Dreaming of Chocolate, Movies, Plays...and Books

By Paul

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderlay again.

Wait! Wrong dream. Wrong opening line, too.

I dreamed of chocolate. And no wonder. Two nights ago, Renee ("She Who Must Be Wined & Dined") and I attended a chocolate tasting. That's right. Chocolate. Not wine. Not cheese. Not little pigs in the blanket at Trader Joe's.

On Sunday, the incomparable K Chocolatier opened the doors of its new Brentwood store to a lucky group of fressers and All-Pro Chocoholics. Family owned and operated by Diane Kron, her husband Tom and son David, K Chocolatier has been featured on The Food Network and Good Morning America, and with good reason. Renee loves the little teddy bears (above right) and the "K Hi-Balls," dark chocolate filled with vodka, Scotch, or in one combo, vodka with a hint of vermouth. Yes, a desert martini. My favorites are the chocolate-covered slices of ginger and the truffles (above left), three textures of intense dark chocolate with whipped centers.

As usual, I ate too much. On the other hand, have you read the recent news stories about the health benefits of flavanoids in dark chocolate? Okay, so that's a rationalization. But it works for me. Yes, you can order from the K Chocolatier website. And no, I don't get a commission.

AND, IN LOCAL ENTERTAINMENT...

Renee ("She Who Must Be Entertained") and I attended a screening of "All the King's Men," the new adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize winning novel. As every English Lit student knows, the novel was based on the rise and fall of Louisiana's Huey Long. Interestingly, Steve Zaillian, the film's director, has been quoted as saying he's never watched the 1949 movie starring Broderick Crawford. (He also hadn't read the novel before being hired to adapt it). No matter. It's terrific. A study of power and corruption and the blurry line between good and evil, the movie packs a wallop. Easy bet. Sean Penn will be nominated for an Academy Award as best actor. If he's not, I'll start writing this blog in iambic pentameter.

We also caught the musical comedy/murder mystery "Curtains" at the Ahmanson Theatre. What a hoot. It's one of the last collaborations of John Kander and the late Fred Ebb ("Chicago," "Cabaret"). The multi-talented David Hyde Pierce stars as a stage-struck homicide detective who just can't help improving an out-of-town musical bomb, even as he investigates a backstage murder. Hilarious. And yes, headed for Broadway.

YOU WANT BOOKS? WE GOT BOOKS...

But, this is an author's website. We're supposed to talk about books, right?

Okay, if you're in the Los Angeles area, please stop by the West Hollywood Book Fair this Sunday. If you do, you'll find a couple hundred authors, actors, comics, poets, cooks, and assorted WEHO meshugenahs.

I'll be moderating a panel, "Writers Who Thrill" with a terrific group of wordmeisters, including Andrew Klavan ("Damnation Street"), Gayle Lynds ("The Last Spymaster"), Thomas Perry ("Nightlife"), and Theresa Schwegel ("Probable Cause").

Another panel I wouldn't miss: "Funny Ladies" featuring our own Patty Smiley along with Jerrilyn Farmer, Harley Jane Kozak, and Sue Ann Jaffarian.

On Saturday afternoon, when all good Americans will be watching Michigan vs. Notre Dame, I'll be speechifying and signing "Kill All the Lawyers" at "Mysteries To Die For," in Thousand Oaks. Love the store, love the owners, love the readers. And...right across the street is Chocolatine French Pastries Tea Room. Terrific homemade hot chocolate and some unique creations, such as corn flakes dipped in melted chocolate.

Do you detect a pattern here?

I have to go now. There are some little round "K Hi-Balls" filled with Scotch that are calling me.

By Paul

Acknowledge that!

Patty here…

First of all, I'd like to congratulate our Jacqueline. Her novel MESSENGER OF TRUTH was number 12 on the Los Angeles Times Bestsellers list on Sunday. Yeah!

I spent the weekend in Chicago. While I was there I took in the King Tutankhamun exhibit at the Field Museum of National History. Back in the seventies, I saw another Tut exhibit that was touring the U.S., featuring hype grander than the Valley of the Kings.

Back then Tut-abelia was everywhere. Of course, there were current buying opportunities in the Field’s museum gift shop. How about chocolate wedges in a Tut tin, or a winged scarab mirror, an ancient Egyptian dog collar, a Tut blowup doll (hmmm), or a limited edition Limoges coffin with mummy box for $299.00. That was hard to pass up. Remember all that reproduction pharoah’s jewelry that was for sale back then? Well, it's back. But my favorite item was the death mask tissue box. You pull the tissue out through the nose. It’s one of those things you buy on impulse because it makes you laugh (or groan), but once home, you slap your palm to your forehead and say, “What was I thinking?”

On Saturday night after the exhibit, I attended a cocktail party in Winnetka. I was standing outside enjoying a balmy Midwestern evening surrounded by a group of accomplished and interesting men—a urologist from New York City, an environmental lawyer from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a former ambassador to the Philippines. They were all indulging me by brainstorming plot ideas for my fourth novel. It was amusing party conversation but, you never know, I might be able to work in a scene that includes a cystoscopy, Imelda Marcos’s dancing ability, and the endangered habitat of the stephanotis floribunda vine. If so, I’d want to thank them.

I’m getting ready to write the acknowledgement page for my third novel SHORT CHANGE, which will be on bookstore shelves July 2007, and I’m wondering whom to include. So many people helped and supported me that if I thanked them all, the acknowledgement section would be longer than the book.

I used to think that everyone would love to have his or her contribution recorded for posterity. I remember when Elizabeth George acknowledged all the students in her writing group in her novel DECEPTION ON HIS MIND. That was in 1997, long before I was published, and I was thrilled to see my name in print. Something happened recently that made me think that everybody might not feel the same way.

I was writing a scene in SHORT CHANGE in which Tucker had to interview a probation officer. Of course, I could have made the whole thing up, but I wanted the information to be authentic, so I called the Los Angeles County Probation Department and after being put on hold, transferred, and given alternate numbers to call, I was finally connected to a probation officer. I sketched out the scene I’d planned and he told me no way, no how would that ever happen. I proposed a few more scenarios, but his answer remained the same.

“Is it because it’s illegal for you to give out that information?” I said.

“No. It’s unprofessional.”

At first I was discouraged, because I thought I’d have to change the way Tucker got what she needed. Then I realized that my probation officer had inadvertently created a perfect character in the exact scene I needed, Tucker trying to coax information out of somebody who didn’t want to tell her anything. It was full of conflict and since the guy was a good sport, it also held a fair amount of humor. At the end of the conversation I asked him if I could acknowledge the contribution by mentioning his name in my book. He chuckled and said, “No way, no how.” The experience left me wondering if authors need permission to thank their sources.

The Perils of the Wi-Free

from Jacqueline

This will be a short post, mainly because I'm two days late. I wasn't able to gain access to the internet on Friday to accomplish the act of posting my blog. Part of it is my fault, and part of it is just the way of the world. You need more than dial-up to post a blog (well, I do anyway), and my laptop is not wi-fi enabled. The reason for this is that the poor old thing is all of four years old now, so cannot be updated to fill this void in my online life. And I refuse to ditch a laptop that is perfectly good in every other way. I know I will crumble soon and make the investment - a brand spanking new imac to replace the senior citizen ibook, but all the time my horse is in the equine hospital (yes, still ... the CT scanner is still broken so they've put off the scan again), I daren't even think of buying a new computer. I do have something ready to go, which I will endeavor to post next week, assuming I can access email - as you know I'm on my book tour, just landed in Minneapolis, you betcha.

It's been really great so far, meeting readers and talking about what inspires me to write my novels. Just a few days ago I recounted a conversation I'd had with Our Cornelia and Cara Black in the summer (gosh, has summer passed already?). It wasn't on a panel, but over coffee in San Jose, and we were talking about the passions that inspired our writing. As each of us recounted that occasion when we knew we had to write a certain story, simply remembering the moment seemed to inspire each of us all over again, and I have to say simply listening to Cara and Cornelia all but brought me to tears. Writing our novels might have been a way of seeing justice done, a way of remembering good times and bad, or a process to make sense of something terrible, and we had all come to it through our storytelling. I love to recount that conversation, because you can see the readers reconsidering what they've read, perhaps making the comment that they'd go back and read something again, or that the story made them think about the world in a different way. One of the readers made a comment, when I talked about that conversation with Cornelia and Cara, that the power of healing was inherent in storytelling. I've thought about that before, and I've been thinking about it again a lot today, as I shuttled on and off 'planes, waited in lines and wondered about the world. And the thing is, because I'm a storyteller, I don't think I will stop mulling it over for some time - even (or maybe especially) if I'm writing comedy - because there is so much healing to be done.

That's it from me, Our Jacqueline, the Late One ....

Five Years After 9/11: A Tribute

from James

This Monday will mark the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11. My wife and I were in Australia at the time and found ourselves desperately trying to get home in what seemed like a world gone mad. This month, GOOD READING magazine in Australia will run an article I wrote to thank the Australian people for all they did for us. I wanted to share it with you today:

THE PHONE RANG just around midnight, waking my wife and me in our Brisbane hotel room. “Turn on CNN!” our nanny shouted. She was back in Miami with our five-year-old-daughter and our son. The eleventh day of September, 2001, was our little boy’s third birthday. We hated not being able to celebrate with him, but the collapse of Ansett Airlines had made it impossible to get home before the morning of the twelfth. I switched on the television just in time to see the south tower of the World Trade Center come crashing down upon New York’s financial district. Minutes later, the phone rang again. This time it was Qantas Airlines. My wife Tiffany was glued to the television, teary-eyed and stunned into silence. I held her and said, “Honey, we’re not going home today.”

I was at the end of a 17-day book tour of Australia for my fifth novel, truly a highpoint of my writing career. My wife came with me, and we made every day count. We mingled with fellow authors at the Melbourne book festival, took in Faust at the Sydney Opera House, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, hugged koalas in Queensland, snorkelled on the Great Barrier Reef, drank beers at Bondi and dined in world-class restaurants. We fell in love with Australia, its people, and its wines.

Though our flight home was canceled, we went to Brisbane airport the next morning to see what we could find out. All flights to the States were grounded indefinitely. We, and others like us, followed the same routine for the next three days: go to airport, check on flights, get bad news, go back to the hotel. We looked at flights through Tokyo, Seoul, even Buenos Aires. We considered flying to Canada, renting a car and driving down to Florida. More than anything, we wished we had brought our children with us. We phoned them every day and Tiffany vowed never to put an ocean between us and our children again.

On Saturday morning we headed for Sydney, figuring that the first flight to the States would probably not be from Brisbane. Security at the airport was high, but fears ran even higher. Among the passengers waiting to board the flight to Sydney were three young middle-eastern men; for some passengers, that was enough to rouse suspicions. The paranoia was palpable. My wife is a nervous flyer to begin with, we’d barely slept in the last five days, and by the time we took our seats on the aircraft she was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. She wanted off the plane.

A flight attendant did her best to calm Tiffany. I explained the stress we’d been under, the anxiety of being separated from our children, the fact that we knew people who worked in the World Trade Center and didn’t know their fate. The flight attendant escorted us from the plane, where I presumed we would simply be left behind. Moments later, the Qantas pilot came out to speak to us. He assured us that he wouldn’t be flying the plane if it weren’t safe. The head of airport security came and gave us the same assurances. I can’t say enough about the compassion and professionalism displayed by that team from Qantas. It’s a credit to them that Tiffany turned around and got back on that plane.

We arrived safely in Sydney only to discover that nearly every stranded American in Australia was operating under the same assumption: that the first flight to the States would leave from Sydney. We waited in a very long queue to speak to a ticket agent. We could hear passengers ahead of us asking the same questions we had asked in Brisbane, and of course they were getting the same answer: no flights to America. I’m not sure why we stayed in the queue, but we did. When we finally reached the ticketing counter, we inquired about the flight to Los Angeles. The agent was halfway through her sentence, conveying the disappointing news, when suddenly she stopped and double-checked the screen in front of her. “Oh, my God,” she said. “We’re flying.” We couldn’t believe our ears, but the euphoria was short lived. “The flight is completely booked,” she told us. There was a waiting list, but since our flight was supposed to leave from Brisbane we would be on the bottom of the list.

Perhaps the agent saw the desperation in our eyes, or maybe it was just her intuition. But she told us to wait; she had an idea. She grabbed the microphone and announced that the flight was scheduled to leave in ninety minutes. Then she did the most extraordinary thing. This Australian from Australia’s leading airline asked if there were any Australians with confirmed reservations who would be willing to give up their seats in favor of Americans who were tying to get home. In thirty seconds, she had a couple of volunteers. In another minute, she had two more. They kept coming.

I don’t know how many Australians stepped forward to help my wife, me, and other stranded Americans get home that day. But even five years later, their kindness towards total strangers still brings a lump to my throat. And from the bottom of my heart, I wish to say, “Thanks, mates.”

Planet Madonna

By Cornelia

[I am on deadline again, so am reproducing an old review here, of my second-favorite hotel ever]

Of course great hotels have always been social ideas, flawless mirrors to the particular societies they service.

--Joan Didion The White Album

If you want to spend one night in America’s most memorable lodgings, forget about The Plaza, The Drake, The St. Francis, the Ritz-Carlton. and The Chateau Marmont—what you need is a reservation at the Madonna Inn . This "spectacular fantasy motel" has become so widely known that when its proprietors, Phyllis and Alex Madonna, visited Austria and Switzerland and were asked the name of their hometown by someone to whom they had not been introduced, their reply of "San Luis Obispo, California," was greeted by, "and how far is that from the Madonna Inn?" Though their fame abroad is remarkable (the Madonnas have gotten press coverage in venues ranging from Good Morning America to The Times of London), it is eclipsed by the esteem in which this couple is held at home: that trip to Europe, for instance, was a gift from their employees.



As kind, honest, and sincere as Mr. and Mrs. Madonna are reputed to be, however, the foremost reason to book a room with them is that the Madonna Inn is to interior decorating what miniature golf is to landscape design: outrageous, eye-catching, and deeply, deeply American. This 109-room hostelry is a cultural icon right up there with Disneyland, Hearst Castle, Pedro’s South of the Border, and the entirety of The Vegas Strip. The Inn exerts a force of kitsch so powerful, in fact, that—like Graceland— it generates a self-referencing bubble of wonder, a magnetism that pulls busloads of the faithful to its doors as surely as pilgrims are drawn to Mecca, Lourdes, Rome, and Zion.

The Madonnas have conceived of, built, and decorated a veritable temple to the self-made aesthetic, making tangible—in flocked velvet, apple green leather, lava rock, faux leopard, and hot pink everything—the bedizened romanticism of the American Dream.



Step through the carved doors by the fountains chez Madonna, and you’re inside the giant snowglobe whose web of enchantment hides the ancient homeland of all Hummel figurines, Jell-O salads, lawn trolls, sparkling pink Barbie accessories, gilt cherubs, and "Round-Tuits" from the gaze of we lowly mortals. There is no greater Valhalla of Va-va-va-voom than this, no more hermetically perfect auberge of audacity…. You have arrived, Chica.

The pillars, beams, and cornices of the coffee shop were ten years in the carving. The tables and bar are made of copper, the former with the Madonna "pick and shovel" logo handstamped and the latter elaborately engraved.



Murals with a fin-de-siecle theme abound, as do Tiffany-style stained glass lamps, red leather barstools, and sheet-copper sheathing. All this, and you’re still in the coffee shop.

Don't forget to ogle the Gold Rush Dining Room, whose baroque magnificence includes the "swinging girl," a nearly life-sized brunette doll who has been careening back-and-forth--suspended from the "genuine oak branches" adorning the ceiling--since the inn opened.

Of course, it’s hard to miss the 28-foot tall tree made from leftover conduit, scrap copper, and spare diesel fuel tubing, "lit by a thousand dainty lights" that stands at the room’s center, but the focal point is still the overwhelming use of "Madonna Pink," a lushly roseate shade the owners felt would be flattering to female guests. The ubiquity of pink upholstery alone must be supported by its own naugahyde factory, working round the clock.

Even the bathrooms are cause for a sort of hushed reverence. Those in the Wine Cellar, for instance, which are approached by following a carved banister down the flight of stairs from the lobby, walking past the rock cave which houses the pay phone, and beyond the barrel-shaped cage which leads to another dining room ("starlit" stone pillars, grape trellises, wine barrels…). The Ladies’ Room features red flocked wallpaper, pink Italian marble, and door panels of tufted red leather, but it is the Men’s Room which draws crowds with its giant clamshell sinks and the stone wall urinal, "flushed" when patrons trigger an electric eye and loose a full-scale waterfall.

Each of the 109 rooms is decorated differently, with its own theme, color scheme, and decor. But as over the top as the decor sounds (and we haven’t even discussed the Gay Nineties Room, the Silver Bar, or the Oak Pit BBQ), this is not the place to show up in python thigh boots with Hunter S. Thompson and his Samoan attorney in tow.

As Jack Arky, a composer from Los Angeles, said of his stay there last year, "Everyone is nice. Really, really, really nice. I mean, like Disneyland nice—it was, um, eerie."

Arky and his girlfriend stopped in on their first driving tour up the West coast at the behest of a college buddy who is a California native. "’Get one of the cave rooms,’ she told me, ‘and surprise her with a gift of leopard underwear,’" he recounts.



"We followed instructions, and actually we had a really great time, but it was so overwhelmingly detailed, visually, that we were exhausted by the time we left. I don’t think I could stay there longer than one night."

Still, he remembers the experience vividly, saying that it was like nothing else so much as wandering into a lost episode of Twin Peaks.

"The wildest thing was when we went down to the dining room, and the whole place is like, hot pink car upholstery or something, and the service is great, and there’s this band playing. The music was really amazing—like Glenn Miller, 'Stardust,' the whole thing— and everyone’s dancing ballroom style, and we look around and we realize that everyone’s really good. They’re all dipping and swirling and doing all of this amazing stuff out on the dance floor...everyone...and so we just decide that it really is an alternate universe, that maybe the whole population from the surrounding area comes here all the time and they’ve developed this whole really nice culture together, just unbelievably polite and into dancing their heads off all the time."

He paused and laughed at this point in the story, adding "Later, of course, we find out that it was some huge Arthur Murray ballroom class out on a field trip."

We checked back and found out that the Inn offers live Swing music Tuesday through Saturday, and that local dance groups often show their stuff here. But if you’re not ready to Cha-Cha, the recreational opportunities are legion. The Madonna Inn is within easy distance of downtown San Luis Obispo, Hearst Castle (about a 50-minute drive), and a number of good wineries. While there is no concierge, the desk staff will help you get information on setting up golf or fishing outings. Tours of California's scenic coastline can be arranged for guests, with the local Silverado Tours coming right to the hotel.

Bring your mountain bike or hiking boots, too, because the surrounding terrain offer some great trails and views. Especially recommended are the trails originating at Montana De Oro State Park, which is about a 20 minute drive away, on the Pacific.

As for indoor recreation, we highly recommend reserving any of these splendid rooms for at least a night, preferably after a shopping spree at Frederick’s of Hollywood down the coast. Most people like to book rock accommodations that include a waterfall shower, but two rock suites offer both the shower and a fireplace.

The Austrian suite offers a gilded confection of ornate gold framed mirrors, marble-topped tables, and other treats to bring back the heyday of a lost empire.



For those with a more celestial bent, the Cloud Nine Room is chock-full of angels and cherubs, providing the perfect opportunity to design your personal heaven.



For the Pocahantas in us all, there’s the Indian Room, a smaller abode that features a Western theme, complete with nearly dayglo leather bedspread.



The staff at the hotel will happily fill you in on the dozens of other theme rooms available. There is truly something for everyone here, and goodness knows this is fertile ground for coming up with a thousand and one "honeymoon" scenarios.

Even if you’ve got the rental car on cruise control, trying to do the length of the state in a day, this is an ideal rest stop on any road trip through California. The postcards alone (featuring a variety of rooms as photographed by Mrs. Madonna) are worth pulling off 101 for, and you won’t find a more entertaining (or cleaner) restroom anywhere in the NAFTA countries. If you’ve got a couple of minutes more, pull up a tufted red leather barstool at the copper horseshoe-shaped bar for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie…. Go ahead, make your day.

The Bottom Line: if you haven't been to The Madonna Inn, you haven't been to America.

Keep Those Cards & E-Mails Coming

By Paul--

Several friends e-mailed me Monday to say they’d seen a commercial for KILL ALL THE LAWYERS on ABC’s Good Morning America.

I missed it, but I’m told the spot will run every day this week. A big thank you to the folks at Bantam who arrange (and pay for) this.

As for those newsy, talky shows...I once appeared on GMA. For reasons I cannot recall, I was interviewed in front of the shark tank at the Miami Seaquarium. (No lawyer jokes, please). My one scheduled appearance on NBC's TODAY show was bumped by breaking news. Recently, I've appeared on Court-TV's Catherine Crier show,which has an upscale, book-buying audience.

I don't know if my fellow bloggers agree, but I think a single appearance on network or cable television sells very few books. Different story if you're saturated on all the networks, plus Larry King on CNN, plus "Fresh Air" on NPR. Which usually means you have the hottest non-fiction book around. (For a while, that meant having "O.J. Simpson" in the title).

How, then, do you sell books...especially if your name is not known to the general public? A great title helps. What's the best title in the history of publishing? I think you'd be hard pressed to beat THINNER THIGHS IN THIRTY DAYS. Tells you all you need to know And alliteration, too.

Abbie Hoffman's STEAL THIS BOOKwas a damn good title, reflecting both the tone of the work and the tenor of the times. The first sentence: "In a country such as Amerika, there is bound to be a hell of a lot of food lying around waiting to be ripped off."

Ah, but times have changed. As someone who was gone from publishing for eight years, here's something I've noticed. Much faster and more intense communication with readers. All thanks to websites and e-mail. I published my first novel, TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD, in 1990. In those Dark Ages, readers would contact authors by sending letters to publishers, whose addresses are not always easily obtainable. Weeks or months later, the publisher would send off a box of letters to the author. By the time you responded, the reader may have moved, died, or forgotten she wrote you in the first place.

But now...

With e-mail, it is far easier for readers to contact writers. In the early 1990's, most of my mail seemed to come from prison inmates seeking counsel or cigarettes. They were all innocent, by the way, so I would refer them to James Grippando, Esquire.

Now, I get e-mail the day a reader finishes a book. Or, in one case last weekend, BEFORE the reader even starts the book. Herewith (as lawyers say), the note from a male reader (or at least, a buyer) of KILL ALL THE LAWYERS.

Paul, I just got back my judgment and divorce decree from my two year divorce case. I got royally screwed by the judge and I now have a sizeable judgment from my first two lawyers and over priced accountant on top of it. I have not read your book but the title caught my eye. I am really shocked that the system is as corrupt and inept as it is. Keep up the good work.

Well, I don’t disagree. The system is “corrupt” and “inept.” I would only add “humorous.”

There’s a sign that hangs over the bench in every Miami courtroom. “We who labor here seek only the truth.” Taking note, Jake Lassiter, my first series character, responded, “There oughta be a footnote: subject to the truth being concealed by lying witnesses, distorted by sleazy lawyers, and excluded by inept judges.” Cynical, you say? I prefer to think of Jake as brutally self-aware. As he once said of himself and his brethren at the Bar: “They don’t call us sharks for our ability to swim.”

Trivia question: Who portrayed Jake Lassiter in the 1995 NBC Movie-of-the-Week? Answer: Gerald McRaney, who currently plays the villainous George Hearst on "Deadwood."

Another e-mail this weekend caught my attention. The subject line read: “Your first ‘Solomon vs. Lord’ novel was an embarrassment.”

"What!" I screamed. Then I read on. The e-mail came from a sergeant in the Canadian Army who said HE was embarrassed because he’d burst out laughing while reading the book on the bus. He promised he would start KILL ALL THE LAWYERS as soon as he finished Sandra Brown’s CHILL FACTOR. “She’s pretty good,” the sergeant writes.

Fine with me. Just keep those e-mails coming.

Paul

Crime-solving isn't for amateurs

Patty here...

Periodically I’ll hear a panel at a mystery convention or read a review disparaging amateur sleuths who solve homicides. Unrealistic, they say. I say, So what?

The truth is unless the protagonist works as an expert in law enforcement, he/she is an amateur sleuth, and that includes lawyers, newspaper reporters, private investigators, and bounty hunters. None of those professions have “solve homicides” in their job descriptions. Some may interface more often with the criminal element of society, but their mission is not to catch bad guys. In truth, even some homicide detectives don’t investigate a murder a week, especially those working in small towns or in low crime areas of big cities like Los Angeles.

More than once I’ve heard people talk about the dreaded Jessica Fletcher syndrome. Actually, I enjoyed the “Murder She Wrote” TV series, mostly because I found Angela Lansbury fascinating to watch. Did I care that she found a body a week and solved the crime before the bumbling police detective? No. I found her antics amusing and entertaining.

Mostly I don’t pick up a book featuring a series character with the plot in mind. It doesn’t really matter what Stephanie Plum or Harry Bosch are doing, I just want to hang out with them for the next three hundred plus pages. I picked up Janet Evanovich’s latest book without even reading the flap copy. It wouldn’t have mattered what it said. I was going to read the book anyway. In fact, I don’t remember the plots of most of my favorite authors who write series characters, amateur or expert, but I generally remember that Harry loves jazz and that Stephanie’s hamster is named Rex.

I always open a novel with a willingness to suspend disbelief. If an author doesn’t play fair with me or forces the heroine to act out of character to service the plot, I’ll bolt. Otherwise, I’m willing to go along for the ride.

I’m biased because I write about an amateur sleuth, a Los Angeles business consultant named Tucker Sinclair. I try to make Tucker’s entry into the investigation logical and her decision to stick with the case believable and consistent with her character. I don’t find it at all unusual that she encounters a body a book. As she said herself in COVER YOUR ASSETS, “Hey, this is L.A. People die here. I can’t help it if I know some of them personally.”

So what do you think?