THE ANNUAL REVIEW by Rob Lopresti Relax. It’s not your annual review. It’s mine. Besides, I’m sure yours will go just fine. Hardly anyone noticed what you did at the office party. Really. But this week marks two full years since James Lincoln Warren first gathered his small but intrepid band around him in the […]

COMFORT FOOD by Rob Lopresti I am at the start of what appears to be my fourth cold of 2009, and don’t get me started on what a treat that has been. But when I was home sick with number 3, and cranking up a can of chicken noodle soup and breaking out a box […]

ONE MAN’S OPINION by Rob Lopresti Last year Our John listed some of his favorite things, specifically novels, movies, and short stories. That got me working on a list I have had bouncing around my head for a while: my fifty favorite mystery short stories. You can see the result at the end of this […]

SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAPERS by Robert Lopresti I grew up on comic strips. I suppose most of us did; it was a form of narrative you can get into at a very young age, and stick with. My problem nowadays is that half the cartoons in my local newspapers are zombies. Either they […]

TUNE THAT NAME by Rob Lopresti I stopped by the Criminal Brief Corporate Headquarters last week to pick up my fan mail and see if any checks had arrived (hey, a man can hope). The place was pretty dead so I asked our receptionist if anyone had been in today. “Just him,” Velma said, not […]

THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR by Rob Lopresti I recently read a short story about harassing phone calls. Since it was set in current times the writer had to explain all the ways the hero attempted to trace the calls and why they didn’t work in this case. Made you long for the good old […]

HOW TO MAKE IT WORK by Robert Lopresti In last week’s wisdom-fest I talked about the process by which creative work is done. I said there are two forces involved in the project. The Miner digs through your subconscious mind and brings out ore that the Jeweler then turns into something beautiful, or at least […]