Saturday, April 05, 2008 9:31 AM
Blawg Book Highlighter #27: Baby Crimes
Prominent adoption attorney Randall Hicks cut his writing chops in the non-fiction realm with his well-received Adopting in America: How to Adopt Within One Year (2004), which Publishers Weekly called “a nuts-and-bolts, practical guide to the entire process of adopting a child.”
The following year Hicks made the jump into fiction with The Baby Game, the first in a mystery series to feature young California adoption attorney Toby Dillon, a character obviously drawn from his real-world experience. The book and its blend of humor with seriousness won a Gumshoe Award and was a finalist the Anthony, Barry and Macavity Awards.
An example of Hicks’ self-deprecating wit is found on his website’s reviews page, where, at the bottom of a long list of flattering reviews there is this quote, “If there is any justice in the world, The Baby Game will sell more copies than The Da Vinci Code.” It’s attributed to “Randall Hicks’ Mother.”
Hicks hasn’t rested on his laurels. In 2007, he added another non-fiction work to his credits with Adoption: The Essential Guide to Adopting Quickly and Safely.
Baby Crimes, the follow-up to his fiction debut, also came last year. This time his protagonist Dillon is hired by a rich couple to find out who’s been blackmailing them about the illegal adoption of their 16-year-old daughter. Toby’s search for her leads only to dead bodies and buried secrets.
Booklist calls Hicks a “nimble writer” and declares his second effort to be “more polished than its predecessor, with more sharply realized characters.” Publishers Weekly is less impressed and finds the book “unremarkable.”
Read excerpts from both of Hicks' fiction works and enter a contest to name the title of his next Toby Dillon mystery at his website (http://www.randall-hicks.com/home.html).
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Randy Richardson is an author, humorist, former journalist, and a lawyer. His fiction debut, Lost in the Ivy, a murder mystery set against the backdrop of Chicago's storied Wrigley Field, won the Writers Marketing Association's “Fresh Voices” Book Award and the Illinois Woman's Press Association's Mate E. Palmer Communications Contest. He writes the Dad Libs column for SanityCentral.com and is a frequent contributor to Chicago Parent magazine. In his day job, he is an attorney for the Social Security Administration’s disability appeals branch. At night and during lunch breaks, he serves as president of the Chicago Writers Association (chicagowrites.org) and works on his second novel while a 4-year-old tugs on his legs. Visit his website at www.lostintheivy.com. You can also see Randy's past Highlighter selections compiled here: http://astore.amazon.com/blawg-20
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