Blogging. Buh-logging. I'd rather be logging, with a gas-powered log splitter. (Steer it back to the centre, Mikey.)

First off, welcome to michaeljclarkbooks.com. That's my name, without the books.com part of course. (You're rambling again. Get to the bloody point.) Oh, and the 'J' is for Jeffery.

As this is Day One for getting my Squarespace squared away, I thought I'd shake the rust off of my knuckles and explain a little bit about the journey that is Book One. Like most first novels, Clean Sweep has been in the works for an eighth of a decade. I'm better known for writing about cars, talking on the radio about cars, and assembling videos of Yours Truly talking, driving, and pointing at cars. (Head on over to youtube.com/user/RoadTripRides for some time well wasted.) When I bump into car people and tell them my first book is coming out, they smile. Then I tell them its not about cars. That's when their heads do a Louis Del Grande. (On the inside.)

I'm sure I'm going to get asked at some point about the shift in my scribbles. (Shift. Cars again. Bloody Hell!) The fact is that I've been moving in this direction for some time, starting off about 13 years ago with sloppy screenplays that were pitched to all manner of shady Hollywood types. (In light of the current climate, which is raining well-deserved hot lava onto various members of the movie industry, that was probably a good thing.) As for the world that is automobile journalism, it sounds pretty glamorous, and it is. Ford, Toyota, and even little bitty Mitsubishi don't ply you with wine and roast beast in hopes of a bad review.

I was starting to feel more like a corporate shill than an intrepid reporter. I remember trying to do a story on the wave of crashes and fatalities involving certain domestic vehicles with overloaded keychains. (The weight of the extra crap was turning the key to the Off position while in motion, disabling the steering and the airbags.) A database had been set up by many of the grieving parents, showing the date of their loved one's passing. It didn't take too long to check the local news reports for the dates of those fatalities, which confirmed that many were drunk and/or speeding at the time of the crash. That part didn't make it into the general media feeds. The big media story was the evil corporation snuffing out lives, again. Recalls, recalls, and more recalls. Ugh. My head didn't pull a Louis Del Grande, but I was definitely using more generic ibuprofen than usual. It was time to jump.

That was two years ago, right about the time that I got out of the car, and back into the head space that is now Clean Sweep. This is where I want to be. The only way I'd do the car-think thing again is with Netflix money. Fade in. A dusty deserted airstrip. Michael Clark speaks. "Tonight, on Road Rage. We go head-to-head with the Subaru This and the Honda That. And one of these cars is GOING TO DIE!!! (Cue explosions, roll catchy theme music.)

About Winnipeg. In some ways, I do believe its Canada's best-kept secret, and there's plenty of secrets being kept in Clean Sweep. Like any location on the planet that inhabits humans, Winnipeg has plenty to hide. I hope you enjoy what I found, even if it is pure fiction.

Keep the shiny side up, and the rubber side down.