On the road again: Bouchercon, day 6

Much of my time today went to the boring process of moving a body and its traveling possessions from point A to point B in a car, so I’ll skip all that except to say that I am at home once again and will remain here until it’s time to head to the World Fantasy Con in Calgary.

One of the nicest moments of yesterday’s Anthony Awards brunch was when Toastmaster Mark Billingham asked everyone to raise a glass to the memory of James Crumley, the fine mystery writer who died on September 17. While the screen showed a photo of Crumley, the speaker system played George Pelecanos reading the first line of The Last Good Kiss:

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.

Many call this the finest opening line in crime fiction. I've always shied from making such superlative proclamations, but this is definitely one hell of an opener.

I loved Crumley's work. I wouldn't want to have written it, nor to have lived the life of someone who could write it, but it always amazed me. I had the privilege of listening to Crumley on two panels at the Bouchercon in Chicago in 2005, and he was as smart, charming, and annoying as I'd expected. Among my favorite of his lines was this response to someone who asked if he showed his fiction in pre-publication form to other writers for critique: "Nobody sees my work unless they can write me a check."

I was too shy at that con to go up to him and thank him for his body of work and all it had meant to be. I'd probably be too shy today to do it. I regret now, though, that I never did.