Mike Martin's Blog, page 36

Book Signing

Book Signing November 10, 2012

Collected Works Bookstore and Coffee Bar

1242 Wellington St, Ottawa

1pm to 3pm

Saturday, November 10, 2012

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Where to Buy The Walker on the Cape in Ottawa:

Baico Bookstore: 294 Albert at Kent, Ottawa

Collected Works: 1242 Wellington at Holland, Ottawa

Books on Beechwood: 35 Beechwood at McKay, Ottawa

Chapters Rideau: Rideau at Sussex, Ottawa

Chapters South Keys: Bank at Hunt Club, Ottawa

Brittons in the Glebe, 846 Bank St at Fifth Avenue, Ottawa

Another Review and More

Book Review

Downhome Magazine which is the preferred publication of Newfoundlanders living outside the province will be publishing a review of The Walker on the Cape in their November edition. It will be on store shelves and into the hands of over 70,000 subscribers in the first week of November.

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

“The Walker on the Cape is a quiet mystery that uses the atmosphere of a small town and the people who inhabit it to god effect as Windflower and his eager assistant Constable Eddie Tizzard dig deeper and deeper into the lives of individuals who may or may not be responsible. It’s easy to visualize the story as a TV movie along the lines of many of the excellent British series.”

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Coming Soon….
 

The Walker on the Cape, the first in a series of mystery books featuring Sergeant Winston Windflower of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will soon be available in an E-Book version and available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and other major e-book retailers.

 
More Reader Comments
 
 
What a treat to read a mystery set in Canada. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and hope Mike writes more Winston Windflower mysteries.
 
Nancy Kitka
Whitby, Ontario
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I loved the book!!
 
Theresa Johnson
Ottawa, Ontario
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It was a great story!!
 
Robert Arnold
Victoria, British Columbia
 

My Book Has Mistakes In It

My book, my baby, The Walker on the Cape, has typos, errors and misprints. Or at least the last printed edition did. The newest version and the E-book will be so clean it will squeak. I apologize for these mistakes but I forgive myself and have moved on. I have also learned a lot about myself and others as a result of this. And for that I am very grateful.

People who have read the book and saw these typos have reacted in a number of different ways.

1. The people who saw them and said nothing.

Thank you because your love for me or for the story was greater than your need to point out the flaws. I wish to be more like you in the future.

2. Those who saw them and asked me if I wanted to know about them.

Thank you because you showed me compassion and consideration but you did not want me to be blind to my faults. I want to learn to be as compassionate and caring to others.

3. Those who saw them and were upset that these mistakes interfered with their enjoyment of the story.

Thank you because you showed me honesty and helped me to refocus on making a better product. I want to learn to be as honest as you in the future.

(BTW I recruited two #3′s to help copy-edit my next book)

Exciting News from The Walker on the Cape

Coming soon…. An E-Book and a U.S. Distribution Agreement

It’s very exciting to announce that The Walker on the Cape will soon be available in an E-Book format. It’s still being finalized but soon the E-Book version will be available on Chapters.ca as well as Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and other majot e-book retailers. Watch this space for the formal announcement and how to buy an E-Book version.

We are also in the process of finalizing a U.S. book distribution deal with Booklocker.com that will see The Walker on the Cape available in American bookstores and online through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It will also be available for direct bookstore orders through the giant U.S. book distributor Ingram

Book Review.

Downhome Magazine which is the preferred publication of Newfoundlanders living outside the province will be publishing a review of The Walker on the Cape in their November edition. It will be on store shelves and into the hands of over 70,000 subscribers in the first week of November.

Readers Comments

I found the book to be a great read as I love mystery novels that pertain to Newfoundland. Well done and  I look forward to the next one.

Bill Walsh

Mt. Pearl, NL

Both Peter and I read and really enjoyed The Walker on the Cape. We are looking forward to the next adventures of Windflower and company.

Helene Beauchemin

Ottawa, Ont.

Where in Ottawa to buy The Walker on the Cape

The Walker on the Cape is available at a number of locations in Ottawa including Chapters Rideau which has just restocked the book. It is also available at Chapters South Keys and these fine independent Ottawa bookstores:

Ottawa:

Baico Bookstore: 294 Albert at Kent, Ottawa

Collected Works: 1242 Wellington at Holland, Ottawa

Books on Beechwood: 35 Beechwood at McKay, Ottawa

Brittons in the Glebe, 846 Bank St at Fifth Avenue, Ottawa

Book Review of The Walker on the Cape by John Baglow

Book Review of The Walker on the Cape by well-known Ottawa writer and blogger (Dr. Dawg’s Blog)

Crime writer Mike Martin imports a Cree RCMP officer into Grand Bank, a Newfoundland outport: how could the ensuing story not hold our interest?

Sergeant Winston Wildflower is called to investigate the death of an old man, Elias Martin, found dead on the path from the village to the Cape, where he liked to go for daily walks. Wildflower has a hunch that it wasn’t a heart attack, and the story flows from there.

The characters tend to be sketched, not drawn, but they aren’t caricatures. There is McIntosh, his hostile superior; the eager Constable Tizzard; his flame Sheila, who serves him cheesecake with coffee or tea at the Mug-Up diner; the wealthy and unaccountably furious Harvey Brenton and his abused wife; Dr. Vijay Sanjay, doing his best to pick up the Newfoundland language; the officious mayor of Grand Bank—and a host of others. 

The story is deftly plotted, and bounces along in fifty short punchy chapters plus an epilogue. Martin, from Newfoundland himself, gives us a good feel of the place where the drama plays out. The writing is not particularly stylish, and Martin could have used a copy-editor to weed out the typos and the occasional solecism, but the atmosphere and the pace keep the tale lively and engaging.

What is striking about the text, however, is that it almost seems to be the wrong medium for the story Martin has to tell. The main characters and the dialogue suggest a more serious version of Corner Gas, one in which murders and assaults are committed and serious police business is to be attended to, but, at the same time, where lesser intrigues and daily interactions have their own considerable comic potential.

Thanks to Martin, one has the sense that several of his characters have more stories to tell, and the setting—a Newfoundland outport in the present day—offers countless possibilities in itself. Whether Martin chooses to press on with more novels, as he hints in this one, or turn his hand to the discipline of drama (he has a good ear for dialogue), he has opened the door to some interesting folks, and they seem bent on staying a while.

John Baglow

Summaries of Reviews of The Walker on the Cape

Here are a summary of the major reviews of  The Walker on the Cape to date. For the full reviews please visit:

http://walkeronthecape.com/reviews/

“The Walker on the Cape offers some foxily constructed plotting, a winning sleuth figure and an air of charming cheerfulness.”

The Toronto Star

“It¹s fun to read a mystery like this. The setting is nicely realized, the characters have some weight, and the details are telling, like the fog with a mind of its own.”

The St. John’s Telegram

Writers try like Dickens to open their stories with a hook, some tasty bait to catch and hold the reader’s attention. Martin hooked me in the first paragraph with a description of Elias’ breakfast of, along with porridge, “thick molasses bread smothered in partridge berry jam.”

The Clarenville Packet

“The Walker on the Cape is worth picking up. It is a good read and Sergeant Windflower and Constable Eddie Tizzard are well drawn characters. It will be interesting to see how they and other characters develop in the next book.”

The Mystery Site

“Mike Martin has thought through his plot and provided a mixture of motives and suspects to keep it moving forward. And, he’s done his homework when it comes to RCMP procedure. He has a lot of room to grow his characters which should make the second book (I’m assuming and hoping it’s a series) well worth looking for.”

MysteryMaven.Com

The Walker on the Cape reviewed on Mystery Maven.com

Another review… This time by the Mystery Maven herself, Linda Wiken, aka Erika Chase. Thank you Linda!!

http://www.mysterymavencdn.blogspot.ca/2012/09/mystery-review_8.html

MYSTERY REVIEW
 
The Walker on the Cape

by Mike Martin

Baico Publishing

Look at the cover of The Walker on the Cape. An exquisite site, isn’t it? That’s Grand Bank, Newfoundland, the setting of this tale of RCMP, power and corruption. But it’s mostly the story of life on the rock. Because it’s the setting, the people, and the way of life in a small Newfoundland community that makes a difference in this first mystery by Ottawa writer Mike Martin. He writes about what he knows and that’s his home province.

The discovery of the body of an old man on the trail overlooking Grand Bank shakes the community when it’s found he was poisoned. Therein lies the tale of old secrets, power that corrupts, and lies that lead to ruined lives. At the heart of it all is RCMP Sergeant Winston Windflower, a First Nation officer who finds himself posted in far away Newfoundland. He’s a really nice guy who’s facing what sounds like his first major investigative challenge, which he handles with intelligence and understanding.

Along the way we meet Sheila Hillier who owns a local cafe, the officers and civilian staff at the small detachment, and many of the locals who form the fabric of the community. Sheila’s a nice woman and seems a natural pairing for the bachelor sergeant, and this provides a peak into his private life. It’s to be hoped that any future instalments give us a deeper understanding of what it means to be an aboriginal in the RCMP. We get a glimpse with his morning ritual of smudge bowl and medicine bag but knowing more about his past and his beliefs would help give depth to the man.

Martin has thought through his plot and provided a mixture of motives and suspects to keep it moving forward. And, he’s done his homework when it comes to RCMP procedure. He has a lot of room to grow his characters which should make the second book (I’m assuming and hoping it’s a series) well worth looking for.

Enjoy an armchair visit to Newfoundland!

New Review and Book Signing Sept 22

Review of The Walker on the Cape by John-James Ford, author of “Bonk on the Head”

I started reading _The Walker on the Cape_ during a weekend at the cottage this past summer, and I finished it before I found the time to jump in the lake. This slim-ish volume packs a lot in-between its covers, and for a first novel I was impressed by the transitions and the subtle hooks Mr. Martin leaves his readers along the way. Ultimately, and enjoyable and quick read with a sympathetic protagonist in Winston Windflower.

I really enjoyed this murder mystery and look forward to what Mike Martin offers up in the future.

John James Ford

Gatineau Quebec

Book Signing September 22, 2012

Meet Mike Martin and get your own personally signed copy of The Walker on the Cape in Ottawa at Books on Beechwood from 1-3, Saturday, September 22, 2012

http://www.facebook.com/events/401881803209342/

Book Review The Walker on the Cape by Harold N. Walters in the Clarenville Packet

Harold Walters is a Newfoundland writer, humourist and book reviewer. His columns appear all over NL. This one appears in the Clarenville Packet.

BOOK ReMARKS

By: Harold N. Walters

The Walker on the Cape

Silly me, when I first heard of The Walker on the Cape [Baico Publishing Inc.] I assumed it was a spooky story of sorts, you know, with some mysterious creepy guy, or ghost, or something, wandering around in the fog and scaring the bejabbers out of folks on the cape.

Of course, that isn’t the case. Mike Martin’s novel [www.walkeronthecape.com] is a straight forward murder story. Elias Martin who habitually takes his morning constitutional on the Cape hiking trail is found dead. First off, peopled figure Elias has been felled by a heart attack.

But you know better, eh b’ys?

Walker is a murder story so, at best [!], a heart attack would have to be induced by something nasty. As it turns out, the nasty is…well, I’m not saying.

Back to page one, Chapter One.

Writers try like Dickens to open their stories with a hook, some tasty bait to catch and hold the reader’s attention.

Martin hooked me in the first paragraph with a description of Elias’ breakfast of, along with porridge, “thick molasses bread smothered in partridge berry jam.”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to fault a book that commenced with patch-a-berry jam bread; although rather than molasses I’d prefer inch-thick gobs of butter.

And another thing…

Readers bring their past lives to whatever they read, which explains—I s’pose—why there is no accounting for the memories a story stirs up even when it has no idea it’s doing so.

Knowing I’d be scribbling about this book in the morning, last night before nodding off I reflected on its contents and eventually fell asleep to dream prodigious dreams about Mounties.

Why Mounties?

The main character in Walker is Sergeant Winston Windflower, a Mountie from Pink Lake Alberta now stationed in Grand Bank, Newfoundland.

That’s not the Mountie I dreamed about though. I dreamed about a different Alberta—I think—Mountie whose misfortune it was to track down and kill his own brother, way up in the Canadian Rockies, near a place called Arroyo.

When I was a wee bay-boy my Pappy used to sing a song called “The Young Mountie’s Prayer,” a popular radio tune at the time sung by—maybe—Wilf Carter or, more likely, Yodeling Slim Clark.

You remember Yodelling Slim, eh?

This morning, haunted—kinda—by lines from the song, I went YouTubing and, sure enough, found a feller strumming his guitar and crooning just like Wilf, or Yodeling Slim, whoever.

Mike, bet a loonie you didn’t foresee your book cranking up my noggin and blowing the carbon off long-idle synapses containing embedded scraps of ancient cowboy ballads.

Back to the book.

Sergeant Windflower learns that old Elias didn’t die of a heart attack. He died because…well, I’m not saying.

Elias’ death is deemed a homicide; therefore, Windflower is required to open an investigation, always the first step in solving a crime.

Windflower knows what truly killed Elias but he is unfamiliar with the nature of the…well, of the weapon. Feeling it’s necessary that he know all that he can about the deadly characteristics of the…weapon…, Windflower decides to delve into some detailed research. The first place he checks—bless his young Mountie heart—is Wikipedia!

Hey, Walker is a “modern” murder yarn.

The circumstances leading up to Elias’ murder are as shrouded in mystery [!] as Grand Bank is shrouded in fog, but Windflower perseveres in his investigation and eventually—as when fog dissipates—all is revealed.

And—Ohhh!—the stuff that’s revealed about the goings-on in Grand Bank. There’s illicit this-and-that all over the place. Enough to keep kitchen peepers almost permanently peeking through their cotton curtains.

Windflower is not alone in his investigation of Elias’ murder. He is assisted by Constable Eddie Tizzard, a young Mountie whose prayers [!] of being involved in and solving a heinous crime are answered by his role as Windflower’s right-hand man. Young Tizzard is painfully eager—kinda like Odie the dog of comic strip fame.

Mind how your Literature teachers used to insist that stories should send a message, should be—p’raps—cautionary tales with sage advice to heed and morals to absorb?

Well, Walker is a cautionary tale—sorta.

Throughout the story it’s occasionally necessary for Windflower to drive the highway between Grand Bank and Marystown. En route he is ever conscious of the possibility of encountering humongous wildlife on the highway, so…

…so, the message of this book is—Mind the moose!

Thank you for reading.

ghwalters@persona.ca or ghwalters663@gmail.com

DUNVILLE, NL

SEPTEMBER 20-12