
I’ve been on a kick lately to muck out my office and get rid of ..oh…a couple of thousand books or so.
It has to be done.
While it's easy to part with some books, others I have to put aside because I remember what joy the authors brought me and wonder what ever happened to them.
For me, and I think most mystery fiction readers, the authors' characters become friends we invite into our home and whose company we enjoy. And wouldn't it be nice if we could connect with those characters again on Facebook?
In each issue of Mystery Scene, Brian Skupin writes the column “What’s Happening With . . .” In this column, Brian, who is one of Mystery Scene’s co-publishers, writes about an author we haven't heard from in a while.
The purging of my office and Brian’s column has had me also going down my own memory lane.
One author I wondered about was Michael Nava.
Nava published seven award-winning novels about Henry Rios, a gay Latino criminal defense lawyer. His first
The Little Death was published in 1986 and
Rag and Bone, his last, came out in 2000. Nava’s novels easily crossed over to a wide readership because of his skill at creating characters and plots.
Nava’s novels earned six Lambda Literary Awards.
Nava also is a lawyer who has served as a judge for years in California.
During 2010, he ran for San Francisco Superior Court, Seat 15. While he was the top recipient of votes in the June primary, he did not receive a majority of the votes. In a run-off with the incumbent judge, Nava lost by just under 12,000 votes.
Nava, who is of Mexican descent, is rumored to be working on an historical novel set around the time of the Mexican Revolution in Mexico and Arizona.