Crooked Prayers is out now. Go read it. I think it’s pretty good. I think you’ll get a fun distraction from much of the awful news. A little time off from doomscrolling could be a good thing.

The dirty secret to many writer’s ideas or plots is that they aren’t new, original, or unique. Coming up with something truly original is hard and very rare. What writers do is often remix bits and pieces of different past plots, characters, or ideas and try to come up with something compelling and unexpected from those stolen, re-used bits.

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

3 LINKS

• In case you forgot, /Film looks back at just how weird, strange, silly, and downright bad (despite loads of talent) both the book and film version of King/Kasdan’s DREAMCATCHER are.
  
  
• Silvia Moreno-Garcia hands out some deep cut vampire novel recommendations at Tor. Happy to see Poppy Z Brite get some love.
  
  
• The LATs profiles Alex Segura and what led him to SECRET IDENTITY, a book only he could write.

2 QUOTES

Quotes from King’s DREAMCATCHER this week:

• ““The guy was tall, and possessed one of those earnest faces Henry associated with middle management.”

• “You grew up, became a man, had to adjust to taking less than you hoped for; you discovered the dream-machine had a big OUT OF ORDER sign on it.””

1 QUESTION

• Are you a King fan? What is your least favorite King book and film adaptation?

---

Until next Thursday, happy reading,

Mike

Author the Max Strong thriller series