Big Changes

I'm working on changes to the website -- some announcements that I find exciting, some contests (books, magazines, a free and professional critique, AND a grand Prize giveaway involving a product from CARRERO CREATIONS - if you've seen the stuff my wife makes, 'nuff said) and interviews. Among those confirmed for interviews are IJ Parker, Con Lehane, and Bill Crider. Rebecca Pawel has been asked, but the email was ignored. I'm guessing she's either far from her computer (I mean thousands of miles) or she remembers me from Bouchercon Chicago and is hoping I'll go away.

I might even change the background color from Canary yellow to something with a little less glare.

In the words of James T. Kirk...

CON! COOONNN!!!!

Stared reading BEWARE THE SOLITARY DRINKER by Cornelius "Con" Lehane . We share an editor at St. Martins along with Blake Crouch and Zoe Sharp (take a bow Marcia). We've also run into each other at a couple of Bouchercons. I've finally gotten around to reading his first book, and man is it good. Each characterization is like a miniature portrait in fine detail. I'm forty pages in after a couple of hours, and that's PDQ for me. In any event, I'm planning to finish the book before year's end and his other book WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND and he's promised to let me interview him for my website next year. Con, if you're out there, I'm coming to get you.

A Review

It must have slipped my mind. I don't know how it happened. In any event, months ago, Vivian Lake told me that she had reviewed my Burning Precinct Puerto Rico on her blog. Since she really liked it, it was a very insightful review. In any event, recently saw said review on another site . Both blogs are very cool and not just because I'm favorably mentioned in them. (Though that certainly doesn't hurt my estimation of them.) Anyway, many thanks to Vivian and to the people at PRSUN.

Vivian's site, by the way, has more info on the publishing world, including reviews, obits, prizes, etc, than one can effectively shake a stick at.

The Da Vinci Code, Part the Last

Finished the DVC (realize that in Bronx-speak it would be Da Da Vinci Code). Liked it overall. Extremely slick in most parts, actually slipped out of my hands a couple of times. It dragged a bit with all the lectures about worshipping women and how the Bible is a book that leaves out other books (???), but then there was an albino assassin monk -- talk about having a hard time blending in with the crowds: no John Rain, he.

Still, no that I'm done and I did like it in general, I can't see how it can be a Hollywood movie without some major embellishment. By embellishment, I mean violence. If I recall correctly, there are no explosions, a serious deficiency. No explosions and a hell of a lot of talk.

In any event, now that I've read it, I think I can write a DVC imitation, but you know the hardest part? Keeping a straight face through the mumbo and jumbo. Tend not to believe in conspiracy theories and certainly not ones that require two thousand years of people sworn to secrecy.

And btw, if women are, in the novel, so great, how come THEY don't keep the secrets?