In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming My rating: 4 of 5 stars In my quest for contemporary mystery writers as enjoyable as the Golden Age greats (Christie, Marsh, Allingham, Stout, Tey….), I was referred to Julia Spencer-Fleming. This first book in her series starts with an appealing title — …
Hank Phillippi Ryan: Truth Be Told It took me 2 tries to read this #3 in Ryan’s Jane Ryland series. Truth Be Told is half police procedural, from the POV of preppy Boston detective Jake Brogan, & half mystery, from the POV of mostly-TV journalist Jane Ryland. I hadn’t read …
We picked Killer Nashville because Pat and I — fellow Sisters in Crime — each had a finished mystery novel which was ready for the quantum jump off the computer screen into the arena of agents, editors, and marketing. Pat’s living in Georgia for the summer, near the Tennessee border; …
Started in 2006 by Clay Stafford as a charitable project of his media company American Blackguard, Killer Nashville is a terrific meeting place for authors, agents, and fans. Its website calls it an “International Thriller, Mystery, Crime Literature Writers Conference held annually in downtown Nashville, TN.” The actual location is …
The Only Witness by Pamela Beason An ingenious & charming mystery, starring improbably sympathetic characters: Brittany, a feckless teenage mother who leaves her baby in the car to dash into a store. Finn, a grumpy detective who’s saddled with his ex-wife’s menagerie & out of the loop in this grapevine-infested …
“Hoist with their own petard”: in Shakespeare’s day that didn’t mean hanged, but blown up with their own explosives. Here on the fringes of Silicon Valley, we’re unwittingly paying the price for our addiction to staying connected 24/7. Above, my view now; below, my view as ExteNet/Verizon/City of San Francisco …
Any time a group of citizens snatches the political reins out of their government’s hands, they’re bound to offer a reason. As the United States of America’s founders put it in their Declaration of Independence, “A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes …
From the Daily Alta California of May 23, 1856: Our streets have assumed a more quiet aspect this morning than we have witnessed for several days past. The proceedings of yesterday have very naturally produced such a result. The Alta didn’t need to spell out the details. Everyone in the …
by CJ Verburg Last week, two friends & I met at the intersection of Switzerland and San Francisco for a mind-boggling look into the future. Swissnex is Switzerland’s HQ for high-tech liaisons with the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, and it’s just up Montgomery Street from the Transamerica Pyramid. On …
“Plenty of people got Iraq wrong, but plenty of people – experts and ordinary citizens – got it right. The problem was that it made no difference.” So states St. Louis-based writer Sarah Kendzior in “Iraq and the Reinvention of Reality” in today’s Al Jazeera. I’ve been teaching a course …
