HELL & GONE - Duane Swierczynski

First line: "Julie Lippman woke up early the day her boyfriend died."

At the conclusion of FUN & GAMES Charlie Hardie, a professional housesitter, was seriously injured and being kidnapped in an ambulance. HELL & GONE, the second installment of Duane Swierczynski's trilogy finds Charlie Hardie mostly recovered and in a seemingly inescapable, underground prison. However, instead of being an inmate, he's the warden.  The prison guards almost equal the inmates in number, the inmates who are "the most dangerous criminals in the world." The longer Charlie is in the prison, the more he wonders how dangerous these criminals truly are, but it's this curiosity that leads Charlie into trouble, trouble that may mean bad things for his family.

Pete Larkin returns as the narrator of Charlie Hardie's new caper, and that means only good things for HELL & GONE. Larkin seems to share a kindred spirit with Hardy, a spirit that brings a rare richness to the listening experience. Swierczynski has written a unique novel blending the comic book action hero with noir and thriller and just a twist of mystery to shake things up. Larkin keeps pace at every turn, convincingly expressing disbelief at the absurd, fury at the unjust, sarcasm at, well, the world.

All the strengths of FUN & GAMES are present in HELL & GONE without simply writing a formulaic sequel. Swierczynski brings innovative plotting, fresh characters and constant action. Larkin, for his part, gives voice to the world Swiercacynski has created. The pair have produced a story experience unlike any other.

I have the utmost respect for those writers who can coax me out of my reading comfort zone and entice me with a style I'd usually dismiss. There are elements of the absurd in HELL & GONE, but they've been written in such a way as to provide entertainment in the midst of considerable action and drama. The unquestionable devotion Hardie has for his family and remorse he carries for his former partner build a credible Everyman. And we can't help but want to cheer him on to victory.

It remains to be see if Hardie will pull a complete victory out of his hat. We'll have to wait for the final part of Swierczynski's trilogy. The ultimate winners, however, are the readers and listeners. As an audio performance, this is the "perfect storm": a great story partnered with the perfect narrator, produced flawlessly. These audiobooks will top my favorites list for 2011.

HELL & GONE is available today from Mulholland Books in trade paper (ISBN: 978-0316133296)  and from Hachette Audio in downloadable mp3 (ISBN: 978-1611139310).

SCARY GODMOTHER - Jill Thompson

Awhile back I started talking about this book and promised a review of it, what better time than Halloween season? Bear with me as I'm not accustomed to reviewing graphic novels, but here goes!

SCARY GODMOTHER is the first of two Scary Godmother collections by multi-Eisner Award-winning illustrator Jill Thompson. This first collection includes: "The Scary Godmother," "The Revenge of Jimmy," "The Mystery Date," "The Boo Flu," "Tea for Orson," and as a special bonus at the end, there's some additional art. The collection is labeled as a children's fiction/fantasy book, but I spent literally hours pouring over the pages and enjoying both the stories and the art.

Thompson touches on topics that affect nearly everyone at some point in their lives: fears, being left out, bullies. The stories are fun and uplifting; readers will be able to identify themselves, their children, their friends in the characters - both human and monster!

The writing is both poetic and playful:

'She's cookin' up potions and bottling frights! Capturin' shrieks an' paintin' clouds into the night! An' when every autumn leaf is crisped, and shivers chill your bones - she gathers up the Boozle, 'cause their work has just begun!' ("The Revenge of Jimmy")

From alliteration to metaphor to rhyme, Thompson paints as magically with her words as she does with her colors:

With time running out, and so much at stake, she didn't have time for her unionized breaks! It's hard to eat sandwiches by the light of the moon...or sip slurps of soup while you're riding a broom! ("The Boo Flu")

Nature is personified page after page:

Thunder rumbled in the inky clouds that hung in the Fright Side sky. BOOM HOO HOO! The sky sobbed furiously - casting down sheets of stormy tears! ("The Revenge of Jimmy")

There's a combination of narrative and illustrated dialogue bubbles to tell the stories. Within the illustrated dialogue bubbles, Thompson develops character through word choice; style and weight of lettering - I love that the spider speaks in cursive - and dialect, "What 'choo talkin' 'bout, Hannah?"

It's hard for me to say whether the art or the language is my favorite element of this collection. They are both so vivid and brilliant and make the stories come alive on the page.

The full-color comic sheets of this book are spectacular. The attention to detail makes for literally hours of entertainment as the reader makes out bone curlers and boo-tifying cream, a seat-belted broom, the grade on a discarded school paper amidst a mountain of mess in a young boys bedroom. And one of the most endearing features? Thompson's resemblance to her Spooky Godmother.

This beautifully bound collection is over 200 pages of smiles and laughs and heart-warming fun. It will provide young and old alike with hours of entertainment and some very sore smiling muscles.

SCARY GODMOTHER is available in hardcover from Dark Horse Books (ISBN: 978-1-59582-589-6)

A Few Fun Items to Share

I have a few fun items to throw out for you all, in case you haven't seen them elsewhere.

We're hearing a lot of depressing news about the publishing industry so it's always nice to hear optimistic news. One such tidbit is the launch of MysteriousPress.com. MysteriousPress.com in partnership with Open Road Integrated Media is going to "digitize classic works of crime, mystery and suspense fiction by the most distinguished crime writers in the world." To kick off the launch, MysteriousPress.com is hosting a contest. If you follow them on Twitter (@eMysteries) you're entered to win three free eBooks in the format of your choice. The books include: The City When It Rains (Thomas H. Cook), Rilke on Black (Ken Bruen) and The Mordida Man by Ross Thomas. You need to be following @eMysteries before November 2nd to be eligible.

You can also follow the MysteriousPress.com blog at their website.

Ken Bruen is among writers on the Mysterious Press docket and he happens to be blogging now. Love what he had to say about Craig McDonald!  

Another fun tidbit from publishing is the announcement of Dennis Lehane's imprint with William Morrow.

And since there are so many publishing opportunities opening up for crime fiction, we need crime fiction writers, correct? Well then it is a good thing that the Center for Fiction is debuting a Crime Fiction Academy in February! The Academy will hold classes in Manhattan and will include instructors such as Dennis Lehane (wait, when is this man going to be writing???), Megan Abbott, Linda Fairstein, Laura Lippman, Lee Child and others. While I don't have a burning desire to write, I'd love to sit in on the classes just to see what goes on. I'm sure it's a fascinating experience. If any one of you enroll and take the classes, let's talk so I can interview you about your experience. I'll see Megan Abbott in Muskego in a few weeks so I'll get more of the lowdown and share it with you.

I also thought this was really great, partly because I learned of John Burnham Schwartz through xuni.com. He's been tapped to write HBO's screen play for a Bernie Madoff movie. I've learned about the most fascinating people working with Maddee James and the xuni crew. Are you following us on Twitter or Facebook? I try to keep folks apprised of all the wonderfully fun things the authors are doing.

Later this week I'll be covering a couple of books to contribute to Jenn's Bookshelves' Murder, Monsters & Mayhem Month. Watch for those reviews and check out what else she's done over at her blog. It's a great celebration of Horror and Thriller in honor of Halloween.

Many thanks to everyone who stopped by earlier this week to talk about how they pick their next read from the overwhelming TBR pile. I may have to try some of the approaches people take. The conversation was fascinating and informative.

That's it for me today. Do you have any fun tidbits to add to the roundup?

Happy Reading everyone!

Eenie Meenie Miny Moe

I love organization. I'm a bit of an organization junkie, actually. Which makes the utter chaos I call home rather ironic. I made a resolution this weekend that I was going to commit a minimum of one hour every day over the next few months...or until I finish, if that comes first...to REALLY organizing my house.

Regardless of which way you look in my house, you see books, so that really has to be the place I start. And today I did just that. Here is a look at the books that have come into my house in the last 3 months AND that I haven't been able to read yet.

I took about a dozen to a friend yesterday and about three dozen from this picture are going to be shipped to another friend this week. That still leaves a lot of books, and they are all books that have an appealing concept to me; therefore, ones I'd like to read. 

That got me thinking about a conversation I had with an author at the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association's trade show. He asked me about how I decide which book to pick up next. He shared a story with me about a book he decided on from his pile because he remembered there had been some discussion about it online. He couldn't remember what the discussion was exactly, but the fact that the discussion had been about that particular book made him pick it up.

Then last week in Friday's Shelf Awareness Pro, Robert Gray talked about "How do we decide which ARC to read next?" His present choices are due to a conversation. Hmmm, I'm sensing a pattern here. Word of mouth seems to be making an impression.

But even readers who don't receive ARCs, I'm pretty certain you're like me and walk out of the book store, book sale, library, etc., with far more than one book. So how do YOU decide which one gets priority in the reading order? For me right now I'm reading books of the authors I'll moderate on a panel in Muskego next month. And sometimes a deadline for a review or a release date might prompt me to choose one book over the others. But a lot of times I'll look at the stack...ok the mountain...and after recovering from the minor coronary, I'll choose the book that fits my mood. And I think a lot of determining that comes from what I've heard about it...or maybe what I know about the author.

That leads to the question: what about the authors you don't know? Or better yet, the brand new authors...the ones who you don't really have much, if anything, to base your choice on? What makes you pick up THAT book?

A friend recently told me that he was at a point where his "regular" favorites were writing often enough for him to stay reading without having to pick up any new authors. That can be an incredible hurdle to overcome for fledgling writers.

I admit that I sometimes have to force myself to put aside a book of a favorite author in an effort to read a new-to-me author. Had I not opted to do that, I wouldn't have discovered the likes of James Thompson, John Verdon, Hilary Davidson, Daniel Palmer, Keith Thomson, Brad Parks, Kelli Stanley, Rebecca Cantrell...

And on the flip side of that, there are times when my mood demands that I curl up with the comfort of something I know and can count on.  When life is feeling a bit overwhelming, I know I can count on Elvis Cole, John Ceepak or Walt Longmire to whisk me away from my reality.

As you can see from my picture, which represents only a small fraction of the books taking up residence in my house right now, I have the luxury of doing both. But I'm curious. What book(s) are YOU reading right now and what made you pick that one over all others to read now?

THE VAULTS - Toby Ball

First line: "The Vaults took up nearly half a city block."

In Toby Ball's debut novel, archivist Arthur Puskis, private eye Ethan Poole and investigative journalist Frank Frings begin to uncover a large-scale corruption ring known as the "The Navajo Project" in "The City" of the 1930s. Puskis, Poole and Frings start out as strangers, but as each races the clock with his own agenda in regards to the Navajo Project, their worlds collide in their separate attempts to stay alive.

Narrated by Michael Agostini for Iambik Audiobooks, the recording takes on a fittingly dark, Gotham-esque tone. The opening scenes of this dystopian novel describe the "Vaults" themselves. A place inhabited only by Puskis, the elevator operator and the cleaning crew. A court messenger arrives and leaves regularly as well, but for the most part Puskis ambles through the deserted basement level tomb alone. And Puskis doesn't venture out into the "real world" after hours either. He heads straight home with possibly a stop at the market. Agostini brings the isolation of this character to life in his personification.

However, the remainder of the characters mimic Puskis' tone in Agostini's narration and the audience never really feels like they leave the desolation of the Vaults. I attribute this partly to his reading and partly to the writing constructs of the novel, which are often stiff and awkward, more scholarly than aesthetic. When reading a print version of a book, this can sometimes be overlooked, but it is painfully evident in an audio recording.

The pacing is slower, so while the novel is classified as a "dystopian thriller" it is much more the dystopian than the thriller.

That being said, the plot is a unique concept constructed with strong twists. The characters showed great potential and I believe Ball will grow into a skilled character writer as he continues to hone his craft.

THE VAULTS is available from St. Martin's Press in hardcover (ISBN: 9780312580735) and from Iambic Audio (July 2011) as either an mp3 recording (ISBN: 9781926673554) or an m4b recording, running 9 hours and 5 minutes.

A Look at What's Going On...

In all the traveling craziness lately, I haven't done a look at what fun things are going on around the web. So I thought I'd share what's come across my computer screen today and then you can share other things YOU know about in the comments!

Brilliance Audio has a podcast with Iris Johansen about her upcoming suspense novel, BONNIE.

Things are gearing up for the Murder and Mayhem in Muskego conference. You should really try to come if you can. I mean, look at this awesome lineup!

And speaking of conferences, don't forget that you can register for Bouchercon 2012 now. It's in my neck of the woods next year, and if you register before the end of the year, you can get a $25 discount.

Don't forget to go and nominate your favorite 2011 crime novels in the Independent Literary Awards! I'm part of the committee reading and voting on the short list, so nominate a good bunch of books for me to choose from. Make my job VERY HARD! :-)

Those of you looking forward to Stephen King's 11/22/63, Simon and Schuster are posting audio samples on Mondays and Fridays through October 24th. 

Todd Ritter has his Magical Mystery Tour going on right now. If he's in your area, stop out and say "hi." Buy a book and you could be a big winner!

Tama Ryder is making her debut with a memoir about Len Lesser who passed away in February. You probably know him from Seinfeld as "Uncle Leo" but he has also had character parts in many television crime dramas, including Hardcastle and McCormick (remember that one?), The Rockford Files, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Simon & Simon, Remington Steele, and more.

Mark Harmon's role as Lucas Davenport in a TV movie adaptation of Certain Prey was announced earlier this year and it's set to air on November 6th. I'm wondering if I should watch this. I'm a huge Harmon fan; Davenport, not so much. Wondering if the movie might change my feelings about Sandford's character.

It isn't coming out until December, but I'm reading Craig McDonald's EL GAVILAN right now, and I can't recommend highly enough that you check this book out. It's just...WOW! You'll hear more about it from me later, but in the mean time, check out his website and here's the trailer for the book.



This is a book that will come in under the 2011 wire and make my favorite's list. Few books are able to keep me up past my normal bed time these days, this is one of the exceptions.

O.k., your turn. What do you have to share for the good of the order?

The Last....I Promise...Bouchercon Post

I apologize for taking so ridiculously long to get this final Bouchercon post finished. But here we go, my final recap for this wonderfully amazing convention.

Saturday in St. Louis was the big day for me, and I started it off by attending my good friend Erin Mitchell's panel. She was moderating a Bouchercon panel for the first time this year, and actually she moderated two panels. This panel included one of my heroes, Gregg Hurwitz, the exceptionally talented Lisa Unger and a relatively new-to-me author, Linwood Barclay.

Erin was well prepared and did a wonderful job leading the panel. All of the panelists were humorous and generous. And one of the links among the panelists is their tendency to create ordinary characters and put them in extraordinary circumstances.

Gregg emphasized the importance of relationships in the stories. One of his goals as a writer is to encourage his readers to invest in not only the characters but the relationships they have throughout the books. And he's moved away from writing villains. As he's matured as a writer, he's turned more to antagonists than villains. (I just love that statement. I think it's often what makes the difference between a good book and a great book.) In terms of his protagonists, he's also shifted. His early books dealt with characters whose jobs it was to investigate the crimes involved. But as Gregg's shifted more to common people as protagonists, the motives for what draws them into their circumstances becomes wide open.

Linwood believes that his background as a humor columnist paved the way for his career writing fiction - he always had a rather careless regard for facts, he says. Linwood likes to write about people who are ill-equipped to deal with bad people...as opposed to folks who are well-trained (i.e., P.I.s, cops, military, etc.). Part of his reason for this is that he doesn't know what it's like to be "well-equipped" to deal with bad people and he's extremely lazy; he doesn't want to have to research for months to find out what it IS like to be these people. Instead he wants to know what people like him would do if faced with those bad people; for Linwood, it heightens the suspense. He also pointed out that there's more room for transition in the character because they have to overcome a lot more in order to triumph.

For Lisa, it's always a character that she hears speaking to her or one that she's seen that pulls her into writing a novel. But while writing FRAGILE, The Hollows, her setting, started to evolve as a character and have its own personality and a "beating heart." Above all else, Lisa feels it's imperative to have an equal level of compassion for all her characters. That compassion lends itself to authenticity in the creation much more than researching "people."  Lisa also believes that writers are first and foremost observers. They are acutely conscientious to who and what goes on around them.

The panel was a most wonderful way to start the day. My only regret is that more people weren't able to experience it. One other perk of this panel was snagging Will Lavender who was in the audience and getting this picture.

If you haven't already read my raving about his book, DOMINANCE, I encourage you to do so. After having met Will in person now, I know that he's not only talented, but an extremely wonderful person as well.

Another author I caught up with on Saturday was Bill Cameron. He was signing at the Crimespree table and I stopped by so he could sign my copy of COUNTY LINE. I cherish all my pictures with the authors I meet, but I have to say, I really like this picture a lot:

O.k., so I already yapped and yapped quite a bit for this final post, and this isn't even a fraction of what happened on Saturday. Before I give you the grand finale, I have to congratulate one of the most wonderful people in crime fiction...Hilary Davidson, as you know, won the 2011 Anthony Award for Best First Novel. And I have to memorialize that here at the blog. If you've ever been so happy for someone's success that it completely eradicated your own disappointment for yourself, then you know how monumentally excited I was for Hilary to win this distinction. Congratulations, my friend! No one deserved this more:

And one more thing. I promise, this is it. I GOT TO MEET AYO!! This is Ayo Onatade who is part of the Shots Blog crew, and she is just wonderful. She's funny and smart and kind and I have to figure out how she can live closer to me because I started missing her the minute I said good bye. She lurks around here at the blog from time to time, but there's nothing like spending time with her in person. Thank goodness for Bouchercons!

As promised, here is the finale...Please try to overlook my bumbling in the beginning and I apologize profusely for the person who kicked the camera toward the end of the interview and wasn't kind enough to move it back. You can still see both of us, but we're quite off-center... my interview with the spectacular, funny, intelligent, talented, and genuine, Val McDermid - 2011 Bouchercon International Guest of Honor.

THE DOG WHO KNEW TOO MUCH - Spencer Quinn

Continuing in my quest to post all the Shelf Awareness reviews, today's review appears with their permission.

First line: "Was I proud of Bernie or what?"


The fourth installment of Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series finds the dynamic PI duo tracking a missing boy. Devin vanishes one night while out camping in the high country with his leader and four other boys. The leader theorizes that Devin wandered off in the night to go to the bathroom and simply got lost. His mother thinks her ex-husband snatched the boy. And all the theories go down the drain when expert tracker, Chet, uncovers startling new clues and Bernie ends up in jail on suspicion of murder. And life with Chet and Bernie can never be simple as a stray puppy proves in The Dog Who Knew Too Much.

The relationship between Chet and Bernie has been compared to Scooby Doo and Shaggy or Wallace and Gromit, but those comparisons miss the depth of connection Quinn builds between his protagonist duo. The relationship is undoubtedly humorous but it’s also respectful, insightful and passionate. Chet and Bernie are a pack unto themselves and they know their roles, so when other factors influence that pack dynamic, such as a stray puppy, the character interactions are as suspenseful as the plot events.

Quinn balances humor well with his content. Murder and a missing child are dark, solemn topics; Quinn manages to convey that seriousness while still entertaining his readers.

With Chet narrating, readers are reminded of many things we humans take for granted. And we even get a look at ourselves that we may not have ever thought about before.

Give Quinn a treat. He’s earned it with The Dog Who Knew Too Much.

The Dog Who Knew Too Much is available in hardcover (ISBN: 978-1439157091) from Atria and on audio, narrated by Jim Frangione, from Recorded Books (B005LEV0P4).

DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND - Lisa Unger

Slowly but surely, I'm getting my reviews from Shelf Awareness posted here. Today I have another, this one by Lisa Unger - her most recent novel, DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND. This review appears, of course, with permission from the folks at Shelf Awareness.

First line: "Failure wasn't a feeling; it was a taste in his mouth, an ache at the base of his neck."

Jones Cooper retired from his beloved position with the Hollows Police Department and now “putters” around the house. Instead of people coming to him with law enforcement issues, they call him to water their plants and take care of their pets while they are out of town. This occupies his time, but it doesn’t fill the hole in his life that his job loss created.

When Michael Holt returns to the Hollows looking for answers to his mother’s disappearance, Jones’ calm is shattered. Michael’s mother’s disappearance was the first major investigation for Jones Cooper many years ago; it always remained unsolved and now Jones is pulled back into the case. After all these years can he figure out what really happened?

In the follow-up to her novel Fragile, Lisa Unger brings back some beloved characters while also introducing new residents to the Hollows. The small town setting allows Unger to highlight her strongest writing skill: character relationships. Whether husband and wife, parent and child, doctor and patient, Unger probes the mysteries of human connection, leaving her characters raw and exposed to the critical stares of her readers. When the plot sews them back together, the end result isn’t necessarily the sum of the pieces.

The resolution to this plot may be anticipated early by some readers, but the greater mystery lies in the resolution of the characters themselves. This is the beauty of Unger’s writing and it is what keeps readers glued to pages.

DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND is available in hardcover from Crown and on audio from Random House Audio

THE NIGHTMARE THIEF - Meg Gardiner

My next in a line of reviews I covered for Shelf Awareness. This one did not appear in the newsletter and is appearing here with their permission.

First line: "The young trader stumbled from the trees like a scarecrow running on legs of straw."

Jo Beckett and Gabe Quintana are investigating a possible murder scene when they find themselves caught in the middle of an elaborate kidnapping scheme. The twenty-one-year-old daughter of a wealthy hedge fund manager and five of her friends are abducted in the midst of an “urban reality game.” A car accident allows the group to escape from their captors in the midst of the Sierras. But the kidnappers are still out there hunting them down. Jo and Gabe have to use their know-how to evade these psychopaths, travel the terrain and bear the elements, so hopefully they can bring their charges to safety.

Meg Gardiner brings her entire crew together in The Nightmare Thief. Evan Delaney and Jo Beckett team up to investigate the suspicious death of a lawyer. Amy Tang, Ferd and Mr. Peebles all join in the hunt when Jo and Gabe fail to return from the crime scene. Gardiner stays true to her regular crew, but the real stars come in the form of the twenty-something set. Their dialogue, behaviors, attitudes elicit strong emotion from the reader.

The action is constant from beginning to end. Sudden twists keep the novel from an entirely straight, forward momentum. Some twists are possibly predictable, while others will catch the reader off guard. All contribute to a strong, cohesive plot.

For those who love the exhilaration of high speed action and suspense, The Nightmare Thief is sure to get your heart pumping.

I also had a chance to listen to this book on audio, narrated by Susan Ericksen who really does a great job with this series. She's able to elicit the depth of relationship between the characters without over-dramatizing. And likewise, she illustrations the action elements of the novel without going over the top and making them unbelievable. But above all else, she makes me love Ferd. Her characterization of Ferd uses stereotype expertly to bring the eccentric character to life.

The Nightmare Thief is available in hardcover (ISBN: 978-052595221) from Dutton and on audiobook (ISBN:  978-1441820099) from Brilliance Audio.

HOUSE DIVIDED - Mike Lawson

House Divided is another review I submitted to Shelf Awareness and they were unable to run. So with their permission, I'm posting it here now. This was my first experience reading Mike Lawson's work and I'm officially hooked:

First line: "A satellite orbits a blue planet, huge solar panels extended like wings."

The National Security Agency is illegally recording when a double murder is carried out by a U.S. military group. Needing to take action, but in a way that prevents anyone from discovering their unlawful behaviors, the NSA group, led by Dillon Crane, takes on a covert mission to discover the truth behind the murders.

Meanwhile, Joe DeMarco finds himself trapped in the middle of the mission because one of the citizens murdered was his cousin, Paul Russo.

Lawson’s symbolic title for the sixth novel in his Joe DeMarco series indicates a new civil war brewing in the United States. Only this war isn’t fought on the traditional battle grounds. Instead it’s fought in the political factions of our intelligence agencies. The weapons being technology and information, but the victims still U.S. citizens. As with any war, each side feels its platform is justified and best for the nation.

Instead the reader finds Lawson’s characters are all ethically questionable yet magnetically appealing. There are no distinct “good guys” and “bad guys.” Instead, their presence creates philosophical questions the reader must ask him/herself.

Lawson fleshes out his female characters masterfully, careful to avoid stereotypes and give them distinct personalities. It would be a great shame if Claire and Alice did not reappear in future novels.

Lawson draws the political climate through sharp imagery and metaphor. His humor is fittingly dark and sarcastic to match the murky waters he’s dragging his characters through.

House Divided is the epitome of “political thriller.”

House Divided is available in hardcover (ISBN: 9780802119780) from Atlantic Monthly Press and on audiobook from Blackstone (ISBN: 9781455112470), narrated by one of my favorites, Joe Barrett.  

The Pokey Little Bouchercon Post

Yes, I'm still blogging about Bouchercon. Yes, it is a little sad on my part. In my defense I had three other planned posts for last week, and the last two posts I have are totally worth waiting for. Why you ask? Well let's take a look at Friday in St. Louis!

The morning started bright and early with a very nice breakfast co-sponsored by the Midwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America and CriminalElement.com. The breakfast was held for librarians, bloggers, booksellers and other related conference attendees. Guests of Honor Charlaine Harris and Colin Cotterill spoke, while additional Minotaur authors hosted individual tables.

Brad Parks and Sabrina Ogden

Charlaine Harris

Colin Cotterill deep in thought about Charlaine's speech?

Ali is tweeting? Or Facebooking maybe?

Once we had full tummies, we could move on to the programming of the day. For me that started with a panel called "Shake and Finger Pop." It's a bit of a misleading title as the panel dealt with fight sports in crime fiction. The panelists included Jamie Freveletti, Tom Schreck, Christa Faust, and Frank Bill all moderated by Eric Beetner. It's fascinating to hear the way each of the panelists views fighting in relation to plotting and their characters. Tom Schreck and Frank Bill have more of a boxing background and Jamie Freveletti is a martial artist with a black belt in aikido. Christa Faust's character is a former porn star, and Christa pointed out parallels between the porn industry and professional fighting.

Jamie Freveletti and Christa Faust

Jamie Freveletti

Christa Faust and Tom Schreck

Tom Shreck and Frank Bill

The next session I attended was Ridley Pearson's interview by Jeff Abbott. I know from my own experiences interviewing Ridley, that he's a wonderful interviewee. Add to that Jeff Abbott is a fabulous interviewer and this session was outstanding! Jeff rocked the house with his self-deprecating sense of humor, his knowledge of his subject and his appreciation for Bouchercon as a fan conference. Sometimes participants forget that. This isn't a writer's conference. The fans come to know the writers more than the writing. The unfortunate part of this interview was its time slot. The charity bowling tournament was going on at the same time. I'm sad more people couldn't have enjoyed this wonderful interview. And sadly, I arrived a few minutes late, so I didn't get to record it. That was my biggest regret of the conference. But here are some pictures from the fun:

Jeff made Ridley really think on this question.

This picture says so much about the entire interview.

 

Ooooh, I think Ridley is telling a secret!

I just love this shot! Doesn't Ridley look like an excited little kid? So much fun!

Following Ridley's interview I opted to see Dark Angel: Morally Challenged Heroes. This was an extra special panel for me because two people I've gotten to know and really like through social media were teamed up here. Chris Holm was the moderator and Bill Cameron was one of the panelists. And I can attest that they are super great people and it was wonderful to get to meet them in person. Also on this panel were Blake Crouch, Theresa Schwegel, Michael Wiley and Leighton Gage. After a little unforeseen informercial, the panel was off and running and quite entertaining. The interesting outcome was that none of the authors really viewed their heroes as morally challenged.

Chris Holm and Bill Cameron

Theresa Schwegel and Michael Wiley

The programming element of the day ended with one of my highlights for the conference: Gregg Hurwitz interviewed Robert Crais. I'm not going to say a lot about this interview because I have it recorded for you to see yourself. If you didn't get to attend, here's your chance to see it. If you did attend and just want to relive it...here you go. What I will say is that Gregg Hurwitz did an exceptional job. He understood the idea of the fan convention and created an environment where the fans could know the man behind the writing. It was fun, humorous and enlightening. Gregg has given me much to aspire to in the realm of interviewing. And that's enough from me. Here's the video:










Finally, I'll wrap with our gift to Robert Crais. The Craisies did a little brainstorming and with the initiative of Naomi Johnson (The Drowning Machine) we got jersey's that said "The Craisies" across the front. Then we each picked an RC character and had the name put on the back. He was gifted the #1 shirt: