The Tucson Festival of Books is the largest free book fair in the nation. It's a great adventure, and if you did not attend this year, you'll just be another year older when you do.
Three of my books were highlighted: The Shopkeeper, The Shut Mouth Society, and Tempest at Dawn.
Lots of great presentations. This is C. J Box, Ellie Cosimano, and J. A Jance talking about book series. Great discussion.
On March 14 and 15, on the University of Arizona campus, more
than 130,000 readers and over 300 authors will celebrate the written word at
the 2026 Tucson Book Festival. If you can, come and join the party.
The Tucson Book Festival is one of the largest book fairs in
the nation. I’ll be there, and so will my books. Well, at least three of them. TheShopkeeper, The Shut Mouth Society, and Tempest at Dawn will be
featured at the Wheatmark Booth, #159. I am signing books on Sunday and will post
an update after I am assigned a time slot.
Hope you can make it!
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A couple Steve Dancy Tales take place in Carson City. I like the town. I like it today and I like historic Carson City. Since statehood, it has always been the capital of Nevada which made it a political town with pretensions of civility. Virginia City, however, was twenty miles away and it rightly deserves its reputation as one of the rowdiest mining towns of the Old West. Until the mines played out in the 1880s, the Comstock Lode made Virginia City and Carson City very wealthy.
Carson City acted as a freight center and supply depot for the mines. Extensive flumes carried pine logs down the eastern slope of the Sierras to Carson City. Sawmills to finish these raw logs were a major city industry and the finished lumber shored up mine tunnels and provided boards for building above ground. The short run Virginia & Truckee Railroad transported timber, people, and foodstuffs from Carson City to Virginia City. At its peak, thirty-six trains a day passed between the two cities. The pair of towns were bustling, with the best housing, food, liquor, and entertainment that money could buy.
Here’s a description of Carson City excepted from The Shopkeeper. Steve Dancy and Jeff Sharp are just riding into town.
Carson City had been settled as a trading post less than thirty years earlier, so I should not have expected the sophistication of Denver or St. Louis. I had visited both cities, and neither was the primitive hinterland a New Yorker might expect. Carson City, on the other hand, lived up to the image of a new-made town populated by people who had nothing but wanted everything.
After we passed the railroad station and approached the statehouse, the town began to look a bit more established. The main thoroughfare was crowded with wagons, horses, and people bustling about with purpose. Although the commercial district had the same disheveled look as most of the other towns in the West, the residences along the side avenues set Carson City apart. Radiating off the central artery were numerous tree-lined lanes with houses substantial enough to indicate that people intended to stay awhile. In fact, some of these homes were large and well designed.
I glanced up another side lane with nice homes set back from the street. “Looks like there’s some money in Carson City. Settled money.”
“For a mine to prosper, you need two things: lumber to shore up the shafts an’ a way to transport your bullion to market. Trees an’ trains. Carson City has a lock on both. Sometimes I think we miners just toil for a bunch of shysters in starched collars.”
“Which reminds me, I want to buy some clothes while we’re here.”
Sharp pointed ahead. “That’s the new state capitol building. Wherever ya find politicians, ya’ll find haberdasheries.”
The stately capitol building looked sturdy and permanent, as befitted the only pretense to law and order in a society struggling against anarchy. The structure sat in the center of a city block, surrounded by a pleasant park with footpaths, trees, and neatly groomed grass. A white cupola with a silver roof capped the two-story sandstone building, giving it a Federal-style appearance that I had seldom seen west of the Continental Divide.
“Looks impressive.”
“Looks deceive.” Sharp spit. “A more corrupt state government you will not find.”
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| Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters. |
It's the summer of 1880, and Thomas Edison's incandescent bulb is poised to put the gaslight industry out of business. Knowing a good business opportunity, former New York shopkeeper Steve Dancy sets out to obtain a license for Edison's electric lamp. Edison agrees, under one condition: Dancy and his friends must stop the saboteurs who are disrupting his electrification of Wall Street.
After two years of misadventures out West, the assignment appears to be right up his alley. But new troubles await him in New York City. Dancy has brought a woman with him, and his high-society family disapproves. More worrisome, he has also unknowingly dragged along a feud that began out West. The feud could cost him Edison's backing ... and possibly his life.
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A: James Best the actor also lists accomplishments of being
an artist and director. He was born in 1926 as Jules Guy, and is probably best
known for his role as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the popular TV series
"The Dukes of Hazzard." According to publicity material, he claims to
have appeared in more than 600 television shows and appeared in more than 80
films.
Steve Dancy is set on experiencing the West. At first glance, he is nothing more than a dilettante Easterner intent on writing a journal about his adventures on the frontier. He’s not running away from a hopeless life. To the contrary, he’s educated and seems to have enough money for his simple needs. Although anxious to avoid trouble, he can be pushed only so far, and when he chances upon some bad men doing unspeakable things to a woman, he feels he must take a hand. It isn’t long before he’s caught up in gunplay, which leads him into taking desperate measures, including buying a bank and a hotel, and influencing the upcoming gubernatorial elections. Dancy is a far different man than these Westerners think he is. Wealthy after selling off his Eastern businesses, maybe he should have told them what kind of goods he sold, because he’s sure not like any other shopkeepers they know. This is a fast paced tale with an interesting hero. In structure, with short chapters, crisp dialogue, and lots of movement, it’s reminiscent of a thriller. Sadly, neither of the women in this story were enduring, the older too evil and crass to believe, and the younger far from worthy of the infatuation the hero apparently feels toward her. The motivation seems weak for all the mayhem that ensues. Still, you’ll certainly find enough twists and turns to provide an entertaining and exciting story.
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| Chigurh From No Country for Old Men |
I asked the hotel clerk for the best lawyer in town. He directed me to a man named Jansen who had an office across from the Capital building. I then asked to see the chambermaid in my room so I could give her some special instruction. After a brief wait, an exceptionally skinny girl arrived whose cheap dress fell straight down from her narrow shoulders.
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