Death in the Absence of Rain:
Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles: Book 15
by Caleb Pirtle III
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Description:
Review: “Pirtle has an unusual voice. His language is generally terse and to the point, with no words wasted. (Perhaps that’s his journalistic background coming through!) But, more unusual, its rhythm has a poetic feel to it: indeed, in places, he blurs the lines between poetry and prose. Plus, he knows which levers to pull to keep you turning the pages.”

In Texas, it has been a long, hot summer.

Blistering temperatures.

Scorched earth.

An empty sky.

No rain at all.

Trapped in the midst of a generational drought, the water level of Magnolia Bluff’s Burnet Reservoir begins to drop, and the ghost town of Crystalline Flats slowly comes back from the dead.

When the river was dammed to create the reservoir, the flood had overwhelmed the dying old town and left it buried underwater.
Now the ruins are rising like skeletons of stone and wood from their watery grave.

And the secrets of Crystalline Flats are secret no longer.

They tell a dreadful tale of murder.

And who lives and who will kill again to make sure the mysteries from the past remain hidden and silenced forever?

Some believed their past sins were washed away.

Now those sins are back to haunt the guilty.
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My review:

A scorching hot mystery that you’ll long remember!

Mysteries come and go, fleeting stories for the reader to enjoy, put aside and forget. DEATH IN THE ABSENCE OF RAIN by Caleb Pirtle is not one of them. It’s a one of a kind mystery, written by a one of a kind, extraordinary writer. It’s a smoldering mystery that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

The setting alone makes you feel like you can’t get enough air. A small Texas town is dying of thirst. There’s been no rain, and the temperature is the sweltering kind, the kind that keeps you sweating even if you’re reading the story in your air-conditioned room. Caleb Pirtle’s writing takes you out of your comfortable room and sets you down in the middle of the heat. You’re snatched away from your comfortable chair, and you’re looking at a dead man, a dead man who’s still walking around the town. You’re staring at his dead eyes and wondering why he won’t go away, why he won’t stay dead.

Murder follows. While a man’s being shot dead, a whole town is rising out of its grave. Long buried by flood waters from a burst dam, a whole town is making itself and its secrets known again. Skeletons are coming to the surface, demanding justice. The newly dead and the dead from long ago are filling up the morgue.

A lone newspaper man is piecing together a past that won’t stay buried. He’s walking in the heat just like the dead man. They’re both walking the streets of Magnolia Bluff. The newspaper man is drenched in sweat, searching for clues. The dead man is handing out clues. All the while, a town hidden beneath lethal floodwaters is rising up. It’s demanding retribution. It’s demanding justice. And people are being murdered to keep those secrets hidden.

The writing is exquisite, and the story keeps your mind running from the heat. But you can’t escape the facts or close the book. You keep praying for rain as you keep trying to discover why the dead won’t stay dead. This mystery insists that you find out who killed them in the first place and why. When you finish this book, you can finally breathe again, but you won’t forget the story. It’s a scorching hot mystery that you’ll long remember! It’s a five star, searing testament to one man’s ability to write an incredible story. It’s a mystery to savor and enjoy.

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For more about the author, visit Caleb Pirtle’s website. You can also visit him on Facebook and on Twitter.