The Brass Horse

By 1966, American aviation marketing executive Jefferson Ryder, a hard worker by day and a hard partier by night, had developed close ties throughout the freewheeling and explosive Middle East. The last thing Ryder expected was for the CIA to come knocking. But with rogue arms dealers threatening US interests in the area and heroin use on the rise worldwide, a sophisticated group of international smugglers was poised to take advantage of the situation on a grand scale. And Ryder was in a perfect position to thwart its plans. The late J. C. Pimentel wrote The Brass Horse just a few years after the events in his novel took place. The unpublished manuscript sat in storage for decades until his daughter, artist B. J. Grubb, recently unearthed a copy, then shepherded it through to its belated publication. Written in the language and mindset of the time, the story involves airline executives, consulate officials, a very attractive embassy secretary, mysterious and powerful underworld figures, high-kicking cancan dancers, wealthy Iranian families from the days of the last Shah, races and chases, a camel caravan, unusual brass screws, and-rotting goat hides? Author Joseph C. "José" Pimentel (1920-2004) was an overseas commercial aircraft sales manager in the 1950s and 1960s, like his alter ego Jefferson Ryder. And just like his protagonist, the author was recruited by the CIA to assist in breaking up an international smuggling ring in the Middle East. Pimentel was also a fighter pilot during World War II, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves, a cartoonist, and a cattle rancher. The Brass Horse is published by High Meadow Publishing, Siskiyou County, California. Visit the book's Facebook page for more information and updates.
About the Author: Joseph C. "José" Pimentel (1920-2004) was an overseas commercial aircraft sales manager in the 1950s and 1960s, like his alter ego Jefferson Ryder. While working for Douglas Aircraft in the Middle East, Pimentel was recruited by the CIA to assist in breaking up an international drug and arms smuggling ring. Previously, the author had been a Disney Studios cartoonist, then an AAF fighter pilot in WWII (one of the last to fly under the Eiffel Tower) who wound up his military career as a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves. (Some of Pimentel's wartime exploits were recounted in Jim Doyle's book Flying Through Time.) A UCLA aeronautical engineering graduate, the Fresno native retired from aircraft-related work in 1970 to buy and work a cattle ranch he named Alta Pradera ("High Meadow") in far northern California's Scott Valley. In addition to running his ranch, driving cattle in the Marble Mountains, and continuing to fly, Pimentel returned to cartooning in his later years, publishing a book-length collection, Saddleburrs, in 1982 and serving as a longtime editorial cartoonist for the Pioneer Press.