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Charlie Noble Mystery #1
Red Herring
When an ex-Coast Guard officer, turned private investigator, searches for a man most believe is behind a plot to bomb an oil refinery, he steps into a dangerous web of intrigue involving corporate greed, Homeland Security, and murder. Honor, courage, and determination help him unravel the truth.
- GenresMystery
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
27 people want to read
About the author
Clyde W. Ford
20 books32 followersClyde W. Ford is a software engineer, a chiropractor, and a psychotherapist. He’s also the award-winning author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction, whose most recent book, THINK BLACK: A Memoir will be published in September 2019 by Amistad/HarperCollins.
Clyde W. Ford earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Mathematics from Wesleyan University in 1971, then worked as a systems engineer for IBM. In 1977, he returned to school, enrolling at Western States University in Portland, Oregon, where he completed his Doctorate in Chiropractic. Later, he undertook post-doctoral training in psychotherapy at the Synthesis Education Foundation of Massachusetts, under the direction of Steven Schatz, and the Psychosynthesis Institute of New York. Ford was in private practice as a chiropractor and psychotherapist, first in Richmond, Virginia, and later in Bellingham, Washington.
At sixteen, Ford traveled to West Africa in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, attempting to come to terms with the tragedy. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, “The young man traveled alone that summer to the Elmina slave portal, on the continent’s west coast, and heard voices in a mystical experience that permanently marked him.” Looking back on the event more than 20 years later, Ford told the Plain Dealer, “The meaning of my own life is based in the meaning of those who have gone before. The ancestors are there, still informing, still influencing us.”
BODY-MIND HEALING
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Clyde wrote about body-mind healing; in the mid-1990s he concentrated on the healing of racial wounds; and in 2000, he wrote about mythology, and how myths could heal psychic wounds. Besides exploring healing issues in books and on the lecture circuit, he has conducted seminars and written numerous articles for Massage Magazine, Massage Therapy Journal, and Chiropractic Economics. In 1991 East West Magazine recognized Ford’s work in somatic therapy as one of the 20 trends reshaping society. Linda Elliot and Mark Mayell in East West Magazine described Ford as “an ‘engineer’ who’s building a bridge across the chasm that separates practitioners who focus only on body structures and those who concentrate specifically on the psyche.” From 1992 to 1996 Ford regularly taught somatic psychology at the Institut fur Angewandte Kinesiologie in Freiburg, Germany.
In 1989 Ford wrote his first book, Where Healing Waters Meet, about his many years of experience working with the healing of emotional wounds through touch and movement therapy, rather than talk therapy. That was followed in 1993 by Compassionate Touch, a book which amplified these themes and documented Ford’s work with adult survivors of sexual abuse, mainly women.
RACIAL HEALING
The riots and racial divisiveness in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict in 1992 left Ford feeling frustrated. After speaking to a number of friends who shared his frustration, he decided to write a book about social justice and racial healing. “When we’re dealing with an issue like racism,” Ford told Karen Abbott in the Rocky Mountain News, “So many people feel it’s a daunting issue and that they can’t do anything. A certain paralysis sets in. But anybody and everybody can make a difference.” While Ford remained optimistic, he also admitted that the roots of racial discord run deep. “It’s really not just African American’s place to deal with that,” he told Linda Richards in January Magazine. “We have in our history our own reckoning with that process. But the entire society needs to reckon with that.”
In 1994 Ford completed We Can All Get Along: 50 Steps You Can Take to Help End Racism. “Racism is a social issue,” Ford told Cynthia M. Hodnett in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It is important to look beneath the surface to find out what the issues are that need to be addressed.” Ford realized that many people were
Clyde W. Ford earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Mathematics from Wesleyan University in 1971, then worked as a systems engineer for IBM. In 1977, he returned to school, enrolling at Western States University in Portland, Oregon, where he completed his Doctorate in Chiropractic. Later, he undertook post-doctoral training in psychotherapy at the Synthesis Education Foundation of Massachusetts, under the direction of Steven Schatz, and the Psychosynthesis Institute of New York. Ford was in private practice as a chiropractor and psychotherapist, first in Richmond, Virginia, and later in Bellingham, Washington.
At sixteen, Ford traveled to West Africa in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, attempting to come to terms with the tragedy. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, “The young man traveled alone that summer to the Elmina slave portal, on the continent’s west coast, and heard voices in a mystical experience that permanently marked him.” Looking back on the event more than 20 years later, Ford told the Plain Dealer, “The meaning of my own life is based in the meaning of those who have gone before. The ancestors are there, still informing, still influencing us.”
BODY-MIND HEALING
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Clyde wrote about body-mind healing; in the mid-1990s he concentrated on the healing of racial wounds; and in 2000, he wrote about mythology, and how myths could heal psychic wounds. Besides exploring healing issues in books and on the lecture circuit, he has conducted seminars and written numerous articles for Massage Magazine, Massage Therapy Journal, and Chiropractic Economics. In 1991 East West Magazine recognized Ford’s work in somatic therapy as one of the 20 trends reshaping society. Linda Elliot and Mark Mayell in East West Magazine described Ford as “an ‘engineer’ who’s building a bridge across the chasm that separates practitioners who focus only on body structures and those who concentrate specifically on the psyche.” From 1992 to 1996 Ford regularly taught somatic psychology at the Institut fur Angewandte Kinesiologie in Freiburg, Germany.
In 1989 Ford wrote his first book, Where Healing Waters Meet, about his many years of experience working with the healing of emotional wounds through touch and movement therapy, rather than talk therapy. That was followed in 1993 by Compassionate Touch, a book which amplified these themes and documented Ford’s work with adult survivors of sexual abuse, mainly women.
RACIAL HEALING
The riots and racial divisiveness in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict in 1992 left Ford feeling frustrated. After speaking to a number of friends who shared his frustration, he decided to write a book about social justice and racial healing. “When we’re dealing with an issue like racism,” Ford told Karen Abbott in the Rocky Mountain News, “So many people feel it’s a daunting issue and that they can’t do anything. A certain paralysis sets in. But anybody and everybody can make a difference.” While Ford remained optimistic, he also admitted that the roots of racial discord run deep. “It’s really not just African American’s place to deal with that,” he told Linda Richards in January Magazine. “We have in our history our own reckoning with that process. But the entire society needs to reckon with that.”
In 1994 Ford completed We Can All Get Along: 50 Steps You Can Take to Help End Racism. “Racism is a social issue,” Ford told Cynthia M. Hodnett in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It is important to look beneath the surface to find out what the issues are that need to be addressed.” Ford realized that many people were
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 4, 2023
Of most interest to me was the setting of the book, having been a liveaboard cruising these waters for 12 years.
February 11, 2009
Charlie Noble is a retired Coast Guard officer who sets up in Bellingham, WA as a PI and immediately gets involved in a complicated case of environmental terrorism. Charlie lives on his boat, has been a widower for five years. But within the length of a few chapters Charlie is involved with a white Fairhaven art gallery owner, a black journalist and a half Indian Coast Guard officer. He also gets shot at multiple times, is chased in a kayak by some mercenary ex-Navy Seals, drives to Seattle two or three times, walks to Fairhaven multiple times, drives to Anacortes via Chuckanut Drive (the long way) twice, makes friends on normally unfriendly Waldron Island, spots whales from Orcas and cruises up Hale's Passage past our house. Charlie is an African American who loves to have breakfast at the Old Town Cafe and eats there so often that the waiter knows he likes either A or B. At one point, while at the Old Town, Charlie spots another African American fellow who is working on a manuscript. He's heard that this fellow lives aboard his boat as well and makes a note to himself to make his acquaintance. Kind of cute having the character run into the author at his favorite watering hole. Clyde Ford http://www.clydeford.com/ the author has a very interesting web site which includes a twenty two minute film promoting his second Charlie Noble novel Precious Cargo. It also appears that Clyde has moved up from possibly being a self-publisher to having Vanguard print his next book. I admire his promotional abilities. Worth reading for the San Juan Islands locale and for the cruising and marina life descriptions. He's not a A lister but quite readable.
January 28, 2012
“Red Herring” is a mystery with a maritime theme set in and around Bellingham, Washington and the nearby San Juan Islands featuring former Coast Guard Commander turned P.I., Charlie Noble. Noble is hired to locate a missing professor of environmental science. The professor’s boat had been found without him in it, running on autopilot, loaded with explosives and aimed at an oil refinery dock. Charlie finds himself in the middle of a complicated situation that everyone seems to want him not to look into. He has to deal with an alphabet soup of federal agencies, a fringe environmental group and his former compatriots at the Coast Guard while piecing together what happened to the professor and why.
I found the action part of the plot first rate and the descriptions of all of nautical details well done, but the social interactions seemed less real. The secondary characters were a little too one dimensional. A bonus for me while reading this novel was my familiarity with the places in it, I know Bellingham well. (I even worked at one of the restaurants many years ago.)
I found the action part of the plot first rate and the descriptions of all of nautical details well done, but the social interactions seemed less real. The secondary characters were a little too one dimensional. A bonus for me while reading this novel was my familiarity with the places in it, I know Bellingham well. (I even worked at one of the restaurants many years ago.)
February 19, 2014
The Bellingham area background was an enjoyable part of this book. Bellingham Station is an outstanding facility and our USCG is most appreciated. I look forward to upcoming books in this series. I would like to see a movie production with Mr. Morgan Freeman as Charlie Noble.
November 9, 2009
nautical setting in San Juans/Bellingham is fun.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews