THE FATAL SAVING GRACE
by Jim Nesbitt
February 9 - March 6, 2026 Virtual Book Tour
Synopsis:
ED EARL BURCH HARD-BOILED TEXAS CRIME THRILLER
MAYHEM WITH A BADGE
After wandering the peephole wilderness of a private detective for two decades, defrocked Dallas homicide detective Ed Earl Burch is finally an official manhunter again, wearing the badge of a district attorney's investigator working in the harsh desert mountains of West Texas.
Big D, it ain't. And life as a resurrected lawman isn't everything he hoped it would be. Too many rules. Not enough satisfaction. And a boss who hates him for saving his life.
But Burch is back, playing the same deadly game he mastered as a murder cop, tracking a serial killer who tortured and murdered his ex-lover with a straight razor—an Aryan Brotherhood gang leader Burch thought he killed in a desert shootout.
He's also trying to protect the fugitive granddaughter of an old friend and her four-year-old son—from this remorseless killer and cartel gunsels hired by her incestuous Dixie Mafia daddy.
Throats get slashed. Bullets smack flesh. Bodies drop. And Ed Earl Burch and his partner, Bobby Quintero, are in reckless pursuit, dodging death, closing in on their prey.
No place Burch would rather be. Unless he gets killed.
Praise for The Fatal Saving Grace:
The Fatal Saving Grace is the Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite for Action/Adventure 2026
"Nesbitt delivers a scorched-earth tale where every shadow conceals an ambush and every road bleeds history. He paints West Texas in colors of rust, smoke and whiskey, and the result is a story that feels carved in stone. This is cowboy noir at its finest."
~ Baron Birtcher, Will Rogers Medallion winning author of Knife River
"Ed Earl Burch, who's partial to Lucky Strikes and Maker's Mark, makes Mike Hammer look like Miss Marple. Jim's novels offer wicked humor, an eye for detail, brass-knuck action and language that would strip the paint off a Hummer."
~ Noel Holston, author of Life After Deaf and As I Die Laughing
"Jim Nesbitt knows his Texas crime and writes one fine line at a time. Hard-boiled with prickly pears, old leather boots, a bit of tobacco, freshly spit of course, he gets it right."
~ Joe R. Lansdale, champion mojo storyteller and author of the Hap 'N Leonard crime thrillers
"A gritty and deadly must-read, THE FATAL SAVING GRACE cements Nesbitt’s standing among the best writers in the pantheon of Southern noir."
~ Bruce Robert Coffin, bestselling author of the Detective Justice Mysteries
"Ed Earl Burch is back, and that’s great news for readers who love classic hard-boiled noir, colorful characters, crackling dialogue and plenty of action. Highly recommended!"
~ R.G. Belsky, author of the Gil Malloy and Clare Carlson mysteries
"Some would call it justice. Some would call it revenge. No matter what you call it, the concept has been a long running theme of the Ed Earl Burch series. The same is very much true in the fifth book of the series, The Fatal Saving Grace: An Ed Earl Burch Novel by Jim Nesbitt."
~ 'Ace Texas book reviewer' Kevin Tipple
Book Details:
Genre: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction, Western
Published by: Spotted Mule Press
Publication Date: December 15, 2025
Number of Pages: 301
ISBN: 9780998329482 (ISBN10: 0998329487)
Series: Ed Earl Burch Hard-Boiled Texas Crime Thriller, Book 5 | Each is a Stand-Alone Thriller
Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub
GUEST POST:
"Call me Ishmael."
That's the iconic first sentence of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Reams of critical essays and analysis have been written about this enigmatic opening and its connection to the larger themes of Captain Ahab's obsessive and doomed hunt for the great white whale -- identity, power and the quest for dominion over the natural world.
Sample a few. Then try to tell me that a character's name doesn't matter.
Even so, authors can get themselves wrapped around the axle about character names. A writer buddy who gave a very detailed and knowledgeable critique of one of my novels pointed out that all my characters have unique and memorable names and nicknames and thought I should visit this issue to make sure it wasn’t a distraction.
I was somewhat taken aback because I’d never even thought about names getting in between the reader and the story I was trying to tell. In fact, I regard character names and nicknames as another opportunity to show who these folks are. It's a calling card for the reader, another piece of the puzzle.
But when I mentioned this critique in my blog, I was again surprised that other writers carefully weigh the names of their characters with one saying that for every unique name or nickname he gives a character, he balances that out with four or five less colorful handles. I find that far too formulaic and very likely to stifle creativity and short-change the story.
Then I started looking at the character names of writers I admire.
The late, great James Crumley has Milo Milodragovitch. That's a mouthful in any language, including the Russian of Milo's bloodline. It signals bearish strength and an endless reservoir of self-destructive behavior balanced by a determination to right the wrongs he sees.
James Lee Burke has Dave Robicheaux and all his Cajun and Big Easy characters whose names and nicknames drip with local color, gutter irony and gallows humor. They add to the stories Burke tells and are the polar opposite of a distraction. They also open the door to backstory in a colorful way that adds depth to even secondary characters -- something a lot of writers fail to do.
The same applies to the stories I try to tell. My characters are Texans, Mexicans and Southerners. Most aren’t particularly nice people; even the good guys are semi-sketchy. Heaven knows my main character, Ed Earl Burch, isn’t a saint.
And I'm not really sure I can take credit for the handles they carry. Their names and nicknames seem to have been already attached as they rose from the blank pages and shoehorned themselves into the time and the places of my stories.
Ed Earl is a Texan, living in a state where a lot of men and women go by bobtailed versions of their first and middle names. Don’t call him Ed. Call him Burch or Ed Earl. That signals the reader that he's a Texan and resonates with the strong sense of Lone Star place I try to create.
Or hang a nickname on him -- Carla Sue Cantrell, a Tennessean by way of North Dallas who has a mortal lock on Ed Earl's heart, calls him Big ‘Un. By the way, don’t call her Carla or Sue -- she’ll shoot you. With a Colt 1911, the same type of gun Ed Earl carries.
To wrap up this riff, I see no reason to give a character a dull name to fit some silly template or bogus writing rule. You're wasting another chance to show who your characters are. Hard enough to hook a reader as it is. You don’t want to bore them into dumping your book in the trash can.
Call me Ed Earl's daddy.
Ed Earl Burch Novels, 1-4
Read an excerpt:
From Chapter 1
When a man gets hit by a .45 ACP Flying Ashtray or three, by all that's ballistically holy, he ought to get dead and stay dead.
All manner of official paperwork swore he was dead. All of it based on a bogus death certificate filed by parties unknown in the Cuervo County Coroner's Office, with copies popping up like blowflies on a cow carcass. Even the federales had him playing poker with the Devil, his prison mugshot tucked away in ATF and DEA files, DECEASED stamped across his face in bold, black letters.
The con was slick and easy. Money changed hands, files were swapped or ditched, reports were shredded or faked. Somebody else's corpse became him. The relentless power of bureaucratic incompetence and inertia did the rest.
Yessir. According to all that yellowing, lawdog paper, he was nobody they had to worry about no more. Finito. A shade. A ghost who said adios. A good thug now that he was a dead thug. Muerto.
Not hardly.
That's what John Wayne said to all those hombres who thought he was dead in Big Jake. With a growl and a scowl.
Not hardly.
He liked that. Matter of fact, he just trotted out the Duke's line to a guy he used to be tight with. Caught up to him climbing the three cinder block steps to the front door of his desert double wide.
Tapped him on the shoulder, saw the wild-eyed fear when the dude turned and saw who the finger belonged to. Blurted out: "You're supposed to be dead!"
Not hardly. Said it with a growl but no scowl. Then grabbed him by a greasy hank of raven black hair, yanking his head back and cutting a crimson smile across his throat from ear to ear. With a bone-handled straight razor. His favorite.
Threw the guy into the sand at the side of the steps. Listened to the choking gurgle and death rattle. Then licked the blood off the blade.
Not hardly. He tilted his head back and laughed. Savored the kill. Alone and alive. An endless dome of stars glittering in the midnight sky above the rocky desert outback near Radium Springs, New Mexico. No moon. A dead man at his feet. Used to be a member of his crew. Frankie Sheridan.
Met him at Pelican Bay. An Alice Baker brother doing a long stretch for bank robbery. Had a shamrock tattooed on his chest with the initials AB in capital letters—Alice Baker, Aryan Brotherhood. Blood in, blood out. Ex-Army. Knew his way around diesels, alarm systems, and weapons.
Sent him a ticket to Texas when he got out. Made him a member of his crew, smuggling guns and drugs out of a ranch north of Faver, the Cuervo County seat, a bent outfit that ran cattle for cover and fleeced bitter and gullible white trash while promising them the return of the Republic of Texas for Caucasian Christians only, a New Zion based on God, guns, guts, and the Good Book. Niggers, Jews, Arabs, and Spics need not apply.
Bad move. Frankie was a ratfuck snitch. Uno chivato. Not to the lawdogs. Just as bad, though. Frankie sold him out to a rival outfit of gunrunners and drug smugglers. Kept them one step ahead of him as they chased a third outfit that held a cache of stolen military hardware everybody wanted.
Rockets, bloopers, mortars, and full-auto carbines and rifles. Bang-bangs that could tip the scales on both sides of the river. All in the hands of a crew fronted by a flashy woman in jeans, tall boots, a bolero jacket, and a blonde wig. A wet dream for the pendejos she hustled.
La Güera. Just the thought of her caused his molars to grind. He wanted her dead. No, he needed her dead. She and her lover were the reason his life got flushed into the sewer, his crew dead, his stash of guns and drugs long gone. Had him climbing out of the shitter, clawing to the top of the dung heap. Again.
He caught the lover. Sliced off his manhood. Slit his throat. Then chopped off his head and butchered his body to stuff into a giant barbecue smoker. Tucked the man's jewels into his mouth as the crowning touch to a cannibal's mesquite-smoked delight.
Not the same. Didn't have her. She still needed to feel his blade, feel his eyes boring holes into hers as he gave her that crimson smile. He needed to lick her blood off that sharp stainless steel. Taste it. And grin. Only then would the circle be complete. He'd be whole again.
Well, not completely whole.
His right eye was gone, blown out by a glancing hit from one of those .45 ACP slugs that also shattered the orbital bones. Nothing extensive plastic surgery, bone implants and a new glass eye couldn't cure. Had to stack plenty of cash up front to repair damage that severe.
Gave that part of his face a waxy texture straight out of Madame Tussauds. But it sure beat wearing an eye patch and the lopsided face of a Dick Tracy cartoon villain.
His left knee was also shattered, replaced with a titanium joint that allowed him to walk with only a slight limp. Another five-figure hit to his stash of greenbacks.
The man who fired those rounds was also on his payback list. An ex-cop. Big-ass older fucker with a gray beard. Said to be a washed-up Dallas P. I..
Beg to differ, sir. Sumbitch sure kept him from getting to her during that clusterfuck in the West Texas desert. A real Wild West shootout between rival drug gangs wanting the blonde bitch's bang-bangs.
He was oh-so-close to grabbing her up, dodging bullets and bodies, closing the gap between him and Ol' Dude, who was carrying the bitch draped over his right shoulder. He screamed her name and leveled an M-16A1 at the both of them.
"La Güeraaaaaaa! I got you, bitch! Got you now! Gonna slice you wide open and watch you bleeeeeeed!"
Ol' Dude spun on his heel and emptied a 1911 mag at him offhand. Yelled this: "Not today, you cockbite motherfucker. Not in this lifetime or the next." A lefty. On target without dropping the bitch. Only thing that kept him alive was a Kevlar vest that caught the Flying Ashtrays that would have shredded his chest.
Washed-up, my ass. The man wrecked me. His time was coming, though. Count on a reckoning. Soon. But not now. He was working his way up the ladder of a list he kept in his head. One body at a time.
Frankie was the bottom rung. La Güera was at the top with Ol' Dude second. Five other rungs between Frankie and them.
Time to get gone. And get busy.
***
Excerpt from The Fatal Saving Grace by Jim Nesbitt. Copyright 2025 by Jim Nesbitt. Reproduced with permission from Jim Nesbitt. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
Jim Nesbitt has the perfect radio face, bionic knees that can grind coffee beans and tell time and a cat who poaches his cigars and uses his cellphone to place bets on British soccer. He is also a recovering journalist who once chased politicians, neo-Nazis, hurricanes, rodeo cowboys, plane wrecks and the everyday people swept up in a news event who gave his stories depth, authenticity and a distinct voice.
A lapsed horseman, pilot, journalist and saloon sport with a keen appreciation of old guns, vintage cars, red meat, good cigars, aged whisky without an 'e' and a well-told story, Nesbitt is also the award-winning author of five hard-boiled Texas crime thrillers that feature battered but relentless Dallas PI Ed Earl Burch -- THE LAST SECOND CHANCE, THE RIGHT WRONG NUMBER, THE BEST LOUSY CHOICE, THE DEAD CERTAIN DOUBT and THE FATAL SAVING GRACE.
A diehard Tennessee Vols fan, he now lives in enemy territory -- Athens, Alabama -- with his wife, Pam, and is working on his sixth Ed Earl Burch novel, THE PERFECT TRAIN WRECK. When he's off his meds, he's been known to call himself Reverend Jim and preach the Gospel of Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction.
Catch Up With Jim Nesbitt:
www.JimNesbittBooks.com
Jim's Substack - @edearl56
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads
BookBub - @edearl56
Instagram - @edearl74
Threads - @edearl74
Facebook - @edearlburchbooks
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