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Since the Newhall Incident of 1970, in which four CHP officers were murdered in a shootout w/two felons, there has been circulating a misleading story of how one of the officers paused to pick up his brass empties during the shootout, as this was a practice that had apparently been utilized during training sessions.  One need only examine the LASO crime scene diagram, later used as a courtroom exhibit - and cited in my book: "BRANDISHING" (Amazon.com/e-book) -  to see the clear illustration of 6 discarded brass empties behind the driver's side door of the Pence/Alleyn unit.  In the opinion of more than one officer on the scene, this scenario of discarded brass being collected in the midst of a vicious shootout had been borrowed from another law enforcement shooting episode and blended into the recounting of the Newhall Incident during CHP training sessions. Whether this was deliberate or unconscious on the part of the training officers, there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE from the crime scene diagrams, photos, or official testimony to support this myth.  Therefore, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it's time to lay this myth to rest, as the crime scene diagram appears to be the clearest and best evidence.

On this Halloween Day, RIVERWALKER concludes its 60-day virtual book tour with a review by Roberto Mattos at Books and Movies Reviews.   Some snippets from Mr. Mattos' review are as follows: RIVERWALKER "will captivate your attention from the beginning, and you will finish reading it at the edge of your chair;"..... "a magnificent job on the construction of the characters;"....."excellent entertainment;"..... "a very well-written thriller/paranormal/mystery story."  You can read the entire review at http://booksandmoviesreviews.blogspot.com

We trust you have enjoyed the tour, and thank you for following along.

Bud

P.S. We extend our thoughts and prayers to our fellow Americans on the east coast.

You should enjoy the interview today as "RIVERWALKER" travels to Blooding Book Reviews...in it I relate a tiny snippet from the memory bank.  Titled "There are only two story lines," it recalls my brief yet unforgettable experience with Roderick Thorpe, the author of Die Hard.   Come on by and give it a read...go to http://frankieblooding.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/guest-author-of-river-walker-there-are-only-two-story-lines  You will not be disappointed.

New York; New Jersey.....be strong.

"RIVERWALKER" is reviewed today by Mindy Wall at Books, Books, & More Books.  Among other things, Mindy states:

     "This is an excellent book with an enticing mystery that kept me spellbound,"... and ... "A fascinating blend of Aztec, Pagan, and other myths."   You can find us with Mindy Wall at Books, Books, and More Books  @ http://dream-reader-dreamer2229.blogspot.com

and our sincerest thank you to Mindy Wall for her review.

Remember you can find Bud Bradshaw's "RIVERWALKER" at www.amazon.com/kindle ; go to the search bar and enter book name and author

Curious about what I really think of "RIVERWALKER"'s Brother Bob?  Find out today (homage to Abe) when I spill the beans w/Susie Kline @ Motherhoot.  You can catch up with us at www.motherhoot.com

In the meantime, here's an excerpt from "RIVERWALKER", Ch. #16: Brother Bob.

".....Crystalline cobalt canopy.  Scattered poofs of cotton candy cloud drift lazily, delicate yet resilient, awaiting the dictates of the next whimsical breeze.

       In a small garden below, on a modest patch of soil outside the rectory of San Antonio’s San Fernando Church, a black clad figure pauses to stretch.  Fists to ears and elbows flared, Brother Bob Khymera plants his feet firmly on the ground and raises his face toward the sky, opening his eyes wide to drink in the glory of God's heaven.  Brother Bob reveled in the redolence of his spring garden, its orchestral insect sounds and kaleidoscopic florals; its solitude.

     The profound strains of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings flowed from behind the rectory door, spreading to comfort the air with its soothing message.  The adagio's dynamic broadened and spilled down a white marble stairway, unto the concrete patio below where two snails, at the convergence of their glistening mucous trails, prepared to conjoin heads.  The violins reached crescendo as the snails consumnated their courtship dance, shooting tiny darts into each other before connecting at the genital pores, oblivious to the garden, the world, and God’s Great Design.  Pirhouette and plie in bubbly slime.

     Observing it all, Brother Bob knelt into the seed and soil for a closer look.  He would move Helix Aspersa to the other side of the building later, but for now he studied the two little creatures, noted their texture, color, softness, wondered at their silent language.  Fascinated, he watched them glide beneath the flowers and into the area he had recently tilled, there to join a cluster of earthworms wriggling free from the freshly exposed dirt.  Snails and earthworms in miraculous choreography."

End of Excerpt

You can find "RIVERWALKER" at www.Amazon.com/kindle ; go to the search bar and first enter "Riverwalker", then "Bud Bradshaw"

Curious about the story behind the story titled "RIVERWALKER" ?  Then, please join us today for an interview at The Writer's Life...find us at http://thewriterslife.blogspot.com   Here's an excerpt from that interview:

Welcome to The Writer's Life, Bud.  Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how long you’ve been writing?

A: The first creative writing I managed to produce was in college, a few poems and songs.  It was the era of folk music-meets-the-Beatles, and everyone was suddenly a poet/songwriter, including me. If you could carry a guitar, you qualified; and I could, so I did.  It was a time of cafeteria coffee and pensive expressions, deep discussions over French-fries and 19-cent chiliburgers, love-ins and campus protests; all the while, like fingernails scraping across a classroom blackboard, the headlines screeched relentlessly of Vietnam while the politicians smiled and handed us our 1-A draft classification.  Eventually, I decided to enlist in the Army and, by January of ’69, was off to Fort Ord for basic training, and thereafter to the Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird, Maryland for their Special Agent course.  We were to be tasked primarily with conducting background investigations on Department of Defense personnel who required security clearances, and so were well-trained in interviewing techniques and well-structured report writing.  Operating from our field offices, we dressed in suits and ties, carried a badge and credentials.  During the course of conducting our investigations, our focus was on the subject’s loyalty, integrity, discretion, morals, and character – lidmac, as we referred to it; this constituted the main body of our reports, many of which proved to be, in fact, quite routine.  However, on occasion, some strange bird would lay an egg filled with derogatory information requiring us to follow up with highly-detailed reports.  These proved fascinating as they raised the curtain on a subject’s private life, often revealing a variety of trespasses including acts of sexual promiscuity, gambling, breaches of security, blackmail, questionable loyalty; there were cases involving prisoners of war, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse; all this ultimately generated narratives of incredible depth and drama.  Not only was it an intriguing writing experience, it imposed a daily discipline and provided much grist for the writing mill in the years to follow.   End of excerpt

For the balance of the interview, go to The Writer's Life at http://thewriterslife.blogspot.com  ; remember, "RIVERWALKER" is available at www.Amazon.com/kindle ; once there, go to the search bar and enter: Riverwalker, and Bud Bradshaw (there's another book w/the same title, but by another author)

Smiles,

Bud

Here's an excerpt from "RIVERWALKER", Ch. #14: Der Flussverfolger

"...Suddenly, Adler laughed out loud, very loud.  “Those old ghost stories,?” he smiled stiffly.  “I can’t believe you’re actually asking about something so silly, ancient legends concocted by the local Tejanos and Mexicanos.  Truth be known, they’re probably based on an old legend told by the people near here, in old Germantown, The King William District.  My father used to say it was a fairy tale often told in Germany.  According to him, after World War One, a legend arose in Germany about a young soldier with war wounds, a terribly shattered leg and face.  He had been a handsome man, but became so enraged at his disfigurement that he vented his anger on his family, his wife and son; abused them, terribly.  After his death his ghost supposedly prowled the Rhine River, howling, limping in pain, killing, and mutilating women and children.  The name of the story was “DER FLUSSVERFOLGER.”  The River Stalker. 

“My father, Heinrich, told me of the legend, but said it had no basis in fact.  He assured me nothing like that had ever happened in Germany.  And any connection between that stupid story and the murders here in San Antonio after World War Two is just a by-product of the local Tejano imagination. The Tejanos around here just borrowed the German legend and added their own twist.  Called it La Bestia del Rio."

End of Excerpt

Please remember, you can order Bud Bradshaw's "RIVERWALKER" @ www.amazon.com/kindle 

Following up to the previous post, here's the review for "RIVERWALKER" as posted by Lynelle Clark on her site, http://lynelleclarkaspiredwriter.blogspot.com

"This would make a great Thriller movie.  Inspired from the very first page, it kept your attention to the end.  It's been a while since I've read such a gripping story with an interesting plot that kept you thinking:  the rich history from the Alamo, Aztecs, and Hitler, intertwined with child slavery, mutilation, pornography, intersexual dysfunctions.....the warped thoughts of a sick father that spilled over to his son, generation after generation, until it bleeds into a river running through the city, leaving mutilated bodies of children behind in its wake; filled with seers, both psychic and spiritual, to lead you to the end; grisly tattoos sketch the story beautifully..... the after-effects on a man who chose a different path, willing himself to finally cut the generational evil to begin anew.   The rich characters - from the detectives to the newspaper reporter, the Madame, even the children - kept you glued, demanding your attention, strong and calculated characters that brought their own unique touch to the story.  A great read for anyone who loves a good thriller with a touch of history and the mystic, the author's background and knowledge can be seen throughout the book, set and detailed in a well thought out plot.

Well done, Bud Bradshaw."

And my thanks to you, Lynelle clark!  BB

Please join us today for a "RIVERWALKER" book review and guest post hosted by Lynelle Clark at Aspired Writer.  You can find us at http://lynelleclarkaspiredwriter.blogspot.com/

In the meantime, here's an excerpt from Chapter #16, Brother Bob, taken from Bud Bradshaw's "RIVERWALKER" on  www.amazon.com/kindle 

"...Brother Bob sat next to Victor and listened to him tell of the cute little Guadalupe, her pretty little dress, the harmless play they had engaged in.  When the girl began to cry, Victor said, he was taken aback, surprised at her reaction.

     As Victor spoke, his eyes glistened, jumped animatedly with excitement.  He had met Guadalupe on the playground of her school.  Shorter than other boys his age and unimposing in appearance, Victor presented a non-threatening persona to Guadalupe and her friends, so the offer of candy had worked as expected.  With a promise of more, Victor persuaded her to go with him, leading her away from playmates to an isolated corner of the schoolyard where they continued around the corner of the main building and dropped from sight.  Victor said he had followed his instructions precisely.

     “Your instructions,?” Brother Bob asked carefully.  “Who told you to do this?  Who told you to approach this little girl?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Victor whined.  He hunched his shoulders and pulled his knees together.

     Brother Bob didn’t want to frighten the boy.  He suspected Victor was the victim of some kind of coercion involving money or gifts for favors, at the hand of an adult.  Having had his share of experience with counseling children in this condition, he found them to be in competition with peers for not only the love and attention of adults they admired, but for material things.  The gamut ran from money and toys to nice clothes, food, and expensive outings; sometimes drugs.  Often, the child would be warned against approaching the authorities, even threatened with physical harm.  It wasn’t uncommon for kids in this predicament to resist questioning.  Brother Bob decided to proceed gently but firmly.

     “Victor, it’s best if you tell me who asked you to do this.  I can-”

     “No!”  Victor blurted out.  “He told me I better not say anything to anyone about this.   He said -” the boy sobbed, clutched his face with his hands.  “He said that he would just tell everyone the whole thing about the little girl was all my idea, and that he’d cut off my penis and throw it away if I told.  He said - he said if I talked about this, he’d kill me.”  The boy buried his head in his lap and covered it over with his arms and hands.

The words smacked Brother Bob in the face like the back of a cold, bloody hand. "

End of Excerpt

Remember, you can order Bud Bradshaw's "RIVERWALKER" at www.amazon.com/kindle

Recently, Teresa Morrow was kind enough to guest me on her site for an author interview.  A fine site it was, and a real privilege to join her.  I strongly recommend you travel to www.teresamorrow.com for a beautiful presentation on writing and all things related.  In case you haven't read the interview but would like a sample, I'm entering a portion of it here.  You only need go to Teresa's site for the balance.

INTERVIEW for Bud Bradshaw

www.teresamorrow.com

Please share about your background (where you were born, where you grew
up, siblings/family dynamic, career background , where you live now, etc.)

After high school - where the only things that seemed important were football, baseball, and staying away from home - I tackled the Big Road at age 18, attended college for 2 ½  years as an art major, then enlisted in the Army during the height of the Vietnam war.  After serving as a Special Agent with the 109^th M.I. Group in Baltimore, Maryland, for almost three years (conducted field interviews for background investigations on Department of Defense personnel and wrote the accompanying S.A. reports), I returned to civilian life and resumed college, this time with a double major in music and pre-professional studies.  The 1970s brought nights working as a musician while finishing school during the day; graduating in ’79 with B.S. and D.C. degrees, then working as a clinician in Glendale until 1985 while developing a parallel art business.  Later, my writing consisted of med-legal reports and disability evaluations for the State of California.   Not very often would the military writing or med-legal writing produce anything even approaching that which a reader might deem exciting.  For the most part, it was pretty dreary stuff.     

What inspired you to begin writing?

My inspiration for writing definitely has its roots in all the reading I did, beginning in my elementary school years.  I was usually rated first or second in my class in reading, thanks in large part to my supplemental home reading, which consisted of children’s classics as well as the adult adventure/true-crime magazines.  While most of the classroom reading focus was on “See Spot Run” and “Dick and Jane”, my nights were spent hours poring over such stories as the Black Dahlia murder, tales of World War II, and hunting grizzlies in Alaska.    

Later, in junior high, I completed a notebook on all the American presidents, including pen and ink portraits of each; my teacher showed it to the principal who gave me a congratulatory comment along with an A+; then, the same with a Civil War notebook.  In high school we were exposed daily to the literary classics, poetry, Greek mythology.  Though in those years I never took grades seriously, these courses were, to me, far more engaging than studying parts of speech or diagramming sentences; there was something else here; other considerations, such as form, structure, character development; it was writing with a purpose. In my early college days, I was to explore song writing and poetry, though nothing on a significant scale.

After my Army experience, the 1970s to me were a blur of work and serious study: guitar, composition, orchestration, arranging, etc in the music department, while at the same time tackling anatomy, physiology, chemistry, biochemistry, pathology, neurology, etc, in the pre-professional studies.  By the time I finished my formal studies in 1979, the sight of a serious textbook was the last thing I wanted to see.  My pleasure reading at that time was American history, which dovetailed perfectly with the art business; so, it became historical art.  As the art activities increased, there surfaced a necessity to write historical blurbs to accompany my paintings and prints.  At this point, history and art and writing had become equal partners in my mind.   

 For many years I had been haunted by a story which would not let me go: the “Newhall Incident” of 1970, in which four California Highway Patrolmen were murdered in a shootout.  There seemed to be many questions which had not been answered and because I had met some people connected to the story, it pulled me in like a magnet.  Having long been intrigued by true crime stories, especially Joseph Wambaugh’s “Onion Field” and Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” I kept waiting for the CHP story to be told, but nothing happened.  No book.  No movie.  No TV special.  Why? I decided to answer that question.  After several years of research, including records reviews and interviews with family members of the fallen officers and people directly involved with the incident, I had my answers. My first book “BRANDISHING,” was the result.

By the time it was published, in September 2011, I was emotionally exhausted.  The next book, I knew, would have to be different.   Fiction.  That was the answer.  Less demanding. No more gut-wrenching interviews; no more shattered lives; no more morgue photos.

Please share about your book.

 A simple ghost story was what I originally intended, and always having liked ghost stories, I thought this should be a comparatively easy task.  As a foil for the supernatural, I selected a beautiful setting familiar to me, the River Walk attraction in downtown San Antonio, Texas.  The ghost of Jim Bowie of Alamo fame would prowl the river under cover of darkness, wielding his massive knife to mete out revenge for….…blah, blah, etc, etc.   After having pursued this line for some time, however, there just didn’t seem to be enough meat on the bone; the story was predictable, a real yawner.     

So, to step-up the intensity, the story’s ghost became a real-life monster, and his victims helpless children.   What motivates the monster? What is at the core of his discontent?  And what if the pursuing detective possessed a unique tool, something other detectives do not possess?  All these things – and more - gradually came into play as “RIVERWALKER” began to take shape as a story. 

There are depicted throughout “RIVERWALKER” episodes of physical abuse that have their historical foundation rooted in the history of the Aztecs as well as that of the ancient Norse.  The killer, Karl Wolff Adler - whose father was a child-abusing Nazi, while his step-mother was a bruja, a practitioner of the ancient religious rites of Mexico – has been profoundly influenced by both parents, and expresses his inner rage through horrific ritualistic practices.   To make these episodes convincing, I found much research was required; and though some sections seem particularly unreal, be assured that there is little that had to be imagined in terms of the abuse that has been heaped upon children down through the millennia.  Sadly, this abuse is an ever-growing scar on the face of humankind.  

The main characters:  Gifford Holloway, San Antonio Police Detective in pursuit of Adler, utilizes the controversial practice of Remote Viewing, and is able to bring this special gift to bear on his target; Salma Veramendi, a news reporter who, herself, was abused as a child and has a peculiar affinity for the river, enters the mix and gives an impressive account of herself during confrontations with Adler; Brother Bob Khimera, yet another abuse victim, has a unique outlook on the world and a special relationship with the killer.

From the pages of “RIVERWALKER” the reader may extract a number of topics for discussion or debate, chief among them:  1) child abuse, its extent and severity within families, how it is passed from one generation to the next, the international ramifications, and what can be done about it   2) the art and science of remote viewing, its capabilities and limitations, its historical utilization by the U.S. government, its potential for the future  3)  the merging of the traditional European catholic church with the old religion of ancient Mexico  4) the Intersex community, and its history  5)  the history of San Antonio and its River Walk attraction.  Any reader wishing to pursue any of these topics may find it helpful to refer to the Sources section at book’s end.  

If you travel to Teresa's site, be sure to give her my regards!  Many thanks to you all.  BB