In the 1960s and ‘70s, pop-music shows became popular on network TV. It was common for me to come home from a high school football game and, unable to sleep after either good or bad performances (mostly the latter), watch In Concert and The Midnight Special. In the ‘60s, a couple were on network TV. …
Tag: crime
Moving Right Along
Local sports are dying down, or at least the willingness of others to hire me to write about them, for now. The football teams have entered and exited the playoffs. Rain has returned to the Desert Southeast, and smoke from the mountains is at last on the wane. All I know to do is keep …
A Day That Clicked
It was blazing hot outside, but I never knew it. I shaved but never showered. On TV, the U.S. Open thought it was the Twenty-Four Hours of Le Mans. I was mainly oblivious. Occasionally, a hot-pink shirt or a crowd’s roar drew my attention. Golf announcers are exceedingly calm and mostly literate. Vin Scully is …
Nice Timing for The Year of Trump
Allen Kent, in The Wager, has fashioned a yarn based on a bet gone awry. Two giants of the mass media bet they are powerful enough to get a man of their choice elected president. Predictably, one is a liberal, the other conservative. The clash of egos lurks in the background as events unfold. A …
Such an Unlikely Venue for a Descent into Hell
Woe be unto those unfortunate souls who live on Honeysuckle Lane. It appears to be like any other middle-class neighborhood, this one located outside Dublin. The people there have secrets, most of which are just those that might appear familiar to you and me. A man is hiding a gambling addiction. A woman is bored with …
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No One Escapes Undamaged
I'm a fan of Joseph Souza. I enjoyed Unpaved Surfaces, a very different novel from his latest, Need to Find You. The former is a mystery. This one is crime. Is it ever. Undoubtedly, my enjoyment of Need to Find You is enhanced by my latest effort, Forgive Us Our Trespasses. My crime novel is …
A Readers’ Guide to What and How I Write
If you have read any of my previous novels, you probably know how I write. I try to be realistic. I create characters, and they don't ring true in my mind if they don't talk and act as I imagine them doing. I don't much care about writing about the exalted classes, having never spent …
And Away We Goooooo!
Sigh. I have so much to do. It's a matter of chipping away at all of them until, at some point in the distant future, I'll get a vague feeling that something has been accomplished. This is how I lost my way. On Monday, I spent the morning producing a weekly NASCAR column for Bleacher …
No Ordinary Indiscretion
In the past year, I've read a lot of chases. Hapless victims of fate, running for their lives. A young man trying come to grips with a mother both dead and outlandish. The Southwest. The Mid-Atlantic. Florida. Polly Iyer's Indiscretion begins on the coast of South Carolina and changes venues to Boston, where it …
Speeding, and Fiction, and … Speeding Through Fiction
I can't drive 55. I can drive 62. They never stop you when you're 10 miles an our or less over the speed limit. About four months ago, I got my first speeding ticket in at least five years. I got it in the worst state possible to be stopped for speeding, North Carolina, which …
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Nightrider's Lament 