My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

 

My 2023 was a busy one for travel, with lots of trips to familiar and not-so-familiar spots.

I went twice to Tangier, my favorite North African city, to show my nephew around. We did some day trips to Asilah and Tetouan and some short hikes. Now he loves Morocco as much as I do! I also went to Egypt for research and my usual Oxford summer stay.

The big trip, however, was living for almost three months in Victoria, British Columbia. I'm Canadian but moved out of the country when I was eight and this was the first time I'd gone back for a significant period. While the town itself was only OK (little culture, too many junkies) the surrounding nature was fantastic. The temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest has to be seen to be believed. I never knew there were that many shades of green!

 

 

 

So what's on the agenda for 2024? Next week I'm off to Egypt again to write Book Six of The Masked Man of Cairo series. The Case of the Disappearing Dervish sees Moustafa having to go back to his village in Nubia to find a lost relative. Sir Augustus and Faisal come along to help. Much of my trip I'll be studying the Nubian villages along the border. Sadly, I can't get into the Sudan given the current situation. I hope it improves soon. The Sudanese people have endured way too much war in recent decades.

There will also be a return trip to Canada, Morocco, Oxford, and maybe a new country. It's been a while since I've gone to a country I've never visited before. My wife and I are thinking Hungary. I've heard Budapest is beautiful. Have any of you been there?

I'll post occasionally here on the blog, but for travel photos the best place to follow me is on my Instagram account. I also include travel articles in my newsletter. You get two free ebooks just for signing up!

Hope you have a great travel year! What do you have planned?

My Adventure Travel Year, A Look Back and a Look Forward

Medieval city gate, Cairo

With the threat of Covid dwindling, and my own immune system bolstered by vaccinations and a contracting a mild case, travel picked up for me in 2022. It started with a trip to Essaouira, an old pirate port on Morocco's Atlantic coast. I later returned to Morocco to go to two other ports, Asilah and my old haunt of Tangier. I hadn't been to Tangier for more than three years so it was great to see my Moroccan friends again.

Essaouira

I also popped over to Berlin in the dead of winter for some book research. Berlin is not at its best in winter--cold, damp, and often foggy--but that's when my character shows up and so I had to method act that part. The first thing I discovered is I wasn't describing the weather as bad as it really was! Still, I enjoyed my trip.

And of course I went to Egypt. Only one trip this year, sadly, but it was a nice long one that was very fruitful for my book research and filled with good times with all my Egyptian friends.

So what's on deck for 2023? I'm thinking of going to the old walled Moroccan city of Taroudant south of the Atlas mountains. In the spring I'll revisit Berlin to work on book two of my Berlin series. There will also be a trip to Egypt, although I don't know when I'll slip that in.

The big news, however, is that I will be spending the last four months of the year in Victoria, British Columbia. Canada's west coast is rich in wildlife, nature, and several enduring First Nations cultures. I'll be exploring all of that.

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Essaouira

Asilah

Asilah is famous for its street murals

Flight to Fez Out Now!

The third and final book in my Interzone Mystery series, Flight to Fez, is now out! This time Shorty has to go to the French sector to solve a murder, with a little help gun, his fists, and his lovely gal. A blurb is below.

 

Only in Tangier could a literary event turn into a murder scene.
I’m “Shorty” MacAllister, private detective. I’ve investigated all sorts of crazy cases in this lawless town, tracking down con men and Nazi fugitives, anarchists and bank robbers, all the while running my own secret angle.
But I never thought that when I went to hear my friend Jane Bowles read her latest story I’d end with a murdered man in my lap, and an old war buddy getting pinned with the crime.
After that, things got a whole lot more complicated.

 

You can get Flight to Fez on Amazon and anywhere else ebooks are sold.

Two Free Lockdown Reads!

Bored during lockdown? Have a couple of free ebooks on me! Through the end of this weekend I'm offering my novel The Last Hotel Room and my novella The Scavenger for free.

The Last Hotel Room deals with the Syrian refugee crisis and is based on several refugees I interviewed in Iraq and Morocco.

He came to Tangier to die, but life isn’t done with him yet.
Tom Miller has lost his job, his wife, and his dreams. Broke and alone, he ends up in a flophouse in Morocco, ready to end it all. But soon he finds himself tangled in a web of danger and duty as he’s pulled into scamming tourists for a crooked cop while trying to help a Syrian refugee boy survive life on the streets.
Can a lifelong loser do something good for a change?

The Scavenger is set in my Toxic World setting for the series of the same name.

In a world shattered by war, pollution, and disease, a lone scavenger discovers a priceless relic from the Old Times.
The problem is, it's stuck in the middle of the worst wasteland he knows--a contaminated city inhabited by insane chem addicts and vengeful villagers. Only his wits, his gun, and an unlikely ally can get him out alive.
Set in the Toxic World series introduced in the novel Radio Hope, this 10,000-word story explores more of the dangers and personalities that make up a post-apocalyptic world that's all too possible.

Enjoy!

Back from Fez!

I just got back from a ten-day writing retreat in Fez, Morocco. Like my many trips to Tangier, this was to work on a novel set in that city. It's the third of the Interzone Mystery series, and this time Shorty and Melanie have to track down a fugitive who's hiding in the medina of Fez. Shorty has a mission for the Party he's trying to do on the side, and it doesn't help that his old nemesis Chason is hot on his trail. Flight to Fez is a whole lot of fun to write. You can keep track of my progress on the sidebar to the right.

Fez is a fascinating town. It was the seat of many dynasties of Sultans and is filled with historic mosques and madrasas. i stayed in a house in one of the quiet backstreets, trying to get my writing done during the heat of the day so I could go sightseeing in the mornings and evenings.

Attached are some pictures. I'll have a full article on my trip in the next issue of my newsletter, coming out later this month.

 

 

My street.

Courtyard of a medieval madrasa.

Neighborhood donkey.

My Latest Morocco Mystery Is Out Now!

My latest book has just come out. Three Passports to Trouble is the second in the Interzone Mystery series that started with Tangier Bank Heist. This time Shorty has to cool a tense political situation while causing a bit of mayhem of his own. A blurb is below.

Back in the days when Tangier was an International Zone, the city was full of refugees. People fleeing Stalin. People fleeing Franco. People fleeing the Nuremburg Trials. Tangier offered a safe haven from the chaos of Europe.
The International Council had to keep a delicate balance, tolerating everything from anti-capitalist agitators to Germans with murky pasts. It was the only way to keep the peace, and it worked.
Until an anarchist was found dead with a fascist dagger in his chest.
And I got stuck with the case just when I had to smuggle a couple of Party operatives out of town.

It's available now on Amazon!

My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

The Duomo in Florence, Italy

Is January 17 too late to write a retrospective? I'm not sure.
As my regular readers know, I'm a bit of a travel junkie. Well, this year I only got half a fix. While I did some fun trips, I didn't get to any new countries. I hope to remedy that in 2019.
In 2018, I went to Tangier twice, because it's a great place for a writing retreat. I know the city well, I have friends there, but it's also quiet and I can get some peace and work. I also traveled around Spain a bit, most notably the historic city of Córdoba. The highlight of the travel year was visiting Florence. I have been around Italy a bit, but I had never seen the jewel in its crown and I must say I was totally blown away. I must get back there sometime. Anyone who lives art, architecture, and history will be absolutely stunned for the entire time they are in Florence.
So what's up for 2019? For the next three weeks I'll be in Egypt to work on my next Cairo mystery novel. I'll be based in Cairo seeing friends, but I'll also be exploring places I haven't seen before in the Western Desert. This will be my fourth trip to Egypt but there's still heaps I haven't seen.
I also hope to go to Morocco again, although probably Fez instead of Tangier. I've never seen Morocco's most ancient and religious city even though I've been to the country at least ten times. There will also be some more travel around Spain, the usual England summer stay, and hopefully a second trip to Egypt near the end of the year.
So when will I fit in that new country I want to see? I don't really know, but Tunisia is calling my name!
I write up my travels on the Black Gate blog, so if you'd like to read more, head on over there and put my name or one of the place names I mentioned into the search field. You'll get plenty of reading and pictures. I also put travel stories in my newsletter, as well as pictures on my Facebook and Instagram accounts.

The interior of the great mosque in Córdoba, Spain

Tangier Bank Heist is out now, at an introductory price!

My latest mystery novel, Tangier Bank Heist, is out now, and as a thank you to my readers it's at 99 cents until the end of October!

Right after the war, Tangier was the craziest town in North Africa. Everything was for sale and the price was cheap. The perverts came for the flesh. The addicts came for the drugs. A whole army of hustlers and grifters came for the loose laws and free flow of cash and contraband.
So why was I here? Because it was the only place that would have me. Besides, it was a great place to be a detective. You got cases like in no other place I’d ever been, and I’d been all over. Cases you couldn’t believe ever happened. Like when I had to track down the guy who stole the bank.
No, he didn’t rob the bank, he stole it.
Here’s how it happened . . .

This title is available at Amazon US and all other Amazon stores.

Tangier Bank Heist Cover Reveal

My cover designer has come up for two designs for my upcoming Tangier mystery novel. Which do you prefer and what would you change?

Travel Tuesday: Tetouan, Morocco

As regular readers of this blog know, if I'm posting about Morocco, I must be going there! That's right, I'll be spending the next ten days in Tangier working on the second Tangier mystery novel. The first, Tangier Bank Heist, will be coming out in mid-October.

So here are some shots of the medieval medina of Tetouan, a fine old city a short drive from Tangier. For more on Tetouan, see this article I wrote.

In the middle of the day, the streets are pretty abandoned. . .

. . .except for games of medina football!

Here's a somewhat warped rooftop panoramic view.

Back from Tangier and Working on a New Mystery

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to Tangier for ten days to work on a novella, which has now morphed into a short novel. I got 27,000 words done while I was there but the weather was too beautiful and my friends too friendly for me to get the entire thing done. Then I came home to two big ghostwriting deadlines. Oh well.
The first draft of the book, tentatively called Tangier Bank Heist, is almost complete. It takes place during the days of the Tangier International Zone, when from 1924–1956 Tangier was run by several different European nations plus the United States. My gumshoe is a veteran of the Lincoln Brigade of the Spanish Civil War and he now lives in Tangier solving crimes and trying to help the poor. He gets his biggest case yet when his girlfriend loses her savings when the bank she put her money in gets stolen. No, not robbed, stolen. The book is based on a true story, and a bizarre story it is.
Watch for it soon!

Another Writing Retreat in Tangier

It's been a while since I've traveled to Tangier to do some writing, so I'm going to remedy that by heading down there for ten days to write a mystery novella. That's right, I intend on writing a 30,000 word novella in ten days. That's only 3,000 words a day, and without the distractions of the Internet or ghostwriting, I should be able to do it.

So what's the mystery about? Well, that will remain a mystery for the time being. All I'll say is that it's set in the International Zone period, when from 1924–1956 Tangier was run by several different European nations plus the United States. It was a wild and somewhat lawless place, and a great spot for my detective to make a living. The action will take place shortly after WWII so I can use many famous residents in the supporting cast, such as William S. Burroughs and Paul and Jane Bowles. Should be fun.

If you want to see what Tangier looks like, I'll be regularly updating my Instagram account.

See you when I get back!

Update on my Books

Things are pretty busy here at the fiction factory. First off, the print edition of The Case of the Purloined Pyramid is finally out. Also, the Kindle edition is only $1.99 all this month in the Amazon US store.

I should have had the print edition out a while ago but I've been buried in ghostwriting assignments. I just finished one for a client that turns out to be my 52nd book-length project, 40 of which are novels. I finished it on Sunday and took Monday off. I needed a break!

Next up is another ghostwriting project, plus a mystery under my own name set in Tangier during the International Zone era just after World War Two. Yes, I'm going back to Tangier for ten days to write it next month. Should be fun!

Then summer will be right around the corner, time to finish up the next Toxic World book plus a nonfiction book I'm writing on the writing habits prolific authors. No, I'm not one of those yet. To be covered in my book, and author has to have written at least 300 books. I may never reach that level!

Book Review: Look and Move on by Mohammed Mrabet

Look and Move On by Mohammed Mrabet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mohammed Mrabet is a Moroccan writer and artist who has lived most of his life in Tangier. This is his memoir of the days when it was an international haven for writers, artists, thieves, con men, homosexuals, pederasts, and the idle rich. Like For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri, it shows the flip side of this foreigner's paradise, the life of poor Moroccans struggling to survive and often having to serve the newcomers in various unpleasant ways.
Mrabet didn't escape this. At the age of sixteen, he got taken up by an American couple who vied with each other for his sexual favors. They take him to the U.S., where he has more fun with the local Puerto Ricans and blacks than he does with the staid middle class whites. There are some hilarious scenes of culture clashes in these passages. Later he meets Paul and Jane Bowles, who launch his career as a writer. They, too, take him to the States with similarly numerous results. We also get to follow Mrabet's adventures with European swingers, falling into matrimony, and his rather Zen philosophy of life.
While I found this slim volume fascinating because I've spent a lot of time in Tangier and read a great deal about its history, someone who isn't a fan of the place will miss a lot of the references. For example, Marguerite McBey is mentioned but nothing is said about her important place in Tangier society. I hope this work is republished with a long introduction to explain the context to those readers who have not learned about it from other sources.

View all my reviews

My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

This past year has been pretty good for travel with me. I went to Egypt twice, spending a total of six weeks there to start my Masked Man of Cairo neo-pulp detective series. I made some great friends, explored Cairo more thoroughly than I did when I was first there way back in 1991, and got to see the pyramids again. Always a plus! I also had an all-too-brief trip to Tangier. I've been to that city a dozen times now and it still relaxes me. It's a quick and cheap getaway from Madrid, being only an hour's flight away, and I always seem to get a lot of writing done. You see, I hardly ever go on a real vacation. All my trips are work trips but enjoyable anyway. As usual, my family and I spent Easter and the summer in Oxford as we do every year. I get lots of research done at the university library.

So what's in store for 2018? More Egypt, certainly, and perhaps a trip to Fez, a fascinating Moroccan city I still haven't explored. For Egypt I intend to go to the western oases, which I have never seen, and perhaps up the river again to revisit the sites around Luxor and Aswan. There will be the usual trips to England and around Spain, and perhaps a few other short trips. One trip I and my family would like to do is a visit to Paris. A good friend lives there and my son is taking French in school, so he can be our translator. And who knows what else 2018 will throw at me? We shall see.

The Last Hotel Room is on sale for 99 cents

Kindle Press is promoting the electronic edition of my novel, The Last Hotel Room, for 99 cents from July 5-11 in the Amazon US store only.

It deals with the Syrian refugee crisis and an American who breaks out of his self-pity and apathy to try and help. I wrote it to be timely and political, and never thought it would get as timely and political as this! Please share. A portion of my royalties goes to Syrian refugees.

Check out the Kindle page and you'll see that several Kindle Press reader favorites are on sale during this period, so look through them and gather up some great reading!

And a big thank you to all who voted for it during the Kindle Scout competition. You rock!

Travel Tuesday: Some Tangier Locations From My Novel

"An old man in a brown djellaba hobbled up the hill, his face obscured under the pointed peak of his hood. Tom could tell the man was old only by the way he moved—stiff and slow, yet sure, one foot after another as he ascended the smooth, steep slope of bare stone, rising up over the lip and silhouetted by the water like some pagan sea god. "

When I was writing my novel, The Last Hotel Room, I spent a few months living in Tangier to get the setting and details right. The novel centers around Tom, a broke American who has lost everything and is stuck in Morocco while the last of his money runs out. He's decided to kill himself at that point, but soon finds himself a precarious income helping a crooked cop extort money from tourists. He used much of this money to support Asif, a Syrian refugee boy who's living alone in Tangier.

My publisher, Kindle Press, has put the ebook edition on sale for 99 cents on the Amazon store through April 3. To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to share some of my photos of Tangier along with associate quotes from the text. They're in chronological order. Enjoy!

"On the days he didn’t have tea with Mohammed, he would round the corner to the Petit Socco and sit at one of the cafés, either the Central, with its wicker chairs and awning, or the Tingis, with its little patio on the high end of the Socco, looking down across the plaza’s length."

"The muezzin’s call lilted over the medina, to be picked up by another muezzin in a mosque further away. The alleys echoed and reechoed with their mingled songs as half a dozen mosques near and far sang out the same song a few words apart from one another."

"The tower was square and made of flat bricks faced with a thick coating of plaster, most of which had flaked away. It would take some time to get the details right in his drawing; it was a bit like the tile work on the mosque but with no regular pattern. The general shape looked easy enough: square with saw-toothed battlements on top. The whole thing listed a little over the cliff. Five centuries of Atlantic rain and wind had gnawed away at the cliff until it reached the base of the tower and then taken a big bite out of the tower’s base. As he watched, a couple of teenage boys popped out of its open front (the wall having tumbled down the precipice long ago), edged around the top of the cliff, and sauntered past him."

"Straight ahead the slope plunged steeply down, allowing them an open, sweeping view of the Strait of Gibraltar glittering in the sunset. Asif stepped out to the edge of the slope, looked over his shoulder at Tom with a smile, and then stared out over the water. Tom stepped up beside him and stared too, resting a hand on his shoulder."

“That is the boat from Tarifa, in Spain,” Asif said quietly, pointing at the catamaran. “So easy for them.”

“Spain looks close,” Tom said.

“Fourteen kilometers. Can you get me on the ferry, Tom?”

“You don’t have a visa. They’d never let you on board and they won’t listen to me. There’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”

Asif looked disappointed but not surprised.

“I afraid to go the other way,” he whispered, then turned and headed back through the gate. Tom followed, feeling helpless.

Massive Kindle Scout Anniversary Sale With All Ebooks 99 cents!

Kindle Scout is celebrating its second year of reader-powered publishing by running a promotion on the entire Kindle Scout catalog on Amazon.com. All Scout-discovered titles are available for purchase for $0.99 from March 20 through April 3. This includes, of course, my novel about the Syrian refugee crisis The Last Hotel Room, which was published last September after getting enough support on Kindle Scout to win a contract with Kindle Press.

I have big hopes for this sale. Kindle Press did a similar promotion for my book for all of February and my ranking leaped up to 10,000 for much of the time, and even reached 6,000 for a few days. Here's hoping I'll top that this time.

There are plenty of other great books in this sale, a total of 215! You can see the entire list here.

Get The Last Hotel Room for only a Buck!

Kindle Press is promoting the electronic edition of my novel, The Last Hotel Room, for $1 all this month.

The deal is only available on the Amazon US store so all you furriners will see it at the regular price. It deals with the Syrian refugee crisis and an American who breaks out of his self-pity and apathy to try and help. I wrote it to be timely and political, and never thought it would get as timely and political as this! Please share. A portion of my royalties goes to Syrian refugees.

And a big thank you to all who voted for it during the Kindle Scout competition. You rock!

Travel Tuesday: Find the Moroccan Cat!

This is a shot of my rooftop in Tangier, Morocco. Can you spot the cat? Do NOT give the answer in the comments section!

My next trip will be the last two weeks of February, when I go to Cairo to work on a novel and see a friend. I'll be posting plenty of photos!