Thorne lays coins aside for murder

If you read Coins magazine and Numismatic News, then you’ve probably seen Mike Thorne’s byline. Thorne has written many feature articles and a column for Coins, “Basics and Beyond,” which has run for more than 30 years.

In addition to his numismatic writing, Thorne has written journal articles, textbooks, short stories, and novels. Recently, he has self-published one of those novels, Murder in Memory, a psychological thriller about a serial killer who uses hypnosis to frame an innocent man.

The novel’s setting is a small college town in the South, perhaps not surprising from an author from Mississippi.

The main characters include Grady Noland, the town’s chief of police, English professor Jon Evans, and Henry Andrews, a counselor at the college. Also important to the story is Doris Evans, Jon’s stay-at-home wife, who begins a torrid affair with town police officer David Parker.

Reviews of Murder in Memory have been quite positive. For example, Kirkus Reviews calls it, “A murder story with some clever twists.”

About Thorne, Kirkus writes, “The author, a psychologist, has put his experience to excellent use, deftly exploiting the hypnosis gimmick. He also has a subtle way with characters, delivering telling details, ...” such as “... when Thorne depicts wimpy Jon beginning another hopeless day.” Although a few reviewers have found the ending a not completely satisfying surprise, Kirkus writes, “There is ... an ingenious and somehow fitting denouement concerning the woebegone Jon. Readers should get a satisfying kick out of this whodunit.”

A reviewer for onlinebookclub.org also made several glowing comments about Murder in Memory. For example, she mentioned some plots other than the main one of a serial killer and wrote, “I think the author did a fantastic job tying all the pieces together, and it made for an even more spine-tingling read.” She also said, “I ... think it’s a testimony to the author’s writing skills that I was sometimes able to feel sympathy for ... our ‘bad guy.’”

Murder in Memory is available on Amazon, in both paperback and Kindle versions. Reviews on the site have been excellent, and the book’s current rating, based on eight reviews, is 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Most importantly, a number of the reviews are by psychologists. One such review, by Dr. Michael S. Shutty, notes, “As a clinical psychologist, I found the premise alarming and credible. ... The book starts off with a grisly crime and just rolls from there ... It is a story that demands that you keep reading, accelerating until the crisis point. The ending has a twist that readers will find surprising: it leaves just enough loose ends to make you wonder about the characters after the book is done.” Shutty is also a numismatic author, having published One Coin Is Never Enough and Lost Cents, Dead Owners.

Another of the Amazon reviews begins, “This is the kind of book that makes you want to skip whatever obligations you have scheduled so that you won’t have to put it down. It’s definitely a page-turner.”

In addition to Amazon, Murder in Memory is available from either Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million.

Autographed copies are available from the author for $14.99 postpaid. Write to Mike Thorne, Drawer 745, Starkville, MS 39760.

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