Local authors Midge Raymond and John Yunker pen a great beach read

By Edwin Battistella for Ashland.news

In “Devils Island,” Midge Raymond and John Yunker bring together exotic locales, environmentalism, and murder in a whodunit with a sharp psychological edge. 

The “devils” on Devils Island ostensibly refer to Tasmanian devils, large carnivorous marsupials who are in danger of extinction due to a facial tumor disease. Could they kill a human? Would they?

The key protagonists of the novel are Kerry, an Australian grad student with a passion for endangered species, now working as a tour guide, and Brooke, a once-upon-a-time actor whose marriage to an accountant has disintegrated.  Brooke’s actor friend Jane invites her on a tourist glamp to fictional Marbury Island, aka Devils Island. Brooke jumps at the chance to distract herself and reconnect with her old college friend, who has made it as an actor.

Kerry is leading her first tour on the island with Brooke and Jane, two wealthy married couples, and a slacker assistant named Bryan. But soon Jane disappears in a trail of blood, and then another tourist turns up dead. Throw in a deadly storm, a sinister poacher, and interpersonal intrigues, and you’ve got a fast-paced mystery with a surprise ending.

It’s more than just an island whodunit. Raymond and Yunker also mix in a compelling environmental subtext dealing with the impact of tourism, poaching and disease on the devils and other endangered species. Depicted mostly through Kerry’s eyes, the environmental lesson is there but never gets in the way of the story.

“Devils Island” is also a tale of the roles that people play in life: friend, lover, partner, hero, and devil, and how people rise to the occasion and grow. There’s plenty in “Devils Island” to keep your heart racing and to make you think.

Both Midge Raymond and John Yunker are well-known and well-regarded authors locally and nationally. Raymond is the author of “My Last Continent” and the prize-winning short-story collection “Forgetting English.” Her writing has also appeared in such literary magazines as TriQuarterly, the Bellevue Literary Review, and Poets & Writers, as well as the Los Angeles Times magazine, and the Chicago Tribune.  Her novel “Floreana,” a murder mystery set in the 1930s in the Galápagos Islands, is set to come out in 2025.

Raymond has taught at Boston University, Boston’s Grub Street Writers, Seattle’s Hugo House, and San Diego Writers, Ink. She has a certificate in private investigation from the University of Washington. And, of course, she is the author of Ashland.news‘ “Catty Corner.”

John Yunker is the author of three full-length plays (“Paleo,” “Meat the Parents” and “Species of Least Concern”) which have been produced by theaters in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oregon and Washington, D.C. He is also the author of the novels “The Tourist Trail” and “Where Oceans Hide Their Dead,” and is the editor of the “Among Animals” fiction series and the essay collection “Writing for Animals.” Yunker is also an internet marketing and web globalization expert and the author of two books on that topic:  “Beyond Borders” and “Think Outside the Country.” On top of all that, he is a typewriter aficionado and collector.

Together Midge Raymond and John Yunker are the co-founders of Ashland Creek Press, which they established in 2011. It’s a boutique publisher dedicated to books on the environment, animal protection, and wildlife, but that also have compelling stories. (One of my personal favorites is the trilogy “Out of Breath,” “The Ghost Runner” and “The Last Mile,” set in a fictional Oregon town called Lithia.)

“Devils Island” was featured in the Summer 2024 issue of Mystery Reader’s Journal and it has been receiving accolades from early readers: A.J. Banner, author of “Dreaming Water,” called it “A crafty devil of a whodunit … that will “make you fall in love with the misunderstood, endangered Tasmanian devil.” Mindy Meija, author of “Leave No Trace,” said “’Devils Island’ isn’t just a compulsively readable mystery; it’s also a vital meditation on what it means to live through extinction in all its forms.”  And Michael Niemann, author of “The Last Straw,” called it “a great story” with “a series of fiendish twists.”

The idea for “Devils Island” came about when Raymond and Yunker visited Australia and took a four-day luxury camping trip to Maria Island off the coast of Tasmania. The island is a long-ago convict settlement that is now a national park helping to preserve the endangered Tasmanian devils. As in the book, there were a pair of guides and three other couples — but no murders occurred. Not long after the trip, Yunker began thinking about the exotic setting, animals and island history and came up with the idea of a murder mystery.

“Devils Island” is the first time the two have collaborated on a novel, but it’s not going to be the last. They’ve already finished another mystery, called “Fire Season,” set in Southern California. And they are working on a third, set in the San Juan Islands in northern Washington State.

Edwin Battistella is a writer based in Ashland. Midge Raymond is an unpaid columnist for Ashland.news.