The Bouchercon Mystery Conference. I just returned from a week in Minneapolis with this observation: the crime-writing community is ridiculously NICE. My cheeks still hurt from so much smiling.

One highlight of many was speaking on a panel, Above the Fold: Journalists as Protagonists. The other writers on the panel, John DeDakis, Mark Zeid, Lori Duffer Foster, August Norman, and James Queally, included working journalists from local dailies to the LA Times and CNN. (Hello, Imposter Syndrome, my old friend.) It was fascinating to talk about how the evolution of journalism makes an infinite source of plot.

So far I’ve finished reading two crime books I picked up at at the Once Upon a Crime bookshop at Bouchercon and highly recommend them: S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears and James Queally’s Line of Sight.

In fact, because I loved these books, I wrote a short review of each on Amazon, assigning the proper number of stars. (Note: I bought the books elsewhere and yet I still posted a review on Amazon because I want to support these authors. Hint hint.)