Another reason Slanted Jack should be bigger than One Jump Ahead

Sure, we have all the conventional reasons, the ones Toni, my publisher, cited in contracting for each of the next three Jon & Lobo books to be at least 110,000 words (vs. One Jump Ahead's 101,000): readers appear to like thicker books, thicker books appear to sell better (related to the first), sales teams seem to like thicker books (to me, yet another aspect of the first), and so on.

Last night, though, I discovered another reason: Slanted Jack will be better for killing roaches. A huge roach, one of those Florida-style giants, was sitting in the middle of my writing office floor, taunting me. I used my plastic-bookcover-wrapped copy of One Jump Ahead, the one I take to readings, to hit it. The roach lived--though it was clearly hurt. I had to hit it a second time.

I'm betting that with Slanted Jack, that sucker will die in one hit.

Oh, yeah, for those who might come to future readings: I cleaned the active surface of the book very well before I put it back in its spot.