{"id":7284,"date":"2018-06-04T07:26:46","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T11:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7284"},"modified":"2018-06-04T07:26:46","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T11:26:46","slug":"high-white-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7284","title":{"rendered":"****High White Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marfa

photo: Nathan Russell, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By J. Todd Scott \u2013 High White Sun is a solid follow-up to Scott\u2019s 2016 debut hit, The Far Empty<\/a><\/em>. A prologue set in 1999 recounts the murder of Texas Ranger Bob Ford, the long echo of which reverberates through events of the current day like the howling of the wind off the distant Mexican mountains. In the small town of Murfee, Texas, Sheriff Chris Cherry does not wear his badge easily. He worries.<\/p>\n

When a popular river guide is murdered and suspicion lights on new arrivals to the area, pegged by everyone as bad actors, he worries a lot. They\u2019ve set up some distance from Murfee at a wide spot in the road ominously named Killing. Head of this clan is an obvious hard case, John Wesley Earl, accompanied by his brother, two sons, a couple of girlfriends, and several cousins and hangers-on. Author Scott dives deep into Earl\u2019s history, and while he never becomes sympathetic, you certainly understand him and how little regard he has for anyone else, including his family.<\/p>\n

The sheriff\u2019s wants to rid his county of the Earl clan, but his priorities aren\u2019t shared by the FBI. Its agent wants Cherry to leave the Earls alone. John Wesley Earl is their confidential informant, recruited when he was in prison and a leader in the ultra-violent Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. More than a white supremacist group, Earl\u2019s ABT is a major criminal enterprise, responsible for bringing drugs into every one of the state\u2019s prisons and beyond and connected to all the dirty deals and killing that goes along with that. Out of prison, he\u2019ll be getting his cut of the \u201cbusiness.\u201d It will make him wealthy.<\/p>\n

Earl is holed up in Killing because his son Jesse is there, awaiting the appearance of Thurman Flowers, a self-styled preacher with grandiose plans for establishing a community of white supremacists, his Church of Purity. They need only two things: guns and money. An ex-soldier who\u2019s part of the clan promises to get them the guns, and Jesse is plotting to get hold of his father\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the sheriff\u2019s deputies are keeping a few secrets from him, certainly the men of the Earl crew have secrets, and the law enforcement agencies aren\u2019t sharing everything with each other, either. When all these secrets come out into the open, the resulting storm seems destined to destroy them all.
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By J. Todd Scott \u2013 High White Sun is a solid follow-up to Scott\u2019s 2016 debut hit, The Far Empty. A prologue set in 1999 recounts the murder of Texas Ranger Bob Ford, the long echo of which reverberates through … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****High White Sun - The wide open spaces of West Texas aren't quite as empty as Sheriff Cherry would like. Another fine crime thriller from J. Todd Scott!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,40,126,32],"tags":[1322,1321,535,678,285,1323],"class_list":["post-7284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-fiction","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-aryan-brotherhood","tag-high-white-sun","tag-j-todd-scott","tag-murder","tag-texas","tag-white-supremacists"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Tu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7286,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7284\/revisions\/7286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}