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My trip to the morgue started out as research, and became one of the more memorable moments of my writing career. (Assuming three hours qualifies as a moment.)

In Cold Blog invited me to write about it.

Founded by best selling author Corey Mitchell, In Cold Blog is written by journalists, criminal justice professionals, survivors, victim family members, advocates and like me, authors.

While I create crime fiction, I do my best to give it the ring of truth. So every word in the post is true. Including the rather unbelievable fact that the LA Morgue has a gift shop. The profits go to an excellent cause, and In Cold Blog gives you a link — in case you’re ever in the mood to shop among the dead.

When I sat down to write the book I realized I was at a huge disadvantage. While I had a lot of experience killing people, I knew nothing about scrapbooking.

I did a lot of research online, I hung around the scrapbooking department at Michael’s, and then one day I was in the Wal-Mart parking lot and I see a minivan with a bumper sticker that said: “Want to learn about scrapbooking? Call Lori.”

Next day I called her. A man answered. It was Lori’s son, Jim. When I explained what I wanted, he said he’d be glad to let me talk to Lori, but he’d have to translate.

I asked what language she spoke. “She can’t speak,” he said. “She signs. She’s deaf.”

We decided to meet in person. Me, Lori, her husband (also deaf), Jim, and his wife. We met at Barnes and Noble, where Lori showed me her scrapbooks, and over the course of a few hours did exactly what her bumper sticker said she could do. She taught me about scrapbooking.

Lori was so fascinating and so helpful that I was inspired to ask if I could write a deaf scrapbooker into the book. Her hands flew fast and furious and the smile on her face needed no translation.

CUT, PASTE, KILL will be available June 8. It’s available for pre-order now at Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble or your local independent bookseller.

I put in a lot of time trying to give it the ring of truth, and I’d appreciate your feedback on how authentic it feels to you. Especially if you’re a scrapbooker or a serial killer.

click to enlarge

It’s due June 8 and it already has a name. CUT, PASTE, KILL.

You can’t tell from the sonogram, but this baby is a killer. If you like plot twists, you’re going to love it. About a dozen people have read it, and so far nobody — nobody — saw the ending coming. And funny? You’ll wet your pants.

So, give the kid a nice home. It’s available for pre-order now at Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble or your local independent bookseller.

FEBRUARY — THE LONGEST MONTH OF THE YEAR

If you look at the calendar, February appears to only have 28 days. But when you’re sitting up here in snow country, and you’ve just gone through the blistering cold of December and January, February feels about 50 days long. I’m freezing my ass off and wondering if Spring will ever come.

FACT: Marshall flew down to the Caribbean yesterday. His ass is not freezing. It’s spending seven glorious days in the sun. The summer sun.

Right now, I’m hard at work on two fronts. First, I’m trying to get the promotional stuff organized on CUT, PASTE, KILL. Blog tour, appearances, publicity, site changes — it’s quite a challenge

FACT: Right now, I’m betting Marshall is stretched out on the beach and his biggest challenge is deciding where to go for dinner.

I’m also up late into the night working on the book that I’m co-authoring with James Patterson. The last thing I want Jim to think is that I’m not putting in the hours.

FACT: Mr. Patterson knows Marshall is on vacation, and I saw his e-mail that read, Dear Marshall, Have fun in the Caribbean. The only thing I ask is that this time you register under your name, not mine.

As I look out the window, the snow is coming down hard. Everything is white.

FACT: Except Marshall, who I’m sure will be tan.

And so, dear reader, with all that work I have on my plate, I’m sure you’ll understand why this post is not full of the usual bon mots and witty remarks.

FACT: I’m sure Marshall has a lot on his plate — but none of it has to do with work. As for what this post is full of — well, you be the judge.

You see that good-looking guy in the picture? No, not me. I mean the even better looking guy wearing the Smokey The Bear hat. That’s my friend Frank.

Undersheriff Frank Faluotico to you.

Ever since The Rabbit Factory, Frank has been aiding and abetting my life of crime.

The thing about crime fiction is that much of it has to be based on crime fact. Unlike Harry Potter, my characters have to live in the real world. I can’t create magic bullets that go around corners, or bad guys with disappearing fingerprints.

The best way for an author to keep it real is to spend quality time with people who do it for real. In the early stages of writing a book I’ll describe a crime scene to Frank and ask him how he’d deal with it. As the case gets more complex I’ll feed him all the clues. If he can’t come up with the killer, I figure you won’t either.

He’s also a great resource for cop-speak. Chapter One of Flipping Out starts with a bunch of cops hanging out on a fishing boat, playing poker, and drinking beer. “We call that a debriefing,” Frank told me. I used the word in the book and I got e-mails from cops who wanted to know how the heck I knew that.

Lomax and Biggs work out of the Hollywood Station, and I've been fortunate to connect with LAPD Detective Wendy Berndt who works there too. Wendy reads an early version of the manuscript. At least once or twice in every book she keeps me from having Lomax and Biggs do something that’s either flat out illegal or just plain dumb.

I used to take cops for granted. But over the past five years I’ve been able to hang out with some of the best in the business, and today I have intense admiration and the utmost respect for the men and women who have dedicated their lives to law enforcement.

They're a great bunch of people. And a lot of fun if you're lucky enough to get invited to one of their all-day debriefings.

I answered immediately. “Absolutely. How much do I have to pay you?”

Jim laughed — I’ve known him twenty years, and he’s always been a good audience.

Turns out that not only was he asking me to co-author a guaranteed bestseller, he was willing to pay me for the honor.

And it is an honor.

James Patterson is a master storyteller. And his approach to providing a steady stream of stories for his millions of devoted fans has “transformed book publishing.”

But don’t take my word for it. Read the article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. It’s a story every JP fan, every aspiring writer, and every person with a dream will enjoy.

It’s a tale of how one man turned his passion into a career and his career into an empire. Along the way, he has entertained millions, and shared his success with many. I am thrilled to be the latest.

I can’t tell you much about the book — not even the title. All I can say is that it’s a standalone thriller that will be published by Little Brown early in 2011.

And that working on it with James Patterson has been the most enjoyable experience of my career as a novelist.

It’s a semi-autobiographical comedy about Lenny Levine, a teenager growing up in the Bronx. He’s fascinated with sex, but it’s 1955, and Lenny is too young and too scared to actually do it. So he dedicates his summer vacation to the next best thing. Seeing two other people do it.

Easier said than done. Lenny gets caught in the act of spying, and his mother and stepfather ship him off to spend the summer with his aunt and uncle in Queens.

There he meets Hedy, played by the divine Gretchen Mol. She’s a nurse who in a former life modeled for bra ads. Lenny is smitten. His goal to witness an act of love becomes an obsession, and his summer vacation turns into an adventure that will change his life forever.

I wrote the script in 1990. It opened a lot of doors in Hollywood, but none of the blockbuster studios wanted to produce a sweet little movie. I put it in a drawer and went on with my life.

Cut to 1999 and Jean Doumanian, then Woody Allen’s producer, called. She read the script and wanted to meet me.

I blew her off. I was legitimately busy running a dotcom ad agency, and I had long gotten over the need to jump every time a producer called to say I love your script.

Guess what? Nothing drives a producer crazier than a disinterested writer. Her people pursued my people. Only I didn’t have people. I blew her off without any help from subordinates. That really drove her people crazy.

When Jean and I finally got together three weeks after the first call, it was a lovefest. And we stayed good friends all the way through. Very un-Hollywood. But of course, it was a New York production, so that might explain it.

Jason Alexander (whom I had worked with early in our TV careers) had just come off Seinfeld and was hired to direct. An adorable Ryan Merriman (who is now a hot 24-year-old) nailed the part of Lenny. And the incredible Patti LuPone played his mom.

Movie making isn’t supposed to be pleasant — especially for the writer. But I had a shitload of fun. And while you always want to change this, or rewrite that, I’m damn proud of the finished film.

I did a twelve city promotional tour with Jason, who is as down to earth as you’d expect from a guy who started out as Jay Greenspan from Livingston, NJ.

The single biggest problem — two weeks before the release we got an R rating. Here’s how I understand the MPAA’s rating logic. If you say fuck you, that’s profanity. PG-13. If you say fuck me, that’s sexual. R. Lenny said “I want to see two people fucking.” But Sony Classics, the studio distributing the film didn’t have the time, or the stomach, to fight the R.

The reviews were generally positive, but saddled with that rating it opened in theatres across the country and closed a week later. But you can still buy the DVD at amazon, rent it at Netflix, or if you check your local listings, catch it on HBO.

It’s the perfect movie, especially if you identify more with a teenager discovering sex than with a blue cat person fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call his home.

And for those of you who can’t sit still for the entire 97 minutes, check out the 2 minute trailer.

If you do get to see it, let me know what you think. Because you know what? I still care.

The blogosphere isn’t old enough to have too many traditions. But one that caught on a few years ago is Delurker Day.

Most people who read blogs never comment. They lurk.

Which cause bloggers to wonder if my blog fell in the forest and there was no one there, would it make a sound?

So today you’re encouraged to come out of the closet. Just add a quick comment. Like hello. Or this sucks. Or I only keep coming back here because I have no real life.

It’s the one day a year bloggers get to know you’re really out there.

And because I’m not one to ask for something and not give anything in return, I thought I’d tell you something about the next Lomax and Biggs book. (I’m working under the assumption that’s why you come to the Lomax and Biggs website).

It’s called CUT, PASTE, KILL. Here’s the cover synopsis:

Sometimes the guilty escape justice, but they rarely escape revenge.

When Eleanor Bellingham-Crump — an unrepentant socialite who is responsible for the drunk-driving death of a 6-year-old boy — turns up murdered on the floor of a Hollywood hotel bathroom, Lomax and Biggs are confronted with a crime of artistic brutality. Along with the scissors sticking from Eleanor’s lifeless body, the two detectives find a meticulous scrapbook documenting a motive of vengeance in lurid detail.

As more bodies are discovered, each one connected by the intricate scrapbooks left at the scene, Mike and Terry are on the hunt for a vigilante stalking unpunished criminals. They must race to decode the meaning behind the scrapbooks before the crafty avenger has time to cut and paste the story for another kill.

It will be released in the US in June, and is available for pre-order now on Amazon, Borders or your local independent bookseller.

Now, before you lurk and run, please leave a comment.

And today is Day One of a brand new blog from a talented young apple.

My daughter.

It’s called ChezRougie, which is definitely French, so I guess that makes her la pomme.

Stop by and give it a read.

Merci.
L'arbre.

Today’s crap is a random selection of my daily Facebook status posts. For those of you who follow me on Facebook, these may not be funny the second time around. That’s because most of them weren’t funny the first time around.

I’ve been told I’m a great kisser. But let’s face it — guys in prison have such ridiculously low standards.

Is there no privacy? Some asshole posted directions to my house on his website! Who is this Mapquest guy anyway?

I tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. But it’s okay. It was only Metamucil.

My new book is called 27 Theories For Winning An Argument With A Woman. So far all I’ve got is the title.

I have an appointment with the acupuncturist. God, I hope the bastard is sober this time.

Sarah Palin was 90 minutes late for a book signing in Iowa. Hundreds of people were still waiting in the freezing cold. I showed up late for a book signing once. Both people left before I got there. You’d think my parents could’ve waited five lousy minutes.

They say the Swine Flu will peak early in the season. They’re considering changing the name to the Boston Red Sox Flu.

I called the Butterball Hotline and the lady asked if I were lonely. She said for $3.95 a minute she’d talk me through the X-rated version of how to stuff a turkey.

President Obama’s first visit to China and he’s asking them to cap their greenhouse gas emissions. Good luck. It would be smarter to ease into it. Maybe start with could you cut back on the lead paint and hold the MSG.

I just wrote a really hot sex scene for my next book. I thought it was pretty good, so I decided to read it out loud to my wife. She fell asleep. But the dog started humping my leg.

Maureen Dowd in The NY Times says The White House has become an All Boy’s Club. Not true, says Obama. Those urinals in the ladies room were all Hillary’s idea.

I clicked on Medical Marijuana on Amazon, and it said customers who bought this also bought Medical Sex and Medical Rock and Roll.

What kind of parents let their kid take off in a helium balloon? Oh, no wait — he never was in the balloon. He was hiding in a freaking box in the attic for two hours. Much better parenting.

I’m confused. The guy in charge of two wars gets the Nobel Prize for Peace. So who gets the Nobel Prize for Fidelity? Letterman?

Letterman’s ratings are going through the roof. Told my wife I’m willing to have sex with younger women if it will help my book sales.

I’m doing my part to sanction Iran. I just defriended Ahmadinejad on Facebook.

You realize, of course, that if Sonia Sotomayor gets confirmed, Ruth Bader Ginsburg will no longer be the only smokin’ hot babe on the Court.

“We’re doing so well, my administration. My administration’s accomplishments, they speak for themselves. I love my job and I love Alaska.” And now I quit. Sarah Palin is to speech writing what the Titantic was to transatlantic crossings.

Michael Jackson opened up a total can of worms. Now my kids want to be left to Diana Ross when I die. And if that's not bad enough, my wife asked if if I could leave her to George Clooney.

I don’t know why the Republicans are being so tough on Governor Sanford. I would have thought they’d be happy that one of their boys was doing a little offshore drilling.

You know what would be a great iPhone app? A taser.

Random rule of comedy — avoid the obvious. If the menu says Prix Fixe, the waiter has probably heard all the jokes.

Why do they insist on calling them Reality Shows? I can’t think of a single one that resembles my reality. Okay, Wife Swap, sure. But besides that…

Last night I went to my first meeting of Agoraphobics Anonymous. Nobody else showed up.

Did you see the latest accessory for Malibu Barbie's Dream House? It's the most adorable little foreclosure sign. That Barbie -- she's just so in tune with the times.

Today’s the anniversary of the day Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Think I’ll celebrate with a Chateauneuf de Pape and S’mores.

I was thinking that my wife never pays any attention to me, but then I realized… of course she does. How else would she be able to point out all my mistakes?

Joan Rivers kicked ass on Celebrity Apprentice last night. Proving once again that she's so much more than a pretty face.

I was looking for the perfect thing to say on a Mother’s Day card. So I Googled “Moving Quotes.” I got quotes from Allied Van Lines, Mayflower Movers and U-Haul.

My wife doesn’t want me to have knee surgery. She said for that kind of money, she’d rather redo the kitchen.

I always try to make other people happy. In my wife’s case, I have to leave her alone to do it.

Some asshole I can’t stand borrowed fifty bucks from me, and then, bam — he disappeared. I never saw him again. Now I’m lending out fifties to every asshole I know.

A hot blonde stops me—are you Marshall Karp? Yes. The author? Yes. And your new book Flipping Out just came out? Yes, yes, yes! Your fly’s open, asshole.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you…” Oops...sorry, just reminiscing about my wedding vows.

A PUBLIC APOLOGY TO MY WIFE: Sorry, dear. I really have to learn to stop talking when you're interrupting.

A psychic charted my past lives. She told me I was a horse thief, a derelict and a Hun. It’s OK, she said. At least none of those assholes was on Facebook.

I just tried smoking crack for the first time, and man, it is soooooo addictive. It’s like — I don’t know — Facebook.

My wife thinks all men are assholes. And yet, she derives some sort of perverse pleasure in telling everyone that she married their king.

I got a GPS for my car. Guys, it’s great. Now even if your wife isn’t in the car, you can still have a woman’s voice telling you how to drive.

Does this status post make my ass look fat?

I’m leaving Facebook forever. I just unexpectedly came into a humungous sum of money, and I’m on my way to Nigeria to collect it. So long, suckers.

I took some homeopathic medicine last night. My cold is gone, but in the morning I broke out in sequins

If my stimulus package lasts longer than 4 hours, do I call my doctor? Or my Congressman?

I taught my dog to sit, stay, heel, fetch, and not pee on the floor. (Same basic commands my wife is trying to teach me.)

I’d like to clarify a misconception. I’m totally straight. What I said was, I’m a GRAY American.

I just figured out how to say WTF in Spanish. It’s QTF.

My Hungarian grandmother gave me her secret recipe for chicken soup that tastes incredible and costs practically nothing to make. First you steal a chicken…

My thermometer just hit Zero. Oh no, wait... that's my 401(k).

I have a ton of snow, so I’m shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling, and thinking, finally, all those years in advertising have paid off.

I told my wife that I had more than 300 friends on Facebook. She said, “I guess the other 200 million people just don’t give a shit about you.”

So that’s a little taste of how I wasted my time in 2009. If you want to read my 2010 crap, be here next December 31. Or friend me on Facebook and watch me make an ass out of myself on a daily basis.

Happy New Year.

Intimates call her Rougie.

First thing she said to me when we met at the airport was, “don’t talk to me, don’t come near me, I’m in a foul mood and could get violent or start weeping uncontrollably if you do so much as look at me the wrong way.”

Only she didn’t actually say it like that. She used the international three-letter code that means the same thing.

PMS.

She was, as she likes to put it, stabby.

Better I guess, than AK-47y.

Destination for the weekend: Kiawah Island, SC, for the big half marathon, Rougie’s first ever. It’s a 13.1 mile run, which apparently isn’t enough for some people. They also have the 26.2 version at the same time for runners who are twice as crazy.

Personally, I think 13.1 miles is more than enough to test anyone’s endurance, whether you’re running or driving on the Long Island Expressway on a Friday night in the summer.

Kiawah Island is a place I had never heard of, but will now happily recommend to anyone who is not facing college tuition or foreclosure. We stayed at The Sanctuary, a family-friendly, four-star resort and home of the marathon. Rougie was there to run. My wife was there to keep repeating those four words our daughter wanted to hear. You can do it.

I only had two words. Check, please.

There are many excellent restaurants on the island, and we spent the next two days stuffing our faces in six of them. Technically Rougie was carb loading. I was face stuffing.

Rougie is addicted to Twitter, and she wanted other Twits to follow her every inch of the 13.1 miles. But since it’s almost impossible to run and tweet at the same time, I was elected designated Tweeter. Of course, it’s also impossible to give updates unless you’re in a chase car, so I was more Cheater than Tweeter — I just made stuff up. You Twitter Critters can find my fictional account of the race at #runrougierun.

Rougie had only taken up running in April. She began training for the half marathon in July. She trained with a passion, and eventually, this race took on a new meaning, a new purpose. This was no longer a 13.1 mile jaunt in expensive footgear. This was a mountain to climb. This was a life goal. So it was an intensely emotional moment when she finally crossed the starting line at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, in the middle of a sea of 3,000 other determined souls.

My wife and I cheered. We learned later that Sarah cried.

She had never run 13 miles, so her goal was to just finish the race. But her dream was to finish it in under two hours.

She clocked in at 1:59:48. Dog tired, with 11 seconds to spare.

For the first ten minutes after she crossed the finish line, we lost track of her. Hey, it was a melee. And then we found her, sitting on the wet grass, wrapped in Mylar, sipping a beer.

There were lots of hugs and congratulations, and Sarah told us how proud she was of herself for finishing.

My wife and I are proud of her too. Only we have a different perspective. We think our daughter is only just beginning.

Run, Rougie, run.

UPDATE: Read Sarah's account of the race here.

Randy Rohn is a dear, dear friend.

Back in the 70’s we climbed K2 together. We almost made it to the top, but I fell into a ravine and broke my leg. Randy pulled me out and carried me back down to base camp in a raging blizzard. He then married my sister, and a few years ago Randy gave me one of his kidneys.

So when Randy got his first short story published in a major anthology and asked me if I could read it and give him a plug, my immediate reaction was Jeez this guy is pushy.

I thought I’d be subtle and just weave it into one of my blogs, but I couldn’t. So I’m just going to make this blog all about Randy.

The book, The Best American Mystery Stories 2009, was edited by Jeffery Deaver and the series editor is Otto Penzler.

There are stories by such luminaries as Michael Connelly, Joyce Carol Oates, and Alafair Burke, but as the starred review in Publishers Weekly says “As always, part of the pleasure derives from exposure to writers who have yet to gain the acclaim they deserve, such as Randy Rohn (The Man Who Fell in Love with the Stump of a Tree).”

It’s a great book to get or to give, so go out, buy it, and help Randy get his mystery writing career going. I know he’ll be extremely grateful. Believe me, he’d give you a kidney if he had one left to spare.

Thank you.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Randy Rohn character described above is loosely based on Randy Rohn, this guy Marshall met recently on Facebook. That Randy seems to be a decent sort, and of Marshall’s nearly 500 Facebook “friends” Randy is one the few with whom Marshall has experienced something resembling human contact. Thanks for the book Randy. Write on.

Gluttony aside, it was a weekend worthy of a blog post, and happily for me, my daughter has already written all about it. Why should I do all the heavy lifting? I mean it’s not like I need the exercise.

However, I would like to show you a picture of our Thanksgiving centerpiece.

And how is your post-Thanksgiving Monday? Are you going to max out your credit card? Or just your bathroom scale?

Some people never say thank you. I don’t know if their Mamas raised ‘em wrong, or if they’re just natural born ingrates.

I like to think that on the Ungrateful-Wretch to Bubbling-Over-With-Gratitude Continuum I’m around an 8 on a ten-point scale. And that’s mostly because I forget rather than under-appreciate.

So I feel justified taking issue with people who don’t say thanks.

Years ago a friend of mine was at the supermarket and came face to face with the world’s most sullen, miserable, toxic checkout girl. She never looked at him once as he racked up almost two hundred dollars worth of groceries.

He paid, got his change, and nothing else. Finally, he got the point where he couldn’t stand her attitude and had to say something.

“Y’know, it wouldn’t hurt if you at least said thank you,” he said.

She threw him a hateful glare and said, “It’s printed on the bottom of your receipt.”

I have a natural bent toward gratitude (for me it came with age), so when I woke up this Thanksgiving morning I started thinking about all the things I was thankful for.

The first part was easy. My puppy, Kylie, started licking my face as soon as she realized I was awake. (Possibly before, which is why I was up at 6:30.) My wife, daughter, son, daughter-in-law, and grandson were all staying with me for the holidays. I’m sure I’ll be just as grateful on Sunday when they pack up and go.

Here are some random items from my list. I’m grateful for lactose free milk, Google, my local volunteer fire department, spellcheck, fresh berries, The Simpsons, my snow plow guy, Steve Jobs, Rogaine, pasta, NPR, Diane Sawyer, and neither last, nor least, you.

I’ve been a semi-anonymous writer all my life. But getting your first book published changes all that, and I’ve been connected to some of you since the early days of The Rabbit Factory.

Right now I’ve got 56 unanswered e-mails in my lomaxandbiggs inbox, some of them dating back to July. Even though most of you don’t expect a response, I try to write back. But lately I’ve been writing books (2) and blogs (as many as I can get to).

So today is the perfect day to just send out a global thank you. Thanks for reading my books, for recommending them to others, for taking the time to write to me, and for your feedback on my books, blogs, and daily Facebook (and occasional Twitter) rants.

I am driven to write. So the plan is to keep on writing. Quite frankly, it wouldn’t matter if I lived alone on a rock — I would still be writing. But it’s good to have readers. Especially readers like you. Thank you for supporting my life of crime.

So, how about you? What are you thankful for?