Books by Eric Douglas

Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

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‘The Last Train To Glen Alum’ Radio Drama

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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.

Diving opens doors for disabled

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Dive-abled: The Leo Morales Story

Throughout my diving and writing career, I’ve written hundreds of magazine articles, newspaper stories, books and now digital essays. I can say without any doubt that I’ve written well over a million words on the ocean, diving, adventure and the environment. 

Below you’ll find links to some of the more recent essays about the ocean I’ve written on Substack. If you aren’t a subscriber there, I highly recommend it. For me and others. There are a lot of great writers using the platform to talk about a wide range of topics. 

One of my books, though, is probably one of the most amazing stories I’ve written and it is a work of nonfiction. 

My friend Leo Morales lives in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Fifteen years or so ago, he discovered he had cancer. It was in his hip and he had to have his entire leg amputated to get rid of the cancer. 

Depressed and struggling, a friend suggested he try diving as a form of physical therapy. He did and he hated it. But his friend convinced him to try again. At that point, Leo never looked back. 

Leo is a dive instructor. He is also a cave diving instructor as well as a technical diver. That means he can go places and do things most divers never imagine doing. And he does it all with one leg. Leo also travels the world as a motivational speaker. 

In 2018, we worked together to publish a book about his life called Dive-Abled: The Leo Morales Story. Check it out. The ebook is on sale, too. 

Semi-related, I also spent some time working with Jim Elliot, the founder of Diveheart, helping him and his crew develop the training program he uses around the world to teach dive instructors to work with the disabled. He does amazing work and the bravery and excitement from people who use wheelchairs and then are weightless in the water is awe-inspiring to see. It puts my own challenges in perspective. 

It just goes to show that diving opens doors for people who never knew they could even walk through those doors. 

Substack Essays

Some of my recent essays about the ocean and the environment. 

Travel around the world without leaving home with Mike Scott

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Summer is on its way in the northern hemisphere, but I’m sure some of my friends in the southern hemisphere are happy it is almost over. The heat has been alarming and is leading to severe coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. 

At home, though, it’s almost time to get 60 feet underwater here in West Virginia. Which means I have to get my tanks inspected and refilled. Last year, I ended up waiting until nearly the end of the season to go diving. A whole lot of life things got in the way, but that won’t happen this year. 

I know I’ve been saying this for months, but I am also finally getting back to writing. For real. I’m about a third of the way into what will be the next Mike Scott thriller novel. It’s a good one and a cool story. But I got myself stuck. I finally figured out it was the location. I was trying to put it someplace I didn’t know very well. Once I realized that, the logjam started to open back up. 

Right now, I am reading back through what I’ve written and identifying the places I need to adjust. And getting some new ideas on how to move it forward. Stay tuned. 

Lately, I’ve been doing some more writing on Substack as well. It’s an interesting place where essayists write on a wide variety of topics. It’s taken me a little while to find my voice there. I wanted to make it informative and based on my personal travels and experiences. Below are my two most recent essays. 

You can subscribe there to get notified whenever I publish a new essay. 

Audiobooks

All of the Mike Scott novels and novellas are now available as audiobooks. Some are read by a professional voice actor; others are read by an AI voice. I’m satisfied with the AI reads, but obviously, they can never touch a human professional. 

Now that spring and summer road trip season is beginning, if you haven’t listened to any of my audiobooks, I invite you to check them out. 

Take a look at all of them. 

And speaking of road trips, if you want to get away, but can’t find the time right now, all of the Mike Scott stories are located on the ocean, on beaches and on islands. 

Locations in Mike Scott stories include:

  • Cayman Cowboys – Grand Cayman
  • Flooding Hollywood – Catalina Island and Los Angeles
  • Guardians’ Keep – Adriatic coast of Italy
  • Wreck of the Huron – North Carolina and Cuba
  • Heart of the Maya – Riviera Maya, Mexico
  • Return to Cayman – Grand Cayman
  • Oil and Water – Curacao
  • The 3rd Key – Florida Keys
  • Turks and Chaos – liveaboard dive boat in Turks and Caicos
  • Water Crisis – Moscow, The Bahamas and Miami, along with a couple shorter stops.
  • Held Hostage: Search for the Juncal — North Carolina and the coast of Mexico.

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

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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.

Mystery and intrigue in Italy

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Much of my fiction is rooted in history and nonfiction. I’m not the kind of writer who spends a lot of time “world-building.” No disrespect to that at all. I cut my teeth as a reader on the Dune series, everything by Asimov and of course Tolkien and high fantasy. 

For me, the history of shipwrecks and ancient civilizations brought forward to today makes a great backdrop for the Mike Scott stories. One of my favorites in that regard is Guardians’ Keep. I was working in Italy along the Adriatic Coast when a friend told me a story about some archeological research Dr. Allesandro Marroni performed on a city that had sunk just off the coast. That sparked my imagination, of course. 

And in a twist, I was able to work in ancient Jewish history and the still-missing Breastplate of Judgment from the Old Testament. It was looted by Roman soldiers during the fall of the temple in about 70 A.D. 

I like to think it is the first book where I blended real history and modern day into one entertaining story. You’ll have to be the judge of that, of course.

Until March 26, Guardians’ Keep is on sale in both the Amazon and Amazon UK stores. The price will go up slowly between now and Tuesday so get it now!

Amazon

Amazon UK

A nonfiction book I co-authored with friend and former coworker Dan Orr is called Scuba Diving Safety. The book was originally intended as an update on an even earlier book on the subject. Ultimately, we completely rewrote it. That was 17 years ago. Just a few months ago, we got the rights to the book back from the original publisher and have been updating the chapters and reorganizing it some as well. I hope to bring you the good news soon that a new publisher has picked it up. We hope to have it ready this fall. 

Audiobooks

Most of my books are now available on Audible Plus where you can listen to as many books as you want. For some reason, Audible is dragging their feet on five of my audiobooks, though. They are still available to download directly, however. You can check them out here. 

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