Love + Sex

The funniest review of Bad Little Falls comes via Yahoo Singapore Sports—no, I have no idea either—from the pen of David Marshall James:

Mike's relationship with his upwardly mobile mother and her second husband is fractious at best, while Mike's father was an outstanding bad example. 

As the snowstorms settle in on Mike's bleak new life, he encounters a nearby family even more dysfunctional than his own. 

At least his mother traded up in the husband department. 

The attractive, young, neighborhood mother has had a codependent fling with the drug-dealing pal of her ne'er-do-well brother. Meanwhile, her sister has suffered a brain injury in the auto wreck that claimed their parents' lives. 

No surprise, then, that the recovering addict's -- who has caught Mike's eye, among other body parts-- son is a candidate for some serious counseling. 

Mike-- please don't go there. Mike ... Mike .... 

Yahoo has tagged the review under "love" and "sex." I'd add "death" to mix, but otherwise that sounds about right to me.

Booklist Says "Bad" Is Good

The early reviews are rolling in for Bad Little Falls, and this time it's Booklist with a rave:

Game warden Mike Bowditch isn’t sure whether it’s the climate or the area’s unemployment and drug abuse issues that are meant as punishment, but it’s clear his transfer to Maine’s Down East region is no promotion. Winter’s first blizzard offers a taste of his new reality when a search-and-rescue effort uncovers the murdered body of a violent drug dealer. Bowditch is convinced that things don’t add up when police arrest the dead man’s best friend for the crime, but the game warden’s new relationship with the dead dealer’s ex-girlfriend has tanked his credibility. Bucking better judgment, Bowditch starts digging and through a combination of sharp curiosity and gut instinct, he’s soon the only investigator making the connections. Doiron’s third Bowditch entry is riveting and honest, with full-depth characters and a landscape that isn’t cutting any slack. Readers of Nevada Barr and C. J. Box will enjoy this similar tale, with the added surprise of a refreshing hero whose youth and inexperience Doiron skillfully twists into an asset.

The review will appear in the magazine's August issue. I'll put a link up when it goes lives.

Amazon Reviews and Authors

I have a post up this morning at Maine Crime Writers talking about the strange experience, sometimes thrilling and sometimes surreal, of reading the anonymous and psedonymous reviews of one's novels on Amazon, iBooks, Shelfari, Goodreads, Librarything, and all the new online venues for selling and discussing books. It's a brave new world when a reviewer pans the novel you spent six years writing because she found the voice of the audiobook narrator to be "annoying." One frantic mystery author I know tried to petition Amazon to remove a review because she felt it spoiled the ending of her book. Amazon ignored her, as you might have expected. Do book buyers read starred online reviews, I ask. And more to the point can they help—or hurt—sales? 

Read the First 7 Chapters of "Bad Little Falls" for Free

Yep, you read that right. You can read the first seven chapters of my new novel for free and even sign up for an email alert that will tell you when the book is available. (Sorry, you can't preorder from the Down East store; don't ask me why.) And if you want to buy a personally inscribed copy for yourself or a friend, you can do that, too. I will have a pen ready for you.

If you can't attend one of my signings later this summer or fall, this is one of the best ways to get an autographed edition, although I will be working with several mystery bookstores to get them signed copies, too. It always pays to start with your independent bookseller and ask what they can do. Those stores remain the heart and soul of the publishing business, in my opinion.