This week is Bouchercon, the yearly nomadic gathering of mystery fans and writers—think Comic Con with fedoras instead of Klingons. Every year the convention changes location, this year’s setting being San Francisco, the city of Spade & Archer, Zodiac and Dirty Harry. It’s hard to argue with the city’s importance in crime fiction, (the setting for Nash Bridges—c’mon), but it’s also just a weeee bit out of my price range, so I won’t be attending.
And here’s what I’m missing out on: opening night there will be a screening of SF crime classics like Bullitt, Maltese Falcon and Murder by Death, (while I’ll be home watching What's Up, Doc? —“Those are Howard Banister’s rocks.”); Toastmaster and SF native Eddie Muller on his home turf; guests of honor, Laurie R. King and Denise Mina as well as a conversation between Robert Crais and Lee Child. There’ll be countless panels, parties and plain old hanging around the bar where you can rub elbows with the people who write your favorite books. Also, the Bay Area would mean proximity to one of my favorite out of his mind crime writers, Greg Bardsley, (Check out his gonzo, creepy, slapstickish Crazy Larry Smells Bacon in the upcoming By Hook or By Crook anthology edited by Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg), so if you see him somewhere, duck.
I stuck my head in for a single night at last year’s convention in Indianapolis and met some of my heroes like Duane Swierczynski, Sean Chercover, Craig McDonald and Martyn Waites. So, this is me putting in my formal request for these sorts of events to be held in fly-over country more often because then I would attend them with greater frequency. Next year’s Bouchercon is in my own backyard, so don’t feel too bad for me. I’ll get mine.
What I want to know is, are you going? Have you ever been? Have you got any good stories?
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
