Alright, alright. I have finally joined Twitter. You can find me at:  @GaryWestphalen

Now, I must tell you that I had a twitter account many years ago, when I was working for one of the major television news networks in Washington, D.C. I discontinued it because I found Twitter to be a vitriol filled cauldron of repugnance. I also found the character limitations to be very restrictive. I’m thinking that one led to the other. Most people can be far more expressive with just a few foul words than by using eloquent language that would exceed the very limited opportunity of making a point that the 140 characters of the time allowed.

The paragraph you just read is a perfect example of my point. It took 550 characters to tell you why I bailed out of Twitter years ago. If I had to explain it on Twitter back then, it would have been something like: F*** This! Just ten characters.

But let’s turn the page. I am rejoining Twitter to have some fun with the readers of my books. We can do all sorts of things. I think it would be fun to have you ask questions of some of the characters in my books. They don’t have their own twitter accounts, but I have agreed to allow them to use mine to answer your questions.

For example, I think it would be interesting to ask Maxine Levine, the attorney for one of the guys on trial for the murders in Murdered For Nothing, if she thinks her client was guilty or innocent. With the witty mouth on her, you’re likely to get an interesting answer.

You might ask Homicide Detective Dave Walters if he regrets his decision to join the FBI. He shows up in my next book Breaking The Weak Link where he finds himself in the middle of an international conspiracy that nearly ruins his life. In fact, at the end of the book, the impact on him personally is a cliffhanger that will have to be explored in a later book.

But that doesn’t happen in my soon-to-be-published next book. OOH! Tease Alert! I’m working on a book that again features Dave Walters, but this is actually a prequel that happens between his time in homicide and the 2016 story of Breaking The Weak Link. There are some hints about the story in Breaking. See if you can figure out what they are! But don’t try to trick him into telling you about the new book because I have him under contract not to breathe a word until it publishes.

You can even chat with some of the real-life characters from my first book Plan A Never Happens. You might ask Frankie what he thinks about moving from the volatile weather of the Mid Atlantic region to the always-summer climate of Costa Rica. Yes, Frankie is our dog. But, don’t worry. I speak Dog and I’ll be happy to translate the conversation.

So read up on my published books, join me on Twitter @GaryWestphalen, and let’s get the conversation a-tweeting. Of course, you can still friend me on Facebook and follow my adventures in this blog on my website.