Murder in Maspalomas available now!

V by Very Blog Awards Ireland 2017 - Murder in Maspalomas makes the longlist!!

Delighted to announce that this website has been included in the longlist for the  V by Very Blog Awards Ireland 2017 . There are another two rounds of judging before the Finalists are announced. 

Are you sure this isn't a Tana French book?

This was the question asked of me recently and I said "No" and then to compound my ignorance I added "Who is Tana French? 

After that conversation with a well read friend of mine I walked away and looked her details up on Amazon.

Tana French grew up in Ireland, Italy, the US and Malawi, and has lived in Dublin since 1990. She trained as an actress at Trinity College Dublin and worked in theatre, film and voiceover. She is the author of IN THE WOODS (winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Barry, Macavity and IVCA Clarion awards), THE LIKENESS, FAITHFUL PLACE, BROKEN HARBOUR (winner of the LA Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller and the Irish Book Award for Best Crime Fiction) and THE SECRET PLACE. She lives in Dublin with her husband and two children.

So amazingly her work on unsolved mysteries and the activities of the Dublin Murder Squad as they tackled urban crime is world renowned. 

I was using a keyword search provided by WordStream and I entered my http://murderinmaspalomas.blogspot.ie/ website and up came a list of 150 keywords with her name Tana French as the second most appropriate keyword for my site. What I find astonishing is the lack of any mention of "Maspalomas" as a keyword for my site. 

Well news to me....... but maybe she and I aren't that different if you discount the "In the Woods Dublin Murder Squad: 1" being a winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Barry, Macavity and the IVCA Clarion awards and the huge global sales that followed.

Weird or what? Below is the list abbreviated to the top 10 words.

Keyword	Match Type	Search Volume
unsolved mysteries	PHRASE	90500
tana french	PHRASE	22200
mystery novels	PHRASE	5400
tana french books	PHRASE	2900
irish authors	PHRASE	2400
arthur conan doyle sherlock holmes	PHRASE	1600
james crumley	PHRASE	1600
arthur conan	PHRASE	1300
roger ackroyd	PHRASE	1000

Murder in Maspalomas gets a special cover for Smashwords release

New cover just for Smashwords and its related sites and a new price of $1.99 

What do you think ? Better or worse than the original?


Murder in Maspalomas is a novel which starts in Dublin where Matt, an ordinary contract accountant finds himself contacted by the Sullivans, a notorious drug gang who are chasing a debt.

The gang are led by Anto, a thirty something who came from a broken family, he broke it. His enforcer, Ciaran is his second in command and a right nasty piece of work who carries a piece wherever he goes. Rocky, in his early twenties wants to be Ciaran and wants to get tooled up. He carries some menace, is unpredictable and is watching and waiting his moment to slip into Ciaran's shoes. Frisby is the teenage runner for the gang. He carries drugs, messages and weapons without question. He's street wise but has a lot to learn about life. This trip will test his mettle and prove his worth to the gang.

Matt is married to Louise and together they ordinarily live in West Dublin in an apartment block on the fourth floor and life is the normal type of living, days at work and bills to pay. Once the drugs gang trace his whereabouts and seek a sum of money Matt hasn't got things get hot in Dublin and force Matt into skipping the country. Trouble is, Louise is totally unaware of the gang and the debt. Matt will get round to telling her but just not now. She believes she's just going on a holiday brought about by her incessant moaning about Irish winters. How wrong could she be? 

Other characters enter the fray throughout the book and Fran, Anto's girl and Rodriquez's an old pal of Matt's play pivotal roles in the story as it develops. You'll just have to read the book to find out who does what to whom and who lives and who dies.

Murder in Maspalomas – Kindle Sale $1.99

It’s happening now and for a short time only, my   5 Star novel “Murder in Maspalomas” is available at the lowest price ever of $1.99 or its equivalent in other currencies eg £1.43! It’s a quick sale prompted by ReadFree.ly who are featuring the book in their mail out on the 14th and 15th of August.

So buy a copy and pass a few hours away discovering the trials and tribulations  of a man and his wife pursued 3,000 miles by a deadly drugs gang to a holiday paradise where a deadly game of hide and seek ensues. There are murderous encounters and a hint of romance in a page turning story taking you across the island of Gran Canaria.

The ReadFree.ly  website  has a web ranking making it, at 299,139 in the top most popular websites in the USA and their aim is to deliver the best books at the cheapest prices for their subscribers. So they said to me, we really like the book but you’ve got to make it cheaper. Well, as you know I’m an accountant so I crunched the numbers, took off all my royalties, switched to a cheaper milk for my cereal, cut out meat for a week, switched the electricity off overnight and cancelled my holiday in the sun. “OK” I said- “lets do it!”

Wexford County library stock "Murder in Maspalomas"

Please allow a few days for the book to be distributed into the local libraries but yes, the Wexford County Library service have reviewed the book and ordered copies. That follows Byrnes Book Shops who have branches in Wexford town, Gorey and Enniscorthy also stocking the book this week.

Byrne’s Books now stock Murder in Maspalomas

Byrne’s Books & Toys are one of Ireland’s leading retailers of books, toys, gifts, arts & crafts and stationery and have shops in Gorey, Enniscorthy and Wexford town. As of this week it now has copies of "Murder in Maspalomas" by Mark Rice. 

Visit their website to find their contact details and store addresses

For Kindle and other soft copies please click here