Michael Stephen Daigle's Blog, page 12
March 28, 2023
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere ...
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
Goals are relative…I learned a couple of books ago that the worrying about getting it all right during the writing process actually interfered with completing the work…I only have to be right once—when the story is finished.
The post appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
March 11, 2023
DRAGONY RISING: 2023 IPA Distinguished Favorite
DRAGONY RISING, the fifth Frank Nagler Mystery has been named a Distinguished Favorite in the 2023 Independent Press awards.
In 2023, the INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD had entries worldwide. Authors and publishers from countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, Scotland, and South Africa, participated.
Books submitted included writers based in cities such as Atlanta to Los Angeles; London to Nova Scotia; from Cape Town to Mumbai; from Albuquerque to New York City as well as others.
“We are proud to announce the winners and distinguished favorites in our annual 2023 INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD. This year included an array of quality and diverse independent books,” Olczak said. “Independent publishing is pushing on every corner of the earth with great content. We are thrilled to be highlighting key titles representing global independent publishing.” said awards sponsor Gabrielle Olczak.
https://www.independentpressaward.com/2023df
DRAGONY RISING was also awarded First place for Mysteries in the 2022 Royal Dragonfly Indie Book Awards. And named a NOTABLE 100 Indie Book in the 2022 Shelf Unbound book awards.
DRAGONY RISING asks the question: What happens when Ironton, N.J. Detective Frank Nagler discovers that the explosion that levels part of downtown is not the worst this to happen?
The story, told at page-turning pace with hairpin turns and revelations, delves deeply into the history of the old manufacturing city and forces Nagler to examine the history of his own family.
Reviewers say:
The author is an exceptional writer – inventive with words, fresh with his storyline, and in presenting a variety of characters to love and hate.
I find myself bored easily with most of the new books erupting daily, but Michael Stephen Daigle knows what he is doing and is up to the task. His stories capture me, entertain and challenge me, and leave me wanting just one more of his books each time I finish one.
This was such a thrill! A great detective story that made me not want to put the book down!
If you’ve ever found yourself browsing the thriller section on a bit of a book binge I can relate to you. I got sold on this book purely based off the cover and a couple paragraphs of the description. After I inhaled this book over the weekend I realized I made an error jumping into the 5th book of the series (by accident) – No regrets!
Available at Book and Puppet, downtown Easton, Pa.
Find it online at:
The post DRAGONY RISING: 2023 IPA Distinguished Favorite appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
March 7, 2023
Nagler’s Secret: ‘These kids are like water, Frank’
Anna is the teen-age daughter of Leonard and Calista, Her story is central to the mystery of NAGLER’S SECRET, the work in progress Book 6 of the Frank Nagler Mysteries, published by Imzadi Publishing.
Here is part of her story:
“Destiny stood and walked toward center state, brushing her left hand through the dusty layer.
“I was like her, fighting for and against everything. Didn’t want anyone to love me or care for me because it was weight I didn’t need to carry.” She turned back. “Kids like Anna are like water, Frank, finding some safe level to filter through, to change form, freeze, dissolve, evaporate and condense elsewhere.” She sat again, on the bottom step. “And I think she’s been in contact with that missing kid, Oscar.”
Nagler nodded. “Had a feeling, but with other kids dying…”
“But you never asked, did you?” Anna’s shrill voice sliced the stiff air.
Anna entered the rear of the stage and dropped the plastic paint sample jars on the floor. They rolled with a soft echo across the wooden floor.
“Anna, I…” Frank began.
Density stood. “Hey, kid.”
“You never asked,” Anna yelled. “I’m just a kid. Don’t know nothin’. You just want us to tell. Never asked.”
Anna began to corral the plastic jars across the floor as she walked in a wide circle edge to edge, tapping them soccer-style. “I was there, in the woods, in the trunk of a car, slamming along a road, holding some kid who was bleeding.”
She kicked the jars in a tighter circle.
Nagler and Destiny were transfixed. He shook his head once when she motioned with her eyes about intervening.
“You glue our photos on the walls and billboards. Missing, the headlines shout. Missing. Missing! We are dying. Needles in our arms. Someone’s dick up our ass. Dying.”
Still kicking, circling.
“Standing on a road in god knows where Nebraska in the rain, sleeping under a bridge, calling for you. But it’s a whisper and you can’t hear us because you are talking, talking, talking all the time about how important it is to find us.”
Kicking, circling. A thumping dance step.
“Talking. Try looking, god dammit. You know where. Follow the greed, the indifference. Follow the fat cats in their shining limos as if their money will turn us up.”
Kicking, circling, smaller tighter, center stage, side stepping, tapping, corralling.
“We’re on the corner of Blackwell, Frank. In the dark with our pants unzipped. In the wrecked train cars, the stoveworks, sleeping with the rats. We splash our boots in rain, toss stones at windows to tell you we are here. But you don’t hear because you are talking about how important it is to find up. How you hope we are in good shape. How you’ll round up a search party, call out the dogs and the National Guard, pass out our picture at the bus station. But we’re not at the bus station. Never was. Never will be.”
Anna kneeled on the floor, and rounded up the paint jars with her hands.
“We are here, all together. Right in front of you and you don’t see us.”
She began to stack the jars.
“Here’s magenta and olive. Rozella with her striped hair and Gloria with her shining olive skin.”
Two more jars.
“And winter white, weathered tan. Sandy so pale like the light had never touched his skin and Jamika, the color of caramel. ”
Two more jars. She smoothed the sides of her tower.
“Glamorous green, the color of your eyes, gorgeous Georjean.”
She smiled and fluttered her eyelids.
“And sunset purple, dusky Danielle, hair streaked. The end of the day, deep, dark, then darker.” She held up the last jar. “Finally, black.” A whisper, heard clearly because she had sucked the air out of the room. “This is us. Dying.”
She covered her face with her hands and into them said. “Dying.”
Silence.
No one moved.
Anna stood and kicked over her stack of jars.
“Hi, Uncle Frank,” she said. “I always wanted be on the stage. I’m glad you were here to see that.”
Find the award winning Frank Nagler mysteries here:
The post Nagler’s Secret: ‘These kids are like water, Frank’ appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
February 20, 2023
Book 6: Is this Nagler’s Secret?
In this scene from Book 6 of the Frank Nagler Mysteries, Detective Nagler, his companion and acting mayor of Ironton, N.J., Lauren Fox and friends Calista and Leonard are examining the old theater that Leonard bought as an investment.
Something’s wrong, Nagler says.
Is this a key to the secret of the book’s title, NAGLER’S SECRET?
While waiting for the new book to evolve, catch up with the award winning Nagler series with the latest:
Inside the theater:
“Nagler traced his light beam across the orchestra pit, up the corner stairs and across the stage where more piles of stuff emerged as vague gray shapes as the darkness of the deep stage and the flyloft sucked the white from his beam.
He dragged the beam back across the stage, stopped and reversed it. He flashed it up where he thought the rear wall would be, the across the piles.
Not right, but I don’t know why.
That was the thought he had in that warehouse at the stoveworks where they found Lamont’s body. His body, hanged, the over-large white suit, the message of “The Rules” hidden on the wall; even the bits of cardboard in his pocket – false clues, all. A trail of phony breadcrumbs? Distractions? No. Dissonance. Deliberate connection of disconnected things and events. But they all felt real for some reason he didn’t understand.
Nagler turned back to his friends.
“When do you plan to begin to clean up this place?” he asked Leonard.
“Months, I’d say. I don’t actually own it yet,” Leonard said and looked at Lauren for clarification.
“A legislator has filed a bill to allow Leonard and the city to tap into historical preservation funds because this building is on the state register of historic places. There has to be what’s called an ‘inventory of the premises’ to certify that it is qualified for funding.” Lauren shrugged. “There’s a lot of steps. Why?”
Nagler took Calista’s flashlight and pointed it with his own toward a pile of dust-covered boxes to the right of the stage. He stepped around the fallen chairs and righted a step ladder that had been leaning on the first row of seats. He shook it open, climbed three steps and shined the flashlights on the center of the stage.
“Those boxes and the floor to the right are covered with undisturbed dust and dirt. The center of the stage is clear and dust leading to the back has been kicked around.”
He backed down the ladder.
“Something happened here.”
He scanned the balcony, where the brass railing was bent and the edge of the elaborate carved base appeared to have had chunks removed.
He raised the flashlights above his head and tried to illuminate
the far row of balcony seats, the make-out seats. He held the lights for a minute or more, then hauled the light back where it pooled at his feet; he wiped his forehead and stared into the distant darkness.
Lauren stepped to his side and slipped her arm under his. She offered a soft, slight smile.
“Martha?”
Nagler shook his head to dissipate the sudden fog.
“Her.”
The post Book 6: Is this Nagler’s Secret? appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
February 3, 2023
Nagler Mysteries: Setting as character
In their review of the fifth Frank Nagler Mystery, the award-winning DRAGONY RISING, Kirkus Reviews said, “The decaying Ironton is as rich a character as Frank.”
In the series, Ironton, N,J. Detective Frank Nagler’s hometown. His story and that of the city are forever intertwined.
This scene shows how it works:
“The empty, dark house weighted, wisps of Lauren’s presence hanging. Jeans clinging to a chair arm, a wadded towel still moist with her rose-scented body wash, hints of lavender shampoo, piles of musty, water-stained tan paper files, pages of reports open and underlined, a cup half filled with white skimmed coffee; in the kitchen sink a vase holding the flowers he brought her, the purple buds now brown, the sagging sunflowers. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ve got this.”
And I have to believe that she does. He leaned backside against the sink and surveyed the room: haphazard paper piles, the empty beer bottles on the table, her coat slung across the counter, a plastic bag left from Chinese takeout, three forgotten fortune cookies and a menu nestled in the bottom.
Streetlights in a park on a foggy night in autumn. Shallow D.O.F., long exposure.This is us, Frank Nagler thought, the trail of us, the perfect imperfection, the chaos of two lives running in nine directions, pressed by all these things dark and light closing in, unable to even fill a flower vase with water to keep them alive, yet knowing just the same how delicately their scent drifted in to the dry air, how the frail petals slipped against her fingers, how she smiled, one moment in this unspoken, tangled thing.
He turned and stared into the darkness beyond the window, his face a wavy outline, a smear of light.
The moment is rising, he thought. We have no choice, but to stand.
Pushed from the house to escape its answerless questions, Nagler walked.
The day’s mist, now cleared and frozen, drips made temporary stalactites frozen on the tips of dark branches, sidewalks sheen slick, streets still, shining as a glitter of light trapped in ice. Lights fuzzy with icy patina.
He had walked this route a hundred times, back through the years of his life, down streets that grew darker where the streetlights failed, along narrowing broken sidewalks to the darkened dirt paths, places memories deepened. Past three-story, white homes with wide porches and picket fences, past the pretty parks to warrens of broken trees, weeds curled like snakes around stunted trunks; then descending along alleys lined with single story unpainted dull wooden garages and sheds with uneven doors and cardboard windows, dying grass at the corners.
Finally to the bottom, the center: The empty lot where his grandparents had lived. The old man would sway in his chair, hands bent and gnarled gripped the rails, feet locked to the floor, eyes pinned to the past, a face like iron. “They meant well,” he told his grandson from that chair one day before he died. “But they had no idea what they were doing. No means to govern other men. So they stopped trying. Governed for themselves. Greed gets easy. The cheap houses they built, the company stores, wages gleaned, and when the troubles started, hired the thugs to maintain order, the friendlies, the sons, the cousins, brothers, nephews. Hired their own kind, all else be damned.”
Nagler remembered the old man leaned forward, elbows on the chair rails and growled, “It will go on till someone stops it, Frankie, someone from these dreary streets, someone who knows …” His grandfather had collapsed back into the chair, weary.
“Knows what, Grandpa?” Frank asked.
“Our life, Frank boy. Knows our life.”
When Nagler told Martha that story years later, as teens sitting on the front porch of her parents’ comfortable home under the soft light of a summer day, she turned his face to hers and said, “That wasn’t a curse, Frank,” before she kissed him.
“Feels like one,” he had replied.
“No, no, no, Frankie.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “It was his blessing.”
DRAGONY RISING was awarded First place for Mysteries in the 2022 Royal Dragonfly Indie Book Awards. And named a NOTABLE 100 Indie Book in the 2022 Shelf Unbound book awards.
Buy it here:
Book and Puppet, downtown Easton, Pa.
The Frank Nagler books can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Walmart, audible.com and Apple books.
The post Nagler Mysteries: Setting as character appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
January 28, 2023
Frank Nagler — Ten years later. Wow.
Ten years ago, they said yes.
They being Imzadi Publishing of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Specifically, publisher Janice Grove and graphic artist and designer Anita Dugan-Moore, who with editor Kay Springfield, have helped bring Detective Frank Nagler to life.
Yeah, ten years.
That’s when the first Frank Nagler Mystery, THE SWAMPS OF JERSEY arrived as a book.
So thanks to the Imzadi guys.
And to readers Lee Alan and Dane Petersen who brought the books to life in audio versions.
And to all who have read and commented on the stories.
This thing has been more than just writing stories, but a tale of modern American publishing and of a company taking a chance on an absolutely unknown fiction writer.
I answered an ad seen on an online magazine, and a week later I had a publisher.
This after a couple years of sending rejected queries to publishers and agents — the speed of a modern email rejection is stunning. The files seemed to be smoking as they came back.
I had never heard of them and they, until my email, had never heard of me.
A perfect match.
Imzadi is an independent publisher, one of many creating a place for authors. The amount of effort they expend for their authors is amazing for two people. I am both amazed and grateful.
Anita’s covers are stunning and award winning. Some reviewers said they read the book because they liked the covers; some liked the covers more than the stories.
The Nagler mysteries – THE SWAMPS OF JERSEY; A GAME CALLED DEAD, THE WEIGHT OF LIVING, THE RED HAND, and DRAGOINY RISING – are the stories of an American city rising and falling, of a man, Nagler, broken hearted, and self-doubting, of diverse characters who band together to overcome both societal and personal circumstances.
The books have won awards and received heartening good reviews. Thanks
They are a gritty as a dark street and as quiet as a graveyard.
They have given me the chance as a writer to grow and challenge myself to tell better stories each time out, and to use what I learn about myself as elements in the books.
On to Book 6: NAGLER’S SECRET.
The Frank Nagler books can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Walmart, audible.com and Apple books.
The post Frank Nagler — Ten years later. Wow. appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
Review: ‘American Nightingale,’ Stunning
The end of the American Civil War in 1865 was a time of hope and heartache. The nation as trying to heal after four years of combat had divided both the country and families.
That era comes to vivid life in Debra Scacciaferro’s AMERICN NIGHTINGALE.
The tumult of change bristles in her descriptions of New York City and the main setting, the Catskill Mountain House. Both scenes capture the conflict of the era, changing attitudes and the simmering conflict between the haves and have-nots.
Centering and exemplifying all this is Bella Gale Smith, her daughter Amanda, and Bella’s brother-in-law, Zachery Smith, who are drawn together by an opening disaster.
The story is plotted with care and filled with well-drawn characters, both heroic and villainous.
Bella and Zach carry burdens hatched during the war and their growth comes the center of the sprawling tale.
Shaped as a Victorian melodramatic romance, the story is filled with modern details and sensibilities, the result of clever design and strong writing.
There are scenes filled with the dainty Victorian never-tell approach to life, which are mere cover for the underlying emergence of the modern American story.
Bella is a neophyte modern woman, as bold and dramatic as the changing times.
As perhaps a nod to the Victorian framework, the ending is not exactly a surprise, but fitting in this swift and detailed telling.
The story has both the lightness of a gentle, pleasant tale and the grittiness of modern fiction.
Available on Amazon. Stunning (amazon.com)
The post Review: ‘American Nightingale,’ Stunning appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
January 23, 2023
Nagler 6: Mystery by the numbers
In Book 5 of the Frank Nagler Mysteries, NAGLER’S SECRET, the mystery and the clues are more tangled than usual:
Here, Nagler and Captain Ramirez sort through tiny slips of cardboard containing messages that were found in an abandoned cabin.
“Detective Frank Nagler and Captain Maria Ramirez stared at the pile of strips of cardboard on the table.
“This is worse than pick up sticks we played as a kid,” she said as she examined one half-inch piece. “Does that say Bayonne?” She handed it to Nagler.
He squinted at the paper, then shrugged.
“Either that or Day one.”
“What are these supposed to represent, Frank?”
“At first we thought they were information about the kids, like hometowns, so Bayonne would make sense. Maybe their names, parents’ names. The other day I took a random handful and wrote down what I found.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out the list. “Look. Three of them said ‘tall.’ There were three others
with numbers – a 1, a 5 and 18. There was ‘Newark’ but there was also a ‘Newark 12.’”
“How long do you think the kids were stuffing these notes in the wall of that cabin?”
“Good question, Maria. How long has this been going on? Better question? How many such cabins were there?” Nagler leaned back. “Sister Katherine’s old battered women’s network had at least eight safe houses, half out of state.”
Ramirez stood and stretched, the leaned over the table with her balled fists as supports.
“Why did the kids stuff these notes in the walls? Who did they expect to see them?”
“Other kids. How do inmates spread news? Code words. These kids were inmates, Maria.”
“Okay, look for numbers. Here’s some,” She reached for three or four of the cardboard tabs. “Look, 579. 3, here’s and odd one, 2-20.”
Together they set aside fifteen tabs with numbers.
“What do numbers represent, Frank?”
“Order.”
“Order? Best you can do, Frank?” She smiled.
“Yeah. Street numbers, hours and minutes on a clock, age…”
“Height, weight, directions, you know, three blocks up, four blocks over…”
“Measurements, four feet, eight feet, nine inches…”
They paused.
“This whole mess, this pile of hints and odd words is a story,” Ramirez said. “Let’s start by pulling numbers and see what it tells us.”
They shuffled through the tabs and found twenty-five more.
“Okay,’ she said, “579 could be the country road.”
“31 is also a road. Do they intersect?”
“So is 3, but that’s East Jersey.”
“Still, maybe a road heading for home.”
“Maybe.” Ramirez shook her head. “I think it’s more of a direction. On a compass face north is at 12, east at 3, south at 6 and west at 9.
“So 31-6 is take Route 31 south?”
“These are all mixed up, aren’t they, from different tubes found in the wall.”
Nagler nodded, “Yeah, we should have kept them separate. That was dumb.”
“Not necessarily. The kids new to the cabin wouldn’t have known the order. So these notes might not have been date specific, just basic information, a road map of sorts.”
“You’re on to something. Somehow the kids knew this information was in the wall, but they had to piece the meaning together. Like, if you run east” – he held up a 3 – “on the …” Nagler searched the tabs on the table and pulled out several and held them up before placing them in order “…’pine,’ maybe a trail through a stand of pine trees…” He held up a 5… “Five miles. Look, ‘red’ maybe red… this one ‘sign’, a stop sign? … or farm…” he held up a tab that said “tractor. A place with a red tractor, red barn… Then what…” Another tab, “cash.” … “Someone’s name? Maybe a bank, a direction to a bank…a marker on an escape trail…”
“Maybe not a bank, but ‘cache,’ misspelled, meaning deposit, a place to hide, steal, acquire, find…” She held up a tab, “‘food.’” She picked up another tab and another with three dollar signs. “Find food or cash. We know that kid who escaped, Oscar, was helped by a network.” She shrugged. “Why not?”
Nagler walked around the table.
“Every one of these has a double meaning. How did the kids sort it out?”
“A keyword,” Maria said. “Codes often have a symbol or word that says, ‘after this word or mark, is the message…’ So maybe there was a known list of keywords that clued in the new kids to the messages.”
****
“Where are we going with this, Frank? Is this going to get us any closer to the mess before us?”
“How do you tear down a wall?” He held up one hand. “Depends on whether you are inside the wall or outside. These are from the inside.”
Maria leaned over the table with the cardboard pieces. She stirred one of the small piles.
“Also depends on what the wall is made of. What’s this wall made of, Frank? Stone? Brick, Wood? Paper? Ideas?”
“Yup. Every wall has gaps, bad mortar, a seam that lets in water, a document that contains flawed logic, never tested, a belief become calcified, so stiff a tiny rock cracks it.” He waved his hand over the cardboard slips. “These are the tiny rock, Maria. We decode it and we are inside Sunshine Farms.”
For more Frank Nagler:
DRAGONY RISING, Book 5 in the series was named a 2022 Notable 100 Indie Book by Shelf Unbound Book Awards, and presented First Place for Mysteries in the 2022 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards.
The post Nagler 6: Mystery by the numbers appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
January 19, 2023
Please take Warren County (NJ) internet survey
Warren County New Jersey is asking residents to complete a survey on the quality of their broadband/internet service.
Here’s the information:
Frayed electrical power cable hanging by last thread isolated on white background.The post Please take Warren County (NJ) internet survey appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
December 29, 2022
New award for Nagler Mystery DRAGONY RISING
Dragony Rising is the second Frank Nagler Mystery to be awarded First Place in the Royal Dragonfly Contest: “The Weight of Living” was awarded First Place for mysteries in the 2017 Royal Dragonfly Book Award contest.
This is also the second award this month for DRAGONY RISING:
Previously, Dragony Rising, book five in the Frank Nagler Mystery Series was named a 2022 Notable 100 Indie Book by Shelf Unbound. Thanks, Shelf-Unbound!https://shelfmediagroup.com/portfolio/december-january-2023/What makes these contest wins rewarding is that each one draws thousands of entrees from around the world, and the books are judged by genre, so a mystery writer like myself is only competing against other mystery writers.
A latest review for DRAGONY RISING:
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2022
This was such a thrill! A great detective story that made me not want to put the book down!
Read the other award-winning Frank Nagler Mysteries:
“A Game Called Dead” was named a Runner-Up in the Shelf Unbound 2016 Best Indie Book contest.
“The Weight of Living” was awarded First Place for mysteries in the 2017 Royal Dragonfly Book Award contest;
Named A Notable 100 Book, Shelf Unbound 2018 Indie Book Awards;
Named a Distinguished Favorite, 2018 Independent Press Awards.
Named a Distinguished Favorite in the 2018 Big NYC Book Contest.
Named a Finalist in the 2019 Book Excellence Awards.
Named A Gold Star Award winner in the 2020 Elite Choice Book Awards
Named a Book Award Winner in 2021 by Maincraft Media Fiction Book Awards
“The Red Hand” was named a Distinguished Favorite in the 2019 Big NYC Book Contest
Named Second Place winner for mysteries in the 2019 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards
Named a Notable 100 Book in the 2019 Shelf Unbound Indie Book Awards
Named a Distinguished Favorite in the 2020 Independent Press Awards
A Nominee in the 2020 TopShelf Book Awards
Named A Gold Star Award winner in the 2020 Elite Choice Book Awards
Kirkus Pro Page: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/r/my-pro/
The post New award for Nagler Mystery DRAGONY RISING appeared first on Michael Stephen Daigle.
