Local Historian Enters the World of Fiction

By Barbara A. Preston | Posted May 25, 2023

Many locals will know David Cochran for his history blog “Blawenburg Tales.” Others will remember him as an upbeat, innovative educator who worked in the Montgomery Township School District as a high school vice principal, teacher, and in other roles.

At age 79, Cochran has produced and published his first work of fiction in the comedy murder-mystery genre. It’s titled “Where Are They? The Missing Men from Marlowe Mansion.”

Blawenburg resident David Cochran is the author of a new fiction book. Photo by Jeff Knol.

The book, available at Barnes & Noble and on Amazon, blends a cozy mystery with humorous incidents and comical dialog. It is a quick-read with many twists and turns that keeps readers guessing “whodunnit” right to the end of the story.

The plot: Three men associated with the fictional Marlowe Mansion, a large Victorian home surrounded by farmland just outside the small made-up town of Stillwell, disappeared and have not been seen since.

Retired detective Harvey Hawkshaw, now a private investigator, teams up with a dude named Flywheel to solve the 20-year-old cold case — to find what happened to the missing men for a $150,000 reward.

About Dave Cochran

Cochran has been a writer and educator most of his life, beginning as the sports editor for his Ocean City High School newspaper, The Billows, and then as an editor of the Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) newspaper, The Signal.

As an educator, mostly in the Montgomery Township School District, he was a teacher (grades 4-8), a middle school supervisor, high school vice principal, K-12 director of math, science, and technology, and a community school director. He also has worked in Hopewell Elementary School and the Lawrence Township Intermediate School.

And, he owned three publishing companies — Fruition Publications, HyperMedia Associates, and Daval Publications. He completed three books with Fruition, 30 newsletters with HyperMedia, and 60 publications with Daval, he told The Montgomery News.

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“I’ve also had several books on educational technology published by Southwestern and McGraw Hill,” he says. “And, I’ve had lots of articles published in educational journals.”

In 2015, he published “Stuff: Ajax Bigelow’s Science Journal” on Amazon about a boy who doesn’t like science, but must write a science journal for his science teacher.

“My blog, Tales of Blawenburg, was swirling around in my head for years,” says Cochran, who has lived in an old house in Blawenburg for almost 50 years.

“I learned more about Blawenburg by writing the latest two versions of the history of Blawenburg Reformed Church.”

“As you can see, I like to write,” he says. ■

Where Are They? The Missing Men from Marlowe Mansion

302 pages, Paperback

Published March 6, 2023

Learn more about Cochran’s book at www.dcochran.net.

Tales of Blawenburg

www.blawenburgtales.com ■