Recently the Shepherd website contacted me about contributing to their growing collection of author-recommended book lists. What I came up with was “The best mysteries to tickle your funny bone.” My choices were: Jonathan Lethem’s Gun with Occasional Music; M. C. Beaton’s The Quiche of Death; Lawrence Sanders’s McNally’s Secret; Carl Hiaasen’s Native Tongue; and Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair.
If I was in a tizzy in 2020—as most humans were—I was in perhaps half a tizzy in 2021. That is, the general craziness that started up in the winter of 2020 had moderated its behavior and the clamps on my brain had loosened a bit. But the irony is that in ’20, I at least managed to finish and publish one novel; Johnny Graphic and the Ghost of Doom, the third and final book in the trilogy. Not so this year.
In 2021 I more or less finished a novel that I started many years ago—the first book in a fantasy adventure trilogy. But I didn’t get it published for a very simple reason: I won’t release the book (untitled as of yet) until the other two books are done. I plan on doing what the marketing experts advise—release each book with a month or so interval between them. Give the readers the total story in a nice, compact time frame. Epic magical adventure, no waiting.
The second book is under way and hopefully I will get it done by summer. If 2022’s tizziness remains low-pressure—particularly that little guy covered with spike proteins—I’ll finish the third by the end of the year and release the three books starting in early 2023. That, fingers crossed, is what I’ll be doing a year from now. (But without the suit and tie and brooding expression.)
Additionally, I hope to revive my photographic efforts—scan more negatives, post more old images, shoot more new images, and get out in nature far more than in the past two years. And I desperately want to take a few short road trips with my better half.
At any rate, I hope that if you have undertaken creative efforts this year, they have gone well. And if you love books and music and whatnot, that you have found refuge and joy in them during these crazy times.
From me, D. R. Martin, and my alter ego Richard Audry, please accept our warmest wishes for a wonderful 2022.
The three hilarious canine cozies in the King Harald series are now available in a single e-book through Kindle and other leading e-book sellers. Only $7.99—a savings of four bucks versus buying the titles individually. For the Kindle version just click here. For the Epub version click here or here.
A female consulting detective? Scandalous! It’s the early 1900s and young ladies just don’t do that sort of thing. Or do they?
They do if they’re Mary MacDougall.
Enjoy the first four cases that launched Mary’s career, now available in an e-book box set—at less than two-thirds the cost of buying them individually. That’s two novellas and two novels for only $7.99.
For the Kindle version of The Mary MacDougall Box set, click here. For the Epub version, click here for Barnes & Noble; or here for Kobo.
After finishing The Johnny Graphic Adventures Trilogy last fall, I set myself the task of creating a “box set” of the three rip-roaring ghost adventures. Box sets of e-books comprise a complete series or partial series in one Kindle e-book or E-pub e-book. And usually, authors sell them for less than what you would pay for the individual titles. And that’s the case here. Instead of paying $8.97 for the trilogy (if purchased separately), you can enjoy Johnny’s complete adventures for only $5.99. That’s like getting the first book and half of the second book for free. Just click this link to go to the Kindle box set of The Johnny Graphic Adventures.
For those of you who are E-pub readers, the box set will become available at sellers such as Barnes & Noble and Kobo in the next week or two. After that, I’ll be preparing box sets for my Richard Audry series: The Mary MacDougall Mysteries and The King Harald Mysteries.
Well, how about that 2020? Quite the annus horribilis, wasn’t it? Those of us who are still standing in 2021 will doubtlessly be hoping for a lot less horribilis, and a lot more goodness.
And if that happens, this novelist hopes to accomplish more in the new year than he did in this one. It was pretty darned hard to concentrate on writing. Not that 2020 was a dead loss. I managed to finish the third and final book in my Johnny Graphic Adventures series, which I started in 2006. And I’m darned proud of it. But it’s time to turn my attention to one of my mystery series, as well as update the first novel I wrote many years ago.
My King Harald Mysteries series follows the adventures of a crime-sniffing pooch who lives in a small Minnesota tourist town with his human “boss,” Andy Skyberg. In three successive tales, Harald manages to land Andy in all manner of merry mayhem. The whodunit I’m planning to write in 2021 embeds the two of them on a Beaver Tail County movie set, where the unseemly death of a well-known Hollywood figure sets the mystery in motion.
The first book I ever wrote was an epic fantasy yarn called The Queen of Thrones. (Yeah, I know. It sounds like I’m copycatting the title of a hugely famous fantasy series. But the fact is that I came up with that title several years before that other Martin revealed his.) And I plan on rethinking and repackaging the single 120k-word book as a new trilogy—aging my protagonists and giving the story a more mature POV. I may or may not succeed, but I’m going to give it a shot.
Last but not least, I have in mind tackling something totally new: A neo-noir, sexy ghost thriller. Wish me luck on that one.
Regardless of what happens in the new year, I wish you and yours all the best fortune and much happiness. And whatever you do, keep reading!
It’s been fifteen years since I started on it. And finally the Johnny Graphic Adventures trilogy is complete. Book 3, Johnny Graphic and the Ghost of Doom, is now available from most major e-book sellers. What are Johnny, Nina, and their pals up to on their final big adventure? “Action-packed” barely describes it. Here’s the blurb…
When a guy’s about to get sacrificed to the volcano god, he might have some second thoughts about the choices he made that landed him in this pickle.
But Johnny Graphic knows he couldn’t have done it any other way. Because these mountainous, frozen wilds are where his parents went missing. And being here is his only chance to find them.
That is, if he can manage to stay alive.
It’s the final chapter of Johnny Graphic’s great ghost adventure. And he and his sidekick Nina Bain have their work cut out for them.
Not only must they survive human-sacrificing tribesmen, they have to fight off murderous ghost warriors. Face down giant ice wolves. Stay alive when a massive volcano erupts. Stop a war before it starts. Help ghosts to really, truly, properly die. Defeat the most dangerous ghost of all. And, on top of everything, save the entire planet from doom.
It’s a heckuva lot for a twelve-year-old news photographer to handle. But Johnny Graphic’s up to the job!
“[Martin] does for ghosts what Asimov did for robots.” —Top 50 Amazon Reviewer
“[Book 1 is] a strong pick for young adult readers, highly recommended.” —Midwest Book Review
“[In Book 2 D. R. Martin] serves up a fast-paced adventure story that younger readers from ten up couldn’t help but love, as would older readers who grew up on fun adventure stories.” —Amazon UK Reviewer
Johnny Graphic and the Ghost of Doom is now available on Amazon, as well as other leading e-book sellers. At present, the paperback is only available on Amazon print-on-demand, but wide distribution will be coming soon.
It’s been fourteen years since I started writing the Johnny Graphic Adventures. Book One came out in 2012 and Book Two the following year. Now I’m about to wrap up Book Three, Johnny Graphic and the Ghost of Doom. To celebrate finishing the trilogy, I’m relaunching the series with new cover designs and—for the first two novels—some tweaks and improvements in the texts.
I’m especially psyched by the new cover style, which carries through all three books. My longtime designer Steve Thomas has done a terrific job of conveying the 1930s look and feel of the tales, while doing justice to Johnny and Nina’s rip-roaring exploits. The two twelve-year-old protagonists appear on each cover, along with their favorite ghost, Colonel MacFarlane. The artwork for each book includes unique elements from that story—mushroom cloud, zombies, flying boat, volcano, dog sled. I love the period-style typeface and the exuberance of the colors.
My blog tour for A Fatal Fondness starts today, organized by Escape with Dollycas. The first stop is at A Wytch’s Book Review Blog and it features a brief memoir by Emma Beach, Mary MacDougall’s housekeeper. Check out what she has to say about the headstrong young sleuth by clicking the illustration below.
My fourth Mary MacDougall historical mystery, A FATAL FONDNESS, is now available as a Kindle e-book (free for members of Kindle Unlimited). There’s a paperback edition, as well, available at Amazon and other print-on-demand sellers.
It’s 1902 and the location is Duluth, Minnesota. Mary’s just started her own detective agency and her first cases are disappointingly banal. But one of them blows up into a case involving murder and international intrigue. And Mary is right in the thick of it.
D. R. Martin & Richard Audry Books 