I’m currently featured on fellow Oak Tree Press mystery writer Marilyn Meredith’s blog Marilyn’s Musings. Marilyn is an accomplished writer with many books to her credit, including her Rocky Bluff P.D. series. Like me she features an American Indian protagonist, Tempe Crabtree, in her series. You may have noticed that to honor me she named her character after the city of my abode. Quite an honor, especially since she was using the name long before she ever heard of me. You can check out her blog at: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/2015/09/about-baleful-owl-by-virgil-alexander.html
Like most writers, I love reading for pleasure. However, between doing research, writing, events, and marketing stuff, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to enjoy reading. But in the last couple of weeks I read Mary Anna Evan’s Isolation, Charles Kelly’s Pay Here, and am currently reading Marilyn Meredith’s Violent Departures.
I always enjoy Mary Anna Evans' stories including Isolation, the latest in her Faye Longchamp mystery series, I gave it a five star review on both Amazon and B&N and highly recommend Isolation. http://www.maryannaevans.com/the-books/
Charles Kelly is a retired reporter for the Arizona Republic and is an excellent writer; however, Pay Here is not to my liking. It is well written and has all the elements of a good mystery, but it is set in the seamy underside of society and I do not enjoy noir mysteries. There may have only been one character in the book that resembled anything like a normal person; they were almost all mental messes. It also contains a lot of profanity and obscenity, I usually don’t read books with that content; I read this one because a friend of the author requested me to read it and let him know what I think. I do not recommend this book, because I didn’t enjoy it for the reasons stated.
I’ve only read a few chapters of Marilyn Meredith’s Violent Departures, and am enjoying that book. It is only the second of Marilyn’s books that I’ve read, but I like her writing and am looking forward to reading all her books. I recommend that you include her on your “to read” list.
In non-fiction I recently read the out-of-print History of Globe, Arizona by Bob Bigando, and a booklet by Bill Kishbaugh, Memoirs of Hayden, Arizona. Both of these have lots of period photos and are well researched and quite enjoyable. History of Globe is available used on Amazon, and Memoirs of Hayden is self-published and available by direct ordering from the author by sending $12 per copy to W.G. Kishbaugh 4793 S Longhorn Ln, Winkelman, Arizona 85192.
Of course if you are looking for a good Southwestern mystery involving artifact theft and murder along US-60, I highly recommend The Baleful Owl by me.