willtink avatar willtink author

Will Tinkham's Americana series includes nine offbeat, (mostly) historical, literary novels. Has published short fiction on three continents. A retired actor of no repute.

https://willtinkham.blogspot.com/




Stories

If I Lie in a Combat Zone

If I Lie in a Combat Zone by Will Tinkham

Ordered to inspect a suspected Viet Cong tunnel in November of 1968, Private Walt Whitman von Funck crawls inside and falls in love. And rips a hole in his foot. IF I LIE IN A COMBAT ZONE finds Zow spending eight months nursing him back to health, while her brother and grandfather conduct midnight raids and accumulate prisoners, including a general. During his convalescence, Walt and Zow wed; theirs is a love story that defies race, religion and military red tape. Upon his return to Chu Lai Air Base with his pregnant wife and six prisoners, Stars and Stripes declares Walt a hero. Awards follow. And plans for a Medal of Honor ceremony with President Nixon. Till a U.S. Army doctor declares the foot wound to be self-inflicted. Hailed, then jailed—repeatedly—Walt becomes a favorite of the anti-war crowd and a thorn in Nixon's side. Walt accepts offers to speak on college campuses. Protests involving gunfire and bombings become routine. It's almost as if they are targeting him.


The Cary Grant Sanatorium and Playhouse

The Cary Grant Sanatorium and Playhouse by Will Tinkham

THE CARY GRANT SANATORIUM AND PLAYHOUSE is a screwball drama involving disgraced Hollywood starlet, Donna Darling, and two-time German Army deserter, Séamus von Funck. They meet in 1942 at an idyllic Ohio home for unwed mothers—or a Nazi abortion slaughterhouse, depending on whom you talk to. Their love endures despite the efforts of a power-hungry congressman, an overzealous religious tabloid, and Donna's Hollywood past—yes, including Cary Grant. They prevail despite Séamus being a suspected Nazi spy and America's first prisoner of the second World War—and also the first to escape. Donna returns to her chosen profession, nursing, and Séamus completes his medical training under an alias while still on the lam. Despite their early struggles, the couple raises three fine children: Frederick Douglass von Funck, Clara Barton von Funck and Walt Whitman von Funck. The family thrives until their bi-racial, eldest child runs smack into the civil rights turmoil of the 1960s.


The Adventures of Hank Fenn

The Adventures of Hank Fenn by Will Tinkham

For Hank, Sam never became Mark Twain. As a riverboat pilot, Sam saved young Hank from the crushing paddlewheels as the boy stowed away on the City of Memphis. Sam returned Hank to Minnesota when news reached downriver that Hank's mother was on trial for killing the father Hank had run away from. Years later, in a barber's chair prior to his mother's funeral, Hank reads a frog story that's awful close to a tall tale Sam once told. The magazine claims it's written by a fellow named Mark Twain. THE ADVENTURES OF HANK FENN (Americana #4) sends Hank searching the West—and then the East—for Mr. Twain. All along he and Sam exchange letters and make plans that never seem to get them together—Twain always on the road or abroad. Hank does find hatred and brutality while railroading and mining throughout this new frontier. He finds Calamity Jane in a Wyoming mining camp and Custer breaking treaties. He finds the Emperor of these United States. Ultimately Hank finds love, boys to raise and gold to unearth on a Black Hills mountaintop.


The Miracles

The Miracles by Will Tinkham

Brinda Miracle (not her real name) steals out of Redding, Connecticut in the spring of 1911 in charge of an orphan train. Though an accredited nurse and teacher, Brinda is fleeing trumped-up allegations stemming from the crib death of a baby in her care as a nanny. An orphan herself, Brinda arrives at an orphaned orphanage in St. Paul, Minnesota with three children still in her care: Nicholas, twelve, with special needs and special talents—most notably those of a pickpocket; Maxine, eight, with seemingly no need for anyone and no discernible talent; and Zane, six, whose amber eyes instill fear in those who fail to look deeper. The Miracles (Americana #7) is a historical crime satire set in a gangster haven that welcomed criminals into St. Paul as long as they didn't commit crimes in St. Paul. The novel follows the four orphans as they are welcomed into a neighborhood featuring Nina Clifford's fashionable whorehouse on one side and the Bucket of Blood Saloon down the block. Brinda and the children grow into their own niches to survive amid Prohibition Era corruption while dabbling in a little bootlegging of their own through the early years of the Great Depression.



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