Paper BONES

The new paperback is out tomorrow, from your local Indie bookseller, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.  Enjoy!

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LuRKing on the Web

Among the corners of the LRK web site, tucked in among the book excerpts and cover art, are some essays concerning the essence of what I do.  Why, for example, do I write crime fiction? So why the mystery? Because it is a strong form that nonetheless allows me to do what I wish with…

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Laurie, before the volcano

This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us to a place that no longer exists.  Spirit Lake was spectacularly beautiful, a church summer camp smack on the top of Mount St. Helens.   Remember Mount St. Helens?  Blew up in 1980, taking a lot of people and this lake with it? It was so beautiful…and the lake was…

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Giveaways!

Giveaways! Two of them! The first is a Goodreads giveaway for IN THE COMPANY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, now through October 20: Kirkus says: The range of the 15 new stories here is remarkable. One of the best, Sara Paretsky’s “The Curious Affair of the Italian Art Dealer,” is the most conservative, taking true delight in…

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Mary Russell’s War (nine): Gold braid and child snipers

29 September 1914 Catastrophe has struck. It is the end of everything. And I have no one to blame but myself. On Saturday afternoon, at long last, the Parents took Levi and me into their confidence.   Too late. The letter Papa received from the War Office concerned his intention to enlist in the American army.…

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LuRKing on the Web

The Laurie R. King web site has dozens of corners and byways that, if you haven’t gone exploring there in a while, you may not have seen. For example: If Watson were a Woman—not by Laurie King, but by guest author Fred Erisman, who explores an assertion made in 1941 by Rex Stout, that Watson was…

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TBT: Aww, isn’t Laurie cute?

“Cute” may not be a word that comes immediately to mind when you think of Laurie R. King.  But Laurie Richardson? On a Throwback Thursday? Oh, why not?  This was taken in 1966, when I was fourteen, about the age of Mary Russell in Monday’s ongoing Mary Russell’s War.  I was living in Saratoga, CA, and remembering the…

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Countdown to Dreaming Spies: galley proofs

The proof, or galley stage of a book is when I receive a stack of printed matter that shows what the book will actually look like. This is always a surprise: Wow, it’s a real book! With margins! And pretty stuff!—since the publisher’s art department loves to contribute their little extras to the reading experience, whether it’s…

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Mary Russell’s War (eight): the wickedness of dogs

Young Mary Russell’s journal of the Great War, which began on August 4, 1914 continues. Her previous entries are here. 22 September 1914 Disaster! Calamity! Oh, how I loathe dogs! Who’d have expected a German spy to have a poodle? Father shouted at me—shouted!—and said that I was fortunate it hadn’t been an Alsatian, which might have…

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