The women of Soho Crime

Cara Black, the author of several books featuring French sleuth Aimee Leduc, has revived her once-dormant blog to interview New Yorker Rebecca Pawel, who’s just returned after spending several days in Barcelona for the inaugural European Crime conference. They talk about Pawel’s novels, what book she most would have wanted to write (anything by Terry Pratchett) and what she’d do if she died tomorrow:

You’re going to die tomorrow. What would you do
today?

Go to school, and write sub lesson plans if it’s a
work day.  Organize and finish manuscripts if it’s a
weekend or a summer vacation.  Finally get my will
properly signed and witnessed.  If time, clean
apartment so that I will look like a falsely neat
person for whoever goes through it.  If not, skip to
step two: Write love letters, and make sure I eat all
my favorite foods.

What music would you have played at your funeral?

I’ve never been to a funeral, so I don’t know.  (My
family isn’t religious.  We’ve always just done quiet
cremations, and then had friends drop by the house to
pay respects on a given day.)  But I’ll go with
Langston Hughes; "Tell all my mourners, to dress in
red/Cause there ain’t no sense in my being dead."

That’s a hell of a nice quote, I must say…