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Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine included an excerpt from my third novel, Kindness Goes Unpunished. It's an article called Find Your Mystery: A Collection of Favorite Whodunits, Not Just For the Stories But For the Places. They Make Ideal Vacation Reading, Full of Plot Twists and Travel Tips. There were nine selections that used excerpts, and only two that used dialogue, including the following...

The wedding cake that is the City Hall of Philadelphia was designed to be the tallest building in the world, but by the time it was finished, the Eiffel Tower and the Washington Monument had surpassed it. On four and a half acres of Penn Square, its domed tower tops out at just shy of 550 feet to the top of Willy Penn's hat. There are two hundred and fifty other statues that adorn the interior and exterior of the building to keep him company.

We got out of the cab at the west side of the building and walked across the sidewalk with Dog as though approaching some fantastic ship that had been docked in the center of the metropolis.

"I hate this building."

I ignored her and studied the façade. "It's Second Empire, the same as the Louvre."

"It's fruity."

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"License and registration, please."

We'd had library events in Park County-- Meeteetse (pop. 351), Powell (pop. 5,354), and Cody (pop. 9,000) and had been away from home for over a week, and I was restless, wanting to get back to the ranch and my projects. We'd just come over a rise in the Big Horn Basin, when I saw the familiar outline of the light-bar on the hill a good mile away.

I slowed and dutifully pulled over to the shoulder to await his arrival. I'd been a cop and understood the chase/chased dynamic; best to just pull over and make the job easier for both of us.

"How fast were you going?"

I glanced at my wife, Judy. "Seventy-four, I think."

She looked around at the dry, russet rock formations seemingly another world in comparison to the lush, irrigated pastures of the Pitchfork Ranch. "Is this the first car we've seen in over an hour?"

"Yes."

We watched as the Wyoming Highway Patrol cruiser flipped around and pulled in behind me.