Book Two of The Berlin Murders out now!!!

 

While my blog was locked down, book two of my historical mystery series The Berlin Murders came out. A Springtime Murder in Berlin sees Katherine solving another mystery with the help of her friends. A blurb is below.

A chance at stardom. A murder on the set.

Katherine Schmidt has always dreamed of being an actress. An opportunity arises when her flamboyant cousin Anton gets her a role as an extra in a major German motion picture. But those dreams come crashing down when the leading lady drops dead.

Anton is arrested for her murder. His family disinherited him years before due to his lifestyle and the studio thinks he’s guilty. Katherine knows she’s the only one who can help.

Now she must find out who’s behind the brazen poisoning and clear her cousin’s name—before she becomes the next victim.


Katherine and her friends are on the case again in the second installment of The Berlin Murders, set in the Weimar era’s decadent Berlin.

Check out A Springtime Murder in Berlin today!

My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays have been fun and relaxing. Now’s the time to look back at the past year and think of ways to improve in the new one.

I had a busy year with a lot of ghostwriting assignments. Luckily, I did get some time to write books under my own name. In May I released The Case of the Dastardly Djinn (A Masked Man of Cairo Prequel).

I also finished the first book in a new series. Titled A Winter Murder in Berlin, it follows the adventures of Katherine Schmidt, a young German-American woman who decides to visit her parents’ homeland for the first time in 1929, and gets caught up in a murder investigation in which she is the prime suspect! There's lots of intrigue set in Berlin’s decadent nightlife and increasingly brutal politics. It's a bit more serious than The Masked Man of Cairo books, but does have its lighter moments. The series is titled The Berlin Murders, and I plan a book for each season (A Springtime Murder in Berlin, etc.), as well as a fifth book following the adventures of one of the younger characters, all grown up and returning to Berlin right after the end of World War Two.

A Winter Murder in Berlin is currently with beta readers. I hope to have it out in February.

I also finished Book One of Tech Scavengers, a new science fiction series set in the far future as humanity and aliens try to pick up the pieces after the collapse of a galactic empire. I plan to write the entire trilogy before releasing them in rapid succession.

So what’s in the cards for 2023? At the moment I’m working on Cordelia Cracks the Case, a short novel featuring a supporting character from The Masked Man of Cairo series solving a mystery on her own. I’ll also come out with one or two of the Berlin series, and go back to Egypt to write the next Cairo book, The Case of the Cackling Crocodile. Sir Augustus, Moustafa, and Faisal investigate a murder in the Fayoum, the vast swampland southwest of Cairo.  Plenty of stuff to read in 2023. Stay tuned by subscribing to my newsletter. 

The Masked Man of Cairo Gets a Sequel!

 

The next book of my Masked Man of Cairo historic mystery/adventure series is out, and it's a prequel! The Case of the Dastardly Djinn is set in 1917, two years before The Case of the Purloined Pyramid. Faisal has to solve a mystery without the help of Sir Augustus and Moustafa, but he doesn't have to face danger alone. A blurb is below.

 

A homeless boy. A hunted girl.

Cairo, 1917. In a city plagued by poverty and war, ten-year-old Faisal begs and steals to survive, hiding at night from the things that prowl after dark. The nimblest and most clever of the street boys, he’s terrified of the unseen spirits he’s convinced haunt the ancient city.

But when he discovers a girl his age left homeless by a terrible tragedy, Faisal decides to do what no one ever did for him—help. With no shelter and facing the many dangers of Cairo’s darkened streets, Faisal’s loyalties are tested when together they uncover a criminal ring more sinister than his worst superstitions. 

This prequel to the Masked Man of Cairo mystery adventure series will thrill new readers and long-time fans alike!

A portion of the proceeds from this book will go to help Egyptian street children.    

Available now in ebook. Print edition coming soon!

My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

This past year has been an interesting one for me, being both productive and unproductive.

How so? Well, I wrote the least amount I ever have under my own name in a long time, coming out with just two books in 2021. This is due to getting a lot of ghostwriting work. While remunerative, it kept me from doing as much as I would have liked under my own byline.

I still wrote a lot. Although I once again missed my goal of writing a million words in a year, I did get well past 900,000 and made the most money I ever have in this career or my previous one, so that was nice.

I did come out with two books under my own name. The first was Flight to Fez, the third book in my Interzone Mystery series. The second was The Case of the Asphyxiated Alexandrian, book five in my The Masked Man of Cairo historical mystery series. So a good year for mysteries!

What's coming up in 2022? My ghostwriting work is still going strong, and I have managed to get on a saner publishing schedule that will allow me to build up my own career a bit more. My new year's resolution is to write 1,000 words a day of my own stuff. A trio of short prequel novels for The Masked Man of Cairo series are in the works, as are two new series. These are Tech Scavengers, a space opera series, and an as-yet-untitled mystery series set in Weimar Berlin. I'd also like to squeeze in book 5 of Toxic World, titled Election Day. If you have any preferences about what you'd like to read next, tell me in the comments section!

You can follow my progress with the word count bars to the right and also by signing up to my newsletter.

It's going to be a fun year!

A Free Book, A New Look, and New Markets for the Toxic World Series!

As you can see from the photo, my cover designer has switched out the cover for Radio Hope, Book One of my post-apocalyptic Toxic World series. The old cover was a bit flat and this one has more pop. I hope you like it.

I've also taken the series out of Kindle Select and published it wide. You can now find the series on Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Scribd, and many other outlets. Click on the title to find a list of links for Radio Hope. Hitting on your favorite store will take you to that title and the rest of the series.

Also, I'm giving away The Scavenger, a novella set in the Toxic World, for free on all those venues. Click on the link to grab your copy today!

Starting A New Science Fiction Series

Those of you who pay attention to this rather irregular blog might have noticed a new book listed on the Works in Progress sidebar. The Shattered Stars (Tech Scavengers Book One) is the start of a new science fiction series. It will be a mixture of Firefly and Mad Max, set in a far future where the galaxy has plunged into a new Dark Ages.

Three hundred years ago, the Galactic Imperium was riven by civil war. Entire planets were nuked, trade routes crumbled and, worst of all, the jump gates that tied the galaxy together stopped working. These products of an ultra-secret government experiment can be found every fifty light years or so, but all have either been destroyed or have broken.

Now the galaxy is a patchwork of independent planets and petty empires. Many have relapsed into savagery. Others struggle along with only the technology of the twenty-fifth or even the twentieth centuries. The myriad alien races, which once traveled the stars along with their human counterparts, are stuck on their home planets and scattered in tiny numbers across space. Limits on faster than light technology means that even the fastest spaceship can only travel a few light years a day. Everyone from the poorest algae farmer to the most brutal despot dreams of a time when the jump gates will reopen and the galaxy will once again be united.

This is not the only technology that has been lost. Even the most advanced worlds are at least a couple of centuries behind what humanity once achieved. Tech scavengers make good money working as interstellar archaeologists, digging up old machines and figuring out how to make them work again. Some are employed by rulers or rich merchants, while others are freelance.

But whoever your patron is, it’s a dangerous job. Because old technology is the new currency, and people will kill for it.

So when will book one come out? Some time this year. I can't be any more precise than that because I have a heavy load of ghostwriting right now. As I said in a previous post, this year will see new installments in the Masked Man of Cairo series and the Toxic World series as well. You can follow the progress on the sidebar!

My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

The year 2020 is gone, and I'm sure none of us are sad to see it go. Hopefully 2021 holds out more promise with vaccines and the chance to live our lives fully once again. Here in Madrid we had worse lockdowns than most, but that didn't affect my writing. In fact it helped, because I had fewer distractions. Nothing like writing to stave off boredom and cabin fever!

This was a good writing year for me. My ghostwriting career has taken off with a great new client, the return of an old one, and the regulars staying with me. Demand for ebooks has gone up massively this year and because of that I'm getting more work than ever before. The sales on my own books rose as well. It's never been a better time to be an indie writer.

While my income has risen, my word count is almost the same as 2019. I set myself an annual goal of a million words. I've never made that goal, but having a tough goal makes me work harder. I got 947,000 words written in 2020. Not bad but still well shy of the million mark. I'll make it some year!

I also reached the milestone of writing my 50th novel. I'm now hard at work on numbers 52 and 53. There's no secret to this. I just keep plugging away every day and the novels pile up. I know a lot of writers who have written far more than I have.

The increased demands of my ghostwriting career has meant that I haven't gotten as many of my own books out in 2020 as I would have liked. At least I added a fourth book to the Masked Man of Cairo series, The Case of the Karnak Killer. I also added a short story collection to the Toxic World series, Tales from the Toxic World.

Both series will see new novels in 2021. I'm also researching a new mystery series set in the Weimar era, and have various other projects in the works. You can check my progress in the right-hand column of this blog and stay in touch via my newsletter.

I hope you all are staying well through this pandemic. I've gotten off easy, not having lost any loved ones or my job. So many others have it worse. Stay safe and get vaccinated as soon as you can!

More of my Books Available in More Places!

As ebook buyers know, some ebooks are only available on Amazon while others can be found anywhere. This is because Amazon gives certain advantages to writers who make their titles exclusive to Amazon. One of the big advantages is to have the books available on the Kindle Online Lending Library, where writers get paid by page view.

There's also an advantage to going wide--not everyone shops on Amazon. Because of this, I've recently put several more of my titles in all the other venues such as Kobo, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble, etc. These titles include:

The Trench Raiders series

The Interzone Mystery Series

Warpath into Sonora

A Fine Likeness and its sequel The River of Desperation

Writing Secrets of the World's Most Prolific Authors

The Night the Nazis Came to Dinner

The Rat Killer

The Quintessence of Absence

Tales from the Toxic World

 

Two series, The Masked Man of Cairo and Toxic World, remain exclusive to Amazon for the foreseeable future. They are quite popular in the Kindle Online Lending Library so I think it's best to keep them there for now.

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.

My Latest Historical Mystery Novel is out Now!

The fourth in my Masked Man of Cairo series, The Case of the Karnak Killer, is out now as an ebook. The print edition is coming in July. A blurb is belo.

A scandal in America. A murder in Cairo.
Sir Augustus Wall, antiquities dealer and amateur sleuth, is hired to track down a blackmailer who threatens the reputation of an American millionaire. When blackmail turns to murder, he must travel up the Nile by steamboat to find the killer.
Joining him are Faisal, a street urchin who makes himself equally useful and troublesome; Heinrich Schäfer, a leading Egyptologist; and Jocelyn Montjoy, an adventurous woman who has captured his heart.
But complications set in before the hunt even begins. Unwelcome fellow passengers threaten to derail the investigation, and Augustus has fallen out with his right-hand man, Moustafa Ghani. Can a new team of investigators help him solve his most challenging case yet?

You can get the book here.

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!

Facing Tough Times? Here are two free ebooks

Stuck at home and need some free reading? We're all bored right now and many of us are taking hard economic hits, so Smashwords has come up with the Authors Give Back program. From now until April 20, heaps of authors are giving away books for deep discounts or free. I've enrolled two of my books, Trench Raiders, a World War One action novel, and The Rat Killer and Other Weird War Tales, a collection of short stories.

While some might think it odd to be promoting war novels at a time like this, I don't feel that way. We are in tough times, to be sure, but the folks in these stories had it tougher. They showed grit, teamwork, and courage, and made it through. We will too.

If my books don't appeal, check out the Smashwords website for heaps of free and cheap ebooks in all genres in the Authors Give Back sale.

Stay healthy, and best of luck to you.

Trench Raiders on sale for 99 cents!

As I mentioned in my last post, I will be getting back into my Trench Raiders series of WWI action novels later in the year. I've been away for that series for too long and I've had readers pestering me to continue, so I will. In celebration of that, and for the release of the movie 1917. I'm putting the first Trench Raiders book at 99 cents until the end of the month. You can get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere else ebooks are sold. A blurb is below.

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?

My Third Cairo Mystery Novel is out Now!

The Case of the Golden Greeks, the third in my Masked Man of Cairo historical mystery series, is out now. A blurb is below.

They thought the case was solved.
When an eminent Egyptologist is murdered giving a lecture in front of a packed hall, Cairo’s chief of police quickly rounds up those responsible.
Or at least some of them.
Sir Augustus Wall, antiquities dealer and amateur sleuth, knows there’s more to the crime than it seems. With little to go on but an exotic murder weapon, a map of a desert oasis, and some gilded Greek mummies, he sets out across the Sahara with his assistant Moustafa Ghani and the street urchin Faisal, who is the only person to have seen the killer’s face. They soon find themselves in the midst of international intrigue on Egypt’s remote border with Libya.
Can they discover what mystery lies beneath Bahariya Oasis?

The Case of the Golden Greeks is available on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazon branches.

The Case of the Purloined Pyramid and The Last Hotel Room available again as ebooks

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently asked for the rights back from Kindle Press for two of my books: The Case of the Purloined Pyramid and The Last Hotel Room. I have now republished them. After a day or two, the Amazon bots will link them up with their print editions and put the reviews back. Glad to have them on the market again!

In other news, the next issue of my newsletter will be coming out within a few days. Feel free to sign up! Every issue includes a travel article (about Fez this time), a short story, and a coupon for a free or discounted book.

Two Ebook Titles Temporarily Unavailable

The two ebooks I published with Kindle Press, The Case of the Purloined Pyramid and The Last Hotel Room, will be unavailable until November 8. Print editions are still available. As followers of this blog know, I signed a contract with KP for the ebook rights to both those titles a few years ago. I got an advance and some nice promotion, but now Amazon is putting its efforts elsewhere and I felt it best to get my rights back so the titles could get the attention they deserve. The rights revert to me on November 7, and they will be back up on Amazon the following day.

The Case of the Golden Greeks, the third in my Masked Man of Cairo series, will go up that same week.

A New Collaboration Out Now!

I've hinted before on this blog that I was doing a collaborative project. Well, now it's out! I teamed up with bestselling science fiction author David Ryker to write a space opera with a lot of political intrigue, friendly and hostile aliens, and a colony ship that's going to have to go through hell to save the last remnants of the human race. A blurb is below:

The Earth is dying.
Her people have fled.
And Mitch Ayers is having a real bad day.
Fifty years ago, our home was dying. We identified worlds that might be able to support human life. We built Ark Ships: huge colonization vessels carrying thousands of crew. And we set out, not knowing if we could make it to the other side of the blackness, or whether there would be anything there if we did.
Mitch wasn't supposed to have to care about any of this. He was supposed to be happily dreaming in stasis for another twenty years. That's until he wakes up on the Ark Ship Nansen, three light years off course, staring right up at the barrel of a gun. All around him, he hears the screams of the dying. Terrorists are wiping out the Nansen's crew while they sleep, and he's the only one who can do a damn thing about it.
But ain't that always the way.
Mitch knows the Nansen's crew might be the only humans left in the universe. The problem is, he quickly learns that humans aren't alone in the stars. Aliens aren't just out there, they're everywhere. And the first one he meets tries to sink its teeth into his neck...
Mitch is a long way from home, and it's not just the aliens he's up against. It's the traitors within his own crew.
Now humanity's fate rests on his shoulders. So he'll have to think fast...

David and I are hard at work finishing up the trilogy and books two and three will be out later this year.

Right now it's available at an new -release price of 99 cents. It's available here.

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!

The Last Hotel Room is on sale for 99 cents!

Just a quick note to say the Kindle Press has put my novel about the Syrian Refugee Crisis, The Last Hotel Room, on sale as a 99 cent ebook on Amazon US until Friday, January 25.
A portion of the proceeds goes to help refugees.

End of the Year Ebook Sale!

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

If you're stuck at home immobilized because you've eaten too much, try some discounted reading on me. From December 25-January 1, all my titles at Smashwords will be 50% off as part of their Year End Sale. My titles there include the Trench Raiders series, my Civil War novels, my book on Writing Secrets of the World's Most Prolific Authors, and a few other goodies. The discount will automatically be applied at checkout. You can find all my discounted books on my Smashwords page.

Enjoy!

(This was written ahead of time. When you read this, I'll be in Tangier working on another North African mystery. I'm really enjoying writing those.)