Monday, December 12, 2011

Wild Bill Gets Some Cross-Genre Love

Pat Browning, tireless owner and proprietor of the blog Morning’s at Noon (I wonder if she is a Tom Waits fan*), and author of Absinthe of Malice, has posted a review of Wild Bill to Amazon. Pat writes:

Dana King's debut novel, WILD BILL, is an attention grabber. The title character, FBI Special Agent Will Hickox, engages in a determined pursuit of organized crime, building his case over a period of two years, as crime leaders jockey back and forth for top positions.

Law enforcement does its own juggling act, with the beat cops, the FBI and the Department of Justice jockeying for position, until the DOJ demands that the case be wrapped up pronto.


This superbly written book goes on my personal "Best Of" list for 2011.

Pat also wrote a more thoroughgoing review for the DorothyL list serve. It’s just as flattering, but when a writer who doesn’t normally deal in the level of grit where Wild Bill lives says your book is “superbly written and goes on [her] personal”Best Of” list, there’s no point in gilding the lily.

Pat has also invited me to participate in a virtual conversation with her and Timothy Hallinan (The Queen of Patpong) next month. More details on that as they become available.

Many thanks, Pat. Absinthe of Malice is on my Kindle, ready to go.

(* – Possibly my favorite Tom Waits song is “Better Off Without a Wife,”** which contains the line “I can sleep until the crack of noon.”)

(** - This Humble Correspondent With Much to be Humble About is in no way better off without The Beloved Spouse.)

2 comments:

Charlieopera said...

Favorite Waits line (adopted by Buffalo Bills fans everywhere) ... "it's hard to win when you always lose" ... (from Fumblin' with the Blues ...

Anonymous said...

I was surprised, startled, amazed and thrilled, all at the same time, to find myself on
Dana’s blog. But trust an old English teacher to pick a blog name she has to explain: Morning’s At Noon.

I stay up half the night and sleep late the next day. When I started my blog I needed a name for it and “Morning's at Noon” popped out of the blue.

In junior high school or thereabouts, I had to learn a poem called "Pippa Passes." The most famous lines of the poem are the last two: "God's in his heaven, All's right with the world." I don't remember whether Pippa Passes is a play or what, but Pippa sings a lovely song: "The Year's at the spring/ And day's at the morn/ Morning's at seven ... "

It was written in 1841 by Robert Browning, husband of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Did the late -- very late -- Robert Browning look up from whatever he's writing wherever he is, hear my unspoken question, and whisper in my ear, "How about 'Morning's at Noon'?"
Unless someone can prove that he didn't, I will assume that he did. It makes my day.

But about Dana’s book – it’s a doozy. I usually come down on the softer side of mysteries, but WILL BILL is in a class by itself. Don’t take my word for it – just read it!

Pat Browning