I love going to Mexico--not just the resort cities, but the border towns that are a short drive from Austin. I've been to Nuevo Laredo maybe a dozen times, as well as Cuidad Acuna, Juarez, Piedras Negras, Matamoros, and a few others.

I'm working on a possible plot right now that might involve an opening scene in the mercado in Matamoros (which, for reasons I don't understand, is called Mercado Juarez).

I was surfing the Net and found this photo. Check out the clocks. Just one of the reasons Mexico is so much fun. Time just isn't that important down there.

I met Sandra Brown at a convention in Abilene a few years ago, and at that time, I wasn’t very aware of her or her work. (What rock had I been living under?) I knew she wrote romantic mysteries, or mysterious romances, but I hadn’t read her work.

I ended up buying one of her books, and she bought mine, and I committed a faux pas along the way. Days earlier, I had just finished reading Carl Hiaasen’s latest novel, and I made some joke about how he had a character named Red in there, so, obviously, he was copying me. Ha-ha. The next day, I was early for my next signing, so I cracked open Sandra’s book. Yep, she had a character named Red in it. Boy, did I feel silly.

In any case, Texas Monthly has a profile of Sandra Brown this month, and her numbers make me gasp. More than 70 million books in print. Fifty-five of her books have reached the New York Times bestseller list. An advance of about $5 million for each book. A first printing of 650,000 for her latest. Truly amazing, and most authors would sell their souls for that type of success, including, sadly, me.

At the same time, Texas Monthly mentions that critics have never been kind to Sandra Brown, saying, “They find her books to be chock-full of literary no-no’s: over-the-top characters, implausible (if not impossible) plot twists, lurid set pieces, redundant descriptions, mixed metaphors, and clichéd happy endings.”

It’s a phenomenon that I always find puzzling—the public can love something that the critics hate. Take the new movie “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.” The Austin critic (along with many others) absolutely annihilated it, and my wife and I predicted it would be the #1 movie that weekend. It was. Which causes more movies like that to be produced. What the public wants, the public gets, for better or worse.

When my first novel, Buck Fever, was released, and I began to do signings, I was a little nervous—especially when I went to New York. I had no doubt that booksellers wouldn’t want to waste their time with some goober from Texas. What’s he writing about, anyway? A game warden? Get serious.

I realized I’d be visiting stores where massively popular bestselling authors had recently signed, and I wasn’t expecting much of a reception. Fortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong, and one of the places that greeted me with genuine warmth and overwhelming hospitality was the legendary Black Orchid, owned by two wonderful people named Bonnie and Joe.

They told me how much they’d enjoyed my book, and had a big stack of copies for me to sign. Made me feel like I was on the bestseller list myself. Becky and I hung around for a good hour, I guess, making small talk, getting to know them and soaking up the atmosphere of their great store. I’ve always looked forward to visiting them, or seeing them on the road at various conventions.

That’s why this bit of news really sucks: The Black Orchid is closing its doors in September. It’s a big loss for the mystery community, and the world of independent bookstores in general. Stores like the Black Orchid—and people like Bonnie and Joe—can’t be replaced.

...then check this out....

SHELBY FARMS, EAST MEMPHIS -- Investigators say they can't decide which is more outrageous...

Two sheriff's deputies killing deer out of season while on duty in a public park... or the fact they took pictures of themselves doing it.

Former Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy Thomas Braswell and suspended Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy Aaron Pretti have been charged in connection with an incident that happened at Shelby Farms last July.

According to records from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, one of its officers received a tip from the Shelby County Sheriff's Office's Internal Affairs division. The tip said someone was circulating photos of the deputies posing with dead deer inside a squad car.

The officer determined that while on patrol in Shelby Farms July 30, 2006, the deputies began to "headlight" deer on the public grounds. The officer's citations indicate Braswell shot three male white-tailed deer with a high-powered rifle, loaded the carcasses in his patrol car and transported them to his Arlington home at 9323 Old Brownsville Rd. The citations say that is where he and Pretti took pictures of themselves posing with the dead animals.

Braswell has been charged with shooting from across a highway, hunting without landowner's consent, killing big game in closed season, illegal possession of big game and hunting from a motor vehicle/headlighting deer. Pretti is charged with two counts of illegal possession of big game.

Shelby County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Steve Shular says Pretti is suspended with pay pending the decision of a disciplinary hearing. The department fired Braswell after he was indicted by a federal grand jury in March on charges he accepted cash payments from undercover informants posing as drug dealers.

Well, maybe not the dumbest—but definitely in the top three.

Here’s what happened:

When I graduated from high school, my mother got remarried and moved to San Antonio. I continued to live in the small house she’d built a few years earlier, about thirty minutes (nowadays, nearly an hour) from the UT campus. I had various roommates over the years, including, at one point, my brother, Karl.

Karl and I were sitting around on a Saturday afternoon and—even though we hadn’t been drinking—we decided it would be a really good idea to torch red wasps with a can of hairspray and a lighter. (You know that most hairspray is flammable, right? And that it makes a really good makeshift flamethrower?)

So we went outside and began to toast a bunch of wasps, which, for some reason, isn’t an Olympic event, even though it should be. Things were going along fine until a wasp landed on a spigot sticking out of one of the exterior walls. I blasted him, and that was the last wasp we saw, so we went back inside.

Fast-forward about twenty minutes. I’m sitting on the couch, watching TV, which also gives me a view out the living-room window. Suddenly I see smoke drifting past. What the hell? Is someone barbecuing? Burning brush?

I go outside and realize with horror that the smoke is coming from a seam between two sheets of the plywood on the outside of the house. See, there was a hole cut in the plywood to allow the spigot to exit the wall, and when I’d blasted the wasp, flames had ignited the insulation inside the wall.

I yelled for my brother, then began to dig at the plywood. Adrenaline, I can vouch, does marvelous things. Before Karl showed, I already had one sheet of plywood coming loose from the house—literally ripping it in half, across the grain, while flames licked at my hand. Never felt it.

While I continued tearing at the plywood, Karl grabbed a hose and shoved it behind the plywood and soaked the area as well as he could. Amazingly, the smoke stopped. Now there was only question: Was the fire out? Or had it reached the attic, which would’ve been the natural progression, what with there being attic space right above the place where the fire had started. We figured we were either home free, or the entire house was about to turn into a bonfire.

Right then, the volunteer fire department showed up (Karl’s girlfriend had called them) and we told them what had happened. I actually told the truth. “I was blasting wasps with a can of hairspray and a lighter. Yes, I realize how dumb that is. No, I’m not on any medication.”

The firefighters rushed inside, then came out with good news: No more fire. Just a house full of smoke. The damage was limited to that one piece of plywood and a few dollars worth of insulation.

So then I had to place THE call. To my mother. I started by saying, “Mom, I just did the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life—but everything is fine now.”

Then I told her. I can’t remember if she laughed, but she took it pretty well.

Believe it or not, that’s just one of maybe a dozen fires I could tell you about that have plagued the Rehder clan over the years. Some were of our own making, and some were just bad luck.

Damn wasps.