My driving record is not exemplary, but I have never had a speeding ticket over 100 m.p.h. I can say that unequivocally.

You can do the best research and be making the strongest intellectual argument, but if readers don't get past the third paragraph you've wasted your energy and valuable ink.

I got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the celebrity culture in America. My background is as a news journalist, and newsrooms in the US are shrinking - investigation teams are being terminated or shrunk on newspapers all around the country. The one aspect that's expanded is coverage of celebrity culture.

Humor can be an incredible, lacerating and effective weapon.

and in the meantime don't jump to conclusions.

That's what people do when they find a special place that wild and full of life, they trample it to death.

Like Richard Price and the late, great Elmore Leonard, Matt Burgess is one of those cool, quick and funny writers who can turn a seemingly routine crime caper into something special.