A bevy of RVP authors are getting a chance to escape the snows of winter. Lou Allin, Vicki Delany, R.J. Harlick and Mary Jane Maffini will be heading to Hawaii to attend the 2009 Left Coast Crime Conference on the Big Island, where they will be strutting their stuff under the palm trees of the Marriott Waikoloa Beach Resort. They might even attempt a hula dance or two. The conference runs from Mar. 7-12 and is packed with a dynamite program of author panels, Talk Story sessions, plays, movie screenings and of course book signings. And when they aren't talking up their books, they might even get a chance to sneak off to the beach or go on one of the many exciting sightseeing excursions.

On Saturday, March 7 at 11:00 am, VIcki Delany, R.J. Harlick and Mary Jane Maffini have been invited to talk about their latest books at the Thelma Parker Memorial Public and School Library at the 'Meet Some Cool Canadian Crime Writers' event.

They promise to take lots or pictures, which will be posted when they get back to where winter still reigns.

Last June I had the immense thrill of winning the Best Novel award at the Arthur Ellis yearly banquet for my Victorian historical called TRUMPETS SOUND NO MORE. It had received good reviews--particularly one from Joan Barfoot on the webpage for The London Free Press. What a sensation it is to know your efforts have been recognized and that the research you did has impressed a critical reader like Barfoot, a prize-winning novelist in her own right. My research for TRUMPETS led me to England in the fall of 08 where I walked the streets in London, the same ones charted in my book as the locale for my detective's home, on Cursitor Street, and views of the street where the murder took place. An eery feeling grabbed hold of me as I walked with my camera, shooting doors and entrance ways that had figured so strongly in my plot. There is no doubt one can find remnants of the past so readily in London. So please, if you have read or are planning to read TRUMPETS as your next prize- winning detective novel, take a look at the pictures I have posted. One shows me on Cursitor Street standing in front of Detective Owen Endersby's London address. The other are shots taken on Doughty Street where the fictional murder took place and where, as well, there is one of the houses Charles Dickens lived in during the 1840s. The black bust is of the famous writer himself. I am working on a sequel to TRUMPETS and will soon discuss its publication but be alerted, it will be a dark story of workhouses and London's criminal world during the early years of Queen Victoria's reign.....JON REDFERN