R. Lawson Gamble's Blog: R Lawson Gamble Books, page 6

FREE ZACK TOLLIVER BOOKS PART DU

As the virus continues to threaten and folks are restrained from travel and work around the globe, we will continue to provide free reading from our Zack Tolliver, FBI, series. To date, we have given away copies of every book in the series over the last two months, so we must start again.

This time around, we will select a bit randomly, each time offering the book most popular at that particular time that we have not already given away in this round.

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The winner is MESTACLOCAN, the terrorizing of San Francisco. The ebook will be free on June 21, a Father’s Day special. Download it for free and enjoy it!

So You Want A Real Book To Hold…

Well, it’s here! The paperback version of LOST OASIS, all 381 pages, is available at Amazon.com. It will be available at all other outlets shortly.

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The paperback is six by nine inches, the standard for all the Zack Tolliver, FBI series, with a colorful cover by Kristalynn Designs that illustrates the excitement you will find within.

The book price is $10.00, a bargain, and will remain at that price. As for the story, we know you will be absorbed by the mystery, camaraderie, adventure, suspense, and plot twists. Enjoy!

LOST OASIS BUYERS: If You…

Purchased LOST OASIS at the presale price, please read this message from the author:

Thank you for purchasing LOST OASIS. I am certain you will find it entertaining. If you purchased the ebook at the $2.99 price you should be aware it has been updated since your purchase. Not content, but format, specifically a reduction in indentation for Kindle and similar readers to make your reading experience more enjoyable. This change might not be noticeable on many tablets and phones.

There are two ways to acquire this update. First, on your device, there may be an Automatic Book Update switch – be sure it is on. Second, go to Amazon.com and sign in, go to Manage your Content and Devices>Preferences>Automatic Book Updates and be sure it is turned on.

I am always interested in your reading experience. Please be sure to leave a review at the book site on Amazon.com. You may contact me if you wish at rlawsongamble@gmail.com. And as always, THANK YOU for purchasing my books.

“LOST OASIS” Newest Zack Tolliver, FBI Mystery

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R Lawson Gamble’s newest Zack Tolliver novel is now available for presale at Amazon.com. The release date is June 1, 2020. The Presale price is set low but is expected to go up after release, so purchasing during presale is recommended.

Once again Zack Tolliver, FBI, and his unofficial Navajo partner Eagle Feather face a seemingly impossible case abandoned by other law enforcement agents as unsolvable or undesirable.

Modern science and high technology come up against deeply rooted cultures and ancient rituals in this Zack Tolliver, FBI, story in a place where the Eagle Mountains are surrounded by the goblin rock piles and barren flats of Joshua Tree National Park. A world-class scientist goes missing while consulting for a design team constructing a huge electric storage battery from the deserted pits of the old Kaiser Iron mines. Did this eccentric world-renown hydrologist simply wander off? Or was his fate more ominous? The project moves ahead, but FBI Supervisory Agent Janice Hooper asks Zack to take a look. When someone plants a bomb in his Jeep the day he arrives, Zack realizes there is something more at stake. Soon he finds himself in a desperate duel with an unknown assassin who may very well be more than his match.

“LOST OASIS” is true to the R Lawson Gamble formula of well-researched developments, locations, cultures, and circumstances that lend reality to his story, a novel where fact meets fiction. The action is continuous, with all the usual plot twists and turns of a Zack novel and (yes) a surprise ending.

Local Author Starts New Western Series

R. LAWSON GAMBLE’S LATEST, ‘JOHNNY AND THE KID,’ HAS BEEN PUBLISHED

May 5, 2020 Arts & Nonprofits

Contributed Author R. Lawson Gamble (Rich) has published a new book, the first in his new “Johnny” series titled “Johnny and the Kid”, an old-time Western.

By Pamela Dozois

Author R. Lawson Gamble (the R is for Rich) has published a new book, the first in his new “Johnny” series titled “Johnny and the Kid”, an old-time Western. 

This new series has its roots in the actual sense of the Old West. It is written in the first person and speaks to how a young boy develops into a gunfighter at the time: What the forces are that come to bear, which incorporates his widowed Ma; the transient nature of the people who come through the town, all of whom’s first stop is the Saloon; the cowboys on cattle drives, hobos, and fugitives from justice.

“I’ve finished eight books in the ‘Zack Tolliver’ series and I sat down to write for pleasure. I’d always wanted to see if I could write a story from the ‘first person’ point of view,” said Gamble. “As I wrote, I was Johnny, a 15-year-old boy facing many unexpected challenges. With each obstacle and danger that came along, I, as Johnny, had to solve it, face it, or run from it and do whatever this young boy would do and I found it very exciting.”

The book took Gamble only two months to complete. In starting the series, he wanted the essence and look of the book along with the formatting to reflect the Old West in terms of stolid, feet on the ground, horse-sense approach of the people at the time, which was set between 1870 and 1880, post-Civil War, in a boom town called Deep Water, Texas.

“In the formatting, I did some unusual things, like block paragraphs without indent, so looking at the interior gives the reader the feeling of the flat plains of Texas and the square corral fencing,” said Gamble. “It is slightly smaller in size so you can throw it in a saddlebag.”

Each of the books to follow in this new series will have the title “Johnny and the …” – the second book is titled “Johnny and the Preacher,” which is due out in late fall. The cover of each of the books will be the same with a slightly different color hue – all sand and dust of the Old West.

“Ever since I was a little boy, I loved watching the old Westerns on a black and white television, shows with Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger until the day my Dad cut the TV cord,” Gamble said. “By that action he more or less left me in that era. This book is an outgrowth from those early days.”

The book is dedicated “To Ma and Pa Gamble from their pistol-packin’ little boy, ‘Two-Gun’ Ricardo.”

“When my mother, who is 99 years old, read the book she said she could see me as her little boy with my cowboy hat and my two pearl-handled pistols strapped around my waist,” said Gamble.

In a book review, Fiona Ingram. one of the editors for Readers’ Favorite says, “The character development is so well done that it’s as if Johnny was sitting in my living room telling the story. The plots and subplots are wonderful. I love the who’s who that kept the suspense heightened. It’s the best book I’ve read this year. Well done!”

“When an author starts a new series, particularly if the genre is different, he/she risks losing what has already been gained in the first series in terms of followers,” Gamble said. “We readers like familiar ground, familiar characters, and love nothing better than to venture into book after book created in the same familiar way. When an author seems to move away from there, their interest drops off, even at the suspicion that the original series might not continue. 

“There are lots of other series out there to find. Although I fully intend to continue my Zack Tolliver FBI series as usual, those who enjoy it and follow it, upon seeing this different work among my books, may lose faith. It is a risk I have to take. 

“Writing has always been pleasurable for me but never as much as while writing ‘Johnny and the Kid,’” said Gamble. “I immediately wanted to start ‘Johnny and the Preacher’ as soon as I’d finished.”

Gamble gives talks about Los Alamos Valley history. He has spoken at the Santa Ynez Valley Historical Museum and the Santa Maria Valley Historical Society for the “Valley Speaks” series and at the Santa Barbara Westerners chapter at the Santa Barbara Club, just to name a few.

“Johnny and the Kid” is available on Amazon or any retail bookstore. He will be doing book signings and readings in the area to launch his new series.

For more information, visit rlawsongamble.com or amazon.com/rlawsongamble.

AUTHORBOOK AUTHORJOHNNY AND THE KIDR LAWSON GAMBLEWESTERN SERIES

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R Lawson Gamble Interview with Alexandra Amor

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Interview with R. Lawson Gamble
Alexandra: Great job. Thank you so much.

Let’s talk a little bit about Zack. He’s a young guy and when I was reading what you just read, I liked that he was young and just starting out. Very often we’re introduced to the classic FBI agent. He’s an old grizzled veteran or whatever.

Tell us why you decided to to begin with him as quite a young sir, almost a new recruit.

Rich: I have to confess that this prequel was written after about book six. And it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun to write it because of that.

But I had an offer from two other writers who write in the same kind of genre and the same sort of thing that I do with the idea that we could publicize by combining in a book. So the suggestion was each of us write and novella.

I thought, well, if I’m going to be doing that, why not go back and explain some of the things that fans have asked about; how did Zack get started? What was that all about? How did he end up on the reservation?

So we now have a free volume that’s been permanently on Amazon called Western Justice. And almost more in its genre, the Hillerman genre almost always hovers around number six or so.

Alexandra: What a great idea.

Rich: I had a lot of fun kind of recreating Zack, putting thoughts to what it must have been like for him, which I hadn’t done with my first novel.

Alexandra: That scene where he’s had just been dropped off and he’s waiting for the ride and he’s in the desert almost reminded me of like a rite of passage. When young men in African tribes, for example, are about to become men, they’re sent out into the desert on their own.

I felt that it was sort of symbolic of what’s happening to Zack, in a way.

Rich: It really is. I wanted to truly outline the transition that he had to make coming from the Maryland roots, the East Coast, to a land that he’d never even seen before. That was very overpowering in in all its aspects.

And to be picked up by an Indian who just spoke one or two words, guttural, so to speak. He might as well sniff a Datura plant and gotten high standing there for the impact that this had on him.

Alexandra: One of the things I noticed in your author description on Amazon, you mentioned that for each book, Zack and Eagle Feather go to a different location.

What’s the motivation for that?

Rich: There’s two. One is personal, which is that I like to trail run. And I like to go to different places in the desert or wherever it may be.

The second is, though, that I found that I surmised from reading other series that it must be very difficult to keep coming up with plots within the same town where when you introduce somebody and you play them through and introduce somebody else, you play them through.

And I thought, why not take Zack to places where I’d gone to run, dig around a little bit, find what the history there is and tie that in. And it’s been a fascinating journey. I’ve discovered things that I never knew existed.

The current book that I’m working on, which I should have ready to put on pre-sale by the end of the month, involves a a dry land generator, basically a huge battery that’s hydraulic. There’s been work done by this this company in order to have a supply of of of electricity and me in the future forever.

But it’s right in the middle of Joshua National Park. The one place that that’s privately owned and had a lot of interesting things that have occurred with that.

So, yes, finding these places, getting the chance to learn about them. I ended up amongst the very liberal Mormons. The other set, if you will. And there was an awful lot of interesting things there to to use.

Alexandra: That’s such a great idea. What a fascinating way to go about writing books, as you say.

Rich: Each one’s a journey, literally.

Alexandra: Yes. Exactly. We met Eagle Feather there, of course, who picked up Zack from the airstrip. And he continues on and they become quite close friends.

So I guess that relationship has evolved, obviously.

Rich: Yes, very much. They they read each other’s minds. They serve one another. The white man and and the one who’s the Native American who’s more able to think in legendary mythical terms or spiritual terms doesn’t dismiss things.

There’s a lot of paranormal or quasi-normal in my books and the reader is left to choose whether they believe that that really happened or were they smoking something. I think the contrast of the two just works very, very well and very naturally. So each time I come back to them for a new story, they have evolved on their own, it seems like, and then just fit together.

Alexandra: I love that. I love a good partnership and a mystery series.

One of the things I didn’t know before I started researching your books was that the Navajo reservation straddles three different states.

Jurisdictionally, politically, it must be such a complicated place.

Rich: It is, and not only does it straddle states, it encloses several other tribes of different different types and a couple of places and crossing to and fro. It can can be confusing and can be a problem.

In Cat, my fourth book, I believe that happens a lot. Zack has to work between law enforcement or whatever is in place to counter whatever it may be between these two areas as he tries to chase down the bad guy who uses the borders to hide between the two reservations. So, yeah, that’s very true.

And it’s a huge place. If you try driving across it, you go on forever. Most Hillerman stories, for instance, take place up in the northeast corner of mine have all taken place in the west mid-section. And you could fit about 90 other writers in the middle if they want.

Alexandra: Just before we wind up, you mentioned that there’s a new book coming out. It’ll probably be available just about when this podcast comes out.

Why don’t you tell us about that?

Rich: The new book is my latest in the Zack Tolliver series and this one takes place – I was talking to you about the inland generator. That’s where it is around the Joshua Tree National Park area and down to Blythe, Arizona. And all through that area also involves the Chemaheuvi Indians.

That’s the other thing I try to do. I try and involve a different group of Indians nationalities each time. And there are many all through this different areas, in this case, the Chemaheuvi, who own a lot of the casinos down there. So it’s sort of a different scene there.

Eagle Feather knows a guy so he gets to stay in this wonderful suite at the top of one of the casinos while they’re there, while Zack is in some cabin freezing to death.

I think it’s going to be a very interesting mystery. More along the lines probably of my Canaan’s Secret, because there’s more complications and there’s more more people involved in a mystery takes the main mystery takes a lot of time to sort through. But there are a lot of minor parts that occur as you go hoping to have it ready for sale by June 1. It’ll be on presale in May.

Alexandra: Great. Oh, that’s awesome. Well, this has been great, Rich.

Why don’t you let people know where they can find out more about you and your books?

Rich: I have, of course, my own website. RLawsonGamble.com. You can go there. And the other is my author page on Amazon, which is really where most of my information ends up anyhow, because they’re very good to bring you all together. And that has the list of all the books and current prices and sales and so on.

Alexandra: Great. And did I see you mentioned that you’re having a rotating sale. We’re recording this in April 2020 and we’re right in the middle of the covid-19 crisis.

Rich: What I’m doing is I’m trying to give away a free e-book, know just about once a month or so this Saturday. For instance, I will be giving Cat away for free as there’s a new book on Amazon. And it helps me because maybe it’ll stimulate some interest. But on the other hand, and also for those people that don’t want to spend money and would like to get a good read, hopefully they will. We’ll find it.

Alexandra: What a great idea. Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

Rich: Thank you for having me, Alexandra.

A Free Book Offer

We’ll be offering a FREE eBook from the popular Zack Tolliver, FBI, series every week or so on Amazon.com. to help you keep your reading stack alive during downtime. There’s nothing like a fast-moving murder mystery story to create a break from reality!

Our intent is to follow the series in order of publication. Having already offered a free day for THE DARK ROAD, the prequel, and MESTACLOCAN, book number two, we are preparing to post a free day for ZACA, book number three, sometime within the next week and a half. Check the Amazon R. Lawson Gamble author page or RLawsonGamble.com for updates.

We did not arrange a free day for our first book, THE OTHER, because it is not KDP Exclusive, not by intention, but by a series of accidents. Because of that circumstance, it is too difficult to regulate the offer through all its sales channels fairly. However, each of the other books in the series will appear as free eBooks in the order they were published.

Finally, after we have finished offering each book in the Zack Tolliver, FBI, series, we will offer JOHNNY AND THE KID, our very popular new Western, FREE for one day.

We will announce the date for each free eBook several days in advance, so check back from time to time. Each will be free for one day only so it is important not to miss it. And please, if you enjoy the book, write a brief review and tell us about it. By doing so, you will encourage us to do this more often!

"Johnny And The Kid" Five Star Review

I decided to publish this review from Readers Favorite more to inform than anything else, as it offers a simple idea of the story without spoilers. Those who enjoy a fun, fast action Western will enjoy it.

Readers Favorite Review

Johnny And The Kid is a work of fiction that describes itself as “An Old Time Western” and was penned by author R. Lawson Gamble. This shorter work of fiction delivers a novella-length tale of action, adventure, hijinks and intrigue, all within an authentic Western setting and atmosphere. The story centers on the titular Johnny, who struggles to cope with just him and his mother making a living in the town of Deep Water. Two new figures arrive in town at different times, one apparently making things better, and the other a whole lot worse. So begins a tense interpersonal drama filled with mystery and secrets.

Author R. Lawson Gamble has created an excellent tapestry of intrigue in this novella, cutting right to the chase and allowing us to enjoy a fast-paced mystery with a lot of bang for its buck. Johnny is a likable everyman type hero, with plenty of naivety and a lot to learn on his journey into the world of gunfighters and those who meddle in their affairs. I loved the character development that gives us straight-up profiles and sets the scene of who is who really effectively. This leaves plenty of room for the story to unfold, and also for the characters’ emotional arcs and their secrets to develop later in the plot too. Overall, Johnny And The Kid provides everything that a great Western read should have in terms of zippy dialogue, effective and cinematic atmosphere, and a series of intrigues that deepen to a really satisfying plot conclusion.

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Ebooks in the Age of Pandemic

We are about to enter a new place in our human history. Viewed globally, and simply, a warmer climate presents new adverse conditions that force migrations within a continually growing population toward confined spaces, bringing new diseases into denser habitation zones. Not a lot of good news there.

A lot of things are about to change. Including social attitudes. A new fear of personal proximity is growing. My personal space, once intangible, is measurable now. In some communities it is already enforced by law. What we breathe, what we touch, how we touch it, and where we go can no longer be guided by whimsy but must be studied. It is the age of pandemic.

As an author, my interest is in presenting my fiction books for readers in their preferred mode of enjoyment, be it audio, eBook, or paperback. The popularity of eBooks has continued to gain ground, as have audio books. But there are, and I believe always will be, those such as myself who find joy in a book I can hold in my hands, flip its pages, and store on my shelf carefully arranged by author’s last name.

Will the age of pandemic change readers’ preferred modality? I believe it must. Those crowded spaces where physical books are most often sold––airports, malls, convention halls, and book festivals––may well be less frequented in the future while an eBook or audio book viewed on one’s own tablet or reader offers a safe supply of never ending selections.

Such a future is not my preference, but I fear the world is about to change and will be slow to change back. I will make sure my books are available as eBooks, and in the Amazon Prime library, and as audio books for all personal reading devices. But I will still publish in paperback, if only to have one copy of the physical book for my shelves under the letter “G”.

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Coming Soon: “Lost Oasis”

My Zack Tolliver, FBI series continues with the latest adventures of Eagle Feather and Zack Tolliver in the forthcoming novel LOST OASIS, due May first. This mystery summons Zack to the desert wastes of the northernmost Eagle Mountains in the Sonoran Desert, once part of Joshua Tree National Park but later reclaimed by private interests for mining.

Here resides the largest contemporary ghost town in the U.S. and the remnants of the Kaiser Steel open pit iron mines. The deserted company town, a city unto itself at the time, was the birthplace of one of the most successful health plans of today, perhaps the only remaining tangible benefit of the operation.

Now the area is being repurposed as a reversible pumped storage facility, a huge hydraulic electricity storage battery in the desert. The concept is simple: fill a large reservoir with water, use solar power by day to pump the water to another reservoir at a higher elevation, then release the water to run back down hill by night, turning a turbine to generate electricity as it descends. Then repeat.

In LOST OASIS, world-renown scientist Carl Scheidecker, contracted by EverSun Corporation and Santini & Marsh Design & Construction Company, mysteriously disappears while inspecting sites in the desert. His tracks lead to an extinct oasis, then disappear. Foul play is suspected, but by whom? Zack is assigned to the case. But even as he begins his investigation, someone attaches a bomb to his Jeep and he barely escapes with his life.

As Zack begins interviews with company employees, he receives an unexpected call from his boss, Janice Hooper. She informs him the FBI investigation has been suspended and he is to pack it up immediately. Aware now that very powerful forces are afoot, Zack refuses to give up, particularly since Eagle Feather is somewhere out in the desert, unable to communicate, with a very dangerous assassin on the loose.

Be sure to keep an eye out for LOST OASIS on presale at Amazon. And until then, if you have missed any of the eight prior books in the series, visit my author page at Amazon.com and catch up.