Flat on My Back and Writing in My Head:

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A little bit about a bump along the road for this first book, and the genesis for my third.

"Nevertheless, I woke up, five weeks later, a little fuzzy in the brain. I had the strange impression that I was really Sherlock Holmes and that Sherlock Holmes was actually me, and there would be hell to pay when someone found out."

Crime Reads: the Mystery Is Holmes

Ever wonder how people can read Holmes mysteries over and over, even though they know "whodunit"?  

Here's my piece in Crimereads:

Holmes is the black box of literature. Doyle’s genius is not in what he reveals, but what he conceals. The rue depth is not in the notes, but the silences.

Review: The Paragon Hotel

 This is the third Lyndsay Faye novel I've read, and by now I'm convinced she either
has a research team of a hundred, or a time machine. Her ear and eye for varied time periods are that good, and yet she's able to stamp each book with her own graceful, surprising style. 

  In this one we have a gun moll on the run from the New York mafia (in the 20s) and lands in Oregon. In the only black-run and owned hotel in Portland. In a time when blacks were barely tolerated on Oregon, and the KKK was on the rise. And she finds that the inhabitants of the hotel have nearly as many secrets among them as she harbors herself, including a slinky black chanteuse who believes that if she knew all HER secrets, she might just not hate her. And as the secrets unravel, we alternately love and hate and are enthralled by the characters.

   Can you tell I enjoyed the novel?

The Alluring Puzzle of Fact and Fiction

         From my interview with Writer's Digest here.