The Book Club have been looking at Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers for their December read. This 1934 novel, featuring the aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, is something of a Christmas story, although it opens on New Year’s Eve up in England’s fenland countryside. Now, much as I love Dorothy Sayers, I have to admit that…
Read MoreHappy Publication Day! For the Sake of the Game Another collection of stories “inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon”—this time by Peter S. Beagle (his is a song!), Rhys Bowen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Jamie Freveletti, Alan Gordon, Gregg Hurwitz, Toni L. P. Kelner, William Kotzwinkle & Joe Servello, Harley Jane Kozak, D. P. Lyle, Weston…
Read MoreSay, would you like a little something to help nudge you into that old holiday spirit? What about a copy of Mary’s Christmas? This is a pdf to download, so you can print it off, use it to create an illuminated manuscript, send it to a friend, you name it. Plus, this is an all-new…
Read MoreAfter the spending tsunami of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and even the less blatant wave on Small Business Saturday, today comes along: #GivingTuesday. How are you giving today? Are there any places you’d like to recommend to your community of fellow readers here, to put their dollars (pounds, Euros, shekels) to work? Reading is…
Read MoreSmall Business Saturday! Everyone’s favorite shopping day, it’s a welcome antidote to the mad competition of Black Friday. And for those of you in the neighborhood of Santa Cruz, when I’m finished sauntering through the Sock Shop and Bookshop Santa Cruz, I’ll probably pop by my favorite eating place, Oswald–who are open tomorrow just from 7-11 and…
Read More[For information on the US giveaway of Justice Hall, scroll down to the bottom of this post.] 100 years ago today, one minute before the 11/11/11:00 Armistice officially began, American Henry Gunther set off on a one-man charge of a German machine gun guarding a road block in France, and became the Great War’s final…
Read MoreCommemorating the end of the Great War, 100 years ago this weekend. From Justice Hall The War journal of Lt. Gabriel Hughenfort 28 January Never have I imagined cold such as this. Even the frost-rimed dugout the officers share seems an oasis of warmth. Heaven is dry stockings, even if they are caked with dirt.…
Read More100 years ago, the Great War was in its dying week. Wilfred Owen was killed on the 4thof November. All the commanders-in-chief agreed the war was over–but on the ground, the struggle went on, and on. I wrote a novel, Justice Hall, about a young officer, and included sections of his war-time journal: Justice Hall,…
Read MoreIn the spirit of the season, a sample from Island of the Mad, when Russell & Holmes set out for a haunted island of the Venice lagoon, Poveglia. Before leaving the hotel, Holmes and I had studied the general maps and my slightly more detailed sketch of this tripartite island. The boat-house, on the southern…
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The other day I did a Halloween reading for a fund-raiser lunch, which reminded me of this, from Lockdown. Happy all hallow’s week… 107 DAYS AGO OCTOBER 31 Olivia When the call came in, Olivia thought it was just another Halloween prank. Olivia hated Halloween—and had long before she become a cop. Maybe it wouldn’t…
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