Arizona Beauty

Scottsdale Sunset -- from our hotel room

There's something to this place. The reds and golds and blues and greens. The colors make their own canvas. They give you room that way, to create your own art. This place has more space than any place I've ever been -- the sky doesn't even seem to touch. 

At Chapel of the Holy Cross -- Sedona, AZ

And I was stunned at the life in the desert. I always think of deserts as blank and yellow -- but there was such lush green here too. Succulents and blossoms, tender-looking but tough, like the heroes and heroines of my favorite mysteries. Bloom where you are planted, they say. Look at these gorgeous examples.

In the distance -- On the road to Sedona

On the road to Sedona, just past Scottsdale and Phoenix, these mountains just appeared, like they been sleeping out of sight, and then as if on cue, rose up, stretching, into the sky. The GPS showed nothing but our tiny virtual car, like one of the bitty cars from the game of Life, and green nothing all around us. Only that nothing was something, let me tell you.

And then -- at the end of the road -- this. I mean, look at this.

These are the cliffs at The Chapel of the Holy Cross at the top of one of the mesas in Red Rock country.  A place of grace and beauty and largeness. You are so small here. And you are so grateful to be small that your spirit gets really really big.

I could have spent days here. The few hours expanded me. I look forward to my next desert trip -- it feels like a part of me is still there.

Visit HERE if you like to learn more about the Chapel of the Holy Cross.

Darker Than Any Shadow Has Facebook Page!

If you haunt Facebook as much as I do, please take a second to "like" the new page for Darker Than Any Shadow. I'm excited to be getting the book of the ground, and there will be lots of giveaways and freebies and all manner of book-related goodness. You can find it HERE. Thanks for taking a look.

Dead Ink Review of DARKER THAN ANY SHADOW

I recently ran across this amazing review of Darker Than Any Shadow in the online journal Dead Ink. Written by Ian Caithness, the review is very positive (or else I wouldn't be sharing it -- no dummy, me) but even more importantly, the review itself is very well-done. It's smart, sharp, thoughtful, and engages in ideas about the work and suggested by the work, not just the reviewer's personal opinions of the work. Best of all, it's illustrated with this evocative image.

Look at that! It's like a scene I wish I'd written, all angles and shadows and dark potential. There's even a caramel blonde with a backpack traipsing down an alley (probably sneaking out past the annoyed gaze of her secret agent boyfriend).

You can read the review HERE. And please do. And read the other reviews. Reviewing is an art, a genre unto itself, and I am pleased to see a writer and a publication that supports it.

Brains!

I'm writing today about gray areas and gray matter on the Poisoned Pen blog. If you think your ideas of good and evil come solely from your strong moral upbringing, don't stand too close to a giant magnet -- you will be shocked.

You can read more HERE.

For the Hard-to-Accessorize Protagonist

So I have this neighbor. Her name is Danielle, and she's really cool. We trade stuff over the fence -- baked goods from her kitchen, half-baked novels from my word processor -- and our respective kids act like brother and sister. We also meet online, Facebooking and Pinteresting especially. And that's where our latest collaboration started.

We both work from home; I'm a mystery novelist, and she's an Avon representative. Recently, Danielle was kind enough to read a draft of my second novel -- Darker Than Any Shadow, debuting March 6 in case you're interested -- and she offered to help accessorize my heroine, Tai Randolph, a little bit. As Danielle explains on her blog, Tai is not a girly-girl. Fashion is a foreign concept. But now that she's dating an Armani clotheshorse, she has discovered that she needs to spiff things up a bit. And while she's a real smart woman, she's kinda clueless about this.

Her boyfriend helps. And now, so has Danielle. Here's her picks for Tai's Must-Have Accessories. I've already written two of them into Book Three. And I'm probably adding them to my own shopping list, since Tai and I do share a certain -- how does one say it? -- ineptitude in all matters of style and fashion. PS: If you like any of these items, check out Danielle's Avon page (which is offering free shipping right now, by the way).

This is my favorite. Perfect for stashing a backpack's worth of stuff and much more fashionable. Six zippered pockets are excellent for cell phones and extra ammo, plus the roomy interior will hold all kinds of clues that might just happen to slip in there when nobody's looking. A detachable strap lets you carry it cross-body, which is the best way to foil would-be snatcher-villains, something every good detective knows. Find it HERE on the Avon page.

This items is as sneaky as they come. It looks like a fancy lipstick, but that's just a clever disguise. It's actually an LED flashlight -- one twist and it comes on. It's going in that bag, that's for sure. Find it HERE on the Avon page.

So simple even a harried, slightly fashion-challenged detective could make it work, even during a high-speed car chase. My hero would appreciate the simple 1-2-3-4 instructions and the impossible-to-mistake placement graphic. Find it HERE on the Avon page.

Happy 2012!

"In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous."
-- Aristotle

At the 2011 Writer's Police Academy

Off to the pokey -- well, not really

Here’s the thing about being handcuffed — it produces an irresistible urge to get out of said handcuffs. For most handcuffed people, that’s not an option. Luckily for me, it was. All I had to do was ask, which I did. Quickly and nicely.


I wrote a little about my adventures in all things Law  Enforcement over at the Poisoned Pen Press blog (see Writing at the Thin Blue Line if you're interested).


Here are some photos from that weekend. It was an invaluable opportunity to marinate in the world of cops, firefighters, and rescue personnel for a little while, and I came away with an enhanced respect for the challenges of the work and the commitment of the people who choose these professions. 

 To the right, you see Officer Stan Lawhorne demonstrating the "hog-tie" maneuver on Officer Dee Jackson. She's being sweet and non-resistance -- you can tell because he's still wearing his head.

Below is a picture of the official Writer's Police Academy t-shirt. It reminds me of the one Richard Castle wears on Castle. Maybe some of his fictional star quality will rub off on me. Who knows? Regardless, it's a fantastic shirt.

My daughter, the Writer-To-Be

Officer Stan Lawhorne participates in a mock hostage-taking.

Lt. Randy Shepherd with the Sniper Team

Above is Lt. Randy Shepherd, who led a fascinating seminar on Law Enforcement Sniper techniques and procedures. He brought actual equipment and gear (that's his big gun you see) and shared how snipers move, hide, target and train. An excellent presentation that blew me away in many ways, and enriched my author's tool kit extraordinarily (I got to hold bullets!)

An Official ALS (Alternate Light Source) kit used by some official forensic investigators. Use this equipment in a typical hotel room, and you'll be traumatized, I guarantee it.

To the left you'll see a typical sniper gear set-up

 including the official "sniper Frisbee" that bored snipers toss around between hostage situations (actually, it's a camouflaged disc of plastic that is used as a base for the gun in underbrush -- but I like the Frisbee story better).