Monthly Archives: March 2026

Blurbs about my novel SEVEN ANGELS: Claire Booth

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I’m posting some blurbs I’ve received from authors who read my new crime novel SEVEN ANGELS and were kind enough to give me a blurb to use in promoting the book.

We at Constellate Publishing will publish SEVEN ANGELS on June 1. It’s available for pre-order through all the usual outlets now.

I asked a few authors I know if they’d read the book and, providing they didn’t hate it, give me a blurb.

Claire’s blurb, as seen above, suggests the background she and I have in common: journalism. I was a newspaper reporter and editor in Indiana before I started writing fiction. Claire’s reporting experience was all over the United States.

I met Claire at Bouchercon in Nashville in 2024. She was the moderator of a panel I served on about true crime writing. It was a great group and I was really pleased to get to check in with Claire again at Bcon in New Orleans in 2025.

Sometime after that point, I asked if she’d read SEVEN ANGELS and she did and gave me that wonderful blurb. I was somewhat surprised she had time because she’s incredibly busy and prolific and her book history demonstrates that.

Here’s how to know more about Claire:

https://clairebooth.com/

SEVEN ANGELS print proof in hand and it looks great

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Yesterday the mail brought my print proof of my book SEVEN ANGELS.

And it looks so good.

I posted some video on Instagram and other social media to mark the occasion, so cruise over there if you want to see it in motion. But the photos here give you a pretty good idea.

The book comes out around June 1 from our imprint, Constellate Publishing.

I’m spending a couple of days reading through the book, looking for any issues, but Jill Blocker and I have pretty thoroughly gone over the book in the past few months. So no unpleasant surprises so far.

Link to Constellate:

Constellate Publishing

6-Episode Problem: In which I am forced to wish for longer TV seasons

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I grew up in the 1960s and `1970s – ha! I bet you thought I was a youngster, huh? – and TV was a huge part of our lives. Obviously. This was during a period when weekly episodic TV series had long seasons of many episodes, certainly by today’s standards.

I mean, “Star Trek” had 79 episodes over only three seasons (and some of those episodes were outright losers that I’m sure somebody is nostalgic about now) and “Trek” looked like a piker compared to many TV series: “Gunsmoke,” which ran for 20 seasons, aired 39 episodes in each of its first few seasons, although those were admittedly half-hour episodes. Yesterday I noticed that “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” also had 39 episodes some seasons.

That reinforcing of the idea that vintage TV series aired a boatload of episodes back in the day compares and contrasts to today, when it’s a shock when any new series runs more than 10 or 12 episodes per season. The excellent “The Pitt” is the exception with 15 episodes per season. (“The Pitt” is also the exception compared to many current series in that the seasons air only a year or less apart.)

Enter “3 Body Problem,” the terrifically entertaining Netflix adaptation of the science fiction bestseller (and Chinese TV adaptation). Yesterday news broke that the second season of the series would consist of only six episodes compared to eight from the first season. Forbes wrote that the third season is supposed to be even shorter. This as people note that author Cixin Liu’s three novels get longer with each book.

Oh, and also, it’s been two years since the first season.

Add to that the apparent circumstance that there’s no telling when the second season of the great series “Pluribus” will be produced or seen.

I don’t necessarily want to return to the days of 39 or even 22 episodes, the latter still a common number among some network series.

But I wouldn’t mind if other series followed the schedule of “The Pitt” and gave us a few more episodes in a slightly more timely manner.

Blurbs about my crime novel SEVEN ANGELS: Ken Jaworowski

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Here’s another in a series about the authors who so kindly read my new novel SEVEN ANGELS – out from Constellate Publishing in June.

Ken Jaworowski and I haven’t met but I feel like I know him, not only from his writing but also from interviewing him a couple of times for articles for the Daily Yonder. I was delighted to be able to read and review his novels SMALL TOWN SINS and WHAT ABOUT THE BODIES for those articles and had some illuminating interviews with Ken.

He was kind enough to read SEVEN ANGELS and, as a writer who writes masterfully about small towns and crime, give me the blurb above.

Ken’s work is thrilling and fascinating for how he writes about everyday people who are having the worst day of their life.

To know more about Ken:

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What is a Ghost Show? Well, it’s a novel by me and other things

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I’ve mentioned GHOST SHOW, my unpublished novel set in 1948, a few times on social media. I wrote the book between writing SEVEN ANGELS and THAT OCTOBER and I never expected it to be published. Why? Well, for one thing, it’s set in 1948, in the Midwestern town of Middletown, where THAT OCTOBER takes place (in 1984) and it’s about a family from Seven Angels, Tennessee, and their experiences in the big city.

It’s got a serial killer, a real ghost who’s haunting a theater, a sprawling family story with infidelity, abuse and coming of age as well as President Harry Truman and a traveling ghost show, or spook show, a live-action magic and mystery production that involves several members of the family.

It’s also more than 108,000 words long.

As it turns out, we might publish GHOST SHOW later this year through Constellate Publishing.

So I’m editing GHOST SHOW, a book I haven’t looked at in three or four years, and I’m thinking two things:

I like this story, which is very loosely based on the youthful adventures of my parents and my mom’s family before she was my mom. (Very loosely!)

And I’m thinking … man, 108,000 is a lot of words.

I’ll repeat this explanation before we get close to actual publication, but in answer to what is a ghost show, here’s an article I wrote for CrimeReads four years ago about what the heck ghost shows were.

The Lost History of America’s Traveling “Ghost Shows”

Blurbs about my crime novel SEVEN ANGELS: Julia Dahl

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I’ve got my hands on the blurbs from some of the authors who’ve read my crime novel SEVEN ANGELS – which we at Constellate Publishing will publish on or about June 1 – and I’m gonna share them here and on social media occasionally.

Julia Dahl is one of the coolest and most talented people I know. She’s a journalist and professor and editor and an amazing writer. I became a fan after I read her novel THE MISSING HOURS way back in 2021. It’s a spellbinding book about how a young woman’s life can change dramatically after one night.

At some point after that, she let me read a screenplay she wrote and I’ll tell you that it is a story and set of characters that cry out to be adapted as a streaming series.

I got to meet Julia at Bouchercon in Nashville in 2024 and she’s just as delightful in person as she is online.

Julia reading an advance copy of SEVEN ANGELS and giving me a blurb for the book means so much to me. She’s just aces.

More about Julia:

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