Preparing To Launch

ON THE ROAD WITH THE GREAT MYSTERY BUS TOUR

I arrived in New York City yesterday afternoon, and hit the ground running.  I  NY.  It’s a great city to visit.  Every time I come here, I do the same thing first: stand in line at TKTS to get a cheap seat for a great Broadway production.  This time it was Chicago. I know it’s an oldie, but I’d never seen it live.  It was wonderful, full of the glory that only Broadway seems to bring to a musical production.  Christie Brinkley, who stars in it, was awfully weak, but gave it her best shot.  Everyone else was boffo.

Atria is putting me up in the Flatotel, a nifty boutique-ish hotel just a couple of blocks off Times Square and an easy walk from Atria’s offices in Rockefeller Center.  All the authors on the tour—Liza Marklund, M.J. Rose, and John Connolly—have rooms here.  I haven’t run into them yet, but I’ve spent almost no time in my room, except to sleep.  I keep hearing the siren call of the Big Apple.

If I sound like a hayseed, that’s because I am, and very comfortable with it.  I love Minnesota.  I love Saint Paul, and love how it’s so different from New York or San Francisco or Seattle or any of the other great cities I visit when I’m on a book tour.  Saint Paul is home, and is there any place anywhere for anyone that feels better than home?

Today, I’m having lunch with Sarah Branham, my editor.  She’s fantastic, and I look forward to our time together, which is always too brief and the intervals between too long.  Then we gather back at the publisher’s offices for an interview—all the Mystery Bus Tour authors—with Sirius radio.

Tonight, I think I’ll have dinner somewhere near Central Park, and go for a walk.  I’ll let you know tomorrow how that turns out.