Email of the Day

You get all kinds. Here's one that just arrived:

Subject: Your writing

Message: Are you unable to write books like "Trespasser" without peppering them with blasphemies? Is this a character defect?

I suppose it could be a character defect—or it might just be a commitment to rendering dialogue the way human beings actually speak. 

One of the things I've learned in the magazine business is that you never know what will get people riled up.

You do have to wonder what kind of person reads a novel about rape and murder but objects to the profanities.

Sherlock Holmes & Jaycee Dugard

I have a post up at Maine Crime Writers today about crime in isolated places and how it's different from the atrocities that occur in cities. Arthur Conan Doyle identified the phenomenon in one of his eerier short stories, "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," but you can see its manifestation in contemporary criminal cases like that of Jaycee Dugard which is more horrifying than anything Sherlock Holmes ever faced.

C.J. Box and I

We'll be talking about game wardens—those from the Wild Wild West and those from the Wild Wild East—tomorrow (Thursday) September 29 at 7 p.m. at the Blue Hill Public Library. I've heard the New York Times best-selling author talk about his novels before, and he's great. I'll do my best to hold up my side of the conversation!

Oh, Yes

I probably should have mentioned this before now. Bouchercon in St. Louis was a fantastic experience, and not just because I won an award, but also for the many new people I met and for the friends who aren't quite old enough to be old but whom I definitely look forward to seeing each year now.