The Party of Love, Yet Again

Indiana Republican: Women Will Pretend to Be Raped to Get Free Abortions

Now I remember why I'm a Democrat.

Hey, I like low taxes and less government regs too, but I'm not going to be associated with people like this. The Dem Party has some fools, to be sure, but I don't know of any Democratic politician capable of this kind of callous, brutal dismissiveness of rape victims.

Review: CHILD 44, Tom Rob Smith

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Boy, is this book ever bleak. It starts with a pair of starving Russian children trying to hunt down and kill a fellow villager's cat for food and just gets darker from there. But hey, it's Soviet Russia in the 50's, what do you expect? Rainbows and unicorns?

Leo Demidov is the perfect State Security agent, arresting and participating in the torture, conviction and execution of supposed "Enemies of the State". But in the nightmare that is Stalinist Russia, that could be anyone. Leo's zeal and loyalty aren't enough to save him from the machinations of a ruthless and sadistic rival who wants nothing more in the world than to see Leo suffer. Disgraced and exiled, with even more awful punishments hanging over his head and the heads of his family, Leo begins to investigate a common thread he sees in the horrific murders of several children. But the State takes it as an article of faith that there is no crime in the Worker's Paradise. To pursue a contrary truth is blasphemy of the worst kind, punishable by the worst kind of death.

Tom Rob Smith is brilliant at making you feel the constant sense of dread, insecurity, and paranoia that his characters feel every single day of their lives. This makes the book almost unbearably suspenseful. It keeps you absorbed, wanting desperately to know what's going to happen next, but half-terrified to find out. A definite winner.

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That's INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN Blowhard To You, Pal.

I got an e-mail this morning from a very nice young lady from the BBC World Service who'd seen the column about Libya below and wanted to know if I'd be willing to appear on their "World Have Your Say" program (or as they say "programme'). Actually, what she said was that they were "keen to speak to you about your possible participation on our radio show,"

Sure, said I, and next thing I know, I'm on the radio (or as they say, "wireless"). You can catch the podcast of the show here. I come in about 27:50, so you can skip all the boring stuff. There's a second hour, but it doesn't appear to be up yet.

Didn't get a huge block of airtime; they kept cutting back to people who were actually in Libya and theoretically had some idea of what was going on. I say theoretically, because after listening, I'm now more uncertain than ever about what's going on, which makes me even more determined that we should have stayed the hell out of this.

I Don't Care How Ragtag They Are, This is A Terrible Idea (No Matter Whose It Is)

Latest Newspaper Column: The Pilot

When I first heard of the growing rebellion in Libya, one of the first things I thought was, “Well, this must be a relief to the Obama ­administration.”

It wasn’t like Egypt, where, despite our support of democracy and freedom, we had to deal with the embarrassing fact that the corrupt and brutal dictator was a longtime ally. In contrast, we’ve never been fond of Moammar Gadhafi. In Libya, we know whom we’re supposed to hate.

Later, however, when I heard that the British and French were advocating a “no-fly zone” over Libya to keep the rebellion from being crushed, I thought, “Fine. Let them impose it.” We are, after all, a mite busy right now, what with trying to wind down one Middle Eastern war and simultaneously trying to get another war zone at least stable enough to hand it back to the people whose country it is.

I felt an increasing sense of dread, however, when I realized that ­practically every news report about the rebellion in Libya described the rebel forces as “ragtag,” because let’s face it, we Americans sure do love the ragtag.

The word evokes images of Colonials with their ­hunting rifles facing the British at Lexington and Concord, or Luke Skywalker and his plucky rebel pilots going up against the Death Star in their motley ­collection of obsolete fighters. Mark well: When the media start describing a force as “ragtag,” we’re going to be in on their side before too much longer.

And soon we were.

Those of you who are always wondering, often rudely, when I’m going to say something critical of Barack Obama, this is the day you’ve been waiting for. Mark it on your calendars, because I think this is a terrible idea.

Granted, Gadhafi, Qaddafi or Gadaffy, or however you spell it, is a brutal nutcase. He oppresses his ­people. The rebels were about to be savagely crushed. I grant you all of these things. But just like I said back before George Dubbya’s Wacky Iraqi Adventure, the world is full of brutal, oppressive thugs, from nearby Bahrain, to Africa’s Cote D’Ivoire, to North Korea.

Why Libya? Why not any of those other countries?

The only answer seems to be “because in Libya, we can, and at a low risk to us.” Their air force is relatively weak; in fact, British Air Vice Marshal Greg Bagwell was quoted by the BBC on Wednesday as saying it “no longer exists as a fighting force.” Great. No-fly zone accomplished. Can we come home now?

Of course not. That’s not how these things work. Now, with no air power against us, NATO warplanes and missiles are targeting ground forces loyal to Gadhafi. We have become, effectively, the rebel air force. Can you say “mission creep,” boys and girls?

And as for “low risk to us,” seems to me we’ve heard that before. Not just in Iraq, but back in 1999, when we and other members of NATO intervened in Kosovo. That started as an air war, too, a mission to save ethnic Albanians from massacre by Serbs. The goals seemed simple at the time: “Serbs out, peacekeepers in, refugees back,” according to a NATO spokesman. At the time, I confess, I thought this was a great idea.

Time has proved me wrong. In the Balkans, as in the Middle East, nothing is that simple. “Ethnic cleansing” actually increased. NATO planes bombed civilian ­targets, some accidentally, others deliberately.

In the end, it’s true, Serbian thug Slobodan Milosovic stepped down. But we ended up sending in ground troops as “peacekeepers,” who nearly got into a ­shooting war with Russian “peacekeepers” over the ­airport at Pristina. Twelve years later, Kosovo is still a mess and still requires thousands of NATO ­peacekeepers on the ground.

Seems we never learn. Even so-called “limited” air campaigns invariably end up being a lot messier than we plan for. Add to that the fact that the president committing U.S. forces to a war without any authorization or even consultation with Congress is exactly the kind of exercise of “plenary executive power” that I detested in George Dubbya Bush, and which, lest we forget, was one of the things Barack Obama ran against.

I mean, jeez Louise, even the Bush administration had the decency to lie to Congress about WMDs to get them on board with an ill-considered war.

Airstrikes to aid “ragtag rebels” certainly may seem like the right thing to do. But then, most terrible ideas do.

Redneck Noir Returns!

Safe and Sound, the award-winning third book in the Jack Keller series, returns as an eBook at Amazon.

If you missed it the first time, that's sad. Miss it again, and it's a damn tragedy.

SAFE AND SOUND: Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

For some reason, the Kindle version of SAFE AND SOUND, the third Jack Keller novel, is taking forever to go live on Amazon, but the version for Nook and other e-book readers has been live for a couple days.

We Don't Know Jack

Today on Murderati, I talk about prophecy and publishing. Do drop by....

THE DEVIL'S NEW COVER

BEHOLD, Hellions! The new, way-cool cover for THE DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND e-book, once again by Jeroen ten Berge. Awesome, no?

Remember, TDRH is available for Kindle, and Nook, and other e-formats NOW! Still a bargain at $2.99...

Review: ONE WAS A SOLDIER, Julia Spencer-Fleming

One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I tell some people that one of my favorite mystery series features a female Episcopal priest as the main character, they act as if they expect the Rev. Clare Fergusson to be some cozy-fied, charming old cleric with a twinkle in her eye and a ready supply of quaint homilies for every occasion. Nope. Julia Spencer-Fleming writes about passionate, headstrong people with complicated emotional lives, and she does it in a way that brings them beautifully to life on the page.

In this one, the Reverend Clare is back from her National Guard deployment in Iraq, after a year and a half away from her parish--and from her lover, small-town police chief Russ Van Alstyne. Other citizens of the small town of Millers Kill are returning from overseas as well, and they all carry their own wounds, both visible and invisible. Even Clare isn’t immune, and their various struggles to come to terms with the damage of war provide as much of the dramatic tension and conflict in the book as the actual mystery. In fact, the death that drives the mystery plot doesn’t actually occur until about halfway through the book, when a member of Clare’s Veterans’ support group dies, apparently by her own hand. I for one was so caught up in the threads of the characters’ individual stories that I didn’t mind.

To her credit, Spencer-Fleming doesn’t editorialize about the wars or the politics behind them. She does unflinchingly face the fact that some soldiers come back maimed, wounded, and suffering in ways even they can barely understand and which sometimes baffle and frustrate the people around them, even those who love them most.

ONE WAS A SOLDIER is engrossing and beautifully written. A solid five stars.

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Sarah Failin'?

Latest Newspaper Column- The Pilot

Say it ain't so, Sarah!

A recent story in this newspaper about the Moore County Republican Convention noted that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney "soared to the top Saturday" in the convention's "straw vote." Receiving only a "sprinkling" of votes were Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - and Sarah Palin.

Only a "sprinkling" for Caribou Barbie? This seemed ominous to me, as it should to anyone aspiring to commit acts of political humor.

Then it got worse. According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released last week, St. Sarah of the Snows suffers from slipping favorability ratings. Only 58 percent of "Republicans and Republican-leaning independents" viewed her favorably.

This might not seem too bad, until you remember that right after Honorable John McCain picked the Wasilla Whiner to corral the all important drama-queen and grievance-junkie vote, those same voters had her favorability rating up to a whopping 88 percent. As recently as October, according to a story in the Christian Science Monitor, the Resigning Woman's favorability rating among those voters was 70 percent.

Most tragically, a recent front-page article on Politico.com lined up a veritable Who's Who of conservative pundits - George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Weekly Standard writer Matt Labash and others, to turn and rend the Quitta From Wasilla like a pack of wolves who've just noticed that one of their own has come up limping.

"She's becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition," Labash sniped, citing Palin's "frequent appeals to victimhood and group grievance."

Krauthammer piled on: "When populism becomes purely anti-intellectual, it can become unhealthy and destructive."

Asked if the GOP would remain the party of ideas if Palin captures the nomination, Will said: "The answer is emphatically no." (Somebody probably needs to tell Mr. Will: That horse left the barn a while ago.)

So is Palin's star fading in the political firmament? Are all but the most die-hard Palindrones suffering from Palin Fatigue? I sincerely hope not. That would be a disaster.

Why, you may ask, am I so unhappy about this? Don't I loathe Sarah Palin?

Nothing could be further from the truth, actually. I need Sarah Palin. I depend on her. She's an unending source of quality material.

Oh, sure, you've got your B-list wackjobs like Sharron Angle or up-and comers like Michelle "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann. But for a column that just writes itself, all I have to do is wait for Mama Grizzly to open her mouth and let the comedy ore tumble out, ready to be refined into gold.

Not only is a Palin column easy to write, I can always depend on those lovely folks in the Party of Love to whip themselves into a hate-frenzy and put those all important eyeballs on the page. As an experiment, I recently went back through some old columns on this newspaper's website and checked the reactions I got to columns that mentioned the Snowbilly Princess, as measured by comments on the column. The results were illuminating,

One on Jan. 9 entitled "Palin's Latest Weird Tangent" got 152 comments. A Jan. 16 offering called "Violent Talk in the Cross Hairs" mentioned Palin prominently. Result: 77 comments. Jan 23's "Everybody's a Drama Queen" made a passing reference to Palin's "Death Panel" lie and got 43 comments. But look at Jan. 30: "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us. " No Palin mention. 17 comments. Even I can do the math, if it's simple enough.

Said comments, by the way, usually include at least one instance of the tired old whine: "Why are you always picking on Sarah Palin?" The answer is: Never let it be said I don't know what the people like when it comes to getting their rage on.

If Sarah Palin slips back into the obscurity from whence she came, I don't know what I'll do. I was depending on her to at least make a run for the GOP nomination. Because if she did - well, it would just be a matter of time.

Palin's the most thin-skinned politician in America. Somewhere along the campaign trail, someone will say something she deems offensive, probably to one of her kids, and the resulting meltdown will be epic. It'll make Charlie Sheen's manic orgy of self-aggrandizement look like a mild case of coffee jitters.

Well, we live in hope.

PUSHING ICE, Alastair Reynolds

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Janus, one of Saturn's moons, has started moving on an outbound course for the stars. The comet-mining ship Rockhopper, captained by Bella Lind, is sent to shadow it and find out what's going on. As Rockhopper draws near, things get weird.

Then they get really weird.

I've always enjoyed Alastair Reynold's books, but in all the ones I've read before this, there's usually a point where the story starts to drag and I feel like I have to push through. That didn't happen with PUSHING ICE; the story hooked me early on and kept me turning pages. It's one of those books I found myself picking up in every spare moment, just to see what happened next.

As some other reviewers have observed, character development is not Reynold's forte, but there's enough great story here to make up for the lack, with catastrophes, mutinies, murders, betrayals, friendships lost and found, and some truly alien aliens. This is space opera done right.

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The Revolution Is Being Downloaded

Mark Coker: The Author Uprising Against Big Publishing

Okay, a couple of observations about that article. First, I think equating the changes in publishing, fast and furious though they may be, with the revolution in Egypt is real eye-rolling material.

Other than that, though, the article definitely pegs some of the problems with Big Publishing for both writers and readers, like shrinking advances and promotional budgets, narrowing selection (with choices made by marketing people trying to predict the future and often failing), etc. I think the rise of electronic self-publishing is a strong push-back against that, and lord knows I'm excited about the prospects of having readers actually make the decisions on what's "commercial" enough and what's not.

All that said...unlike some people I know, I'm not predicting or hoping for the demise of print publishing, or even of the so-called "Big 6." I'm not anxious to see the stranglehold of MacMillan, Harper Collins, et. al, replaced by the stranglehold of Apple, Amazon and B & N. I don't want to see the "Big 6" turn into the "Big 3." I think if that happens, those lovely 70% author's cuts for e-books are going to fall by the wayside.

What I'm hoping is that the rise of alternative markets expands rather than contracts our reading choices and that the competition leads the Big 6 into abandoning some of their occasionally ridiculous and counterproductive ways of doing business that hang on for no other reason than "because that's how it's done."

So far, given some of the statements I've read from publishing insiders who do little but carp about the problems with self-pubbing (and there are quite a few), I'm not seeing that happening. But, we live in hope.

HELL Is Coming to Breakfast

GOOD DAY IN HELL, my second novel featuring North Carolina Bounty Hunter Jack Keller, is now available for Kindle, Nook, and other e-book formats!

Publisher's Weekly said:

At the start of Rhoades's well-crafted second novel to feature Jack Keller (after 2005's The Devil's Right Hand), the North Carolina bounty hunter and his new girlfriend, sheriff's deputy Marie Jones, discover that the two suspects for whom each has been searching—a troubled young woman who skipped bail on an assault charge and the likely perpetrator of the brutal murder of a gas station owner—have taken the gas station owner's teenage son and in short order pulled off senseless mass murders at a local church and factory. When the media-savvy killers contact an amoral local news personality, guaranteeing her exclusive access in exchange for the chance to tell their tale, the situation escalates and the lives of all are put in danger. Fast-paced and rich in regional color, this satisfying thriller is notable for its empathetic portrayal of the two emotionally damaged protagonists, each struggling with past trauma—his sustained in the first Gulf War, hers resulting from the killing of her partner—in order to form a trusting relationship.

Booklist had this to say:

Rhoades follows up his scorching debut, The Devil's Right Hand (2005), with another high-voltage thriller starring bounty hunter Jack Keller. This time Keller, his Gulf War nightmares on simmer, thinks he's ready to take a stab at a committed relationship with North Carolina state cop Marie Jones, but that's before he starts tailing a bail jumper turned serial killer and her equally deranged partner in crime. As before, this one is all about the chase, but Rhoades lets us follow the action from the points of view of both hunters and hunted. Unlike Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, who humanize their bad guys by giving them senses of humor, Rhoades portrays unrepentant, psychotic killers but manages to make us feel, almost against our will, the human hearts that beat within their violent souls. Keller's own violent soul remains in turmoil, loving the hunt even as it threatens his new-found stability. Drawing from a half-dozen thriller formulas used by such masters as Lee Child and Stephen Hunter, Rhoades shuffles the deck skillfully and deals an altogether new hand.

And for now, it's only 1.99!

The other two titles in my backlist, SAFE AND SOUND and BREAKING COVER, will be coming soon for e-book.

Oh, My God! Sharia Law IS CALLING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!

Latest Newspaper Column:

It seems that "Sharia law," that favorite bugbear of the hard right, is back, and it weighs heavily on the fevered minds of some lawmakers.

#The latest crusader is Alabama state Sen. Gerald Allen. Allen has introduced a bill in that state's legislature that's very much like a measure voted in by referendum in Oklahoma a few months ago, in that it bans the states' courts "from using Sharia law or international law in making legal decisions."

#Never mind the fact that, as in Oklahoma, no one has ever used or attempted to use Sharia law (a term which Allen admitted to a reporter he couldn't define) in the state courts.

#That's not the point, Allen insists.

#"It's not about what's happening right now," he told a local paper. "I'm thinking about 10 years down the road, 20, 30, 40. Time has an effect on these things, and I'm thinking about the future."

#Got that? It's not that Sharia law is a threat right now. It's that, 20 to 40 years in the future, someone might try to impose it, so we've got to be ready.

#Good to know that in a state facing a $110 million budget deficit, unemployment rates of up to 18 percent in some counties, and a corresponding flight of its citizens from the state, someone has the wisdom and foresight to take the long view and prepare for the time when the overwhelmingly Christian state known as the "Heart of Dixie" might possibly become a hotbed of Islamist agitation.

#After all, it's happened in other places. Just ask failed Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle, who managed to turn what looked like an easy pickup of a Senate seat from the feckless Harry Reid into a debacle by, essentially, talking like a raving loon.

#Responding to a question about Muslims "taking over a city in Michigan," Angle responded, "First of all, Dearborn, Mich., and Frankford, Texas, are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don't know how that happened in the United States. It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States."

#Only problem with Angle's rather confusingly phrased expression of outrage is: First, Dearborn's "government situation" is indeed still solidly under American law, with American cops and judges and everything; and second, Frankford, Texas, the other city Angle was so exercised about, doesn't exist. It's a former suburb of Dallas that was absorbed into that metropolis in 1975.

#Who knows, though? Maybe Angle was talking about Muslims from "20, 30, 40 years down the road" who'd learned to travel back in time to before 1975 and impose Sharia law in a vanished Texas -suburb. You never can tell with these people.

#It would be easy to dismiss this nonsense as fringe craziness from a backwoods state legislator and a rejected Senate candidate. But the newly elected Republican majority in the House apparently intends to try to mainstream anti-Sharia hysteria.

#Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert told radio host Frank Gaffney (a guy so insane he insists right-wing icon Grover Norquist is a Muslim agent) that he was going to "push for hearings" on "creeping Sharia." Florida uber-wingnut congressman Allen West has indicated he wants to do the same.

#Yes, my friends, fear is where it's at this year. Fear of the Creeping Sharia. Fear of the Stealth Jihadist, the guy who only looks like a moderate, reasonable Muslim, but luckily for us poor saps, those in the know (and in the GOP) can see that inwardly he's cackling and plotting the next 9/11.

#Which is why, this past week, we had Rep. Peter King's Homeland Security Dog and Pony Show in which he trotted out carefully selected witnesses to prove that, while he's not actually saying all Muslims are terrorists, he is saying they all would be happy to kill us in our sleep and convert our babies to Islam.

#Because fear sells. Fear distracts. Fear, King and his fellow travelers hope, will keep us from noticing that they have no real answers to the problems that plague us, just the same failed coddle-the-rich, screw-the-middle-class policies that dug this hole for us in the first place.

"Would You Please Fucking Stop?"

Ursula K. LeGuin critiques swearing, particularly the use of the word "fuck"--and does it thoughtfully, without the usual prissiness common to such pieces. It's worth a look.

Foundlings: Abandoned Novels

I'm blogging today at Murderati on the novels that we never finish. Or don't we?

"Shakespeare Got to Get Paid, Son"

Chuck Wendig yanks you upright and slaps your silly face for giving him those Lies Writers Tell. Check it out.

JACK'S BACK!

THE DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND, my 2005 debut novel featuring North Carolina bounty hunter Jack Keller, is now available for Kindle, Nook, and other e-book formats. And for a limited time, as a special introductory offer, you can enjoy this Shamus-nominated thriller for only 99 cents, downloaded in moments!

If you missed it the first time, now's your chance to read the book that the Washington Post called "A fine example of redneck noir" and Booklist called a "supercharged crime fiction debut."

J.A. Konrath put it best: "Jack Keller kicks ass!"

Worse Than the Romans: The Charlie Sheen Freak Show

Latest Newspaper Column: The Pilot

(I'm not sure why this ran Friday on the website rather than the usual Sunday, but what the hell):

You know, there are times I look around me and I go, "Wow, we are worse than the Romans."

Oh, sure, the Romans put on brutal gladiatorial contests in which men fought each other to the death, or fought against wild beasts.

But you know what the Romans didn't do? They didn't put their mentally ill in the middle of the Coliseum and encourage them to rave for the amusement of the people. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what the media are doing with "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen.

Sheen's been notorious as a Hollywood bad boy for years now, what with the hookers, the alcohol, the cocaine, the porn-star girlfriends and whatnot. It was actually pretty shrewd casting when "Two and a Half Men" producer Chuck Lorre hired Sheen to play the boozing, womanizing Charlie Harper, brother to the nervous and wimpy Allan, played by Jon Cryer (this generation's answer to Don Knotts).

Sheen's been pretty amusing as a drunken whoremonger on TV. In real life, however, the act has been less funny. A whole lot less, in fact, with Sheen being arrested for domestic violence and trashing hotel rooms, going in and out of rehab, and generally acting, as we say down South, like he's got no raising at all.

All of this was bad enough, but not, unfortunately, uncommon enough in Hollywood to grab the front pages. Nor did it result in the same sort of employment consequences you or I would suffer if we were frequently seen in public completely blitzed, in the company of adult movie actresses. In fact, Sheen's income kept going up as the show became a mainstay of CBS's prime-time line up.

Then Sheen started imploding in a particularly flamboyant fashion that even Hollywood couldn't ignore. He began giving interviews in which he ranted and raved, calling producer Lorre a "maggot" and other endearments not suitable for a family newspaper. Not surprisingly, Lorre immediately suspended production on the show, because let's face it, if you call your boss a "maggot," you're probably going to get canned, even if you are Charlie Sheen.

The suspension apparently acted upon Sheen's mind in much the same way a red cape acts upon the mind of a maddened bull. Suddenly, Charlie Sheen is everywhere, giving interviews right and left on "20/20," "Good Morning America," TMZ.com, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc. He's given an interview to everyone but "Highlights" magazine, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the cover of the next issue.

And what bizarre interviews they are. Sheen claims to have "tiger blood" and "Adonis DNA." He's also repeatedly called himself a "warlock," which upset a group of "actual" warlocks so much they promised to put a "binding spell" (which is apparently the magical equivalent of a restraining order) on him.

He brags that "most of the time - and this includes naps - I'm an F-18, bro. I'll destroy you in the air," and gripes that he's tired of pretending like he's not special. "I'm tired of pretending like I'm not a total bitchin' rock star from Mars," he says. "You can't process me with a normal brain."

I'll confess, I've laughed at some of this blather. But I'm getting more and more uncomfortable about it. When you read and hear the increasingly grandiose and delusional things Sheen's said and get a look at his manic, beady little eyes, you can tell that this guy isn't just drunk or coked up. He is out of his mind. He is mentally ill. And yet every media outlet in the country seems positively joyful at the opportunity to put the crazy guy on screen and poke him with a stick to see what nutty thing he'll say next.

It's becoming the high-tech equivalent of the old carnival freak shows, where people would gather to see some poor addled soul bite the heads off live chickens and other humiliating acts. Charlie Sheen hasn't actually bitten the head off a chicken yet, but if he does, you can bet that someone will be there with a camera, ready to put it on the air and on the Internet.

Then we really will be worse than the Romans.

Win a Kindle or Nook from One Very Righteous Chick

The supremely cool and outrageously talented Toni McGee Causey gives a shout out to LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY as part of her contest in which one can win a FREE Kindle or Nook over at her blog:

J.D. has a talent for creating characters you feel like you know, deeply, from your own life, and showing you the tensions that they're under that threaten to crack and break them wide open—and like the ladies above, he'll have you turning pages until the wee hours of the morning, because you won't want to put it down until you get to the end.

Head over, enter the contest (I mean, free stuff, amirite?) and show Toni some love. She's not only a kick-ass writer, she's good people as well.