Along with writing there is always obviously reading. Below you’ll find the stack of books that has been recently on my nightstand. They are a mix of genres, some I am reading again and others will be for the first time.
Specifically I am finishing up The Shining. While this book is well outside my genre I find so much to learn in the way King grounds a scene in immersive detail. I love putting that into my own work.
After that I’ll be revisiting Connelly. When I was a wee teenager I did take up The Black Echo in a particularly CSI driven phase of my life. His work is so well grounded in the procedural beats, and there is so much to learn from a master like him. He makes scenes vivid, and just as important as the characters and the plot, and I love him for it.
The Silent Patient will be a revisit. I did enjoy the twist back during COVID. I think this work would be more in line with Listen Closely, but I’ll be looking to go down the dark rabbit hole again.
Jeff Linsday is an interesting one. Dexter is such a bastard in these books that I have hardly found him relatable. I do appreciate what Michael C. Hall brought to the character in the show, where he is more emotionally and morally grey. I enjoy these books for mainly one thing, which I seek to put into my own work. They’re easy and fun to read. You really disappear into these, and they fly by. You arent distracted by high flying literary prose, but are truly lost in the words. I appreciate Jeff’s work greatly for that. And Dexter isnt so bad in Darkly Dreaming Dexter anyway.
Work continues in earnest on After Image. I’m excited to get it done, because I truly believe it is my most commercial hook. Anyway as always more to come…
