Created by Robert W. Tinsley
“I sat in the oldest cemetery in El Paso, dressed in my Sneaky-Suit, black sneakers, socks, pants, gloves, sweater, and watch cap with every exposed square inch of skin covered in black make up. I was ready for a minstrel show or a commando raid, whichever came along first.”
— from “Graveyard Shift”
JACK BRADY, a private eye who hails from El Paso, Texas, is pretty hard to miss–he’s six-four, two-eighty and he’s got a pretty large a tattoo of a Navy SEAL Budweiser on his left forearm. And he not only looks like he’s been around — he has.
The author claims Jack “misspent his youth” in the Navy and did three tours in Viet Nam as a SEAL, and following the Navy, he did an eight-year stint in the Border Patrol, doing mostly undercover work. Which may explain why many of his cases involve the U.S./Mexican border.
Finally tired of the lack of support from the powers that be, he chucked it all and went private. His secretary– excuse me, executive assistant–Kathleen is also ex-Navy, and wants to become a P.I. too, much to Jack’s dismay.
Solid hard-boiled fare, leavened by Jack’s sardonic sense of humour. Worth checking out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When he’s not writing crime fiction, Robert W. Tinsley is a licensed engineer in private practice, who’s written numerous magazine articles on subjects ranging from blood transfusions to NASA’s nuclear propulsion program. He is also a member of the editorial advisory board for Heating, Piping, and Air Conditioning magazine.
SHORT STORIES
- “Smuggler’s Blues” (Spring 1989, PI Magazine)
- “Killer” (Winter 1989, PI Magazine)
- “Graveyard Shift” (April 2002, HandHeld Crime)
- “No Good-Bye” (June 2002, HandHeldCrime)
- “Beating On The Border” (Summer 2003, Thrilling Detective Web Site)
- “Hijack on the Border” (Oct/Dec 2003, SDO Detective)
- “Horse of the Same Color” (Fall 2003, Hardluck Stories)
- “Grasshopper” (Winter 2003, Hardluck Stories)
- “Double Death” (February 2004, Shred of Evidence)
- “A Kiss Is Just A Kiss” (April/May/June 2005, Futures)
- “For Felina…” (Winter 2004, Thrilling Detective Web Site)
- “Out of the Shadows” (June 2005, Mysterical-E)
- “The Horse Holder” (Aug/Nov 2005, Shred of Evidence)
- “Sweet Dreams” (2011, The Brady Files)
- “The Prodigal” (2011, The Brady Files)
- “Questioning the Dead” (2011, The Brady Files)
- “The Running Man” (2011, The Brady Files)
- “Moby Dick in a Can” (2011, The Brady Files)
UNDER OATH
- “(Smuggler’s Blues”) is too short to be more than an incident, and by itself leaves little impression. Brady, who tells the story himself, has just enough of a way with words to make the telling enjoyable. Efforts to sound like a tough guy are just a little iffy; a little more “down and gritty” would have helped. Chalk this one down as an early one in Brady’s career.”
— Steve Lewis (February 2021, Mystery*File)
COLLECTIONS
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks, Bob, for the heads-up, and to Steve Lewis for the pointer.
