E. C. (Gene) Ayres Blogspot

I write environmental mysteries I call 'eco-thrillers.' My new book Red Tide deals with what might happen if criminals dumped extremely dangerous chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico. In fact dolphins, whales, manatees, shrimp, oysters, and other coastal and offshore wildlife are dying off in unprecedented numbers in the Gulf. Presumably that was due to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But my plot suggested others could be using that as an excuse for dumping deadly chemicals. Meanwhile, what is happening to our environment worldwide? According to today's NPR World News glaciers throughout the world are melting. Our Republican congress can't even agree that climate change is happening, let alone that it is man-made. According to Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe global warming is a 'hoax.' Pretty good hoax, to be melting every glacier on the planet, Jim. There are other changes happening as well, at an alarming rate. We depend on photo-plankton for half the oxygen...

News: my new Tony Lowell Mystery RED TIDE (an eco-thriller) has just been published by Booktrope. Please click on the image for a link to my page on Amazon.com, for more details. I need to say, in full disclosure, that this book was 17 years in the making, for personal reasons including health, state of mind, a need to move forward, working overseas in China, sending my son off to college: the list goes on. But this series was ahead of its time when first published back in the '90s, and was in need of revival. And the post-Katrina post BP disasters in the Gulf of Mexico made the need to renew this series, and it's environmental overtones, all the more pressing. For a little history, my first book of this series, Hour of the Manatee , was winner of a national book award and competition (the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America Best First P.I. Novel competition) back in 1992 (it wasn't published until 1994. It was followed by three more titles: Eye of t...

For those of you who once read my blogs, and might read them again, I am back. It has been a year of silence, that happily is about to be broken. I was fighting many battles in my absence, in many ways and at many levels: for my life. I am back, at least for now, because I have won those battles at last, if not the war. As to that, one cannot truly control the outcome of one's life, much as we might wish otherwise. Still, we can try. Imagine, if you will, having to pick up your life and move (we've all done that) but in the process, incurring a grievous injury requiring surgery. Then take it further: that you go to sleep in pain, and wake up a different person. Or two different persons: persons who do not relate to you, who are hostile to you and to each other. One is manic; the other profoundly depressed. So then you reach out for help and are given medications, and the medications trigger a terrible reaction. So then you try, try again, and finally find balance. Imagi...