Fifty/Fifty (Judge Hudson-Jordan Mysteries) - Hardcover

Crawford, Rhe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0964369559 ISBN 13: 9780964369559

Publisher: Dobo Books, 1995

Synopsis

The misadventures of two curiously matched wayfarers as they race along old US 50, the loneliest highway across the nation, eluding thugs and murderers, but not their own obsession with each other. Who murdered the man in Betty Ruth Jordan's motel cabin? Who slashed all her clothing to shreds? Why? If she was innocent, why was a Colorado Detective following her across Utah and Nevada? Why were Chicago thugs pursuing her? Why was her mysterious Michael haunting them? Why did she keep crawling into his bed? Questions circled in Judge Hudson's head like hungry gnats. The most puzzling question of all: What was Judge Harold J. Hudson going to do about all this?

This novel is written for adult enjoyment. It is sensual, but not prurient; exciting yet not gross.

About this title

About the Author

R.H.E. Crawford, retired lawyer and sometimes journalist turns his hand to cataloging misadventures. Crawford was born in southern Indiana, raised in southern California. He spent some 20 years in government service, then another 20 in legal service. A veteran of the Korean Police Action, he has spent most of his life avoiding further conflict. He now resides in semi-retirement in northern California, feeding horses, chickens, cats and dogs. Oh yes, and writing mystery novels.

From the Inside Flap

Not dead bodies, flying bullets or over-aggressive thugs can stop the career of Judge Harold J Hudson and his Jaguar across the Rocky Mountains to Lake Tahoe. The Judge was well content with his carefully ordered trip until he meets Betty Ruth Jordan on lonely US highway 50.

An imprudent act of charity sends him and his Jaguar racing across soaring mountains and burning deserts entangled in a web of deception and danger. The Judge spends his days trying to elude bullets, his nights trying to elude the young and ingenious child-woman determined to surrender her all to him whether he wants her all or not.

Their flight down lonely Highway 50 leaves them battered and bewildered, but no wiser than they started. Good guys, bad guys and several in-betweens litter the landscape as the Judge, Girl and the Jaguar fight their way from Dodge City to Carson City across the mountains of Colorado, through the high ranges of Utah and Nevada.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One -- Judge Harold J. Hudson

Under the burning Kansas sun, the Jaguar sliced through the Kansas heat hardly disturbing the still air. Inside its sleek aluminum and steel body, Judge Harold J. Hudson was chasing his dream. He was celebrating his 50th birth year by cruising old US Highway 50 in his 1950's Jaguar roadster.

Back of them, eastward, thunderclouds piled high on the horizon. There would be rain soon in Kansas City. The roadster and its driver would not be there to enjoy it. The Jaguar never enjoyed rain anyway; its canvas hood (top) and side curtains were too porous, puddles tended to drown out its sparking plugs. The Judge was perhaps imprudently proud of the roadster and its English heritage. To him it represented the epitome of English sports car design; born in an era before speed became more important than style and agility. Like all true sports cars, it required constant tinkering. Judge Hudson liked that. He doggedly practiced calling its various parts by their English names, thereby confusing his friends, to his own secret delight. He kept both its engine and leather well oiled, for he enjoyed the scent of fine leather that even now caressed his nostrils. He was of course, totally unaware that his decision to explore old Lincoln Highway could lead to very imprudent happenings, else he would hardly have undertaken this journey. Judge Hal and the Jaguar joined Highway 50, the Lincoln Highway, at Dodge City. Now they cruised past fields of grain. The Kansas landscape was serenely indifferent to the passage of the highly polished, beautifully restored machine and/or its driver. The stately water towers guarding farmhouses seemed to have no concern that they were witnessing the beginning of Judge Harold J. Hudson's permanent escape from life in the slow lane. Somewhere west of Garden City, the towers watched the Judge become aware that a shining spot on the highway ahead waxed rapidly into a small sedan, with a small female standing beside it waving for help. "Now what sort of person would pick up a lone female dressed like that, in next to nothing?" the Judge asked the Jaguar as they cruised by. Probably some kids in a beat-up van, he decided. It was well established that picking up hitch-hikers was not prudent even in Kansas. To Judge Hudson's surprise, the Jaguar slowed, stopped, shifted into reverse, and growled back to the scene of feminine misfortune. Somehow the Jaguar could not abandon her to that imaginary bunch of kids in the imaginary van. A mild sense of danger heightened the Judge's pulse. He kept a wary eye out for burly males lurking in the drainage ditches on either side of the road. His experience on the bench had made him well aware that small females were often accompanied by large, cruel men, who without consideration for age and position of good Samaritans, hid behind the skirts, or in such cases as this, behind the cars of women; to burst out and attack the would-be rescuers at the worst possible time (or best possible time, depending on one's point of view). There was no evidence of such a lurker, but the good Judge kept himself ready to take off at a second's notice. He shifted the transmission out of reverse, let the car roll to a stop, kept the clutch in, put the transmission into first, and held it there while he cautiously addressed the young woman. "Are you in trouble?" He asked the obvious. She smiled a winsome smile, transforming her plain face into elfin charm, allowing a glimpse of clean white teeth. The Judge, following well established habit, started a list: She was dressed in the uniform of the day for young ladies on the road-ragged, tight jeans, with taut knit breast band. Bare, dusty feet were tucked in nondescript sandals. The worn cloth of her outer clothing displayed no sign of underclothes. Numerous large metallic bracelets of wire and plastic decorated her arms. A dozen or more necklaces tangled together about her neck and across her chest. Her hair was or appeared to be uncombed, finding its way limply past her shoulders and down her back. She looked to be about five feet in height, less than 100 pounds in weight. Her ribs clearly showed beneath the tanned skin. A strong Kansas wind might blow her away. Were it not for the well-developed bust, he would guess her age at about fourteen. She allowed him to survey her, standing beside her car, feet close together, with a little girl expression that said she would be twisting her little fingers in her skirt if she had one. She was not particularly pretty, but put together well enough that she should not have had to be traveling alone. "Where's your companion?" asked the good Judge, ready to pop the clutch and take off in a cloud of dust. The girl swirled her body about to look behind her, then back at the Judge, confused. "Companion? I gots no companion." Her puzzlement seemed genuine, her grammar atrocious. "Have," corrected the Judge austerely. "You have no companion." "That's what I said," agreed the girl, perhaps unaware of the correction. "I gots no companion." Judge Hal sighed; a familiar sigh. She reminded him so much of his middle daughter. "Okay, you gots no companion. What's a nice girl like you doing out in the middle of Kansas all alone?" He had a feeling that he was being most imprudent. "This monster," she walked to the car and kicked its passive fender in accompaniment to her complaints, "has died on me, you know? Michael promised it would get me to Reno. And, you know, it just quit. I told him it wouldn't make it. "I go: 'Michael, this rattle-trap won't even make it out of the state.'

Edition details

• Publisher: Dobo Books
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0964369559
• ISBN 13: 9780964369559
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256