Tag Archives: James L’Etoile
I’m Watching You
They are everywhere Watching, waiting, anticipating. Spending most of my adult life dealing with the darker edges of society–prison, probation and jails–I’ve seen how low humanity can sink. If there is a weakness, or vulnerability present, I can count on a predator to hide in the shadows, ready to pounce. These soulless opportunists strike when […]
F Street Boarding House Murders
In the late 1980’s, the discovery of a bizarre serial murder caught the Sacramento area by storm. Nine deaths were attributed to the killer. It wasn’t the kind of murder that made people lock their doors at night fearing the return of the Night Stalker, or the East Area Rapist. This one was different and […]
Is Sacramento A Serial Killer Friendly Place?
Location, location, location… I’m often asked why I chose to set my crime fiction in Sacramento, California, instead of one of the more well known west coast crime magnets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Fresno. Michael Connelly and Robert Crais have L.A. locked down with their Harry Bosch and Joe Pike series. But, Sacramento is an […]
Social Media For Old Guys – #3
The universe of social media is a vast, strange veneer of tweets, likes, pins and hearts over a current of swift weirdness. Likes I like you and you may or may not like me. Simple as that. It doesn’t have to get strange. If you’ve spent more than five minutes scrolling through your feed, you’ve probably […]
Prison and Literature
Lord of the Flies The social aspects of what goes on behind prison walls are really kind of fascinating. For those who worked there, we recognize the yard dynamics are something out of William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies. In the 1954 novel, a group of boys are stranded on an island and quickly devolve into savage […]
Rise of the Machines – The Call Center
Our world revolves around the customer. The customer is our greatest asset. The customer is always right. We go the extra mile for our customer. We provide legendary customer service. Seeing a theme here yet? Based on this week’s experience, these customer service promises were nothing but cave paintings scribbled on a rock wall by a […]
Can You Read The Signs?
Where would we be without someone telling us where to go, what to do and how to get there? Thankfully, there are an abundance of signs out there to guide us poor, aimless creatures through life. Without a nudge in the right direction, it seems, we would follow the way of the lemming and fall […]
Is Life Really Life?
Life in prison. The judge hands down the sentence and most people think that’s the end of it. The convicted man (or woman) will spend the balance of their natural life behind bars. Life sentences are reserved for the worst crimes–kidnapping, murder and habitual criminals. well…maybe. I recall, early in my career, going into a […]
The Social Media Sweet Spot
How I long for the days when the National Enquirer was the only questionable media out there. Current events and how they turn up on my social media timeline is an interesting lesson in human behavior. We–as a species–are so gullible that we willingly grab onto the first snippet of information that matches our narrative, […]
Speaking of Mysteries Podcast
I recently had the opportunity to do an interview podcast with Nancie Clare, the host of Speaking of Mysteries. If you haven’t gotten around to her site yet, you really should. She and podcast interview partner, Leslie Klinger have put put together over one hundred author podcasts, including some of my favorite mystery writers; Michael Connelly, […]
James L'Etoile 