Periscope Depth

you sharp as a tack, you some type of lawyer or something

I thought I had another post lined up for Friday, but I guess I’m talking about President Obama’s birth certificate. In its racial aspects, this is an ugly moment. As Baratunde Thurston put it, it’s not shocking to hear a rich white man asking a black man for his papers in America, except that this [...]

the economics of the death star

If you’re wondering why content has seemed so light this week, it’s because this is the only place you’ve been looking (like a sucker). Check this out: * I tag teamed on a Think Tank with the rest of the Overthinking It crew on the economics of the Death Star blowing up a planet. This [...]

it’s a dirty story of a dirty man and his clinging wife who doesn’t understand

The Kill Zone is one of my favorite writing blogs. It’s a group blog, with each day of the week covered by an author in the thriller/mystery/horror genre. The authors are all big enough to have years of publishing experience, but not so big that they don’t have time to field questions in the comment [...]

death as surprise, death as interruption

New post up on OTI, in which I rave aboutAMC’s The Killing: The Killing is a police procedural for people who know police procedurals backward and forward. In the pilot, it plays to all the tropes we expect. Nubile victims being chased through the woods by flashlight-wielding killers. Tired cops who’ve seen it all before. [...]

winter is coming

Game of Thrones: As good as anyone could have expected. It betrays its TV roots by having most of the important plot developments narrated, rather than shown. We learn through exposition about Jon Arryn’s murder, about the bond between Ned Stark’s dead sister and King Robert, about the Targaryens’ need to raise an army to [...]

this is your mission; pretend it’s television

NATO bombs Tripoli NATO warplanes launched air strikes on the Libyan capital Tripoli on Thursday and state-run Al-Libiya TV channel [Yes, I know, not the most pristine source - Ed.] reported that there were casualties. “Tripoli is now subjected to air strikes. There are civilian casualties,” a presenter said. Reuters correspondents [is this better? - [...]

so we’ll go no more a-roving

There’s an indifferent bar on Mass Ave in Cambridge called the Asgard. It’s an Irish pub. Don’t ask me what Asgard has to do with the Irish, although the Norse certainly had their way with Ireland a dozen centuries ago. Asgard differs from other Irish pubs in Boston in degree but not distinction. The dark, [...]

wonder why the right words never come

Could someone spoil the ending of these two movies for me? Appaloosa: I have no idea why this movie was made. I got maybe half an hour into it before ejecting the DVD and resealing the Netflix envelope. The movie makes no effort to invest the audience in its characters. There’s an evil land rancher [...]

book of days

I’d tell you to see Bad Habit Productions’ staging of Book of Days, but I saw it on its last weekend. Like an idiot. Because I could have seen it when it opened and then told all of you to see it. The tricky part about being a critic is having to remind people that [...]

written by an Italian poet in the thirteenth century

Caught the two-hour premiere of The Borgias, Showtime’s entry into the “Blood, Tits and Scowling” genre that’s all the rage on premium cable. Considering the hard sell that HBO’s putting on Game of Thrones, The Borgias caught me almost completely off guard. Where’s the NYC food truck painted like a sacristy? Whither the “Indulgence” gifts [...]

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  • Periscope Depth

    The website of John Perich, author of TOO CLOSE TO MISS and editor for Overthinking It. He's learning about writing, marketing, publishing and promotion, and he encourages you to learn along with him.

    perich@periscopedepth.com

  • TOO CLOSE TO MISS




    "... opens with a bang and never relents ..."
    "... from chapter one, I couldn't put the damn thing down ..."
    "... already looking forward to Perich's next book ..."

    Mara Cunningham knew that sleeping with a married man was a bad idea. But when her lover shows up in the hospital after his wife and son are murdered, the rumors about her turn dangerous. Now she's the prime suspect in a double homicide, and the real killers will stop at nothing to silence her ...

    Buy the book that readers are calling "a great, suspenseful thriller" at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.



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