More actual reader comments

Mr. Loomis,
I just gobbled up a dish of pastische you call Mating Season. Tasted a bit like Hiaasen--yum.

I've been ripping Hiaasen off for almost ten years now.  It's about time someone noticed.

Note to potential readers

I'm having way too much fun to ever write a conventional mystery/thriller/whatever--one that doesn't depart an inch from the predictable expectations of the genre.  Maybe I'd make some money if I played it straight (or kept a straight face), but I'd be bored out of my mind by the time I got thirty pages in.  Really, as I've said, I'm writing dark comedies that loosely fit within the mystery frame—and the more I can subvert the conventional tropes and structures the happier I am.  Most readers get the joke, but folks who insist on straight-up hard-boiled, or detailed procedurals, or sex/violence/profanity-free cozies probably won't like these novels.  Fine with me—the (remaining) bookstores are full of perfectly satisfying comfort food for those readers.

Not that the Coffin mysteries don't contain elements of all of those things—they do, but I've never been interested in staying true to the demands of any particular sub-genre; much too limiting.  If you wanted to get literary about it, what we're talking about is a kind of post-modern, post-genre pastiche—character-driven mysteries with whole scenes devoted to comedy, lots of sex, too many jokes, the occasional nail-gun crucifixion or human head in a lobster tank.  Ultimately, as the man said, we write the books we want to read.  Anything else seems like a waste of time.        

Closing in

Getting close-ish to the end of the first draft of FIRE SEASON.  It's a fun book--lots of jokes, a certain amount of sex, a UFO sub-plot, a human head in a tank full of lobsters.  And fire.  Lots of fire.  What's not to like?