The launch party for Strength to Stand at SubText Books in downtown St. Paul was a thing of beauty.

Which I threatened to kill, because there was a knife there. I mean, seriously, who gives a suspense author a knife?

And a crowd started gathering before we even got started:

I got to sign a bunch of books (and if you want to get one, SubText still has signed copies) as well as give away some author swag:

And I talked for a little bit about how the book and characters came to be and then read a short section from the book:

But we all know who the real star of the show was: