A HEAD CASE?
I won’t belabor the controversy surrounding American Dirt . I see both sides of the debate about whether an author who does not have personal experience of a culture can write about that culture. But if push comes to shove, I’d probably be more sympathetic with the argument that fiction writers can say whatever they want (and live with the criticism, of course). I certainly wouldn’t want to censor their books, because that smacks of book-burning fanaticism. I’m often asked where I get my ideas for some of my bizarre plots and scene descriptions. Some of the folks who do the asking look askance at me, especially if I’m holding cutlery. So, what follows are brief synopses of scenes already in my thrillers and mysteries, or that will eventually make it into future books. Try to guess which actually happened to me, and which just popped out of my addled, martini-influenced brain. The Poison Pen : A man is concerned because his wife is one of the few women on the block who hasn