Thought I would start a blog in support of my mystery novels. For those who may be unfamiliar, the main character of my novels is Tony Spencer, a United States Geological Survey field biologist. My first novel, Hostile Lookout has been out since March, 2011. The second book in the series, Asclepias, is currently being edited, and should be available in October, 2011.
Where did the name Tony Spencer come from? Well, I don't rightly know. I just opened my brain and out it came. Some of the other characters' names actually do have more realistic origins, but that will be shared at a later time.
Tony Spencer is not a cop, private investigator, or retired cop. He is just an ordinary guy that tends to get himself into tight predicaments. And while frequently he is saving the day in some fashion, every now and then he is requiring saving. He faces many of the same dilemmas that each of us face routinely.
The first book, Hostile Lookout, was started in January, 2003. I had just taken a job as Education Director at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona. Prior to that I had been teaching science, math, and Spanish at Pine-Strawberry School in Pine, Arizona. In Pine, we lived in an older double-wide trailer. The nicest house we had ever lived in, but unfortunately, not a hot commodity in a town of million-dollar summer homes. So when the call came from BTA, there was no way our house was going to sell in a few weeks. It actually did not sell for 18 months.
Therefore, I moved to Superior alone, leaving my family behind in Pine to try to sell the house. I lived in a small adobe shack (we called it an apartment) on the grounds of BTA. There was not a whole lot to do in the evenings. There was no television service, or at least nothing reliable, and radio was limited to just a few country stations (yuck!) and talk radio out of Phoenix. So, in the evening boredom I began to write.
I called upon my memories of when I was a U.S.G.S. field biologist. I worked for the U.S.G.S. two summers, one summer based out of Alpine, the other when we lived in Pine. My boss and the home office was in Flagstaff. Some of the issues that Tony faces in the book are directly based on experiences I had those two summers, others are sort of related with a lot of fantasy and imagination mixed in.
The other characters in Hostile Lookout are all fictional characters, not real people, although I will admit, that certain character traits may resemble personalities of people I have known in the past. But the resemblance is minimal. An overwhelming majority of each character is their own unique personality and attributes.
While the characters in Hostile Lookout are strictly fictional, the places are very real. Allow me to mention a couple of examples. There is a small village in the book called Clints Well. Clints Well is a very real place, comprised of a gas station, post office, restaurant, and forest service visitor center trailer. Once upon a time, there was a dog that would lay next to the door or the gas pumps at the gas station, a golden retriever. I do not know if the dog is still around; he was pretty old when I was visiting Clints Well ten years ago. My wife was involved in a very serious car accident in 1988 just a few miles southwest of Clints Well.
Another location mentioned in the book is Fossil Creek. Fossil Creek is located west of Strawberry, Arizona and eventually feeds into the Verde River. Once upon a time there was a hydroelectric power station along Fossil Creek. Something about the power station caused beautiful travertine pools to form along the creek, sort of like hot tubs (without the heat) along the edge of the creek. Most of these pools were three to four feet deep, while the main channel of the creek was considerably deeper. I was actually baptised in one of these pools, and the water was so clear, even in the main channel, that you could see fish swimming several feet beneath the surface. The only down side to Fossil Creek is the trash, in that a lot of folks who visit the creek are not good about cleaning up after themselves. The creek is beautiful, but getting to the creek from the gravel road is a bit unsightly. You owe it to yourself to visit Fossil Creek if you have never done so.
Finally, for this edition, I had mentioned that some of the character names actually do have stories behind them. I will mention one here. One of Tony's love interests in Hostile Lookout is a Forest Service employee named Melissa Arenas. Melissa Arenas was actually the name of a former student of mine from my teaching days. I always thought she had such a pretty name. I did not really know Melissa very well, and only had her in class a couple months. I have no idea if her personality is anything like the Melissa in the book. If it is, it is purely coincidental.
I will be posting interesting little factoids about the Tony Spencer Mystery Series to this blog every week or two. I do hope you will enjoy the blog, and also the books.
