On the Road Back Then

Sorting through various papers recently, I came across an account of the US book tour I undertook in 1996 in support of the Henry Holt publication of the 8th Resnick novel, Easy Meat. I remember it as being one of the most enjoyable of several similar tours, not least as I got to share some parts of it with my friend, the late Peter Robinson. It was also a visit made memorable by the number of enjoyable meetings and exchanges with other writers and the opportunities to read with some fine jazz musicians.

Things began with a reading organised by Helen Simpson, proprietor of Big Sleep Books in St. Louis, for which she’d persuaded local ‘Country Noir’ author, Dan Woodrell – who claimed to hate reading in public – to join me, which he did, putting across sections from his latest book, Give Us a Kiss, adding an extra level of humour and sexiness to what was already present in the language.

After that, I joined up with Peter for our leg of the tour, which culminated in an evening at Terry Baker’s Mystery Annex in Venice Beach, where our audience included a bevy of local crime writers – Paul Bishop, Jan Burke, Michael Connelly and Wendy Hornsby – all of whom accompanied us to a pizzeria in Marina Del Ray, where the evening climaxed with us singing along at the tops of ou voices to Dean Martin’s ‘That’s Amore’.

Once Peter and I had gone our separate ways, I flew to New York for an evening at Partners and Crime in Greenwich Village, in which I had the joyful pleasure of reading with guitarist David Zydallis, saxophonist Bob Curtis and bass player Bob Desjardins.

From there, it was on to Ann Arbor, where for my reading at Borders I was accompanied by two fine students from the local university, guitarist Randy Napoleon and bassist Tim Flood. Randy was on hand the following day, in a jazz and poetry reading at Ron Brook’s Bird of Paradise jazz club, the standout musician being a terrific pianist whose name I’m ashamed to have forgotten – but when he shook my hand at the end of the show and told me I had ‘great time‘, that meant more to me than almost any other kind words on the whole tour.

Time though for quick trip to Ypsilanti for a session by the Butler Twins Blues Band with Kenny Parker on guitar in a small, friendly club with good beer, serious onion rings and a generous dance floor.

I’m not sure how much all of this contributed to the sales of my book, though the publicity department assured me that my being there meant the outlets concerned would order more copies that would otherwise have been the case.

I was going to argue?

Finally, here’s the cover of the book I was promoting, my favourite, I think, from amongst a number of outstanding book jackets that Henry Holt produced. The jacket design was by Raquel Jaramillo, utilising a photograph by Lonnie Duka/Tony Stone Images.