Nostalgia City Mystery #5
Mystery
Date Published: 03-13-2025
Publisher: Archer & Clark
A public war between a governor and a theme park lights the fuse on a story of hate groups, murder, corruption, racism, and political espionage.
Ex-cop turned theme-park cab driver Lyle Deming finds the body of a park visitor during an LGBTQ event. The dead man catered gay weddings. Was it a hate crime?
Arizona governor Rod Gudgel, running for reelection, calls it a random shooting. He mocks Nostalgia City theme park for its inclusiveness, uses homophobic and racist slurs, and later challenges the safety of its rides.
Park CEO, “Max” Maxwell lambasts the governor’s prejudice and insensitivity, and the fight is on—in public and undercover. Maxwell drafts Lyle to investigate the murder while Kate Sorensen, his 6’-2½” public affairs VP, goes on the offensive in the media.
When an assault rifle attack kills and injures park employees demonstrating for gay rights at a Gudgel campaign office, Nostalgia City mourns, and Kate slams the governor’s unsympathetic response to the slaughter. While the FBI and sheriff’s deputies investigate the crime, the governor redoubles his efforts to regulate the park out of business.
Looking for a shooting suspect, Lyle gets a little too close to an armed hate group—with a possible connection to the governor. His lady friend Kate flies to Montana where she digs into the governor’s unseemly past uncovering a trail of malfeasance dating back two decades and arousing Gudgel allies who want to stop her at all cost.
With Lyle’s wry humor and Kate’s stick-to-itiveness the story moves quickly as mysteries and subplots multiply and loop together threatening the park, their relationship, and their lives.
Interview with Mark S. Bacon
What is your favorite part of the book?
I can’t tell you too much, it would be a spoiler, but there are a few chapters toward the end of the book when my co-protagonist, Kate Sorensen, has fun getting the best of someone who has been trying to get the best of her.
Does your book have a lesson? Moral?
My main purpose in each of my mysteries is to entertain first. But I often like to leave the reader with something to think about. Because The Woke and the Dead is about prejudice and hate mongering the message should be clear before the reader finishes the novel.
Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?
Is it possible for characters to come from thin air? Every writer has personal experiences that she or he can’t erase. My two main characters are an amalgam of people I’ve known. Some of my secondary characters or ‘bad guys’ I fashion closely to people I know or know of and take pleasure in making them real to the readers, too.
Of all the characters you have created, which is your favorite and why?
Aside from my protagonists, I’m partial to San Navarro County Undersheriff Rey Martinez. He more than holds his own exchanging facetious snipes with his buddy, cynical ex-Phoenix cop Lyle, and a common sense of humor is one of their bonds. Relatively young, Rey is the main law enforcement character in the book. Dark crime details and law enforcement mistakes weigh on him, although he’s usually imperturbable.
What character in your book are you least likely to get along with?
The autocratic, intolerant (fictional) governor of Arizona.
What would the main character in your book have to say about you?
Lyle might tell me he’s enjoying the adventures I’m creating for him, but could I please help him better understand his friend, partner and bedmate Kate Sorensen.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
Both. The main characters are the same in each book, but each mystery book is a separate story from start to finish, and they can be read in any order. This new book is especially designed so it can be read as a separate novel.
About the Author
My first three mysteries were published by Black Opal Books with my debut novel earning recommendation from the American Library Association.
I started writing mysteries after a writing career in journalism and marketing. Prior to my novels, Ether Books of the UK published a collection of my flash fiction mysteries and many of my shorts have been published in online literary magazines. During my business career I wrote two books for John Wiley and Sons, one of which was a Library Journal Best Business Book of the Year. I have an MA in journalism and a golden retriever.
I write the kind of mysteries I like to read. I appreciate stories with twists, turns, and puzzles which appeal to the head. But I also like a mystery that appeals to the heart with a fast pace and challenges and threats that put the protagonists in peril.
Contact Links
Twitter: @baconauthor
Purchase Links
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