Major Works
Author Rick Ward. Photo by Nancy Jacobs
- Blood for Molasses: A Mississippi Massacre (2010)
- Bloodstained Justice (2009)
- The Lawmaker (2009)
Rick Ward: A Biography
Rick Ward was born in Tunica County, Mississippi, on August 1, 1953, in a small community called Hollywood near the town of Tunica. Ward earned an Associate degree in law enforcement from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, a B.S. in criminal justice from the University of the State of New York, and a Master’s in education from the University of Hawaii. He is a graduate of the Mississippi State Police Academy, the U.S. Army Military Police School, and the FBI National Academy. Currently Ward lives in Brandon, Mississippi. He is now a retired law enforcement officer and Gaming Commission division director who in his first book The Lawmaker “plays off that image of out-of-control legislators and unscrupulous lobbyists to spin a wickedly entertaining fictional tale of public corruption.” The setting includes the Mississippi casino industry and an undercover federal sting operation.
Serving active duty in the Navy until June 1975, he then entered the Law Enforcement Program at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. After serving an internship at Moss Point Police Department, he became a patrolman in Moss Point. In October 1975, as a passenger in a police pursuit that resulted in one death, Ward was hospitalized with serious injuries. A year later, he was shot in the line of duty. For the next thirty-four years he remained in the Navy reserves, while completing fourteen years in law enforcement in Mississippi and twenty years in the Navy Law Enforcement Program. Rick Ward has been a patrol officer, state narcotics officer, sheriff’s investigator, Attorney General Public Integrity Division investigator and a State Gaming Commission division director.
The Lawmaker, published in 2009, was reviewed very favorably by Sid Salter, Perspective Editor of Jackson’s the Clarion-Ledger. Salter says, “Ward’s tale of corrupt lawmakers is compelling.” The Lawmaker‘s protagonist is Oxford attorney and freshman state legislator Wayne Lott, the son of a lawman who is gravely wounded in a mob-style hit while he is investigating the state’s gaming industry. In the book, a lobbyist blackmails Wayne Lott.
Rick Ward, author of The Lawgiver. Photo courtesy of the author
According to Rick Ward, in Bloodstained Justice, young lawyer Wayne Lott is taken to new heights of maturity and real world corruption, multi-national drug dealing, kidnapping and murder. The prime suspect is someone he holds in the highest esteem.
Blood for Molasses was published in 2010 and is based on the 1866 massacre in Carroll County, Mississippi.
Related Websites
Photo of author Rick Ward by Nancy Jacobs
Bibliography
- Salter, Sid. Perspective Editor of the Clarion-Ledger. “SUNDAY MORNING WITH — Rick Ward, Former law enforcement officer, first-time novelist, 55, Brandon.” July 5, 2009.
- Ward, Rick. Emails to Nancy Jacobs. 2009.