Mark Mellon

Mark Mellon is a novelist who supports his family by working as an attorney for the FDIC.  He is married with two children.  Mark's life has been checkered with experience as a mover, lifeguard/swimming instructor, door-to-door salesman, carpenter's helper, Russian translator, soldier, phone solicitor, collections counselor, teacher, and novelist.  His work has appeared in Aberrations; Chasm; Gothic.Net; Terra Incognita; Anthrolations; Albedo One; Black Satellite; Aoife’s Kiss; Hadrosaur Tales; Premonitions; and Whispers From The Shattered Forum.   His Western novel, The Pirooters, has been published by Treble Heart Books.  The Pirooters recently won the Books and Authors.Net Award for Best Western of 2008.  http://www.books-and-authors.net/BooksoftheYear2008.html   A novella, Escape From Byzantium, will be published in September by Withersin Press (www.withersin.com).   More information may be found at:  http://www.trebleheartbooks.com/SDMellon.html. 

By Mark Mellon

“I leave it up to you to decide whether I told the truth or the biggest windy you ever heard in your life.”

San Antonio, Texas, 1916. Jim Ed’s hot temper keeps him in constant trouble with his father, Leo Pargrew, a wealthy lawyer. After a long absence, the Pargrews are visited by Leo’s father Virge, an old cowman, come to reconcile Leo with his family. While staying with Leo, Virge tells Jim Ed a yarn of hair-raising exploits with his wild granduncle Heck in search of Jim Bowie’s legendary silver mine down in old Mexico in 1865 with Comanches, bandidos, and French Foreign Legionnaires all in hot pursuit. Enthralled by the tale, Jim Ed doesn’t know whether to believe it, but one summer at Virge’s ranch, he learns the real secret of the lost treasure of Santa Perdida.

The Pirooters is a rootin’-tootin’, wild’n’wooly Western novel full of action, humor, and authentic period detail and dialog, one that will readily appeal to Western and pioneer fiction’s many and devoted fans. It is an unforgettable adventure yarn as well as a tribute to Western movies, the Southwest in general, and the great state of Texas in particular.