Here's a sampling of what I've been working on lately for my clients:
- Big Media Hit: My story pitch on behalf of Rose Hills Memorial Park generated an outstanding placement in the Los Angeles Times. The story ran on the front page, above the fold, with a photo. Frank Shyong of the Times did a great job; keep your eye on his work.
- A story on Bowlarama, an exhibit at the Architecture + Design Museum about how Southern California architects influenced the post-WWII boom in bowling centers.
- A case history of the Ansari XPRIZE, the best-known of the XPRIZE competitions and the progenitor of Virgin Galactic's space tourism enterprise.
Book 'Em Looking for a good read? This month I recommend: The Mongolian Conspiracy
by Rafael Bernal
Only a couple of days before the state visit of the president of the United States, Filiberto García - a "gun for hire," veteran of the Mexican revolution, and classic anti-hero - is recruited by the Mexican police to discover how much truth there might be to KGB and FBI reports of a Communist Chinese plot to assassinate the Mexican and American presidents during the unveiling of a statue in the capital.
García kills a variety of bad guys as he searches for clues in the opium dens, curio shops, and restaurants of Mexico City's Chinatown - clues that appear to point not to China but to Cuba. Yet as the bodies pile up, he begins to find traces of slimy political dealings: are local gears grinding away in these machinations of an "international incident"? Pulsating behind the smokescreen of this classic noir are fierce curses, a surprisingly innocent affair, smoldering dialog, and unforgettable riffs about the meaning of life, the Mexican Revolution, women, and the best gun to use for close-range killing. (Amazon.com)
This is a solid hard-boiled noir thriller set in the Mexico City of the late 1960s. The English translation of this 2013 New Directions edition is excellent, capturing the hero's authentic Mexican voice and character. The novel was first published in 1969, and an informative introduction details the political turmoil and cynicism of the times.
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What are you reading? Send the title of a recent favorite and I'll share it in a future issue. Reader Sheldon Altfeld recommends: The Accidental Cop by Gerald Lane Summers (Kindle Direct)
San Diego Detective Sergeant Ben Colder, known as "Choo choo," for running his patrol car into a parked train and wrecking three others in one year, is assigned to investigate the twelve-year-old murder of a child found in the roots of a tree at the San Diego Mission de Alcala.
When Colder's team discovers the murder was the first of many across the nation by a serial killer associated with the Catholic Church, they find themselves being stalked by special operations teams determined to protect the church from scandal. Gerald Lane Summers is a retired lawyer whose thirty years within the California justice system include service as a police officer, probation officer, juvenile court referee, grand jury foreman, and a contract writing instructor for the L.A. Probation Department. This is his third novel.
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