Secret Dead Blog Halloween Theater

Here's a special Halloween treat for children under 6 years old, my Bride, Bryon Quertermous and Christin Kuretich. Simply click here!

For the rest of us, click here. (You might want to put on a plastic poncho or something first.)

Happy Halloween from the entire staff at Secret Dead Blog. Remember: Never accept strangers from Candy.

Contest: Name My Friggin' Tour

I've been calling it "The Blonde Ambition Tour," but as Edward Pettit (Happy Brithday, sir!) pointed out to me recently, that's just an easy steal from Madge. So I turn to you, dedicated Secret Dead Blog reader, for help.

If you can come up with a kick-ass name for my book tour, you'll receive a signed copy of The Blonde hardcover.

But not just any old signed copy. The first signed copy.

Dude, just think of the eBay potential.

To enter, send me an email (duane.swier at verizon.net) with the subject line, "I'll Name Your Friggin' Tour" and then give me a suggestion or two. Also, include your mailing address. You don't have to play on the word "blonde," but it might help.

Deadline for entries: October 31st, 11:59 p.m. EST. The winner will be determined by the Secret Dead Blog Contest Department (myself, The Bride) and will be announced Wednesday, November 1st.

Good luck. And remember: Blonde contest entrants have more fun.

Number Four

Tonight, at about 11:08 p.m, I finished my fourth novel, tenatively titled Severance Package.

I still have a little revising and tweaking to do. I'm sure my editor will weigh in with excellent editorial advice, as will Sunshine and The Bride and Agent Smith. And I will heed their suggestions, because they've never steered me wrong before, and that's how I roll.

Still: the complete story is told. It's a real book.

Good? Beats me. I had a blast writing it.

It's very, very bloody.

We'll see what you guys think in about a year.

A Moment of Zen...

... from Allan "Sunshine" Guthrie. He subtitled this photo: "Lennon as a child."

She's Here!

At long last, a box containing 32 copies of The Blonde arrived this afternoon. Even my son Parker was impressed. "Boy, that's a lot of Blondes, Daddy." (That's not something you hear from your four-year-old every day.)

These aren't my author copies, so I can't spread them out on the floor and like, roll across them naked or anything. They are the property of The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona. I have to sign 'em, then ship 'em back, unmolested. (Customers of Poisoned Pen: You'll be buying the very first signed copies of this baby! You may or may not find this cool.) I'm hoping my copies arrive tomorrow or Saturday, along with some Wheelman trade paperbacks.

Still, that didn't mean I couldn't take a little looksee. And my my my... The Blonde is indeed a thing of beauty. Once again, St. Martin's has done me proud with a gorgeous compact hardcover that practically begs you to pick it up and nuzzle it.

There was, however, one tiny thing nagging at me.

Faithful readers of this blog will surely remember what I can only refer to as "The Spine Incident."

(Go ahead, refresh your memory. I'll wait.)

So of course I had to check this one. I placed a hardcover on my desk and steeled my nerves.


Carefully, I peeled the jacket from the book...


But what's this? A yellow Post-It note?


I plucked the note from the spine to give it a closer look.


Touché, St. Martin's Minotaur*. Touché.

(* Ah, I kid St. Martin's. They know that. The content of above Post-It note is completely made-up and in no way resembles real correspondence from my publisher.)

Like This is a Friggin' News Flash

It's official. I'm the only Duane Swierczynski in this country.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I'm guessing there must be at least three or four in Poland, though.

(Courtesy Edward Champion.)

400,000 Large

Fresh from today's Philadelphia Daily News: A pair of heisters knocked over a PNC bank in the Great Northeast, not too far from where Secret Dead Blog lives. There are many bank robberies in Northeast Philly, but they're almost always the lone crackhead, note-passer variety, which usually ends in an arrest. And if it doesn't end in an arrest, the best you can do is a couple thou, which compels you to try it again, at which point you'll probably be arrested.

Anyway, these guys -- who hit the bank early, secured the employees, locked the doors, and communicated with a pair of walkie-talkies -- knew what they were doing. And their haul is one of the largest in recent memory. At least for this town. Not quite the fictional haul from The Wheelman, but close.

Like I've said before: If you're going to rob a bank, go takeover.

Of course, you should never rob a bank.

But if you do... I'm just sayin'.

(Thanks to Scoats at the Grey Lodge for the tip.)

Secrets, Horrors, and Jacket Blurbs

Today was a good day on the book front. When I returned home from work, there was a copy of Best New Horror, Volume 17 waiting for me. I've been buying (and loving) these fat little trade paperback anthologies since 1993, which is what? Volume four? Anyway, I look forward to these every October. And in this installment, we've got quite a few Swierczy favorites -- Clive Barker, David Morrell, Brian Hodge, Peter Atkins, Caitlin R. Kiernan -- as well as some interesting whippersnappers in the mix, too, most notably Joe Hill, son of new MWA Grandmaster Stephen King. (This is more or less an open secret.) Hill's story is called "Best New Horror," and it opens with a guy gathering stories for the 17th installment of a certain horror anthology...

Also in the mail: an early copy of Grave Descend, the latest pulp treat from the good folks at Hard Case Crime. The author is John Lange, and we're all not supposed to talk about the fact that it's the defunct pen name of a wildly successful author who publishes big-ass bestsellers under his own name. (No, not Stephen King.) What is it with all of these secrets these days? Next you're going to tell me I'm not supposed to say that Tony Spinosa is actually Reed Farrel Coleman.

Finally -- and this is an especially sweet find -- I ran across a copy of Richard Powell's 1955 novel False Colors at the Book Trader. Powell was a Philadelphia mystery writer who was all but forgotten (certainly in his hometown) until Hard Case reprinted the hilarious Say It With Bullets earlier this year. False Colors was written a few years after Bullets, and features some really screwy jacket flap copy, presumably written by Powell himself:

What you're starting to read now is called a jacket blurb. Its purpose is to tell you enough about the book to steam you up into reading it. Jacket blurbs are usually written by publishers, and sometimes they fib a little about how wonderful the book is.

But this time, the publisher asked me, the author, to write the blurb. I suppose that, after publishing nine other Powell books, Simon and Schuster feel I ought to do my own exaggerating for a change. So let's get that over with: "This is a magnificent book and you'll love every word of it." Now we can relax.

Don't you just love that? I read the first four chapters on the ride home from work, and so far, False Colors readers like a great, long-lost screwball comedy from the 1940s. The dialogue snaps so hard, it makes your fingers hurt. And of course, I love the Philly color.

If you dig Powell, there's good news coming. I can't reveal it just yet, but watch this blog in the coming weeks.

(C'mon, what do you expect? The word "secret" is in the name of this friggin' blog.)

It's Not Too Late...

... to catch the first 23 pages of The Blonde over at DearReader.com. For free! Honest! Just sign up and they'll send you the opening of the book in five handy, easy-to-digest e-mail installments. Don't be the only kid on the block without one! (Or, er, five.)

How the Dead Live

Here's my editor's letter from this week's City Paper.

Sometimes I use this space to talk about the cover story. But this week, I want to tell you about the photos in the cover story, taken by staff photographer Michael T. Regan.

Or more specifically: the photos we didn't run.

Ideally, we like to send Mike out with our writers when they're reporting the story for a one-two-punch effect; the writer reports, and Mike snaps. Sometimes, like this week, it isn't possible. Writer David S. Barry spent months hanging out with cops and the affluent families of kids who have OD'd in Bucks County. The result is "Horse Country," a disturbing portrait that traces the trail of lethally potent heroin from drug corners in North Philly to the allegedly "safe" streets of bucolic Bucks County. It's not clear what's worse: the superpotent blend of heroin that high school kids are snorting instead of injecting, or the extreme denial of some parents and school officials, who seem to take a "what happens in North Philly stays in North Philly" attitude.

Mike wasn't able to tag along with Barry for his reporting, so he decided to chronicle one specific portion of the story: hanging out with a narc squad to watch suburban drug consumers make their way to the Badlands to score.

He spent Thursday night hanging out under the El along with the Philly PD's narc squad. And he wasn't disappointed. In the cover story, you'll see the surprised face of a guy who drove down to Somerset to score a little horse. On the cover, you can see the $10 bags of "Hellraiser" — the brand of that particular block — in a narc's hand.

There are some photos, however, we decided not to run. Not because we censored ourselves, but because they didn't fit in with Barry's story.

Still, they represent a story that needs to be told.

During the shoot, as dusk was falling on the river wards, Mike watched three people poke their way out of weeds and bushes near a Rite Aid parking lot. One was Kelly, a 21-year-old girl who said she was originally from Delaware County.

"How long you been using?" Mike asked her.

"A year and a half."

"Where do you live?"

"In the neighborhood."

The next day, Mike showed us the photos he'd taken of Kelly. At first glance you'd think: pretty girl. But the camera reveals the sad truth. Her face shows the abuse of her three-bag-a-day heroin habit. Her mouth is a graveyard. Her eyes, flat.

"You gotta quit," Mike told her.

"I know."

"You don't look good."

"Aw, really?" She seemed sad.

"You could be a pretty girl if you quit this shit."

"Well, yeah ..."

Kelly supports her $30-a-day habit any way she can. One of Kelly's friends — a former running back at a local high school — needs to come up with $70 a day just to feed his jones.

Why hang out near the El? It's a good spot strategically, the narc squad told Mike. Cops find you, you can race up the stairs, ditch the bag, maybe even hop a train if you're lucky.

Also, it's not far from an abandoned lot where Kelly and her friends shoot up. "There were bags and needles everywhere," says Mike. "I was wearing sneakers — but I should have been wearing combat boots. A pair of Adidas doesn't protect you. There were different bags everywhere — heroin, crack. Random pieces of furniture, like a table, which people would carve their names on. All of the aftermath of the deed."

You can see that photo, a grotesque parody of a middle-class family living room, at the top of this column. (Click on it to enlarge.)

We decided not to show you Kelly. She didn't belong with the cover, and Mike chose the shooting galley for his "Angle" column.

But Kelly's photo stayed with me all weekend, as my wife and I took the kids to — yeah, you guessed it — Bucks County to look at pumpkins and ride in the back of a hay truck. October stuff. You can wrap your arm around your kid, keep them safe from the cold, but you have to wonder: At what point do you risk losing them?

At what point did Kelly's parents lose her?

Start Making Sense

Two cool Blonde-related things:

1. If you go, quick as a bunny, over to LibraryJournal.com, guess what you'll see as today's (actually, yesterday's) editor's pick? Oh yeah. Now that's what I'm talking about.

2. My editor, the hard-workin' "Marquis" Marc Resnick, informs me that Book Sense, the very cool indie bookshop marketing campaign, has named The Blonde as one of their December picks. (Over at Whatever, John Scalzi reports that his sf novel, The Android's Dream, also made the December list.) Huge thanks to the indie bookseller who threw my goofy little exploding head/Sybian novel into the mix. I owe you many large beers and a hearty meal.

Random Crime Goodness

I'm coming a little late to the party, but check out Ray "The Great Raymundo" Banks' interview with Martyn Waites over at the Crimespree website. It's a pdf download, and a DVD extra, of sorts. Ray gives superb interview, even if he can't resist that nose-breaking question.

Finished with that? Head on over to Tribe's joint for his interview with Murdaland editor Michael Langnas that has the mystery/crime blogosphere a-buzzin'. (Especially over at Sarah's site.)

Still need more? Did you know that James Ellroy guest blogged at The Rap Sheet yesterday?

You did? Then have you seen the wicked awesome cover for Laura Lippman's next novel yet?

You have? Fuck. Surely, then, you haven't read John Rickards' advice for would-be writers yet, have you?

If all of that is old news to you, then watch this.

Anticipation (Sing It, Carly)

If you were born prior to 1975 you probably remember those Heinz Ketchup ads where a thick, lava-like flow of ketchup slowly coated the freshly-scorched surface of a hamburger patty to the tune of Carly Simon's "Anticipation." The message: Heinz Ketchup is worth the wait. Even if it looks like coagulated blood.

Well, Heinz was wrong. Waiting sucks.*

It's less than a month until both the hardcover of The Blonde and the fancy new author's preferred (meaning: minus my dumb mistakes from the first edition) trade paperback edition of The Wheelman are finally published. According to my editor, though, I should be receiving my author's copies within a week. Maybe even sooner. And I can't wait.

I don't think the experience of seeing, touching, stroking, snorting (etc.) the actual copy of a book you've written will ever get old. If it does, you might as well separate the two sides of my brain with a hatchet, because that's when I know I'm done with this whole book-writing thing.

It's the closest thing to the joy of holding one of your kids for the first time. And like any nervous parent, you count the fingers and toes and ribs and eyes (you never know) until you're assured everything is okay. Of course, sometimes not everything is okay. But even that's funny now. Looking back on it. (Sorta.)

So here I sit, pacing in the literary equivalent of the maternity ward waiting room, waiting for somebody to slap my book on the ass make it cry already.

(*And you'll notice they shitcanned those glass bottles in favor of squeezable plastic bottles. Which means you can no longer used ketchup bottles as murder weapons in crime novels.)

Just to Clear Up a Rumor...

The photo at left is from Hot Fuzz, a British cop comedy from the twisted bastards who made Shaun of the Dead. The movie isn't even out yet, but I've already received tons of email about this, so let me set the record straight here: The guy on the left is not me. He's an actor named Nick Frost. You can tell, because his fingers are a little stubbier than mine. And the guy on the right is not Allan "Sunshine" Guthrie. It's an actor named Simon Pegg*, who also starred in Shaun of the Dead (which again, I hasten to add, did not star Allan Guthrie). I know, I know--people take one look at this photo and think, "Wow, Swierczy and Sunshine teamed up to star in a British cop comedy," but that's just not true. Don't you think I would have blogged about this before, had it been the case? So there. Rumor put to rest. Enjoy Hot Fuzz anyway. It's no Grindhouse, but the trailer I saw had lots of explosions, so that seems cool.

(* To be honest with you, Al Guthrie may actually be Simon Pegg. He denies it, but c'mon. Take a look at that mug. It's totally Sunshine.)

All of Us Here at Secret Dead Blog...

... wish you a very Happy Friday the 13th. (Er, Part VI.)

Library Journal Checks Out The Blonde

I never thought of myself as a medical thriller writer--hell, I can't even spell penicillin without looking it up. But this extremely nice review from Library Journal makes a good case for it:

Imagine an episode of 24 written by Robin Cook, and you've got a pretty good idea of Swierczynski's (The Wheelman) second novel. Two parts adrenaline rush, one part medical thriller, this twisted story starts with a bang and rarely slows down.

There's a bit of plot recap, and then the review ends with:

Full of offbeat characters, excruciatingly reckless twists, and sardonic humor, this fun ride shows great promise for a rising author. Recommended for most thriller and crime fiction collections. Ken Bolton, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

God bless ya, Ken. What makes me really happy is that The Blonde has received positive reviews from all of the Big Four (PW, Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal). Which means it's up to newspaper critics to tear me a new one!

Update: As it turns out, this LJ review is starred. Which just completely makes my week.

Get Thee to the Grindhouse!

If there's a better movie trailer than the one you're about to watch, then Christ in a chicken basket, somebody needs to tell me about it. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez will be dropping Grindhouse on an unsuspecting world next spring, and I'm going to start camping out right around New Year's Day. (Check out that chick's leg! It's a friggin' gun!)



Update: The above clip was yanked from YouTube, but J. Kingston Pierce has saved the day with another link.

Connelly Comes Home

Just got back from a Michael Connelly appearance at the Borders in Bryn Mawr, PA--the very first stop, in fact, on his Echo Park tour. Everybody thinks Connelly is all about L.A. Which he is. But he grew up near Philadelphia, which I think is enough for us to claim him as our own.

I arrived early--a little after six--and there were already fans camped out in chairs. By 6:30, a crowd of at least 35 had gathered. And by showtime, the Borders staff was busy adding and rearranging chairs for a crowd of at least 60. Connelly joked that most of the audience were friends and family. If this is true, I want to rent Connelly's family for my next local signing.

The discussion was great--a little bit of Connelly telling us what fuels Harry Bosch in this one (self-doubt), a bit about his NY Times serial, "The Overlook," and then the floor was open for questions. This strikes me as the right idea for an author appearance. Unless you're friggin' James Earl Jones, there's no way a reading--no matter how short--can compare with a writer talking about what's on his/her mind. That's why people are camped out in seats early. If they wanted to be read to, they'd buy the audiobook. Or ask Mommy.

Two things from the Q& A stick in my mind:

Someone asked Connelly if he has a favorite among his own books; he said his "sentimental" favorite was The Last Coyote. That was the first book he wrote after quitting his full-time job, and he thinks it's stronger the first three Bosch novels because he could concentrate on it full time. Previously, Connelly would work the day job at the paper, then come home and work on a novel. The stop-start thing shows in the early Bosch novels he said--"Or at least, I can tell." But not so with Coyote, which felt more "seamless." Hmmm... (says the Polish kid who works the day job at the paper, then comes home and works on a novel).

Connelly also talked about Bosch as a character who is his "complete opposite," and when thinking about a particular decision might make, he bases it on choices Bosch has made in previous novels. When Connelly wrote from the point of view of reporter Jack McEvoy in The Poet, however, it was like "automatic writing"--the story just flowed, because he was very familiar with McEvoy's world (newspapers). This is interesting to me, because when I tried writing about a journalist character earlier this summer (see: Castle #1 and Castle #2 saga), the damned thing shut down on me. Hmmm....

And finally: A few friends had tipped me off, but tonight I saw it for myself, in cold print. Both Sarah Weinman and I make brief cameo appearances in Echo Park... as journalists. The fanboy in me thinks this is the coolest fucking thing in the world.

Hell, forget the fanboy thing. This is the coolest fucking thing in the world. (Thank you, Mike.)

Booklist on The Blonde: Can't Slow Down

Now here's something to make an ailing guy feel better. Keir Graff blogged about reading The Blonde a while back; this week, his Booklist review finally appeared. And man, is it so much better than a dose of Augmentin:

Swierczynski's The Wheel Man (2005) was an adrenaline-charged thrill ride through the streets of Philadelphia, and this one is, too. But where Wheel Man offered an inventive take on a traditional crime scenario--the heist gone wrong--The Blonde serves up more high-concept fare. Jack Eisley, dreading a meeting with his wife's ball-busting divorce lawyer, meets an attractive blond who informs him that she just poisoned his drink. If he wants the antidote, she adds, he'd better stay close, because if she doesn't have someone within 10 feet of her at all times, she'll die. Unfortunately for Jack, she is not a psycho. She is infected with fast-replicating and highly infectious nanomachines-and followed by a government agent who already has one head in his duffel bag. Her predicament, which soon becomes Jack's--thanks to an injudicious kiss--requires entertaining, nonstop problem solving. If the premise sounds hard to swallow, it's worth taking the bait. This is another fast, funny, and action-packed outing from a writer who, fortunately for us, doesn't seem to know how to slow down.

At a Bouchercon panel last week, Don Winslow told the audience that he never reads reviews of his books because there are already "too many voices in the room." That makes a lot of sense. However, I'm not as strong-willed as Don Winslow. And you know, this is a voice I don't exactly mind having in the room with me. Thanks, Keir.

Boucherflu: Diagnosed!

This morning I did something highly unusual: I went to the doctor. Swear to Baby Jesus, it's been about 9 years since I went to visit a doctor. I'm a guy. Guys don't do doctors, unless a body part is hanging off by a thin ribbon of flesh. Or if you've picked up a nasty infection from Bouchercon that you can seem to shake.

Anyway, after a weigh-in, blood pressure, temperature, throat and ear checks, it seems that I have an upper respiratory infection. As do some of you, from the sound of it. My doctor prescribed something called Augmentin, which just begs the question, "augmenting what?"

I start popping pills this afternoon. I'll let you know how it turns out.

A Gift from Madison: The Boucherflu

I didn't feel right all day Monday, but I thought that was just the stress of having a flight cancelled at the last minute and having to sell my soul to Devil to get on standby, then racing between two distant terminals in O'Hare so we could make our connection back to Philly. Ask Sunshine about this someday. He later told Parker: "Did you know your Daddy can run like the wind?"

(Also: remind me to tell you why Sean Doolittle is the most stand-up guy in mystery fiction, and why Sunshine and I will be giving Lance Kind killer blurbs.)

But yesterday it became clear: I had this flu so many people at B'Con were talking about. Every muscle in my body ached, as well as a few imaginary muscles. My body temperature would spike and plummet within minutes. My head pounded. In the middle of the workday yesterday, I lost the hearing in my right ear. "Can I do anything for you?" asked one of my staff writers. "Yes," I said. "Find a gun and shoot me." I even left work early. Yeah. On a Tuesday. Closing day.

This morning I feel a little more human, but now there's a new amusing symptom: My throat screams with raw agony whenever I swallow.

And that's the gift that keeps on giving.

In happier news, be sure to check out Christin "BFF" Kuretich's exclusive Saturday night Bouchercon photos. Yes, Russel McLean and I did do battle with a pair of steak tongs. Yes, Sunshine did feel me up. Yes, I burned two pieces of innocent toast.

Also, John Rickards took a ride with The Blonde and now wants to remove my brain from my skull. (The way I'm feeling John... dude, please.)

Finally, Fantasybookspot.com contributor Brian Lindenmuth weighs in on The Wheelman, and digs it very much.

Bouchercon Day Three: Vengeance Is Theirs!

You know, it's Sunday morning, and I have yet to set foot in the Bouchercon bar. Instead, I've been hanging out at Michelangelo's, a coffee shop around the corner.

What's strange about this is that I really enjoy booze, and really hate coffee. This is like a nudist hanging out at Brooks Brothers.

But Sunshine dragged me there Thursday, and he promptly fell in love with the place. So that pretty much became the de facto meeting/hangout place. It only took two days for the brainwashing effect to kick in. I had an impromptu meeting with Angela Cheng Caplan, the talented but deluded woman who's trying to sell my stuff to Hollywood, and I found myself saying the words: "Hey, I know this coffee shop around the corner..."

Anyway, let's recap yesterday. First thing for me was the "Hardboiled Writers Plot a Cozy, Cozy Writers Plot a Hardboiled Novel" panel. Sunshine's plot germs were cruel yet brilliant. Here's the "hardboiled" one, given to the cozy team (Parnell Hall, Leslie Caine, Dorothy Cannell):

Jimmy Nailhead is a contract killer with a gambling problem who's heavily in debt to the Uzi Family. Marco Uzi, who once decapitated a man for "looking at him funny," offers Jimmy a way out: perform a hit for the Uzis and the slate will be wiped clean. Sounds perfect to Jimmy until he finds out who the target is: They want him to whack his own mother.

Dorothy Cannell read this out loud, and there was a collective gasp in the room. But then Team Cozy set to work effeciently, knocking out a clever, twisty plot in a matter of minutes. Even though Dorothy didn't quite know what an "uzi" was.

Then it came time for Team Hardboiled (Megan Abbott, Jason Starr, me) to read Sunshine's cozy plot. Enjoy, because this may be the only time you'll ever read an Allan Guthrie cozy plot:

Pixie Thomas is a member of the local amateur operatic society and a keen collector of knitted cats. One morning she awakes to find her house has been broken into and the entire knitted cat collection stolen. The police are very helpful but somewhat preoccupied by the wave of poisonings that has been threatening to turn the village population into double figures. So Pixie enlists the help of Sister Epiphany from the local convent--she's a keen amateur sleuth who Pixie hopes will help her track down the thief who stole her beloved woolly pussies.

Ah, that Sunshine.

We started out strong--quickly establishing that Pixie's real cat -- a battle-scarred Vietnam Vet -- was the killer, and somehow was spiking the pots in the soup kitchen with a lethal kitty liter virus, but things broke down quickly. Not to put too fine a point on it: We totally got schooled by the cozy folks.

Fortunately, Jason Starr saved the day by inviting a special guest into the panel room at the last minute: a live cat, owned by Alison Janssen from Bleak House Books. There was so much oohing and ahhing that the audience almost (almost) forget how badly we were fumbling.

That said, I still think Woolly Pussies has possibilities.

The rest of the day was kind of lowkey--hanging around the book room, signing three boxes of Damn Near Dead, and then hitting the David Hale Smith pre-Anthony party at Angelic Brewing Co. Crashing at the end of the party were Bryon Quertermous, John Rickards and my BFF, Christin Kuretich. I have no idea why they didn't crash the beginning of the party, when there was booze to be had. Ah, these kids.

Suddenly it was time for the Anthony Awards. At first, I thought things were going our way. Barbara Serenella won Best Short Story, which was awesome. The Family Jordan snagged a much-deserved Anthony for Crimespree. Groovy, I thought.

But then came the paperback original category, and Sunshine... um, lost.

Or as he puts it: "I didn't win."

Or as he put it immediately after the ceremony: "I could give a shit." (Then Sunshine burst into tears.)

Sarah Weinman "didn't win" either, so we collectively drowned our sorrows at a grill-your-own-steak house somewhere on Washington Avenue (Street?). At first, I was skeptical. I don't want to go to restaurant and have to work, you know? But peer pressure kicked in, and soon I found myself flipping a ribeye over an open flame and burning--quite badly--two pieces of Texas Toast.

Meanwhile, Sunshine, who doesn't eat meat, was not so thrilled to discover that the salmon he'd been hoping for had been pulled from the menu (apparently, it had been sitting out too long), and the poor bastard was stuck with nothing more than a salad and a frickin' baked potato. This is not the first time this happened. In Houston, David Thompson treated the gang of us to dinner at a BBQ place, but Sunshine was unable to find a single thing on the menu that didn't use meat as a primary ingredient. Even the rice had meat in it. The beer didn't have meat, but Sunshine doesn't drink beer, either. Fussy bastard.

Speaking of, let's check in with him one last time this Bouchercon weekend.

Me: "So, how's it going, Anthony loser?"

Sunshine: "I'm still trying to transcend the boundaries of my own ideological framework. Before I pack."

And there you have it.

This will probably be the last post until I return home, so thanks to everyone who's wasted brain cells tuning into my lame B'Con coverage.

Story germs copyright Allan Guthrie, LLD, PhD, B.S., DDS, Esquire.