From Mongolia to Milton, via Hong Kong
Christiansen’s first novel is making its way from Asia to America.
MILTON TOWNSHIP – Scott Christiansen thinks bad food caused him to wake up in the middle of the night several years ago from a deep sleep in a “ger,” a Mongolian round tent. The plot for the novel he had promised himself he would write before he was 40 came to him in that instant.
The novel, combining knowledge he had gained from his years of working in Mongolia and Hong Kong and his familiarity with Boston, has just been published.
“The Mongolian Connection” is a murder mystery featuring an Amish-type Boston detective who gets caught up in international intrigue that brings him to the remote central Asian country.
“I had the whole novel plotted out right after I awoke,” he said.
Before he left Asia two years ago, he had finished the first draft and had it accepted by a publisher, Sheuing Wan of Hong Kong. The 400-page, soft-cover novel is being distributed by New York-based Weatherhill Publishing.
Copies are available at the public libraries in Rumford and Mexico, and at Mill View Bookstore in Mexico. Because of its Hong Kong publication site, the book will first be for sale in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Wider distribution should begin around Christmas when Christiansen expects it will be listed on the Amazon site.
“I get a kick out of knowing it’s for sale in many parts of the world,” he said.
Although it’s his first novel, it’s far from his first venture into writing.
Christiansen, the River Valley’s economic developer, has been writing since he was a college student in his home state of California. He’s written plays, articles for Reader’s Digest, several business journals and for the Adventist Review.
But writing novels is what he really enjoys.
“They get me hooked. The writing is fun and I start thinking of stories in huge formats,” he said.
He’s already at work on his next, not one, but four novels he visualizes being set in western Maine.
The first, with a working title of “North of Peru, West of Mexico,” is set on a fictional section of South Rumford Road. He has the first four chapters written and the entire novel plotted out.
The amateur detective in this novel, and planned for the next three, is a land surveyor .
“They are fascinating people who get to see a lot of things,” he said as he described his main character. “He has a lot of qualities like personal integrity and an outdoor life that I see in Mainers.”
His sidekick, however, is a bit on the seamy side. But Christiansen said that none of the characters are based on any specific person or people. Instead, they are compilations of people.
“I would hope after people read these books they will want to visit western Maine. It’s not a tour guide, but I live in a state and a community that is really neat – a lot of neat people, some not so neat. It’s a beautiful place,” he said.
With four children, restoration of an older home in East Milton, and a full-time job, Christiansen expects his first River Valley-based novel to take a couple of years before it is in print.
But by time it is, the second one will be well under way.
“Determining you are going to do it, then doing it is its own reward,” he said.
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