In this novel of crimes, both petty and not-so, Michael Pool takes you from the laid-back atmosphere of Colorado, where marijuana growing, possession, and sale is legal to rural Teller County in East Texas where it definitely is not. The county’s official policy is strictly anti-pot, rigorously enforced by its long-time sheriff, Jack Gables, who is especially diligent if he isn’t getting a cut of the action.
Transplanted Texans Cooper Daniels and Trevor Davis, close friends from childhood, have been living in Colorado for years. They think of their Texas drug deal as just going home for a spell, but home has changed, and they’ll have to dance a pretty lively two-step to stay out of jail and, maybe, out of the cemetery.
Cooper believes it’s worth the risk of selling his organic crop to the sketchy Texas drug dealer, “Sancho” Watts, because he’s vowed this deal will be his last. He’s turning a new leaf and has sworn to acquire himself a legitimate career to please his pregnant girlfriend. If he doesn’t shape up, she’s leaving him.
Cooper and Davis seem like good-natured stoners, but Watts is a wild man. Some time before the story starts, Watts sold a psychedelic drug to the grandson of a Texas state senator, and the boy killed himself. Now the legislator wants revenge, and he’s tapped Texas Ranger Russ Kirkpatrick to get something on Watts—anything, just so it puts him in jail for a long stretch.
To Kirkpatrick, the senator is a pest with a strong sense of entitlement. But the politician is not letting go, and if Kirkpatrick doesn’t produce, he’ll be a Ranger no more. While he’d rather not have this assignment, he has it, and it leads him to Teller County where the sheriff is notorious for pulling in the welcome mat when out-of-town law enforcement arrives.
Sancho Watts has teamed up with a Teller County celebrity, and you’d have to appreciate how much Texans love their football to understand the full significance of this partnership. The young man is former University of Texas footballer Bobby Burnell who lost his budding pro football career in a freak accident.
The separate strands of the story move smoothly toward an inevitable showdown, the outcome of which could go a number of different ways, most of them disastrous. Focusing on the action, Pool is light on description, and he writes good, humor-laced dialog. This is a book for fans of how things are done in Texas. Big. Very big. ( )

Cooper Daniels has come up with a sure fire plan. Take the marijuana he and his buddy, Davis, has grown and processed, stuff it in some furniture, load that furniture and a bunch of other assorted junk into one of those container units, and ship it down to Texas. Let somebody else do the high risk deed of driving the pot across state lines. Legalized pot in Colorado is killing their ability to sell his illegal weed. The market is collapsing around their ears and being the brains of the duo, it is up to Cooper to get them out of their latest problem. A problem made massively worse thanks to a taskforce in Chicago that busted the guy he was going to sell his latest thirty pounds of high quality weed.

Things are changing and Cooper and Daniels are struggling to keep up. The old network is going under thanks to the wave of marijuana legalization sweeping the country. Cooper and Davis aren’t getting the bucks they are used to which is killing their life style. A life style built on concerts, parties, and getting blasted while staying at the best places and having the time of their lives. It has been grand, but they are getting older and things are changing in many ways.

In one last desperate attempt to get a big pay day, Cooper reaches out to an old contact down in Teller County, Texas. Elroy “Sancho” Watts is thrilled to hear from Cooper and is willing to work a deal. Neither Cooper or Davis wants to go back home to their old Texas stomping grounds, but the plan is to get in, do the deal, and get out of Texas as fast as possible and for good reason.

One of the many things they don’t know is that things have changed in a major way in Texas as well. One of those changes is the involvement of a man known to one and all as Bobby Burnell. Known to folks as “Bobby Burnout” for good reason the man is a human disaster zone. Involved in the deal, he as well as Sancho and several other folks are under the watchful eyes of local and state law enforcement. All of this and more means trouble, often at the point of a gun, for all involved.

Published by Down & Out Books, Michael Pool’s latest crime fiction feast, Texas Two-Step is a high octane ride. Shifting through various characters it becomes clear as the read powers towards a deadly confrontation that nearly everyone involved has dirty hands. Some are just a little worse than others.

As he did in other reads, author Michael Pool quickly pulls the reader in to a crime fiction tale populated by complex characters doing their best in their own ways to get through that brings far more trouble than one would expect on the surface when the decision happens. Texas Two-Step is an intense read that works on every level. Highly recommended.

Texas Two-Step
Michael Pool
http://www.michaelpool.net
Down & Out Books
http://www.DownAndOutBooks.com
2018
ISBN# 978-1-946502-56-8
Paperback (also available in eBook format)
280 Pages
$16.95

Paperback review copy provided by Wiley Saichek of Saichek Publicity for my use to read and review.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2018 ( )