Mysterious woman at the door

“Can I help ya, doll?” I asked, lighting my own cigarette and pulling  a fifth of Johnnie Walker and two glasses from the bottom drawer of a desk that had seen better days.

“It’s the other way around,” she purred.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re looking for someone. And I know just where to find her.”

“Oh yeah?” I threw it out like I didn’t care. I poured two glasses of liquid fire. Downed the first. Let the second sit.

She smiled. Moving like a black cat at midnight, she approached my desk. And my booze.

“That for me, sailor?”

I frowned. What the hell did she mean by that? I knew I shouldn’t have worn my blue dickie. I shrugged.

She drank it anyway.

“P.A. Brown,” she whispered.

P. A. Brown

“What about her?” I was playing it cool.

“The author of L.A. Heat…

L.A. Heat

…L.A. Mischief…

L. A. Mischief

… L.A. Boneyard…

L.A. Boneyard

…and the brand new L.A. Bytes.”

L.A. Bytes

“Yeah?”

“I know where she is. You don’t.”

She was right. I had no idea where P.A. might be. Nothing about her or her books or book titles had given me a clue. I was baffled. Was this femme fatale my ticket to my next Canadian Crime Writer?

“What’s the rub?”

“You’re gonna have to take me with you.”

And that’s how I ended up in L.A. looking for P.A. Apparently, between writing gigs, she taken to philanthropy. Mystery lady got us both an invite to a sparkly shindig hosted by Brown, benefiting her pet cause: Home for the Down on their Luck Detective.

We decked ourselves out L.A. style!

The lunges I had to do to pull this off! Oi!

Mystery lady looked pretty good too

Kojak: Premature Baldness and Adult Onset Addiction to Lollipops

Columbo: Wrinkled Raincoat Fetish

Jessica Fletcher: Homelessness. (Everywhere she goes people die. No longer welcome in Cabot Cove.)

Frank Cannon: Gluttony. (Ate Starsky & Hutch. The Dukes of Hazard missing and feared digested.)

Police Woman: Just trying to live down the character name of Pepper. (Isn't that enough to tug at your heartstrings?)

Jim Rockford: Anger management issues

At the end of the evening, Pat Brown was rightfully feted for her kindness to those on whose backs all we Crime Writers stand on.

The crowd goes wild for an emotional P.A. Brown.

As for my mystery lady? The last I saw of her, she was…working the room.

Chit chatting

But I didn’t care, because I got my…

10 Silly Things You Didn’t Know About Canadian Crime Writer P.A. Brown

1.      If you could invite any famous person, dead or alive, for dinner, what
would you serve?

The dead one. Living people are so hard to chew on. Besides, dead
people at the dinner table tend to spoil one’s appetite.

2.    Who do you think you are?

An 18 year old trapped in a middle-aged woman’s body

3.    What’s your problem?

See above.

4.    The Canadian crime writer. Myth or mystery?

Mystery. So many people can’t find us on a world map.

5.    If you could change one thing about any of your books, what would it be?
That they sit on the NY Times Best Sellers list for six weeks, instead of never.

6.    When no one is looking, what is your guilty pleasure?

Buying a big slab of vanilla fudge and eating it in one sitting.

7.    If you could have one wish, who would you give it up to?

Nobody. I’d keep it and use it for my own good. See above, #2

8.    When you wake up in the morning, what celebrity do you most resemble?

Emo Phillips

9.    What?s the most Canadian thing about you?

I sleep with the windows open in the middle of winter.

10.  Do you have anything you’d like to plug?

My L.A. series, featuring David Eric Laine is now up to 4 books, L.A.
Heat, Best Mystery/Thriller Rainbow Award 2009. L.A. Mischief, L.A.
Boneyard, and L.A. Bytes which is out and recieving rave reviews. I’m also the author of Amber Allure’s best selling erotic romance Lynx Woods. You can find all my books, including buy links and excerpts at
http://www.pabrown.ca

Next up: Join me aboard a dark, mysterious train into unrelenting darkness, a journey so perilous, I would only undertake it for the reward of discovering the 10 Silly Things You Didn’t Know About Canadian (and fellow Saskatchewan) Crime Writer Gail Bowen.