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1940s: When I’d fled Texarkana before, I’d killed a man and was running for my life.I never imagined I’d go back.
Black Night Falling
What you need to know before your trail
Famous words from reporter Charlie Yates,still traumatized from the Texarkana killings only a few months earlier. He fled the town for his own sake and headed to the West Coast. But one phone call, one desperate pleading phone call, compels him to return.
Now in Hot Springs, AR, Charlie is back to get to the truth once and for all. To do the right thing before it’s too late and to get justice. The words of that phone call still ring in his ears – Dead Girls. Unfinished business
So Charlie is back in town to finish off what Texarkana started unless someone tries to finish him off first.
Locations
Reset- America/ USA
- A: AR - Hot Springs - airfield
- B: AR - Hot Springs - Bathhouse row
- C: AR - Hot Springs -Arlington Hotel
- D: AR - Hot Springs -Superior Bathhouse Brewery
- E: AR - Hot Springs -Lake Hamilton
- F: AR - Texarkana Sign and courthouse
- G: AR -Texarkana - Hotel Grim
- H: AR - Texarkana Union Station
- I: AR - Texarkana - Police Station
- J: AR - Texarkana - Pine Street
Travel Guide
Rod Reynolds’ top five travel tips:
Hot Springs: 1) Everyone starts at Bathhouse Row – the main drag in the centre of town which is home to both the historic bathhouses which were the town’s original attraction, and over the street, the drinking and gambling clubs that came to define the town in the 40s.
2) The Ohio Club – Also on Bathhouse Row and the only one of the clubs still serving as a drinking den. Many of the original interior features are still there, and the place oozes noirish 40s charm.
3) The Arlington Hotel – Featured in Black Night Falling, and still a working hotel in real life. The glamour has certainly faded, but there are still plenty of reminders of the glory of its heyday.
4) Lake Hamilton – A setting for one of Black Night Falling’s most dramatic scenes. A truly beautiful area of small islands and man-made waterways, created when the Carpenter Dam was built further up the Ouachita River.
5) The Superior Bathhouse – You can go inside most of the original bathhouses (one is even a working spa to this day), but the Superior has been converted into a micro-brewery that makes and sells delicious beers. Get the five-beer sampler – it’s the least you deserve after all that trekking!
Streetview Maps
B) Hot Springs - Bath House Row
D) Texarkana - the state line sign
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
If you thought The Dark Inside was a one hit wonder, fear not, as the BNF, the initials of the novel actually stand for (Rod Reynolds – sharp writing, a setting you never forget and heart pumping tension?) Bloody Never Fails
If I wasn’t sweating at the start of the novel with the Arkansas sun beating on my back, then by a few pages in I was. Returning to a place you’re afraid of, no one there to meet you. Jesus I would have left then, but Charlie is compelled to answer the call for help and so goes right ahead.
Welcome back to Texarkana and to that little town of Hot Springs. Where the line in the dusty country roads between the law and the lawless is so blurred, you’ve be forgiven there was even a line to start with. From the very first page, as Charlie’s plane starts its descent into Arkansas, the heat of fear, foreboding and danger smacks you in the face and knocks you for six.
Dead man walking? That was my first thought. This book starts where the first one left off – I’d been holding my breath and then BAM this second wind comes fast. I felt sick as I realised what Charlie was getting into, nervous and yet excited al the same – now that’s a sign of a character who’s more than made his mark.
Now, this book is a sequel and for the full impact should be read as one really. It’s like a powder keg going off and well, where’s the fun in that if you haven;t seen the spark being lit?
The old school noir is back – yes sir – and I ain’t gonna tell you again – and the ‘gang’ from last time have certainly not let the grass grow from under them. People have been busy, people have been talking
Charlie now has more than a point to prove, more than one story to get straight but the threads of the case are wound so tightly you wonder how on earth he’s ever going to get there, or even if he will. Imagine a fly in a spider’s web getting closer and closer but no sign of that spider. Then Blackness.
This is not just how Charlie is in this novel, but how I felt. It’s a pacey read, a journey to the truth with as many blind alleys and side streets along the way that you feel dizzily excited you’re onto something.
The setting, the visceral landscape and the pitch perfect language used to describe it – everything draws you right into the time, story and characters.
The pace never lets up and it’s one slap surprise in the face after the other.
I don’t think a book has ever left me so bruised yet hungry for more.
If you thought his debut was good, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: Black Night Falling
Author/Guide: Rod Reynolds Destination: Arkansas, Hot Springs Texarkana Departure Time: 1940s
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