River City Blues

By: Ward Howarth

Narrated by: Ward Paxton

It's early 1944 and Richmond, Virginia is a devil's paradise. Ration scams and police corruption are rampant while the inflated black market commands top dollar.

Detective Sergeant Bennie Sherwood, fresh off a soul-scarring tour of duty with the Marines, couldn't care less. His old man was recently murdered under suspect circumstances, and he's on a hunt for the truth.

But then an old friend is killed during a botched black market raid and Bennie is thrust onto a hellride through Richmond's underworld. Suddenly, he's at the front lines of a new kind of war, one that's played out in gentlemen's clubs and back alleys between tobacco kingpins and numbers runners.

It's a dark, twisted journey that will test Bennie's every limit, even as it gets him closer to the truth about his father...

Until, that is, he's framed for murder.

Now the subject of a citywide manhunt, Bennie must choose - disappear into the shadows and succumb to his fractured mind, or confront his darkest fears and root out the evil that has infested his city.

©2016 Ward Howarth (P)2017 Ward Howarth

It was the jungle, all over again

What did you love best about River City Blues?

Oh, it was a very engrossing listen. I was taken back to the 40s, but the struggles feel ever-so-fresh. There's racial prejudice - downplayed, but present - and homophobia. There's PSTD, and love, and loyalty.

Will this book revolutionize the genre? No, but it did a damn fine job fitting in and entertaining me. I took a star from storytelling because while I felt for Benny and some other people that had their story revealed by the end, I didn't get attached to many of the other characters, really.

What does Ward Paxton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Ward Paxton sounds so badass. No, really! I don't think I would have been able to get the same enjoyment from the book had I not heard it in his voice - I think I would have imagined a completely different one.

At times it was really easy to imagine I was in the 40s, in a smoky detective's office, and Ward Paxton telling me this story standing next to a window complete with a fedora, coat, and cigarette. It would be a rainy night, the sound of sirens echoing in the empty streets...

...that's the kind of vibe I got.

Any additional comments?

When I asked for a free copy in exchange for an honest review, I didn't know what to expect. This is not a perfect book, but I got a "Makes me want to smoke a cigarette while looking out of some half open venetian blinds on to a rainy street and internally explain my story of lust greed and betrayal" feeling.

I had noir jazz playing quietly while reading, and I do recommend this to any future reader, by the way.

Dark, Gritty and Powerful !!

This gripping thriller is full of mystery and suspense, plot twists and surprises. If you like espionage & Police Procedural, pulp thrillers, murder thrillers, men's or women's adventure, books & hard-boiled mystery thriller suspense & action, you will not be able to put this down & the end will have you begging for more.A fiction reader’s delight!  River City Blue's  has villains you will despise and heroes you’d love to meet. Add intrigue, and betrayal, and you’ll be captured by the Powerful and Realistic Narration by Ward Paxton, and long for Ward Howarth's next novel!

Tangled murders and a black market

1944 Richmond, Virginia is a gritty place and the local police department is part of that grit. Detective Bennie Sherwood has a lot of issues – his farther was murdered in the line of duty, he’s suffering from PTSD from his time at Guadalcanal, and now a friend has died in a suspicious manner. How crooked is the PD? How much can he rely on the intel on the black market? Bennie will have to figure it all out once he’s framed for murder, or go into hiding and never have his answers.

This was a pretty good noir detective story and I liked that our main character, Bennie, had so many issues. He’s suffering from PTSD well before our society really knew what that was and how to deal with it. The murder of his father, Detective Samuel Sherwood, is a big painful throbbing question mark in his life that is only 5 months old. But he’s got a job to do. He and his partner Detective Niles Hunter are set up to raid the black market along with Detectives Mills & Reed. However, things don’t go as expected there either. Skipper Holly, an old friend of Bennie’s father, is part of the black market and he’s mortally wounded during the raid. His presence there shakes Bennie up pretty badly. Right off the bat, I was caught up in this tale. I felt immersed in Sherwood’s world.

The Victory Squad and the wartime crime it was created to fight really fascinated me. I hadn’t really thought about how certain limited supplies during the wartime would have such a violent-riddled black market. There’s cheats and thieves and dealers in such numbers that you can’t help but trip over them. I really felt the author did his research homework and brought that to life in this novel. The missing gasoline was a nice side mystery.

The tale does have one weakness and that is the lack of female characters. I would have liked to see more of the ladies even if we do have one woman who’s a mechanic and a cab driver. She’s also a romantic interest and much of her page time is spent in that role.

The story includes some racism, sexism, and homophobia that was prevalent during the 1940s. I felt it was realistically portrayed without being gratuitous. I appreciate the author not veering away from this bit of historical accuracy. Humans are flawed, even our hero Bennie. I did get a kick out of how the acronyms SNAFU, FUBAR, and SUSFU were cleaned up a bit, substituting ‘fouled’ for the F word. While not necessary for me, I’m sure others appreciate it.

I liked the mystery surrounding Jedidiah King and his King Tobacco cigarettes. Skipper worked for him and that makes him a person of interest in the ongoing black market investigations. I also liked the Police Chief, The Cane, since he acts like a loud, demanding police chief. While such common character types sometimes made the story a bit predictable, it also felt like I was reading an old friend. It was easy to sink into this story.

I received a free copy of this book.

The Narration: Ward Paxton makes a really good noir detective. His voice for Bennie is a bit more gentle than the other cops, but since we get Bennie’s inner thoughts, I felt this was appropriate. Paxton did great with the regional accents of the time and place as well, keeping all the characters distinct. There were few females but I felt they could have used a touch more femininity in the narration.

A tale of Richmond's Underworld

This was an excellent debut by Ward Howarth! I loved how he weaved Richmond's historic landmarks throughout this novel. Bennie is back from the war and trying to clean up the black market ring while wrestling with his inner demons. And he needs solve his father's murder. I was intrigued by this detective story full of underworld activity and police corruption that I couldn't stop listening! I hope this becomes a series. I would like to know what will happen next for Bennie. Or even what Bennie was like before and during the war. I thoroughly enjoyed this and hope the author has more in store!

Courageous Crime Fighter

I very much enjoyed River City Blues. It's an interesting portrayal of the WWII era in Richmond, VA. Bennie Sherwood comes home after serving in the Marines and gets a detective job in the police department. Author Ward Howarth writes a gritty story about two investigations that are on a collision course. The dialogue was realistic and the developments in the cases come together for an exciting ending. I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Ward Paxton whose style makes the moody and tough character's lives seem very real. The bad language in a few spots didn't bother me at all because it is so in keeping with the characters.