When You're a Spy, You're a Spy All the Way

This past Saturday was Amy's and my 11th wedding anniversary, and what better way to spend a chunk of it than to drive over to the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood (a whole, oh, three or four miles from our house) and watch cousins Lee and Tod Goldberg do a joint signing. The occasion for the signing was that each brother has a media tie-in novel for a USA Network series: Lee has his umpteenth Monk novel, MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY; and Tod has his first BURN NOTICE book.

The latter is a true departure for Tod. His metier hitherto has been literary, non-linear stories of messed-up young men in which the moral compass often spins like a windmill. With BURN NOTICE: THE FIX, Tod dives into the world of heroic fiction -- specifically, the sub-continent of the former spy turned hardboiled private eye -- and tells the linear story of a character who ostensibly operates out of his own elightened self-interest, but actually uses his superior skills to protect the vulnerable and make the world a marginally better place.

Plus, Tod says that he's made me a character in the book; and that my literary doppleganger meets with violence. Just the thing to keep me reading: appealing to both my narcissim and my sense of dread.

****Update (and spoiler warning)**************************************************

Finished the book. Yes, my prose counterpart makes the mistake of pulling a piece on the book's hero (who is not only an ex-spy, but, as the series depicts him, essentially the most badass ex-spy out there), and receives for his temerity a well-placed pistol whip in the schnozz and choppers. One sign that a literary novelist is writing this story: The violence is realllly ugly.