Dallas private eye Ed Earl Burch is an emotional wreck, living on the edge of madness, hosing down the nightmares of his last case with bourbon and Percodan, dreading the next onslaught of demons that haunt his days and nights, including a one-eyed dead man who still wants to carve out his heart and eat it.Burch is also a walking contradiction. Steady and relentless when working a case. Tormented … case. Tormented and unbalanced when idle. He’s deeply in debt to a shyster lawyer who forces him to take the type of case he loathes — divorce work, peephole creeping to get dirt on a wayward husband.
Work with no honor. Work that reminds him of how far he’s fallen since he lost the gold shield of a Dallas homicide detective. Work in the stark, harsh badlands of West Texas, the border country where he almost got killed and his nightmares began.
What he longs for is the clarity and sense of purpose he had when he carried that gold shield and chased killers for a living. The adrenaline spike of the showdown. Smoke ‘em or cuff ‘em. Justice served — by his .45 or a judge and jury.
When a rich rancher and war hero is killed in a suspicious barn fire, the rancher’s outlaw cousin hires Burch to investigate a death the county sheriff is reluctant to touch.
Seems a lot of folks had reason for wanting the rancher dead — the local narco who has the sheriff on his payroll; some ruthless Houston developers who want the rancher’s land; maybe his own daughter. Maybe the outlaw cousin who hired Burch.
Thrilled to be a manhunter again, Burch ignores these red flags, forgetting something he once knew by heart.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. And it might just get you killed.
But it’s the best lousy choice Ed Earl Burch is ever going to get.
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The Best Lousy Choice is the third book in the Ed Earl Burch series written by Jim Nesbitt. Private detective Ed Earl Burch is fighting all sorts of demons when he gets a call to investigate the murder of a wealthy rancher in the west of Texas. The list is long of people who wanted the man dead and Ed Earl suddenly has a target on his back. I really enjoyed the author’s use of words and his delightful descriptions. Check this series out, it’s a great adventure!
A hard-boiled page-turner. Highly recommend.
I couldn’t put it down, but sometimes I needed a translator.
This third crime thriller in the Ed Earl Burch series is an interesting and gripping thrill ride.
Dallas PI, Ed Earl Burch, keeps his nightmares at bay with whisky, Percodan, and work. He takes jobs he doesn’t want to keep a loan shark off his back. His latest assignment turns from an easy divorce case to a dangerous hunt for the killer of Texan Rancher, Bart Hulett. There’s no end of people who wanted Bart dead, and as Burch investigates, those same people want him dead too.
Burch is a hard-nosed and intelligent investigator, determined to unravel the complicated case, and is no stranger to dangerous situations.
The cast of tough and believable characters were easy to keep track of, and most of them had a good back story to help you get to know them and the reasoning behind their actions.
The dialogue and descriptive writing pulls you into the story and stands you in the middle of the action, which is virtually non-stop from beginning to end.
Even though this is the third book of the series, it works well as a stand-alone, although this book has piqued my interest and I will likely read the first two books.
Ed Earl Burch is a unique kind of guy. He’s a former Homicide Detective, now a Private Investigator. Ghosts from prior victims, including an ax-wife and a partner, keep him company every night. About the only thing that keeps them at bay are alcohol mixed with Percodan.
But when he’s working, he’s sharp as a tack and his body doesn’t hurt as much. The nightmares fade into the night.
When an older rancher and war hero is found burned to a crisp in his barn, the man’s cousin hires Burch to investigate. Local police don’t seem to want the job.
The rancher had enemies, no doubt about it. It all boils down to family dynamics, a lot of land, water, developers who want that land, relatives that want to sell.
The more he investigates, the more dangerous the job becomes.
This is a hard boiled Texas thriller that feature Ed Earl Burch. He’s battle-weary, unconventional when it comes to handing out justice. He’s rough and tough but he still attracts the ladies. There is unrelenting action starting at the very first and not letting go until the very last page.
Although 3rd in a series, this is easily read as a stand alone, but I highly recommend starting at the beginning of the series. Ed Earl is a character well worth reading.
Many thanks to the author for the digital copy of this story about a man with a thirst for guns, booze, and women. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
Ed Earl Burch is up to his eyeballs in trouble again and every option—when he has one—is lousier than the one before. Hired to get some salacious photos to help a woman with a philandering husband, he ends up in the middle of a range war. Helped along by the various women in his life, a scheming attorney, a narco assassin, and a rancher who is even more hard-boiled than Ed Earl, he will uncover a nasty land-grabbing scheme and a family destined to remain forever divided.
The book is raw, lusty, rough-edged–and yet tremendously literary. Descriptions paint vibrant word pictures.
Every character has a backstory peppered with Texas vernacular. They are all tough enough to chew nails and spit rust, albeit flavored with Maker’s Mark. Just when I was thinking that John Wayne could have spit out half of the dialogue, pilgrim, there was a reference to Rooster Cogburn. A great line from True Grit also managed to sneak in: “One eyed fat man.”
Yep. Bold words.
Talk about keeping the pages turning!! A book I hated to finish
“Folks have a bad habit of underestimating me—I’m still standin’ and most of them ain’t.”
The Best Lousy Choice by Jim Nesbitt is one rough and tumble ride. This third Ed Earl Burch novel can stand alone, but don’t miss out on the first two. Ed Burch is an ex-cop who plays by nobody’s rules but his own. Detective for hire is his game now, but he’s no ordinary gumshoe who chases down clues and wraps up the case without any bloodshed or bashed-in noses. Oh, no. Ed Burch is coarse and crude and strung out on opioids and whiskey, with or without the ‘e.’ He’s a mess of the first order, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t one of the best protagonists in all of West Texas. Burch continues to battle old demons, but he can still get the job done, bad knees and all. His gun skills, cunning, and hefty dose of bravado know no bounds, but will he finally go too far and find himself on the wrong end of that bullet? Only one way to find out. Watch out for that ending, though. It’s a humdinger.
If you’re easily offended by strong language, sexy sex scenes, and bloody violence with a high body count, then you’re out of luck. But don’t hightail it too fast. West Texas in the late 1980s meets the Wild Wild West of yore, and Burch is hired to put two and two together on a barn burning gone awry and other murderous mischief in and around Favor, Texas. The story is raunchy, crazy, hilarious at times, gruesome at other times, and downright entertaining and interesting all the way through. But seriously, it’s not for the faint of heart or the prude with no sense of humor.
Jim Nesbitt has a unique and catchy way with words, and he laces the characters’ speech with West Texas drawl, some Spanish, and many phrases and lingo that spice up an already hot and spicy novel. The plot is complex yet fairly easy to follow, but the characters are what make the novel. All of them jump off the page and act like real people, that’s how fully dimensional they are. Every single one of them is well developed, even the expendable bit players that come and go rather quickly. Every character may be a scene stealer, but Ed Burch steals the entire show.
Jim Nesbitt pulls no punches and delivers a hard-core, well-written novel that just won’t quit, and you certainly won’t want it to.
“Stay chilly, partner.
Only way to play it.”
The author provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.