Book Characters: They Are the Worst Characters

Publisher Marketing: THE JAKE CARD MYSTERIES The series where freedom of speech makes its last stand against the forces of political correctness, which is government-controlled speech and government-controlled behavior. Jake Card had enough to worry about even before a crazy old writer hires him to find one of his "book characters," a very real-looking girl who promptly steals the only decent car he has owned in years. He soon finds the car at a used car lot owned by a dangerous giant of a man who turns out to be the girl's bedmate when she's not too busy stealing cars and hiding from the angry owners. Calling the cops does no good. The one who finally arrives sides with the girl and tells Card he hopes he never gets his car back. He also tells Card that he and his cop buddies will make his life miserable if he causes them any trouble. Card decides to get even with everybody by getting a war started between the cops, the car thieves, and the crazy old writer and his "book characters," who shoot real bullets but usually at the wrong people. If you are tired of hearing your friends tell about the time they drove hundreds of miles just so they could stand in the snow outside the glass walls of a morning show and wave at that girl who later got fired, let Card and Van Holt's other tough private detectives entertain you. Contributor Bio:  Holt, MR Van What some reviewers have to say about Van Holt's writing: "I had a feeling that Van Holt...might actually be the successor to Zane Gray, a master Western storysmith, whose novels set the style of a generation." --Stern0 "Van Holt is King of the Spaghetti Western..." --Rarebird1 Step aside Louis L'Amour, another great Western writer is here... --Heather Van Holt wrote his first western when he was in high school and sent it to a literary agent, who soon returned it, saying it was too long but he would try to sell it if Holt would cut out 16,000 words. Young Holt couldn't bear to cut out any of his perfect western, so he threw it away and started writing another one. A draft notice interrupted his plans to become the next Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour. A tour of duty as an MP stationed in South Korea was pretty much the usual MP stuff except for the time he nabbed a North Korean spy and had to talk the dimwitted desk sergeant out of letting the guy go. A briefcase stuffed with drawings of U. S. aircraft and the like only caused the overstuffed lifer behind the counter to rub his fat face, blink his bewildered eyes, and start eating a big candy bar to console himself. Imagine Van Holt's surprise a few days later when he heard that same dumb sergeant telling a group of new admirers how he himself had caught the famous spy one day when he was on his way to the mess hall. Holt says there hasn't been too much excitement since he got out of the army, unless you count the time he was attacked by two mean young punks and shot one of them in the big toe. Holt believes what we need is punk control, not gun control. After traveling all over the West and Southwest in an aging Pontiac, Van Holt got tired of traveling the day he rolled into Tucson and he has been there ever since, still dreaming of becoming the next Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour when he grows up. Or maybe the next great mystery writer. He likes to write mysteries when he's not too busy writing westerns or eating Twinkies. Warning: Reading a Van Holt western may make you want to get on a horse and hunt some bad guys down in the Old West. Of course, the easiest and most enjoyable way to do it is vicariously-by reading another Van Holt western. Van Holt writes westerns the way they were meant to be written.