"For me, there are several variations on the "amazing reading experience."
- When you can't put a book down due to perfect plotting.
- When you find yourself caring deeply about its characters.
- When those characters are people who in real life you would shudder to have as neighbors and yet you still care.
- And this is truly the rarest of all and nothing short of an absolute gift. When every few pages you stumble across a one-liner that makes you smile, laugh, shake your head, and wonder just how long this writer can sustain this lovely train of thought.
Such is the wonder of Big Maria, the second novel, following Dove Season, by Johnny Shaw, which somehow manages to achieve all of the above and more." -- Blake Crouch
- When you can't put a book down due to perfect plotting.
- When you find yourself caring deeply about its characters.
- When those characters are people who in real life you would shudder to have as neighbors and yet you still care.
- And this is truly the rarest of all and nothing short of an absolute gift. When every few pages you stumble across a one-liner that makes you smile, laugh, shake your head, and wonder just how long this writer can sustain this lovely train of thought.
Such is the wonder of Big Maria, the second novel, following Dove Season, by Johnny Shaw, which somehow manages to achieve all of the above and more." -- Blake Crouch
Big Maria by Johnny ShawThere's gold in them thar hills - or more precisely, in Arizona's Chocolate Mountains, where one hundred years ago a miner stashed a king's ransom of the stuff. But times have changed. The world has changed. And now the Chocolate Mountains are the home of the largest military artillery range in the world.
Harry's living on disability and getting liquored up and beaten down. Frank's a feisty old-timer battling cancer and a domineering daughter. And Ricky's a good kid in a bad spot, doing everything for family. Together they're staking what little they have left on a dangerous quest to the Big Maria Mine - and the gold that can offer them a new beginning.
Unfortunately a meth-dealing biker wants a piece, a trigger-happy AWOL soldier wants to play chicken in a live minefield, two stubborn burros want to go home, a starving mountain lion wants his dinner, and the US Army wants to rain on our heroes' parade with real bombs.
When you're all out of crazy ideas, you've got to try the stupid ones.
Imagine Chuck Palahniuk and Don Winslow's love child - and that would be ribald author Johnny Shaw. His novel Big Maria is a unfiltered, wild romp in which three men get one chance to find a lost gold mine; the only problem is the Big Maria Mine is right in the middle of a US Army artillery range.
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Meet the Author
Johnny Shaw was born and raised on the Calexico/Mexicali border, the setting for his debut novel, DOVE SEASON. Although he has been writing for over twenty years, it took that same amount of time for him to finally revisit and explore the people and places of the Imperial Valley, California and the Desert Southwest.
He returns to the area in his new novel BIG MARIA, a raucous adventure set in Blythe, California and Arizona's Chocolate Mountains.
Johnny also acts as the editor-in-chief and is a frequent contributor for the online fiction quarterly BLOOD & TACOS, a loving homage to the men's adventure paperbacks of the 1970′s & 1980′s.
Johnny received his MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA and over the course of his writing career has seen his screenplays optioned, sold and produced. As a playwright, his stage collaborations with actor Jaime Arze, NATURAL ACTS and A GOOD KIND OF CRAZY, have been performed throughout Los Angeles.
For the last ten years, Johnny has taught screenwriting. He has lectured at both Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara.
He is the owner of Johnny's Used Books, formerly a brick-and-mortar bookstore in Los Angeles, now entirely online.
Johnny lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, artist Roxanne Patruznick.
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