Ron Finch Books
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dwfinch.bsky.social
Ron Finch Books
@dwfinch.bsky.social
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.)
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
August 29, 2025 at 12:23 AM
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
July 31, 2025 at 6:18 AM
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
July 24, 2025 at 3:03 AM
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
May 18, 2025 at 12:08 AM
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
April 11, 2025 at 12:16 AM
“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
April 9, 2025 at 6:47 AM
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
March 28, 2025 at 11:37 PM
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
March 21, 2025 at 11:09 PM
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
February 24, 2025 at 12:45 AM
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
February 22, 2025 at 1:13 AM
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
January 30, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Been working on the maps for my dad's new book, Dr. Shitz and the Time Machine.

#historicalfiction #maps
January 23, 2025 at 3:31 AM
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
January 15, 2025 at 8:29 AM
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
January 11, 2025 at 5:05 AM
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...
December 18, 2024 at 12:34 AM
“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
December 9, 2024 at 11:46 PM
"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
December 9, 2024 at 12:26 AM
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
December 7, 2024 at 4:13 AM
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.)
December 7, 2024 at 3:43 AM
"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
December 5, 2024 at 4:46 AM
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
November 29, 2024 at 3:05 AM
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
November 28, 2024 at 7:49 AM
“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
November 21, 2024 at 7:31 AM
“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
November 19, 2024 at 3:36 AM
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.
November 18, 2024 at 3:54 AM