Why I love JA Konrath
Originally published at Ms. Amused. You can comment here or there.
He’s an author of yet another detective series but his gimmick is interesting. His detective is an unapologetic middle aged woman who is attractive but has no idea what feminine wiles are. Her name? Jacqueline Daniels, Jack for short.
As you can probably guess, that sets up a lot of liquor related word play and all the books are named for drinks. It was the bright neon orange/yellow cover of Whiskey Sour that led me to pick up that book and I really liked it.
Bloody Mary & Rusty Nail were excellent reads as well. Now that James Patterson has jumped the shark with his Alex Cross novels, it’s nice to have a new author to read.
And JA takes it to a new level with a website that he produced & maintains himself. He really believes in author driven promotion and tries to connect personally with his readers as much as possible. This is what made me “A FAN”. My personal rating system for authors goes like this: “good story that I’ll re-read again and again = own it in pb”, “excellent story that I love and I really like the author’s style as well = BUY IN Hardback”. JA Konrath is a hardback rating and sitting on myself are the first four Jack Daniel books in glorious (and colorful) hardback form.
If you love a good murder mystery/suspense thriller (ie you watch all the Law & Order shows), you can check out the first book for free on his website: www.jakonrath.com. Whiskey Sour is available as a free download (pdf).
Also look on his website for his unpublished novel, Origin. I’ll dig up my previous review of this and post it again but I recommend reading that too.
It’s been a while and Fuzzy Navel (book #5) is coming out soon so I think I’ll re-read the series again soon. I’ll post more in-depth reviews of the books when I do. His latest blog post mentions finishing Cherry Bomb (#6) too! So exciting to know about good books on the horizon.
BTW if you’re at all curious about the world of publishing and how to be a successful author, add his blog to your daily rss reader: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. He posts every couple weeks or so and they’re always informative and entertaining even if you’re not a writer. All that’s required is a love of books.
Photo: JAKonrath.com (many more hilarious pictures found in the Mug Shots, doesn’t he look like a bookish Jack Black?)