Thawed Out and Fed Up [Paperback]

Sam Bonham—bad husband, deadbeat dad, and possible criminal on the run from the law—wanders out of modern-day East Texas into an ersatz Wild West boomtown created for a movie that never happened. And when Sam strikes a blow against the gangsters who’ve been terrorizing the town, the locals look to him to save them. He’s no hero, but he’s stumbled upon someone who is: John Wayne. But the John Wayne of this story is not the stalwart lawman of Hollywood films—he’s a seventy-two-year-old man who had himself cryogenically frozen.  He’s weak, bald, frail…and unrecognizable to everyone but Sam.

In The Duke’s “defrosted” state, he’s not entirely himself.  In fact, he believes he’s actually Ethan Edwards, the character he played inThe Searchers, one of Wayne’s most beloved films. Ethan or Duke or Marion Morrison, at his side Sam learns how to be a man, and a hero—and a pretty good shot! As he takes on the Old West gang of thugs, he finds that he might have become a family man at last. But back in the real world, someone has his eye on Sam’s wife, and if Sam doesn’t get back soon, the results could be devastating.Ryan Brown is an actor who has starred on the daytime dramasGuiding LightandThe Young and The Restless, and has appeared onLaw & Orderas well as in feature films for Lifetime Television. He is the author of two novels, Thawed Out & Fed UpandPlay Dead. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and children.1.

Isobered up quick then, waiting desperately for Pearl to move off so I could get hell and gone from there before she considered the cops’ story and my red-stained shirt and put two and two together. Didn’t help that Pearl picked that moment to get back to her crossword puzzle just a few feet down the counter from me.

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