News From the World of Crime

 

More and more, law officers are turning to GPS technology as an aid to helping combat crime, although they can be a bit cagey about how they use it: "We don't really want to give any info on how we use it as an investigative tool to help the bad guys," said Officer Shelley Broderick, a Fairfax, Virginia, police spokeswoman. As a recent Washington Post article pointed out,

Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case [in which a GPS unit was placed on a suspect's Jaguar], judges have sided with police.

A new tool in forensic science is a breakthrough by scientists in Texas that can provide gunshot residue analysis on a single gunpowder particle. As Garrett Lee Burleson explained at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society,

"Gunshot residue tests are done in almost every case where a shooting has taken place. The main focus of our research is to develop a method that will help credibility of gunshot residue evidence in court. You can get results with this test in 30 to 40 minutes with the new test. In addition you only need small amounts of evidence to run the test."

Burleson added that a recent trend toward lead-free ammunition has decreased reliability of gun shot residue analysis and created the need for smarter tests to identify more diverse components of residue in gunpowder.

Speaking of guns, tiny tags, just 30 microns in diameter and invisible to the naked eye, have been designed to be coated onto gun cartridges. They then attach themselves to the hands or gloves of anyone handling the cartridge and are very difficult to wash off completely. Some of these "nanotags" also remain on the cartridge even after it has been fired. This should make it possible to establish a "robust forensic link" between a cartridge fired during a crime and whoever handled it. The technology could be available for use within as little as 12 months.

A very real crime may have been the inspiration for the original Superman. The UK's Daily Mail Online wrote that the brutal killing of immigrant Mitchell Siegel at the hands of a gang who robbed his clothes shop in Cleveland, Ohio, is what was spurred his son, Jerry Siegel (along with Joe Schuster)  to create the famous comic book icon. As the article pointes out, faced with the brutal death of his father at the hands of a bunch of thugs, the young man's sadness and anger inspired him to create a superhuman crimefighter who was impervious to bullets and who had himself lost his father. "Think about it," says thriller writer Brad Meltzer. "Your father dies in a robbery, and you invent a bulletproof man who becomes the world's greatest hero."

Now for a little bit of "woo woo": police in New Zealand interviewed two TV psychics earlier this month in hopes of obtaining a lead in the disappearance of a woman back in 2005. Prominent defence lawyer John Billington said he doubted that a psychic's evidence would be admissible in court.

News From the World of Crime

 

More and more, law officers are turning to GPS technology as an aid to helping combat crime, although they can be a bit cagey about how they use it: "We don't really want to give any info on how we use it as an investigative tool to help the bad guys," said Officer Shelley Broderick, a Fairfax, Virginia, police spokeswoman. As a recent Washington Post article pointed out,

Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case [in which a GPS unit was placed on a suspect's Jaguar], judges have sided with police.

A new tool in forensic science is a breakthrough by scientists in Texas that can provide gunshot residue analysis on a single gunpowder particle. As Garrett Lee Burleson explained at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society,

"Gunshot residue tests are done in almost every case where a shooting has taken place. The main focus of our research is to develop a method that will help credibility of gunshot residue evidence in court. You can get results with this test in 30 to 40 minutes with the new test. In addition you only need small amounts of evidence to run the test."

Burleson added that a recent trend toward lead-free ammunition has decreased reliability of gun shot residue analysis and created the need for smarter tests to identify more diverse components of residue in gunpowder.

Speaking of guns, tiny tags, just 30 microns in diameter and invisible to the naked eye, have been designed to be coated onto gun cartridges. They then attach themselves to the hands or gloves of anyone handling the cartridge and are very difficult to wash off completely. Some of these "nanotags" also remain on the cartridge even after it has been fired. This should make it possible to establish a "robust forensic link" between a cartridge fired during a crime and whoever handled it. The technology could be available for use within as little as 12 months.

A very real crime may have been the inspiration for the original Superman. The UK's Daily Mail Online wrote that the brutal killing of immigrant Mitchell Siegel at the hands of a gang who robbed his clothes shop in Cleveland, Ohio, is what was spurred his son, Jerry Siegel (along with Joe Schuster)  to create the famous comic book icon. As the article pointes out, faced with the brutal death of his father at the hands of a bunch of thugs, the young man's sadness and anger inspired him to create a superhuman crimefighter who was impervious to bullets and who had himself lost his father. "Think about it," says thriller writer Brad Meltzer. "Your father dies in a robbery, and you invent a bulletproof man who becomes the world's greatest hero."

Now for a little bit of "woo woo": police in New Zealand interviewed two TV psychics earlier this month in hopes of obtaining a lead in the disappearance of a woman back in 2005. Prominent defence lawyer John Billington said he doubted that a psychic's evidence would be admissible in court.

Media Murder

Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings) has been added to the cast in a new series of TV crime thrillers to be shown on Channel 4 in the UK. The three-part series is an adaptation of David Peace's trilogy of novels set in Yorkshire.

HBO is going to adapt two thrillers by author James Ellroy (American Tabloid and its sequel American Death Trap) into a television mini-series by the same team that created the recent multiple-Emmy winner John Adams.

CBS Paramount Network TV has optioned Hounding the Pavement, first in a series of mystery novels by Judi McCoy (it's the first volume in a three-book deal, although McCoy says she has a dozen planned).

NPR's Maureen Corrigan reviewed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo By Stieg Larsson, calling it "a super-smart amalgam of the corporate corruption tale, legal thriller and dysfunctional-family psychological suspense story." You can read more and listen here.

Dennis Lehane was interviewed on NBC's Today Show about his latest novel The Given Day.

Going on right now through September 28 is the TCM Crime Scene Festival in the UK, with showings of thrillers, peeks at TV crime dramas, and a celebration of John Creasey, among other offerings.

CBS rolled to victory on Wednesday’s opening of the season thanks to its returning crime dramas, Criminal Minds and CSI: New York, even as its newer shows didn't fare so well.

Helen Mirren (best known to mystery fans as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect) has been hired to play a Mossad agent in John Madden's The Debt, an English-language remake of an Israeli thriller about three Israeli Mossad agents tracking down a Nazi war criminal over 30 years.

And Simon & Schuster is following the path of HarperCollins by creating an in-house digital production studio to create multimedia content about their authors and books. They expect to produce and post more than 600 pieces of multimedia content annually.

Ian Ranks With the Best

 

Yesterday I posted about some of the articles and tributes pouring in for recent birthday-girl PD James, a sprightly young 88. Ian Rankin is only about half that age, but his Inspector Rebus novels have already been around for a couple of decades. Just as James has allegedly written her valedictory Inspector Dalgliesh novel, Rankin has allegedy written his valedictory Inspector Rebus novel, Exit Music. Of course, you can never "say never" as long as authors are still alive (and sometimes afterward, thanks to estates bringing on ringers aboard). The publication of Rankin's Exit Music and his upcoming Doors Open has occasioned articles to match those of James's, including recent bits in The New York Times, The Independent, The Yorkshire Evening Post, and the Manchester Evening News, among others.

Janet Maslin of the Times wondered if Rebus is over the hill, but hopes he's not quite done yet and adds, "Just for the record, Mr. Rankin’s August online newsletter says of Rebus that 'there’s no way he’s going gentle into that dark retirement,' adding, 'and I still like to spend time with him.' So Exit Music, which culminates in a startling cliffhanger, should be read more as a bookend to the series than a calamity for the world of crime fiction."

The Independent chimed in, wondering is Rebus will haunt his maker as Sherlock Holmes did in an earlier Edinburgh bestseller, to which Rankin replied, "I don't think there's anything I can do about it, so I'll wait to see what happens. So far, so good. The next couple of years will be crucial, because it's going to depend on readers liking the non-Rebus stuff I produce."  (So, if you want Rebus back, don't buy Rankin's other books, perhaps?)

Fortunately he didn't follow through on his original idea which he imparted to the Manchester Evening News, "I did toy with the idea of killing him off but I was too fond of him and I'd already made a television documentary about the Reichenbach Falls with a friend of mine, James Mavor."

For the moment, Rankin is happy with his life and career and with Doors Open, which began as a screenplay, but when asked by the New York Times to write a serialized story for their Sunday magazine, he decided to take his "Ocean's Eleven" art-heist film project and adapt it. Then his publisher asked him to spin it into a full-length novel, and he couldn't resist, although "It just naturally grew darker—maybe that's just me; maybe I just couldn't sustain it as a light novel." It will probably do well, as have his other books, but you certainly could understand if a few Rebus fans might be pulling against it.

Dame of the Decades

 

It is often true that as an entertainer, writer, or other celebrity figure reaches senior birthday landmarks, the attention, accolades, and retrospectives start pouring out of the woodwork. Sometimes it's more a matter of sentimentality and a nod toward the individual's sheer staying power in an ever-changing cultural landscape, but often it's deserved.

Such is the case with writer PD James, who celebrated her 88th birthday in August, has a new Adam Dalgliesh novel out, The Private Patient, and has been the subject of several interviews and articles lately, including the Times Online, BBC Radio, the Vancouver Sun, and the CBC News. In them it's said "The detective novels of P.D. James are a window on our times," and "In the eyes of many admirers [she's] the world's finest living crime novelist," and there are probably truths in both statements.

She didn't begin writing until she was in her 40s and now she has 40 years of Dalgliesh behind her. And it's those 40 years of writing that led the Times Online to make the statement about James's novels being a mirror of changes through those decades,

"In negotiating his way through the pathways of human destructiveness, Dalgliesh is also a guide to our times. Lady James is a perceptive chronicler of the changing landscape of London; the flux of urban development and the housing market; the corrosive culture of sink estates; the ruthless politics of the professions; and even the use of the internet for hedonistic purposes."

When asked what it's been like to have Adam Dalgliesh in her life for so long, she replied,

"When I began, I didn’t know he’d be a serial character, and of course there’s the challenge of having readers suspend their disbelief. He hasn’t aged that much over 40 years and each novel is set in the time of its writing. But I did try to create a character that was someone I’d really like. I gave Dalgliesh the qualities I admire in both men and women: he’s good-looking, highly intelligent, compassionate but not sentimental, and reserved. It was important too that he was a character who could develop. I never wanted to know him too well. I think Agatha Christie got rather fed up with Hercule Poirot at the end, because she had made him both too old and just too bizarre."

As to what the future holds? She's working on a history of crime fiction in conjunction with Oxford's Bodleian Library, for one. But will there be another Dalgliesh novel?

"I really don't know. There's something almost valedictory about this one, isn't there? So it depends on an idea coming that is so strong I feel compelled to write another one. But I think this new one has set a rather high standard. I won't want to go on if I can't maintain that standard."

Dame of the Decades

 

It is often true that as an entertainer, writer, or other celebrity figure reaches senior birthday landmarks, the attention, accolades, and retrospectives start pouring out of the woodwork. Sometimes it's more a matter of sentimentality and a nod toward the individual's sheer staying power in an ever-changing cultural landscape, but often it's deserved.

Such is the case with writer PD James, who celebrated her 88th birthday in August, has a new Adam Dalgliesh novel out, The Private Patient, and has been the subject of several interviews and articles lately, including the Times Online, BBC Radio, the Vancouver Sun, and the CBC News. In them it's said "The detective novels of P.D. James are a window on our times," and "In the eyes of many admirers [she's] the world's finest living crime novelist," and there are probably truths in both statements.

She didn't begin writing until she was in her 40s and now she has 40 years of Dalgliesh behind her. And it's those 40 years of writing that led the Times Online to make the statement about James's novels being a mirror of changes through those decades,

"In negotiating his way through the pathways of human destructiveness, Dalgliesh is also a guide to our times. Lady James is a perceptive chronicler of the changing landscape of London; the flux of urban development and the housing market; the corrosive culture of sink estates; the ruthless politics of the professions; and even the use of the internet for hedonistic purposes."

When asked what it's been like to have Adam Dalgliesh in her life for so long, she replied,

"When I began, I didn’t know he’d be a serial character, and of course there’s the challenge of having readers suspend their disbelief. He hasn’t aged that much over 40 years and each novel is set in the time of its writing. But I did try to create a character that was someone I’d really like. I gave Dalgliesh the qualities I admire in both men and women: he’s good-looking, highly intelligent, compassionate but not sentimental, and reserved. It was important too that he was a character who could develop. I never wanted to know him too well. I think Agatha Christie got rather fed up with Hercule Poirot at the end, because she had made him both too old and just too bizarre."

As to what the future holds? She's working on a history of crime fiction in conjunction with Oxford's Bodleian Library, for one. But will there be another Dalgliesh novel?

"I really don't know. There's something almost valedictory about this one, isn't there? So it depends on an idea coming that is so strong I feel compelled to write another one. But I think this new one has set a rather high standard. I won't want to go on if I can't maintain that standard."

We're Off to See the Biz

 

Although not related specifically to crime fiction, New York Magazine has a detailed and thoughtful look at the state of book publishing. Included are anecdotes about the new HarperStudio with its goal of changing the process of book returns by asking authors to forgo advances in return for half of their books’ eventual profit, as well as looks at topics like the desperate race to evolve into e-book producers, the dire state of Borders, the feeling that outrageous money is being wasted on mediocre books, and Amazon, which many publishers see as a power-hungry monster. The article makes the case that "publishing ends up looking like a mini-Hollywood, but even more dependent on sleeper hits and semi-reliable franchises." 

In a somewhat related article, the New York Times wrote about a new service, called Constellation, which will allow independent publishers the ability to use electronic readers, digital book search, print-on-demand and other digital formats at rates negotiated by Perseus Books Group. David Steinberger, the president and chief executive of Perseus, said, "We kept asking ourselves, ‘What does the independent publisher need to grow and succeed in the future?’ And this is what kept coming up."

Also from the book publishing technology department comes this note about Rock & Roll Homicide, a mystery novel which was initially promoted through the social networking site MySpace. When the first 200 buyers were analyzed, it was discovered that almost half were from a group of 18 to 35 year-olds that indicated they were not book readers. As author RJ McDonnell added, "Most of the buyers who fell into this category expressed a strong interest in rock music in their MySpace profiles." Although the jury is still out on using MySpace as a book marketing tool, especially for crime fiction, McDonnell's results are interesting.

The New York Times also had an article on book blurbing. Eric Simonoff, a literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates, said, "I wish, and I think most editors would agree, that we should impose a moratorium on blurb-hunting."

NPR took a look at book trailers. Although some critics dismiss them as being ineffective, Lisa Gallagher, a senior vice president and publisher at William Morrow, says that trailers are vital, both for authors with well-established fan bases and for those still looking for a following.

Literary agent Nathan Bransford blogged about exclusives and literary agents.

And book publicist Rick Frishman tells you "Ten Things That Agents and Editors Hate."

Mystery Melange

 

Declan Burke confessed to Ireland's Sunday Tribune about the book that changed his life.

Marcus Sakey says he initially decided to write in the crime fiction genre because "I wanted to tell the stories that a lot of people read and crime fiction is the most popular genre out there. But once I started working in it and reading in it, I fell head-over-heels for it. I think it's such a strong medium for exploring social and philosophical ideas, at the same time telling a story that makes people stay up too late and miss their train stops."

Patrick Anderson at the Washington Post is delighted that John Harvey has resurrected, so to speak, Nottingham Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick with Harvey's latest novel Cold in Hand, and goes so far to say that "Micahel Connelly and Ian Rankin, whose rumpled, stubborn, romantically challenged Harry Bosch and John Rebus were surely influenced by Resnick."

Orion has acquired two new books from crime writer Elmore Leonard, Comfort to the Enemy, a three-part novel centered on Leonard's protagonist Carl Webster, and Road Dogs, which will unite three characters from past Leonard novels: bank robber Jack Foley, Cuban conman Cundo Ray, and beautiful psychic Dawn Navarro.

Commentator Tony Smith makes the case that whereas during the 1990s, Australia’s best crime fiction originated in Sydney with authors Peter Corris, Marele Day, Jean Bedford, Susan Geason and Gabrielle Lord, in the early 21st century Melbourne leads the way in crime fiction.

An English professor at Fordham College at Lincoln Center and a lifelong lover of crime fiction has written a cultural history of crime fiction titled Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories. Author Leonard Cassuto is also the author of a book on serial killers, Already he had examined the subject of monsters in his 1997 book, The Inhuman Race: The Racial Grotesque in American in American Literature and Culture.

The Delaware Book Festival, which takes place on November 1st, will include a panel featuring successful fiction writers who have pulled expertise from former careers to craft their stories, including physician/medical thriller author Tess Gerritsen, prosecutor/mystery writer Alafair Burke, and TV news producer/media thriller author Mary Jane Clark, as well as a mystery panel featuring Linda Barnes, author of two criminal thriller series, and Chuck Logan, author of seven novels including Hunter’s Moon, Absolute Zero and After the Rain.

And from News of the Weird, coming to a movie theater near you, no doubt, comes the story of a crime-fighting bear.

 

Crime Casting News

 Hollywood is apparently taking note of the continuing popularity of thrillers and crime fiction, as evidenced by a lineup of movies on those themes currently in the pipeline. Some casting and title news of note:

According to Variety, Tom Cruise and United Artists have acquired rights to serial-killer thriller The Monster of Florence, with Cruise attached to produce and possibly to star, according to Douglas Preston, author of the bestseller.

Variety is also reporting that New Line has hired Mark Pellington to direct the mystery thriller Solace, about a doctor with psychic powers who is enlisted by the police to track a serial killer. The screenplay will be written by Sean Bailey and Ted Griffin (with revisions by Jamie Vanderbilt).

British TV director Jon Amiel (The Singing Detective) is on board for the film Creation, with husband-and-wife team Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly portraying Charles and Emma Darwin. The picture is described as "part ghost story, part psychological thriller and part love story."

Robert De Niro has pulled out of the project Edge of Darkness which began shooting in Massachusetts on August 18th. De Niro had signed to play an operative sent to clean up the evidence in the murder of a young woman. Mel Gibson stars as the victim's father, a homicide detective for the Boston Police Department who uncovers her secret life, a corporate cover-up, and government collusion.

Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen have joined the Screen Gems crime thriller Bone Deep, being directed by John Luessenhop. The film revolves around a group of criminals who find their $20 million plan interrupted by a hard-boiled detective (the previously cast Matt Dillon). Walker stars as the leader of the bank robbers, with Christensen as a newbie detective.

And a bit of film publishing news:  Fox Home Entertainment revived its Fox Film Noir series September 2 with three separate titles: Archie Mayo's Moontide (1942) with Jean Gabin and Ida Lupino; Elia Kazan's Boomerang! (1947) with Dana Andrews and Jane Wyatt; and Jean Negulesco's Road House (1948) with Cornel Wilde, Richard Widmark and Lupino. The studio also released Fox Horror Classics: Vol. 2 on September 9th, with a release date of September 16th for Charlie Chan: Volume 5 (starring Sidney Toler who replaced the original Chan, Warner Oland after the actor's death in 1938).

In Remembrance

I was reminded today while at the public library for book research, that for Arlington, like New York City, the events of seven years ago are still very much a local story, with the library broadcasting a live TV feed of the Pentagon 9/11 memorial dedication ceremony this morning. I'm also reminded of the local angle every time I hear stories of that day told by people via various points of connection—such as an acquaintance of my husband's who was driving by the Pentagon right as the fateful plane flew over the man's car and slammed into the Pentagon, yet who still had the presence of mind to collect his camera and take snapshots which the FBI later used in its investigation.

The memorial includes one bench for each victim, laid out in a pattern according to the year each victim was born, from 1930 to 1998, and then aligned according to the plane's flight path into the building—if the nameplate of the victim on the bench can be read with the Pentagon in the background, the person died in the building, and if the sky is in the background, the person died on American Airlines Flight 77. One hundred eighty-four people lost their lives, from the youngest, 3-year-old Dana Falkenberg, to one of the oldest, Max Beilke, 69, the last U.S. combat soldier to leave Vietnam.

The stories of those victims are told on a Washington Post tribute titled "Sacred Ground: Remembering the Victims," with an interactive layout of the placement of each victim's memorial bench on a separate link, found here. Stories such as Capt. Robert Edward Dolan Jr. of Alexandria, Virginia, who "could quote Shakespeare and Monty Python in the same sentence" and "was equally comfortable commanding a billion-dollar ship and chatting at the church picnic"; Paul W. Ambrose, a family doctor in Arlington who was engaged to be married, with a wedding to take place the following September in Madrid; Amelia V. Fields, of Dumfries, Virginia, who had turned 36 that morning and whose husband had baked a chocolate cake for when she would have arrived home that night; and James Daniel Debeuneure of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, whose college junior son Jalin said, "What hurts so bad is that when [R&B singer] Aaliyah got in that plane crash, I was telling my dad and everyone that I was going to live my life differently because you never know when it's going to be your last day. He agreed with that. Now, two weeks later, he dies in the same way—in a plane crash."

Remembering tragic events can be extraordinarily painful, but forgetting can be much, much worse.

Good Tippers

 

In these days of rising costs and financial funk, writers are having to take a harder look at the bottom line, which often means cutting out trips to conferences, especially far-flung ones like the Maui Writers Conference earlier this month. In case you did miss it, Lee Pletzers has kindly listed the "10 Basic Ingredients of a Successful Thriller," which author Gary Braver (Flashback, Gray Matter) discussed at the conference. A lot of these are similar to what other writers in other crime fiction genres will tell you, but they're important enough to reiterate, especially #1, which really is number one, "You need to have a good story."

Another thriller writer at the same conference, Steve Berry (The Venetian Betrayal, The Templar Legacy), had a different take on the craft with his "8 Rules of Writing." The first is the both the most frustrating and the most liberating, "There are no rules. You can do anything you want as long as it works." The problem, of course, is learning how to write "what works," and realizing that the definition of that concept can vary from one reader, one agent, one editor, and one publisher to another.

A third thriller writer, Patrick Lennon (Steel Witches, Corn Dolls), was one of the many authors appearing at the first ever Reading (UK) Festival of Crime Writing last week. You can both listen to and read some of his writing tips on the BBC's web site.

Writer's Digest is also helping out with its Writers Sessions On Demand. They've collected instructional sessions, workshops, panel discussions and interviews from ThrillerFest and the Maui Writers Conference (coming soon). They're not free, as you have to purchase the streaming videos individually or in a bundle, but it's still much less expensive than what it would cost to attend the conference (especially factoring in airfare, hotel, food, etc.).

Ultimately, nothing can replace the face-to-face contacts a writer makes at a conference, but it's nice to know there are a few options to help out while you're waiting for that winning lottery ticke

Let's Hear It For the Boys

 

Yesterday I posted links to some recent profiles of female crime fiction authors appearing in the press, and today's it's time for the men to get their just due.

The Australian interviewed stand-up comedian and author Mark Billingham, creator of seven Detective Inspector Tom Thorne novels and his most recent offering, the standalone thriller In the Dark. "People ask me where I get my twisted ideas from and I always say that it's the exact same place that everyone gets them from. Who hasn't been cut off in traffic and wanted to exact some horrible revenge? I just get it out on the page, which is better than running around McDonald's with a machine gun."

The Chicago Times profiled author Michael A. Black, a 6-1, 255-pound black belt in tae kwon do who also wears the hat of Sgt. Michael Black of the Matteson Police Department, by day. "Being a police officer as long as I have [29 years], it's really fascinating the kind of people I meet on the job," he says. "I've always been a student of human nature."

The UK Times featured the venerable Dick Francis, the octagenarian author of dozens of horse-racing-themed mysteries. Last year Francis had a triple heart bypass and a foot amputated, yet as the interviewer noted, "he’s still the most commanding person in the room" and signs his postcards "Legless Dick."

Paul Johnston is another crime fiction author who has cheated death, suffering two bouts of cancer within five years, although like Dick Francis, he maintains a sense of humor: "A tennis ball," he snorts, "the tumour they found in my bowel was the size of a tennis ball. Quite what Roger Federer was doing hitting an ace up there, I have no idea." Best known for his Quint Dalrymple series set in a futuristic independent state of Edinburgh, he had the idea for a new series with hacked-off crime writer Matt Wells, the result of which was The Death List, a book he hammered out in just over a month, in a massive outpouring of 5000 words a day, driven by his battered emotional state.

Barry Forshaw of The Times Online wrote a tribute to Steig Larsson who died in Stockholm of a massive heart attack in 2004. Controversial life aside, Larsson will be best remembered by most (especially outside of his native Sweden) for his crime fiction trilogy, not yet published at his death, although they were under contract at the time. The first, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was released in 2005 in Swedish and will hit the U.S. in its English translation this month. His publisher talks of his overriding feeling for the writer being one of loss—the loss of a man who was both a crusader for honourable causes and a writer of exuberant skill.

Dennis Lehane was the subject of a Wall Street Journal account, taking a look at his latest novel which is a historical work titled The Given Day, centered on the Boston police riots of 1919. When asked if his career as a writer of crime fiction gave him skills to help move a story along, especially in a long literary like this one, he replied, "I think the first law of all writing is to keep things moving. It doesn't mean it has to move like a bullet train, it can be Dostoyevsky, but things keep moving. That's what the death of interesting fiction is: people sitting in rooms talking about their mothers."

A Dallas Morning News article titled "Cuban writer Leonardo Padura uses crime fiction to write about political realities" discusses how well the author's characters deal with constant hardships of life in modern Cuba, including shortages of food, limited opportunities and a heavy-handed government bureaucracy. As to why Padura chose crime stories as his backdrop, he said "I decided a long time ago to write them because from the time I was a simple reader I really liked police novels. I decided to utilize the police novel because it seemed to me that it was a good vehicle to show the Cuban social reality."

Daniel Silva, author of ten bestsellers, is known for using real-world scenarios as a backdrop and for incorporating serious research into the plotting of his stories. "The research is a joy. I love researching and spending time developing characters. For the year a book is running around in my head, I am probably reading 100 books, soaking their information into my head. No one else can do that for me."

The South Florida Sun Sentinel featured debut writer Rich Wicklifee (Tropical Windfall) who manages a team of insurance investigators, which provides good fodder for his writing. "There is no shortage of crazy stories. I walk around with fresh ideas every day. I started writing two years ago, but it is not easy when you have a family and a job. It took me a year and a half to finish the novel. My contacts in law enforcement, DEA, Border Patrol and legal experts helped me keep things as accurate as possible."

Here's Lookin' At You, Kid

 

Some interesting profiles of crime fiction authors pop up in the press from time to time. There have been several to come across my desk recently, enough to split them into two sections, with today's posting including the femmes and tomorrow's, the fellas. If you're an novelist lucky enough to draw the attention of the press, it can certainly be good PR, and if you're a mystery fan, it's often an entertaining introduction to a new or favorite author (if the journalist does his/her homework, that is, and unfortunately, some don't).

Megan Abbott (of Edgar-winner Queenpin fame) has been called the "new queen of noir" by Ken Bruen and "poised to ascend to the top rung of crime writing and quite possibly something beyond," by James Ellroy. Lofty praise, indeed. She acquired her talent by nature, with both parents being authors, but also via nurture, as mother Patricia Abbott recalls, "Whereas other kids would watch Disney or Spielberg, Megan would always choose Jean Harlow, Jeanne Crain or Barbara Stanwyck movies." A good reason why, as the reviewer points out, her stories have a cinematic quality.

Wisconsin cozy author Deb Baker uses her doll collector background as a canvas for her series with amateur sleuth Gretchen Birch, such as Dolly Departed, released this summer. Barker is fortunate to have two series simultaneously, and the other (with Murder Talks Turkey, also released this summer), features 66-year-old widow Gertie Johnson and her Trouble Buster Investigative Company, set in Barker's native area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. For more on her profile, read here.

Although Rita Mae Brown may be best known to some for her lesbian classic, Rubyfruit Jungle, to mystery fans, she's the author of the feline Sneaky Pie Brown mystery series. The latest installment, titled Hounded to Death, is due out September 30. As to why she turned from literary fiction to mysteries, she says "I was in Hollywood making money hand over fist, which is what you do in Hollywood--you starve or you hit it big. The Writers Guild went on strike, and it lasted a year. The bills came in, and the money ran out. Sneaky Pie, my cat, who’s incredibly intelligent, said, 'Why don’t you write a mystery?' I tried it, and thank God I did because it has taught me so much. All genre fiction is a sonnet."

Native Coloradan Margaret Coel is the author of a mystery series set among the Arapahos on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation, with Jesuit priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden. Inspired by Tony Hillerman's books, she gained access to the Arapaho while researching Chief Left Hand after being introduced by a native writer who took Coel under her wing. Her latest, Blood Memory is a standalone novel deals with the Sand Creek Massacre of the Cheyenne and the Arapaho people and was inspired by what happened in 2004 when those tribes tried to get some land out by DIA to build a casino. You can read the full article here.

Michelle Gagnon has one of the more varied backgrounds for a writer as a former modern dancer, bartender, dog walker, model, personal trainer, and Russian supper club performer. Her first manuscript was rejected by more then 50 literary agents, "even some of the shady ones." Gagnon's persistence paid off, with her first novel featuring FBI Agent Kelly Jones, The Tunnels, an IMBA best-seller, and a follow-up, Bone Yard, published just last month. Gagnon also writes on blogs such as the Kill Zone about life's quirks in general and insights on being a writer and surviving the publishing industry.

Ruth Rendell is a Labour peer who sits in the House of Lords three times a week and still has time to write books--more than 50 in 45 years. Just two years shy of 80, she works out every day and walks everywhere. As she told a Scotland Sunday journalist, she believes the world is "a terrible place, in many ways a vale of tears," and her characters can be found in the darker places of  the fictional market town of Kingsmarkham in her Inspector Wexford detective series, or the London of her Barbara Vine thrillers. When people ask what she wants to be remembered for, she replies, "I don't really care. But if it's for anything, it would be the idea that people can go to my work--if it lasts--and find out exactly what it was like in 2008. I hope for that."

New Zealand author Vanda Symon isn't deterred by the fact that in real life, murder is a rare occurrence in Dunedin, her current home and the setting for her novels. "It's actually a really safe town but it's got that wonderful gothic feel to it. People can imagine things like that happening here...And crime is always on the front page of the newspaper - every city in New Zealand has its seedy underbelly." Her rookie detective girl sleuth, Sam Shepherd, will appear in two more books contracted out by Penguin, giving Symon plenty more opportunities to weave Kiwi vernacular into her stories. The interview with The New Zealand Herald can be found here.

60-Year-Old Mystery Solved

 

Mystery authors, take note. Ideas can come from a variety of places, and sometimes it's hard to top the real-life mysteries. Case in point, two pilots got more than they bargained for in 1997 when they went looking for the wreck of a DC-4 which had crashed into a glacier on the side of Mount Sanford in 1948, reported to be carrying a planeful of gold. Instead, they found a severed and mummified arm and hand, from which Alaskan State Troopers took a set of fingerprints, later embalming the limb. Unfortunately, the prints weren't clear and DNA analysis was unsuccessful because the tissues had become too dehydrated. Thus, no I.D.

Fast-forward nine years later when Dr. Odile Loreille at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab in Maryland developed new methods that allowed her to read the mitochondrial DNA, and Edward Robinson, a professor of forensic science at George Washington University, used a newly-developed rehydrating solution and special imaging techniques to produce a complete set of useable fingerprints. After merging the two new technologies, authorities were able to verify that the remains belonged to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from Roanoke, Virginia, who died in the fateful crash.

Latent fingerprint expert Mike Grimm said, "This is the oldest identification of fingerprints by post-mortem remains."

Mid-week Mystery Melange

 

Declan Burke wrote about the relatively recent resurgence of Irish crime fiction, with the likes of John Connolly, Tana French, Ken Bruen and Declan Hughes (among many others). Burke states, "It's an impressive roster, but it does beg the question -- why now?" To find out, you just may have to join him at the BOOKS 2008 crime series, September 5 to 7, with such seminars as "Forty Shades of Grey: Real Fiction, Real Ireland."

Harlequin’s Mira Books division recently threw a party in honor of debut thriller writer Jason Pinter, who recently signed a 3-book deal. What was so newsworthy about just another publisher party for an author? Executive editor Margaret Marbury explained that even though Mira has been publishing thrillers for years and has a number of male authors on its lists, "People still only think we’re category romance and it’s a little bit frustrating."

The International Thriller Writers organization has eliminated the Paperback Original (PBO) category from its annual awards. As Michelle Gagnon lamented on the Kill Zone Authors blog, she was "actually surprised there wasn’t more of an outcry. PBO is a treasured category, in that it gives writers who aren't necessarily guaranteed a spot on the bestsellers' lists an opportunity for some recognition."

The historic Clavell Tower was rescued from the brink of disaster in the UK, thanks to an 18-month project. The monument was the inspiration for PD James' novel The Black Tower and the mystery author backed the campaign to save the building, also known as the Tower of the Winds.

The British Association for the Advancement of Science’s Festival of Science is being held in Liverpool between September 6 and 11, in a bid to show how thriller writers and forensic scientists can fight real crime. Participants include several scientists as well as crime novelists Margaret Murphy, Val McDermid, Peter James. One of the attending scientists, Dr. Lorna Dawson, was asked if the writers get close to real life? to which she replied, "There is a great difference between some of these vehicles of communication. You get very good authors like Margaret (Murphy), who makes absolutely sure that she gets the facts right. On the other side, you get the sensational type of movie, which gives crime fiction a bad name."

In another page from the "it pays to know someone" book of opportunity, Tod Goldberg recounts in the LA Times how he came to write original novels based on the popular USA series Burn Notice, despite having what he called the kind of notoriety one rarely reads about, "I've lost all the awards I've ever been nominated for, my most ardent fans number in the tens of hundreds, and I'd need the Jaws of Life to pull me onto the bestseller list. In short, a career in the literary fiction trenches, where acclaim is something you hang your hat on, since you haven't made enough money to buy a hat rack." Then came the call from his very successful brother Lee Goldberg (Monk, Diagnosis Murder) about Burn Notice. The article includes anecdotes from other tie-in author like James Rollins (Indiana Jones) and Max Allan Collins (CSI novels).

And from the life imitates art department, crime writer Lance Black turned crime fighter to stop a would-be thief, chasing down the perpetrator after he swiped a mobile phone from an employee at the Union Street Orange shop. Coming soon to his next novel, perhaps?