02/19/2024
Annie McIntyre deals with bloodshed and blood relations in Allen’s atmospheric third whodunit featuring the 26-year-old PI (after Hard Rain). It’s a sweltering August in the small town of Garnett, Tex., and Annie has her plate full as maid of honor for her cousin Nikki’s wedding. During one of the prenuptial parties, she’s approached by local musician Clint Marshall, the groom’s brother and best man. Adopted as a baby, he wants Annie to help him find his birth parents. The case seems straightforward enough: Annie uses Ancestry.com to locate Clint’s biological brother, Cody, and his father, who’s serving time in prison for a years-old bank robbery. Things take a turn, however, when Cody is found dead and Clint disappears. With the aid of her 85-year-old grandfather, Leroy, a former county sheriff, and his former deputy, Mary-Pat Zimmerman, Annie searches West Texas’s bars and motels in search of answers. Eventually, she turns her focus to Clint’s jailbird father. Allen conjures a suitably noirish mood from the opening pages, and renders even her secondary characters in three dimensions. With regional intrigue and plenty of satisfying sleuthing, this series merits a long run. (Apr.)
"A gritty tale of troublesome family dynamics with a tough and determined protagonist." —Kirkus
"Atmospheric....Allen conjures a suitably noirish mood from the opening pages, and renders even her secondary characters in three dimensions. With regional intrigue and plenty of satisfying sleuthing, this series merits a long run." —Publisher's Weekly
"Allen's engaging heroine, sharp descriptions of life in a struggling small town, and a breakneck plot will make readers itch for the next in the series." —Booklist (starred review)
Praise for the Annie McIntyre Mysteries:
"If you liked the realist grit of Mare of Easttown, you’ll savor this smart and layered tale from a new Georgia writer worth watching." —The Augusta Chronicle on Pay Dirt Road
"Intensity of plot and depth of characters lift Allen’s novel into the top tier of rural noir. And her prose, rich with the rendering of the Texas countryside, imbues Pay Dirt Road with literary merit. Impressive and intense, Pay Dirt Road exemplifies splendid crime fiction—indeed, any fiction—and establishes Allen as a gifted creator."
—Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
"While Pay Dirt Road entertains, it also makes the reader think beyond the confines of the story. That’s what good books are supposed to do." —New York Journal of Books
"Allen’s prose lights up like a neon beer sign....The Central Texas setting rings true, not just in its gratifying buffet of kolaches, H-E-B tortillas, and Texas sheet cake, but in the turreted McMansions whose smiling bluebonnet photos hide a host of sins." —Texas Monthly on Pay Dirt Road
"[T]he Texas landscape, with its falling-apart houses and bedraggled bars, comes alive in this remarkable novel, reminiscent of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show." —Booklist, starred review, Top 10 Debut Mysteries & Thrillers 2022 on Pay Dirt Road
"Taut, [with] pitch-perfect imagery...Mystery fans will hope to soon return." —Publishers Weekly on Hard Rain
"Wondrous....Allen proves herself as adept as the likes of David Baldacci, Lisa Gardner, and Lisa Scottoline."
—The Providence Journal on Pay Dirt Road
"There’s a wistful air wafting through Samantha Jayne Allen’s debut… Allen writes with keen acumen, her sentences marked with quiet yet powerful grace notes." —The New York Times on Pay Dirt Road
03/29/2024
Before musician Clint Marshall leaves Garnett, TX, for Nashville, he asks private investigator Annie McIntyre to take his case. Clint was adopted out of foster care when he was four, and he wants Annie to find his birth parents. But it's not a good idea to take adoption cases in a small community where everyone knows each other. It only takes a day for Annie to discover that Clint's birth father is in prison for bank robbery, and he has a biological brother, Clay, who lives nearby, and has been involved with a local drug dealer. When Clint disappears, and Annie finds his brother dead, supposedly by suicide, she throws herself into a case in which no one wants to know what Annie uncovers. She's followed and intimidated, and everyone from her grandfather to the drug dealer to the police wants to shut down her investigation. VERDICT The atmospheric mystery from the Tony Hillerman Award-winning author of McIntyre series opener Pay Dirt Road is a descriptive novel featuring a young PI who analyzes her own feelings about her job and hometown as she searches for answers in the gritty pool halls, in the rundown motels, and on the dusty roads of Texas.—Lesa Holstine
Sandy Rustin's voice is just right for youthful PI Annie McIntyre as she deals with discovery after shocking discovery in a dusty Texas town. In Garnett everyone knows everyone--and their secrets. After a conversation with friends about nature or nurture, Annie is approached by Clint Marshall, an adoptee, who asks her to identify his biological parents. Using Ancestry.com and Clint's recent DNA test, Annie uncovers twisted family connections in the town. With her understated Texas twang, Rustin delivers a tense mystery filled with credible characters ranging from Clint's biological brother, to his father, who is in prison for armed robbery, and to Cody's taciturn mother. Rustin ratchets up the excitement as skeletons in the family closet reveal drugs, murder, and half-truths. Top-notch listening. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
2024-02-17
A man’s search for his birth parents opens a door to dangers arising from the past.
Following in her family’s footsteps, Annie McIntyre works as a private investigator in her hometown of Garnett, Texas. She and her boyfriend, Wyatt, attend a party for her cousin Nikki and her fiance, Sonny, thrown by his best man and adopted brother, Clint Marshall, a talented singer poised to make it big in country music. A discussion about nature versus nurture spurs Clint to hire Annie to find his birth parents, opening a nasty can of worms. Clint, who was adopted out of foster care at age 4, has a few faint memories, and a DNA test he’s recently taken turned up a distant cousin. Annie quickly learns that his birth father is Ronald Mott, who’s currently incarcerated for armed bank robbery. His mother is presumably Lorena, Mott’s wife at the time. His adoptive mother, oddly enough, was a teller at the bank Mott robbed. Ignoring the advice of her grandfather Leroy, a former sheriff, to avoid Mott, whom he considers a dangerous sociopath, Annie writes to him in hopes of confirming that his ex-wife was Clint’s mother and also interviews a skittish Mott neighbor whose daughter vanished years ago. Lorena won’t talk to Annie, but her son, Cody, who’s obviously Clint’s brother, will. Cody’s involved with a dangerous drug dealer, who starts harassing Annie. Clint takes off after Annie reports her findings, leaving her to deal with the fallout. Although she’s done what Clint wanted, Annie can’t let go of the case, which might just be the death of her.
A gritty tale of troublesome family dynamics with a tough and determined protagonist.