The Highway Kind

Michael Connelly is the New York Times–bestselling author of twenty-one novels featuring LAPD detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch. He has also written six novels featuring LA defense attorney Mickey Haller (the first of which, The Lincoln Lawyer, was adapted into a feature film starring Matthew McConaughey) as well as several stand-alone crime thrillers. Sixty million copies of Connelly’s books have sold worldwide and his work has been translated into thirty-nine languages. He has won the Edgar Award, the Anthony Award, the Macavity Award, the Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, the Shamus Award, and many others. Connelly is also a producer and writer for Bosch, the Amazon Prime television show based on his work. Connelly lives with his family in Florida and California. Connelly’s latest novel is The Wrong Side of Good-Bye. He currently drives a 2014 Chrysler 300 SRT8.

Diana Gabaldon is the author of the award-winning number-one New York Times–bestselling Outlander novels, described by Salon magazine as “the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science PhD with a background in scripting ‘Scrooge McDuck’ comics.” The series is published in forty-two countries and thirty-eight languages, with twenty-seven million copies in print worldwide. Gabaldon’s current writing projects include the ninth major novel in the Outlander series, as yet untitled, and a collection of novellas. She is a coproducer and adviser for the Outlander TV series, produced by the Starz network and Tall Ship Productions, which is drawn from her novels. Gabaldon lives with her husband, Doug Watkins, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Watkins provided both the original suggestion for “Fogmeister” and the historical research on which the story is based, and he is a car enthusiast himself; at the moment, he's restoring/rebuilding a 1971 Firebird from the wheels up. (Diana drives an Audi S6.)

Sara Gran is the author of the novels Dope, Come Closer, Saturn’s Return to New York, and the Claire DeWitt series. Her books have been published in over a dozen countries and as many languages. Sara Gran also writes for television and film and worked for two years with the Peabody-winning John Wells production Southland. Born and raised in Brooklyn, now living in California, Gran has worked with books as a writer, bookseller, and collector for most of her career. She currently drives a filthy Mini Cooper around Los Angeles.

Patterson Hood is a critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and a founding member of the Drive-By Truckers, whose latest recording, American Band, is set for a fall 2016 release. He has also done three solo albums, the most recent of which is Heat Rumbles in the Distance (2012). As an author, Hood has written a number of essays and articles that have appeared on NPR and in such publications as the New York Times and the Oxford American. Hood was born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where his father was bassist for the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Hood’s past cars have included a 1957 Dodge Custom Royal and a souped-up 1969 Chevy pickup, but now he just drives a Subaru Outback and a Honda minivan.

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels, including the popular Hap and Leonard series, and numerous short stories. His work has been published in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received many awards, including the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, and, most recently, the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for his novel Paradise Sky. His work has been adapted for film (Bubba Ho-Tep, Cold in July) and television (the Sundance Channel’s Hap and Leonard). Lansdale lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, and he drives a Toyota Prius.

George Pelecanos is the bestselling author of nineteen novels set in and around Washington, DC, a recent collection of short fiction, The Martini Shot: A Novella and Stories, and the graphic novel Six. He has been the recipient of the Raymond Chandler Award in Italy, the Falcon Award in Japan, and the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir in France and is a two-time winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His credits as a television producer and writer include The Wire, Treme, and The Pacific. He is currently at work on The Deuce, a new series for HBO. Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, and drives a Bullitt Mustang.

Gary Phillips is the author of more than a dozen novels, including Bangers, The Jook, The Warlord of Willow Ridge, and the popular Ivan Monk mysteries. He’s edited numerous anthologies, published more than fifty short stories, and some of his work has been optioned for TV. In addition to being a longtime member of the Mystery Writers of America, Phillips chaired the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color grant awarded by Sisters in Crime and served as president of the Private Eye Writers of America. When not sharing the oh-so-PC Prius with his wife, he puts the hammer down in his V-8 ’92 Cadillac Eldorado. Maybe, he tells himself, one day he’ll get that ’58 Ford Fairlane he and his mechanic pops rebuilt many years ago running again.

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