The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group discussion

Greetings, all. My name is Joseph S. Walker, and I hope to be a productive member of these forums for some time to come. I've been poking about, and you folks have made yourselves a right nice corner of the internet here.

I'm a voracious reader, and mystery/crime novels have been favorites since my early days with the Hardy Boys. I tend to like private eye books, police procedurals, and hard-boiled crime. The Parker novels by Richard Stark are a special passion.

I make my primary living as an instructor of online literature and composition classes. A couple of years ago, I decided it was time to get serious about my lifelong dream of writing and publishing fiction. I've had a fair amount of luck with that so far; for example, I have a story, "The Penthouse View," in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, on the stands next month. I've sold a few other stories, and I've become a full member of the Mystery Writers of America.

While I'm going to continue trying to place my short fiction in traditional venues (I have a dozen stories out for submission right now), I've also decided to try my hand at novels for epub. My first such, FIVE MILLION DOLLARS AND THE GREEN-EYED GIRL, is available for the Kindle now. I won't include a link here, because my reading of the rules suggests that those should be restricted to the thread I may or may not make about the book later, but obviously I am hoping some folks here will read and enjoy it. I'm now working on a second novel, which I hope to have available by the end of the year.

So that's me--juggling grading, family life, and writing. Sleep comes in last. Great to be here!

Hi Joe. Thanks for joining us, and for your nice words. (And for reading the rules... yay! lol)

Best of luck with your book, and your teaching, and your family life.

Welcome Joe. We do cover all genres of mystery but I do believe there are a good number of Parker fans among us.

Joe, I'll make ya a deal. You buy my book on Kindle and I'll buy yours. Review mine and give me your opinion. I oculd use feedback, good or bad. My title is "The Wrong Day to Quit Drinking"
Salmon Chase: ex-alcoholic, ex-husband, ex-FDNY Fire Marshal witnesses a single car accident on an icy Catskill Mountain road. Within minutes he discovers a murder and is dodging the bullets of the violent militia group behind it.
Thus begins a journey for Salmon Chase. From an easy life doing insurance investigations he will be thrust into a world of privileged wealth that always gets what it wants and naked political power that demands what it wants.
A simple case of a missing person will spiral out to encompass a plot of international import that only he, Salmon Chase can unravel. His conspiracy past and his PTSD will keep his warnings from being heeded and he will be left with his only allies; A paranoid computer hacker, another civil servant from AA, an AWOL Israeli soldier and a pair of lesbian innkeepers.
Through this he will fight an emotional battle will be set in the landscape of his need to redeem himself in the eyes of the family that abandoned him set against his desire for the other women in his life; The wealthy seductress, the exotic foreigner and the ambivalent lesbian.
Pursued by unknown government agents, psychotic criminals and crooked politicians, Chase will hone his craft as a P.I. while stumbling from blunder to blunder saved by unlikely allies and just plain luck.
Together they will probe and poke until they expose the plot that could kill thousands and change the political landscape of the Middle East.