Random Cat Picture--because cats!

My cat has recently taken to hanging out at the top of the stairs. He likes sitting in the sun and he also likes having a clear view of the upstairs and down into the kitchen. Whenever I see the cat following the sun around,  I always think of Robert Heinlein talking about the title of his book The Door Into Summer. It came to him while watching his cat go from room to room in the winter, looking for "the door into summer."

For the TBR pile BELOVED POISON

A Victorian mystery!  My favorite. Well, one of my favorites. Read a review on Criminal Element.

Thomas Mullen's DARKTOWN, a review

In Thomas Mullen’s novel DARKTOWN,  the murder of a young black woman exposes a secret that goes all the way to the highest levels of Atlanta’s white society.

In post-war Atlanta, LUCIUS BOGGS and TOMMY SMITH are cops. But they’re also black and “Negro policemen” don’t get a lot of respect from either civilians or white cops. Their authority is limited, and whites know flout that limited authority wheneve they feel like it. As when a white man drunkenly plows into a street lamp with a bruised black  woman in the passenger seat and repeatedly ignores Lucius’ polite requests to hand over his license. Instead, he simply denies hitting the light pole and rives away … slowly.

The ongoing information about the black police force and how it was formed and where it is located is dripped into the story as needed (sometimes a bit clumsily) along with information on the racial politics of the time and place. Real-life people are mentioned (including Rev. Martin Luther King SENIOR) and there’s a real feeling of verisimilitude to the story.

Free Short Story--a little September horror

I snagged this cover from Indie Author Services last year when they were having a blow-out on their pre-mades and I wrote the story around it. My heart still belongs to short fiction and I'm quite pleased with the way this dark little story came out. You can snag it free on Amazon for the next five days. Click here.

You'll Want to See Collateral Beauty

I read scripts for a living. Most of them aren't that good.  Some of them are so bad you despair for the movie industry. And some of them are so wonderful that when you read them, the hair on the back of your neck stands up because you know you're reading something that's going to make a great movie. I felt that way about The King's Speech.

Collateral Beauty is a lovely story. It will be out at Christmas. You should go to see it. The cast alone makes it worth the admission--Will Smith, Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton.

I wish I drank coffee

Because I would be all over those pumpkin spice lattes. And also the chile mochas. I love Mexican chocolate. But alas, I am a failed adult in that I never acquired the taste for coffee. But I do love pumpkins. Aren't these little tiger-striped pumpkin-lets adorable?

My Next to Last Political Comment of the Cycle

I was reading the Dallas Morning News's lukewarm endorsement of Hillary Clinton this morning--they were much more impassioned in their anti-endorsement of Donald Trump yesterday--and thought, wow, Texas!  And then I read the comments.
Oh comments.

The poor editorial writer could not w. I suspect many subscriptions were cancelled in the wake of this endorsement. A conservative pundit immediately accused them of "becoming a liberal paper" because of their endorsement. One reader accused them of being too close to the Bush family. One reader slammed them for supporting a "criminal" for President. And that's when my head started to ache.

Seriously.SERIOUSLY, define "criminal" for me. Does it mean encouraging cyber-espionage? Does it mean donating money to an official who's considering bringing a lawsuit against you? Is it an allegation or rape?

Is it criminal to defraud students with a bogus university? Does "criminal" mean not paying contractors for their work? Does it mean encouraging employees to lie on immigration forms?