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...

For those of us who live near the Coast—any coast—the latest news, on top of continents of plastic waste, oil spills, and the kind of criminal chemical dumping I wrote about in my latest eco-thriller, REDTIDE , is disturbing: scientists have now discovered a mysterious warming trend in both the Atlantic and Pacific. We are already experiencing weird weather. Last winter's snowfall in Boston was unprecedented. On the West Coast, California continues into the 4 th year of it's terrible drought . And this drought his now spread north all the way to Seattle and beyond. Seattle, my current home, has long been known for being wet. Not any more. This past winter the Cascade Mountains received only 16% of it's normal snowfall, which needless to say decimated the ski industry. The farms in the dry agricultural regions east of the Cascades are starving for water, and there has been almost no rainfall since winter. What more do we need to know--to do--before it's too ...

Following up on my recent blog about women being the primary victims of bad driving, as a mystery author I have to note (and acknowledge) that women are in fact more often than not the primary victims of pretty much all violent behavior, worldwide--not just traffic violence--whether from a major war in Afghanistan or a local domestic dispute in Topeka. And how many of such events are, or ever were, triggered by women? Granted Anne Boleyn was of dubious character, and some people died due to her machinations and manipulations. And you can come up with your own examples. But there is only one female serial killer (one!) on record, in the U.S.A. Her name was Aileen Wuornos, and she killed a series of creeps on I-95 in Florida back in the '80s who tried to pick her up. And she got executed for it. And she was completely insane, not that it matters. But this singular women killer killed creeps, mind you. Not naive housewives, or girls in bars. Was she bad? Sure. But compare her to, ...

I was raised in a Quaker family in which it was improper to 'blow your own horn.' This is a terrible handicap, for someone who works in a competitive field in which there are now several million books on the market, and I must somehow elbow my way to the top of the list, which is all but impossible. And yet what a small investment it is to purchase a book! I visit coffee shops that are frequented by people on a daily basis, busy working their Macs over a hot latte and bagel. Both of which, combined, cost well over the price of a Kindle. Yet how many hours of pleasure will a latte give you? One at the most. Whereas a good book will give you ten times that, or more, and you can repeat it any time for free. What a deal! So here is my plea and my pitch: please take a look at my website . Or visit my book site on Amazon.com . See for yourself. Read the five star reviews. Read the blurb. Read a few pages. A lot of work and a lot of years went into my new book Red Tide . I think the...

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...