Dave's Fiction Warehouse

I'm finally restocking my nightstand with crime novels, after a long hiatus I can't fully explain. Last night I was reminded of what I've been missing. In Michael Dibden's And Then You Die , detective Aurelio Zen, assaying a bogus identity, is talking to a beautiful woman he has met on the beach: "So where are you from?" "Venice," he answered without thinking. "Really? But no one's from Venice any more." "I am that no one." That's a nice bit of dialog, and I intend to steal it if I can figure out a method more subtle than outright plagiarism. Meanwhile, I'll reveal myself for the crime-fiction dilettante I am by admitting that this is the first Dibden book I've read. My friend Peter Rozovsky was recommending him years ago. With good reason, it seems. I have a couple others on stack: Thirty-Three Teeth , featuring Colin Cotterill's Laotian coronor Siri Paiboun; and What the Dead Know , by Laura Lippman. Based o...

I don't give a damn about Scott McClellan's memoir , wherein the former White House press secretary makes the shocking revelation that Bush isn't such a great president. Thanks for the news flash, Scott. This is something we'd never have guessed, since things have gone so well over the past eight years. I understand why disgruntled employees write books like this, but I can't understand why anyone buys them. Twenty-some bucks seems a little steep for a too-thick tome that confines itself to the obvious. Also, this is a book about liars written by a guy who earned his living telling them for three solid years. When Scott McClellan writes that the president "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment," it sounds like a pretty apt description of Scott McClellan. Not to preach, but the time to act on moral qualms is when it matters, not when the ink is dry on the book contract. I'm reminded of Robert McNamara's confessional In Retr...

With my many business interests in western Kansas (see above photo), I can justify traversing the vast empty plains to get to a town like Liberal. It's all tax deductible. So I set the bar a little lower than your average tourist, who might might want a water slide or Wizard of Oz theme park to make the drive worthwhile. All I require is a good breakfast joint. First the bad news: There is no water slide. Neither is there a Wizard of Oz theme park, unless you count Dorothy's House, which isn't so different from Dave Knadler's House except for the oversized sunflower cutouts and the crudely wrought figures suggesting the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. People often ask if this is the real Dorothy's house, but the bitter truth is that Dorothy is a fictional character and it's absurd to suppose that she would own real property. The good news is that there is a pretty good breakfast joint. I congratulate myself for being savvy enough to find it. Th...

Greetings from the Silver Spur Travelodge in Dodge City, Kansas, which commands a nice view of the O'Reilly Auto Parts store across the street. We traveled here yesterday because it is the Memorial Day weekend, and as Americans it is unthinkable that we should remain in our relatively comfortable home during the high holy day for road trips. We have come here because we felt like being someplace we'd never been before. In the case of Dodge City, apparently we are the only ones to have felt this way. We expected a line going out the door at the Teachers Hall of Fame, but in fact it was eerily empty, save for a shadowy figure behind the counter. We decided to catch it another day. Dodge City looks nothing like the town I grew to love on Gunsmoke , although the city has made a game effort in one fenced-off city block that is lined with false-fronted buildings, all facing one direction. This is the city's frontier past, relocated and reimagined and rebuilt to the standards of t...

Look, we've all thought it, watching the young, energetic Barack Obama work the crowds in that charismatic way of his. But it took Hillary Clinton to say it : The last young, energetic, charismatic guy who was this close to the presidency got assassinated. Hillary raised the specter of Robert Kennedy during another explanation of why she should stay in a race that is well and truly lost. Of all her tortured excuses, this is the one that probably comes closest to the truth. Hillary is finally laying her cards on the table: She's waiting for lightning to strike, and she's going to wait as long as it takes. Because, God forbid, her opponent could get killed -- either figuratively, by another Jeremiah Wright episode, or literally, by an assassin's bullet. Well, a woman can dream. But this should give Obama pause in the unlikely event he's considering Hillary as a running mate. With talk like that, I'm not sure I'd want her within security perimeter, much less t...

I curse the airlines' draconian ban on weapons every time I see some idiot blocking the aisle while trying to hoist a steamer trunk into or out of the overhead bins. If there's ever a time the use of deadly force is fully justified, this is it. I mean, when it doesn't cost anything to check a freaking bag, except for maybe 10 minutes at the end of the trip, why try to cram everything you own into a soft-sided footlocker and pretend it's not a major inconvenience for the rest of us? I guarantee, the few minutes you save by skirting baggage claim will be borne by everyone else forced to wait while you assess the various angles, pressure points and contortions necessary to get your overfilled bag and your lard ass out of the way. Oh, and don't forget your precious iBook, briefcase, James Patterson novel and cloth carryall filled with crap you couldn't do without at the duty-free shop. Why not bring an inflatable kayak too? It's just one more maddening obstacle ...

Consumers cut driving but not eating, a new Reuters/Zogby poll shows. This is hardly surprising; forced to choose between feeding their SUVs or themselves, most sane people are going to choose their own pie holes, right? What gets me is the poll's assumption that the most obvious way to compensate for high gas prices is by stinting at supper. Not this consumer. I've got a whole other tier of stupid consuming to eliminate before I start skipping meals, a lengthy list of things to do without at Best Buy, Netflix, Eddie Bauer, Land's End, Barnes & Noble and Lowes. I predict further shrinkage in the retail sector, but not, sadly, in my waistline. Pass the potatoes. I'll make up for it by biking to work -- at such time as I get another job.

Turning now to politics, can we agree that actors are, by and large, wasting their talents by focusing mostly on acting and cosmetic surgery? How will we ever know the truth unless actors are brave enough to speak out? Consider Hollywood sage Sean Penn , swaggering around Cannes this week and dispensing political wisdom like a retired newspaper columnist on crank. Speaking of Barack Obama, Penn had this to say: "I hope that he will understand, if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn't become a greater man than he will ever be.” Hmm. Food for thought. I fear what will happen if I don't become a greater man than I will ever be, but thought of the same fate befalling the presumptive Democratic nominee -- well, that's scary. It was courageous of Mr. Penn to point it out. None of us, including him, should ever not become greater men than we will ever be. Another Penn insight: "I'm certainly interested and excited by the hop...

As much as I liked The Man From U.N.C.L.E as a kid, I don't recall ever lusting to see any particular episode more than once. In fact, we'd usually scorn the summer reruns as being beneath our dignity. Same with Bonanza , or Mannix , or Petticoat Junction . You'd fight for a place in front of the Zenith when they first aired; months later those same shows were of interest only to old farts and invalids who couldn't be bothered to turn off the TV after watching Hollywood Squares . So it's interesting to note the success of various networks selling people stuff they've already seen, and, in the case of Showtime and HBO, already paid for. Apple made waves today by leaking word that it plans to sell HBO shows on iTunes -- for a higher price than its other dog-eared reruns, like The Office . The news is supposed to be the concept of variable pricing, but to me the real shocker is how many millions of people will pony up again and again for the same content. Is th...

Let's go now to the mail bag. Here's a recent message from Kingsley Dominic, Chief Auditor to the President of Nigeria: SENATE COMMITEE ON APPROPRIATION Attn: Beneficiary, Congratulations,the senate house federal Repuplic of Nigeria has chosen you by the board committe on appropriation and finance as one of it's final ATM recipients Your ATM card of $5,500,000.00 has been issued out. For claim provide personal information Name,Country,Phone Number,and Address which you want the parcel to be deliverd TO DR. EZE AYOGU ATM PAYMENT DEPARTMENT Dear Dr. Ayogu: I think we see why the people of Nigeria are in such financial straits, with their government handing out ATM cards willy-nilly. Sending $5.5 million to me, even as deserving as I am, seems an overly extravagant gesture and out of concern for Third World hunger, I cannot accept the dough at this time. Perhaps you and the others on the Senate Commitee on Appropriation can use it to purchase new SUVs for yourselves and yo...

It's one thing to leave the newspaper business and struggle on through reduced circumstances -- for example, writing a lame blog like this one without compensation. It's quite another to leave the newspaper business and make several million dollars writing about a deceased dog. Perhaps this is why John Grogan, the author of Marley and Me and numerous other books on the same subject, is not universally revered at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where we both used to work. I never met the man and I'm sure he's a great guy, but when you leave the hallowed halls of journalism it's considered bad form to rub journalists' noses in it by becoming a millionaire. And it's considered really bad form to have a film crew descend on the newsroom (pictured above) where one's former coworkers still toil, making their work a bit more hellish for the day by the addition of 250 movie folk to record a few seconds of Owen Wilson striding purposefully through the newsroom. I...

It's farewell night at American Idol , and Ryan Seacrest is standing there with Jason and Syesha, who are holding hands and biting their lower lips. "America voted," Ryan intones. "And Jason ... (38 second pause for dramatic effect) ... your journey ends here." The audience goes wild. Jason just grins. They cut to the montage showing Jason's finest moments from the show and then he sings "Mr. Tambourine Man" again, this time forgetting the melody instead of just a verse. "Good luck in your future endeavors," Ryan says. "That's all for tonight. Next week, it's Vanilla Ice night on American Idol and ... " He notices Jason is still standing beside him, still grinning. "Uh, Jason. Sweetheart. You lost, man. The exit is over there." Jason shakes his head ruefully. "I'm a fighter, Ryan. I'm staying in this race until there is an American Idol, and obviously I'm going to work as hard as I can to becom...

You know, Hillary Clinton's probably going to win this thing. It doesn't even matter what happens in North Carolina or Indiana today. Like the lower half of her pantsuits, her campaign is finally approaching critical mass. The woman from Wellesley has morphed into the Okie from Muskogee. She's schmoozing losers in greasy diners. She's bellowing from the backs of pickup trucks. She'd be chewing tobacco and driving a mule if she thought it would get three more votes in Lincoln County. Obama, on the other hand, is starting to look like a seventh-grade civics teacher, weary of explaining to dim adolescents why the government can't make people richer by printing more money. Memo to Obama: See what is possible when you shrug off the tiresome rules of physics? You can promise all things to all people without shame. Your strength becomes greater than 10 CNN analysts. Your hair regains its youthful luster. Your sense of direction becomes exquisite: It coincides precisely...

I always appreciate the New York Times' roundup of summer movies , where we learn that once again Batman, the Hulk and Adam Sandler will be headlining at the Hell Dodecaplex until Labor Day. How much more warning does one need not to get within eight miles of a theater this summer? Except I'll probably have to, at some point. I admit I'm kind of excited about seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Solid Gold Sequel . Also, and I'm not proud of this, I made a vague promise to the wife that I'd go see some future movie of her choosing if she didn't get too restive during The Bourne Ultimatum last year. She upheld her end of the bargain; now I must pay the dreadful price. Yes, Sex and the City . This is what comes of not thinking things through. If there were ever a movie that is not The Bourne Ultimatum , this is it. If there were ever a movie I'd rather be waterboarded than see, ditto. But a promise is a promise. Unless I can think of some way out of it...

On Friday I walked out of a newspaper building as an employee for the last time. During the stroll to the far end of the parking lot, I did a brief review of my career. Here's the high point: I've worked at newspapers that have won Pulitzer prizes. And the low point: None of those Pulitzers were won while I was working at the newspapers in question. Hey, I'm sure that's just bad timing. Of the half dozen papers I worked for, the best was the Philadelphia Inquirer. The worst was the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont. When you enter the cavernous newsroom of the Inquirer, you pass by a wall festooned with pictures of reporters and editors who have won Pulitzers. It is a measure of my love of journalism that when I looked at these pictures, I usually reflected not on the prize-winning stories they reported, but on the clothes they were wearing. Look at them: All these gifted journalists, photographed at the very apex of their careers, and most of them are dressed like t...