Deadly Appraisal, Jane K. Cleland's second mystery, is a worthy sequel to the Agatha Award nominated Consigned to Death. Cleland's antiques appraiser, Josie Prescott, returns to find herself so deeply involved in a mystery that she doesn't know if she's a suspect or the target of a murder.

The Portsmouth Women's Guild is holding their successful Gala at Prescott's auction hall, but Josie was busy missing her boyfriend,…

I'm wondering what has happened to creativity in both movies and writing? It seems to me that there are plot ideas that are recycled uniquely and come across as different. Then there are CLONE ideas -- Da Vinci Code spin offs, re-made old movies with new characters, or rewritten books into modern day scripts for movies -- Shooter, the Point of Impact novel by Stephen Hunter brought up to date to feature the Gulf War, new era style sniper.It used to be I could go to movies or read books that…

A lazier start to the morning today. Feel I might have been coming down with something (pause for swooning ...) but have had a dose of Lemsip and feel much better, thank you. Played golf with Marian before lunch - the course was pleasantly empty in spite of the school holidays. And, pleasingly, the two lads that started behind us were actually slower than we were (rare in today's young male golfer, I have to say!) so we easily pulled ahead. Oh, and I got a par (a par!! Ye gods, the age of…

So this little lady from Pasadena hauled herself over to the heart of Hollywood on Thursday night by herself for the opening night of the 8th annual Festival of Film Noir and man, it was fun.

It was held at the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard and I have to admit that I was a little confused in the beginning because there was a crowd of elderly Japanese people lined up outside. Turns out they were there for a new kamikaze movie being screened in an adjoining mini-theatre (I had…

I can't help but be excited by the way our team blog is progressing at Acme Authors Link.

If anyone has time, the link is http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com

We've got the Love is Murder Montage video loaded, photos of our bloggers, links (more to come, there's always lots of them), plus some great posts.

Our bloggers, from Sunday through Saturday are: Larry D. Sweazy, Norm Cowie, Todd (T.A.) & Terri Stone who…

Hear ye, hear ye. Please accept this as formal notification that I am Alifair Burke's official stalker. I do solemly swear to drop her name shamelessly at every opportunity (she can tell you that I once offered her my left arm--one of my more humiliating moments at Bouchercon in Chicago when I first met her at her signing--anyway), I will tirelessly follow her around the Internet and tell people that we are bosom buddies, that she adores me, and that she is every bit the talented writer that…

I’ve been thinking about the long delayed exoneration of the four young white men from upper-class backgrounds who stood accused of having kidnapped and gang-raped a poor black exotic dancer. Accusations are flying, this time…

QBR (Quality Book Reviews) has just opened a new forum dedicated to and for authors as well as readers alike. I would like to invite everyone to drop by check it out and offer any suggestions to make this a better place for all. The new forum has a little of everything including a place where authors may drop in introduce yourselves, introduce your works, new releases, upcoming titles, and add links to your sites and blogs.…

The crime in Canadian fiction far outweighs the reality and this country is just too ‘polite and civilized’ to be noir.

That’s what was stated in a recent post on a discussion list, and this is an expansion of my response to the statement there. In my opinion, for all the bellyaching we do about ‘realism’ in our crime fiction, when it comes to location we dispense with that concern. Time and again the tried and true locations of popular US cities are the settings of new novels,…

But enough about me.

Let's talk classic crime fiction recommendations.

• THE DANCING BEAR & THE LAST GOOD KISS. by James Crumley
• RED DRAGON by Thomas Harris (A "must read".)
• THE FEMALE…

Had to get up at a non-writers time today (ie before 9am - ye gods, how will I survive the length of the day?...) in order to get to my Counselling appointment this morning. We talked about families and church. So no change there then. But I have now got to the point when I realise that, for the moment, I'm not going to go back to St Peter's. And I'm not looking for another CofE church to replace them either. Hell, it feels like a decision, and it also feels as if I'm finally - at least in…

Larry Light and I signed our new book, LADYKILLER, at New York's legendary Black Orchid bookstore on April 11th. The champagne was flowing and they nearly sold out of books! We had a ball!

We'll also be touring Florida cities the week of April 15 ending up at Sleuthfest in Miami.