We're On the Grind

 

Stephen J. Cannell is still best known to many as the producer behind such TV crime dramas as Baretta, Hardcastle and McCormick, Renegade, The A-Team, The Rockford Files, Wiseguy, and more (many of which often ended with his trademark video logo of himself rolling paper out of a typewriter and throwing it into the air). More recently, he's switched gears to writing crime novels, fifteen thus far, including his LAPD Detective Shane Scully series.

With a Cannell TV episode, you knew pretty much what you were going to get, namely, a lightweight but entertaining adventure in which characters sometimes trend toward one-dimensional and the plot often takes a backseat to the action, but you find yourself getting sucked in anyway due to Cannell's solid storytelling skills. Thus it's not terribly surprising that his latest book follows along those same lines.

On the Grind is the eighth installment in the adventures of Shane Scully, and as the book opens, things have never looked more dire for the detective. Charged with sleeping with a witness—a sexy Hollywood starlet—and trying to cover up by stealing evidence, he's forced to resign. His wife Alexa kicks him out of the house and his son won't have anything to do with him. The only recourse left is to take a job in the small city of Haven Park, a ghetto of illegal immigrants, with a police department so corrupt, it's like a law enforcement cesspool, drawing in every dirty and disgraced cop no other city will touch. Every action revolves around kickbacks (with arms smuggling to boot), coddling the local Latino gangs or protecting the unscrupulous mayor who has a vested interest in having his dystopian empire continue unfettered.

Scully's training and "initiation" is overseen by his new partner, Sgt. Alonzo Bell, even as Scully continues to be dogged by the FBI agent who was involved in his dismissal from the LAPD. Soon he's in so deep, he's being groomed to assassinate the only serious opposition candidate in the upcoming mayoral race, despite the fact that some of his new colleagues don't completely trust him. Therein lies the twist in the plot, which is telegraphed fairly early, so it's not much of a spoiler to add that Scully is in fact working undercover and ends up putting his life on the line to provide enough evidence to close down the corruption mill.

Cannell has a very fine hand with pacing and atmosphere, and the book is certainly a quick read, written entirely in the first-person POV of Scully instead of alternating third-person as he did with early Scully outings. One major quibble would be that the ending is a bit over-the-top as a battered Scully mounts up (literally) to ride to victory. That and a few other implausibiliies diminish the more realistic insider view of the police procedural which had occupied the first nine-tenths of the book, and make the ending feel a bit rushed and wrapped up too neatly. Still, most Scully fans probably won't be disappointed, the kind of book where you just strap yourself in and go along for the ride.

For a book trailer, you can check out this link (there's also a sweepstakes there throughout the month), and for interviews with the author (divided in several parts), including a look at the evolution of the character of Shane Scully, click here.

Sherlock Holmes in America

 

Arthur Conan Doyle had a fascination with the United States, even using American characters and places in some of his stories, as with A Study in Scarlet, featuring a flashback set in a Mormon community in Utah, or the Valley of Fear, which deals in part with crime in Pennsylvania coal-mining territories. Irene Adler, the only woman to best Sherlock Holmes, was originally from New Jersey, and Holmes himself posed as an Irish-American spy in "His Last Bow."

Doyle once wrote:

"And no less wonderful to me are those Western cities which, without any period of development, seem to spring straight into a full growth of every modern convenience, but where, even among the rush of cable cars and the rining of telephone bells, one seems still to catch the echoes of the woodman's axe and of the scout's rifle.

These things are the romance of America, the romance of change, of contrast, of danger met and difficulty overcome, and let me say that we, your kinsmen, upon the other side, exult in your success and in your prosperity, and it is those who know British feeling--true British feeling--best, who will best understand how true are my words...."

After four trips to the young country, Doyle even called for the creation of an Anglo-American society to promote ties between the two nations. His fascination with the wilder side of the U.S.—the frontier tales of James Fenimore Cooper, the tales of Poe, Twain, and Harte, the wild west—were the inspiration behind a new collection of short stories which either feature Sherlock Holmes or touch upon his influence in some way. Editors Martin Greenburg, Jon Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower have gathered fourteen stories and three essays which place Holmes in such cities as San Antonio, San Diego, New York City, Salt Lake City, and Boston, running into notables drawn from the history pages, including the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, Wyatt Earp, and Buffalo Bill Cody.

Contributors include Steve Hockensmith, author of the Holmes on the Range mysteries about Sherlock Homes-obsessed cowboy brothers; multiple-Shamus Award winner Loren D. Estleman; Anthony winner Bill Crider' Carolyn Wheat, winner of several major awards and author of How to Write Killer Fiction, and Gillian Linscott, historical Dagger-award winner and author of a suffragette detective series.

The first story in the collection, "The Case of Colonel Warburton's Madness," by Lyndsay Faye, sets the right tone by using one of Watson's untold tales which Holmes cleverly solves in an armchair after the doctor describes a mystery he encountered in San Francisco. It's hard to pick a highlight, as all the offerings are entertaining. Some are written from the traditional viewpoint of Watson as documentarian, some with others taking that role in one form or another, and the concluding story by Michael Walsh, which casts him in a less traditional, but more poignant role than usual, is told from Holmes's own POV, set as a prelude to Doyle's story, "His Last Bow."

Almost eighty years after Conan Doyle's death, his legendary protagonist continues to fascinate. Fans hungering for more fodder to feed their Holmes habit will find the pastiches in Sherlock Holmes in America a welcome "hit."

Media Murder

 

MOVIES

Informant Media has optioned William Dielh's novel Hooligans based on a screenplay he created before his death. In addition, Diehl's 27 has been optioned and Sharky's Machine is also going to be remade.

Constantin Film has acquired the feature film adaptation rights to 28 Minutes, the forthcoming crime novel from Dave Zeltserman, although the title of the move will be changed to Outsourced.

Writer Mark Bomback has been chosen by New Line and Playtone to adapt Agent Zigzag, a WWII spy drama. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are producing.

Universal has purchased Rites of Men by Jonathan Herman, the story of a working-class single father whose world is shattered by the unsolved murder of his only son. It's the second Herman work signed recently, after Warner Brothers and Silver Pictures picked up Herman's bank heist thriller Conviction.

Liam Neeson had been under consideration for Unknown White Male, an international thriller Joel Silver's Dark Castle is producing for Warner Brothers. Neeson was to play a doctor visiting Berlin who suffers an injury that leads to a coma. When the doctor awakens, he finds he has been replaced by another man and then sets off on a quest to discover the truth. Given the unfortunate parallel between the protagonist's story line and the circumstances of Liam's wife, Natasha Richardson's death, it remains to be seen whether the project will proceed.

Paramount Pictures has acquired bigscreen rights to John Le Carre's espionage thriller The Night Manager, with Brad Pitt's Plan B company producing.

Paramount has also grabbed bigscreen rights to an upcoming Wired magazine article about a band of Italian diamond thieves. J.J. Abrams is producing through his Bad Robot shingle. Joshua Davis, who has turned a number of his Wired articles into feature projects, wrote the story for the April issue of the magazine.

The companies behind the screen adaptations of Stieg Larsson's trilogy, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will now be shown worldwide in cinemas. Originally conceived as a miniseries, the success in Sweden of the original showings prompted the about-face.

TV

CBS has informed the producers of Without a Trace and Cold Case that the long-running procedurals are facing possible cancellation come May.

Northern Lights, the Lifetime movie based on the Nora Roberts series, drew the highest ratings for the network this year to date. Up next:  the second of four Roberts adaptations, Midnight Bayou.

A pilot episode based upon M.J. Rose's novels The Reincarnationist and The Memoirist is currently being shot in Baltimore and "looks like a strong candidate to make the Fox lineup next season," the Baltimore Sun reported.

Lost's Reiko Aylesworth has landed a role in Jerry Bruckheimer's untitled ABC drama pilot about amateur detectives.

ITV Global Entertainment has sold several drama series to France 3, including the murder mystery drama series Lewis and the hit Canadian crime thriller Murdoch Mysteries, based on the novels by Maureen Jennings.

In more international "pick up" news, CBS Paramount International Television has licensed the new 13-part murder mystery series Harper's Island to BBC Three for launch in the U.K. later this year.

Lifetime Television will produce TV movie adaptations of Patricia Cornwell's bestselling crime novels At Risk and The Front for Lifetime Network, marking the first time the author's work will be adapted.

WEB/RADIO

CSI's Anthony Zuikera is creating a digital crime novel series, The Dark Chronicles, a serial killer trilogy to feature Steve Dark, a former member of the FBI Special Circumstances Unit.

The Oxford DNB Podcast series featured a reading of the biography of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

KALW's Book Talk program interviewed Peter Robinson about his latest Inspector Alan Banks mystery, All the Colors of Darkness, on March 22nd, The week prior (March 15), it was Jacqueline Winspear, talking about her latest Maisie Dobbs mystery, Among the Mad.

Media Murder

 

MOVIES

The Gaumont Film Company has acquired Paranoia by suspense novelist Joseph Finder and hired Barry Levy to write the screen adaptation. Finder's High Crimes was previously adapted for a movie starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.

The movie based on Ken Bruen's London Boulevard has added Ray Winstone, Anna Friel, and David Thewlis to the cast. They join the already-announced Colin Farell and Keira Knightly.

Several novel-to-film rights were announced recently:

• Fox 2000 acquired the screen rights to Patricia Cornwell's bestselling books featuring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta to develop as a vehicle for Angelina Jolie.

• Henry Chang's Chinatown Beat (with Detective Jack Yu) were optioned to Silverock Films.

• Stanley Evans's Seaweed on the Street, in which a Native American community cop combines crime sleuthing with Coast Salish mythology, was optioned on behalf of Full Regalia Enterprises.

• The rights to Michael McClelland's Oyster Blues, depicting an English professor/P.I. and a waitress who are on the run thinking that they are wanted for murder, was sold to producer Jon Judelson (of The Inventors fame).

TV

ABC picked up 13 episodes of Copper, a Canadian co-production revolving around five rookie cops

Lifetime Network is adding a number of new dramas and movies:

• The Fallen (working title), based on T. Jefferson Parker's novel of the same name, from executive producer McG (The OC, Charlie's Angels) and executive producers/writers Ed Decter and John Strauss (Head Over Heels).

• Murder in Suburbia, the detective series formatted from the popular British series, written and executive produced by Jon Maas (True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet).

• Two murder-mystery franchise movies based on Ellen Byerrum's popular Crimes of Fashion novels Killer Hair and Hostile Makeover, with Mark Consuelos (Hope & Faith), Maggie Lawson (Psych), Mario Cantone (Sex and the City) and Mary McDonnell (TV's Battlestar Galactica), to debut in July.

• They join the already-announced At Risk and The Front, both based on Patricia Cornwell novels, slated for broadcast in 2010. 

WEB/RADIO

Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge featured a program with Michael Chabon talking about writing that transcend genres; Judith Freeman was interviewed about her book The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved; author M.C. Beaton and Matthew Prichard, Agatha Christie's grandson, discussed the joys of the English "cosy" and the quality of Christie's plotting; and Richard Price talked about his crime-novel-that's-not-a-crime-novel, Lush Life.

NPR chatted with Marc Blatte about his debut novel Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed which has been billed as "hip hop noir."

Walter Mosley was interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio.

David Ewen (who also operates Book World News with USA Today) has started a televised program called "Morning Coffee" on the web to promote authors, publishers, writers, and book sellers.

Borders has made a 10-minute movie about Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. In honor of the next Plum book, Finger Lickin' Fifteen, Borders is encouraging fans to make their own Plum videos of 2 to 10 minutes, post them on YouTube and notify Borders of the URL. Borders will then share some of them with other Borders customers on its website and via the Borders Shortlist e-mail.

Reunions Aren't Always Easy

 

Until recently, Simone Van Der Vlugt was a Dutch author known for her young adult novels. With Reunion she tackles adult crime fiction for the first time, to great success--it sold over 400,000 copies and was translated in German and French, with the English translation by Michele Hutchison.

This novel of psychological suspense takes its time peeling back layer after layer of the troubled life of protagonist Sabine, who's just returning to work after taking a medical leave due to "burn out" and depression. As told in an almost facile and straightforward first-person present tense narrative, we slowly delve deeper and deeper into the tortured psyche of Sabine and the memories she's repressed from her childhood which date to the time her former friend and subsequent tormentor Isabel disappeared without a trace. Nine years later, notice of a school reunion prompts those memories to return in tantalizing snippets that lead Sabine to revisit the small Dutch coastal town of Den Helder where it all began. She starts investigating on her own and comes to realize the potential suspects are among those closest to her, including her brother and her current and former lovers.

As we're drawn deeper into Sabine's world, we find ourselves pulling for her and want to get to the bottom of the mystery as much as she does. The ending is unsettling, and this is one book where you definitely don't want to peek, but even more unsettling are the themes of alienation, unhealthy relationships, and the ways humans find to torture each other in small incremental ways each and every day.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book:

I stand at the entrance to the beach, my hands in the pockets of my jacket, and look out to sea. It’s 6 May and way too cold for this time of year. Apart from a solitary beachcomber, the beach is deserted. The sea is the colour of lead. Snarling and foaming, it swallows up more and more sand.

A little further up, a young girl sits on a bench. She too looks out to sea, hunched up in her padded jacket. She’s wearing sturdy shoes that can withstand the wind and rain. A school bag lies at her feet. Not far from where she’s sitting, her bike leans against the barbed wire fence. It’s padlocked, even though she’s nearby.

I knew I would find her here.

She stares blindly out to sea. Even the wind, which tugs at her clothing, can’t get a grip on her. It catches her light brown hair whirling around her head, but not her attention.

Despite her insensitivity to the cold, there’s a vulnerability about this girl that touches me.

I know her, yet I hesitate to speak to her because she doesn’t know me. But it’s extremely important that she gets to know me, that she listens to me, that I get through to her.

I walk towards the bench, my gaze fixed on the sea as if I’ve come here to enjoy the angry waves.

The girl looks the other way, her face expressionless. For a moment she seems to want to get up and leave, but then resigns herself to having her solitude invaded.

We sit next to each other on the bench, our hands in our pockets, and watch how air and water merge. I must say something.

She’ll leave soon and we won’t have exchanged a word. But what do you say when every word counts?

As I take a deep breath and turn towards her, she looks over at me. Our eyes are the same colour. We probably have the same expression too.

She’s about fifteen. The age Isabel was when she was murdered.

Although the book isn't easily available through U.S. channels just yet, you can find it on Amazon UK, and with any luck, Van Der Vlugt will not make Reunion her last venture into the genre.

Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed

 

Marc Blatte's debut novel, Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed, is billed as an urban/hip hop noir, but that's something of a misconception. The plot does inlude characters from the realm of hip hop music, but the book is not so much noir as police procedural (Blatte is a protege of Evan Hunter a/k/a Ed McBain). Blatte does bring authentic dialogue and insight to the musicians via his own experience as an award-winning songwriter, Grammy Award nominee and co-founder of a hip-hop record label, but the theme has a more rich man/poor man context — the corruption of power and money both among those who have it and those who seek it.

The plot is seen primarily through the POV's of NYPD detective, Sal Messina (aka Black Sallie Blue Eyes), a young thug called Scholar (who manages the hip-hop group Proof Positive), and Vooko, a refugee from Kosovo. Messina hands his hands full investigating the murder of Vooko's cousin, a bouncer at a nightclub popular with by the hip-hop crowd. Black Sallie Blue Eyes, as Messina is known, uses his ability to "smell the gun," or "know what you were gonna do before you did it," to navigate a land-mine case of money, drugs, record producers, a kinky female wrestler, pampered Hamptonites and Messina's own ex-wife without triggering a potentially explosive situation that leads all the way up to the NYC mayor's office.

The street jargon used profusely throughout the novel tends to bring the pacing to a halt at times although it would be hard to imagine the characters without it, and there are also some POV changes which are a bit jarring, but overall it's an entertaining and quick read. Blatte brings a distinctive voice to his writing, a punchy musical lilt, not surprising given his songwriting background.

"What the men in the observation had just witnessed was profound. In the high-stakes game of hide-and-seek that Sallie and Scholar were playing, Sallie had found Scholar out quickly and effectively. Whether Scholar knew it or not didn't matter. Sallie had exposed Scholar's inner life, then left it like an open wound to be infected by his own paranoia and self-doubt. Now it was just a matter of time before Scholar succumbed. He was a dead man walking."

The characters are drawn well and Sallie Blue Eyes is a likeable protagonist with plenty of room to grow — and since Blatte is working on the next installment in the series, we won't have to wait too long to catch more of Sallie's brand of street philosophy.

You can check out a quickie look into the author's brand of satirical humor via this Q&A on Crime Always Pays.

Media Murder

 

MOVIES

• Currently in pre-production is the film Night Train, based on the novel by Martin Amis, with Steven Soderbergh as executive producer and starring Sigourney Weaver and Michael Madsen (hat tip to Shelf Awareness).

• The film based on the first book in Stieg Larsson's crime novel trilogy, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, hit Swedish cinemas this weekend, featuring Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist in the lead role of reporter Mikael Blomkvist.
  
  
• The Independent Crime blog wonders if Victor Gischler is taking over Hollywood, with three screenplays optioned recently, including Go-Go Girls of The Apocalypse, Pulp Boy, co-written with Anthony Neil Smith, and Gun Monkeys.
  
  
• Guy Richie's Sherlock finally gets its release date (Christmas 2009) after some controversy and delays.
  
  
• Here's the trailer for Public Enemies, a film which follows notorious gangsters John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) and Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum), and the feds who try to take them down during the 1930s. Other stars include Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, and Marion Cotillard.
  

• A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered Clive Cussler to pay $13.9 million in legal fees to the production company that turned his novel Sahara into a box-office flop.

• Director Marcel Langenegger will develop the Phoenix Pictures thriller Mile Zero as a possible starring vehicle for Milla Jovovich.
  
  
• Michael Brandt and Derek Haas have signed on to adapt upcoming Richard Doetsch supernatural thriller novel The Thirteenth Hour for New Line Cinema.
  
  
• Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan will star in the Warner Brother detective comedy A Couple of Cops, about a pair of cops who track down a stolen baseball card, rescue a Mexican beauty and deal with gangsters and laundered drug money.

TV

• Central Partnership's $12 million, 24-part TV adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories has been delayed six months because of scripting problems and Russia's acute economic crisis.

• A pilot, written by Graham Yost and based on the short story "Fire in the Hole" by Elmore Leonard and centered around Kentucky-based U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, has been given the greenlight by FX.

• Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica) was interviewed about his new role in Law and Order: UK. And if you want to get a "closer look" at Bamber, you can check this out.
  
  
• The season finale of Burn Notice topped the cable ratings charts.

• William Peterson, best known as Gil Grisson in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, will attend the Cannes Mip TV trade fair this month to celebrate the series' 200th episode. The show and spinoff series CSI: Miami and CSI: New York are the best-rated dramas on many market-dominant broadcast networks worldwide, such as France's TF1 and Spain's Telecinco.

• TV Guide interviewed Tom Selleck about his latest Jesse Stone outing, which proved to be a "rare sighting" of a TV movie in the Nielsen Top 10.

• Although ITV is cancelling some of its high-profile dramas, when asked about the channel's future direction, Laura Mackie, head of ITV drama, said: "Crime thrillers and 20th century are things that ITV does very well."

• Although Life on Mars was unfortunately cancelled, it had the rare opportunity to go out on its own terms by wrapping up the story line and not leaving fans hanging.
  
  
• Murdock Mysteries began its second season in the UK.

• The Telegraph interviewed Robert Vaughn (Man From Uncle) about his current role in the British TV series Hustle, the sole American in a cast playing a group of con artists.

• Oscar Nominee Mellisa Leo has signed on to play an unnamed civil rights lawyer in the post-Katrina New Orleans drama created by David Simon (The Wire).

PODCASTS/WEB

• Podcast site CrimeWAV.com received permission from Dashiell Hammett’s grandson to record "The Barber and His Wife," the first short story Hammett wrote, which you can hear on the web site this week.

• Brian Gruley, Chicago bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, is (not surprisingly) featured in a video interview on the WSJ web site about his debut thriller, Starvation Lake.

• You can catch and interview here with Ed Brubaker and Zoe Bell about their crime fiction web show Angel of Death.

• Radio New Zealand has an interview with former DI Jackie Malton, the inpiration for Lynda La Plante's Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect.

• Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe appear this week in Bones and Silence on BBC Radio 7.

Time For Some Bahama Burnout

Don Bruns was a songwriter, musician, and advertising executive long before he got the itch to write crime fiction.  But itch he did, and in 2000 he purchased Sue Grafton's critiquing services for his first book manuscript as part of a charity auction during a mystery convention. Her advice? Throw it away and try again. Mostly undaunted, he did just that, and after Grafton read this second effort, she stood up in front of a Bouchercon meeting and made the announcement that someone should publish his book. That piqued the interest of Charles Spicer from St. Martin's Press and in September 2002, Bruns had his first published novel, Jamaica Blue, in stores.

For that novel and the sequels, Bruns relies on his rock music background and takes a look at the seamy side of the music business with his protagonist Mick Sever, a journalist who chronicles the history of rock and roll and uncovers murder. "There's enough crime, corruption, drugs, and slimy people in the music business to keep Mick Sever busy for a long time," Bruns says.

Bruns's latest in his Caribbean mystery series (he also has another series with two 24 year old college grads reminiscent of the Hardy Boys), is Bahama Burnout, released this month. In this outing, Sever is covering a story for Newsweek magazine in Nassau about a famous recording studio rebuilt on the same site where the old studio had burned down. But the new studio seems to be cursed — a mysterious smashed guitar and erased tracks, for starters, and then there's the still-unanswered question of just whose body was discovered in the fiery ruins.

Bruns graciously took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for "In Reference to Murder."

IRTM:  Pity poor Don Bruns. He has to travel to all those Caribbean islands to get research for his novels. What an ordeal (especially this time of year). But seriously, do you visit all the various areas where the books are set, or seek out certain places and people for inspiration in getting the flavor of these locales?

DB: The research is intense.  I know, I know, you think it's nothing but fun, but after the initial excitement of being on the island, I have to find someone to become my best friend and guide for five days.  A bartender, a taxi driver, in the case of Bahama Burnout, a nun.  And I have to take copious notes, pictures, figure out all the questions I need to ask and make sure I do everything my protagonist would do. Like visit all the bars, stay out till four in the morning. Still...it's not bad.

IRTM: You've expressed admiration for John D. MacDonald, a fellow Florida writer. Do you find any parallels in your styles or writing philosophy?

DB: I live about five minutes from where MacDonald lived and wrote.  I've visited the house and it's on this spit of land called Point Crisp Road on Siesta Key.  He was surrounded by water as he looked out of his loft.  I am taken with the idea that he popularized the Florida mystery genre, and I play semi-regularly in a liars poker group that he started in the 50s. Other than that, I don't think there's much similarity.  We both write about men who are loners, but that may be as close as it gets.

IRTM: In one of your postings on the Little Blog of Murder, you mentioned how much most writers hate the "where do you get your ideas?" question. Yet the idea for this latest book, Bahama Burnout, had an interesting genesis in an otherwise ordinary conversation. Can you tell us just a little bit about that?

DB: I was introduced to a sound engineer from L.A who told me he was intrigued by my books since I wrote about the rock and roll entertainment scene.  Then he asked me if I had heard the story about a studio in Teluride back in the 70s. The Eagles, America, Crosby Stills and Nash all recorded there. It seems this very popular recording location mysteriously burned down.  When it was rebuilt, all the major acts booked sessions, but the first band found that their tapes were all erased.  Then a group came in to find their equipment smashed.  So people quit booking the studio and it went out of business.  Now I was hooked and asked the guy what had happened.  He shrugged his shoulders and said he had no idea.  But since I was a writer, I could probably figure out an ending. So, I moved the studio to Nassau in the Bahamas, put Mick Sever on the case, and solved the crime.  Fiction writers can do that.

IRTM: You've talked about how we're a nation mired in the cult of celebrity and how celebrities often get away literally with murder, in addition to lesser crimes, yet they seem to get a free pass. How many of the characters in your book are based on real-life individuals and are you concerned about painting anyone you've worked with in a bad light that might entice lawsuits?

DB: Jamiaca Blue was loosely based on a Bob Marley type character.  South Beach Shakedown was about a celebrity rock star who was being blackmailed.  I borrowed the story of 60's star Jackie Wilson.  St. Bart's Breakdown is a close look at a Phil Spector character.  So yes, I do use real life celebrities, but more of the 'ripped from the headlines' than making the stories targets for lawsuits.

IRTM: As a former musician myself who hasn't touched a piano in years, I think I'm jealous — it sounds like you still find time to play guitar (and perhaps other instruments?), which makes you a lucky boy. Of course, you've also worked with acts like Ricky Nelson, the Platters, Ray Charles and Eric Carmen, so there's that, too. I've read you decided against having a musician protagonist because a performer solving crimes "was almost comical." How much research therefore did you have to do to feel comfortable writing Mick Sever as a journalist?

DB: Well now, you've done a good job of having a musician as your protagonist so maybe I should have tried it.  I didn't have to stretch much to find Sever's voice and profession.  He's a guy who does a much better job of writing about the entertainment business than being a performer himself.  He got his start writing concert reviews for the Chicago Tribune when he was about 15. Since then he's had columns, books, and two movies made about his work.  I was a journalist at one time and just go with that.

IRTM: Mick Sever's been spending a lot of time in Florida and the Caribbean. What's in store for the future for Mick — more sunshine or will we ever see him heading off to other parts of the world?

DB: Right now I'm working on the fourth book of my second series.  Mick is off vacationing somewhere, but I'm certain he'll be back.  I think he might go to L.A. and find a sleezy paparazzi group that is killing celebrities. Yeah.  I like that.

IRTM: It's hard to stand out in this day and age, so finding new ways of marketing is more important than ever. I was interested in your book trailer produced, written, cast and directed by four grad students from the University of Miami which appeared in 20 theaters in the Miami area. Do you find that your background in marketing has helped with your own book PR? And what advice would you give to other authors out there?

DB: Wasn't that good?  And those kids were perfect.  The book, Stuff To Die For, won two national awards and a starred review in Booklist, so I've got to think the trailer helped.  My background in marketing just lets me know that I've got to market.  The real work is done by our publicist.  She is fabulous and has an unbelievable list of contacts.  In December we had a full page interview in Sky Magazine, Delta's in-flight mag, and in February I had a full page story in The Rotarian, Rotary Club's magazine.  I think a writer has to explore every single opportunity.  The one thing I don't have patience for is all the social pages on the internet.  I still don't Twitter.

IRTM: Speaking of marketing,you recently released a CD of original songs called Last Flight Out, and performed two original songs at the 2004 Edgar Awards ceremonies. Have you ever thought about a CD tie-in with one of your books? Any singing at signings?

DB: I sing and entertain at a lot of signings. I love it. Carrying a guitar is pretty easy. You on the other hand would have to carry a piano. And author Claudia Bishop and I did an anthology with Jeff Deaver, Rupert Holmes, John Lescroart, Peter Robinson, Rhys Bowen and a bunch of other talented writers/musicians. We had each of them write a story and song, and then record the song. The CD appears in the back of the book. Poisoned Pen published A Merry Band Of Murderers two years ago.

IRTM: As if you weren't busy enough, you opened up a used book store with some friends. Used book stores are apparently doing very well in this economy, by the way, so good timing on your part. Have you ever had any unsuspecting customers stop by wanting to sell or buy Don Bruns books only to discover he's one of the proprietors?

DB: The book store is in my hometown and most of the people there know who I am.

IRTM: Let's see. A little over seven years ago, you were an unpublished author, and now you have six published books under your belt (with the seventh released this month), and the likes of Sue Grafton, Lee Child, and Stuart Kaminsky blurbing your books, you've been featured in Sky Magazine, you won a 2008 National Indie Excellence Award for best novel in the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category and ForeWord Magazine's Book Of The Year award for Best Mystery, as well as the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion award for Best Novel. But what would you say is the highlight thus far of your writing career?

DB: I think I tell a good story and I think my characters and place are well done.  But I don't take myself too seriously.  The highlight of my career is when someone Comes up and says "I just read your book and I want to ask you a couple of questions."  Seriously.  That's the coolest part of the job. Except maybe when Booklist compared my Stuff series to Mark Twain's narrative style in Huck Finn.  That was pretty cool too.

Don Bruns is giving away a free signed copy of his book, Bahama Burnout. Go to Don's book tour page, enter your name, e-mail address, and this 4-digit PIN, 9764, for your chance to win. Entries from "In Reference to Murder" will be accepted until 12:00 Noon (PT) tomorrow. The winner (first name only) will be announced on Don's book tour page next week.

Let's Hear It For The Grrrls

"Murder She Writes" might be a good crime fiction-themed subtitle for Women's History Month. Although it took awhile for female authors to be accepted in the genre, they've made up for it with a vengeance. One organization which led the way in supporting women in their writing endeavors was Sisters in Crime, thought up by Sara Paretsky after she noted the dearth of books by women writers being reviewed and nominated for awards, and formed at the annual Edgars Week in 1987. The group currently has 3600 members in 48 chapters world-wide, providing networking, mentoring, resources, and support for both published and unpublished authors.

Although women writers are most often associated with the mystery subgenres "cozies" and/or "traditional" works, recent years have seen an increasing number writing hardboiled and noir fiction to acclaim, led by the likes of Christa Faust, Megan Abbot, Val McDermid, Zoë Sharp, Chelsea Cain, Marcia Muller, and Sara Paretsky herself, among many others.

If you're looking for suggestions for finding women authors in the various subgenres of crime fiction, perhaps these resources will get you started:

• Feminist Mystery Corner has a listing of authors and books which fall more into the hardboiled vein.
• The Mystery List has a bibliography of "Old Maids and Private Eyes."
• Women Who Wonder Whodunit's listing includes ways of searching by author, title, character, and even subject.
• The Springfield City Library lists Religious Women as Amateur Sleuths.
• The Thrilling Detective categorizes hardboiled dames, or " You're a Mean Man with a Typewriter, Sister."
• And the ever-helpful Readers Advice resource has lists of Housewife Amateur Sleuths, Lesbian Mysteries, Spunky Women Sleuths, and Sweet Old Ladies (noting that these lists include works by male authors, too, who feature women protagonists).

So, three cheers for the grrrls and long may they reign.

David Simon of the Washington Post reports on the dying breed of the crime beat reporter.

The Crimespree Magazine blog is offering up free books in order to promote book sales in general. If you go to a store, buy a new book, and send along a picture of yourself in the store with the new book, and you'll be entered in a drawing for the freebies.

In one of Oline Cogdill's new columns for the Mystery Scene Magazine blog, she mentions that Bill Crider will also be starting a new column this month, titled Short and Sweet, which will place the spotlight on short stories.

Good news is hard to come by these days, but literary agent Nathan Bransford puts a positive spin on the future of books.

Web production company EQAL has joined forces with CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker to build a Web offshoot for Zuiker's crime novel Dark Chronicles, featuring original video contetnt as well as blogs and a social community.

Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), the best-selling children's author, has collaborated with composer Nathaniel Stookey on The Composer Is Dead, a classical-musical mystery for children. "It's like Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf meets Law & Order," says Handler

Actor and leading Tweep (Twitter person), Wil Wheaton, tried a new Twitter marketing gimmick that may portend the shape of things to come -- he offered up PDF copies of his book Sunken Treasure for $5.

The Telegraph's report on the Dubai Literary Festival included a writeup of a lively debate over bringing books to the screen, with thriller-writer and film producer Peter James (Roy Grace crime series) and Anthony Horowitz (Alex Rider novels).

Barry Forshaw defends Agatha Christie against all of her detractors in an article for The Independent, adding that "a great many of us are perfectly happy to immerse ourselves in the idyllic Albion of Christie's novels."

Borders Bookstores are featuring March Mystery month, and their online Crime Scene columns has some reviews and suggestions.

If you happen to be in the UK in early April, you can sign up for a 4-day crime fiction writing seminar featuring Mark Billingham and Laura Wilson.

Yesterday saw the first great Queryfall Day on Twitter. Agent Colleen Lindsay started it all, and many agents and editors joined in posted about their queries in real time. As Lindsay posted in her blog, "The idea is to educate people about what exactly it is in a query that made us stop reading and say 'Not for me.'" Some of the true query-bites included the following (hat tip to Publishers Marketplace):

• "Please be advised of my request that you consider reviewing a page-turning novel that I have recently completed."
• "I'M TYPING MY QUERY IN ALL CAPS SO YOU WILL BE SURE TO NOTICE IT."
• "Have you ever wondered what it's like to be pulled up a waterfall or to be flushed down a toilet?"
• "This is my first attempt at writing a fictional novel."
• "...this, the first book in a seven-book series..."
• "I've been working on this novel for twenty five years."
• "This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings."
• "It's a unique combination of memoir and novel."
• "My book is the first in an imagined autobiography of my tragedy."
• "This is groundbreaking work that will change the way we view everything!"
• "My book is differentiated from Twilight because the vampires have wings, and are half-breed angels."
• "I've been rejected by three other publishers who said my work was interesting."
• "I've queried more than 50 agents and have gotten nowhere and now I'm querying you."
• "I don't think you're the right agent for me, but could you pass my query along to some of your colleagues?"
• "I hope you don't mind that I found your personal email address..."
• "I know you don't represent children's literature, but I hope you'll make an exception in my case."

And speaking of social networking, Petrona posted this picture seen on a bus.