Dave's Fiction Warehouse

I'm finally restocking my nightstand with crime novels, after a long hiatus I can't fully explain. Last night I was reminded of what I've been missing. In Michael Dibden's And Then You Die , detective Aurelio Zen, assaying a bogus identity, is talking to a beautiful woman he has met on the beach: "So where are you from?" "Venice," he answered without thinking. "Really? But no one's from Venice any more." "I am that no one." That's a nice bit of dialog, and I intend to steal it if I can figure out a method more subtle than outright plagiarism. Meanwhile, I'll reveal myself for the crime-fiction dilettante I am by admitting that this is the first Dibden book I've read. My friend Peter Rozovsky was recommending him years ago. With good reason, it seems. I have a couple others on stack: Thirty-Three Teeth , featuring Colin Cotterill's Laotian coronor Siri Paiboun; and What the Dead Know , by Laura Lippman. Based o...

I don't give a damn about Scott McClellan's memoir , wherein the former White House press secretary makes the shocking revelation that Bush isn't such a great president. Thanks for the news flash, Scott. This is something we'd never have guessed, since things have gone so well over the past eight years. I understand why disgruntled employees write books like this, but I can't understand why anyone buys them. Twenty-some bucks seems a little steep for a too-thick tome that confines itself to the obvious. Also, this is a book about liars written by a guy who earned his living telling them for three solid years. When Scott McClellan writes that the president "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment," it sounds like a pretty apt description of Scott McClellan. Not to preach, but the time to act on moral qualms is when it matters, not when the ink is dry on the book contract. I'm reminded of Robert McNamara's confessional In Retr...

With my many business interests in western Kansas (see above photo), I can justify traversing the vast empty plains to get to a town like Liberal. It's all tax deductible. So I set the bar a little lower than your average tourist, who might might want a water slide or Wizard of Oz theme park to make the drive worthwhile. All I require is a good breakfast joint. First the bad news: There is no water slide. Neither is there a Wizard of Oz theme park, unless you count Dorothy's House, which isn't so different from Dave Knadler's House except for the oversized sunflower cutouts and the crudely wrought figures suggesting the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. People often ask if this is the real Dorothy's house, but the bitter truth is that Dorothy is a fictional character and it's absurd to suppose that she would own real property. The good news is that there is a pretty good breakfast joint. I congratulate myself for being savvy enough to find it. Th...

Greetings from the Silver Spur Travelodge in Dodge City, Kansas, which commands a nice view of the O'Reilly Auto Parts store across the street. We traveled here yesterday because it is the Memorial Day weekend, and as Americans it is unthinkable that we should remain in our relatively comfortable home during the high holy day for road trips. We have come here because we felt like being someplace we'd never been before. In the case of Dodge City, apparently we are the only ones to have felt this way. We expected a line going out the door at the Teachers Hall of Fame, but in fact it was eerily empty, save for a shadowy figure behind the counter. We decided to catch it another day. Dodge City looks nothing like the town I grew to love on Gunsmoke , although the city has made a game effort in one fenced-off city block that is lined with false-fronted buildings, all facing one direction. This is the city's frontier past, relocated and reimagined and rebuilt to the standards of t...

Look, we've all thought it, watching the young, energetic Barack Obama work the crowds in that charismatic way of his. But it took Hillary Clinton to say it : The last young, energetic, charismatic guy who was this close to the presidency got assassinated. Hillary raised the specter of Robert Kennedy during another explanation of why she should stay in a race that is well and truly lost. Of all her tortured excuses, this is the one that probably comes closest to the truth. Hillary is finally laying her cards on the table: She's waiting for lightning to strike, and she's going to wait as long as it takes. Because, God forbid, her opponent could get killed -- either figuratively, by another Jeremiah Wright episode, or literally, by an assassin's bullet. Well, a woman can dream. But this should give Obama pause in the unlikely event he's considering Hillary as a running mate. With talk like that, I'm not sure I'd want her within security perimeter, much less t...