PW Gives "Bad Little Falls" a Starred Boxed Review!

The new issue of "Publisher's Weekly" is out with an absolutely glowing review of Bad Little Falls. It calls the new Mike Bowditch novel "excellent" and praises its "strong characters, effective prose, and subtle characterizations." This period, when you're waiting for the pre-pub reviews to appear is one of those nervous times in an author's life, since many bookstores and libraries take their ordering cues from these journals. A starred, boxed review in "PW" —which indicates a book is of outstanding quality in the eyes of the reviewer — is an auspicious start to what I hope will be a string of favorable notices. If you can't read the clip below, click this link to go the magazine's Web site.

Moose Calling Contest

My friend, Greg Drummond, was a finalist at yesterday's first World Championship Moose Calling Invitational in Oquossoc, Maine. Greg is a Master Maine Guide and probably the finest outdoorsman I know. He runs Claybrook Mountain Lodge in Highland Plantation with his lovely wife Pat, and he is responsible for many of the nature details you'll find in my books. I wish I'd had the good sense to head over to the Rangeley Lakes for this amusing event—especially since it might have helped hone my own sorry moose-calling skills—but congratulations to Greg on making it to the finals.

Why I Don't Self Publish

Over at MaineCrimeWriters.com I have a post about Jessica Park, the young adult writer who wrote an essay celebrating Amazon's self-publishing program and, in return, received a surprisingly lucrative gift from CEO Jeff Bezos. In my own essay I talk about why I haven't followed the same path, although I suspect we will increasingly see "name" authors eschewing traditional publishers and going the self-publishing route. I don't discuss the complicated future of booksellers in this Brave New World (that's for another day), but it bears remembering that, for the moment, bypassing traditional publishers also means bypassing brick and mortar stores. This decision comes with consequences, as Barry Eisler recently discovered.

My Next Book Tour Takes Shape

My wonderful publicist, Sarah Melnyk, at Minotaur Books is lining up readings and signings for later this summer to promote my new Mike Bowditch novel, Bad Little Falls. Today the first promotional materials arrived in my inbox. I'll be at the Tatnuck Bookseller in Westborough, Massachusetts on Saturday, August 11. Check my calendar of events in the coming weeks for additional events, and I'll be posting the entire tour here when it's all official.

The Book for Bad Fathers

People always ask me if my dad was the inspiration for Jack Bowditch of The Poacher's Son. Happily, I can say that he was not. My father is one kindest men I know, and I enjoyed spending the day with him yesterday (our schedules were such that we had to celebrate Father's Day a day early).

I don't know where Jack came from entirely. The fathers of a couple of my boyhood friends were assholes. I remember confronting one of them over his own dinner table when he launched into a diatribe about how "the Jews control everything." I was ordered to leave the house immediately. I never returned.

When The Poacher's Son came out, it was placed on lots of those "For Father's Day" table displays you see in bookstores. This struck me as one of the most ironic acts of guerilla marketing I've ever seen. I often think about the many dads who received my first novel as a present and began to wonder, very quickly, whether their sons and daughters had just flipped them the bird. It's sort of the perfect gift for anyone whose dad was a jerk.