L.A. Confidential
After Vegas, I flew into Burbank (travel tip for those, if any, who care: Burbank is a much easier airport to navigate than LAX).
My first stop was downtown Los Angeles. My cousin Jim Harrigan had very generously arranged for a book party at his company. It was a great, and unusual, experience, because I got to meet and chat with the kind of people – engineers, economists – you don’t usually find en masse at an event for a novelist. The folks at Jim’s company were fantastic – friendly, welcoming, fascinating. And best of all, they knew (maybe because they were engineers and economists) exactly how they wanted me to inscribe their books. So instead of me having to fall back on my standards – “Best wishes,” “Hope you enjoy this,” or, my favorite poker saying, “Never tap the aquarium!” – I was pleased to receive precisely-worded directions. There were elaborate greetings to wives and brothers-in-law, complicated and mysterious invocations, humorous inside-joke commentaries. One young woman named Dulce instructed me to write: “To Dulce, You are so sweet!” Which I did, and she seemed very much so.
From downtown, I drove out to Thousand Oaks, California, where I had a signing event at Mysteries to Die For. The owner, Alan Chisholm, is a wonderful guy with a wonderful sense of humor. Only six or seven people showed up for the lunch-hour event, but what we lacked in quantity we made up for in menace, since the crowd included a man who may or may not have been a member of the Armenian mob featured so prominently in GUTSHOT STRAIGHT (see photo). After the event at Mysteries to Die For, I had a chance to catch up with one of my oldest friends in California, the irrepressible (believe me, people have tried) Sammy the Bull Silvas, who I first met in 1992 at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Sam is an excellent writer, a Springsteen fan, and an expert bow hunter. That’s pretty much all you need to know about him.
After Thousand Oaks, I continued my tour of the sprawling Southland by driving down, down, down to Cerritos, California, where a Borders bookseller by the name of Charles Ford had fallen in love with Gutshot Straight and was handselling it like crazy. It was great to meet the charming Charles in person, and I did my part by handselling a couple of my own books while I was there (“Hey! You! Come here! Put down that James Patterson novel and check this out!”). Then I drove back up, up, up to Glendale, where I was staying at the Hilton and where I chanced upon this plaque in a corridor (see photo).
The next day I hit Vroman’s in Pasadena for a drop-in signing (great store, great town), then had lunch at Chateau Marmont on Sunset with a famous friend who values his privacy. Not only is he perhaps the top screenwriter in Hollywood right now (sorry William Monahan!), he’s also an accomplished actor who, in only a single scene, completely stole Must Love Dogs from Diane Lane.
After that, it was time for a signing at The Mystery Bookstore in Westwood. Bobby was a great host. He’d made Gutshot Straight as the Discovery Book of the Month, so there were a whole lot of books to sign (“Best wishes!”). I also had the great privilege to sign the store’s vintage Sacramento jail register, which holds the signatures and pithy sayings of hundreds of crime and mystery writers from over the years. In Westwood, I was pleased to see an old OU student of mine, the delightful Mr. Chase Martin, who suffered through at least three of my courses (by choice – go figure). I also reunited with three members of my long-standing fantasy baseball league, Cory Marciel, Bryan Murphy, and Pete Schlecter. Remember those names, because while they might not be as brilliant at fantasy baseball as I am, they’re very talented writers and filmmakers who will be running Hollywood in a few years. It was a great pleasure to meet fellow Morrow author Tim Hallinan, author of terrific thrillers set in Southeast Asia. And the tour scored yet another celebrity appearance: my so-much-smarter-than-me-it’s-embarassing friend Katy Lim (photo), better known as banked-track roller-derby goddess Tae Kwan Ho of the L.A. Derby Dolls. But she didn’t come in uniform, so points off for that.
Next: The San Francisco Bay Area
My first stop was downtown Los Angeles. My cousin Jim Harrigan had very generously arranged for a book party at his company. It was a great, and unusual, experience, because I got to meet and chat with the kind of people – engineers, economists – you don’t usually find en masse at an event for a novelist. The folks at Jim’s company were fantastic – friendly, welcoming, fascinating. And best of all, they knew (maybe because they were engineers and economists) exactly how they wanted me to inscribe their books. So instead of me having to fall back on my standards – “Best wishes,” “Hope you enjoy this,” or, my favorite poker saying, “Never tap the aquarium!” – I was pleased to receive precisely-worded directions. There were elaborate greetings to wives and brothers-in-law, complicated and mysterious invocations, humorous inside-joke commentaries. One young woman named Dulce instructed me to write: “To Dulce, You are so sweet!” Which I did, and she seemed very much so.
The next day I hit Vroman’s in Pasadena for a drop-in signing (great store, great town), then had lunch at Chateau Marmont on Sunset with a famous friend who values his privacy. Not only is he perhaps the top screenwriter in Hollywood right now (sorry William Monahan!), he’s also an accomplished actor who, in only a single scene, completely stole Must Love Dogs from Diane Lane.
Next: The San Francisco Bay Area
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