My best friend for eighteen years was a cop named Ken Pierce.



For eight of those years, Kenny P. and I worked together. He was a lieutenant and then a captain on the sheriff's office (and later retired as Major). I was a deputy. We also lived in the same apartment complex where he found each of us poolside accomodations for providing security.



On the street, we served the occasional felony warrant together, with him stepping in once to prevent me from arresting the wrong… Continue

Reading in the Chicago Tribune today about the full body scanner the government will soon have in place at O'Hare to check travelers more completely for hidden weapons and/or explosives. Fully body scanner. Wow. Sounds like something out of Star Trek, doesn't it?



The writer describes the machine's function as providing a "virtual strip-search," of passengers, though he says the face of the person being scanned will not be visible, nor will the images be retained in the system. From… Continue

Just because I nearly came close to doing the same thing when I was a brand new deppitty sherf, the headline of an AP story this morning caught my eye.



"Officer Wrecks Squad Car 20 Minutes into Job."



The A.P story, however, didn't match the headline. Turns out the car was parked in the hapless officer's own driveway when some goofball who "tested positive for drugs" ran into it and then hit a tree. The now car-less copper was not behind the wheel.



Reminds me of… Continue

If you're in the mood for a little light reading, there's an article about me in one of the local Chicago dailies...

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=215185

Every Secret Crime will be released in two days.

Want to help with marketing?

There are four things you can do that are absolutely stone critical.



1: Buy Every Secret Crime and enjoy it.



2: Write a review of Every Secret Crime on Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com or any sales site where you're allowed to post one. Point of sale reviews are essential. By a large majority, readers tell me they bought my first book based on the reviews they found on the listing page. It… Continue

Please stop by for a visit on Julia Buckley's "Mysterious Musings" blog today as I begin my blog book tour. You can find her at http://www.juliabuckley.blogspot.com/

ALSO...

Please don't miss the fantastic t-shirt contest on my blog beginning today...

http://everysecretcrime.blogspot.com

Ah, that's a t-shirt giveaway ...not a wet t-shirt contest...

Man, I was looking forward to the new Indiana Jones movie. The second one in the series was sort of so so but I loved the first, all two dozen times I've watched it, and the third was pretty darn good,too.



Spielberg and Lucas should have left the franchise alone. Either that or when Harrison Ford saw the first rushes of Crystal Skull, he should have used his whip to tear them into tiny fragments flushed them down the nearest toilet.



Seriously. It's that bad. So bad, in… Continue

Over the last couple of days there's been an interesting thread on CrimeSceneWriter concerning the connection between kids, video games and real-life violence such as the various school shootings.



It reminded me of an excellent book I read several years ago by Lt. Col Dave Grossman, a retired army ranger, psychologist and instructor at West Point who is the founder of the Killology Research Group. He is an expert in the field of human aggression and killing, particularly in… Continue

I could care less if a faded and jaded country star ever had an affair (while underage or at any time) with a big time baseball player. If a teenage Disney sensation slaps her fans in the face by posing for a trashy cover on a national magazine. It makes no difference to me if flashy actresses and kinky socialites flame out on drugs and booze or if an actor in a respected crime series tanks his career with heroin and a pharmacopia of other substances. Frankly, none of those stories merits any… Continue

I spent a long couple of years as the part-time Public Affairs director of a Chicago radio station.



Among other things, I hosted a weekly public-affairs show which spotlighted various civic activities, community issues and, yes, authors with new books. The latter subject was entirely self-serving. I didn't have a book out but I figured I might learn something from those who did. I produced the show. Directed the show. Recorded the show. And...opened mail for the show.



A… Continue

I think it's a law. People at parties ask doctors and attorneys for free advice, standup comics to be funny and authors where we get our ideas.



In fact, it's the question asked at booksignings, during interviews, on blogs and websites, on dates (or even before them, "You can't take out my daughter until you tell me! Where do you get your ideas?") probably around the table at family reunions and, for all I know, on authors' death beds ("Gramma Agatha, before you go, just one last… Continue

This week, I've been trying to ignore one item in the news: the story of the Florida teenager who was beaten by a group of girls, reportedly so they could put a video of the action on YouTube.



Then I saw the video on the Chicago Tribune's website (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/orl-beating0908apr09,0,7846159.story).



Pretty awful.



What struck me, though, is a quote from the mother of one of the girls. She told the Today Show's Matt Lauer that the… Continue

Q: "I was trying to do a search for sex offenders in my neighborhood, (since i have a young nephew that lives down the block) and where do they reside? I cannot locate a site this provides this information without paying for it? I thought this kind of information was privy to everyone?"



A: Megan's Law, enacted by Congress a few years ago, gives everyone access to sex offender information. In Illinois, the Sex Offender Registry is maintained by the state police… Continue