Safely Buried [Kindle Edition]

John Pesta (Author)

Book Description

THE MYSTERY BEGINS. . . .

It was ten at night. I had just come off I-65, and my high beams lit her up from behind. She was walking along the road between dark, endless cornfields, and her right leg was in a cast. She wore denim shorts and a yellow tank top that didn’t quite reach the shorts. Without crutches, she moved as fast as she could on the gravelly shoulder. She would take a long step with her good leg, stiffly swing the cast forward the same distance, and immediately start the next step. Tilting jerkily, she looked as if she would fall with every stride. I crossed the centerline to give her more room to fall. Just as I was about to pass her, she glanced over her shoulder and stuck out a thumb.

When Phil Larrison, editor of a small-town newspaper in southern Indiana, picks up the hitchhiker, this chance encounter plunges him into a deadly mystery that he struggles to solve because he wants a big story for the paper. But the story turns out to be much bigger than he expects—and far more painful.

Editorial Reviews

Review

John Pesta weaves a web of intrigue and mystery that will keep you up well after midnight to reach the satisfying conclusion.
--Thomas Hoobler, coauthor with Dorothy Hoobler of "The Crimes of Paris"

See customer reviews on Amazon.com.

From the Back Cover

It was ten at night. I had just come off I-65, and my high beams lit her up from behind. She was walking along the road between dark, endless cornfields, and her right leg was in a cast. She wore denim shorts and a yellow tank top that didn't quite reach the shorts. Without crutches, she moved as fast as she could on the gravelly shoulder. She would take a long step with her good leg, stiffly swing the cast forward the same distance, and immediately start the next step. Tilting jerkily, she looked as if she would fall with every stride. I crossed the centerline to give her more room to fall. Just as I was about to pass her, she glanced over her shoulder and stuck out a thumb. . . .

When Phil Larrison, editor of a small-town newspaper in southern Indiana, picks up the hitchhiker, this chance encounter plunges him into a deadly mystery that he struggles to solve because he wants a big story for the paper. But the story turns out to be much bigger than he expects--and far more painful.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 555 KB
• Print Length: 388 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1456344471
• Publisher: CreateSpace (February 20, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004TCJW2M
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,987 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Safely Buried" Delivers March 5, 2011

By Mystery lover

Format:Paperback

This is a great read -- wonderful storytelling, drama and characterization. I loved all the small-town characters and their quirks. They often made me laugh out loud. The mystery builds to a point where you can't put the book down until you find out the end. I was sad to finish it!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Delightful Read June 28, 2011

By Dino

Format:Paperback

A hitchhiker, a bunch of dead bodies and a nosy old-style newspaperman -- top-notch ingredients for a fast-moving mystery which takes some surprising twists, delves deep into local politics, and at times sent shivers down my spine (the ending--which set my teeth on edge--is suspense writing at its best). The story telling is superb, the writing crisp. Take it with you to the beach--you won't be disappointed. Can't wait for the next installment of Mr. Larrison's adventures.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A solid 3 stars---- but read on... May 9, 2012

By cave76

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I found this book satisfying enough to wait for Mr. Pesta's next book, if there will be one or more.

I liked it because of how 'sane' most of the characters sounded, even the murderer(s). (grin) Sorta ordinary people, if you can understand that.

I'm glad I stuck with it past the first few chapters. Then it settled down to be readable and entertaining.
Then, the scenes in the caves lost me again. Too long. Too confusing.

The ending seemed a bit rushed but not too bad.

As I said, I'll certainly try Mr. Pesta's next book. I think he has a lot of promise---- and (cringing!!) I hope I didn't sound patronizing since I am not a professional literary critic and appreciate those who can write.

More About the Author

JUDGES' STATEMENT ON "SAFELY BURIED" -- WINNER OF 2012 BEST FICTION BOOK OF INDIANA AWARD
SPONSORED BY INDIANA STATE LIBRARY'S CENTER FOR THE BOOK

Set in the low hills of southern Indiana, "Safely Buried" is a riveting mystery featuring newspaper reporter Phil Larrison, whose well-intended act of kindness soon lands him in a tangled web of murder and corruption. Author John Pesta gracefully balances strong character and plot development with an action-packed storyline. Though a first-time author, Pesta's background in journalism is readily apparent through his immense storytelling ability that rivals that of seasoned mystery writers.

While we would recommend this book to mystery enthusiasts, it is also a great book for novices due to its well-developed characters and swift, suspenseful pace. It is the ideal choice for the 2012 Best Fiction Book of Indiana award due to the book's entertaining, compelling, and suspenseful storytelling, as well as its setting in southern Indiana.



THREE AWARDS FOR "SAFELY BURIED"

Best Books of Indiana Contest sponsored by Indiana State Library, First-Place Award Winner (2012), Fiction category.

Independent Publisher Book Awards, Silver Medal (2012), Mystery/Cozy/Noir category.

London Book Festival, Honorable Mention (2012), Genre-Based Fiction category.



JOHN PESTA: SMALL-TOWN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER

"Safely Buried" is set in the low steep hills, or knobs, of south-central Indiana, where from 1972 to 1989 I was publisher and managing editor of The Brownstown Banner, a small newspaper. The Campbellsville Gleaner in "Safely Buried" is loosely based on The Banner, but Phil Larrison, editor of the Gleaner, leads a far more exciting life than I did as editor of the Banner.

There was some excitement, though. We had a school shooting before such events were big news--a student shot and killed the assistant principal of the high school near the entrance to the building. The Environmental Protection Agency shut down a recycling plant and classified it as a Superfund cleanup site. One morning a prominent citizen whom the police were chasing ran through the building to get away. He dashed through the front office, makeup room, mailing area, and press room, where he was arrested.

When my wife and I bought the paper, it was still using an ancient Linotype machine to set type. We also had some very loud Justowriters that produced justified columns of type mechanically. We quickly replaced these relics with electronic photocomposition equipment.

We also started Banner Cablevision, the first cable-TV system in Brownstown. Our main reason for doing this was to have a local news channel to get the news out to Brownstown residents more quickly than we could with the paper, which came out only two days a week. Our cable channel did not have a TV studio or a news reader. We used a character generator to put words on the screen for viewers to read.

The first time we put news on the Banner Channel, I marveled as the words appeared. I was struck by how much easier it was to report news this way. The possibilities were stirring. Maybe a year from now we could do real TV news. We could televise high-school basketball and football. We could set up a camera at public meetings. We could do man-on-the-street interviews. People would sign up for cable just to see themselves on TV. . . . I made myself stop dreaming. We had just built the cable system, and we were drowning in debt. Live TV news wasn't in the cards. Not yet anyway. The newspaper came first.

There was one big problem with the Banner Channel. It was hard for the typesetters to keep the cable news fresh. There just wasn't enough time. I added stories over the weekend, but we really needed to keep the news "up to the minute." As the next week unfolded, old stories were deleted and the news gradually disappeared. Only stories about events that had not yet occurred were allowed to keep running . . . events such as funerals.

Obituaries are the stock in trade of a small-town paper, and they soon became the stock in trade of the Banner Channel. By the end of the week there was usually nothing running but obits. The Banner Channel looked more like the Death Channel. But there was little I could do about it until later in the evening while I was waiting for ballgames to end and for our sports reporter and stringers to come in with their stories or phone them in. Until then I had a few hours to pound away on the character generator's clunky keyboard and get some new things on the screen. I loved it. I loved getting the news out at the speed of light.



THE REST OF MY LIFE

I was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where I attended Sacred Heart Grade School and Central Catholic High School. I went on to attend the University of Notre Dame, where all I wanted to do was study English literature and write. I became layout editor of two publications: The Scholastic, a weekly news-and-features magazine, and Juggler, a literary quarterly. In my senior year I was editor of Juggler. During the summer I worked as a reporter for the Call-Chronicle newspapers in Allentown.

The most important thing I learned in college was to think. Memorizing had gotten me through school quite well, and it was unsettling to discover that I needed to start using another part of my brain if I wanted to succeed in college. As for writing, the best advice anyone has ever given me came from a friend, Rick Farrell. One day we were in my room talking about our short stories, and in his soft polite voice he said he thought I should use less description and get inside the minds of my characters more. I did not argue. I knew he was right.

After graduating from Notre Dame, I married Maureen O'Hara, a "St. Mary's girl" with whom I had been obsessed since first setting eyes on her at a publications banquet. Our wedding was in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and we spent our honeymoon driving through the Appalachian Mountains to Charlottesville, where I enrolled in graduate school at the University of Virginia. Later I spent a year at the University of London on a Fulbright fellowship, and then I taught English at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. I enjoyed teaching, but the job left me little time to write, and so in 1970 I made a wrenching decision to resign my position and take a job with a chain of weekly papers based in Shelbyville, Kentucky. That job led to our purchase of The Brownstown Banner a year later.

Maureen and I still live near Brownstown. Our house and Maureen's art gallery are in the woods, which we enjoy sharing with squirrels, woodpeckers, and all the other critters. We have two children, both journalists, who live in New York. They're far away, but they're on the phone a lot.