Sneak peek at new cover

Here's a first look at the cover for my new e-book, which comes out later this week. A BOX OF PANDORAS is a traditional mystery with lots of laughs, set here in New Mexico. I think you'll love it.

In A BOX OF PANDORAS, small-town busybody Loretta Kimball goes to Santa Fe for a film festival that features her long-time movie idol, Michael Girard. Loretta is president of Girard's fan club and never misses an opportunity to see him in person. The film festival is populated with colorful characters and, since this is a murder mystery, some of them soon turn up dead.

The cover was designed by Kelly Brewer, who's done a number of my covers since we launched our E-Book Empire. She also helps edit my books. As I've said so often before, it pays to marry into talent.

I'm doing the final proofing and formatting of A BOX OF PANDORAS, and it should be available via Kindle and Smashwords by the end of the week, and on Nook, etc., shortly thereafter. (Don't worry, I'll let you know when.)

Those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter know that I've lately been sharing first lines from my novels. Here's the first line of A BOX OF PANDORAS:

"When I first heard my film idol was coming to New Mexico, you could've knocked me over with a feather boa."

More soon...

The African Connection

If you've ever heard me talk about mysteries, then you know one of my all-time heroes is the late, great Donald E. Westlake. This week, I felt a special connection with him.

I met Westlake a couple of times before his death in 2008, but they were brief encounters at book events in New York, and I mostly acted like a drooling fanboy. For the past couple of decades, I've tracked down most of his 100-plus books, and reveled in every one. I especially like the hard-boiled tales about the professional thief Parker that Westlake wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark. I thought I'd read every one of them.

Which brings us to this week. At the library, I found an old large-print edition of an unfamiliar Stark novel, and I was excited to read one I'd somehow missed. It's called "The Black Ice Score," and it's from 1965. In the story, Parker helps some guys from a new African nation called Dhaba steal diamonds that their evil president has smuggled to the U.S. It's a typical Parker story, with lots of violence and a couple of nice twists. One group of bad guys is sent after the diamonds by a General Goma back in Dhaba. We never see Goma, but reference is made to him several times.

When I saw "General Goma" in print, it stopped me in my tracks. I wrote a thriller called "Cutthroat" that first came out in 2007 from Bleak House Books, and the story includes a General Goma. In "Cutthroat," hero Solomon Gage learns that his employers are conspiring with Goma to overthrow the government of the African nation of Niger.

How did Westlake and I both end up with a General Goma? I remember thinking up the name when I was writing "Cutthroat" and settling on it because it sounded African. But had I really read it before in "The Black Ice Score" years ago, then forgotten I'd ever read that story? Was it strictly a coincidence? Was there any chance that Westlake saw "Cutthroat" before he died, and thought my Goma was some sort of homage? Did we have some sort of freaky ESP connection?

If I thought I could channel Westlake, I'd be the happiest writer around. Do yourself a favor and read his books. And read "Cutthroat" while you're at it. Say hi to General Goma for me.

A brief history of Bubba

I was being interviewed the other day about the new Bubba Mabry novella, PARTY DOLL, when I realized I've known Bubba for more than 20 years now.

Bubba was the star of my first published novel, LONELY STREET, and we've been together through six more novels, two novellas and a movie. I've published 14 other books during that time as well, but I keep coming back to Bubba.

All the Bubba stories remain in print via Kindle and Smashwords for $1.99 or less, and most are still readily available in paper as well. For those who've come to the series recently, I thought you could use a quick history of Bubba.

I wrote LONELY STREET in 1991, but it was 1994 before it was published by Pocket Books. In LONELY STREET, the bumbling private eye is hired by what appears to be the living Elvis. A reporter is trying to expose that The King faked his own death years before, and Bubba's hired to tail him.

Partly because of that rock 'n' roll connection, LONELY STREET remains my best all-time seller, and it was made into a Hollywood comedy that came out a couple of years ago. Here's the trailer:

That's the ever-hilarious Jay Mohr as Bubba. Underneath that incredible makeup is Robert Patrick as Elvis. Other faces you probably recognized are Joe Mantegna, Katt Williams and Mike Starr. The film was directed by Peter Ettinger.

The second Bubba book was BABY FACE. In that one, Bubba and his girlfriend, newspaper reporter Felicia Quattlebaum, take on the Religious Right, politicians, hookers and a vicious pimp named Sultan Sweeney.

Next came WITCHY WOMAN, in which Bubba goes to Taos, NM, to try to wrest a rich heiress away from an all-female cult. Things get weird when Felicia goes undercover by pretending to join the cult.

In SHAKY GROUND, Bubba and Felicia get married, but their wedding is almost ruined by Bubba's investigation into the killing of a biologist in the desert west of Albuquerque.

DIRTY POOL came next. Bubba goes head-to-head with a Texas private eye named William Pool as they both search for a young skinhead who's faked his own kidnapping. Whoever finds him first gets to keep whatever ransom is recovered.

In CRAZY LOVE, Bubba goes to work for a jealous widower who believes his wife had an affair before she died.

MONKEY MAN takes place mostly at the Albuquerque zoo. It opens with the shooting of a whistleblower zoo employee by a man wearing a gorilla suit. Things only get weirder from there.

I got invited to write a Christmas novella for an anthology, and the result was SANITY CLAUSE. In that story, Bubba is working as security at a mall at Christmastime, and somebody bumps off one of the guys who plays Santa.

That brings us to the new novella, PARTY DOLL, in which Bubba is hired to locate a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever.

I don't have immediate plans to write another Bubba story; I've started working on a standalone about bank robbers. But I'm sure Bubba will return before long. He and I go way back.

BOOST now a bargain

I'm pleased to announce that one of my most acclaimed crime novels, BOOST, is now available as an e-book for only $2.99.

BOOST was the only one of my books that had been e-published by its regular hardcover/paperback publisher. They'd been charging $8.61 for the e-book, and the pricing was out of my control. But last week I successfully got the e-book rights back so I could publish it myself via Kindle and Smashwords.

In BOOST, professional car thief Sam Hill discovers the corpse of a police informant in the trunk of a stolen 1965 Thunderbird. Someone has set Sam up, and he won't rest until he gets even. It's a fun, fast-paced story in which car thieves are the good guys.

Kelly Brewer did an outstanding job on the cover art, as you can see. By the way, that is indeed a '65 Thunderbird in the photo.

BOOST got some of the best reviews I've ever received; the Baltimore Sun called it "incredibly entertaining." The book remains under TV/film option in Hollywood, and a director in India also has expressed interest in making it into a movie.

My E-book Empire is now complete. I've self-published my entire backlist, as well as new crime novels such as THE BIG WINK, LOST VEGAS, CALABAMA and FIREPOWER. All are $2.99 or less.

The new Bubba Mabry novella, PARTY DOLL, is selling well, and I thank all of you who've bought a copy. It's only $1.99 on Kindle and Smashwords, as are all the novels featuring the bumbling Albuquerque private eye.
 
My other recent e-publication, the short story PAYOFF, is only 99 cents.
 
Please check out all my e-books. Thanks!

Bubba's back!

Bubba Mabry, the bumbling Albuquerque private eye who starred in eight previous books, returns in a new novella, PARTY DOLL.

In PARTY DOLL, Bubba is hired to find a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever. Business at the Pink Pony Gentlemen's Club is down without the star attraction, plus she vanished owing her boss, Slick Gurken, a lot of money. Slick wants her found, and he wants it fast.

But there's more here than meets the eye. The feds also are interested in Joy. And her disappearance may play a role in the latest crusade by Bubba's wife, newspaper reporter Felicia Quattlebaum.

I started writing PARTY DOLL back in October. At first, I thought it would be a short story. But the story kept growing, getting more complex, and it ended up being a 37,000-word novella.

Thanks to the e-book revolution, there's a market now for such shorter books. And novellas can sell for much less. PARTY DOLL is only $1.99 via Kindle and Smashwords. All the other Bubba e-books are similarly priced, so you can get the whole series for less than twenty bucks.

PARTY DOLL is a fast, funny mystery. Hope you enjoy it!

Free short story & more

My hard-boiled short story PAYOFF is now a free e-book via Smashwords. Click here to see it. Smashwords allows you to download such stories to virtually all e-readers, including Kindle.

PAYOFF was written originally for DAMN NEAR DEAD (Busted Flush Press), an anthology of "geezer noir" featuring protagonists who are senior citizens. In PAYOFF, a 77-year-old heist man named Eddie gets approached by someone who wants a murder committed. Eddie's no killer, but at his age, what has he got to lose?

PAYOFF is also on Amazon.com, but it's listed there at 99 cents. I'm trying to get Amazon to make the 20-page story free there as well, but that's taking a while. Check out PAYOFF. I think you'll enjoy it.

Meanwhile, work on the new Bubba Mabry novella proceeds apace. I'm doing the final edits on PARTY DOLL, and should have it posted to Kindle and Smashwords (at a price of only $1.99) within the next couple of weeks. Here's the first look at the cover art, designed by Kelly Brewer. She did the PAYOFF cover as well. Is Kelly great at this or what?

In PARTY DOLL, the bumbling Albuquerque private eye is hired to track down a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever. Fun story, with lots of action. Coming soon!

You're doing it wrong

A tip for the Deputy Barney Fifes of the world: If you leave a suspect in your patrol car, make sure he can't drive it away.

Police in northwest Indiana are still on the lookout for a man who stole a cop car, then had the audacity to use the police radio to ask headquarters how to remove his handcuffs. He also asked whether the car had a cigarette lighter.

The car was later found submerged in water in a nearby county. No sign of the 22-year-old suspect, who presumably still was wearing the handcuffs.

Full story here.

New shorts for Christmas

If you're a fan of short stories (or if you have such folks on your Christmas list), I've got some great recommendations for you.

Daniel Woodrell's "The Outlaw Album" continues the great work he's done in such novels as "Winter's Bone" and "Tomato Red." These are hard-boiled stories about hard-bitten people in the Ozarks and they're not for the faint of heart, but, dang, they're good.

The same goes for Frank Bill's debut, "Crimes in Southern Indiana," which is making a lot of "best of" lists for its unflinching look at small-town druggies and desperadoes. Donald Ray Pollock covers similar territory in "Knockemstiff," stories set in the "hollers" of rural Ohio. Pollock also has a new novel, "The Devil All the Time," which is dark and twisty and wonderful.

An older collection, but one of the best I've ever read, is "Welding With Children" by Tim Gautreaux. Bittersweet stories set in the South, often with little touches of laugh-out-loud humor.

Starting next month, I'm teaching "Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir" in the University of New Mexico's Honors Program. We'll read a terrific anthology called "Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories," edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian, as well as Eddie Muller's splendid "Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir."

I just received in the mail a new collection called "The Best American Noir of the Century," edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. That collection will be the main text for a "New Noir" class next fall, along with selections from the Woodrell, Bill and Pollock collections mentioned above.

One reason I've focused on short stories lately is I'm trying to get better at writing them. E-books offer a market for short stories and novellas unlike any we've enjoyed before.

My current best-seller on Kindle is "Sanity Clause," a 25,000-word Christmas novella, which I can sell for only 99 cents.

I'm almost done with the first draft of my current project, a Bubba Mabry adventure called "Party Doll," and it's turning out to be a 40,000-word novella rather than an 80,000-word novel. And that, I've come to realize, is okay. No reason to pad a story to meet some editor's idea of what a private eye story should be. Instead, I'll self-publish it as a cheap e-book.

After all, lots of crime writers are doing brilliant work with fewer words than that.

Ho-ho-ho for the holidays

Holiday shopping is upon us again, and there's no better remedy than my Christmas novella, "Sanity Clause."

Bumbling private eye Bubba Mabry is hired to keep an eye on the Santas at an Albuquerque mall. This is harder than it sounds because Santa Claus has always given Bubba the creeps. Plus, he must suffer through mobs of greedy shoppers, shrieking children and Christmas Muzak.

When one of the mall Santas is killed, Bubba must solve the murder to salvage his shaky reputation.

"Sanity Clause" is one of Bubba's funniest adventures. I originally wrote it for an anthology of Christmas mysteries called "The Last Noel," but it's now available as an e-book for only 99 cents. How's that for an electronic stocking stuffer?

Cannabis, crime and THE BIG WINK

My crime novel THE BIG WINK is looking more and more like a snapshot of history. On Tuesday, the City Council in Redding, CA, voted to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, effective Dec. 1.

I wrote THE BIG WINK while we were living in Redding in 2009. It was a wild time in Northern California, with everyone jumping on the medical marijuana bandwagon while the feds looked the other way. Thirty dispensaries opened in the city, and thousands of people got medical recommendations that allowed them to legally smoke pot. Everyone, it seemed, was scrambling around, trying to find a way to cash in on the Green Wave.

Perfect setting for a crime novel. Into this mix, I introduced a crew of robbers led by hardened local criminal Ray Bunch. My fictional gang knocked over half a dozen dispensaries, stealing cash and weed that could be resold on the street. But during one hold-up, a prominent banker gets shot. Suddenly, the news media, the cops and advocates on all sides of the cannabis issue are focused on Redding and the robberies.

I'm very proud of THE BIG WINK. I think it's one of my best novels, and it's garnered five-star reviews. But soon it may no longer reflect the real world. If the City Council's ban holds up against the lawsuits to come, the dispensaries will disappear and potheads (and legitimate medical users) will go back to buying off the street.

Read the news story here. And, please, read The BIG WINK. Only $2.99 on Kindle, Smashwords and other e-book platforms.

Whoa, it's NaNoWriMo

Good luck to all of you who are participating in National Novel-Writing Month, and keep on cranking out those words. Remember, you can always fix them later. When is National Novel-Editing Month?

I've never done NaNoWriMo, though I'm coincidentally working on a new novel as it gets under way. I started writing a new Bubba Mabry novel, PARTY DOLL, on Oct. 13 and, after some stops and starts, I'm up to 12,500 words. NaNoWriMo participants try to do 50,000 words during the month of November. That would be a good goal for me, too, but we'll see how it goes.

It's been a lot of years since I wrote the last Bubba Mabry adventure, MONKEY MAN, which came out in 2006. But Bubba's "voice" isn't that different from my own, and I've found it pretty easy to slip back into his skin. In PARTY DOLL, he's searching for a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever. Because this is a Bubba book, things go horribly wrong. . .

I'm planning to publish PARTY DOLL as an e-book. Look for it sometime early in 2012. In the meantime, the other Bubba Mabry stories are available for 99 cents each on Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, etc. Enjoy!

WEST COAST CRIME WAVE launches

I'm always delighted to announce the publication of a new short story. I haven't written that many over the years (the novel being my comfortable preference), and usually only produce short fiction when asked.

That was the case with this new one, "Surf City," which I wrote for my pal Brian Thornton, editor of WEST COAST CRIME WAVE, the new anthology from BSTSLLR.com. Brian asked if I had a West Coast mystery to contribute, so I wrote a story set in Santa Cruz, CA, where Kel and I were living at the time. (That's "our" beach in the photo.)

 
In "Surf City," a body washes up on a Santa Cruz beach with what appears to be shark bite wounds. As panic spreads, police Det. Kevin Brommer suspects a hoax. It's a fun story, and I hope you enjoy it.

The anthology also includes stories by such favorites as Terrill Lee Lankford, Simon Wood, David Corbett and Steve Hockensmith. I look forward to reading them all.

For more info about the other anthologies in which I've appeared, go to http://www.stevebrewer.us.com/.

Check out this Q&A

Author and book blogger Sean Patrick Reardon has discovered my crime novels, and he really likes them. He wrote about them on his blog recently, and today he features a Q&A with me. He asked good questions, and the answers are full of information about my latest books and upcoming projects.

Click here to read it.

Thanks, Sean!

Work, work, work

Now that we're fully relocated in Albuquerque, it's time to catch up on the paying work. Lots to report:

I'm busy promoting the three novels published in the last few months -- CALABAMA, THE BIG WINK and LOST VEGAS. Those novels and FIREPOWER, which came out a year ago, are $2.99 each via Kindle and Smashwords. All my other crime novels, including the Bubba Mabry series, have been marked down to 99 cents each. More info here.

Debuting next week is a new online anthology called WEST COAST CRIME WAVE, which includes my short story "Surf City." More about that this weekend.

I've started sketching out a new Bubba Mabry novel (working title: PARTY DOLL. What do you think?), and will begin the first draft soon. Plus, I'm bouncing around some screenplay ideas with a Hollywood friend. Nothing we can talk about yet, but lots of potential.

Now that we have a functioning mailing address, I'm again accepting manuscripts for editing and polishing. Albuquerque is a much bigger market for the one-on-one coaching I prefer, but I also take in manuscripts from afar for $3 a page. For more info, e-mail me at abqbrewer@gmail.com.

Lots of other reading to do, too. I'm teaching "Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir" at the University of New Mexico in the spring, and I haven't taught that class in nearly a decade. Time for a refresher course. I'm looking forward to being in the classroom again.

All this, and getting reacquainted with our New Mexico pals, too. This autumn promises to be busy and rich.

Another excerpt from LOST VEGAS

Here's another sample from my new crime novel. The start of Chapter 2:

>>Nick Papadopoulos couldn't concentrate on what Lola was saying. A fluorescent light above their corner booth was dying, and the buzzing and flickering drove him crazy.

The whole damned casino was falling apart. The interior hadn't been updated since the Starlite was built forty years earlier, and it still looked like something out of "The Jetsons." Contoured booths and lollipop chairs and light fixtures shaped like Sputnik. All very cool in the days when Rat Packers in sharkskin suits stopped in Fowler, Nevada, for "one night only" shows on their way to Las Vegas, but dated as hell now.

The Starlite already felt like a retirement home for astronauts when Nick took over as managing partner eight years earlier. Since then, he never got far enough ahead to pump any money into renovations. Just limped along, year after year, while his more up-to-date competitors siphoned the traffic off Highway 95.

You'd think any damned fool could make money running a small-town casino, but profits were eaten up by repairs and taxes and payroll and payoffs and the percentage raked off by the Mob. Nick could make more dough (and suffer less indigestion) in some other kind of business, but how would he tell Roberto "Bobby Crabs" Calabrese he no longer wanted to be his front man?

Nick suspected that Bobby had known the Starlite was a dud when he offered the partnership as payment for services rendered. Nick had eliminated several protected rivals for Bobby, so the mob boss could step up. After he was comfortably in place as a capo, Bobby suggested the time had come for Nick to pursue another line of work. The Starlite's manager having recently met his unfortunate demise (thanks to Nick), Fowler seemed the perfect place to start a new life. Bobby had insisted that a share of the Starlite was a better long-term investment than a simple cash payment, and even a tough guy like Nick Papadopoulos had known better than to argue with Bobby Crabs.

Looking around the outdated casino now, though, Nick thought: I should've demanded the fucking cash.

"Nicky!" Lola's voice sliced through his recollections. "You're not even listening to me."

"Sorry, hon. I've got a lot on my mind."

She was moving into a full pout. Christ, she had the lips for it. Nick wondered once again about the transplanted fat pumped into those lips. Every time he kissed her, he had the niggling feeling he was smooching someone's ass.

Lola admitted having "some" work done, but she wouldn't reveal details of her plastic surgeries. In the bedroom, she kept the lights low. Like it mattered. Whenever they were in bed together, Nick wasn't hunting for microscopic scars. That would've been quibbling.

Lola Cantrell had the face of a co-ed (granted, one who was awfully fond of cosmetics) and the curvy body of a stripper, tucked and inflated in all the right places. She was pushing forty, but she remained as firm and ripe as a fresh grape.

Nick, meanwhile, was speeding through his fifties, going to flab, silver sprinkled through his thinning black hair, his face etched with worry. Sometimes he could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his temples, like he was listening for it to stop. He should be taking it easy, putting together his retirement portfolio, pursuing a mindless hobby. Instead, he's sitting in the Starlite Casino at midnight, smoking Winstons and drinking whiskey, listening to this blow-up doll give him grief.<<

Now available for only $2.99 at Kindle and Smashwords.

Sample my new heist novel

Here's the opening of my crime novel LOST VEGAS:

>>Tony Zinn's attention wandered during the heist.

This was supposed to be the big payoff -- quick-cut scenes of the robbers in action, their plan coming together right before the audience's eyes -- but Tony thought the movie was bullshit. Another improbable thriller in which nobody gets hurt, the crooks have hearts of gold and the crime somehow settles an old score.

In real robbery, there's one motivation: Desire. Somebody has something and somebody else wants it. Wants it so bad, he's willing to take it by force. He pulls a gun and the item changes hands. Simple. Quick. All the clockwork complications with computers and nightscopes and grappling hooks? That's show business.

The bullshit factor was even higher in the theater next door. It was Memorial Day, which meant opening weekend for the annual special-effects blockbuster starring BadgerMan. Damned movie had been so loud, Tony heard the explosions and car crashes through the wall. Huge turnout for BadgerMan, lots of people willing to hand over their hard-earned money for two hours of superhero fantasy.

Only a handful watched the heist movie, which ended predictably with the handsome robbers standing around the loot, showing off their cleft chins and golden hearts as they shipped the money to charity or some damned thing. As the credits rolled, Tony tucked his chin into his leather jacket and sank lower in his chair, trying to be an inkblot of black clothes and dark curly hair.

The sparse audience hustled out and the house lights came up, but Tony watched the credits, wondering for the hundredth time what a "gaffer" was, or a "best boy."

He stayed in his seat until the music stopped and the movie reached the copyright date at the end. Then he stood and stretched and looked at his wristwatch. Nearly midnight. Last late show finally over, the theater would now close for the night.

He ambled over to the fire door, where a green EXIT sign glowed. A taste of cool night air as he swung open the door, then Tony stepped aside to let three men enter. Two were wiry guys of average height – five-nine, five-ten, a few inches shorter than Tony – but the third was a beefy three-hundred-pounder who had to duck to keep from hitting his head on the doorway. All three wore red motorcycle helmets with black face shields, gray coveralls and white rubber gloves. One of the men carried an extra helmet. As he handed it to Tony, Ross Cooper said, "How was the movie?"

"Same as always," Tony said. "The good guys won."

"Aw, you always give away the ending."

Tony slipped the helmet onto his head, the black visor dimming his view like sunglasses.

The other three produced stubby revolvers from the pockets of their coveralls. Tony pulled a fearsome old Browning Hi-Power 9mm from inside his biker jacket. He thumbed off the safety, and said, "Let's do it."<<

Only $2.99 via Kindle and Smashwords.

How I published 3 books in 3 months

My E-book Empire is complete -- for now -- as I've published LOST VEGAS, my latest crime novel, on Kindle and Smashwords.

LOST VEGAS is the story of a casino heist, but with a twist: The casino owner hires the robbers to rip off his establishment. Just when it looks as if he might get away with it, another small-town casino owner and his giant Samoan sidekick jump into the fray. LOST VEGAS is an action-packed thriller with lots of humor mixed in, and I think you'll love it. Only $2.99!

LOST VEGAS is the third original novel I've self-published this summer. Here's how that happened:

My agent had been shopping my manuscripts around New York the past few years, but having no luck in the ever-shrinking market. I optimistically kept writing away, and developed a backlog of unpublished material.

A year ago, I dipped my toe in the e-book waters by publishing a quirky hitman thriller called FIREPOWER. It was well-received, and the process taught me how to load books to Kindle and Smashwords. Soon, I secured the rights to my backlist and re-published all my earlier work as e-books.

This summer, I got tired of waiting on New York, and I asked my agent to reel in the submissions on LOST VEGAS as well as my novels THE BIG WINK and CALABAMA. While Kelly and I have enjoyed our foggy summer in Santa Cruz, we've also been busy publishing these books -- I did the proofing/formatting, and she did the cover art.

Self-publishing allows us to get books to market quickly (THE BIG WINK, with its medical marijuana storyline, is particularly timely), and to charge less for them. These novels are only $2.99. From each purchase, I earn about the same as I'd make on a $24 hardcover. And no trees died.

I haven't given up on New York publishing altogether, though my faith has been shaken. My agent is currently shopping around my latest manuscript, A BOX OF PANDORAS, and I hope some publisher picks it up. But if that doesn't happen, I'll happily publish it myself.

Can't top reality

There's some pretty broad comedy in my new crime novel THE BIG WINK, which explores the medical marijuana industry in far Northern California. But I didn't dare write a scene as outlandish as this:

This weekend, in Oakland, there's a huge marijuana festival scheduled to take place in front of City Hall. It's all legal. Just like the farmers market in your town, except all the products center on the one crop.

How is a comic novelist supposed to keep up with the real world?

Full story here.

You're doing it wrong

Today's tip for aspiring criminals: When fleeing after a bank holdup, it's a good idea to look over your shoulder once in a while and make sure no one is following you.

Two robbers in Brownsville, PA, forgot this important lesson, and were promptly arrested after a motorist followed them home from the robbery, then told police of the robbers' location.

Full story here.

Sample my new marijuana novel

The beginning of my crime novel THE BIG WINK:

>>There once was a woman named Kwanzaa DuPont who went to the store to buy marijuana. It was her first visit to a cannabis dispensary, and she felt fluttery inside as she steered her silver Saab into the tidy parking lot

The dispensary occupied a stucco storefront shaded by two lop-sided oaks. The flat-roofed building was one of those downtown locations that changed hands frequently – a tax office one year, a skateboard shop the next. Only outward difference now was the sign: A green, seven-bladed leaf above the bold red words, "NorCal Herbal Health Collective."

The building faced one of Redding's busiest streets, and the cars zipping past worried her. Last thing Kwanzaa needed was to be recognized at a pot shop by one of her clients.

No matter that what she was doing was perfectly legal, or that thousands of Californians did the same thing every day. No matter that she had a prescription for the marijuana and a more-or-less legitimate reason for its use. Customers didn't want their bankers doing drugs. Banking was all about trust, and that was shaky enough these days.

As manager of the downtown branch, Kwanzaa was one of North State Bank's bright lights. If someone spotted her going into this "herbal health collective," word would get around town. The social stigma could jeopardize her job, her standing in the community, even Mama's legacy.

Was a legal high worth the risk?<<

Kwanzaa's visit to the dispensary goes terribly wrong when robbers burst in a few minutes later.

You can sample more of THE BIG WINK at Kindle and Smashwords. Or get the whole book for only $2.99.