New Content in the Second Edition:

33 image plates have been added showing sites I visited, as well as images from historical newspaper clippings.

A Second Epilogue has been added regarding my life twenty years later.

Minor corrections to Edition One have been corrected, and noted.

Appendix II is dedicated to "two-guns man" Matt Burts (bootlegger; gun-for-hire; train robber).

Appendix III is dedicated to "two-guns man" Bob Hollomon.

Appendix IV for Avawatz adventurers to visit a spring I mentioned in Edition One.

Appendix V holds general history with sources of the area.

A Reading List, which lists some of my research source books that are currently available.

With the murderer following hot on her flat heels, Kathryn follows each crumb of a clue in the effort to discover his identity before he manages to shelve her forever, six feet under.

Genres: Cozy, Murder Mystery, Light Humor.

Back Cover Blurb:

Shoving aside the dead body on the bookstore's floor to get to the snickerdoodles wasn't much of an inconvenience: the local baker could always make more. But when the baker also turns up murdered, the ladies of the Romance Most Foul book club are justly concerned and so is the store's owner, Kathryn Able. The drop-dead gorgeous police Detective William Paige has concluded that Kathryn is the killer, and so have the delighted members of the club. Following each crumb of a clue from victim to victim, Kathryn must remain alive at least long enough to discover the real murderer, and another source of cookies.

Some times a boy's love for a girl can make him do something foolish. It can also make him a legend.

Synopsis: An extravagant boast sets Long Stride upon a journey towards a goal that must only lead to failure and death: steal ten horses from the Anglos and Mexicans who have moved in and settled within the East Mojave desert.

Genre: Western, Young Adult

This memoir has two parts.

Part One is about my adventures on land that may be considered uncommon. I have lead an uncommon life, as my hobo soul has sent me to wandering wherever fate took me. Some adventures I regret, as they had costly consequences. I have roamed many years seeking a place that felt like home, yet the need to wander kept me from building one: this I also regret.

Part Two is about me working the sea. Some sea adventures were brutal and risky; other sea quests were sublime. A woman or man may contend against Nature, but in the end only Nature wins. The heaving, throbbing, alive sea cares not in the least if one’s voyage is to safe harbor, or to rotting in Davie’s Locker.

As with my first memoir, I have given myself fully to my readers: even when I am ashamed of what I have done, I have held back nothing. I believe every author owes the reader nothing less.

Raconteur Extraordinaire. My writing style, and literary "voice," is that of a story-teller sitting around a campfire with a small audience: no fancy tropes; no flowery prose; nothing implied. In my stories I wield humor like a politician wields lies: it comes as easility to me as dogs to pork chops.

I live and work on a cattle ranch in Northern New Mexico as a ranch hand. Previously I worked in Information Technology for twelve years. I also delivered boats to Hawaii; the Cayman Islands; Pacific Northwest; Panama; Costa Rico; Florida Keys; and many harbors along the California Coastline--- any vessel, any ocean.

My skills including writing, copy editing, developmental editing, line editing; singing ("The Santa Fe King of Karaoke"); organizing objects and spaces; assembly production analysis; critical thinking; objective analysis; cooking. I also created this website "from scratch."

I am autistic, with a few comorbids common among autistic people.

When not working I wander wildernesses accompanied by my companion Lola: a sweet, pretty, blue-eyed dog who loves to kill. Her favorite hobby is finding legs from dead deer and elk and sharing them with me. The rabbits and squirrels she does not share with me: she knows I do not approve of carnivore behavior.

Contact me using email: ContactDavid@davidmichaelrice.com

Regarding Cactus Thorn Publishing, I am currently not taking on new projects for clients.

Synopsis: Sheriff's deputy Bob Hollimon gets caught up in the investigation of the bombing of a passenger jet, with the reclusive private detective known only by the name "Lint" as the chief suspect in the crime.

A passenger jet with a manifest of eighty-eight people onboard is blasted out of the sky on takeoff with a Surface-to-Air Missile, killing all on board-- yet the body count is ninety. The two extra dead men have no identification on them, nor is any found in the wreckage.

Unfortunately for private investigator Lint, he had written the precise details of the crime in his fictional novel SKY LOSS a decade before the crime: the same airport, day of the month, and the weapon used. A reader of the novel recalls the book and contacts the local sheriff's office, setting the FAA and FBI after Lint.

Sheriff Deputy Bob Holliman resigns from the police force, giving no explanation why to anyone. Now a civilian, Holliman hunts for Lint to revenge the death of two passengers on the aircraft: his parents. Locating Lint in a small cabin in the Mojave Desert, Hollimon drives along the long dirt road to Lint's cabin, just to find a Bell XV-15 taking off for the site carrying Lint with it.

Things get more interesting with the arrival of a ghost fighter jet from the 1950s: a Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 attacking the XV-15, cannons blazing.

Genre: thriller

Synopsis: Two men in a contest of courage, endurance, and stamina as they cross the hostile East Mojave Desert on foot. An attempted murder of a convience store cashier is inturrupted by the extraordinary sheriff's deputy Bob Hollimon.

Genre: Fiction, Law Enforcement

Can the love between a young dog and a young man last forever?

Perhaps it can.

Three days of mourning has past since her lover was killed in a raid against the Fish People: his clothing has been burned along with his tools of war and his lodging. Custom among the Mojave dictates that her lover's name never been spoken again, and his memory to be forgotten.

Thunder Clap cannot forget, nor can she forgive the Chemehuevi for taking her love from her. Changing her name to She Who Has Been Broken, she takes up arms and goes on a quest of revenge, and silence the rage within her.

But who is to pay for her vengeance?

Desert soliloquy is available as an ebook from several sources.

$2.00 Amazon ebook for Kindle Readers.

$5.00 Kobo ebook for Kobo Readers. These devices support Epub, Adobe PDF, plain text, HTML, and Mobipocket formats.

Internationally ePub, generally 5.00€. Thalia (Germany) / !ndigo (Canada) / Angus & Robertson (Australia) / Vivlio (France).

For quick delivery one may buy copies from me directly: this includes autograph copies with free book markers. This deal is $19.66 per copy: $10.73 for the book, $0.56 handling, and $8.37 USPS Priority Mail. One can expect to have their book(s) and bookmarks(s) delivered within seven days.

The best economic deal for the paperback version is using $17.00 Amazon, though delivery takes about four weeks. The time delay is due to the print-on-demand business model at Amazon. I recommend not buying the book at Amazon.

The best deal for the audio version of Desert Soliloquy is from Barnes And Noble via their Nook app, at $10.

The $17.46 Amazon Audiobook format is the most popular at the moment.

$20.00 Audible offers a free copy via their 30-day trial period.