No Time Before Murder

Esbeth Walters Mystery #1

by Russ Hall

When you ask your sons to compete for everything you own, is it too much to expect murder? Eight generations of Castles build to this moment of conflict: Win Castle doesn't think either of his sons is ruthless enough to be the next owner of their 21,000-acre Texas Hill Country cattle ranch spread, with its 100-acre vineyard like a jewel in its center.

After having a heart attack he has kept secret from his children, Win, considered something of a squire out on his estate, is now obsessed enough to pit his two sons against each other in contests of hunting and fishing. Chas, the younger son, is more aggressive and competitive, but he enjoys triumph for only a month before he is found dead in the fermentation room. Win has his suspicions and does what he can to throw suspicion at anyone other than members of his family. But, his wife, Margo, screams for the head of the killer.

A few days into the case, it's her head that rolls across the concrete from the winery's auger hopper where her body is found.

Esbeth Walters, 72, a retired high school math teacher saddled with the reputation of being an amateur detective much against her will, is involved in the chaos - she has a part-time job giving tours at the Castles' vineyard, Camelot Hills. When the bodies begin to clutter the winery, the local sheriff, Eldon Watkins, and Texas Ranger Tillis Macrory are as reluctant for her help as she is to give it. But in the end they come to realize that Esbeth has a world of experience to offer.

Genres: Mystery

250 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2003

About the author

Russ Hall is author of more than thirty-five books and coauthor of numerous other books. He has been an editor for major publishing companies, ranging from Harper & Row (now HarperCollins), Simon & Schuster, to Pearson. In 2011, he was awarded the Sage Award, by The Barbara Burnett Smith Mentoring Authors Foundation—a Texas award for the mentoring author who demonstrates an outstanding spirit of service in mentoring, sharing and leading others in the mystery writing community. He lives in Lago Vista, on the north shore of Lake Travis near Austin, where he hikes, fishes, and tends a herd of deer that visit daily to peep in the office window and help with the writing.

Reviews

[Bill Williams · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. Russ Hall is a kind man who is generous with beginning writers and I was looking forward to checking out some of his work. I decided to pick up this little mystery and give it a tumble. It breaks every rule of good writing. It has strawman arguments, twangy accents and phony slang, a Mary Sue lead character, typos, formatting errors, and more. He did his research and he drops in facts where they might not belong just to prove the point. On top of this he has a forensic impossibility.

I just hope I caught a bad book by a nice guy.

[Curt Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is part of a series that tempted me to read more Russ Hall books during the winter and not just on vacation.

[Curt Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable addition to his Esbeth series. Good plot line, more information about the ways to commit murder in a winery than I imagined.