When TSA tells you, "Empty your lady bags..."

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Air travel!! I was just on a plane for the first time in more than two years and got reacquainted with the perils and pleasures of passing through security check.

Before I left, my friend Patty Jo emailed me about her recent experience:

I just went through security at the airport. The lady checking ID and boarding pass said, "You’ll have to empty out your lady bags when you put things through the scanner.”

“Lady bags?”

She pointed at my chest and the cell phone discreetly tucked in there, “ Yes, dear, everything has to be emptied out.”

Patty Jo cracked up, and I cracked up reading it. Lady bags? If I had to rely on mine for transporting my belongings, I’d have to leave everything at home.

But her experience took me back to a trip to Bouchercon when I was carrying some right/wrong answer buzzers in my bag for our Jungle Red Writers Jeopardy game. I’d neglected to take the batteries out and every time the security person jostled the bag, the wrong-answer buzzer went off.

That was early days, before TSA had grown a sense of humor (see “lady bags”). My luggage got searched and they confiscated a nearly empty tube of toothpaste because it said “6 oz” on the outside.

Years ago Jerry and I got stopped leaving Tangiers. We’d bought a large hammered copper teapot and I’d had to stuff our (dirty) underwear into it in order to fit it into our suitcase. Needless to say, the suitcase was searched and the teapot had to be emptied out.

Nowadays I zoom (lower case z) through security with TSA precheck. Most of the time.

Have you had to empty your ‘lady bags’ or had other adventures getting through a security checkpoint?

RHYS BOWEN: I haven’t flown in nearly three years and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I remember the early days of TSA when they were paranoid and confiscated any liquid or gel that looked as if it could be more than three ounces. They took my husband’s money clip, of which he was very fond, because it had a tiny, one inch knife on one side. I had to bite my tongue so that I didn’t point out you could hardly hijack a 747 with it.

My most embarrassing experience? My carry on bag set off the alarm as it went through the check at Heathrow.. It was hauled aside and I had to wait. I was annoyed. I told them there was nothing in it and I had been through other checkpoints with the same bag in the last few days. He searched and found some kind of face cream with maybe three ounces left in the bottom. I told him he was being ultra picky. He removed the cream and sent the bag back again. It beeped again.

I got more frustrated and pointed out that if I wanted to hijack a plane I wouldn’t bother to pay for a first class ticket! Then, to my mortification, he found another pocket in the bottom of the bag and in it… a bottle of orange juice I had bought on a train days before and completely forgotten about.

Exit with red face.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My most memorable TSA experience was traveling with The Boy, who was then about nine. He was going to stay with relatives in Tuscaloosa while I went to the Alabama book festival - a nice way to combine business with family. I had previously warned him not to make any jokes about bombs or terrorists, and he promised he wouldn’t.

What I neglected to say was not to touch anything belonging to the TSA personnel. I was pulled aside for further searching, and as the agent was checking my carryon, The Boy picked her wand up from the table and began “shooting” with it - yes, friends, with pew-pew sounds effects as well. I saw my life flash before my eyes as I pictured spending the rest of it in a small federal cell.

Thank God, the agent was also a mother. She gave him a lecture in a Very Serious Mom Voice, winked at me, and wished me good travels. Crisis averted! I’m still considering slipping a Nerf gun into one of his kids’ bags at some future family travel event, however. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh boy, more good times to look forward to as we travel more! The only real troubles I’ve had are the times I put something in John’s suitcase and forgot to mention it:). On the way to Mexico for a family wedding, he was pulled aside for smuggling apples into the country. Oh he was mad!

Another time I completely spaced out and put a big jar of beautiful jalapeno spiked peach jam in his bag to take as a gift for my brother. He was not pleased about that either. We had a choice of surrendering the confiscated item or returning to the check-in desk to check the suitcase. Sigh…I wonder if anyone ever enjoyed that jam?

JENN McKINLAY: Lucy is a smuggler!!! LOL.

I have flown more during the pandemic than ever to help my family on the east coast during these crazy days and it’s been fine. I haven’t even had a rabble rouser on any of my flights (thank goodness). The only problem I’ve ever had was in 2004, flying with two boys ages 2 and 3, and Providence TSA decided to pull me aside and wand me, making me assume the Karate Kid crane kick pose - both arms and one leg up in the air. Naturally, the Hooligans took this opportunity to escape mom and in case you’re unaware toddlers are FAST!

While the agent was diligently wanding me, I said, “Either you go chase those two toddlers down right now or I’m going, but I’m not having my kids snatched because of you.”

Dude dropped his wand and signaled for me to go. What I felt like saying was “I have my babies with me. I’m not going to blow up your plane, you numpty.” But I didn’t.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Air travel! I haven't flown since January 2020 and I think I've lost all my airline privileges, boo. But my Global Entry and TSA Precheck should still be good. Now if I can just remember how to pack when I do finally get to take a trip.

I have been guilty of inadvertently smuggled produce. Coming back into DFW from London, I had the agriculture beagle alert on my bags. I couldn't imagine what I'd packed that was on the no-no list (hadn't been visiting farms!) But it was the good old forgotten apple, the traveler's staple in case of starvation!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So funny! I have actually done a story about those sniffer beagles, in the company of an adorable beagle named Haven. She totally knew her stuff! No matter what the passenger said, Haven insisted, and she was always right.

My favorite story is when Jonathan and I were flying to Mexico. Because my carryon bag was heavier, Jonathan was carrying mine, and I was carrying his. We were clearly together, but Jonathan was stopped at a special checkpoint, for some reason which we can only imagine, and was asked to open the bag. Which he did. It was full of women’s clothing, of course, all my stuff. They looked through it, without batting an eye, found nothing wrong, and said okay. And waved us through.

Now, call me crazy, but clearly that was not his suitcase, right, probably? And it since it wasn’t, clearly— that meant, probably, someone else had his! This has haunted me ever since.

I always thought–you think you know what you’re looking for, but maybe you are not seeing the bigger picture?

HALLIE: What have been your adventures getting through security, and are you looking forward to getting back into the swing of air travel?

Bad behavior on planes

HALLIE EPHRON: The other day I was on a plane coming back from the West coast, surrounded by a large extended family. There had to be dozens of them, talking back and forth in some language that I could not immediately identify. Portuguese, it turned out. 

They were boisterous and lovely... right up until it came time to get off the plane and then they all pushed and shoved, trying to edge their way off the plane before the people seated in the rows in front of them.

I watched, embarrassed for them. And I've noticed this is a common faux pas that foreign travelers make. Though this may be okay in some places, it's definitely not okay here. As discourteous as US passengers can be, pushing your way off a plane is not something we do.

Which got me thinking that it would be nice to write a Emily Post for US Travel manual. What would I like the world to know about the few things that we Americans are actually pretty polite and tame about when it comes to air travel?

1.     Getting off a plane, wait your turn; it’s like leaving a church, you leave by pew. Do not jump the line.

2.     If you’re in coach, please pretend that the button that reclines your seat does not exist. DO NOT RECLINE.

3.     Do not take off your socks. Please. Do not take off your socks.

4.     Put only one carry-on in the overhead bin. Not it and your briefcase and your coat and your shopping bag from Abercrombie & Fitch and your golf clubs because there was so much space in the bin when you pushed your way onto the plane..

5.     If you’re in the aisle or window seat, let the poor guy in the middle seat have both middle armrests.

6. Allow at least an hour to make a connecting flight; American airports are  enormous and confusing and planes are notoriously late and no one will let you off the plane first because you allowed too little time to make your connection.

7.     Do not put banana or orange peels in the seat-back pocket.

What would you add?

The Luggage Lament: You take the high road, I'll take the low...

Steve's Journey in Red, his bag in Black

LUCY BURDETTE:  As you may have seen on Wednesday's blog, our good friend Steve accompanied us on the trip to Ireland and Scotland. He traveled on Aer Lingus from Miami and met us in Dublin.  After our visit there, he took a short hop to Edinburg, also on Aer Lingus. He was told when checking in that he could not carry on his bag, even though it was carry-on size. Unfortunately, he arrived in Edinburgh, but his luggage did not.  

He called the Aer Lingus help desk and after a long period on hold, was connected with an agent with a heavy Indian accent named Nathan. The suitcase had been sent to London. 

Steve was informed that the bag would be delivered by morning to our hotel in Peebles. It was not. 

Back on the phone with the help desk, this time he spoke with a man named Ethan, who also had a heavy a Indian accent. They assured him the luggage would meet us in our next stop. It did not. 





At this point, he was desperate enough to acquire temporary clothing. He found colorful bamboo socks at our first stop after Edinburgh, underwear which he declined to have photographed in the Straitraer grocery store, a raincoat in Peebles, a sweater in Moffat,—these were necessary purchases as our first week the weather was cold and rainy. 

Since we were taking a ferry to Northern Ireland for the next leg of the journey, the bag was promised at our stop in the Highlands. It did not come. He found t-shirts in Oban.

Fortunately, he found a pair of rinse-able travel pants at the green welly store, as our next stop might have been this clothing dumpster.  




By now Steve had spent hours on the phone talking to Nathan, Ethan, Norman, and Harvey.

Finally, the bag was retrieved and delivered by a good friend of our tour leader...eight days after it went missing.

And now Steve has lessons and tips for all of us travelers:

1.  Don’t listen to the agent at the counter who says you can’t check your carry-on. You can gate check it and collect it at the bottom of the stairs.

2.  You can get by with a lot less than you think.

3. Don't panic. They sell clothes almost everywhere.

4. Pharmaceuticals, electronics, and toiletries should be glued to your side--never checked.

5. Be persistent. Take notes.

And I would add--a positive attitude makes a big difference. Steve was a real sport! As the Scots would say, Dinna fash yersel. (Don’t upset yourself.) 

Any tips to add from your travel stories?

Strangers on A Plane

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Usually when you call something  “an airplane book” it means a book  that’s perfect reading for an airplane—riveting and distracting and compelling.

(Yes, I know it could also be about airplanes, or whatever. But go with me here.)

I love airplane books. And I love seeing what everyone else is reading on airplanes. (Lots of people still read book-books, my survey shows. Especially when there are no plugs on the plane.)

But this perfect airplane book, THE DEAD GIRL IN 2A, takes place on an airplane. Not completely, but the opening premise is so chilling that it’ll make you take a second look at the person sitting beside you.

Listen to this:

Jack Buchanan knows the woman sitting next to him on his business flight to Denver―he just can't figure out how he knows her. Clara Stowe isn't in Jake's line of work and didn't go to college with him. They have nearly nothing in common apart from a deep and shared certainty that they've met before. As their airplane conversation deepens, both struggle to figure out what circumstances could have possibly brought them together. Then, in a revelation that sends Jake reeling, Clara admits she's traveling to the Colorado mountains to kill herself, and she disappears into the crowded airport immediately after landing.

AHHH!  What would you do?  Carter Wilson, the author, didn’t start out to be a novelist.   What got him there? Boredom.

And then—something else. Something that applies to all of our lives.

"Not Enough Time" Is a Myth!

by Carter Wilson

 As a bestselling author of six psychological suspense novels who also has a full-time job and family, I'm frequently asked, "how to you find the time to write?" I used to answer this vaguely, like I was some kind of superhuman who didn't know how to explain their innate powers. But it didn't take long to realize I wasn't special. I wasn't doing anything that anyone else isn't capable of. I was merely making choices that allowed me to do the things that made me happiest.

True, there are only twenty-four hours in a day. But that only matters if you choose to define your life as a series of days. But what if, rather than defining your life through time, you defined it though passion? Through the things that made you happy rather than the things you felt you had to do? What would that look like?

I have a formula for all this, and it doesn't factor in time as a variable at all. It's this:

PASSION + COMMITMENT = HAPPINESS

I didn't start writing until I was thirty-three, and, having no formal education in in the field, had no idea what I was doing. My writing career began on a single day when, in order to stave off boredom at a continuing-education class, I began writing a story. I wrote that story for two hours in the class, went home, then decided I had more to say. Three months later I had a 400-page manuscript. I remember writing that last line, sitting back, and thinking, what just happened? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing with my life? And, the biggest question of them all: now what?

I proceeded to learn the publishing industry, mostly through Google. What do I do with a completed novel? Find an agent. How do I do that? Write query letters. And so on. After seventy or so rejections I landed that agent. She shipped my book around to all the publishing houses, where it took about a year to be soundly rejected.

That last rejection represented an inflection point in my life. Two years earlier, I never would have conceived that I'd soon be writing a novel, landing an agent, and having my book rejected by all the publishing houses. With that final rejection, it was the time to define exactly what this life path was. Give it a name. Was this a whim, or was this a passion? Did writing make me happy?

Yes, I decided. It did.

So I found the time around my already busy life to write a second novel, which took a year to finish and another year to be rejected. As did books three and four. Finally, roughly eight years after that day in the classroom where I began my first story, I landed my first publishing deal with that fifth book. Since then, I've had four other novels published, a sixth releasing this July, have won numerous awards and have even hit the USA Today bestsellers list. And yet, I still have that full-time job. I've still managed to raise two wonderful if-slightly-deranged kids. I still spend cherished quality time with Jessica, my partner. I still manage to log 250 workouts a year.

It's not a miracle. It's not some secret time-management technique. I do all those things because I have a passion for them all. I love writing, my job, my kids, Jessica, and exercise. Make the things you are passionate for your priority, and the rest will slip away. And there's this added benefit: focusing on things that make you happy will naturally result in spending less time on things that don't. For me, those things include obsessing over the news, wasting hours on social media, and reading books or watching shows with which I'm not fully engaged.

When people say, "I don't have the time," it's usually just an excuse. What they really mean is they don't want to prioritize something into their life because it's less important to them than other things. Sure, sometimes there's literally not enough time to do something even if you love it (like writing a book in a week), but if you really wanted to do something, like master the guitar, you could do it. It could take years, but that doesn't matter. Define your life through passion, not time.

Yes, my days are full. I get up at 5am, work out, write, get the kids to school, go to work, come home, write some more, spend quality time with my family, and then I'm in bed around 10pm. I can't write a novel in three months anymore; it takes a year.

Which leads me to the second part of the equation. Commitment. You can be passionate all you want about something, but if you don't throw yourself fully into something, the happiness you seek around that thing will never be fully realized. Many instances when I sit down to write, there is no muse guiding me. No sense of losing time as my fingers take control of my brain and the story magically unfolds. Lots of times writing sucks, feeling more like a low-level data-entry job than crafting a piece of creative fiction. But I have to sit in that chair every day, seven days a week, because for all the times it's not fun, I know I'm an overall happier person for it.

Next time you actually use the phrase, "I don't have any time," catch yourself and think about what it is you really mean. Do you not have the time, or do you not have the passion? Asking yourself that simple question might reshape how you view what it means to be happy.

Passion plus commitment equals happiness. It can be that easy.

  

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yup, I so agree! But I still wonder about the person sitting next to me on the plane. And all the stories flying with me. Stories I’ll never know.

Did you ever meet someone life-changing on a plane?

And a copy of THE DEAD GIRL IN 2A to one lucky commenter!

THE DEAD GIRL IN 2A

   coming July 2 from Sourcebooks

Jake Buchanan knows the woman sitting next to him on his business flight to Denver—he just can’t figure out how he knows her. Clara Stowe isn’t in Jake’s line of work and didn’t go to college with him. They have nearly nothing in common apart from a deep and shared certainty that they’ve met before. Despite their best efforts over a probing conversation, both struggle to figure out what circumstances could possibly have brought them together. Then, in a revelation that sends Jake reeling, Clara admits she’s traveling to the Colorado mountains to kill herself, and disappears into the crowded airport immediately after landing. 

The Dead Girl in 2A is the story of what happens to Jake and Clara after they get off that plane, and the manipulative figure who has brought them together decades after they first met. Intensely creepy, beautifully written, and full of Carter Wilson’s signature whom-can-you-trust paranoia, this is a psychological thriller unlike any you’ve read before.

ABOUT CARTER WILSON

USA Today and #1 Denver Post bestselling author Carter Wilson explores the depths of psychological tension and paranoia in his dark, domestic thrillers. Carter is a two-time winner of the Colorado Book Award and his novels have received multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. Carter’s bestselling, critically acclaimed standalone thrillers include MISTER TENDER’S GIRL; REVELATION; THE COMFORT OF BLACK; THE BOY IN THE WOODS; and FINAL CROSSING. He has also contributed short fiction to various publications, and most notably was featured in the R.L. Stine young-adult anthology, Scream and Scream Again. Born in New Mexico, Carter now lives outside of Boulder, Colorado in a Victorian house that is spooky but isn’t haunted…yet.

Jet lag... which is worse, going east or west?

HALLIE EPHRON: Lately it seems I've been traveling. My book tour has (happily) grown to include cross-country jaunts and vacationing recently took me to Alaska. Next week I'm off to Northern California for Book Passage's wonderful Mystery Writing Conference where I get to see Rhys!

It seems to me that going from east to west is harder. That three- or four-hour time gain is still there four days after I've arrived when I'm still waking up at four o'clock in the morning ready for breakfast. When at 3 I'm starving for dinner. And at six I'm ready for bed. 

Traveling the other way seems like I just snap back.

So here's my question. Do you find it harder to travel back (west) or ahead (east) in time? Does it seem harder than when you were younger? And what are your tips for rebounding? 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Oh, I love going west, but yes, it is confusing. You have to wake up early, so I have breakfast on the plane, then lunch on the plane, and then I arrive in California. Then it is time for… Lunch! Which, somehow, I feel I have to have again. Then dinner. But then, the cool part.  Go to sleep California time, and when I wake up. it is so nice and early! And I can get so much done. I snagged three whole extra hours.  

The only problem is calling my husband or my editor, since everyone else is on East Coast time. And that somehow becomes absolutely impossible. 

But nothing makes me happier than those extra three hours.  (I never change my watch though, and that is, I know, unnecessarily confusing.  Results in me having to do math all day. Why do I feel compelled to tell myself what time it isn't?)

However. Coming back east? Terrible. Terrible. I always feel like I lose an entire day.  And the red eye solution is no solution at all, then you just come back and you are exhausted, and have to go to sleep, and lose the day again. So coming west to east, you just have to give up a day. I'm resigned to it.

LUCY BURDETTE: Completely agree, east to west is easier than west to east. My only beef (as some of you who know me might predict) is forcing myself to stay up that first day until a reasonable time. It might be 9 pm out there, but I know in my heart that it's really midnight. And I am simply not a person who is up at midnight. But I do love the next morning, waking up early and having that jump on the day!

Please do not get me started on red eye flights, especially from the west coast of the US to the east. That is not long enough to even pretend to get a decent amount sleep, so you feel like warmed up crud once you get home. And so the day is completely shot. 

John would always prefer to take the redeye rather than waste a whole day flying. But I tell him he'll have to do that on his own time! 

PS I can do it on flights to Europe or longer, where are you usually don't have a choice anyway. My well-traveled neighbor's advice is never take a nap once you get there. Force yourself to go out and sight see in the sunlight and go to bed at what would be a normal time in the new TimeZone. Hard to do, but it does work!

RHYS BOWEN: Yes, good advice. This is exactly what I do when I fly to Europe. Cat nap and then stay up until their bedtime. 

I've just finished a book tour with a new time zone each day. I felt like a zombie! I find traveling west to east much harder, but then I live on the West Coast so it may be different for Eastcoasters. When I have to fly to New York for a meeting and the publisher suggests 9 a.m. that is 6 a.m. for me which means I'm up before five! I always beg conventions not to put me on a nine o'clock panel as I'll be incoherent. 

I fly to Europe at least once a year and I find that eight hour difference absolutely impossible. For the first week I want to sleep when I should be awake and the reverse. A nine o'clock meeting with my publisher there would be hopeless.  I remember once flying in from California and being interviewed by a BBC correspondent who had just flown in from Moscow. We sat opposite each other and the conversation was so slow that I'm sure lots of pauses had to be cut before it could be aired!

Since East Coasters find it easier to fly West to East I'm wondering if it is in fact easier to fly home because the body adjusts itself to home time quite quickly.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I think west to east is harder. I hate the Dallas--London flight, nine hours going east and ten coming back. I do take a nap, Lucy, it's a rule I made years ago. I get into London pretty early in the morning, get settled wherever I'm staying, take a nap, then try to stay on pretty much a London schedule from there. Fortunately, I don't usually have early morning commitments the first few days. And I'm with Rhys on the east coast conference--no early morning panels or breakfasts!!!

INGRID THOFT: My husband says I’m neither a night owl nor a lark, I’m a “middle of the day person” so where does that leave me?  This year, I have already traveled between Seattle and Boston seven times, largely because of a family medical situation, but it’s a route I fly often under any circumstances (thank goodness for Alaska Airlines).  

Both directions take a toil because my theory is that six (or more) hours on a plane, in any direction, saps your energy.  And I have a “No Red Eye” rule, except in dire situations.  I can’t sleep on planes, so a red eye just means I’m not productive when I arrive because I’m so tired.  

The way I look at it, I’m going to “lose” a day either way so I’d rather make it as painless as possible and take the day flight.

HALLIE: Well, clearly we have no consensus. Here's my theory: If you're a night owl it's easier to travel east to west; if you're a lark, west to east is easier. But I like the idea that 'going home' is always the easiest. Yes? No? Other theories?? Your experience? And please, any tips re-energizing?

Take the Jungle Red Seatmate Quiz!

Hank over Chicago without Steven Spielberg

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yeah well, traveling.  It can be wonderful, it really can. A fun window seat over a cool recognizable city like Chicago. Sitting by, say, Steven Spielberg. I mean, it could happen. It didn't, though. Yet. 
Oh, now, this isn’t what I was going to write, but hmm. Who would I love to sit by, more than anyone?  Not counting any of you, of course,  because that might really happen. But what if you got on the plane, sat in the widow seat, got organized and say (because this is a fun thing), you looked really great. And as you settle in,  you hear a little rustle. And you look up. And about to take the empty seat beside you is—WHO?

While you contemplate, say hi to our Jungle Red stalwart pal, the fab David Burnsworth! He travels. A lot.  And he can take the seatmate quiz, too. Right after he gets his luggage back.

DAVID BURNWORTH:  I travel for both my day job and my writing. And, as I’m sure with most of you who travel, I have some stories. Some of them good. Some of them not so good. I happen to be on a trip to South America as I write this, so the challenge of travel is fresh on my mind.

My first trip outside of North America, I was to meet a friend in Customs in the Brussels Airport. My departure was from Knoxville and he was flying standby from Atlanta. A problem for him, and soon for me, was this was the same time that the World Cup was being played. In France. And he was flying standby. See the problem here? So, my first time out of the country I had no idea what I was doing. As the first hour and then the second ticked by while sitting in the airport in another country waiting and he didn’t show up, I started to wonder that there might be something wrong. And there was. He was still in Atlanta. I had to figure out the phone system and make a few calls back to the states. Long story short, it was my first trial in travel and I had to figure it out on my own.

David's actual finicky toiletries

Fast forward twenty years to my current travel challenge. I thought I had everything covered: a four-hour layover in ATL before the long flight, a spare set of underwear in my carry on. Only, and this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this, Atlanta shuts down all ground activity because of lighting and heavy rain. Apparently they value the ground crews’ lives. (Kudos to you, ATL!) So, my fifty-minute flight from GSP (Greenville Spartanburg) took four hours thanks to a few loops over Atlanta and a two-hour stopover in Chattanooga for more fuel. Lucky for me, I walked off that flight, stopped for a quick restroom break, and walked right on my flight to Chile.

The challenge this time was while I made it, my bag didn’t. Turns out I can buy most of my finicky toiletry choices (ed. note: see above) in Santiago which is great. But transferring clothing sizes from US English measurements to metric isn’t so easy. My waist didn’t really just add fourteen units of measurement? Was it that extra pastry on the flight?

I love to travel. But I find that it requires patience and a willingness to be flexible.

My best experience? There’s two: Five years ago, my wife and I got a free upgrade to a suite in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The downside? She likes suites now.

The second great experience? Stuttgart to Atlanta, I got a first class upgrade.

The latest book in my Brack Pelton series, Big City Heat, Brack travels from Charleston to Atlanta to help a friend find a missing woman. He also faces some challenges, some of them a little bit more involved than missing luggage.

Do you like to travel? If so, what are some of your stories?

HANK: Or hey, Reds and readers—tell me your answer to the seatmate quiz! Only one choice.  I’d pick—Stephen King!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

David Burnsworth became fascinated with the Deep South at a young age. After a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and fifteen years in the corporate world, he made the decision to write a novel. Big City Heat (April 2017, Henery Press) is the third title in his Brack Pelton series. In It For The Money (September 2017, Henery Press) continues the story of Private Eye Blu Carraway from the cross-over novella, Blu Heat (March 2017, Henery Press). Having lived in Charleston on Sullivan’s Island for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife call South Carolina home.

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