Viking It Is

A North Dakota town digs into its Scandinavian roots. Did Vikings make it all the way to the center of the continent in Medieval times? The Sakakawea County Historical Society seeks to find out. Meanwhile an enigmatic and rather obnoxious stranger comes to town and vanishes without a trace, leaving behind a vintage car and an unused motel room. Is there a connection to the archaeological dig? Is it murder--or what? Small town merchant-turned-amateur-detective Will Nickerson looks for the answer--along with his fellow townsfolk of New Oslo, ND and a host of intriguing visitors, including a beautiful and alluring traveling saleswoman, Alison Parshall. Viking It Is is a complex mystery, packed with twists and turns, subplots, surprise and shock, plus a touch of romance and an occasional bit of humor in R. L. Anderson's third novel.
About the Author: I am currently living in my home state of Ohio, but have spent considerable time in the western states, including having owned a North Dakota cattle ranch, which was a major inspiration for my first novel, Ranch Park. I am also intimately familiar with the Allegheny Mountains region of northern Pennsylvania, which was my father's boyhood home and inspired the setting for my second novel, It's A Place For Trees. My third novel, Viking It Is, returns to North Dakota with a mystery set in a fictional small town that is representative of the typical kind of towns found on the prairies--the kind of towns that are becoming increasingly hard to find in our fast paced and impersonal high tech world. Unlike many contemporary American mysteries, I choose to write my stories with rural and small town settings, and hope the kind of lifestyles these places offer will live on for a long time yet. Many authors are in love with their hometowns and write their stories about the places they call home; however, I find it much more fun to write about places where I have had great vacations or other "getaways"--so instead of writing about Ohio, I like to write about places like North Dakota and neighboring Canada and Ohio's neighbor state of Pennsylvania--and look for visits to Wyoming and Montana in future installments of the Will Nickerson Mysteries series. In addition to fiction writing, I am a small businessman, myself, like my fictional character Will Nickerson. In addition to operating an office equipment business, I am a sheep shearer and hope soon to get back into cattle ranching with the eventual goal of opening an agritourism operation. I enjoy a wide variety of activities, including hiking, cycling, horseback riding, sailing, skiing, swimming, photography, reading, gourmet cooking, gardening, foreign language studies and travel. I have traveled extensively in the US and Canada and have visited Australia, New Zealand and six European countries. I have three novels published on Kindle: Ranch Park, It's A Place For Trees and Viking It Is, and Createspace editions are new for 2013. I have a fourth novel in the works, with more in the planning stage.