Death Is Not Forever

Life should have been perfect for Jeremiah Bean. A beautiful wife who wore a Texas Rangers' badge, a beautiful baby daughter, a judgeship his for the taking. Instead, his wife and daughter are dead, and his judge's bench has been taken away because of a bit of a problem with the needle. Now Judge Royy Bean II, trying to stay off the radar of law enforcement, quietly-though fully armed and always wearing a bullet-proof vest-handles squabbles between thieves and burglars and other assorted fringe members of society in a dusty compound in far southern Texas. But someone has left a package for him in Barefield: a finger, a note, and a photocopy of a Texas Rangers' badge-implying things weren't quite kosher the night his wife, and three of her fellow Rangers, became celebrated heroes. Bean's semi, full of dope-packed coffins, is on fire, cops are searching for him, and he's found fourteen-year-old Faith chained up and hidden inside the cab of the truck. Clearly not what he signed up for. While trying to take Faith home, Bean confronts the Ranger he believed to be long dead and is forced to face his greatest lost treasure. Praise for Death is Not Forever "Trey R. Barker just might be the closest successor to Jim Crumley we have. Both hail from Texas and both have written some of the grittiest noir prose on God's damned earth. Death Is Not Forever not only took my breath away, I worked up a good sweat while reading it." -Vincent Zandri, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of Everything Burns and Moonlight Weeps "Ernest Hemingway described good writing the best, when he compared it to an iceberg in which nine-tenths is submerged and one-tenth shows. A book as a participatory exercise where the reader's intelligence is assumed and is expected to do some of the work. Such is Trey R. Barker's novel, Death is Not Forever. It's from an author who respects the reader completely. An engaging, rough-and-raw saga that has a decided bonus in that it delivers some of the best dialog since Elmore Leonard. Super enjoyable time spent in reading it! Just pure pleasure here." -Les Edgerton, author of The Rapist, The Bitch, The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping and others. "The story literally takes flight into a new echelon of authenticity and excellence. Trey R. Barker has exceeded himself with Death is Not Forever-bloody palm prints of truth smear every page. Prose that blows the designer socks off the faux tough guys writing about blood and guts from the safety of well-managed condos. If you want the real thing-the real guts, the real glory, real pain and regret-this is it. Buy it and pray the book will find enough promotion and publicity to finally lift Barker from shadows into the spotlight. -Anonymous-9, Hard Bite, Bite Harder, Dreaming Deep