The last two books I have tackled have weighed in at over 500 pages. The last one Sun and Shadow by Ake Edwardson I reviewed on Crimescraps. I now have about 150 pages to go of Jed Rubenfeld's Freudian melodrama The Interpretation of Murder, and I think at this point my review will be much more complimentary.

I sometimes wonder if authors are paid by the page?

Thanks to all those who have picked me as a friend. I just…

It might have been more appropriate if this was March 17th, but today is International Ken Bruen Appreciation Day.

I met Ken last fall, in Madison. He’s such a warm person I imagine I felt as so many others have when they met him – a sense of camaraderie and acceptance and instant ease with the man. Ken is so likeable and genuine, and down to earth.

I emailed him afterwards, to say it was great to meet him. I never made it through my entire list after conventions,…

So recently my bank sent me a letter saying that my account might have been "compromised" by a computer glitch. I wasn't able to get online to check--"login error, please contact a representative"--for three days.

Today I found that someone has been using my debit card number since Saturday, having lots of fun at Best Buy and liquor stores and even loading up on groceries with the money from my checking account.…

Issue two is posted at Muzzle Flash. We’ve got 5 great stories from your fellow writers. Head on over and show them some support with comments if you are moved to do so.

Also, I’m going to email all the contributors to MF about the following but I…

HEART-SHAPED BOX (Horror-US-Cont) – G+

Hill, Joe – 1^st book

William Morrow, 2007-US Hardcover – ISBN:9780061147937

Rocker Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre. For one thousand dollars, he buys a dead man’s suit which is said to be haunted. Judas quickly learns that, not only is the suit haunted, but the…

I was trying to figure out why I write my novels from the cops' POV, and my short stories from the criminals'. I can only guess that a novel lets a mystery unfold - it takes time for cops to piece together the evidence enough to find the perp and make an arrest - whereas a short story is a good venue to show the rashness of most criminal acts: crimes not planned, but committed (or at least conceived) in the heat of a moment.

Anyone else notice this trend in their own, or…

Went to an MWA chapter meeting last night, my first in a long time. The usual suspects: several wannabes, a few very modestly successful authors, some spouses/partners dragged along for the ride, a decent speaker from the Seattle PD explaining the differences between a real CSI department and the fakery seen on television. In other words, bad food, decent company, entertaining speaker.

What struck me most, though, was the fact that so little has changed from the time I went to…

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. - Gabriel Marcel

Writers are like magicians in their ability to pull characters out of their hats. The well-written protagonists become almost real people that can

stay with the writer and the reader well after the book is finished. They run

the gamut from Beowulf to Hamlet; from Holden Caulfield to the

Vampire Lestat; from the almost iconic Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade to John

Rebus. The list is…

Lenny Bruce said that all of his humor was based on destruction and despair and nothing less can be said of the following writers. They have

melded the two seemingly polar opposites of crime fiction and humor into intelligent

tales of people at their best and their worst. By meeting the darkest moments

of their lives with humor, their characters show a resilience and humanness

difficult to emulate with purely straight fiction. For the…