My fellow American readers, I know you have a choice. All of the candidates in this election are stellar. But how many can bring you sex… murder…politics… and teen hookers… all in the midst of affluence? This is your chance to see how the other half lives. And dies.

It’s also your chance to root for one of the most intriguing new PIs on the streets of Chicago. I ask you – can crime fiction deliver anything better?

I would be honored to receive your vote. Oh…and remember… in Chicago we vote early and often. I encourage you to do the same.

Vote for my book, Empty Ever After–a book so dark it drove Barak Obama to tears and to give up hope. If you vote for EEA, I won’t make you go to my website, www.reedcoleman.com and look at my shamelessly sycophantic photos of me with famous authors.

Aside from gleefully bad cops, foreign muscle, and the snow & slush of rural Minnesota in YELLOW MEDICINE, here’s why you vote for it: Psychobilly. Yes, that ridiculous musical genre in which rockabilly slammed head-on into a horror flick and fell in love despite the obvious physical damage. Psychobilly’s got cooler Goth chicks than the kids have ever seen. Plus, they sing about zombies a lot. So, in conclusion, we all want change, so here’s some: I’ll make you squirm in a bad way, but you’ll *like* it.

Misfits, perverts, criminals, dope fiends, violent, unstable militants (and these are just the heroes), I believe my work, past and present, has displayed time and again my abiding interest in forming a broad coalition, and showing the true face of America. And nowhere is that more evident than within IN THE LIGHT OF YOU, a paean to all that is right and good in the American psyche. Vote now, vote often.

Vote for Obsessions and Monona Quinn and build a bridge to the 19th Century. No spurting blood. No body parts in sex scenes. (You know what they are.) No foul-mouthin’. (Mama taught me not to be vulgar in “mixed company,” meaning me and anybody else.)

The Lone Cozy rides again!

Gracie Liu has been having nightmares, friends. Like when she’s awake. The same one. Over and over. She pictures sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, an Indian Princess, a cute Portuguese lawyer, a tub of blood. Cape Cod. And a Puerto Rican bomshell who vanishes on a flight to San Juan.

Stolen children. Tapped phone lines. A crumbling nuclear silo in the blighted jungles of Africa. THE CHILDREN OF BLACK VALLEY may give you an anxiety attack – but if you don’t vote for it, you’ll never know the whole truth. Make it a part of the Future is Bleak Book Club, and we can also talk about: my alleged mountain-lion-wrestling in the Hollywood Hills, Who Shayla Hacker really Is, and other wild stories culled from the dregs of showbiz out here in the sunny old City of Angels.

What can I promise you besides murder, mayhem and fishing in the Northwoods?

How about a glimpse into the lives of a few bad actors (some quite attractive) and strange units (reputed to human) – with a sprinkling of fishing lures, trout flies, diamond-strewn lakes and an awful joke or two. Jeez Louise, what else do you need to escape from this crazed life?