Now Available: The Case of the Asphyxiated Alexandrian!

 

Book Five of my Masked Man of Cairo historical mystery series is now available. The Case of the Asphyxiated Alexandrian takes our heroes to Egypt's fabled port.

So what's Book Six going to be? We'll see. I'm thinking of heading either to the isolated Coptic monasteries of Wadi Natrun or heading south all the way to the Sudan. I'll keep you posted.

A mysterious murder. A lost pharaoh.
Sir Augustus Wall came to Egypt to escape his old life, but when a comrade from the trenches is found murdered in a Cairo hotel, Augustus realizes his past has finally caught up.
Now he must discover the reason for the baffling murder, leading him and his friends Moustafa and Faisal on a dangerous hunt for the most sought-after treasure in Egypt.
The long-awaited fifth book in the Masked Man of Cairo series sees the trio on their greatest adventure yet!

Tales From The Toxic World Out Now!

Toxic World fans, the wait is over! 

The latest installment in the series is out--Tales from the Toxic World. Here are nine stories featuring some of the most popular characters in the series, plus new characters and a town the citizens of New City have no idea exists! This collection expands the Toxic World setting. The fifth novel in the series, Election Day, will come out next year.

A scavenger with a wondrous artifact from the Old Times sets out to avenge his past …
The sheriff of a post-apocalyptic shantytown investigates a baffling murder …
Two fishermen in a toxic sea make a startling discovery …
A peddler has to compromise his faith to help others and not end up dead …
Here are nine stories from a grim future that’s all too possible. The world has been destroyed by war, pollution, and environmental degradation. Now only a few lonely outposts struggle to keep the light of civilization lit amid vast toxic wasteland filled with human predators.
This collection is a long-awaited addition to the popular Toxic World post-apocalyptic science fiction series. It’s sure to please fans and newcomers to the series alike.

You can buy Tales from the Toxic World here. 

To get it FREE, sign up for my newsletter, Sean's Travel's and Tales, the latest issue of which is coming out later this week. There will be a coupon in there for your free download.

July Sale: Two Ebooks for 99 Cents Each!

You folks deserve some cheap summer reading, so until the end of July, I'm slashing the price of two of my novels to only 99 cents each. Radio Hope and Trench Raiders have both been around since 2014 and they've sold steadily, but in the past year they've been eclipsed by some of my more recent efforts. So this is a chance to rediscover some of my earlier writing. While both are the start of series, they can be read as standalones.

Radio Hope is the first of the Toxic World series, which has three books and a spin-off novella. Book Four is coming out in the autumn. A blurb is below.

In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease. . .
A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son.
A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump.
The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command.
One thing gives them the promise of a better future--Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever.

Radio Hope is available on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazons. Enjoy and please spread the word!

Trench Raiders is the first in the Trench Raiders series of World War one action novels, which includes three novels and a novella. Here's the blurb:

September 1914: The British Expeditionary Force has the Germans on the run, or so they think.
After a month of bitter fighting, the British are battered, exhausted, and down to half their strength, yet they’ve helped save Paris and are pushing toward Berlin. Then the retreating Germans decide to make a stand. Holding a steep slope beside the River Aisne, the entrenched Germans mow down the advancing British with machine gun fire. Soon the British dig in too, and it looks like the war might grind down into deadly stalemate.
Searching through No-Man’s Land in the darkness, Private Timothy Crawford of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry finds a chink in the German armor. But can this lowly private, who spends as much time in the battalion guardhouse as he does on the parade ground, convince his commanding officer to risk everything for a chance to break through?
Trench Raiders is the first in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the British Expeditionary Force through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of the Aisne was the start of trench warfare on the Western Front, and it was there that the British and Germans first honed their skills at a new, vicious brand of fighting.

Trench Raiders is available at Amazon, Smashwords, and within a few days will be available at all other online outlets. 

The Scavenger: Post-Apocalyptic Ebook Free Through May 22

I'm offering my post-apocalyptic story The Scavenger for free on Amazon for the next five days.

This story is a 67-page adventure set in my Toxic World series, which starts with the novel Radio Hope. The Scavenger a standalone story, but it gives a different perspective on some of the places and characters that appear in Radio Hope.

The blurb is below:

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.

I'd like to get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. So please, between now and Monday, May 22, feel free to share, like, tweet, etc!

Warpath into Sonora out now!

My new novel, a Western from the Apache point of view, is now available on Amazon. Warpath into Sonora is my first Western novel so I'd love to hear from readers about how well I did. This is my second book to come out this week. The Last Hotel Room was released by Kindle Press on Tuesday.

Both books were on preorder and The Last Hotel Room sold much better, both in the US and UK. Warpath into Sonora didn't sell any preorders at all in the UK. I'm not sure why one did better than the other, since this is the first time I've tried preorders. The Last Hotel Room is more of a general interest novel than Warpath into Sonora, so that might be it. Thoughts?

A blurb for Warpath into Sonora is below:

Arizona 1846
Nantan, a young Apache warrior, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter.
But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages.
Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

Blurb and cover help please!

Hey all! Getting ready to release my next novel, Warpath into Sonora, a Western from the Apache point of view. My brother-in-law has come up with a couple of covers. I prefer the one with the photo.  I was thinking of having the subtitle "An Apache Adventure". He left it out and I'm thinking I might leave it that way. What do you think?
Also, I could use some help with the blurb, because blurbs are hard!

Arizona 1846
Nantan, a young Apache warrior just into manhood, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter.

But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages.
Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are young and inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

Book Review: Singapore Passage Singapore Passage by Donald Barr Chidsey

Singapore Passage by Donald Barr Chidsey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I recently discovered the all-but-forgotten pulp writer Donald Barr Chidsey when I read his novel The Flaming Island. Chidsey was a regular contributor to the pulp magazines in the 1930s, writing in a wide range of genres as many of the old pulp writers did. He spent much of his youth as a merchant seaman and wrote many stories set on the sea in various exotic locales. Later in life he earned a bit of fame as a history writer, once again focusing on the sea.

As I noticed in The Flaming Island, Chidsey is best when writing about the sea. His scenes on land are routine pulp fare, exciting and fun but not outstanding. When his characters unfurl the sails and get out onto the ocean, however, then Chidsey's prose really shines. His love of the sea and his deep knowledge of maritime life comes through in every sentence.

Luckily, Singapore Passage mostly takes place on the waves. It's the mid-19th century, and a first mate with a near-mutinous crew has to become temporary captain when his boss gets stabbed in a tavern. His goal--make the Singapore Passage with a shipment of opium before the competition. If he wins, he'll get rich and get a ship of his own. If he loses, he's stuck in his current position. Besides the crew, he's got pirates to worry about plus a female missionary on board who hates the opium trade. What's a sailor to do?

Singapore Passage is a great read, with lots of interesting detail about the East Asia trade in the Age of Sail. For example, Chinese ingots, called sycee, came in various forms, including ones that looked like a woman's slipper! There's also plenty of action, and of course some sexual tension between the first mate and the missionary. All in all, a fun little read.

View all my reviews

My lastest post-apocalyptic novel We Had Flags is out now!

We Had Flags, the third in my Toxic World series of post-apocalyptic novels, is out now. The series starts with Radio Hope and continues with Refugees from the Righteous Horde. The Scavenger is a novelette in the same world.

In We Had Flags, the residents of New City face their biggest challenges yet. For those of you familiar with the series, the main characters in this volume are the Doctor, Pablo Cruz, and someone you haven't met yet. A blurb is below.

A law doesn't work if everyone breaks it.
For forty years, New City has been a bastion of order in a fallen world. One crucial law has maintained the peace--it is illegal to place responsibility for the collapse of civilization on any one group. Anyone found guilty of Blaming is branded and stripped of citizenship.
But when some unwelcome visitors arrive from across the sea, old wounds break open, and no one is safe from Blame.

We Had Flags is available via Kindle's Prime program, so if you're a member you can read it for free!

Trench Raiders Book Three Finished!

My World War One novel No Man's Land is finished! Well, almost finished. I still have to do edits. Then I have to send it to my beta readers, get their feedback, chew it over, make any more corrections I want to make, get a cover, do layout, write the blurb, upload it to various retailers, and THEN it will be finished. At least the initial draft is done. I always find editing much easier than initial composition.

No Man's Land is the third full novel in my Trench Raiders series of WWI action novels and is slightly different in tone than the first two. While those were more over-the-top (pardon the pun) action, this one is more about sneaking around between the trenches at night, with our heroes playing a cat and mouse game with a German trench raiding party.

I'm glad I got this done now, because in less than two weeks I'm headed off to Tangier for a month-long writing project. Yep, it's another novel, but I don't want to talk much about it since it's still in the early stages. It will be set in contemporary Tangier, so staying there has obvious advantages. I also have to get a couple of freelance projects out of the way before I go. I always seem to be busiest before going on a trip!

The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales out now!

My latest short story collection, The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales, is out now on Amazon and Smashwords. It's going through the Smashwords system of Premium distribution and will soon be available in all major online retailers. The cover is, as usual, done by my talented brother-in-law Andrés. It looks a bit different form his regular stuff and I think it works well. The book retails for $2.99. A blurb is below.

A rat hunter on the Western Front suspects his prey are plotting against him…
A routine trip through the trenches leads to an unexpected insight…
A soldier discovers the most dangerous enemy can't be killed…
A bereaved woman performs a forbidden ritual to avenge her father’s murder…
A doomed militia is offered a path to victory that leads to damnation…

Here are five tales of war from the pen of military historian and novelist Sean McLachlan. From the bushwhackers of the American Civil War to the trenches of WWI, these stories walk the line from the strange and paranormal to the frighteningly real.

An excellent World War Two novel

Last month I had the pleasure to be a beta reader for Operation Dervish, Book 4 of Jack Badelaire's series of action novels on World War Two Commandos. I've readn and nejoyed all of his novels, and this series keeps getting better. If you like good military fiction, grab this. There's a blurb below:

North Africa, November 1941. Days before the British launch Operation Crusader, Corporal Lynch and the other Commandos are given the task of accompanying a makeshift strike force of British tanks and armoured cars deep into the Libyan Desert. Their mission: carry out a series of lightning-fast raids against Axis bases, creating a diversion to confuse the enemy commanders in the critical hours before the British Eighth Army pours over the border into Libya. Meanwhile, Afrika Korps Captain Karl Steiner guides a squadron of German panzers into the deep desert in order to provide warning against any British advances. The two forces, German and British, are on a collision course than can only end in blood and flames, littering the desert sands with slaughtered men and shattered tanks.

Operation Dervish is the fourth book in a series of military action - adventure novels written in the spirit of classic war movies and wartime adventure pulp fiction.

Trench Raiders at a discounted price

I've just reduced the price of my World War One action novel Trench Raiders to $2.99. This is the lead up to book two in the series, Digging In, coming out next month. Trench Raiders is available from all the Amazons, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and all other major outlets.

In other news, I'm going to be participating in National Novel Writing Month starting November 1. This year's project will be We Had Flags, Book Three of my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series. Should be fun!

Book Review: The First Shot (Caleb Thorn Book 1)

The First Shot by L J Coburn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was originally published in 1973 during the high point of the men's action paperback genre, and is definitely a product of that time. This quick, easy read relies on sex and violence rather than plot and characterization to entertain readers.
The title character Caleb Thorn is an unsympathetic cad, a Southern gentleman who cares about no one except his mother (and cares about her way too much). Early in the book, he kills a man in a duel, and by a series of circumstances ends up in the Union army under the command of the boy's father. The officer sends Thorn off on a suicide mission with a group of condemned men.
This is a well-worn formula but it works here. The action scenes are fast-paced and believable, and the tension is unrelenting.
I could have used some more background on the supporting cast. For example, one man is an expert on explosives (there's always an explosives expert in these things) but it's never explained where he got this uncommon skill. The whole book seems somewhat rushed, and padded out with sex scenes that are often distasteful rather than enticing.
If you're looking for an unchallenging read with lots of Saxon Violins (as they say), this may be for you. It's available as an inexpensive ebook from Piccadilly Publishing.

View all my reviews

Reader News for June 3

Jack Badelaire has a new one out! The prolific writer of action/adventure fiction, best known for his Commando series, is starting a new series in the style of 1970s men's action fiction. I'm lucky enough to be one of his beta readers and really enjoyed this book. Badelaire knows the genre well and writes in the style of all those old series like Mack Bolan and The Penetrator.

Here's the blurb:

California, 1973. Back home after three years in the jungles of Southeast Asia, former Green Beret Jamie “Hangman” Lynch is enjoying the good life, drinking beer and chasing skirts along San Diego’s Mission Beach. But Lynch finds himself growing increasingly restless, and dreaming of getting back into the fight again.

Lynch asks his former commanding officer for guidance, and is offered a chance at some excitement: a private sector job working for the CEO of a San Francisco tech company in need of a man who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. The assignment? Hunt down a man named Roth, a whiz-kid engineer in debt to the Vegas mob. Roth has stolen an advanced military prototype and is looking to sell it to the highest bidder.
 
Lynch accepts the job and finds himself working with Richard, an enigmatic Texan mercenary, and Blake, the company’s head of security. The three men face off against Cranston, a murderous ex-cop turned enforcer-for-hire, who’s got an army of ruthless thugs turning San Francisco upside down looking for Roth. If Cranston gets to Roth before Lynch and his partners do, Roth can kiss the prototype - and his life - goodbye.
 
SAN FRANCISCO SLAUGHTER is a hard-edged action-adventure novel. There's drinking, profanity, and sex. There's fast cars and big guns, sharp knives and loose women. Arson, torture, and murder are just tools in the hands of men who’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. And while the good guys aren't so great, the bad guys are even worse.

You find it on Amazon here.