Even though you’ve known someone for decades, you always learn something when you read his obituary. Such is the case with Julius Fast, who recently passed away and whose life is celebrated in an obituary in the New York Times. In Julie’s case, I did not realize that he was the very first recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the highest honor achievable by mystery writers. It was awarded to him in 1946, the inaugural year of the “Edgar”, for his 1945 first novel Watchful at Night. Nor did I know that he had served as an army medic in World War II.

What I’ve always known about him is that he was a prolific, versatile and speedy writer with a journalist’s nose for a hot trend, as many of his nonfiction books demonstrate. None was hotter than the psychological research revealing how much our body language reveals to those perceptive enough to pick up cues in the attitude of our head or the fidgeting of our hands. The appropriately named Fast seized on the revelations and produced Body Language, which E-Reads publishes in e-book format.

Adios, Julie.

RC