I’ve asked myself countless times why I’m fascinated enough with murder and mayhem to write three crime fiction novels about Santa Monica? Why do I feel such glee in learning the forensic details of death and dying? If I were alone in this fascination I’d...
My second mystery novel, Rip-Off, is a whodunit about Chechen organized crime set in Santa Monica, not Boston. The news unfolding in Boston has me and the rest of the world gob-smacked, as the Brits say. It may be that Chechnya in the end has nothing to do with the...
My friend Vicky Bingaman is a wildlife rehabber who takes in injured creatures, nurses them back to health, and pushes them back out into the wild. You can’t feed a Cooper’s hawk or a rat snake on cat kibble. So when I see a squirrel on the roadway who has succumbed...
I live in a mountain village in rural California and my third mystery suspense novel, Payback, is set in fictional Sierra Mountain Village, somewhat like the village where I live. But I assure you; only nice people live here in Pine Mountain Club. Nonetheless, the...
I spent this weekend as a Santa Monica resident for the first time in seven years. Interesting! Technically my new digs are across the street, the dividing line between Santa Monica and Mar Vista. Coincidentally it’s the same area that I wrote about in my second...
Men who read James Patterson won’t buy my books. I don’t write thrillers in which there’s a maniacal killer and a ticking clock, a lot of car chases, explosions, and everyone is tall, lean, and beautiful. But there’s lots of hard-boiled murder and mayhem...
The Pitch Slam—or Pitch Slap—is that moment in a writer’s life when you are for the first time across a table from a living, breathing literary agent. For the writer, this person is more important to you than your beloved, your mother–even your dog. The hardest...
California Ghost Hunters shook up the audience at the October meeting of the LA Chapter of Sisters-in-Crime, October 7, 2012. I should explain that the whole paranormal thing has whooshed past me. Because I’m skeptical by nature, I didn’t believe that others could...
I’ve read that Paris Hilton wears a T-shirt once, has it dry cleaned, and after the second time she wears it she gives it away. I wonder where it goes. Her staff? Her cleaning ladies? Charity? Ah, charity. Lately our Mountain Communities SPCA has set up a Thrift...
Just returned from a road trip with my brother Dan who lives in Canada. Some trepidation at spending a long time in a car and a tent with him. It would be the longest time we have ever been alone together in adulthood. And it went well—an easy, pleasant flow of days...
