Last I Saw Him

"Before I relive the events in this book with you, be warned. They left me forever changed, like a red hot branding iron scarring my soul, marking me for all time. And it all started with the town of Amoret. Amoret, and its dangerous secrets that refused to stay hidden through that cold desert winter…."Being born with a disorder that renders her bones as fragile as bird wings has made young literary agent Abby Huxford tough and resilient, traits that come in handy when negotiating for her star client, wunderkind author Rulo Gatlin, an alcoholic prodigy with a generational voice. What started as a business relationship quickly turned into a deeper bond, as their struggles – Abby’s with her broken body and Rulo’s with his broken brain – lead them to connect while his debut novel explodes onto the literary scene.After Rulo’s second novel is short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize the publishing world is abuzz at the prospect of his follow up book, so Abby arranges a secluded writing retreat in the desert outside the Texas border town of Amoret. There, among the shale cliffs and nopal cactus fields and creosote bushes that smell like pitch after a rain, the tortured savant hunkers down in a primitive cabin with a battered manual typewriter and his demons.On the day she’s scheduled to pick up the completed manuscript, however, Abby arrives at the cabin only to find it locked from inside. Forced to break in, her shadow falls on Rulo’s corpse, dangling from a noose as he looks down in death at the finished pages of his third book. But all is not as it seems. Alongside Sheriff Lloyd McHenry, Abby’s search to discover the truth behind Rulo’s last days leads to a darker place than she could have imagined as pulling at loose threads unravels a shroud over one of the town’s ugliest secrets: a real-life murder mystery.With vivid characters and masterful plotting, the award-winning author of The Bones of Amoret returns with another atmospheric mystery that immerses readers in the sprawling, lawless deserts along the Texas-Mexico border.What does #1 New York Times Best Selling Author William Kent Kreuger have to say? "I loved Last I Saw Him! Arthur Herbert highlights the stunning natural beauty of the border region’s desolate landscape while plumbing the complex depths of the hearts of those who call it home with relentless plot twists, memorable characters, and a lot to say about the oddities of creative genius."