Paul Martin has written a dozen highly praised works of fiction and nonfiction. He also edited or contributed to a dozen other books on history, culture, and science during his three decades with National Geographic, where he served his final ten years as the executive editor of the society’s travel magazine. Besides National Geographic, Paul’s books have been published by HarperCollins, Prometheus Books, Gates & Bridges, and Level Best Books.
Four of Paul’s twelve books were self-published, including his latest novel, Impossible Journey. His novels Lost in Saigon and Far Haven were also self-published, as was his collection of biographies American Trailblazers. Paul owns the secondary publishing rights to these four books, and secondary rights are available from Level Best Books for Paul’s trilogy of “Music & Murder Mysteries”—Killin’ Floor Blues, Dance of the Millions, and Summer of Love.
Paul’s journalism career took him around the world. In Europe, he tramped the windswept barrens of England’s Dartmoor and roamed the Continent’s great cities. In Asia, he traveled the length of Vietnam, browsed the Bangkok gold market, ventured along China’s Great Wall and down the Yangtze River, and slept in royal palaces and spied wild tigers in India. In Australia, he sailed Sydney’s magnificent harbor, and in Africa, he surveyed the tombs and temples of ancient Egypt, cruised the River Nile, and marveled at the treasures in the Cairo Museum of Antiquities.
Closer to home, he explored the towns, beaches, and mountains of Jamaica, witnessed the beginning of the historic Mariel Boatlift in Havana, and dived among sleeping sharks and climbed Maya ruins in Mexico’s Yucatán. He also backpacked extensively in Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon national parks, and he ran the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in a 17-foot wooden dory. A Vietnam veteran, Mensan, and onetime vineyard owner and winemaker, Paul lives with his wife near Washington, D.C. When not writing, Paul enjoys playing the acoustic guitars he’s built.
“Lively, entertaining, and historically compelling, with a final clever twist.”
– Kirkus Reviews
HISTORICAL FICTION
IMPOSSIBLE JOURNEY
BY Paul Martin • POSTED ON Dec. 12, 2023
Martin offers a fictionalized rendering of the extraordinary 19th-century cross-country “Voyage of Discovery” headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Private Nathan (Nat) Daniel Luck, the upbeat, first-person fictional narrator of the author’s retelling of Lewis and Clark’s two-year exploratory North American adventure, has finished his day’s work at their winter camp in the small village of Cahokia, Indiana Territory, where the members of the expedition have been preparing to head up the Mississippi as soon as the ice melts on the connecting Missouri River. Arriving at the local tavern, Nat spots his friend, Charles (Charlie) Floyd, waiting for him outside the door. Charlie has disturbing news to impart: He has learned from Captain Clark that there is a saboteur who has infiltrated the ranks. Clark has assigned Charlie the task of secretly watching all members of the crew to ferret out the infiltrator, and Charlie wants Nat to help him with this task. The novel is based on records from the expedition, including detailed diaries from Lewis and Clark, and selected historical publications and websites. What Martin brings to the story are his imaginative and dramatic renditions of the personalities and interactions among the many voyage participants, particularly their individual responses to the life-threatening experiences they encountered. The fictional saboteur provides a lingering background tension even to scenes that are otherwise tranquil and joyful. A skillful wordsmith, the author crafts descriptions of the Missouri River that give the powerful waterway the status of a full-fledged character: “It was a potent brown entity with as many different moods and personalities as those of us who traveled upon it.” Portrayals of the Indigenous tribes encountered by the explorers, while generally respectful, reveal the depth of European prejudice against the native peoples.
Lively, entertaining, and historically compelling, with a final clever twist.
Publisher: Gemini Originals
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
ADDITIONAL WORKS AVAILABLE
American Trailblazers: A Celebration of All But Forgotten Firsts
Among the most fascinating figures from America’s past are the men and women who performed some singular feat that’s been completely overlooked or that gets only a bare mention in the history books of today. American Trailblazers celebrates a few of these remarkable people, all of whom left an enduring imprint on their time through their milestone innovations or inspirational accomplishments. The book’s thirty-two chapters are divided into two groups representing the fields in which the characters excelled—Culture and Society or Science and Industry. The subjects come from every period in our nation’s history and all walks of life—from humanitarians, adventurers, and entertainers to political figures, inventors, and entrepreneurs. They range from fearless Quaker housewife Mary Dyer, who was hanged in Massachusetts in 1660 while fighting for religious freedom, to H. Edward Roberts, the father of the personal computer, a maverick who sold his successful electronics company to study medicine and become a Georgia country doctor. From the pregnant nineteen-year-old heroine who took command of a clipper ship in distress in the dangerous waters off Cape Horn to the scientist who invented modern forensic toxicology, these rare individualists fix themselves firmly in our imagination with their mesmerizing stories.
Published: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1979984270
Dance of the Millions: A Music & Murder Mystery
At the end of WWI, Europe's prosperous sugar industry lies in ruins, sparking an international sugar shortage and skyrocketing prices. By 1920, sleepy Cuba has become the world's leading sugar producer. Suddenly, Havana boasts more millionaires than any other city on earth. Speculators flock to Cuba, along with thousands of Americans escaping the enforced sobriety of Prohibition. Every night, the rich gather in Havana's nightclubs, ballrooms, and glittering new casino, swaying to the island's infectious music and swilling its famous rum. As the price of sugar peaks and begins its inevitable decline, political and labor unrest shake the island. Equally unsettling are the ritual murders of several beautiful young entertainers. No one seems eager to solve the crimes until law student Eduardo Betancourt and journalist Tomás Fuentes team up to track down the killer—a man with voodoo-haunted dreams.
Published: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1953789853
Far Haven
For his underground humanitarian activities in the shattered world of the future, Zachary Walden is tortured and banished to plague-ridden fourteenth-century England. His fate is made more painful by the knowledge that his own father had invented the time-travel device that America’s dictatorial leader uses to rid himself of his enemies. While dealing with the many terrors of the grim past, Zach falls in love with a beautiful but independent farm girl named Tess. After friends from the future finally manage to locate him in his distant exile, Zach must make the difficult choice between revenge and love. Should he return to his old life of struggle or remain in the haven in time he’s discovered with Tess?
Published: July 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1718855045
Killin' Floor Blues: A Music & Murder Mystery
In the depths of the Great Depression, father and son musicologists John and Alan Lomax make several eye-opening—at times menacing—journeys through the Jim Crow South. Assigned to record pioneer blues artists for the Library of Congress, they visit plantations and penitentiaries, rural crossroads and bustling cities. During their travels, they encounter a series of bizarre killings. Among the victims are country blues giants Charley Patton and Robert Johnson, along with leading female singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. The police show little interest in investigating the deaths of these seminal black performers, so the Lomaxes decide to look into the murders. They learn that the crimes are the work of a single deranged killer, and as they come closer to identifying the madman, they become targets themselves. Their discovery of who committed the murders, and why, carries with it the threat of imminent death.
Published: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1947915985
Lost in Saigon
Every conflict in Vietnam did not take place on the battlefield, and every casualty did not suffer physical wounds. For Navy journalist Wally Jeter, the scars that he brought home from the war were those on his heart. Despite having fallen in love with a beautiful young woman during his year in Saigon, Jeter left her behind when his tour of duty was over. After two decades, he realizes that the only way he’ll ever be happy is to return and find his old love, although his journey back brings even greater revelations than his first trip to Southeast Asia—and a bigger shock. Lost in Saigon is set in the waning years of the long, bitter struggle that defined a generation.
Published: July 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1718793187
Summer of Love: A Music & Murder Mystery
It’s 1967 in California’s magical City by the Bay—a bold new era of sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll…and murder. Graduating from UC Berkeley just as the Summer of Love begins, twin brothers Jack and Bobby Doyle forge two different career paths. Jack heads off to Vietnam to serve his country, while Bobby remains in the Bay Area, immersing himself in the world of music journalism. As the summer progresses, both brothers witness death firsthand for the first time, Jack on the battlefield and Bobby on the drug-infested streets of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Their experiences are equally shattering, with Jack losing newfound comrades-in-arms and Bobby enduring the murders of two women he’d grown close to. Bobby’s traumas become as threatening as Jack’s daily perils when he falls under suspicion in the murder investigations. Conferring with Jack by letter, Bobby tries to discover who actually committed the crimes. As the Summer of Love draws to a close, stunning events overtake the entire Doyle family.
Published: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1685121686
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