About Mark Wm Smith
Author
Mark’s Story
On occasion, Mark lived down the street from the last whorehouse in the West, spit dust from the end of a trail drive and stood beside the hardened lawmen facing down anarchist rebels.
He writes to make sense out of uncertainty. Reading mystery and suspense fiction kept him sane during his formative years. Writers in this genre gave order to the chaos of his world. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Lawrence Block, Ed McBain, Tony Hillerman. Louis L’Amour just to spice it up. They saved him from despair. The strength he found in the characters of Louis L’Amour’s fiction inspired courage to stop running and face down that infamous bully, Bobby Brown, in front of the Sacred Heart Catholic School.
L’Amour and Hillerman set his mind on writing with place as character. Block encouraged focus on characters whose personal troubles deepened conflict. These and hundreds of other great authors pulled him into worlds defined by justice.
Mark earned a Master of Arts in Professional Counseling from Liberty University in 2010. A graduate level understanding of human behavior and psychology facilitates Mark’s development of interesting characters facing impossible circumstances. These scenarios involve internal struggles manifested through external situations– a man who can’t stop sleeping around confronted with a woman who kills men who cheat; a kid who dreams of making his deceased father proud by stealing a prized guitar.
Mark received his undergrad degree in Creative Writing from Otterbein College in 2005, only 25 years after his high school graduation. A desire to tell stories like the ones that helped him survive a rickety adolescence and tottering early adulthood give Mark the means and motivation to grow as storyteller.
Striving for the most compelling tale, the most interesting, yet genuine characters, and the most relevant theme provides Mark the opportunity for creating stories that are both fresh and alive.
Best Sellers
Murder of the Prodigal Father
Connor Pierce came home to bury his estranged father. The the details of Dixon Pierce’s perverted last hours add up to murder. Can Connor survive his father’s philandering legacy?
Murder on the East China Sea
Air Force crew chief Connor Pierce wants to help his lonely assistant get comfortable around women. But when the stripper he lets loose on his romantically challenged friend is brutally murdered. . .
Murder on the Edge of the Orient
Connor Pierce is days away from his last day on the island of Okinawa, known to American soldiers as “the Rock.” Cornered for one final investigation, things turn bad.
Highlights
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Published Books
Happy Readers
Best Sellers
Publications
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
My Writing Blog
Follow Along
The Last Winter of 2000
Beginnings are impossible. I’ve been starting the author game for 20-plus years. It rarely appears as work in progress. Fits and starts. That’s my record. Fits lead to starts/restarts lead to fits, ad nauseam. Time to stop beginning and advance. Accept my invitation...
MGC Chapter Thirty-Three
I spent a few minutes cooling my jets in the Tacoma, watching shadows float to and fro behind the living room window. Lorna’s demeanor bothered me. The way she'd dismissed Kayla’s trauma, hawking over her like a jail guard. What did she fear? The custody battle was...
MGC Chapter Thirty-Two
Kayla played in the yard alone. She glanced up as I entered the gate. With bloodshot eyes scuttled in sleep-deprived eye sockets, I must have appeared demonic. Yesterday’s rumpled clothes surely didn’t improve my image. The previous night’s discovery kept me from...
MGC Chapter Thirty-One
I made sure we were out of the line of sight before making a U-turn. “There has to be something in that house that will implicate someone besides my sister.” Tony shook his head. “They’ll sure as shootin’ go through the place as part of their investigation into the...