Hey Sunday Brunch lovers – Today some of us had to turn our clocks back to end Daylight Savings Time, and I got to go out for a real Sunday Brunch with my good friend Lex Valentine (because Halloween was her birthday.) We headed to Lucille’s for a bit of barbecue today, so look for a delicious no-fuss barbecue beans recipe (From Jack Stack in Kansas City via the Food Network) at the end of the post that you can try at home!

Here’s how my Sunday Brunch Blog works:  I invite a couple of your favorite authors to my blog and ask them a question. Sometimes my questions are silly, sometimes they’re thought-provoking.

My guests will share their answers with me and you, gentle readers, can give your answer to my question in the comment section below. I’ll choose one random person from the comments and reward them with an ebook surprise, it’s that simple!

Last Week’s winner? Shae! I’ll be getting in touch with you soon.

Tell me what your answer would be in the comments, and you could win an e-book!

This weeks question is:

If you could get away with one crime, what would you do?

If I could get away with one crime, it would be prostitution. Lord knows I’d love to able to say with complete confidence that I was good enough in the sack to actually charge for it. That isn’t actually the case, but hey…a boy can dream can’t he?  But if I did charge, I certainly wouldn’t want to be arrested for it!

For one, if I were a hooker, I’d totally be the heart-of-gold variety and people with hearts-of-gold shouldn’t get tossed into the pokey. I mean, really…how f’in rude!! I’d be giving the gift of orgasmy-goodness, people. I’m sorry, but that should not be something folks get arrested for.

So, if I were a horny hustler who sucked the creamy filling out of every Twinkie I could get my lips on in exchange for some coin, I’d prefer a key to the city as opposed to an extended stay at club fed. They may say it’s better to give than to receive, but I see no reason why can’t we have both. You give me some money and you receive a blow job. Hello…that’s like synergy right? Giving and receiving never sounded so good. : ) — Author Ethan Day  ** Editor’s note – SPLUTTER! **

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I only get one? That hardly seems fair. And I’m guessing I can’t count my past misdeeds? I mean, ‘cause I’ve danced on the edge of shady a few times in my past. You think thishttp://www.fictionwithfriction.com/2009/10/31/sexy-devil-in-uniform/ got made up whole cloth? Of course, my little slice of that ended when the Doña Ana Sheriff’s Deputy walked out the door. My real life doesn’t usually equate to porn scripts…wait, uhm,

Yeah, so crime.

It wouldn’t be murder. That’s the nice thing about writing in the realm of suspense/mystery and fantasy – if I really dislike someone, I can kill them off. Repeatedly, if I wish, with much glee. I can pretty much guarantee you that if there is an “on screen” death in my books that, with one notable exception, those characters were drawn in some fashion from someone I knew who I couldn’t stand. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy.

I also couldn’t see getting my one pass at something small or petty. It’d have to be a BIG crime. A one in a million. A D.B. Cooper type heist**(N) Since I don’t get to be known for it, then the crime itself has to be grand and executed with panache. Something that will become a legend in itself. It must be something that feels “victimless” or at least where the victims are so generally reviled anyways that what I would do to them would be seen as justice.

I’m thinking, something that the American public would do a fist pump for.

So, I think, if I could pull it off, I would find a way to siphon off the bank accounts of the chief executives of some of the biggest banks in the country. You know, the guys who were giving themselves multi-million dollar bonuses while the country was drowning in the morass of the foreclosure crises they created. The problem is, it’s not terribly splashy, but it does hit the moral high ground of a well deserved “comeuppance.” I’d have to make large public threats and then carry them out in the most public manner possible. It would require a cadre of conspirators, ‘cause frankly, I have a hard enough time trying to clear a virus off my website. Hacking secure banking databases is way out of my league. Masterminding it, that would be my role.

Then I’d sit back in some foreign country, and every few years watch the latest news piece on who did it and how. — Author James Buchanan

**(N) In 1971, D.B. Cooper (an alias) extorted $200,000 from Northwest Orient Airlines when he hijacked and threatened to blow up one of their planes full of passengers. He then leaped, at night during a storm, from the airborne 727 over the North American wilderness. He wore a suit, dress shoes and had 21 pounds of $20 bills strapped to his torso. A little bit of the cash has been found, but DB’s body and the majority of the money have never been discovered. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/index.html

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Boy, does that open up a world of possibility! Revenge…profit…self-gratification…

I thought about swiping a yacht, plundering a museum or sneaking into Fort Knox. And needless to say, I thought about past crimes…like that time I snuck into the college swimming pool in the middle of the night.  Wild times, baby. Wild times…

That’s when it hit me. I’m a goody-two-shoes. I mean…seriously. I’ve never shoplifted, do my best to avoid speeding and when I lie, it literally keeps me awake at night. Now all this doesn’t mean I’m a paragon of virtue, I just have an overactive sense of self-preservation. And I also have a massive guilt complex. When I was a kid, I used to apologize for things I didn’t do…my sister gleefully took advantage of my tendency to confess to things I hadn’t done.

But still, there’s a lot of possibility here, getting away with a crime…any crime. I could steal from criminals or sneak into a lab and free all the research animals. I could actually help people by being bad! But again, for everything you do, there are bound to be repercussions.

So if I could commit a crime…any crime…and get away with it?

I’d probably sneak into the college pool, but this time I’d go skinny-dipping!

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And on behalf of Belinda and ZAM, who ate at Jack Stack in Kansas City this year (BEST! BARBECUE! EVER!) Here’s a link to an easy peasy version of their recipe for barbecue beans via the Food Network:

JACK STACK BBQ BEANS

ENJOY!