Darlington author profiles 1980s drug trade broker; Ambridge author pens murder mystery
(Page Turners is a monthly profile of new books by western Pennsylvania authors.)
"My Right Hand to Goodness: The Life and Times of Crazy Dale Varnam"
— by Lynn Cook Betz
The author, a Darlington native who successfully ran the Sensibility Soaps organic skin care business in West Mayfield, shares the one-of-a-kind story of how she and her husband, Thom, retired to a quiet North Carolina town where an unforeseen adventure awaited.
That's where Betz met new neighbor Dale Varnum, a quiet local fellow who turned out to be a major player in the international drug trade in the 1980s.
"The journalistic effort of Betz captures the unraveling of the smallest fishing village in North Carolina transformed into the second biggest port for entry for illegal drugs on the Eastern Seaboard − becoming one of Pablo Escobar’s largest cocaine ports in America − and how Varnam became a name known by many," says the book's press release from MB and Associates Public Relations.
Varnam now is "a reformed man, having found faith," according to Port City Daily, a Wilmington, N.C., newspaper that profiled Betz's book.
"My Right Hand to Goodness" is available on Amazon for $14.99 in paperback, $19.99 for Kindle.
"Stolen Pieces II: Grave Misconduct"
— by J.R. Mason.
The Ambridge author has penned her fourth novel set in Pittsburgh.
This sexy, scary sequel finds the Steel City still being terrorized by a serial killer in a fast-paced story Mason says reads like TV's "Criminal Minds" meets "Law & Order: SVU."
Picking up before the original novel even ends, many of the characters are back for this riveting psychological crime thriller, with several intriguing new players introduced as the suspense and danger get ratcheted up higher.
Amid the violence and mystery, Mason weaves a tale with laugh-out-loud scenes of dark humor along with genuinely emotional and heartbreaking moments among the squad members.
Readers will wonder and worry how many of those characters will survive as the walls begin to close in around the serial killer desperately trying to elude capture. However, readers might also find themselves appreciating the killer’s brazen yet beguiling personality.
While Mason’s twisty sequel displays neither gore nor graphic violence, heavier topics such as domestic violence and assault are addressed.
The "Stolen Pieces Series" is available at jrenecreative.com/pieces in paperback ($15.99) and hardcover ($22.99), and via Kindle on Amazon.
"Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood"
— by Colter Harper
A comprehensive look at how from the 1920s through the 1960s, Pittsburgh’s Hill District was the heart of the city’s Black cultural life and home to a vibrant jazz scene.
The author, an ethnomusicologist and former guitarist for Pittsburgh rock band Rusted Root, examines how jazz shaped the neighborhood and created a way of life. Beyond backdrops for remarkable careers, jazz clubs sparked the development of a self-determined Black community. In delving into the history of entrepreneurialism, placemaking, labor organizing and critical listening in the Hill District, Harper forges connections to larger political contexts, processes of urban development and civil rights struggles, according to a press release.
Currently a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Music at the University at Buffalo, Harper's writing adopts a broad approach in thinking about jazz clubs, foregrounding the network of patrons, business owners, and musicians who were actively invested in community building.
Paperback editions sell for $30, hardcover is $110, at upress.state.ms.us.
Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Page Turners: Lynn Cook Betz of Darlington profiles Dale Varnam
