The Hot Country (Christopher Marlowe Cobb Series #1)

by Robert Olen Butler

Overview

The Hot Country is an epic tale of war, love, and espionage. Christopher Marlowe Cobb is an American newspaper war correspondent who travels to Mexico in 1914 to report on the country’s civil war, the invasion of Vera Cruz, and the controversial presidency of Victoriano Huerta, El Chacal (The Jackal). Covering the war in enemy territory and sweltering heat, Cobb falls in love with Luisa, a beautiful Mexican laundress, who is not as innocent as she seems.

Upon investigating a German ammunition ship docked in the marina, Cobb finds himself fired upon by unknown assailants, then witnesses a priest being shot with marksman-like precision. Cobb employs a young pickpocket to help him find out the identity of the sniper and, more importantly, why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from that very ship docked in the port. Soon Cobb finds himself wrapped up in a web of secrets that could change the the fate of the fate of myriad world leaders, redefine the destiny of two continents, and end his life at any moment. An action-packed chronicle of passion and war, Butler’s powerful crime-fiction debut is a thriller not to be missed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802121547
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/24/2013
Series:	Christopher Marlowe Cobb Series , #1
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,067,540
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Robert Olen Butler is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of fourteen novels, six story collections, and a book on the creative process, From Where You Dream. A recipient of both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant, he also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He teaches creative writing at Florida State University.

Editorial Reviews

"This high-spirited adventure by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler is an antic concoction of genre clichés, literary sendups, personal homages, fanciful history and passages of great writing."— New York Times Book Review

"It's an exciting story, much of it based on fact, and Butler has a good time with it. His writing is both crisp and thoughtful, his people ring true and he offers an amusing portrait of a golden age in journalism. . . . The Hot Country is a thinking person's thriller, the kind of exotic adventure that, in better days, would have been filmed by Sam Peckinpah."— Washington Post

"Butler takes an often-overlooked chapter of history and turns it into a whip-smart tale of intrigue and espionage."—CNN.com

“A high-spirited adventure.”— Charlotte Observer

“Enjoyable novel that should attract devotees of espionage and historical fiction.”— Library Journal

“A fine stylist, Butler renders the time and place in perfect detail.”— Publishers Weekly

"An awfully good read."— Criminal Intent

"[ The Hot Country is] Robert Olen Butler’s fast-paced entrée into adventure tales. Add a little Indiana Jones and you get the picture: a smart guy also handy with his fists and firearms, burdened with a dedication to finding out the truth."— Plaza de Armas

“Pancho Villa, fiery senoritas, and Germans up to no good—Robert Olen Butler is having fun in The Hot Country and readers will too. An intelligent entertainment with colorful history.”—Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author of The Good German and Istanbul Passage

“ The Hot Country is a spirited and beautifully told tale of adventure and intrigue in the grand old style, rich in both insight and atmosphere. Going off to war with Kit Cobb is as bracing and fun as it used to be in George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books, or in Perez-Reverte’s Captain Alatriste novels. And the best part is that there are more to come. Saddle up.”—Dan Fesperman, Hammett award-winning author of The Double Game

From the Publisher

Having ranged from the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain to the wicked fun of Hell, Butler tries something completely different: a thriller. Christopher Marlowe ("Kit") Cobb, an early 20th-century American war correspondent reporting on Mexico's civil war, witnesses the attempted assassination of a priest and the arrival of strange ships bearing German officials—and that's just the beginning. Especially promising for your smart thriller readers; with a 12-city tour.

Library Journal

Ray Chase's characterization of journalist Christopher Marlowe Cobb sublimely captures his transition from war correspondent "fiddling around with a metaphor" while covering the U.S. Army in Veracruz to undercover operative shooting banditos and figuratively and literally dueling with the German emissary who is funding Pancho Villa's invasion of the U.S. German, Mexican, and even Canadian accents are lightly delivered amid vivid period detail and scene setting. Combat performances range from slow motion to breathless, but Chase is best at Cobb's reflective moments. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2012 - AudioFile