The Styx (42 page)

Since 2005, King has published his fifth and sixth Max Freeman novels,
Acts of Nature
(2007), about a hurricane that puts Max and his girlfriend at the mercy of some of the Everglades’ most menacing criminals, and
Midnight Guardians
(2010), which features the dangerous reemergence of a drug kingpin from Max’s past. He has also published the stand-alone thriller
Eye of Vengeance
(2007), about a military-trained sniper who targets the criminals that a particular journalist has covered as a crime reporter. In 2009, King published the historical novel
The Styx
, which tells the story of a Palm Beach hotel at the turn of the twentieth century and the nearby community’s black hotel employees whose homes were burned to the ground amid the violent racism of the time.

King currently lives in southeast Florida, where he writes, canoes, and explores the Everglades regularly.

Jonathon King playing basketball for his high school team, the Waverly Warriors, in Lansing, Michigan, in 1972.

King’s yearbook photo from his senior year of high school in 1972.

For seven summers, from 1974 to 1980, King was a lifeguard in Ocean City, New Jersey. He’s shown here in 1974 or 1975 with his best friend and fellow lifeguard, Scott Erb.

In 1976, King worked as part of a crew hired by boat owners to deliver sailboats from New Jersey to Florida at the end of the summer. He’s shown here sailing a forty-foot vessel down the coast.

King’s children, Jessica and Adam, at ages ten and eight, respectively, with the mascot of the University of Florida in Gainesville in 2003.

A handwritten manuscript page from King’s debut novel,
The Blue Edge of Midnight
. Worried that his years as a reporter would make it difficult to write thoughtfully using a keyboard, King wrote his first two books with pencil on legal pads to avoid sounding like a journalist.

King’s Edgar Award for the Best First Mystery Novel by an American Author, which he won in 2002 for
The Blue Edge of Midnight
, the debut book in the Max Freeman series. The Edgars, which are given annually by the Mystery Writers of America, are considered the most prestigious awards in the mystery genre.

King stands inside of Kim’s Alley Bar, one of the oldest taverns in Ft. Lauderdale. Several scenes in the Max Freeman series take place here, particularly in
A Killing Night
, in which Max investigates the abductions of several bartenders. An actual bartender from Kim’s Alley even made an appearance in the book.

King at an isolated fishing camp in the middle of the Florida Everglades.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 2009 by Jonathon King

cover design by ORIM

ISBN: 978-1-4532-9974-6

This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com