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My Book: Family of the Heart
Sharon Short
Who hasn't endured at least one of these Thanksgiving dinner experiences: a know-it-all relative who insists on pontificating on religion/politics/sports instead of simply passing the gravy; eating an unappealing dish because it is traditional and otherwise the person who brings it year after year will have hurt feelings; a flaming turkey carcass?
All right, the flaming turkey carcass is a little over the top for most real-life Thanksgiving experiences, but I thought it nicely captured how frequently our most well-intentioned family gatherings go up in flames, at least figuratively. So, I used the flaming turkey as the climax of the Thanksgiving dinner scene in Hung Out to Die, in which Josie Toadfern meets her parents, and many other assorted relatives, for the first time in her adult life.
Josie is a stain expert, laundromat owner, and amateur sleuth in my Stain-Busting Mystery Series. She lives in Paradise, Ohio and has plenty of friends, but very few family relationships. She is guardian of Guy Foersthoefel, an adult with autism and her cousin from her mama's side. And she is friends with Sally Toadfern, one of her many cousins from her daddy's side.
But when she was a child, Josie was left behind by her parents when they took off to explore life and possibilities outside of Paradise, Ohio. They left her to be reared by her Aunt Clara and Uncle Horace Foersthoefel (Guy's parents). Aunt Clara and Uncle Horace acted as very good parents for Josie, but they died when Josie was in her late teens, leaving her their business—the town's one and only laundromat—and the guardianship of Guy.
Meanwhile, with the notable exception of Sally, Josie's cousins, aunts, and uncles on her father's side have always ignored Josie at the behest of demanding Toadfern matriarch, Noreen Faye Wickenhoof Toadfern—whom Josie calls simply "Mamaw"—because Mamaw blames Josie's mother for her son running off years ago.
Why did I give Josie so few family ties? I told myself that it was because I wanted to keep her life fairly simple so she'd be free to investigate murder mysteries. It was a device I'd used for another character, Patricia Delaney, when I wrote three PI novels about her back in the mid-1990s.
But truthfully, I think it was because I wanted to explore how Josie could create community within her hometown and among her friends without the built-in ties that come with family. Also, my own family is not particularly close-knit, and I think I steered away from dealing with a large, close family due to lack of personal experience in that area.
By the time I'd written several adventures for Josie, however, I realized it was time to address her relationships with her parents in particular and her family of origin in general. A Thanksgiving setting seemed perfect for that, since it's the quintessential family holiday in the U.S. I wanted to see how Josie would deal with suddenly being thrust into a large family with whom she was mainly unacquainted.
Of course, added to that tension is an intriguing murder. Just a few hours after the flaming turkey carcass incident at Thanksgiving, Josie discovers her Uncle Fenwick murdered, tied up and stabbed on an old telegraph post along an old canal tow path turned hiking/biking path. Not only that, but her father is accused of the murder, since it was a fight, complete with death threats, between Josie's uncle and father that resulted in the pilgrim-shaped candleholders toppling into Mamaw's turkey carcass—which she was hoping to boil down for soup—and sending it up in flames.
In the course of sleuthing, Josie becomes reacquainted with not only her family, but also with the esteemed Burkettes. To Josie, the Burkettes have always represented what Josie thinks a perfect family should be—successful, well-respected in Paradise, and always properly behaved.
But Josie learns that no family is perfect. And in the course of learning this lesson, and solving the murder mystery with the help of her good friends Sally and Cherry Feinster, Josie also learns another important lesson: that friends are really the family of the heart. It's a lesson I learned a while back, but I needed to bring it to life.
That's why Hung Out to Die is dedicated to my closest friends, who are also the family of my heart.
Hung Out to Die is the fourth book in the Stain Busting Mystery series, and was published by Avon in February 2006.
This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Winter Issue #93.
My Book: Ghost Hunters
Nancy J. Cohen
Nancy J. Cohen's spirited research yields results
In my book, Dead Roots, hairstylist Marla Shore and her fiancé attend a family reunion at a haunted Florida resort—along with a group of ghost hunters.
Paranormal research isn't an exact science, but investigators use certain tools to help determine if an anomaly is present. Over the course of the book, Marla learns a lot about real and imagined spiritual activity.
For example, the lead ghost hunter explains to that although spirits can be active at any time, video readings are taken at night because there are fewer distractions and the dark background produces more viewable results.
Here are some of the other instruments Marla learns about:
Electronic Voice Phenomena Recorder
EVP recorders capture voices and sounds that can't be heard with the human ear. Researchers will enter an empty room with a recorder on, invite anyone present to speak, and then maintain silence while the recorder is running. It is important to attempt duplication from other sounds in the vicinity in order to eliminate natural causes. Pipes and duct work, for example, may conduct sound.
Electromagnetic Field Meter
This device measures electromagnetic energy in the area. Spirits produce a disruption of energy, but so do many of our common household appliances. Therefore, it's essential to get a reading during different times of the day to detect and eliminate household electricity as the cause of any readings.
There will be a colder reading when a spirit is present because it sucks up energy from things around it.
Supposedly, entities emit near-infrared radiation, or NIR. The most common type of anomalies caught on film are simple orbs. By contrast it is rare to see an entire apparition. Researchers have caught videos where anomalies have gone through walls, hit ceiling fans, veered around people.
If you do find a ghost or apparition, the next step is to identify who it is, or was. This can often be done by considering the history of a place. Residual hauntings, for example, are like recordings. They reflect events that occurred at a particular location. Footsteps going up and down stairs, soldiers fighting on battlefields, people walking down hallways; these are experienced in the same place over time, like the apparition in St. Augustine, FL, who's always seen doing her laundry.
Anniversary ghosts are similar. They only appear on the anniversary of a significant event, so their appearance can be considered a type of residual haunting.
There are also intelligent ghosts who will try to get your attention by rattling doorknobs, creating odors, moving furniture, making noises. They're the ones who create mischief.
In Dead Roots, Marla meets a variety of these spirits. The ghost of her over-affectionate Grandfather Andrew pinches her in the tower elevator. She sees Alyssa, the love-struck daughter of the original plantation owner, who met her demise while waiting for her lover in the sugar mill where a fire erupted. There's a Union solder who was shot to death outside the original homestead, now converted into concierge suites. And finally, Marla puzzles over the two strangers wearing Cossack hats who haunt the condemned wing of the hotel.
What Marla has to determine from these stories is how much is real, and how much is fantasy created for a sinister purpose.
Dead Roots is the seventh book in the Bad Hair Day mystery series from Fort Lauderdale resident Nancy J. Cohen.
My Book: Axel of Evil
Alina Adams
Alina Adams' inglorious blades
Back in 2002, I had a nonfiction book out, Sarah Hughes: Skating to the Stars, the unauthorized biography of a 16-year-old girl who was expected to win bronze—maybe!—in ladies' figure skating.
The 16-year-old girl, of course, went on to strike gold. As did my book.
2002 was also the year of "PairsGate." (Did the French judge cheat? Did the Russians deserve the gold? Could the Canadian team be any cuter?). As a figure skating expert (wasn't I one of the few to predict Sarah would win gold?) I spent a lot of time on radio and television explaining the situation.
"PairsGate" inspired my first mystery novel, Murder on Ice, in which our plucky television researcher, Bex Levy, must figure out who killed an Italian judge after the poor woman awarded gold to a sullen Russian diva instead of a perky American sweetheart. (All resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. I mean that.)
Well, now Bex is at it again. In Axel of Evil (Berkley Prime Crime, January 2006) she must get to the bottom of a Russian coach's murder, just in time for the Winter Olympics.
So now, having written both fiction and nonfiction set in the figure skating world, I'll let you in on a secret. If you're yearning for the truly dirty, deep-down dish on the glitzy, glamorous world of figure skating, you're actually better off picking up one of my mysteries.
The reason is simple: When I write nonfiction books, I make sure to only include the non-offensive, the non-derogatory and, most important, the non-liable. I've worked as a researcher for ABC, NBC, TNT, and ESPN in the past (just like Bex! What a coincidence!) and I hope to do so again in the future. But future employment would be most difficult to hope for if I libel my potential colleagues, employers, and interview subjects.
On the other hand, when I write fiction, all the gloves are off. With just a little name (and sometimes nationality or sex) change, I can include any salacious story or embarrassing rumor I want. The only people who'll know who the tales are really about will be the ones it happened to. And they're not talking.
Axel of Evil by Alina Adams was published by Berkley Prime Crime in January 2006, $6.99.
My Book: How I Didn't Write Such a Killing Crime
I have a confession to make. I never wrote a novel called Such a Killing Crime.
True, there is a book heading into the stores with that title and I'm listed as the author. I'll even admit I'm proud to have my name on the cover.
But I didn't write Such a Killing Crime. Uh uh. Not me.
I'd better explain. You might say the story begins with a hound and a boa constrictor.
I have been a mystery fan all my life. I can still remember exactly where and when I first read the immortal words "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound." A year later, when I was a sixth grader, I used to hide in the mystery section of the Plainfield, New Jersey public library to avoid librarians who wanted to banish me back to the children's room. It was in that cozy hide-out that I made the acquaintance of Rex Stout and Agatha Christie.
At age 21 I sent my first story to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. They sent it back faster than nuclear waste, and they were right. It was awful. My first sale came three years later, to Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. So far about 30 of my stories—all mysteries—have been purchased by magazines, anthologies, and websites.
My other lifelong love is folk music. That probably dates back to kindergarten when someone at a family party pulled out a guitar and played some wonderfully subversive songs, like "Little Boxes," by Malvina Reynolds, and "I'm Being Eaten by a Boa Constrictor," by Shel Silverstein.
I have done my best to add to the world's supply of such songs. An album of my stuff, called Can I Blame You?, appeared in 2003.
The two great loves of my life came together when I was out for a drive one evening. I was listening to a recording of Arlo Guthrie singing the great Bob Dylan song "Mr. Tambourine Man." When he sang the line about the street being "too dead for dreaming" I hit the brakes so hard I almost went off the road. Too Dead for Dreaming! What a great title for a mystery!
By the time I got home I had decided that a novel with that title had to be about the folk music scene. Dylan wrote that song in 1963, the high water mark of the folk revival. Rock music was in the doldrums then and groups like the Kingston Trio were getting airplay with genuine folk songs like "Tom Dooley," and modern imitations like "Greenback Dollar."
Time had just written a big article about the boom, featuring Joan Baez on the cover. Television even permitted a censored, castrated version of the material on the air in the form of a show called Hootenanny.
I set my book in Greenwich Village, one of the major centers of the scene. If you owned a guitar in 1963, as soon as you figured out how to play three chords (or maybe sooner) you moved to the Village to become a star. There were more than two dozen coffeehouses offering live music on MacDougal Street alone.
The hero of my novel is Joe Talley who manages one such coffeehouse, the Riding Beggar. When one of his performers is mugged and another killed, he searches for a missing demo tape that may hold a clue to the crimes.
Joe's journey reveals some of the conflicts that made up the Village in 1963. Walk a single block and you might bump into beatniks, folkies, former Communists of the Old Left, and pioneers of the New Left which was just beginning to form around the issues of civil rights and Vietnam. Add in the drug culture which was beginning to grow like a psychedelic mushroom. And don't forget the remains of McCarthyism and the locals who longed for the good old days when the neighborhood was Italian.
All these groups were not jigsaw pieces fitting together so much as they were tectonic plates, crashing together. For example, in 1961 the City decided to ban people from performing music in Washington Square. The result was a flat-out riot, with ten musicians arrested.
Joe Talley is fictional, but a few real people do appear in the book, Phil Ochs most prominently. And one of those real people dies in my book, as he (or she; I'm not telling) did in real life, in another example of those forces crashing together.
As it turns out I couldn't get permission to use the Dylan line as the title of my book. I went with my second choice, Such a Killing Crime, which comes from an old Scottish folksong with the decidedly non-criminous title of "Love Is Pleasing."
So, like I said, I never wrote a book entitled Such a Killing Crime, but I'm very pleased to have it in the bookstores anyway, under any title.
What about Joe Talley? Did he go on to solve more crimes in and around the world of folk music?
I happen to know he did. But whether those adventures will get written and published—well, you might say that the answer to that question is blowing in the wind.
Such a Killing Crime by Robert Lopresti was published in October 2005 by Kearney Street Books.
This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Holiday Issue #92.
My Book: Close to Everything
Joyce Krieg
Sacramento?
You're writing a mystery about—where?!
Such was the reaction some fifteen years ago when I first began doodling around with a series about a crime-solving talk radio host based in—yep!—Sacramento, California.
I mean, aren't mysteries supposed to be set on the gritty streets of a major city, preferably New York or Los Angeles? Or in some quaint village, preferably by the sea or in the South?
California's capital city is neither gritty nor quaint. But for some reason, I clung to the idea that Sacramento could work as the setting for a mystery, that its very obscurity could work in my favor.
The thing is, Sacramento is not California, state capital notwithstanding. At least, it's not the California most folks think of—movie stars, the Golden Gate Bridge, redwoods, surfers, and all those left-leaning fruits and nuts. Once east of the Coast Range, California morphs into a red fly-over state, a vast prairie filled with agribusiness (tomatoes, rice, safflower, cotton), Bible-thumpers, truck drivers, country music on the radio, and towns with names like Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton—and Sacramento. As my protag, Shauna J. Bogart, observed, "I might as well be in Iowa."
Or Cleveland. When Les Roberts' series featuring Cleveland P.I. Milan Jacovich debuted in 1990 with Pepper Pike, it bumped up my confidence level by several notches. If Roberts could make Cleveland seem intriguing and even exotic, and sell a series based on the banks of the flaming Cuyahoga, why couldn't Krieg do the same for the seemingly bland state capital sandwiched between the muddy waters of the Sacramento and American rivers? The heck with those nervous chuckles and arched eyebrows that I was receiving from well-meaning friends in the mystery community, and at the agent/editor pitch sessions at writers conferences. Sacramento could work!
And why not? You've got the Old Sacramento historic district, dripping with Gold Rush-era atmosphere. Two major rivers, a pro basketball team, professional opera, theater and ballet companies, a world class traditional jazz festival, a regional population of around two million, the home base of Tower Records. Then there's the infamous triple-digit summer temperatures, leading to Sacramento's unofficial slogan, "But it's a dry heat." Sacramento is America's most racially diverse city, according to Time magazine, where non-Hispanic whites make up just 41 percent of the population and no one is in the majority. The state bureaucracy and the elected officials at the capitol dome provide an infinite source of intrigue and scandal just waiting to be exploited by the enterprising mystery writer.
Sacramento also has the dubious distinction of being the city that discovered Rush Limbaugh and launched his career. My greatest claim to both fame and shame is having worked at the radio station where a chubby, out-of-work disc jockey from Kansas City was getting his start 20 years ago. But this is not a case of "write about what you know." My protag is a liberal shock talker, and she's not addicted to prescription painkillers.
The California capital may be relatively uncharted territory for the mystery writer, but I'm by no means the first to use it as a setting. Steve Martini has placed several of his legal thrillers in Sacramento, while Terris McMahan Grimes had an Anthony-winning series going in the mid-90s featuring state worker and "soul sister" Theresa Galloway. Karen Kijewski's Kat Colorado prowled Sacramento landmarks like Zelda's pizza, the bar in Mace's restaurant, and the Midtown district from Katwalk in 1989 to Stray Kat Waltz in 1998.
More recently, Michael Siverling set a novel featuring P.I. Jason Wilder in a thinly disguised Sacramento (he called it River City) in The Sterling Inheritance. In email chats with Michael, I get the idea he might be having a few second thoughts. Especially since a certain Austrian bodybuilder landed the role of The Governator and put the California capital on the worldwide political map.
My decision to write about Sacramento, up front and by name, seems to be working. The reviewers have been kind. My all-time favorite blurb came from Roger Krum, executive director of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, who calls the series, "Incruckin' fedible!" One thing everyone says about Sacramento is that it's close to everything. By "close to everything," they mean that it's an easy day trip to the Napa Valley wine country, the Sierra ski resorts, the Lake Tahoe-Reno casinos, and San Francisco. In other words, it's easy to get out of town and escape to a destination that seems, at least on the surface, a lot more exciting than Sacramento.
I will plead guilty to letting Shauna J. Bogart share some of that "anywhere but here" sentiment. In both Murder Off Mike and Slip Cue, my protag spends weekends on the Central Coast, and in Riding Gain (St. Martin's Minotaur, Nov. 2005) she jets off to Hollywood and back for a job interview.
But thus far, I've managed to resist Shauna J.'s petition for me to allow her to spend the entire book in a "close to everything" locale like a Napa Valley spa or a four-star San Francisco hotel.
When it comes to Sacramento, Shauna J. is here to stay!
Joyce Krieg is the author of the Shauna J. Bogart Talk Radio Series (Murder Off Mike, Slip Cue, Riding Gain, Nov. 2005) from St. Martin's Minotaur.
International Mystery Writers' Festival
Owensboro, Kentucky, will be the place to be June 14-17 for the fourth International Mystery Writers' Festival. This year's theme is "Discovering New Mysteries."
Unlike the vast number of mystery fiction conferences this is indeed a festival. The International Mystery Writers' Festival takes a unique approach by including authors and TV writers and producers as well as playwrights.
The International Mystery Writers' Festival is considered the place to launch new mystery plays. And at least two plays discovered at the festival have been awarded the Edgar Award: Joseph Goodrich's Panic in 2008 and Ifa Bayeza's The Ballad of Emmett Till in 2009.
This year's festival again will showcase mystery plays. Three works have been selected to debut during the four-day festival, which will include two live radio theatre productions and one full-length stage play. These productions will use professional directors and actors.
The festival also will showcase film and television mysteries, along with their creators, in the "Writers Reel" program.
The featured films will include writer/director Lee Goldberg's Bumsickle, the sequel to his short film Remaindered, both of which were produced in Owensboro using local talent in front of, and behind, the camera. Goldberg is a two-time Edgar Award nominee whose many TV writing and/or producing credits include Diagnosis Murder, Hunter, Monk, and The Glades. He is also the author of the Diagnosis Murder and Monk series of original mystery novels
Novelists also will be featured during workshops, panel discussions, and retrospectives of their work.
Guest authors, playwrights, etc., soon will be announced.
The International Mystery Writers' Festival has been a festival that I have wanted to attend. My husband is a theater critic and we both applaud the nurturing and development of new plays.
Karin Slaughter Series on Tv
Television networks—especially cable networks—are discovering that crime fiction is a gold mine for involving stories. We readers have known that for a long time; the networks should have checked with us years ago!
Karin Slaughter's six novels that explore Grant County, Georgia, appear to be the latest scheduled to make it to the small screen.
Beginning with Blindsighted in 2001, Slaughter has delivered unflinching thrillers that meld Southern Gothic traditions with noir crime fiction. Slaughter looks into the heart of darkness that plagues rural George while also tempering her dark approach with a believable vision of the machinations of families. The series revolves around Grant County pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton.
Deadline.com reported that Entertainment One and Piller/Segan/Shepherd have acquired the TV rights to Slaughter's series.
That's the same company that partnered on the Syfy network series Haven.
The Grant County project will go into development immediately, with Slaughter co-writing the pilot script, according to Deadline.com.
Slaughter, needless to say, is quite happy about this opportunity.
"I'm thrilled to be working with the producers who've brought some of Stephen King's stories to life and look forward to adapting the Grant County novels in a way that keeps my readers happy," Slaughter told me in an email.
In addition to her bestselling novels, Slaughter is the founder of the SaveTheLibraries project, which has to date raised more than $50,000 for the DeKalb County (Georgia) Library Foundation.
Before her novels become a TV series, catch up on her novels. The Grant County series include Blindsighted, Kisscut, A Faint Cold Fear, Indelible, Faithless and Beyond Reach.
Slaughter's next novel Criminal will be published in July, 2012, and continues her other series about Will Trent, a brilliant agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The paperback version of her novel Fallen in the Will Trent series just came out.
Mystery Scene correspondent Cheryl Solimini's interesting profile of Slaughter appeared in our Summer 2011 Issue (No. 120).
African-American History Lesson on Justified
Justified, which airs at 10 pm Tuesdays on FX, has given us many wonderful moments.
Here are just a few from the series, now in its third season:
A rock-solid script with terrific dialogue—none of which is surprising since it is based on the 2001 novella Fire in the Hole, published in the collection When the Women Come Out to Dance, by crime writer Elmore Leonard, a master of plot, characters and dialogue.
A real hero in US Marshall Raylan Givens, an old-fashioned Kentucky lawman who is a deeply flawed man with a damaged background. The wonderful Timothy Olyphant, at left, digs deep into this character.
Some of the most memorable villains on TV, such as last season's Mags Bennett, played by Margo Martindale, who richly deserved her Emmy.
A villain we love to hate and hate to love in Boyd Crowder, a Bible-quoting neo-Nazi (maybe reformed?) with a penchant for terrorist acts. Boyd and Raylan share a history and it is just luck that one ended up on the side of the law. Walt Goggins shows us the many sides of Boyd and, against our will, makes us root for him...sometimes.
And in this third season, Justified gives us a history lesson in the form of Ellstin Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson, below left), who rules the African American enclave of Nobles Holler.
Nobles Holler is based on Kentucky's Coe Ridge Colony, which was a small area settled and maintained by emancipated slaves following the Civil War. Coe Ridge existed for nearly 100 years, in constant battle to defend itself against those who wanted to destroy it. According to the legends, Coe Ridge residents would use whatever was necessary to perserve its people and culture.
It also became a refuge for white women fleeing from abusive homes from all over the state. Even the most abusive, nastiest husbands weren't stupid enough to try to venture into Coe Ridge to find their wives.
Justifed uses all this background and more this season.
Coe Ridge's history isn't widely known but there are references to it in Kentucky archives and at least one book, Chronicles of the Coe Colony.
In Nobles Hollar, Justified gives a primer on race relations in this rural area.
A provocative scene in this season is when Limehouse asks Boyd what he knows about the African-American men sitting at his restaurant.
Boyd doesn't know anyone's name, yet each man knows who Boyd is, as well as who his parents were and other details about his life.
"It's always been our business to know you," says Limehouse. "Us knowing is the business of this Holler. Now as to why you don't know us is a question you are welcomed to ponder."
Photo: Timothy Olyphant; Mykelti Williamson; courtesy FX
Law of the West: an Interview With C. J. Box
Hank Wagner
ng at C.J. Box's resume, which includes stints as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, and small town newspaper reporter and editor in his home state of Wyoming, it's safe to assume that he's quite familiar with "the Cowboy State." Reading his mystery novels, all of which have been set in today's West, one has to upgrade the word "familiar" to "intimate."
Box has explored even the remotest parts of the state, indulging his passions for hunting, fishing, hiking, riding and skiing. His novels feature Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett, a flawed hero with a talent for stirring up trouble; Box's familiarity with the terrain and the local population allows him to explore issues unique to that part of the country.
Box began writing his first novel with the intention of delivering a serious story about endangered species, but the book evolved into an entertaining mystery novel that also took a close look at environmental issues affecting the American West. The author has stuck to that basic outline ever since, delivering satisfying thrillers that also educate, if only indirectly.
Box's latest effort, Free Fire, is a case in point. It's also a fascinating example of how an author takes a raw idea and turns it into a full-blown novel. The inspiration for the book came from a Georgetown Law Review article by Michigan State law professor Brian C. Kalt. "The Perfect Crime" posited the intriguing notion that one could literally get away with murder inside Yellowstone National Park. To summarize the theory: Although Yellowstone Park is comprised of land in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, the entire Park is in the judicial district of Wyoming. The Sixth Amendment requires that a jury come from "the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..." So anyone committing a crime in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone must be tried by a jury from the state of Idaho but the district of Wyoming—essentially from the area of the park in which the crime was committed. However, no one lives in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone—therefore no jury can be assembled and no trial can take place.
Professor Kalt's theory, picked up on by media outlets such as the BBC and NPR, was brought to author Box's attention by helpful readers and friends. He was immediately struck by the possibilities.
"I'd always wanted to write a Yellowstone book, and the "perfect crime" theory was my entrée. I contacted Professor Kalt, then ran the theory by a US District Court judge to make sure it was valid. It was. And is. US Senator Mike Enzi (Wyoming) is taking action to try and close the loophole. I hope he's able to do it."
The desire to write about Yellowstone Park had its origins in Box's extensive knowledge and deep affection for the place: "Although I've lost count, I know I've been to Yellowstone Park over 50 times in my life. When I used to work for the State of Wyoming in tourism promotion, I guided travel agents, tour operators, and journalists there in all seasons. When we (Box and Laurie, his wife of 23 three years) started our international tourism/marketing firm, the 'hostings' continued and I finally started getting off the beaten path. I've now hiked and fished in very remote parts of the park and have gotten to know both park rangers and employees who have a special bond with this unique place. I've always wanted to write about the world's first national park from the inside out—the places most tourists don't ever see.
When I came up with the idea for the book I interviewed dozens of experts and employees to get a real feel for the day-to-day struggles, challenges, and thrills of living in the park."
In t
Mystery Scene talks with C.J. Box about the Joe Pickett series
Mystery Scene sat down to talk about the bestselling series featuring the Wyoming game warden in MS #100, Summer 2007.
Looki
he Fall of 2007, C.J. Box packed deep into Yellowstone on his trusty steed Strawberry.
The research certainly shows. Among other things, readers learn that Yellowstone Park site actually harbors a massive dormant volcano which is long overdue to erupt. "I think I first learned about that 20 years ago. Now it's becoming common knowledge. In fact, the official park map has a dotted line signifying the Yellowstone Park caldera, which is most of the park's interior. There is little doubt that someday it will blow. It's a cause for great concern, considering that some believe that such an eruption could trigger another Ice Age."
Another little known scientific fact Box reveals is that there are organisms in the park that have caught the attention of researchers around the world, although the uses Box posits in Free Fire are purely speculative. "There are organisms unique to Yellowstone that are be- ing 'mined' by scientists and commercial interests, which flies in the face of the purpose of a national park. On the other hand, maybe they'll discover a cure for cancer."
When Box decided to explore Yellowstone Park in fiction, his point man was naturally Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett. Free Fire begins with the murder of four campers in Yellowstone Park. When the killer, local attorney Clay McCann, walks away scot-free because of the aforementioned loophole in the law, Wyoming Governor Spencer Rulon decides he needs to institute his own investigation into the matter. Rulon approaches the currently unemployed Joe Pickett (readers can check out Box's previous novel Out of Sight for the details on that) with a simple proposal: he will reinstate Pickett if he agrees to look into things at Yellowstone. Depressed since losing his job, Pickett readily agrees.
Pickett throws himself headlong into the investigation, persevering despite the lack of cooperation from park residents and local law enforcement. Digging into the details, Pickett comes to realize that the campers' death was meant to hide a conspiracy to exploit natural resources unique to Yellowstone; he also realizes that the desperate conspirators will not hesitate to add to the body count in order to conceal their perfidy.
When Joe Pickett first appeared in 2001's Open Season, his creator had no inkling of what was to come.
"I wrote Open Season as a standalone first novel with no real intention of starting a series. To me, it was a novel about the Endangered Species Act featuring a game warden."
Readers, however, immediately warmed to Joe Pickett. The game warden operates his district out of Saddlestring, Wyoming, a fictional town in the Bighorn Mountains based loosely on Sheridan and Buffalo. Pickett is at heart a simple "everyman," a hero that readers can respect and relate to. The conflicts Pickett faces on his job provide the meat and gristle for Box's hard-hitting novels; the challenges he faces in his personal life give him a grounding and depth unusual in mystery fiction: "One of my favorite parts of writing is depicting the interaction of Joe and his family. As readers have noted, Joe's daughters have aged in real time, which means new challenges and changes with each book.
Sometimes, I think Sheridan (Joe Pickett's oldest daughter) is the most intriguing character in the novels. Since I have three daughters of my own—twins Molly and Becky (20), and Roxanne (16)—I do have some experience and knowledge in that area and my daughters aren't shy about telling me if I got something wrong. I like to think the dynamics of the family make the novels more realistic and provide an enhanced emotional buy-in for the reader."
The Pickett character has proven a surprising boon to Box. The bestselling series in which he's featured has netted Box a slew of nominations (for the Edgar and Los Angeles Times Book Awards) and awards, (he's won the Anthony, the Gumshoe, the Barry, France's Prix Calibre 38, and the Macavity). Seven books into the series, which focus heavily on issues unique to the modern west and, more specifically, Wyoming—Savage Run, for instance, features a clash between environmentalists and corporate interests—Box is still excited to be writing about Joe Pickett.
"I've always got about five ideas ahead of me. Which one I'm going to go with depends on the logical arc of the storyline. The tough thing is to keep the characters and the series fresh. I hope I've done this by moving Joe around and giving him a new job and circumstances. That makes it more challenging for me and, I hope, more realistic. But there's always a willing suspension of belief necessary in our genre that both the writer and the reader must agree upon."
Although Box isn't done with Pickett just yet, he still finds time to pursue other projects. For instance, there's his short fiction, an example of which, "Pirates of Yellowstone," appears in the prestigious The Best American Mystery Stories 2006. Readers can also expect a non-Pickett book next year. "Blue Heaven will be out in January of 2008," said Box. "It's a standalone thriller set in North Idaho—60 hours told in real-time from six different points of view.
Critically, C.J. Box has been compared to, among others, Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. Asked on how he sees himself, as a genre writer or merely as a writer, Box says, "A novelist of the contemporary west, although that sounds more pretentious than I want it to."
Box pictured with Daisy.
Photo by Molly Box.
A C.J. BOX READING LIST
The Joe Pickett Series
Open Season (2001)
Savage Run (2002)
Winterkill (2003)
Trophy Hunt (2004)
Out of Range (2005)
In Plain Sight (2006)
Free Fire (2007)
Blood Trail (2008)
Below Zero (2009)
Nowhere to Run (2010)
Cold Wind (2011)
Force of Nature (2012)
Blue Heaven (2008)
Three Weeks to Say Goodbye (2009)
Back of Beyond (2011)
This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Summer Issue #100.
Mystery Scene talks about the Joe Pickett series, the latest of which is Force of Nature, in MS #100, Summer 2007.
Follow the Money With Lehane, Laukkanen, Grippando
Oline Cogdill
A recurring theme in mystery fiction is greed. Follow the money and likely you will find the motive and the villain lurking behind the dollars.
Lately, plain old greed has evolved. Financial thrillers seem to be the mystery category du jour.
Blame it on the economy. Or rather, credit the economy for lending some gripping plots.
On the surface, the economic downturn might not seem to be fodder for a page-turning thriller. But what could create better grounds for crime than no money, a bleak job market and an uncertain future?
The inability to feed your family, the loss of status or just the ability to take care of basic needs drives people to desperate acts.
Dennis Lehane got the ball rolling with his 2010 novel Moonlight Mile, which marked the return of Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro after a 12-year absence.
In Moonlight Mile, Patrick and Angie are now married, the parents of an adorable 4-year-old girl and faced with a mountain of bills. To support his family, Patrick has been working freelance for a security firm, but his actions on some cases have caused irreparable harm.
Lehane's recurring themes of moral ambiguity and the loss of innocence receive a thorough workout in Moonlight Mile as the author looked at what happens when one's conscience conflicts with financial need.
Lehane wasn't the first to tap into the economic downturn, and the stories keep coming.
Owen Laukkanen mixes the recession and a bleak job market in his excellent debut The Professionals. Here, four out-of-work, newly graduated college friends turn to kidnapping.
The Professionals vividly illustrates contemporary economics while exploring how a sense of entitlement and selfishness can shade people's logic. Laukkanen's characters still think of themselves as good people, even when things go terribly wrong.
The gang specialize in demanding a low ransom—from $60,000 to $100,000—from wealthy businessmen. The low ransoms keep them off the radar and at those prices, the kidnapping is "an inconvenience. . .not a crime," they reason.
Laukkanen's The Professionals is one of the best debuts of this year.
Mike Cooper's Clawback features Silas Cade, a former black ops soldier who now works as a consultant, forcing sleazy investment managers to give back millions to managers who are somewhat less sleazy.
Silas has his own definition of clawback—"a term of art, referring to the mandatory return of compensation paid on a deal that later goes bad. Sometimes the claw is literal."
Clawback mixes high-octane action with the arcane details of banking and money management for a solid plot.
James Grippando's Need You Now shows how the plague of Ponzi schemes has affected mobsters. After all, criminals also need a place to park their money and, unlike most Ponzi victims, they tend to be bit more vengeful.
Grippando's character-rich story also offers an astute look at these schemes. Investigators of real Ponzi schemes should take a look at Grippando's thoughtful solutions Need You Now.
Grippando also looked at money woes in his earlier novel Money to Burn.
The recession—and how families cope with it—makes an intriguing and quite timely background for The Accident, Linwood Barclay's ninth novel released in 2011.
The Accident is a cautionary tale, showing the angst of those whose self-esteem is wrapped up in money when it disappears and how the strain of money woes can infect an entire community.
It all begins with a neighborhood network of counterfeit handbags, a seemingly mild transgression that begins several characters' slide down a slippery slope.
Cheryl Solimini
Underscoring a soft-focus suburbia, the picket fence on the cover of Harlan Coben's latest "domestic thriller" captures the disquiet within: The perfect row of white-washed posts is spoiled by one splintered, askew slat. How fragile are the guards we put up to protect ourselves from hard-edged reality?
Coben tackles that question from the viewpoints of three people: a restless suburban mom, a down-and-out photographer, and a dogged detective. Each one is affected by one night in Atlantic City, when strip-club customer Stewart Green was savagely killed (or faked it to disappear from his middle-class comfort). Each confronts the choices made when another man goes missing on the same date 17 years later, and their paths cross again.
At stake for Megan (nee Maygin, aka Cassie) Pierce is the soccer-mom "normality" she engineered after running away from her seedy (to others), exciting (to her) past. Her husband, Dave, and two kids, 11 and 15, seem only to hover in the background, yet they tether Megan to her new life and keep her from giving in to her "what ifs," until her restlessness draws her back to the scene of the crime just once.
Ray Levine, on the other hand, relives that night every day and doesn't seem to have much left to lose. A once-promising photojournalist, he has settled for playing a paparazzo at bar mitzvahs and for celeb wannabes. In the meantime, Broome, the detective still trying to find closure for Green's grieving spouse, hasn't let the case go or moved on in his own life.
With Stay Close, Coben continues his exploration into the nightmares that lurk beneath the so-called American Dream, delivered with his trademark Garden State, snark and another memorable Eric Wu–like villain (the North Korean hit man from Coben's Tell No One and Just One Look)—or rather two, who take the picture-perfect-façade metaphor to a new sadistic level. Though not as twisty as Coben's other standalones, this fiction offers more reality and humanity than any episode of Jersey Shore.
::cck::3833
A Conversation With Harlan Coben
Dick Lochte
Mr. Coben's Neighborhood
Harlan Coben's new novel Stay Close (2012) is reviewed here. This chat first appeared in MS #84 in 2004.
Photo: Claudio Marinesco
Harlan Coben, the first author to win the mystery Triple Crown—the Edgar, Shamus and Anthony Awards—initially began gathering readers to his cause with his critically acclaimed novels about sleuthing sports agent Myron Bolitar. The series proved so popular that in 1998 (with One False Move) it made the alpine-high leap from paperback into hardcover.
In 2001, Coben's standalone thriller, Tell No One, propelled him onto bestseller lists across the country. It and two subsequent suspense novels, Gone for Good and No Second Chance, have elevated him to international bestsellerdom, with editions appearing in over thirty countries and in 28 languages.
His newest book, Just One Look, is a genuine nail-biter destined to keep his fans happily enthralled. In it, a self-sufficient mother of two is forced to do battle against sadistic killers, charming mobsters, and patronizing cops while solving a tricky puzzle in an effort to rescue her kidnapped husband. Like the author's other bestsellers, it is set in New Jersey, not far from the neighborhood in which he lives with his pediatrician wife, Anne, and their four children.
Dick Lochte for Mystery Scene: I guess the lesson to be learned from the success of your novels is that one should never underestimate the fascination people the world over have for New Jersey.
Harlan Coben: Well, The Sopranos has traveled overseas.
And there are the Janet Evanovich books.
Maybe Jersey is becoming the new L.A.
For your sake, I hope not. I see that you're a native son, born there in January of 1962.
In Newark. I grew up in Livingston, about eight miles away. Classically middle-class suburbs. The house in Gone for Good was actually my house. The neighborhood was the same. Myron Bolitar also lived in a house in Livingston.
You studied at Amherst.
I was a political science major. That's a euphemism for "I have no idea what to do with my life." I was accepted by the law schools at University of Chicago and Columbia. I deferred them for a year, then two years and never got around to going. Thank God.
Did you and your wife meet at college?
Yeah. We met on the basketball court. We both started that year. Different teams, of course. I was a sophomore. She was a freshman. I'm 42 now and we've been together since I was 20.
Tell us a little about her.
Her name is Anne. Actually, she uses Anne Armstrong-Coben. She's a pediatrician. She was an inner-city pediatrician, like my lead character in Tell No One. Easy research. Then she started working for a runaway shelter, Covenant House. The character in Gone for Good worked at Covenant House. I needed her to get a new job so I'd have a new subject for a book.
You have four children.
Right. Charlotte is ten. Ben is going to be seven in June. Will is five and Eve is nearly three. No jobs yet. They all still live at home. But the nearly seven-year-old is kinda independent and we're hoping he'll have his own place soon.
What's a typical day for you?
I try to get them all to their programs by 8:30. Then I go to a coffee shop or a library and write. If I have a good day, I'll write until noon, then come home and fix lunch and get some of the business stuff taken care of. With luck, I'll have another couple of hours to write before they come home from school. Or I won't. When I'm streaking, toward the end of the book, I can write a lot very quickly. You know how it is. I've got to see the thing. Get it out. Then I'll just lock myself in a room. I'll explain, "You don't want to go near Daddy now." They understand. It only happens once a year.
When did you start writing?
In college. During summers, I was a travel guide in Spain. Not because I'm a brilliant linguist but because my grandfather owned a travel company. So I decided to write a book about those experiences. It's a terrible, pompous, pretentious, self-absorbed first novel that's sitting in a drawer somewhere. I worked for that same travel company after I graduated in 1984. My job was to set up all these trips. Three days Rome, two days Florence, two days Venice-type of trips. I'd do the brochures, too. I did that for eight years.
And you wrote your first two books—the ones not mentioned in the front of your current books—during this period?
Right. One was a romantic suspense thriller and the other was a medical thriller.
The first was Play Dead?
That's correct. If you've got a copy of it, then you've been in my basement. People show up at signings with them. They're worth a fortune now. I think about eight were sold. The second, Miracle Cure, was about a major sports figure coming down with AIDS. It was published about a month before Magic Johnson went public. For that reason, Sports Illustrated did something with it which spiked the sale of the book. All 400 copies sold.
Nobody's trying to reprint them?
I get offers. But right now when I'm establishing a reputation, I'd like my books to reflect the best work that I can do. You remember that essay you wrote in college that you thought was so brilliant? Get it out now and take a look at it. That's sort of how I feel about these books. Probably somewhere down the line I'll bring 'em back, but right now I'm not sure I want the reading public judging me by books that were written by a 26-year-old me.
Where did the idea for the Myron Bolitar books come from?
Actually, it came from an agent I used to have. He suggested I write a series about a sports agent. At the time, 1993, he thought I should make it a female sports agent. What you'd call jumping on a trend. I went home and tried that and it just didn't work. But Myron was there. A lot of him is me and a lot is my wish-fulfillment. We have the same sensibilities. I gave him something I always wanted and denied him something I have that he always wanted. He wanted the family and home life in the 'burbs that I have. And I wanted my parents and the continuing relationship that he has.
The series began as Dell paperbacks with infamously ugly covers.
The bleeding-balls covers. The worst covers ever.
As I recall you did a lot of hand-selling of those books.
I would try to get the mystery-store booksellers to read ten pages. The first Myron book had an advance of $5,000 and a print run of 15,000. In paperback. That's starting about as low as you can start. It was lucky enough to get a couple of nominations. And a weird kind of word of mouth developed.
You began the one-offs with Tell No One, which I think you said at the time was your most successful book.
It was the breakout book. It sold astronomically better than the other books. Part of it was the fact that, with the other books, the hero was a sports agent and the non-sports-minded reader, no matter what he or she would hear about the book, their resistance would be too great. Tell No One was a bigger book, in the sense that its idea was really catchy and people were more willing to give it a try. My publisher thought it would sell a little better than the Myron books, but not that much better. Then they started getting a lot of good early reads and Borders and Barnes & Noble started to respond and slowly it began to grow. Usually, if the book is a major success, you open big and then you level and go slowly down. But Tell No One built and hit the New York Times list three weeks after publication. Everybody at the house got caught short. They went back to press nine times during the first weeks.
Have you stayed with the same publishing house?
I was with them for six of the seven Myrons. Then they combined Dell and Bantam and fired my publisher at Dell. She stole me back and now I'm at Dutton with her.
Your novels are unique in that they're set in the suburbs with protagonists who are family men, or in the case of Just One Look, a family woman. Yet, you're still writing what is considered a Big Book.
That was one of the things that scared me. When I decided to write a standalone, I read a lot of Big Books. They all had these plots about world-shaking conspiracies. I just don't like that. So that was the challenge: Could I write about an ordinary man, with family bonds and ties, and still make that book big enough to work?
Tell me where your ideas come from. Just One Look, for example?
I was picking up a roll of pictures that had just been developed and, for a second, I didn't recognize one of the shots. That got me wondering: What would I do if there had been a strange picture in there that changed my life? That was the seed of the book. My beginning. I always know the beginning of the book and the end of the book. I never know anything in between.
Grace Lawson shows the odd photo to her husband. He drives off in the middle of the night, leaving her to deal with the nightmare to come. The Myrons and the other standalones all have male protagonists. Why'd you decide to change?
I wanted to do a female lead. I hadn't done that since the early, early, early books—Play Dead and Miracle Cure. I wanted to make sure it wouldn't be your usual stupid woman-in-jeopardy situation, where she would be naïve to the point of it being a learning disability. Grace is a professional woman, an artist, the mother of two. She's not going to be climbing through windows into a house where the bad guys might be waiting. The challenge was to come up with a way to put her in jeopardy without insulting her.
Enter the spectacularly evil Eric Wu, a sociopathic villain who doesn't give his victims any warning before he acts.
He's my only returning villain. He was also in the novel Tell No One. Here, he's just out of prison, where he was sent at the end of that book.
Speaking of Tell No One, when we talked a while ago, that novel had been optioned for film. Anything happening?
It was the subject of a big four-studio auction. It was going to start filming last June. It was going to start filming last November. Then it reverted to me, briefly. I just made what my agent says is one of the biggest deals he's heard of with a French company. Tell No One has been on the lists over there for a year. It's like I'm the Jerry Lewis of mystery writers. Guillaume Canet, who directed a terrific movie, My Idol, will be doing it. 20th Century Fox is still very interested in a Myron series, but I'm moving on that very cautiously.
Myron appears briefly and namelessly in the new novel. When will he be leading the action again? The next book?
No. I do have an idea for another Myron. But it won't be the next book.
A HARLAN COBEN READING LIST
Recent Novels
Stay Close, 2012
Caught, 2010
Hold Tight, 2008
The Woods, 2007
The Innocent, 2005
Just One Look, 2004
No Second Chance, 2003
Gone for Good, 2002
Tell No One, 2001
The Myron Bolitar Mysteries
Live Wire, 2011
Long Lost, 2009
Promise Me, 2006
Darkest Fear, 2001
The Final Detail, 1999
One False Move, 1998
Back Spin, 1997
Fade Away, 1996
Drop Shot, 1996
Deal Breaker, 1995
"Entrapped," Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Spring 1997. Reprinted in Opening Shots Volume 2: More Great Mystery and Crime Writers Share their First Published Stories, ed. Lawrence Block, Cumberland House 2001
"A Simple Philosophy," Malice Domestic 7, ed. Sharyn McCrumbs, Avon 1998
Early Novels
Miracle Cure, 1991
Play Dead, 1990
This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Spring Issue #84.
My Book: the Expats
Chris Pavone
Pavone's playground inspiration
Photo: Nina Subin
A couple years ago, I was sitting in a playground in downtown Luxembourg, watching my kids playing, and chatting with a group of expat stay-at-home mothers. These were women from England and Sweden and America, ex-programmers and ex-chefs and ex-publicists; these were my friends.
But there was this one woman who clearly didn't want to reveal her past. Maybe she had something to hide? Some big secret? Some people might flee from home to keep their secrets. Was she one of them? A criminal? Someone who'd been disgraced? A spy? Maybe an ex-spy?
Me, I was an ex–book editor. We'd moved from New York so my wife could work at Amazon's European headquarters. My job here was tending to the kids and household: cooking and laundry, buying children's socks and groceries, arranging our recreational travel and procuring a local driver's license, taking the boys to the emergency room and the dog to the vet. Most of these chores were in French, a language I barely spoke, and some in languages—German and Luxembourgeois (!)—in which I spoke zero words.
This was not a life I'd lived before. Neither the expat part (except for college, I'd lived all my life in New York City) nor the stay-at-home-parent part. I didn't know how to handle—how to entertain, cajole, discipline, and feed—our four-year-old twins for all those hours, all those months on end. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to throw away the garbage (an obscure door in a subterranean garage labeled poubelles), and a similar length of time to realize that the tiny washing machine (whose settings and instructions were in German) was also a tiny dryer. What the hell?
When I finally knew how to do the things I needed to do, and had completed the process of setting up our life abroad, I turned my attention to writing a novel. The book was about a strained marriage set in this very adult transition: from having a career to not; from living in the place you're from to not; from knowing who you are to not.
The action revolved around a close-knit group of expat moms, and their different versions of this predicament. This was becoming a rather quiet, domestic book; maybe too quiet. So I decided to make the plot much less straightforward, the whole tone much more urgent. I ditched the group-of-friends milieu, and replaced it with an espionage element.
And I remembered that unforthcoming woman from the playground. I recast The Expats into a thriller where absolutely no one—from the minor characters up through the protagonist—is who he or she at first appears to be. And where the most profound depths of deception can lurk beneath the most normal looking of marriages, where people can sit around in playgrounds, watching their children, silently lying to each other.
The Expats, Chris Pavone, Crown, March 2012, $26.00
This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Winter Issue #123.
Pavone's playground inspiration.
Shedding Light on Dark Shadows
I'm not sure if Dark Shadows really fits in the mystery genre, but I bet many of us mystery readers also are fans of this gothic soap opera that ran from 1966 to 1971.
I know I am.
I used to take my break at my part-time job to watch the adventures of vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) and the assortment of werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches and warlocks.
Looking back, the original Dark Shadows was pretty campy and holds up only for those of us nostalgic for the series. A primetime remake with Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins just didn't cut it and only lasted from January 13 to March 22, 1991.
But judging from the trailer I've seen, the new movie version of Dark Shadows shows a lot of promise. Johnny Depp stars as Barnabas, with co-stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, Helena Bonham Carter and Jackie Earle Haley. Tim Burton directs.
The Depp/Burton film throws out the serious tone the original took and goes for the camp that we always knew was there.
What are your comments on the Dark Shadows trailer?
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Visiting Chinatowns via Mysteries
I've been to Paris 1 1/2 times and I so want to go back.
The half time was a day trip to Paris as part of a cruise I took with my husband and mother-in-law. A bus trip around the city, a boat ride on the Seine and a stop at the Eiffel Tower. A wonderful trip but the time in Paris was too short.
The one full time was 10 days I spent in Paris with dear friends Lynn, Scott and Heather, seeing just about everything we could in Paris and even getting kicked out of a restaurant. (No big story -- we just wanted dessert, not a full dinner and were asked to leave.)
My husband so wants to have a full trip to Paris next time as do I.
But meanwhile, I live vicariously.
Through mysteries. And often through Cara Black's novels set in Paris about private detective Aimée Leduc.
I am by no way an expert about Paris but I had no idea that Paris not only had a thriving Chinatown, but four Chinatowns.
Black's Murder at the Lanterne Rouge illuminates an area, or rather areas, of Paris I have never been to. Black specializes in realistic villains and an evocative atmosphere that begs for a trip to the City of Lights.
Black's Murder at the Lanterne Rouge also got me thinking about other Chinatowns and how mystery writers have brought these areas to life for me. Each of the Chinatowns I have viewed via mystery authors has given me a vivid look at these myriad neighborhoods, the residents and shopkeepers.
I am pretty familiar with San Francisco's Chinatown, especially its shopping and restaurants. But I had never seen this area until a couple of years ago when I interviewed Kelli Stanley whose City of Dragons takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown.
During our interview, Stanley took me on tour of Chinatown, showing me aspects of this area I had never seen before. Stanley point out where Miranda Corbie, a private investigator and the complicated heroine in her mystery series, first found the body of a young Japanese man.
Following a wonderful lunch of dim sum at the Four Seas Restaurant, Chinatown's oldest restaurant, Stanley took me to places off the main street of Grant Avenue where the click of mah jong tiles could be heard from behind the screen doors in the basements; where the laundry hung on the fire escapes in the alleys that few tourists see.
"You can feel the rhythm of life here," Stanley said during our interview, which ran in issue No. 119, Spring Issue 2011.
Because of Stanley's tour, I played tour guide to my friend Toni when we were there in January.
In Red Jade, Henry Chang shows that there are many Chinatowns in the United States and abroad, and each Chinatown is connected to the others by an invisible communication known only to Asians.
Chang's NYPD detective Jack Yu search for a gangster's girlfriend takes him from New York to Seattle's Chinatown in Chang's third novel. Red Jade vividly captures the sights, sounds and smells of the various Chinatowns, showing the common threads and uniqueness of each as well as their histories. Chang also wrote Chinatown Beat.
And yes, there are more literary visits to Chinatowns.
In The Black Dove, Steven Hockensmith takes his down-on-their-luck cowboys the Amlingmeyer brothers, Old Red and Big Red, on a humorous visit to 1890s San Francisco Chinatown.
In Person of Interest by Theresa Schwegel, Chicago cop Craig McHugh, working undercover to get information on Chinese and Vietnamese gangs, uses his own money to stay in a card game that he thinks will open doors to Chinatown.
A Chinese candidate loses the vote in a suspicious election in San Francisco's Chinatown in Runoff by Mark Coggins.
Chinatown's opium dens provide the backdrop for The Silk Train Murder by Sharon Rowse.
Paul Malmont's The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril is a cleverly conceived history of pop culture that taps into the pulp era of comic books, making heroes of authors such as Walter Gibson (``The Shadow''), Lester Dent (``Doc Savage''), H.P. Lovecraft, L. Ron Hubbard and Chester Himes.
Lost Among the Angels by Alice Duncan shows us a 1926 view of Chinatown, Hollywood and speakeasies.
Chinese-American cop Robert Chow investigates human smugglers in New York's Chinatown of the mid-1970s in Snakes Can't Run by Ed Lin.
S.J. Rozan also uses New York City's Chinatown as the setting for her series about detectives Bill Smith and Lydia Chin.
Although Lydia still lives with her mother in Chinatown, their cases usually take them away from her neighborhood.
When her characters are in Chinatown, Rozan shows the ever shifting boundaries as she did in A Bitter Feast, China Trade and Mandarin Plaid.
It's those shifting boundaries of neighborhoods and cultures that drive me to these stories.
The world is becoming a small place and we are richer for it.
Reading in the Era of Mad Men
Are you mad about Mad Men? I know I am. Although it has been off the air for 18 months, the AMC drama about a Madison Avenue advertising firm has hit the ground running. It airs at 10 p.m. Sundays on AMC.
Don Draper, you've been quite busy this past year and a half, haven't you?
Mad Men has now moved into 1966 and the series has renewed interest in the fashions, food, drink (lots of drinks, mind you) of the late 1950's through the mid 1960s. This past week I have seen several newspaper and magazine stories on the retro interests that have sprung up because of Mad Men, which stars Jon Hamm, at left, as the maddest man of all, Don Draper.
My question, of course, is what did they read?
And since Mad Men looks back at these eras with a bit of cynicism and a gimlet eye (a lot of gimlet eyes, if you ask me), let's look at what contemporary mystery writers have to say about that time frame.
Mystery Scene would love to hear from readers about their favorite mysteries from the 1950s-1960s or contemporary authors who set their stories during those years.
Meanwhile, here's a few to get you started:
James W. Hall: Magic City offers one of the best depictions of 1960s Miami. Although Magic City is part of Hall's series about Thorn, a reluctant detective who lives in the Keys, this novel is heavily rooted the Miami of 1964. In Magic City, Hall chronicles the beginnings of contemporary Miami. In 1964, "the tropical air is sugary with innocence and hope. Anything can happen. It is Magic City." In 1964, Miami saw the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston heavyweight-championship fight; the influx of Cuban refugees, and visits from the Beatles, famous actors and politicians who made the city "the center of the universe." Hall richly delves into all of this.
Sue Grafton: The Kinsey Millhone series is set firmly in the 1980s and, as the alphabet winds down has been moving toward 1990. So it's natural that some of the private detective's cases would originate in the 1950s and 1960s.
After all, the past's influence on the present is a reoccuring theme in mystery fiction. And we are talking about a character who, in the early books, drove a 1968 Volkswagen A few of Grafton's novels with roots in the '50s and '60s are "F" is for Fugitive; "Q" is for Quarry; "S" is for Silence; and "U" is for Undertow. For trivia buffs, Kinsey Millhone was born May 5, 1950. (Grafton was the subject of a Mystery Scene profile in issue No. 92, in 2005.)
Kris Nelscott: Her intriguing series about African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton is set in 1960s Memphis and Chicago. After too long an absence, Smokey returns in the series' seventh novel The Day After, scheduled to be published in 2012. Nelscott also writes at Kristine Kathryn Rusch, her real name.
Walter Mosley: The Easy Rawlins series began in post WWII Los Angeles and moved steadily through the 1950s and 1960s, including Cinnamon Kiss, Little Scarlet, Black Betty, and Bad Boy Brawley Brown. Mosley's series about mild-mannered bookseller Paris Minton and World War II hero Fearless Jones started in the mid 1950s: Fearless Jones, Fear Itself, and Fear of the Dark.
Megan Abbott: In an email, Abbott said that Queenpin is definitely early 1960s, although she never specifies the date.
And if you are interested in another view of the 1960s, check out Magic City on the Starz network. Magic City, which has no relationship to Hall's novel, is set in 1959 at a luxury hotel in Miami Beach. The rich, the mob, local criminals and the locals come to the hotel. I also am enjoying seeing on screen a number of area actors including Todd Allan Durkin, Ricky Waugh and Gregg Weiner.
Photo: Jon Hamm as Don Draper in Mad Men. AMC photo
Wilkie Collins: He's Back
The classics never fade away.
They may fall out of fashion.
They may go underground. They may obtain cult status. But the classics—whether they are poetry, novels, memoirs or plays—are always with us.
After all, themes of love and hate, betrayal and loyalty, greed and generousity are as relevant today as they were when Homer, Shakespeare and Doyle wrote about them.
Wilkie Collins is back in play, and his "rediscovery" is quite welcomed.
For many, Collins is best known as the author of The Woman in White, published in 1860, and as a close friend and sometimes rival of Charles Dickens.
Collins's works were classified as "sensation novels," a wonderfully Victorian term for what is now regarded as the precursor to detective and suspense fiction.
But like Dickens' work, the "sensation" of Collins' novels was that he wrote eloquently about the plight of women and about social and domestic issues of his time.
Take The Women in White in which two men plot to steal a woman's fortune and her identity. Greed and identity theft are modern day issues and, apparently, also problems of the 19th century.
"The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil?"
—Walter Hartright, The Woman in White, 1861, by Wilkie Collins
Nicci French, whose latest novel is Blue Monday, recently wrote an essay about The Woman in White for Mystery Scene.
"The Woman in White is the first great psychological thriller, based not just on violence and murder but on the slipperiness of identity and the perception that in our ordinary lives we are skating on thin ice and beneath is madness, disorder, and tumbling strangeness. Anyone who writes - or reads - psychological thrillers owes a great debt to Wilkie Collins," writes French.
In the newly released novel Cloudland by Joseph Olshan, Wilkie Collins' novels are an important part of the clues to find a serial killer stalking a small Vermont town.
Catherine Winslow, a former investigative journalist who now writes a household hints column, is pulled into the investigation because she found one of the victims. Catherine is articulate and well-read who was dismissed from her position as an adjunct professor.
The story—and I am not giving away any plot secrets—takes an interesting turn when the characters search for a lost copy of Collins' The Widower's Branch.
Olshan's Cloudland is a crash course in Wilkie Collins, wrapped in a thrilling contemporay mystery.
Olshan isn't the only author who has focused on Collins during the past few years.
Collins appears as the fictional narrator of Dan Simmons' 2009 novel Drood, which partly is based on Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Collins also is a fictional character in Wanting, a 2008 historical novel by Richard Flanagan.
A.B. Emrys' Wilkie Collins, Vera Caspary and the Evolution of the Casebook Novel credits Collins with inventing a new form of mystery, the casebook or novel in testimony, or, as most us call them, police procedurals.
And Collins' work is featured in the collection of Victorian short stories, The Dead Witness edited by Michael Sims.
Remembering Henry Kane
Scotch, smokes, pills, and women—fuel for the sophisticated, amusing and urbane stories of Henry Kane.
Henry Kane's pretty much forgotten these days, with all his work out of print. You can Google him, as I did, and you'll unearth a great deal of information that way, some of it true. And you can find copies of his books on eBay and Amazon and other used-book sources. He wrote over 60 novels, and while none of them hit any bestseller lists, there were enough copies printed so that some survive.
He was born in 1918, earned a law degree, but if he ever practiced the profession he gave it up when he found he could make a living with a typewriter. He wrote a great deal over the years for radio and television, and probably created the series Martin Kane, Private Eye, which had a good run on both media. The Blake Edwards TV show, Peter Gunn, was clearly inspired by Kane's series of books about one Peter Chambers, though Kane never got any official credit.
I read his stories in Manhunt, and his books, when I began trying to write crime fiction of my own. In the first or the third person, Kane wrote with no apparent effort and produced narrative that was sophisticated, amusing, and urbane. I haven't read anything of his in ages, and the books I once owned have long since moved on to other owners, but I remember having enjoyed them all.
I came to know him through our mutual agent, another Henry—Henry Morrison. I spoke with Henry Morrison recently, and learned that it was at HK's urging that HM opened up shop as an agent back in the mid-'60s.
HM had decided to part company with Scott Meredith, for whom he'd worked for almost ten years, and was planning to sign on as an editor at a paperback house. He said as much to Kane, who took him out to dinner and told him he was making a mistake and wasting years of great experience. He should open his own agency, Kane said, and that way he'd be doing what he was best suited to do, and working for himself, and would no doubt blossom as an excellent agent.
And would Kane go with him?
"No," said Henry Kane. "Because you might not make it, and then where would I be? But set up on your own, and get yourself some clients, and if you're still in business a year later, then I'll go with you."
And that's what happened. Henry Morrison became a successful agent, and after a year Henry Kane became his client, and never left. I met Kane a couple of times when we were both visiting HM's office to drop off a manuscript or pick up a check, and in the early '70s we got to know each other. I was living on 22 acres outside of Lambertville, New Jersey, and had a fourth-floor walkup studio on West 35th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues that I used for writing and adultery. (I was far more successful at the former pursuit, and wrote several books there, including Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man and Chip Harrison Scores Again.) Henry Kane lived on Long Island—Lido Beach, if memory serves—and spent Monday through Friday in an apartment on 34th Street west of Ninth Avenue.
I paid a few visits to his pied-à-terre, and had some good conversations. He took his work seriously, and insisted that each page be perfectly typed before he went on to the next one. He began the work day by swallowing a Dexamil capsule, and after a certain number of hours at the typewriter he'd pour himself a little Scotch to soften the edge of the speed. He'd sit there typing and chain-smoking and sipping Scotch until the day's work was done, and then he'd go out for dinner and a night on the town.
Uh, don't try this at home.
At one point, according to Kane, his wife began to worry that his lifestyle was going to kill him. She got him to go to a doctor, who put him through a thorough physical. When the results were in, the three sat down together, and Mrs. Kane waited for the doctor to put the fear of God into her husband.
"I understand you drink," the doctor said.
"Scotch," said Kane.
"About a quart a day. Sometimes more, if I make a night of it."
"And you smoke cigarettes."
"A couple of packs a day."
"And you take Dexedrine."
"As prescribed," said Kane. "A pill every morning. Sometimes, but not often, a second pill as a sort of pick-me-up."
The doctor looked thoughtful.
"Tell him," said Kane's wife. "Tell him what he's doing to himself. Tell him he absolutely has to stop."
"Ah," said the doctor. "Well, Mr. Kane, I have to say you're in perfect health. I wouldn't recommend your regimen to anybody else, but it seems to be serving you well."
That, at least, is how Kane recounted the incident to me, with enormous glee. I suspect what the doctor said was more along the lines of "Well, it hasn't killed you yet"—but one hears what one wants to hear.
But I'll say it again: Don't try this at home.
There are two stories Henry Kane told me that have no bearing on his work, and are in no way instructive to young writers. But they're the reason I chose him as the subject for this column—along with the fact that he was far too entertaining a writer and far too engaging a gentleman to be entirely forgotten.
Kane was in his early 50s when I got to know him, and some years previously his father had died. And ever since then, Kane had heard footsteps.
Not all the time, to be sure. But every now and then he would hear someone pacing the floor overhead, walking back and forth, back and forth. At first he'd thought there was in fact someone up there, but it even happened when he was on the top floor, or sitting home in an otherwise empty house. It became clear that he was hearing these footsteps, and there were no feet responsible.
He also discovered that other people didn't hear them. He most often heard them when he was alone, but sometimes there would be other people present, and they couldn't hear the footsteps, not even after he'd called them to their attention.
He spoke about this to a woman who asked him a few questions, established that Kane was a Jew and the son of a Jewish father, and that he'd never heard the footsteps until after his father's death. "Well, the footsteps are your father," she told him. "His soul can't rest until someone says Kaddish for him. You haven't done that, have you?"
No, Kane said. He hadn't. He didn't believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo.
"Fine," she said, "You don't have to believe in it. Just get your ass to a synagogue and say the prayer when the time comes. It's in Hebrew—well, Aramaic, actually—but it's transliterated, so you just read it."
"And if I do that?"
"Then the footsteps will stop."
"That's ridiculous."
"So try it. What have you got to lose?"
But he wouldn't.
His was a curious sort of obstinacy. It's not that he didn't believe her suggestion would work. He was the one telling the story, and it was evident to me that he figured she was right, that he could get the footsteps to stop by spending a few minutes muttering something incomprehensible in a dead language. And he did indeed want those footsteps to stop.
But not enough to part with his own principles, whatever exactly they may have been. If he did it, and if it worked, well, then where would he be? So the elder Kane went on pacing, and Henry went on hearing him.
Did I mention that he was a Taurus?
Henry knew a lot of people, and traveled in sophisticated circles. While he was hardly a matchmaker, he sometimes introduced one friend to another, thinking they might enjoy each other's company. And, of course, sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn't.
He told me about a woman friend of his he'd been in touch with some years earlier. He knew she'd had a few dates with a friend of his we'll call Gordon, and asked her how things were going between them.
"Let me just say this," she said. "You know how they say you can't have too much of a good thing? Well, it just so happens they're wrong."
He asked her what she meant.
"Gordon," she said, "is a real Frenchman, if you get my drift. But that's the only language he speaks, and he doesn't shut up."
"Oh," said Henry.
"Left to his own devices," she said, "he would not stop until his partner was dead, and maybe not even then."
"Now this is a real sweet guy," she said, "and good-looking, and fun to be with. A nice dresser, and good manners. And for the first 20 minutes or so in the feathers, it was clear we were sexually compatible. And then it became clear that we were not."
"A real sweet guy," she said. "But not for me."
Henry thought that was pretty interesting, and added it to his file of sexual lore.
Then, not long after, he was talking to a male friend who'd had an affair with a prominent actress we'll call Lorraine. "Oh, that's over," the friend told him. "She's a nice woman, enormously talented, and damned attractive. But it's just no good in the sack."
"She doesn't enjoy sex?"
"Au contraire, mon frère Henri. She loves it. Can't get enough of it."
"She only wants one thing," the friend confided, "and she doesn't want it to end. She wants to be—how shall I put this?—the pièce de résistance at the banquet."
"Not that she's not a suitable object for that sort of veneration," he said. "But one doesn't want to spend hours on end kneeling in homage, as it were."
"Hours, eh?"
Henry mulled this new nugget of information, and in the course of the next several days he made two phone calls. The first was to his friend Gordon.
"There's a woman I think you'd really enjoy," he said. "Her name's Lorraine. She's a few years older than you, but I don't see why that should be a problem. Why don't you give her a call, see if the two of you hit it off?"
The second call was to Lorraine, whom he didn't know as well as he knew Gordon, but whom he'd met a few times and felt comfortable calling. "There's a fellow I know named Gordon," he told her, "and I think he's going to call you for a date. I have a strong hunch the two of you would be good together, so why don't you give it a shot and see how it goes?"
And that, said Henry Kane to me, perhaps ten years after those phone calls, is how Gary Morton met Lucille Ball.
I know, I know. It's an outrageous story. And there's no way to confirm it. Wikipedia tells us that the two met while Ball was rehearsing Wildcat prior to its Broadway opening, and that a fellow cast member introduced the two of them. And maybe that's what happened, and maybe it's not.
The principals themselves are long gone—I wouldn't dream of recounting the story otherwise—and we're free to believe it or not, as we prefer. I figure it's true, but maybe that's just because I want it to be true. I'll tell you, it adds a certain something to watching reruns of I Love Lucy.
Toward the end of our acquaintance, Henry Kane wrote a novel with some sort of espionage element in it. A hardcover house contracted to publish it, and then Something Went Wrong. Someone from one of the intelligence agencies visited Kane's publisher, and the book essentially disappeared.
Now it seems to me that there was once a time when I knew the book's title, and I may even have read it, but on this point my memory is spotty and not to be trusted. I think the book was actually published, but can't even be certain of that. What I do recall is that Kane was desperate to know who was responsible for its suppression, and why, and so on. And he couldn't figure out how to learn what he wanted to know.
I suggested he ask himself what his detective, Peter Chambers, would do in such a situation. Or another character, ex-Inspector MacGregor. Figure out who they'd call, and what they'd say, and how they'd solve the puzzle, and then do just that.
I don't think he could see what I was getting at. The characters he wrote could operate in that world, and do so with great panache, but he couldn't even put himself into it in his imagination. He went on railing at Fate, and never did learn who'd put the kibosh on his book, or why.
Toward the end, Henry Kane published a series of erotic suspense novels for Lancer, with titles like The Shack Job, The Glow Job, The Escort Job, and The Tail Job. I think he ghosted at least one Ellery Queen paperback, and his last novel seems to be The Little Red Phone, published in 1982.
It must have been sometime in the early '80s that he died. I had lost track of him by then, and had changed agents myself, so he was long gone by the time I had word of his death. And I'll be damned if I can find out when it was that he died.
Henry Morrison doesn't remember. "All I know is it was a really long time ago," he told me recently. He added that Kane's widow had since died, and that their daughter had moved and his attempts to contact her had been unsuccessful.
I got in touch with a woman I'd met through Kane, an old girlfriend of his, but she, too, had long-since lost touch with him. She couldn't furnish his date of death, and while she was at it she cast doubt on his official date of birth; she figured he wasn't above taking off a few years, and that he was most likely born not in 1918 but in 1908. And she put me in touch with another old girlfriend of Henry's, with whom I had a perfectly lovely conversation, but she didn't know when he died, either.
You'd think in this age of Google that anybody's date of death would be instantly available, but it'll take someone handier than I with a computer to find it.
But it's pretty clear that he's gone, and I guess somebody said Kaddish for him. I haven't heard any footsteps.
A Selected Henry Kane Reading List
Peter Chambers Novels
A Halo for Nobody (1947)
Armchair in Hell (1948)
Hang by Your Neck (1949)
A Corpse for Christmas (1951)
Until You Are Dead (1951)
My Business Is Murder (1954)
Too French and Too Deadly (1955)
Who Killed Sweet Sue? (1956)
Fistful of Death (1958)
Death Is the Last Lover (1959)
Death of a Flack (1961)
Dead in Bed (1961)
Death of a Hooker (1961)
Kisses of Death (1962)
Death of a Dastard (1962)
Never Give a Millionaire an Even Break (1963)
Nobody Loves a Loser (1963)
Snatch an Eye (1963)
The Devil to Pay (1963)
Unholy Trio (1967)
Don't Call Me Madame (1969)
The Shack Job (1969)
The Bomb Job (1970)
Don't Go Away Dead (1970)
The Glow Job (1971)
The Tail Job (1971)
Come Kill With Me (1972)
The Escort Job (1972)
Kill for the Millions (1972)
"Inspector" McGregor Novels
The Midnight Man (1965)
Conceal and Disguise (1966)
Laughter in the Alehouse (1968)
Marla Trent Novels
Private Eyeful (1959)
Edge of Panic (1950)
Laughter Came Screaming (1953)
The Deadly Finger (1957)
Death for Sale (1957)
Run for Doom (1960)
The Crumpled Cup (1961)
My Darling Evangeline (1961)
Two Must Die (1963)
Dirty Gertie (1963)
Frenzy of Evil (1963)
The Virility Factor (1971)
The Moonlighter (1971)
Decision (1973)
A Kind of Rape (1974)
The Violator (1974)
The Avenger (1975)
Lust of Power (1975)
The Tripoli Documents (1976)
The Little Red Phone (1982)
Scotch, smokes, pills, and women—fuel for the urbane stories of Henry Kane.
Nicci French on Wilkie Collins' the Woman in White
Writing duo wonder, "Where the hell did that come from?"
Photo: Mark Read. Below: the first US edition of Wilkie Collins' classic printed in 1860.
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, was published in 1860. Even today, it's one of those books you read and ask yourself: Where the hell did that come from? The first half of the book is like a feverish dream; it begins with a mad woman appearing out of the darkness, and is full of storms, shadows, nightmares, spectral moonlight, and a sense of dread. Then we encounter Marian Halcombe, the most extraordinary "heroine" in Victorian fiction: she's ugly, she has a light moustache, and she's utterly compelling. Marian's adversary is Count Fosco, the prototype of the evil, horrifying, but charismatic villain. He is Italian, he is enormously fat, and he keeps white mice in his pocket that he plays with as he talks.
Count Fosco and his confederate, Sir Perceval Glyde (even the names are evil), concoct a plot to steal the fortune of Laura Fairlie. The idea is not to kill her, which would be too easy, but to steal her very identity and replace her with a woman who looks like her. For how do you prove that you are yourself?
There is also a kind of love story between the hero, Walter Hartright, and Laura Fairlie (the names are a bit of a giveaway) but the true, hidden love story of the book is that between Marian Halcombe and Count Fosco, two outsiders who recognize each other's intelligence.
The Woman in White is the first great psychological thriller, based not just on violence and murder but on the slipperiness of identity and the perception that in our ordinary lives we are skating on thin ice and beneath is madness, disorder, and tumbling strangeness. Anyone who writes—or reads—psychological thrillers owes a great debt to Wilkie Collins.
Nicci French's latest book is Blue Monday (Pamela Dorman, March 2012). Read the Mystery Scene review here.
This "Writers on Reading" essay was originally published in "At the Scene" eNews March 2012 as a first-look exclusive to our enewsletter subscribers. For more special content available first to our enewsletter subscribers, sign up here.
The Psychology of Mysteries
As a Hollywood screenwriter, Dennis Palumbo credits include My Favorite Year (one of my favorites) and Welcome Back, Kotter.
Palumbo is now a licensed psychotherapist and author of Fever Dream and Mirror Image, mysteries that naturally use psychology. Palumbo's novels center around Dr. Daniel Rinaldi, a psychologist who consults with the Pittsburgh Police. His specialty is treating those who are traumatized because they were victims of violent crime.
Mystery readers will find much food for thought in one of Palumbo's recent column "Hollywood on the Couch" for Psychology Today. Here, Palumbo maintains that characters, more than clues, are what we remember from mysteries written for the movies and TV.
What he says, also goes for the printed word.
As Palumbo says, "In the movie version of The Lincoln Lawyer, what was the mistake Ryan Phillippe made that proved he was guilty?"
Or, he asks, "In the more recent film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, what led Blomkvist to identify the serial killer?"
Palumbo doesn't remember, and, even though I loved both novels and films, neither do I.
For me, it's also the characters who live on long past some red herring has been dangled in front of me.
For me, it's also the characters who keep me coming back to a series, or praising a book, or, yes, giving a negative review.
Palumbo shows the meaning of this quote by Michael Connelly who said "The best mysteries are about the mystery of character."
Harlan Coben's Elephant
Roadside oddities fascinate me.
You know those huge pieces of kitsch that dot American roads, such as the giant catsup (that's how it's spelled) bottle in in Collinsville, Illinois; the Wigwam Village Motel in Cave City, Kentucky; the world's largest chair in Aniston, Alabama, and the endless parade of giant coffee pots that serve as restaurants, nightclubs and shops.
And don't forget the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, and the "world's largest basket," which is the seven-story corporate headquarters of the Longaberger Basket Company in Ohio.
Perhaps Harlan Coben feels the same way.
In the excellent Stay Close, Coben concentrates on three people whose past influences their past. Two have risen above what happened years before; one is mired in it.
Coben's 22nd novel again shows his acumen for delving into our most intimate fears.
And then there's Lucy the Margate (N.J.) Elephant, a six-story building shaped like an elephant. Lucy is the world's largest elephant, and the only one in America designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Lucy serves as a meeting spot for two characters in Stay Close. She is a safe place that reminds them of the good times they had.
"Lucy, hovering in the dark, silhouetted by the moon. As always, no matter how many times she had seen her, Megan stared up at Lucy in childlike awe."
According to roadsideamerica.com, Lucy was built in 1881 by James V. Lafferty, a real estate developer with a knack for promotion. Weighing 90 tons, covered with 12,000 square feet of sheet tin, Lucy was a functioning building, serving first as a real estate office, as a summer home, even briefly as a tavern, until unruly drunks nearly burned her down. She also gave people a reason to come to Margate City while Lafferty gave his real estate pitch, according to roadsideamerica.com.
While Lucy brings a bit of levity to Stay Close, she never interfers with Coben's serious plot.
Starz's Magic City: Crime on Miami Beach
It's 1959 and Miami is truly the "Magic City," shimmering and glittering with a sleek new hotel rising out of the sand, signaling a rebirth that will continue to evolve for the next 50 years and beyond.
Sleek cars, beautiful fashions and a sense of expectations bring celebrities, politicians and mobsters to Miami. This insular world is about to go global in ways it could never imagine. Revolutionaries in Cuba, a burgeoning drug traffic from South America and culture clashes will permanently change the landscape of South Florida.
Miami is about to become a major player; it just doesn't know it yet.
Magic City, the sleek, highly watchable series on Starz Network, captures the attitude and atmosphere of Miami in 1959.
Although the series just started, Magic City already has been renewed for a second series. Magic City airs at 10 pm Fridays on Starz, with frequent encores. The first three episodes, and several short looks at the times, fashion and the building of the set, also are On Demand.
Magic City's plot and setting are reminiscent of The Sopranos, The Godfather and, for style alone, Mad Men.
Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Grey's Anatomy) is a good man, devoted to his three children and his lovely second wife, Vera (Olga Kurylenko) and to his glamorous the Miramar Playa hotel.
He's got Frank Sinatra booked for his New Year's Eve program to usher in 1959.
Ike also has major financial problems and a union strike that threatens everything he has worked for. Ike will do just about anything to save his sacred Miramar, which was built with his much-loved first wife's money and blessing.
For this, Ike will sell his soul as he gets in league with the devil, in this case mobster Ben "The Butcher" Diamond (a deliciously evil Danny Huston). (For trivia fans, Danny Huston is the son of John Huston.)
Diamond already secretly owns half of Miramar, but he wants all of it.
Ike may be reluctant to ask for Diamond's help, and he certainly is haunted by the "choices" the mobster makes. But that doesn't stop Ike. He can live with the sleepless nights and the nightmares.
Ike fools himself into believing that the Miramar is an homage to his late wife, the mother of his children and the great love of his life. Ike also believes that the Miramar will be the legacy he leaves to his three children—the promiscuous son Stevie (Steven Strait), the level-headed Danny (Christian Cooke), and 12-year-old Lauren (Taylor Blackwell).
One can pretty much guess what will happen to the arrogant union leader and anyone else who threatens the Miramar's survival and gets in the way of Ike or Diamond. Domestic scenes and the glamorous life at the Miramar frequently cut to more gruesome scenes, much like the baptismal scene in Godfather II.
What makes Magic City so entertaining and so watchable are the constant personal and international dramas circling the Miramar. Dec. 31, 1958, also is the date that the government of Fulgencio Batista crumbles as Castro and his troops march toward Havana.
Sinatra's glorious voice is filling the showroom of the Miramar. But inside the kitchen the general manager Victor (Yul Vazquez) tries to keep the mostly Latin kitchen staff away from the radio news while, at the same time, worrying about his wife who is still in Cuba. Victor also does his best to be strong for his daughter, Mercedes (the charming Dominik Garcia-Lorido, daughter of actor Andy Garcia), who works as a maid at the Miramar and is dating Ike's son, Danny.
Stevie, meanwhile, has started an intense affair with Lily Diamond (Jessica Marais), the third wife of the venegeful Diamond.
Stevie and Lily first meet in a black hotel in Overtown. Note to Lily: A man whose nickname is "the Butcher" and whose first two wives died during childbirth while he watched and who is not above doing the unforgivable in the second epsiode is not good husband material; he also is not someone who will lightly take cheating on him.
It's also intriguing that Ike and his family are Jewish, at a time when anti-Semitism was still rampant on Miami Beach, even while the area had more than its share of Jewish mobsters, with whom Ike's father Arthur (Alex Rocco, The Godfather) is more than a little familiar. In one scene at a club that does not normally admit Jews, a waiter won't even look at or acknowledge Ike.
Magic City's creator Mitch Glazer has done well by his hometown, bringing authenticity and rich details of the era to each scene. The show mentions certain South Florida landmarks that only a native would remember.Glazer grew up on Miami Beach during the late 1950s and his father designed the lighting for such luxury hotels as the Fontainebleau, the Deauville, and Eden Roc.
Credit Glazer also with using award-winning South Florida actors in some roles. Todd Allen Durkin plays the recurring role of Doug Feehan; Gregg Weiner returns at least four times as Phil Weiss; Ricky Waugh shows up several times as Barry "Cuda" Lansman. South Florida audiences also will spot Avi Hoffman, John Manzelli and Betsy Graver.
Magic City airs at 10 pm Fridays on Starz, with frequent encores.
Photos: Top: The cast of Magic City includes, at far left, Olga Kurylenko and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Vera and Ike Evans; and at right, Jessica Marais and Danny Huston as Lily and Ben "the Butcher" Diamond. Middle: Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Ike Evans. Photo courtsey Starz
Sisters in Crime Team Up at Libraries, Bookstores
When you visit your favorite bookstore or library this Saturday, April 21—and I hope you make a habit of stopping in weekly—you might notice that the person working behind the counter looks a lot like the person whose photo graces the book you have in your hand.
And you would be right.
It's all part of an effort by Sisters in Crime to thank librarians and booksellers for supporting the mystery genre for 25 years.
Sisters in Crime, an international organization founded to support the professional development of women writing crime fiction, is holding the "Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries Every Day."
That means that across the United States—from Maine to Hawaii—authors who are members of Sisters in Crime will work as volunteers in bookstores and libraries, from 10 am to 4 pm April 21.
The authors will work in the stacks, on the sales floor, and behind the scenes to do whatever a manager asks of staff members—shelving, bagging, sweeping, assisting patrons, pulling holds, making recommendations, taking out the trash, checking in returned books, and more.
And, especially, helping to sell mysteries.
"In honor of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Sisters in Crime, we are very pleased to be able to thank some of the people who work the hardest on the front lines of publishing by rolling up our sleeves and working beside them," said Frankie Y. Bailey, President of Sisters in Crime, via a press release.
The event is being coordinated by Jim Huang, a former independent bookstore owner and a Mystery Scene contributing editor.
"We know that, in their efforts to help readers find the right books at the right time, booksellers and librarians solve countless mysteries every day," Huang said in the press release. "This is our opportunity to thank them in a tangible way—and to find out what the publishing world is like from their perspective."
In addition to the volunteer project, Sisters in Crime's more than 3,000 members will support the "Solving Mysteries Day" event by visiting libraries and bookstores during April 21 to personally thank the booksellers and librarians.
"The plan is to show booksellers and librarians how much we really care about the work they do. We couldn't do our work without them," Bailey added.
The 25-year-old organization has 48 chapters worldwide; its members are authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, and others who love mysteries. Sisters in Crime is online.
The participating authors, bookstores, and libraries include:
Frankie Y. Bailey, at The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany, NY
Gail M. Baugniet, at the Maikiki Community Library in Honolulu, HI
Charlotte Cohen, at the Santa Ana Public Library in Santa Ana, CA
Kathy Lynn Emerson, at the Treat Memorial Library in Livermore Falls, ME
Barbara Fister, at Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis, MN
Susan Froetschel, at the Takoma Park Neighborhood Library in Washington, DC
Chelle Martin, at the Sadie Pope Dowdell Public Library in South Amboy, NJ
Denise Osborne, at the Mid-Continent Public Library, Raytown branch, in Raytown,
Bernadette Pajer, at the Uppercase Bookshop in Snohomish, WA
Karen Pullen, at McIntyre's Books in Pittsboro, NC
C. L. (Cheryl) Shore, at Bookmamas in Indianapolis, IN
Mary Stanton/Claudia Bishop, at Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach, FL
Lane Stone, at the Charles E. Beatley, Jr. Central Library in Alexandria, VA
Susan Van Kirk, at the Warren County Public Library in Monmouth, IL
Kathryn R. Wall, at the Beaufort County Library, Hilton Head branch, in Hilton Head
Island, SC
Tina Whittle, at The Golden Bough in Macon, GA
My Book: Love the One You're With
Steve Brewer
Steve Brewer goes (farther) west
Stephen Stills said it succinctly (if ungrammatically) back in 1970: "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."
When we writers find ourselves in new locations or new situations, we should try to accept the changes. Make the most of them. Use them in our work.
That's what I did in crafting my 13th book, Bank Job.
I'd lived for nearly two decades in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and had set most of my books there, including the six novels in the Bubba Mabry private eye series. My work doesn't portray the starkly beautiful landscape of the desert Southwest the way my skillful pals Tony Hillerman and Judith Van Gieson do; most of my stories never leave the city limits. But I'd definitely carved out a niche as a Southwestern mystery writer.
Then, two years ago, my wife's employers asked her to take over as editor of the newspaper in scenic Redding, California. The offer was too sweet to turn down, but I was anxious about losing my connection to Albuquerque. I knew I could continue to set stories in New Mexico; it's the place I know and love best. But it seemed wrong somehow to focus on the Southwest when I'd physically moved to Northern California. I'd be an expatriate, writing from memory about home rather than embracing the strange new world I now inhabit.
I'd branched out in the past. My standalone novel Bullets is set mostly in Las Vegas, and Fool's Paradise is set in the San Diego area. I'd enjoyed exploring those settings during vacations—I mean tax-deductible research trips—and the resulting novels proved I could tackle new locales.
But Redding, population 85,000? Up among the black oaks and gray pines, the towering mountains and shimmering lakes, the roaring river and the hush of small-town life? I write funny, gritty, urban mysteries. Could I possibly set a story in this burg?
When we made the move, I was in the middle of writing an Albuquerque book (Boost, which came out in 2004), but I soon found myself casting about for ways to make use of all I was learning about my new surroundings. Whenever you move to a new place, there's a huge learning curve—exploring the countryside, finding the best cafes, discovering the traffic shortcuts—and it felt enough like research that I didn't want to waste any of it.
One thing I quickly learned about Redding is that it's teeming with senior citizens. So many are moving here from more expensive regions of California, you can hardly throw a rock without hitting a retiree.
In my ideas file, I'd long had the kernel of a story about a retired bank robber named Vince Carson. Since Vince is a retiree, why not plunk him down in Redding? He'd want a low-profile lifestyle in his golden years, one that wouldn't call attention to his headline-grabbing past. What better place to live than a cabin in the woods outside Redding?
So much of a novel hinges on its setting. The manuscript that became Bank Job turned out much different from the original idea in my file. Now, instead of introducing Vince right away, the novel opens with three redneck hoodlums from Bakersfield who are traveling around Northern California on a crime spree. When one gets injured in a robbery-gone-wrong, the trio looks for a place to hole up. A cabin in the woods outside Redding seems the perfect spot . . .
Instead of my usual funny, gritty, urban mystery, I ended up with a funny, gritty, rural mystery, sort of a cross between The Desperate Hours and Raising Arizona. In the process of researching and writing it, I learned a lot about Redding and its environs, and came to really like my new hometown.
Will I set other books in Redding? I don't know. I just finished a thriller set in San Francisco, and I'm planning a new Bubba Mabry novel, which will require several tax-deductible research trips back to Albuquerque.
But Redding no doubt is working its magic as I go about my everyday life. I keep my eyes open for locations and details and characters to use in my fiction.
All part of "loving the one I'm with."
Bank Job by Steve Brewer, Intrigue Press, October 2005, $24.00
My Book: Hey Man...Where's Your Rv?
John Galligan
John Galligan meets his Dog
It would be hard to count the times I've fielded this question while touring with my fly fishing murder mystery series (The Nail Knot, The Blood Knot—Bleak House Books). The root of this moment is the fact that my protagonist, a hard-luck trout bum who calls himself the Dog, travels the country in an old Cruise Master RV, fly fishing and getting in and out of trouble. The Dog, whose real name is Ned Oglivie, talks to himself, talks about himself, and talks to the reader. He's always moving. He's always telling himself, "Go, Dog, go." I think some readers start to believe that the Dog really exists, that he's really headed for their town. Of course, this is a good thing.
But still, I feel the shattering of illusions every time I pull up in an ordinary passenger car instead of a 30-year-old recreational vehicle loaded with vodka and Tang and held together by all the bug spit the Dog has driven through.
"Hey, man. . . .where's your RV?"
Sometimes, the RV question comes with a little wink, just enough to let me know that the person pumping my hand is hip to the distinction between a first person narrator and the author who creates him. Sometimes . . . but not always, and so I am frequently asked to distinguish myself from the Dog, and to describe how the character came to be. Thankfully, it's a distinction worth making, and a story worth telling.
The basic theme of the story is "There, but for the grace of God, go I." It all starts with a strange and sick little fantasy. I have a fly fishing buddy, who for the duration of this confession shall remain unnamed. We are both family men in the deepest sense of the term—loving, attentive, reliable, stable, and blah, blah, blah—especially if you ask us. But that inner Huck Finn is always there. When we are out on a three-day fishing hoot, our families are kind of like the stars on a cloudy night. We believe they exist. Probably.
So this led to a sick joke between us. What if something horrible happened? Earthquakes, tornados, plane crashes, poisoned peanut butter—what if tragedy struck and suddenly we were cut off, forever, from our loved ones? How would we respond? How could we go on? As sudden bachelors, as grieving orphans, what would we do?
Cue the deranged grin on my buddy's face, oiled by whiskey and spookily lit by campfire light. And mirrored by mine. Well . . . gosh . . . we'd just have to fish away the pain, right? What else could we do? There are a lot of trout streams out there. Who could know when, if ever, we'd be healthy enough to rejoin society? Who could predict when we would be strong enough to get behind the plow again?
Ha-ha-ha. At the time this joke arose, I was drafting a stillborn version of The Nail Knot, my first in the fly fishing murder mystery series. My trout-bum sleuth, Quill Gordon, was erudite, self-effacing, and honorable. His worst traits were reticence and a certain social incapacity with women. Then, one night at the campground, after a long day of fall fishing, my buddy and I met a real-life, honest-to-god, RV-driving trout bum.
To be exact, we first met this guy earlier in the day, out on the stream, and he seemed as normal as any man who would stand out midstream in a cold, late September rain, casting flies for trout. He was tall and lean, in his late 50s, with pale blue eyes, red skin, and a silver moustache. We chatted. He was an ex-Milwaukee cop. He was knowledgeable. He was amiable. He didn't cuss that much. He didn't smell any worse than we did. We said, "Hey. Come on by the fire tonight and have a beer."
He returned a startled little nod. As in, "Who, me?"
"Really," I assured him. "Drop by the fire for a bit."
"I'm not sure," he said cautiously. "I go to bed pretty early."
Anytime, I said. Early, late, whatever. Just have a beer.
"Well actually," he protested, "I don't drink."
"We won't force you," I assured him.
He said tentatively, "Well . . . maybe just for a minute."
Sure, I said. Stay as little or as long as you like. Just come on by.
And boy, did that guy ever come on by. Before we knew it, his "I don't drink" line had changed to, "Well, maybe just a couple." And he was intelligent and engaging through the first two beers. He had done one hell of a lot of fly fishing, all over the country. He knew his stuff. But before too long our new friend was reaching deep into our beer supply, and he was repeating himself. The guy's loop was really short. He could re-tell the same big fish story or the same ugly cop story within five minutes. All he had to do was turn his head, sip his beer, wait two hoots of the screech owl, and it was like a day had passed and my friend and I were completely different people. The night got weird and sad, and we couldn't get rid of the guy. Fortunately, my friend has a blunt streak almost as wide as mine, and when we finally had no remaining grace or patience, we told him to beat it. We stood him up by the armpits and pointed him back toward his pop-up camper under the big cottonwood at the far end of the campground. You should have seen his eyes. The poor guy wasn't one bit surprised.
And so the Dog was born. I threw away the character I was working on, and with him I threw away that first, misguided draft of The Nail Knot. Because, let's face it: to be a true trout bum, the kind of guy who does nothing with his life but fish, the kind of guy who lives in his vehicle, the kind of guy who is cut off from love and kinship and the daily struggle of human relationships—to be that kind of man, you would really have to have a screw loose. Something horrible would have happened—maybe all at once, or maybe in small doses, over a long period of time. As in the tragic case of the fictional Ned "the Dog" Oglivie, the time and the "freedom" to do nothing but fish would have come at such at enormous price that the fantasy would in reality be about as satisfying as learning some really cool dance steps in the midst of a life prison term with no parole. It would be a joy within a torment within a lark within a hell. Guys would be forever standing you up by the armpits and tossing you out into that terrible night. And I, for one—to the extent of my powers—mean never, ever to go out there.
So . . . where's my battered, old, vodka-freighted RV? I don't have one. I hope I never will. I love the Dog. I wish him well. I doubt he'll make it back among the rest of us, but I'm not counting him out.
I'm down with the Dog, though. I get him. I appreciate him. On some level, I ride with the Dog. After all, I guess, he's doing what he does—he's driving that old RV—for me.
There, but for the grace of Dog, go I.
The Blood Knot by John Galligan, Bleak House Books, October 2005, $23.95.
This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Fall Issue #91.