Tricky Dick

I'm a big fan of "library browsing." I always have a plan of attack when I go into a bookstore, but with libraries I prefer to wander aimlessly around the stacks. So the names "Howard Hunt" and "E. Howard Hunt" did ring a faint bell in the back of my librarian brain. However, silly goose that I am - I had no idea the writer was also that E. Howard Hunt.

You know, the E. Howard Hunt who orchestrated the Watergate burglary that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Yeah, that guy.

The interesting things you learn by reading press releases, that's all I got to say. Not only was Hunt a CIA agent and Nixon's muscle - he was apparently one hell of a writer.

He was a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. Doubly impressive when you learn that he beat out two other writers for the honor. Oh, just Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Maybe you've heard of them?

House Dick was originally published in 1961 under a pseudonym and in a grand twist of irony, tells the story of a lowly detective investigating a burglary and murder at a Washington D.C. hotel (ahem, no not that hotel). An inspired reprint from the gang over at Hard Case Crime.

And neither here nor there - I want to have babies with that cover.