The past two weekends, I’ve been selling copies of my books at East Tennessee events, first the Harvest Moon Festival at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, then at the Fall Book Fest put on by the Knoxville Literary Legends book club. I’ve sold some books, happily met some other authors and learned a lot.

What I’ve learned is that true crime sells.

I know you’ll greet that with a “well, duh.” There are millions of true crime books, documentaries and even entire true crime channels/streaming services. I’m told that the latter is the case, at least; I haven’t watched a true crime program since we began writing our first true crime book, WICKED MUNCIE, which was published ten years ago by History Press. (If you’re wondering what Muncie is, it’s the East Central Indiana city where I’m from. It’s famous as where David Letterman went to college, where Ball canning jars were created, where the first half of Steven Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND took place (it was not filmed there), where Garfield the cartoon cat was created and produed and for countless pop culture references.)

The Westside Park killings of September 1985 are, as the book’s subtitle says, Muncie’s most notorious cold case. No one has yet been charged in the killings. Our book, for the first time, revealed the name of the police investigators’ main person of interest.

Longtime writing partner Douglas Walker and I wrote four true crime books, WICKED MUNCIE (published 2016), MUNCIE MURDER AND MAYHEM (published 2018), THE WESTSIDE PARK MURDERS (our pandemic baby, published months later than intended, in February 2021) and COLD CASE MUNCIE (published 2023).

I think all the books did pretty well for History Press. For me in particular, they assured me that I could write at book length, which I began doing in earnest in 2019 when I wrote my crime novels SEVEN ANGELS (published June 2026) and THAT OCTOBER (2025).

One of the things I noted Saturday to potential buyers of the Westside book is that the Crime Junkie Podcast did a segment on the case and (thankfully) credited our book and research.

I’m proud of the true crime books, but after moving away from Muncie to East Tennessee in 2022, I couldn’t find a lot of interest in the true crime books down here. I mean, I could understand that, because the four true crime books all took place hundreds of miles and three states north.

But when I talked to fellow members of the Sisters in Crime group here in Knoxville (they’re the Smoking Guns, and they’re a great bunch of accomplished writers) they urged me to bring, in addition to copies of THAT OCTOBER and SEVEN ANGELS, copies of some true crime writing for possible sale at Cumberland Gap and additional festivals.

“True crime always sells,” they told me.

“But they’re true crime books set in Indiana,” I said.

“True crime always sells,” they assured me.

So for two weekends in a row, I’ve sold about as many copies of THE WESTSIDE PARK MURDERS as I’ve sold of THAT OCTOBER or SEVEN ANGELS or anthologies with my short stories.

I didn’t think this would be the case, but the nature of the crime in Westside has drawn attention and continues to draw attention.

On Amazon as I write this, WESTSiDE has 165 reviews or ratings with an average of 4.1 out of 5. (No, I don’t read the reviews.) The other three books have fewer than 100 reviews or ratings and similar ratings out of 5.

In other words, ten years after our first true crime book, the books sell (for History Press and for me, hand-selling copies that I purchased from History Press). They sell to strangers. They sell to people who’ve never been to Muncie or heard of Muncie.

A woman who bought the book on Saturday had been past my table earlier in the afternoon, looked at WESTSIDE and came back to get it later. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it until I came back and got it,” she told me.

It’s pretty fascinating to me. I’m glad to think that, as with all our true crime books, WESTSIDE draws readers and helps keep the case alive for survivors of those killed, who hope that they’ll one day find closure.

If you’re interested, below is a link to WESTSIDE on Amazon and through that you should be able to find other books I wrote or contributed to.

None of them has the appeal of WESTSIDE, however.