Would you buy a book from these men?

The characters in the image above (which I ripped off the store's web site) will be at Abbey's Bookshop in Sydney, 6 to 8pm on November 30th for a charity event.

From left to right:  Lenny Bartulin, John Green, Me, Nicholas Hasluck, Stuart Littlemore, Andrew Tink, Michael Wilding.

We're all mystery or thriller authors.  A surprising number are also lawyers, judges, politicians, or some combination thereof.  Why do so many thriller writers have legal training?

If you're in Sydney and want to say hi, come one over.  I'd love to meet you.

Writers Read, and Athenian Homicide Law

Writers Read is the second instalment of Marshal Zeringue's trilogy of book blogs with a theme.  The first was about books-as-movies.  This one's about what do authors read?   My answer was in this post.

I want to expand a little on the second in my list on Marshal's blog, a lovely little book called Athenian Homicide Law by Douglas M. MacDowell.

This is a brilliant book on how ancient Athenians managed trials for murder.  Probably not destined for the NY Times bestseller list, but if you're a humble (or not so humble) author of ancient Athenian murder mysteries then it's a must-read.  It's really well written, it quotes original sources, it states clearly not only what's known, but also what's not known, and best of all, it does not impose a single modern view on how they did things back then.

All too many modern historians impose their own ideological biases on ancient history (they'd deny it, but it stands out like a sore thumb), but MacDowell's done a superb job of keeping things neutral.  So, highly recommended.

I'd like to put in a huge thank you to our very own Stephanie Thornton, who spotted the book, let me know about it, bought it and posted it to me.  Thanks Stephanie!

Swapna Krishna reviews The Ionia Sanction

This just popped up, a lovely review of The Ionia Sanction from Swapna Krishna!

If you go read it, stay to check out her other reviews.  I don't know how many books Swapna's read, but it's a lot, and her review style is impressive.

An odd job for central casting

Marshal Zeringue runs three rather interesting book blogs. He kindly asked me to contribute to all three last year, and he repeated the favour this year.

Here's the first: My Book, The Movie.  The premise being, if I was to make a movie of The Ionia Sanction, how would I cast it?   I didn't nominate all the characters -- there are too many to think about! -- but I did hit a few of the majors.

Gary chats online with the Roman History Reading Group

Two days from now, as I write this, I'll be doing an online chat about The Pericles Commission with the Roman History Reading Group.  Yes, they know my books are ancient Greek, but they let me hang out with them anyway.

They meet in a Google chat room thingy, which is text only, no voice.

The chat starts at 9:30pm US EDT time, on November 16.  If I have my geography right, that's Wednesday, 9.30pm New York time.  Adjust accordingly for your part of the world.  It's actually just after lunch on Thursday Nov 17 for me, but that's because I'm ahead of my time, like most Australians.  The chat runs for an hour and a half and is likely to veer all over the place, but is nominally about my first book.

Anyone who's interested is very welcome to come chat!  If you're interested, the way to join is let the organizer Irene Hahn know, and she'll invite you into the chat room at the right time.  Irene's email address is Irene.B.Hahn AT gmail DOTTY com.  Or if you prefer, just let me know and I'll pass it on to her.

The Roman History Reading Group is a regular crew that like to talk about...you guessed it, Roman history books, both ancient and modern, from Vergil to Vicky Alvear Shecter.