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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No to turn to bird.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

Today, my guest is Ryan Gattis, who made such a splash, such a hit on Bookworm with his last novel,

all involved, that I couldn't wait for his new novel to appear.

It's called Safe.

It's published by a imprint of Farris Strauss and Cheru, known as MCD.

And, well, first of all, I hear that this book came to be because of a phone call you got.

Let's hear the story.

Well, I think, you know, because of all the connections I'd made for all involved,

and it was everyone from former gang members to firefighters to nurses,

I kind of kept that group of people, kept in touch with them.

Unfortunately, there have been a couple folks who passed away from the first group I mentioned,

and I normally got bad phone calls.

When I got the call at roughly 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning, I was expecting bad news,

but what I heard instead was, do you want to see a safe get cracked?

And the answer, of course, to that was yes.

...