I've never before had the same main character appear in consecutive novels, but I liked Yancy and his attitude, and I was curious to see what would happen to him after Bad Monkey. And I liked the idea of him still trying to get his detective job back while he's stuck on roach patrol.

From my experience, politicians are much more uncomfortable being made fun of than they are being preached at and screeched at - you know, and the soapbox routine. They're much more uneasy knowing they're a target of ridicule.

Here's my rule: You always want to pay cash for your own books, because if they look at the name on the credit card and then they look at the name on the book jacket, then there's this look of such profound sympathy for you that you had to resort to this. It really is withering.

Garcia wondered why people with JESUS stickers on their bumper always drove twenty miles per hour under the speed limit. If God was my co-pilot, he thought, I'd be doing a hundred and twenty.

...Right now there's a pair of bad cops on their way out here to shoot me." "You don't know that." "Yeah, you're right," Stranahan said. "They're probably just collecting Toys for Tots. Now go.

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.

Sunset on the water ought to be a quiet and easy time, but I guess some people can't stand a little silence.