“In this third Joe McGrath and Sam Rucker Detective Novel, set in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, you will witness the marches, the planning of the civil rights leaders (Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and James Bevel), and the violence and corruption of local officials, including a police chief who strongly resembles Bull Connor. Our Southern Home, an earlier book by Waights Taylor, is a critically acclaimed history of Alabama in the twentieth century. King and the civil rights movement came to Birmingham because it was the most segregated city in America. The photographs from the marches of snarling police dogs attacking non-violent protesters and children being knocked to the ground by high-pressure hoses exemplify segregation and racial injustice in America. Taylor’s three detective novels are page-turners. You will not put Heed the Apocalypse down. When you finish you will be shaken. You will reflect on the courage and faith of the men, women, and children who risked everything for justice, and the refusal of those in power to surrender their privileges. And you will not forget Joe and Sam, the private detectives who play key roles in this fictional and gripping version of the major events in Birmingham.”
—Brien Farrell. Attorney, educator, and social activist
“Waights Taylor has saved the best for last. His new murder mystery has the same detectives, Joe and Sam, but they are older, sweeter, and tougher than ever before and right in the middle of the civil rights movement and close to its big historical figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Heed the Apocalypse is as timely as Black Lives Matter, plus it’s fun to read. Excellent for kids who didn’t live through the era of civil rights and a treat for those of us whose memories are failing. I wish I’d written it.”
—Jonah Raskin. Author of Dark Land, Dark Mirror
“How do a people, a great nation recover from years of brutal and unjust slavery? Not just any slavery but a system built on ideas of privilege and humanness based on skin color. We are moving away from our American history, our roots, and our personal stories and dramas that help us more fully understand the past and our place in our current communities. For more than 200 years Americans have included the myths of white privilege as a part of self-identity. The assumption that ‘white justice’ and ‘black justice’ are different, and the blindness to the use of threats, violence, and murder are used as sanctioned tools of American policing power and the willingness to accept or measure the application of compassion on the basis of skin color. Waights Taylor has written a novel that helps the reader move closer to how it feels to have been an American in 1963 Birmingham, Alabama. Taylor’s book informs the soul.”
—Brian Lloyd. Physicist, cellist, and humanist
“Much like Walter Mosley has done with his characters, Waights Taylor has moved Joe and Sam into a new decade. He involves us in the milieu of Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement in a mystery that’s action-packed from the first page and as intriguing as the human drama that fueled the period. He has another winner with Heed the Apocalypse.”
—John Koetzner. Poet, author, and former Mendocino College Library Director
