Nostalgia City Mysteries

Mark S. Bacon

Tag Archives: Kate Sorensen

10:18 am - March 20, 2025 -

Book review: The Woke and the Dead

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by Terrance McArthur
Kings River Life Magazine

Lyle Deming used to be a cop. Now, he drives a cab in Nostalgia City, a mammoth theme park recreating the 1970’s—and he solves crimes, sometimes. After an unscheduled LGBTQ+ day at the park, he finds a murder victim in the parking lot, and thus begins The Woke and the Dead, the fifth book in Mark S. Bacon’s Nostalgia City series of noirish mysteries.

Kate Sorensen handles PR for Nostalgia City. Rod Gudgel, running for re-election as governor of Arizona, criticizes the park for inclusiveness, and he questions the safety of the park’s rides. The tall-and-gorgeous Kate checks out an anti-Gudgel rally at the politician’s campaign headquarters, and the day erupts into gunfire and death, killing several park employees. Is it a hate crime?

——————————-

“It’s like a better-looking Sam Spade, a more-sober Nick and Nora Charles, an up-to-date All the King’s Men.”

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Lyle investigates hate groups, getting too close to some gun-toting conspiracy-junkies who “welcome” him violently. Kate goes to Montana, looking into Gudgel’s shady past and corruption. They both find more than they expect.

The park’s billionaire owner finds his retro-empire dragged into the present as Gudgel mounts a war of dirty tricks. Bribery, extortion, a private police force, homophobia, racism, missing witnesses, help that seems suspicious, undercover surveillance … A lot of things are happening.

Bacon understands the behind-the-scenes workings of a theme park after working as a copywriter for Knott’s Berry Farm, which formed part of his inspiration for Nostalgia City. His prose is tense, terse, and taut, stretching attention to a hair’s breadth of the breaking point.

Lyle’s background is fleshed out as a good detective crazy for not complying with unlawful orders. Kate is a 6’ 2½” former basketball player who can hold her own physically. The two have an easy your-place-or-mine relationship. Dialogue is crisp, laden with a gently-acidic humor. It’s like a better-looking Sam Spade, a more-sober Nick and Nora Charles, an up-to-date All the King’s Men.

Bacon hasn’t shied away from serious issues in the Nostalgia City series. He has dealt with industrial espionage, marijuana trafficking and legalization, and now, homophobia. For books that make the reader thrill, laugh, and think, go to Nostalgia City. The place is an E-ticket.

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Kings River Life Magazine is a general interest online publication with a prominent focus on mysteries. The magazine also produces a mystery podcast, Mystery Rat’s Maze, featuring mystery short stories and first chapters of mystery novels.

Categories: book review, Kings River Life, The Woke and the Dead Tags: , , , , , ,
7:48 am - August 26, 2021 -

Dark Ride Deception: Where did it come from?

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I love theme parks.  Four years ago I took my grown daughters to Disney World. I’d talked about such a trip for years, but we finally managed to find a time when both of them could take off work, bid their spouses adieu for a few days and jet off to Florida with old dad.

A trip of a lifetime for me and the best part, of course, was just spending time with the two of them. In addition, we were treated to all the distracting attractions the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood can throw at you. We plummeted in an out-of-control elevator, rocketed into space and strolled along a peaceful lake while munching food from different countries.   

Although I grew up in Southern California, I live out of state and had not visited Disney’s Anaheim park in more than 20 years, so the Florida adventure was all the more exciting.  As my girls and I enjoyed each park, we saw construction, evidence that engineers were working to expand ways to tickle your fancy or even subvert your senses.

Over the past two generations, people have grown up watching movies and TV shows featuring increasingly sophisticated special effects.  CGI, for computer generated imagery, is a part of our twenty-first century vocabulary.  Theme park rides had to follow suit, and in fact, the latest additions to Disney World are Star Wars extravaganzas.

So I thought that Nostalgia City theme park, the setting for my mystery series, needed a technological boost.  More special effects, more imaginative rides for guests.

Tom Wyrick, a computer genius in Nostalgia City’s Park Attractions Development Department, created just what the park—and my new book, Dark Ride Deception—needed. His Perception Deception Effect (PDE) surpasses anything at any theme park. 

Just how mind-bending is his invention?  Here’s how a Nostalgia City engineer describes it in the book: “Unless someone invents a transporter room or time machine, once it’s finished, PDE could be the vanguard for more than a decade…it’s a technological game-changer.”

Unfortunately, before Wyrick’s plans could be finished, he disappears, along with his secrets. Is he dead? On the run? Trying to sell his creation to the highest bidder?

Dark Ride Deception is now available for pre-order at the places linked below.   The book will be released Sept. 30.

Amazon US

Barnes and Noble

iBooks

Kobo

Amazon UK

Amazon Canada

Categories: crime novel, Dark Ride Deception, Disney World, ebooks, Kindle, Mystery novels, New mystery book, Nostalgia City Tags: ,
7:23 am - December 21, 2019 -

‘The Marijuana Murders’ by the numbers

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Notable elements in the content and creation of my latest novel, The Marijuana Murders

86,044
Number of words in the book

1980
Year Pac Man was licensed for distribution in the United States

907
Number of cups of tea I drank while writing

900
Depth in feet of the Lavender Pit in Bisbee, Arizona

381
Number of days it took me to write it

374
Number of miles from Nostalgia City to Agua Prieta, Mexico

340
Number of pages

235
Horsepower rating for the 1974 Chevy Monte Carlo with the 454 cu. in. engine (More than 300,000 Monte Carlos were produced by Chevrolet that year.)

205
Top speed (estimated) in miles per hour for a 2018 McLaren 570s

74.5
Height, in inches, of my protagonist Kate Sorensen

67
Number of chapters

33
Number of states in which medical marijuana is available (Medical marijuana is also recognized in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.)

13
Number of beta readers and critique group members who read it before it went to my publisher

10
Number of states that have legalized recreational marijuana  (It’s also legal in D.C.)

8.2
Amount of estimated annual U.S. retail sales of marijuana, in billions of dollars

6
Number of hours of Ravi Shankar music I listened to while writing certain chapters

 

5
Approximate number of onion rings Lyle eats in a scene with Earl Williams

3
Number of times I use a form of the f-word

Categories: Black Opal Books, craft of writing, ebooks, New mystery book, profanity in mystery novels, Thriller novel Tags: , , , , ,