Nostalgia City Mysteries

Mark S. Bacon

Tag Archives: Lyle Deming

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?

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“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: , , , , , ,
10:37 am - January 17, 2022 -

Dark Ride Deception novel beats Disney to new ride

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“Dark Ride Deception,” published in September, describes a technology that gives visitors a virtual reality experience—without goggles.  The Walt Disney Company received a patent for such technology three months later.

According to The Los Angeles Daily News, the Walt Disney Company was granted a patent on Dec. 28 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a technology that enables users to experience a 3D world without glasses, goggles or digital devices.

“Dark Ride Deception,” describes an advanced technology that is stolen from Nostalgia City, an Arizona theme park. The stolen secrets allow park guests to experience virtual reality without goggles.

VR Goggles no longer needed?

The Disney technology, according to the Daily News story, is called a Virtual World Simulator.  The stolen Nostalgia City tech is called the Perception Deception Effect.

Since my first Nostalgia City novel I’ve been following the development of amusement park attractions.  I never read anything about this new Disney technology, however; but it’s the next logical step in virtual reality.  Inventing the Perception Deception Effect just made sense.

In the book, a brilliant theme park engineer disappears, along with details of his ground-breaking technology—before the plans can be patented. Nostalgia City employee and ex-cop, Lyle Deming, is tasked with finding the missing engineer and recovering the secrets.

Critical details of the Perception Deception Effect are known only to the missing engineer, Tom Wyrick.  Deming speculates that Wyrick was either kidnapped or killed to obtain the secrets or that he plans to sell his inventions to the highest bidder.

“What’s he going to do,” Deming asks, “start his own theme park?”

When I wrote the book, I thought theme park rides needed to be bumped to a higher technological level.  Apparently, so did Disney.

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Looking for the second half of Hitchcock’s Sabotage?

The first half of my review of the Hitchcock film had a bunch of words unnecessarily underlined in the email version. Distracting.  It doesn’t show up in the WordPress editor or in the web version of the story.

The second half of the review will be published soon.  And it will be linked to the online version of the first half. Stay tuned.

Categories: New mystery book, Perception Deception Effect Tags: , , , , , ,
7:43 am - September 6, 2021 -

Dark Ride Deception– sneaky preview: Secrets revealed!

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As I was saying last time, I love theme parks. And since the time I worked for one, I’ve thought a theme park would be a great setting for a murder mystery.  So let’s start at the beginning.

Many, many years ago I was a young copywriter in the advertising department at Knott’s Berry Farm. At the time, Knott’s was an old west ghost town complete with roving gunslingers. It also included a charming combination of carnival type rides, shops and some new, inventive attractions.  Although I spent most of my time in an office writing ads and commercials, I had an opportunities to work on the park grounds, explore behind the scenes, and get to know some of the costumed employees who entertained guests.

Knott’s Berry Farm ghost town

Not so many years ago, when I found a publisher for my first murder mystery, the story was set in a theme park, based in part on my earlier experiences at Knott’s.  But instead of fashioning my theme park like Knott’s—or any other park—I wanted to do something different. I created an entire 1970’s small town, Nostalgia City. It’s a trip back in time, a meticulous re-creation,  complete with pet rocks, leisure suits, disco and period cars from Pontiacs to Pintos.

Four years ago, as I mentioned last time, I went to Disney World with my two grown daughters. It was a trip of a lifetime and I picked up further inspiration. Nostalgia City, I decided, needed new, high-tech dark rides, thus the title of my next book: Dark Ride Deception. A dark ride is simply theme park jargon for indoor attractions.  The old-fashioned boat ride through the tunnel of love is a dark ride dating back more than a century.

Is this the type of theme park ride that the Perception Deception Effect can create?

To supply Nostalgia City’s new dark rides, the park’s computer genius Tom Wyrick created the Perception Deception Effect. His mind-bending technology could easily eclipse the entire theme park industry. But the ride technology disappeared—along with Wyrick. Nostalgia City’s ex-cop cab driver, Lyle Deming, is drafted to find the computer wiz and recover his secrets.  The obvious places to look, Lyle’s boss tells him, are other theme parks.

Lyle is relatively tech savvy, but the details of the Perception Deception Effect prove perplexing. He gets technical help from a Nostalgia City engineer who becomes a little too over-excited about sleuthing.

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The novel focuses not on high-tech minutia but on intrigue and Lyle’s struggles.

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The plot is obviously based in part on the science behind dark rides, and one of the book’s characters, a Nostalgia City computer programmer, dissects one of Disney’s most famous, yet relatively unsophisticated rides.  But the novel focuses not on high-tech minutia but on intrigue and Lyle’s personal struggles as he searches for the secrets.  He hides behind a variety of false identities to investigate Florida parks—from the inside—yet when someone threatens to blow his cover…

But that’s enough of a preview.  Like I said, I love theme parks, and I loved writing about them in Dark Ride Deception. 

The book is available for preorder wherever you get your e-books.  It will be released Sept. 20.

Categories: book review, Dark Ride Deception, Locales Tags: , , , , ,