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« on: February 22, 2020, 02:13:13 pm »
Today was one of the rare good days for me. I drove up to the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton Upper Falls for the book launch event being put on for mystery author Bruce Robert Coffin's WITHIN PLAIN SIGHT. It's the fourth book in his Detective John Byron series. I'm a latecomer to the series but reading about it made it one that I HAD to read. And what's better than having a signed copy of the book you are going to be reading?
The event started off with a quick reading (the opening scene) from the new book. Coffin then opened the floor up to questions where he answered what was asked and related stories that tied into those questions and answers. Pretty engaging talk really. It's not often that I've gotten to read books about homicide investigators by someone who quite literally was that very thing before beginning a writing career.
Now, typically that is enough of a thing to make it a good day but what put this day over the top for me was how it relates to my desire to someday attend a book convention/conference. It's not in the cards for me to do so at this point in time but this afternoon I did get a little taste of that because the audience was made up not only of fans of Bruce Robert Coffin but there were a number of other authors there as well.
There was the always fantastic Hank Phillippi Ryan, who never fails to amaze me with her generosity. Hank rocks, plain and simple!
Hallie Touger/ Hallie Ephron was there too! She's doing an event at the Wareham Free Library in a couple of months and graciously made suggestions for the book clubs since both the mystery and fiction clubs will be reading one of her books leading up to the event.
I was happily surprised to see Joanna Schaffhausen in attendance too! I wish I'd known that she was going to be there because I would've brought my copy of her new book, ALL THE BEST LIES, to have signed. Seriously, if you want to read a (excuse the poor rhyme scheme) killer thriller, you should check out both THE VANISHING SEASON and NO MERCY, the first two books in the Ellery Hathaway series. They are AWESOME and I can't say enough about them. I'm about to dig into the new one which I'm sure is going to maintain the high level of love I feel for the series.
And then I briefly talked to Edwin Hill, the author of LITTLE COMFORT and THE MISSING ONES. I'd missed a chance to be at one of his signings down on the Cape last year so I took advantage of the opportunity and now have a signed copy of THE MISSING ONES.
Last but not least, I spent a few minutes talking to author Dale T. Phillips. He writes a number of things but most notably there is his Zack Taylor mystery series. It was a pretty interesting chat and it ended with him gifting me with a copy of the first book in the series, which I'll be pushing somewhere close to the top of my TBR pile so that I can become more familiar with his work
For an enthusiastic fan of all kinds of fictional murderers and those who create these tales that I love so much, it doesn't get much better than a day like today.
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