Comings and Goings

Morning everyone!!

I have some very good news. Best Selling and Award winning author George Pelecanos will be making an appearance at Bouchercon and will be in the signing room to sign your copies of this year's THE TURNAROUND or any other book you might need signed Saturday at 12:30 p.m in the signing room.

Also on the roll now, authors Ace Atkins and Scott Phillips. Two of my generation's best and brightest have taken the plunge and are coming to Baltimore.

I believe in good news first so mark these announcements on your dance card.

Unfortunately, I've also found out this week that Author Stephen Hunter will be unable to attend. We're very sorry. I was looking forward to welcoming Hunter to Bouchercon. One of this generation's premier Thriller Writers as well as about my favorite Movie Critic of all time Mr. Hunter will be missed. For those of you in TX. however you can talk with Mr. Hunter on Oct. 7th in Dallas and on Oct. 8th in Houston.

Also withdrawing for personal reasons is the Irish novelist Ken Bruen. He asks us to assure everyone he is okay and that life simply came up.

The withdrawal of these two individuals may affect your programming choices and so I share. I've had other withdrawals that have affected me greatly over the past two years. People who because of their health, or family's health, or financial constraints have to give our celebration a pass. They all intend to come next year though and that's heartening. One of the best e-mails I got this week was from Philadelphia native Lou Boxer. You know Lou. First the dreaded, "I have to withdraw", and then the reason, a great reason, his son is in a Soccer Tournament that weekend. Parents don't get very many years of these experiences and Lou has taken the dread out of opening the header, "Unable to attend" at least for a little while.

Oh I promised a report on "COLD IN HAND" .... to use an English phrase... it's a fuck off book. Charlie Resnick remains one of fiction's best police but as we all know author Harvey never stays in the same place for long. "COLD IN HAND" is another look at contemporary times wrapped up in police procedural where the stakes will become as high for the reader as they are for Resnick himself.

Ruth