New Mexico Book Tour—Better Late Than Never
Next week, seven years after knocking on doors all over Albuquerque for Barack Obama, and two years after publishing my first novel—Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough, Family is Tougher, which is set in New Mexico during the 2008 campaign, I’m returning to New Mexico to do two readings.
The first is in Albuquerque at the Flying Star Cafe on Thursday, November 12, 7 pm, and the second is at a house party in Santa Fe on Saturday November 14, 5 pm.
(The primary reason for the trip is personal—to visit my sister Anne and brother-in-law Dave in their new home in Santa Fe, where they moved a couple years ago from Chicago. They’re hosting the house party.)
I’m currently in the middle of what I call my “Wasted Author Tour,” promoting my second book, Wasted, a “green noir” mystery set in the Berkeley recycling world—I’ve done readings in Detroit, Berkeley, Mill Valley, Novato, and San Rafael. When I return from New Mexico, I have two more—Thursday, November 19, 7 pm at the Depot in Mill Valley, and Sunday, November 22, 2 pm at Book Passage, where I’ll be of four authors for the California Writers Club–Marin Branch Book Launch.
It will be an adjustment after six readings from Wasted to go back to my first book, but I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with Bones in the Wash.
One half political thriller, one half family soap, and one half murder mystery — that’s right, it’s a novel and a half—Bones in the Wash careens through the pressure cooker of the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico. The election all comes down to the Land of Enchantment, the nation’s 47th state, the big, brawling, empty rectangle hanging in the elbow of Texas.
Ambitious Albuquerque Mayor Tomas Zamara knows that politics is like playing football on a muddy field—if you don’t get dirty, you’re not giving your all. Zamara is charged with doing “whatever it takes” to deliver the state’s five electoral votes for John McCain, including shutting down voter registration drives and accusing the Democrats of stealing the election, a charge he knows is not true.
Challenging him every step of the way is fierce young Sierra Léon of the Democracy Project, who calls on him to listen to his better self and reject his party’s unsavory practices.
He’s also fending off his father’s demands for city money to rescue the family business, and struggling to satisfy his new woman, the gorgeous and volatile Tory Singer, who came to the desert from California to reinvent herself, and maybe isn’t who she says she is.
Then, when a flash flood unearths the skeleton of his long-missing wife, investigators zero in on Zamara as a suspect.
Here’s a review from Bob Schildgen, author of Hey Mr. Green. (You may know him from his Mr. Green column in Sierra.)
One of those unusual novels where you end up talking about the characters as if you knew them well. Set during the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico, and complicated by the romance, rage, and lives of two fabulously dysfunctional families. Makes for a wonderful read.
If you know anyone who lives in or near Albuquerque or Santa Fe, please spread the word. (Here’s the Facebook event page for the Flying Star.)
And if you haven’t read the book, it’s not too late. Go to bonesinthewash.com. It’s also available at the Mill Valley Library.
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