Release Day

Today is the day that my new book, "Truth Always Kills," is released. I'm still working on the new website but there are buttons that work there that let you click through and order online. There are always bookstores who can order it for you, too, or if you get to a specialty crime/mystery bookstore they may even have it.

The quote on the cover is from long-time and prolific author Ed Gorman, who says, "This one has the power to hurt you." I hope so, but in that good, keep it between the pages way. I'd plug it more but it would be easier to point you to the website: www.rickollerman.com. On the other hand, there's not a lot of information about it there yet, either. But it's coming.

I'm on an April deadline for the next book and it's a bit behind where I'd like it to be. I took the month of October off to work on an essay for a new edition of Malcolm Braly's autobiography, "False Starts." That came out really well but it was time consuming. First I read all the books by Braly, then read similar prison books and autobiographies by people coming up in similar circumstances, though in slightly different but overlapping time periods. At the end of it all you hope you'll find a theme that can run through the piece and make sense, make it look like you planned it that way all along.

This is the trick for any story, really: to start with nothing and make it come out like you knew where it was going the whole time. Obsessive outliners may be able to do this, but I couldn't imagine it. If I knew the story that well before I started writing it, there wouldn't be any point in writing it. In my head, it would already have been done. Juggling without a net, or something.

Anyway, go now, buy "Truth Always Kills." Review it somewhere, let me know what you think, and recommend it to your friends. You'll enjoy the book. I promise. It's my best one so far.