Goodnight, Texas
by William J. Cobb (Unbridled Books, $24.95)

"That September Gabriel Perez arrived late for work as a hand aboard the Maria de las Lagrimas. The bonewhite fifty-footer was at the boat basin in Goodnight, moored in its boatslip under a blue-eyed sky. Laughing gulls floated and jeered above it. The morning wind already furrowed the waves of Red Moon Bay into sliding jade trenches topped with frothy whitecaps. The captain, an Anglo named Douglas, sat on the tailgate of his rusting pickup, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. He had an Abe Lincoln beard, ears like conch shells, and the skin of weathered planks.… Gabriel pulled his El Camino in beside him and got out, held his cigarette in his lips, tucked his rubber boots under one arm, and took the keys from the ignition. He walked up to Captain Douglas, squinting from the smoke drifting into his eyes. Across the street a terrier barked, chasing a sooty cormorant from its perch on a creosote post. A Latina woman in an apron stood a few feet away, tossing french fries to the bird, who caught them in its beak. Gabriel set down his boots and took the cigarette from his mouth. Sorry about being late, he said. Car wouldn't start.

The captain sipped his black java and squinted back, looking up at Gabriel and into the sun. Save your heartfelt sagas of mechanical failure for some other job, he said, his voice boozer rough. This morning arrives the proverbial pink slip." --excerpted from the book