A Message From the Island of the Mykonos Billionaire

 

Jeff–Saturday

 

There’s a new club on Mykonos called the Billionaire. For those of you who can’t begin to imagine what a place with such a name could possibly be offering its clientele, perhaps the above photo will kickstart your imagination. 

 

And for those of you interested in the bigger picture, one that shows the common road traveled by Billionaire and Backpacker alike, the below photo might just give you the perspective you’re looking for.

 

Frankly, I’m tired of all this high season madness, so much so that Barbara and I are taking off for a four-week jaunt around the Cyclades, expecting that by when we return home, normalcy will have returned. That’s normal by Mykonos standards.

 

But enough about glitz and gory.  This about a more upbeat topic.  Me.

 

Six months ago, I wrote of how thrilled I was to have achieved a childhood dream by seeing my eleventh Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis novel, A Deadly Twist, included as one of four abridged novels appearing in a bi-monthly volume of Reader’s Digest Select Editions.

 

As I noted in January, I grew up in working class Pittsburgh, where a Reader’s Digest magazine could always be found lying somewhere around the house, and most assuredly in every doctor’s and dentist’s office.  To me, authors whose names appeared on the bindings of its Condensed Books (as they were called between 1950 and 1997) were like gods to me. Seeing my name on the binding of volume #383 had me feeling as if my game jersey now hung in the rafters alongside some of my writing idols.

 

New developments now have me flying up among those rafters unassisted by old jersey #44, in a moment of childhood-dream-come-true déjà vu that has me pinching myself.

 

The news is simply this.  My 2022 entry in the series, One Last Chance (#12)–set on the Greek island of Ikaria–also has been chosen to appear in an upcoming volume of Reader’s Digest Select Editions! And on top of that, A Deadly Twist will be appearing in a Reader’s Digest volume for Australia and New Zealand.

 

I’m beyond words at these incredible honors. It makes this guy who maneuvers a 15-year-old Suzuki Jimny in the land of the Billionaire happy and deeply grateful to all who made it happen for me.

 

Thank you.

 

–Jeff

Jeff’s Upcoming Events

Bouchercon 2022   Minneapolis, MN

Thursday, September 8th  11:30-12:15 

"Odd Jobs: Writers Write What They Know."

Alan Gordon AKA Allison Montclair (Moderator), Julie Holmes, Donna Andrews, Linda O. Johnston/Lark O. Jensen, Annelise Ryan, Jeffrey M. Siger