Mystery novel event to benefit Carson City Library

Reno author Mark S. Bacon will talk about “Where Mystery Writers Get Their Deadly Ideas,” and sign copies of his new book, “Desert Kill Switch,” Thursday, Jan. 11 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Browsers Corner Book Store in Carson City. Half the profits will benefit the Friends of the Carson City Library.

“Desert Kill Switch” (Black Opal Books, $14.99) is the second mystery in Bacon’s Nostalgia City mystery series centered in a massive Arizona theme park resort that’s a meticulous re-creation of an entire small town from the 1970s. In this new book, the series main characters are drawn to Reno for the Hot August Nights celebration and murder ensues. Much of the book takes place in Northern Nevada and Las Vegas.

At the bookstore event, Bacon will discuss the process of creating a mystery and how and why he used real locations throughout the state as setting for the book, yet he invented some organizations and other elements. He will discuss the decision to mix actual and fictitious story aspects, a common device among mystery writers.

In the book, one of the mystery series’ amateur sleuths is accused of murder and must find the killer to clear her name. The story travels from Reno and Carson City to Las Vegas and back through the desert on dirt roads in the middle of August.

A former newspaper police reporter, Bacon was also an advertising copywriter. He’s the author of seven other books including two collections of mystery flash fiction stories and “Death in Nostalgia City,” the first novel in the Nostalgia City mystery series. Most recently he was a correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle and he has taught journalism at UNR.

Founded in 1965, the Friends of the Carson City Library is a member-supported non-profit organization. Funds raised by the group are used to supply books, periodicals and equipment for the library when the purchases wouldn’t be available through the budgeting process.

Browsers Corner Book Store is located at 711 E. Washington St. at N. Roop Street in Carson City. For more information, please call Phyllis Patton, president of the Friends of the Carson City Library, at (775) 885-9807.