Craig Johnson
Location – Wyoming
Craig Johnson/Longmire
Craig Allen Johnson is an American author who writes mystery novels. He is best known for his Sheriff Walt Longmire novel series. The books are set in northern Wyoming, where Longmire is sheriff of the fictional county of Absaroka. Wikipedia
For fans of the Netflix series (Longmire,) if you have watched the six seasons, grab a book. Walt, Vicki, Ruby and the gang live on…
James Grippando
Location – Miami
James Grippando is a New York Times bestselling author with more than thirty books to his credit, including those in his acclaimed series featuring Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck, and the winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. He is also a trial lawyer and teaches law and literature at the University of Miami School of Law. He lives in South Florida with his wife, two cats, and a golden retriever named Atlas, who has no idea he’s a dog.
Nearly three years since starring in his last book, On January 9th, 2024, Jack Swyteck returns to bookstores in Goodbye Girl, the brand new thriller from New York Times bestselling author James Grippando.
Jack Swyteck, a Miami criminal defense lawyer, first appeared in Grippando’s 1994 debut, The Pardon. Since then, he’s gone on to anchor seventeen books to date, including Grippando’s 2021 thriller, Twenty. That book, heartbreakingly timely, featured a tragic plot about a school shooting in Florida that claimed the lives of twenty innocent people. Swyteck ended up in the middle of things after his wife and daughter were present when the carnage started, and then later, after the lead suspect enlists his help in an effort to calm anti-Muslim fervor and clear his name. Now, several years later, Jack Swyteck is finally set to return.
Goodbye Girl, the eighteenth book in Grippando’s series, is said to feature a nail-biting new plot that follows a mega-star artist who takes to social media and encourages her fans to illegally download her music for reasons that reach back decades and promises to have more than a few twists and turns. The Real Book Spy
Ron McLarty
Ron McLarty – R.I.P.
Ronald William “Ron” McLarty is an American actor, playwright, narrator and novelist. He is regarded as one of the country’s leading audiobook narrators, having done over 100 titles and received many Audie Awards. McLarty has appeared in numerous television series, films and stage productions. Wikipedia
McLarty is quoted as calling himself “a writer who acted” rather than an actor who wrote. His recurring role as Sgt. Belson on Spenser for Hire made Ron very recognizable, but his novels were his passion.
Read— The Memory of Running, Art in America, Traveler and others.
Sadly, Ron passed away February 8, 2020.
Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler
is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published 22 novels, the best known of which are Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, and Breathing Lessons. Wikipedia
Peter Wolf
A Cure for Loneliness manifests the same vibrant passion for music that’s motivated Peter Wolf for most of his life. Growing up in an artistic, politically engaged family in the Bronx, he became an early rock ‘n’ roll convert after attending an Alan Freed rock ‘n’ roll revue that included performances by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Frankie Lymon. His thirst for new and old sounds drove him to exploring blues, soul, country, folk and jazz, inspiring weekly visits to Harlem’s Apollo Theatre and leading to acquaintances with many of the music’s surviving originators.
Wolf’s talent as a painter won him a grant to study at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. While a student there, he experienced a life-changing epiphany after jumping on stage to sing with a blues band at a loft party. He soon talked himself into membership in that band, The Hallucinations.
“I didn’t join a band to meet girls,” Wolf recalls. “I joined my first band to meet musicians. Painting was a fascination for me, but I was a music fanatic, and sitting in with that band was a born-again type of experience for me. I was transfixed, and myself and some of the guys in the band would check out performances by the musicians we admired so much, like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker and John Coltrane and Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers. Those roots stayed with me.”
Wolf’s natural loquaciousness won him a job as an all-night DJ on the fledgling FM rock station WBCN. Adopting the persona of “the Woofa Goofa,” he spun raw rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm ‘n’ blues, channeling the spirit of the flashy, fast-talking DJs he’d grown up listening to.
Wolf’s encyclopedic musical knowledge came in handy when he and some like-minded Boston players formed the J. Geils Band, much of whose early repertoire was drawn from Wolf’s vast record collection. The band soon became a local favorite injecting a much-needed jolt of raw, uninhibited rock ‘n’ roll into the ’70s scene and was soon signed by Jerry Wexler for Atlantic Records. Between 1970 and 1983, the J. Geils Band released 13 influential albums, topped the pop single charts with 1981’s “Freeze Frame,” “Love Stinks,” “Centerfold,” and earned a reputation as one of rock’s most exciting live acts, thanks in large part to Wolf’s flamboyant, hyperactive stage presence.
After going solo with 1984’s Lights Out, Wolf continued to stake out new musical territory with the subsequent releases Lights Out, Come As You Are, Up to No Good, Long Line, Fool’s Parade, Sleepless and Midnight Souvenirs, and A Cure For Loneliness. His solo work has seen him collaborate with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Merle Haggard, John Lee Hooker, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Little Milton, Wilson Pickett, Shelby Lynne and Neko Case. Wolf temporarily reunited with his J. Geils Band cohorts for live shows on several occasions between 1999 and 2015, but his solo career has remained his creative focus, as A Cure for Loneliness makes clear.
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is the author of seven books: The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, Bluesman, and the New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, Gone So Long and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times “Editors Choice”.
Gone So Long, is a masterpiece of thrilling tension and heartrending empathy. Few writers can enter their characters so completely or evoke their lives as viscerally as Andre Dubus III. In this deeply compelling novel, a father, estranged for the worst of reasons, is driven to seek out the daughter he has not seen in decades.
Recently published, Such Kindness, is the story of people whose stories are rarely told. The novel charts a remarkable rebirth, not from poverty to wealth but from bitter helplessness to the knowledge of self worth. The result is a gripping and transformational journey towards kindness. The result is also a tremendously moving novel.” – Ann Patchett
