CROSS DOG BLUES

“This is storytelling at its best.” —Fortean Times Magazine

★★★★★ 4.5-Star Average Reader Review

Amazon Kindle #1 Best Seller in Blues Books

Amazon Kindle Best Seller in Historical Fiction & Historical Thrillers

“Poignant. . . Insightful.” —Kirkus Reviews

Fast, powerful, and entertaining, Cross Dog Blues is a thrilling journey through the Amer

“This is storytelling at its best.” —Fortean Times Magazine

★★★★★ 4.5-Star Average Reader Review

Amazon Kindle #1 Best Seller in Blues Books

Amazon Kindle Best Seller in Historical Fiction & Historical Thrillers

“Poignant. . . Insightful.” —Kirkus Reviews

Fast, powerful, and entertaining, Cross Dog Blues is a thrilling journey through the American landscape that spans from 1903 to 2002 and plays out over the wails of the birth of the Delta blues.

1915: In a moonlit room in a boarding house in Texas, Charlie Patton—the enigmatic “inventor” of blues music—founds a shadowy alliance with Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and Blind Lemon Jefferson. A pact is made, and the seeds of revolution are sown. Back at the Dockery Plantation in the Mississippi Delta, with the help of the likes of Son House, Howlin‘ Wolf, Robert Johnson, and others, Charlie’s plan spreads across the South, and then across the country. But these bluesmen have no way of knowing where this dangerous road will lead—or who is watching.

2002: Franklyn O’Connor—an adventurous and penniless youth—sits at the lonely train station in his small upstate New York hometown holding a one-way ticket to the Crossroads in the Mississippi Delta. There he hopes to track down his father, who disappeared when Frank was five. With nothing but his rucksack and the unsolicited assistance of a little old man called Furry Jenkins, Frank soon unwittingly drifts into the middle of a combustible racial feud at the intersection of a still divided society, a shocking truth waiting down the line.

With the rambling pioneers of blues music leading an unforgettable cast of characters, this raw, rousing, and adventurous debut novel delivers a breathtaking view of life, livin’, love, and hate in America in the 20th century, and the mysterious beginnings of the music that provided the soundtrack for it all.

“Brock’s prose is a perfect blend of Mark Twain-style color undercut by modern humor. Ruby and Quinn are a Tom and Huck for the 21st century. True brilliance...in the finest American tradition." —Kirkus Reviews

“If I’d known it was a full moon that night, I never would have crossed Crane Swamp, pirates or not.” – Ruby Heckler

In this uproar

“Brock’s prose is a perfect blend of Mark Twain-style color undercut by modern humor. Ruby and Quinn are a Tom and Huck for the 21st century. True brilliance...in the finest American tradition." —Kirkus Reviews

“If I’d known it was a full moon that night, I never would have crossed Crane Swamp, pirates or not.” – Ruby Heckler

In this uproarious forced testimony, Ruby Heckler, an orphan boy of twelve, recounts an odyssey that begins with an explosive mix-up in his tiny hometown in the northern Adirondack Mountains and launches him across the country and across the paths of a bevy of eclectic characters. Alone at last, but hopelessly alone, Ruby tears through the world, befriending mothers, murderers, and revolutionaries, and running from cops, curses, and, most of all, his own imagination. This modern day Huck Finn examines the vast realities of life in the twenty-first century through the eyes of a twelve-year old orphan from the northern woods, and the result is endearing and enduring.

  “An exhilarating exercise in suspense. . . Playing out against the majestic peaks and lush valleys of the Adirondack Mountains, [Hurricane Canoe is] a devilish, terrifying game of cat and mouse . . . maintaining the intensity at a fever pitch from its arresting start to a shocking conclusion.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS

Two men paddle into the wild

  “An exhilarating exercise in suspense. . . Playing out against the majestic peaks and lush valleys of the Adirondack Mountains, [Hurricane Canoe is] a devilish, terrifying game of cat and mouse . . . maintaining the intensity at a fever pitch from its arresting start to a shocking conclusion.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS

Two men paddle into the wild, each with his own secrets.

Gilbert Willards is a socially awkward professional poker player with no interest in camping or canoeing. His would-be brother-in-law, Trent, on the other hand, is a capable outdoorsman—but one with a shadowy past and volatile psyche.

A freak storm lurks beyond the mountains.

When the pouring rain and flash floods of a wayward Atlantic hurricane threaten to strand the two men deep in the Adirondack wilderness, their only escape looks to be a perilous mountain trek through increasingly severe weather.

Waters and tensions rise.

With their lives on the line, and escalating conflicts between them, the pair must put the past and future aside and find a way to work together in a harrowing race against time and the elements—and their own worst natures.

But how far is each man willing to go to survive? And what dark motivations led to this strained excursion in the first place?

With warm summer lakes, cold calculations, and a relentlessly challenging wilderness, Hurricane Canoe delivers a wildly entertaining, suspense-filled adventure perfect for a backcountry lean-to.