I went down to Houston last night to our local indy mystery bookstore, Murder By the Book. Great store, and they get all the big name authors in for readings or signing events. Last night it was Michael Connelly, author of the Harry Bosch mysteries, one of my favorites.
There are a ton of authors I wouldn’t mind meeting, but the 60+-mile round trip into Houston makes it easy to talk myself out of going. I made an exception this time, and I’m glad I did. Connelly was in good humor. Perhaps that’s his natural condition or maybe it was due to the vicodin he was taking because he’d had two root canals done that morning. He’s been to Houston several times before, but he relied on the navigation system in his rental car to get him to the bookstore. As he was driving south on I-45, the nav system told him to turn west on I-10, which he knew wasn’t right. He punched the distance-to-destination button and was informed he only had 1100 miles left to go. Apparently there’s a Murder by the Book in Denver, too, and that’s where he was being directed to go.
He also told the story about his inspiration for the new book, The Overlook, which was originally serialized in the New York Times earlier this year. He said he hadn’t realized what he was getting himself into when he agreed to doing the serialization: sixteen installments of almost exactly 3000 words each. The process required him to cut material if a chapter ran long and pad if it came up short.
In preparing the novel for hardcover publication he was able to return it to the form he originally envisioned for the story. The hardcover is approx. 25,000 words longer than the serial version, and for people who wonder about Harry’s fate at the end of Chapter 22, there is a Chapter 23 available on Connelly’s web site. I asked him if he had the book finished before the serialization started or if he was keeping up as it went along. He said the NY Times wanted to see the whole thing finished before they started publishing it.
The main reason I wanted to meet Connelly is that he is editing the MWA anthology The Blue Religion, which will have my story “Rule Number One.” It’s being published by Little, Brown later this year, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to introduce myself to him. He seemed eager to talk about the project and, as an added bonus, the bookstore manager overheard us talking and told me to get in touch with him when the book comes out so he could see if any other contributors were touring at that time. If so, he’d invite me to join in on a signing event. Pretty cool.
The event was well attended, with over 110 people buying a copy of The Overlook, thus being allowed to get books signed. MBTB allows people to buy books up to a week in advance to get a lower number for the signing. Many of the first dozen or so people, avid fans I presume, had stacks of books, but Connelly’s signature is a simple Zorro-like slash, so it didn’t take him long. I was #61 and reached him in less than an hour.
