Created by Tricia Allen
Author Tricia Allen assured me her series character, DAVID WEATHER, was going to become a private eye eventually—he’s was just taking a while to get there.
His debut, Texas Weather (2000), finds him a prosecutor for the DA’s office in post-Second World War Dallas, Texas, a town still trying to balance its violent frontier past with the allegedly more civilized future. Weather’s essentially a good man, trying to do the right thing, but he finds himself on the outs with the rest of the inhabitants of the Dallas County Criminal Courts Building, a victim of both office politics and gossip. Especially when he becomes involved in the prosecution of a wealthy Houston shipping line heir/serial killer known as “the Maniac.”
Meanwhile, an ambitious reporter, Francy Cotton, is hot on David’s heels, prying into the 1932 death of David’s father, a former district attorney, and something of a rascal (Francy herself once had an affair with him). Francy feels that it was murder and not an accident. And as if that’s not enough on David’s plate, he’s not getting along very well with his fiancée, who feels he’s spending way too much time on his job.
In the sequel, 2003’s A Well-Respected Dead Man, the fiancée is toast and Francy’ protegée Jane Alder is now his girlfriend, and David’s on a leave of absence from the DA’s office, when he becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a flashy gambling kingpin, Willie Peabody, who may or may not have killed David’s father. David and Francy team up to get to the truth, set against the background of the real-life 1947 Texas City Explosion when a ship in Galveston Bay carrying ammonium nitrate exploded, killing about 600 dockside spectators and destroying a mile-long petrochemical complex. It holds the record as the worst industrial accident in US history.
By the end of the book, David has decided to give up law and become a private investigator, and he will be hanging up his shingle in the third book, The Devil Is a Busy Man, Ms. Allen assured us.
Alas, I guess it was not meant to be. The book was never published, and David never became a private eye.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author has a BA and MA from Mississippi State University, and divided her time between Mississippi and Dallas.
STRAIGHT FROM THE AUTHOR’S MOUTH
“David Weather is a smart-mouth character who was a tough prosecutor but has to find his feet outside the protection of the DA’s office. I would classify the book as medium to hard-boiled. People in my ometimes savage writer’s group tell me I have a strong, distinctive voice, and they don’t shred me anymore.”
— Tricia Allen
NOVELS
- Texas Weather (2000) | Buy this book
- A Well-Respected Dead Man (2003) | Buy this book
- The Devil Is a Busy Man (unpublished)
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- Lone Star Eyes
The Eyes of Texas are Upon You
Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
