The Rundown
Savannah Crowe, a nightmare turned lover from five years earlier, makes a collect call to ex-homicide cop Ed Earl Burch. A Dallas PI working handoff assignments, Burch wonders what would possess this now-married woman to contact him. Savannah claims that she is a suspect in the murder of her financier husband, Jason Crowe, and she wants Burch to find—”that sorry puke husband” of hers or “the guys that fried him.” There’s more to the story that Burch isn’t privy to, such as a million plus missing from Jason’s offshore account.
Jason has been religiously ripping off his mobster clientele. His actions come back to bite him in the derriere when he learns that Savannah is the culprit to his depleted funds. As Savannah becomes a target, Jason oddly goes missing. Burch who takes on the case and shows up at Savannah’s supposed undisclosed location ends up gunning down an assailant. Apparently, someone wants her dead, but who? While it is clear that it is time for Savannah to go underground, Burch madly tries to put whatever puzzling clues he can gather together, especially since things just don’t seem to be adding up. While sleuthing for the truth, plenty of gore punctuated with erotic sex occurs before he gets a hot lead that takes him to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. But any thoughts of finally putting this case to bed go by the wayside when Burch learns that what happened at the show is only a sign of more trouble ahead.
Nesbitt opens the second book of the Earl Burch series with a scene that provides a window not only to Burch’s dangerous line of work but also offers readers a small connection to the Crowe case. Like a well-oiled machine, Nesbitt’s story flows seamlessly from chapter to chapter, producing a continual stream of details to build his driving plot. Of course, front and center of Nesbitt’s narrative is the inimitable Ed Earl Burch who is unlike the well-recognized hard-boiled PI characters of yesteryear. Hammett’s Sam Spade, Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and Spillane’s Mike Hammer come to mind.
Ed Earl Burch is nothing less than a crazed and snarky X-rated middle-aged PI whose vivid imagination and “foot-in-your-mouth-all-the-way-up-to-your-hips” comments create awkward and sidesplitting situations amid dark comedy, gory scenes, and heated sex. While The Right Wrong Number is a perfect stand-alone, Nesbitt fans know that if you want to get the full impact of Ed Earl Burch, start with The Last Second Chance.
The Recommendation
The Right Wrong Number is filled with the latest and greatest of Nesbitt’s Quentin-Tarantino wit mixed with everything gory, despicable, irreverent, and plenty of sex. Indeed, a great combination of mystery and a plain laugh-out-loud read—guaranteed to be a favorite for noir enthusiasts.
The Rating
Top Pick! 5 Stars (out of five): Freaking amazing. Any agent or publishing house that passed this one up made a big mistake. It was selected by our reviewer as a personal favorite. This is also a nomination for our Novel of the Year award.
The Pros & Cons
Pros: Characterization, Dialogue, Humor, Page Turner, Plot, Steamy Romance, Unique StyleThe Links
The Reviewer
Anita Lock
Visit Anita Lock‘s website.I am thrilled to be interviewing the famous or infamous—whichever way readers want to look at him—Ed Earl Burch, the featured character in Jim Nesbitt’s The Right Wrong Number.
Ed--may I call you Ed—did you ever realize that you could become the next beloved Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, or Mike Hammer. Obviously, you’re not like any of them. You’re quite different. Why do you think Jim placed you in this hard-boiled setting?
Meaning no disrepect, m’am, but nobody calls me Ed. Had a ladyfriend who used to call me Eddie in intimate moments, but she tried to kill me a couple of times. So, just call me Ed Earl. Everybody else does. Leastwise, everybody who likes me or hopes I’ll pay back the money I’ve borrowed from them. As for being different -- I sure hope I’m different than those pulp fiction characters you just mentioned. For one thing, I’m not as smart or as tough as those other guys. I’m more the dogged, persistent kind, like a dog with a bone that won’t let go. That’s how I am with a case or an assignment. I’m not super smart or cool like Spade or Marlowe, but I ain’t a dumbass. I don’t have a granite jaw like Mike Hammer, but I can take a punch and dish one out like Mike and we both like .45 semi-automatics, the old 1911. People tend to underestimate me and I tend to make them pay for it in the end. Think of me as a chicken-fried Columbo, but without the raincoat and chewed up cigar. And I’m a helluva lot meaner and more likely to shoot you. As for that Nesbitt guy -- he didn’t place me anywhere, but he did a pretty good job of telling the tale I told him. It’s a pretty grim story of revenge and redemption involving a lot of nasty folks with few redeeming qualities. And it takes place in Texas and northern Mexico, in some pretty stark, desolate country. Which is perfect for a primal and bloody story like this.
What’s with the full use of your name?
That’s a Southern thing in general and a Texas thing in particular. We call people by their first and middle names down here -- Mary Nell or Jim Tom. Ray Merle or Carla Sue. With men, it may be because several descendants have a grandfather’s first name, so the second name is thrown in so you know who you’re talking about. But not always. And they’ll use the familiar instead of the formal -- in my case, Ed Earl instead of the name on my baptism certificate, Edward Earl. To add to the confusion, a lot of men just go by their initials -- C.W. or J.T. Some folks call me E.E. or Double E to be cute or picturesque, but I don’t much care for that. An ex-wife called me both of those, but she got killed because of something I stuck my foot in. Don’t need to be reminded of guilt I’ll never get over. So, Ed Earl will do just fine.
If you had to name two favorite characteristics about yourself, what would they be? How about two least favorite characteristics?
I don’t quit and I’m loyal to the few friends I’ve got. I’ve also got a code to live by when I’m not distracted by sex or money shoved in front of my nose. That’s three good things. There’s a laundry list of bad, but I’ll stick to my bottom two. I’m fatally attracted to women who are smarter than me and want to drive a stake into my heart. I’m also a brooder who blames himself for getting a partner, an ex-wife and a best friend killed and can’t let myself off the hook for that. Guilt’s a killer and revenge never erases that completely. I’ll mention one other characteristic and let you be the judge whether it’s good or bad. I’m a terminal smartass who can’t resist taking a whack at somebody even though I know they’ll whack me back.
How do you think Jim uses your characteristics to make you such an interesting figure in The Right Wrong Number?
Nesbitt’s a nosy bastard and asked me a lot of questions over deep whiskeys about my past, my ex-wives, my partner, why I got booted off the force and can’t carry that gold detective’s shield I worked so hard to get. He asked me so many questions about my feelings that I started looking around for the shrink’s couch. He kept hanging around at Louie’s, my favorite watering hole in Dallas, watching me, scribbling in that steno pad he carries and saying nothing for a long time. Then the questions would start again. I tell you, it flat wore me out, but I guess there was method to his madness because I think he captured me pretty well, warts and all. I asked him why he kept wanting to know what makes me tick and he said I was an Everyman with whom folks could identify, a guy who’s been smacked around by life but keeps plugging along. And then he gave me a nickel’s worth of psychoanalysis -- said I was a deeply flawed guy, tough, semi-smart, relentless, guilt-ridden and reckless. Said that made me a far more interesting character, more compelling than those pulp fiction dicks you mentioned earlier. I don’t know about all that. I’m just who I am.
Why do think Jim plopped you in Texas? Why not great noir-y places like Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York City?
No mystery there. I’m a Texan and I live and work in Dallas. I’d be a fish out of water in Chicago, LA or the Big Apple. Nesbitt ain’t a Texan, but he spent a lot of time knocking around the border, the Big Bend Country and the Hill Country in his journalism days. He lived in Dallas for a while and knows Austin, Houston and El Paso pretty well. So, when I was telling him my story, I didn’t have to fill in a lot of blanks about the places I went because he already knew the turf. I do know Nesbitt loves this state and is drawn to that stark, sun-blasted land in West Texas. Seems to suit him. He once told me that if a writer captures Texas just right -- the real Texas, not the myth and legend -- it comes alive as a character unto itself. He also told me it’s the perfect place to tell a primal story of revenge and redemption. Makes a helluva lot of sense to me.
You’ve gone through a lot of broken relationships; and readers don’t know too much beyond this. Do you think Jim has plans of revealing more of your past in future Ed Earl Burch novels?
I sure as hell hope not. I don’t need any more reminders of the ex I got killed and the others who got away.
With such a hard life—as much as readers know, why do you think Jim throws you into so many graphic scenes of sex and violence? Readers may think you would want to get away from all this stuff and have an easier life.
I’m not the kind of guy who wants to grab some rays by the pool sipping fru-fru drinks with little paper umbrellas in them. I have to work for a living and make what little I can with what I know how to do. I used to be a cop and a pretty good detective. It’s what I know how to do so I’ll keep doing it. Don’t much care for staking out no-tell motels and taking snaps of folks doing the wild thing with partners other than their spouses, although I’ll take on a divorce case to get the rent paid. What I’m real good at is poking my nose in places some real nasty people want to keep covered up, cases the cops would rather keep cold and closed. I’m a past master at stirring up the shit pot and seeing what floats to the top. And I’m not afraid of getting covered up in nightsoil and stink to find the truth. The people in my world are low down, dirty and mean. Most would cheat their mothers out of a Social Security check. More than a few are killers. They’re violent predators and if you’re going to go up against them, you best be able do them worse than they want to do you. I’m not shy about shooting somebody who needs killin’. As for the sex -- I like women and most of the ones who like me ain’t Sunday school teachers. They like to bang boots with a guy like me. I like the way Nesbitt tells those parts of the story without blinking an eye or using euphemisms. He says that insults the reader’s intelligence and I agree with him on that one. Besides, I wouldn’t know the easy life if it bit me on the left ass cheek.
So Savannah comes back in your life…for a while. Is there one type of woman that you’re looking for, and do you think you’ll ever marry again?
After going oh-for-three at the marriage plate, I believe it’s time for me to hang up the spikes. I’ve told friends to shoot me dead if they ever see me buy a diamond ring for a woman again. Besides, the women who really turn my crank are smart, tough, more than a little crazy and utterly incapable of being true to one man.
Without giving too much away, what would you say is your favorite part in The Right Wrong Number?
Although readers will probably like the shootout scene at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, my favorite part is the end. This isn’t my line, but I do think it applies -- a bullet always tells the truth. In this case, it’s eight of them telling the truth right at the end of the book.
If you had your way, what changes would you make in The Right Wrong Number?
I’d get Nesbitt to make me about 25 pounds lighter than I am and give me a little more hair on top of my bald noggin. Or, at the very least, give me a stylish hat to wear like Raylan Givens in Justified. Maybe a smoke grey Resistol with a Gus crease and a San Antone roll in 10X beaver felt.
What would you like to see yourself doing in future Earl Burch novels?
I wouldn’t mind finally getting the girl at the end -- one in particular I have in mind. And I’d like to keep the rest of my teeth and not wind up in the hospital so much. Staying out of the morgue is also high on my list.
If you had the opportunity to talk to Jim, what would you tell him about The Right Wrong Number?
I imagine I’ll have that opportunity pretty damn quick since Nesbitt is already eyeing another case of mine to write about. I can’t kick about the story Nesbitt told in The Right Wrong Number. He pretty much nailed it, but I damn sure wish he didn’t make me so fat and bald.
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