Last Race Sunday

When the spontaneous nature of Mitt Stone takes hold, nothing can stop him. Up to now, he had known his enemy, and carried forth with amazing success. Friends made it possible. Did he still have them? This time he will have to set aside Lydia and the kids, his ranching plans, and enter a world he does not understand.

A Texas Ranger who hates Mitt gives him good advice. Good, if he intends to pursue a phantom, the vicious killer of his six-year-old niece. His earlier nature takes over. When Bob Guthrie, Gilberto Saliz, and M.L. Carter join Mitt in Belton, Texas, the town will never be the same. Neither will its horse racing. They get some unexpected help from a preacher and a sect of celibate women..

Instead of finding a single killer known only as Merlin Journey, Mitt identifies five men. Four try to kill him. Interrogation techniques are a problem. An Old West murder mystery is played out in the little town with the most active, corrupt race track in Texas. Mitt finds no help from the local marshals or the sheriff. He is alone to make all the decisions, or is he?.

Denzel Holmes was born and grew up at Sheffield, Texas, near the Pecos River. Electricity had not reached south to the family home in 1940, so he was born at 3 a.m. to the light of kerosene lamps. The rural upbringing influenced his desire to write Western in later years.

After harboring the idea for forty years Denzel retired from his career as a Federal auditor and took up the pen. His first novel, co-authored with Tom Schliesing, was an epic of the German immigration to Texas, titled TEXAS VICTORY. It was published in 2003.

In 2009, THE HORSE THIEF AND THE LADY, was published by Treble Heart Books, Sundowner Division. Inspired by stories handed down by his great grandfather, Denzel penned a story of vengeance in Texas before, during and after the Civil War.

As HORSE THIEF ends the hero Mitt Stone is only twenty-one years old, way too young to leave on a shelf forever. LAST RACE SUNDAY uses Mitt Stone and buddies to carry out a desperate manhunt in a setting seldom used in historical fiction: The early churches struggle against the corrupting influence of racetracks and their inherent gambling.

Denzel and his wife of fifty years, Margie, make their home in Belton, Texas, which served as the setting community for LAST RACE, based on the history of the town. They are active members of Belton s First Baptist Church, the same one depicted in the novel.