Updates—in several directions!

What a busy stretch of announcements last week brought!

Two days after the cover reveal for The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense, BOLO Books also premiered the cover of The Swamp Killers, a novel in stories edited by Sarah M. Chen and E.A. Aymar, including my story “A Close Shave.” Additional contributors include Hilary Davidson, Alex Dolan, Rebecca Drake, Gwen Florio, Elizabeth Heiter, J.J. Hensley, Susi Holliday, Shannon Kirk, Tara Laskowski, Jenny Milchman, Alan Orloff, Tom Sweterlitsch, and Wendy Tyson. That book is due out March 16 from Down & Out Books.

Also announced: The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, an anthology edited by Josh Pachter. This one includes the first literary collaboration by my wife Tara Laskowski and me—our story is “Both Sides Now”—and also features stories by Donna Andrews, Abby Bardi, Michael Bracken, David Dean, Brendan DuBois, John Floyd, Barb Goffman, Sherry Harris, Greg Herren, Matthew Iden, Edith Maxwell, Alison McMahan, Adam Meyer, Alan Orloff, Kathryn O’Sullivan, Christine Poulson, Marilyn Todd, and Stacy Bolla Woodson, plus another first: a fiction collaboration between Dell Magazines editors Jackie Sherbow and Emily Alta Hockaday. This one is forthcoming from Untreed Reads—no pub date yet, but hoping summer or fall of this year.

Even sooner on the calendar: Josh Pachter just announced the line-up for the next Northern Virginia Noir at the Bar—Sunday, February 16, 6:30 p.m. at Busboys & Poets in Shirlington. I’m pleased to be on the line-up for this “Hearts and Daggers” evening, alongside Kathleen Barber, Karen Cantwell, Shawn Cosby, Patrick Hyde, Ellen Clair Lamb, Ken Lawrence, and Shawn Reilly Simmons.

More news ahead—stay tuned!

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