About author Rick Treon
Rick Treon is the award-winning author of Deep Background and the Bartholomew Beck thriller series, including the novel Let the Guilty Pay and prequel novella Live with the Truth.
His short story, The Other Man’s Daughter, was published in the Texas High Plains Writers 2020 centennial anthology, With Words We Weave: Celebrating the Past.
Rick’s essays have been syndicated across Gannett Media and featured on literary websites The Thrill Begins and BestThrillers.com. He has also written for journalism nonprofit Big If True.
Prior to writing fiction, Rick worked as a reporter and editor for several newspapers in Texas, a career that began after earning a bachelor of journalism from The University of Texas at Austin.
Let the Guilty Pay: A Bartholomew Beck thriller
Bartholomew Beck has a secret.
He saw who killed his neighbor, but he lied to the police and now the wrong man is on Death Row. Oh, and he wrote a bestselling true-crime book on the murder, further cementing his lies.
Twenty years after Summer Foster’s death, Beck’s writing career has gone cold and he’s making ends meet on a Texas oil pipeline when he finds a co-worker beaten to death with a screwdriver sticking out of her right eye — just like Summer.
This time he’ll have to come clean with what he knows and Let the Guilty Pay.
Deep Background
Winner of the 2019 PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence in Suspense.
Two years after an anonymous tip helps reporter Levi Cole break one of the biggest political scandals in recent memory, the same unknown conspirators expose him for fabricating parts of his stories.
After resigning from his cushy job in Dallas, Levi returns to his rural Texas Panhandle hometown to regroup and win over Kat Hallaway — the married woman and fellow reporter he left behind — by helping her cover a grisly murder.
But, as Levi and Kat get close to unraveling the mystery, she is kidnapped by the killer. When Levi finally finds Kat, he learns the identity of his tormentors and how they connect to the murder.
Faced with the truth, Levi must decide how far he will go to rescue the woman he loves and regain control of his life.
Live with the Truth: A Bartholomew Beck novella
True crime writer Bartholomew Beck has one last shot at getting his career back on track.
To do it, Beck agrees to write about Mistress Samantha, the single mother and virtual dominatrix who confessed to killing a North Texas pastor. Her daughter, Caitlin Parks, wants Beck’s book to humanize her in hopes of getting her off Death Row.
But while he’s researching the case, Beck – whose only bestselling book is nearly twenty years in his rearview – discovers the motive for Pastor Jerry Erickson’s death is much darker than what Caitlin has let on.
What he learns will force everyone involved to decide whether or not they can Live with the Truth.