A new biography of Raymond Chandler has been published in the UK. The subhead in the title is inspired by a line near the end of Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep:
Outside the bright gardens had a haunted look, as though small wild eyes were watching me from behind the bushes, as though the sunshine itself had a mysterious something in its light.
I'm very pleased to announce that my fifth August Riordan novel, The Big Wake-Up, is now available as an unabridged audio book. Stage actor Richardson Jones does a tremendous job narrating the book. His portrayal of Riordan's sidekick, Chris Duckworth, is worth the price of admission alone, not to mention the great job he does with all the South American characters (and their associated accents) and the villainess, Isis.
I recently had an event at San Francisco bookstore The Booksmith for Prom Night and Other Man-made Disasters, my new collection of humorous, first-person essays describing episodes in my life from childhood, school, career, and relationships.
Getting into the whole prom night spirit, some pals from my writers group hired a limo and driver to transport them the event:
And went so far as to dress in prom-appropriate attire:
Ann, John and Sheila at The Booksmith
I read a portion of the title story in the collection, "Prom Night," which describes the improbable circumstances under which a shy nerd like me took the homecoming queen and head cheerleader to the senior prom at my high school:
(Photo by Russ Wyllie)
And afterward, a number of us retired to Aub Zam Zam, the venerable Persian-themed bar across the street where Herb Caen once quaffed Silver Bullets:
Here's a clip from my appearance on book talk program "In a Word" with host Kathy Cordova. I'm there to discuss Prom Night and Other Man-made Disasters, my new collection of humorous, first-person essays describing episodes in my life from childhood, school, career, and relationships.
I just got back from a great event at The Poisoned Pen bookstore in Arizona for my new book,Prom Night and Other Man-made Disasters. Prom Night is a collection of humorous essays describing episodes in my life from childhood, school, work and relationships, and since I grew up in Phoenix in the 60's and 70's, a visit to Barbara Peters' bookstore in Scottsdale (a suburb of Phoenix) was just what the doctor ordered.
A number of friends and classmates from my high school, Central High, attended the event, including some who figured prominently in the essays. Here is a picture of me with my old pal Mary Holden, a writer and editor in her own right. (Say, interesting how our pose in the photo sort of echos the couple in the cover photo.)
I was the opening "act" for Craig Johnson, who is touring for his new book, As the Crow Flies. It was great to hear Craig talk about Crow and the forthcoming TV show, Longmire, based on his series of Walt Longmire books. Craig and I have done events together in the past, including this signing at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, right after his first novel, Cold Dish, was released.
It goes without saying that I snagged a copy of As the Crow Flies. I thought it was terrific--as I have all of Craig's books--but I had to laugh when I came to a passage about Wyoming Sheriff Longmire struggling to use a complicated DSLR camera to take pictures at a crime scene. It reminded me a lot of Craig's own struggles when he took this picture of me in his hat with my camera.
Mystery reviewer extraordinaire, library manager and hostess of the Glendale Library authors program, Authors @ The Teague, Lesa Holstine, was also present. She did a wonderful write-up of my conversation about Prom Night with Poisoned Pen's Patrick Millikin, so if you'd like to read more, check out her blog post here.
No, not an actual prom night (although of course the annual high school ritual will go forward across the nation this spring as always), but my new collection of humorous first person essays, Prom Night and Other Man-made Disasters.
The book is available in paperback from a variety of booksellers, and in eBook on the Kindle.
To kick things off, I'm giving some copies of the book away on Goodreads and LibraryThing. And there's also a Facebook Page to "like."
In which mystery writer Mark Coggins--and his PI protagonist, August Riordan--talk about the world of writing, mystery fiction and the process of bringing a novel to market.
