Book Blast!! David Evans
Title: The Arkansas Connection
Author Name: David Evans
Author Bio:
David Evans is a Toronto-based pain consultant with an interest in all types of chronic, intractable non–cancer pain. An avid fly fisherman, crossword and Sudoko aficianado and global traveler, The Arkansas Connection is David’s first novel but he is hard at work on a second one!
Author Links –
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18334552-the-arkansas-connection?from_search=true
Giveaway – $25.00 Amazon Gift Card
Tags/Labels:contemporary fiction, The Arkansas Connection, moonshine, baseball, fiction novels, David Evans, virtual book tour cafe, authors on tour, book blog tours,
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Book Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Jemsdale Publishing
Release Date: February 21, 2013
Book Description:
Frank Munro, manager of the New York Mets, leads a turbulent life trying to win with a team of dysfunctional underachievers. Soon after the Mets lose the final game of the season, Frank finds out his mother has died, and he must return to his hometown of Catsville, Arkansas, to arrange her funeral. His attempt to give her remains a grand send-off results in mayhem, and out of pity his mother’s friend Alice invites him to a “tea party” with three other ladies, where the tea is actually moonshine. Frank gives them a play-by-play of that final game, and manages to survive the evening. He returns to New York to find the Mets’ owner has decided to give him one more chance.
Meanwhile, Bobby Sherward, a doctor-turned-right fielder who sustained a concussion from the fly ball and lost the Mets’ final season game, decides that his future is in medicine, not baseball. He takes a position at a veteran’s hospital in Arkansas. Upon arrival, he is amazed to find it’s within spitting distance of Frank’s hometown.
That’s not the only unsettling coincidence Bobby must contend with, for it soon becomes apparent that Broken Arrow Memorial is the medical equivalent of the Mets. Run by a psychotic medical director, the hospital is the home of indifferent or incompetent doctors, electro-convulsed patients, and assorted weird experiments.
Bobby soon has enough, but before he leaves town he encounters a remarkable sandlot baseball player named Jonathon Brown. Besides being a phenomenal player, Jonathon is also a mathematical genius who runs a highly successful investment group in the back room of a local diner.
Bobby manages to convince Jonathon to try out for the Mets, and his incredible skills both on the field and in finance bring him and the team fame and prosperity. But Jonathon also raises the ire of the brokerage firm losing customers to his sound investment advice. As a result, the company’s CEO makes plans to “eliminate” the new competition. Will Jonathon survive his trip to the big league, and complete the Arkansas Connection?
PLEASE NOTE: There are some suggestive scenes and swearing in the book- so it’s not for children.
Thanks
Excerpt One (300-500 or so Words):
The Arkansas Connection
by David Evans
Excerpt 1
The baseball season ended dramatically for Frank Munro, when he was ejected in the eighth inning of the final game of the regular schedule for saying unkind things about the first base umpire. At precisely the same time, Frank’s elderly mother, who happened to be watching the game in her home in Catsville, Arkansas, just as dramatically dropped dead from a heart attack in front of her television set.
Two days later Frank was airborne, heading south to attend his mother’s funeral. Frank hated flying, and the captain’s announcement that they would be running into a little turbulence only made him more nervous and depressed. His dark mood was not so much brought on by his mother’s death, which in many ways was a godsend, but by the fact that her funeral merely postponed his annual show-and-tell luncheon meeting with the team’s owner, Steve Conroy. Frank had been manager of the Mets for five years, and inevitably Steve would bring the meeting to an end by making the same demand: “Frank, give me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t fire you.” And Frank would just as inevitably answer that he didn’t have one.
This year was even more critical, because the team had managed to pull off one of its worst seasons since Steve had bought the club ten years previously. To make matters worse, the final game against the Giants would probably go down as one of the greatest debacles in the history of baseball.
Frank stared morosely into what was left of his third Scotch, and pondered the fate that had led him into managing such a bunch of dysfunctional, psychotic underachievers. The problem wasn’t that they lacked talent, but that most of their energy seemed to be directed toward their extracurricular activities – drinking, self-medicating with dope, beating up their wives and girlfriends, fighting in bars, and generally whoring around. Baseball just seemed to give them something to do between all the other stuff.
After landing in Dallas, Frank took a white-knuckle hedgehopper to Broken Arrow and rented a car for the last leg of the trip to Catsville. The airplane food and multiple Scotches had left him with heartburn and a major hangover, but he still felt a pang of unfamiliar nostalgia as he drove the eight miles down the road to his hometown. Besides being the home of Potter Plastics, the biggest employer and polluter in the county, Catsville was also a major trading center for the vintage moonshine liquor that was distilled in the pine forests surrounding the town. If you looked carefully as you drove down the winding road into the valley, you might see wisps of black smoke sneaking through the trees, indicating that there would soon be new product hitting the market.
For Frank right now, Catsville was a retreat where he thought he could relax, say a final good-bye to his mother, and hide for a couple of weeks from the New York media, which was vicious in its criticism of his handling of the team. Apart from the usual carping that he should never have been hired in the first place, there were more serious charges that cast aspersions on his birthright and sexual proclivities. One caller to a radio talk show, mixing him up with a serial killer of the same name, suggested he should have his testicles cut off and stuffed down his throat.
Excerpt Two (500-800 or so Words):
The Arkansas Connection
David Evans
Excerpt 2
Bobby did return the next week to watch the Tigers play against a team that apparently had no trouble with their septic tanks, the Brownwood Dodgers. The teams were made up mostly of young enthusiastic guys in their thirties trying to escape from their wives and kids for a night out with the boys. There were also some veterans, a few who had played in semi-pro leagues. Jonathon Brown stood out, both physically and athletically. He was twenty-two years of age, about six feet four inches tall with long, blond hair. Most women, Bobby thought, would consider him extremely handsome. He had the upper body of a heavyweight boxer and the legs of an Olympic sprinter, and seemed to glide over the field, defying gravity.
He played right field, and propelled the first ground ball that came to him like a radar-guided rocket to first base, to get the runner before he was halfway there. He moved effortlessly to the right or left, making impossible-looking catches and gathering up ground balls that were drawn to him like magnets to a refrigerator door. He was also impressive at the plate. He hit three monster homers and drove in eight runs. Bobby had to keep telling himself that this was a primitive team in a primitive league. In this company, even he might look like Willie Mays. Yet he had the feeling that Jonathon would look good in any league, including the Majors.
Bobby returned a number of times, and was never disappointed. The boy was good. Good enough that he was determined to call Frank Munro and try to get him to give Jonathon a trial. Of course, he had to talk to Jonathon first. For all Bobby knew, the guy might already have been scouted and have an agent. He knew that that even in a population of three hundred million, it was rare for someone with Jonathon’s talent to go unnoticed.
He was determined to do this after his next visit. As it turned out, he made a mistake reading the schedule and he didn’t watch Jonathon the jock perform but Jonathon the investment counselor. Having found the field bereft of baseball players, Bobby asked a gas station attendant where he might find Jonathon.
Monday nights you’ll find him in the back room at Betty’s Diner,” the attendant told him. “He runs some sort of club for people who want to get into the stock market. Can’t understand why anyone would want to chuck their money away like that. The bank was good enough for my grandfather and my father, and it’s good enough for me. Mind you, by the look of the cars they’re driving, they must by doing pretty good.”
Betty’s was about a mile out of town, an oasis in a wide expanse of cow pasture. There were about ten cars parked in front, and Bobby couldn’t help noticing that besides half a dozen of the ubiquitous half-ton pickup trucks, there were also a couple of fancy looking sport utilities, and even a Corvette and a Porsche. Betty was standing behind the counter reading the latest line on the nags running at Pimlico. There were no customers in the diner.
“I’m looking for Jonathon Brown,” Bobby said. “The guy at the gas station thought he might be here.”
“Yep,” she said, pointing a greasy finger to a door at the rear of the diner. “He’s got his meeting in the back room. Every month. Investments and things. Danged if I understand it, but some of those guys are now gentlemen farmers….Well, I dunno about gentlemen, but they’ve certainly given up shoveling shit for a living.”
“Do you think they’d mind if I went in?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. It ain’t exclusive or nothin’ like that.”
Bobby invested in a Coke and a multi-layered burger and fries, and quietly slipped into the back room. Jonathon was explaining the finer points of a graph thrown onto a screen by an overhead projector. He was dressed in black pants, a pure white shirt and a red tie. He was also wearing suspenders. There were about ten people in the audience taking notes.
Jonathon paused and acknowledged the presence of the stranger. “Can’t say I recognize you,” he said. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No,” Bobby agreed. “I came to see you play baseball, but got the days mixed up. I wanted to talk to you. Would you mind if I sat in until you’re finished? If not, I’d be quite happy to sit in the diner…. ”
“No, no,” Jonathon insisted, “stick around, by all means. We’re talking stocks and stuff, so it may be a bit boring. Baseball it ain’t.”
Bobby sat down and listened for two hours, fascinated by a discussion surrounding the stock market potential of about twenty small to medium-sized companies. All were listed on various stock exchanges around the country. As far as Bobby could tell they were mostly computer companies, but there were also a couple of banks and oil and gas companies.
Each member of the club apparently had the responsibility of assessing at least one stock. This assessment meant reading annual reports, scanning the major business papers for articles or mere mentions. Specific trade journals would be scanned. Especially important was the strength of management, earning potential, product uniqueness and market share. Often a member would actually go to the town where his company was located. He would look at the plant and watch for activity. If possible, he would inveigle his way into the plant and observe production lines. He might also pick up some local gossip as to how the company was doing. All this information was given to Jonathon. He would then plug that information plus some of his own ideas into a computerized model that he himself had developed, to give a bottom line: Buy or Sell.
Vampires, Werewolves and Demons. Oh My! 
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Happy Holidays
Great post, and interesting book!