klugh listens to Emily’s story. He finds it so fascinating, Klugh flies back to South Dakota with his new client.

Emily passes Klugh off as her long lost uncle to her three kids and leery husband. One of Alex’s co-workers has recently died in a plane crash. Or was it murder? Alex is jailed as the most likely suspect while Klugh comes to his defense.

The strangeness continues as Emily and M.A.’s relationship grows. Everything centers around Audio Tech, the mysterious company Alex works for. A nun who speaks to spirits and an aging scientist hold the keys to why the dead have risen. Brown introduces the reader to Augmented Virtual Reality and the very real possibilities it holds.

“A lot of the book is made of short stories,” Brown said. Her late husband told the author she should put them together. The idea came from science fact.“What if you could take your brain and see things that weren’t there, like television.” Or perhaps ghosts.“I like to scare people,” Brown chuckles.

Tune in to the mind-numbing freakiness that arrives with Deadly Visits. Janet Brown’s sci-fi thriller is short and deadly and will definitely keep you up at night.

J.C. Patterson is the author of the Big Easy Dreamin’ series, a collection of New Orleans stories

Janet Brown will be at Lemuria on Thursday, April 4, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Deadly Visits.

John M. Floyd’s ‘The Barrens’ is full of surprises

By Guest Author

On October 30, 2018

In Mystery, Short Stories, Southern Fiction

By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Mississippi Book Page

Well, the season is upon us: hundreds of hungry children dressing up like princesses and superheroes, anticipating candy by the truckload. But my treat came early in the form of John M. Floyd’s seventh exciting collection of mystery short stories. The Barrens contains thirty tales set mainly in the south, some in different time periods. But they all have zingers of a punch line.

In Floyd’s opening volley, “The Sandman,” the owner of a diner is being forced to close by nefarious mobsters. One of her patrons gets a double shot of revenge through his deceased friend’s help.

An escaped prisoner uses a one-armed fisherman as his hostage in “Crow Mountain.” But where will the old man lead the escapee? “Trails End” features an out of the way café that caters to murder, a returning sheriff and some suspicious circus folk.

Thugs confront an elderly man in a protection for hire scheme in the clever “Safety First.” Watch out for what the old fellow has up his sleeve. Set in New Orleans, “Dawson’s Curse” drums up some villainous voodoo that backfires on its owner. “Merrill’s Run” traps a man in the trunk of a car with a very unexpected outcome.

The middle section of “The Barrens” makes way for six chuckle-worthy short stories in Floyd’s “Law And Daughter” series. Featuring small town sheriff Lucy Valentine and her crime-solving mom Fran, these snappy stories convey some of the author’s most fun efforts.

In “Flu Season,” a talented knife thrower with a cold aims to keep his blades true when his wife is the target. An ex-gunslinger investigates a 22-year old murder in “Gunwork.” Another period piece, “Rooster Creek” would make a sure-fire movie, in which a young woman returns to her childhood home, only to find it inhabited by true evil.

“Pit Stop,” my personal favorite, tells a double tale of a mother defending her kids in the present while recounting a chilling narrative of how she became so brave.
A killer on the run with a fear of snakes confronts his worst nightmare in “The Blue Delta.” One of the shortest stories ever written, “Premonition” casts a shadow on a couple getting ready for an evening at the theatre. A deadly west coast virus threatens a family’s happy vibes in “Life Is Good.” A mom minding her daughter’s store must make a harrowing decision in “Rosie’s Choice.”

In one of Floyd’s strangest stories ever, “The Red Eye To Boston,” an old man tells a fellow passenger that there’s something in the bathroom in the back of the plane they’re on. And it isn’t extra toilet paper.

The finale takes two children into The Barrens, a dark haunted woodland featuring a vengeful stepfather, monsters and a witch who will surprise them all.
Be sure to grab this creepy, fast, violent, mischievous, clever and fun collection of some of John M. Floyd’s finest short stories. Each tale in The Barrens is like popping Halloween candy into your mouth. Savor these tasty tidbits of mystery gold.

J.C. Patterson is the author of Big Easy Dreamin’ and Mo’ Dreamin’.

John M. Floyd will be at Lemuria tonight on Tuesday, October 30, at 5:00 to sign and read from The Barrens.

Tag: J.C. Patterson

Nevada Barr’s stand-alone thriller ‘What Rose Forgot’ pits age against evil

Ace Atkins’ latest Quinn Colson novel, ‘The Shameless,’ uncovers mystery decades old

Janet Brown’s ‘Deadly Visits’ creates cold, creepy read

John M. Floyd’s ‘The Barrens’ is full of surprises

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