Silver City’s SWAG Books welcomes author J. Michael Orenduff with his newest book on 9/16

SWAG Books and More, 406 N. Bullard Street in Silver City, NM, will host a book talk and signing for J. Michael Orenduff’s new book, The Pot Thief who Studied Calvin. This program will be held on Friday, September 16, from 5-7 pm MDT.

J. Michael Orenduff will discuss his latest Pot Thief mystery, The Pot Thief who Studied Calvin. The debut of The Pot Thief who Studied Calvin will be celebrated in Silver City, NM, because it plays a role in the book. Silver City also played a part in his last Pot Thief mystery, The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing.

The Pot Thief series features Hubie Schuze, an Albuquerque pottery dealer with a side job as an amateur sleuth. He’s spent years combing the public lands of New Mexico, digging for ancient pots. He knows that the women who made them want their work to be unearthed and admired. According to the US government, Hubie is a thief—but no act of Congress can stop him from doing what he loves. He wears the title of pot thief proudly, and makes big money selling rare pots to wealthy and discerning collectors. But when his nephew Tristan brings Hubie a 3-D printer-created replica of an ancient pot, modern technology infringes on Hubie’s devotion to traditional craft. And danger is not far behind. A devil’s half-dozen of people want that pot and seem willing to do anything to get it.

Mike Orenduff spent much of his youth on the banks of the Rio Grande and in the Mountains of the Gila Wilderness where his family owned a summer cabin. He earned a master of arts degree at the University of New Mexico and later served as president of New Mexico State University. Mike and his wife – the noted art historian Lai Chew Orenduff (author of A Scenic Tour of Modern Art and The Transformation of Catholic Religious Art in the Twentieth Century) – have lived in New Mexico (Albuquerque, Jemez Springs, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces) and in 9 other states and 4 other countries. The Pot Thief books have won numerous national awards, including the “Lefty” for Best Humorous Mystery of the year. But the ones that mean the most to him are his four New Mexico Book of the Year awards.

Joining Mike will be local Silver City author Kris Neri, who will discuss her latest book, nationally-published Hopscotch Life. Hopscotch Life is an accept-yourself-in-all-your-glory women’s fiction-crime crossover, featuring quirky protagonist Plum Tardy. Poor Plum. She catches her fiancé Noah Rowle in the act with a coworker, his partner in a real estate deal designed to allow the soul-sucking Budget-Mart chain to gobble up blocks of land across the country. She also learns he’s stolen money from her. Desperate to flee, Plum stumbles onto a bag of cash. Assuming that to be the booty Noah took from her, she runs off with it, toward a destination that’s just a name on a map. There Plum finds a charming town that needs someone like her. But while she tries to help her new town halt the steamroller of progress, even she could not have predicted the way her past would collide with her present. Will her offbeat approach save her, or land her in behind bars in hopscotch hell?

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