Racing the Devil by Jaden Terrell

My friend and fellow writer Jaden Terrell has a new book out. The following are a few reviews and then chapter one. I think you will like it.

Kirkus Reviews    February 1, 2012

Racing the Devil, by  Terrell, Jaden

Publisher: Permanent Press, 264 pages;  $28.00 Hardcover;  Pub date  January 2012

Who framed Jared McKean? Could’ve been anyone. After all, he’s  an ex-cop.

While he was a serving officer with the Nashville PD, Jared locked up plenty of bad guys. In fact, that’s where his mind flashes first when he realizes how jammed up he is. But then he decides that the frame’s just too seamless, too elaborate. Among those Jared’s jailed, there’s no one with that kind of ambition. For starters, Nashville PD actually has his voice on tape threatening the victim; there’s a mess of his fingerprints where they shouldn’t be, plus evidence bags full of DNA and other damning material. If Jared were still a cop, he’d cuff himself in a minute. Yet the truth is that he’d never even set eyes on Amanda Jean Hartwell, much less fired a lethal bullet into her. So if his nemesis isn’t a lowlife with a grudge, what’s behind the frame? Though that’s certainly the most pressing question, it’s not the only one Jared struggles to resolve. There’s the problem of how to be an ex-husband to a woman he can’t stop loving and how to let some other man be a proper father to his adored young son. And though he can’t solve either of these, Jared has to shove them to the back burner while he dervishes to figure out who he’s made so homicidally vengeful.

Forgive the plot holes for the sake of a bright new talent feeling her way into a promising series.

Booklist  December 1, 2011

Racing the Devil.  Jaden Terrell   Jan 2012. 264 pp. Permanent Press, hardcover, $28.00.

     When Jared McKean, a Nashville cop turned private eye, meets a woman in a bar, his immediate thought is that she needs protection: her bruises are clear evidence of an abusive relationship. When the woman takes him up on his offer and then suggests they seal the deal in a motel room, Jared—still hurting from a busted marriage—puts his better judgment aside. Later, he wishes he hadn’t. When he awakens, he finds he’s wanted for murder, and he knows two things: he didn’t kill the victim—didn’t even know her—and the woman from the bar set him up. This all happens within the first 30 or so pages; the remainder of the book is devoted to Jared’s increasingly desperate attempts to extricate himself from the frame-up. It’s a smart story, well constructed and well told. Jared is a solidly designed lead character, and, given that the novel is billed as “a Jared McKean mystery,” it seems likely the author intends the private eye to anchor a series. Not a bad idea, if subsequent novels can keep this one’s nice balance of character and story        —David Pitt

Library Journal, December 15, 2011

Racing the Devil, by Jaden Terrell

     It sounds like a nightmare, but it happens to Nashville PI Jared McKean: he wakes up from a drugged sleep and learns he's the prime suspect in a woman's murder. Now he must clear his name, and thankfully, a few people still believe in him. Once he is released, Jared discovers that he is being targeted because of a child abuse case he worked on when he was still a cop. Vengeance runs deep, and some folks won't stop until they believe all voices have been silenced. During all this chaos, Jared makes time for his unique, cobbled-together family: a gay roommate with AIDS, a young son with Down syndrome, a teen nephew struggling with his identity-and that's just for openers. VERDICT This character-driven PI debut is intriguing because of the protagonist's complicated family. Their presence is important to the story line and makes for a

memorable read. Watch for a sequel soon.   

Publishers Weekly     November 14, 2011

Racing the Devil:  A Jared McKean Mystery, by Jaden Terrell Permanent  

     Terrell’s promising debut introduces Nashville PI Jared McKean, who finds himself caught in an almost perfect frame for murder. A day or two after the theft of Jared’s pickup truck, his old partner in Metro Homicide, Frank Campanella, informs him that all the evidence suggests that he killed Amy Hartwell, a woman he’s never met, in a motel room. Jared’s fingerprints are at the crime scene; the victim was shot with his gun—and kiddie-porn photos of her daughter are stashed under the seat of his pickup truck. While Jared strives to prove his innocence, he also fulfills his responsibilities to a maimed horse; his gay, AIDS-positive best friend in need of reassurance; his rebellious Goth nephew; and his emotionally conflicted ex-wife and her new family. Jared comes across convincingly as a savvy and sympathetic good ol’ urban detective who, despite his own difficulties, is ever ready and able to defend people or animals in trouble. Agent: Jill Marr. (Jan.)

Perfect combination of noir and human hope

 1

Even in the dim light of the bar, I could see the bruises.

Beginning just below one eye, they spread down the side of her face and neck, tinged the blue rose tattoo above the swell of her left breast, and seeped beneath the plunging neckline of her scarlet halter.

She paused inside the door, hugging herself. Her gaze swept the room, lit briefly on one face, then another. Looking for some­thing, or someone. Or maybe for someone’s absence.

I looked away before she could catch me staring, and when I glanced up again, she had squeezed onto a slick red stool between two beefy bikers whose low-slung jeans revealed the top third of their buttocks.

One of the bikers tilted his head toward her. Murmured some­thing I couldn’t hear.

She flinched and drew in a ragged breath. Said something that made him scowl and turn back to his drink. Then Dani, the bar­tender, brought her an amber liquid over ice, and she hunched over the laminated bar, stirring her drink with one finger. The fingertips of her other hand rubbed gingerly at her cheek. She flicked her tongue across a split in her lower lip and blinked hard.

Not my problem, I told myself, even as my hand tightened around my glass. There were a thousand reasons why a woman might come to a bar with bruises on her cheeks and tears in her eyes. Not all of them involved some jerk with a sour temper and heavy fists.

I tore my gaze away and told myself again: Not my problem.

It was a sweltering June night, and I was sweating my cojones off at a corner table of the First Edition Bar and Grill and trying to forget that Maria, my wife of thirteen years, was spending her first anniversary with a man who wasn’t me. We’d married young, two weeks after my twenty-first birthday, and while my mind understood what had gone wrong, the rest of me still felt like someone had thrown a bag over my head and scraped me raw with a cheese grater.

She’d waited a decent year before remarrying, but it wasn’t long enough to keep my heart from aching like a broken tooth whenever I imagined D.W.’s hands on her, his mouth against hers . . .

A quavering voice interrupted my darkening fantasies. “Hey, Cowboy. Buy a girl a beer?”

I looked up to see the woman in the scarlet halter top, and the first thing I thought was, Cowboy . . . Maria called me that.

The second thing I thought was, Why the hell not?

“Sure.” I gestured to the empty seat across from me, and she squeezed past a lanky man in leather and slid into the chair. “What’s your brand?”

“Bud Light.” She gave me a watery smile and patted her stomach, which was as flat as a whippet’s. “Got to watch the weight.”

I edged through the crowd to the L-shaped bar and ordered the Bud and another Jack and Coke from Dani. She pushed a stray curl behind one ear and slid two glasses toward me with a nod toward the table I’d just left. “Looking to get lucky?”

“I don’t know. She seems a little . . . fragile.”

“Afraid she’ll glom on?”

“Plenty to be afraid of before it gets to that.”

“The boyfriend’s out of the picture, if that matters. Or so she says.”

“So she says.”

“Seemed to me like she could use a little comfort.”

“Maybe. But why me?”  11 

I tore my gaze away and told myself again: Not my problem.

It was a sweltering June night, and I was sweating my cojones off at a corner table of the First Edition Bar and Grill and trying to forget that Maria, my wife of thirteen years, was spending her first anniversary with a man who wasn’t me. We’d married young, two weeks after my twenty-first birthday, and while my mind understood what had gone wrong, the rest of me still felt like someone had thrown a bag over my head and scraped me raw with a cheese grater.

She’d waited a decent year before remarrying, but it wasn’t long enough to keep my heart from aching like a broken tooth whenever I imagined D.W.’s hands on her, his mouth against hers . . .

A quavering voice interrupted my darkening fantasies. “Hey, Cowboy. Buy a girl a beer?”

I looked up to see the woman in the scarlet halter top, and the first thing I thought was, Cowboy . . . Maria called me that.

The second thing I thought was, Why the hell not?

“Sure.” I gestured to the empty seat across from me, and she squeezed past a lanky man in leather and slid into the chair. “What’s your brand?”

“Bud Light.” She gave me a watery smile and patted her stomach, which was as flat as a whippet’s. “Got to watch the weight.”

I edged through the crowd to the L-shaped bar and ordered the Bud and another Jack and Coke from Dani. She pushed a stray curl behind one ear and slid two glasses toward me with a nod toward the table I’d just left. “Looking to get lucky?”

“I don’t know. She seems a little . . . fragile.”

“Afraid she’ll glom on?”

“Plenty to be afraid of before it gets to that.”

“The boyfriend’s out of the picture, if that matters. Or so she says.”

“So she says.”

“Seemed to me like she could use a little comfort.”

“Maybe. But why me?”  11 

“You gotta be kidding.” A smile flitted across her face as she reached across the bar and smoothed the front of my shirt with her palm. “Believe me, honey, you’re the pick of the litter.”

I gave her a goofy grin, stammered a thanks, and stuffed a couple of dollars into the beer mug she’d set out for tips. Then I wended my way through the sweat-sour crush of bodies and the cigarette haze back to my table, where a burly guy who looked like someone had superglued a tumbleweed to his face was putting the moves on my new acquaintance.

He was about five-ten to my six feet, built like a barrel and reeking of cigar smoke. When he saw me, he rocked back on his heels and glared at me through slitted eyes, maybe gauging if he could take me. I was pretty sure he couldn’t.

The muscles in my shoulders tensed, and we stared each other down for a long moment. Then he dropped his gaze, adjusted his crotch with one massive hand, and mumbled to my tablemate, “Aw, he ain’t man enough for you.” He ambled toward the pool table, throwing a gap-toothed, tobacco-tinged grin back over his shoulder. “You want a real man, give me a holler.”

I set the lady’s beer in front of her and slid into the seat across the table from her. She scooted her chair closer so I could hear her over the din. “Cockroaches. If there’s one in the room, he’ll find me. You come here often?”

I smiled at the cliché. “I stop by for a beer and a burger most Friday nights.”

“No beer tonight.” She nodded toward my glass.

“Nope.” I thought of Maria, and a bitter taste came into my mouth. “Tonight called for something stronger.”

She glanced at my left hand. “You’re not married.”

“Divorced.”

“Kids?”

“One.” I tugged my wallet out of my hip pocket, flipped to my son’s school picture. I handed it over, watching her face as she studied it.

The corners of her mouth twitched up. No pity. No revulsion. “He’s cute,” she said. 12 

“He has Down syndrome.”

“I have a cousin with Down’s,” she said. “Sweet kid.”

Something in my gut relaxed. She handed back the wallet and said, “I’ve never been here before. Seems pretty rough.”

I glanced around the room. The First Edition was originally conceived as a retreat for journalists and reporters—cozy and inti­mate, with a clientele who wore tweed jackets with suede patches on the elbows. It had changed hands several times since then and had finally evolved into a cramped sports bar catering primarily to good ol’ boys and bikers, but the decor retained vestiges of its past. Ancient printing presses and yellowing early editions of The Tennessean and The Nashville Banner shared shelf space with NASCAR photos and neon Bud Light signs. A Jeff Gordon ball cap hung from the half-empty potato chip rack, a rubber arm jutting from beneath it.

Beside the bar, a bulletin board labeled “Wall of Shame” was covered with candid photographs—a grinning man in a neon pink construction helmet, a shot of someone mooning the photogra­pher, a bearded man at the pool table shooting the cue ball into the Vof a young woman’s spread legs.

No pictures of yours truly.

The lettering on the front window read, First Edition Bar and Grill. Bikers Welcome.

“It’s not as rough as it looks,” I said, pointing to a sign beside the Wall of Shame. It said, No vulgar language. “They don’t even allow cussing in here.”

“It’s noisy, though.” She slid her hands beneath her hair to rub the muscles of her neck, then leaned forward and placed her forearms on the table, giving me a good view of her cleavage. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

Her cell phone rang, a tinny blast of “Born to Be Wild.” She startled, rummaged through her purse, and fished out a shiny silver phone that looked like a miniature spaceship. She squinted at the name on the screen, and a shudder ran through her body.

“Oh, God,” she said.  13 

I felt my eyes narrow. “Is that him?”

She nodded.

“Tell him to get lost.”

Her voice was a whisper. “I can’t.”

Her hands trembled as she fumbled with the phone.

I laid my hand over hers. “Ignore it then.”

“I can’t.” She flipped open the front cover and held the phone to her ear. “Hello? Baby?”

I couldn’t make out the words, but I could hear him shouting from where I sat. She blinked back tears and listened, her whole body trembling. “No, sweetheart, I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t . . .”

I gave her three minutes. Then I took the phone away. “Back off, buddy,” I said into the speaker. “The lady wants to be left alone.” Then I hung up.

“Oh, God,” she said again. “He’s going to kill me.”

“You’re not thinking of going back to him?”

“No, no, you don’t understand. He’ll find me.” She flicked her tongue across her injured lip again and crossed her arms across her breasts. “What am I going to do?”

“The first thing you do is get a restraining order.”

With a sharp, bitter laugh, she gestured to her battered face. “I had a restraining order when he did this. For all the good it did.”

“I have friends on the force. I’ll check on it tomorrow. You’ll file charges.”

It wasn’t a question.

She gave a hitching sob. “I can’t . . . I don’t know . . . I mean, okay. Only . . . Will you stay with me? Tonight? You don’t know how he is.”

She was looking for a protector, not a lover, which was fine with me. Still, there were probably a million reasons to say no. I considered telling her I had a previous engagement and getting the hell out.

But there was no previous engagement.

“Why not?” I threw back the rest of my drink and pushed away from the table as the alcohol burned its way down my throat. “You want to take one car or two?”  14 

“Let’s take yours.” She wiped at her eyes and forced another smile, revealing a smudge of cherry lipstick on one tooth. “He’ll be looking for mine.”

Since the parking lot was packed, I’d left my truck a little farther up the street. We walked past the antique boutique and the Tae Kwan Do school where I took lessons and occasionally taught. From there, it was less than a three-minute stroll to the strip mall where my black and silver Chevy Silverado sat glistening like a water bug beneath the streetlight.

“Nice wheels.” She ran a loving hand over the front fender. The diffused light of the parking lot softened the hard angles of her face and made her almost beautiful. “You okay to drive?”

“I’m okay.” I opened the passenger side door and she slid across the seat as I closed the door behind her. When I climbed behind the wheel, she wriggled into the hollow under my arm. Poked the bobblehead Batman on the dashboard and giggled. Her hair still smelled of cigarette smoke, but underneath that was a musky perfume that, combined with the whiskey I’d been drinking, made it hard to think clearly. I said, “I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Heather.” Her fingers squeezed my knee, trailed up my thigh.

I closed my hand over hers. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Sssh.” She lifted her other hand and pressed the index finger to my lips. “I want to.”

Maybe she wanted more than a protector, after all. I had a feeling I was headed for a night of raw and meaningless sex that I should probably feel guilty about but didn’t.

“I’m Jared.” I tried to keep my voice steady as her hand con­tinued its northerly migration. “Jared McKean.”

“I know. I asked the bartender. Jared McKean, Private Eye.” This time, her smile was wicked. “Or should I say, Private Dick?”