This one is a reverse. She interviewed me
here's the link
http://research-writing-techniques.suite101.com/article.cfm/writers_rituals_carl_brookins
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
CRIME WAVE TV SHOW EXPANDS
The folks at the CTV Suburban operation who do such a great job producing our television series, MINNESOTA CRIME WAVE PRESENTS, have decided to schedule the series on our regional channel (6) on the third Thursday of every month at 6PM.
I'm very pleased. We now have access to almost five million people to talk about crime novels, the publishing industry, and authors.
We already have interviewed more than ten authors and we'll talk in the future to librarians, and bookstore owners, editors, publishers, and designers, among others. Our interests in the world of books is wide ranging and we intend to present ideas and information about the new technologies, emerging writers of merit, and many other topics, all in an engaging and fast-moving format of discussion, argument, and fun.
You can see the segments already produced by going to the links page at Any one who reads this blog with ideas for topics they'd like us to examine can email me here or via the crime wave web site.
With any luck at all, maybe one day we'll get a national channel!
I'm very pleased. We now have access to almost five million people to talk about crime novels, the publishing industry, and authors.
We already have interviewed more than ten authors and we'll talk in the future to librarians, and bookstore owners, editors, publishers, and designers, among others. Our interests in the world of books is wide ranging and we intend to present ideas and information about the new technologies, emerging writers of merit, and many other topics, all in an engaging and fast-moving format of discussion, argument, and fun.
You can see the segments already produced by going to the links page at Any one who reads this blog with ideas for topics they'd like us to examine can email me here or via the crime wave web site.
With any luck at all, maybe one day we'll get a national channel!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A Conversation with Michael Allen Dymmoch, and LIM
First, Love Is Murder, a fine small mystery con always held the first weekend in February, right around Valentine's Day, hence the name of the con. This year in Wheeling IL, north of Chicago.
You can learn all about it by going to the web sites. I took a bunch of pictures, some of which will show up here and on my website over the next few weeks. Gotta get back to writing.
Michael Allen Dymmoch agreed recently to put up with my nosy questions and she even answered most of them. In the spirit of disclosure, we are friends of long-standing and I happen to think she’s one of the best writers of Police Procedurals alive today.
When someone asks you what kind of book do you write? What’s your answer? (The famous elevator speech)
Mysteries or police procedurals.
When did you know you were going to be a mystery writer?
I knew I was going to be a writer when I read the book, Maybe You Should Write a Book (by Ralph Daigh, 1977), the premise of which is “If you have an idea for a book, why not write one? Somebody writes books.” I knew I was going to be a mystery writer when The Man Who Understood Cats was published and my editor, Ruth Cavin, asked if I was going to write a sequel.
Tell us a little bit about your family background.
Large family, otherwise not ordinary. Congenital readers on my mother’s side.
What is your educational background?
B.S. in Chemistry. Dropped out of Grad school to avoid writing a thesis. Got an associate’s degree in Law Enforcement at my local community college while researching police procedure for my books.
Talk a bit about your present family situation.
I live with cats.
What did you read as a child?
All the animal stories in my school and local public libraries, animal stories, beginning with Lad, A Dog (Albert Payson Terhune, 1919), Greek mythology, and books about dinosaurs. Then I went through everything I could get my hands on by Jack London, A. Conan Doyle, P. C. Wren, Rafael Sabatini, Alexandre Dumas, Baroness Orczy, Mary Stewart, and Dick Francis. In high school, I read Crime and Punishment, and everything on the high school reading list that sounded like an adventure story.
What’s your daily routine when you aren’t touring?
I turn on Oprah to see if she’s doing anything I can stand to watch, eat breakfast, check my e-mail, go out for a paper (Chicago Sun-Times or Sunday Tribune), run errands—shop, recycle stuff, mail out books that someone requested or that I think someone should read. After lunch I work on projects—organize my photos, my desk, my computer files, water the plants, clean the house, get the mail. At 4:00 pm, I check to see if Dr. Phil is doing a program I can tolerate. If he’s not, I watch the news or Charlie Rose. After dinner I watch TV (except Mondays, when I go to Libby’s for a writer’s meeting). After the 10:00 pm news, I recycle for an hour or two (I’m the recycling volunteer for my building), then watch Tavis Smiley and other PBS shows until bedtime. Occasionally, I break my routine and write something.
How much touring do you do?
I‘ve only done one tour—with Libby (Hellmann, another fine crime fiction writer).
What surprised you most about the writing community once you became a part of it?
Until I started to meet other writers, I thought I was a little weird. I was amazed to discover that other writers are similarly odd.
What’s the hardest thing about being an author?
Writing.
Let’s talk about promotion and marketing.
I suck at both so I tend to avoid them whenever possible. I never turn down a school appearance, a request for a signing (within reasonable travel distances), or a library gig. I tend to say yes to Libby Hellmann when ever she asks me to do something with her because Libby excels at promotion and marketing and she’s very generous with praise and advice for other writers.
Do you blog? How frequently? Is your blog a group or single effort?
I belong to TheOutfitCollective.com, a blog group also including Sean Chercover, Barbara D’Amato, Libby Hellmann, Kevin Guilfoile, Sara Paretsky, and Marcus Sakey. With so many in the group, each of us has to blog only once every two weeks.
How frequently do you organize or participate in book tours?
Organize never. Participate once.
What kind of events or signings do you do?
See promotion and marketing above.
In a typical year, how many times would you appear for your book?
I don’t have typical years. I had two books out in 2006, none in 2007, one in 2008. I did nine or ten signings in 2008, some for the Chicago Blues anthology, and six conferences.
How many fan conferences such as Bouchercon will you typically attend in a year?
Six or seven—usually Love is Murder, Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, Mayhem in the Midlands, Bouchercon, Magna cum Murder, and Mayhem & Murder in Muskego.
Any specific recommendations?
Love is Murder, Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, Mayhem in the Midlands, Bouchercon, Magna cum Murder, and Mayhem & Murder in Muskego. Sleuthfest is also good, though I seldom attend.
Do you have a web site and/ or other Internet places you routinely participate in, such as Good Books or Face Book?
Web site yes, MichaelAllenDymmoch.com. Face Book, etc. no.
What surprised you the most when you became a published author?
Writing a book is only 10% of being a successful author. You also have to be a business person, researcher, and advertiser.
Do you think you’ll change direction or spread out a bit? Write a different kind of crime novel? If so, what kind.?
I may try a thriller at some point. St. Martin’s classifies my stand alones as thrillers, but they’re really romantic suspense.
Especially since 9/11, how do you respond to the accusation that you are trying to make money on a phenomenon in society we call murder? Or heinous crime?
I don’t make any money writing about anything. (I’d do better working at McDonald’s.) I write about murder because it’s the extreme of aberrant human behavior, with the highest stakes for offender and victim. Compared to the exploitation of crime perpetrated by “news” programs, most crime novelists are innocents. (Which is not to say some crime fiction isn’t pornographically exploitive.)
If you could be anything else in the world, have any other career, what would it be?
A photographer.
What career would you least like to do, if writing was to become impossible?
Answer the phones at Citibank Master Card or any major airline.
Have you ever collaborated on a novel? Would you consider it?
No. I have collaborated on a screenplay, and I’d consider collaborating on a novel or non-fiction book if I really got along well with the other writer.
Who are the authors who you feel have had the most influence on your writing career?
Mary Stewart, John D. MacDonald, Dick Francis, Tony Hillerman.
Tell us one or two authors or books you absolutely universally recommend.
Crime and Punishment. The Book of Lost Things. Dandelion Wine. (So I can’t count. But how can one list only two? Or three? Or 73?)
Who is your favorite mystery author?
You’ve got to be kidding!
Where do you want your career to go?
I retired from my day job. I don’t want a career. I just want to write the stories I have in my head.
To what organizations related to your writing career do you belong?
The Authors Guild, Society of Midwest Authors, MWA, Sisters in Crime, IACW, The Illinois Academy of Criminology, ACLU.
Who is your publisher? What’s your current book?
St. Martin’s. M.I.A.
What’s next?
I’ve started sequels to White Tiger and Death in West Wheeling, and have a stand-alone nearly finished. I could write four or five more stories in my original series and five more West Wheeling novels. If I live long enough.
Are you agented?
Yes.
What’s your take on the rise of electronic publishing?
I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion.
What’s your favorite word?
Are you serious?
What’s your least favorite word?
Utilized, a weasel word if there ever was one.
Yes, I was serious when I asked for your favorite word. Do you have one?
I don't think I have a favorite. Words are tools, each with a specific purpose. And they stand in for objects, concepts, emotions... So I guess the favorite--at any give moment--is the one that expresses what I'm trying to say (assuming I can recall it).
If you could change one thing about the world what would that be?
A decent education for every child. (Not to be confused with the sausage factories that pass for most public schools.) No one should be allowed out of school without reading and writing well and without being able to: construct a resume (and have something to put on it); fill out a job application; balance a checkbook; identify his own internal organs and specify what function each performs; change a diaper (and a tire if he’s going to drive); tell you who represents him at all levels of government; make travel reservations; make change without a computer; read a map, tell north, south, east and west without a GPS, and locate all fifty states and the countries most often in the news on a world map. Students should be required to spend a morning in traffic court and a week observing criminal court and to write accurate reports of what transpired. Schools should also teach sex education and basic psychology because parents don’t.
Do you have any pithy (or other) words of advice for aspiring authors?
Writers write (whether or not they become authors). Writers who persist and keep improving become authors.
Now I want to know a little more about research. What kind, favorite sources, how much do you do for any given novel? like that.
Alex Matthews insists that I only write to justify my research. She may be right. I read something like 40 books for White Tiger, saw every Vietnam War movie and at least one Vietnamese film. I also went on line to some Vietnam Vet sites for first-hand experiences and talked to a few vets about their experiences.
When I was rewriting the MS for The Man Who Understood Cats prior to submitting it to St. Martins, I took courses in Police Operations and Criminal Law. For subsequent books I've taken other Law Enforcement courses; gone to Citizens Police Academy; attended seminars on Gunshot and Stab Wounds, Toxicology, and Forensic Nursing; interviewed arson investigators; visited morgues to observe autopsies; taken gun safety courses; and done ride-alongs with police. I've also made friends with a number of police officers and former cops who've been generous with their advice and information. For The Fall, I took courses in SLR photography and darkroom techniques.
For books like Death in West Wheeling, I collect weird stories from the news and actual dialog from anyone foolish enough to use idiosyncratic grammar in public.
For general information, I go to the locations I intend to use in the book and take notes and photographs. For specific information, I try to contact an expert after I've learned enough about the subject (usually at the library) to ask reasonably intelligent questions. (I once called NASA and had an interesting conversation with a scientist about what would happen if you stepped out on the moon without a spacesuit.) Most people who love their jobs are happy to share their expertise. Cops are no exception, though you have to earn their trust before they'll open up.
You began with The Man Who Understood Cats and did several more featuring the cop John Thinnes and his growing relationship with Psychiatrist Jack Caleb. They are identified as Police Procedurals. Then came Cymry Ring, fairly characterized, I think, as a Fantasy. From where did that spring?
Both started out as ideas for a movie. I took a screenwriting course and needed to write about something. I'd just seen “Lethal Weapon” and thought they mixed up the second reel of the move with that of another movie. So I thought I'd take a shot at writing a police procedural. No one would read the finished screenplay so I novelized it. Cymry Ring was born when I saw “Time After Time,” a movie in which H.G. Wells (Malcom McDowell) pursues Jack the Ripper (David Warner) into the future in a time machine. Since I'd recently seen Sean Connery in something, I put together the story of a cop pursuing a killer who's fled into the past (no statute of limitations on murder so the past is a safer haven for killers than the future). The time period to which the killer fled turned out to be Roman Britain because a National Geographic article on Celtic art got me interested in the Celts and the Boudiccan uprising was an interesting event in Celtic history.
And then of course, came the very funny Death in West Wheeling. Again, a departure from either of the earlier genres. Why?
I loved Festus Haggen on Gunsmoke. And my parents lived on farms at various times of their lives, so I grew up hearing rural stories. I also visited friends and relatives whose lives on farms were so different from my urban and suburban experiences that they made a great impression on me. Many of my stories are meant to celebrate the beauty or inventiveness or difference of people and places I encounter.
Will Jack and John reappear in another Police Procedural?
If St. Martins accepts the proposal I submitted a year ago.
How much intrusion on your real life do your characters appear to have?
What do you mean by intrusion?
I mean do you feel or register their presence in your room when you write?
No.
Do they "talk" to you?
Sometime I hear them talking in my head--to each other.
Do you miss them when a book is finished?
Not really. They're always there, between the pages.
Do they suggest story developments?
The characters don't, but researching a book always produces more ideas than will fit in one story.
Do you like to travel?
Yes.
If you could spend two weeks anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go?
Mexico.
Thank you.
You can learn all about it by going to the web sites. I took a bunch of pictures, some of which will show up here and on my website over the next few weeks. Gotta get back to writing.
Michael Allen Dymmoch agreed recently to put up with my nosy questions and she even answered most of them. In the spirit of disclosure, we are friends of long-standing and I happen to think she’s one of the best writers of Police Procedurals alive today.
When someone asks you what kind of book do you write? What’s your answer? (The famous elevator speech)
Mysteries or police procedurals.
When did you know you were going to be a mystery writer?
I knew I was going to be a writer when I read the book, Maybe You Should Write a Book (by Ralph Daigh, 1977), the premise of which is “If you have an idea for a book, why not write one? Somebody writes books.” I knew I was going to be a mystery writer when The Man Who Understood Cats was published and my editor, Ruth Cavin, asked if I was going to write a sequel.
Tell us a little bit about your family background.
Large family, otherwise not ordinary. Congenital readers on my mother’s side.
What is your educational background?
B.S. in Chemistry. Dropped out of Grad school to avoid writing a thesis. Got an associate’s degree in Law Enforcement at my local community college while researching police procedure for my books.
Talk a bit about your present family situation.
I live with cats.
What did you read as a child?
All the animal stories in my school and local public libraries, animal stories, beginning with Lad, A Dog (Albert Payson Terhune, 1919), Greek mythology, and books about dinosaurs. Then I went through everything I could get my hands on by Jack London, A. Conan Doyle, P. C. Wren, Rafael Sabatini, Alexandre Dumas, Baroness Orczy, Mary Stewart, and Dick Francis. In high school, I read Crime and Punishment, and everything on the high school reading list that sounded like an adventure story.
What’s your daily routine when you aren’t touring?
I turn on Oprah to see if she’s doing anything I can stand to watch, eat breakfast, check my e-mail, go out for a paper (Chicago Sun-Times or Sunday Tribune), run errands—shop, recycle stuff, mail out books that someone requested or that I think someone should read. After lunch I work on projects—organize my photos, my desk, my computer files, water the plants, clean the house, get the mail. At 4:00 pm, I check to see if Dr. Phil is doing a program I can tolerate. If he’s not, I watch the news or Charlie Rose. After dinner I watch TV (except Mondays, when I go to Libby’s for a writer’s meeting). After the 10:00 pm news, I recycle for an hour or two (I’m the recycling volunteer for my building), then watch Tavis Smiley and other PBS shows until bedtime. Occasionally, I break my routine and write something.
How much touring do you do?
I‘ve only done one tour—with Libby (Hellmann, another fine crime fiction writer).
What surprised you most about the writing community once you became a part of it?
Until I started to meet other writers, I thought I was a little weird. I was amazed to discover that other writers are similarly odd.
What’s the hardest thing about being an author?
Writing.
Let’s talk about promotion and marketing.
I suck at both so I tend to avoid them whenever possible. I never turn down a school appearance, a request for a signing (within reasonable travel distances), or a library gig. I tend to say yes to Libby Hellmann when ever she asks me to do something with her because Libby excels at promotion and marketing and she’s very generous with praise and advice for other writers.
Do you blog? How frequently? Is your blog a group or single effort?
I belong to TheOutfitCollective.com, a blog group also including Sean Chercover, Barbara D’Amato, Libby Hellmann, Kevin Guilfoile, Sara Paretsky, and Marcus Sakey. With so many in the group, each of us has to blog only once every two weeks.
How frequently do you organize or participate in book tours?
Organize never. Participate once.
What kind of events or signings do you do?
See promotion and marketing above.
In a typical year, how many times would you appear for your book?
I don’t have typical years. I had two books out in 2006, none in 2007, one in 2008. I did nine or ten signings in 2008, some for the Chicago Blues anthology, and six conferences.
How many fan conferences such as Bouchercon will you typically attend in a year?
Six or seven—usually Love is Murder, Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, Mayhem in the Midlands, Bouchercon, Magna cum Murder, and Mayhem & Murder in Muskego.
Any specific recommendations?
Love is Murder, Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, Mayhem in the Midlands, Bouchercon, Magna cum Murder, and Mayhem & Murder in Muskego. Sleuthfest is also good, though I seldom attend.
Do you have a web site and/ or other Internet places you routinely participate in, such as Good Books or Face Book?
Web site yes, MichaelAllenDymmoch.com. Face Book, etc. no.
What surprised you the most when you became a published author?
Writing a book is only 10% of being a successful author. You also have to be a business person, researcher, and advertiser.
Do you think you’ll change direction or spread out a bit? Write a different kind of crime novel? If so, what kind.?
I may try a thriller at some point. St. Martin’s classifies my stand alones as thrillers, but they’re really romantic suspense.
Especially since 9/11, how do you respond to the accusation that you are trying to make money on a phenomenon in society we call murder? Or heinous crime?
I don’t make any money writing about anything. (I’d do better working at McDonald’s.) I write about murder because it’s the extreme of aberrant human behavior, with the highest stakes for offender and victim. Compared to the exploitation of crime perpetrated by “news” programs, most crime novelists are innocents. (Which is not to say some crime fiction isn’t pornographically exploitive.)
If you could be anything else in the world, have any other career, what would it be?
A photographer.
What career would you least like to do, if writing was to become impossible?
Answer the phones at Citibank Master Card or any major airline.
Have you ever collaborated on a novel? Would you consider it?
No. I have collaborated on a screenplay, and I’d consider collaborating on a novel or non-fiction book if I really got along well with the other writer.
Who are the authors who you feel have had the most influence on your writing career?
Mary Stewart, John D. MacDonald, Dick Francis, Tony Hillerman.
Tell us one or two authors or books you absolutely universally recommend.
Crime and Punishment. The Book of Lost Things. Dandelion Wine. (So I can’t count. But how can one list only two? Or three? Or 73?)
Who is your favorite mystery author?
You’ve got to be kidding!
Where do you want your career to go?
I retired from my day job. I don’t want a career. I just want to write the stories I have in my head.
To what organizations related to your writing career do you belong?
The Authors Guild, Society of Midwest Authors, MWA, Sisters in Crime, IACW, The Illinois Academy of Criminology, ACLU.
Who is your publisher? What’s your current book?
St. Martin’s. M.I.A.
What’s next?
I’ve started sequels to White Tiger and Death in West Wheeling, and have a stand-alone nearly finished. I could write four or five more stories in my original series and five more West Wheeling novels. If I live long enough.
Are you agented?
Yes.
What’s your take on the rise of electronic publishing?
I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion.
What’s your favorite word?
Are you serious?
What’s your least favorite word?
Utilized, a weasel word if there ever was one.
Yes, I was serious when I asked for your favorite word. Do you have one?
I don't think I have a favorite. Words are tools, each with a specific purpose. And they stand in for objects, concepts, emotions... So I guess the favorite--at any give moment--is the one that expresses what I'm trying to say (assuming I can recall it).
If you could change one thing about the world what would that be?
A decent education for every child. (Not to be confused with the sausage factories that pass for most public schools.) No one should be allowed out of school without reading and writing well and without being able to: construct a resume (and have something to put on it); fill out a job application; balance a checkbook; identify his own internal organs and specify what function each performs; change a diaper (and a tire if he’s going to drive); tell you who represents him at all levels of government; make travel reservations; make change without a computer; read a map, tell north, south, east and west without a GPS, and locate all fifty states and the countries most often in the news on a world map. Students should be required to spend a morning in traffic court and a week observing criminal court and to write accurate reports of what transpired. Schools should also teach sex education and basic psychology because parents don’t.
Do you have any pithy (or other) words of advice for aspiring authors?
Writers write (whether or not they become authors). Writers who persist and keep improving become authors.
Now I want to know a little more about research. What kind, favorite sources, how much do you do for any given novel? like that.
Alex Matthews insists that I only write to justify my research. She may be right. I read something like 40 books for White Tiger, saw every Vietnam War movie and at least one Vietnamese film. I also went on line to some Vietnam Vet sites for first-hand experiences and talked to a few vets about their experiences.
When I was rewriting the MS for The Man Who Understood Cats prior to submitting it to St. Martins, I took courses in Police Operations and Criminal Law. For subsequent books I've taken other Law Enforcement courses; gone to Citizens Police Academy; attended seminars on Gunshot and Stab Wounds, Toxicology, and Forensic Nursing; interviewed arson investigators; visited morgues to observe autopsies; taken gun safety courses; and done ride-alongs with police. I've also made friends with a number of police officers and former cops who've been generous with their advice and information. For The Fall, I took courses in SLR photography and darkroom techniques.
For books like Death in West Wheeling, I collect weird stories from the news and actual dialog from anyone foolish enough to use idiosyncratic grammar in public.
For general information, I go to the locations I intend to use in the book and take notes and photographs. For specific information, I try to contact an expert after I've learned enough about the subject (usually at the library) to ask reasonably intelligent questions. (I once called NASA and had an interesting conversation with a scientist about what would happen if you stepped out on the moon without a spacesuit.) Most people who love their jobs are happy to share their expertise. Cops are no exception, though you have to earn their trust before they'll open up.
You began with The Man Who Understood Cats and did several more featuring the cop John Thinnes and his growing relationship with Psychiatrist Jack Caleb. They are identified as Police Procedurals. Then came Cymry Ring, fairly characterized, I think, as a Fantasy. From where did that spring?
Both started out as ideas for a movie. I took a screenwriting course and needed to write about something. I'd just seen “Lethal Weapon” and thought they mixed up the second reel of the move with that of another movie. So I thought I'd take a shot at writing a police procedural. No one would read the finished screenplay so I novelized it. Cymry Ring was born when I saw “Time After Time,” a movie in which H.G. Wells (Malcom McDowell) pursues Jack the Ripper (David Warner) into the future in a time machine. Since I'd recently seen Sean Connery in something, I put together the story of a cop pursuing a killer who's fled into the past (no statute of limitations on murder so the past is a safer haven for killers than the future). The time period to which the killer fled turned out to be Roman Britain because a National Geographic article on Celtic art got me interested in the Celts and the Boudiccan uprising was an interesting event in Celtic history.
And then of course, came the very funny Death in West Wheeling. Again, a departure from either of the earlier genres. Why?
I loved Festus Haggen on Gunsmoke. And my parents lived on farms at various times of their lives, so I grew up hearing rural stories. I also visited friends and relatives whose lives on farms were so different from my urban and suburban experiences that they made a great impression on me. Many of my stories are meant to celebrate the beauty or inventiveness or difference of people and places I encounter.
Will Jack and John reappear in another Police Procedural?
If St. Martins accepts the proposal I submitted a year ago.
How much intrusion on your real life do your characters appear to have?
What do you mean by intrusion?
I mean do you feel or register their presence in your room when you write?
No.
Do they "talk" to you?
Sometime I hear them talking in my head--to each other.
Do you miss them when a book is finished?
Not really. They're always there, between the pages.
Do they suggest story developments?
The characters don't, but researching a book always produces more ideas than will fit in one story.
Do you like to travel?
Yes.
If you could spend two weeks anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go?
Mexico.
Thank you.
Monday, February 02, 2009
SUPERBOWL, game and ads and LIM
Superbowl, a whee of a game! I’m not a fan of either team, but wow, this is why I follow pro football!
Naturally everybody and their seventh cousin is blogging or emailing about the ads and since I have this outlet and have even in the past produced television, here’s my take on the ads.
As usual, the hype about the ads was way overblown. Most of them were bad or just ordinary adverts. In the first half, the Budweiser ads with the horse bringing the log and the two horses in love were charming and memorable.
Some of them, like the Go Daddy ads, were downright embarrassing, juvenile. Maybe false, too. Go Daddy has been accused of censoring content. The NBC ads for its programs sucked as usual. No wonder, even with some seriously good drama, their numbers aren’t notable. The Telefloral ad was disgusting, J Leno in the cute sports car was clever. The Cheetos ad was excellent, as was the Sprint/Nextel spot. Heroes produced a good piece.
Except for the game itself the halftime show with Bruce and the E Street band was dynamite. Finally some real energy! In the second half I thought the Coke ad, Budweiser again, HULU, all good to excellent. GDaddy, and Careerbuilder.com stunk up the place. Just one viewer’s opinion, of course. I’d love to see your take on the game and the ads. Remember the old Alka-Seltzer ads that gave everybody a headache back in the sixties? Somebody obviously did.
A little bird told me there just might be some kind of mystery conference in Minnesota sometime this year.
I’m off to Chicago for Love is Murder and won’t be blogging from there. Catch y’all on the flip side.
Naturally everybody and their seventh cousin is blogging or emailing about the ads and since I have this outlet and have even in the past produced television, here’s my take on the ads.
As usual, the hype about the ads was way overblown. Most of them were bad or just ordinary adverts. In the first half, the Budweiser ads with the horse bringing the log and the two horses in love were charming and memorable.
Some of them, like the Go Daddy ads, were downright embarrassing, juvenile. Maybe false, too. Go Daddy has been accused of censoring content. The NBC ads for its programs sucked as usual. No wonder, even with some seriously good drama, their numbers aren’t notable. The Telefloral ad was disgusting, J Leno in the cute sports car was clever. The Cheetos ad was excellent, as was the Sprint/Nextel spot. Heroes produced a good piece.
Except for the game itself the halftime show with Bruce and the E Street band was dynamite. Finally some real energy! In the second half I thought the Coke ad, Budweiser again, HULU, all good to excellent. GDaddy, and Careerbuilder.com stunk up the place. Just one viewer’s opinion, of course. I’d love to see your take on the game and the ads. Remember the old Alka-Seltzer ads that gave everybody a headache back in the sixties? Somebody obviously did.
A little bird told me there just might be some kind of mystery conference in Minnesota sometime this year.
I’m off to Chicago for Love is Murder and won’t be blogging from there. Catch y’all on the flip side.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Grisham, Charlie Rose, and stuff
Here are a few facts you don’t need and probably can’t use.
The Associated Press reports that a poll conducted by the Sports Marketing Group in Atlanta has identified the top 10 most hated spectator sports:
1 Dog fighting
2 Professional wrestling
3 Bullfighting
4 Professional boxing
5 PGA Tour
6 PGA Seniors
7 LPGA Tour
8 NASCAR
9 Major League Soccer
10 ATP Men’s Tennis
The Duluth Pack was invented in 1892 and is still manufactured and sold and used today.
John Grisham appeared on Charlie Rose last night. At least that’s the program we saw here in the Twin Cities. He is a charming, well-spoken good-looking man with the manners of a gentleman. In spite of Rose’s irksome habit of sometimes laughing inappropriately and interrupting his guests, Grisham never lost his cool and always stopped when Rose talked. Here are some highlights.
Grisham told a fascinating story about his “A Time to Kill,” in my opinion probably his best book and how it came to be written.
He makes no apologies for the kind of suspense thriller he writes. His aim he said is to write a taut fast-paced page-turner. He admits his books are light on characterization (!) and that his wife often admonishes him to get off the soapbox. For each new book the hardcover print run is more than two million books. He avoids racy language and explicit gore and sex because he wants a book that you, his middle-aged first reader, would feel no discomfort handing to your teen-ager or to your grandmother.
Discipline is a key. He believes that you must be able to write a page or two every day or you’ll never get the job done. He is working on several ideas at a time, goes with the one that grabs him, clips news stories, steals from any source that interests him and listens to folks around him for dialogue.
Plotting and good storytelling are his strengths, he believes, and while his books are often pointed indictments of some aspect of our society, that is never his point or his rationale. He can give you the plot and essence of every book he writes in one or two sentences and strongly suggests that if a writer can’t do that, he or she had better learn to do it. He is paying for a wide variety of worthy causes here and abroad, most apparently dealing with support of literacy and education.
There’s lots more. Crime fiction writers would do well to get a copy of the program and study Grisham’s approach. He was on for the full hour.
Oh yes, he says he never reads critics unless they are positive, then went on to reveal that in fact he does read them and believes he still learns from thoughtful, well done criticism.
Here’s another of my thoughtful, well-done reviews of a mystery.
Blacklight Blue
by Peter May
ISBN:9781590585528
from Poisoned Pen Press
hard cover, 326 pages
Another in May's series with the crusty scot Enzo MacLeod, former ace forensic scientist. Living now in France, Enzo struggles with relationships with his two daughters, and abruptly with several coordinated attacks on his relatively well-ordered life.
This novel is the third in May's excellent cold case series. A French writer has done a book about a series of old unsolved murders and a reward has been offered for any one who can solve the cases. But unlike earlier efforts, here the target seems to be striking preemptively at Enzo and his family.
A crime novel with more than the usual twists and elements that are not what they appear on the surface. Enzo answers a lot of questions in the course of determining who killed a man named Lambert. But there is a lot more of substance in this emotional tale. It will entertain, mystify and perplex, right up to the very end.
The Associated Press reports that a poll conducted by the Sports Marketing Group in Atlanta has identified the top 10 most hated spectator sports:
1 Dog fighting
2 Professional wrestling
3 Bullfighting
4 Professional boxing
5 PGA Tour
6 PGA Seniors
7 LPGA Tour
8 NASCAR
9 Major League Soccer
10 ATP Men’s Tennis
The Duluth Pack was invented in 1892 and is still manufactured and sold and used today.
John Grisham appeared on Charlie Rose last night. At least that’s the program we saw here in the Twin Cities. He is a charming, well-spoken good-looking man with the manners of a gentleman. In spite of Rose’s irksome habit of sometimes laughing inappropriately and interrupting his guests, Grisham never lost his cool and always stopped when Rose talked. Here are some highlights.
Grisham told a fascinating story about his “A Time to Kill,” in my opinion probably his best book and how it came to be written.
He makes no apologies for the kind of suspense thriller he writes. His aim he said is to write a taut fast-paced page-turner. He admits his books are light on characterization (!) and that his wife often admonishes him to get off the soapbox. For each new book the hardcover print run is more than two million books. He avoids racy language and explicit gore and sex because he wants a book that you, his middle-aged first reader, would feel no discomfort handing to your teen-ager or to your grandmother.
Discipline is a key. He believes that you must be able to write a page or two every day or you’ll never get the job done. He is working on several ideas at a time, goes with the one that grabs him, clips news stories, steals from any source that interests him and listens to folks around him for dialogue.
Plotting and good storytelling are his strengths, he believes, and while his books are often pointed indictments of some aspect of our society, that is never his point or his rationale. He can give you the plot and essence of every book he writes in one or two sentences and strongly suggests that if a writer can’t do that, he or she had better learn to do it. He is paying for a wide variety of worthy causes here and abroad, most apparently dealing with support of literacy and education.
There’s lots more. Crime fiction writers would do well to get a copy of the program and study Grisham’s approach. He was on for the full hour.
Oh yes, he says he never reads critics unless they are positive, then went on to reveal that in fact he does read them and believes he still learns from thoughtful, well done criticism.
Here’s another of my thoughtful, well-done reviews of a mystery.
Blacklight Blue
by Peter May
ISBN:9781590585528
from Poisoned Pen Press
hard cover, 326 pages
Another in May's series with the crusty scot Enzo MacLeod, former ace forensic scientist. Living now in France, Enzo struggles with relationships with his two daughters, and abruptly with several coordinated attacks on his relatively well-ordered life.
This novel is the third in May's excellent cold case series. A French writer has done a book about a series of old unsolved murders and a reward has been offered for any one who can solve the cases. But unlike earlier efforts, here the target seems to be striking preemptively at Enzo and his family.
A crime novel with more than the usual twists and elements that are not what they appear on the surface. Enzo answers a lot of questions in the course of determining who killed a man named Lambert. But there is a lot more of substance in this emotional tale. It will entertain, mystify and perplex, right up to the very end.
Friday, January 23, 2009
BLOODY HALLS: an excerpt
CHAPTER 1
You see, if you come an hour late,
you have to put up with cold meat
Later, when I’d had time to think about it, I realized it was those banging metal trash cans in the lobby that marked my initial entanglement in the Marshall affair. Sometimes, when I dream about those noisy trash cans, I wonder what might have happened if I’d followed my first instinct, left the rehearsal, and gone to the theater lobby while the killer was still there. That thought makes me sweat, sometimes, in the quiet dark of an early morning.
* * *
The day of the murder hadn’t been one of my better days. I’d stayed late in the college’s Office of Student Services because that’s what directors have to do to keep up with the workload. Now, well after the cocktail hour, I found myself in an uncomfortable seat, cold, bored, waiting. Waiting for my entrance in this creaky, drafty barn of a theater.
Weeks earlier I’d let my eagerness for the play get the better of my judgment. When the community theater group loosely associated with our college, City College of Minneapolis, announced they were going to produce Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People,” I couldn’t resist the opportunity. I happen to like Ibsen a lot. Here was my chance, I told my friend Lori, to really stretch myself. If I landed a part, even a bit part, what an experience! Ibsen. Wow! So I auditioned. And I got a part.
“Wonderful,” one would say. “Just what you wanted,” another will say.
“Rats,” I’ll say. It was a much bigger part than I ever anticipated. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was too much part for me. Besides, I knew it would take up most of what little free time I already hadn’t enough of. I should have declined, but I was the director’s first choice, so pride entered into the equation as well as opportunity, and I was lost.
Dr. Stockman. Enemy of the people. That was to be my role.
That had been weeks earlier. Now here I was, facing an obsessed director, Delton, he said his name was, a graduate student from the big university across town. The small college for which I labored had no theater department so the acting company usually hired a grad student from elsewhere. Funny, this same director, when he’d called to offer me the part, had seemed pleasant, logical, even charming. No longer. I was fast becoming convinced that this mere child of a director knew no more about Ibsen’s time and the dragons that drove the good Dr. Stockman than did that janitor, banging about in the lobby outside the auditorium doors at that moment.
What was it with that janitor? Didn’t he realize the noise would distract us? I finally rose from my seat, intending to go to the lobby and snuff out the continuing banging. I had almost reached the double doors when the noise stopped. Silence fell on stage at the same moment. I glanced back and realized most of those in the auditorium were looking at me, or more precisely, looking in my direction.
“Well, Marston?”
“Well, Delton?” I shot back. Quick, that’s me.
“I believe you have an entrance here,” the director growled.
“Ummm... right. Sorry.” I’d lost track of exactly where in the act we were when I started up the aisle toward the lobby. I was still curious about the now absent noises, but decided I’d better get on stage, playbook in hand. I trotted back toward the proscenium while Delton stalked off, deep in conversation with someone whose face I couldn’t quite see.
As I approached the stage, I was conscious of the people scattered throughout the big auditorium. There were actors, stage crew members, set and costume people. Some were alone, some in small groups. All eyes seemed to be on me, but I couldn’t positively identify everyone in the auditorium because the light was strongest from the stage, which threw many of their faces into shadow. The assistant director, a student whom I vaguely recalled from one of my counseling classes, fell into step just behind me and we made a short parade.
Because I was tardy for my entrance, everybody else had to wait. They didn’t like it, although no one said anything. They were unhappy because we’d learned by this time that director Delton ran long rehearsals and delays added to the time. You’d think the guy was directing professional, paid actors. Professional actors probably wouldn’t take the verbal abuse we’d already received, and it was still early in the rehearsal schedule. I found my place, did the scene, and we made it through Act I. It got on to eleven and just when I began to think Delton was going to have us start over or, worse, go on to the next act, he took a big, tired breath and kind of whooshed at us.
He stared slowly around at the assembled cast. That night he wore a frayed, shapeless green coat of some kind over a sweater and faded jeans. The coat might have been military surplus and it seemed to be about two sizes too large. His narrow shoulders slumped forward below his receding chin. He said, “Tomorrow night at seven, please. Do-not-be-late.” He punched the words for emphasis. Another thing about Delton I didn’t like was his eyes. At times they seemed to bore into you, as if there was a recording machine inside his skull instead of just a brain. Maybe that was just me. He’d made it clear from the start that he considered me a distraction to his art. It was unclear to me why he’d chosen me for the role of Dr. Stockman.
Dismissed, we collected our belongings and wandered through the backstage area, past old flats left over from God knew what ancient production. Backstage was a vast cavern inadequately lit by a few dim unshaded bulbs hung on long black snakes that descended from somewhere overhead. The grid of lights, sandbag weights, ropes and other trappings of live theater resided about twenty feet above us. The ceiling of the building was somewhere above that. We left in a group through a back door, into the cold November night, and somebody locked up. As I shrugged into my jacket and went out, I remembered the noises from the lobby.
The tiny space where we were allowed to park was just a narrow gap between the tall dark buildings. It felt oppressive, confining. I hunched my shoulders. I left my fellow thespians and turned the other way down the alley. I walked around the building to the marquee on Eighth and peered into the dark interior. Nothing. “All’s well that ends well,” I muttered aloud.
I didn’t try the doors. Later I wished I had.
The novel, first in what I hope is a long series of so-called academic crime novels, is published by Echelon Press and is available as a downloadable e-book from Fictionwise
I juste finished a scary book by Peter May, titled "Snakehead." It's pub. date in the US, from Poisoned Pen Press is February. I'll have a review up early next week.
You see, if you come an hour late,
you have to put up with cold meat
Later, when I’d had time to think about it, I realized it was those banging metal trash cans in the lobby that marked my initial entanglement in the Marshall affair. Sometimes, when I dream about those noisy trash cans, I wonder what might have happened if I’d followed my first instinct, left the rehearsal, and gone to the theater lobby while the killer was still there. That thought makes me sweat, sometimes, in the quiet dark of an early morning.
* * *
The day of the murder hadn’t been one of my better days. I’d stayed late in the college’s Office of Student Services because that’s what directors have to do to keep up with the workload. Now, well after the cocktail hour, I found myself in an uncomfortable seat, cold, bored, waiting. Waiting for my entrance in this creaky, drafty barn of a theater.
Weeks earlier I’d let my eagerness for the play get the better of my judgment. When the community theater group loosely associated with our college, City College of Minneapolis, announced they were going to produce Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People,” I couldn’t resist the opportunity. I happen to like Ibsen a lot. Here was my chance, I told my friend Lori, to really stretch myself. If I landed a part, even a bit part, what an experience! Ibsen. Wow! So I auditioned. And I got a part.
“Wonderful,” one would say. “Just what you wanted,” another will say.
“Rats,” I’ll say. It was a much bigger part than I ever anticipated. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was too much part for me. Besides, I knew it would take up most of what little free time I already hadn’t enough of. I should have declined, but I was the director’s first choice, so pride entered into the equation as well as opportunity, and I was lost.
Dr. Stockman. Enemy of the people. That was to be my role.
That had been weeks earlier. Now here I was, facing an obsessed director, Delton, he said his name was, a graduate student from the big university across town. The small college for which I labored had no theater department so the acting company usually hired a grad student from elsewhere. Funny, this same director, when he’d called to offer me the part, had seemed pleasant, logical, even charming. No longer. I was fast becoming convinced that this mere child of a director knew no more about Ibsen’s time and the dragons that drove the good Dr. Stockman than did that janitor, banging about in the lobby outside the auditorium doors at that moment.
What was it with that janitor? Didn’t he realize the noise would distract us? I finally rose from my seat, intending to go to the lobby and snuff out the continuing banging. I had almost reached the double doors when the noise stopped. Silence fell on stage at the same moment. I glanced back and realized most of those in the auditorium were looking at me, or more precisely, looking in my direction.
“Well, Marston?”
“Well, Delton?” I shot back. Quick, that’s me.
“I believe you have an entrance here,” the director growled.
“Ummm... right. Sorry.” I’d lost track of exactly where in the act we were when I started up the aisle toward the lobby. I was still curious about the now absent noises, but decided I’d better get on stage, playbook in hand. I trotted back toward the proscenium while Delton stalked off, deep in conversation with someone whose face I couldn’t quite see.
As I approached the stage, I was conscious of the people scattered throughout the big auditorium. There were actors, stage crew members, set and costume people. Some were alone, some in small groups. All eyes seemed to be on me, but I couldn’t positively identify everyone in the auditorium because the light was strongest from the stage, which threw many of their faces into shadow. The assistant director, a student whom I vaguely recalled from one of my counseling classes, fell into step just behind me and we made a short parade.
Because I was tardy for my entrance, everybody else had to wait. They didn’t like it, although no one said anything. They were unhappy because we’d learned by this time that director Delton ran long rehearsals and delays added to the time. You’d think the guy was directing professional, paid actors. Professional actors probably wouldn’t take the verbal abuse we’d already received, and it was still early in the rehearsal schedule. I found my place, did the scene, and we made it through Act I. It got on to eleven and just when I began to think Delton was going to have us start over or, worse, go on to the next act, he took a big, tired breath and kind of whooshed at us.
He stared slowly around at the assembled cast. That night he wore a frayed, shapeless green coat of some kind over a sweater and faded jeans. The coat might have been military surplus and it seemed to be about two sizes too large. His narrow shoulders slumped forward below his receding chin. He said, “Tomorrow night at seven, please. Do-not-be-late.” He punched the words for emphasis. Another thing about Delton I didn’t like was his eyes. At times they seemed to bore into you, as if there was a recording machine inside his skull instead of just a brain. Maybe that was just me. He’d made it clear from the start that he considered me a distraction to his art. It was unclear to me why he’d chosen me for the role of Dr. Stockman.
Dismissed, we collected our belongings and wandered through the backstage area, past old flats left over from God knew what ancient production. Backstage was a vast cavern inadequately lit by a few dim unshaded bulbs hung on long black snakes that descended from somewhere overhead. The grid of lights, sandbag weights, ropes and other trappings of live theater resided about twenty feet above us. The ceiling of the building was somewhere above that. We left in a group through a back door, into the cold November night, and somebody locked up. As I shrugged into my jacket and went out, I remembered the noises from the lobby.
The tiny space where we were allowed to park was just a narrow gap between the tall dark buildings. It felt oppressive, confining. I hunched my shoulders. I left my fellow thespians and turned the other way down the alley. I walked around the building to the marquee on Eighth and peered into the dark interior. Nothing. “All’s well that ends well,” I muttered aloud.
I didn’t try the doors. Later I wished I had.
The novel, first in what I hope is a long series of so-called academic crime novels, is published by Echelon Press and is available as a downloadable e-book from Fictionwise
I juste finished a scary book by Peter May, titled "Snakehead." It's pub. date in the US, from Poisoned Pen Press is February. I'll have a review up early next week.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
THOUGHTS WHILE SOAKING
In my hot tub and watching through the plants and windows as snow comes down thickly on the white lawn .
I wonder how much the current economy will affect the growth of electronic publishing and perhaps energize a move to more activity in this area. The development of the Kindle and the Sony Reader in particular have clearly made a recent difference. But the cost of the reader still is a problem for lots of potential readers. Since the tendency is to add bells and whistles to these devices, I’m not sure we’ll see a substantial reduction in price anytime soon.
Many interesting visual images of yesterday’s Inauguration. For me one of the most intriguing was when Senator Feinstein was introducing President Obama for his address. Behind her, on the left, appeared just the head of the new president. He was looking directly at the outgoing President, George Bush. Just the head of President Bush appeared on the right side of the screen. The two men looked intently into each others faces and were apparently shaking hands although you couldn’t see that. It was only for an instant and then both heads disappeared.
I had the great privilege the other night of hearing the Minnesota Orchestra in a concert of Leonard Bernstein’s serious compositions. All interesting, energetic, fun to hear. Two of the five pieces included a solo by a leading member of the orchestra, Adam Kuenzel, flute and Bert Hara, clarinet. Excellent music., The last piece, titled “Lamentation” was sung by mezzo, Susanne Mentzer. It’s from Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1. I mention this because I was very impressed by the demeanor of the soloist. Ms. Mentzer has a wonderful voice, but she is required to sit through a long passage prior to singing. That seems to be a problem for some soloists with orchestras. They fidget, they shift, they cause small distractions. Ms. Mentzer sat quietly, hands in her lap and slowly surveyed the hall before her. She appeared to be a performer gradually sinking herself into the role, mentally and physically donning the sad robes of an observer of the loss of Jerusalem.
I recently completed Sean Chercover’s second novel, “Trigger City.” Ray Dugeon is an interesting Chicago PI. The plot is fascinating, well thought out and it moves steadily at a useful pace. There are some problems and I wish the author would figure out a better way for his character to decide to reconnect with his sometime lover Julie.
I wonder how much the current economy will affect the growth of electronic publishing and perhaps energize a move to more activity in this area. The development of the Kindle and the Sony Reader in particular have clearly made a recent difference. But the cost of the reader still is a problem for lots of potential readers. Since the tendency is to add bells and whistles to these devices, I’m not sure we’ll see a substantial reduction in price anytime soon.
Many interesting visual images of yesterday’s Inauguration. For me one of the most intriguing was when Senator Feinstein was introducing President Obama for his address. Behind her, on the left, appeared just the head of the new president. He was looking directly at the outgoing President, George Bush. Just the head of President Bush appeared on the right side of the screen. The two men looked intently into each others faces and were apparently shaking hands although you couldn’t see that. It was only for an instant and then both heads disappeared.
I had the great privilege the other night of hearing the Minnesota Orchestra in a concert of Leonard Bernstein’s serious compositions. All interesting, energetic, fun to hear. Two of the five pieces included a solo by a leading member of the orchestra, Adam Kuenzel, flute and Bert Hara, clarinet. Excellent music., The last piece, titled “Lamentation” was sung by mezzo, Susanne Mentzer. It’s from Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1. I mention this because I was very impressed by the demeanor of the soloist. Ms. Mentzer has a wonderful voice, but she is required to sit through a long passage prior to singing. That seems to be a problem for some soloists with orchestras. They fidget, they shift, they cause small distractions. Ms. Mentzer sat quietly, hands in her lap and slowly surveyed the hall before her. She appeared to be a performer gradually sinking herself into the role, mentally and physically donning the sad robes of an observer of the loss of Jerusalem.
I recently completed Sean Chercover’s second novel, “Trigger City.” Ray Dugeon is an interesting Chicago PI. The plot is fascinating, well thought out and it moves steadily at a useful pace. There are some problems and I wish the author would figure out a better way for his character to decide to reconnect with his sometime lover Julie.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Death of the Book is 'way overstated
And so is New Year’s Eve. At least I hope it’s a memory for you.
Nice getting together with old friends we see so seldom, and making new acquaintances.
The world churns and things change. Donald Westlake, a top prolific crime fiction writer died in
Karen Spengler, a marvelous woman and owner of I Love a Mystery in
I’ve just finished a dark moody, enthralling novel called Pavel & I, by a transplanted Canadian named Dan Vyleta. It is set in the winter of 1946 in
Other readings of note in the past few months include,
Then there was A WEDDING TO DIE FOR, BY Radine Trees Nehring, a St. Kitts Press issue, FLESH & BLOOD, by John Harvey from Harcourt,
Also COURTROOM 302 by Steve Bogria, a fascinating look at one of
You wouldn’t go wrong spending time with any of these.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
AFTER THE HOLDAY
Christmas is a memory.
I distributed fifteen copies of The Minnesota Crime Wave's audio anthology RESORT TO MURDER AUDIO to friends and family who didn’t yet have it. Unalloyed joy reigned. (yeah, right). I never get books as presents, either Christmas or birthday. People say, “we never know what to buy you.” When I give books, they always come with the proviso that either before or after reading, they should give the book to some deserving soul, or maybe to a retirement home or…”
I often give ARCs to retirement or hospice or hospital reading programs.
Whole wheat bread is rising in the proofing oven at the moment. Bread making when irked or frustrated about something is great therapy. Kneading bread is always a wonderful experience.
One wonders when—if ever—the Senate race in
I spent this morning (Sunday) watching and talking with (sort of) Peter May, a fine writer of thrilling mysteries. He was home in
He was introducing a world wide audience to his latest Enzo MacLeod story, Blacklight Blue. It’s an excellent third book in his second series. It’s published in the
I’ve just been elected to the board of the
There are interesting things happening with the whole e-book universe after years in neutral. Kindle and the new Sony reader seem to be the motivators. I think today any publisher and author ignores e-publishing at their peril.
My new sailing book with Mary Whitney and Michael Tanner, titled
I’ve read some fascinating new mysteries in the past few weeks. Here’s a review of another. It’s called Barbados Heat, by Don Bruns
ISBN 0312304927
November, 2003
Tock Tock, Tick tock. Like the sound of steel wheels over the gandy dancer’s rail joints, this novel rocks along. A Congressman is dead. He wanted to attack the Hip Hop and Rap music industry. He wanted to join his brother-in-law, the Reverend Joseph Evans in an attempt to rein in bad lyrics, violent lyrics, sexual lyrics. Now the congressman’s son, Nick, is charged with Congressman Shappley’s brutal murder. It’s said he’s in it up to his elbows along with Rap star, Chilli D, who may have been the triggerman. Chilli D’s producer, T-Beau wants to protect his investment so he calls on a music industry star, friend Mick Sever. Mick is already in
Tick Tock. Time is running on and readers may have the feeling they’re on a fast train going downhill. The whistle screams and the scenery goes by in a blur, leaving out whole pieces. There are complications. Sever, whom we last saw in the author’s debut novel, Jamaica Blue, calls in his divorced wife, Ginny to do research. Tension. Sever once had a childhood friendship with the accused Nick, the Congressman’s son. More tension. There are other family presences, not just in D.C. Tick Tock. Sever’s off to
Page by page Barbados Heat gathers speed. Tock tock. And just when you think you’ve got the characters and their relationships sorted out, even with the missing bits of action, the train roars around a sharp curve and carries you off in a new direction. Author Bruns is evolving a fresh and breathless style of pell mell writing that may be a little short on detail but long on action and thrills. Tick Tock.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
RANDOM HOLIDAY THOUGHTS AND NOTES
So, another year is almost over. We celebrate holidays based on a strange but workable blend of pagan, ancient and Christian, and other religious traditions and customs. It all seems to go together, at least in Western societies. I’ve lived in a world in which people fought each other over territory, power, economic gain and, for some, even humanitarian reasons. WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Israel and Palestine, Turkey and Greece, Afghanistan and now Iraq. And one in which we celebrate peace and love in hundreds of unique and different ways.
Now our economy is in deep trouble and the Free Marketers in charge don’t seem to know what to do and they appear to have forgotten the ordinary, regular public, those of us who get up and, when we have a job, go work, pay our taxes and keep the country running.
I had the great good fortune to hear a local vocal group called Rose Ensemble recently. They have a marvelous full blend of voices, rare in so small a group. I recommend their CD. Highly.
Had the rare opportunity to interview Julie Kramer on my TV show. She’s the local writer, former television producer, of the popular STALKING SUSAN. Another recommendation. It’s a fine thriller/mystery.
We sent out a lot of Holiday cards this year. And I’m planning to crank up my mailing list. I still haven’t made the complete switch to email, but if you’d like to get information on my new book from Echelon Press, due out in the Spring of ’09, let me know.
Love Is Murder is upcoming in February, if I can find my way to Chicago through the drifts. Yes, it’s snowing heavily as I type this. Nevertheless, LIM is a fine mystery conference worth attending if you are in the area.
Here’s another review of a book I like and recommend.
THE FIREMAKER
By Peter May
ISBN; 0-312-34294-2
St. Martins Minotaur from Thomas Dunne
First US edition, September, 2005
Hard Cover, $24.95
353 pages
Dandy, just dandy. And oh so current. Peter May is a fine writer and he pays close attention to what he’s doing in this novel.
Interesting characters. Take Margaret Campbell, an ugly American who learns. She jumps on a chance to go, even unprepared, to China to lecture on criminal forensics. She’s a pathologist fleeing personal troubles back in Chicago. Take Li Yan, an up-and-coming Chinese police lieutenant who so far in his career has lightly walked the fine line of political realities and criminal investigations. They meet when Campbell’s car knocks the police lieutenant off his bicycle on a busy street in Beijing.
He’s a recently promoted detective who suddenly needs her expertise to help him solve the case of a man who apparently has immolated himself in a popular Beijing park. The two are almost immediately at odds, especially since the scientist starts out in a self-centered almost arrogant fugue state. But between them, as they begin to piece together the background of the man who died in the fire, and make their tortuous way through the difficult layers of forensic science and the Chinese political landscape to an diabolical conspiracy, their bond grows. They discover and develop much synchronicity between themselves.
They also discover much danger. This thriller of a novel, while teaching us a great deal about China and cultural relationships, careens pell mell through the story with frightening and exciting twists and turns. An outstanding and unusual novel that deserves a wide audience.
Now our economy is in deep trouble and the Free Marketers in charge don’t seem to know what to do and they appear to have forgotten the ordinary, regular public, those of us who get up and, when we have a job, go work, pay our taxes and keep the country running.
I had the great good fortune to hear a local vocal group called Rose Ensemble recently. They have a marvelous full blend of voices, rare in so small a group. I recommend their CD. Highly.
Had the rare opportunity to interview Julie Kramer on my TV show. She’s the local writer, former television producer, of the popular STALKING SUSAN. Another recommendation. It’s a fine thriller/mystery.
We sent out a lot of Holiday cards this year. And I’m planning to crank up my mailing list. I still haven’t made the complete switch to email, but if you’d like to get information on my new book from Echelon Press, due out in the Spring of ’09, let me know.
Love Is Murder is upcoming in February, if I can find my way to Chicago through the drifts. Yes, it’s snowing heavily as I type this. Nevertheless, LIM is a fine mystery conference worth attending if you are in the area.
Here’s another review of a book I like and recommend.
THE FIREMAKER
By Peter May
ISBN; 0-312-34294-2
St. Martins Minotaur from Thomas Dunne
First US edition, September, 2005
Hard Cover, $24.95
353 pages
Dandy, just dandy. And oh so current. Peter May is a fine writer and he pays close attention to what he’s doing in this novel.
Interesting characters. Take Margaret Campbell, an ugly American who learns. She jumps on a chance to go, even unprepared, to China to lecture on criminal forensics. She’s a pathologist fleeing personal troubles back in Chicago. Take Li Yan, an up-and-coming Chinese police lieutenant who so far in his career has lightly walked the fine line of political realities and criminal investigations. They meet when Campbell’s car knocks the police lieutenant off his bicycle on a busy street in Beijing.
He’s a recently promoted detective who suddenly needs her expertise to help him solve the case of a man who apparently has immolated himself in a popular Beijing park. The two are almost immediately at odds, especially since the scientist starts out in a self-centered almost arrogant fugue state. But between them, as they begin to piece together the background of the man who died in the fire, and make their tortuous way through the difficult layers of forensic science and the Chinese political landscape to an diabolical conspiracy, their bond grows. They discover and develop much synchronicity between themselves.
They also discover much danger. This thriller of a novel, while teaching us a great deal about China and cultural relationships, careens pell mell through the story with frightening and exciting twists and turns. An outstanding and unusual novel that deserves a wide audience.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
NOVEMBER BRINGS THE END OF SUMMER
The weather's turning colder up here at the top of the map and nearly all the leaves from all the trees on my block are down now--and most of 'em are in my yard.
Spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the lounge at the Hat Trick, a St. Paul drinking establishment, Friday evening. An Ex-Rocker from the hot 60’s scene, Mandrake Memorial, one of Philadelphia’s top local bands, has surfaced in a new persona. Michael Kac is revisiting the folk music scene solo with his tasteful blend of ballads and up tempo modern songs. He’s an accomplished keyboardist, banjoist and guitar player with a sweet low tenor voice as an added plus. He has a CD with Linda Cohen and also plays with a new group in the Twin Cities called Mill Street band. Catch his act when you can.
Michael has joined forces with three other musicians to form a folk group called Milltown Band. They're new and still finding their way, but their influences are clear, their talent is pure and the road ahead reveals few rocks.
St. Paul’s Neighborhood Network, (SPNN) is now cablecasting our TV series, MINNESOTA CRIME WAVE PRESENTS, on Thursdays at 7:30 PM, and Fridays at 2:00 AM (!) and 12:30 PM. It’s a series about books, publishing and various aspects of the world of books, with some emphasis on crime fiction, of course. But, our view is larger and there’s always something on the fast-paced program for writers, as well as readers. You can see a list of guest authors at our website,
Spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the lounge at the Hat Trick, a St. Paul drinking establishment, Friday evening. An Ex-Rocker from the hot 60’s scene, Mandrake Memorial, one of Philadelphia’s top local bands, has surfaced in a new persona. Michael Kac is revisiting the folk music scene solo with his tasteful blend of ballads and up tempo modern songs. He’s an accomplished keyboardist, banjoist and guitar player with a sweet low tenor voice as an added plus. He has a CD with Linda Cohen and also plays with a new group in the Twin Cities called Mill Street band. Catch his act when you can.
Michael has joined forces with three other musicians to form a folk group called Milltown Band. They're new and still finding their way, but their influences are clear, their talent is pure and the road ahead reveals few rocks.
St. Paul’s Neighborhood Network, (SPNN) is now cablecasting our TV series, MINNESOTA CRIME WAVE PRESENTS, on Thursdays at 7:30 PM, and Fridays at 2:00 AM (!) and 12:30 PM. It’s a series about books, publishing and various aspects of the world of books, with some emphasis on crime fiction, of course. But, our view is larger and there’s always something on the fast-paced program for writers, as well as readers. You can see a list of guest authors at our website,
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
A CERTAIN JUSTICE
by John T. Lescroart
ISBN 0-440-22104-8
pb Island (Dell) 527 pg.
San Francisco, the most tolerant city in the universe, right? Well, don’t forget it killed Harvey Milk. And now it’s after Kevin Shea, an innocent ordinary white male who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, if Shea had walked away from the incident that starts riots, lootings and burnings in the city by the bay, he’d have been home free. Instead, he tries to be a good Samaritan. Everything after that is down a very steep hill for Kevin Shea.
In A CERTAIN JUSTICE, Lescroart brings together a divorced, honest cop with serious child care problems, an ambitious black city prosecutor and her mother, police administrators of several races, and other demagogues from the right and the left, so he has to keep track of multiple threads. And he does, in a masterful clean way which allows the reader to move with him cleanly through the story. Besides these sometimes murky relationships, the central very suspenseful story of the attempts to find Kevin Shea before something bad happens.
Anyone who reads A CERTAIN JUSTICE will find he or she must reexamine many previously held and automatic presumptions. But always, this novel deserves the cliché, a real page-turner.
by John T. Lescroart
ISBN 0-440-22104-8
pb Island (Dell) 527 pg.
San Francisco, the most tolerant city in the universe, right? Well, don’t forget it killed Harvey Milk. And now it’s after Kevin Shea, an innocent ordinary white male who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, if Shea had walked away from the incident that starts riots, lootings and burnings in the city by the bay, he’d have been home free. Instead, he tries to be a good Samaritan. Everything after that is down a very steep hill for Kevin Shea.
In A CERTAIN JUSTICE, Lescroart brings together a divorced, honest cop with serious child care problems, an ambitious black city prosecutor and her mother, police administrators of several races, and other demagogues from the right and the left, so he has to keep track of multiple threads. And he does, in a masterful clean way which allows the reader to move with him cleanly through the story. Besides these sometimes murky relationships, the central very suspenseful story of the attempts to find Kevin Shea before something bad happens.
Anyone who reads A CERTAIN JUSTICE will find he or she must reexamine many previously held and automatic presumptions. But always, this novel deserves the cliché, a real page-turner.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Thursday 10/2/08
For thirty years a woman in my neighborhood has been producing a series of chamber music concert in a local church. The place has the right space and outstanding acoustics. The series is called Music in the Park and Julie Himmelstrup, the director has received numerous awards for the variety and quality of the program. The season is typically six Sunday afternoon concerts.
I mention all this because I attended one of the concerts recently. It was outstanding. Chee-Yun, violin was accompanied on the piano by another South Korean artist, Jeewon Park. They offered a concert with ppeces by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. If you are into chamber music, these are two fine artists to remember. If you want more information about the series, go to their web site.
Our television series (MN Crime Wave Presents) is moving right along. In October we’ll expand beyond our parent city to both Saint Paul and Minneapolis cable systems. We’re also expanding our reach by interviewing a couple of hot Chicago area authors in the coming weeks. Assuming we can find the right sponsor, we’ll expand further. Meanwhile, segments are available by going to our web site. www.minnesotacrimewave.org.
Bouchercon in Baltimore is on the immediate horizon. I’m looking forward to that. Another book review is attached.
BLOOD FOR BLOOD
By S. K. Rizzolo
Poisoned Pen Press, May 2003
289 pgs., $24.95
ISBN: 1590580540
Historical detective mystery. Seventeenth Century England. Regency Second in series. Male and female informal team. Birth of the modern federal police detective.
I am not, generally, a big fan of historical mystery fiction. On the other hand, a well-written novel that really captures the time and the sense of the place can be vastly interesting. When an author does that, we readers can learn a bit more about the real life of the time and place than is typically found in our school text books. That’s fortunate.
Here is an author who immerses us in the life and times of two people in early Seventeenth Century London. Author S. K. Rizzolo has captured and set down on paper what feels like the real London in a real era. London with its crowded streets, its hurly burly and its smoke and ash, and its obsessive sense of class and rules. It is fully accurate? I don’t know of course, but it feels right, and that’s important. This is Regency London with all its finery and its pimples.
Bow Street Runner John Chase is back, (see The Rose in The Wheel) trying to solve the murder of a mysterious footman called Dick Ransome. The footman was employed in the household of Lord Ashe, a man to be both reckoned with for his class and his wealth, and scorned for his personality and nasty proclivities. Another interesting character from Rizzolo’s first novel (see above) is Penelope West. Her errant husband is off doing his art somewhere in Ireland, and Penelope, with her child, Sarah, has become a Companion to Lady Ashe, daughter of wealthy and powerful Sir Roger Wallace-Crag, a position not fit for an inquisitive woman of her disposition, but Penelope’s circumstances require it.
When the footman is found stabbed in Wallace-Crag’s garden, John Chase begins an investigation. At about the same time, Penelope, increasingly aware of strange undercurrents and rising vicious gossip below-stairs and above, learns about troubling events from both the recent and distant past. These parallel investigations by two carefully flawed characters allow us to visit important and fascinating elements of London society of the time in a way that would have been impossible without their presence in the story. It is a clever and effective construct. From outside the family, Chase learns troubling facts while stalking the streets and institutions of the city, as does Penelope from inside the chambers of a family that has many secrets.
The writing is intelligent and to the point. The pages of the novel are peopled with interesting and compelling fictitious and real people such as Lord Byron, and the charismatic religious, Rebecca Barnwell. The mystery is tightly controlled, fits the characters and the time, and provides a number of surprises along the way. Author Rizzolo has an exciting era to mine for many more regency mysteries. I look forward to them.
I mention all this because I attended one of the concerts recently. It was outstanding. Chee-Yun, violin was accompanied on the piano by another South Korean artist, Jeewon Park. They offered a concert with ppeces by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. If you are into chamber music, these are two fine artists to remember. If you want more information about the series, go to their web site.
Our television series (MN Crime Wave Presents) is moving right along. In October we’ll expand beyond our parent city to both Saint Paul and Minneapolis cable systems. We’re also expanding our reach by interviewing a couple of hot Chicago area authors in the coming weeks. Assuming we can find the right sponsor, we’ll expand further. Meanwhile, segments are available by going to our web site. www.minnesotacrimewave.org.
Bouchercon in Baltimore is on the immediate horizon. I’m looking forward to that. Another book review is attached.
BLOOD FOR BLOOD
By S. K. Rizzolo
Poisoned Pen Press, May 2003
289 pgs., $24.95
ISBN: 1590580540
Historical detective mystery. Seventeenth Century England. Regency Second in series. Male and female informal team. Birth of the modern federal police detective.
I am not, generally, a big fan of historical mystery fiction. On the other hand, a well-written novel that really captures the time and the sense of the place can be vastly interesting. When an author does that, we readers can learn a bit more about the real life of the time and place than is typically found in our school text books. That’s fortunate.
Here is an author who immerses us in the life and times of two people in early Seventeenth Century London. Author S. K. Rizzolo has captured and set down on paper what feels like the real London in a real era. London with its crowded streets, its hurly burly and its smoke and ash, and its obsessive sense of class and rules. It is fully accurate? I don’t know of course, but it feels right, and that’s important. This is Regency London with all its finery and its pimples.
Bow Street Runner John Chase is back, (see The Rose in The Wheel) trying to solve the murder of a mysterious footman called Dick Ransome. The footman was employed in the household of Lord Ashe, a man to be both reckoned with for his class and his wealth, and scorned for his personality and nasty proclivities. Another interesting character from Rizzolo’s first novel (see above) is Penelope West. Her errant husband is off doing his art somewhere in Ireland, and Penelope, with her child, Sarah, has become a Companion to Lady Ashe, daughter of wealthy and powerful Sir Roger Wallace-Crag, a position not fit for an inquisitive woman of her disposition, but Penelope’s circumstances require it.
When the footman is found stabbed in Wallace-Crag’s garden, John Chase begins an investigation. At about the same time, Penelope, increasingly aware of strange undercurrents and rising vicious gossip below-stairs and above, learns about troubling events from both the recent and distant past. These parallel investigations by two carefully flawed characters allow us to visit important and fascinating elements of London society of the time in a way that would have been impossible without their presence in the story. It is a clever and effective construct. From outside the family, Chase learns troubling facts while stalking the streets and institutions of the city, as does Penelope from inside the chambers of a family that has many secrets.
The writing is intelligent and to the point. The pages of the novel are peopled with interesting and compelling fictitious and real people such as Lord Byron, and the charismatic religious, Rebecca Barnwell. The mystery is tightly controlled, fits the characters and the time, and provides a number of surprises along the way. Author Rizzolo has an exciting era to mine for many more regency mysteries. I look forward to them.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
In the early nineties, John Cage and Merce Cunningham designed a modern dance work they called Oceans. It's a huge concept--14 dancers, more than a hundred musicians. It's meant to be staged in the round in a single ninety minute presentation. It takes a special venue and there aren't many around. Fortunately, some bright people here in Minnesota thought they could handle it. And I got to attend one of three performances.
Oceans was held in a Martin Marietta Materials quarry near St. Cloud, in the middle of Minnesota. A moody, spectacular quarry, on moody rainy evening. We were a couple of hundred feet down into the earth. A September night, in bleachers surrounded by local musicians, including the St. Cloud Symphony. Walker Art Center, Benedicta Arts Center and Northrop Dance were the visionary organizations that came together to produce a once-in-a-lifetime experience, under spitting clouds and fitful breezes. I can't tell you how impressive and outstanding the evening was.
Bouchercon, the International Fan Mystery Convention, is almost upon us and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends and again visiting a fine city.
My latest books, “Bloody Halls” and “The Case of the Deceiving Don” as well as the re-issue of Sean Sean’s first adventure, “The Case of the Greedy Lawyers,” are all selling well, if not spectacularly
Here’s a review of another important novel.
Blackheart Highway
Author: Richard Barre
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
ISBN: 0-425-16903-0
An early warning. Start this when you have plenty of time to read. You’ll find it nearly impossible to lay it aside. The story grabs you from page one and hardly lets go until the very end. Anyone who has read Barre’s other novels knows he has developed into a major talent. And he just keeps getting better. I believe that this novel, will one day be regarded as a classic.
The writing is economic, spare, and careful. There simply are no wasted words. Every character is sharply etched, distinct and consistent throughout. The terse prose is evocative of the situations and at times beautifully descriptive.
Barre’s protagonist, Viet Nam vet Wil Hardesty, is a California P.I. with plenty of personal baggage. He goes to Bakersfield with his current inamorata, a woman toward whom he’s developing some serious intentions. The presence of Kari Thayer in this book gives the author several opportunities to vary the pace and substitute one kind of tension for another. Barre uses this device judiciously and very effectively.
The trip to Bakersfield is intended to be merely a short vacation, but due to an altercation in a bookstore, Bakersfield becomes aware of Hardesty and his capabilities. Inevitably, that leads to Hardesty being drawn into a set of circumstances with roots in the not too distant past. It’s a case that involves big music, big oil, greed, big money, multiple murders, and other criminal behavior.
The genius of the author is displayed in the careful way in which circumstance logically leads to other circumstances, entwines with rising tension and increasing pace, all calculated to carry the reader to the final, logical, conclusions. The communities, the surrounding desert and man’s intrusive presence are brought forth in ways that allow us to viscerally experience the truck stop and taste the dust. Multiple layers and threads weave through the book with care. This is a complex novel with something to say about relationships, but we are never confused, never lost. BLACKHEART HIGHWAY is a stunning accomplishment.
Oceans was held in a Martin Marietta Materials quarry near St. Cloud, in the middle of Minnesota. A moody, spectacular quarry, on moody rainy evening. We were a couple of hundred feet down into the earth. A September night, in bleachers surrounded by local musicians, including the St. Cloud Symphony. Walker Art Center, Benedicta Arts Center and Northrop Dance were the visionary organizations that came together to produce a once-in-a-lifetime experience, under spitting clouds and fitful breezes. I can't tell you how impressive and outstanding the evening was.
Bouchercon, the International Fan Mystery Convention, is almost upon us and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends and again visiting a fine city.
My latest books, “Bloody Halls” and “The Case of the Deceiving Don” as well as the re-issue of Sean Sean’s first adventure, “The Case of the Greedy Lawyers,” are all selling well, if not spectacularly
Here’s a review of another important novel.
Blackheart Highway
Author: Richard Barre
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
ISBN: 0-425-16903-0
An early warning. Start this when you have plenty of time to read. You’ll find it nearly impossible to lay it aside. The story grabs you from page one and hardly lets go until the very end. Anyone who has read Barre’s other novels knows he has developed into a major talent. And he just keeps getting better. I believe that this novel, will one day be regarded as a classic.
The writing is economic, spare, and careful. There simply are no wasted words. Every character is sharply etched, distinct and consistent throughout. The terse prose is evocative of the situations and at times beautifully descriptive.
Barre’s protagonist, Viet Nam vet Wil Hardesty, is a California P.I. with plenty of personal baggage. He goes to Bakersfield with his current inamorata, a woman toward whom he’s developing some serious intentions. The presence of Kari Thayer in this book gives the author several opportunities to vary the pace and substitute one kind of tension for another. Barre uses this device judiciously and very effectively.
The trip to Bakersfield is intended to be merely a short vacation, but due to an altercation in a bookstore, Bakersfield becomes aware of Hardesty and his capabilities. Inevitably, that leads to Hardesty being drawn into a set of circumstances with roots in the not too distant past. It’s a case that involves big music, big oil, greed, big money, multiple murders, and other criminal behavior.
The genius of the author is displayed in the careful way in which circumstance logically leads to other circumstances, entwines with rising tension and increasing pace, all calculated to carry the reader to the final, logical, conclusions. The communities, the surrounding desert and man’s intrusive presence are brought forth in ways that allow us to viscerally experience the truck stop and taste the dust. Multiple layers and threads weave through the book with care. This is a complex novel with something to say about relationships, but we are never confused, never lost. BLACKHEART HIGHWAY is a stunning accomplishment.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Summer's End
TEMPERS RISING
There seems to be a rising tide of tension among the mystery community.
Shorter tempers, less tolerance for jokes and careless asides. There’s also a noticeable effort by various newsgroup mavens to clamp down on the amount of “unnecessary” cyber space taken up with repetitious messages and tails. I wonder why that is? Unless of course there is a charge being levied for the amount of space being taken by the Internet messages. And, if that’s the case, wouldn’t a better ploy be to help hunt down and root out the massive spammers who take up far more space than do a few unfortunates like me who forget sometimes to edit the messages we’re responding to?
Maybe it’s my age but I find the restrictions on the quoting of messages to be often so restrictive that unless I am able to follow threads from the beginning—and I am not, having another rich and time-filled life—the truncated messages become impenetrable.
POLITICAL COVERAGE
There are a lot of complaints about local and national campaign negativity. More attacks and fewer thoughtful explorations of “issues.” I spent an interesting hour with Science Friday, an NPR program, I commend to your attention, in which a discussion of the psychology of persuasion was deeply dissected. Turns out we humans react much more strongly to negativism. We remember it more and negative criticism of opponents has a much more lasting effect. Must be why attack ads and stories particularly in political campaigns are so persistent.
But I have to say, today’s campaigns are a faint and soft shadow of past and bygone eras. If you want some laughs and a chance to admire some really creative insults, read Shakespeare and then look at some of the treatises from political campaigns of the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
August 30,
Labor day arrives, signaling the end of another summer. After we rebuilt our deck, I installed a couple of outdoor speakers so now on nice days like this one, I can sit in the sun or breezes and work while listening to some good jazz on the radio. It’s a relief from the incessant drum beating of poorly conceived political advertising.
And while I think of it, WARNING rant follows.
I worked in television for many years. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it after the crappy and abysmal coverage of the Democratic convention in Colorado. You just watch, there will be more of the same when the Republican Convention comes to Saint Paul. I asked a radio news producer about that. “We can’t turn our air waves over to the politicians,” he said indignantly.
Well, first, it isn’t his air waves. Broadcasting air space belongs to the people. That was firmly established in the last century. And second, why should the politicians not have a chance to speak to the body politic without filters? Especially since those talking heads have so little of substance to say! Who, you may ask. Here’s a list, in case I miss somebody, omissions are not deliberate. I did watch and listen. I’m a political junky, among other things. In no particular order: NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, MPR, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, who’d I miss?
Coverage, in a word, was appalling. What we got from Charlie, Jim, Rita, Ben, Wolf, George, Cindy, Gwen and the others was mostly blather. Childish squabbles, phony attempts to hype non-events or issues. Interruption after interruption. Long explanations of insignificant issues, endless speculation about wisps in the wind. A good deal of the coverage was Blitzerized, that is, offered in wide-eyed breathless cadence.
Meanwhile, a political leader of some group was speaking to the convention. But nobody outside the hall knows what they said. I was appalled and embarrassed. The arrogance was frightening. Apparently the suits in charge of the media in this nation think we can’t interpret things for ourselves after hearing political presentations. Apparently they think the American Public is ignorant and functioning at a pre-school level. Sorry, didn’t mean to insult pre-school children.
So, just remember when you settle down to watch the Republican convention next week and some fool interrupts the chair, or the president or the mayor of Minneapolis to tell you something you’d already figured out or didn’t need to know anyway, I told you so.
Some years ago, there was a first class sports announcer working in the Upper Midwest. Ray Scott was his name. Why, when he called play-by-play for college or professional football on television, he’d let a whole play go by saying nary a word. I guess he figured viewers could make out what was happening on the field. We got names and commentary between plays. Made it sorta almost like being there.
THE DAWN PATROL
It’s a really fine novel by Don Winslow. An interesting sidelight is that a thousand years ago there used to be a radio drama called Don Winslow of the Navy. One of the episodes was titled “The Dawn Patrol.”
That has nothing to do with the novel. This is a surfer novel. That is to say its about a small clique of surfers, all with serious jobs, careers even, except for the main character, ex-cop Boone Daniels. He works just enough to maintain his surfing-oriented lifestyle in Pacific Beach, California. Then this hard-ass female lawyer turns up and hires Boone to find a missing witness in an insurance case. This assignment eventually involves Boone with almost every skel or righteous character in the county in some way, And what is so intriguing about this well-written novel is not just the way Boone’s friends become enmeshed, but the effects on the Dawn Patrol.
I’ll have a longer review of The Dawn Patrol at The Mystery Morgue before long. I strongly recommend this novel.
Speaking of things mysterious, did you know The Minnesota Crime Wave has just released an audio version of its anthology, RESORT TO MURDER. It was done in cooperation with a classy outfit called Holton House Audio.
ECHOES OF THE COLD WAR
I note that Yuri Nosenko just died. He was a Soviet agent who spied for the US and eventually defected. Our response was to take all he could give us and clap him into solitary confinement, lights on 24, almost no human contact, etc. Sound familiar? There was a man high in the CIA who was sure Nosenko was really spying for the Soviets.
Eventually, after three years of abuse we released him to resettlement somewhere in the southern part of the US, belatedly given money and a new life. Nosenko had access to important Soviet records and is principally responsible for providing evidence that convinced most people that Lee Harvey Oswald was not a Soviet agent. Just before his death he was recognized by this nation for his contributions to our counter-intelligence operations. Nosenko was 81.
,
There seems to be a rising tide of tension among the mystery community.
Shorter tempers, less tolerance for jokes and careless asides. There’s also a noticeable effort by various newsgroup mavens to clamp down on the amount of “unnecessary” cyber space taken up with repetitious messages and tails. I wonder why that is? Unless of course there is a charge being levied for the amount of space being taken by the Internet messages. And, if that’s the case, wouldn’t a better ploy be to help hunt down and root out the massive spammers who take up far more space than do a few unfortunates like me who forget sometimes to edit the messages we’re responding to?
Maybe it’s my age but I find the restrictions on the quoting of messages to be often so restrictive that unless I am able to follow threads from the beginning—and I am not, having another rich and time-filled life—the truncated messages become impenetrable.
POLITICAL COVERAGE
There are a lot of complaints about local and national campaign negativity. More attacks and fewer thoughtful explorations of “issues.” I spent an interesting hour with Science Friday, an NPR program, I commend to your attention, in which a discussion of the psychology of persuasion was deeply dissected. Turns out we humans react much more strongly to negativism. We remember it more and negative criticism of opponents has a much more lasting effect. Must be why attack ads and stories particularly in political campaigns are so persistent.
But I have to say, today’s campaigns are a faint and soft shadow of past and bygone eras. If you want some laughs and a chance to admire some really creative insults, read Shakespeare and then look at some of the treatises from political campaigns of the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
August 30,
Labor day arrives, signaling the end of another summer. After we rebuilt our deck, I installed a couple of outdoor speakers so now on nice days like this one, I can sit in the sun or breezes and work while listening to some good jazz on the radio. It’s a relief from the incessant drum beating of poorly conceived political advertising.
And while I think of it, WARNING rant follows.
I worked in television for many years. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it after the crappy and abysmal coverage of the Democratic convention in Colorado. You just watch, there will be more of the same when the Republican Convention comes to Saint Paul. I asked a radio news producer about that. “We can’t turn our air waves over to the politicians,” he said indignantly.
Well, first, it isn’t his air waves. Broadcasting air space belongs to the people. That was firmly established in the last century. And second, why should the politicians not have a chance to speak to the body politic without filters? Especially since those talking heads have so little of substance to say! Who, you may ask. Here’s a list, in case I miss somebody, omissions are not deliberate. I did watch and listen. I’m a political junky, among other things. In no particular order: NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, MPR, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, who’d I miss?
Coverage, in a word, was appalling. What we got from Charlie, Jim, Rita, Ben, Wolf, George, Cindy, Gwen and the others was mostly blather. Childish squabbles, phony attempts to hype non-events or issues. Interruption after interruption. Long explanations of insignificant issues, endless speculation about wisps in the wind. A good deal of the coverage was Blitzerized, that is, offered in wide-eyed breathless cadence.
Meanwhile, a political leader of some group was speaking to the convention. But nobody outside the hall knows what they said. I was appalled and embarrassed. The arrogance was frightening. Apparently the suits in charge of the media in this nation think we can’t interpret things for ourselves after hearing political presentations. Apparently they think the American Public is ignorant and functioning at a pre-school level. Sorry, didn’t mean to insult pre-school children.
So, just remember when you settle down to watch the Republican convention next week and some fool interrupts the chair, or the president or the mayor of Minneapolis to tell you something you’d already figured out or didn’t need to know anyway, I told you so.
Some years ago, there was a first class sports announcer working in the Upper Midwest. Ray Scott was his name. Why, when he called play-by-play for college or professional football on television, he’d let a whole play go by saying nary a word. I guess he figured viewers could make out what was happening on the field. We got names and commentary between plays. Made it sorta almost like being there.
THE DAWN PATROL
It’s a really fine novel by Don Winslow. An interesting sidelight is that a thousand years ago there used to be a radio drama called Don Winslow of the Navy. One of the episodes was titled “The Dawn Patrol.”
That has nothing to do with the novel. This is a surfer novel. That is to say its about a small clique of surfers, all with serious jobs, careers even, except for the main character, ex-cop Boone Daniels. He works just enough to maintain his surfing-oriented lifestyle in Pacific Beach, California. Then this hard-ass female lawyer turns up and hires Boone to find a missing witness in an insurance case. This assignment eventually involves Boone with almost every skel or righteous character in the county in some way, And what is so intriguing about this well-written novel is not just the way Boone’s friends become enmeshed, but the effects on the Dawn Patrol.
I’ll have a longer review of The Dawn Patrol at The Mystery Morgue before long. I strongly recommend this novel.
Speaking of things mysterious, did you know The Minnesota Crime Wave has just released an audio version of its anthology, RESORT TO MURDER. It was done in cooperation with a classy outfit called Holton House Audio.
ECHOES OF THE COLD WAR
I note that Yuri Nosenko just died. He was a Soviet agent who spied for the US and eventually defected. Our response was to take all he could give us and clap him into solitary confinement, lights on 24, almost no human contact, etc. Sound familiar? There was a man high in the CIA who was sure Nosenko was really spying for the Soviets.
Eventually, after three years of abuse we released him to resettlement somewhere in the southern part of the US, belatedly given money and a new life. Nosenko had access to important Soviet records and is principally responsible for providing evidence that convinced most people that Lee Harvey Oswald was not a Soviet agent. Just before his death he was recognized by this nation for his contributions to our counter-intelligence operations. Nosenko was 81.
,
Saturday, August 23, 2008
New Reviews
Some of these books were published several years ago, but they should not be forgotten
A BITTER CHILL
By Jane Finnis
ISBN 1590581938
Pub 2005 by Poisoned Pen Press
338 pages, Hard Cover $24.95
This is Jane Finnis second historical adventure set in the Britannia of Roman times. It is another winner. We are in the first century of modern dating. The location is set near Eboracum, a Roman town that evolved over the years into the city of
The time of the year is December and the Roman citizens are preparing for their winter celebration, called Saturnalia. As anyone who has planned large celebrations knows, one hopes for appropriate weather, decent guests and a minimum of unplanned uproar. As soon as Lucius arrives from the garrison town one frigid night, Aurelia’s flee like geese in the thrall of an autumn day. Lucius arrives at about midnight. In those times wandering about the countryside after dark was often dangerous and was looked on with great suspicion. Lucius bring unsettling news. He is fleeing an irate husband. He was discovered dallying with the wife of an important official stationed in Londinium. Now there are suspicions that the family Marcella is plotting with others to overthrow Caesar.
That there are plotters scattered across
It’s almost all too much for the bright and intrepid Aurelia. But this is after all, a novel and we know Aurelia will solve the mystery. She has too, because the author’s growing audience wants to read more adventures of this charming, intelligent and witty innkeeper.
Jane Finnis has suggested that those who consider history as a dead topic are in error, and here is ample evidence of the charm, the wit and the fascination any reader can find in these novels of ancient Roman times.
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ARTIFACTS
BY Mary Anna Evans
ISBN: 1590580567
Poisoned Pen Press
May, 2003
$24.95
A thriller with an angst-ridden interesting female protagonist.
The protagonist in this interesting novel, Faye Longchamp, is a mixed-race single female who can usually pass in either camp, yet is clearly uncomfortable in either. Moreover, neither camp is welcoming. Consequently, Faye Longchamp, bright, ambitious, wary of entanglements, generally goes her own way.
She’s technically a squatter, living in the ruins of her ancestral home on a small island on the western coast of
The deaths close down the site and leave Faye without a job and without income. Clever plotting takes the reader inside Faye’s life, inside her family history and through a compelling history lesson. Archeology is far more than the simple antiseptic study of old bones and former generational trash. Author Evans infuses vibrant life to the history of the region and the nation through the circumstances of one family. Her illumination of the region and its special characteristics is excellent. The story lines move with vitality and good pace.
Although there are a few to many coincidences in the plot for some readers, the lively characters, unique and fascinating locale and the competent writing carries us through.
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by Laura Lippman
Publisher: Avon Books, Inc.
ISBN: 0-380-78875-6
pub. date: February, 1997
290 pages, paper
This excellent first mystery presents us with Tess’ buddy and fellow rower, Darryl Paxton, accused of the murder of a prominent
Lippman writes with economy and verve, and if Monaghan spends a little too much time in internal communication, it’s a small price to pay to be present at the beginning of what will become a strong mystery series.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
RED KNIFE: a review
Red Knife
By William Kent Krueger
Atria, September, 2008,
Hard Cover, 310 pages $24.00
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5674-9
Review by Carl Brookins
So readers know, Mr. Krueger and I are very well-acquainted. This is his eighth entry in a powerful award-winning series about Corcoran O’Conner, family man, ex-sheriff, sometime private investigator, and an upright and very moral man. O’Connor’s life is complicated by his staunch roots in both Native American and Caucasian ethnicity. His life is also complicated by his two daughters, a son, and his feisty, bright and somewhat uptight wife, Jo. Their communication at times seems as obtuse as between strangers from different worlds. There are times in this story when this reader would like to reach out and kick O’Connor in his well-shaped backside.
Krueger has carefully shaped each episode in this long family saga to explore significant and troubling aspects of our modern society. Red Knife is no different. It begins with a significant and violent episode in the life of a young Ojibwa boy. The story then commences to explore in some detail the influences of violence in our society. The genius of this storyteller, aside from his consummate storytelling skills is that he is careful to avoid sweeping polemical statements. The novel examines some of the causes of violence in intimate and personal ways. Then it goes beyond the acts themselves, almost always leaving to reader to sort out her or his own reactions to the violence. Red Knife commences to also explore how violence can affect individuals not directly engaged in the violence itself; family members, friends and even enemies, members of the law enforcement community, and those on the periphery. And always there is that layer of intimate struggle for understanding and connection between Jo and Cork O’Connor.
I don’t wish to suggest this is a heavily violent novel. It is not. It is, rather, a smoothly written, carefully plotted and laid out examination of an intimate group of individuals, some of whom are family members, some not, and their responses to the violence they experience and observe. Krueger has produced a thoughtful, richly textured human novel, one that most readers, I suspect, will remember and think about long after they close the book.
By William Kent Krueger
Atria, September, 2008,
Hard Cover, 310 pages $24.00
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5674-9
Review by Carl Brookins
So readers know, Mr. Krueger and I are very well-acquainted. This is his eighth entry in a powerful award-winning series about Corcoran O’Conner, family man, ex-sheriff, sometime private investigator, and an upright and very moral man. O’Connor’s life is complicated by his staunch roots in both Native American and Caucasian ethnicity. His life is also complicated by his two daughters, a son, and his feisty, bright and somewhat uptight wife, Jo. Their communication at times seems as obtuse as between strangers from different worlds. There are times in this story when this reader would like to reach out and kick O’Connor in his well-shaped backside.
Krueger has carefully shaped each episode in this long family saga to explore significant and troubling aspects of our modern society. Red Knife is no different. It begins with a significant and violent episode in the life of a young Ojibwa boy. The story then commences to explore in some detail the influences of violence in our society. The genius of this storyteller, aside from his consummate storytelling skills is that he is careful to avoid sweeping polemical statements. The novel examines some of the causes of violence in intimate and personal ways. Then it goes beyond the acts themselves, almost always leaving to reader to sort out her or his own reactions to the violence. Red Knife commences to also explore how violence can affect individuals not directly engaged in the violence itself; family members, friends and even enemies, members of the law enforcement community, and those on the periphery. And always there is that layer of intimate struggle for understanding and connection between Jo and Cork O’Connor.
I don’t wish to suggest this is a heavily violent novel. It is not. It is, rather, a smoothly written, carefully plotted and laid out examination of an intimate group of individuals, some of whom are family members, some not, and their responses to the violence they experience and observe. Krueger has produced a thoughtful, richly textured human novel, one that most readers, I suspect, will remember and think about long after they close the book.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Bloody Halls by Carl BrookinsMy review
Jack Marston is the director of student services at City College in Minneapolis. The college is unique in several aspects. It's an evening program aimed at adult students returning to college for a degree and career development. City College is a small liberal arts institution that offers a single degree--a Bachelor of Arts.
The college has no formal campus, leasing and renting space in the city, thus being fully integrated into urban life. This has several advantages for students and faculty alike. But there are also some disadvantages--such as the throat-slashed student found early one morning in the lobby of a down town theater where an amateur company is rehearsing Ibsen's "Enemy of the People."
Saturday, July 05, 2008
INDEPENDENCE DAY & MORE
And what a great day it was. family and close friends joined us for a backyard picnic/barbecue (classic cliche, right?) on an absolutely perfect afternoon. After years of hard work, Jean's efforts have really paid off and her garden is spectacular. I'll try to get some pictures to prove the point a little later.
David Housewright, a fine writer of mystery fiction and a past Edgar winner will be the Crime Wave's guest next week on our television series and I'm really looking forward to that. July 24 at 6 pm our tv program goes area wide on Channel 6 here in the Twin Cities. Anybody with even basic cable can watch the show. We hope you do and tell us what you think.
I'm pleased to note that one of my favorite characters, heiress and sailing wizard, adventuress Mary Whitney will be back in a new adventure. It's called Devils Island and it will be published next year by Echelon Press.
BARBADOS HEAT,
by Don Bruns
Tock Tock, Tick tock. Like the sound of steel wheels over the gandy dancer’s rail joints, this novel rocks along. A Congressman is dead. He wanted to attack the Hip Hop and Rap music industry. He wanted to join his brother-in-law, the Reverend Joseph Evans in an attempt to rein in bad lyrics, violent lyrics, sexual lyrics. Now the congressman’s son, Nick, is charged with Congressman Shappley’s brutal murder. It’s said he’s in it up to his elbows along with Rap star, Chilli D, who may have been the triggerman. Chilli D’s producer, T-Beau wants to protect his investment so he calls on a music industry star, friend Mick Sever. Mick is already in Washington on the case.
Tick Tock. Time is running on and readers may have the feeling they’re on a fast train going downhill. The whistle screams and the scenery goes by in a blur, leaving out whole pieces. There are complications. Sever, whom we last saw in the author’s debut novel, Jamaica Blue, calls in his divorced wife, Ginny to do research. Tension. Sever once had a childhood friendship with the accused Nick, the Congressman’s son. More tension. There are other family presences, not just in D.C. Tick Tock. Sever’s off to Florida to talk to Nick’s sister, Amber, and then to Barbados, where old wounds still fester.
Page by page Barbados Heat gathers speed. Tock tock. And just when you think you’ve got the characters and their relationships sorted out, even with the missing bits of action, the train roars around a sharp curve and carries you off in a new direction. Author Bruns is evolving a fresh and breathless style of pell mell writing that may be a little short on detail but long on action and thrills. Tick Tock. When’s the next one due?
David Housewright, a fine writer of mystery fiction and a past Edgar winner will be the Crime Wave's guest next week on our television series and I'm really looking forward to that. July 24 at 6 pm our tv program goes area wide on Channel 6 here in the Twin Cities. Anybody with even basic cable can watch the show. We hope you do and tell us what you think.
I'm pleased to note that one of my favorite characters, heiress and sailing wizard, adventuress Mary Whitney will be back in a new adventure. It's called Devils Island and it will be published next year by Echelon Press.
BARBADOS HEAT,
by Don Bruns
Tock Tock, Tick tock. Like the sound of steel wheels over the gandy dancer’s rail joints, this novel rocks along. A Congressman is dead. He wanted to attack the Hip Hop and Rap music industry. He wanted to join his brother-in-law, the Reverend Joseph Evans in an attempt to rein in bad lyrics, violent lyrics, sexual lyrics. Now the congressman’s son, Nick, is charged with Congressman Shappley’s brutal murder. It’s said he’s in it up to his elbows along with Rap star, Chilli D, who may have been the triggerman. Chilli D’s producer, T-Beau wants to protect his investment so he calls on a music industry star, friend Mick Sever. Mick is already in Washington on the case.
Tick Tock. Time is running on and readers may have the feeling they’re on a fast train going downhill. The whistle screams and the scenery goes by in a blur, leaving out whole pieces. There are complications. Sever, whom we last saw in the author’s debut novel, Jamaica Blue, calls in his divorced wife, Ginny to do research. Tension. Sever once had a childhood friendship with the accused Nick, the Congressman’s son. More tension. There are other family presences, not just in D.C. Tick Tock. Sever’s off to Florida to talk to Nick’s sister, Amber, and then to Barbados, where old wounds still fester.
Page by page Barbados Heat gathers speed. Tock tock. And just when you think you’ve got the characters and their relationships sorted out, even with the missing bits of action, the train roars around a sharp curve and carries you off in a new direction. Author Bruns is evolving a fresh and breathless style of pell mell writing that may be a little short on detail but long on action and thrills. Tick Tock. When’s the next one due?
Monday, June 30, 2008
A FAREWELL TO LEGS
A Farewell to Legs
By Jeffrey Cohen
Bancroft Press
Hardcover,
ISBN: 1890862-29-0
Having said that, let me address the substance of the book, that is, the mystery. While attending their twenty-fifth high school reunion, Mr. Tucker and Mr. Mahoney, life-long buddies, discover that their youthful lust object appears to have aged even better than they. In the midst of horny if innocent festivities, the object of their desires, one Stephanie, learns via cell phone (naturally) that her husband is dead. Murdered.
Well, of course, Tucker, a free-lance writer, gets involved. Turns out he’s acquainted with the dead guy and what’s more the dead guy’s widow wants Tucker to investigate, in order, presumably, to cover her assets and avoid incarceration. Then there’s the matter of Mr. Gibson’s politics. Now you, dear reader, may be a conservative, a Democrat, a Progressive an Independent or a liberal. It doesn’t really matter, because your political ox gets gored at some point during this narrative.
Also, Mr. Tucker, being a stay-at-home with a dandy wife who earns more than he does, is involved with their children, the children’s school, and even with some of his wife’s clients, Abby being a defense attorney. Mr. Tucker does some free-lance investigating for the school’s principal, dodges rocks lobbed at him, and deals with many of the usual family matters that occupy a lot of us from time to time.
Therein lies the immense appeal of this book, part of a series. Aaron Tucker embodies elements we all recognize in our neighbors, if not ourselves. But Tucker manages to carry it all off without losing his cool. I like Aaron Tucker a lot. I like the writing, the pace and the dialogue, and I’m pleased to note that this book has been carefully copyedited which reduced grammatical missteps to a bare minimum. Actually I only noticed a single error. Cohen isn’t trying to write great literature. He’s having fun with the genre and doing it so readers can have an enjoyable time with their reading. What’s more, the major mystery is a clever one, well-told. Find Aaron Tucker’s stories. You’ll be glad you did.
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