“On the tenth of March 1938, the night train from Budapest pulled into the Gare du Nord a little after four in the morning.” To readers of historical espionage fiction, that sentence can only mean one thing: Alan Furst. Furst writes about the years from 1938 to 1941 as if they were recurring characters, and … Continue reading Alan Furst
After nearly 30 years at Booklist, the greatest pleasure of my job continues to be discovering a new writer before the rest of the world and watching a career develop over time. One of my most satisfying discoveries has been Erin Hart, a Minneapolis writer whose third novel, False Mermaid, is published this month. Like … Continue reading Discoveries
It’s best-books-of-the-year time, but I have a problem. Many of my favorite titles of 2009—Dara Horn’s All Other Days, Michael Malone’s The Four Corners of the Sky, Mark Frost’s Game Six, and Wil Haygood’s Sweet Thunder, for example—have already been celebrated in this column. So that leaves me looking beyond the borders of 2009. As … Continue reading Gold in the Stacks
After nearly three decades of attending conferences of one kind or another, I no longer look forward to them with the enthusiasm I once felt. Sure, there's always the opportunity to meet friends and do necessary business, but there's also the fatigue that hits by about midpoint of the show and lasts for several days … Continue reading Bouchercon
The first program I ever saw on television was a boxing match: Rocky Marciano versus Jersey Joe Walcott, September 23, 1952. My family didn't have a television at the time, but our neighbors across the street did, and my father, mother, and I were all invited over for the fight. Marciano won handily, but what … Continue reading Sugar Ray
