Craig McDonald has created one of the most interesting series characters in recent years with macho crime fiction writer Hector Lassiter, “the man who lives what he writes and writes what he lives”. On Wednesday, January 26th, at 7PM we’ll be discussing one of the best in the series, Toros and Torsos, that finds Hector swept up in several killings inspired by surrealist art. The book covers four periods of Hector’s life that tie into history: the 1935 Key West hurricane, the Spanish Civil War (where the fascists used surrealists to design torture chambers), his stint as a rewrite man for Orson Wells’ Lady Of Shanghai ( occurring at the same time as the “Black Dahlia” murder), and post-revolution Cuba.
The story follows Hector’s turbulent friendship with Ernest Hemingway as much as the murders, using both to look at masculinity, misogyny in art, and the “writing life” for topics of great discussion. Craig will even be joining our conversation, via conference call. It’s a great warm up for his in-store appearance on February 20th at 3PM, where he’ll sign the latest Lassiter book, One True Sentence.
–Scott Montgomery
BookPeople 
A contented mind is a continual / perpetual feast.