The Country Road Murders

by James Patterson, Mike Lupica

Genres: Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

A sidelined football hero fights to save his Southern hometown.

Silas Tucker grew up in Cross Rivers, North Carolina, loving God, his family, and sports. His right arm unleashes thunderbolts—until a fatal accident sends the #1 NFL draft pick back home to the farm. 

Down the country road, Briar Crockett lives in the town’s finest mansion, suspected headquarters of the Southern Mafia.

Locals know to stay far away from the place, but when neighbor after neighbor falls victim to violence, Silas begins investigating. The hometown-hero-turned-amateur detective may have found his new game. 

But getting back on the field against opponents who play to kill means taking the biggest risk of his young life.



 

Release date: July 13, 2026

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

I LOOK AROUND the Blue Yonder bar, the place maybe ten miles outside of campus on 501, look at my grandma and all my friends from Cross Rivers and so many of my Tar Heel teammates, and think about the one who’s not here tonight, and should be.

My father, Silas Tucker. No one ever called him Silas Sr. when he was still around. He was just Silas. Or, at Cross Rivers High, Mr. Tucker.

I’m about the same size as he was, big for a quarterback and big enough so that it’s been a long time since anybody even thought about calling me Junior.

The only nickname that people use on me now is “109.” That’s how fast I once threw a pitch. The fastest, by a few miles an hour, that anybody had ever thrown a baseball—in high school or college or the big leagues or anywhere.

I could’ve gone straight to the big leagues from Cross Rivers High throwing like that. But no matter how hard I tried, I’d just never loved baseball the way I do football. Not enough action, even as the pitcher.

It’s why I quit baseball. After my junior year in high school, I focused on being a quarterback, where I could throw it and run it and even get a lick in on a would-be tackler when the opportunity presented itself. For my dad, I was determined to win an NCAA football title, even if it took all four years of my eligibility. By my final year, I was playing at such a high level that I passed and ran our Tar Heels to our first national championship and ended up the number-one overall pick by the Steelers in the NFL draft.

For the first time in a very long time, the Steelers had lost enough games the season before to win the rights to me. It’s why tomorrow morning I’m flying to Pittsburgh—well, the Steelers are flying me up there on a private jet.

The party tonight is about that.

And about me.

I’ve even been allowed to use my own playlist, though I’m the only one who knows how much of it is my father’s old playlist, a lot of the songs spinning on old vinyl of his that I’d kept.

I don’t have to wonder when music became as important to me as it did—it was in those first days and weeks and months after my father died, and music was a way for me to escape and take away some of the ache of missing him, like I was escaping into a whole other world. Play some of his music and pretend that he was still in the other room.

Right now, the sound system is blaring Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On,” because as much as my father loved his country music, he liked old-time rock and roll, too:

But now it’s time for me to go…

Perfect for the occasion, if I do say so myself, though I’m probably the only one in the noisy place who knows the words, much less listens to them.

I catch the eye of my grandmother, EmmaJean, whom even I call EJ, all five feet and not-very-much-else of her, maybe half an inch, if that.

The little white-haired woman had raised my father after his father had up and died one afternoon, dead of a heart attack after getting off his old seed planter one last time. Then raised me after my father was gone and my mother died a couple of years later. I was just twelve when my father was taken from me and fourteen when I lost my mother, as much to heartbreak as to cancer.

I never could have made it here without EJ. She gives me a broad, knowing wink, both of us aware that it is time for me to go, that I’m about to leave Carolina in a way my father had never left here, or her.

How did the school song go?

I’m a Tar Heel born, I’m a Tar Heel bred, and when I die I’m a Tar Heel dead.

Like my father was, shot by some coward on State Road 31, the killer never caught and never brought to justice.

I blow EJ a little kiss, knowing that even a small gesture like that will be caught by one of the videographers my agent, Laurance Most, has hired for the occasion. I don’t give it a second thought, or care. The moment is between my grandma and me.

At the small bandstand against a side wall, I hear someone tapping the microphone. It’s Gideon (Giddyup) Garland, who’s nominated himself master of ceremonies.

Gideon is the best wide receiver I ever had—always sure-handed catching passes, even when I was throwing them harder than any college quarterback had thrown a football.

At a practice for the Senior Bowl—the postseason all-star game showcasing the best NFL draft prospects—Josh Allen, on his way to the Buffalo Bills, had once thrown a ball sixty-six miles per hour. I’d thrown sixty-nine in a few games, almost always to Gideon, who’d accused me of trying to put a hole in him and rip his hands off at the same time.

But Gideon Garland had held on.

Now he’s saying, “Tonight we say our final goodbyes to the great Silas Tucker.”

He waves me up to stand beside him on the stage. Occasions like this call for speeches, though I’d insisted that tonight be a celebration and not a roast.

“On behalf of my pal Silas,” Gideon says, “I’d officially like to thank y’all for making this night necessary.”

That gets him a laugh. But then he’s always been a cutup, from our first day as roommates freshman year at Hinton James Residence Hall.

“And we’re off,” I say, loud enough for the people in front of us to hear.

“We’re going to do it a little different right now, 109,” he says, turning to me.

“How so?”

“Because tonight I’m gonna be the one throwing it and you’re gonna be the one catching it.”

Gets him another laugh.

It’s then that I look to the back of the crowd, like I’m seeing the whole field one more time, and notice people moving out of the way, some of them being shoved, because the Southern Mafia is suddenly in the house.

I CAN SEE Gideon’s eyes light on them about the same time mine do, but he does his best to ignore them. He’s got a microphone and an audience and nothing is going to spoil that for him, because he clearly sees this as a special night for him, too.

“Listen,” Gideon says, “before we really begin the festivities, Mr. Laurance Most, agent to the stars and our host this evening, would like to say a few words.”

“And do what, kiss a little more ass?” Roof Crockett yells out.

Roof and Lynyrd Crockett are the sons of the Southern Mafia, run with an iron fist—and a closed one—by their father, Briar.

Roof is five years older than me, Lynyrd four. Both had played football at Cross Rivers until their grades, or lack of them, had finally rendered them both ineligible. That and smarting off to teachers and terrorizing other students, like those were other varsity sports.

He laughs. His brother laughs. No one else. Gideon acts as if he hasn’t heard as he turns the mic over to Laurance Most.

Laurance, whom no one calls Larry, is short, red-haired, and talks almost as fast as I can throw a football, making me wonder sometimes if anybody has ever radar-gunned the words coming out of his mouth. I had interviewed a bunch of agents when it was time to do that. Well, EmmaJean Tucker had done most of the interviewing. Most had other star clients, including Laurance. But he didn’t have any other high-profile quarterbacks. That sealed the deal for EJ, and for me.

Laurance now pulls down the mic from where it had been set for Gideon.

“As I look around this room, I’m aware most of the people in it know Silas Tucker a lot better than I do,” he says, “and will probably have a lot to say about that as the night wears on. So I’ll try to be brief, probably for the first time in my career.”

From the middle of the room, Roof Crockett is making loud kissing noises.

Now Laurance Most is the one doing his best to ignore him, and ignore Lynyrd, as Laurance reaches into his pocket and comes out with a key fob that I can see has the Porsche logo on it.

“Just in case you can’t order an Uber for the ride back to campus later,” Laurance says, holding up the fob for everybody in the room to see, “this is the key to your never-been-driven Porsche 993 Turbo S, currently being guarded out front—appropriately enough, I might add—by what appears to be your entire offensive line.”

He walks over, hands me the key to the Porsche, and says, “Who loves you, baby?”

I grin at him. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I say. “But a Bobcat front loader would have done the trick.”

He leads me then, along with a lot of the party, out to where the car, an even brighter red than Laurance’s hair, is parked. And the car is a beauty, no doubt, shining as if under a spotlight. Even though I hadn’t been kidding, not even a little, about how a Bobcat would have suited me just fine.

There are a few more speeches once we’re back inside. My coach at UNC, Edd Rogers, says a few words. So does my old coach from Cross Rivers High, Emmett Norman, who describes me as the player every coach dreams about, the one who walks on the field and changes everything.

Even my grandmother, EJ, steps up to the mic.

“I have just one wish for my baby boy,” she says. But when she smiles over at me, I can see the devil in her blue eyes. “That maybe he’ll start picking up after himself now that he’s gonna be richer than sin.”

That gets her maybe the biggest laugh of the night so far.

Finally, it’s Vince Tarplay’s turn. A sophomore at Cross Rivers when I was a freshman, three-sport star same as I’d been, Vince played his college football as a Vanderbilt running back, then on to the Chicago Bears his rookie year until he’d ruptured his Achilles and got cut when the season was over. He’d also been my catcher in baseball for two seasons.

“I was the one behind the plate the day one of those college scouts clocked the fastest damn pitch any pitcher had ever thrown,” Vince tells the crowd. “Somehow, me and my left hand lived to tell about it.”

On the screen Laurance Most had set up on the stage, there it is: the footage shot the day I fired the fastest pitch ever thrown. The Cross Rivers AV department that my father had started at our school made the video, then superimposed the numbers from the gun, flashing:

109! 109! 109!

“Right there is the day the legend was born,” Vince says. “See, sometimes there can be an accurate record of mythic greatness.”

He turns and looks at me and mouths, Love you, dawg.

I mouth the same words back at him.

Now Gideon is stepping back to the mic.

“It’s time to hear from the man and the legend himself,” he says. “And someone to whom I’ll always be grateful for turning me into a second-round draft choice with the Panthers. You know what they say, right? A great quarterback and a great wide receiver are supposed to go hand in hand. I just had to keep explaining to Silas that didn’t mean off the field, too.”

One more laugh for Giddyup Garland and then he doesn’t even need a microphone as he shouts out, “Give it up for Silas Tucker!”

One more Carolina crowd goes wild for me. I let the cheers ride for a little bit, can’t help myself.

There are so damn many people in this room that I care about, and ones who seem to care about me just as much. I talk to them now about how much my dad, who never saw me play a lick of college ball, would have loved a night like this. And about the career I hope to have with the Steelers, thanks to my grandmother.

“She was the one who always told me to dream as big as my dad had done,” I say.

Then I talk a little bit about my teammates, at Cross Rivers and Chapel Hill, and how I wished I could take all of them with me to Pittsburgh.

“What time do we need to be at the airport?” my three-hundred-pound right tackle at Carolina, Norbert (Mack Truck) McCall, shouts from the back of the room, now inside after helping guard the Porsche.

“Not sure that jet would be quite big enough for you, Mack,” I call back to him.

Then I thank everybody for coming and for helping make all my big dreams come true.

It’s then that I see my best friend, Taylor McCarter Webb, standing in the very back of the room, a few feet away from Norbert and along with her husband, Burt, a Cross Rivers policeman who, despite his youth, has been acting as the interim chief.

Back in high school, even though Burt was two years older than Tay and me, we called ourselves the Three Musketeers.

Taylor had originally said she didn’t think they could make it, as neither one of them could get off work. Somehow they had. The night wouldn’t have been the same, or nearly as complete, without both of them, but especially without the former Taylor McCarter.

I feel the beginnings of a smile as my eyes lock on hers.

And I think: Well, if I’m being completely honest with myself, maybe not all my dreams have come true.

AS I HIGH-FIVE my way across the room, trying to get to where Tay and Burt Webb are standing, Roof and Lynyrd are suddenly in my way, both of them wearing flannel shirts, eyes red and full of trouble.

It doesn’t matter now that they’re crashing my party, or why they’ve decided to do it after I haven’t seen either one of them in years. All that matters is that they’re here, clearly trying to create a scene as I’m trying to avoid one.

Where are all my blockers when I really need them?

Roof and Lynyrd had been decent football players, at least when the only decision they had to make on the field was how hard to hit the guy carrying the ball. Good players, but not as good as they thought they were. Both linebackers, until they weren’t.

Probably still hitting people or doing worse than that, if you only believed even half of what you heard. And still dumber than a whole row of tobacco leaves. Local legend has it that neither one of them had gone on to college because they had joined the family business run by their father instead.

“How we lookin’, Star?” Roof says. “Probably get all the pussy you could want tonight, am I right?”

Both the Crocketts had always called me that. Star. It embarrassed me, even now, considering the source and that, given their weaving gait, they’re overserved already.

“Just trying to say hello to some folks,” I say.

Lynyrd says, “I saw ol’ Taylor McCarter when we came in.” He gives a quick look over his shoulder. “You ever tap that, Star?”

I smile at him. “You ever have anybody stick your elbow in your ear, Lynyrd?”

As I start to walk past, he puts an arm out.

I stare down at it, then back at him.

“Don’t haul off and do something you’ll regret,” I say to Lynyrd.

“Or one of us will, son,” he says.

The room has suddenly gone very quiet. Even the music has stopped.

I see Burt Webb and Taylor making their way toward us, a concerned look on Taylor’s face, when I hear a familiar voice from behind me and turn to see Briar Crockett himself standing there.

“Is there some kind of misunderstanding here, boys?” Briar asks his sons. “And I do believe I mean my boys.”

“Just payin’ our respects, Daddy,” Roof says.

“Well,” Briar says, “why don’t you go pay them to the bartender, and remember that the Crocketts are guests here.”

Not my guests.

Roof and Lynyrd reluctantly move away from me. The music comes back up. I hear the voice of Kris Kristofferson, another one of my father’s favorites, singing about taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.

“Sorry about that,” Briar Crockett says. “I truly am.”

Briar’s sons aren’t as big as I am, but he is. He puts out a hand now, and with all eyes on me, I’ve got no choice but to shake it.

When my father was still alive, he’d had little use for Briar Crockett, had been offended that Briar was the face of our town, for all the wrong reasons. And worst reasons.

As far as I know, the only honorable thing Briar had ever done was offer a reward of $100,000 for information about who had shot my father, but no one had ever cashed in. All this time later, I assume no one ever will, that the killer will never be caught.

But him putting up that reward money didn’t change the fact that Roof and Lynyrd’s father has been the most dangerous man in North Carolina for longer than I’ve been alive.

At the moment, he’s still got hold of my hand.

“I know that your daddy, God rest, and I had our share of differences,” he says, eyes on mine. “But I’m here tonight to tell you that where I come from, the same place as you come from, we sure are proud of you, boy.”

He waits for me to respond. I don’t. He lets go of my hand and nods, eyes still on mine, and walks away.

I finally make my way to Taylor and her husband.

“Having fun yet?” Taylor asks as she gives me a hug.

“Glad you guys could make it,” I say to her and Burt. “I guess.”

She nods in the direction of the street. “See where you got yourself a fancy new car.”

I give Burt a playful shrug. “You gotta compensate when you don’t get the girl.”

He smiles at me. “Wanna trade?”

“Hey, you two,” Taylor says. “I’m here. I can hear you.”

“You guys good?” I ask.

“We are,” Taylor says. “How’s about you?”

I make a gesture with my right hand, my throwing hand, that takes in the whole party.

“Like EmmaJean says,” I tell them. “If this ain’t good, it’ll have to do until good comes along.”

“You were always going places,” Taylor says, “even before you knew where.”

“I’ll be back, Tay.”

She gives me a look that is both sweet and sad, all at the same time.

“No,” she says. “You won’t.”

AS THE GUEST of honor, I stay later than I’d intended, telling myself that the private plane to Pittsburgh can’t leave without me in the morning, knowing that the press conference the Steelers have scheduled isn’t until two in the afternoon.

Finally, though, it’s time for me to git, which is the way my father used to say it.

All in all, even with the Crockett brothers drunk as skunks and having tried to start a couple of fights before their daddy and his driver got them into Briar’s Lincoln Navigator, it has been a great night.

After I’ve said my last goodbyes, the most emotional being with Taylor McCarter Webb, it’s time to head back to campus. Laurance Most says he can have the Porsche driven back to EmmaJean’s house in Cross Rivers, but I say I want to drive it back to campus and park it just one time in front of our dorm, and after that I’ll have it driven or shipped to Pittsburgh once I’ve found a place up there.

“Thanks for putting this whole thing together,” I say to Laurance Most.

“You’re the one who did make this night necessary,” he says. “You and the best right arm God ever gave to anybody.”

I reach for my right shoulder now, rotating it slightly and grimacing as I do.

“This might not be a good time to mention this,” I say. “But I think I might have done something after all the glad-handing you made me do tonight.”

My agent gives me a look I’m pretty sure he usually reserves for the person on the other side of the negotiating table.

“Not funny,” he says. “So not funny.”

With that I walk over to Mitchell Garland, Gideon’s dad, and thank him for closing down Blue Yonder tonight, even knowing that Laurance Most has made doing that very much worth his while.

“You’re family, Silas,” Gideon’s dad says. “Like another son to me and a brother to Gideon. Nothing will ever change that.”

Gideon and I are on the street next to the Porsche a few minutes later. I open the passenger-side door and say, “Your ride is here.”

He shakes his head.

“I’m driving,” he says.

“I know you don’t drink,” I say, grinning at him. “So you can’t be drunk.”

“Come on, dawg,” he says. “You got to let me get behind the wheel of this baby at least one time. So toss me those keys like you’re tossing me one last pass over the middle.”

He’s always been able to talk me into things, sometimes even getting me to change a play I’d called in the huddle because he’d seen something on the previous play and promised to get open.

So I’m the one who gets into the passenger seat, feeling as if I’m trying to squeeze myself into a desk drawer. Gideon gets in on the other side, then just sits there for a few seconds, caressing the wheel like it’s one in the succession of his cheerleader girlfriends.

“Daddy’s home,” he says.

Before I know it, we’re out on 501, a narrow two-laner like so many other country roads in Carolina. And before too very much longer after that, Gideon has rolled the windows down and is shouting, “Let’s see what this baby’s got!”

“Are you absolutely certain you’re not drunk for the first time in your life?”

“Just drunk on life!” he shouts back.

I get pushed back into my seat by the thrust of the engine, as if the Porsche is a damn plane taking off. Then I glance nervously over and see how quickly the speedometer is past seventy.

And showing no signs of stopping there.

Before long, when we’re on a straightaway we both know, he’s got the speed up to one hundred, bouncing up and down in his seat, whooping like a maniac.

“Giddyup,” I finally say. “We now know what it’s got. So slow your ass down.”

“In a minute, dawg!” he yells. “This thing was made to be rode hard!”

I see the deer crossing 501 right before Gideon does.

Like making one more quick move in the open field, I reach over and twist the wheel just enough for us to avoid it.

Somehow Gideon manages to keep the car on the road.

“Okay,” I say. “You’ve had your fun. Now please slow the fuck down.”

“Okay,” he says, as if he can still see the deer. “Okay.”

But instead of easing back slowly to get down to the speed limit on this road we’ve driven so many times in his Jetta, he tries to do it all at once, pumping the brakes at exactly the wrong moment. It’s just as we’re going into a hairpin turn he must have forgotten about.

Then the Porsche is sliding and skidding out of control on its way off 501 and toward the woods, too bright and too close, and after that comes the deafening roar as the car crashes into the first tree.

Then my door is flying open, my seat belt can’t hold me, and I feel as if I’m the one still going a hundred miles per hour.

I’m the one crashing.

GIDEON GARLAND IS dead upon arrival at UNC Hospitals on Manning Drive.

There was nothing the EMTs could do for him once they pulled him out of the wreckage, nothing for the doctors to do once he’d been transported back to Chapel Hill, his heart stopping for good before they could get him into the emergency room.

By then the broken body of Silas is in the hospital’s biggest and most modern trauma room, its team now being asked to save the life of Silas Tucker, national champion.

What looks like half of the UNC student body, and almost as many Cross Rivers locals who’ve made their way to Chapel Hill, are standing vigil for the best quarterback the University of North Carolina has ever seen, in front of a hospital as highly rated as there is in the state.

Only EmmaJean Tucker, Silas’s lone remaining family, has been allowed inside. But Taylor McCarter Webb has been standing at the blue police barrier in front of the crowd since four in the morning, having driven herself here as soon as the alert on her phone awakened her.

The trauma team has long since placed a cervical collar around his neck, cut off his clothes, and managed to pop his right shoulder back into place.

After a brief MRI—a road map for what needs to be done in surgery—they’ve identified that the scapular damage is the least of their problems compared with the severe damage to his right shoulder and the extensive damage to his cervical spine.

The MRI has also shown that the force of impact from when Silas’s body had hit the second tree had done so much internal damage to the area around his heart that it had stopped twice on his way to the hospital before the EMTs had managed to bring him back.

By six o’clock, they’re preparing to wheel him out of the trauma room and down the hall to the operating room. UNC Hospitals’ top orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Richard Gregory, turns to the rest of his team and says, “It’s like this boy got dropped out of the damn sky.”

One of the nurses, a young man named Peyton, says, “Do you think we can save his arm?”

“First we need to save him, son,” Dr. Gregory says.

Ou. . .