Desert Discord

Marijuana, Music, and Murder in a West Texas Town

Henry D. Terrell

It's 1970 in the small West Texas city of Duro.

Andy is a twenty-three-year-old classical musician who moves around in all strata of society, from the elite to petty criminals. One night, he is attacked and beaten unconscious by young men who think he is gay, and he sustains a serious brain injury. As he gradually recovers, he is changed. He has difficulty speaking and is subject to terrifying nightmares and vivid musical hallucinations.

Andy’s roommates, Douglas and Reed, are trying to grow a successful marijuana crop on a barren vacant lot despite the desert heat, the police, the marauding deer, and their own ineptitude. A millionaire oilman stages the kidnapping of his wayward grandson to "deprogram" him, only to have the plan go horribly wrong. Two teenaged girls vanish under strange circumstances, and some suspect Andy may be involved. Meanwhile, the young musician observes it all with his damaged but still brilliant mind.

Henry D. Terrell’s quirky yet believable characters blur the lines of class and order, and his story remains tense and propulsive throughout a complex and freewheeling plot.

I was born and raised in the oilpatch town of Odessa, Texas. My father was a petroleum engineer and my mother a schoolteacher. I went to Permian High School (of "Friday Night Lights" fame), and studied English and Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin, receiving a BA in 1978. I worked 34 years in business publishing, starting in Production, then Editorial and Writing. For many years, I wrote a regular column for World Oil magazine. Until my retirement in 2015, I authored or co-authored more than 100 articles, and edited many more than that (most buried behind paywalls). I wrote my first novel while working full time, self-publishing in 2013. My second book came out in 2016.