Up until now in my career I haven't gotten many bad reviews. This speaks less to the quality of my books than to my place in the pantheon. In general, reviewers see their mission as telling people what books they ought to read, not what books they ought not to read. They don't have the column space for that. So as a rule, if they like a book they'll tell you, and if they don't, they won't write about it.

The exception to this is the Big Writers. Every Robert Parker book gets reviewed, whether or not the reviewer likes it. I've never been in that position. I've been low enough under the radar that if a book of mine hasn't resonated with a reviewer, it's just been ignored.

So when the reviewer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes one long crabby column, in which she only finds one book she likes, and grouses about Martha Grimes, James Frey, Janet Evanovich, Lisa Unger, and me, I'm not getting bent out of shape.

(Yes, okay, here's the link: you'll just go find it anyway.)

The Chinese say, "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." I took risks with this book, and it seems the result didn't ring this reviewer's chime. But it also seems she felt obliged to say so, and I think that's kind of great.

And I'm taking even more risks with the book I'm working on now, so that's how it goes.

But I have to ask, how am I supposed to think about a review that starts, "There's nothing irritating about S.J. Rozan's beautifully written In This Rain," and then goes on to recommend people read my other books instead?