Sleuthfest 2010 - Day 4

Picture of the Day for 2/28/2010. The last day of Sleuthfest ended with a panel discussion. The participants were Barry Eisler, David Morrell, Oline Cogdill, and Neil Nyren. Barry and David are novelists, Oline is a journalist, and Neil is a BIG DEAL VP at Putnam's (see his bio below).

"Neil Nyren is senior vice president, publisher and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Among his authors of crime and suspense are Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Patricia Cornwell, Robert Crais, Jack Higgins, W.E.B. Griffin, John Sandford, Daniel Silva, Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth, Randy Wayne White, Alex Berenson, C.J. Box, Ace Atkins, James O. Born and Carol O’Connell."

Stephen Cannell was supposed to be on the panel, but his wife had a medical emergency which forced them to leave the conference early.

Barry caused hearts to swoon since he is quite pretty (see picture below). Even more important (in my opinion) is he is really nice. He wrote a lovely inscription in the book I asked him to sign.


I ended up becoming friends with a couple of the authors- Diane Stuckart and Deborah Sharp. Diane and I bonded over Tarot cards. She's done a bit of research into the topic for one of her novels. Below is a picture of Diane with Al Abramson who is not a novelist, but a world-class smart-aleck. I got a kick out of him. Diane is making the "loser" sign (it became a running joke that we were sitting at the loser's table) and Al is making a "read between the lines" gesture with his fingers.


Sleuthfest ended at noon so I had the whole day ahead of me to explore the area. Deborah Sharp gave me the suggestion to go shopping on Las Olas Blvd in Fort Lauderdale (see picture below). I was geeking out the whole time since Elaine Viets' novels are set on this street.


I ate lunch at The Floridian on Las Olas. I loved the sentiment printed on the front cover of the menu.


After exploring Fort Lauderdale, I drove up north. Below is a snooty picture of a snooty beach in snooty Palm Beach.