Thriller fiction and Non-fiction
We’ve just about finished narrowing down the cover art for the latest Mike Scott thriller “Return to Cayman”. But we want your thoughts.
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Many thanks to Brenda Pinnell from Hepcatz Design for her patience with me for finding just the right combination. The aerial photograph is courtesy of Sunset House, Grand Cayman’s Hotel for Divers, by Divers. If you’d like to join in for the kickoff party, May 30-June 6, find out more!.
It’s time to “Return to Cayman”. Even if you’ve never been there!
For the 10th anniversary of my first novel, Cayman Cowboys, Mike Scott is going to “Return to Cayman” and so can you! The first week of June, (May 30-June 6) I’m going to Sunset House and going diving. I plan to sign copies of the new book Return to Cayman (due out soon) while I’m there, too. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Return to Cayman books that I sign on the island will be donated to the Cayman Magic Reef Restoration project. I’m also planning to donate a portion of online sales for copy of Return to Cayman sold through the end of July. So, if you can’t make it, you can still get a fun read and help support the reef restoration project at the same time.
In case you don’t know, on August 27, 2014 the cruise ship Carnival Magic dropped its anchor in a restricted area near Don Foster’s dive shop. The grounding tore up more than 12,000 square feet of coral reef.
Volunteer divers from dive operations all over the island are coming together to clean up the reef and reattach surviving coral. Divers have worked to clear off the torn up coral, salvaging the still-living pieces and moving them to an underwater nursery to keep it growing until the site can be cleaned and repaired. Once everything is ready, the volunteer divers will reattach the coral to the reef using a specially-developed marine epoxy. In spite of the volunteer labor, the repair bill will likely run into the millions of dollars. They need money for equipment and supplies for the reef restoration.
Read this article from Scuba Diving Magazine.
If you’re interested in going diving that week, come on down. Contact Sunset House and tell them you are coming down for the “Return to Cayman” release party. The book will be available soon, so stay tuned!
You can find out more information about Sunset House on their website.
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On a mostly unrelated note, the Kindle version of the third Mike Scott novel, Guardians’ Keep, is on sale for just $.99! Get it while it’s hot. (There might just be a tie-in to Return to Cayman as well, but you didn’t hear that from me…).
Get the novel on sale now!I’m in the final editing stages with the latest Mike Scott thriller Return to Cayman. In the story, I’ve brought back a character from an earlier story, Dr. Francesca “Frankie” DeMarco. She was the central figure in the book Guardians’ Keep that came out in the fall of 2008. Reviewing the story, a friend asked “Have you seen Dig?”
I hadn’t, so I checked it out. My mind was blown.
In Guardians’ Keep, Mike and Frankie were searching for the Breastplate of Judgment, a device worn by the Jewish High Priest when he went into the temple in front of the Ark of the Covenant to talk to God. In Dig, a new 10 part thriller on USA Network Thursday nights at 10 pm., they are looking for the same thing.
I’m not going to give away the story in Guardians’ Keep, or what’s going on in Dig, except to say they are separate stories and other than the breastplate, there is no similarity. Still, I find that piece of ancient history fascinating and for it to show up on television is really interesting to me. If you want more background on the breastplate and what it was used for, you can find that in Guardians’ Keep.
Since someone else is “looking for” the Breastplate of Judgment, I’ve decided to put the Kindle version of Guardians’ Keep on sale while the show airs. For the next two months, you can download Guardian’s Keep for just $.99. (This is the direct link to Amazon.)
If you haven’t read it, you really should before Return to Cayman comes out, so you have added insight into Frankie as well..
In May 2009, Honduras agreed to close its spiny lobster fishery to commercial fishermen using scuba to collect their harvest. The government kept delaying. In 2015, it finally appears to be happening, thanks to a pledge from five American companies.
In early 2010, I made my first trip to Honduras to get a better understanding of the problem. At the time, I was the Director of Education for Divers Alert Network (DAN) and I was traveling with my friend Dr. Mathias Nochetto, the Latin American Medical Director for DAN. We met with Dr. Elmer Mejia, a Honduran doctor who operated a clinic to care for the injured divers. He had tremendous success treating them. However, he often didn’t see his patients for four or five days after they became paralyzed. That experience led to three more trips to Honduras along with trips to Mexico and Brazil to get a better understanding of the problem.
Moskito Indians from the Moskito Coast of Honduras were literally killing themselves to catch lobster for American markets. They were paid by the pound, so there was no incentive for them to dive safely. They were diving 8-12 times a day for 12 straight days, often to 100 feet or more. They only stopped diving when they returned to the boat and could no longer walk. They self-medicated with illegal drugs. When I visited Puerta Lempira, Honduras, I learned that more than 2000 Moskito Indians were severely and permanently disabled. That is out of about 10,000 Moskitos in Honduras working in the scuba/lobster industry. And that does not reflect the untold numbers who died from their injuries.
As a diver, it bothered me that my chosen sport, something that I worked more than a dozen years to make safer for everyone, was killing people who had little or no choice in the matter. While it is true they weren’t physical slaves, being forced into the water at gun point, it was the only way they had to earn a living for their families. The industry did everything it could to keep them diving, discouraging diving more safely.
Since almost all of those lobster tails made their way into US markets, five companies have pledged to not accept lobsters caught on scuba and are putting steps into place to track where lobster comes from. There are still trap-caught lobster from Honduras. You can find out more at the website set up by the five companies at http://www.lobsterpledge.com/
I am proud to say that two news stories I played a part in are linked to from The Pledge website. I traveled to Honduras with an NBC news crew for the story Lobster Trap. The NBC crew used a magazine article I wrote and a multimedia documentary I put together as background. (Lobster Trap won the 2013 RFK Book & Journalism Award for International Television) I was also quoted in a story on NationalGeographic.com. You can find links and photos on my website.
There is a new president in Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, (January 2014) and it seems like the government is finally taking this problem seriously. A story in today’s Herald from Honduras, says the Ministry of Agriculture is meeting with President Hernández today to discuss alternatives for the men who will lose their jobs.
It has been a long time coming, but it finally seems like it is coming to fruition. My prayers are for the men who have been permanently disabled by the lobster industry.
Saturday, February 7, Eric was on Scuba Radio with Greg Holt talking about the new 5 book boxed set. Listen to it here!
A new Mike Scott Adventures Boxed Set is now available on Kindle that includes all 5 Mike Scott adventure novels along with two short stories featuring Mike as well. In all, this is a $17 value, and would cost more than $50 in softcover, and you can get it all for just $9.99. Go to Amazon to download it right now!
But wait, there’s more…
Okay, not really, but that’s still a pretty cool deal. The digital age of publishing has changed everything about how books are priced and sold. What you used to pay for a single novel (or less) can now get you five complete books and a couple bonuses as well.
If you’ve ever thought about reading the Mike Scott stories, but weren’t sure where to begin, here’s the solution. Download the boxed set and read them all.
Even better, the next Mike Scott story will be out June 1, 2015 and there are several cross references and tie-ins to the earlier books. Here is your chance to catch up on the earlier stories and catch all of the insider references.
This box set includes five Mike Scott adventure novels and two short stories, ordered chronologically in the order they were released.