Local authors Midge Raymond and John Yunker write a great beach read
By Edwin Battistella for Ashland.news
In Devils Island, Midge Raymond and John Yunker bring together exotic locations, environmental protection and murder in a crime thriller with a sharp psychological twist.
The “devils” on Devils Island are said to be Tasmanian devils, large carnivorous marsupials threatened with extinction due to a facial tumor disease. Could they kill a human? Would they?
The novel’s main characters are Kerry, an Australian student with a passion for endangered species who now works as a tour guide, and Brooke, a former actress whose marriage to an accountant has fallen apart. Brooke’s friend Jane, an actress, invites her on a glamping trip to the fictional Marbury Island, also known as Devils Island. Brooke jumps at the chance to distract herself and reconnect with her old college friend who has made it as an actress.
Kerry leads her first tour of the island with Brooke and Jane, two wealthy couples and a lazy assistant named Bryan. But Jane soon disappears in a trail of blood, and then another tourist is found dead. Add in a deadly storm, a sinister poacher and interpersonal intrigue, and you get a thrilling mystery with a surprise ending.
It’s more than just an island crime thriller. Raymond and Yunker also mix in a compelling environmental subtext that looks at the impact of tourism, poaching and disease on the devils and other endangered species. The environmental lesson, told largely from Kerry’s perspective, is there but never gets in the way of the story.
“Devils Island” is also a story about the roles people play in life: friend, lover, partner, hero and devil, and how people face challenges and grow from them. “Devils Island” offers a lot that will make your heart beat faster and make you think.
Both Midge Raymond and John Yunker are well-known and respected authors locally and nationally. Raymond is the author of My Last Continent and the award-winning short story collection Forgetting English. Her writing has also appeared in literary magazines such as TriQuarterly, the Bellevue Literary Review, and Poets & Writers, as well as the Los Angeles Times Magazine and the Chicago Tribune. Her novel Floreana, a crime thriller set in the Galápagos Islands in the 1930s, is scheduled for publication in 2025.
Raymond has taught ink at Boston University, Grub Street Writers in Boston, Hugo House in Seattle, and San Diego Writers. She has a certificate in private investigation from the University of Washington. And of course, she is the author of Ashland.news‘ “Cat corner.”
John Yunker is the author of three full-length plays (“Paleo,” “Meat the Parents,” and “Species of Least Concern”), which have been performed in theaters in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oregon, and Washington, DC. He is also the author of the novels “The Tourist Trail” and “Where Oceans Hide Their Dead,” and the editor of the novel series “Among Animals” and the essay collection “Writing for Animals.” Yunker is also an expert on Internet marketing and web globalization, and the author of two books on the subject: “Beyond Borders” and “Think Outside the Country.” He is also a typewriter enthusiast and collector.
Midge Raymond and John Yunker co-founded Ashland Creek Press, which they founded in 2011. It’s a boutique publishing house that specializes in books about the environment, animal welfare, and wildlife, but also offers thrilling stories. (One of my personal favorites is the trilogy Out of Breath, The Ghost Runner, and The Last Mile, which is set in a fictional Oregon town called Lithia.)
Meet the authors
Would you like a free sample of Devils Island? Midge Raymond and John Yunker will read from Devils Island on Monday, September 9, at 7 p.m. at Bloomsbury Books, 290 E. Main St., Ashland.
“Devils Island” was featured in the Summer 2024 issue of Mystery Reader’s Journal and received praise from early readers: AJ Banner, author of “Dreaming Water,” called it “a sly, devilish crime thriller… that will make you fall in love with the misunderstood, endangered Tasmanian devil.” Mindy Meija, author of “Leave No Trace,” said, “‘Devils Island’ is not only a compellingly readable crime thriller; it’s also an important meditation on what it means to experience extinction in all its forms.” And Michael Niemann, author of “The Last Straw,” called it “a great story” with “a series of devilish twists.”
The idea for Devils Island came about when Raymond and Yunker visited Australia and went on a four-day luxury camping trip to Maria Island off the coast of Tasmania. The island is a former convict colony that is now a national park that helps protect the endangered Tasmanian devils. As in the book, there was a guide couple and three other couples – but no murders occurred. Not long after the trip, Yunker began thinking about the exotic surroundings, animals and history of the island and came up with the idea of a crime novel.
Devils Island is the first time the two have collaborated on a novel, but it won’t be the last. They have already completed another crime novel, Fire Season, set in Southern California. And they are working on a third, set in the San Juan Islands in northern Washington state.
Edwin Battistella is a writer based in Ashland. Midge Raymond is an unpaid columnist for Ashland.news.
