About this item
1959. Delpha Wade killed a man who was raping her. Wanted to kill the other one too, but he got away. Now, after fourteen years in prison, she's out. It's 1973, and nobody's rushing to hire a parolee. Persistence and smarts land her a secretarial job with Tom Phelan, an ex-roughneck turned neophyte private eye. Together these two pry into the dark corners of Beaumont, a blue-collar, Cajun-influenced town dominated by Big Oil. A mysterious client plots mayhem against a small petrochemical company-why? Searching for a teenage boy, Phelan uncovers the weird lair of a serial killer. And Delpha - on a weekend outing - looks into the eyes of her rapist, the one who got away. The novel's conclusion is classic noir, full of surprise, excitement, and karmic justice.
About the Author
Lisa Sandlin was born in the Gulf Coast oil town of Beaumont, Texas, and lived there before and after a transfer sent her family to Naples, Italy, for three years. She graduated from Rice University in Houston and then lived many years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Once she had earned an M.F.A. in Writing at Vermont College, Sandlin packed a small car and headed for Nebraska in January (brrr) . She taught at Wayne State College 1997-2009, with semester leaves to teach at The University of Texas and Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey (Merhaba!) , and at University of Nebraska Omaha 2009-2018. Her books are "The Famous Thing About Death" (Cinco Puntos Press, 1991) ; "Message to the Nurse of Dreams" (Cinco Puntos Press, 1997) , winner of the Violet Crown Award from the Austin Writers League and the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters; "In the River Province" (Southern Methodist University Press, 2004) , a finalist for the Jones award; "You Who Make the Sky Bend," (Pinyon Publishing) , a collaboration with New Mexican retablo artist Catherine Ferguson, NM Book Award. Lately she has written two noir mysteries from Cinco Puntos Press: "The Do-Right" (2015) , winner of the Shamus Award and the Hammett Prize, and "The Bird Boys" (2019) . She is a professor emeritus of the Writer's Workshop at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
