Southern Heat Blog
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About the BookAuthor: David Burnsworth
Publisher: Five Star/Gale
Pages: 304
Language: English
Genre: Southern Noir/Mystery
Format: Paperback & eBook
Gunshots echo down an antebellum Charleston
The sole heir of his uncle's estate,
Brack receives a rundown bar called the Pirate's Cove, a rotting beach house,
and one hundred acres of preserved and valuable wetland along the Ashley River Charleston
From the sandy beaches of Isle of
Palms, through the nineteenth-century mansions lining the historic Battery , to the marshlands surrounding the county,
Southern Heat is drenched in the humidity of the lowcountry.
Purchase your copy at AMAZON
Discuss this book in our
PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE
EXCERPT
First Chapter:
“A man doesn’t have the right to avoid
reaping what he sows.”
Brother Thomas
Saturday
night in the holy city of Charleston, S.C., it was easier to find a cheap motel
on the Battery than a parking space near the Market. Especially in July. I
bounced over century-old bricks, made a big U on Meeting Street, and headed
back.
My
uncle wanted to meet for dinner, and I was late.
Three
blocks over, a spot opened up on Chalmers Street and I shoehorned my Mustang
in. A birthday present to myself, the car had a screaming V-8, chrome wheels,
and black paint. Its finish reflected the glow of the gaslights. I hadn’t
needed a new car. What I needed was something besides my dog to make me smile,
and I was tired of double-shots of Beam.
To
save a few steps, I cut down a darkened alley. A quick flash and a loud pop
echoed off the surrounding walls. I hit the deck, rolled behind a dumpster, and
reached for my Berretta. It hadn’t been there in six months and wasn’t now. The
aroma of spoiled seafood from the garbage hit me harder than a bullet.
A
voice in the alley shouted like my drill sergeant in boot camp. “Give me an
answer!”
My
eyes adjusted to the dim light. I peered around a corner of the dumpster. A
figure knelt over a body. To get a better view, I stood. My foot hit an empty
bottle. It clanged across the cobblestones of the alley. The kneeling man
raised his arm. The silhouette of a gun aimed in my direction. I dove back
behind the dumpster. He fired. The bullet ricocheted off the steel frame. I
needed an exit strategy.
Receding
footsteps of someone running echoed in the alley. After a moment all I heard
was labored breathing and eased from my hiding spot. The figure with the gun
was gone. The body on the ground wheezed. I got to my feet, hurried over to
help, and found my uncle staring up at me with his one good eye, the other
having been lost in Vietnam and now covered with an eye patch.
“Uncle
Reggie!” I fell to my knees.
Blood
trickled from his mouth as he said my name, “Brack.” His voice was rough and
muffled by the liquid filling his lungs.
Grabbing
my phone, I punched nine-one-one.
“Brack,”
he whispered, and his uncovered eye closed.
The
emergency line rang in my ear.
“I’m
calling for an ambulance,” I said.
“Ray.”
He coughed. “Ray shot me.”
I
let the phone drop a few inches. “Who’s Ray?”
He
swallowed hard.
A
tinny female voice interrupted, “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
The
life went out of Uncle Reggie and I placed two fingers on his neck.
No
pulse.
“Sir,”
said the operator. “What’s your emergency?”
“My
uncle’s been shot. We’re in Simmons Alley.” I placed the phone on the ground
next to me, raised my uncle’s chin, and gave him CPR.
In
the middle of my second round of chest compressions, the howling intake noise
and moaning exhaust of a car engine at full throttle made me look up. Flashing
lights bounced off the dumpsters and trash lining the alley.
A
patrol car headed for me, and I jerked my hands up in reaction. It skidded to a
stop a few yards away. Doors swung open in unison. Two men stepped out and
trained their weapons on me. “Police! Freeze!”
One
of them moved out of my line of vision.
“He’s
not breathing,” I said.
The
officer by the cruiser said, “Get your hands up!”
Patience
left me. “He’s been shot! Make yourself useful and call an ambulance.”
“Get
down!” screamed a voice behind me. A hard shove made me hit the ground face
first next to my uncle. The officer jammed his knee into my back, frisked, and
cuffed me.
I
spit blood and dirt and tried to take a breath. “He’s my uncle. Help him!”
The
second officer knelt beside Uncle Reggie and checked for a pulse like I did.
“He’s gone.”
It
took both cops to lift all six-foot, two-hundred-and-ten pounds of me off the
ground. I grunted at the strain on my joints from the handcuffs. They placed me
in the back seat of a cruiser and shut the door. One of them rattled off
something on the radio. I ran my tongue over a split in the middle of my lower
lip. Blood on the front of my white T-shirt mixed with three-century-old soot
from the cobblestones. Ten feet away my only family and best friend lay dead. I
shook my head in disbelief. The moon cast everything in electric blue.
More
vehicles showed up and the area erupted in activity. Gray uniforms and
white-jacketed technicians crowded into the narrow passage between the old
brick buildings. Cameras flashed. Two suits got out of an unmarked Crown Vic.
One knelt beside my uncle. The other spoke with one of the uniforms, both of
them glancing at me several times. After a few minutes, the suits teamed up and
came at me like two sand crabs ready to make a meal out of a fish carcass
washed up on the beach. I saw my wallet in one of the crab’s claws and realized
it was no longer in my back pocket.
About the Author:
David Burnsworth became fascinated with
the Deep South at a young age. After a degree
in Mechanical Engineering from the University
of Tennessee Charleston Island
for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife along
with their dog call South Carolina
His latest book is the southern
noir/mystery, Southern
Heat.
Visit his website at www.davidburnsworthbooks.com.
Connect
& Socialize with David!
Southern Heat Tour Page
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