Nothing about it interested me. Or about anything else, except making up stories. If literacy weren't so nearly universal, God knows what I'd be. A drain on the State, I shouldn't wonder.

If you think of movie studio executives, say, as society, then I root for the independent producers.

A grifter's got an irresistible urge to be the guy who's wise. There's nothin' to whipping a fool. Hell, fools are made to be whipped. But to take another pro. Even your partner, who knows you and has his eye on you. That's a score! No matter what happens.

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me.

When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.

In order to hold your faith intact be sure it's kept unsullied by fact.

Hoke Moseley is a magnificently battered hero. Willeford brings him to us lean and hard and brand-new.