Into the Night

The sun is now out, but it’s still only forty-nine degrees.

The great irony of this is that I’d intended to make potato-leek soup today and white-bean chicken chili tomorrow; after buying everything I needed to do so the weather turned beautiful, and I thought, great, this is no longer soup/chili weather…forgetting that southeastern Louisiana weather can always turn on a dime.

In case you’re wondering, the combination of parades and finishing the Scotty did result in my kitchen and apartment being disgusting messes, which I intend to rectify to today. I managed to get the dishes (most of them) done; there’s a load running currently in the dishwasher (still some dirty pans in the sink), and I’ve got both the washer and dryer currently running. The potato-leek soup is cooking, and in a minute or two I’m going to get out of this chair and get back to work.

Also, I’m thinking if the sun is out I should brave the cold and go take pictures of the Bead Trees of St. Charles. Perhaps when I have a handle on all this cleaning.

Someday. Although I just walked my old broiler pans out to the trash (I bought a new one; the old ones were kind of gross, really) and it’s fricking cold. Perhaps the Bead Trees can wait until this weekend. A quick look at the (basically useless) weather forecast shows that the temps will go back up after Ash Wednesday…but the forecast can change here from hour to hour and day to day.

Heavy sigh.

But I do get to look forward to Mario Lopez riding tonight as Celebrity Orpheus! That’s certainly worth braving the cold to see.

But tomorrow is when it ends for another year, midnight on Fat Tuesday with the tolling of cathedral bells and the beginning of Lent with the arrival of Ash Wednesday. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the ritual of the clearing of the streets in the Quarter at midnight on Fat Tuesday, but it’s interesting to watch.

Bill Loefhelm (you should be reading his work if you aren’t already) wrote a terrific piece about writing about Mardi Gras here, and as I already mentioned in this sentence, if you aren’t reading Bill’s books, you really should be. It’s never too late to start, either.

I am currently taking a break from cleaning momentarily. I can’t believe it’s already after two; only four hours or so until the parades start for tonight, and I feel like I’ve not managed anything here in the Lost Apartment…and I catch myself thinking well, whatever you don’t get done today you can get done tomorrow and then have to remind myself THIS IS NOT HOW YOU GET THINGS DONE.

All right, back to the spice mines.

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Dim All The Lights

It is cold this morning in the Lost Apartment; kind of gray out there with the sun hidden behind fluffy white clouds. There’s a sink full of dishes, clothes in the dryer, and mess pretty much everywhere. At some point I have to go to the store today–there are things we need that cannot wait till Wednesday–but I am going to postpone the mail until Wednesday on the way to to the office. I also need to do some wrap-up work on the book at some point today, but it’s still pretty much finished. I want to get that done today so I can spend tomorrow reading…which, since it doesn’t seem sunny, will probably work. I wanted to take my camera out and take pictures of the Bead Trees of St. Charles–an annual tradition–but without sunshine the pictures aren’t as effective…so, unless the sun comes out today, that’s something that’ll have to wait until the weekend.

Yesterday was fun.  I gave up on Thoth about half-way through; there was an enormous break in the parade, and the longer I stood there the less I wanted to. Also the wind started picking up, the sky got gray, and I felt a few drops…tired and wet wasn’t something I felt particularly up for, so I decided to come inside and rest up for Bacchus. I’d already caught plenty of beads, and with Bacchus and Orpheus in the future…yeah, I called it an afternoon and came inside.

The three day parades yesterday rolled as floats only (no marching bands or walking groups) because of inclement weather in the forecast; they also moved them all up to eleven in the morning and they followed each other; so Thoth rolled hours earlier than usual. I was inside yesterday around two; Thoth usually begins at two-thirty and it was already half-way past.

It’s also amazing how fast those parades can move when it’s just floats.

And Bacchus was, as always, fun despite the cold. Paul caught some beads directly from Bacchus (Jensen Ackles) himself, and I got some doubloons from his float.  Here are some great shots of the parade (and Jensen).

After Bacchus, we came back in and got caught up on Schitt’s Creek and How to Get Away with Murder, and then, tired and worn out for a day mostly spent on the parade route, I went to bed early and also managed to sleep in, which was quite lovely.  The temperature is currently in the low forties, which doesn’t bode well for Orpheus tonight, but I also don’t mind bundling up for this parade. It has the train float which is one of my favorites!

And then tomorrow, we will just rest and relax and get ready for the three day work week.

Happy Lundi Gras, everyone!

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Misunderstanding

Well, Iris is over for another year and as always, the ladies of Iris were most generous to Paul and I. The coffee table is now buried in beads and throws, and there’s a whole day of parades today, plus the magnificence that is Orpheus tomorrow night. We skipped Tucks and Endymion last night–we never have really gone to watch Endymion; we used to walk up St. Charles to go out dancing on that night, and always caught tons of beads from Endymion as we walked–and our attendance today is entirely dependent on the weather. The day parades have been moved up an hour already because of potentially inclement weather; but thus far Bacchus is scheduled to role tonight at its regularly scheduled time.

Paul went out to celebrate a friend’s birthday last night, leaving me home to my own devices for the evening, and so I pretty much spent the evening watching nonsense on television and reading Lori Roy’s Gone Too Long, which is so beautifully written I have to put it down every once in a while to digest it. I am hoping to finish reading it today before and between parade.  I am glad I have tomorrow off, so I can get all the odds-and-ends of my book finished before Orpheus rides, and on Fat Tuesday I am going to probably just relax and read most of the day. I am very behind, not only on the Short Story Project but on the Diversity Project, and I also have my TWFest homework to do as well–I have three books to read for that. But once the Festival is over and I have the first draft of the WIP finished (around April 1st, methinks), I can dive back into both projects. Huzzah!

And since I am taking today off from writing, I can spend the morning before the parades get here curled up in my easy chair with Lori’s book, which is an absolutely lovely way to spend a morning…and perhaps during the brief break between Thoth and Bacchus I can get it finished. It’s a very  well written book, and the story itself, intertwining present day grief in a family with a history of Klan leadership, is stunning in its scope and what it is trying to do, and I am here for it. It’s also interesting that it fits into one of my goals for the year–which is to read more diverse books as I try to get a better handle on this country’s horrific history with race and how that currently impacts and effects our current society–which was, as I started reading it, completely unintentional…so technically, it counts in the Diversity Project because it is about racial disparities and tackles the question of race head-on by doing something incredibly daring for this day and age–a look at the Klan from inside the family of one of its leaders.

Reminiscent of William Bradford Huie’s The Klansman, which I reread earlier this year.

And now, I am going to retire to my easy chair with Lori Roy’s book and my iPad, with the electronic copy of Murder-a-Go-Go’s.

Happy Sunday, every one!

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One Fine Day

IRIS SATURDAY!

Iris has always been my favorite Carnival parade; so much so that it’s the only parade I’ve put in a book thus far; Mardi Gras Mambo opens with the boys on the neutral ground of St. Charles Avenue, watching the ladies of Iris on a beautiful Saturday afternoon:

Of all the parades, my favorite is the Mystic Krewe of Iris. There are several reasons for this. First, Iris is a women’s krewe, which means the masked figures on the floats tossing things are not men. Men always look for women (the larger the breasts, the better) and children in the crowd to reward with their largesse. They only throw to men by accident, or if someone yells particularly loud. This sucks if you like to catch throws. However, the ladies of Iris are just as sexist as the male krewe members. They throw to men and children. Flirting with the ladies definitely works. And since Iris rolls on the Saturday afternoon before Fat Tuesday, usually it’s sunny and warm. Sunny and warm means I don’t wear a shirt. (And a lot of guys don’t. It’s basically a beefcake bonanza out there on St. Charles Avenue the afternoon of Iris. Did I mention how much I love Iris?)

I get lots of throws at Iris every year.

Carnival so far had been a bit of a disappointment.  Mardi Gras was early this year, which meant despite the fervent prayers of the locals, there was a strong possibility that Fat Tuesday itself could be cold, gray and drizzly. If the weather on Fat Tuesday sucks, it adversely affects the tourist numbers of the following year, so the City Fathers were keeping their fingers crossed and praying just as hard for sunny warm weather as the rest of us who just want to run around half-naked.  Unfortunately, every night since the parades started, it had been gray, cold and wet. The parades still rolled despite the inclement weather, but all the newscasters were despondent about low numbers of people out for the parades. They fail to take into consideration that standing in a slight drizzle on a cold night waiting for a parade isn’t fun. You’d think they’d realize it as they stand out there in their trench coats broadcasting. And actually, it’s better for the businesses. Instead of being out there on the streets, the tourists were in the restaurants and the bars staying dry and warm spending their tourist dollars to support our economy.

Every night after we got home from the gym, I’d ask the boys if they wanted to go out and watch the parades. I hate standing out trying to catch throws when it’s cold, so I didn’t try very hard to convince them. I’d have gone if they wanted to, but Frank and Colin weren’t into standing around in the cold rain just to have beads thrown at them, so we pretty much blew off the earlier parades. After all, there’s always another day of parades, and the Goddess wouldn’t be so cruel as to have the weather suck the day of Iris.  Regardless, I love the Iris parade, and unless the streets were flooding, we were going. Besides, my sister Rain is one of the ladies of Iris, so going was also a family obligation. Actually, most of my relatives are in one parade or another, but Rain’s appearance in Iris is the only one I care about.

Fortunately, that Saturday dawned bright and sunny and warm.  All three of us had gotten up early, so we could go to the gym and pump up—as I said, the sexist ladies of Iris really notice muscles. We caught a ride with my best friend David Uptown, where he managed to find a place to park on Baronne, and walked the two blocks over to St. Charles Avenue.

That’s another important thing to remember about Carnival. NEVER watch parades on Canal Street. That’s where the mobs of tourists are, drunk and boisterous and pushing and shoving and just getting on your nerves. It’s much more fun to go Uptown and watch along the St. Charles route. That’s where the locals go. It isn’t as crowded, there aren’t any breasts being bared, and instead you can see what Carnival really is supposed to be like—or what it was like before the college students found out about it. That’s where you see families out with their kids, portable barbecues set up on the streetcar tracks, and coolers full of beer everywhere.  Of course people are drinking, but New Orleanians know how to pace themselves—after all, we have to all year long. Drinking might be a city pastime, de rigeuer for every social event in town, but you don’t see people puking or passing out on St. Charles. You don’t see men taking a piss in a corner.

Many locals leave town during Carnival. They’re sick of the hordes of tourists, the problems getting around the city—St. Charles and Canal, the two main streets in the city, close for the parades, and it’s easy to get trapped inside the parade route. I can only imagine how frustratingly annoying it must be to live Uptown during Carnival. There’s also the familiarity. If you’ve been dealing with it your entire life, after a while I guess it can get old for some people, but I am not one of those people. After all, do you get sick of Christmas? And so far, it hasn’t gotten old for me. I feel like a kid again every year when the parades roll. I don’t believe I would ever get sick of Carnival. I love everything about it. I love the green, purple and gold decorations everywhere—the huge masks adorning balconies, the beads hanging from the tree branches and the telephone lines. I even love the tourists, even though they do stupid stuff they would never dare to do in a million years at home. I love the parades, catching throws, the non-stop fun atmosphere. I even like the pervasive smell of grease from the vendors hawking corn dogs and French fries and those bizarre sausage sandwiches made with fried onions and green peppers. I love the signs in front of bars advertising BIG ASS BEER $3.95—40 OUNCES!! Okay, it’s not like living in New Orleans is ever boring, mind you—it’s kind of like living on a non-stop rollercoaster ride sometimes—but Carnival is different. The whole city is in a festive mood, and everyone is relaxed and just wants to have a good time. What other American city throws such a huge party and invites the whole world to come join the fun?

Doesn’t that sound like fun? My very first Mardi Gras, back in 1995, was also my first experience with Iris, and I fell deeply and madly in love with the ladies of Iris. They showered me with beads, year after year. I used to have an Iris party every year; we even accidentally created a drink the first year we named the Iris: champagne, cranberry juice, and vodka.

It’s delicious.

And I finished revising Royal Street Reveillon yesterday. I still need to work on the prologue and write the epilogue, and I probably will go over Chapter 25 again, but for all intents and purposes, it’s done done done. Huzzah!

And now back to Iris prep.

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Let Me Love You Tonight

Five minutes ago I finished revising Royal Street Reveillon.

HUZZAH!

Oh, okay, I still have the prologue to revise and an epilogue to write, but the body of the book is finished, and that’s the truly hard work.

It feels good to be finished on this Friday weekend with all of those parades on the horizon, which is also kind of lovely. Now I can relax and have fun this weekend, read, and clean and go to parades, and pretty much do as I please. Monday I can run the errands, come home, and revise the prologue and write the epilogue, and then after Orpheus–or on Tuesday morning, whichever–I can send it in to my editor and breathe again.

Hallelujah.

And now back to the spice mines.

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It’s Everything But Party Time

Since adding Spotify to my life this week, I’ve been having a great time listening to albums I love, and of course the Go-Go’s are on that list. I’d forgotten how much I love having music on while I do things around the Lost Apartment–whether it’s cleaning or editing or writing; music always makes things better, quite frankly.

It certainly makes the time go by a lot faster.

Next up in Murder-a-Go-Go’s is Lisa Alber’s “It’s Everything But Party Time”:

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It’s my humble opinion that nothing says “boondoggle” like a bunch of oddballs running around a hotel dressed in fursuits. Wolves, raccoons, polar bears, and kittens sitting around the Paradise Arms Hotel lounge munching on appetizers and scratching each oth- er’s backs below a banner announcing “Furtopia—Welcome to Party Time!” didn’t bode well for the investigation.

My partner Mac skidded to a halt. “Sully? What the blazing fuck is this? You don’t warn me?”

“Nope. Hotel fully booked for a furry conference.”

The previous morning, paramedics had carted away a guy from room 306. Apparent heart attack. Only, the M.E. cut him open, cried “homicide,” and now here we stood, a day late to the investigation, surrounded by animal wannabes.

“So that lazy turd Weaver screwed up the initial investigation,” Mac said.

“Yep, settled for face value—natural causes. Didn’t lock down the scene properly. I’d probably have done the same thing.”

Mac punched me in the arm, too hard. “Not with me around.”

MacKenzie MacDougal, also known as Double-Mac-and-Cheese, Two-Mac, and Mac Attack, sports an unfortunate name to go with a fortunate tendency to rock her retro pantsuits. Ever more the professional than I, she perused the lobby area with its antique Italian marble, plaster ornamentation, and wrought iron fixtures straight out of Hollywood’s Golden Era and jotted a few notes.

Lisa Alber is another new-to-me author, which is one of the great things about anthologies; the exposure to writers you’ve not read before. She’s published four novels, including the County Clare mystery series.

“It’s Everything But Party Time” is particularly clever in that it’s set at a furry convention hotel, where the only guest not attending the convention died–originally presumed to be from natural causes, but the autopsy turned up peculiarities. This is a fun police procedural, with an interesting homicide detective team in Los Angeles; what makes this more unusual is that the woman is the better detective, the male isn’t threatened by her expertise, and they work very well together. This story is witty and clever and fun, and I had a great time reading it!

An American Dream

I am waiting for the other shoe to drop about Spotify, because I am really enjoying having it. Although I suppose…how do the artists get paid? Obviously, the music has to be paid for at some point–for the right to stream it, right? Then again, that isn’t how radio worked, and this is kind of like “choose your own radio/be a disc jockey”.

Talking about Pat Benatar the other day, of course, led me to make a Pat playlist, and of course the Go-Go’s anthology has led to a Go-Go’s playlist as well. I also made one for the Carpenters (on the Benatar thread I mentioned how noir their music is),Stevie Nicks (was there any doubt?), the Monkees (Peter Tork’s death), and copied some 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s pop hits ones. It’s actually been kind of fun.

Oh! TINA TURNER! Be right back.

So I managed to get two chapters revised yesterday; two more today and the thing is done. Oh, I still need to redo the prologue and write the epilogue, then copy edit one more time, but if I get these two chapters done today, I can do the prologue and epilogue on Monday, and do the final copy edit next weekend.

And then it’s finished.

I’m actually excited to get back to my short stories and my other WIP, to be honest. I want to get the WIP finished in its first draft by the end of March, then put it aside to rework another manuscript for the month of April before returning to the WIP.

Huzzah!

I am also very tired this morning. Muses last night apparently wore me out. My lower back hurts a bit and my legs are tired as well. It may have something to do with I bought a new brand of over-the-counter sleeping pills at Costco yesterday, the Costco brand at that. I tried them out last night and obviously they worked. I didn’t even wake up until almost nine this morning, and am still very sleepy and exhausted. Today’s goals are to wash the bed linens, do some more cleaning, cook some things, and do the last two chapters of Scotty. I doubt I’ll have much of a chance to work on it again until Monday; Paul and I always drink on Iris Saturday which makes the day a total waste, and Sunday is parades all day and recovery. I would like to power through today and get those last two chapters finished today, so I can go ahead and use Monday to write the epilogue, and then do one last copy edit on Fat Tuesday while the rest of the city parties and celebrates, and then I can be done with it.

It’s been a long haul, but I am very pleased with this Scotty book.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines.

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You May Be Right

So, the fact that I am a Luddite is a well-established fact by this point in time, so new technology and so forth always throws me for a loop. The most recent example of this for me is Spotify. That Bitch Ford ™ convinced me to give it a try, and I keep getting sucked into making playlists and remembering oh yes, I loved this album or Oh! Oh! I wonder if this artist is on here and yes, time suck. Big time.

And Apple Music is probably very similar. And I already have iTunes. But I have a thirty-day free premium Spotify account, so I have thirty days to decide if I want to abandon this or go to Apple Music.

I managed to revise another chapter yesterday. Just the one, dear? is an actual valid question; it’s true. But I went and did errands, then I had to make room for things and throw things away, and there was laundry to get done. I am probably going to run to Costco today to get it out of the way–Paul had something delivered to the mail service yesterday, and if I have the leave the house, might as well run another errand and get it out of the way, right?

It rained a bit last night during the Druids parade, but remembering the mantra (marathon not a sprint) kept me inside and off the route until Nyx arrived. By then the rain was gone and there was a surprisingly large crowd out there on the route. I didn’t stay out there for the entire parade; there were still another six or so floats left when we called it a night, but I’d already  gotten a purse (thanks, Beth!) and a plethora of beads, among other things, and so it wasn’t a big deal to end early. There are three parades tonight (!): Babylon, Chaos and Muses. Muses is, of course, one of the more popular parades, so it will be mob-like out there tonight. Patricia Clarkson is the Muse tonight; the first woman to be Muse twice, and she gets to ride in the big shoe. I’ll try to take some pictures–I always try–but there are no guarantees. It’s also supposed to rain around five, but it’s also not supposed to last long.

I also need to do some cooking today; bacon and chicken breasts and so forth, so there’s readily available food for us to eat over the weekend; today is a good day for that. I woke up early this morning, and while it’s taken me a little while to get going, I am feeling energized and ready to get some shit done. I’ll probably start revising Scotty when I post this, and then head to Costco and get the mail on the way back.

Got to start checking things off that to-do list; today is a great day to get started on that.

And on that note, ’tis back to the spice mines with me.

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Should’ve Never Let You Go

And my first morning of vacation looms bright, with a stunningly blue sky and the sun blinding me through my windows. The clouds will roll in later this afternoon, per the weather forecast, and the thunderstorms aren’t supposed to arrive until around eleven; well after the second parade has passed. Tonight’s parades are Druids and (Stevie) Nyx; so only two, to prep us for the madness of Thursday, which includes Muses.

So much to get done today, should I choose to do any of it; I need to get caught back up on Scotty revising, and there’s always cleaning to do around the Lost Apartment. I also have to make groceries and collect the mail, and I’d like to go to the gym at some point this afternoon as well to begin my reconnection with taking better care of my body. There’s also reading to do; I need to read the next story in the Murder-a-Go-Go’s anthology, and I need to finish the ghost story I’m reading in Norah Lofts’ Hauntings, and of course, the delicious pleasure that is Lori Roy’s Gone Too Long also awaits on the end table next to my reclining chair. I need to set aside some time to finish that because I need to read my homework for the panel I’m moderating at the Tennessee Williams Festival–Alafair Burke’s The Better Sister, Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife, and Kristien Hemmerechts’ The Woman Who Fed the Dogs. I am also falling very far behind on the Diversity Project, which is enormously disappointing to me.

I’m sort of in a malaise in which I keep putting things off because I don’t want to do them, which isn’t really like me–or at least, the me I’ve been for the last half of my life. The first half of my life was when I just avoided things I didn’t want to deal with, which never ended well. I’m not entirely sure what’s causing it, and the Great Data Disaster of 2018 was so long ago now (three months, almost four!) that I can’t keep blaming things on it; but I can really trace this back to losing that weekend’s worth of work and getting derailed…because I was also on a roll at that point, and I’ve never quite gotten that momentum back.

Something innocuous I posted on social media blew up in a way I certainly never intended, and no, I don’t mean the post that someone needs to do a noir reboot of The Partridge Family, which I still think is a brilliant idea–after all, we never really know what happened to Shirley’s husband, who is rarely, if ever mentioned; and let’s face it, none of those kids looked even remotely related to each other. I envision Shirley as a not only a black widow going through numerous husbands and baby-daddies, but also being a horrific stage mother, forcing her children into musical careers, while having an affair with their sleazy manager, Reuben.

No, I idly posted that someone needs to do one of those music-inspired crime anthologies based on the music of Pat Benatar…and then came up with the title, Crimes of Passion: Crimes Stories Inspired by the Music of Pat Benatar.

Well, it kind of took off, with people replying to my tweet that they’d write to it, or responding on Facebook that they wanted to, even going so far as to pick the songs they wanted. At first–I was at work–I wanted to say, yo, everyone, it was just a thought, I’m not actually doing this but as the day went on I began to think, more and more, that hey, maybe you should think about doing this. More than enough people have offered to write for it, so many so that if anyone drops out there would still be more than enough stories to fill out a volume and for it to be really good.

So…I’m considering it, and considering publishers to approach. So maybe, just maybe, that will be my next anthology.

MAYBE.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Tonite

As I said before,  I’d never really how dark the Go-Go’s lyrics work until I started reading them sans music, trying to pick a song to base a story on. One of the things that’s interesting about music is so often people will love a song,  make it their jam, and sing along to it all the time without  really understanding what the song’s about.

A classic case in point, and maybe the best example, is “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. It’s a terrific song on every level, was a huge hit, and launched their huge-selling Synchronicity album…and yet I knew, almost from the first time I heard it, that the lyrics were really dark and obsessive to the point of being completely creepy. So when I discovered that people actually thought it was romantic, and most people didn’t realize how creepy and stalker-ish it actually was, it blew my mind. The song is played at weddings, for fuck’s sake.

How can people so completely miss the point of the song?

Next up for Murder-a-Go-Go’s is “Tonite,” penned by R. D. Sullivan.

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“Come on, come on, come on…” Benicia whispered, eyes flicking between the rearview mirror of the stolen car and the red traffic light. One hand tapped nervously on the steering wheel. She tried to ignore what the pit bull had done to her leg, but it screamed with pain, and blood puddled in her shoe. There wasn’t time to deal with it.

The heat of the summer night pressed in from the open windows, oppressive and dry. No other cars sat at the intersection, nobody waited at the crosswalks. All of Red Bluff shut its doors and called it a night as soon as the sun set and this late? Nothing stirred.

Not even the junkies were out. With as hot as it has been, hitting 112 today, they were likely hunkered by the river that bisected town, trying to stay cool enough to sleep.

Good. The deserted streets would make this easier.

Eyes on the red light.

Eyes on the mirror.

Light.

Mirror.

The white pick-up screamed around the corner, slipping for a heartbeat before grabbing road and accelerating. she couldn’t see their faces, but she could picture them, how angry they’d look. Angry at her.

She put a hand on the two bags on the passenger seat and ran the red light.

There’s nothing I love more than a good tale of revenge, and “Tonite” is precisely that. The story opens with the major adrenaline rush of a car chase where the stakes are very high; if whoever is chasing her catches Benicia, they’re going to kill her. But what is her plan, what is her game, and what is she doing? Sullivan craftily weaves flashbacks into her chase tale, as Benicia races through the streets of Sacramento with angry killers on her tail, and each successful reveal adds to the incredibly powerful tension of the story, which literally amps up in the opening sentence.

Well done!