SELECTED WORKSSouthern Drama
THE SUM OF HIS WORTH
It’s 1960. The Civil Rights Movement roars into Alabama—but Alabama, in Klan speak, don’t by God like it. In this incendiary climate an unlikely two people, a white teenager and a liberal dentist, breaks from their indelible culture in a daring attempt to help a black community crushed under Jim Crow laws. “Ash Town” rose from the ashes of a 1929 KKK burning/lynching spree—and three decades later it’s people are still being brutalized, squeezed by bad cops and now insidiously dying from a posion-polluting chemical plant. Segregation, corruption and hate are the driving forces in The Sum of His Worth. Dentist Joe Peach has made many sacrifices--socially, physically and ecomonically--in an effort to better race relations in Woodstock. But his grand sacrifice in this war zone will be to stop a Klan massacre of a busload of Freedom Riders--a indelibly heroic moment in the eyes of his young protege, Sonny Poe. One thing I hope readers will take from this book is a sense of the hate and bigotry that oppressed all Southerners before the push for equality. Also, there's a heartwarming story running on almost pure adrenaline to enjoy in this tragic novel.Adventure/thriller
BABY LOVE
The deaths of six campesinos in the California desert was tragic enough before reporter Ray Myers discovers babies had crossed the border with them, babies now missing. The trail to find them hurls the reporter into the dangerous world of international human trafficking. The smuggling gang becomes crippled in chaos as mastermind Ricky Mendez devises a psychotic plan to snuff everyone related to the smuggling operation, including now a pesky reporter who keeps sniffing in the wrong places. Myers, along with softhearted smuggler Maggie Frazier, find themselves on the run from Mendez’ henchmen while trying to rescue the babies from a ruthless Mexican trafficker who has hijacked the children. It’s a race against time that drives them deep into Baja’s Indian country and through the seamy back streets of Ensenada.War Drama
YEAR OF THE MONKEY
A wartime drama of friendship and betrayal. Set in Vietnam during the decisive Tet offensive, the story takes us on a perilous Heart of Darkness journey through a war we only thought we knew. The CIA has ordered Specialist Russell Payne to befriend and rat on Corporal Daryll Willingham as part of a secret operation that, no matter how sinister, cannot boost or sustain an unpopular war. The two troops are forced into an unwitting odyssey through hell -- and into a court-martial for murder. Originally published by Simon and Schuster, 382 ppThriller
FROM THE SHADOWS
Now comes vengeance for a childhood of unspeakable evil. The time is the early 1990s and our victim/perpetrator, Janice Parrish, does not remember shooting her father at pointblank range. At age 26 Janice cannot keep friends. She's frigid, she's rebellious, she drinks too much.An up-and-coming real estate agent, she's losing clients. Finally Janice committes a crime for which she can either go to jail or in to counseling. It's with the counselor, pop psych analyst Patricia Zeck, that her nightmare begins. Zech determines she has all the "signs" of having been sexually abused in early childhood. But why couldn't Janice remember? San Diego crime reporter Ray Myers has more than a gut feeling this story will do him in. But it will be Myers alone who must find the truth--before more murders take place. |
My Novels: YEAR OF THE MONKEY, BABY LOVE, Sum of His Worth, FROM THE SHADOWSRead chapters by clicking title under SELECTED WORKSAcclaimed as one of the most important novels of Vietnam, Year of the Monkey is the gripping story of two American soldiers trapped in a mysterious web of corruption and murder during the shattering Tet Offensive of 1968. Journalist Russell Payne's cushy assignment abruptly ends when a wild, tormented grunt named Willingham is inexplicably reassigned to the rear after an ambush that left everyone else in his unit dead. Ordered to befriend Willingham as part of a secret CIA investigation, Payne begins an unwitting odyssey into the heart of a war-torn jungle where he helplessly watches a childhood friend die, comes to love a woman who might be the enemy and winds up being court-martialed for murder. In stunning scenes of combat and intrigue, we glean as in no other novel or movie the patch-quilt nature of the Vietnamese people and the murderous deceit of body count politics from the grunt's eye--on both sides.
REVIEWS and PRAISE: "If you tossed Ron Argo's novel onto the accumulated pile of books about the Vietnam war, it would land among those on top...and remain there. Fifty years from now this book could well serve as one of the more comprehensive testaments in American history." -- The San Diego Union "No other Vietnam novel this reviewer has read conveys so achingly the subterfuge, duplicity, frustration and cover-ups of that war. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal "Argo's extraordinary first novel of the brutalizing Vietnam conflict elevates him instantly to the front ranks of American war novelists--Crane, Dos Passos, Mailer, and James Jones...a compassionate novel by a fine storyteller--an artist." -- the late Harry Lawton, author of TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE "...the FROM HERE TO ETERNITY of the Vietnam generation, a moving, human novel about Vietnamese and Americans alike whose lives were forever changed." -- Robert Houston "A welcome departure from the norm in Vietnam war fiction... Payne gradually uncovers a trail of murder and betrayal that forces him to confront the terrible ambiguities underlying America's involvement in Vietnam. A superb novel, highly recommended." -- Steve Weingartner, Booklist "Compelling reading that delivers an important piece of the Vietnam puzzle." -- Kirkus Review "Argo's hook and the climactic twist delivered are both surprising and credible. Argo's Vietnam is very much the one readers and film-goers have come to know--a pestilent netherworld of inhuman living conditions and impossibly murky moral choices. This unsparing story is an effective confirmation of those portrayals." -- Publishers Weekly "Argo has an eye for details and a good ear for the rhythms of human speech. His supporting characters are drawn with as much attention and skill as his protagonist." -- West Coast Review of Books |
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