Ken Consaul

Since publishing the first volume of the Bonner Family Saga, Ken Consaul has alternated between telling the story of the American emigration westward and the Dean Talley novels centered in Newport Beach, California and surrounds. There's a story behind both series. Let me tell you how the first two books (The Platte River Waltz series) and Hangtown came to be. I read, and highly recommend, the non-fiction book "Men to Match my Mountains" by Irving Stone. He chronicles the opening of the early west, the migration across the plains and the history of California. Once I'd finished Stone's book, I started looking for fiction about the migration west. Most everything I found was young adult fiction and I decided to create my own characters and pen a story for an adult audience. The Platte River Waltz books were the result. The pulp dime novels of the 1920s and 30s were the incubator for the hard-boiled crime novel and countless "noir" movies still being produced today. The best of the pulp writers was Raymond Chandler and his Philip Marlowe novels. I wanted to produce the mood and character of the pulp novels. I decided to write my own take on the Chandler books but bring the story to modern times and relocate the action slightly south to Orange County.