To start the new year, my publisher, Uplands Press (an imprint of Leafcutter Publishing Group, Inc.) has released the first novel of a new series. THE BLOOD HOUNDS is now available as an ebook on Amazon. As usual, print editions will be published a month or so later.
THE BLOOD HOUNDS features John Trace Crockett (Trace) and Darby Kathleen Maguire (Darby), detectives for Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency. The plot focuses on the search to determine the fate of a two-year-old girl kidnapped some 15 years earlier. The girl, Miranda Wheaton, disappeared after a botched money-hostage exchange. The search carries the reader from Kansas City to Manhattan, Kansas to Dodge City and finally to “No Man’s Land,” an area now comprising the Oklahoma panhandle.
Another novel in this series, presently untitled, is projected for release late April. The books will feature many of the same characters, but the storyline will be finished in each book, so a novel can easily be read out of sequence as an independent book.
I’m excited to introduce the Pinkertons to my writing menu. Women and people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds and ages were employed by the Pinkerton Agency from its beginning in 1850. Some unorthodox backgrounds were required to carry out clandestine and undercover missions. I try to write just a bit outside the traditional western stories, and the Pinkerton Agency has potentially a rich source of stories to mine. The agency was very involved in the western migration.
Also, currently on tap for 2020 is a novel I have been wanting to do for several years, THE LONG WALK, historical fiction based upon the removal of the Navajo people from their homeland during the Civil War years to the Bosque Redondo, a desolate area in southeastern New Mexico. I referenced this event in my recent ESCAPE FROM EL GATO, and I see my fictional writer friend, Tabitha Rivers, working on this book with me. There is a powerful story here, if I can capture it.
I also anticipate another book in the LAW WRANGLERS series later in the year, and I would like to squeeze in another visit to the Lockes. It may be time to introduce Thad Locke’s twin sister, Hannah, a Wyoming lawyer, who is estranged from her father, Myles. I am also constantly teased by the prospect of a sequel to Peacemaker Award winning GRIT, our bestselling standalone novel.
Thanks, once again, to all of you who buy and read my books. I always enjoy hearing from readers, and your interest has an impact in determining which books I write. Let me know at ron@ronschwabbooks.com if you have a favorite series you want to see a book from soon. I also am interested in hearing about obscure historical events (such as the 1862 Dakota War, triggering my novel CUT NOSE) that might inspire a book.
Best wishes and good reading.
Ron