In September 2022, I flew to Minneapolis to attend Bouchercon, the annual convention for the mystery and crime community. It was my first Bouchercon in a while.

To my dismay, when I entered the convention hall I found that I hardly knew anyone in attendance. A new generation of authors and industry insiders had emerged during my time away while writing a weekly column on popular music for the Wall Street Journal. I wasn’t entirely alone. I met up with Reed Farrel Coleman, who introduced me to the community after my debut novel, CLOSING TIME, was published in 2001. There was Dennis Lehane, who had been supportive early in my career, holding court at the bar. Otto Penzler swept in. I ran into Jan Brogan, who hadn’t seen in years. But for the most part, I felt outside it all – so much so that when I saw jazz guitarist John Scofield crossing the hotel lobby, I went over to say hello: I was more comfortable with someone I knew as an interview subject than with strangers who were familiar to, and admired by, readers I feared I had lost.

By the time I flew home I had decided I wanted to reconnect – and the best way to do that was to write the kind of stories mystery and crime readers might enjoy.

In 2023, I published five short stories. Set in Washington D.C. where I had spent 2022, “Sue, If You Must” was the tale of a group of women who receive a strange invitation from a Capitol Hill lobbyist, who denies sending them. I published it on my website.

Then came publication of Gary Phillips’s anthology GET UP OFFA THAT THING: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF JAMES BROWN that included my “Shootout at Mister Hip’s.” A Detroit bus driver who plays the B-3 organ in a local bar may revive the city as a music mecca – but a certain woman objects.

My story “Gentleman’s Agreement” appeared in the September/October edition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. The editors of AHMM have been generous to me ever since they published my first short story way back in 1988, but when I submitted this one I thought I was asking too much: A piece of historical fiction, its premise is that the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees in late 1919 because their owner had discovered that his mother was Black.

In recent years, a whole slew of music-themed mystery anthologies had been published, and I was miffed that no one but Gary had asked me to contribute. I decided I wanted to pull together an anthology inspired by a songwriter who actually wrote songs about crimes, criminals and other miscreants. Only Elvis Costello fit the bill. Once Down & Out Books accepted the proposal, I contacted some of my favorite authors I had worked with before – and two I hadn’t: Catriona McPherson and Alex Segura, both of whom encouraged me to seek greater diversity among the authors than the ones I had originally proposed. What followed was BRUTAL & STRANGE: STORIES INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF ELVIS COSTELLO, a collection that surpassed my expectations in no small part because it contains so many different types of voices. As for my story “Almost Blue,” I had been thinking about doing something inspired by that song even before the I considered a Costello anthology. “Almost Blue” was easily the most noir piece I’d written; to confirm its validity, I sent it to Eddie Muller, host of TCM’s “Noir Alley” and someone I knew before he became the national treasure he is today. He approved. (Whew. You don’t want Eddie Muller thinking your attempt at noir fails…)

Prior to the publication of BRUTAL & STRANGE, my story “The Last Turkey in Tulsa” appeared in THE PERP WORE PUMPKIN, an anthology that was a fundraiser for Feeding America and its Second Harvest food banks. The publisher called for comic tales; my wife Diane has been after me for years to write a comic novel, so I was happy to contribute. In my story, parents of a newlywed arrive in Tulsa for Thanksgiving only to discover that their daughter and son-in-law don’t have a turkey for their holiday meal. It’s Dad to the rescue in a slapdash search for a ready-to-eat bird.

So I had published one piece of comedy, one noir, one work of historical fiction, one hardboiled shootout (though, truth be told, the shooter takes a bus to the scene of the crime) and one slice of political intrigue. Five stories, five subgenres. I considered it a good year.

There’s quite a bit of namedropping in this essay and it’s to prove a point. The authors I mentioned have had rollercoaster careers – some with steeper drops than others – or had to fight to do the kind of books they wanted to. Having won the respect of their peers, they regained their standing, or exceeded it, through persistence, a skill as valuable as talent. As Junot Díaz said, “A writer is a writer because, even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.” I don’t know a single author who’s had a career that started with commercial success and had it continue without interruption.

I attended Bouchercon 2023 in San Diego determined to introduce myself to readers, authors and industry personnel. You can’t schmooze your way into reviving a career, but it is useful to let people know you exist. I’m not a trendy writer – I couldn’t tell you what’s selling and what’s not; most of my favorite novels were written decades and decades ago – but it’s good to meet people who might find your work appealing. I came away with a sense that there’s an audience for my novels and short fiction. To be a writer is to self-select solitude, so just to be with people who’ve read you and want to tell you about the books they love is a grand reward in itself.

My career revival will continue (I hope) in 2024 with the publication of my tenth novel, THE PRICE YOU PAY, a crime thriller, coming-of-age story and a family saga set in mid-1970s in crumbling Jersey City, New Jersey, where violence and coercion reign. Young Mickey Wright is thrust into a world controlled by a powerful Teamster local. The man who put him in jeopardy: his father, a renegade policeman well-known to Jersey City’s politicians and drug dealers. Easily my most autobiographical work, it’s my first novel available in bookstores in 15 years: For the last decade-and-a-half, I published via Amazon and Audible, happily but at a distant from in-person contact with readers. A modest tour is planned as are appearances at various conferences including Left Coast Crime (my first) in Bellevue, Washington, in April and Bouchercon in Nashville in late August. Given that the mystery and crime community is the most generous, most accessible, most willing-to-pay-it-forward group of people I’ve ever worked with or belonged to, I anticipate meeting new readers, authors, agents and publishers while reconnecting with those I’ve come to cherish during a hectic 2023.