Jeff Stocks is a crime fiction author known for gritty, darkly funny Texas crime novels set in Houston and San Antonio. He is the author of Ship Channel Shuffle and La Pantera, the first two books in the Ingram Investigations series.
The series follows Rafe Ingram, a former Army officer turned private investigator, as he navigates violent crimes and moral gray areas alongside his brother, Houston PD homicide detective Peter Ingram, and Cheryl Darling, a former television reporter turned true-crime podcaster. The novels combine hard-boiled crime storytelling with sharp dialogue, realistic police work, and flawed, compelling characters.
Stocks brings authenticity to his crime novels through his background as a former Army officer and helicopter pilot. His experience as a high school principal also informs the realistic dialogue, character psychology, and dark humor that define the Ingram Investigations series.
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Jeff Stocks is a crime fiction author known for gritty, darkly funny Texas crime novels set in Houston and San Antonio. He is the author of Ship Channel Shuffle and La Pantera, the first two books in the Ingram Investigations series.
The series follows Rafe Ingram, a former Army officer turned private investigator, as he navigates violent crimes and moral gray areas alongside his brother, Houston PD homicide detective Peter Ingram, and Cheryl...
A security guard is murdered in the gritty industrial landscape of the Houston Ship Channel.
Rafe Ingram, a former Army officer, is a private detective whose work for the hotels of downtown Houston has him growing restless. Cheryl Darling, a former television reporter, is Rafe’s associate. The two are thrust into new action when they learn that...
Today’s fave is Tom Wolfe, the author of non-fiction pieces, like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the amazing book, The Right Stuff (which was highly influential to me, and I’ve read it four or five times), novels Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, I Am Charlotte Simmons, etc.
Truly a writer with a unique and crazy style, he punches it up with crazy run-ons, exclamations, and funky witticisms. In fact, John Updike once said Wolfe’s novels weren’t literature at all, but flashy...
Let’s talk about John Irving. Of course he is the literary giant who authored The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, The Hotel New Hampshire, and my favorite novel of all time, A Prayer for Owen Meany.
These are not thrillers, like the works of most of my other favorite authors, but worlds filled with funny, flawed, complex characters—some of whom are extreme oddballs—but all possessing a deep humanity. I think this is what makes Irving so special to me. He is able to create...
Today’s favorite author is Nelson DeMille, who, sadly, passed away in September 2024. He wrote so many great thrillers, such as The General’s Daughter, Plum Island, Up Country, The Cathedral, By the Rivers of Babylon, etc. My personal favorite is the series featuring retired NY detective John Corey, who works with the FBI’s anti-terrorism task force, and who is as wisecracking as he is brilliant (and flawed.) Corey will have you laughing and rolling your eyes as he saves the world from...
