Welcome to the cyber-home of Mike Nettleton and Carolyn J Rose, our pets and our projects.

As the web address implies, we write mysteries individually and as a team (and that’s about as easy as roller skating on a calving glacier during a moderate earthquake). For a change of pace, we’ve also written a fantasy.

Why mystery? We grew up watching Perry Mason press for those witness box confessions. We’re slaves to the British who-dun-its on PBS and avid fans of the hundreds of detectives the genre has spawned. Our mysteries are set in New Mexico (the Casey Brandt series) and Oregon (the Paladin series) where our careers in television and radio took us.

Why fantasy? Years ago, for a few scary moments, Mike believed he was lost on the densely forested slopes of Humbug Mountain on Oregon’s coast. From that childhood experience, came a tale of evil ogres and trolls, an armless drummer, a woman given up for dead, and two unlikely teenagers assigned the daunting chore of saving the world.

If you’d like to read the first chapters of our books or learn more about us, our projects, or wonder dogs Bubba and Dudley, please click on the appropriate spot.

Although we still amuse writers’ groups by talking about the perils and pitfalls of working together, we’re now working on individual projects.

Mike is working on a memoir of his years behind the microphone at radio stations in three states. Tentatively titled For All You Know I Might Be Naked, it will recount amusing anecdotes and answer some of these questions: Do deejays go to announcers’ school? Who decides what music gets played and when? What are those words you can’t say on the air?

Long captivated by the power of the ocean and the loneliness and bravery of those who tended lighthouses along the Northwest coast, Mike is also at work on a book set a century ago in Oregon. It was a time of dramatic growth and change, of sophistication and lawlessness, of heroes and con men.

Carolyn has completed a woman-in-jeopardy novel called The Refuge. It begins in a domestic violence shelter in Little Rock and ends at a wildlife refuge and rehabilitation center on the Oregon coast. Her latest book deals love, loss, the Vietnam War, the cultural changes of 1966, and a girl searching for identity and meaning and the wife of a charlatan psychic.

We continue to host monthly writers’ mixers at Cover to Cover Books in downtown Vancouver, Washington. The mixers began as a way to bring writers together to mix, mingle, and find support but are now mini-workshops featuring writers and writing coaches talking about aspects of craft. We also put on mini workshops on creating characters, maintaining tension, and on the rules for working together.

Carolyn Rose and Mike Nettleton.

For information on purchasing books, please check out each book’s page, or visit the publisher’s link below.

SynergEbooks