Howard Owen Books In Order

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Publication Order of Willie Black Books

Publication Order of Littlejohn Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Howard Owen is an American born author from the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina. He is a thriller, fiction and mystery writer. He won the 2012 Hammet Prize awarded by the International Association of Crime Writers. Owen and his wife, Karen Van Neste Owen lives in Richmond city in Virginia, which is the setting for most of his writing and residence of Willie Black, one of his favorite fictional characters. In 1971 Howard Owen graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in journalism and later earned a master’s degree in English from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Howard Owen was an editorial page editor of the Free Lancer-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia and a sports editor at The Richmond Times-Dispatch. He retired as an editor and reporter. He wrote his first book, Littlejohn, in 1989 while working as a journalist at the age of 40. This book was bought and published by The Permanent Press in 1992. Random House later bought it from The Permanent Press and reissued it as an imprint hardcover in 1993 to Vintage Contemporary paperwork in 1994. Owen won Richmond Magazine’s Theresa Pollak award for words in2002. He later won the Hammett Prize in 2012.

The Reckoning

The Reckoning tells the story about Freeman Hawk and George James who were unlikely friends. Freeman came from a low-income family and full of violence where a great tragedy led to the loss of his father at the age of nine. George was from a soft-spoken, old-money Richmond. Fate brought them together as roommates in New Hope College. Before they left the college, Freeman was to convince his friend George that there existed a better world to be made and persuade him to temporarily abandon the smooth life that he lived as the Ham Prince of Richmond, Canada. The truth came in the town on the Vermont border, where George James no longer had trust in hawk or maybe in himself and delayed

George had a son Jake who experienced the loss and grief from the death of his mother to the accidental death of her dog. There is more that unveils between George and Jake once Carter (Jake’s mother) dies and Jake starts to act out of school making him be expelled from Magnet school and taken to another school. Andrea, his girlfriend, has an ex-boyfriend who bullies and threatens Jake. Freeman ends up as a person who has avoided military service (George ends up serving in the reserves with his family instead of going to the war). Hawk requests George whether he can stay with them for a while. George agrees, making his family to end up in several dangers that he brought them without knowing.

The Bottom

For the fourth time in just less than two years, a young woman has been brutally murdered. The body of this fourteen-year-old is found at Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom train station. She had a cartoonish tattoo on her ankle which made the cops and newspapers the killer the Tweety Bird Killer. After Willie Black discovers that the night security man at the station was tempted from his post by a phone call from Willie’s daughter some minutes before the body was dumped, the narration gets more personal and weirder.

At that time, Willie’s paper has a Case from a developer who wants to make another kind of killing. This area is where slaves were buried in unmarked graves, several of them yet to be discovered. The Bottom represents what Willie Black thinks as a stain. Richmond cannot wash away, but he and the paper are now under pressure to lay off his plan to make the land a real estate. When the cops arrest a photographer who worked at Willie’s paper, the evidence seems to be extensive evidence. The police chief dislikes him, and Willie does not seem to care about it. Willie starts to receive letters from a person who seems to know more about the murders.

At last, the photographer is released, and the town goes on a very high alert once again. Willie black becomes more suspicious about Wat Chennault’s intentions. He goes on with his job and gets some more. What he unveils changes things for The Bottom, his newspaper and his future. He is trying to go back into good terms with Cindy Peroni, seeking to persuade her that he eventually has a handle on his two-packs-a-day habits and his bourbon.
Rock of Ages

Rock of ages is the second book in Littlejohn series. Set in the sandhills of Northern Carolina Scotland County, Rock of Ages Owen’s eighth book continues the story of Littlejohn’s McCain’s lost daughter, Georgia who was first featured in the series debut novel Littlejohn. Georgia is one of the respected professors, the death of her husband occurs at almost the same time as her aunties’ and both her parents are gone and this forces her to take a leave of absence. She takes time and heads to a small town in North Carolina, where her aunt lived only to find her son Justin with his expectant girlfriend, Leeza.

Georgia’s misbehaviour is indefinite at first leaving the reader wondering whether this is good parental behavior, but the manner in which the writer develops her as the narration continues is terrific. Her homecoming is further made difficult by the death of her cousin Jenny McLaurin. Suspecting foul play, Georgia embarks on a quest to investigate her cousin’s death, and this provokes the wrath of a redneck who she dead sure that she stole Jenny’s land. Rich in diverse characters Rock of Ages is a murder mystery and also a haunting odyssey of redemption and citizenship

The first half of Rock of Ages is where Howard Owen is at his best. His depiction of the story’s villain named Blackwell is beautifully and articulately portrayed. Howard Owen has a cult following among readers of southern fiction and brings forth his formidable skills in crafting a character-driven story that should appeal readers who like reading character-driven crime narratives and southern fiction.

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