Ron Finch Books
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dwfinch.bsky.social
Ron Finch Books
@dwfinch.bsky.social
290 followers 290 following 91 posts
Canadian author of the Joel Franklin Mystery and Dr. Shitz series. I write a blend of mystery, historical, police procedural, paranormal, thriller, suspense, and comedy. (Editor's Note: Ron's my dad. I edit his books and manage his social media accounts.)
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dwfinch.bsky.social
Random book promotion!

Firebug, 11th in the Joel Franklin Mystery series, set in 1939. A case almost too hot for a young detective to handle! If you like historical and paranormal fiction, you'll burn through this book!

On Amazon in ebook or ppbk.

www.amazon.ca/Firebug-Ron-...

#Canadian #fiction
Cover for Firebug, by Ron Finch, A Joel Franklin Mystery set in the spring of 1939. The interior of a burning building is show with a doorframe outlined in flames. Tagline reads: There's more than one way to get burned.
August 29, 2025 at 12:23 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Thrilled to announce Joel Franklin Mystery #14: My Mother Made Me Do It. Joel's on the trail of the deadliest killer of his career--a killer with a taste for blood! Lots of good spooky stuff in this paranormal historical suspense thriller! (And maps!)

#Mystery #Fiction

www.amazon.ca/dp/B0FKLYK29X
Cover for My Mother Made Me Do It, a Joel Franklin Mystery set in the summer and autumn of 1939, by Ron Finch. Tagline reads: "You might not like what you find when you dredge up the past."
July 31, 2025 at 6:18 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
After weeks buried in the pixel mines, I'm just about ready to release my dad's newest book. It's another installment in the Joel Franklin Mystery series. The 14th!

A little promo reminder about the series:

#Canadian #mystery #novels
It was a simpler time. But it was just as deadly. The Joel Franklin Mystery series by Ron Finch. Set in Canada in the 1930s. A paranormal historical police procedural.
July 24, 2025 at 3:03 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
What would you do for the TRUTH? That's what the Horseheads are asking themselves now that they've created an international firestorm with their podcasts. Will #Greenland be a refuge or a tomb?

Near future #dystopian #sciencefiction!

On Amazon (ebook and paperback):

www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F8YX8QMK
Cover for Devolution: 2036 - The Truth Is Not Enough. You can't stand for the truth without standing in someone's way. A near-future dystopian science fiction by Ron Finch.
May 18, 2025 at 12:08 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Joel's first job as an assistant #detective for the London Police Force pits him against a dangerous psychotic. Can ghosts from the man's past help Joel put this wild animal behind bars before he hurts anyone else? Find out in Joel Franklin Mystery v9: Who's Crazy?! (Link below)

#mystery #fiction
Cover of Joel Franklin Mystery: Who's Crazy?! A man's face is split down the middle with a different expression on each side. One side is skeptical, the other angry. The tagline reads: "Some people give everyone the willies."
April 11, 2025 at 12:16 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
“Big Bang” was coined in 1949 by physicist-astronomer Fred Hoyle, who was critical of the idea, in a BBC broadcast. Though it was used sporadically after that, mostly in popular science, it did not catch on until the scientific community embraced it decades later, in the 1970s.

#historical #idioms
A brilliant white explosion sending light and matter out into the black void of space.
April 9, 2025 at 6:47 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Little green men have been in folklore since the 12th century, but the first use of the phrase "little green man" in reference to extraterrestrials dates to an Apr 13, 1908 article in the Daily Kennebec Journal. It rose in popularity with the Kelly-Hopkinsville sighting of 1955.

#historical #idioms
Extraterrestrials in Arthur Leo Zagat's novel Drink We Deep depicted as little green men on the cover of the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Novels.
March 28, 2025 at 11:37 PM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Although “flying saucer” was coined in 1947 by pilot Kenneth A. Arnold, the concept is much older. Flying disc-shaped objects were depicted in pulp magazines in the 1930s, and the 1908 novel La Roue fulgurante had a flying disc that abducted people via a beam of light.

#historical #idioms
Cover of the November 1929 issue of Hugo Gernsback's pulp science fiction magazine Science Wonder Stories, drawn by pulp cover artist Frank R. Paul. The cover depicts a disc-shaped craft in outer space orbiting the Earth. The craft is projecting rays of energy and also long mechanical tentacles, which are coiled around a large building taken from Earth. A second craft in the background is stealing the Eiffel Tower.
March 21, 2025 at 11:09 PM
dwfinch.bsky.social
H.G. Wells coined the term “time machine” for his 1895 novel, but it wasn't the first story about a machine that transports people through time. Enrique Gaspar's El anacronópete (1887), about a time ship, and Edward Page Mitchell's The Clock that Went Backward (1881) precede it.

#historical #idioms
Black and white illustration of the time ship from Enrique Gaspar's 1887 novel El anacronópete. The ship looks like a simple, rectangular building with a large horn-like tube attached to each corner. There are doors, windows, and chimneys. The ship floats through the clouds against the backdrop of a full moon.
February 24, 2025 at 12:45 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
The prototype is Victor Frankenstein from Shelley’s 1818 novel, but the term “mad scientist” first appeared in 1893 in the Daily Advocate. In 1897 it appeared in a history of the state of Indiana in reference to a 19th century French scientist, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque.

#historical #idioms
Black and white portrait of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. Born October 1783, died September 1840. A young man smiles slightly as he looks at the viewer. He is wearing a high collar, tie, and jacket, and has short styled hair and sideburns.
February 22, 2025 at 1:13 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
I've drawn a portrait of Dr. Shitz for my dad's books. I'm not an artist, but I think it turned out okay! I drew it with a mouse and a desktop. Very low tech! I'd like to do illustrations for all my dad's books.

#historicalfiction #mysterybooks
Black and white line drawing. An oval portrait of Dr. Shitz. Dr. Shitz has dark hair, a thick curing moustache, piercing eyes, a handsome face, and is wearing a suit and a bowtie.
January 30, 2025 at 12:10 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Been working on the maps for my dad's new book, Dr. Shitz and the Time Machine.

#historicalfiction #maps
A map for the city of London, Ontario, circa 1926, for volume two of the Dr. Shitz series, Dr. Shitz and the Time Machine. It shows the principal locations for the book: Victoria Park, the Shitz Residence, and the Public Library in the centre , the University of Western Ontario Science Building to the north, the Ontario Hospital for the Mentally Ill to the east, the Bozo Brothers Warehouse to the southeast, and the road to Lambeth to the south.
January 23, 2025 at 3:31 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Looking for a good mystery with some police action and a dash of the paranormal? Like historical fiction? Looking for Canadian content? Look no further!

#mysterybooks #historicalfiction
Promotional ad for the Joel Franklin Mystery series by Ron Finch. Tagline reads: "It was a simpler time. But it was just as deadly." The background shows a revolver, 4 aces, and drops of blood on a table. Around the image are 7 circular thumbnails showing: lightning with the caption "paranormal experiences", a classic car with the caption "dramatic getaways", an ax with the caption "brutal murders", a swamp with the caption "shocking crimes", a portrait of an angry old woman with the caption "vengeful spirits", a burning doorframe with the caption "burning passions", and an evil looking man with the caption "dangerous psychopaths". Another caption on its own reads "a paranormal historical police procedural with a cozy, spooky atmosphere." The books are set in Ontario, Canada, in the 1930s and are available on Amazon.
January 15, 2025 at 8:29 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Chosen at random, a book from the Joel Franklin Mystery series. Where's the Rest of the Body? (no. 2 in the series) is set in Chaseford just before a young Joel Franklin joins the police force. Frozen body parts are turning up in the snow outside Chaseford. Chilling winter reading!

#mysterybooks
The cover for the second volume of the Joel Franklin Mystery series, Where's the Rest of the Body? by Ron Finch, with the tagline "The dead can't rest in pieces." Shows a snowy forest and snow-covered field with a mysterious wooden shed to one side. Set during the winter and spring of 1932 and 1933.
January 11, 2025 at 5:05 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
One Man Left is the latest book in the Joel Franklin Mystery series. Joel is a detective for the London Police Force with a gift for communicating with the dead. The series is set in the 1920s-1930s in Ontario, Canada. A historical, paranormal police procedural!

www.amazon.ca/One-Man-Left...
One Man Left, volume 12 in the Joel Franklin Mystery series. A bloody planchette on a bloody Ouija board with the tagline "Partners in crime, in life and in death." Set in early summer 1939.
December 18, 2024 at 12:34 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
“Carpetbagger” is a US slur directed at Northerners who came south seeking opportunities during Reconstruction (1865-77). It refers to the cheap fabric of the bag they brought with them, which contained everything they owned. Now extended to any outsider bent on exploitation.

#historical #idioms
A Harper's Weekly cartoon from 1872 showing a vicious-looking man carrying a large bag on his back and another smaller bag his hand as he walks toward a crowd of downcast faceless people. The caption reads: "The man with the (carpet) bags. The bag in front of him, filled with others' faults, he always sees. The one behind him, filled with his own faults, he never sees."
December 9, 2024 at 11:46 PM
dwfinch.bsky.social
"Stool pigeon," to refer to a police informer, goes all the way back to 1859, which makes it almost as old as policing itself. Good to know if you write historical police procedurals! It most likely comes from the practice of using pigeons as lures for attracting other birds.

#historical #idioms
A black and white photograph of several carrier pigeons perched on ledges in a pigeon coop. Date: 1904.
December 9, 2024 at 12:26 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
In 1859 Albert Niemann isolated and purified cocaine from coca leaves. It was used as a local anaesthetic in the Victorian era. “Cokehead,” used to refer to a cocaine addict, was coined by the sociologist Nels Anderson in 1923. The term became mainstream in the 1980s.

#historical #idioms
An advertisement for Cocaine Toothache Drops from 1885. Two happy, smiling children are making a little wooden house out of sticks in their backyard. The drops are 15 cents.
December 7, 2024 at 4:13 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Dr. Shitz and the Wayward Ghost is set in the 1920s and is a sort of comedy-horror with a paranormal protagonist. It's full of crazy hijinks. I'm currently doing the edits for the second book, which will hopefully be out early in 2025. (Ron's my dad, I'm his editor and run his social media.)
Cover for the comedy-horror book Dr. Shitz and the Wayward Ghost. A portrait of Dr. Shitz with a ghostly man in the background, a ghostly bat overhead, and coloured glowing orbs in the foreground.
December 7, 2024 at 3:43 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
"Adrenaline junkie,” referring to a person who is addicted to excitement, goes back to a 1976 interview in the Los Angeles times. In the 80s it was still getting air quotes and appeared most often in sports magazines and clinical literature. It became mainstream in the late 90s.

#historical #idioms
A lean, muscular shirtless man scales a sheer cliff face with his bare hands.
December 5, 2024 at 4:46 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
The origin of “cold turkey” is up for debate (though I like the idea that it refers to serving unwanted guests cold turkey instead of a fancy dinner to get them out of the house). Its more familiar sense of “quitting a bad habit abruptly” is probably no earlier than about 1920.

#historical #idioms
Black and white woodcut image of a turkey from 1678.
November 29, 2024 at 3:05 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
The expression “phone it in” isn’t as old as the telephone, but it’s close. Bell patented the phone in 1876, and by the 1910s people were using the expression literally. It didn’t acquire its idiomatic meaning of “giving a lackluster performance” until much later, by the 1950s.

#historical #idioms
A black and white photo of a very old fashioned telephone from 1896.
November 28, 2024 at 7:49 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
“Martian” goes back to the Roman god Mars to signify “warlike.” The earliest recorded use as “an inhabitant of the planet Mars” is Motley’s Historic Progress & American Democracy in 1868. Popularized by H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds in 1898, its heyday came with 1950s B-movies.

#historical #idioms
Illustration from the 1927 Amazing Stories reprint of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. Two slug-like aliens with bulging eyes, beaks, and tentacles are shown emerging from a fallen spacecraft inside a crater while humans look on in horror.
November 21, 2024 at 7:31 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
“Loose cannon” dates to when ships tied their cannons down to keep them from damaging the ship or hurting people. Its figurative meaning, “a dangerously unpredictable person,” first appeared in the Galveston Daily News in 1889, but the term wasn't popular until the 1960s.

#historical #idioms
A row of cannons tied up on the frigate the Medusa with sailors in the background. Black and white etching from 1816.
November 19, 2024 at 3:36 AM
dwfinch.bsky.social
Dr. Shitz and the Time Machine, the second book in the Dr. Shitz series (a paranormal historical comedy). Hoping to finish the edits and get it released by the end of the year.
The cover for Dr. Shitz and the Time Machine, by Ron Finch. A dizzying spiral of an old analog clock face with various images overlaid on top, including several Dr. Shitzes, some muffins, a crow, a dinosaur, and a zeppelin. The tagline reads: "The greatest project of all time is rapidly running out of it."
November 18, 2024 at 3:54 AM