Learn From the Best

 

If you are serious about learning the craft of writing crime fiction and have the time and money, the new Crime Fiction Academy may be just for you. The Center for Fiction in New York City is launching the academy in February 2012 to include a 14-week workshop, a monthly Master Class, a Crime Fiction Reading seminary, special lectures and discussions with editors and agents, and access to the Center's book collection (which received a Raven Award for its comprehensive library of mystery and thriller titles). The admission process is fairly rigorous and limited to a few participants, the organizers prefer a year's commitment, and the workshop costs $2,800. However, if you're accepted, you'll be taught by the likes of Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Thomas H. Cook, Linda Fairstein, Susan Isaacs, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, Joyce Carol Oates, SJ Rozan, Jonathan Santlofer, Karin Slaughter and more. Give it a shot, but make sure all application materials are received by November 28th.

Monkey Justice: New Crime to Kindle Your Fancy

If you've been following the weekly Friday's "Forgotten" Books feature on this blog, you'll know that it was the brainchild of blogger Patti Abbott, who coordinates all the entries. But Patti is also a very fine writer of short crime fiction and has a new collection of twenty-three of her stories all in one place from Snubnose Press, titled Monkey Justice.

Patti passed along the following note about her brand-new project:

I want to thank Bonnie for inviting me to say a few words about my collection of stories, Monkey Justice, on her blog.  In Reference to Murder is a daily stop for my on blog travels. This is also a good opportunity to thank Bonnie for her support of Forgotten Friday books reviews with such wonderfully researched reviews.

I had never given too much thought to putting a collection of stories together until Brian Lindenmuth, publisher of the newly created SNUBNOSE PRESS, contacted me about it. Before ebooks, it was unlikely a press would be interested in publishing a collection of stories that had mostly appeared online. And also a collection from a writer who had not published a novel. I did not feel particularly sad about this, but once the opportunity arose, I was pretty excited and grateful that Brian was interested. Zines come and go, so many of my stories only exist as a memory now, but this would allow them to perhaps have a permanent home online. It was fun choosing the stories and hopefully they are representative without them being too similar.

“The Tortoise and the Tortoise” is one of my favorites. I have rarely written about my family (although my husband’s shows up fairly regularly) because my family was so ordinary. But a few years ago, my father was facing a peculiar situation in the assisted living facility where he lived. As one of the few men ambulatory and with his wits still somewhat intact, he had been cock of the walk at the place for a year or so. Women clambered to sit next to him and he led their Mardi Gras parade. He was catered to for the first time in his life (he was one of nineteen children). My father, at 95, was still good looking and in fact, looked a decade younger.

And then, it all changed. The room next door became vacant and before he knew it, he had a new neighbor.

His new neighbor inspired even more attention. He was a priest who’d suffered a stroke leaving him mute and somewhat helpless. Suddenly the nurses and aides were at his beck and call. He had only to lift his hand in the dining room and someone rushed over.  A constant stream of visitors turned up and my Dad could hear their jabber through the wall.

My Dad could never understand any of this. Especially not as his dementia grew worse. He couldn’t understand that the man raised his hand in the dining room because he couldn’t speak, not because he thought he was the Pope. That’s what Dad always said, “He thinks he’s the pope.” It also bothered him that so many women flocked to his room.

 “They’re nuns who worked with him,” I told Dad repeatedly.

“Then why don’t they dress like nuns,” he would say.

“Because nuns don’t wear habits anymore,” I would tell him but he wasn’t having any of it. He had lost his role as the cock of the walk—and only the man’s eventual death restored it.

“Something’s going on in there,” he stubbornly insisted.

Of course, writing this story for Pulp Pusher, I needed a more dramatic ending. So in the story “Dad” took matters into his own hands. Literally.

Thanks for asking me here, Bonnie and thanks to those who bought the book or read my stories online. I do love writing them.

The collection is getting rave reviews, too:
"Patricia Abbott proves that there are many shades of noir as she expertly layers her stories with melancholy, loss and the frailness of the human psyche" – Dave Zeltserman

"Patti Abbott is a master when it comes to short stories." - Anne Frasier

"In this collection of short contemporary noir fiction, Patti Abbott distinguishes herself as an extraordinary storyteller of the dark recesses of the human heart. Abbott’s characters hit hard, fight dirty, and seek a brand of hardscrabble justice that will leave you both wincing and wishing for more." – Sophie Littlefield

"There are few writers who have been more instrumental in my development as a short story writer as Patti Abbott. Her dark, explosive, and yet intensely humane stories leave me breathless and Monkey Justice is nothing less than brilliant." - Keith Rawson

I'm getting ready to download a copy, and you can too.

Spies and P.I.s

When the International Spy Museum opened in Washington, D.C. in 2002, it became the largest museum of its kind, with many objects on public display for the first time. It remains the only public museum in the U.S. dedicated solely to espionage. But there are other smaller, quirky museums that profile the spy and private eye trades that don't get as much attention.


The Spy And Private-Eye Museum in Austin, Texas, is the personal collection of Ralph Thomas, who logged thousands of hours as a P.I. while amassing various paraphernalia related to the trade. The exhibits include everything from rare documents from Pinkerton Detective Agency case files dating back to 1877, to 1930s polygraph equipment, to a CIA covert gun built into a tire gauge.


The P.I. Museum in San Diego contains historic treasures and artifacts gathered by Private Investigator Ben Harroll for over 30 years. Harroll's collection includes both the real and the fictional, including a letter penned in 1852 by Eugene Francois Vidocq, spy cameras and tracking devices and Dick Tracy and Magnum P.I. collectibles.


The Spy Exchange and Security Center in Austin, Texas, is one of the largest showrooms for private eye gear, books and manuals in the U.S. (which is pretty neat on its own), but it also has two rooms set aside for a collection of historic paraphernalia. While you're there, pick up a smiley-face spy camera. The kids will never know.

Bouchercon-fined

 

Due to the Bouchercon mystery conference, with a large percentage of the crime fiction community converging on St. Louis this weekend, Patti Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books is taking a one-week hiatus. If you're unable to join the festivities at this year's Bouchercon (like moi), there are several ways you can keep up with the proceedings:

Bloggers on hand are promising to try and provide updates as possible. Bill Crider is one of those, as well as Mystery Fanfare's Janet Rudolph;  Shotsmagazine colleagues Ayo Onatade, Mike Stotter and Ali Karim; and Peter Rozovsky over at Detectives Beyond Borders.

Murderati's David Corbett has a preview of two panels, "Shadows Rising: Movies for the Crime Fiction Fan," with lots of recomendations, and "Witness to an Incident: The Human Element."

Mystery Scene columnist Oline Cogdill profiles the three Missouri crime fiction authors who will be given special recognition during the conference, including  Robert J. Randisi, John Lutz, and Joel Goldman.

Bouchercon is also where several crime fiction awards are announced, including the Anthonys, Barrys, Macavity and Shamus awards, which Murder, Mystery and Mayhem itemize for you. Dan Wager, the Hungry Detective, jumps the gun with his personal picks, and The Rap Sheet will also be ready to give you updates on the awards as they are handed out. The Short Mystery Fiction Society has already chosen its Derringer winners for 2011, but they will be honored during Bouchercon.

If you're on Twitter, you can follow conference-goer tweets via #bcon11 and #bcon2011.

Chairman Jon Jordan has gone above and beyond the call of duty to create what looks to be a very special event this year. Kudos to him and all those who have helped make this event happen.

Forensics U

 

Time is running out for you to register for three different hands-on workshops to learn the science and logistics behind criminal investigations:

• The Art & Science of Investigation workshop for mystery writers takes place this weekend in Bryan, Texas, but there are still places left (you must register by the 9th). Speakers will include Suzanne Lowe and Jorge Molina, both forensic artists with the Texas Rangers, Jeff Tomberlin, a forensic entomologist, and Steve Smith, a cognitive psychologist and expert on memory and eye-witness testimony.

• The National Institute of Justice is holding a free 3-day Public Safety Summit on Forensic Science October 18-20 in Clearwater Beach, FL. The event is designed for non-scientists in law enforcement and officers of the court. Registration closes 9/15/11.

• The 2011 Writers' Police Academy is slated for September 23-25 at Guilford Technical Community College and Public Safety Training Academy in Jamestown, N.C.  The Firearms Training Simulator workshop is sold out, but you can still register for the other panels, including everything from crime scene investigation to handcuffing and arrest techniques.
  

As Lee Lofland, the founder of the Writers' Police Academy notes, "Sweat now, so your manuscript won't bleed red ink later."

History's Mysteries

 I'm not sure anyone has been keeping statistics, but it's clear from the increasing number of various books—as well as the TV shows like Spartacus and The Tudors and movies like Poe and The Eagle—that historical fiction is a hot genre right now. Two historical novels related to crime fiction/mystery crossed my desk in the past few weeks: City of Ash by Megan Chance and Twelfth Enchantment by David Liss.

City of Ash is set against the backdrop of 1889 Seattle when the Great Fire nearly burned the young city to the ground. It alternates POV chapters between its two heroines, Geneva Stratford Langley, a spirited Chicago mining heiress and arts patron, and Beatrice Wilkes, an actress yearning to be her theatrical troupe's leading lady at the Regal Theater. When Geneva poses nude for a sculptor, bringing shame on her family, she's whisked away to Seattle where her jealous, scheming, ambitious husband, Nathan, hopes to establish himself in politics.

Geneva and Beatrice cross paths when Beatrice has an affair with Nathan, and Geneva unwittingly dashes Beatrice's dreams by being given the starring role in the latest theatrical production written by an up-and-coming playwright with whom Bea is falling in love. The chaos and tragedy of the Great Fire force the two women together as they forge an unlikely alliance to cross class and gender boundaries and fight against Nathan—who has betrayed them both—by enacting a truly wicked plan.

Megan Chance evokes the period and raw circumstances of turn-of-the-century Seattle with her descriptions: "a town knee-deep in mud and tidal stink...puddles beneath pilings, sagging awnings, streets paved with wooden planks that sank into the mud." She also creates sympathetic characters in the two women, one trapped in a loveless marriage and a virtual prisoner in her home in an unfamiliar town that has shunned her, and the other unwilling to trust anyone after living by her wits since the age of 15 and seeing her chance at stardom stolen from her time and time again.

David Liss got his start as an author of historical thrillers with A Conspiracy of Papers, which won Barry, Macavity, and Edgar best first novel honors, but with The Twelfth Enchantment, he turns his hand to the supernatural. The novel likewise takes place in the 19th century and features a heroine who, as with Geneva in City of Ash, also had a youthful indiscretion that tainted her in the eyes of society. The story is set in the world of Regency England and follows Lucy Derrick, a young woman with good breeding and no money who is forced to take refuge with an unpleasant uncle after the death of her father. She's also trying to avoid marriage to Mr. Olson, the local owner of a mill with brutal working conditions, her one and only matrimonial prospect.

Everything changes when a man collapses on her doorstep just after he begs her not to marry Olson. The mystery man turns out to be none other than poet and notorious rake Lord Byron, who has been stricken with a curse and draws Lucy into a dangerous conspiracy. Luddites are pitted against the Industrial Revolution and the secret Rosicrucian society also figures in, as Lucy tries to fight an inheritance fraud, solve the puzzle of Byron's curse and find the missing pages of alchemical manuscript that contains the key to creating and destroying evil magical beings called revenants. Lucy seeks out the help of others, including poet/engraver William Blake, but she's not sure who she can trust when her infant niece is abducted, and she uncovers life-changing secrets about her own family.

Like Geneva in City of Ash, Lucy is a woman pushed to the edge by the restrictions placed on women in her day, who finds a way to be a resourceful heroine and form new allegiances and question old ones in order to find redemption. Liss's writing has been referred to as "unusual and diverting," a description which definitely applies to Enchantment, a sort of Jane Austen meets Wilkie Collins by way of Charlaine Harris. In both books, a young woman who feels trapped by her circumstances and society uses bravery, determination and perceptive sleuthing to avenge the crimes against her and, in so doing, finds empowerment through helping others.

Confessions of a Catholic Cop

 

Thomas Fitzsimmons grew up in an Irish neighborhood in the Bronx, part of a family of career cops. He served in the Navy on a guided missile cruiser on its way to Vietnam after high school before joining the "family business" as a cop with the New York City Police Department. He spent 10 years in the precinct dramatized in Paul Newman's move Fort Apache, The Bronx, collaring armed robbers, drug kingpins and arsonists.

Then his career took an unusual turn. He came to the attention of a talent scout who signed Fitzsimmons up for modeling with the Ford Agency in his off hours, which eventually led to on-camera positions as co-host for the magazine-format talk show Now and stints on soap operas and TV commercials. But he never completely left his law enforcement roots, becoming a security consultant and bodyguard to A-list celebrities including Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow and appearing on shows such Good Morning America, Geraldo Rivera and Montel Williams as a security expert.

Turning his attention to writing, Fitzsimmons penned a memoir, two short story collections, three screenplays, pieces for Esquire and New York Magazine. His first novel, Confessions of a Catholic Cop, has an autobiographical edge, as it follows ten-year police veteran Michael Beckett, who lands a small role on Law & Order, and decides he can start a new life in front of the camera. But when the neighborhood of a young, hot Law & Order scriptwriter, Solana Ortiz, becomes the target of a string of arsons, Beckett uncovers a scheme that reaches into the deep pockets of power and greed in New York City and lands him on the same path as an old friend Beckett would rather forget.

Formally published by Forge Books as City of Fire (which sold more than 20,000 copies worldwide), Fitzsimmons has re-released Confessions of a Catholic Cop under its original title.  A portion of the proceeds from the re-release will go to support the New York City Police Foundation, which works to make New York City a safer place for residents and visitors. He took some time out to participate in a Q&A:

IRTM:  First of all, part of the proceeds from the re-release of Confessions is designated to support the New York City Police Foundation. Can you tell us more about that organization?

TF:  The New York City Police Foundation was established in 1971 by business and civic leaders as an independent, non-profit organization to promote excellence in the NYPD and improve public safety. The Foundation supports programs designed to help the NYPD keep pace with rapidly evolving technology, strategies and training. The proceeds I donate are earmarked for their “Crime Stoppers” program which offers rewards of up to $2,000 for anonymous information to the 800-577-TIPS hotline, which leads to the arrest and indictment of a violent felon. This public/private partnership between the NYPD and the New York City Police Foundation has been an invaluable crime-fighting tool since the program’s inception.

IRTM: How did you get from police work, modeling and acting to becoming a security expert, bodyguard and private investigator? Were there classes or licensing you had to go through, or did you mentor with someone or work in a firm?

TF: I was an active duty cop when I started acting and modeling. I acquired a New York State license and bond and founded my own security company soon after leaving the NYPD. Once word got around that I was a cop, (and later an ex-cop who was licensed and bonded), celebrities frequently asked me for advice on everything from what to do about drug addicted children or spouses, to checking up on new employees, and even verifying the finances of potential film investors. If a stalker appeared on a film set, or a jealous spouse, or jilted lover, or if there was a physical altercation of any kind—you’d be surprised what transpires on film sets—I was the one they’d usually ask to handle the situation. Which I did with as little ruckus as possible.

IRTM: You've said you decided to turn to writing due to all the stories and unique characters you'd collected from your job as an officer and security expert. But you were initially discouraged from writing until Truman Capote read a short story of yours, told you that you had a future as a writer and introduced you to an agent. How did all of that come to pass, and were you influenced any by Capote's writings, such as In Cold Blood?

TF: Truman Capote and I worked out at the same gym, the now defunct Profile Health Club on East 47th Street in Manhattan. I also saw him frequently at Studio 54 and other nightclubs, and spoke to him at length about his writing and the merits of In Cold Blood and the novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, two books I related to. As a cop, I’d known more than my share of sociopaths, like Hickock and Smith, (the killers depicted in In Cold Blood). And I’d known more than one Holly Golightly; still do.

IRTM: You've mentioned Dennis Lehane, Donald E. Westlake, Walter Mosley and Robert B. Parker as authors who inspire you. What is it about their styles that impressed you, and do you see any parallels between their writing and yours?

TF: Lehane, Westlake, Mosley and Parker’s works are entertaining and readable. Judging by the fan mail I receive, my books are too—I hope.

IRTM: Confessions of a Catholic Cop has been called a "scandalous romantic thriller." What made you decide to choose that genre rather than, say, a straight hard-boiled police procedural or private-eye tale?

TF: I know it may sound like a dodge, but I didn’t decide on the genre; the characters in my book did. I had the general story in my mind, and when I began writing, the book sort of wrote itself. Although the book has elements of a typical hard-boiled police and private-eye tale, I felt like a spectator during the writing process, rather than the creative force behind the book. That make any sense?

IRTM: Since you're a former cop from a family of cops with lots of friends and connections in law enforcement—do you ever worry about getting a detail wrong? I doubt they'd ever let you live it down!

TF: A few would say that I have gotten a few details wrong already. In an early draft of Confessions of a Catholic Cop I had a cop clicking the “safety” off of a Glock .9mm. Half a dozen cops balked, told me that there is no such feature on a Glock—but there is, of course. It’s a custom gadget that several cops I know had installed. But, I took out the reference just the same. Also, because the Browning’s .9mm rounds didn’t photograph well for the front cover, the art director insisted on using .38 rounds—there’s no way that that Browning could fire a .38 round. I still get some grief from a couple of my cronies for that one.

IRTM: Did you base any characters on friends or colleagues? Has anyone given you a hard time thinking that you did? (Especially those celebrity clients.)

TF: One cop took a swing at me for using his name. (I ducked). The fact the character was nothing like him didn’t seem to make a difference. And so I avoid using the names of anyone I’ve worked with. In reality, all the characters are composites. Although everyone seems to recognize that the R. J. Gold character is, in reality, based on my old pal Donald J. Trump. Donald has yet to say anything to me.

IRTM: Publishing is a tough business, even for folks who have excellent credentials such as yourself. You apparently experienced this first-hand when Confessions was first published under a different title, and apparently you had one horrible experience after another during the publishing and marketing process. What would you do differently, if you had to do it all over again?

TF: In a perfect world I would have waited to find the right publisher. As it was, I jumped at the first opportunity to be published by a major publisher. Although there were early signs that my youthful editor was wrong for the project—he thought the cops on TV were for real—I figured things would work out. They didn’t. And once a publisher buys the rights to your book, you have little, if anything to say.

IRTM: What's next? As I understand it, there are Confessions of a Suicidal Policewoman and Confessions of a Celebrity Bodyguard in the works, which sound like continuations in your series with your fictional partners Michael Beckett and Destiny Jones. Any standalone thrillers ahead?

TF: Confessions of a Suicidal Policewoman is a Michael Beckett novel, but Confessions of a Celebrity Bodyguard is a standalone thriller.  I’ve also written about 15 short stories that are standalones. “Rockers” is available everywhere.  You can find more information on thomasfitzsimmons.com.

IRTM: So—the Yankees or the Mets?

TF: Yankees, dude!

A Fallen Blog Tour and Giveaway

 

As part of the launch of Karin Slaughter's companion audio CD to her latest novel Fallen, I'm giving away copies to 6 lucky winners of the unabridged boxed CD set (see details below). The audio book is narrated by actress  Shannon Cochran, who is on the faculty of Steppenwolf Classes West in Los Angeles and has had many guest appearances on Fringe, Numb3rs, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NYPD Blue and many other shows.

Fallen is the latest in the combining of Slaughter's two series, one with trauma doctor Sara Linton and the other with George Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent. In Fallen, Trent's partner Faith Mitchell arrives at her mother's house to find Faith's infant daughter hidden in a shed behind the house, the front door to the house open with a bloodstained knob, a man dead in the laundry room and there's a hostage situation in the bedroom. When the hostage situation turns deadly and Faith's mother goes missing, Faith turns to Trent, Linton and GBI boss Amanda Wagner to help Faith clear her name, find her mother and uncover the truth.

I've been asking authors this year to talk a bit more about how they approach researching their novels, and Karin graciously obliged:

Q) How do you research your novels? Since they feature cops and medical examiners, have you done ride-alongs and attended autopsies? Do you research at the library or online a lot to get the details just right. Or do you feel too much research and over-planning can be deadly to a manuscript? For Fallen in particular, did you need to do any research into gangs and gang activity?

A) I’ve never done a ride-along, but I’ve been on several training exercises with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.  I’ve seen a few autopsies.  I’ve gone to the shooting range and handled the various weapons the GBI agents have to be trained on.  Many of the agents have been very generous with their time, and I’ve had the great pleasure of talking to them about their jobs, how they look at the world, and their toughest cases.  That being said, at the end of the day, I’m a fiction author.  A lot of times I’ll take a grain of truth and turn it into something more exciting.  The fact is that cops spend a lot of time just sitting around reading, or waiting outside a house for the bad guy to come home, or staring at a computer screen trying to connect the dots.

For Fallen, I didn’t want to get into all the gang stuff, mostly because I’m terrified of gangs!  I talked to a gang specialist with the Atlanta police, but mostly, I just made stuff up.  The cool thing I did for Fallen was watching the GBI train for a school shooter scenario.  They took over an abandoned school, had role-players acting as teachers and screaming students, and sent each agent into the building to find that shooter.  They did this all day for a full day, and I got to watch each agent to see how they would respond to the drill.  It was exhilarating, and scary, and such a huge adrenaline rush that as soon as I got home, I was on my computer writing that opening scene where Faith pulls into her mother’s driveway, realizes something horrible has happened, and takes her shotgun into the house to find the bad guys.

Karin, by the way, has spearheaded the SaveThe Libaries.com initiaitve and will receive the Silver Bullet Award at ThrillerFest in July for outstanding achievement in the pursuit of literacy and the love of reading. 

To win one of these 6 boxed sets, courtesy of AudioGO, just send along an e-mail with your name and mailing address and the subject line "Fallen CD Giveaway" to bv@bvlawson.com by midnight EDT on Friday, July 8th, or if you're on Facebook, send me a direct message. All names will be entered into a random drawing and the 6 winners announced on the blog by Sunday, July 10th. If you have questions, feel free to post them in the comments section.

As part of Karin's audiobook blog tour, check out the other blogs in the stops along the way:

6/21/2011: Jen's Book Thoughts
6/23/2011: Book Addict Reviews
6/28/2011: Dew on the Kudzu
6/30/2011: Beth Fish Reads
7/1/2011:  Teresa's Reading Corner
7/5/2011:  You've GOTTA Read This!
7/6/2011:  Girls in the Stacks

How to Write a Dick

  A new crime fiction reference book is due out in July on Kindle and Nook, for all you authors who are thinking about writing a private eye novel. Real-life PIs Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman have written How to Write a Dick, which three-time Shamus Award winner Reed Farrel Coleman called "the best work of its kind I've ever come across because it covers the whole spectrum in an entertaining style that will appeal to layman and lawmen alike. This will be the industry standard for years to come."

Colleen Collins is a PI at Highland Investigation by day, an author by night, with articles on private investigations in PI Magazine, Pursuit Magazine and others and also 20 novels for both Harlequin and Dorchester. She has spoken at regional and national conferences about writing private eyes in fiction.

Shaun Kaufman has worked in and around the criminal justice field for nearly 30 years, as a former trial attorney and a current investigator. He's published articles in PI Magazine, the Denver Law Review, and authored numerous briefs for the Colorado Court of Appeals, Colorado Supreme Court, and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Shaun is also a frequent conference speaker about investigations, crime scenes, how PIs effectively testify in trials. 

Some Top Notch Thrillers

 Mike Ripley passed along a notice about the latest titles from the Top Notch Thriller imprint of Ostara Publishing (edited by Ripley), whose aim is to revive great British thrillers which don't deserve to be forgotten. In its first 18 months, Top Notch Thrillers has reissued 16 titles from the 1960s and 1970s, including books by John Gardner, Brian Callison, Duncan Kyle, Francis Clifford, Victor Canning and Geoffrey Household, with four more to be added this year. 

One of the latest reissues is the third in the "Quiller" series by Adam Hall, a/k/a Elleston Trevor, The Striker Portfolio. Quiller is an early antecedent to tough-guys Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne, the type who head into danger unarmed and alone. In The Striker Portfolio, we find Quiller in West Germany investigating the crashes of 36 military aircraft patrolling NATO's front line, as he tries to unravel a conspiracy and survive on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Before it's all over, Quiller is involved in "one of the most detailed car chase sequences in spy fiction," and earns his code name that ends with the suffix "9," which means "reliable under torture," which brings to mind the newly-revamped Bond movies starring Daniel Craig.

Another recently-featured title is The Eliminator by Andrew York (a/k/a Christopher Nicole), the first of seven books featuring British Security Service assassin Jonas Wilde, who cultivates the air of a "gentleman-yachtsman and slightly seedy playboy." The book was filmed as Danger Route in 1967 starring Richard Johnson, Gordon Jackson and Diana Dors.

The Lineup - So Dark For April

When most people think of poetry, they probably call up images of love sonnets, lonely clouds or maybe the shores of Gitchie Gumee. Crime, blood, gore, death, revenge? Not so much. Then what in the world is going on with the new poetry anthology The Lineup 4: Poems on Crime?

Editor Gerald So explains that "We hope this encourages poets and writers who discover—as I have—there are some moments, some images, poetry captures much better than prose." Even when those moments and images are down these mean streets where a man must go (Raymond Chandler) because the blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it (Sylvia Plath).

After reading The Lineup, I can't possibly pick a favorite from the lot, because I've always been fond of both apples and oranges. But, being surrounded by daily news reports of war and unrest and a seemingly never-ending casualty-count coming out of Afghanistan, I was naturally struck by a contribution from Reed Farrel Coleman (who also served as a co-editor and wrote the introduction to the anthology). Titled "Slider, Part 7," it was inspired by the Babi Yar massacre outside Kiev during World War II. An excerpt goes thusly:

None prayed that he could hear.
Mostly they were silent.
Then the
pop pop pop pop pop
of the Lugers and Walthers
and with each bullet
the metal metamorphosis of human beings
into falling lumps of meat.
Then the quicklime
the dirt
more bullets
more bodies
more quicklime.
Layers and layers
like a trifle.

There are many more compact gems included in the anthology: "a mother / shakes on scabbed knees for her son / thrown in a river" (Kieran Shea); "as if the world were on the wagon / and we were practicing / a sober walk test for cops / who were bored" (Thomas Michael McDade); "Blood spreads, pools, shimmers, / Like taillights in the rain" (Steve Weddle). Plenty of powerful images, powerful words, words painting landscapes from nightmares we live, dream and remember. Check them out for yourself, and also read the entries in the other lineup, the month-long blog tour Gerald So arranged to celebrate the book's publication.

Here's an idea: today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, part of National Poetry Month. You can purchase a download of the eBook version of Lineup4 and print out your favorite poem to carry around in your pocket. Share it with a co-worker, a friend, a family member or that guy in rumpled clothes who's always sitting on the park bench giving the squirrels the evil eye. But don't be surprised if he starts quoting poetry back at you, poems he's memorized or maybe poems from his experiences. Because human nature hasn't changed all that much since 400 BCE when Plato wrote "Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history," knowing that every life becomes a poem in its own way.
 
And if the book inspires you, as it surely must, consider contributing your own offering to the next volume, accepting submissions through July 31st.

Researching The Beloved Dead

  Tony Hays is the author of an historical series based on the Arthurian legends and featuring Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, a hardened soldier who lost his sword arm fighting alongside Arthur in battle against the Saxons in the mid-5th century AD.

Tony's background doesn't seem likely fodder for such a series: raised on a Tennessee farm; spending time first as a university administrator and then serving on the State Department-sponsored Overseas Security Advisory Council; even sailing on board the USS Tortuga to the Horn of Africa during its 2002-2003 deployment in preparation for the War with Iraq as an unofficial Arab linguist.

But one of Tony's passions has always been writing, which encouraged him to get an MA degree in English/Creative Writing at Texas A&M University at Commerce in 1991 and turn his hand to another passion, historical mysteries. The first two volumes in his Dark Ages series received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly, and Deadly Pleasures magazine named The Divine Sacrifice one of the best new mysteries of 2010.

In the just-released third installment of the series, The Beloved Dead, Tony merges a suspenseful serial killer story line with a detailed recreation of fifth-century Britain, as Arthur sends his chief advisor Malgwyn to fetch the bride-to-be for Arthur's politically-expedient marriage. Along the way, Malgwyn gets caught up in the search for a savage murderer, who sexually abuses young girls before slitting their throats. The investigator has to wonder whether the killings, which reawaken painful memories from his own past, are aimed at destabilizing Arthur's authority. Arthur's love for Malgwyn's cousin, Guinevere, only exacerbates tension between Malgwyn and the legendary king.

As a new feature of In Reference to Murder, I'll be asking authors about their approach to research while writing their novels, be it through job shadowing, burrowing into library stacks, going online, interviews, news reports, or whatever other techniques and methods they use in getting the details just right. Or whether too much research and overplanning can be deadly to a manuscript.  Since he is a writer of historical fiction, it seemed particularly fitting to ask Tony about his thoughts on research, especially while he's on a blog tour to promote The Beloved Dead.

Tony Hays:

When is too much too much?

I've in been in the historical mystery genre, for a long times it seems. But the kind of research I do isn't really the kind most scholars do. I am a novelist, an historical novelist, and that puts some pretty tough restrictions on us.

Too much, and you're pedantic. Too little and you're not taken seriously. Over the course of my writing career I have often studied that fine line between two much and two little research writing. The easy answer is to have some sort research meter that sets off an alarm. Or I have an inner gauge.

The real answer?

I have no answer. There is no cut-and-dried method for striking the right balance.  It's completely a gut call. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes we're wrong.

In my book,The Killing Way, I think I edge toward too much historical detail. But the Dark Ages is a time that we know little about. So, every detail I could drag from the historical record, and every archaeological discovery, I used, with as soft a touch as I could, brought the time to me. But by the time of The Beloved Dead, my newest entry in the century, I believe that I'm developing a seventh sense, a little twitch in my eye that says , "hold on. Do I really need that there?"

I vote for straightforward description, not a page on how a toga looked or a page on how a dress hung over a Celtic princess. If you spend more time describing how the Celtic princess looked, the nobility in the slope of her neck, you'll be in better shape, than if you had spent a week in the library studying Celtic fabrics and dying methods. Because you will have drawn the reader's attention to the character, not the trappings.

Undoubtedly, trappings and the proper geography and weapons are important. But it will be our characters that act upon that historical setting. So, as much as you research about the landscape and those "trappings," you need to know how common people lived, and breathed, and thought. Fiction, historical or otherwise, is predominantly about the people on that landscape. You can see it is about a city as in Rutherfurd's London or Sarum, but in the end you have to have people to make them special.

I'm not certain that I have enlightened you at all. The post was supposed to deal with when is too much too much. The bottom line is that writers have to make those choices for themselves, but it is an evolving process. You won't get it right, necessarily the first, second or third time out, but you will grow as an author and ultimately make better decisions.

Now that was the historical part.  Research for a mystery is a different kettle of fish.  I'm not sure you can know too much. You certainly might not use all of it in your writing, but you need to know it, because it might form a hole in the logic of your solution. The solution may rest on a particular cut to a rare gem. Perhaps such a gem can only sustain two types of cut, you think. But in your research you find that on very special occasions, it can sustain a third type of cut. And that may make all the difference.

A mystery is about hiding things.  The more you know, the more you can manipulate those things to make the mystery edgy, tense, satisfying.

Research is an odd creature, sometimes with a life of its own.  But it is a creature, nonetheless, one that mystery writers of all walks must learn how to utilize.

Remembering an Icon

  Crime fiction author, editor and critic H.R.F. Keating has died at the age of 84. There are many notices and tributes already up on the Web, including the Rap Sheet, Mike Ripley for The Guardian, Mystery Fanfare, Shots Magazine and The Telegraph. I had featured his novel Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal just a month ago for Patti Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books. Keating is also known for his listing of personal favorites in Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books (through 1986), a fine list indeed of books you should seek out (an update in 2000 was created jointly with Mike Ripley).

Although Keating didn't include his own novels on that list, while you're adding his suggestions to your TRB pile, add some of the titles in Keating's series featuring Indian policeman Inspector Ganesh Ghote. If you want to start at the beginning of the Ghote saga, look for The Perfect Murder, which won the CWA Gold Dagger and was made into a film in 1988.

What About the Afterlife?

 

What do the above have in common? They're all 1,000 years old or older (in the case of the Cuneiform stone, close to 4,000 years old). As the publishing world breathlessly awaits the latest eDevelopment, I find myself wondering about the future of today's books. I embrace digital technology every day, enjoy eBooks and believe they have a variety of uses and loads of potential for readers and writers.

However. Ask my audio engineer hubster how easily it is to get music or audio off an old 8-track tape or cassette. How many times has he tried to rescue something from a reel-to-reel tape, only to have it disintigrate? How many records has he painstakingly restored with a laser turntable, to find some parts just can't be decoded? DAT tape? Hardly anyone has DAT players anymore. CDs certainly aren't permanent.

Even in today's eBook realm, not every book can be read on every device due to the differences in software, hardware and formatting (.azf? .opf? tr2? chm? PDF?). Will our ancestors a thousand years from now have the technology to scan these binary bits when our current technology seems as ancient as a stone and chisel?

What do you think? How permanent are today's books—digital or print (those not published on acid-free or high-quality paper)?

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

  British novelist Jasper Fforde has written several novels in his Nursery Crime, Last Dragonslayer and Shades of Grey series, but he may be best known for the series featuring Thursday Next. First introduced in The Eyre Affair in 2001, ace literary detective Thursday divides her time between Realworld (a Britain that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike ours) and Bookworld where literary characters have their own existence.

Meek, mousy written-Thursday lives at the quiet end of Speculative Fiction in Bookworld, trying to keep her small four-book series respectful to her illustrious namesake and away from being remaindered. Every time someone picks up a Thursday Next novel in Realworld, written-Thursday has to be ready to jump into action and act out the parts, aided by her supporting cast that includes her pet dodo and Mrs. Malaprop.

In the sixth installment of the series (released this month), titled One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, written-Thursday Next gets called into action by the Jurisfiction department to investigate when a novel suffers an in-read breakup and deposits a narrative debris-field halfway across Bookworld. Upon closer investigation, written-Thursday realizes the real Thursday has disappeared and it's up to her literary counterpart to figure out what has happened.

When written-Thursday realizes someone has ground off the ISBN number from the wreakage, she finds herself playing the usual action-adventure heroine roles intended for her real counterpart, dodging the mysterious Men in Plaid who want her dead and navigating the Bookworld's elite as they try to deal with a border dispute between Racy Novel and Women's Fiction genres. Only trips to Realworld and up Bookworld's Mighty Metaphoric River will help written-Thursday save the day.

Fforde's genre-bending novel dips its pen into an inkwell-maelstrom of satire, romance, fantasy,  suspense, steampunk, science fiction and of course, detective fiction, a sort of publishing-world version of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Or, as the author himself said in an interview, Benny Hill meets Heart of Darkness. Fforde's creativity and imagination appear effortless and boundless—which is probably close to the truth, seeing as how the author says he sits down to write these books without much of a plan and finishes them in about 100 days or do. Maybe that's because his "years in the film industry makes me think visually and I construct the scenes in my head before putting them on paper."

The premise sounds confusing and the satire is so densely packed, you may find yourself stopping and re-reading passages over and over again to make sure you get all the references, but don't let that discourage you from an entertaining literary roller-coaster reading experience. And when you're done, head on over to the Thursday Next web site for all sorts of clever special features and extras.

Debut(antes)

 

I've never been able to find a web site reference that specifically lists crime fiction books by debut authors for any given month (if you know of one, please pass it along), although Omnimystery News has a nice feature called Firsts on the First—books with new series characters being released during the upcoming month (some by established authors, too). The site also has some terrific lists of all upcoming hardcover and paperback books. In addition to the series debuts this month, check out debut standalone novels by authors such as Sara J Henry (Learning to Swim), A.D. Miller (Snowdrops), p.g. sturges (Shortcut Man) and  Urban Waite (The Terror of Living).

For more sites with information about all new releases (paperback, hardcover, e-books and re-issue, check out the following:

Bloodstained Bookshelf
Books N Bytes
Cozy Mysteries
Fantastic Fiction
Murder, Mystery and Mayhem
Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore
Powells Books
Stop, You're Killing Me

Lincoln Lawyer Giveaway

   

On March 18th, the film The Lincoln Lawyer, based on the book by Michael Connelly, debuts in theaters nationwide. It stars Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who represents lowlife types and operates out of the back of his Lincoln sedan.  Also in the all-star cast are Ryan Phillippe, Marisa Tomei, William H. Macy, Josh Lucas, John Leguizamo, Michael Pena and Bryan Cranston, with Brad Furman directing.

Forbes magazine said of the book, "Master mystery novelist Connelly has created one of the most memorable characters in modern American literature, defense attorney Mickey Haller, who narrates this tale. Haller is cynical and ethically challenged (he describes how he bribes bail bondsmen to steer good cases his way), and a negligent (divorced) dad to his daughter from his first marriage. But he comes across as a sympathetic, multidimensional character in whom still lurk idealism, humanity, conscience and a desire to do better by his child, even while he exemplifies almost every stereotype of the ambulance-chasing, publicity-seeking, rule-bending defense lawyer."

For an excerpt from the book, check out this link, and you can also visit the movie's Facebook page here, as well as two movie trailers on Michael Connelly's site.

In advance of the film's release, you can be one of five lucky winners to receive a copy of The Lincoln Lawyer novel, as well as a movie poster. Just send along your name and e-mail address to bv@bvlawson.com (your information will be kept private) and put "Lincoln Lawyer Giveaway" in the subject line. The winners will be drawn at random and posted here on the blog February 1st.

You Can Have Three Seconds Free

  Here's a way to start off the New Year right:  you can win one of five free copies of Three Seconds by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellström (being released in the U.S. tomorrow). The book received the 2009 Swedish Crime Novel of the Year award from the Swedish Crime Writers' Association, sold over 1.5 million copies in Sweden and spent 13 months on the bestseller list there.

Ali Karim selected it as one of January magazine's top crime fiction titles for 2010, adding, "Tense and gripping, with a chilling climax, Three Seconds boasts plenty of insider knowledge about the ways in which criminals and undercover agents work."

Roslund, an acclaimed investigative journalist, and Hellström, an ex-criminal who spent years working to rehabilitate criminals, combine inside knowledge of the brutal reality of criminal life with searing social criticism that puts them at the forefront of modern Scandinavian crime writing and has reviewers calling them the heirs-apparent to Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell. Carol Memmott of USA Today said that "Americans are finally catching on to what thriller fans around the world already know — that the Swedish team of Roslund & Hellstrom is writing explosive crime novels as good, if not better, than those of Stieg Larsson."

Three Seconds follows ex-con Piet Hoffman, the Swedish police force's most valuable informant, who has infiltrated the Polish mafia inside an infamous maximum-security prison. Success will mean freedom and the chance to start a new life with his beloved wife and two young sons; failure will mean certain death. His survival depends on Detective Inspector Ewert Grens, a brilliant, complex, neurotic man charged with investigating a drug-related killing involving Hoffman — but unaware of Hoffmann's real identity, Grens instead believes he's on the trail of a dangerous psychopath. To complicate matters further, the cops who helped Hoffman infiltrate the prison and promised to protect him now want him dead, and someone has told Hoffman's fellow prisoners he's a snitch.

If you'd like a chance to win one of the five copies of this book, send your name, postal address and e-mail address to bv@bvlawson.com and type "Three Seconds Giveaway" (or something to that effect) in the subject line. But hurry — entries will be accepted only until midnight EST, Wednesday, January 5th, 2011, with the winners chosen via random drawing and posted the following day. Note:  unfortunately, this one is open to U.S. residents only.