The Creed of Violence [Hardcover]

Boston Teran (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2009

Mexico, 1910. The landscape pulses with the force of the upcoming revolution, an atmosphere rich in opportunity for a criminal such as Rawbone. His fortune arrives across the haze of the Sierra Blanca in the form of a truck loaded with weapons, an easy sell to those financing a bloodletting.

But Rawbone’s plan spins against him, and he soon finds himself at the Mexican-American border and in the hands of the Bureau of Investigation. He is offered a chance for immunity, but only if he agrees to proceed with his scheme to deliver the truck and its goods to the Mexican oil fields while under the command of Agent John Lourdes. Rawbone sees no other option and agrees to the deal—but he fails to recognize the true identity of Agent Lourdes, a man from deep within his past.

As they work to expose the criminal network at the core of the revolution, it is clear their journey into the tarred desert is a push toward a certain ruin, and the history lurking between the criminal and agent may seal their fates.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Teran's cinematic fifth novel portrays the 1910 Mexican revolution via the gun sights of an unlikely duo: Rawbone, a hardened smalltime assassin, and John Lourdes, a Bureau of Investigation agent. The two are thrown together when Rawbone is caught smuggling munitions from Texas into Mexico and Rawbone's lawyer arranges a deal: immunity in exchange for Rawbone sharing his criminal intel. A bargain is struck, with Lourdes assigned to accompany Rawbone into the Mexican underground. The twist: Lourdes, unknown to everyone but himself, is Rawbone's son. As the two men make their way through a snake's nest of smugglers, thugs and professional killers, Lourdes must suppress the angst he feels toward his father and focus on surviving another day. While this bit of dramatic irony quickly wears thin, father and son share a sharp wit, cunning instinct and thirst for adventure that make this spy mission the very definition of a thrill. Teran's fast-paced prose reads like it was written for the big screen (Universal scooped up the film rights), and even if the moralizing about U.S. foreign intervention gets heavy-handed, this remains an intelligent page-turner. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Praise for The Creed of Violence:

"Boston Teran's The Creed of Violence is a terrific story and beautifully written. It works as a story about imperialism, and it's also a touching tale of fathers, sons and one very bad man's attempts at regeneration. But most of all it's exciting and tense and you'll probably read it, as I did, in one great sitting." —Robert Ward, author of Red Baker and Four Kinds of Rain

“Teran’s considerable skills sneakily transform his characters, who use language like a concealed weapon. His Rawbone, a raconteur straddling the gutter between the old West and belle époque, is a Manila line braided with wit, cold-blooded efficiency, and a surprisingly expansive soul—a romantic cynic too wise to misinterpret derision for insight. The hallucinogenic epic he traverses with young John Lourdes produces one of the most exciting literary pairings since Fagin met Twist.” —Todd Field

Praise for God Is a Bullet:

“Ranks with Joan Didion’s The White Album . . . and John Ford’s classic film The Searchers.” —The San Francisco Examiner

“A millennial morality play . . . that might well have been written by William Blake [and] James Ellroy . . . if they’d all sat around with a few gallons of absinthe.” —Dallas Morning Herald

Praise for Never Count Out the Dead:

“Cements Teran’s talent as a . . . virtuoso.” —Publishers Weekly

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; First Edition edition (October 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582435251
• ISBN-13: 978-1582435251
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #480,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Boston Teran Visceral Poet, October 1, 2009

By 

Charlene Crandall - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Creed of Violence (Hardcover)

The manuscript to THE CREED was leaked from publishers to movie scouts to film producers because it was a dynamite read. That's how I got a copy. Let me tell you. Boston Teran is an American original. He is a literary dramatist and literary painter without peer.

THE CREED is about a father and son. The elder is a murderer, the younger an agent for the Bureau of Investigation. Their journey together is to take a truck loaded with ammunition through Mexico during the Revolution of 1910 to the oil fields of Tampico.

THE CREED is thrilling. It is humane, filled with pathos and humor, it is political, social, totally relevent to our present war in the Middle East and it is, above all, blow out rock and roll artistry.

What's the line from that old classic - Who is that masked man? Some say Teran is not even a man, but a woman using a cover. Doesn't matter. The book is a knockout. Teran walks alone.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enter War for Oil? It Happened 100 Years Ago!, October 22, 2009

By 

Glenda A Bixler "Glenda" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Creed of Violence (Hardcover)

I love unusual and The Creed of Violence by Boston Teran is unusual for various reasons. One is that the two main characters are father and son; however, the father does not know that the younger man is his son until close to the end of the book. The author emphasizes the relationship over and over by often eliminating the use of their names, choosing instead to refer to them as "the father" or "the son." For this reader, it forced me to look more closely at their dialogue and actions and to carefully examine the interrelationship shifts and changes. A truly unique experience that I thoroughly enjoyed!

Another unusual thing was that Teran wrote in a foreword statement that he would leave it to the reader's judgment whether our present political and military situation parallels the world upon which his novel was built. Doing this, of course, also forces the reader to verify or deny those parallels. Even before I started to read, I was sure there would be!

Rawbone was born in Scabtown and raised in a brothel. He was not yet 10 when he killed his first man. His son considered him a common assassin.

His son thought he hated him because he had left he and his mother. Perhaps, though, he had grown stronger because of his father--because John Lourdes was a respected officer of the Bureau of Investigation. And he wanted to be the cause of his father's death...

Now he had his chance. In his latest escapade Rawbone had killed all of the men who were driving a large truck--full of guns and ammunition. Rawbone had planned on selling the load to the highest bidder, checking in with his lawyer as to how that could be best accomplished. He sent him to Juarez to meet with "very private people."

John Lourdes was already working in that area. So was his boss, Justice Knox, who was at the right place at the right time to capture Rawbone. In fact, his son was one of the agents who now had him under arrest. But then, Rawbone had something to trade...

It made John sick to think that his father could earn immunity. What was worse, because he was the only agent who was bilingual, John was going to have to travel with Rawbone as he "worked off" his end of the deal. They would travel across the border, where John would have no authority; Rawbone could escape or kill him and nobody could prevent it! The only hold over him would be that John would have Knox's direct order to kill him if he posed any type of threat. Father and Son both had reason to protect each other--or to kill the other!

And they were heading deep into Mexican oil country--where representatives of American oil companies and governmental officials were meeting to increase bottom line profits--with oil, it's always the bottom line...

Boston Teran's The Creed of Violence is a tour into the deadly violence that erupts when power and money drive the actions of men, while others starve and barely make a living. With high tension between father and son while the action is sometimes slow-paced, it challenges readers to study the love/hate relationship as it evolves between the two men, as they fight to save their lives!

This tale will live with me--and maybe you--for a long time! Highly recommended!

G. A. Bixler

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Boston Teran's HEART OF DARKNESS, October 11, 2009

By 

Steve MM "Steve7" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Creed of Violence (Hardcover)

I came to THE CREED OF VIOLENCE by way of Boston Teran's other hit book out GIV-THE STORY OF A DOG AND AMERICA. It was not only a great literary work about a dog, it was a moving look into the soul of America, so I thought I'd give THE CREED a shot. It is about a father and son, alienated, who must take a shipment of arms together into Mexico during the Revolution of 1910. The plotline barely scratches the surface. The book goes from heart stopping to heart breaking and back again in nothing flat, it has a deep social conscious at the same time is has scathing black humor. It is about iconic American characters while it is a cautionary tale.

Imagine Joseph Conrad's THE HEART OF DARKNESS told with the style, drama and passion of Tchaikovsky's OVERTURE OF 1812. Reading these two great books reminds me of the first U2 concert I saw - I knew I was experiencing something totally unique.