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DarkHorse Trilogy #1
The Lies That Bind
Broke and despondent, trickster Durksen Hurst returns to Mississippi seeking redemption for his disreputable past � and maybe some glory. When he encounters a dozen hungry slaves hiding in the wilds, he persuades them to build a plantation with him � a scheme that will threaten the town’s dominant family: the brilliant, mad Widow French and her tortured son, Devereau.
When Antoinette DuVallier, a mysterious woman from New Orleans with unknown ties to the Frenches, arrives desperately seeking her missing boy, long-buried secrets are exposed that tear asunder the once-sleepy hamlet.
As the tangled webs of deceit unravel, each startling revelation shines a fresh light on what it means to be a man or a woman, free or enslaved � indeed, on what it means to be human.
An atmospheric Southern Gothic mystery like no other.
When Antoinette DuVallier, a mysterious woman from New Orleans with unknown ties to the Frenches, arrives desperately seeking her missing boy, long-buried secrets are exposed that tear asunder the once-sleepy hamlet.
As the tangled webs of deceit unravel, each startling revelation shines a fresh light on what it means to be a man or a woman, free or enslaved � indeed, on what it means to be human.
An atmospheric Southern Gothic mystery like no other.
- GenresFiction
270 pages, Paperback
First published December 8, 2015
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1,116 people want to read
About the author
Ed Protzel
5Ìýbooks44ÌýfollowersEd Protzel is the author of four novels, all published by Open Road Media: the Southern historical DARKHORSE TRILOGY, centering on the friendship between an abolitionist hustler and a group of escaped slaves between 1859 and 1865 (THE LIES THAT BIND, HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS, SOMETHING IN MADNESS); and THE ANTIQUITIES DEALER suspense thriller. Ed is a graduate of the University of Missouri-St. Louis with an M.A. in English literature/creative writing.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 21, 2018
A new Civil War novel by Ed Protzel is fired by white-hot passions worthy of Margaret Mitchell's classic tale, Gone with the Wind.
Half-breed Seminole Durksen Hurst, a perpetual misfit and charlatan who must keep moving to avoid the victims of his schemes, tired of his game, returns to his roots among the Chickasaws who raised him near the Mississippi town of Turkle. As he approaches through the Chickasaw swamp he encounters a band of dispossessed black slaves whose master was murdered and promises them he will make them partners in a new employee-owned venture. Through a land deal with the Chickasaws, they set out to found a new plantation. The leader of the slaves, Big Josh, suggests they pretend Hurst is their master to avoid discovery. Their competition in this new enterprise is the reclusive matriarch, Marie Broussard French, and her heir Devereau, whom she conscripts to carry out her plantation management, devious plots and monopolistic business dealings, just as she controls the pieces in her ongoing chess game.
While Hurst and his partners build their envisioned estate, Lincoln is elected, and the South secedes from the Union amid talk of civil war. As the national conflict grows and landed Southerners struggle to preserve their way of life, they mirror the French family’s devious plots to trick Hurst out of his newfound success, gain control over his property and continue running the town. When he discovers the truth, Hurst finds his identity, his mission and his soul to be well aligned with the Union’s cause and vows to liberate both the black and white pawns on Mrs. French’s chess board and rescue the true heroes and heroines of their country and their beleaguered community. Through it all, he carries his father's horror at the reality of the Old South's way of life:
"Slavery! As a boy, Hurst had barely listened to his father’s ongoing rants against the South’s so-called peculiar institution. Through a child’s eyes, hurst had seen dark people wearing ragged clothes, working in the field as part of the natural order, just as he’d seen squirrels living in trees, fish in the water. He didn’t know any better, except for what his father had told him. But when he left the Chickasaws at seventeen for the wider world, he saw clearly the violence inherent in maintaining that order, and it frightened and repelled him. In retrospect, his father had been right."
Rendered suspenseful, gripping and beautiful in Protzel’s vivid prose, the white-hot passions of breathe life into the characters and lead them into new and unlikely alliances. The remaining two books of the trilogy promise the rebirth of this Mississippi town from its ashes, as its denizens strive, in a bloody civil war, to right the wrongs, not only of their community, but also of the young American nation. This is an engaging read, which I highly recommend to all lovers of history and historical fiction.
Moreover, Ed Protzel's resumé, which already includes five film scripts, augurs well for a new blockbuster movie.
--Peter H. Green, Author of Ben's War with the U.S. Marines and Radio: One Woman's Family in War and Pieces
Half-breed Seminole Durksen Hurst, a perpetual misfit and charlatan who must keep moving to avoid the victims of his schemes, tired of his game, returns to his roots among the Chickasaws who raised him near the Mississippi town of Turkle. As he approaches through the Chickasaw swamp he encounters a band of dispossessed black slaves whose master was murdered and promises them he will make them partners in a new employee-owned venture. Through a land deal with the Chickasaws, they set out to found a new plantation. The leader of the slaves, Big Josh, suggests they pretend Hurst is their master to avoid discovery. Their competition in this new enterprise is the reclusive matriarch, Marie Broussard French, and her heir Devereau, whom she conscripts to carry out her plantation management, devious plots and monopolistic business dealings, just as she controls the pieces in her ongoing chess game.
While Hurst and his partners build their envisioned estate, Lincoln is elected, and the South secedes from the Union amid talk of civil war. As the national conflict grows and landed Southerners struggle to preserve their way of life, they mirror the French family’s devious plots to trick Hurst out of his newfound success, gain control over his property and continue running the town. When he discovers the truth, Hurst finds his identity, his mission and his soul to be well aligned with the Union’s cause and vows to liberate both the black and white pawns on Mrs. French’s chess board and rescue the true heroes and heroines of their country and their beleaguered community. Through it all, he carries his father's horror at the reality of the Old South's way of life:
"Slavery! As a boy, Hurst had barely listened to his father’s ongoing rants against the South’s so-called peculiar institution. Through a child’s eyes, hurst had seen dark people wearing ragged clothes, working in the field as part of the natural order, just as he’d seen squirrels living in trees, fish in the water. He didn’t know any better, except for what his father had told him. But when he left the Chickasaws at seventeen for the wider world, he saw clearly the violence inherent in maintaining that order, and it frightened and repelled him. In retrospect, his father had been right."
Rendered suspenseful, gripping and beautiful in Protzel’s vivid prose, the white-hot passions of breathe life into the characters and lead them into new and unlikely alliances. The remaining two books of the trilogy promise the rebirth of this Mississippi town from its ashes, as its denizens strive, in a bloody civil war, to right the wrongs, not only of their community, but also of the young American nation. This is an engaging read, which I highly recommend to all lovers of history and historical fiction.
Moreover, Ed Protzel's resumé, which already includes five film scripts, augurs well for a new blockbuster movie.
--Peter H. Green, Author of Ben's War with the U.S. Marines and Radio: One Woman's Family in War and Pieces
August 15, 2017
My Southern Gothic thriller, The Lies That Bind (DarkHorse Trilogy, Book 1), began as a screenplay, which had been well-received by Hollywood and recognized by Missouri Playwrights Association. I was even offered an option contract on the script. However, nothing came of it, and I left the script alone for a time. But it haunted me; I thought it had so much meat, such deep themes, so many possibilities. So I decided to turn it into a novel. I worked on it on weekends, put it aside for periods of time, rewrote and rewrote, until I found an agent.
The inspiration for The Lies That Bind came from my love of Faulkner, which I read a lot in college, especially Absalom, Absalom!, perhaps the greatest American novel. In that book, Thomas Sutpen, a man emblematic of the Old South, steals land, builds a plantation, and becomes a legend—for good and evil. It always bothered me that Sutpen received all the notoriety, and his slaves, who did all the work, are barely mentioned.
In The Lies That Bind, a flawed, inept charlatan forms a secret partnership with a group of escaped slaves to build their own egalitarian plantation. Their success is clearly due to their common effort and especially to Big Josh, who had run a plantation for his former master. But the townsfolk give the charlatan front man, not Big Josh or the others, all the credit for the enterprise’s success.
Their antithesis, the Frenches, widow and son, the town’s dominant family, are concealing their own dark secrets. These deeply disturbed characters were inspired by a number of people I’d actually known.
I hope readers will see from reading this book a parallel to today’s world. That in a society based on a Big Lie (slavery), people are forced to live a lie merely to survive. However, the tides of history and the power of basic human needs will eventually bring down any false structure or idea, no matter how powerful and threatening it may seem at the time. Think of our country’s civil rights and women’s movements, gay rights, etc.
The inspiration for The Lies That Bind came from my love of Faulkner, which I read a lot in college, especially Absalom, Absalom!, perhaps the greatest American novel. In that book, Thomas Sutpen, a man emblematic of the Old South, steals land, builds a plantation, and becomes a legend—for good and evil. It always bothered me that Sutpen received all the notoriety, and his slaves, who did all the work, are barely mentioned.
In The Lies That Bind, a flawed, inept charlatan forms a secret partnership with a group of escaped slaves to build their own egalitarian plantation. Their success is clearly due to their common effort and especially to Big Josh, who had run a plantation for his former master. But the townsfolk give the charlatan front man, not Big Josh or the others, all the credit for the enterprise’s success.
Their antithesis, the Frenches, widow and son, the town’s dominant family, are concealing their own dark secrets. These deeply disturbed characters were inspired by a number of people I’d actually known.
I hope readers will see from reading this book a parallel to today’s world. That in a society based on a Big Lie (slavery), people are forced to live a lie merely to survive. However, the tides of history and the power of basic human needs will eventually bring down any false structure or idea, no matter how powerful and threatening it may seem at the time. Think of our country’s civil rights and women’s movements, gay rights, etc.
April 3, 2017
The Lies that Bind is historical fiction which I rarely read. The novel opens with the interestingly named Dursken Hurst being chased and hiding in a bayou in Mississippi. This is the type of novel that gives you a lot of characters to keep track of but it's very well written. I like the writing because you are immediately curious about Dursken's mixed heritage, lack of parents and why a group of men want him dead. It has surprising twists and an unpredictable ending�. I love that in a book. That's really good writing.
October 13, 2017
The Lies that Bind (DarkHorse Trilogy Book 1) by Ed Protzel is imaginative. It is innovative, it is rich and complex, it is character driven, it has a breadth of detail that many others do not have. This book is all about characters, it is all about what drives each of them, and is compelling. Once or twice, I almost got lost on a twist but figured it out and followed the curve precariously. It creates a universe unlike many others. It is gruesome, it is wonderful, it is unpleasant, it is thought provoking, it is the first of three. You’ll want to read the other two for sure.
Full disclosure, I have the singular distinction of having interviewed the author. That interview is here:
Full disclosure, I have the singular distinction of having interviewed the author. That interview is here:
July 2, 2019
A novel set in rural Mississippi just before the start of the Civil War. The protagonist, Durk Hurst, has a plan to acquire a large tract of land and build a plantation. He has no money and a checkered past. He encounters some slaves fleeing for their lives and persuades them to join them in his long-shot venture. He gets title to the land by winning a chess game from an Indian chief and starts to build his mansion, but he comes up against the dominant family in the area, a elderly woman and her inscrutable son. Add in a beautiful stranger, a deceased toddler, and sexual misidentification, and the fun begins as Durk fights for his plantation, his men, and his reputation. This is a fascinating read!
April 11, 2016
The Lies that Bind by Ed Protzel is set in a small back-country town called Turkel, Mississippi. It’s an entertaining and complexly plotted pre-Civil War novel about fairness and decency versus slavery and greed. Cotton, the South’s money crop, also plays a large role in the story. There is an illuminating scene in a cotton broker’s office that’s reminiscent of how big business, especially hedge fund bankers, work today.
Protagonist, Dursken Hurst, a drifter and idealist who wants to end slavery, is pitted against Marie Brussard French, Turkel’s aging and reclusive doyenne, who lives on her large plantation. Like the chess pieces Mrs. French manipulates in the her sitting room, she also controls all aspects of life in Turkel, including those of her son, Devereau. These main characters are supported by a cross-section of humanity, from local Indians; slaves; assorted riffraff; and a beautiful woman on the run. The book is aptly named, because much in this novel is not what it appears to be.
One of the strengths of the book is in its vivid characterizations and the author’s depictions of the natural world, such as these descriptions of Devereau and of the setting sun:
“Devereau was thirty-one, the rosy softness of his naked cheeks and his slight stature gave one the sense of an adolescent boy.� Lightly freckled and frail, with cropped auburn hair, this morning he appeared a trembling, emaciated stick figure, with eyes bloodshot and swollen.�
“Dark rapidly closed in, the sun’s retracting tendrils leaving bloody claw marks upon the clouded sky. The final residue of daylight trained quickly behind the western hills, drawing with it what little warmth remained of the day."
Perhaps because this is the first of a trilogy, The Lies that Bind is very ambitiously plotted. Through most of the novel, delicious details are released at a slow, easy pace. Towards the end, the action speeds up, sometimes leaving loose ends. One might wonder if a few revelations could have waited until book two.
Protagonist, Dursken Hurst, a drifter and idealist who wants to end slavery, is pitted against Marie Brussard French, Turkel’s aging and reclusive doyenne, who lives on her large plantation. Like the chess pieces Mrs. French manipulates in the her sitting room, she also controls all aspects of life in Turkel, including those of her son, Devereau. These main characters are supported by a cross-section of humanity, from local Indians; slaves; assorted riffraff; and a beautiful woman on the run. The book is aptly named, because much in this novel is not what it appears to be.
One of the strengths of the book is in its vivid characterizations and the author’s depictions of the natural world, such as these descriptions of Devereau and of the setting sun:
“Devereau was thirty-one, the rosy softness of his naked cheeks and his slight stature gave one the sense of an adolescent boy.� Lightly freckled and frail, with cropped auburn hair, this morning he appeared a trembling, emaciated stick figure, with eyes bloodshot and swollen.�
“Dark rapidly closed in, the sun’s retracting tendrils leaving bloody claw marks upon the clouded sky. The final residue of daylight trained quickly behind the western hills, drawing with it what little warmth remained of the day."
Perhaps because this is the first of a trilogy, The Lies that Bind is very ambitiously plotted. Through most of the novel, delicious details are released at a slow, easy pace. Towards the end, the action speeds up, sometimes leaving loose ends. One might wonder if a few revelations could have waited until book two.
January 7, 2016
A twisted tale of wanting things you cannot have. A charlatan who wants peace, no more running; slaves who want freedom, an old woman who wants to be in control of everyone and everything; a son who wants to be rid of her forever, yet wants a child to carry on the family name; the child’s mother, who had him torn from her grasp and is desperate to get him back; a young woman who is compelled by God to free the slaves, and…the Civil War is at their door. From the first sentence to the last, I was pressed to find out the truth. Can’t wait for the sequel.
� CJ Loiacono
� CJ Loiacono
June 6, 2016
More twists and turns than a dirt mountain road.
April 26, 2017
Empty pistol has sealed more deals than all the numbers in my head, Hurst thought. We’re going to need every trick in my bag, and some I haven’t thought of yet.Ìý(QuoteÌýfromÌýThe Lies That Bind, by Ed Protzel.)
The Lies That Binds by Ed ProtzelÌýdepicts the dichotomy of the Deep South.
It is a story that shows Ìýa period long forgotten but the book also shows the character of his protagonist, Hurst, trying make some sense of his existence.
Well-written,ÌýProtzelÌýdraws his readers into the Deep South, into Mississippi, the swamps, and the picturesque scenery of a southern state.
It is an intense book. There are a lot of things happening, and you cannot hurry through it, becauseÌýProtzelÌýpulls you into his world. You want to read what comes next.
The Lies That BindÌýis the first book I have read byÌýEd Protzel. To say that it was an interesting read is an understatement because it is more than interesting. The book engages your mind.
Shalom aleichem,
Pat Garcia
The Lies That Binds by Ed ProtzelÌýdepicts the dichotomy of the Deep South.
It is a story that shows Ìýa period long forgotten but the book also shows the character of his protagonist, Hurst, trying make some sense of his existence.
Well-written,ÌýProtzelÌýdraws his readers into the Deep South, into Mississippi, the swamps, and the picturesque scenery of a southern state.
It is an intense book. There are a lot of things happening, and you cannot hurry through it, becauseÌýProtzelÌýpulls you into his world. You want to read what comes next.
The Lies That BindÌýis the first book I have read byÌýEd Protzel. To say that it was an interesting read is an understatement because it is more than interesting. The book engages your mind.
Shalom aleichem,
Pat Garcia
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