The Aramis Black Mysteries - Eric Wilson

The Best of Evil

Don't let Evil

Get the best of you

Get the best of Evil

By doing Good.

Romans 12:21


"Live by the Sword" - "Die by the Sword" Aramis Black's former creed is tattooed into his hefty forearms. But he's forsaken all of that and put his violent life in Portland behind him. He's moved to the heartland of country music- Nashville - to live with his brother Johnny Ray, who's fighting for his shot to be a country music star.

Aramis opens a little espresso shop and begins to put his past behind him. Better a coffee junkie than what once was. But on a seemingly normal day in the shop, a man is shot and killed. His last words to Aramis: "I need the whip....Spare your soul and turn your eyes from greed." BLAM! A dead man in his coffee shop. But not just any dead man. A dead man whose last words were a direct quote of last word Aramis heard his mother speak before she was murdered.

Way too strange to be coincidental...especially considering that a handkerchief that belonged to his mother had arrived via FedEx earlier that day. Aramis finds himself thrust into a mystery. How does all this tie back to his mother? As the plot thickens, he unravels a centuries-old conspiracy involving a hidden treasure and one of his mother's famous ancestors, Meriwether Lewis.

But mysteries aren't the only thing unraveling in Aramis's world. He's forced to confront both his father, with whom he has a troubled past, and his uncle, who he blames for his mother's death. And what keys do they play in the mystery? But one thing is coming out of all this. In the wake of the shooting, he has found himself to drawn to one of his employees, Brianne. Sparks fly, and the two hit it off...a budding romance in the midst of so much mystery.

Aramis isn't the only one trying to unravel that mystery. The man in his coffee shop died for a reason. Someone wants the treasure for himself. Aramis must put together the clues and solve the mystery while keeping himself and his loved ones safe from the killer. Being thrown back into the violence of his past threatens his new-found life. Can he conquer evil? Or will evil get the best of him?

A Shred of Truth

He was a killer

From the very start

He couldn't stand the Truth

Because there wasn't

A Shred of Truth in him.

John 8:44

Black is back in a whole new adventure. Less than a year after the events of The Best of Evil, Aramis Black finds himself living with a bona fide country music star. Johnny Ray Black has finally hit the big time and is ready to take his show on the road. They were celebrating on the north end of Nashville's Music Row when Johnny Ray disappears. Aramis finds him lashed to a statue, with the intitals AX carved into his back. It quickly becomes clear that someone else is after the Lewis treasure, just as The Best of Evil. But this time the game is more personal.

And all of this just as Aramis was beginning to pick up the pieces of his life once again. He'd even enrolled in college, and was taking a class on truth and mythology. Now there's a killer on the loose and he is demanding one specific item. A ring. A Masonic ring belonging to Meriwether Lewis that may have ties back to the times of the Knights Templar. And he's holding the ultimate ransom: Aramis's mother.

Of course, it can't be Aramis's mother, right? Because he watched her die. Well, thought he watched her die. The body was never found. The killer and kidnapper leaves Aramis a string of clues in his attempt to prove he has Aramis's mother. He also involves a girlfriend from Aramis's past in his pursuit.

With an ever growing list of suspects, will Aramis be able to find the kidnapper and save his mother, if it's his mother? And if and when he does find him, will he react with the violence from his past or the new-found peace of the present?

---

Eric Wilson never ceases to amaze me. He writes with such a passion and precision that results in fully drawn out characters and realistic locations. But it's not just his descriptions that make his novels good. Sure, that's what you look for from a technical view, but when you go beyond that is when you discover his true genius.

The Aramis Black Mysteries are unique books. I've read very few authors that can convincingly and consistently pull off a book written in the first person. Wilson does this flawlessly. This unique approach gives the reader the mind and eyes of Aramis, allowing us to experience the mystery first hand.

His grasp of history (and theology) is immense. The hours of research show because he is able to tie his stories into so many true historical events. One is almost tempted to go to Nashville to look for Aramis's espresso shop.

Eric is also a master of the meta-arc. He draws together aspects from all of his previous novels and subtly ties everything together in a type of superstory. And somehow he does all this without sacrificing the individual natures of the books. If you've read one of Wilson's books and loved it, you will love it all the more when you read his other novels (and you must!). The tiny details, the little secrets, the small little loose ends....they all come together when you read his novels as a whole. From the standpoint as a reader, I find this absolutely mind-blowing. I'm not sure I could dream up ONE cohesive story, and yet Wilson has taken SEVEN threads and wound them into a yarn that I cannot put down.

I definitely recommend these books. The suspense is thick, the tension palpable, the conflict real. We can all put ourselves in Aramis's shoes. And Wilson's writing makes it all the much easier. Don't be surprised when the surprising happens, because this fast-paced plot will keep you turning pages well into the night and have you cheering for Aramis as he attempts to get The Best of Evil by finding A Shred of Truth.

Got your curiosity piqued? Gotta find out what happens now? Visit here and here to buy them now. Also you can check out Eric Wilson's website and visit the site of his current series Jerusalem's Undead Trilogy.

The Aramis Black Mysteries - Eric Wilson