CHARLOTTE – Retired crime reporter and author Timothy L. Rodriguez has released a throwback murder mystery novel, “Never Is Now,” through Warren Publishing.
Set in the Southern town of Random in 1982, two horrific murders shock and puzzle an unsuspecting and sleepy community.
With the investigation stalled, the grief-stricken families turn to Boggs, a former disgraced officer-turned private detective, for answers. He soon enlists layabout deputy Carson Tinnin to aid him in the investigation, and the two form an unlikely team.
“They are the least likely investigators to solve a crime, much less ones as heinous as the murders in this story,” Rodriguez said, but these two misfits may have some surprises hidden deep within.
A veteran of crime reporting who covered the topic for over a decade, Rodriguez is all too familiar with some of the darker aspects of humanity. But in his experience he has also discovered the value of hope, and the need to hold onto it, no matter what might stand in the way. “There is no such concept as never,” Rodriguez believes. “There is always hope,” just as long as a person is willing to look for it.
Rodriguez continues to explore his ever-developing universe of characters in this novel, which returns once again to Dinwoodie County, a place which will be quite familiar to longtime readers of Rodriguez’s work.
“Boggs, Tinnin, and almost all the peripheral characters represent decades of labor,” said Rodriguez, who has written over 100 stories set in the fictional county. But in “Never is Now,” there is still more to be explored in this rural community – more places to visit, more memorable people to meet and more to discover about characters we thought we knew. And in the end we find an answer, buried deep, to the question at the heart of the story: Who killed Billy Blake and Wendy Allen?
Rodriguez has no plans to slow down. Dinwoodie County continues to beckon, and as long as it does, he will continue to return. “What Yoknapatawpha County was to Faulkner, these places are to my writing,” says Rodriguez, who cites the great writer of Southern literature as an inspiration.
Want the book?
“Never Is Now” can be ordered on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and warrenpublishing.net or where books are sold.
