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Reavis Z. Wortham

Biography

Reavis Z. Wortham

Reavis Z. Wortham is the critically acclaimed author of the Red River Mysteries set in rural Northeast Texas in the 1960s. As a boy, he hunted and fished the river bottoms near Chicota, the inspiration for the fictional location. He is also the author of a thriller series featuring Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke. He teaches writing at a wide variety of venues, including local libraries and writers’ conferences. Wortham has been a newspaper columnist and magazine writer since 1988, and has been the Humor Editor for Texas Fish and Game Magazine for the past 22 years. He and his wife, Shana, live in Northeast Texas.

Reavis Z. Wortham

Books by Reavis Z. Wortham

by Reavis Z. Wortham - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Tucker Snow is as tough as they come, hardened by decades working as an undercover narcotics agent for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Through special dispensation from the governor, he and his brother Harley cut a wide swath through the criminal element of Northeast Texas. But tragedy comes calling after taking a dream job as a special ranger with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, when Tucker's wife and toddler are killed in a horrific traffic accident. Close to breaking, Tucker sets his badge aside to move his surviving teenage daughter outside of Ganther Bluff, a quiet town with enough room for them to mourn their unexpected loss. But instead of settling into small-town life to heal from such an unimaginable loss, a fresh kind of hell hits them with full force.

by Reavis Z. Wortham - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Texas Ranger Tom Bell is simply tracking a fugitive killer in 1931 when he rides into Kilgore, a hastily erected shanty town crawling with oil drillers in search of work. The sheriff of the boomtown is overwhelmed, and none of the roughnecks are inclined to assist the young Ranger in his search for the wanted man. In fact, it soon becomes apparent that the lawman's presence has irritated the wrong people. When two failed attempts are made on his life, Bell knows he's getting closer to finding out who is responsible for cheating and murdering local landowners to access the rich oil fields flowing beneath their farms. When they ambush him for a third time, they make the fatal mistake of killing someone close to him and leaving the Ranger alive.

by Reavis Z. Wortham - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Constable Ned Parker is looking into the seemingly accidental death of his nephew R. B., who was found in his overturned pickup near Sanders Creek bridge. At first it appears that R. B. drowned in the shallow water, but something doesn't add up for Ned, who begins turning over stones in search of what really happened the night R. B. died. Eventually, the investigation leads Ned back to the Starlite Club, a dangerous honky-tonk recently constructed in a no-man's land on the Lone Star side of the Red River. Although his investigation uncovers suspicious characters, drugs and gambling, it's the series of murders that eliminated any potential witnesses to what happened to R. B. on that cold January night that's the most troubling.

by Reavis Z. Wortham - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

As the 1960s draw to a close, the rural northeast Texas community of Center Springs is visited by two nondescript government men in dark suits and shades. Their delivery of a mysterious microscopic payload called Gold Dust from a hired crop duster coincides with 14-year-old Pepper Parker's discovery of an ancient gold coin in her dad's possession. Her adolescent trick played on a greedy adult results in the only gold rush in north Texas history. Add in modern-day cattle-rustlers and murderers, and Center Springs is once again the bull's-eye in a deadly target. The biological agent deemed benign by the CIA has unexpected repercussions, putting Pepper's near-twin cousin, Top, at death's door.