Some Love from Pornokitsch!

Hey, there!

Good weekend?

Good for me -- spent three days at Left Coast Crime in Monterey, California, surrounded by wonderful mystery writers and readers! Ate a cup of incredible clam chowder at the Wharf, bought a pound of sea salt caramels and stuffed too many (is there really such a thing) of books into my carry-on. Good, good, good!

And I woke up this morning to discover a great book review of LAND OF SHADOWS from U.K. mega-blog Pornokitsch!

...Shadows is best when Norton is doing her police work - Hall has a knack for describing the detail of the procedural day to day, be that the smell of a decomposed corpse (eee) or the breakroom comaraderie.

Wow!

Wow, I say again!

Go here to read to entire review, and then stay awhile to see what else is poppin'!

Land of Shadows - Now with more shadows!!

The creative minds at Titan Books just keep spinnin' and turnin' and crankin' out cool things.

Like this:

It's my new-new cover art for the UK edition of LAND OF SHADOWS!

I'm so very happy with it.

It reminds me of some of the cover art for mysteries written by my literary heroes!

You like?

Reading at 'Lament in the Night'

Do you like books? Do you like books riddled with mystery and crime? Do you like books of mystery set in Los Angeles?

Then, you'll love the Grand Park Downtown Bookfest!! Please join me along with L.A. authors Gary Phillips, Desireee Zamorano, Ruben Rodriguez and Steph Cha at 4:00 on March 29 for 'Lament in the Night.'

I'll be reading from LAND OF SHADOWS for the VERY FIRST TIME!! Hope you'll come on down.

Caption the Crazy Contest

The best caption gets a free copy of No One Knows You're Here or The View from Here...

Ends March 5!

To Live and (Almost) Die in L.A.

I love my city. And I hate my city. It threatens to kill us with its violence and air and earthquakes. But then it loves us with its weather and great food and diversity and opportunity.

I wrote a blog post about life in Los Angeles - one day in the life of my younger brother Jason. Theakstons Festival (they put on the esteemed Harrogate Crime Festival in the U.K.) posted the piece moments ago.

Jason was only sixteen and all he wanted was a breakfast burrito.

On that fall morning in 1993, he stood with his friend Julian and other kids at a catering truck on Exposition, within the safety corridor of Dorsey High School. They were handsome black boys, probably talking about Snoop Dogg’s debut album or Lennox Lewis knocking out Frank Bruno in seven.

Go over and check out the rest!

Cover Art from the UK!

Titan Books' cover art for Land of Shadows!

The red and black! The whorls! The building and highway!

Don't you love it?!

Still life with a crime writer

Yesterday, my daughter went to a birthday party that lasted eight hours. What to do, where to go?

First stop: San Antonio Winery for lunch, a tour and tasting. Got my buzz on, left with two bottles of wine.

Onward!

As we drove to the 5, passed this:

And I made my husband U-turn and go back. Okay, not 'made' since he's just as game as me sometimes. We parked, got out of the car. A coroner cop(?) saw us and my husband explained me. Ha! The guy smiled (probably thinking nothing since this is LA) and wandered away. 

(Shoulda followed him and used my charms to get an impromptu tour. Dag-nabbit!)

So walked around - so peaceful on a Saturday afternoon.