BEA and all that jazz

Attended the Book Expo of America at Jacob Javitz and it was certainly a unique experience.

First, I went to the Hardcase Crime booth to see Jason Starr and got a signed copy of Slide, the sequel to he and Ken Bruen's masterful pulp collaboration Bust. I wasn't just excited 'cause I loved Bust but I was also honored that Ken and Jason named a character after me in the book. After ogling the hot Hardcase models for a couple of minutes, I headed over to the Kensington booth.

I was expecting to sign some books for Kensington but they had given of them all out. Saw mystery author Twist Phelan, which was completely unexpected. She's rushing off to do a signing. I hung around for awhile and eventually had a chance to sit down with Kesington's publisher Laurie Parkin. She was very enthusiastic at how the novel was doing and was also very happy about the Publisher's Weekly review.

Also spoke to Walter Zacharius, the 90 year old founder of Kensington. He really loved the Devil's Mambo and said a lot of nice things. When I told him the sequel Revenge Tango was set in Brooklyn, he got really excited, since he's originally from Brooklyn. He asked if I'd handed the manuscript in, I said yes, and he said he'd read it right away.

Finally, I had lunch with Jason and writer James Winter. We ran into author Jim Fusili, who I'm doing a panel with at Thrillerfest (Jason is moderating and it also features Michele Martinez, Con Lehane and Peter Blauner. I'm in really good company and the only first time author on the panel). Then we saw Duan Swierczynski, author of The Blonde. He was gracious and congratulated me on The Devil's Mambo. I recently signed with David Hale Smith, DHS Literary, who also reps Duane and some of the hottest young authors in crime fiction .

Finally, completely exhausted, I went home, climbed into bed and proceeded to read Slide.