Thursday, January 17, 2008

A Good Conspiracy?

Marco Conelli is a veteran NYPD detective whose love of fictional detectives led him to the creation of Matthew Livingston, a teen sleuth with real friends--Dennis Sommers, and Sandra Small--and real-life issues faced by teens.

We met author Marco and his character Matthew a few months ago in Buffalo, and were happy to renew our acquaintence at last week's librarian hunt in Philadelphia (the American Library Assn. Midwinter confab). Marco was a big hit with the library ladies, at least while we were there. They liked Marco's book and his young good looks. He hardly seems old enough to be a policeman, let alone a veteran detective.

We asked Marco if he planned more Matthew Livingston books after this one, MATTHEW LIVINGSTON AND THE PRISON OF SOULS.

"The second Matthew Livingston book is about 85% complete and may I say some of the situations in this book have caused even me to sweat. After all there are sticky situations and there are sweaty situations, but all and all the mystery is there, the drama is there, and most importantly you will learn more about these three characters."

Looking for info on Marco, we discovered he's also a talented musician. His band plays in clubs around the New York area, and has an album for sale.

Wonder if he paints, too?

But here's the real scoop (conspiracy?) we picked up in Philadelphia: All the other Mystery Writers of America authors are secretly promoting Marco's book. We figure let's get the young people hooked on mysteries early, then we got'em for life!

Wicked, huh?

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