JB Dickey of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop came out on the walk for Sunday August 11th — he got to the rendezvous point first, so we had time to chat about various things. Such as Michael Connelly’s squiggly “MC” initial — JB noted that as a lefty Connelly bends his arm around the book, explaining why the MCs so often go down the page at an angle.
JB sponsored quite a few signings over the years.
We also tried to dope out people we knew in common, and I remembered a “Brian” — helped out with a mystery convention for the very first time with the Bouchercon I chaired in San Francisco in 1982, later chaired several himself. Brian is the one responsible for Left Coast Crime bringing me in as Fan Guest of Honor for the Slugs and Roses con in Portland.
But I just couldn’t pull Brian’s last name from the well of memory. Racked the brain for a couple of days, finally went to the Internet and plugged in Left Coast Crime conventions and got it:
Bryan Barrett
Of course. Great guy. Now that I’m reminded, I’ll try to keep his name in the active file, for awhile.
And now JB has put up a gallery of nice sharp pics from the tour that day, if you care to surf over and check them out.
Other people who took the walk that day included a couple from Philly who informed me that they took the tour twenty years ago (and would plan on taking it again in another twenty years), and a woman who also had taken it many years back. JB had been wanting to take it for a long time, but this one was the first time.
