December 28, 2022

A couple of ideas have been floating around and today I started researching one of them by writing to the US Senate historian for some help. If and when he or she gets back to me I'll forge ahead with more research. With light speed, the assistant librarian sent me an essay detailing exactly how a senator-elect takes office. Needless to day that essay will become the foundation for the story I have in mind.  

December 19, 2022

 My latest novel, Chaparral, is published. Here's the link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ9LLQTC?psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp. Or click on the thumbnail to the right.

November 11, 2022

Finished the first draft of Chaparral. A brief rest is in the offing. And then it's onto all the editorial and production work necessary to publish the novel.

November 1, 2022

Just passed 60K on Chaparral. On the final stretch with rain starting, Willem is at the barn to feed the horses; Detective Brandt is getting strokes from Lieutenant Jewison and Angus Diggsworth is enjoying the comfort of his mobile home. The gang is waiting for the sun to do down so they can carry out their plan to steal a couple of Diggsworth's horses. The solution to the Goggins' case is yet to be found, although with Jewison's encouragement, Brandt thinks he has a chance to solve the case.

October 18, 2022

Passed 50K on Chaparral. After a jail visit, the search for Goggins' killer narrows. Angus will build a storage shed for the pony's forage. The homeless problem has not grown, although glimmerings of it appear on the Jackson Highway. Kate appears to have made progress in her move to Andre Banks.

September 29, 2022

Passed 40K on Chaparral. A new ordinance. One of the homeless men is dead. Diggsworth is completing his barn. Willem might be Diggsworth's stable boy. Rose has not made any headway with Andre. Chaparral is turning out to be more than a sleepy bedroom town in the foothills.

The unkillable Kitty O'Kane

 I’m bowled over by irony and The Unkillable Kitty O’Kane provides strike after strike. This book provided me with a diversion from breakfast, which is analogous to reading the newspaper while crunching away. Getting away from the Liberties in Dublin provided the first irony in that Kitty took ship aboard Titanic. Since that unsinkable ship only had one partial voyage the meaning of the title became all too clear once she was at sea.

In a lifeboat as the mighty behemoth was slipping beneath the icy cold surface, the only voice to return to any other survivors was, you guessed it, Kitty O’Kane. The survivor that was plucked from the sea provided the beginning of another irony in that he, Lincoln, used his influence to get Kitty a job in New York City.

Kitty’s friend Elsie returned to marry. The irony in that situation is that her husband went off to fight in The Great War and came back so shell-shocked that he was incapable of providing for Elsie and himself.
Another delicious irony (although somewhat predictable) was that Kitty took ship to see her friend Elsie. And what ship did Kitty sail on? The Lusitania, sunk by a German torpedo.

Kitty’s adventures with the man she’d help save, Lincoln, led to a travelogue of following conflicts that Lincoln wrote about as a well-known journalist. He even encouraged her to take up that occupation and she did, but with little success.

It wasn’t until the Irish Rebellion that Kitty reached a comfortable stride when she described in an article about how difficult it was to have her lover die in her arms.

All the while that Kitty was traveling to the Middle East and Russia she experienced war at its most brutal, but it was Lincoln dying in her arms that finally brought the last irony into play.

One of the men on the Titanic that tried to seduce Kitty, Jack and his insufferable wife, came with a proposition to Kitty to save her from an Irish firing squad.

That relation ship was as ironic as one could imagine in that she escaped the firing squad only to find that her life with Jack was a Hobson’s Choice.

Threading through the story was a man who had grown up with Kitty and who finally accepts her with all the baggage from previous relationships. Tom a successful doctor soon to become a surgeon, meets Kitty just before boarding a ship to return to London and a life to be lived happily ever after.

Okay, I got my fill of irony. The story is, as other reviewers have commented, predictable. Many of the characters don’t jump off the page although some of the minor characters do remain in memory. Falconer put in many hours of research to get the ambiance of his scenes right and he deserves credit for that.

When all the analysis is complete the real reason for publishing this book becomes apparent: Falconer has a following and his publisher allowed him to escape what his followers expected. I suspect they encouraged him in this effort because they knew there would be profit in the book, from the hardback, paperback and ebook issues, although not as much as from Falconer’s usual endeavors. Knowing how much work went into this book, I can only say Bravo for the effort.

September 16, 2022

I changed the title of the new book from "Old Stuff" to "Chaparral" because it made more sense. Passed 30K words today with petty theft competing for space with the barn and horse corral. A reporter from the Ledger Dispatch newspaper in Jackson interviewed the mayor as well as Andy Goggins, the homeless tent dweller in Chaparral. The Fourth of July has come and gone but the decorations over Main Street still wave in the breeze.

September 4, 2022

Old Stuff passed 20K words today. Angus has his lumber and helpers to begin the foundation for his barn. Tommy Tiels rounds up his cattle to begin feeding them grain. James Bish is frustrated by the responses he's received from his homeless survey. The story moves along.

August 25, 2022

With dogged determination I've passed 10K on the Old Stuff novel. All the characters have been introduced and the story is developing. Should be an interesting read.

August 14, 2022

Started a new novel with the working title "Old Stuff." It is set in the foothills in a town named Chaparral, which is close to Jackson. An old horse wrangler has retired from the rodeo circuit, won enough money to buy a string of ponies, and intends to set up a pony-renting business if Chaparral meets his requirements.

August 3, 2022

The story of "UFOs over Honey Lake" is out in ebook and paperback. Here's the link to check it out: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8BPJTZM/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1659396228&sr=1-1

July 8, 2022

The first draft of "The Honey Lake Beast" is finished. Editing and preproduction work are next on the agenda. Looks to be a late July-early August publication date

July 6, 2022

Passed 60K on the beast novel. Not quite finished but the end is in sight. Only a few loose ends to bowtie and then it'll be on to the usual preproduction activities.

June 27, 2022

Passed 50K words today. I'm in the groove and the next 10K should be a ten-day exercise. After that the usual post-writing but taxing activity to produce a published book. The beast has acquired many names, each resulting from the eye of the beholder. Onward and upward.

June 21, 2022

Passed 40K, which is the usual barrier that stymies further imagination. Fortunately, Jeffrey Hatton, the biology teacher catches a documentary on dragonflies that will give him something to think about and perhaps work into his curriculum. 

June 13, 2022

Passed 30K on "The Sand Beast." The sighting of the lights has made the news on a TV station. Will it go national? How do the sightings tie into the Congressional hearings on UAVs? Will the beast be part of the quest for the rare minerals that lie underneath the soil on the Army base? Many questions still to be answered.

June 7, 2022

Just passed 20K words on a new story with the temporary title "The Sand Beast." This is a sci-fi story that starts with mysterious lights in the sky near Sierra Army Depot. Twists and turns will abound and the secret of the beast will be revealed at the end of the story.

May 21, 2022

My latest book "Sophie, Luna and the Space Pirates" is out in both paperback and ebook formats. Here's the link to Amazon so you can check it out: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1CPLN5W/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1653153080&sr=1-1

May 3, 2022

Finished the first draft of "Luna and the Space Pirates." The cover will be black and white reflecting the desolation on the Moon. As usual, there is a lot of editing (creative and copy), and all the other bits and pieces that when finished come together for a finished book. Maybe a slight break and then on to publish the book.

May 1, 2022

Passed 60K words and the story is reaching a climax. Everybody at the prison is eager to get on with the story. I keep telling them that it has to progress at its own pace. Sometimes they listen; sometimes they don't. I've pretty much settled on a title for the novel: "Luna and the Space Pirates."

April 21, 2022

Earth Day falls one day after finishing 40k words on the new Moon-based novel. The action has picked up with a pirate attack on the Space Command Outpost. All the security cameras in the prison are off-line. Does that mean the pirates will be able to enter the prison? I'll have to write more to find out. More as the novel progresses.

April 12, 2022

Three strong women: The commander, the warden and the inmate. All are tied together on a colony specifically designed for violent and virtually uncontrollable prisoners.

I've written 20K words with those main characters and with the support of a variety of lesser characters the story is moving along.

I'll fill in more details as the spirit moves me, so stay tuned. 

March 27.2022

You've waited patiently and now the book, Murder at the Rocket Factory is out on Amazon. Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WLWRXPY/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1648326452&sr=8-1 

March 18, 2022

The final edit of "Murder at the Rocket Factory" is progressing. As with all writing, whatever is on the page can always be improved. The cover is finished and unless the zombies walk the book should be out sometime in April. More when Amazon finishes the quality control and releases the book for general consumption. 

March 9, 2022

Finished the first draft of "Murder at the Rocket Factory." As usual with independent publishing there's a lot of work ahead getting the story ready to be listed on Amazon.

March 2, 2022

Passed 50K on the story. Harry, with Amy's help, has found a reference to Captain Stier in the Tribune's archives, but the investigation once started faded into obscurity, so it didn't give Harry any further information on Captain Stier. The only hope he has is a freedom of information request. He is not hopeful that he will receive Captain Stier's report on his investigation of Thiokol. 

February 25, 2022

Passed the 40K barrier. More information developed by Harry Jenkins, but no obvious suspect yet. More investigating ahead, including the possibility that his acquaintance Amy Walter, a Salt Lake Tribune journalist might turn up something from a search in the political archives. And there is a trip to Pocatello in the offing for Harry.

February 18, 2022

Passed 31K on Murder at the Rocket Factory. Harry Jenkins has uncovered much information about the death of Kingsley Bridge, but none of it points to a homicide or a potential killer. He will continue to follow any leads he finds. 

February 12, 2022

The new novel "Murder at the Rocket Factory" just passed the 20K mark. This one finds Harry Jenkins hot on the trail of an unsolved murder at Thiokol Chemical in 1963. His connection aside from his granduncle Fred Jenkins is that his granddad, Carl Jenkins, worked there as a technical writer and was connected to the mysterious death of one of the executives at the plant. 

January 31, 2022

Movie World 4. This latest look at Arthur Tageman's life starts out with his being assigned to head the Redub Project for Megaworld's legacy films. He is still under threat from the Cinco Dientes gang. The threat becomes so personal that Arthur completes his concealed carry permit and buys a pistol. His stress level leaps up as he considers the awful prospect of having to use his new gun. Meanwhile, the Redub Project progresses.

January 21, 2022

 First edit of Movie World 4 is complete. More work in the wings.

January 15, 2022

 The first draft of Movie World 4 is finished. All the usual pre-publication tasks lie ahead.

January 13, 2022

 On the home stretch. Passed 55K words. With the pre-production meeting underway will that lead to more than an indie production showdown? Or will it somehow bring Arthur and Sam together for the final confrontation? You may have to read a Kindle book or buy a copy to find out.

January 5, 2022

Passed 40K on Movie World 4. The excitement builds with the redub project, ICE, Leach's assassination and the threat from Sam Jones.