And the winner is . . . . . .

THE SNAKE DEN

This novel was a labor of love. Many times I've told the story. I sailed my boat DoriKam from Olympia WA to San Diego, where I left her for three months as I could not take more than two weeks off at a time. I had an extra day or two, so I rented a car to drop off at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, and drove across the bottom of California to Yuma.

Yuma is so close to sea level that you have to wear galoshes just in case (not true). It's also so hot that you can dig down two feet and hear voices. It's that close to Hell. Maybe that's why they called the Yuma Territorial Prison the Hell Hole.

Well, anyone who writes westerns who gets within shouting distance of the Yuma Prison (now a state park) and doesn't go, is not true to his (or her) craft. Naturally, I went. I saw the cells, the watchtowers, the brick yard, the sallyport, and a large-scale model of the prison as it was in 1880.

And I found out one fact that set my mind racing. The youngest inmate ever incarcerated in Yuma Territorial Prison was only 14 years old. THE SNAKE DEN is the story of that 14-year-old. Totally fiction, except for the setting, but one of the toughest growing-up stories you'll ever read.

THE SNAKE DEN refers to what the original inmates called the "Dark Cell." A solitary cell. A cube made of iron straps, five feet on a side. It hangs by chains from the top of a cave dug in the south hillside that formed the wall there. It's totally dark inside, except for the ventilation hole in the top of the cave. That's where the snakes crawl to get out of the hot sun. Rattlesnakes. Diamondbacks. Sidewinders. You name it. How does a kid of 14 stand up to THE SNAKE DEN. What gives him the strength to see it through?

Read THE SNAKE DEN and find out.

This is why I write

Reba Wagner has an invalid husband and she reads westerns to him. She said she had gotten through all in the library and wondered if there were others we could help her with. I sent PDFs of Vulture Gold and The Snake Den and asked her to review them and have her husband review them when they finished with them. Here's is Reba's 2:30 a.m. post on Western Book Readers group of Facebook.

Good morning everyone, Look like I'm not the only one up at this hour of the morning. I wanted to say thank you to Charles Whipple for the books he sent us in pdf. format. I received his e-mail this evening with the attachment. I thought I would take a quick look and then maybe start one of them this weekend.

Wellllll, I took a look alright, and here it is 2:30 a.m. and I just finished "The Snake Den". I was hooked from the beginning and couldn't stop, just had to see what the next page was going to bring. What a character Shawn Brodie is. We look forward to reading more about him in future stories.

Thanks again Charles and I will be reading this to my husband over the weekend.

Vulture Gold is a finalist

My novel Vulture Gold is a finalist in the Global e-Book Awards. It is available on Amazon in either Kindle or print versions. Or, it can be ordered from SmashWords or Barnes & Noble. The publisher is Western Trail Blazers.

Garet Havelock was a Cherokee half-breed and the marshal of Vulture City. But that wasn’t enough to stop outlaw kingpin Barnabas Donovan from sending in three armed men to rob $100,000 in bullion from the Vulture Mine headquarters, killing two people in the process. Havelock set out to catch the thieves and recover the gold and in the unforgiving Mojave Desert, Jicarilla Apaches forced Havelock and Donovan’s bunch together in a cave on Eagle Eye Mountain. Then there was Laura Donovan, half-sister to the outlaw leader . . . Now Havelock must survive the Apache ‘run of death” and face Donovan’s gunslingers to get the gold and the girl.

The Traditional West

Here's a new anthology by the best western authors alive today. I'm glad to call them friends and fellow westerns lovers. Here's a trailer to whet your appetite. THE TRADITIONAL WEST

Book Depository offers preorder discounts

Book Depository is an online bookseller in the UK that will send your purchases anywhere in the world, free of charge. Right now, two of my books are on preorder status, one at 25% discount.

The Killing Trail is on preorder for the large print version, at 25% off. The cover you see at the left is the hardback version, and I'll put up the large print cover as soon as I get it.

A Man Called Breed is a new Chuck Tyrell novel from Black Horse Westerns that will be out in late November. But you can order it now from Book Depository at a 24% discount and they'll ship it to you free of charge the moment it becomes available.

CLICK HERE to see the Chuck Tyrell books available at Book Depository.

Now in Print

My novel The Snake Den is now available in print here. Of all my novels, this one holds a special place in my heart. I sailed a yacht from Olympus, WA, to La Paz, BCS, Mexico in 2000. On the way, I left the boat in San Diego for three months. I tied the boat up to her pier, made arrangements with the marina staff, and rented a car. From San Diego, I drove straight across California to Yuma, AZ, where the Territorial prison was for so many years. It is now a state park, and is well preserved. I walked the prison yard, inspected the buildings, went into the tunnel in the south caliche wall where the dark cell, the isolation cell, where a cube made of iron straps hangs a foot off the floor and gives the inmate only 5 feet of space, up down or sideways. This is the place they called The Snake Den. This is the place sidewinders and diamondbacks come to get out of the blazing Arizona sun. It gave my novel a name.

Records told me much about Yuma Prison. Books told me more. But in the records, one fact stuck in my mind. The youngest inmate in the Hell Hole was only 14 years old. The Snake Den is his story, or at least it is the story of a young man, only 14, who has been falsely accused of stealing beef and thrown in the Hell Hole. This is the story of how he survives. How he gets along with the Mexicans. How he deals with the king of the prison underworld. How he learns martial arts from an Oriental inmate, and uses those skills to quiet his heart and mind, and to overcome the guard sergeant who raped him.

This is the story of Shawn Brodie, and how he survived The Snake Den.

Western Writers Arise

Western Writers all

Perhaps you've heard of the Global eBook Awards, sponsored by Dan Poynter. I went to take a look at the site as Solstice Publishing, which published my book The Snake Den, suggested some of their authors might be interested.

Guess what.

No Westerns category.

I emailed one of the men in charge of the competition, Joseph Dowdy, to ask why no Westerns Category. He said, quote: I can't say why because no one came up with it when we created the categories.

Then he went on to say: I'll ask Dan if we can create one. We'll need judges for this category . . . but you can't judge the category you are in.

A few hours later, Joseph wrote: Do you think you could post something about our competition so that we can get judges and more writers in our competition for this category?

Everyone take note. Some people in the industry are blind to Westerns. We can help change that. Here's the URL to the contest.

http://awardsforebooks.com/

Charlie

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