Five Days In May

Ninie Hammon

Bay Forest, Jun 10, 2014 - 324 pages

 "DON'T NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF DOIN' THE RIGHT THING."


A twister's coming. A big one, a monster F5--a mile wide and eight miles tall.

The writhing finger of death hurls across the prairie toward Graham, Oklahoma, one Friday afternoon in May, 1963, on a collision course with the lives of 4 people—each of whom has already planned a personal rendezvous with death in some other form that day.

In Jonas Cunningham’s mind, what he’s planning isn’t murder. The handful of little white pills that will free his precious Maggie from the fog of Alzheimer's is a gift, a final act of unconditional love.

Jonas’s 16-year-old granddaughter, Joy, isn’t planning “murder” either. She's pregnant and sees only one way to keep from shaming her family. Secrets like that are hard to keep though, in a small town.

Joy's father, Rev. Mac MacIntosh has lost his wife and his faith and on Friday, he plans to commit professional suicide—not just leave his church, but abandon his call to ministry.

Princess has an appointment with the Reaper on Friday, too, one she’s been staring down for 14 years. At 5 o’clock, the state of Oklahoma will strap her into an electric chair called Sizzlin’ Suzie and turn on the juice.

But as the strange, psychic death row inmate meets daily with the minister during the final 5 days of her life, everything in both their lives begins to change. Princess knows—about Mac’s life and family. And sees—the Big Ugly coming to eat up the world. She sees other terrible things, too, and is determined to carry to her grave an incredible secret about the little sister she confessed to beheading a decade ago.

When the savage tornado roars with a sound like gravel in a blender into their small prairie town on that May Friday, all 4 of the people who'd penciled in "death" on their calendars actually do confront eternity.

But none of them comes to the crossroads of life and death by the path they'd planned or leaves with the result they expected.

In the end, the Big Ugly decides who lives and who dies that day.

About the author

 I was born in Socorro, New Mexico, sometime shortly after the earth cooled off. It’s clear that from the outset my parents never intended for me to amount to anything. How could I? With a name like “Ninie?” Please.

Fame and fortune do not come to people named Ninie Bovell (My maiden name.) Gabriella Bovary? You could work with that. Even something as pedestrian as Madeline Bovell or Rebecca Bovell or (though you’d lose points here for lack of originality) Elizabeth Bovell. But Ninie? I never had a chance.

If I sound a mite hostile, bear in mind that in one decisive stroke my parents sentenced their precious newborn daughter to a lifetime of explanations that began my first day at Muleshoe Elementary School. (Yeah, Muleshoe. The hits just keep on coming.) After a painful week, I had a rap down that I still use today:

“No, it’s not Ninnie like skinny and penny. It’s Ninie—rhymes with tiny and shiny. 9e…get it? And no, it doesn’t mean anything, it isn’t short for anything, long for anything, or a substitute for anything. It just is. (Pause here for the inevitable ‘Why?’) You got me, pal, I couldn’t tell you.”

I grew up in Texas, got a BA in English and theatre from Texas Tech University and snagged a job as a newspaper reporter. Didn't know a thing about journalism, but my editor said if I could write he could teach me the rest of it and if I couldn't write the rest of it didn't matter. I hung in there for a 25-year career as a journalist. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but as soon as I figured out that making up the facts was a whole lot more fun than reporting them, I never looked back.

Now, I write suspense--every flavor except pistachio: psychological suspense, inspirational suspense, suspense thrillers, paranormal suspense, suspense mysteries.

In every book I write I try to keep this promise to Loyal Reader: I will tell you a story in a distinctive voice you'll always recognize, about people as ordinary as you are--people who have been slammed by something they didn’t sign on for, and now they must fight for their lives. Then smack in the middle of their everyday worlds, those people encounter the unexplainable--and it's always the game-changer."

Bibliographic information

• Title: Five Days In May
• Author: Ninie Hammon
• Publisher: Bay Forest, 2014
• Length: 324 pages