Nostalgia City Mysteries

Mark S. Bacon

Tag Archives: Nostalgia City

9:05 am - May 19, 2025 -

Flash sale on Nostalgia City mysteries

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Get your Kindle stocked up for summer reading.  Amazon is offering four of my Nostalgia City mysteries at prices so low you can buy these four books for less than the price of one other book selling at inflation prices.

 

Death in Nostalgia City – 99 cents
Desert Kill Switch – 99 cents
The Marijuana Murders – $1.99
The Woke and the Dead – $2.99

 

The Woke and the Dead by Author Mark S. Bacon

The Woke and the Dead

“Five Stars. This book addresses racism, sexism, homophobia, and government corruption, but at its core, it’s a fast-paced, intriguing mystery.”
–Goodreads reviewer

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death In Nostalgia City

There is danger, murder, secrecy, a bit of romance, and down the wire hold your breath anticipation. I truly do wish there existed, a Nostalgia City.”
–Linda Marsheells,

LibraryThing top 1% reviewer

 

 

 

Desert Kill Switch

“Straight out of classical detective fiction…told at a fun, engine-revving pace.”
–Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Marijuana Murders

“It’s a fast paced read that will keep you wanting more, with its very surprising ending. If you are into mystery and suspense then I highly recommend The Marijuana Murders.”
Nancy Allen
The Avid Reader.com

Category: Kindle sale Tags: ,
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: , , , , , ,
7:47 am - July 25, 2023 -

A shy dragon, disabilities and f**king vulgarity

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June 26 is National Disability Independence Day

I have written several times in this space about swearing in murder mystery novels. In fact, if you do a Google search for profanity in mystery novels my blog posts are among the first references you’ll see.

What got me started on the subject, as I explained in one of my previous posts, was curiosity about my own use of profanity. After my first Nostalgia City mystery was published I got to wondering how many four-letter words I used and how that compared to other writers’ work.

I discovered, of course, that the use of profanity varies greatly in the genre, from no cussing whatsoever in many cozies to an abundance of f***ing vulgarity in the grittier forms of murder mysteries.

Unfortunately this necessitates further explanation before I can get to the reason I want to talk about bad words in the first place. Above I used asterisks rather than spelling out the obvious word. It’s my journalistic background that cemented the AP stylebook into my vocabulary. Many news outlets today—although there seem to be fewer and fewer—do not use four letter words and substitute asterisks. The older I get the less I care about maintaining this illusion of superiority. And certainly I use crude words—sparingly—in my novels. Lots of people swear these days and I believe I need to use “those words” to be realistic.

So this brings me to a funking problem. You read that correctly. Continue Reading →

Categories: Dragon Professional, New mystery book, Nuance Dragon, obscenity in mystery novels, profanity in mystery novels, writer's block Tags: , , , ,