Midnight in the Crucible of Fear - James Robert Campbell

Shadowed by oil wells and cattle and serenaded by the eerie music of cicadas, Blackthorne, Texas, is a strange, dark place with the malevolent area crime family and its affiliated biker gang. The atmosphere is already discomfiting, but when they murder Sheriff Booger Burkett's girlfriend, who had married into the family, the tension becomes unbearable. Aided by a Texas Ranger, the colorful giant Burkett is determined to bring the guilty to justice regardless of what it takes. The murdered woman's teenage daughter Samantha understands her father's and grandfather's guilt and she plays a pivotal role. The violence symbolizes the world's brutality and the novel is an exercise in naturalistic super realism in which there is only what the characters do, see, say, hear, smell, taste, touch and sense, encouraging the reader to experience the story on the level of a character.