As a kid, I fell in love with reading the traditional Westerns penned by the fabled writer Zane Grey (1872-1939). Recently I took another a look at one of his novels. The stilted prose left me cold and, I had to wonder at my youthful infatuation. Who today uses "ejaculated" as a dialogue tag?

But then consider this vivid landscape description: "A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red Lake, a dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond."

The settings, then, were Grey's strength as a fiction author. That's why he'd captivated my attention. My new Appalachian noir, Lake Charles, has been cited by Publishers Weekly as "vividly rendering" the Great Smoky Mountains vista. If a setting offers a distinctive quality, I try to use it in telling the story.

By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Nice addition to anyone’s summer beach reading schedule."
Florida Times-Union