A great thriller that keeps you gripped to the pages from the beginning to the end with strong characters worth the read.

Great thriller, could no put it down through all the twists and turns. Would highly recommend to fans of this genre. Cannot wait to read more by this author.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Arlo Baines could easily be as popular as any of James Patterson's detective series. He finds himself in the middle of events he'd rather not while trying to just get by. A believable character put to the test.

This is my first Harry Hunsicker novel, but it most likely won't be my last. Former Texas Ranger, Arlo Baines, is working security at a bazaar in Dallas, grieving his personal losses, and mentoring a street kid named Miguel who has become somewhat of a surrogate son. Then he becomes involved in the investigation of murders of prominent Latino businessmen. Arlo's life is lived in shadows, and those shadows only lengthen with this new, dangerous mission. This is a good entry in the genre.

Former Texas Ranger Arlo Baines now works security at the Aztec Bazaar in Dallas for his friend Javier. Still grief-stricken about his murdered family, Arlo cares for Miguel, an 11-year old street kid who’s become his surrogate son. When two local Latino businessmen are killed nearby, Arlo is asked by fellow Texas Ranger Throckmorton to help expose the common link. As the body count rises, the trail leads Arlo to lawyer Frank Vega, his wife Quinn and the Vaqueros, an ultraviolent drug cartel pushing into northern Texas.

I received an eARC via Netgalley and Thomas and Mercer with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this arc.


While I have read previous novels by this author, this was my first introduction to Arlo Baines. I had no trouble following this story and what a story it was! Gritty and fast moving after the 20% mark. The Mexican drug cartels are trying to move into Dallas, Texas when they run headfirst into Arlo. Cross, double-cross, triple-cross and then crossed some more. I got a little dizzy trying to keep up. Suffice it to say, very few characters were initially presented as they truly were as the story developed. Although some of the more minor characters were not fully explored, the main characters all felt complete and real. I even felt the summertime Texas heat!

For many years I have enjoyed Harry Hunsicker novels. With his new Arlo Baines series, it is clear Hunsicker’s books will be on my to read list into the future.

In Texas Sicario a retired Texas Ranger, Arlo, is mourning the death of his family. He lives in a hotel and works security for a buddy who owns a bar and market place (bazaar). Arlo has not hit rock bottom but is inches away. His saving grace has been to take a homeless kid in as a surrogate son.

Trouble starts when the owner of an auto repair shop next to the bar is killed. Drug cartels have been making inroads to the neighborhood around the bar. Other murders of business owners in the neighborhood put Arlo on edge. When a man who obviously works for the cartel comes into the bar Arlo knows he can’t sit on sidelines.

Arlo Baines is going to be an interesting character to see develop in future books. Assuming this is a series that continues on, which I hope it will. Arlo has connections from being a cop. Both connections working in Law Enforcement and members of the criminal element who can provide information or services, like a new gun.

This story starts a little slow. But once it got moving Texas Sicario became a page-turning novel. Author Harry Hunsicker takes a path that digs deeper and deeper into a complex case. Arlo will be surprised by shifting allegiances in allies and enemies in his case. But don’t worry it is not full of surprise twists and double crosses. It more a case of Arlo misjudging people, who in hindsight their intentions were always clear.

Given the news is filled with immigration stories Texas Sicario has a ripped from the headlines feel. Anyone looking for a good mystery loaded with action, be sure to pick on this novel.

A free review copy of this book was provided via NetGalley for this unbiased review.

Texas Sicario is the sequel to The Devil's Country that I read two years ago. I really liked The Devil's Country and hoped that this book would be as good. Arlo Baines wife and children were murdered some time ago and even though the ones that did the deed has been punished can't Arlo move on. Now is he working with security at a bazaar in Dallas. A while back did he find a street kid Miguel that he's taken under his wings. However, a brutal killing will change everything for both Arlo and Miguel.

Texas Sicario is well written and fast-paced. I quite liked the book, the only drawback for me is that I just don't like stories about drugs and cartels. I liked reading about Arlo again, and I liked how he's protecting Miguel. As for the murders, the links they have to the cartels, well as I wrote before, I just don't find stories like that especially interesting no matter how well written the book is. I'm not saying the book is bad, the story is good. I just feel I was not as invested in this story as with the first book. Still, there are some good parts (Arlo bonding with Miguel) and I never felt the book bored me. Also, I was surprised by the identity of the killer although not at all surprised about who is behind the cartel.

This book is perfectly alright, I liked that the story was not bogged down with a lot of extra details or unnecessary side stories. Lately, I've felt that some books would have been better if they had been trimmed down. This one felt refreshingly fast-moving.

I enjoyed the first book in the Arlo Baines Series, The Devil’s Country, and so when I saw that this, the second in the series was available to read and review, I dove in gladly. Thanks go to Net Galley as well as Thomas and Mercer. This book is for sale today, but it’s disappointing, and you shouldn’t buy it.

The back story is that Baines was once a Texas Ranger, but after the murder of his family, he quit and now is a drifter that works on his own terms. When we join him, he has taken on the care of an orphan named Miguel in a platonic partnership with Javier, a friend whose life Arlo once saved. And right off the bat my antennae are flickering. How does anyone share custody, legal or otherwise, of a child if that person is a drifter? We learn at the outset that Arlo doesn’t want to stay anyplace more than a month or two, so how…? To be fair, later in the book he acknowledges that something must be worked out if he is to continue taking care of Miguel, but right from the get-go it’s obvious that more than one thing is off.

There is more than a faint whiff of the White Knight here, the “gringo”—a tired word I never want to see used in fiction again now that Hunsicker has used it a gazillion times here—who uses his training and superior judgment to help Latino people (referred to in the narrative as ‘Hispanic’) that somehow can never save themselves. We have Latino—uh, Hispanic—criminals, a woman-in-distress, an orphan, a good buddy, a murder victim, gangsters, and a villain—but what we don’t have is a Latino that’s a good person who can express himself or herself articulately in English.

But wait, I am not done. The women! Not that there are many of them here, but once again when they are present, they are here either as victims to be saved, or as a fem fatale. No women here are the competent sort that can save their own butts, let alone anybody else’s. For that, we need a man I guess. A gringo.

The sad thing is that Hunsicker seems to be making a genuine effort at working a social justice, immigrants’ rights angle, and for this reason I continued reading longer than I otherwise might have to see if he could pull it out of the water; this, of course, in addition to having enjoyed his work previously, (and this is my reason for providing the second star in my rating). I suspect he doesn’t realize that this novel comes across as patronizing toward women and people of color, rather than as a work that expresses solidarity and progressive values.

To top it off, toward the end of the novel he hits not one but two of my most-hated, overused devices in mystery and detective fiction.

What the heck happened?

No.

Set in the underworld of Texas, this book has an original plot. Well written story with mystery and plenty of action, as well as very good characters.

Texas Sicario by Harry Hunsicker

Intense and intriguing this story of drug dealers and assassins with people caught in the middle left me rooting for Arlo Baines to figure out who was killing people, why they were being killed and then for him to put an end to the murder and mayhem. Who is Arlo? He is a man who has suffered grave personal loss and is digging himself out of grief and anger into his new life as he provides security for his friend Javier’s businesses. He and Javier have undertaken the supervision of and care for Miguel, an eleven year old boy found on the streets with nobody to care for him. This book is exceptionally well plotted and filled with interesting characters. I was pretty sure I knew what was happening a time or two only to have the rug pulled out from under me. I have to say that I wonder what will happen next and do hope that this is going to be a series as I would really like to find out where Arlo will find himself next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

Who’s Your Friend?

The novel opens with the execution style murder of a tire store owner. Arlo Barnes, the lead character, had found a home next door providing protection for the bar, El Corazón Roto, The Broken Heart, whose owner, Javier, manages the Aztec Bazaar in which the bar is located. Arlo also manages the security of the Aztec Bazaar. Throw into this mix, an 11 year-old undocumented orphan that Arlo found three months earlier for whom he and Javier are taking care. Then, more similar murders occur, and the local police start to sour on Arlo. Lastly his old friend/nemesis, Aloysius Throckmorton, enters the story. He is a Texas Ranger who investigated Arlo’s killing of other Texas Rangers who killed his wife. The storyline takes off from here with many twists and turns that quickly set its hooks into my interest so that I want to continue to read and couldn’t wait to start reading again.

The B-storyline continues from the first novel. The reader will learn more about Arlo and how relates with his friends and enemies, how he is very protective of a young orphan, a few potential love interests, and how he works with his former nemesis Throckmorton. What I liked was how the author wove the B-storyline seamlessly into the main storyline. This really enriched my enjoyment in reading this novel. Throckmorton is the only holdover from the first novel, and a more detailed picture is portrayed of this old no nonsense Texas Ranger.

This story does not start out of the gate as action packed as the first novel in this series. It is more traditional learning the facts and proceeding, but as the novel continues the action picks up to the level of the last novel. What I like are all of the characters and how they fit into an engaging storyline and Arlo finding out who his friends really are or aren’t.

If vulgar language and graphic sex scenes discourage you from reading novel, there is not a problem here. There were only four f-bomb and no graphic sex scenes. There is some use of Spanish but were translated immediately or easily understandable in it context. Lastly, knowledge of the previous novel is needed to understand this novel. You will not have any problem reading this novel first.

My major requirement for a high star rating is that the novel captures my interest and makes me want to continue reading. Sicario did that quite well. As a result, I rate this novel with five stars. I really enjoyed reading this novel, and you may too.
I have received a free kindle version of this novel through NetGalley from Thomas & Mercer with a request for an honest, unbiased review. I wish to thank Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this novel early.

A former Texas ranger that likes to break the rules as long as it fits his moral code. A colorful cast of characters that it is difficult at times to know who the bad guys are. Lots of twists and turns with many surprises,

Harry Hunsicker brings us an interesting, fast paced tale set in Dallas, Texas. Sicario is Spanish for hit man, or hired gun. There are several in this story, on both sides of the problem, which is the infiltration of drug trafficking from the Rio Grande border into the transportation centers of Dallas and Fort Worth, with major road and rail access to the rest of the world. Told in the first person of a Gringo ex-cop and retired Texas Ranger named Arlo Baines, this is an intriguing story with several lines of conflict told very well. This is the second of the Arlo Baines novels, but is completely stand alone.

Baines, still mourning the death of his wife and children at the hands of a drug trafficker, has taken on the responsibility of a traumatized 11 year old illegal Mexican boy named Miguel, and rides shotgun as 'head of security' for a middle aged gentleman named Javier Morales who owns a couple of businesses in a huge building -an old discount store of 150,000 square feet in southwest Dallas. One end encloses a bar called El Corazon Roto and the majority of the rest of the old box store is a mercado called Aztec Bazaar, a low end shopping mall composed of secured consignment areas run by independent sellers and food booths catering to Hispanics.

Arlo and Javier found Miguel at the bus station in Dallas, and share the responsibility of getting him help for the trauma he has obviously been through. Arlo and Javier also share the pain of a family lost to the drug wars in Texas and Mexico. All three are smack dab in the middle of the drug war infiltrating Dallas. And the battle over Dallas is one they they simply cannot lose.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Harry Hunsicker, and Thomas and Mercer in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Arlo Baines returns. If you haven’t yet met him, do so now. Arlo, a former Texas Ranger, is a complex character who is tough, smart, filled with pain and loss, and driven by justice and vengeance. In TEXAS SICARIO, he is confronted with a series of murders that have drug cartel written all over them and threaten to paint the streets of Dallas blood red. He quickly learns that friends aren’t always friends, and enemies might be his salvation. Add to the mix his need to protect Miguel, a young illegally immigrated boy with a dark past, and who just might not be as innocent as Arlo believes, as well as his old nemesis Texas Ranger Aloysius Throckmorton, a hardened killer named Fito, and the wealthy Vegas, whose marriage seems on the verge of dissolution, and you have a bubbling cauldron that threatens Arlo on every front. Great characters, a wonderfully convoluted plot, and a fast-paced story makes TEXAS SICARIO a must read.

DP Lyle, award-winning author of the Jake Longly thriller series

This one is book number two about ex Texas Ranger Arlo Baines and it's not like anything else I've read. Hunsicker has a view of people in his stories that I'm not used to, they are far from stereotypes and his plots are surprising in both content and twists. I will follow this writer more and see what he comes up with.
If you like strong characters and small town feeling, then this is for you I will not go into the story and spoil it but this author is one of my years biggest surprises.