This character needs no second name to be recognizable. One indelible name will do.

There are many different stories about the source for this character: a delightful expedition, the child of a dear friend, a flight of fancy.

But the character first came to life in a gift presented like a partridge in a pear tree.

Encouraged by its reception and urged on by other writers, this creator expanded the story, commissioned illustrations to go with it and self-published it to eventual great acclaim.

The book would influence painters, novelists and readers worldwide.

If you peruse the book closely, you’ll find delightful clues to the place this writer lived and worked.

By the way, the author had a day job and writing began as a side hustle.

If you visit a museum in this writer’s hometown, you’ll find equipment that was essential to this writer’s endeavors.

Do you know the name of this character and the author who created them?

Here’s one more clue: When your clock stops at 1:17 p.m., you’ll know it’s time for a party.

When you have the author and the character, email me at: kmiller@mpr.org.

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For a man who has both stolen and made millions, Danny Ryan doesn’t see himself as ambitious.

“He’s just a guy trying to survive in a world that usually had other ideas.”

Ryan is the central character that has propelled Don Winslow’s latest and last trilogy, and the climax of the series has arrived with “City in Ruins.”

We find Ryan in Vegas where he’s trying to shed the stench of organized crime: building hotels, keeping his nose clean and raising his son.

But when he gets into a bidding war over a plot of land on the Las Vegas strip, violence and vengeance explode.

This novel marks the last novel Don Winslow plans to release, which made the reading experience bittersweet.

I’ve read nearly everything that Winslow has published and here’s why:

Winslow came to writing from the kind of job experience you’d find more often in fiction.

He directed students in Shakespeare plays, he worked as a safari guide and in a Chinese panda reserve. And he spent years as a private investigator.

All of this to say that he is curious about the world, about culture, and most of all about moral ambiguity.

I’m going to miss him.


— Kerri Miller | MPR News