CB McKenzie

CB McKenzie Jr. teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and has also taught at the University of Arizona, Arizona State, Farleigh Dickinson, and Pima Community College.

Bad Country, his debut mystery, is the newest winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize.

Recently I asked McKenzie about what he was reading. His reply:

I just finished Michael McGarrity's Hard Country and enjoyed it because it is a classical Western but with a modern sensibility. I also like the meta-discursive element of this book since it is the backstory for his Kevin Kearny Mystery series. I think that's brilliant and something I like to do myself -- create a metadiscourse by constructing an actual back story, one that is complete and makes sense, behind the story or within the story that is the focus of attention (that is, the main novel). To actually create "The backstory" not just tell it but show it behind or within the book as an actual complete book and not just the idea or the talking about a book demonstrates a minor sort of genius.

T. Jefferson Parker's new book, Full Measure, is both important and readable.

I love Michael Farris Smith's Rivers because it is thematic but also twisty and with a kicker at the end.

Read more about Bad Country.

--Marshal Zeringue