Because I’m immersed in my third murder mystery set in Santa Monica, I read other murder mystery authors almost exclusively. Why? I’m interested inthe dark trappings of murder and death. It’s the puzzle. It’s keeping violence and mayhem at a...
What happens when an idea for a book strikes and won’t leave you alone? What if it’s something you know nothing about? Such as organized crime in Santa Monica as in my second Dave Mason mystery titled Rip-Off? I read Chechen newspapers in English for...
Here’s a few of my current favorites: Donna White Glaser: The Enemy Within I read Donna White Glaser’s The Enemy We Know with great pleasure. The cover with its bloody knife stood out, particularly the circle with A Letty Whittaker Mystery and the words...
Years ago a group of spiritually-minded forest lovers began hanging mementos of personal significance on the branches of a semi-circle of pines high on the side of a mountain here in California. The site looked onto a distant mountain which, according to the legends...
I’m still thinking about going to the Occupy LA venture last weekend with my friend Mindy Moffat. After a long drive down from the mountains, we parked at the North Hollywood subway station, and seven or eight stops later we got off near Los Angeles City Hall....
For more coverage and photos of the conference see ashedit.wordpress.com See also http://www.spinetinglermag.com/ 2011/09/26/more-bouchercon-2011/ Everyone in the mystery and thriller world goes to Bouchercon, named after Anthony Bouchercon the first literary critic...
I’m a real straight-arrow so I never get to meet the “nose-pickin’, booger-eatin’ morons” that Sgt Derek Pacifico talked about in his Homicide Investigation school for Crime Writers last weekend in Covina, California. For a long time...
Used by permission of photographer Cal EPA and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control has hit Chemical Waste Management with yet another fine, this time for $400,000 and an order to purchase $600,000 worth of new equipment to properly test the hazardous...
Midas or methyl iodide is used to kill every living thing in the soil to prepare the ground to grow strawberries and peppers, tomatoes, even roses. “The first commercial applications of MIDAS soil fumigant in California began in Fresno County, in May, 2011. To...
I opened my August 7th copy of the Los Angeles Times and was delighted to see the Times focusing some attention on the Central Valley. See Victor Davis Hanson’s piece entitled Follow the water: The west side of the Central Valley supports California’s...
