And you would have been right, since your driver was then in the process of launching his new career as a murder novelist whose debut book, A Twist of the Knife, was "like riding an avalanche all the way to a satisfactorily explosive finale," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
You may not be all that aware of Steve the Author since he suffers from a stubborn disinclination to promote himself on TV—a trait that’s inexplicable to a media whore like me. (Are you listening, Today Show? I’m right here near the phone when you’re ready.) But I’ve been happy to see a fresh flow of new novels from him being ushered into print lately by Severn House, a publisher in the UK. For my money, the only crime novelist I know who can match my pal Steve’s mix of grit, perversity, and class is the masterful David Cray—and that’s because Cray is Steve writing under a different name.
And as an added bonus, Steve has a gift for vividly observed detail that makes his descriptive prose the kind of delicious reading pleasure commonly associated with so-called "literary" novels.
I will have to take your word for it that Solomita is a nice guy, because those eyes are not reassuring me. Thanks for the reader’s advisory. Crime is a deficit in my reading habits I want to make up.