Marilyn's Musings

Top photo is of the infamous Henry Hill of GoodFellas fame. Despite his gangster pass, he's now reformed and quite a nice guy. Enjoyed listening to his stories and visiting with him over lunch. Next photo is of good friend Denny Griffin, retired New York police officer, who started rubbing elbows with the "bad guys" after he started writing the history of the Las Vegas P.D. and needed to do some research into the gangsters who invaded the city. As you can tell by the first photo, we had a huge crowd at this Sisters in Crime meeting--mostly women though we do have a few Mister Sisters. Denny actually belongs to the Las Vegas chapter of Sisters in Crime. I took these photos with my Blackberry and had a terrible time getting them from the phone to my computer so I could put them on this blog. Now back to my normal life. Marilyn http://fictionforyou.com

Today hubby and I drive to Fresno to the monthly meeting of the San Joaquin Chapter of Sisters in Crime. The speaker will be Denny Griffin who has written several books, fiction and non-fiction. His fiction are mysteries set in Las Vegas. His non-fiction is about crime in Las Vegas. He's probably the most famous for writing the biography of Frank Culotta, big time gangster who turned state's evidence against other gangsters resulting in a shorter sentence--but also making him a target and putting him into the witness protecting program. We met Denny and his wife Faith (more commonly known as Bear) right after 9/11 when we flew to Orlando FL to what was the called The Police Writers Conference. Everyone was surprised to us there--guess they figured non-law enforcement folks would be afraid to fly. We figured that was probably one of the safest times. At that time, though I usually volunteered to give a presentation of some sort, I wasn't involved with any of the planning for...