DOWN THE LONG ROAD AND THROUGH THE GATE!

I'm very pleased to announce that after having traveled its own very long road, THE LONG ROAD INTO DARKNESS has now arrived at publication.

At the moment this is a standalone novel, but two other stories have been sketched out and could be written if the demand for them is there.

THE LONG ROAD tells the story  of Tom Faust, who retires after a successful career as an Ontario Provincial Police homicide investigator. He soon finds himself at loose ends. To give himself something to do and to head off an increased reliance on alcohol, he buys a decommissioned country church in Peterborough County, Ontario, to renovate as a home--his final stop, the place where he'll make his last stand.  However, when he finds a body hanging from the rafters, he realizes his homicide investigation days are far from over.

THE LONG ROAD is available in paperback from Amazon here. Remember, if you participate in Amazon Prime you could get it with free shipping.

You may also order it through any independent bookstore. In Canada, they must be willing to order from an American distributor, which some will not. In Ottawa, however, Perfect Books on Elgin St. and Books on Beechwood will cheerfully get a copy into the store for you.

In the USA, find your nearest independent bookstore through IndieBound and order it there. Here's the link.

In the UK, find the paperback at your local Waterstones.

THE LONG ROAD is also available in eBook format from Amazon here. This time out we've decided to go with Kindle Unlimited, which means if you're a subscriber you may download the book for free. It's also included in Kindle Match, which means if you order the paperback (as a Christmas gift, for example) you may also grab the e-Book version (for yourself, say) at a reduced price.

I hope you'll take a look at this one, and my fingers are crossed that you'll like it.

THE LONG ROAD INTO DARKNESS

So I've got this manuscript, THE LONG ROAD INTO DARKNESS, that I completed in 2015. I sent out to St. Martin's Press, at their request, in the wake of SORROW LAKE's Hammett Prize nomination.

It sat for a year without a response. I finally discovered the acquiring editor who requested it had disappeared into the ether, so I began shopping it around to agents and editors. It sat for nine months in someone else's Inbox and then received the usual three-to-six months' wait for a rejection, when they bothered to respond.

In 2018 I put it through a vigorous rewrite and editing process and sent it out to Flame Tree Press, who acknowledged it with thanks and promised, as per their website, to reply with a judgment within two months. Seven months later I dared to query, and was told it was still under consideration.

Last Tuesday, Sept. 17, one year to the day after submitting it, I gave up and told them I was obtaining an ISBN for it and publishing it myself. I said a bunch of other stuff in the e-mail, but that's a story for another day.

The point of all this, and yes, there is a point, is that I'm putting it through another revision and editing process because, as many of you know, when a manuscript sits for that long, dates and ages and whatnot grow stale and need to be scaled up to the present. Next week it should be ready to put through the usual publication process.

Thing is, as I go through it once more I realize that this story represents some of the best writing I've ever done. It contains material I've wanted to get out there for a long time. I'm very proud of this thing, and if anyone had ever bothered to actually read it, I'm sure one of them would have made an offer on it.

You folks, the readers, will now be the judge of it. With mixed feelings, I'm giving up on any further attempt to work with a "traditional" publisher.

As I said in my e-mail to Flame Tree, appropriately named, authors are not commodities, like hog jowls or palm oil. We're thoughtful, hard-working people trying to communicate to the world through our work.

This is how it has to be done, I guess.

THE ROLE OF THE FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST IN NO SADNESS OF FAREWELL

As you can tell from the back cover blurb of NO SADNESS OF FAREWELL, the fourth March and Walker Crime Novel, a forensic anthropologist is called in by the coroner to assist OPP detectives when human remains are found on a property near Rideau Ferry.

While Dr. Ash Latimer is an eccentric personality who ends up becoming friends with Detective Constable Kevin Walker in the novel, real-life forensic anthropologists in Ontario are a very interesting breed in their own right.

A recent Ontario Forensic Pathology Service (OFPS) annual report explains that "Forensic anthropologists make an important contribution to death investigations where the remains are skeletonized, burned, decomposed, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable. [They] act as part of the death investigation team, and as consultants to forensic pathologists."

In Ontario, the OFPS has one full-time forensic anthropologist, Dr. Kathy Gruspier. An associate professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto, she has performed extensive field work in Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, East Timor, Cambodia, and Poland. Read more about Dr. Gruspier here.

In addition to Dr. Gruspier, there are also a number of consulting forensic anthropologists who work on a part-time fee-for-service basis for the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario, the OFPS, and police services. Like Ash Latimer, they are generally found on the faculties of Ontario universities where they are key members of departments of Forensic Science.

Ash was a fun character to work with, but my research showed that what forensic anthropologists do for a living is serious, highly specialized, and very important to the successful completion of many difficult death investigations. 

An important source of information for me was Introduction to Forensic Anthropology: A Textbook by Steven N. Byers (Pearson Education, Inc., 2005). I would encourage you to do your own research on this fascinating line of work.

Hats off to the real-life specialists who give us a chance as writers of crime fiction to explore new and engaging territory!

NO SADNESS OF FAREWELL IS NOW AVAILABLE

Yes, the wait is over.

NO SADNESS OF FAREWELL, the fourth installment of the March and Walker Crime Novel series, has been published and is now available for purchase.

When human remains are found behind a barn on a property along the historic Rideau Waterway, OPP Detective Constable Kevin Walker finds himself riding herd on a forensic anthropologist brought in by the coroner to supervise the removal of the bones.

But as the wildly eccentric Dr. Ash Latimer excavates the unmarked grave, the bodies begin to multiply and Detective Inspector Ellie March is abruptly forced to recuse herself from the case. Her next-door neighbour, Ridge Ballantyne, may have known the victims, and General Headquarters decides that the possibility of a conflict of interest necessitates her removal from the investigation.

As Ridge struggles to recover from a stroke, he must deal with the possibility that an old friend from Scotland and his young son may have been murdered five years ago and buried in an unmarked grave thousands of miles from home, while Ellie March fights an uphill battle against internal politics to return to the case.

NO SADNESS OF FAREWELL is available in paperback from your local independent bookstore. In Ottawa (Canada) for example, Perfect Books and Books on Beechwood carry the series and will order the new one for you. It's also available online through Amazon. More links will follow soon.

The novel may also be purchased in eBook version from Amazon for Kindle and from Kobo for those of you who use an epub format.

This is a really good one, folks. It may also be the last, depending on how things go, so if you enjoy the series, please give it a read and let me know what you think.

Thanks for your ongoing interest in my work. -- Mike

TOP 5 BOOKS REVIEWED IN 2018

With a new year upon us and a new crop of books waiting to be enjoyed, it behooves us as readers and critics to pause for a moment to consider the pleasures bestowed upon us by the big dog publishers in 2018.

As a book critic for the New York Journal of Books, I reviewed a grand total of 40 titles last year; a nice round number. Some were bestselling duds (Chicago, City of Endless Night, Pandemic) but some were very good. And some were terrific. So ... what were the five best books I had the pleasure of reviewing in 2018?

5. Cave of Bones, by Anne Hillerman (April 3; Harper Collins)
Navaho Tribal Police officer Bernadette Manuelito discovers a lava cave with human bones while searching for a missing girl in the El Malpais badlands. Anne Hillerman's tight, clean writing style does justice to the characters and setting we know and love so much.
(Read the review.)

4. In a House of Lies, by Ian Rankin (Dec. 29; Little, Brown)
Rankin brings us another high-quality police procedural set in Scotland, as an old missing person case becomes a homicide investigation that threatens to expose possible past wrongdoing by retired detective John Rebus.
(Read the review.)

3. The Sandman, by Lars Kepler (March 6; Knopf)
When a young man is found wandering across a train bridge on a cold night, police discover that he and his sister have been missing for 13 years. By far, the best Joona Linna crime novel to date by the Swedish husband-and-wife team writing as Lars Kepler. An absolute page turner.
(Read the review.)

2. Dark Sacred Night, by Michael Connelly (Oct. 29; Little, Brown) The heavyweight champion of police procedurals delivers another knockout as Det. Renee Ballard teams up with Harry Bosch on a cold case in which a teenage girl was brutally murdered and left in a dumpster. Well written, as always, and an effective pairing.
(Read the review.)

1. I'll Be Gone in the Dark, by Michelle McNamara (Feb. 26; Harper Collins) Heartfelt, gripping true crime by the late blogger and journalist who devoted so much of her adult life to the pursuit of the notorious Golden State Killer, aka East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker, who was (allegedly) finally captured this year. An incredible tribute to a remarkable woman who passed away too soon.
(Read the review.)

Honorable mentions:

• The Boy, by Tami Hoag (Dec. 31; Dutton) (read the review);
• The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey (Jan. 8; Soho Crime) (read the review).

Best wishes to all avid readers out there, and high hopes for a rich crop of books to enjoy in 2019!