Good News!

Five Star Books, the fiction imprint of Thorndike Press, made me an offer to publish The Splintered Paddle. They plan to publish it in hardback. The offer included options on trade paperback, large print, and ebook. There is still the contract to sign, so no pub date yet, but I'll keep you informed.

The Splintered Paddle was second runner up in the Claymore last year, although the title was The Law of the Splintered Paddle. I shortened it at Five Star's request.

It's Sunday and the Tiki Bar is Open

Today's dink is the Paloma. We had this at Cappy's La Fonda restaurant in San Antonio.
In a tall glass with ice, pour
11/2 oz silver tequila
Fill the rest of the glass with equal parts ruby red grapefruit juice and club soda.
Add a dash of simple syrup.
Garnish with a lime wedge.

If you use vodka instead of tequila, I call it the Stephanie.

It's Sunday and the Tiki Bar is open

The Tiki Bar is open. Tonight's drink is the Honolulu cocktail. This recipe comes from Beachbum Berry's Tiki+ bar guide. This is a gin drink made with fruit juices and served in a chilled glass.

1 1/2 oz. gin
1/4 oz orange juice
1/4 oz pineapple juice
(I use 1/2 oz orange/pineapple)
1/4 oz lemon juice
1 tsp powdered sugar
Dash angustora bitters

Dissolve the sugar in the lemon juice and shake all ingredients over ice. Strain into a chilled glass.

This drink is reputed to be the cocktail served at the Union Saloon near King Street in Honolulu and mentioned by Somerset Maugham in his short story, "Honolulu."

The Honolulu cocktail is easy to make. The combination of gin and fruit juices is a refreshing drink for summer. Put on some Alfred Apaka or some Gabby and chill out.

Stan "The Man" Musial

Stan "The Man" Musial died yesterday. He was 92. It's hard to imagine that he's gone. When I was growing up, he was an icon. He was the biggest celebrity in St. Louis and all anybody ever talked about. We all copied his crouching batting stance. The only thing we didn't copy was his fondness for liver and onions.

He batted .331 lifetime, which is an amazing statistic. I saw him hit home runs in the old Sportsman's Park in St. Louis and then in Busch Stadium, which is now gone. Musial was the last of the old-time ball players who were identified with one team their entire career.

For years after baseball, his restaurant, Musial and Biggie's was the place to take a girl you wanted to impress.

Here's the New York Times story on Musial

And here's the KMOX story.

Thanks for all the great baseball, Stan.

Jack Reacher

We saw the movie, Jack Reacher yesterday. I was skeptical about Tom Cruise's ability to pull off the role, but I think he did a good job. Yes, he's smaller than Reacher as described in the stories, but that doesn't matter. Cruise appears hard and tough and he definitely has the Reacher attitude. He's no longer the baby-faced loose cannon from Top Gun. It didn't take long to get past my concerns about the size difference.

The movie is well-done with lots of action. It's based on the book, One Shot, and faithful enough to it that you can anticipate what's going to happen if you read the book. I was surprised that they didn't give it the same title as the book.

One of my misgivings was that the movie would turn out to be a mash-up of several stories, as was the case with V.I. Warshawski. Now I'm wondering if any of the other stories will be made into movies and, if so, what will they be called--Jack Reacher 2? Reacher Again? Reacher Farther?

Reacher can be violent, of course, and some of the movie fight scenes were as violent as in the stories. I've always admired the way Child can write such convincing fight scenes, so I was disappointed in one fight that looked like slapstick. If it was intended to get a laugh from the audience, it worked. I thought it detracted from the story overall.

The movie also had a car chase, which seemed out of character for Reacher, who admits he drives competently, but seldom and not well. I suspect the slapstick and the car chase were thrown in because the director was not sure how to present Reacher to a larger audience.

Overall, the movie is worth seeing. If you have not read the books, you don't need to read them before seeing the movie, but you should read them.

New Story Accepted

I just signed a contract with Etopia Press to publish my short story, The Rules. There is no publication date as yet, but they plan to publish it as a stand-alone ebook, which will be available in all the major ebook stores, and as part of a print anthology.

The Rules is the first story in a new series featuring Honolulu PI Ava Rome, who runs The Splintered Paddle Agency. Ava is a former MP and Army CID agent who has left the Army and lives in Hawaii.

Here's a short synopsis of The Rules:

Personal Protection specialist Ava Rome follows three rules: A professional never calls attention to herself or her principal; a professional never leaves her principal; and, the most important rule, a professional never gets involved with her principal. To break the rules is to die.
Ava's principal, Paul, comes from a family with many enemies. The greatest threat, however, comes not from the outside, but from Ava's growing desire. In order to save them both, Ava must leave Paul. But Paul does not want her to leave.

This is a novella length story of about 11,500 words. There are not many markets for stories of that length, although that used to be a common length in the mystery field. Now mystery publications are looking for shorter stories. Romance and erotica publishers, however, are finding the novella length to be very popular and more and more markets are springing up. If you go to the Etopia Press site, you'll find that most of their stories are romance and erotica. The Rules is neither. I consider it a hard-boiled mystery/thriller. Etopia doesn't have many such stories although they do have a category for them in their publication listing. I think they are hoping that mystery readers will also go for this length.

So, look for The Rules from Etopia Press. When I get a publication date, I'll announce it.

Marathons

I have a hard time believing Paul Ryan could forget his first and only marathon time. Nobody forgets their first marathon and their finishing time. Nobody forgets their PR, which, in Ryan's case, was also his first time. My first marathon was Honolulu 1977, 35 years ago. I finished in 4:44. The next year, I ran the Honolulu in 3:30, my PR. Doing a sub-four marathon is a big deal and the goal of most serious marathoners. Doing a sub-three puts you in an elite class. There's nothing wrong with Ryan's four hour marathon. I would be proud to run at that pace. The difference between sub-three and sub-four is humongous. Anybody who has run a marathon knows that, not just intellectually, but in their bones and their feet. To reach 3:30, I averaged more than fifty miles a week for  months before the race. I probably would have had to double that to get below three. Could I have done that and have any kind of life outside of running? I doubt it. Could I have done it without injury? I doubt that also. I don't remember all of my 18 finishing times, in fact, I don't remember my last time. But I do remember my first and my PR. So, I can't believe Ryan forgot his. And, for the life of me, I don't know why he would lie about it.