We had the pleasure several years ago of attending a talk in Tempe by one of our all-time favorite writers, Mr. Ray Bradbury. He was a terrific speaker, funny, topical and full of piss and vinegar about the sorry state of things in modern-day American culture.

Portrait of the writer as a young man.

He spoke eloquently about the genesis of some of the books that had thrilled us so in our teenage years and beyond, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles and, of course, Farenheit 451.

But what we remember most about that night (and a story we have oft repeated over the years) came during an extended question-and-answer session after his talk.

When we read the following blurb from our friend, esteemed (now retired) ASU law professor Gary Lowenthal, about the book Jingle Jangle, we knew we had follow-up and read it.

​ So we did and, as advertised, it was a solid, often troubling read about an infamous Phoenix murder case in which Phoenix police and Maricopa County prosecutors accused the wrong guy -- Mr. Ray Krone, the fellow in the photo..

Krone spent years in prison, including time on death row, after twice being convicted of a vicious crime he most assuredly did not commit.

The book's author, Jim Rix, is Krone's cousin, but the pair didn't know each other until after Krone's imprisonment. Rix championed his cousin's cause for years after he learned that all that allegedly tied Krone to victim Kim Ancona (besides the fact that Krone knew her and had frequented the same bar at 15th Avenue and Camelback) was a bite mark (which turned out not to be Krone's after all).

Image: www.jordanscott.com

Jordan Scott likes vampire novels "and of course Boys."

A wanna-be writer and musician from California has sued the Valley's own dark mistress of vampire fiction, Stephenie Meyer in what looks like a half-baked cry for attention.

The young woman, Jordan Scott, claims in a lawsuit filed in federal court on August 19 that a book she published online in 2006 has "striking, articulable and substantial similarities" to Meyer's fourth novel, Breaking Dawn. Scott says Meyer infringed on the copyright to her own novel, The Nocturne, and she demands that Meyer admit to the theft of intellectual property.

Oh, and she also wants a nice cut of Meyer's profits.