Tim Champlin
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Tim Champlin

Literature & Fiction | Mystery, Thriller & Suspense | Science Fiction & Fantasy
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Novelist Tim Champlin was born in Fargo, North Dakota, only 80 miles from Jamestown, North Dakota where fellow western novelist Louis L'Amour was born 29 years earlier. Similarities in their histories don't end there. They both have French/Irish ancestry and the fathers of both writers were large-animal veterinarians--a fact that may explain their mutual love of horses, buffaloes and other wild and domestic critters. Drawing on his familiarity with the West,his knowledge of western fiction and his admiration for L'Amour, Champlin has written THE WILD WEST OF LOUIS L'AMOUR for Voyageur Press in Minnesota. This well-illustrated book was published August 5, 2015 and is currently available for order on Amazon. This is a must-read for L'Amour fans and anyone interested in western fiction and how it relates to the historic west. Champlin grew up along the fringes of the old frontier in Nebraska, Missouri and Arizona before moving to Tennessee. After earning a bachelor's degree in English from Middle Tennessee State College, he declined an offer to become a Border Patrol Agent with the U.S.Immigration Service in order to finish work on his Master of Arts degree in English at Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University). Living in the West fostered Champlin's lifelong interest in outdoor sports such as shooting, tennis, sailing and riding. It also gave him a love of the Old West that eventually led him to write historical fiction. After he spent ten years selling magazine articles and short stories, Ballantine Books published his first western novel, SUMMER OF THE SIOUX, in 1981. One of the most underappreciated historical novelists, Tim Champlin is a treasure waiting to be discovered. With more than 39 novels to his credit, he is highly regarded for his literary style and well-researched stories that touch on almost every aspect of frontier America, from outlaws and lawmen, the U.S. Cavalry, Indians, prospector, stagecoaches, railroads, steamboats, juvenile time travel, to the Pony Express, the Civil War, a search for the Templar treasure, and even a clash between Jack the Ripper and Annie Oakley. As one of his growing number of fans says, "Champlin is a superb storyteller with a masterful ability to seize his reader's total attention with a vivid narrative, memorable characters and unexpected plot twists." In 1999 his short story, "Color at Forty-Mile" was a finalist for a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. His 2012 Berkley novel, THE SECRET OF LODESTAR, was also a runner-up for a Spur Award. The following year this book was issued in audio read by the well knownr George Guidall. Lodestar is a thrilling tale of an ex-railroad detective who pursues a convict to a Nevada ghost town to recover stolen gold. Thorndike Press published its exciting sequel,CROSS OF GOLD in November, 2013, and the final tale in the trilogy, BORDER REPRISAL in 2014. BEECHER ISLAND, another of Champlin's recent books, recreates the historic several-day battle between a force of 5,000 Indians and a company of fifty volunteer plainsmen in eastern Colorado. A personal feud between a dishonest cavalry sergeant and a civilian erupts later when the sergeant robs the Carson City Mint. In a climactic scene, he hijacks a train to escape. BOOKLIST's review said the "prolific Champlin turns in another deft performance, combining sharply defined characters with a solid story and just the right amount of period detail. An engaging western but also one that delivers plenty of psychological insight." Champlin mixes Native Americans and prospectors in THE BLAZE OF NOON. In this fast-paced story, the life of a miner named Dan Mora is saved by a Mexican Tarahumara named Quanto,who appoints himself Mora's bodyguard, although the two men do not speak a common language. Together, they eventually find a lost Spanish mine. WEST OF WASHOE is the story of mine inspector Gil Ross who comes to examine Virginia City's silver mines. Along the way, he encounters stage robbers, and crooked mine owner, and is caught in a deadly clash between rival newspaper editors. BY FLARE OF NORTHERN LIGHTS extends Champlin's interest in mining to the Klondike gold rush of the late 1890s. In this taut novel, which recalls Jack London's best northern stories, a young man joins the stampede and must fight not only the brutal winter but brutal men as well. In the words of one reader, it's "a wonderful adventure story well worth reading." WAYFARING STRANGERS follows the struggles of three separate groups who start for the California gold fields in 1848. One group travels by wagon train across the plains and mountains, one sails around Cape Horn, and another crosses the Isthmus of Panama. How they deal with hardship as they work their way west toward an unseen rendezvous has readers pulling for them every mile of the way. SWIFT THUNDER is told from the point of view of Lance Barlow, a teenage Huck Finn-like Pony Express rider who tries to rescue a freed slave who has been sold back into slavery. TREASURE OF THE TEMPLARS is the story of an eccentric archeologist, Roddy McGinnis,who finds, in the ruins of a Scottish dungeon, the journal of a medieval knight that details the hiding place of the lost treasure of the Knights Templar in the New World. A shadow organization of Templars in 1898 comes after McGinnis for the diary. With Marcus Flood, an ex-monk acting as bodyguard, they team up with the professor's niece,Merliss McGinnis, and the three of them go after the treasure deep in the ancient ruins of New Mexico. In September, 2017, Thorndike Press (Five-Star) published TOM AND HUCK'S HOWLING ADVENTURE, featuring a 13-year old boy from the 21st century who travels back to 1849 Missouri where he shares adventures with Mark Twain's famous characters. The second book in this trilogy, TOM SAWYER'S DARK PLOT was issued in October, 2018. The third book will be out in 2019. All these books and Tim Champlin's many other adventurous tales about the West,the Civil War, time travel to the age of Tom Sawyer, and even an 1888 London clash between Annie Oakley and Jack the Ripper are available on Amazon.com in both eBook and printed editions.
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