The Short Term Memory is Failing Me

Hi all,
Ruth is taking over the blog for a chat. So Crimespree is coming up on year five. THANK YOU.


What's up in our world? We just had a lovely Valentine's . Another Winter Storm Watch . Ruth's day job continues to be insane but everyone is trying to rally. Jon's day job is ratcheting at a steady pace as well . I haven't grocery shopped in five weeks but I did buy lovely new dishes for the take out that has become a fixture in our lives .

We're starting to fill our 09 Calendar. We'll be heading to Minneapolis for Once Upon A Crime's annual "Writes' of Spring" the last week in March. This April we'll spend Edgar Week in New York for our first time ever. Arriving on Sunday and leaving on Friday we hope to catch up with a lot of our New York and Mystery friends and family while we're in town. May brings Williamsburg for sure and hopefully St. Louis as well although we're still working on the dynamics. The summer will see us at Wizard World and spending time with family and we'll be there full throttle when Indy hosts Bouchercon. We'll be in the Bayou with our Bleak House Family for a very special Book Launch in October. We're also beginning prep work for Murder and Mayhem in Muskego .

I'm thrilled that a very good friend is writing a lot and I should have pages in my in box soon .

So tomorrow is crowded with work and chores and errands and a snow storm and everything is right in my world. I'm looking forward to all of the above as well as WATCHMEN (March 6),Libby (March 7th), Brian & Jill & Carrie &Josh (tbd), Morrissey (April 3rd) and Ken Bruen's Sanctuary (in twenty minutes).

And I'll end this little note (SANCTUARY is waiting) with a book review that I forgot to submit to the lovely Jen Jordan for the print edition of Crimespree and a few suggestions. Val McDermid's DARKER DOMAIN, S.J. Rozan's SHANGHAI MOON & Sean Doolittle's SAFER.

BONE BY BONE
Carol O’Connell
December 2008
Putnam

Carol O’Connell is the writer of the famous and infamous Mallory series. Few could write a series with a true sociopath as its central figure and manage to make us care. So we’ve picked at what works and what doesn’t but always we’ve realized that the writing which takes us out of time and space and draws us onto the page is amazing. Last year I pled with readers to not forget FIND ME when they weighed the best of the year. December releases are so easily forgotten.

This December, Putnam released a book featuring new characters, a new direction and the same outstanding sense of time, place and personality. BONE BY BONE begins as two dispelled citizens of the community of Coventry return home. Coventry has presented grand vistas for tourists for a hundred years and kept the secrets of its dwellers for the same amount of time. When the bones of the young Josh Hobbs are returned to his father one at a time twenty years after he’s disappeared, it is time to call the other son home.

Up on the cliff , man and wife oversee the unfolding events. A powerful lawyer and his alcoholic wife watch the past rear up to reach them through the voyeuristic lens of both binoculars and telescope. Their daughter is home for the first time in twenty years and is a part of the story.

As we read towards climatic showdowns at the Annual Birthday Ball for Mrs. Sarah Winston, Ms. O’Connell strips away the secrets and lies of a town full of people as deftly as the young Joshua did with the camera lens twenty years ago. Tragedy is not done in Coventry.

The talented O’Connell has written a remarkable work once again & I will not ask you to remember BONE BY BONE for awards most certainly due. I’ll ask you to remember to read this book and enjoy a captivating story by one of America’s fiction artisans. Craftsmanship like this should be shared amongst all who love our genre.

Ruth