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You Can't Take Water
On The Plane,
But Books Are
Still Okay


There are no negatives to touring to promote a book. I've heard plenty of different authors talk about the rigors of doing signings and traveling, but for me, as I've said before, it's like one big vacation. And one of the caveats of the big vacation I took this summer in support of Wicked Break was all the books I brought home. Since moving
to Texas, I hadn't spent much time in the bookstores, so I'd missed some of the new stuff that had arrived in stores. Fortunately, the stores that had me for signings were more than happy to point me in the direction of things I might be interested in. Basically had to buy a new suitcase in order to get home.

Henceforth, my summer reading list:
  • Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell
  • The Night Gardener - George Pelecanos
  • The Messenger - Daniel Silva
  • Death Without Company - Craig Johnson
  • No Good Deeds - Laura Lippman
  • Pegasus Descending - James Lee Burke
  • The Ruins - Scott Smith
  • Mad Mouse - Chris Grabenstein
  • Moist - Mark Haskell Smith
  • Damn Near Dead Anthology - edited by Duane Swierczynski
  • Dot Dead - Keith Raffel
  • The Standoff - Chuck Hogan
Yeah, I plowed through all of them and yeah, they were all good. I can't pick one as my favorite. You can't go wrong with any of them. But I'm going to give a special mention to The Standoff. This is the second book of Hogan's that I've run across by mistake. I read Prince of Thieves last year after picking it up as an afterthought and it immediately became one of my all-time favorite books. Then I promptly forgot about him until I ran across a copy of The Standoff, which I then devoured in three nights. This was his first book and originally published in 1995. It absolutely rocks. Now I'm in search of his second book, entitled The Blood Artists, which he published in 1998. (Prince of Thieves was his third. Can't believe he's only written three books. I NEED MORE!!!) But this is a guy that should be a household name, someone who writes terrifically plotted books with a tremendous amount of intelligence and talent. It's always such a great feeling to pick up a book by someone that you haven't heard of and then have that book just be so damn good.

Anyway…

Thanks again to all the stores that hosted me this summer -- your support is much appreciated. And thanks to all of you who came out to say hello -- it was a pleasure seeing old friends and getting to meet the new ones.



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Killer Swell paperback