If I Can Just Get Off This L.A. Freeway Without Getting Killed or Caught

Bags are packed, the iPod is loaded, I'm ready for the L.A. Times Festival of Books. If any of you are around Westwood... oh say, noonish on Sunday... stop on by. I'll be signing Expiration Date and wearing sunscreen and hanging out with some very cool people at the Mystery Bookstore tent. I'm also signed up for that Bukowski tour, so I'm sure I'll have some photos and updates for you next week. (As well as L.A. updates over the weekend.)

In the meantime, more very kind Expiration reviews have appeared. Carole E. Barrowman at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says: "This hard-boiled - no, make that deliciously scrambled - story would make the kind of film Johnny Depp would want to star in, Elmore Leonard would want to script, Terry Gilliam would insist on directing, and whose soundtrack would be available on an LP."

Pages & Pages Bookstore in Australia digs it, too, along with my earlier novels.

The newly-resurrected Spinetingler mag claims I make pace and plot my bitches.

And finally, Cullen Gallagher at Pulp Serenade grills me on Styx albums, Twitter, and my pulp paperback collection.