By Sunday at b-con, I’m usually pretty punchy. This year was no exception. Another well-documented phenomenon in b-con physics is the “black hole bar effect.” This is why it’s so hard to achieve escape velocity no matter how late it is or how tired and burnt out you feel. You fight your way to the perimeter, determined to call it a night, but the next thing you know the gravitational sling-shot effect has funneled you back into the center of the bar. This mysterious force is particularly powerful on Saturday nights.

Despite the late night in the black hole, I still managed to get myself up Sunday morning for the free book feeding frenzy. I didn’t sign up as an author and didn’t want to brave the crowds to try and score five free books that I’d need to squeeze into my already overstuffed suitcase, but I was curious to see how it would work out.

It was nuts!

Best moment of the morning was Anthony Neil Smith tossing his free book tickets off the second story walkway into the rock-concert crowd.

Afterwards, Jon Jordan was talking about taking a field trip to a local comic shop and invited me along. I had to get packed up and check out, since I needed to be at the airport by 3pm, so I bowed out. Unsurprisingly, I found they were still there in the lobby bar when I returned. I guess the black hole bar effect is still hard to break, even during the day.

I was still waffling about going along with the large group by the time they broke free from the bar. I did have a little time to kill, but not all that much and didn’t want to get stuck out in the wilds of Indianapolis and end up late to the airport. In the end, I’m really glad I went because a) I needed to break out of the habitrail and breathe some real non-recycled air and more importantly b) that was really the only time I got to spend with Peter Rozovsky. Last year, it seems like I spent more time hanging with him than almost anyone else, and so this year I felt severely deficient in the Rozovsky department.

The punchline to this little outing was that the comic shop was closed. We wound up wandering like lost souls through the huge Borders down the street, but I did end up buying Volume One of The Walking Dead, which I read on the plane to punish the uptight yuppie broad in the seat next to me. She deserved it. She was reading Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

All in all it was a great con. Looking forward to San Francisco 2010.

Saturday. Right.

Well of course the big event on Saturday was the Anthony Awards. I managed to lose gracefully to the very sweet and funny Julie Hyzy’s culinary mystery State of the Onion but I’m still bitter over losing Best Cover to Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I mean, really, it’s not a bad cover, but better than Money Shot? I think not.

Later than night, the Reacher party at the amusingly named Slippery Noodle. Very cool place with a live blues band, but way too loud for me, since I was already well on my way to developing the inevitable b-con Wolfman Jack voice. I tapped out after about twenty minutes, but not before having a chance to meet and shout briefly at Jason Pinter.

But the really memorable moment that night was sighting the astounding and now legendary Chicken Limo!

Don’t expect strict continuity here. I’m still way too jetlagged.

Of course, since our zombie walking tour of Indianapolis has overshadowed the rest of Thursday in my jetlagged brain, I neglected to mention that I also accepted the Crimespree Award for Money Shot, didn’t win the Barry, and nearly fell out of my dress.

So, on to Friday. I had a nine am panel, which after our misadventure the night before seemed particularly cruel. “More Noir Than You Are.” I had no idea what I could possibly say about noir that hasn’t been said before and better, but in the end, I think it went extremely well. We had a packed house, and the sharp, funny and always entertaining Victor Gischler kept things lively. Donna did a fantastic write up of our panel (so I don’t have to) and made me sound like I actually knew what I was talking about. (Must have been the foot massage.) It was also a real pleasure to meet my fellow panelist Charlie Newton. He’s a genuinely fascinating character and I can’t wait to read his novel Calumet City (next on the TBR pile.) I wish I’d gotten more of a chance to hang with him.

After that, I was off the leash. No more responsibilities. I celebrated my freedom by indulging in another miraculous one-on-one lunch, this time with Reed Farrel Coleman. It’s such a rare treat to be able to sneak away from the b-con crowds for a meal with less than 47 people and I’d already gotten away with it once. Of course, I’d pay for my presumption later that night…

I managed to hit Megan’s panel “The Dark Side of the Fair Sex” and met some new kids on the block, including Guthrie stablemate John Rector and fellow vintage shoe whore Carolina Bertrand. I hung in the bar and caught up with old friends, avoiding all the publisher parties and being generally lazy and unmotivated until the dreaded dinner hour rolled around.

Why is going out to eat so damn complicated at conventions? It’s like there’s some form of inescapable particle physics that clusters everyone together at the atomic level, making it impossible to get away from the hotel with less than nine other people. At least two people you meant to include end up getting left behind and the one person you actually wanted to have dinner with ends up at the opposite end of six pushed-together tables while you end up sandwiched between someone you were hoping to avoid and a well-meaning but socially challenged fan who’s already had seventeen beers on an empty stomach.

That night I managed to get sucked into TWO consecutive group dinners, both at the same mediocre chain restaurant, like some weird, culinary version of Groundhog Day. I didn’t actually manage to get anything to eat until nearly 10 pm. Fortunately, I wound up with Sean Chercover on my end of the table, who was still relatively sober, hygienically inoffensive and, as always, great company.

After my clean shaven companion and I returned to the con hotel and went our separate ways, I realized that the cool bar recommended by the cute counter girl at the barber shop was the very same bar in which the Black Mask party was set to take place later that evening. I’d already made plans to meet Donna Moore for dinner and for lack of a better idea, we figured we’d give the counter girl’s Tapas place a try and then hit the Black Mask party.

I met Donna and Martyn at the allotted hour and we headed out into the wilds of Indianapolis, armed only with this map:



The black dot on Washington is the barber shop. The unreadable blur near the center is the Tapas restaurant. The X in the upper right is supposedly the Dorman Street Saloon.

I have a very good sense of direction and rarely get lost, even in cities I’ve never visited. We figured we’d head in the general direction of the Tapas place but stay flexible in case we saw something we liked better on the way. We didn’t, and the restaurant turned out to be exactly where the cute counter girl had indicated. We found it without a hitch, which clearly made us cocky. Donna and Martyn got a few pomegranate margaritas into them (I had no such excuse) and we decided we’d hoof it to the Dorman Street Saloon. On the map it looked like we were already half way there.

The map is not to scale.

The first leg of our epic, post apocalyptic pub crawl took us through clusters of empty “Luxury Condominiums” stuffed between raw, industrial buildings and sorry-looking gas stations. It felt like we were on an abandoned movie set. Once we passed under the freeway, we wandered into even grimmer territory. Shabby Victorian houses and more unmarked industrial buildings. I kept expecting to see Mrs. Bates silhouetted in an upper window as we passed. We only encountered a single live human, who immediately ran away from us as we approached. We were convinced that zombies were about to come shambling out of the shadowy alleys and eat our brains. At that point, it didn’t seem like such a bad alternative.

Also, keep in mind, Donna was wearing these shoes.

Although it isn’t obvious in the lousy phone photo, the pattern on her shoes is tiny ice cream cones. Horribly appropriate, since by the time we got to the intersection where the saloon was supposedly located, our feet were nearly frozen solid.

So there we were, standing at Michigan and Dorman street. There was nothing even remotely resembling a bar for as far as we could see in any direction. Still no humans, but we eventually spotted an empty cop car. No idea what had happened to the occupant (zombies?) but by the time we had given up all hope of ever finding this damn bar, the missing cop came out of a nearby house. Checking out a prowler report for a beautiful young housewife who’s husband works nights, maybe? I figured we should send a Brit over to ask for directions, but the cop was not swayed by Martyn’s “posh” accent (note the thick layer of sarcasm between those quotation marks.) He tried to blow us off by claiming he couldn’t help us unless we had an exact address. Lucky for me, I’d put the addy into my phone when I got the Black Mask invite and the uptight bastard was shamed into admitting that the bar was four zig-zagging blocks north.

Possibly the longest four blocks of my life. In fact, the less said about those last four blocks the better.

Amazingly enough, we made it. The Black Mask party was already in full swing when we arrived, full of happy, tipsy writers who had been ferried to the bar in a warm, cherry ‘38 Cadillac. I wanted to kick every one of them in the shins, but my frozen foot might have shattered on contact.

Since I felt responsible for leading my foreign friends astray, I bought them a round and gave poor Donna a desperately needed foot massage. Normally you’d have to pay $4.99 a minute to listen to the kinds of sounds that were coming out of her over the course of that massage. That and the ride back to the hotel in the ‘38 Caddy made the whole crazy misadventure worthwhile. Plus, it does make for a pretty entertaining story.

In addition to the jetlag and mental exhaustion I suffer every year post b-con, there’s also this weird kind of humor decompression that I go through. I always get very tight, very quickly with friends I haven’t seen in a year and a whole crop of complex, multi-layered private jokes develop over the course of the weekend. When I get back to the civilian world, it always takes me a day or two to realize that the people around me have no idea what I’m talking about when I say “long handled saucepan.”

That being said, here’s the Cliff Notes.

I arrived late Wednesday night to find the hotel bar already filled with troublemakers. I didn’t stay too long, just long enough to reconnect with old friends and meet a few new ones.

I was staying in one of the spillover hotels and the entire convention center complex was set up like a giant hamster habitrail for humans. There were glass tubes connecting the hotels, the expo center and a huge mall so you never had to actually venture outside. Very Logan’s Run. On Thursday morning I managed to navigate my way through the tubes and find the registration table. First stop, the dealers room.

There were hardly any vintage paperbacks this year, which was a good thing. I managed to get out the door with only two. A lot of people were bitching that the dealers room was nothing but 4000 dollar collectable hardbacks but I couldn’t complain. It made packing on Sunday much easier. Unlike Badsville Broad Donna Moore, who had already bought nine pairs of shoes before lunch.

Speaking of lunch, I’ve developed a b-con routine of lunch with Martyn Waites (if two years in a row counts as a routine.) Last year we did sushi, but this year was all about the meat. (Insert your own gratuitous meat joke here. I’m fresh out because I think we already cracked pretty much every single one that exists and then some over the course of that meal.) We wound up in this insane Brazilian steak house that had an all-you-can-eat set up where guys in MC Hammer pants come around with huge slabs of meat stuck on swords and pile it on your plate until you tap out or die from cholesterol poisoning. I think I ate more meat at that lunch than in the whole rest of my life.

On our walk back to the hotel, we stumbled upon Red’s Classic Barber Shop. Martyn had been talking about needing a hair cut and I was dying to check the place out, so we went in.

Over the past few years, I’ve come close to despair regarding the state of men’s grooming. I’m horrified by the trend of young men sporting homeless bum beards and unkempt, raggedy bedhead. The existence of a place like Red’s gives me hope that all is not lost.

They were able to fit Martyn in right away for a shave and a hair cut, so I got to hang with the cute counter girl and chat about vintage clothing. I scored a fantastic handmade silk bow tie for my pop. Meanwhile, the counter girl gave me the lowdown on what was worth doing in Indianapolis. She told me she also worked in a Tapas restaurant and mentioned a bar called the Dorman Street Saloon. She even drew me a very detailed little map showing both the restaurant and the bar. Remember this map, because it will take center stage the next episode of my b-con (mis)adventure.

Video of your not-so-humble narrator shot by Jim Winter for The Rap Sheet.

Photos first, words later.

(ps for non-twitter types, there's more here.)

Bouchercon 2009 is just around the corner. Looking forward to hanging with my friends, fans and fellow authors. My panel assignment this year:

Friday, October 16, 9:00 – 9:55 am

MORE NOIR THAN YOU ARE

Is noir a path toward realism or away from it? What is noir anyway?

Frankie Bailey (M), Christa Faust, Victor Gischler, Charlie Newton, Jeri Westerson

See you there!

Edited to Add: Oh yeah, and one other little minor detail I forgot to mention: I'll be at the Anthony Award banquet because MONEY SHOT's been nominated for Best Paperback Original.

I’m finally officially registered for BoucherCon. I was on the fence, wondering if I could hack it financially, but the Anthony nomination pretty much made the decision for me. No info on panels or anything as of yet but will post when I know more.

See you all there!

B-con seems like it was a million years ago, but I did promise a meatier post on the subject, so…

I was set up at the Lord Baltimore, the neighboring spillover hotel, which was actually much nicer than the main joint. A quiet retreat from the convention madness next door. The second I arrived I started running into people I knew. In a way it’s like this massive traveling circus. No matter what city we’re in, all my favorite freaks are there.

The restaurant in the con hotel was a mediocre-at-best football themed franchise steak house called Shula’s. I wound up eating way too many meals there, just for the sake of convenience. Although the service was glacial and the coffee some of the worst I’ve ever tasted, I’ll always treasure the now-legendary “Porno Breakfast” during which my fellow Bronxite Steven Torres was apparently scarred for life.

The panel that I was the most anxious over was the Prather/Spillane/Himes panel with Gary Phillips and Max Allan Collins. It was the only one I couldn’t just bullshit… I mean charm my way through. I actually had to know what I was talking about, and I must have, because of the three panels I did, that was the one that went over best. I had several people come over afterwards to thank me for choosing Prather, since he seems to be so often forgotten or overshadowed by the more well-known writers of his era.

I did a bit of biz as well, all of which seemed to go extremely well. Spent hours losing my voice in the bar. Hung out with fellow Guthriette Russell McLean and Detectives Without Borders blogger Peter Rozovsky. Met a bunch of Irishmen, including the two Declans (Burke and Hughes, both of whom adamantly refuse to be known as “the other Declan”) and John Connolly. Finally met Sandra Ruttan, who is even smarter and funnier in person than on her excellent blog. Had fantastic sushi with cupboard monkey Martyn Waites. We ran into Vicki Hendricks and Lauren Henderson at the sushi bar and the results can be viewed here. These were the only photos I took all weekend.

Sadly, there were no perverted hijinx or cross-dressing spankings a la NoirCon. Maybe next year…

I'm back in NYC, done with B-con and on my way to Germany for the Frankfurt book festival. B-con was a blast and deserves a real post, so it'll have to wait till I get back. I will say that it was really great to reconnect with all my old friends and meet new ones. It's also great to put names to faces and meet people I only "know" thorough blogs or online correspondence. I ate both good and bad crabcakes and learned how to correctly pronounce the phrase "monkey in the cupboard." I made it through all my panels without anyone realizing that I had no idea what I was talking about and managed to get out of there with only four books. Three of them I'll just ship back to LA to join the TBR pile but the fourth, THE MERCY SEAT by Martyn Waites, is going with me on the plane. I foolishly thought I'd just check out the the first few pages on the train back to New York and couldn't put the damn thing down. At this rate I may even finish it tonight. Good call, Donna!

I'm in NYC now, all set to hop a train down to Baltimore tomorrow noon.

Dinner at Jean George was amazing. I had the autumn tasting menu. I don't have time to post a full rundown but everything was delicious, complex and intriguing. My only (very minor) criticism is the kumamoto oyster amuse wasn't quite as transcendentally perfect as Chef Damon's kumamotos with ginger and cracked pepper granita. Or maybe I'm just spoiled. But I really enjoyed the meal, and I can now add "tasting menu at a 3 Michelin star restaurant" to my Omnivore's Hundred list.

I really do miss New York. No matter how long I live in LA or how much I've grown to love my adopted city, I always feel a profound sense of home here.

But alas, I'm off.

The List is my bitch. Here I am just 17 hours away from flying to NYC, and The List is history. Crossed the fuck off from top to bottom. There is still a sub list of things not to forget to pack at the last minute or things that can’t be done until tomorrow morning, but otherwise, I’m pretty much good to go. I’ll probably spend the evening rereading and musing over Prather in prep for my panel, but there’s no headless chicken action in my future. This is why being anally organized makes me happy.

As I said before, this will be my first Bouchercon and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve received emails from the moderators of my panels talking a little bit about the topic, structure and what sorts of questions to expect. It’s great to connect with them beforehand and get an idea of what we’re in for, but I have to say I’m horrified by the fact that they all have explicitly stated they won’t stand for overselling, blatant self promotion or “Well, Dick, in MY book…” Not horrified that they won’t allow it, horrified that anyone would actually shamelessly hustle like that in the first place. I can’t even imagine hijacking a panel that way and fortunately I’ve never participated in one where that happened, but it scares me to think that the marketing me-me-me routine has become so common as to require this kind of warning. Because anyone with half a brain knows that crap never works. In fact it invariably has the opposite effect. If someone comes on to me with a hard sell, I don’t care if it’s the best book on earth, I won’t buy it.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to blog from abroad and I’ll probably be too busy at B-con, but I’ll try to check in from NYC on Wednesday if I get a chance.

As promised, my panel schedule for B-Con.

Fri 10/10 4:30pm A SINGER MUST DIE: Books that have a lasting impact - International B
Sat 10/11 11:30am HOOKED ON CLASSICS: Spillane, Himes, and Prather - International A
4:30pm DON'T FENCE ME IN Boundaries in Writing - International B

The mad panic of trip prep has officially begun. I’ll be leaving for NYC on October 7th. From there I’m taking a train to Baltimore for B-Con and then after that it’s back to NYC and off to Germany to promote the German edition of MONEY SHOT, called HARDCORE ANGEL. Don’t worry, before I leave I’ll post a complete schedule of both my B-Con panels and the German events. It’s on The List.

The List is the only way that I can possibly accomplish everything I need to do before I leave. The damn thing seems to be getting longer rather than shorter because for every item I cross off, two more things get added. I have pets to make arrangements for and chores to catch up on. I’ve got panel prep and packing and girl-tech. Not to mention the two books I’m trying to simultaneously write, one of which is due the first of December. Oh and the four additional day-job projects that need to be finished before I leave. Sleep is for pussies.

But, in the good news department, I now have TEETH!!! Well, temporary teeth, anyway. Because my real porcelain implants won’t be ready in time for my trip, my amazing dentist agreed to provide me with temporary but non-removable teeth that attach directly to the implant screws. They are not as pretty as the finals will be and I still can’t bite into an apple, but they’re a billion times better than the removable retainer-like deal. Best of all, I can now eat without having to remove my front teeth! I’ll actually be able to enjoy the tasting menu at Jean Georges NYC without sporting the Daisy Mae Methteeth look. The only downside to all this was the fact that screwing the temps into the still traumatized and not-really-healed-yet tissue and bone was by far the most painful procedure yet. I should have waited another two weeks minimum, but it’s my own damn fault. I really wanted real teeth for my trip.

In other good news, I scored some hot new threads for the tour from Tarantula Clothing. They ended up being sold out of several items I had originally wanted, but the second-choice stuff I wound up with is still to die for. I’m particularly in love with the high-waisted Sex Kitten Capris. Their customer service rocks and their clothing rules. Mistress Christa says check em out!

I’ll be appearing on Sex.com radio on August 28th. You’ll be able to watch streaming video as well as listen on their website, so check it out.

I’ve got a story called “The Footjob” in Jennifer Jordan’s new antho UNCAGED, forthcoming from Bleak House Books in spring of 09.

I wrote a short tribute to Richard S. Prather for GQ Magazine’s October Crime Fiction Guide.

And speaking of October, I’m now officially booked for B-Con. I’m also supposed to travel to Germany for the Frankfurt Book Fair to promote the German release of Money Shot. I’ll post more specific details on that soon as I have them.

Last night’s dinner was superb of course. Old Cinnabar favorites like Damon’s famous nori rolls and some new surprises, like the above mentioned foie gras dumplings and watermelon and bourbon smoked pepper granita. All in all a wonderful evening of great food and great company and I got to watch ladyeuthanasia try on vintage clothes. I see London, I see France…

Reading the preliminary reports from Bouchercon in Alaska make me even more sorry I couldn’t make it. Damn rent! Why do I have to keep on paying over and over every single month? I’m more determined than ever to make it next year.

Lastly, my neighbors. Not the overly friendly ones who live in the front house, but the ones next door. They have a fenced off parking area located about 20 feet from my front door. If they just used that area for parking cars, it would be fine, but that area is also used as a playground for their abundant offspring and all their little friends. It’s not too bad on weekdays before 3pm, but on weekends it’s a nightmare all day long. With the crazy deadlines I’ve been on, I’ve taken to wearing these while I work.



(I know, I’m probably out of my mind to post a cranky, first-thing-in-the-morning photo with no eyebrows and ratty hair but these huge earmuffs really crack me up every time I see them.) I can’t stand the feel of earplugs, plus these are really REALLY quiet. Plus, if my neighbors decide to have a high caliber shoot out, (or if I finally snap and plug the next person who tries to talk to me through my screen door) I’ll be ready.