A Lonesome Place for Dying is my first hardcover release, and my first with worldwide availability. It’s out today, under the pen name Nolan Chase.
It’s hard to know exactly how to differentiate Nolan Chase from myself. I don’t have the performance skills (or interest) to cultivate a persona.
So what’s the difference between A Lonesome Place for Dying and the other books I’ve written? It comes down to setting, influences, and a different idea of heroism.
Setting
Setting a book in Washington State, Blaine specifically, was a gift. Not only is it an area I love, but the mythology of a small border down provides a lot to play with.
Picture an idyllic coastal town with a population of around 5000, good seafood, nice places to walk, and some of the best weather in the Pacific Northwest. Now imagine one of the busiest border crossings in the world, a known trafficking route for drugs, weapons, and anything else you want to get in or out of the country.
Blaine is both of those places. It has all the problems of a small town, and also serves as a gateway to larger issues.
And it’s America. I want to articulate this carefully, without either irony or condescension: I love America. Film noir, pulp novels, westerns, jazz, country music, standup, the Southern gothic—for better or worse the US exerts a strong cultural pull.
Influences
“It’s a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.”
That line, from Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, brings me to influences. McMurtry’s novels on the whole are far from optimistic of the American experiment. But his great characters in Dove and Terms of Endearment and Last Picture Show spin against that pessimism with a love of life that’s colored by, in defiance of, how terrible life can be.
McMurtry was an influence, as was Robert B Parker’s Jesse Stone series. At an age when other successful mystery writers were becoming set in their ways, Parker launched a new series about a character more fallible than his PI hero Spenser. The made-for-TV movies starring Tom Selleck, shot in Nova Scotia, are great fun. “Cozies for emotionally dead men,” as my friend Naben put it.
The smalltown mystery, where it’s Longmire or Vera, is an appealing genre. In a small town, violence seems more personal, a mystery more claustrophobic.
In A Lonesome Place, someone is trying to kill new police chief Ethan Brand. The killer is someone he knows. Finding the solution means confronting town secrets, Ethan’s own included.
Heroism and Ethan Brand
Ethan Brand is the detective at the center of A Lonesome Place for Dying, a veteran who receives a death threat in the form of a heart on his first day as Chief of Police. I enjoyed creating a hero—the kind of guy Clint Eastwood used to play in the Coogan’s Bluff/Hang ‘Em High days. That’s something I’ve never really done before.
Bravery and sin and death and the burden of the past— a character whose facility with violence isolates him, yet who yearns for connection and love—all part of the turmoil within Ethan Brand. Heavy machinery. But the story itself is light, propulsive, fun, funny, and a good mystery.
The reviews so far have been exceedingly positive.
“Perfect introduction to a new series.”
Cathy Geha“[A] standout procedural . . . Chase throws a lot of balls in the air, and he juggles them like a seasoned pro, managing to carve out a distinctly memorable protagonist in the process.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review“Chase debuts his lonesome, reflective lawman with this well-written, complex case. Fans of Craig Johnson’s Longmire will enjoy.”
—Library Journal, starred review“Fans of Craig Johnson and CJ Box will enjoy Nolan Chase’s debut novel. A Lonesome Place for Dying is a slow burn mystery that builds to an explosive finish.”
—Melinda Leigh, #1 WSJ bestselling author“Fans of Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher will find much to like.”
—Booklist
“A cat-and-mouse game . . . Exciting and realistically drawn.”
—Steve Aberle, Great Mysteries and Thrillers
“A Lonesome Place for Dying is a stunning first novel introducing a new, badass, hunk of a hero in Ethan Brand, the PNW heartthrob you didn’t know you needed. This book is chock full of deadly characters, salt-water-soaked secrets, and... a twist that made me gasp out loud.”
—Meredith Hambrock, author of Other People’s Secrets
I’m very proud of A Lonesome Place for Dying. The audiobook is also out, courtesy of Highbridge and read by Kevin T. Collins. I hope you’ll give it a shot.
Pick up a copy at
Bookshop
Indie Bookstores
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Libro
Amazon (CA)
Amazon (US)
Amazon (UK)
If you’re in Vancouver, you can also pick it up (along with Ocean Drive, or one or the other) at my book launch tomorrow at the Irish Heather, 7pm, with free snacks and book sales by Pulp Fiction.
Thanks for reading this.