In his latest adventure, professor and sometime amateur sleuth Thomas Martindale leaves campus to sign on as a science writer for a research expedition to the Arctic for a change of pace from the often mundane world of the university. The work is unique: an attempt to study ice as a tool for national security. Soon after the members of the team board a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker for the journey to their base--a remote island in the Beaufort Sea--Russian scientists join the group with unpleasant consequences.
The rivalry turns deadly after the icebreaker leaves and people start dying under mysterious circumstances. The arrival of an Arab terrorist and a marauding polar bear complicate life on the small island. An early freeze traps the men and women of the expedition as a massive ice shield closes in. The events oddly parallel a similar (and real) disaster Martindale is writing about, which took place in 1897.

Murder Below Zero (A Thomas Martindale Mystery)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Lovell, Ronald P.

Mystery

Penman Productions

Thomas Martindale, a journalism professor, is enjoying the first day of his summer vacation on the Oregon coast. He has brought with him the active curiosity and investigative abilities that often get him into situations most people would ignore. When he is invited to brunch at the home of an old friend, she confides that someone may be trying to kill her. The next night, that fear is realized when Tom finds her body at a nearby lighthouse.Tom immediately sets out to find her killer, using clues from a manuscript his friend gave him for review. Have the incidents during World War II, described in the manuscript, caused her death? Did they reveal secrets about someone--someone who feared their consequences if they were revealed? As he has in the past, Tom seeks help from his former lover, a State Police officer She has gotten him out of many tight spots in the past. But his determination to solve the murder puts him in great danger from unexpected sources--especially when he is finally confronted on a suspension bridge high above the swirling waters of Yaquina Bay.

Murder at Yaquina Head (Thomas Martindale Mystery)

Lovell, Ron

As has often happened to Thomas Martindale in the past, the routine events of everyday life can suddenly become very complicated. Take commencement, that most moving and rewarding event of the year on any campus. He is enjoying the ceremony as the host of three candidates to become the new university president when a tragic incident changes everything. Or jury duty. The chance encounter of a colleague while he is on jury duty leads to the discovery of a nefarious scheme to use illegal immigrants in deadly virus research. Or as a member of the committee choosing the new president. Is someone trying to kill one of the candidates? Added to this is something new for the longtime loner: he may have fallen in love.

Searching for Murder

In Dead Whales Tell No Tales, mystery novelist Ron Lovell returns to the locale of his first novel, Murder at Yaquina Head--the rugged Oregon Coast. It is 1987 and college professor Thomas Martindale is teaching a summer writing seminar at the university's marine center. A marine biologist dies under bizarre circumstances and his assistant, Tom's former lover, is arrested for his murder. The death occurs while a conference of the International Whaling Commission is going on at the center. In Martindale's mind, there are more likely suspects than his friend: the Japanese fisheries minister, an Eskimo whaling commissioner, and several radical environmentalists.Tom's investigation uncovers the murdered man's involvement in a drowning at sea of a graduate assistant and his collaboration with the Japanese to alter whale population statistics. It also puts him in danger from unknown pursuers who keep following him in his car. At the same time, a large Gray whale has beached herself near his house, adding a unique aura to the events on land.

Dead Whales Tell No Tales (Thomas Martindale Mystery)

The high stakes game of university recruiting and a scandal involving black athletes form the centerpiece of this mystery novel. College professor and amateur sleuth Thomas Martindale is acting as the liaison between the university and a video production company to prepare a series of TV ads. When one of his students is killed, he hunts for her killer. In the process he uncovers the scandal and encounters the wife of a coach who will stop at nothing to keep her exploits secret.

Lights, Camera. Murder! (Thomas Martindale Mystery)

Ron Lovell

Before he does anything else, amateur sleuth and college professor Thomas Martindale must get out of jail and clear his name. In the process, he has to find the real killer of a close friend and stop the fiendish plans of her former husband, a biologist trying to use human subjects in deadly virus research. His search leads him to an abandoned and spooky sanitarium in Oregon's Coast Range where he finds a murderous Mexican drug gang, an inquisitive old lady who keeps butting into his investigation, and a missing moose amid the bats, rats, cobwebs, and the horrors of past treatment schemes for the mentally ill and those with debilitating illnesses.

Descent into Madness (Thomas Martindale Mystery Series)

College professor Thomas Martindale returns to the scene of his debut as an amateur sleuth, the Yaquina Head lighthouse on Oregon's central coast, in Yaquina White. The "white" of the title stands for cocaine and that is what a murderous drug gang is importing into the state. His career in tatters because of his arrest on a bogus murder charge, Martindale must flee Oregon to escape from the leader of the gang. He joins a media tour of the Arctic only to face new dangers from Russian border guards and the crew of a ship smuggling a secret cargo over the North Pole to Pacific coast cities. After his return to Oregon, Tom has a final, deadly encounter with the drug lord at the lighthouse, from which only one of them will walk away.

Yaquina White (Thomas Martindale Mystery Series)

The world of classical music, incriminating fingerprints, and a Federal justice system gone wrong ensnare Thomas Martindale in one of the most difficult situations ever. In a story that takes the college professor/amateur sleuth from the scene of a terror attack on a coastal Oregon bridge to New York and back to a terrorist camp in Oregon's Coast Range, this novel also describes Tom's life as an author and the often hilarious world of meeting the reading public on a book tour.

Murder in E-flat Major (Thomas Martindale Mystery)

In his years as a decidedly amateur detective, Thomas Martindale has called on various professionals to get him out of the dangerous situations he often finds himself in. Only a fool would do the things he has done but his friends have saved him time and again. Two of these consummate professionals return in two novellas, Paul Bickford, the mysterious Army Special Ops officer, and Lorenzo Madrid, his longtime friend and attorney.In "Carnival," the college professor/amateur sleuth is confronted by shady carnies and a murderous clown wearing a devil's mask when a traveling road show comes to town. How hard should it be to help his old love Maxine March complete a photo assignment at the carnival? Fairly difficult when a crazed killer follows her to Oregon from her last job in Ecuador and only Bickford can help her.In "Innocent," Lorenzo is facing a crisis in his life. The long years of helping Mexican migrants deal with their lives in the U.S.--usually without pay--have taken their toll. He is burned out and ready to do something different. When guilt drives him to handle one last case--clearing the name of a young man falsely accused of murder--Lorenzo is captured by a Mexican drug gang. Before he can find out the truth, he is drawn into a web of crooked priests and ruthless drug lords and is kidnapped.

Murder Times Two: Carnival / Innocent (Thomas Martindale Mystery Series)

Join Amith as he heads on a quest to become a hero to save one of his most beloved family members. How to be a Hero is a magical realism tale about a young, brash little boy named Amith. He and his best friend Shaneel play together in the streets of their isolated, poverty-stricken village in India. They sneak through alleyways and sit on top of walls to get glimpses of movies that inspire their clever fantasies. Because, in their minds, they are not kids, they are heroes. So they dream like only children can, imagining stories and creating wondrous illusions of being heroes just to escape the sickness and death that surround them. But then, death makes its presence felt, as someone very close becomes ill, and the kids once imagined skills are put to the real test. After being inspired by a movie that they think is real, they venture out into the foreboding Indian Jungle to find the Holy Grail to cure them of their troubles. But they are not alone. Accompanying them is a lonely, love-stricken, relentless little girl, named Karishma, who leads them into the depths of the darkness. And it is in this abyss-like mysterious and unending jungle where they are taken to their very limits. Friendships are on the line, bravery is put to the test, and love plays its dirty tricks, as the very real danger of reality surfaces and the kids are forced to suffer the consequences of their actions. Hopes, dreams, truth, and regret fill their minds, as they realize they are the most fragile creatures in the jungle, and they must each find out what it truly means to be a hero.

How to be a Hero

Teen & Young Adult

Nick Sharma

Literature & Fiction

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