There are so many formats of reading in the current world. I am presently reading Robbed Blind by Gerry Boyle, listening to Win by Harlan Coben on audiobook, and watching Longmire on Netflix. Does this count as reading three books at the same time?

You can probably guess from this list that mystery/thriller is my genre of choice, but even within that genre, what a wide range of literary differences. An investigative journalist in central Maine to an ultra-wealthy vigilante for justice in New York City to a rural sheriff’s department in northern Wyoming. Wow.

I have wondered where my love of the mystery/thriller genre has come from and have come to a fairly simple solution that is rarely mentioned. Mysteries and thrillers are merely fiction books where something happens. There is action, intrigue, and suspense. The plot is propelled forward and brings the reader (and the writer) along with it.

In Robbed Blind, Gerry Boyle is masterfully weaving together the several different threads that keeps the reader on his or her toes. The Zombie Bandit, the murder of a kind and religious man, and a militia training in the woods of central Maine. The characters are well-developed and fleshed out and the plot drives everything forward in the masterful way that Boyle is so adept at.

Harlan Coben is hit or miss for me. I love or hate his books. Win is on the winning side of that equation. The action is fast and furious, and the mystery is elusive and engaging. It also most likely helps that the protagonist is one of the ultra-wealthy seeking justice in a world that cannot always provide it by legal means. Why does that help? Well, I have just finished the first edits on my most recent work, The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed, a modern-day Robin Hood tale that mirrors Coben’s storyline in many ways (For the record, I was long done my first draft before beginning Win).

An intriguing facet of watching Longmire is I haven’t read any of Craig Johnson books and therefore have no idea how accurate the series is and whether or not it is a true representation of him as a writer. For those of you who don’t know, Walt Longmire is the dedicated and unflappable sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. He is widowed, emotionally damaged, but deeply principled. I will have to say that the series is keeping my interest and allowing me to slog through my rower and treadmill time.

Do you consider listening to an audiobook or watching a Netflix series to be reading? Just wondering. Write on.

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published five books in the Mainely Mystery series, with the fifth, Mainely Wicked, just released in August of 2023. He has also published four books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, with the fifth, Pirate Trap, due out in December of 2023.

For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. In April of 2023, Cost combined his love of histories and mysteries into a historical PI mystery set in 1923 Brooklyn, Velma Gone Awry. City Gone Askew will follow in April of 2024.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.