Max Tomlinson's Blog, page 3
March 11, 2022
Charity Auction for the People of Ukraine – Signed, personalized hardcopy of Vanishing in the Haight.
Want a signed, personalized hardcopy of Vanishing in the Haight?
100% of proceeds go to Nova Ukraine (an ebay recognized charity).
I’ll even pay for the shipping (US Only).
Bid now and *thanks*!
Click on book cover to be taken to ebay auction
February 28, 2022
All Colleen Hayes mysteries are $1.99 for the month of March!
You heard that right, thrill-seekers.
My publisher–Oceanview–has dropped the price of all three Colleen Hayes ebooks to $1.99 for the month of March. Why not take advantage of their generosity, or lapse in judgement, or whatever it might be, and grab a copy (copies) for yourself? Books are marked down across all platforms!
Oh, and happy reading! 
Colleen Hayes #3
Colleen Hayes #2
Colleen Hayes #1¡Vivan los escritores!
February 1, 2022
Line of Darkness is *now* available for preorder
Hola, readers. It is my pleasure to inform you that Line of Darkness, the fourth Colleen Hayes mystery set in ’70s San Francisco, is now available for preorder. The book, which also reads standalone, will be published August 16, 2022.
When ex-con PI Colleen Hayes is hired to find a missing person, she discovers an international vigilante group hunting down ex-Nazis. A World War II banknote and a 1942 SS ID of a German officer long thought dead leads her to Italy where she uncovers a secret project hatched in a concentration camp. Colleen has no choice but to push ahead if the killing is to stop and justice prevail.
Check out Line of Darkness on Goodreads.
Click for more info and/or preorder ..
Line of Darkness available for preorder…
Hola, readers. It is my pleasure to inform you that Line of Darkness, the fourth Colleen Hayes mystery set in ’70s San Francisco, is now available for preorder. The book, which also reads standalone, will be published August 16, 2022.
When ex-con PI Colleen Hayes is hired to find a missing person, she discovers an international vigilante group hunting down ex-Nazis. A World War II banknote and a 1942 SS ID of a German officer long thought dead leads her to Italy where she uncovers a secret project hatched in a concentration camp. Colleen has no choice but to push ahead if the killing is to stop and justice prevail.
Click for more info and/or preorder ..
January 1, 2022
All three Colleen Hayes mysteries are $1.99 for the month of January!
You heard that right, thrill-seekers.
My publisher–Oceanview–has dropped the price of all three Colleen Hayes ebooks to $1.99 for the month of January. Why not take advantage of their generosity, or lapse in judgement, or whatever it might be, and grab a copy (copies) for yourself? Books are marked down across all platforms!
Oh, and Happy New Year!
Colleen Hayes #3
Colleen Hayes #2
Colleen Hayes #1¡Vivan los escritores!
December 1, 2021
Goodreads Giveaway – Bad Scene
Do you want a *signed* print copy of Bad Scene? Of course you do!
Enter the Goodreads giveaway right here –>
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/335994-bad-scene
until December 15th. Giveaway limited to US only. Good luck!
More about Bad Scene here:
Bad Scene at Oceanview
November 23, 2021
The Voice of Colleen Hayes – An Interview with Margy Stein, Audible Narrator
The third Colleen Hayes mystery—Bad Scene—released this August (August 3, 2021) in print is *now* available as an audio book. The Colleen Hayes mysteries are narrated by the extremely talented Margy Stein. I am more than a little thrilled that Margy has chosen the Colleen Hayes novels as one of her many audio projects—her range of voices and accents are nothing short of impressive and work especially well for the noir genre. (Check out a sample from the link below.)
I know Margy as a consummate professional who prepares for an audio project many months in advance, sending me pages of detailed questions about the book, from locale to accents, to the characters’ birthdays, pronunciation of terms I hadn’t given a second thought about, and other myriad details, fleshing out the story before she actually sits down and narrates a single word. Sometimes her questions are real eye openers for me and I wrote the dang books. So I thought it might be fun for everyone to get to know the voice behind Colleen Hayes a little better.
Max: Hello, Margy, and welcome to our humble blog.
Margy: Humble is good; I am at home with humble. Thank you for the kind words!
Max: Please tell our readers and listeners a little bit about yourself. I understand you are an actor.
Margy: Ah let’s see…while studying acting in the theatre department at school in Kansas I spent some time with a sort of a subdivision of that department called Oral Interp, or the Oral Interpretation of Literature, it was kind of the ‘Lit’ wing of the acting department there. And it was a really good background for what I do now, because it taught us reverence for the words on the page, and to be very conscious of a book’s point of view, that is, who is telling the story–who is the person that you are hearing the story through. That, and I did a lot of plays in college. Came out to California and continued to find small roles in film and did some theater. Audiobooks feel like a very good fit for me–I’ve always loved books and reading, my family’s very booky, I grew up with books everywhere, a great respect for books. That’s a word, isn’t it? Booky?
Max: I believe so, yes.
Margy: And so yeah, it can be very satisfying for an actor to narrate books. It’s very much the same craft that’s called for I think, it scratches the same itch, if you will. And there are never enough legitimate acting parts to go around, so… I’m really very grateful that I found narrating.
Max: You worked on Iron Man 2? How cool was that? Did you get to meet Iron Man?
Margy: Ah yes, Iron Man. Or, as my friends know it, my fifteen seconds of fame. Because that is one short scene! But yes, it was very cool. Yes, I met Mr. Downey, Miss Paltrow, Miss Johanssen, Jon Favreau and a few other heavy hitters, they were all very, very nice to me which was good because I was so nervous I could have lost my lunch…they shot it once, and Mr. Downey‘s standing there with his strawberries–he’s forgotten that Pepper Potts is totally allergic–and they cut, and someone says, very upbeat, ‘Okay! shall we do it again?’ and Mr. Downey in all his confident suaveness says, “Do we need to?” ….and little me, well I would have LOVED a second take, but that was it! They were on the next part of the scene, which of course, didn’t involve me. But yes, very fun.
Max: Any other brushes with greatness?
Margy: only one more….there was a gaggle of us that were individually given moments to extemporaneously gush over an actor who was in this movie, who was playing a mega-famous, slightly over-the-hill singing star–think Frank Sinatra/Neil Diamond–and he was sitting in a hotel lobby, 12 feet away. And it was crazy fun, because it was all improvised, and the actor himself was none other than Al Pacino. So–nervous, excited gushing came pretty easy!
Max: I’m a huge Al Pacino fan too. I can see where acting would play right into narrating books, as you are really acting out the parts of all the characters, as well as being narrator (a character as well.) I know you do a lot of prep for your audio books. What do you think is the most important step?
Margy: That’s a good question–and I’d hate to say one is more important than another. But one I’ve clarified in my head lately is the reading of the book that you hopefully do in the speed, or the flow of the story itself. And preferably, this is your first pass–hopefully you have time to do more than one!–but this is best done first I think, when the book is new and fresh to you– and it’s helpful to find that flow that the writer has intended for the book, because that energy is somehow key to your work and your delivery…and if you get bogged down in pondering character things or word things or intricacies of plot while doing that read, you kind of damage your sense of the movement of the story. Euww, I’m sure I didn’t explain that very well.
Max: I disagree! Do you have a home studio?
Margy: Yes I do. Such as she is.
Max: Have you ever eaten an entire carton of ice cream in one sitting?
Margy: Lord no! But I have to admit, I have NEVER said no to Coffee Ice Cream. I have learned to turn down most desserts. But not Coffee Ice Cream.
Max: You live in Burbank. How is the industry returning to normal (if there is even such a thing anymore) after the pandemic?
Margy: Ah yes, returning to work. Happy to say, the various powers that be got together and worked very hard to establish a set of standards for us to go by, and have been pretty good about making sure that all comply. Sometimes it’s a hassle and pretty tedious, and I’m sure all the testing that’s going on is costing production a small fortune, which may leave some of the low-budget independents out in the cold…. but, yeah the work is back. Many of us have been pretty busy since about February of this year (2021). So that’s good. But can we go to the movie houses to see these movies? Uhh….check your local listings…
Max: Do you ever come across a word/sentence/paragraph that is simply impossible for you to do for whatever reason? Maybe rough language? Attitude? Situation? What do you do?
Margy: Oh, porn. You know. A few years ago I had to recant an offer after already saying yes (they always say, read the entire book before you agree!) and I just said, Wow, no, sorry, I’m not your girl! And they were fine. The book started out like an adolescent coming-of-age story but went in the crapper pretty fast! Euww.
Max: Favorite movie?
Margy: A favorite recent book was Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell, that was made into a movie with Jennifer Lawrence. Maybe it’s the passionate, strong heroines that I like, like Colleen!
Max: I loved that book AND the movie as well. What other movies?
Margy: I need to update my list! I still think of The Right Stuff when I’m asked that question. I love the way it poked fun, but still idolized the quest for space dominance, of that decade. I love classic horror, I think The Exorcist and The Omen, even The Birds, all hold up pretty well. A recent fave is BlackKlansman.
Max: Favorite actor/actress?
Margy: Jodie Foster is still my favorite! She has such clarity, an edge to what she does. And Adam Driver is just about perfect.
Max: Margy, thank you so much for taking time to talk today! I’m looking forward to the audio book of Bad Scene!
August 22, 2021
All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Private Eye Fiction
All I Really need to Know I learned From Private Eye FictionCheck out my piece on “Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Private Eye Fiction” in the latest issue of Mystery and Suspense magazine. Humor abounds. Hopefully. (With apologies to Robert Fulghum, author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things.)
