Mystery Features a Whale of a Character
Santa Fe, NM – Whales and the politics of whaling are both characters
and a key plot point in Dead Whales Tell No Tales by Ron Lovell, the second mystery in the Thomas Martindale Series to be published by Sunstone Press in March.
Martindale, the protagonist Publishers Weekly called “sardonic,”
is teaching a seminar at the university marine center on the Oregon
coast when a marine biologist is found dead. His former girlfriend
is accused of the murder and Tom sets out to clear her name. To
him, there are many more logical suspects, all of them attending
a whaling conference at the center: the Japanese fisheries minister,
an Eskimo whaling commissioner, and several militant conservationists.
Soon Tom’s investigation uncovers the murdered man’s involvement
in a graduate student’s drowning at sea and his collaboration
with the Japanese to alter whaling population statistics. It also
puts him in danger from unknown pursuers who hit him over the
head and chase him into a remote part of Oregon’s rugged Coast
Range. At the same time, a large Gray whale has beached herself
near his house, adding yet another twist to this perplexing mystery.
Booklist called Lovell’s first novel, MURDER AT YAQUINA HEAD, a “convincing
story peppered with absorbing details of World War II.” The Denver
Post termed it a “good read” because of Martindale, “a
delightful if exasperating sleuth, who is too nosy for his own good.”
The book was published by Sunstone in 2002.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: James Clois Smith Jr.
FOR INTERVIEWS: Gary Chesnutis, 360-335-0195,
FOR INTERVIEWS: Ron Lovell, 541-764-3254,