The Fixer

A West Texas Noir Thriller

Tom Archer is a killer for hire, but he doesn't work for the cartel. He works for the ranchers.

In the empty expanses of West Texas, where the law moves too slow and cattle thieves move too fast, the Cattlemen's Association has a man who solves problems that require distance, precision, and a .308 rifle. For three years, Tom has been making bodies disappear into canyons and leaving two stones stacked as his signature. Eleven kills across three counties. Not a single charge has stuck.

When Keller Nash hires Tom to stop the rustlers bleeding his ranch dry, it should be another clean job. Two kills. Message sent. Problem solved. But Nash's wife Grace sees what Tom really is—a man who solves problems with violence. And Grace's fifteen-year-old son Willie is watching, learning lessons about guns and justice that Grace never wanted him to know.

Then the thieves come back with ten men and five trucks. Behind them: Victor Garza, an El Paso operator with cartel connections who doesn't forgive theft and doesn't negotiate with hired guns. Tom burned Garza's feedlot. Cut the fuel lines on Garza's trucks. Stole back forty head of Nash's cattle. Now Garza is sending men with Suburbans and rifles to finish what Tom started.

And Texas Ranger Joseph LeFors has been building a case for two years. Ballistics connect thirteen bodies across three counties to the same rifle. The same firing pin marks. The same two stones stacked on each kill. LeFors knows Tom's signature. He knows Tom's pattern. And LeFors finally has the evidence he needs.

Tom Archer can't run forever. Can't kill forever. Can't keep teaching Willie that violence solves problems. But Garza won't stop until Tom is dead. The law won't stop until Tom is in Huntsville. And Grace won't stop until Tom is off her property and out of Willie's life.

Some problems can't be solved with bullets and stones. Some can only be survived.

THE FIXER is a hard-boiled crime thriller in the tradition of Elmore Leonard and John D. MacDonald—tight prose, moral complexity, and a West Texas landscape where justice is measured in calibers and consequences.

For readers who loved No Country for Old Men, Hell or High Water, and Justified.