Winner Winner, Free Book Dinner

(Yeah, well, it's gotta rhyme....dinner not included)

AKA: Our version of The All-England Summarize Proust Competition

There is an old Monty Python skit titled "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition." In the sketch, after the remaining three contestants have participated, the host decides that no one scored very high, so he would "award first prize this evening to the girl with biggest [breasts]."

I thought of this sketch when my intrepid publicist Janine Schunk and I reviewed the list of entries for our "Name the Spy" competition. As you may recall, I had a character in The Long Squeeze named Tobin Breck. No one really liked the name, so we put it out to you, gentle readers, to proffer a replacement name for this character. (As a side note, I suppose I could have written the entire book by putting out a post or email weekly and asking you all what should happen next. But that's letting the inmates run the asylum and we can't have that.)

Many names were offered, and special thanks goes out to Kathy Neuhaus, who offered over fifteen entries. This was valuable in the final decision, which gets us back to The All-England Summarize Proust Competition. We didn't love the combinations Kathy put together, but we did notice a few things. First, a spy's first and last name should be interchangeable -- that is, a last name should be able to be used as a first and vice versa. Second, one name has to be two syllables and the other one, but they can't be the same. Thus, Henry Logan won't do.

So when we printed out the list, we decided to take one from column A (Kathy's list) and one from column B (Theresa Prouty's list), thus awarding first prize to both ladies. Both Kathy and Theresa will receive a free signed copy of The Long Squeeze. The name we came up with: Logan Chase.

Thanks to everyone for your entries. The Long Squeeze goes to press this month, and we are shooting for a last half of May launch party. See you all then. In the meantime, enjoy this classic Monty Python skit!