“The epitome of a thriller” “Difficult to put down and highly recommended” “Packs a punch and in a good way” “Couldn’t put it down. Can’t wait for the next one.” The reviews on Amazon are starting to get posted. I love this one: Walker Holmes is a relatable character and has an adorable dog, Big…
Author: RMOutzen
Pensacola’s Adult Entertainment
While it may be hard to believe, Palafox Street, which the American Planning Association named as one of “10 Great Streets in America” in 2013, was one of the seedier parts of the Pensacola with strip clubs along its southern end, such as the Pelican’s Nest, Club Mardi Gras and Red Garter. Trader Jon’s also…
And the Murders Began: Julie Smith
“I feel like all American mystery writers are inspired by Raymond Chandler because we all read him. You cannot forget some of his phrases, his metaphors, his cadences, just his rhythm.”
Intermission: Where Walker gets punched
Child’s Restaurant stayed vacant for more than a decade across from the old Escambia County Courthouse on Palafox. For years, the restaurant was a favorite lunch spot for downtown merchants, attorneys, judges and county employees. Then in 1999, Geneva Davis and her son Mike Ashby bought the building from Clark Thompson for $225,000 and began…
Julie Smith: ‘The Big Crazy’
This week I interviewed mystery writer and New Orleans resident Julie Smith for an upcoming article for Inweekly and my new podcast series, And the Murders Began. Julie is a fellow Ole Miss graduate who wrote for both the Times-Picayune and San Francisco Chronicle. In 1991, Julie won an Edgar Allan Poe Award —presented every…
The Fish House
The restaurant has hosted presidents, governors, senators, congressmen and other celebrities. During the 2008 presidential election, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson held campaign fundraisers there. In 2012, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, with Sen. McCain and actor Jon Voight, held a rally on The Fish House deck, pictures of which appeared in the…
John Aloysius Cannon
The Ku Klux Klan is part of Blood in the Water. I originally had a chapter that explained Walker Holmes’ Mississippi roots and his family’s animosity towards the white supremacy group. I did considerable research into my great-grandfather, who was mayor of Greenville, Miss. at the time of the Mississippi flood in 1927. We have…
New York Nick’s
Reporters like bars. In New York City, Jimmy’s Corner Bar is their hangout, and New Orleans has Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. Until Inweekly came around 1999, News Journal reporters drank at Trader Jon’s.
But in 2003, New York Nick’s opened on Palafox and the “pub n grub” quickly became the late night spot for our staff and the younger writers for the daily newspaper.
The Elbow Room
Blood in the Water adds a few more Pensacola locations that weren’t in the first Walker Holmes novel, City of Grudges. The one that becomes the hideaway for Walker, Gravy, Alphonse and the Insider staff is The Elbow Room in Brownsville – Pensacola’s most distinctive and treasured tavern and pizza joint. Former PNJ writer Troy…
Four out of Four Stars
Blood in the Water, written by Rick Outzen, is an entertaining and eventful crime story. At the beginning of the book, a flood and an explosion in a newly renovated jail stir things up in Pensacola, Florida. The book’s protagonist, Walker Holmes, narrates the story using the first person. He is the publisher of a newspaper called the Pensacola Insider and owns a “spoiled seven-year-old chocolate Labrador mix” named Big Boy.