Imagine, if you can, a crime novel so fine-tuned and crafted that not one word is wasted. A novel that manages to effectively convey its full emotions and characterizations with a poet's minimal amount of words and sentences. A novel that in its mere 192 pages packs more action and resonance than works over twice its size. If you can imagine such a novel, then you're probably thinking of DRIVE by James Sallis.

Following his excellent series of Lew Griffin novels, and just before…

Took an age to drag myself up this morning – must be the effect of all that weekend activity. Can’t be the bottle of wine we finished off last night, oh no, of course not. Alcohol never passes my lips (I take it intravenously …). Quite a slow day at work really, though I’ve chased a professor or two, just to keep my hand in. Can’t have the management having an easy time, you know. The boss is off today, but has emailed me, asking me to arrange a meeting for the strangely named FIG Management…

CROSS (Private Investigator-Jack Taylor-Ireland-Cont) – Ex

Bruen, Ken – 6th in series

Bantam Press, 2007, UK Hardcover – ISBN:

9780593057278

First Sentence: It took them a time to crucify the kid.

There is a lot going on in Jack Taylor’s life. He is off the…

For Ian Rankin fans, he has a serial novel that started yesterday in the NY Times magazine. Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13funny-serial-t.html

There's also a downloadable MP3 of Rankin reading the first chapter on the site.

Posted by Sheila Connolly

A week ago I attended one of the bigger mystery-writers conferences, Malice Domestic. I'm not going to babble on about what a wonderful time I had (though I did), the authors I met (lots) after years of worshipping them from afar, and the informative and insightful panels I dutifully attended (and didn't take a single note).

Over the years, I have followed a wide and wonderful variety of career paths: art historian, investment banker, fundraiser,…

Last week I complained about the number of, in my opinion, excellent crime writers who never have their work adapted for television.…

Let me take this opportunity to shamlessly plug my underrated, underpurchased novel, Fizz. I can safely say you've never quite read anything like Fizz. You will read it fast. You won't know whether to laugh or cry. Chances are, you'll feel a bit odd upon completing, not unlike its main character, Ray Pulaski.

F I Z Z…

The ‘WHAT IF’ Game

For whatever reason, I’ve seen a lot of blogging this week on Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code. Dan’s book crossed a line from fiction into religion, a pretty sacred topic, pun intended. So it got me thinking (which is always dangerous).

WHAT IF religion crossed paths with the Internet? Hummmm…

1.) WHAT IF God blogged on MySpace? Would she have more friends than Barack Obama?

2.) WHAT…

Ever check out your own kids’ My Space pages? I’ll bet their virtual personalities gave you a bit of a jolt.

But it’s not just Gen X and Gen Next’ers who talk funny online. Sensible middle-aged adults – maybe especially the sensible ones – seem to take on a barely recognizable persona when they stumble into a social networking site. Apparently, people get a

kick out of inventing offbeat versions of their ordinarily sober

selves.…

Frightful weather today, Carruthers. Honestly, no wonder Blair is going if he can't control the weather any more. Good riddance is what I say! Spent this morning typing up the Goldenford (http://www.goldenford.co.uk) minutes (at last!) and writing a press release for us. Which I have now sent off to the usual suspects. I'm hoping Writers' News (…

I recently spent a morning writing poetry with fourth grade students from Hawthorn Hills Elementary School. My goal was to get them to give their senses a voice. Mother Nature cooperated with a beautiful day. We began outside with a five-senses scavenger hunt. Seven teams of five went out to the playground to "collect" and record what they saw, felt, heard, smelled and (imagined) they tasted.

Their task was to write down the best description of their sense-by-sense experience before…

... as it were. Nice lie-in today, brought on by yesterday's social whirl. I must say how lovely it was to meet Clayton (http://www.myspace.com/dwbsoho) at last and to be able to have such an inspirational in-depth chat about writing and this strange world of books we find ourselves in. Thanks, Clayton - enjoyed it very much! Also lovely to meet Bryony and catch up on the last year over pizza and wine.…

At long last, my very own website is up and running, and I added a link to it in my author information to the left of this page. My husband, Robb Smith, worked long and hard on it - it's the first website he's ever created. However, it's still a work in progress, and I'm embarrassed to admit that there are a few typos. I know about them, and we'll fix them ASAP. However, Robb had major surgery two days ago, and he's not up to working on the website just yet. (He's resting in bed, doing well…