Books by Eric Douglas

Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

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  • Mike Scott Thrillers
    • Held Hostage: Search for the Juncal
    • Water Crisis: Day Zero
    • Turks and Chaos: Hostile Waters
    • The 3rd Key: Sharks in the Water
    • Oil and Water: Crash in Curacao
    • Return to Cayman: Paradise Held Hostage
    • Heart of the Maya: Murder for the Gods
    • Wreck of the Huron: Cuban Secrets
    • Guardians’ Keep: Mystery below the Adriatic
    • Flooding Hollywood: Fanatics at the Dam
    • Cayman Cowboys: Reefs Under Pressure
  • Withrow Key
    • Lyin’ Fish
    • Tales from Withrow Key
  • Agent AJ West
  • About the Author
    • Publicity and Interviews
  • Nonfiction
    • For Cheap Lobster
    • Heart Survivor: Recovery After Heart Surgery
    • Oral History
      • Batter Up!
      • Memories of the Valley
      • WV Voices of War / Common Valor
      • Capturing Memories: How to Record Oral Histories
    • Dive-abled: The Leo Morales Story
    • Keep on, Keepin’ On: A Breast Cancer Story
    • WV Voices of War / Common Valor
    • Russia: The New Age
    • Scuba Diving Safety
  • Free Short Fiction
  • Other Fiction
    • Sea Turtle Rescue and Other Stories
    • River Town
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‘The Last Train To Glen Alum’ Radio Drama

October 2, 2024 By Eric Douglas

 

One hundred and ten years ago, there was a murder, payroll robbery and posse chase through the hills of Mingo County. West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached back to the golden age of radio to create a radio play of the event called “The Last Train to Glen Alum.” Eric Douglas wrote the play. 

‘The Last Train To Glen Alum’ Radio Drama 

Douglas: Let’s talk about the atmosphere in West Virginia in 1914.

Stan Bumgardner: 1914 is in some ways, a pivotal year in West Virginia. There’s no way to quantify this, but certainly one of the deadliest coal mine strikes, or strikes period, in U.S. history was at Paint Creek and Cabin Creek in Kanawha County. At the time of the Glen Alum robbery, prohibition had just come into effect in West Virginia, which happened nearly six years before it happened nationally. 

But what was happening in southern West Virginia was just massive change. And I mean, everything was changing. Before the Civil War, and even after the Civil War, you know, this had been a sparsely populated area, just some scattered farmland, and really not much of that because of the terrain. If you look at the census numbers, very few people lived in Mingo County, and in certain parts of McDowell County, very few people lived there until the railroads came. The railroad started coming in the 1880s and then by the 1890s, the Norfolk and Western had reached what’s now Mingo County. At that time it was part of Logan County. Mingo County is our newest county. It came in in 1895 and it’s almost solely due to the arrival of the N&W, the Norfolk and Western, and the opening of coal mines. Towns were being built, seemingly overnight, they were all over the place in that part of the state, and places where almost nobody had lived.

Filed Under: Free Fiction Tagged With: adventure, Audio drama, books, free fiction, thriller novels

PFAS is a major problem for the oceans — and us

April 15, 2024 By Eric Douglas

My day job is as the news director for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Our team reports regularly on the presence of “forever chemicals” in groundwater and in rivers, streams and fish around the state — as well as federal efforts to curb them, now. 

Forever chemicals are commonly referred to as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). The most famous of these is Teflon, but there is an entire category of these substances. They were designed to give materials like paints long-lasting qualities. The chemicals take forever to break down. 

The problem is these chemicals take forever to break down. Even after the paint has deteriorated or the firefighting foam has been cleaned up, to all of its other uses, the PFAS themselves are still around. 

Today, these chemical contaminants have been found in remote corners of the world — in Arctic Sea ice, in fish. 

“A study published in January by the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit scientific organisation, said that PFAS had been detected in the Arctic Ocean at a depth of 3,000 feet (914 meters).”

That’s from an article on Phys.org. 

“From the tiny zooplankton eaten by shellfish, which are consumed by smaller fish and ultimately larger predators, PFAS lurked at every step along the way.

“A 2022 study in Australia established the transmission of PFAS from female turtles to their unborn offspring, while other research found traces in polar bear livers and birds, seals and other animals.”

Exposure to PFAS has been known to cause cancer and other illnesses along with complications for pregnancy. The problem is, there are 4,000 chemicals in the family. Many of them are proprietary so it is difficult to study them. 

Earlier this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved to limit six of the most common forms of the chemical from 70 parts per trillion to between 4 and 10 PPT. 

Just last year, a statewide survey in West Virginia found high levels of PFAS in finished drinking water being delivered to homes. 

It’s been 62 years since Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring about the dangers of DDT killing birds and bees. The book met huge amounts of resistance from industry at the time, but it ultimately led to the creation of the environmental movement and for Richard Nixon to ban DDT, sign the EPA and the clean water and air acts into law. That all happened between 1970 and 1972. 

The first Earth Day was April 22, 1972 and it grew out of the environmental movement of the time as well. Today, kids are taught in schools to protect the environment and Earth Day is something they expect to discuss every spring. 

As we approach the 52nd anniversary of the first day, it makes me wonder if PFAS chemicals are our new DDT. There isn’t as clear of a connection between problems with PFAS as there was with DDT — so far. But its pure pervasiveness and resistance to degradation once it is in nature makes it just as concerning. 

Filed Under: Diving Tagged With: adventure, contamination, diving, ocean, PFAS, Substack

Books, diving and everything else with ScubaRadio: Listen now!

March 25, 2024 By Eric Douglas

Over the weekend, Eric had the chance to speak with Greg Holt from ScubaRadio. Eric has been a friend of the show, and Greg’s since nearly the beginning of the show.

It’s been a while since we’ve posted any of these on-air conversations, but this felt like a good clip to post. This segment aired Mach 23, 2024.

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: adventure, adventure fiction, books, diving, Mike Scott thrillers, scubaradio

You can now listen to the entire Mike Scott series!

January 30, 2024 By Eric Douglas

I’m taking a big chance on technology using Amazon’s new Virtual Voice to create audiobooks for seven Mike Scott novels. 

Four of the Mike Scott stories were already in audiobook format, read by professional voice actor CJ Goodearl. But for various reasons, mostly time and money, we weren’t able to produce the rest of the series. 

I’ve had a couple over-the-road truckers reach out and ask about the rest of the series. They said they enjoyed the books, but didn’t have time to read. I am hopeful this will help them out. 

This is an AI reading, and it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. I’d love to hear back from listeners to see what they think.

You can find direct links on my Amazon Author page here. But they aren’t necessarily in order. 

Or check out the links on my website above. That’s the order they were written from Cayman Cowboys going up. 

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: adventure, audiobooks, books, Mike Scott thrillers

Podcast appearance and a special price to keep you warm!

January 19, 2024 By Eric Douglas

If you’re like me, you’re burrowing in and trying to stay warm right now. Much of North America is dealing with snow and ice. 

But I have two things I want to tell you about and hopefully the second one will keep you warm.

I was asked to be a guest on the Off Gassing Scuba Podcast this week. It was a fun interview and I had a great time speaking with Nick Hogle about my early diving career and making diving writing believable. Nick is an American but is currently based in Malaysia so it made time zones interesting. He caught me first thing in the morning, but at the end of his day. 

Check it out!

Let me know what surprised you most about my early career. I guarantee I never expected to end up where I am today. 

 

Tales from Withrow Key

Through the end of the month, my short story collection Tales from Withrow Key is on sale for just $0.99. It includes eight stories set on a fictional island in the Florida Keys. As I wrote these, I imagined them being television shows and I still believe Withrow Key would be a great serial program for a streaming service. Let me know what you think. 

This book happens to be in “wide” distribution so you can pick up the ebook on Kindle, Barnes and Noble and Apple Books — probably a couple others as well. 

Kindle

Apple Books

Barnes and Noble

Filed Under: Diving Tagged With: adventure, Mike Scott thrillers, short stories, Withrow Key

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Real Thugs: A Cult of Murder — Small groups of travelers have disappeared all over the mid-Atlantic without a trace. When bodies turn up with what appear to be ritual markings, FBI Agent AJ West is on the hunt for what might be a serial killer. Or something even more sinister. It’s a race against […]

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