is a dark, absorbing, complex suspense thriller set in the risky realms of oil pipeline construction and one worker\u2019s internal battles with truth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Bartholomew John Beck had seen how a West Texas neighbor was brutally murdered. Indeed, his testimony had helped send the victim\u2019s lover to death row. Later, Beck also wrote a best-selling true-crime book about the case. But he had lied about one crucial aspect of what he had witnessed and let an innocent man be convicted.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Two decades later, the man is still on death row, fighting to stay alive. Meanwhile, Beck\u2019s brief writing career has faded and died. Now he\u2019s working as a laborer on a pipeline project near Amarillo. He has a few job friends, a friend\u2019s couch, a daily routine, and little else.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Then, new trouble bursts out suddenly like a dangerous oil spill. At Beck\u2019s work site, he discovers a new murder staged exactly like the one he saw so many years ago. Someone else knows what he didn\u2019t reveal the first time.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Treon, a veteran journalist who has worked for several Texas newspapers as a reporter and editor, clearly subscribes to the \u201cwrite what you know\u201d approach to creating fiction. While penning Let the Guilty Pay<\/em>, Treon spent extended time at a pipeline project, observing how workers spend their time on and off the job. His previous book, Deep Background<\/em>, also a thriller, is set in the world of investigative journalism in the Texas Panhandle. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
For readers, the payoff is an atmosphere both realistic and informative within the flow of the plot. At one point, after Beck lays out his attraction to a female co-worker named Jillian, he details their low-end jobs: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u201cWe were welders\u2019 helpers. As the title suggests, our job was to do the bidding of our welders. Fetch their tools. Bring them water. Clear their pickups of empty beer cans in the morning, then fill their coolers with new eighteen-packs covered in convenience store ice. Each helper had one welder\u2014I worked for my best friend Jorge, she helped my old friend, Paul\u2014and everything we did affected their reputations.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nTreon also knows how to crank up tension levels quickly in his prose. For example, after a female worker loudly rebuffs Beck\u2019s attentions in front of witnesses and disappears for a long weekend, Beck is the one who finds her murdered when work resumes at the job site. Truth is demanded during his questioning, and Beck finds himself struggling. \u201cIf I\u2019d been hooked up to a lie detector test, Lieutenant Johnson would\u2019ve cuffed me on the spot. I tried to ignore the adrenaline and focus. Despite how my body was reacting to his question, I hadn\u2019t killed [her].\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The book also brings forth other characters, subplots, and timelines tied to Beck\u2019s past and why he lied about the first murder. Let the Guilty Pay<\/em> provides a polished and absorbing debut for Rick Treon\u2019s forthcoming Bartholomew Beck series of thrillers.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Si Dunn reviews Let the Guilty Pay, a series debut from Rick Treon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[894,874,813,817,830,812,952,841],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-fiction","tag-lone-star-literary-life","tag-lone-star-review","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-texas-author","tag-texaspublisher","tag-thriller"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}