The thrill is not gone.

  Obligatory pic of author with second-born book hot off the presses.

11Whit Neill, Betsy Hannas Morris and 9 others

Free!

 Here's what you've been waiting for.

I'm giving away my life-blood (12 copies) on Goodreads.

Autographed with bookplates.

Get it while it's hot.

First Review of The Dutch Painter

 So...it's still available to subscribers only on Booklist, but I have the okay to share with you the first review of

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter:

The Holmes pastiche industry rolls on. This time we don't have a newly unearthed Watson

manuscript with a waspish Holmes and boneheaded Watson. Rather, the great man is

concealing his identity under a borrowed name, Vernet. Appropriate, since he's distantly related

to the artistic Vernet family and the case he's working is art theft. The ersatz Watson, there to aid

the investigation, is art maven Lermolieff, who understands his job is to observe Holmes-Vernet

as well as record the investigation. He has much to offer, from first finding the bloodhound "a

carnival attraction that took in clues and spat out solutions," to understanding that deduction

"was a mask for his real passion: justice." Their inquiry takes them through the Parisian art world

in the waning nineteenth century and features encounters outlandish and entertaining. Holmes

investigates van Gogh's suicide and crosses swords—literally—with Gauguin, while Lermolieff

gets the world's first electroshock treatment. It's a fine tale, stylishly written.

— Don Crinklaw

Troll Troubles

 Having a problem with internet trolls? I can't help you. But real trolls, or at least real fairy-tale trolls? I've got you covered with The Two Brothers of Amalfi, in this month's Lagniappe section.

First Book

 I haven't mentioned my favorite cause in some time, but the need is as great as ever:

 First Book believes that education is the best way out of poverty for children in need. We address the needs of the whole child supporting their education, basic needs, and wellness – all of which are essential to educational equity. All of these resources are made affordable to our member network of more than 500,000 educators who exclusively serve kids in need.

Please give if you can.

Noshing on Dutch

Just a little midnight nibble from The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter 

(now available for pre-order).

 

You don't have this one yet?

 

Robertson Davies

"Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command.”

Now Available for pre-order.

Hello again! 

My second novel, The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter, is now available for pre-order On Amazon.

Paris, 1890. When Sherlock Holmes finds himself chasing an art dealer through the streets of Paris, he’s certain he’s smoked out one of the principals of a cunning forgery ring responsible for the theft of some of the Louvre’s greatest masterpieces. But for once, Holmes is dead wrong.

He doesn’t know that the dealer, Theo Van Gogh, is rushing to the side of his brother, who lies dying of a gunshot wound in Auvers. He doesn’t know that the dealer’s brother is a penniless misfit artist named Vincent, known to few and mourned by even fewer.

Officialdom pronounces the death a suicide, but a few minutes at the scene convinces Holmes it was murder. And he’s bulldog-determined to discover why a penniless painter who harmed no one had to be killed–and who killed him. Who could profit from Vincent’s death? How is the murder entwined with his own forgery investigation?

Holmes must retrace the last months of Vincent’s life, testing his mettle against men like the brutal Paul Gauguin and the secretive Toulouse-Lautrec, all the while searching for the girl Olympia, whom Vincent named with his dying breath. She can provide the truth, but can anyone provide the proof? From the madhouse of St. Remy to the rooftops of Paris, Holmes hunts a killer—while the killer hunts him.

Another Wafer-thin...

                                                                           Would you care for just one more wafer-                                                                                        thin...interview? About all three books?                    Maybe even one more?

Then check out my talk with three ladies named Dark, Stormy, and Night.