I saw the sternwheeler Nenana's last departure

Leaving Nenana the last time

My dad drove us out in our 1956 Ford pickup truck. It was me with my brothers Michael and Joel in the back, Mom and Dad in the cab. 

In those days, riverboats used to winter over on the Nenana, just around the bend from the Tanana river and from the town of Nenana. Tied up in the Nenana, the boats were relatively safe from breakup damage on the Tanana. 

It was sometime during the summer of 1957 and I was nine, my brothers seven and five. I had no sense of history, that I was seeing the last of these steamboats, but my dad felt it keenly. The Nenana would travel upriver on the Tanana to the Chena river, on to Fairbanks, and never return. The newer boats were steel, powered by diesel and driven by propellor ... no more paddle wheel. In a way, no more magic.

When we got to the river, they'd broken the single stack down, to fit beneath the railroad bridge decking. I remember birch and cotton wood trees, the soft murmur of the river and the gentle chuffing of the wood-fired engine, her paddlewheel turning slowly. 

A small crowd turned out for the last look. I believe I remember she would cast off and batter upstream past the town, under the railroad bridge, and put in at the old St. Mark's Mission School site to take on enough wood to make the trip. 

Then she'd blow her whistle and sail away, never to run the Tanana and Yukon rivers again. And for certain never to set sail with me aboard. I'd missed my chance. 

How I got to re-launch the Nenana

The second volume of my Father Hardy mystery series is called "In Gold We Trust," and is loosely structured around an actual steamboat gold bar robbery in Alaska.

When I was a kid, my friends and I never dug a hole that we didn't thrill to the notion we might just find that gold. Once my dad and I were out at the Old Mission digging—for some far less romantic reason—and a shovel hit something that clinked! Not much clinks in that part of the Tanana valley, where everything is built on river sand. 

So we got a little excited and kept digging. It was probably the easiest and most motivated digging of my life and we found ... a brick. A brand new, perfect, absolutely inexplicable brick ... no gold. But a guy can dream!

So in my book, I relaunch the Nenana and send her off down the Tanana and Yukon Rivers on a mythical last voyage, in 1957. I studied images and actual film footage of the boat underway, pouring over maps and playing around with my story until it had as many twists and turns as the river. 

Come on along!

If you like riverboats, lost gold, lots of twists and turns in a plot, and a last chance voyage on a classic Alaska steamboat, "In Gold We Trust," will be a mystery for you. You can get it from Amazon as an e-book or paperback, and remember I would love your Amazon or Goodreads review. 

Until then, happy sailing ... and happy reading. (Here's an Amazon link:) In Gold We Trust

Will Trade Free Kindle Mystery For Your Review!

Have I got a deal for you!

If you're a mystery reader, especially an Alaska mystery reader, I'm offering a free book in exchange for an Amazon and/or a Goodreads review. 

Here's a review of this book, by fellow writer, Lawrence Elliott. And remember, you can read the first thirty pages of any of my books, free, on Amazon. Search: Jonathan Thomas Stratman.

5.0 out of 5 starsFather Hardy shines!

Bylelliott541on December 27, 2015

Format: Paperback

At once a period piece capturing the 'gee-whizz' feel of the post-WWII 50's and the deep paranoia of 
the Cold War, a frontier adventure in a harsh and wild land, and an almost hard-boiled style mystery,
"Indecent Exposure" is a fantastic novel that heralds the beginning of a series that can't be written
fast enough for my taste.

The protagonist is a complex man; an Episcopal Priest both practical and tough, who mixes a weary 
faith with compassion and insight into human nature to influence the hard-scrabble lives in his frontier
village, deep in the wilds of Alaska. The relationships he builds throughout ring true and are laced
with humor and affection, even as they are tinged with suspicion in relation to the cold-blooded
murder of a widely-loathed man, Frankie Slick.

As the mystery unfolds, Stratman deftly balances an ethereal haunting steeped in the grieving heart 
of a lonely man, with the brutal reality of life on the edge of starvation and poverty lived at minus
thirty degrees. With snipers, spies, the dark underbelly of human nature, and the redemption that
an earned faith can bring to even the darkest corners of life, "Indecent Exposure" is a page-turning
 delight. The prose feels effortless as the pages evaporate in record time. The noir-ish mystery is
both tantalizing and realistically satisfying, yet still manages to explore grief, betrayal, and the
enduring values of compassion and faith.

Weaving these facets into a compelling novel is no mean feat, but to do so in a lean 236 pages is 
a tour de force in narrative pacing and literary style. Fans of episodic mystery series everywhere
have a strong entry into the genre, and a memorable protagonist to root for. Can't wait for the
next installment!

How to write your review. 

Your review can be shorter than Lawrence's. Just rate the book, by assigning it some number of stars, and then write a couple of lines about what you like or don't like about it. 

How to get your free book. 

Send me an email or a Facebook message and I'll work out the Amazon transaction. Be sure to mention this offer to friends ... especially librarians. 

And thank you. I couldn't have done this without your support.

(Offer ends October 1, 2016)

NEW ... The Father Hardy Alaska Mystery Sequel, Now Available

The one readers asked for. 

Yes, it's nice to have a book readers ask for and have been waiting for. This is it, In Gold We Trust,  a Father Hardy Alaska Mystery, Book 2. Here is the jacket "blurb." 

"Tied to an anchor and dumped off a mothballed sailing ship, Hardy and Evie are in over their heads in a fast-paced tale of old secrets, stolen gold, and cold revenge. An unsolved 1930s steamboat gold heist, puts Hardy and his friends back aboard the historic steamboat Nenena on her last voyage down the Tanana and Yukon rivers and into danger. There’s an assassin aboard, and one unsolved murder … by paddlewheel. Will there be another? Get set for the ride of your life."

Available online ... or order from your bookseller!

This is the sequel to "Indecent Exposure," the book that introduced Father Hardy, his friends, and the central Alaska town they live in. I call it Chandelar, but it's loosely modeled after the town of Nenana where I lived, and set in that same time period, the 1950s. 

Please rate and review ... and tell your librarian!

In these modern times, books live and die by Amazon and Goodreads reviews and ratings ... and of course always by word-of-mouth. Just a line or two is great ... however you feel about any of my books. I'd love to hear from you. 

All my books are available in paperback or Kindle format. You can find them at this link: Jonathan Stratman's books

Thanks to all of you for your support and good wishes!

Happy Birthday, Dad! I've written you into my novels.

My dad and brother Joel in the '50s

Today is my dad's birthday, so he's been on my mind. I decided to write something about him and what have turned out to be ... in a way ... his books.

I've written three adult mystery novels, one is available this moment, another will publish next week. A third is written and in the edit process.

All three novels are set in a fictional version of my old hometown, Nenana, Alaska. The challenge writing mysteries, is not the figuring the mystery so much as finding the right character to solve the mystery. It needs to be someone original, someone whose fictional voice you know well enough to speak in.

So I'm sitting around trying to imagine who that character might be, and in walks the memory of my dad.

The character as a box we color in. 

Readers frequently want to know if my dad did all that stuff in the books. 

He didn't. The books are fiction. The town is darn near fiction. It's my version of Nenana in the 1950s, a time I was in elementary school. Do I even remember what I think I do? Probably not, but it doesn't matter: it works in the stories. 

And dad is a box, or a shell, that I fill with ideas and adventures. The advantage for me as a writer is I know how he sounds in my head. A lot of times I know what he might say, and how he'd sound saying it. I know what he wore, what he drove ... how he spent his days ... and I invest all that knowing in my books. 

An invitation to time travel

The first book is called "Indecent Exposure." It's based on the notion that if you're indecently exposed in Nenana in winter, you'll freeze! The first book has spies, snipers, pornographers, mystery, intrigue action, all built around trying live in a lonely place with a broken heart. 

If that sounds good to you, check it out here: Indecent Exposure

If you've already ready IE, check out the new one: "In Gold We Trust," out next week. 

Why I'm NOT writing the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

Photo by Vernelle Judy

Okay, I admit, I've always had a hard time telling people "I'm a writer. " It has always seemed pretentious.

Never mind that I've earned most of my living writing since the early '80s. Yeah, I know it's stupid. Yes, stupid.

If you meet someone, say at a party, they always ask "what do you do?" It's a kind of code for whether we will like each other. "Do you do something that fits with my sense of whether I should stand here and talk to you or not."

I'd rather that decision not be based on some sense of what I do, especially if it sounds pretentious.

So yes, often I dodge it.

"Am I writing the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL?"

No. People always ask that. Great American Novels have truths. My novels are filled with lies, falsehoods, made up stuff. Prevarications, as Mark Twain might have said ... did say. 

Yes, I make shit up. I do it deliberately, so you'll laugh or cry ... and turn the page ... ALWAYS turn the page. 

I love it when my readers stay up late because they can't turn out the light and go to sleep without finding out what happens! My cousin called from China to say he couldn't go to sleep without finishing my mystery, Indecent Exposure.

And a teacher told me about reluctant readers in Vermont, kids who would rather bang on the ends of their fingers with ball peen hammers ... than read ... actually sneaked to read ahead in Cheechako instead of going off with classmates to see a movie. 

That's why I write. 

Novels that take you places

 One other reason I write is to take you—and me—places. My first six books take place in Alaska. Not just Alaska, but the amazing Alaska I got to grow up in. The Alaska of an older, wilder time.

When my wife, Billie, told me about living in a logging camp and water-skiing around whales, I knew I had to take my readers along on that adventure, and others like it. Not a video game about it, but as real as I could make it.

I not only do get to go home again, I get to take you along.

Tell your friends, tell your librarians ... write reviews!

I can always use your help. If you like books filled with lies, read mine and tell your friends and especially tell your librarians. Share my blog! And if you've read one of my books , I would love to read your review on Amazon or Goodreads, whether you did or didn't like it.  

Happy reading!

Here's the weird thing about writing a novel.

With grandson, Silas (last year)

The hardest part about writing a book has nothing to do with writing.

The hardest part involves going up to strangers—or friends—saying, "hey, I carved a year out of my life and I sweated bullets to write this great book. Wanna buy it?"

Most writers are so severely introverted they would rather lop off a body part.

Writers used to be able to just write ... I'm told. Some big publisher would sign up a writer who would then hole up and work. Period. The big publisher would do the rest.

I missed that bus.

The best way to get your book reviewed.

Prayer.

But seriously, reviews are my friends. Reviews are  others telling readers how good my books are with no loss of body parts.

When you read a book and tell your friends, "hey, I liked this book, you should look at it," ... that's word of mouth advertising, the best kind. The only kind that really works. We trust our friends.

And I'm not just talking about my writing and my books. I'm talking about any book and any writer. Your reviews are the rocket fuel that helps those books and writers rise into orbit.

What about magazine reviews? Turns out magazines like "Library Review," and "School Library Review," don't review self-published books ... those not published by the so-called big five publishers in New York, even though only 16% of recent e-books were published by those folks.

Read my book, write a review ... tell your librarian!

It's that simple. And if you're facing a long summer with kids or grandkids, check out my Cheechako series for middle grades. There are three books, not expensive. Each is an exciting Alaska adventure, with books two and three also featuring strong female characters. So not just for boys.

If you do read or have read any of my four published books (these three plus an adult mystery,) I'd love to see you post your review on Amazon or Goodreads, whether you liked a book or didn't. Just write a couple of lines of what you think. And thanks in advance.

So what do you say? Want to buy a book? Cheechako


  

Why you NEED to read

(Takes place in and near Sitka, AK)

I believe in reading and have been a reader from early. Do I believe in reading because I hope people will buy and read my books? No, I just believe in reading, though I don't mind if you read my books.

Readers think differently

Two of the most powerful words in any language are these: "What if ...?" Put simply, people who read are more likely to say them. Reading lets them become other people, live other lives, feel other feelings, solve other problems. Reading—and writing—is a muscle you build. And it's not like the basketball muscle, or the video game muscle, where you enjoy a thing and can do it when you want. 

Reading is like the swimming muscle. You can do it when you NEED to—in your life, on the job, wherever—for as long as you need to do it. You have endurance. 

In any business, in any situation, "what if?" makes a person the problem solver, the solution finder, often the person who gets ahead in life. 

Why writing for children is important

Tomorrow I drive to Seattle to appear in a video produced by boysread.org. The truth is, they're also concerned about girls reading, but it's the boys whose reading numbers have fallen so drastically. 

They'll ask why my work is important. But you won't have to wait to see the video, I'll tell you now. When 8th grade boys in Vermont, known to be reluctant readers, were assigned my book, "Cheechako," they not only read it, they sneaked to read ahead. Of all the comments I've had about my work, that one makes me happiest.

Read aloud for real results

Small children who are read to, reach school with bigger vocabularies. They can understand more and communicate more than those around them. So yes, they go to the head of the class. And studies indicate that the benefit of being read to continues, at least through 8th grade ... so keep reading!

Small children being read to, actually develop new brains cells, that they'll keep all their lives. And there's some evidence that reading when old, helps to retain brain cells, never a bad idea.

Importance of living by your wits. 

When I'm visiting in schools, kids often ask why my stories are all in the past. Clever kids! I'm currently writing my 8th book, and I do write in the past deliberately. A cell phone or a computer changes everything—so I don't write them. In my books, everybody has to live by their ideas and energy—by their wits. 

As readers we get to participate. 

So here's the bottom line, literally. If you want to change a life—really change it—find a child today and start reading. Yes, it's good for them, and you'll always look back fondly at the quality time you spent together.

Check out "Cheechako" here, and happy reading.