Ways to be Wicked

Enrique Tavish grew up learning the hard ways of the south side, but he also learned the advantages of ’living white’ like his Scottish father, instead of brown like his Mexican mother: ＂I had heard this one black guy on TV talking about white privilege, and it seemed like that was something worth having. It was pretty easy for me to come off as all Anglo too, because I am light skinned.＂ Bold, self-confident and optimistic, Tavish is an administrator on the rise. He works in the same tough high school where he’d told his teachers to call him Henry, not Enrique, and where he’d fallen in love with and his first wife, Maria.Now, however, the body of a bright, talented female student has been found on campus, murdered while Tavish was in charge. Tavish believes the killers are a band of street thugs called Los Levantes, and he sets out to prove it, ignoring the warnings of his friend, Police Officer Jim Burgoyne.Burgoyne, with ambitions of becoming detective, also seeks to solve the crime, striving to stay one step ahead of the homicide investigators in his own department. Knowing that Tavish understands the neighborhood better than anyone else, Burgoyne allies himself with him to find the killer. But what is Tavish’s motive? Is he simply trying to save the honor of a ruined young woman, or is he attempting to steer the investigations away from his own wretched secret?Whatever his reasons, Tavish pushes his own theory of the case so hard that he arouses Los Levantes’ ire, a gang that, it turns out, has connections to a Mexican cartel. It may be too late before he realizes his arrogance has endangered the safety of his own family as well as his life.Ways to be Wicked is a suspense-filled mystery and crime drama, but it is a great deal more. This is a novel of almost ineluctable seductions, tests of loyalty and dangerous friendships.Tavish is an ordinary man who, faced with the terror of self-realization and of losing all that is important to him, takes extraordinary action to save those he loves.

Jim Christ is an experienced writer but relatively new to the field of fiction. He holds a degree in Literature and Writing from the University of Arizona, as well as two masters’ degrees in Education (University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University). Christ’s first novel, The Day Hal Quit, self-published in 2015, is a crime drama set in Southern Arizona in the late 1960’s. The themes are proscribed love and restraint, loyalty and sacrifice. The Arizona Daily Star called it ＂a fast ride through the desert and grass country of Southern Arizona.＂ Amazon readers consistently rate it with five stars and with positive comments that emphasize Christ’s ability to portray action sequences, suspense and engaging characters. His second novel, a mystery, will be coming out in 2017. He has written non-fiction books, which were published by Prentice-Hall (The Complete Guide to Modern Cabinetmaking 1988) and Sterling (European Cabinetry 1990). He has also written several pedagogical articles and a number of political opinion pieces, one of which was prophetic (＂Preamble should come first in high court’s redistricting decision＂ Arizona Daily Star 5 June 2015). He taught English composition, literature and history in Arizona secondary schools for twenty-five years and served as a school administrator for eleven more. He lives with his wife In Tucson.