{"id":2455,"date":"2026-02-03T13:53:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T20:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2026-02-03T13:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T20:53:25","slug":"jon-talton-and-james-sallis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=2455","title":{"rendered":"Jon Talton and James Sallis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Talton and I at the launch of his last book – just last year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It’s been a rough start to 2026, Dear Readers. Aside from more family medical emergencies than seems fair, recently two of my most admired author friends passed away in January \u2013 the great James Sallis, author of Drive<\/em>, among many many other wonderful works, and the equally talented Jon Talton, author of at least a dozen fabulously noir-ish mysteries, most of which are set in and around his home town Phoenix. Both Jim and Jon are from the Phoenix area, as am I, so I knew the guys and have done events with both of them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jim Sallis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Jim Sallis had been ill for some time. I last corresponded with Jim last year when I asked him if he’d be interested in teaching a class at Arizona State University in my stead. We did some catch-up chat, after which he told me he’d love to participate, but his health wouldn’t permit. Besides being a great author and teacher, Jim was a blue-grass musician and one of the nicest, kindest, and most helpful people ever. Read Jim’s obituary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jon’s death was totally unexpected. He and I were both originally published by Poisoned Pen Press for many years and did many events together. We corresponded a lot, talking about the ins and outs of our respective careers. The last time I heard from him was Dec. 31, when we wished one another a happy new year. He loved his adopted home towns, but mostly he loved his native Phoenix and his beloved wife Susan. You can read his obituary here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a rough start to 2026, Dear Readers. Aside from more family medical emergencies than seems fair, recently two of my most admired author friends passed away in January \u2013 the great James Sallis, author of Drive, among many many other wonderful works, and the equally talented Jon Talton, author of at least a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[401,147],"class_list":["post-2455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-james-sallis","tag-jon-talton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2H58s-DB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2458,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions\/2458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}