A Sneak Peek into Harvard's Secret Societies

Allegedly based on facts, The Ancient Nine by Ian K. Smith (St. Martin’s Press, September 18, 2018) is actually a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age revelation of the ties that bind: love, friendship, family, social connections, and money.

As both an author of Lovecraftian-Mythos tales and a retired librarian, I was already familiar with Harvard’s Widener Library, the third largest library in the nation and, next to the fictional Miskatonic University Library’s restricted rare book room, one of the few repositories of the legendary Necronomicon. Imagine my pleasant surprise to discover the important roles rare books, grimoires, and libraries play in this intriguing new mystery novel set in and around hallowed Harvard Yard.

Spenser Quentin Collins, a financially-underprivileged African-American pre-med sophomore from the south side of Chicago, receives an unexpected engraved invitation to attend a cocktail party at the Delphic Club. One of the elite final clubs that serve Harvard students and alum in place of fraternities, the Delphic annually “punches” male sophomores as part of a highly secretive selection process of potential new members (not unlike fraternity rush week at state universities). Only those who prove worthy after three rounds of punch events are invited into the Delphic. Spenser, without family fortune or important social connections, can’t understand why he was punched by the Delphic. Is this a sick joke?

Since Spenser knows nothing about the final clubs, he begins to research the Delphic, first by asking other students, then by reading books and newspapers in Harvard’s many libraries. He discovers that a secret society called “The Ancient Nine” exists to protect the Delphic. He suspects the Ancient Nine may have deliberately and systematically covered up a student’s murder in the Delphic Mansion nearly a century ago. Why? Although he’s repeatedly warned to go with the flow and let sleeping dogs lie, he and a friend, Dalton Winthrop, continue to investigate the mysterious disappearance and the possible involvement of “The Ancient Nine.”

Spencer is followed, threatened, and fears for his own safety and the safety of his friends. Will the conspiracy of wealthy Harvard alums stop at nothing to keep their secrets?

Rich with descriptions of people, places, and things, The Ancient Nine offers history lessons to those interested in learning. All history is fiction. Even photographs reveal only the limited point of view of the photographer or the camera itself. Personally, I prefer to get my history lessons from novels. Don’t you?

Although The Ancient Nine is based on real places and events, it’s first and foremost a fast-paced thriller. It has characters you can care about, a mystery worth solving, and it’s not the author’s first novel. The Blackbird Papers, Smith’s previous excursion into fiction, is a well-written police procedural. His second novel is an even better read. Highly recommended.


Q & A with Dr. Ian K. Smith regarding THE ANCIENT NINE

1. To begin with your beginnings, how did you get into writing?

A: I have always wanted to write stories since I was in college
and read John Grisham’s The Firm, long before it became the international
sensation.  I enjoyed how that book made me feel, heart racing, unable to
focus on anything else but the book, literally reading pages while stopped at
traffic lights.  I wanted to be able to create the same kind of story that
had a similar effect on someone else. I like stories. I like creating. I have
loved books my entire life.  I decided that while my principle area of
academic study would be biology and eventually medicine, that I would always
keep an open mind and ambition to write and publish.  That writing itch I
had harbored for so many years just never went away and I refused to ignore it.
Despite what many of my colleagues thought while I was in medical school, I
believed both medicine and creative writing could be pursued passionately in
parallel.

2. You’ve written many bestselling books about health and nutrition. What made you decide to pivot and write a thriller now?

A: Thrillers and crime fiction have always been at the top of my
list for entertainment.  I like to write what engages me, so I decided to
sit down and create a story in the fashion that I like to read them.  I
love suspense and plots lines that are fast-moving and constantly make you
think. I like the feeling of not wanting to put a book down and getting excited
for the next time I have a break in my schedule to pick up that book again to
read the next chapter.  I wrote my first novel, THE BLACKBIRD PAPERS back in 2004, a thriller based on the campus of Dartmouth College where I finished my first two years of medical school.
I had such great feedback from readers across the country. I would be on
tour for one of my health and wellness books and invariably, someone would come
up to me in the airport or a bookstore and ask me when I was going to write
another thriller, because they enjoyed THE BLACKBIRD PAPERS so much and
wanted more.  Every time this happened, my heart would jump, and I would
profusely thank the person for reminding me of my other passion and my need to
go back to it and create more stories to share.  I’ve been wanting to
publish another thriller for a long time, and this was the perfect time in my
career to do so. Fans of my fiction had waited long enough.

3. This is a novel you “waited years to write.” What is it about this story that was
   just begging to be told?

A: This story has everything that I love to read.  There’s
mystery, murder, suspense, history, and a love story.  I’ve been writing
this book for more than 25 years. I started when I was a senior at Harvard.
While I was a very young and unpolished writer back then, I knew that it
was a story that was so compelling that it needed to be told, and I knew that
one day I’d be able to finish the story and publish it.  This is a
fish-out-of-water story with a coming-of-age feel that I think will appeal to
people across the spectrum. Everyone likes a story about an underdog, and THE ANCIENT NINE captures that feel and spirit.  I learned during my research
that no one had ever written extensively about the Harvard final clubs.
There were remote mentions in magazine and newspaper articles, but never
anything that really penetrated this rarefied world of power and privilege.  I
just felt like this was a story begging to be told.

4. What was your personal experience with “secret societies” like?  How did you
   decide what details to include as elements of the story in The Ancient Nine?

A: I was everything you would expect a prospective member WOULD
NOT be.  I was the wrong color, no pedigree, blue-collar family, and
completely unaware of the elite circles in which these members traveled and
inhabited.  When I started to understand the lineage of the members and
graduate members, I couldn’t understand why they would invite me to join. I
have always been sociable, easy-to-like kind of guy, but I didn’t fit the image
of a member nor did I have the money or access to privilege that the majority
of members had.  I wanted to include the elements as I experienced them. I
wanted readers to see this world like I did for the first time, unsuspecting,
unexpecting, and undaunted. I met many great guys when I was a member and remain
friends with many of them to this day. Being a member was like a dual existence
on campus. I was a regular student like everyone else most of the time, then I
was a member of this final club that was a world of its own, including a staff
that served us in our mansion and dinners with wealthy, powerful alums who were
leaders of their fields throughout the country.  I sat down to tables to
eat and share jokes with amazing men who were extremely successful and
influential, and at the same time fun to talk to and share experiences. Being a
member taught me a lot about life and discrepancies and how pivotal networking
can be as one tries to advance in life.

5. The Delphic Club is a very important part of the story, just like the mysteries
   around it. How did you come up with the mystery? Did you know how it would be solved from the beginning or did you come up with it as you wrote?

A: When I first started writing THE ANCIENT NINE, I wasn’t completely sure how it would end.  I had a good idea of some of the plot twists and most of the narrative, but I had not worked out the entire mystery.  As I was researching the history of the
clubs—something that was very difficult to do since there has been very little
written about them through the years—I discovered some amazing occurrences and
legends not just about the clubs, but of Harvard itself.  These
discoveries were like a small, unknotted thread that once I started pulling,
the story unraveled before me and everything began falling into place. I spent
a lot of time in libraries, in the stacks of Widener Library at Harvard and
Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, digging into the historical
connections.  It’s amazing how you can reach a point where a story can
actually write itself, and you just become the vessel through which it’s told,
trying your best to stay out of its way while you transcribe it as best as you
can without losing its feel and meaning.

6. Have you received any negative feedback as a result of writing about your real-life experiences in these secretive organizations?

A: I don’t know what the feedback will be until more people have had a chance to read it.  I have had some of my clubmates read it and others who are familiar with the clubs and they gave me really positive feedback.  They found the book to be engaging and informative. They felt like I captured the essence of an experience that can only be felt by someone like myself who was foreign to this world.  This book is not an expose or
hit piece on the final clubs. This is a book that is based on real events,
secrets that have been tightly guarded for hundreds of years. As the clubs are
in serious and overdue conversations about opening their doors to a broader
membership, some of this information will enter the public forum much easier
and more fluidly than it has in the past.  I would think that many current
and graduate members of the clubs will find this entertaining, especially since
they know very well the lay of the land on which the story is built.

7. How much does the main character in The Ancient Nine have in common with
   Ian Smith? How much of the story is autobiographical?

A: Spenser is based on me.  His emotions, worries, thoughts,
and experiences are based on mine.  There are some creative changes I made
such as where he was from and some of the family dynamics, but a lot of who he
is and what he thinks is autobiographical.  I’ve held on to this story for
a long time as I wrestled with the best way to tell it and when it should be
told. I was a tough, fearless kid who wanted to excel at everything and wanted
to make my single mother and family proud.  For those times, I was not the
typical Harvard student—no trust fund or Ivy connection or renowned academic
family pedigree—but I had what was most important for a student from any walk
of life, the confidence that I could make it on Harvard’s storied campus.
I was unafraid to try new things, mix it up, and learn as much as I could.
I played sports intensely all my life, and I think that taught me a lot about
the world, our many differences, the rigors and benefits of competition, and
the importance of resiliency. I’ve never been one to be intimated by the chasm
between what I have and what others have.  Spenser sees and feels the
world in exactly the same way as he remains proud of his humble beginnings and
constantly works to do what is right.
8.  In this novel you introduce a highly varied cast of characters, ranging from
comical to mysterious, sporty to academic. Who was your favorite character to
write? Which one would you most likely want to grab a beer with?
A: This isn’t an easy question as it’s like asking you to
pick a favorite child.  There are different things an author loves about
the characters he or she creates, and there are different reasons why the
characters appeal to the author.  I will say, however, that it tends to be
fun to write about characters who are very different from who you are, because
it allows you to explore and imagine in a space that is not completely
familiar.  Writing Ashley Garrett was a lot of fun. I liked and admired
her at lot. She’s from the other side of the tracks, brilliant, tough, witty,
romantic, and unimpressed. If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be like Ashley.
Dalton Winthrop was also a lot of fun to write, because he was
rich—something that I was definitely not—and rebellious and so determined to
cut his own way in life despite the overbearing expectations and interventions of
his imperious father.  I don’t drink alcohol, but several of the real
people who the characters are based on I actually did sit down with over the
poker table and a box of pizza. I think it would be great fun to sit down to
dinner with the obscenely wealthy but uproariously gregarious graduate member
Weld Bickerstaff class of ’53 who lived in New York City.  You just wind
him up and let him go.

9. The Ancient Nine delves deep into the history and underbelly of Harvard. What was your process for researching this story?

A: I spent many months researching Harvard’s history and some
of the less known facts about John Harvard’s book collection he donated to the
college and the infamous 1764 fire that destroyed almost all of it.  Over
the years of writing this book I would find new pieces of information and the
web of history and mystery would grow even larger. Little is publicly known or
discussed about these clubs, and lots of secrets and knowledge have gone to the
grave with many of the graduate members.  Harvard has one of the most
expansive library systems in the world, and I spent countless hours in many of
the libraries mentioned in the book, digging up old newspapers and magazines
and examining rare books. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun at the same
time to connect the dots and delve into the layers of such an important
university and the secret societies that have long been a perpetual irritant to
the school’s administration.

10. During your research, did you find out anything surprising that didn’t make it into the book?

A: I gathered piles of research and discoveries while working
on this book, but alas, an author must decide what to include and what to
discard.  Those decisions were gut-wrenching at times, but for the sake of
the reader not having to sit down to a 600-page tome, the cuts had to be done.
One thing that surprised me that didn’t make it into the book was how
conflicted many of the school’s former leadership really were with regards to
the clubs.  Many of them publicly spoke against the clubs and the need for
them to either be disbanded or opened to a more diverse membership, but
privately, these administrators and school trustees had been members of a club
themselves and as graduates, still supported them financially in ways that
their identities and participation wouldn’t be exposed.

11. Readers will know you from your work in health and nutrition. In stepping away from that world, and into the world thriller writing, what surprised or challenged you the most?

A: It has always been fun and rewarding to write books in the
genre of health and nutrition.  I have enjoyed immensely helping and
empowering people. My books through the years have literally been life-changing
for millions of people.  I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to
produce that type of impactful work. Writing thrillers has been equally
gratifying as it has allowed me to be more imaginative and tap deeper into my
creative side.  I believe that a person can tap similarly and effectively
into the left (science, math) and right (creativity, arts) sides of the brain.
Contrary to what some have suggested, I don’t believe it’s one or the other.
One thing vastly different about writing thrillers is that the plots are
not linear, and therefore requires a vigilant attention to detail and great
effort to maintain continuity. There are all kinds of dead ends, interweaving
threads, surprises, disappointments, and moments of excitement that you must
work into the story, knowing that you need to entertain your reader and keep
them engaged for hundreds of pages.  Accomplishing this is no small feat,
but the work it takes to achieve it is worth every grinding second of it once
you do.

12. What’s next for you? Will you continue to write thrillers and do you have an idea for your next novel?

A: I will definitely continue to write more thrillers.
I love reading this genre, and I love writing it. My creative mind has a
natural proclivity for this type of storytelling.  I’m currently working
on a different series of crime fiction/mystery books based on a character named
Ashe Cayne who’s an ex-Chicago police officer and now a private investigator.
I have learned a lot from my friends in CPD who have shown me the ropes
and explained procedure. Ashe is smart, sarcastic, handsome, tenacious, morally
compelled to right wrongs, broken-hearted, and a golf addict trying to bring
his scoring handicap into the single digits.  I LOVE this character and
Chicago as the setting. The expansive, energetic, segregated, volatile,
notoriously corrupt Chicago becomes an important secondary character in the
book. Ashe Cayne takes on only select cases, and people of all walks of life
from all over the city come to him to get answers.  The first book in the
series is called FLIGHT OF THE BUTTERFLY, and it’s about the
daughter of one of the city’s richest men who mysteriously goes missing on the
night she’s supposed to sleep over her best friend’s house.  Her
aristocratic mother hires Ashe Cayne to find her missing daughter. But it’s a
lot more complicated than a missing person case. I expect to publish this book
in the fall of 2019.
Follow Dr. Ian on Instagram: @doctoriansmith
Twitter: @DrIanSmith
Facebook Page: The Ancient Nine

A brilliant, timely, and important story by a masterful storyteller

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine Books, October 2, 2018) is an amazing read. Not only does it reveal both sides of the abortion debate from the personal viewpoints of each of the main characters, it does so in an immediate life-and-death kind of way. Then the storyline begins to work backwards, hour by hour, to examine the choices that brought each of Picoult’s characters to this critical crossroads on the same day.

If only we were able to turn back the hands of time to choose over—to make vital decisions with the full knowledge of the consequences of our actions—would we make the same choices?

Do we ever really have a choice? Or do human beings only act out of necessity?

A Spark of Light tackles some heavy philosophical questions: When does viable life begin? Is it with the spark when sperm and egg meet? Is it at full-term birth? What are the responsibilities of parents? Of children? Of men to women? Of women to men? Of society to all children, whether born or unborn?

Of man to God? Of God to men and women? Of fathers to their offspring? Of women to their children? Of women to themselves?

A brilliant, timely, and important story by a masterful storyteller. Very highly recommended.

Who Are the Hlloween Children?

The Halloween Children by Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss (Random House Hydra, June 2017) works by building suspense, by gradually increasing the sense of dread. Readers know from the very first page that something went terribly wrong Halloween night and lots of children either killed or were killed. Dread builds as you discover how really weird and totally dis-functional everyone in the entire Stillbrook apartment complex — especially the entire Naylor family — has become. You know all hell is about to break loose, and you can’t wait for it to happen. But, like waiting for Halloween or for Christmas, wait you must.

Good horror builds expectations. There are a lot of little boos that set the scene, but you know right from the get-go that the big fright comes on Halloween. Everything else is a warm-up or a red-herring.

“I think the environment in our apartment complex had everything to do with what happened,” Harris Naylor admits. “Not just our management policies and our neighbors, but maybe even the issues that had been swimming within our own family.”

Is the apartment complex haunted? Just when you think it is, a logical explanation pops up. But then something else weird happens, and the suspense builds until you’re sure the place is haunted by evil spirits.

Or maybe by crazy people: not just the children but adults, too.

Harris again hits the nail on the head: “If a place is going to be haunted, it’s more likely to be an apartment building, since there’s a high turnaround in tenants and folks from a variety of backgrounds will bring different quirks and neuroses and illnesses with them. Going with the odds, an apartment building simply has more opportunities for crazy, haunted people to live there.”

Or die there.

Heh heh.

So who are the Halloween Children really? Mattie and Amber? Ghosts? Evil spirits?

Read the novel and see with your own eyes.

Heh heh.

Kin and Kindred

It’s Easter. Like many people, I have fond memories of family gatherings for dinner on Easter and Thanksgiving, exchanging presents on Christmas Day, family outdoor cookouts on the Fourth of July or Labor Day, celebratory drinks on New Year’s Eve, or devouring chocolate cake on someone’s birthday. Most of those original family members are gone now, victims of old age or disease. Those few remaining are scattered to the four winds.

This Easter I’m connected, not by birth blood but by spilled blood, to an exciting extended family of friends.

I feel blessed to be part of a vibrant community of crime writers and horror writers who are indeed like family to me. I’ve been active in the Science Fiction and Fantasy communities since leaving active military service in the 1970s, and I’ve been a member of HWA since its inception. I’ve recently rejoined the Mystery Writers of America. I look forward to re-connecting in person with my writer friends at annual conventions. We stay connected during the rest of the year via Facebook, e-mails, and by reading stories and novels written by our family of friends. But now it’s time to get up close and personal.

April may be the cruelest month, but April is also the beginning of the busy convention season. I begin with panels and signings at Odyssey Con in Madison, Wisconsin, Midwest Mystery Writers readings in Chicago, Stokercon in Las Vegas, and I get to return to Madison for Wiscon on Memorial Day. Printers Row weekend is in Chicago in June. I go east to New York City for Thrillerfest in July, then west to MidwesternconII, the World Science Fiction Convention, in Kansas City during August. September sees me in New Orleans for Bouchercon, October is World Fantasy Con in Columbus, Ohio, and November is Windycon in Chicago. In between, I’m scheduled to do signings at bookstores and teach a class in the history of science fiction and fantasy at Rock Valley College. Each of these events is an opportunity not only to sell novels, but a time to meet and greet new and old friends. It is such friends that make life worth living.

Venturing out of the safety of my comfortable cocoon can be scary. Each year I’m reborn as an older version of myself. But the child that is within me emerges, and I’m at home with readers and writers who are more like me than most of my own family. My parents and grandparents were readers. So, too, is my daughter. My wife Gretta was a reader, and my ex-wife Teddie is still a reader of thrillers. Elizabeth Flygare is a reader and writer, though she prefers character-driven mainstream literature to thrillers and SF. But I boldly seek out new readers to welcome into my family because I love to share what I read and write, and I love to learn what others are reading and writing. It’s that love of the written word that connects us and unites us. It’s the spilled blood on the page that binds us.

It is written that the spilled blood of the only-begotten son of God redeems us, but it is the spilled blood of man that scares the be-Jesus out of us.

Is horror dead?

I have been here before. The eerie feeling of deja-vu is all encompassing.

I rode the horror bandwagon during the 1980s mass-market boom. Although I also crafted mysteries and westerns and contemporary romances and erotica and science fiction, I became known as a horror writer because my stories appeared in The Horror Show, The Arkham Sampler, Deathrealm, Masques III, and many other horror-themed anthologies and magazines. I also helped found the Horror Writers of America, now known as Horror Writers Association (HWA), which branded me as a horror writer.

I didn’t switch to horror, as some writers did, because it was the “in” thing. I wrote psychological horror and suspense because that was the kind of story I loved to read. Obviously, enough other readers loved horror to support an entire industry devoted to horror fiction. I suspect Stephen King’s success had a lot to do with horror’s popularity. Horror’s popularity began to wane when America launched Operation Desert Storm and real-life horrors were televised 24/7 by CNN and Fox.

When I returned to fiction writing in 2012, horror was undergoing a renaissance. New publishers had sprung up to take advantage of on-demand publishing and e-books. When I attended the 2014 World Horror Convention in Portland, I was introduced to Don D’Auria and Samhain Publishing. I pitched Don and he liked my story ideas (so did other editors who snatched up my novels first). When Don asked me to whittle my manuscripts down from 140,000 words to under 90,000 words, I knew Samhain wasn’t right for me. Don and I met again and talked at the Atlanta WHC in 2015. I was devastated to learn Don lost his job as editor of Samhain’s horror line near the end of 2015. Don, like David G. Hartwell, was one of the good-guys who knew and loved the genre as much as I did.

I am additionally devastated to learn today that Samhain plans to give up the ghost entirely. Samhain announced they will cease publication later this year due to declining sales.

Two of the other horror publishers who had licensed my novels in 2014 also went out of business recently. Eldritch Press published Abandoned in trade paper and e-book last March, and Eldritch shut down at the end of 2015 after publishing multiple Stoker Award nominees. Damnation Books, which contracted for Deviants in 2014, sold out to someone else who promised to publish my title but who has not remained in contact. Their new website is currently “under construction”. I suspect they won’t publish the novel before the contract expires.

Something similar happened to me in the 1990s when I sold several novels and dozens of short stories that never saw publication. Horror publishers bit the dust faster than Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers at the OK Corral, and it’s happening again.

Why is it happening now? I blame Donald Trump.

If you look at social media, you’ll notice how Trump dominates the posts, including posts by horror authors and readers. Trump has become a real-life horror that holds the attention of horror writers and readers the way the First Gulf War did, the same way Joseph McCarthy did in the 1950s and WWII did in the 1940s, when horror fiction also died from neglect.

Fear activates the fight or flight response in human beings just as it does in all animals. The human mind can only handle so much fear at a time before it seeks to escape from all fears real or imagined.

Not only has the fiction field been saturated by too much horror, so has real life.

What readers need and want now is a hero who will fight our fears for us. Like Generals Norman Swartzkopf and Colin Powell during the First Gulf War or Patton during WWII or Eisenhower and Edward R. Murrow during the McCarthy era. Mark my words, such a hero will emerge.

This is a recurring cycle, folks. It’s happened before, and it will happen again.

Horror never dies. It goes away for a while, and then it comes back.

Fortunately, I don’t depend on horror alone for my livelihood. I also write suspense thrillers with supernatural heroes and crime-suspense novels with detective heroes. I’m perfectly positioned for the superhero boom.

Writers who follow marketplace trends often find themselves a day late and a dollar short. The secret to surviving in this business is to write from the heart. Write what you want when you want, and to hell with current markets.

And, remember. Horror can never die. It returns from the grave with a vengeance.

On Visions and Voices

The hardest writing secret for me to learn—-probably the most important secret any writer can ever learn—-is to write only for yourself. You are your ideal reader, and the only person you need please is yourself.

I’m my own harshest critic. I obsess over every word. I’m a perfectionist at heart, and nothing is ever as good as my image of the way it should be.

That does not mean I don’t appreciate other perspectives. I do. I always appreciate advice and criticism from editors, agents, readers, and other writers.

But I don’t write to please others. I write only to tell the stories the way I envision them told. Sometimes I hear the words. Sometimes I see the words written down. Sometimes I feel the words or smell them or taste them.

Words are magical to me. Words enchant me and entrance me. I am under their spell.

Because I write in several genres, I’m not as well known as a horror writer, a suspense writer, a thriller writer, a science fiction and fantasy writer, or a mystery writer as I probably would be if I concentrated on one style and one genre only and published everything under one byline. I was raised in the great pulp tradition when writers had to write in many different genres and styles and under a variety of bylines just to earn a meager living. I wasted years studying mass-market trends and writing to guidelines established by editors or suggestions made by agents who supposedly knew the markets better than I.

By the time my stories or proposals crossed an editor’s desk, my themes were ofttimes out of vogue or the editor had moved on and the new editor wanted something different or the publication was no longer accepting unsolicited submissions. More than half of what I wrote never saw print.

When I returned to fiction writing in 2012 after an absence of nearly twenty years, I wrote only what I wanted to write without understanding how markets had changed in the interim. That proved to my advantage. Like many science fiction writers, I was either far ahead of my times or far behind my times. With a little bit of revision, several of my old novels and trunk stories became marketable as new 21st Century e-books because the truths I told then are particularly relevant to readers today. I am in the process now of dusting those stories and novels off, cleaning them up, modernizing them, and publishing them on Amazon.

Since I no longer write to spec, I am free to write what I want when I want and how I want. I write formula fiction because it’s what I know and love to read. But I cross genrelines with impunity, and I even toss in a few mainstream literary devices when I feel like it.

I’ll never be totally pleased with my writing, although I am certainly pleased with the progress I’m making as a writer. I’m pleasantly surprised when readers tell me they appreciate what I did in their favorite short story of mine or in a novel. It’s not like the old days when fans would often come up to me at cons and quote verbatim what they found especially memorable in one of my stories. These days, fans demand to know more about my characters and what will happen to so-and-so next because today’s fans don’t pay particular attention to the exact words I use to make my characters and their harrowing life-situations come alive, but they really do care about individual characters and what happens to each of them in their fictional worlds. I suppose that’s progress. It certainly makes selling sequels much easier. I like most of my characters, and I want to know more about them, too.

I shouldn’t be surprised that some readers appreciate my psychological horror (slasher) novels while other readers like my supernatural (paranormal) fantasies more. Still others prefer my police procedurals or my military thrillers. I realize it’s impossible to appeal to every reader out there. I must admit I was a bit surprised when a writer I admire told me he found Winds more fascinating than Light. Some of the settings and characters are literally the same in both novels. I should probably give up trying to second-guess readers. I find all of my novels fascinating, and that’s why I wrote them.

There are times I wish someone else would write my novels so I wouldn’t have to.

You know how this whole writing thing works, don’t you? You see a story idea and it grabs hold of you and simply won’t let you go. It’s a story that MUST be told. You do research, look around everywhere, for the same story already in print. When you can’t find it, you have to write it yourself to learn how the characters grow and develop and to discover how the story ends. Each of my novels—whether a standalone or part of a series—is a story I desperately wanted to read exactly the way it’s written. I hope you’ll want to read it, too. But if you don’t, that’s okay. I didn’t write it for you. I wrote it for me.

I know this goes against all of the conventional wisdom and everything I’ve learned in numerous writing classes and in books on the craft. I’m supposed to call you “Dear Reader” and pretend it’s all for you and I seek your approval with my writing. That’s a goddamned lie.

I write for me, and for me alone. I am willing to share my writing for a price.

If you’re a professional writer, you already know the secret: what makes your work valuable is your unique vision—your insights and intuitions—and the way you show us (reveal) your world through characterization, dialogue (literally, “through everyday words”), subtext, and metaphors. Readers are willing to pay you to share your visions if your visions are significantly different, sufficiently unique, and superbly well-written. Your writing doesn’t need to be perfect, just good. A competent craftsperson with a unique vision is often more worthy of reading than a literary perfectionist who has nothing new to reveal. That has been true for sf and fantasy visionaries for centuries, and it’s still true today.

Some writers, like Stephen King, have a unique voice. They possess an ear for words, and readers hear that voice whispering in their inner ears like their own self-talk. I admire that greatly. Like a teen-aged boy entering puberty, I’m still developing my mature voice.

As a mid-list author at the mid-point in his career, I have a clear vision of what I want to write next. Now I need to combine vision with voice to tell my unique stories the way they deserve to be told. I’m working on that.

Yes, Elizabeth, I’m still working on that. I guess I always will be until I get it right.

Review of The Widow

The Widow by Fiona Barton (New American Library, March 2016) is the kind of mystery I love to read. Told from alternating points of view, the reader has to piece together what happened the way police and reporters do from eye-witness interviews. Kate Waters, a Hampshire print journalist, is the first to get an in-depth interview with Jean Taylor, the notorious widow of Glen Taylor, a man everyone calls a monster. Jean, hidden from the press inside her own home, allows no one to enter after Glen dies. But resourceful Kate gets her foot in the door and befriends Jean. Detective Inspector Bob Sparkes is the copper who relentlessly investigates the disappearance of two-year-old Bella Elliott, taken from her Southampton home nearly half-a-decade ago. Sparkes works night and day for years to find Bella’s abductor. Eventually, enough evidence points to Glen Taylor as the man who kidnapped Bella that Sparkes arrests Glen. That’s when the tale takes a few twists and becomes really interesting.

Barton is such a good writer that she seamlessly pulls off multiple points of view and shifts from present to past tense without taking readers out of trance. Ripe with details, rich in dialog, The Widow is a character-driven novel that is also a suspenseful mystery from beginning to end. Very highly recommended.

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz is an entertaining thrill ride

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster, March 2016) is a first person narrative by Tanya Dubois aka Jo aka Tanya Pitts aka Jane Green aka Amelia Keen aka Debra Maze. Tanya/Amelia is on the run after her husband Frank Dubois dies. Did Tanya kill Frank? Or was Frank’s death an accident? One mystery leads to yet another as Tanya flees from lie after lie, life after life.

Tanya meets Blue in a bar in Austin, TX. When Mr. Oliver sends 2 men to question or kill Tanya, Blue and Tanya kill the men and escape. They begin visiting funeral homes to steal identities of deceased women. When Blue tells Tanya she’s killed her abusive husband, Jack, Tanya helps Blue bury the body. Blue suggests, since they can’t find a suitable cadaver look-alike, they simply switch identities. Tanya becomes Debra Maze, Blue’s real name, and Blue becomes Amelia Keen.

Tanya seems most at home in a bar. As she moves from town to town, changing identities on the fly, she keeps meeting men in bars. From Austin she flees to Recluse, Wyoming, where she kills the real Jack Reed in self-defense. She flees Recluse for upstate New York.

I won’t tell you Tanya’s real name. I won’t tell you about Ryan nor Mr. Oliver nor why Tanya went on the run in the first place. I don’t want to spoil the mystery.

I will mention Dominick because he’s a recurring figure in Tanya’s life. He’s the one genuinely nice and honest guy in her life, but he’s a cop and he suspects she’s not whom she claims to be and that she might be a wanted murderer.

The Passenger is a well-written mystery story with a compellingly strong female character who grows on the reader as complication after complication screws up Tanya’s life even more. There are so many wonderful twists and turns in this book that you won’t stop reading until you have read all of the story. Despite all of the foreshadowings, the ending comes as a real surprise.

My hat’s off to Lisa Lutz for an entertaining thrill-ride that made me hold onto my seat.

I Love a Good Story

I bought my daughter a Kindle for Christmas. Tammy was less than enthusiastic when I told her. Like me, she has a house full of books. Neither of us have room left to add new shelves and new books. So I thought a Kindle would be a great gift.

I own a couple of Kindles myself. Plus a Nook. I love being able to carry an entire library with me wherever I go. I love being able to buy a title online from home (often for much less than a paperback or hardback) and have instant access to the book. I love my Kindle. I love my Nook.

But I love the feel of holding a real book in my hands. I love the smell of pulp and ink and glue. I love physical books as much as I love the words printed on their pages.

So does my daughter love to own physical books. She loves to move them around on shelves. She loves to leaf through the pages to pick up bits and pieces of new knowledge. And, when Tammy reads a novel, she loves to become totally immersed in the tactile kinesthetic experience as well as the intellectual experience. She needs to touch the paper to give the experience full meaning. She needs to have real books at her fingertips, not plasticized digital images.

You may have heard that physical books are making a comeback. New independent bookstores are springing up all over the country, and even Amazon has opened its first brick and mortar store filed with real books. Publishers Weekly reports increases in hardbound and paperback sales, and decreases in e-book sales.

And the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) published a study this week proving that library patrons prefer physical books and audio books on CD to digital versions. Library circulation data confirm the BISG findings.

That’s both good news and bad news for writers. The good news is physical books in bookstores and libraries reach real readers who want to buy and read everything a writer writes. The bad news is writers get paid a smaller percentage of hardcover and paperback retail prices than the percentage they’re paid for e-books. Of course, the retail prices of hardbounds and trade paperbacks are usually much higher than e-books. I guess it all comes out in the wash.

Lately, I’ve found myself buying the hardbound or paperback versions over the Kindle or Nook versions, though sometimes I buy both. When Light and Winds and Spilled Milk came out in trade paperback, buyers of the paperback could also purchase a Kindle version for only 99 cents.

A good book is valuable in any form or format. Some folks find it easier to read digital versions. Some find it easier to read print copies. Gretta loved to listen to audio books on tape or CD.

I’m glad to see books are still viable, and I’m happy to see so many people reading or listening to stories in whichever form is most comfortable for them. I also read graphic novels and watch movies based on novels or short stories. I love a good story. Don’t you?

 

 

 

 

I have never before asked for reviews nor submitted works for awards. I have never before asked another author for a blurb.
This year is different. This year I turned seventy-one. Most of my friends and many of my acquaintances have perished from this earth. People I depended on to review my works or edit them or recommend them or nominate them for awards are no longer able to do so.
When Gretta, my wife of nearly thirty years, died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 2012, I began writing again from scratch. In essence, I started life over. Writing was all I had to keep myself sane in a world turned upside down. Writing gave new purpose to my life and allowed me to mix fantasy with reality in healthy ways. I completed novels I had started thirty years ago and I began new novels in a variety of genres.
This year—2015—some of those novels appeared in print for the first time. Two new short stories—“Dolls” and “After the Fall”—were published in magazines. Several of my out-of-print novels and short stories were reprinted or appeared as e-books. 2015 has been a marvelous year, and 2016 appears to be even better.
Fame and fortune are fleeting. Some of my titles became momentary best-sellers, then dropped in rank like a rock hurled over a cliff. A few readers were kind enough to write reviews on Amazon or Good Reads. One or two favorable reviews also appeared in magazines or on blogs. I’m grateful for each of those unsolicited reviews, and I hunger for more.
Nelson Algren told me once that a writer needs to ask everyone—friends and strangers alike—to buy his books. “Buy my books and the autograph is free,” he said. “No one will buy your work if you don’t ask.”
Algren was right. Writers must first ask agents or editors to buy their works in manuscript, and then they must ask readers to buy their published works.
It goes against my grain to ask for anything. I was raised to be an independent person, totally self-reliant. If I couldn’t do it by myself, I didn’t bother to do it.
But now I’m asking. I ask you to buy my books and read them. I ask you to leave reviews on Good Reads and Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. I ask you to review my works in print and on blogs. I ask you to talk about my works with anyone who might be interested.
Frederik Pohl used to tell me, when we chatted in con suites at Windycon or Chicon, that a writer is always too close to his own works to judge if they’re good or bad. That’s why we need editors. And reviewers. And awards.
And, I might add, why we need blurbs from other authors. People really do judge books by their covers and cover blurbs from names readers recognize.
Up until now, I have been scrupulous about not allowing burbs on my books. Personal letters from Karl Edward Wagner, Richard Laymon, Mort Castle, Jerry Williamson, Dave Silva, and others who have read my stuff and took the time to tell me nice things about my writing are personal. I treasure them and never asked if I could share them in print.
Nor do I brag about awards I have won or the nominations for awards I haven’t won. I did not solicit those awards and was pleasantly surprised when I received them. I keep the certificates and trophies in the basement where I store old trunk stories, ARCs, page proofs, and thousands of books I have read and cherish. All of my papers and books will pass to the sff archives at Northern Illinois University when I die. I expect the awards will end up there, too.
But I’m alive and well and still writing, and now I’m asking friends and fans and readers and reviewers to consider my latest works for review and for awards. There will be more Paul Dale Anderson novels and stories appearing in print next year and the year after next. I’ll be asking other writers for blurbs to put on the covers.
If you’re an author who wants readers, you’ve got to think long term. No one lasts long-term in this business without a little help from his friends. So, at long last, I’m asking my friends and followers and fans and fellow fiends for help.
If you like my stories, say so. If you don’t like them, say that, too. Let me know if you want to see more of what I write. If you think my stories or novels are worthy of awards, nominate them for a Stoker or a Nebula or a Hugo or an Anthony. But do it only because you want to, not because I asked.

I have never before asked for reviews nor submitted works for awards. I have never before asked another author for a blurb.

This year is different. This year I turned seventy-one. Most of my friends and many of my acquaintances have perished from this earth. People I depended on to review my works or edit them or recommend them or nominate them for awards are no longer able to do so.

When Gretta, my wife of nearly thirty years, died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 2012, I began writing again from scratch. In essence, I started life over. Writing was all I had to keep myself sane in a world turned upside down. Writing gave new purpose to my life and allowed me to mix fantasy with reality in healthy ways. I completed novels I had started thirty years ago and I began new novels in a variety of genres.

This year—2015—some of those novels appeared in print for the first time. Two new short stories—“Dolls” and “After the Fall”—were published in magazines. Several of my out-of-print novels and short stories were reprinted or appeared as e-books. 2015 has been a marvelous year, and 2016 appears to be even better.

Fame and fortune are fleeting. Some of my titles became momentary best-sellers, then dropped in rank like a rock hurled over a cliff. A few readers were kind enough to write reviews on Amazon or Good Reads. One or two favorable reviews also appeared in magazines or on blogs. I’m grateful for each of those unsolicited reviews, and I hunger for more.

Nelson Algren told me once that a writer needs to ask everyone—friends and strangers alike—to buy his books. “Buy my books and the autograph is free,” he said. “No one will buy your work if you don’t ask.”

Algren was right. Writers must first ask agents or editors to buy their works in manuscript, and then they must ask readers to buy their published works.

It goes against my grain to ask for anything. I was raised to be an independent person, totally self-reliant. If I couldn’t do it by myself, I didn’t bother to do it.

But now I’m asking. I ask you to buy my books and read them. I ask you to leave reviews on Good Reads and Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. I ask you to review my works in print and on blogs. I ask you to talk about my works with anyone who might be interested.

Frederik Pohl used to tell me, when we chatted in con suites at Windycon or Chicon, that a writer is always too close to his own works to judge if they’re good or bad. That’s why we need editors. And reviewers. And awards.

And, I might add, why we need blurbs from other authors. People really do judge books by their covers and cover blurbs from names readers recognize.

Up until now, I have been scrupulous about not allowing burbs on my books. Personal letters from Karl Edward Wagner, Richard Laymon, Mort Castle, Jerry Williamson, Dave Silva, and others who have read my stuff and took the time to tell me nice things about my writing are personal. I treasure them and never asked if I could share them in print.

Nor do I brag about awards I have won or the nominations for awards I haven’t won. I did not solicit those awards and was pleasantly surprised when I received them. I keep the certificates and trophies in the basement where I store old trunk stories, ARCs, page proofs, and thousands of books I have read and cherish. All of my papers and books will pass to the sff archives at Northern Illinois University when I die. I expect the awards will end up there, too.

But I’m alive and well and still writing, and now I’m asking friends and fans and readers and reviewers to consider my latest works for review and for awards. There will be more Paul Dale Anderson novels and stories appearing in print next year and the year after next. I’ll be asking other writers for blurbs to put on the covers.

If you’re an author who wants readers, you’ve got to think long term. No one lasts long-term in this business without a little help from his friends. So, at long last, I’m asking my friends and followers and fans and fellow fiends for help.

If you like my stories, say so. If you don’t like them, say that, too. Let me know if you want to see more of what I write. If you think my stories or novels are worthy of awards, nominate them for a Stoker or a Nebula or a Hugo or an Anthony. But do it only because you want to, not because I asked.

A Writer's Heaven

Rockford isn’t known for much that’s good. It’s called “Screw City” for a reason.

 

The Stockholm Inn is very good, and Maria’s Restaurant used to be good. The Ratskeller used to be good, too, and so was the Sweden House. The Stockholm Inn is still in business. The others aren’t.

 

Rockford is known for having an exceptionally high crime rate. It’s also known for having an exceptionally low literacy rate. Anyone see a connection?

 

Rockford used to be known as the “Second City”, second only to Chicago in size, culture, and amenities. Now Rockford has diminished to the fifth or sixth largest city in Illinois. Intelligent people abandoned the town in droves, and more leave every day. Rockford is going downhill rapidly, and no one knows how to apply the brakes.

.

 

Rockford used to support a viable community of writers, poets, artists, and musicians. Most have gone elsewhere, although Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and poet Christine Swanberg still remain in town and only God knows why. New American Theater closed. The only live theater in town is at the local community college during summer months and at the restored Coronado Performing Arts Center when roadshows come to town. The big box Metro Center—excuse me, the renamed BMO Harris Bank Center—has become a venue for ice hockey and religious festivals and no longer includes a regular schedule of musical performance by big name artists.

 

The annual 3-day and 3 raucous night Labor Day “On the Waterfront” music extravaganza fizzled out and exists only in memory.

 

Rockford used to have one of the finest public libraries in the state. Instead of investing in maintaining the library and increasing its collections, the city chose to build golf courses and sports complexes. Soon the main public library building will be torn down while a new indoor mega-sports center appears on the opposite bank of the Rock River.

 

 

Rockford has no new bookstores other than a few Christian booksellers and one pint-sized children’s bookstore. Borders closed and Barnes and Noble moved out of town to nearby Cherry Valley. Toad Hall, one of the best record and book memorabilia shops in the country, is still on Broadway, but it has deteriorated into a ghost of what it once was. Tomorrow is Yesterday has become more of a gaming haven than a comic book emporium and changed its name to Top Cut Comics and then to Top Cut Central. There is a Half-Price Books discount outlet that opened a few years ago. But they carry only remainders and inventory acquired from bankrupted bookstores.

 

 

I left Rockford and I came back. I left the first time when I went away to the University, but I came back to attend Rockford College when John Bennett and Mary Dearing Lewis and Donald Walhout were teaching there. I left the second time to enter the army and complete my formal education. But, eventually, I came back.

 

Declining home values makes Rockford affordable for low-lifes like me. Rockford’s escalating crime rate provides daily inspiration for crime writers like me. Paranoia and superstition and religious fanaticism fuel the fires of horror fiction. Rockford, Illinois, is a wonderful place to observe entropy in action. In short, Rockford is the perfect place to write.

 

Although I miss brick-and-mortal bookstores, Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com make it easy to buy new and used books from the same computer I use to craft my own fiction. Facebook and Skype allow me to stay in touch with other writers throughout the world without leaving my computer. I can easily access library databases and do research on the internet from the comfort of my own home.

 

Because “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household,” I do leave Rockford to make personal appearances and do book signings all over the world. My novels and stories sell well in England and in Europe and Japan and China. I can hop a commuter bus or airline in Rockford and make connections to anyplace I want to travel. Or I can drive to Chicago’s O’Hare and be there in less than two hours.

 

But I return to Rockford to write. No one here knows or cares that I’m a writer. There are too few venues here to bother about doing local autographings, and the local newspaper and radio and television stations prefer to report on true crime and not the imaginings of home-town boys and girls.

 

Crime runs rampant in Rockford. Gunshots are a daily occurrence. No one here pays any attention to the voice of one person crying in the wilderness.

 

Rockford is known as one of the ten worst places to live in the nation. For a crime writer, it’s one of the best.

 

 

Ask me for my autograph

Rebuilding your readership one reader at a time isn’t easy. My horror novels have been out of print for a quarter of a century, and I have only just began to see my new suspense thrillers appear in print. I tried advertising on Google, in the pages of The Big Thrill, in various media. I sent out news releases and free review copies. I appeared on panels at science fiction and fantasy conventions and did readings, autographings, and group signings at the World Horror Convention, The Nebula Awards, OdysseyCon, and bookstores all over the country. I hawked books during television interviews, and I maintained a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GoodReads, Library Thing, and Amazon. I maintain multiple websites and write weekly blogs on Blogger, WordPress, and Tumbler. New short stories bearing my by-line have appeared recently in Weirdbook, The Horror Zine, and Pulp Adventures. All of this is, of course, necessary to rebuild name recognition. But what really sells books is repeat customers and word-of-mouth. Faithful fans who buy everything I write and tell their friends about me are precious.

What I haven’t done and need desperately to do is stay in contact with each of those fans. I’m a shy guy and my comfort zone is reading and writing alone at home. I don’t answer my telephones when they ring, and I don’t respond to e-mails in a timely manner. I am on Facebook nearly every day, and I do respond to most messages. So, if you want to contact me, message me on Facebook. And if you just want to learn about what I’m currently working on, what appearances I have planned at conventions or bookstores, when my latest novels will be released, or follow my fictional adventures, sign up for my monthly newsletter at http://www.pauldaleanderson.net/contact/. You can also read my weekly blog at http://www.pauliedaleanderson.com.

And never be hesitant to ask me for my autograph (except on a blank check). If you buy my books, I owe you a personalized autograph.

Sometimes I write short stories

Although I’m best known today for writing series suspense thrillers such as my Instruments of Death (Claw Hammer, Pickaxe, Icepick, Meat Cleaver) e-book series from Crossroad Press and my Winds novels from Eldritch Press and 2AM Publications (Abandoned, Darkness, Light, Winds, Time), I still write stand-alone novels (Deviants, forthcoming from Damnation Books) and occasional science fiction or horror short stories for magazines and anthologies. “After the Fall” appeared this week in the Fall 2015 issue of The Horror Zine Magazine (http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Zine-Magazine-Fall-2015/dp/0692482067/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8). “Dolls” is scheduled to appear in Weirdbook 31. And “Who Knows What Evil Dwells” appeared today in Pulp Adventures 18 (http://www.amazon.com/Pulp-Adventures-18-Model-Corpse/dp/151510110X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438453189&sr=1-1&keywords=pulp+adventures+18).

I love reading and writing short fiction. I work on short stories concurrently with novels. Like most writers, I have thousands of story ideas in various stages of development. Novels, of course, are more lucrative than short stories. I make my living by writing novels, but I gain new readers from placing short stories in magazines and anthologies. Short stories introduce readers to my writing, and many of those readers go on to buy copies of my novels. Short stories, not unlike blog posts, are an excellent way to showcase a variety of my writing styles. I prefer to use multiple viewpoints in novels, but I normally limit short stories to a single viewpoint character. I hate first-person narratives in novels, but first-person is perfect for blogs and many short stories. Yes, Elizabeth. I do sometimes write in first person. I have even written some—but not many—first-person novels. There is a time and place for everything.

Take Three Years Off

The US Army is downsizing. "Take Three Years Off" screams the Army Times in front-page headlines. I've read the Army Times religiously every week since the 1970s. Since I got out of the service in 1986, I've kept up with trends and rumor-mills via print media. I write several series of para-military thrillers (Running Out of Time, Impossible, and even the Winds-series  which includes Abandoned and Darkness). I depend on AT and a handful of buddies who are still in the service or recently released from Active Duty to keep me current.
I've been through downsizing before. I was a DA Budget Analyst and Logistics and Personnel Technician during the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan administrations. I got recalled from the standby reserve to help plan for future mobilizations. Every time I took time out from military service to pursue a career as a writer, the Army needed to increase troop strength again to handle a new emergency. Eventually, after more than twenty years of yo-yoing between civilian and military careers, I asked out of that chicken-shit scenario. Now I'm too old to put the uniform on again (even if it fit), but the nightmares still haunt me that I'll wake up in the middle of the night and have to shave and get a haircut, don my ACUs, grab my duffel, and airlift somewhere under live fire. Like CW5 Dave Davis and The Ranger in Abandoned, I just want the killing to stop. Is that only wishful thinking?
Periodic downsizing is necessary, but so is periodic mobilization. America must have a viable deterrence to threat, but we also have realistic limits on men, money, and materiel that require us to withdraw and take stock before responding. We can't keep running without taking a breather. Now is the time to "smoke 'em if you got 'em" and get ready to run again. We've come a long way, but we have farther to go before we can rack our rifles and turn in our unexpended ammunition.
How many boots on the ground will we need for future conflicts? How soon will we need them? I hope planners take a long, hard look at history before culling too many of the herd.
Take three years off? Hell, yeah! It sounds like a great idea for reducing troop strengths while keeping combat-trained men and women available for future conflicts. Whoever thought up that idea deserves a medal.

Signwave by Andrew Vachss

Dell would do anything for Dolly. Dell met Dolly, a nurse serving with Doctors without Borders in war-torn Africa, when Dolly helped save the life of a badly-wounded mercenary soldier who had never before known tenderness or caring. That mercenary, merely one among the many dead and wounded who wound up at the only medical facility in the heart of the jungle, was the man Dolly would eventually marry. Dolly didn’t know that at the time she first saved Dell’s life, but Dell did.

Dell learned about loyalty in the French Foreign Legion. He served five long years in The Legion and was taught many useful things. Like loyalty, weaponry, and ways to kill without being seen and without regret or remorse. Life in the Legion boiled down to kill or be killed. It didn’t matter who you killed. All that mattered was that you killed them first before they killed you.

Now Dell and Dolly have retired from their former lives and live on the Oregon coast where they own some land near the edge of a forest. Dell had wisely invested most of the money he’d earned as a mercenary soldier, so Dolly and Dell can live comfortably without working regular day jobs. If truth be told, Dell is actually quite wealthy. But no one else needs to know that, not even Dolly.

What Dolly does know about Dell and what Dell knows about Dolly is they are both fiercely loyal to each other, to their few human friends, and to the flora and fauna they share their Oregon wilderness home with.

That in a nutshell, is the basic premise behind Andrew Vachss’ enjoyable Aftershock series of laid-back thrillers. Told entirely from Dell’s first-person POV, all three novels (Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave) have essentially the same plot: whenever someone or something threatens Dolly or her world, Dell calls on his considerable knowledge, skills, and resources to make the problem simply disappear. But first, Dell must solve the mystery and discover the real source of the problem.

The growing cast of recurring characters—each with his or her own unique abilities and problems—keeps readers reading while Dell investigates and solves the mystery. In Signwave (Pantheon, June 2015, 253 pages, $26.95) Dell calls on MaryLou and Franklin, Johnny and Martin, Mack and Bridgette, and Rascal and Minnie to help Dolly and Dell save their beloved neck of the woods from being exploited by ruthless con men. This time the body count is minimal. Can Dell out-con the con artists? Do bears defecate in the woods?

What Vachss builds in these novels is a growing sense of family that Dell never experienced as a child on the streets of Paris. Luc and Patrice were the closest Dell ever came to family, and they both died. Death was the only constant in Dell’s life until Dell met Dolly. Then everything changed. Now Dell has a real family. And heaven help anyone who tries to mess with any of them because Dell is fiercely loyal to all of them.

I’m now a loyal reader of novels by Andrew Vachss, and I think you will be too once you discover Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave.