THE DONAGHUE AND STAINER BOX SET

Many readers know my work through the March and Walker Crime Novel series, thanks in part to SORROW LAKE and its nomination for the 2015 Hammett Prize, and the second novel in the series, BURN COUNTRY.

Some of you may not have had a chance to read the police procedural series that preceded March and Walker. With that in mind, I'm offering THE DONAGHUE AND STAINER BOX SET this weekend at a ridiculously special price of only 99 cents.

The Donaghue and Stainer series, set in Maryland and Virginia, includes four novels to date: BLOOD PASSAGE, MARCIE'S MURDER, THE FREGOLI DELUSION, and THE RAINY DAY KILLER. The fourth in the series, RDK, was a semi-finalist for the 2014 Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel in Canada.

Want to see where it all began? You can find the box set in eBook format for your Amazon Kindle here: https://www.amazon.com/Donaghue-Stainer-Four-Novel-Crime-Novel-ebook/dp/B00V0WCPGO/

If your e-reader uses ePub files (iPad, iPhone, Kobo, Sony, Nook etc.) you can purchase the box set from Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/donaghue-and-stainer

Homicide Lieutenant Hank Donaghue and Detective Karen Stainer are special characters I know you'll enjoy. At this price, you can't go wrong if you love crime fiction!

Time for a Breather

I'm taking a break from my three weekly blogs, The Overnight Bestseller, Open Investigations, and Behind the Walls of Nightmare until about mid-October so I can start writing a new supernatural novel.

In the meantime, The Rainy Day Killer, the fourth Donaghue and Stainer crime fiction novel, is up and running on NetGalley. Our Plaid Raccoon Press is doing a soft release of the novel. It has been posted to Amazon as a Kindle selection, and the trade paperback version and other electronic formats will be available in October.

If you'd like to read and review the novel, I've posted information below on how to access it through NetGalley:

Here's your chance to read The Rainy Day Killer via NetGalley, an online site that provides digital galleys to reviewers, bloggers, media, librarians, booksellers, and educators. 
 
If you're not already a NetGalley user, you can register for free at www.NetGalley.com, create a profile, and browse their catalog to select titles. Then just hit the “Request” button for the title(s) you want. 
 
Once you request the title, you’ll just need to wait until the request is approved, and then the galley will appear on your NetGalley homepage (under “New Invitations to View Titles”). You will receive an email notification once your request is approved, so that you’ll know to log in to view the galley. 
 
You’ll have the option to download the galley to your computer or read it on a variety of devices. You can find step-by-step instructions for each here.

Be sure that you download Adobe Digital Editions (the program you’ll need to view our galley) first – it’s quick and free: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/
 
If you have any questions, feel free to contact NetGalley: support@netgalley.com.

Why I Enjoy Writing Genre Fiction

I'm currently working on the fourth Donaghue and Stainer crime fiction novel, The Rainy Day Killer, so I thought it would be a good time to discuss why I enjoy writing and why I chose to write genre fiction.

When I was a kid, I was a book reader and a daydreamer. I devoured every juvenile novel the library had on their shelves back then, and I always wanted to be able to tell the same kind of stories myself. Science fiction, sports, historical fiction, you name it. I wrote literary fiction for a while in the 80s, mostly short stories, and sold a few to periodicals such as Fiddlehead and Quarry, but once I went back to work full time with Customs I had to set the writing aside until I was able to take early retirement. By that time, Donaghue and Stainer were ready to burst out onto the scene.

The crime fiction genre interests me because I’ve always been a sucker for a good story. The power of narrative over us as human beings is remarkable, and in genre fiction a strong story is very important. As a crime fiction author, I have an opportunity to use the power of narrative to grab my readers’ attention and move them forward through my story. Once I have them, crime fiction allows me the opportunity to work with certain themes more freely than other types of fiction might allow. Themes relating to our search for justice as a society, the need to explain the existence of evil in the world, and the toll that a career investigating violent crime can take on a person are among those that I've explored.

For those who are new to my blog, the Donaghue and Stainer series is set in the fictional city of Glendale, Maryland, and focuses on the homicide investigations of Lieutenant Hank Donaghue and Detective Karen Stainer. They come from very different backgrounds, and their approaches to investigation and enforcement are at times very different. Donaghue tends to intellectualize, while Stainer is more of a butt-kicker. As the series progresses, they grow closer (as friends and co-workers, but with no romantic interest in one another), and the reader sees why law enforcement officers often bond together for mutual support and protection.

My latest novel presents a few challenges to me: for the first time, I'm writing about a serial killer and I'm doing a great deal of research to ensure that the portrayal is realistic. And because Karen will be marrying her fiancé Sandy in this novel, I've also had to research and plan a wedding!

I'll keep you posted on how it's going. . .

Announcing the Publication of The Fregoli Delusion

The Plaid Raccoon Press is very pleased to announce the publication of  The Fregoli Delusion, the third Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel by Michael J. McCann.

The e-book version of the novel is currently available from Amazon for Kindle e-readers and from Smashwords for the e-reader of your choice. It has been approved for Smashwords' premium catalogue and will soon be available for purchase directly from Barnes & Noble for the Nook, as well as from Kobo, Apple (iBooks), and Sony.

The paperback version of the novel will be available online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and may also be ordered from the independent bookseller of your choice through the Ingram Book Catalog. An update on the availability of the paperback will be provided as soon as distribution is complete.

Synopsis: When billionaire H.J. Jarrett is shot to death on a bike path in prestigious Granger Park, the killer is seen running away by a man who is apparently in the right place at the right time. However, Glendale Homicide Lieutenant Hank Donaghue and Detective Karen Stainer discover to their dismay that their only eyewitness suffers from a rare psychotic disorder that makes his testimony useless.

As Donaghue’s investigation focuses on the top one percent of Glendale’s social stratum, including close friends of his own mother, Stainer finds herself alone when her gut instinct tells her that their eyewitness is right after all!

Publication Date: November 8, 2012
Approx. Words: 88,184
Pages (Paperback): 266

Cover photograph copyright by René Mansi / iStockphoto. Used under license.

Back To Work Tuesday

After a very pleasant long weekend celebrating our Canadian Thanksgiving, it's time to get back to work. My objective is to have a new Donaghue and Stainer short story ready to upload to Smashwords by the weekend, and I will celebrate this addition to the collection with a new list price for the e-book version of Blood Passage. Stay tuned!

Thanks to everyone downloading copies of the short stories. I'm surprised and gratified that so many people are showing an interest in the collection, which has cascaded over to Barnes & Noble as well. The first Donaghue and Stainer short story listed by Barnes & Noble for the Nook, "Invisible Boy," has reached the top 5,000 in total e-book downloads, which I find absolutely remarkable. Fans of Donaghue and Stainer may rest assured that this is only the beginning.

All right, enough procrastination. To work,.

Knock and Talk

"Knock and Talk," the third short piece in the collection STORIES from the Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel series, has been uploaded to Smashwords and is now available free of charge at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/83383.

In this short story, which is about 5,421 words in length, Hank and Karen follow up on the tip from Jimmy Yung concerning the shotgun killing of four men on a front porch on Devin Street. They interview the widow of one of the victims who confirms that the murders were likely the result of an unpaid gambling debt. They question a local biker, who tries to get rough with Karen and lives to regret it, then follow a lead to South Shore West, where they track down the man named Fanshawe and close the case.

Stay tuned for more uploads, and visit Smashwords on a regular basis to download all the free Donaghue and Stainer short stories in this collection.

Crossing Genres and Not Blurring Them

I mentioned in an earlier post that I love to read genre fiction, going all the way back to those heady days when I was a 12-year-old haunting the public library, lugging home armloads of science fiction, sports juveniles and westerns. Now that I'm a big boy and able to write my own stories, I find the same urge to explore my favorite genres, to try my hand at the tropes, conventions and distinct atmospheres of each.

The Ghost Man, my first novel, was an entry in the horror genre, a supernatural thriller, which I picked because my son was very interested in ghost stories at the time and encouraged me to try it out. I like horror and will go back again for another shot in the near future.

Blood Passage, on the other hand, was the result of a long-standing love of crime fiction. Science fiction will always be a sentimental favorite, but crime fiction is where my imagination has pitched its tent, built its campfire and settled in. I'm gonna fish this stream for a while.

I'd like to make it clear, though, that Blood Passage does not blur the division between crime fiction and supernatural fiction. Reading the descriptions of the book, you may think that Donaghue and Stainer are investigating a case of reincarnation. You may think you'll be forced to accept reincarnation as a part of the Donaghue and Stainer universe if you read the novel. That's not the case at all.

Blood Passage was inspired by the book Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives, by Dr. Jim B. Tucker of the University of Virginia Medical Center. Dr. Tucker's research, which extends the research of Dr. Ian Stevenson, is a completely scientific exploration of a very real phenomenon -- that there are many children out there who seem to recall memories of a previous life. Dr. Tucker goes to great lengths in his book to make it clear he's not shoving reincarnation down anyone's throat, but rather is exploring it as one of several possible explanations. I was inspired by the book, and I'm greatly impressed by Dr. Tucker and his work, but I have to say straight out:

I didn't believe in reincarnation before I read Life Before Life, and I don't believe in it now.

I'm an agnostic on this one. A fence sitter. It's one of those who-knows, anything's-possible kind of things. It tantalizes, it tweaks the imagination, and quite frankly, some of the evidence analyzed by Dr. Tucker is quite compelling. But Blood Passage was not written from a position of belief, and it shouldn't be read as an attempt to convince.

I think, personally, if I ever encountered one of these children and hovered at Dr. Tucker's elbow as he investigated their memories, I'd likely feel the same undertow sucking at my beliefs that Hank Donaghue and Karen Stainer feel in Blood Passage. I mean, you don't know. It's upsetting, because criminal investigation lives in a world of physical evidence, witness testimony, suspect confessions, things that a judge and jury can see and hear and feel and understand with minimal effort. But little kids remembering who killed them four years ago in their previous life? When someone like grad student Josh Duncan presents physical evidence and witness testimony that seems to corroborate these unlikely memories, it's upsetting.

It's that tension which works at the center of Blood Passage. Which gnaws at Karen and Hank when the case is finally closed. Which readers will also hopefully carry forward with them after reading the story.

But be clear on one thing: Blood Passage is crime fiction. The world of Donaghue and Stainer is the world of police procedure, homicide investigation, crime scene analysis, victimology, witness interview, suspect interrogation. A universe very similar to our own.