R.E. Donald

author of the Hunter Rayne Highway Mysteries series

Tag Archives: Canada


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The Highway Mysteries

SlowCurvecovHJ72The Highway Mysteries have introduced a unique new character for mystery lovers, especially fans of the ‘whodunit’.  The hero, Hunter Rayne, is a retired homicide detective who left a successful career with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to become a long-haul truck driver.  Why a man would do that is a mystery in itself, but it’s no mystery that his sense of justice compels him to help solve crimes that affect people he cares about.

IceontheGrapevineKDPIn a genre that already has plenty of tough-talking North American homicide cops, brilliant Scotland Yard detectives and smart aleck private eyes, this polite and low-key Canadian truck driver has a niche all to himself.  He has adopted a solitary profession by choice, is struggling to pay the bills just like the rest of us, and isn’t very good at personal relationships, but when it comes to solving murders, he’s a smart and seasoned detective.

Sea_to_Sky_HJWrite what you know, they say.  By 1994 I’d spent around twenty years working in the transportation industry.  My husband had once done undercover work for the police and had used a truck driver as his cover.   Truck drivers can show up just about anywhere without raising suspicion, and they aren’t limited to one geographical area.  All of these factors combined to make a long-haul trucker the hero of choice for my mystery series.

As much as Hunter Rayne tries to keep his new life simple and uncomplicated, circumstances, with the help of his boss, Elspeth Watson, conspire to get him involved in murder investigations even in his civilian life.   As a boy, his heroes were cowboy crusaders like Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger, and he just can’t seem to let go of what motivated him to become a law officer in the first place, that need to see the guilty party captured and justice done.

The Highway Mysteries aren’t thrillers or full of heart pounding suspense, but they will keep you guessing.  The second novel in the series,  Ice on the Grapevine was a finalist for the 2012 Global Ebook Award in Mystery Fiction.  The novels are available in both print and digital editions.   They’re available online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other sites, or from Proud Horse Publishing, or you can ask your local bookstore to order them.  Just quote the ISBN numbers.

This is what readers have been saying:

“Those were the best mysteries I’ve read in a long time!! As soon as I finished the first one I bought the second and felt empty when I finished it! The characters were awesome and so there that I somehow think they are in my life and I should be bumping into them at IGA or Gibson’s Building Supplies!”  Judi H., Roberts Creek, B.C.

“… this book caught my attention from the very first pages and it only got better. …I recommend this book to anyone who has a love for a good mystery. I usually figure out who the guilty party is when I read a book but this time it was a surprise. I think that Hunter Rayne would make a great TV detective, driving around the country in his rig visiting different states and helping to solve crimes. He is that interesting of a character.”  See full PRG review of Ice on the Grapevine by Linda Tonis.

“The Hero to me is the heart of the story and having only just discovered a second book in this series I’m anxious to read more.” See reviews for Slow Curve on the Coquihalla on Amazon.

“The dialogue is well written and smooth and without giving away any spoilers there are well thought out and believable twists.  The pacing is good and the lead characters are likable, flaws and all, and though I haven’t read the first book in the series I now want to and look forward to reading more in the future.

I highly recommend Ice On The Grapevine as a good read and a solid example of good writing.  Plus, and this is probably most important, it is a fun ride.”  See Goodreads review.

“Great trucking detail, hardboiled characters, no-nonsense dialogue, and a surprise ending.”

“One of the fine traditional mysteries that keep who-done-it on everyone’s favorite reading lists.”

“Whodunit addicts will not be disappointed.”

See full reviews for Ice on the Grapevine on Amazon.

_______________________________________________________________

The first mystery in the series is Slow Curve on the Coquihalla.  When a well respected truck driver, the owner of a family trucking business, is found dead in his truck down a steep embankment along the mountainous Coquihalla highway in British Columbia, his distraught daughter wants to know how and why his truck left the road on an easy uphill curve.  Her resemblance to his own daughter compels Hunter Rayne, a fellow trucker and former homicide detective, to help her find answers.

As he uncovers signs of illegal cross border activity originating in a Seattle warehouse, Hunter recruits an old friend, an outlaw biker, to infiltrate what appears to be  an international smuggling ring. But while Hunter follows up clues and waits for critical information from his old friend, the wily biker starts to play his own angles.

Finally, putting all the pieces together, there in the dark on the same uphill curve on the Coquihalla highway, Hunter risks it all to confront the murderer.

The ISBN for Slow Curve on the Coquihalla is 978-0-9881118-06.

The second mystery in the series, the one shortlisted for the 2012 Global Ebook Award in mysteries, is Ice on the Grapevine.  The story opens on a July morning with the discovery of a frozen corpse at a brake check just south of the Grapevine Pass in L.A. County. Hunter, who is in southern California making a delivery, is persuaded by his irascible dispatcher, Elspeth Watson, to help clear two fellow truck drivers who are arrested for the murder. His job is made more difficult by the fact that the suspects, a newlywed couple, won’t speak up in their own defence.

The circumstantial evidence is strong, and a rookie detective from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is eager to score a win.  The investigation crosses the Canada-U.S. border when the victim is identified as a second rate musician from Vancouver, and it turns out there were more than a few desperate people happy to see him dead, including the accused couple.  Hunter has to use all his investigative skills to uncover the truth.

The ISBN for Ice on the Grapevine is 978-0-9881118-13.

Sea_to_Sky_HJDuring what was supposed to be a few days of skiing at the Whistler Mountain resort with an attractive female acquaintance, former homicide detective Hunter Rayne finds himself the prime suspect in the RCMP’s hunt for “The Chairlift Killer”.  Hunter has no choice but to get involved in the investigation in order to clear his name.

Meanwhile, trucker Hunter was scheduled to haul a load of freight to Northern California, so he calls up his old friend, biker Dan Sorenson, to take his place behind the wheel.  What connects the badass biker from Yreka, California to the most prolific female serial killer in US history?  And what happens when dispatcher El Watson ignores Hunter’s warning and sends the biker on a search for clues to the motive behind the murder?

The ISBN for Sea to Sky (print edition) is 978-0-9881118-20.

 

The fourth novel in the series is titled Sundown on Top of the World and is scheduled for release early in 2015.  I hope you enjoy reading about my truck driver hero as much as I enjoy writing about him!

Like my page on Facebook or follow @RuthEDonald on Twitter for updates.


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Hooked on Crime

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved books. It’s hard to pinpoint just when murder NancyDrewbecame the main ingredient of my favorite reads. No doubt I cut my literary teeth on Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I can’t remember how discriminating I was in my childhood, but I must have liked books with horses and concussions, because that’s what I remember about my first attempt at writing a novel when I was twelve. The heroine – loosely based on my young self, I suppose, although I had never had a horse or a concussion – was continually being thrown from her horse and losing consciousness in her quest to chase (or was it escape from?) a bad guy.

HemingwayOnce I entered the senior years of high school, I became a book snob. It was classics or nothing, and my preference was for European classics: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Jean Paul Sartre and Thomas Mann are among those that come to mind. (I can recall throwing a Harold Robbins paperback across the room in disgust.) I also let myself read American writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Bellow, plus the occasional Michener historical saga. Except…

TravisMcGeeExcept when I was on summer vacation at my Uncle’s lakeside cabin, when I would raid his bookshelves for the works of John D. MacDonald, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Dick Francis and Ngaio Marsh, among others. Then it was on to university, my first marriage and some dark days – years actually – in my life, from which I emerged still scorning contemporary crime writers in favor of Penguin classics. My second husband, a charming and brilliant rogue, but a rogue nonetheless, got me back into reading modern novels and I quickly found myself hooked on crime.

ColumboMy preference soon became mystery series, harking back to my earlier enjoyment of the Travis McGee and Nero Wolfe mystery series. That was reinforced by TV series like Perry Mason, Columbo and Murder She Wrote, followed by the original Law and Order. I shared books with my father, and sometimes others in the family, and our collective tastes ran from The Cat Who series by Lillian Jackson Braun to the Richard Jury series by Martha Grimes and the Thomas Lynley series by Elizabeth George. More recently – which may not be terribly recent by most standards – Michael Connelly and John Lescroart have become my favorite authors, and I now prefer to watch true crime like Dateline and 48 Hours on television.

So what’s my point?

justiceWhy would a law-abiding pacifist who even apologizes to flies and mosquitoes when she is forced to kill them (in self defense, of course) be so fascinated by crime? I know I’m only one of millions with the same fascination. Why, when we hate to witness actual violence, or even read about it, do we love books and shows about murder? I’m no psychologist, but I’ve often pondered the question, and it seems to me that it gives us comfort to see the perpetrators of crime found out and put away so they won’t be able to harm innocent people. We want to be able to figure out who did the evil deed and see them brought to justice, and that lets us feel a little more in control of the scary world around us.

Whatever the reason, even though I stray back to classics and will even venture to read a contemporary ‘literary’ novel now and then, I am and will no doubt remain, firmly hooked on crime.

* * * * * *

Joggers_covSWIf anyone is interested in sampling my fiction writing on their e-reader, I’m offering a free short story on Kobo, Smashwords and most major ebook retailers (except Amazon, where I can’t make it less than 99 cents). It’s called Joggers and features Elspeth Watson, one of the main characters in my Highway Mystery series. The three novels in the series are available in both digital and print editions. More information about the series at Proud Horse Publishing.

Enjoy!


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On the road with a mystery trucker – one woman’s story

Why would a woman who loves mystery novels want to write about a truck driver?  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It began back in 1994.  I wanted to write a mystery series with a male protaganist, similar to the mysteries I loved to read, but I wanted a unique character.  I enjoy reading about moody L.A. homicide detectives, brilliant Scotland Yard detectives and smart aleck private eyes, but I felt that I couldn’t do a character in those professions justice, and other writers had already created series that I couldn’t compete with around similar characters.

Write what you know, they say.  Well, by 1994 I’d spent around twenty years working in the transportation industry, so I figured I had a good handle on that.  My husband had once done undercover work for the police and had used a truck driver as his cover.  Interesting how truck drivers can show up just about anywhere without raising suspicion, I thought.  And another plus about a truck driver, he wouldn’t be limited to one geographical area, which would certainly provide a variety of locales for murder.  (At the time, I was concerned that the entire population of Cabot Cove would be killed off to keep Jessica Fletcher busy in Murder, She Wrote.)

That’s how I first decided on the main character in my Hunter Rayne highway mystery series.  He’s a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police homicide detective who resigned from the force after over twenty years of exemplary service after the sudden death of his colleague and best friend, and a painful divorce that caught him by surprise.  He’s hoping that the solitude of life on the road will help him to heal from what he considers his personal failures.

As much as Hunter tries to keep his new life simple and uncomplicated, circumstances, with the help of his boss, Elspeth Watson, conspire to get him involved in murder investigations even in his civilian life.   As a boy, his heroes were cowboy crusaders like Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger, and he just can’t seem to let go of what motivated him to become a law officer in the first place, that need to see the guilty party captured and justice done.

My books aren’t thrillers or full of heart pounding suspense, but they will keep you guessing.  Does the idea of a trucker turn off some women mystery readers?  Maybe so.  But I must be doing something right.  My second novel Ice on the Grapevine is a finalist for the 2012 Global Ebook Award in the mystery category.  Both novels are now available in print editions as well as ebooks.  They’re available online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other sites, or from Proud Horse Publishing, or you can ask your local bookstore to order them.  Just quote the ISBN numbers.

This is what some of my readers have been saying:

“Those were the best mysteries I’ve read in a long time!! As soon as I finished the first one I bought the second and felt empty when I finished it! The characters were awesome and so there that I somehow think they are in my life and I should be bumping into them at IGA or Gibson’s Building Supplies!”  Judi H., Roberts Creek, B.C.

“… this book caught my attention from the very first pages and it only got better. …I recommend this book to anyone who has a love for a good mystery. I usually figure out who the guilty party is when I read a book but this time it was a surprise. I think that Hunter Rayne would make a great TV detective, driving around the country in his rig visiting different states and helping to solve crimes. He is that interesting of a character.”  See full PRG review of Ice on the Grapevine by Linda Tonis.

“The Hero to me is the heart of the story and having only just discovered a second book in this series I’m anxious to read more.” See reviews for Slow Curve on the Coquihalla on Amazon.

“Great trucking detail, hardboiled characters, no-nonsense dialogue, and a surprise ending.”

“One of the fine traditional mysteries that keep who-done-it on everyone’s favorite reading lists.”

“Whodunit addicts will not be disappointed.”

See full reviews for Ice on the Grapevine on Amazon.

Check out my interview on Laurie Hanan’s Mondays are Murder blog.

_______________________________________________________________

The first mystery in the series is Slow Curve on the Coquihalla.  When a well respected truck driver, the owner of a family trucking business, is found dead in his truck down a steep embankment along the mountainous Coquihalla highway in British Columbia, his distraught daughter wants to know how and why his truck left the road on an easy uphill curve.  Her resemblance to his own daughter compels Hunter Rayne, a fellow trucker and former homicide detective, to help her find answers.

As he uncovers signs of illegal cross border activity originating in a Seattle warehouse, Hunter recruits an old friend, an outlaw biker, to infiltrate what appears to be  an international smuggling ring. But while Hunter follows up clues and waits for critical information from his old friend, the wily biker starts to play his own angles.

Finally, putting all the pieces together, there in the dark on the same uphill curve on the Coquihalla highway, Hunter risks it all to confront the murderer.

The ISBN for Slow Curve on the Coquihalla is 978-0988111806.

The second mystery in the series, the one shortlisted for the 2012 Global Ebook Award in mysteries, is Ice on the Grapevine.  The story opens on a July morning with the discovery of a frozen corpse at a brake check just south of the Grapevine Pass in L.A. County. Hunter, who is in southern California making a delivery, is persuaded by his irascible dispatcher, Elspeth Watson, to help clear two fellow truck drivers who are arrested for the murder. His job is made more difficult by the fact that the suspects, a newlywed couple, won’t speak up in their own defence.

The circumstantial evidence is strong, and a rookie detective from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is eager to score a win.  The investigation crosses the Canada-U.S. border when the victim is identified as a second rate musician from Vancouver, and it turns out there were more than a few desperate people happy to see him dead, including the accused couple.  Hunter has to use all his investigative skills to uncover the truth.

The ISBN for Ice on the Grapevine is 978-0988111813.

I’m working on the third novel in the series, which will be set primarily in the resort community of Whistler, B.C., which was the location of the 2010 Winter Olympic games.

I hope you enjoy reading about my truck driver hero as much as I enjoy writing about him!


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Thanks to a Kindle, Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay, my novel’s a finalist for a Global Ebook Award

One year ago almost to the day, my life began to change in a wonderful way.  It wasn’t a bad life, especially from the outside looking in, but I had lost my enthusiasm somehow.  It felt like all I had to look forward to was getting older, which wasn’t something I felt good about, but it was inevitable so I didn’t think there was anything I could do to change it.  Then, on a whim (at least I had a few of those left!), I ordered a Kindle.

I’ve always loved to read, and I especially love to read mysteries – the whodunit kind.  Sometimes I’ll read a non-mystery book recommended by a friend, but if I’m searching out a book to read for escape and enjoyment, it will always be a murder mystery.  I think it’s the puzzle that attracts me, but why murder?  I don’t know.  I like to watch true crime on TV and I like a novel where the characters seem real to me, as if their stories could one day be told on Dateline or 48 Hours Mysteries.

So it was totally out of character for me, that summer day in 2011 when I turned on my Kindle, that the very first book I purchased on it was Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life.  It’s a self-help book, so even if I didn’t consciously think anything could help, I must have had a kernel of hope that growing old wasn’t all I had left to do.  The book had loads of great reviews but the deciding factor was that it was only $0.99 that day.  I not only downloaded it, I read through it twice over the next couple of weeks, doing all the excercises to one extent or another.

That book changed my life.  I know it sounds trite, but it did.  Louise Hay led me to Wayne Dyer’s Excuses Begone.  I started to look at myself differently, and to look at my life differently, and it started me on the road to publishing my first two mystery novels, written over ten years ago, rewritten, revised and polished several times, and waiting patiently for the ‘some day’ that a publisher would accept them and they would be published.  That ‘some day’ was no longer beyond my control.  Louise and Wayne gave me the push that I needed, and Amazon’s Kindle gave me the ability to make my novels available to readers.

When the comments and reviews started coming in, I knew I was on the right path.  I might never make a lot of money, nor be interviewed on TV, nor have a novel on the New York Times bestseller list, but I kept hearing from readers who enjoyed my novels and were asking me when they could expect the next one.  That gave me a reason to keep writing, and getting back to writing added an exciting new dimension to my life.

One year down the road, I now have print editions of my first two novels being released in the coming months, and my third novel is well underway and I expect to release the first digital edition of Sea to Sky this fall.  Ideas for future novels are percolating in my mind, and I expect to release a new one each year.  And … TA DA!  My second novel, Ice on the Grapevine, has been selected by the judges as a finalist for a 2012 Global Ebook Award in the mystery category.  Win or no win, I’ll be there in Santa Barbara on August 18th to celebrate my own accomplishments of the past year, along with those of other writers who are travelling the same road.

From a sales perspective, my Hunter Rayne highway mystery series is not an overnight success.  From a personal perspective, that’s exactly what I experienced: my life changed successfully almost overnight.   So, thanks, Louise!  Thanks, Wayne!  Thanks, Amazon!  Thanks, Smashwords!  And above all, thank you, readers!