Mark, I picked finding missing children, partly because it
allowed me to go into different ethnic communities and
subcultures around L.A., partly because I didn't want to do a
professional PI, and partly because saving children is not
such a bad thing to do. (For some reason I find cruelty to
children so personally unpleasant that I can't even read
someone as wonderful as Dickens, because he has so much of
it.)
By talking about reading the Big 3, I don't meant to
suggest I don't read other mystery writers. They were just
the ones whose works I read obsessively and in their
entirety, the way I read Graham Greene or Jim Harrison or
others. I've read one or two at least of just about all the
mystery writers working now, including some off-beat ones
that probably aren't to every taste, like Jim Sallis. Some of
these guys are my friends and I have to like them, don't
I?
(Joke, please.)
By the way, I just saw the ARC of my next book, The
Devils of Bakersfield, and I'm pleased they saw their way to
making it a proper full-color-cover ARC and not one of the
cheaper plain-paper ones a lot of publishers have started
doing. Ask again in a bit and I'll say something about it. I
have to develop some brief promo materials.
John Shannon
**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on
AOL Music.
(
http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)
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