Author: Scott William Carter

Finalist for the ITW Award (A Neat Honor), A New Gage Book Coming (Eventually), and Some Pictures from Costa Rica (Just Because)

The above photo was from a couple weeks ago, when Rosie and I went for an afternoon hike at Silver Falls State Park, about thirty minutes from where I live. It was a nice reminder of why the Willamette Valley can be such a lush, green paradise. I sometimes take it for granted. We’ve had some erratic weather lately, but that was a particularly nice Thursday. I got ten pages of writing in the morning and nine miles of hiking in the afternoon, spending a blissful three and half hours east of the waterfalls up in the forest where it’s a lot less crowded. Did I say less crowded? I saw only one person the whole hike.

Of course, afterward my body reminded me that I’m in my fifties now. I don’t recover nearly so fast.

First, some happy news: My short story, “The Seduction of Doctor Dimension,” which appeared in the November/December 2025 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, is a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award in the Best Short Story Category. It may be a cliche to say so, but it really is an honor just to be one of the five finalists. The winner will be announced at the 2026 Thriller Awards during the Awards banquet at ThrillerFest in New York City May 2026. Sadly, I won’t be able to attend this year, but in the very unlikely event my story wins, the editor of EQ (the excellent Jackie Sherbow) will be accepting on my behalf. I told her to extoll the virtues of subscribing to great short story magazines like Ellery Queen!

My new novel, One for the Monkey, has been out in both hardcover and ebook for about a month. Thank you for all the kind emails. I especially appreciate those of you who take the time to write a review at Amazon, Goodreads, Bookbub, etc. It really does help, even if your review is just a sentence or two. A trade paperback version will be out in a few weeks, for those of you who prefer paper but may have found the jacketed hardcover too expensive. (Personally, I think the hardcover is a gorgeous book.) There are no more autographed copes for sale at this time. While I enjoyed making those available, I only plan to do that a few times a year (usually when I release a book) because of how time consuming it is.

As far as what I’m working on now, fans of my Garrison Gage books will be pleased to hear that I’m well into the tenth book in the series. It’s going to be a while yet, but I’m having a blast revisiting my cranky PI with the bum knee, and I hope that joy carries over into the book itself.

And just because I can, I’ll cap off this post with a few pictures from our 10-day trip to Costa Rica back in February. Neither Heidi or I had ever been to Central America, and my wife, who is quite the bird lover, was also eager to see the wildlife. We spent half it in La Fortuna, at a resort near the Arenal Volcano National Park, then hopped on a 12-seater turboprop Cessna to spend the second half within walking distance of Manuel Antonio National Park. Plus a little bit of lounging on a sunny beach, of course. Man, those little planes never let you forget you’re flying. 

Gotta watch out for the little capuchin monkeys, though. At Manuel Antonio, they’ll grab the snacks right out of your backpack.

Ebook Now Available: One for the Monkey

Hey friends! Just a quick post to say that the ebook version of One for the Monkey, my new mystery novel, is now available along with the hardcover. Thanks to all of you who preordered it. If you’re looking for a fun read on St. Patrick’s Day, I hope you check it out. Or a fun read on any other day, for that matter, because the book has nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day. It’s just a coincidence . . . although I’d never turn down a little luck of the Irish, if any is on offer!

A little more about the book, as well as links to all the major retailers, is below. Thanks for reading!

From the award-winning author of the Garrison Gage series, comes a gripping new mystery that buckles you in from the first car ride and never lets go.

After flaming out of MIT in a blaze of bad choices, Ashton Byrd reinvents himself in Los Angeles as a financial advisor to the rich and clueless (while taking a tidy cut for himself, of course). Got a huge monkey on your back? Rule one: don’t take life seriously. Rule two: see rule one.

But when the sun-kissed playboy reluctantly returns to his soggy Oregon hometown, life gets serious in a hurry. Like fresh corpse serious.

Larry O’Conner—private investigator, his father’s former partner, and Ash’s honorary uncle—turns up dead. On top of that, something important has gone missing. Not “the valet misplaced my car keys” important. More like “end of the world as we know it” important. And powerful people want it back.

Now Ash is dodging bullets, bad memories, and the long shadow of his larger-than-life father while trying to figure out what Uncle Larry died protecting. Plus he can’t do it alone. To solve the case—and finally shake the monkey off his back—he’ll need help from Stephanie “The Streak” Hart, who may start as his surly Uber driver but soon proves to be a valuable asset. Tough. Brave. And with a trunkful of secrets of her own.

Ebook: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks | Google Play 

Hardcover: Amazon | B&N

Autographed Hardcover: Flying Raven Press (while supplies last)

New Book Published: ONE FOR THE MONKEY (Autographed Hardcovers, Preorders)

Hey, I’ve got a new book out in the world! If you’re a fan of my crime fiction, One for the Monkey should be right up your alley. I’m really excited about this book, which I’ll tell you more about in a second, but first I want to let you know that we’re doing something a little different this time around: Before the ebook is published on Tuesday, March 17, we’re making a limited number of autographed hardcover books available for purchase directly from Flying Raven Press.

After these copies are gone, you’ll still be able to buy the hardcover from major retailers, but this is your chance to get an autographed copy. We’re also making available ten autographed copies of the first edition hardcover of Wooden Bones, my middle-grade novel about what happened to Pinocchio after he became a real boy. Shipping and handling is a flat $4.99, whether you buy one book or ten, mailed via USPS anywhere in the United States. Please note: Books will ship the week of March 17.

You can buy all these books directly over at Flying Raven Press.

If you want the ebook version of One for the Monkey, it will be released on Tuesday, March 17 and is available for pre-order at Amazon, iBooks, Google Play, B&N, Kobo, and many other retailers now. 

More information about the book is below. A trade paperback version of the book will follow in about a month, for those of you who prefer that format.

One for the Monkey

by Scott William Carter

From the award-winning author of the Garrison Gage series, comes a gripping new mystery that buckles you in from the first car ride and never lets go.

After flaming out of MIT in a blaze of bad choices, Ashton Byrd reinvents himself in Los Angeles as a financial advisor to the rich and clueless (while taking a tidy cut for himself, of course). Got a huge monkey on your back? Rule one: don’t take life seriously. Rule two: see rule one.

But when the sun-kissed playboy reluctantly returns to his soggy Oregon hometown, life gets serious in a hurry. Like fresh corpse serious.

Larry O’Conner—private investigator, his father’s former partner, and Ash’s honorary uncle—turns up dead. On top of that, something important has gone missing. Not “the valet misplaced my car keys” important. More like “end of the world as we know it” important. And powerful people want it back.

Now Ash is dodging bullets, bad memories, and the long shadow of his larger-than-life father while trying to figure out what Uncle Larry died protecting. Plus he can’t do it alone. To solve the case—and finally shake the monkey off his back—he’ll need help from Stephanie “The Streak” Hart, who may start as his surly Uber driver but soon proves to be a valuable asset. Tough. Brave. And with a trunkful of secrets of her own.

Autographed Hardcover:
Flying Raven Press

Preorder the eBook:
Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks |Google Play

“The Seduction of Doctor Dimension” in Ellery Queen, the 400th comic of Run of the House, and a Little Update

My short story, “The Seduction of Doctor Dimension,” just appeared in the November/December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

This one features a young, aspiring actress seeking revenge on an established, if fading, star of a hit SF TV show, a man who once took advantage of her in the worst way. While I don’t always know where my stories and novels come from—sometimes it’s no more than an interesting title that makes me want to write a story that goes along with it—I know this one was motivated partly by my deep disappointment in the behavior of a certain beloved bestselling writer. I won’t name the person, because I do believe in the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but there was enough preponderance of evidence that it makes it difficult for me to even pick up the author’s work again, much less read it with an unbiased eye.

Maybe in time. We’ll see. This has happened to me before, and sometimes there’s no recovering from it. There was another writer I enjoyed as a teenager whose views on the gay community—he once compared it to bestiality—were so odious that I swore never to read him again. And I haven’t. On the other hand, there are other works of literature or art that are so good, so transcendent, that I can appreciate them (enjoy might be too strong a word) despite knowing what a terrible person created them. Like so many things in life, it depends.

However, if we control anything at all, even in the slightest way, we can at least somewhat control how we spend our time and where we put our attention. Most of us have experienced our own share of disappointment and disillusionment, whether that’s personal, professional, or political. In recent years, I’ve had my share of all three. I won’t enumerate them here, because I also respect your time and attention, and you didn’t come here for a diatribe, now did you? I mention this only because many of these disappointments have weighed on me this year, dragging down my creative output and forcing me to revaluate a few things. The good news is that the gears of my productivity have been powering back up to full speed. If nothing else, taking Rolf Dobelli’s advice to actively avoid the daily news (and read, as much as possible, only longform journalism) has dramatically improve my state of mind.

I recently finished a new mystery novel, featuring a new cast of characters, a book which will be going to the editor in the next week or so before it enters the publishing process. (More on that soon.) I’ve written a couple short stories I’m pretty happy with. I’m a couple chapters into the next Garrison Gage book. And I’ve also published my 400th Run of the House cartoon strip:

If you enjoy the strip, please consider taking out a subscription, which will get you a second comic every week emailed straight to your inbox. Your support is much appreciated.

We had a nice holiday season here with family and friends. It was a wet one, which is frequently the case here in Oregon, but I don’t mind so much. It’s the price we pay for this lush, green paradise where we live. Just like how you can’t live a rich, full life without some measure of disappointment, you can’t have anything good without trade-offs. Like having pets, for example. They may bring you great joy , but they also won’t always be with you. That was certainly the case with Paisley, my thirteen-year-old cat, who recently passed away. She had a big purr for such a little kitty, and she will be missed.