It’s been a while since I’ve added a new entry to this site. Busy times. Let me catch up on the major events.
First, there was a signing at Murder by the Book for the anthology The Eyes of Texas, edited by Michael Bracken. It contains my story “The Patience of Kane.” Several contributors were able to make it to Houston for the event. We had Texas BBQ beforehand and were bemused to see a car pull up with a skeleton in the passenger seat. (Picture 1 in the slide show). At first we speculated that it was someone’s ruse to be able to use the HOV lane. Michael Bracken won the moment by cracking about coming to the BBQ joint for the “ribs.”
Then I went to my first Bouchercon, which was in Dallas. The hotel was just a conspiracy theory away from Dealey Plaza, often described at the convention as the most famous crime scene in America. Bouchercon is huge, something on the order of 1500 attendees. It’s a nice combination of professional writers and avid readers/fans. With up to 10 tracks running simultaneously, it was impossible to take in everything on offer, but I gave it my best shot.
The first evening, I attended a literacy campaign fundraiser where David Morrell interviewed James Patterson (Picture 2). One of the great things about the convention was that I got to meet in real life so many people who I’ve only communicated with by email or social media before. I won’t start naming names, because I’m sure to forget many. However, one unexpected gang of people who tracked me down were former denizens of the USENET newsgroup rec.arts.mystery — the early internet’s precursor to Reddit. The funny thing about this was that someone in New Zealand was texting me on Facebook to help me find this group of people who I used to communicate with 25-30 years ago. That was pretty cool.
I was sitting in the lobby one morning, perusing my program, trying to figure out where I was supposed to be going next, when a woman of a certain age noticed the Mulholland Books satchel I was carrying. She asked me if Mulholland had a table or a stand somewhere. I explained that I’d gotten it at an event the previous evening. Then she introduced herself to me as Rex Stout’s daughter! (Picture 3) I have to say that was one of the highlights of Bouchercon for me. I started reading the Nero Wolfe novels in the 1970s, and I’ve been through them all more than once. I had the chance to express to her my fondness for those books, and she seemed to appreciate the sentiment. She added that, in addition to being a terrific writer, he was also a wonderful father. I also went to the Wolfe Pack session, populated by a group of people who are even more avid Nero Wolfe fans than I. That was fun, too.
I also got the chance to tell Lawrence Block how much I had enjoyed everything he’d written (Picture 4). He’s an interesting guy. On his panel he looked like he might have been in a bad mood, but then he’d lean forward to the microphone and say something astute, witty and delightful all at once.
I was also on a panel in which we discussed writing short stories, which was a lot of fun and well received.
Then, yesterday was our 24th wedding anniversary. We had a nice breakfast in a place we’d never been to before, then went on a long bike ride into parts of our community we’d never visited and, finally, had a marvelous seafood dinner at a restaurant that was on the lakefront, also new to us. (Pictures 5 & 6). The ambiance was terrific, a singer/pianist provided a soundtrack, the sun went down over the lake while we ate, and I couldn’t ask for better company!
