The FAKE NEWS Mysteries

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American Fascism available now

June 1, 2021

What is the real story behind events on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021? What is Donald Trump’s legacy? What lessons were learned by his most extreme supporters after the president of the United States refused to acknowledge losing the election to Joe Biden? Is fascism coming? What exactly would an American fascism look like? It’s all a mystery. Or at least some answers to these questions can be found in one, the fourth mystery in the FAKE NEWS series. American Fascism attempts to answer important questions in an easy to read, exciting, fast-paced, thrilling story that is also an intellectual…

Top 10 Signs of Looming Fascism

June 8, 2021

While spending some rather unpleasant months writing about fascists as fictional characters in a new mystery novel, American Fascism, it was necessary to get inside their heads, to imagine how people with their understanding of the world might react to certain events. The book ends when Donald Trump is no longer president, but the threat to democracy remains real. Informed by the research that went into the novel, I’ve come up with a quick fascism worry checklist. Consider this penance for trying to write believable (and therefore somewhat sympathetic) extreme right-wing characters. It is based on a definition (see below…

Latest novel aims to create anti-fascist movement

June 1, 2021

Publishing a novel only a few months after events portrayed in the book would have been “extremely difficult, if not impossible” through normal channels says the author of American Fascism, a mystery that takes place during the period from the 2020 presidential election through to Joe Biden’s inauguration. “Really the only way to do an ‘instant novel’ like this was to do it all myself,” says Gary Engler, who wrote, edited, and designed the interior of the fourth book in the FAKE NEWS series. “Fortunately, I have the skill set because of my background in newspapers and book publishing.” Engler says…

Proceeds from new book to support independent media

Proceeds from new book to support independent media

May 17, 2021

Every purchase of the new mystery novel American Fascism will result in a donation to media sites that expose the far right, said author Gary Engler. “Two dollars from every eBook and a dollar from every paperback purchased on Amazon will be donated to websites such as The Intercept, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Ricochet, Passage, The Tyee and others,” said Engler, who was a B.C. Media Union (Unifor Local 2000) elected representative, as well as a long-time journalist at the Vancouver Sun. “It’s so important to shine a light on fascists, racists, misogynists and other elements of the extreme right. As was evident from events of January 6, 2021,…

Origin story of FAKE NEWS mysteries a road trip into heart of Donald Trump darkness

Origin story of FAKE NEWS mysteries a road trip into heart of Donald Trump darkness

September 9, 2019

The future of journalism, a potential buyout and asking Americans what they see in Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are top of Waylon Choy’s mind as he takes two former Vancouver Sun newsroom colleagues on what he thinks will be a short spin in his restored 1965 AMC Ambassador 990 convertible across the border into the United States. While Choy likes his job as a features writer, newspapers across North America are shrinking or closing, he has been offered $150,000 to quit and wants to discuss career options with his friends, one of whom now teaches journalism and the other…

Second in series about a journalist risking his life to report the truth

Second in series about a journalist risking his life to report the truth

September 9, 2019

What would you do if you found a person dead from a drug overdose while you were out jogging in your neighbourhood? And nobody could tell you her real name or where she came from? If you are freelance journalist Waylon Choy, you use your decades of experience as a reporter to interview people and chase down leads to write the story of one of the tens of thousands of people who die every year in North America’s opioid epidemic.

Third in series asks: Is misogyny the original fascism?

Third in series asks: Is misogyny the original fascism?

September 9, 2019

In Misogyny, the third book of the FAKE NEWS Mystery series, Waylon Choy must make another road trip to solve a crime for which he feels personally responsible. Everything about the trip to Calgary makes him guilty, leaving his children, spending time with his children rather than assisting a young woman who came to him for help, even his means of transportation, a restored 1965 AMC convertible, which as his daughter so forcefully, and correctly, points out, spews carbon into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global warming.

Author a truck driver, millwright, marine engineer before becoming journalist

Author a truck driver, millwright, marine engineer before becoming journalist

September 9, 2019

The author of the FAKE NEWS series, about a journalist trying to uphold the principles of his craft in the era of Donald Trump, says his “strange” background compels him to write stories that are both entertaining and thought provoking. “I was a playwright who specialized in comedy before I became a journalist,” says Gary Engler. “I really enjoyed sitting in the theatre listening to an audience laugh and have a good time. So entertaining readers has always been a priority.” “But then there’s always been a serious side to my work and I think that comes from my time…

Series strives to be thrilling, entertaining, informative

Series strives to be thrilling, entertaining, informative

September 9, 2019

Even serious people who understand the need to change the world need entertaining, compelling page turners to enjoy reading during their down time, says the author of the FAKE NEWS series which is set in an era of resurgent right wing extremism, growing economic inequality, disappearing jobs for journalists and a U.S. president who constantly attacks the media. “I wrote the four books to be both entertaining and informative,” says Gary Engler, a former journalist at one of Canada’s largest daily newspapers. “We live in a time where knowing what is going on in the world is more important than…

FAKE NEWS media veteran confesses to a left wing bias

FAKE NEWS media veteran confesses to a left wing bias

September 9, 2019

Donald Trump was right about at least one thing, says the author of a mystery/thriller series that explores journalism, politics and murder in the era of a president who constantly tweeted “FAKE NEWS”. “Of course the media has a liberal bias,” says Gary Engler “Especially when you define believing in verifiable truth as ‘liberal’.” Trump built a coalition of “Bible literalists, climate change deniers who trust oil billionaire-funded propaganda over science, grumpy old white men who listen to too much talk radio and white nationalists who want to make America great again and for them that means the 1860 Confederate…