Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Such a cool place. Seattle Mystery Bookshop is run by JB and Fran, but I have a feeling Amber, who's only been there for two months, is the one in charge. She made sure I signed every book the right way: some with signatures, some signatures + dates, some signatures + dates + special messages. The link on the shop name goes to a blog entry I wrote for them on the day.

Something wonderful happened at Seattle Mystery Bookshop. Actually, several wonderful things happened, but let me start with this:

From left to right: Roger Scrafford, Gary Corby, Anthony Pacheco and Susanna Fraser. Writers all. As Susanna later commented, it was the first time she'd been in a group of writers where the ladies were outnumbered. These kind people gave up their lunch times to come say hi. My reaction: we meet at last! They're the first of my net friends I've ever met, outside of Bouchercon, which doesn't count (sort of) because Bouchercon is full of people by definition. These nice souls actually volunteered to meet me. What we talked about was, inevitably, writing.

If you stand in the street outside the store at the moment, this is what you see:

The first time I've seen my book in a store window. OMG, I'm in the same display as Don Winslow and Steven Saylor. Inside on the shelves, Pericles Commission keeps further impressive company:

By sheer coincidence, a TV crew arrived that afternoon to do an item in the store. They were impressed a real live author was there. I was impressed a real live TV crew was there. Lowell Deo is the presenter for CityStream on Seattle Channel 21. He's an incredibly nice guy, which I would have said even if he hadn't chosen to open and close the segment with Pericles Commission. He opened with a shot of him reading it, and he closed by buying it from Fran.

The pictures below: Camera Guy (I'm embarrassed to admit I don't recall his name...please forgive me if you're reading this) shoots Fran and JB in the store. Then Lowell and Cam Guy, when I asked if I could take a picture of them:

As I said, really nice guys. I think the segment will be on 7pm Thursday next week, but I'm not sure. Then apparently it'll be online. More news as it comes to hand on that.

When the day was over, Fran and her partner absolutely insisted on driving me to my hotel for the night before I flew out. On the way, they absolutely insisted on taking me out to dinner. I couldn't describe the evening better than Fran herself in her blog Fran's ramblings, except she is being far too kind to me. A huge thank you to Lillian and Fran for their kindness. The bright pink backpack Fran mentions is real, btw; it belongs to my daughter Catriona but it's the largest we have and I desperately needed it on the trip to carry books.

I've noticed my blog posts at the moment are totally book-centered and have nothing to do with history. That's because in the middle of a book tour there's no time to think about anything else. How anyone manages to write and tour at the same time is beyond me. What you're getting is a beginner's reaction to stores selling a first book. Normal programming will resume in a few weeks, after I've got home and recovered from the nervous breakdown.