You never know what you’ll get when you ask Brad Parks to write a guest post. But, it will probably be funny. The author of Closer Than You Know will be at The Poisoned Pen on Wednesday, March 7 at 7 PM. He’ll be joined by Christopher Rice, author of Bone Music. Signed copies of their books are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Brad has a few things to say about the event.
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I’m a big fan of group signings and an even bigger fan of the Poisoned Pen. So I was thrilled to learn that for my annual visit to Scottsdale’s world famous bookstore, I’d be teamed up with. . .
Wait, what?!?
They want me to appear with Christopher Rice?
Oh hell.
Hell no.
I hate that guy. And when I say hate, I mean it’s deeply, deeply personal. And when I say deeply personal, I mean we’ve barely met. We were introduced briefly at ThrillerFest one year. He probably doesn’t even remember it. So it’s more accurate to say while I go around telling people I’ve met Christopher Rice, he’s like, “Who?” Which is not at all embarrassing for me.
Point is, you can take your Christopher Rice and shove him down a hole; then fill the hole with a thousand hungry rats; then make sure the rats have rabies; then subject him to repeated viewings of White House press briefings, which he then has to retweet with a line of dancing kissy face emojis and the comment, “And that’s no lie!”
That’s how much I hate that guy.
I have this thing going, you see. Me, and some other guys who also write thrillers, we’re what I call Gregg Hurwitzes. A Gregg Hurwitz is young (which is to say: at least ten years from needing our first hip replacement). We’re decent-looking by crime fiction standards (which is to say: neither horribly disfigured nor hunched by a bone-wasting disease). We’re successful (which is to say: the publishing companies are still printing our novels, mostly because they haven’t yet figured out how to replace us with manuscript-writing robots whose egos they don’t need to constantly stroke).
But Christopher Rice? He’s not just young. He’s obnoxiously young. Go ahead. Ask him about what it’s like to turn forty. He’ll just stand there with a coquettish smile because he doesn’t have a clue.
He’s not just decent-looking by crime fiction standards, he’s actually attractive. I mean, yeah, I was once named one of Crime Fiction’s Sexiest Authors by noted book blogger Jen Forbus. Christopher Rice was named one of the Sexiest Men Alive by People Freakin’ Magazine.
And successful? Stop already. By the age of thirty, he had written four New York Times bestsellers. By the age of thirty, I hadn’t even written four complete New York Times crossword puzzles.
Beyond that, he’s charming, polite, a snazzy dresser, a terrific writer, and—by all accounts—a really nice guy. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about him.
I’ll still go to the signing, of course, but only because I live in mortal fear of offending Barbara Peters.
I won’t like it though. I plan to spend the entire event sitting in the corner with a menacing look on my face, muttering thinly veiled threats, seething at that infernal pestilence Christopher Rice.
And that’s no lie.
Brad Parks is an American author of crime fiction who is chiefly known for not being worthy of carrying Christopher Rice’s laptop. Brad’s soon-to-be released next novel, Closer Than You Know, won starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. Nevertheless, he’ll be the tiny, flickering candle sitting next to the supernova that is Christopher Rice when they jointly appear at The Poisoned Pen on March 7.