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    Tom Straw Channels Anthony Bourdain In His Delightful New Book

    Every now and then, you hear a concept for a book and it instantly hooks you. This is one of those books.  What if an Anthony Bourdain-type celebrity chef who hosts a TV travel show is also a CIA spy? Hooked? Well, I was. You see, I really enjoyed Bourdain’s writings, his TV shows, and his way of seeing the world. His shows were appointment television. His books—always get the audio because he reads them—were bought on day one. So it should come as no surprise that when Tom Straw’s new book was announced, I got it on day one. Prepare the Narrator Sebastian Pike is the Bourdain stand-in in…

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    Start Your Summer Reading Season With Tom Straw and Matt Goldman

    I walked into Murder by the Book on Wednesday knowing one author. I left knowing two. I’ve enjoyed Tom Straw’s writing before I knew who Tom Straw was. Back in the fall of 2009, the second season of “Castle” premiered on our TV screens, but HEAT WAVE, the first book “written by” Richard Castle, showed up on bookshelves. What was this meta magic? Nearly every fall after 2009, when a new Castle season started there was a Castle book. What made the books great was this: unlike the TV show characters Castle and Beckett, their counterparts, Jameson Rook and Nikki Heat, actually got together. It was the mirror universe of…