Bob Martel brings his past as a Mathematician, Financial Consultant, Community Organizer, Journalist, Publisher, and Private Investigator into his novels. Black Mariah is the first of his twelve novels to be published. The Next Big Idea and Nobody are also available.

Black Mariah, based on the Northcoast in the late 1980’s, is the story leading to the bombing of two activists and ends seeking the Lord’s Avenger whose identity becomes a real-life puzzle waiting for a solution.

Martel was a community organizer and journalist on the Northcoast from the late 70’s until the turn of the century. He brought with him his experience with the United Farm Workers, the American Indian Movement and various antiwar, environmental and civil rights struggles. He helped organize a large and successful labor strike of farm workers and assisted in organizing the successful defense of two Native American activists Paul Skyhorse and Richard Mohawk framed by the FBI and CIA for a political murder.

Once in Humboldt, he and his new friends formed a labor-environmentalist community to help timber and lumber workers who were the economic victims of a recession and a timber ownership realignment following the establishment of the Redwood National Park.

He co-published Hard Times in Humboldt County, The Country Activist and Voices of Humboldt County over a ten year period.

The takeover of Pacific Lumber Co. in late 1985 brought him into contact with an old college friend and the attorney for a major PL shareholder Woody Murphy. It was this relationship that brought him into the treasure chest of information acquired during the In Re: Boesky cases. The research and investigations led to many of the theories expressed herein.

He helped bring a heightened awareness of the power of civil disobedience to Northcoast politics. His efforts made Humboldt County a Nuke Free Zone, and an anti-offshore oil haven. He and his friends created Forests Forever, the Trees foundation, the Humboldt Watershed Council, Salmon Forever and the Humboldt Legal Foundation before he moved to a community farm in Northern Michigan.