Murder By the Book

I’m back from my signing at Murder By the Book in Houston, which went very well, I thought. I missed several friends I’d hoped to see who weren’t able to attend, but the customers who were there were fun to talk to, and McKenna and the rest of the staff couldn’t have been nicer. As for the store itself, if you’re a mystery fan and you’re anywhere near Houston and you haven’t been there yet . . . start making plans to visit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much mystery fiction of all types in one place outside of Bill Crider’s house and my old studio. It’s just an amazing collection. I started buying stuff for myself after the signing was over and had to make myself stop after a while.

As for Houston itself, the last time I was there was in 1961, a week or two before Hurricane Carla came ashore nearby. I remember my dad complaining about the traffic and how hard it was to find your way around, even then. As you can imagine, nearly fifty years later neither of those situations had improved. I got turned around when I came into town on Friday and wound up going the wrong way, but I figured that out fairly quickly and got squared away. By the time I left I knew my way around the streets in the vicinity of the hotel and the bookstore pretty well. But it was still very nice to get back to my neck of the woods.

And again, Murder By the Book is a wonderful store. If you can, go there. Buy books.

Farewell Tour

If any of you are in the Houston area this weekend, I'll be signing at Murder by the Book at 4:30 Saturday afternoon. This will be my last signing for the foreseeable future, so if you get a chance to drop by the store, I'd love to say hello. (I'm also looking forward to buying some books myself, since I've never been to MBTB before, but that's another story . . .)