Steve Forman strafes the south Florida scene with Boca Knights, an outrageously funny mystery novel with a raft of offbeat characters and prose that moves trippingly off the pen. His main man, Eddie Perlmutter, ex-Boston cop attempting semi-retirement in Boca Raton like a fish trying to retire out of the water, is a character for the ages. Carl Hiaasen, watch your back.

There are so many journalists out there, I hate to say it, who are lazy and don't do their research - and it shows.

The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment.

My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later.

He found Pendergast's cool gaze on him, and he fidgeted. He'd forgotten about those eyes. They made you feel like you had just been stripped of your secrets.

My hobbies are mountain biking, horseback riding and packing, canoeing and kayaking, hiking, camping, cooking, and skiing.

I need to write in a small room - the smaller the better. I can't write in a big room where someone might sneak up behind my back.