MY CHRISTMAS LIST FOR THRILLER READERS–PART 1
Just what you needed, right? Another Christmas list. Well, it isn’t for me. It’s for you. And I’m kind of thinking post-Christmas as opposed to Reindeer Express stuff. That is, I thought it might be fun to toss out a few ideas just in case you find a new Nook or Kindle under your tree (of…
Read MoreMY OWN LITTLE LITERARY FIEFDOM
A good friend of mine who is also an author and publisher recently suggested that traditional thrillers, à la Plague, were my real forte, as opposed to the “tight” sub-genre of weather thrillers in which he viewed me as being “trapped.” His comments came in the wake of a couple of successes by Plague: being…
Read MoreGLOBAL WARMING: THE NEW POPULAR BOOGEYMAN
DID GLOBAL WARMING TRIGGER THE DEADLY NOVEMBER TORNADO OUTBREAK? Certainly the devastating tornado outbreak of Sunday, November 17, will go down as one of the worst November onslaughts on record . . . but not the worst, at least in terms of the number of tornadoes. (It will be in 4th place.) The image below…
Read MoreHow I Almost Blew It With BLIZZARD
You’d think after three novels I’d know the “rules.” (Actually, as NYT best-selling author Steve Berry likes to say about his ten rules of writing, the number one rule is “There are no rules.”) So let’s just call them guidelines. I actually do know the guidelines, but I managed to ignore one of the most…
Read MoreEast Coast snowstorm?
Allow me to back off from blogging about writing and books for a moment. There’s an interesting dilemma brewing for weather forecasters in the Eastern U. S. (Thankfully, I’m retired and really don’t have to worry about such things anymore. Now I’m just a strap-hanger and kibitzer . . . and blogger.) Here’s what’s going…
Read MoreThink EYEWALL Without the Ocean
“Uh oh,” I said to myself, after reading an email from an old friend of mine who lives in the Pacific Northwest. “This could be a problem.” My friend, Barbara, like me, grew up in western Oregon where thunderstorms are few and far between, and supercells—the most violent of all thunderstorms, the kind that spit…
Read MoreDeliciously Sleazy
As a way of raising the curtain on my new Website, I’d like to introduce you to Jerry Metcalf, a key character in Supercell. Jerry isn’t necessarily a likable guy. But he is, as one reviewer put it, “deliciously sleazy.” Metcalf is a self-proclaimed “chief of staff” for Global-American Cinema. “I make sure stuff gets…
Read MoreSAM TOWNSEND (a character in Supercell), OWNER AND OPERATOR OF THE “GUST FRONT GRILL”
Sam Townsend, rheumy-eyed, weatherbeaten and heavyset, sports a face folded with age and memories. If you ever searched for him in a crowd, he wouldn’t be difficult to spot. He wears a black stovepipe hat with an eagle’s feather jammed into the hatband. Half Osage Indian and a Vietnam combat veteran, Sam is conflicted by…
Read MoreDOES A HURRICANE DISASTER LOOM? WHY I’M WORRIED
When the great “Dixie Tornado Outbreak” of April 2011 ripped through the Deep South, I remember being absolutely appalled that over 300 lives were snuffed out. How could that happen, I wondered, in this era of sophisticated weather prediction, detection and warning systems? You had to go back to 1936, into the “Dark Ages” (my…
Read MoreGABI MEDEIROS, FBI AGENT, AD HOC STORM CHASER (character in Supercell)
Gabi Medeiros is a Special Agent with the FBI. Born of a Russian mother and Portuguese father, she’s attractive but not classically beautiful. As she once explained, “I gotta watch what I eat, or I get a little heavy in the ass and start looking like a female Michelin Man.” Divorced and the veteran of…
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