Just a reminder to myself that the best time to get serious things done is first thing in the morning and the fastest way to derail that motivation is to jump on social media and play the game of emotional roulette. You never know what news that feed will present and how it might mess with you for the rest of the day.

Best to just steer clear at least until you’ve knocked off your most important thing to do.

Here are 3 crime fiction links, 2 quotes, and 1 question for this week:

3 LINKS

• Stephen King’s productivity continues to amaze (and inspire and sometimes confound) me. King will have another new book out this fall. This time eschewing crime for a return to the fantasy genre.
  
  
• Alafair Burke’s newest thriller brings back Ellie Hatcher. She talks Find Me and recommends other recent thrillers penned by women including The Collective, We Were Never Here, and others.
  
  
• The NYTs latest crime column takes a critical eye to Hunter’s 12th Bob Lee Swagger, considers sophmore series slumps (or not), and the trend of YA authors moving to adult crime.
  

2 QUOTES

Quotes Stephen King this week:

• “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
  
  
• “It’s a mystery. That’s the first thing that interests me about the idea of God. If there is one, it’s mysterious and powerful and awesome to even consider the concept, and you have to take it seriously.”
  

1 QUESTION

• How do you prefer to read your King? Do you stink to his fantasy? Horror? Crime? Short stories? I’m an omni-genre King reader. I’ll read it all. How about you?

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Until next Thursday, happy reading,

Mike

Author the Max Strong thriller series