The fifth Max Strong, BURN THE NIGHT, is out next week and that’s really exciting but it also means its time to start thinking about the next book. Improvement is a battle that must be fought anew each day.

The next book doesn’t care about the previous book. Neither does the next reader. Improvement is a battle that must be fought anew each day. Time to bring your best effort all over again.

Ok, let’s get to it.

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

3 LINKS

• David Simon and George Pelecanos, creators of THE WIRE, are going back to Baltimore for HBO in adapting WE OWN THIS CITY into a miniseries about the death of Freddie Gray. Will be interesting to see if and how their perceptions have changed.
• Nearly half of Christie’s books involve poison. CrimeReads digs into the Dame’s murder weapon of choice.
• CrimeReads looks past Lehane, Spenser, and EDDIE COYLE to other, sometimes lesser known or forgotten, pieces of crime and mystery that make up the Boston noir canon.

2 QUOTES

Two from Dennis Lehane:

• “Sympathy’s easy. You have sympathy for starving children swatting at flies on the late-night commercials. Sympathy is easy because it comes from a position of power. Empathy is getting down on your knees and looking someone else in the eye and realizing you could be them, and that all that separates you is luck.”
• “There’s something ugly about the flawless.”  

1 QUESTION

• Do you have a favorite among Lehane’s Kenzie/Gennaro series? Gone, Baby, Gone? Darkness, Take My Hand?

Until next Thursday, happy reading,

Mike

Author the Max Strong thriller series