I am a writer and historian who came to the former rather late in life. Back in 1971 I discovered that Mark Twain had traveled through my hometown in 1895 on the way to his world tour to get out of debt. That seed began to grow until in 2004 I began what has become a monumental, 4-volume work, Mark Twain Day By Day, an annotated chronology in the life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Each volume (ALL FOUR are now published) is 1150-1450 pages, and sell for $125 to Universities, Libraries, Societies, and Mark Twain scholars. Most Ivy League schools and major libraries have acquired these volumes. (Update: I recently gave the pdf files to Elmira College; the print volumes are nearly sold out.)
Just before I got into the Twain writing, I began writing short stories, a few of which morphed into a hardboiled private eye detective novel (Mike Angel Series). After studying hundreds of such books, and admiring Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane's work, I wrote four of them--and oh! how much fun they were to write. No one had to be politically correct, and the protagonist was driven to live up to his father's legacy--he was too young to be a PI at the start (30), but he had the help of his late father's detective partner on the NYPD, and the love of a good woman who was willing to wait until wild oats were sown. So I got totally wrapped up in these characters. I believe good mysteries must be complex page turners; hardboiled should have the protagonist fighting corruption. There's sex, violence, and psychological reflection in my novels. There are now TWENTY in the completed series, with the recent addition of "Dark Glory."
I'm starting a new sleuth series set right after Pearl Harbor in Portland, Oregon, and am barely into the first three chapters.
I also studied composition theory, and read thousands of short stories. I taught writing at three for-profit colleges.
I also wrote/edited and published 4 volumes of "Mark Twain Day By Day", and briefly taught Literature and Composition at Devry University. I have also just finished #20, the last in the Mike Angel Mystery series, "Dark Glory," where Mike hunts for a killer that the FBI gave up on finding years before. I've discovered the market for ebooks and have published all of my novels in such forums, along with several short stories and two collections. The novels are available in ebook, paperback, and "Dark Blonde" and "Dark Idol" are also audiobooks, narrated by the dapper and talented James Lewis.
UPDATE: I have just published my first romance/suspense novel, "Quentin & Mattie," set in 1942 in a WWII shipyard. I hope to make this a series as well.
Like Mark Twain, I love cats, am father to 3 girls, and am a westerner who has lived in various parts of the country.
During a break after # 11 in the Mike Angel Mystery series, I wrote and published "Self-Edit Your Novel," a 124 page in-depth look at self-editing. I'm now taking a break from all things Mark Twain.
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Complex murder mystery set in Chicago in 1962. #3 in series
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