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    The Devil's Country
    The Devil's Country
    The Devil's Country
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Devil's Country

    Written by Harry Hunsicker

    Narrated by Eric G. Dove

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Former Texas Ranger Arlo Baines didn't come to the tiny West Texas town of Piedra Springs to cause trouble. After his wife and children were murdered, Arlo just wants to be left alone. Moving from place to place seems to be the only thing that eases the pain of his family's violent end.

    But a chance encounter outside a bar forces him to rescue a terrified woman and her children from mysterious attackers. When the woman turns up murdered the next day—her children missing—Arlo becomes the primary suspect in exactly the same type of crime he is trying desperately to forget.

    Haunted by the fate of his family, and with the police questioning the existence of the dead woman's children, Arlo decides it's his duty to find them. The question is, just how deep will he have to sink into the dusty secrets of Piedra Springs to save them and clear his name?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 11, 2017
    ISBN9781531890995
    The Devil's Country
    Author

    Harry Hunsicker

    Harry Hunsicker is the former executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America and the author of seven crime thrillers, including The Devil’s Country, the first Arlo Baines novel, and the Jon Cantrell and Lee Henry Oswald series. His work has been short-listed for both the Shamus and Thriller Awards. Hunsicker’s story “West of Nowhere,” originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, was selected for inclusion in the anthology The Best American Mystery Stories 2011. For more about Harry, visit him at www.harryhunsicker.com.

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    Reviews for The Devil's Country

    4/5

    22 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Enjoyed it quite a lot. The protagonist isn't unique in the genre but he was well-written. Emotionally damaged loner who gets into more trouble than he expects while trying to help people.

      If another book featuring Arlo Baines is in the works, I'll certainly read it.
    • 5/5
      The version of "The Devil's Country" that I read was in a format that I've never before experienced, something called "Kindle in Motion." For readers using a Kindle or other capable device, this "motion" version greatly enhances the reading experience by including a series of photos and ten-or-fifteen-second films that relate directly to what is happening on the written page. Hats off to the team that produced this one; it's very well done.This is also the first book in Hunsicker's new Arlo Baines series, and it's a doozy. Arlo, until a few months earlier a Texas Ranger, is now just a wanderer going wherever his last bus ticket happens to take him. He's a modern drifter - but he's still a do-gooder and a good cop at heart. So when he stumbles into a little West Texas town that has been taken over by some very bad people, including a weird religious cult and the Russian Mafia (a rather strange combination of bad guys), he is not going to leave until he gets to the bottom of things. With the help of a couple of brave folks - and a woman fresh from a stint with the New York Times - Arlo chips away at the problem until it all starts to make some sense. This is a high bodycount novel that is fun to read - especially in this version.
    • 4/5
      Has there ever been a religious cult started for something other than allowing the leaders to have sex with the congregation?

      Arlo Baines is wandering the state of Texas in an effort to forget the murder of his family. The former Texas Ranger sees a couple of guys up to no good, and starts making trouble in the neighbourhood. He gets in one little fight and has the local sheriff and a religious cult wanting to see him leave (for Bel Air).

      It was refreshing to dive into a different take on the itinerant vigilante genre. Obviously there are similarities between any of the novels in this genre, the most prominent being Lee Child's Jack Reacher series (of which I'm a fan). But Harry Hunsicker has brought a more haunted and reluctant hero to the page, one who feels a little more vulnerable, but no less unstoppable.

      This is a fast-moving novel which hits all the right beats. While it doesn't stray from the itinerant vigilante genre path, nor offer up any surprising twists, The Devil's Country was an enjoyable read. Recommended for any fans of Lee Child, Matt Hilton, Zoe Sharp, et al.

      NB: I received an advance review copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.
    • 3/5
      The Devil's Country is a Jack-Reacher-type story set in Texas. Since the murder of his family, former Texas ranger Arlo Baines has been moving from town to town wanting to be left alone to catch up on his reading. Arriving in a tiny town in West Texas, Arlo becomes involved in an altercation between a couple of thugs and an oddly dressed woman and her two children. When the woman is found dead the following morning, Arlo becomes a suspect but vows to find out what happened to the two children.This was your typical lone ranger takes on entire town scenario involving an obscure cult, corrupt cops, a female journalist who could become a potential love interest and turns into something like his sidekick and the Russian mafia (with the stereotypical Boris for good measure). Through flashbacks, the reader discovers Arlo's back-story and what exactly happened to his family.It was a little crammed with formulaic stuff, the back and forth made it choppy in parts, and the repetitiveness of the character announcing 'this is what I'll do' followed by a sentence where he is then actually doing this exact thing became a little wearing.On the other hand, some passages and descriptions were really well done, the setting was atmospheric and it contained some nice humor.If you're looking for some light entertainment and fancy a good old action movie type novel with a hero who will destroy all evil then this should appeal. There was nothing much wrong with it, but there also wasn't anything special or innovative. I liked it well enough, hence 3 stars.I was invited to read an ARC and opinions expressed are entirely my own. Thanks to the publisher.
    • 4/5
      MYSTERY/THRILLERHarry HunsickerThe Devil’s CountryThomas & MercerPaperback, 978-1-5039-4190-8, (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on Audible), 304 pgs., $15.95April 11, 2017 The late writer John Gardner once said there are only two kinds of stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. In Harry Hunsicker’s new novel, The Devil’s Country, a stranger comes to a strange town. The fictional Piedra Springs is the Twin Peaks of West Texas. Former Texas Ranger Arlo Baines steps off a Greyhound bus in the tiny, remote (“badlands between Odessa and Sonora”) Piedra Springs. Baines is an admitted “sucker for lost causes, stray pets, and people who couldn’t quite fit into the groove of life.” Sure enough, outside a bar during a thunderstorm Baines stumbles across Molly (who “looked like something from Little House on the Prairie”) and her two children. She tells Baines she and her children have escaped and if he doesn’t help them, they’ll be killed. Then the town’s tornado siren begins screeching. Baines takes cover inside the bar, and when he goes back out after the all-clear to look for the woman and her kids, they’re gone. When Molly’s body is found the next day, Baines falls under suspicion and must solve the mystery and find the missing children to clear his name. Hunsicker knows his small West Texas towns, fictional or no. Of Piedra Springs he writes, “You either had business there or were trying to avoid business somewhere else.” But when a storm approaches they are blessed with “a cool wind that smelled like ozone and sage.” For a dying town, Piedra Springs has a lot going on: Russian mafia, a mysterious Bentley driving around, public corruption, bankers (“to not pay was a grave sin, a heinous crime, akin to … voting for a socialist”), a cult (“the Old and New Testament mixed with Star Trek”), a sort of underground railroad, and the dark web. Baines’s first-person narrative is told in choppy, simple prose. Great genre-phrases include, “Jimmy and Dales’ Broken Promise [a bar] … had low ceiling and even lower expectations.” The town sheriff has a Texas drawl “strong as new rope.” Though Hunsicker has a habit of announcing what his characters will do next instead of just doing it (“I decided to check if someone at the restaurant had seen Molly leave the parking lot,” Baines announces to us), this is infrequent. Hunsicker is surprisingly moving at times, and leavens the mayhem and darkness with humor. “Wisdom comes from the strangest of places,” Baines muses, “like a philandering Texas Ranger in a Chinese restaurant a hundred miles past the exit for the middle of nowhere. Bubba Confucius.” And sometimes he waxes eloquent: “Men have been men since time began. Some have lusts best not described, for fear that others will fall prey to their particular strains of darkness.” The Devil’s Country features a quirky cast of characters, plus many secrets and subtexts, and is packed with unexpected turns and twists. If this is the first in a new series, the premise of a lone ranger on the road offers practically inexhaustible possibilities. Hunsicker sets the hook in a short prologue, and the action hurtles forward until the very end with expert clue placement and a distinctive Texas noir style.Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.