Sadly, I missed the inaugural Thrillerfest, which was held in Phoenix. I had recently given birth to my first child, and the thought of Arizona in July with a newborn was not terribly appealing. Which is a shame, because from what I understand it was one for the ages. I made up for it by attending the past few Thrillerfests in New York, and I’m happy to report that despite the fact that everyone always says, “You shoulda been at the first one,” I’ve had an amazing experience each time. My week kicked off with a joint reading at the Park Avenue Borders. Tim Maleeny, Laura Caldwell, J.T. Ellison, Mario Acevedo, Laura Benedict, Shane Gericke, Alexandra Sokoloff, and I participated in “Quick Thrills from Out-of-Towners.” Lee Child graciously served as our MC, and in completely disregarding our prepared bios introduced us with anecdotes a hundred times wittier than anything we could have come up with. Everyone read for five minutes to an incredibly receptive crowd. The store was quick to add rows of seats as the place filled, we auctioned off Borders gift certificates and stuffed snakes (which were more of a hit than the $100 certificates, go figure). A…