Hayes, J.M. 1944-

PERSONAL:

Born November 16, 1944, in Hutchinson, KS; son of H.M. "Jimmie" (a dry cleaner) and May Hayes; married, September 1, 1993; wife's name Barbara (in public information). Education: Wichita State University, B.A., 1966, M.A., 1970; attended University of Arizona, 1968-71.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Tucson, AZ. Agent—Paige Wheeler, Creative Media Agency, Inc, 240 W. 35th St., Ste. 500, New York, NY 10001. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Import Parts International, Inc., Tucson, AZ, officer and director, 1974-85; Parks & Recreation, Tucson, AZ, recreation assistant and coordinator, 1985-93. Campbell/Grant Neighborhood Association, chair, 1999—; affiliated with Ward 3 Neighbors.

MEMBER:

Arizona Historical Society, Reno County Historical Society, German Shepherd Dog Club of Southern Arizona (director, 1999—).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best of the Southwest, Arizona Daily Star, and Best Local Book, Tucson Weekly, both 1990, both for The Grey Pilgrim.

WRITINGS:

The Grey Pilgrim, Walker and Company (New York, NY), 1990, revised edition, Poisoned Pen (Scottsdale, AZ), 2000.

"MAD DOG AND ENGLISHMAN" MYSTERY SERIES

Mad Dog and Englishman, Poisoned Pen (Scottsdale, AZ), 2000.

Prairie Gothic, Poisoned Pen Press (Scottsdale, AZ), 2003.

Plains Crazy, Poisoned Pen Press (Scottsdale, AZ), 2004.

Broken Heartland, Poisoned Pen Press (Scottsdale, AZ), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Popular Archaeology, Tucson Citizen Arizona Daily Star, Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, and APRA Magazine (journal of Arizona Parks & Recreation Association). Also contributor, with Ron Burton, to Recreation Programs That Work for Youth at Risk, edited by Peter Witt and John Crompton, Venture (State College, PA), 1996.

SIDELIGHTS:

J.M. Hayes writes novels set in the American West. His first novel, The Grey Pilgrim, is based on a historical event. In 1940, a Papago Indian chief named Jujul becomes frustrated with the U.S. government's refusal to acknowledge his people's citizenship and simultaneous demand that the young men of his tribe register for the draft. A local official of the Bureau of Indian Affairs provokes a gunfight over the case, and Jujul and some of his tribe disappear into the desert to avoid arrest. In Hayes's novel, U.S. Marshall J.D. Fitzpatrick is sent to resolve the situation, but the Marshall instead becomes infatuated with local anthropologist Mary Spencer, who, in a twist of fate, ends up living with and observing the Papago tribe. Further complicating matters, a Japanese spy arrives with a mission to spark an Indian revolt. Publishers Weekly reviewer Sybil Steinberg called The Grey Pilgrim a "well-written first novel."

Mad Dog and Englishman is a murder mystery set in modern, small-town Kansas, and is the first volume in Hayes's "Mad Dog and Englishman" series. English is the divorced, single-father sheriff of Buffalo Springs, Kansas; Mad Dog is Harvey Edward Maddox, his one-quarter Cheyenne half-brother. While on a spirit quest, Mad Dog discovers a murder victim who has been gruesomely scalped. When he later discovers another, similarly disfigured body, he becomes the prime suspect. A Publishers Weekly reviewer praised Mad Dog and Englishman for its "cliff-hanging plot and Hayes's dead-on portrayal of complex people and relationships, in a landscape he clearly loves."

The next title in the series is Prairie Gothic, in which Mad Dog is grieving for his friend, Tommie Irons, the part-Choctaw who has died from the cancer he had been fighting. Irons has passed away in the Sunshine Towers, and Mad Dog sneaks into the building in order to gain access to his body, which he retrieves and takes home to give his old friend a proper Native American funeral. The process of interring the dead in this case will include a service in which Tommie is interred high in a tree top. However, Mad Dog cannot even mourn uninterrupted, as a number of strange occurrences coincide with the service. His brother, the sheriff, discovers that Alice Burton, a local woman who suffers from some sort of mental impairment, is carrying around a real—though deceased—baby in lieu of the baby doll she normally clutches to herself. At the same time, Mad Dog's pet, a half-wolf, half-dog mix, digs up the skull of yet another infant and delivers it to Mad Dog. The relic appears to be just one of a number of mysterious bones that have turned up. A woman dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz—a detail that makes the most of the book's Kansas setting—and a mysterious Nazi treasure are just two of the other oddities that pepper the book. A contributor for Kirkus Reviews concluded of the book that "the final secret, even zanier than anything that's gone before, makes you wonder if Oz is really so far from Kansas after all." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly remarked that, "juggling the several story lines with aplomb, Hayes shows that even quirky characters can have a sober, thoughtful side."

Hayes continues his series with the third installment, Plains Crazy. In the middle of a romantic meeting with his girlfriend, a teenage boy is shot by an old Cheyenne arrow and killed. Shortly after this occurrence, bombs start going off in the town of Buffalo Springs, and there is a possibility that the terrorist group al Qaeda is behind the string of attacks. When Sheriff English gets involved in the investigation into the shooting of the boy, he is dismayed to discover quite a bit of evidence that indicates the teen was shot by mistake, and that English's brother, Mad Dog, was actually meant to be the victim. Digging deep, English discovers a disconcertingly long list of people who might have wished to harm his brother, with new suspects popping up on a daily basis. Among those he suspects of having a motive for murder is a somewhat crazy son whom Mad Dog only recently discovered that he had. English sets out to stop any future attacks on his brother and to investigate the mysterious explosions, all the while working against a deadline, as he and his wife have plane tickets for a trip to Paris that is meant to be a therapeutic vacation during which they plan to work on saving their floundering marriage. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found the book to be "longer on action than suspense or deduction," and also noted that "the trivializing of the very real threat of al Qaeda can be offputting."

Broken Heartland kicks off with a serious car accident between a school bus, a station wagon, and Sheriff English's Deputy Wynn, in which the deputy ends up with the worst injuries and lands in the ICU at the local hospital. Concerned for his friend, English heads to the hospital, missing out on the Buffalo Springs Chamber of Commerce pancake breakfast, where he is scheduled to debate Lieutenant Greer, who is running against him in an attempt to take over as sheriff. Both English's brother Mad Dog and his two daughters experience a feeling that he is in danger, and all three rush to his side. A contributor for Kirkus Reviews commented that "what Hayes … lacks in finesse he makes up in winning audacity."

Hayes once told CA that his motivation for writing is "to enrich and enlighten through the process of entertainment."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 2000, Barbara Bibel, review of Mad Dog and Englishman, p. 791.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2002, review of Prairie Gothic, p. 1808; September 1, 2007, review of Broken Heartland.

Library Journal, July, 1990, Barbara E. Kemp, review of The Grey Pilgrim, p. 131.

Publishers Weekly, June 29, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of The Grey Pilgrim, p. 86; October 30, 2000, review of Mad Dog and Englishman, p. 50; January 27, 2003, review of Prairie Gothic, p. 240; September 20, 2004, review of Plains Crazy, p. 49.