Five on Friday - Alex Grecian

I'm running a bit behind today, so please excuse my tardy post today. Last night I couldn't tear myself away from Ed Falco's TOUGHS. Have you heard about this one? It comes out on Tuesday, so more on that later!

Some news from my friends down under. The four finalists for the 2014 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel have been announced. For those who don't know, the Ngaio Marsh Award is given to a New Zealand crime writer each year. This is the awards 5th year of existence, so congrats go out to these nominees:

•JOE VICTIM by Paul Cleave (Penguin)
•FREDERICK’S COAT by Alan Duff (Random House)
•MY BROTHER’S KEEPER by Donna Malane (HarperCollins)
•WHERE THE DEAD MEN GO by Liam McIlvanney (Faber)

You can read more about the award and the finalists here at Crime Watch. They also have a contest going on worldwide to win a personally messaged and signed copy of the winning book, just by liking the Award's Facebook page. Check out more here. I'm already a fan of the page and I can assure you, they don't spam your Facebook with irrelevant content.

Other contests you can get in on:

Friday Reads has Marcus Sakey's A BETTER WORLD! And they have Terry Irving's Courier...and they have Marcus' A BETTER WORLD. And they have David Downing's Jack of Spies. And did I mention they have Marcus Sakey's A BETTER WORLD?!? Please don't tell me you haven't entered that one yet!!

And Lesa Holstine has a cozy giveaway that's liable to make you hungry!

As for me, I have Alex Grecian. Well, not him physically...oh, this isn't coming out right. He's my Five on Friday guest today! I had the chance to chat briefly with Alex at Printers Row after his fabulous panel discussion and I invited him to participate. Needless to say, I was thrilled when he accepted.

Alex is the author of the Scotland Yard Murder Squad historical series. His third and most recent in the series, The Devil's Workshop, came out in May.  The beginning of the series, The Yard, was inspired by some of his comic book work on Proof.

If you're as enchanted by Alex as I was at Printers Row, I have a feeling you're going to be reading his work soon--if you haven't started already. So let me waste no more time. My friends, I introduce Alex Grecian!

If I could only listen to one music artist/band for the rest of time, I would choose: Well, see, that depends on whether I want to get anything written. If I’m going to get any work done, I suppose I’d pick either Javier Navarrete or Nick Cave & Warren Ellis. I listen to them a lot while I write. They make good background music for moody murder novels. But if I get to relax at all, I’m going to have to go with The Velvet Underground, my favorite band ever since my college days.

The one food I absolutely will not eat is red meat. I’m allergic.

The most beautiful place I’ve ever visited is an isolated white sand beach on the island of Inishbofin in Ireland, just downhill from a sheep meadow. I proposed to my wife there, so I associate that place with feelings of extreme happiness and fear, all at the same time. Also, the water is beautifully clear and blue.

My favorite time of day is that magic hour when I’ve finished writing for the day. That is, if I’m happy with what I’ve written. If it hasn’t gone well, I don’t have a favorite time of day.

The #1 item on my bucket list right now is: Find a new house that isn’t falling apart around me. We fell in love with this place originally because it’s almost a hundred years old, a charming Tudor, but I don’t know the first thing about home maintenance and I don’t seem to be learning very fast. It’s probably time to throw in the towel before the ceiling collapses on me.

And Alex told me he's pretty camera shy, but he still managed to come up with a great candid shot for this, didn't he?  Many thanks to Alex. Here's hoping his ceiling stays up and you all have a grand weekend. By the way, tomorrow is National Booklovers Day. So celebrate your day and curl up with a good book or two or three...Happy Reading!