Touch of Redemption

by Waights Taylor Jr.

Overview

"The body was bruised in several places. Dry blood and saliva were evident over parts of his face and near the mouth. Joe knelt down and read the piece of paper: mcgrath this here you last warnin. you and that black basterd rucker git outta town or you gonna be next."

In Touch of Redemption, the second book in the Joe McGrath and Sam Rucker Detective Novels, the two men embark on a difficult journey--an attempt to find the murderers of Joe's father twenty-five years ago. It is 1948 in segregated Alabama, and Joe, a white man, and Sam, a black man, face numerous obstacles, the least of which is the racism and bigotry of the time, while struggling with the challenges of solving a murder case a quarter century old. The men face corrupt judges and law enforcement officials, and a secret fraternity of men determined to maintain the Southern way of life and 'the operation,' their illegal liquor business. All this occurs against a backdrop of a seemingly bucolic small Southern town, Montevallo, home to a college for women.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940157807399
Publisher:	McCaa Books
Publication date:	04/11/2016
Series:	A Joe McGrath and Sam Rucker Detective Novel , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Waights Taylor Jr., born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, lives in Santa Rosa, California. His professional career included twenty-four years in the aviation industry and then twenty-two years in management consulting. When his professional career was coming to an end, he turned to writing. He is an author, a poet, and a playwright. His first book, Alfons Mucha’s Slav Epic: An Artist’s History of the Slavic People, was published in 2008. His award-winning book, Our Southern Home: Scottsboro to Montgomery to Birmingham—The Transformation of the South in the Twentieth Century, was published in October 2011. Next came the award-winning novel, Kiss of Salvation: A Joe McGrath and Sam Rucker Detective Novel, published in 2014. His newest novel, Touch of Redemption, is the second in the Joe McGrath and Sam Rucker series. Taylor has also written a number of short stories and plays. His first chapbook of poetry, titled Literary Ramblings, was published in early 2011.

Editorial Reviews

Waights Taylor Jr. delivers a mystery that advances his detective
series so that we better understand the time prior to the Civil Rights
era. Touch of Redemption teaches us that black lives mattered long
before the present day, and Taylor uses this mystery to inform us that
sensitivity to race and racism was present in the harshest of times and
circumstances. Taylor has an acute eye for detail, an ear for dialog in the
streets, and a true sense of the Deep South.

John Koetzner

As if straight out of an episode of HBO's rural-gothic
True Detective series, Joe and Sam encounter an intricate maze
of small town graft, lakeside racist rituals, shape-shifting politicians
and businessmen, and the occasional eccentric hero. Taylor spins a
yarn that is simultaneously fantastic and yet entirely plausible. But
after all, isn't that contradiction--among so many others--what the
rest of us find eternally fascinating about the American South?

Kevin Konicek

Waights Taylor Jr. has done it again as he reconnects readers with Joe
McGrath and Sam Rucker in Touch of Redemption...As in Kiss of Salvation, Taylor
beautifully weaves the threads of racism and each characters' personal
strengths, weaknesses, and challenges into a sturdy rope. I'm
looking forward to the third novel that Taylor has promised to write
to conclude the trilogy.

Armando Garcia-Davila