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The Twist Podcast #140: Victory in November, Trumpworld Laughs at Addicts, and the Week in Headlines
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose for this week’s podcast as we talk about our hopes for the election, Trumpworld’s mockery of Hunter Biden’s addiction, food trends, and the week in headlines.
Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and TheTwistPodcast.com.
Copyright 2020 MadeMark Publishing
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Free Sample from ‘Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery’
Enjoy a complimentary pre-release sample from ‘Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery.’ The book is releasing October 30. You can download the excerpt directly from Book Funnel (ePub, MOBI, or PDF) and get an early glimpse of murder and mayhem in a Delaware River town. Life seems perfect for Kyle and Danny in their new life away from Manhattan … until death checks in. The book is available on Amazon for pre-order at a discounted $2.99 (regular $4.99). AND I’m giving away 15 Kindle editions in a new release raffle. Just check out the links below. -
The Twist Podcast #139: Predictions for 2021, Death to Doom and Gloom, Say It Ain’t So Subway, and This Week’s Headlines
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose for this week’s podcast as we talk about our hopes for 2021, an and to the doomsayers, Subway’s bread heartbreak, and the week in headlines.
Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and TheTwistPodcast.com.
Copyright 2020 MadeMark Publishing
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Cover Reveal and a Kindle Edition Giveaway for ‘Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery’
I’ll be releasing the new Kyle Callahan Mystery, Reservation for Murder, later this month. I’ll also be giving away 15 Kindle editions of the book once it launches, for lucky email subscribers chosen at random on October 30 (announced on Halloween, of course!). Just enter with your email in the Raffle Press giveaway above and look for an announcement at the end of the month. Please note that Kindle limits redemption to accounts in the U.S.
Here’s a synopsis, and I have to say it’s been great to see Kyle and Danny again as they head off into a new home and a new adventure … if only murder will leave them alone!
About Reservation for Murder
It’s been several years since Kyle Callahan sought the help of a New York City therapist to overcome the trauma of his encounter with a serial killer, and just as long since his investigation into a teenage girl’s murder brought down the Manhattan District Attorney. He and his husband Danny Durban have decided to move away, to start a new life in the idyllic river city of Lambertville, New Jersey. They have friends there. They’ll have peace and quiet. They can leave the hustle and bustle and stresses of America’s biggest metropolis behind.
They open a bed and breakfast, and soon discover that murder and mayhem have come along for the ride. There’s a writers conference in town, with big names and big egos checking in for a clash—and a murder—of titans. No sooner has the ink dried on the guest registry than Kyle finds himself pursuing another killer, this one closer to home than they’ve ever come. He enlists the help of his old friend and local resident Linda Sikorsky, once a detective on the New Hope, Pennsylvania, police force. The two of them follow one lead after another in a race against time until the the shocking truth is exposed.
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Author Garrett Hutson Talks Historical Fiction and His New Novel ‘Gray Paree’
Join me today as I chat with fellow Hoosier and author Garrett Hutson. Garrett joins the podcast from his home near Indianapolis where he lives with his veterinarian husband David and a menagerie of pets. We talk about a passion for writing he’s had since childhood, fiction choices, and his love for historical detail that infuses his novels. His newest, Gray Paree, releases October 25.
American Oliver Carmichael loves his life in Paris, playing in a night club jazz band, and enjoying the freedom and intellectual stimulation of his bohemian set of friends. His happiness is tempered by unresolved feelings for his ex-fiancée, Lisette, especially after he sees her with another man in his club-but he tends those wounds with an affair with an older woman…and also with the boy next door.
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Lee Lynch’s Amazon Trail: One Dog at a Time
Photo by Sue Hardesty By Lee Lynch
I can’t save our democracy, but I can do a little good in the world. We are adopting a dog who needs a home.
It’s been five years, seven months since our dog Bea died and we’re finally ready and able. I inherited her at age six. I lost her to my sweetheart soon thereafter, as those two bonded immediately. When they were together, Bea would growl to keep me away.
We would not have brought another animal into the house in any case. Our cat Bolo had health problems. We, and the Vet, feared the stress might kill her. Bolo took her only pet status as her due. I lasted three weeks after she died and started looking.
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Matt Lubbers-Moore Talks ReQueered Tales and the Reissue of Grant Michaels’s Stan Kraychik Series
My return guest on the podcast is Matt Lubbers-Moore, one of the founders of ReQueered Tales. Listen as we talk about their reissue of the late Grant Michaels’s Stan Kraychick mystery series. ReQueered Tales has a mission to bring select queer fiction back into circulation, with an emphasis on gay mysteries, that flourished in the 1960s through the early 2000s. I had the privilege of writing the foreword for the just-released Time to Check Out, the 5th book in the series.
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The End, One Way or Another
October 6, 2020 (Tuesday)In the past three years, it has so often felt like things were reaching the breaking point. But the image of Trump on the balcony of the White House last night, defiantly taking off his mask as he gasped for breath, truly looked to me like the beginning of the final chapter. – Heather Cox RichardsonHeather Cox Richardson offers among the most astute and sober analysis available. Reading it agitates me, but I know I have to stay awake to everything that’s happening. We really are at a precipice in America and, frankly, I want to say I was there when it happened, not pretending it wasn’t.
There is no word in the English language (“fury” comes closest but is still far too mild) to express how I feel about Republicans and Trump steamrolling Americans to put a religious extremist on the Supreme Court. But note that the real pressure to do this is not from gullible pro-lifers. It’s from corporations and mega-rich donors who could not care less about abortion, a service they will always be able to avail themselves of. They want entrenched oligarchy and corporate minority rule over the United States. Hard stop. Overturning Roe is just the meat they’ve thrown to Christians. They really don’t care about that. A 6-3 majority will help ensure that “we the people” have almost nothing to say about those who govern us. Jesus has nothing to do with it.
I’m going to be 62 this month. Never in my darkest fantasies, even though I remember the 60s somewhat and lived through the AIDS years, did I imagine I would see a cartoonish authoritarian with a spray tan line around his face, gasping for air on a balcony like some high-school production of Evita, bringing the United States to the brink of ruin. But that is where we are. Millions of businesses can go under, tens of millions of Americans can go hungry, untold jobs lost, over a thousand people dying every day from a virus that doesn’t care about tough guys, real or fake, and all that matters is a court packed with judges who serve the rich and the rabid. Wow.
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The Twist Podcast #137: RIP RBG, Selfie Madness, COVID Deniers, and the Week in Headlines (YouTube Edition Included)
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose for this week’s podcast as we talk about the loss and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, COVID deniers, selfie madness, and the week in headlines.
Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and TheTwistPodcast.com.
Copyright 2020 MadeMark Publishing
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Book Review: My Own Words, by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm
“My Own Words” by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams
c.2016, Simon & Schuster
$30.00 / $39.99 Canada 374 pagesPlease and Thank You.
Those were The Magic Words you learned at your mother’s knee, the ones that opened doors and gained favors. That was also when you learned something important, as you’ll see in “My Own Words” by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams): letters, when properly collected, can move mountains.
Born in working-class Brooklyn in 1933, Joan Ruth Bader was her parents’ second daughter; sadly, their eldest died of meningitis just fourteen months later.
Theirs was a close-knit neighborhood, and the family had many of the luxuries of the day. Bader attended public school a block from her home; there, because of other girls in her class who shared her first name, she started using her middle name “for more official purposes.” She was raised to be independent and was an avid reader, a notably talented storyteller, and she loved gymnastics but “was not… especially fond of math.” And since she grew up in the shadow of World War II and was Jewish, she was fully aware of anti-Semitism.
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Lee Lynch’s Amazon Trail: Nah, We Ain’t No Sissies
Guest Column
The Amazon Trail: Nah, We Ain’t No Sissies
By Lee Lynch
Photo by Sue Hardesty I have been resting. A strange activity for me, but I had no choice. I was so worn out, I remember promising myself that I would never hurry again as long as I lived. The first two of six weeks I mostly slept, or lay unmoving beside my sweetheart. Awake, I read thrillers, and when those books didn’t ease my mental and emotional exhaustion, in desperation I read Ann Rule, the master of true crime.
So many people are afflicted or have died from what my sweetheart coined trump flu; so many people have died or lost their homes to the fires around us; so many people are suffering under the current administration; so many people are fighting the loss of democracy in the United States; so many people are victims of blatant and insidious racism—I feel like a sissy to have needed rest.
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Author John Morgan Wilson Talks Writing and the 25th Anniversary Reissue of His Mystery ‘Simple Justice’
John Morgan Wilson An early standout in the gay mystery genre, author John Morgan Wilson is about to enjoy a resurgence in popularity with the 25th anniversary reissue of his first book in the Benjamin Justice series. Releasing today (September 15, 2020), the Edgar Award winning Simple Justice introduces us to Wilson’s protagonist, Benjamin Justice, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who’s seen his career and his life crash following a scandal involving the Pulitzer Prize. I spoke with John about his career, his life in West Hollywood, and his partnership with ReQueered Tales to issue revised editions of all eight books in the Benjamin Justice series. Fasten your headphones and join us for a lively conversation.
John Morgan Wilson is an American journalist and author of crime fiction, notably the Benjamin Justice mystery novels. The books feature a reclusive ex-reporter, ruined by a Pulitzer scandal and haunted by personal loss, who operates out of West Hollywood, becoming enmeshed in murder investigations in and around Los Angeles.
Simple Justice led the series in 1996, winning the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Six of the eight Justice mysteries, including Simple Justice, were nominated for Lambda Literary Awards for Best Gay Men’s Mystery, three of them winning in that category. (Wikipedia)
“It’s 1994, an election year when violent crime is rampant, voters want action, and politicians smell blood. When a Latino teenager confesses to the murder of a pretty-boy cokehead outside a gay bar in L.A., the cops consider the case closed. But Benjamin Justice, a disgraced former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sees something in the jailed boy others don’t. His former editor, Harry Brofsky, now toiling at the rival Los Angeles Sun, pries Justice from his alcoholic seclusion to help neophyte reporter Alexandra Templeton dig deeper into the story. But why would a seemingly decent kid confess to a brutal gang initiation killing if he wasn’t guilty? And how can Benjamin Justice possibly be trusted, given his central role in the Pulitzer scandal that destroyed his career? Snaking his way through shadowy neighborhoods and dubious suspects, he’s increasingly haunted by memories of his lover Jacques, whose death from AIDS six years earlier precipitated his fall from grace. As he unravels emotionally, Templeton attempts to solve the riddle of his dark past and ward off another meltdown as they race against a critical deadline to uncover and publish the truth.”
Coming up on the One Thing or Another Podcast
Book reviewer Terri Schlicenmeyer talks books for fall.
Humorist and author Fay Jacobs talks life in the funny (and not so funny) lane.
Matt Lubbers-Moore talks ReQueered Tales and the reissue of Grant Michaels’s ‘Time to Check Out’ (foreword by yours truly!)Enjoy the One Thing or Another Podcast on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and at OneThingOrAnotherPodast.com
Join my email list for updates, podcasts, giveaways, and my monthly newsletter!
Copyright MadeMarkPublishing
Comments or questions? You can reach me at Mark @ OneThingOrAnotherPodcast. com
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‘Beautiful Corpse: A Marshall James Thriller’ Audiobook Now Available!
Fasten your headphones! The audiobook edition of Beautiful Corpse: A Marshall James Thriller is now available. Narrated by the terrific Sean Rhead, Beautiful Corpse is the second book in the Marshall James series, to be concluded in 2021 with a final installment. It’s 1984. Marshall survived the perils of Murder at the Paisley Parrot and believes he’s living happily ever after with his detective boyfriend, Mac McElroy. Life seems perfect, until everything goes wrong …
About Beautiful Corpse: A Marshall James Thriller
It’s been over a year since Marshall James first became intimately familiar with murder. He’s six months sober now and happily living with the love of his life, LAPD Detective Mac McElroy. Despite the coming storm of AIDS and its devastating toll on the world Marshall knows, his dark days seem to be behind him. Then one night he says the wrong thing, storms out in anger, and walks straight into a nightmare. Someone is setting him up to take the fall for a beautiful corpse. But who would do something so evil, and so planned? Within hours he finds himself running from the police and the mob, and running toward a killer he must apprehend before the only chance left is no chance at all.