Zombie Video

Zombies V. Vampires

Pam Anderson reading.

How many women of my years wake up thinking about zombies. I bet the number is pretty small--but larger now that they are showing up frequently at the multiplex and in novels.

This is my question. Why don't zombies have any distinct personalities? Why do they have to be a faceless hoard? Some of our vampires seem to have more personality than the real people in their stories. They dress well and are generally handsome, if pale. But give me an example of one attractive, personable zombie. I can't think of one. Is it set down in a rulebook somewhere? Werewolves get a better rap than zombies too. So do ghosts.

Who decided zombies should be consigned to such a fate? If I have missed a movie or story where zombies get to be real players, fill me in.

My Bouchercon

It is quite clear to me after four of these things that I am not of the Bouchercon ilk. Instead of chatting up the many people I hoped to meet (too numerous to mention but I eyed Neil Smith, Bill Crider, and Victor Gischler longingly several times) I did the tourist thing.

Heck, I don't care about meeting Laurie King or Michael Connelly. I want the guys/gals I meet on blogland.

I went to the symphony, the Benjamin Harrison house (longest tour ever and I am determined to write a collection of docent stories someday), the art museum, toured the historic district and saw "Where the Wild Things Are."

There is a long list of people I'd hoped to meet and I struck out completely. My fault entirely. Calls from Megan saying why didn't I come over and meet.....Well, it was a damn long walk and who hangs around that long.

But this is not the true Bouchercon experience. I fall somewhere between fangirl and writer and the spot on that continuum is not a comfortable one.

Back to my Bouchercon. Missed the first twenty minutes of WTWTA though because the ticket seller thought we wanted to see Zombieland and sent us the wrong way. (Already saw it).

So my version of that movie will always begin with Max sailing out to sea. Never mind his family problems or their relationship to the creatures he meets. My version has no resonance beyond what actually happens on the island where he lands. Loved it although I spent too much time wondering whose voice that was. To me, it was about the problems of being a king-or the heaviness of the mantle of leadership. Missing that first bit obviously skewered my perception. Okay maybe it is about motherhood too. The creatures needed a mother more than a king.

Did meet Kieran Shea (thanks for seeking me out). And dined with George Kelley and his wonderful wife, Diane. Lunched with Megan. Looked in vain for Phoenix Noir--why no booth for them or Hard Case Crime?

I gues it is too hard for me to walk up to people and say hi. So HI to all the people I hoped to meet but didn't. I am sorry to have missed you... for the fourth time.

MY TOWN MONDAY-Is it the air?

Three runners die in Detroit marathon-(from A.P.)

DETROIT, Michigan — Three men died within 16 minutes of each other while running a marathon in Detroit, officials said.

Temperatures were cool and emergency personnel stationed throughout the course were able to reach all three men seconds after they collapsed on Sunday morning, race officials said.

The first man to collapse was Daniel Langdon, 36, who fell at about 9:02 am (1302 GMT) between the 11- and 12-mile markers.

Rick Brown, 65, collapsed in the same area at 9:17 am (1317 GMT). A minute later, Jon Fenlon, 26, collapsed just after finishing the half-marathon in 1:53:37.

It was not clear whether Langdon and Brown were competing in the full or half marathon.

Deaths at marathons are relatively rare, with various studies placing the risk at between one in 75,000 and one in 126,000 participants.

More than 19,000 people participated in the marathon sponsored by the Detroit Free Press and Flagstar bank.

"On a day when so many people bring such energy and challenge themselves to do their utmost, this news is very difficult to hear," Free Press editor and publisher Paul Anger said.

"Our deepest sympathies are with the families."

This is just too sad and macabre.

What You Didn't Do?

I am finally facing the fact that summer is over. Damn! It never seemed like summer at all.

At the beginning of summer, I bought a floppy green hat to wear in the sun. Never wore it once.

What didn't you do this summer that you intended to do? I have a horribly long list but I'll settle on wearing that green hat.

THE SUMMING UP, Friday, October 16, 2009

Ralph Richardson reading.












THE SUMMING UP

Paul Bishop, The Bruiser, Jim Tulley
Marshall Browne, Who Killed Palomino Molero, Mario Vargas Llosa
Bill Crider, Murder, Harold Adams
Martin Edwards, The Jackals, Frederic Valmain
Randy Johnson. Marooned, Martin Caidin
George Kelley, Gideon's Day, John Creasey
B.V. Lawon, BOUCHERCON 1997-review
Donna Moore, The Corpse Who Moved Upstairs, Frank Gruber
Open Range, God's Little Acre, Erskine Caldwell
Scott Parker, Batman & Tarzan-Claws of the Cat Woman, Darkhorse Comics
Eric Peterson, I Want to Be Your Joey Ramone, Stephanie Kuehnert
Richard Prosch, Adventure, edited Chris Roberson
J.R. Big Lobo, Marshall McCoy & Leonard F. Meares
Rick Robinson, The Double Take, Roy Huggins
Kerrie Smith, Murder's Little Sister, Pamela Branch
R.T. The Minotaur, Barbara Vine
Jim Winter, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

Friday's Forgotten Books, October 16, 2009

Orson Wells reading.


The Summing Up will appear next week.
If any of this gets screwed up, I'll fix it on my return. If I have to pay $20 a day to use wireless internet, I won't.







Paul Bishop
Bill Crider
Martin Edwards
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
B.V.Lawson
Donna Moore
Scott Parker
Eric Peterson
Richard Prosch
James Reasoner
Rick Robinson
Kerrie Smith
R.T.
Jim Winter
The Rap Sheet
Terrie Moran

Cheers for WSU PRESS and Bonnie Jo Campbell

Who was just nominated for a National Book Award. WSU Press (my alma mater, place of employment, and my husband is on the Press' board) just began publishing fiction a few years ago and what a triumph for the City of Detroit and a university that educates the children of that city.

American Salvage is a volume of short stories (yay!) that knocked me out when I read it. Talk about hard-boiled.
I went to Bonnie's reading last spring and she knocked me out, too. If you want to see why visit her website.

Or look at this picture. Three cheers for the little guy--even if she's not so little.

Fifty Years Ago

Kevin and Julie reading.

1 9 5 9-Top Ten Best Sellers

F I C T I O N

1. Exodus, Leon Uris

2. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak

3. Hawaii, James Michener

4. Advise and Consent, Allen Drury

5. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence

6. The Ugly American, William J. Lederer and Eugene L. Burdick

7. Dear and Glorious Physician, Taylor Caldwell

8. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

9. Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, Paul Gallico

10. Poor No More, Robert Ruark

How many have you read? How many have you heard of? (5 read for me, but these books were still popular in the next decade when I was old enough to read them). Never heard of 10.


Notice, no crime fiction (unless 10 is). That would rarely be the case today. At least two of these are great works of fiction (IMHO). Are we producing any books as great as 5 & 8?

What audio book should I read?

Sean Connery reading. Elegant, no?

Okay, I am not a big talking book person. What's your favorite audiobook? I need something for a six-hour trip. Well, twelve if you include coming and going? Something that will really make the hours pass? I know from the past that the reader is half the allure.

Free Giveaway of HUMMINGBIRDS

Elizabeth reading.

Hey, want to read a copy of my SIL's book Hummingbirds. This blog is giving away five of them.

http://bookinwithbingo.blogspot.com/2009/10/hummingbirds-preview-and-giveaway.html

Stairs v. Escalators (Hat-tip to Monkey Cage)

MY TOWN MONDAY: Josh Abbott, Macomb County Prosecutor

I don' t talk much about the older guy in this picture. Josh is a prosecutor in Macomb Country, Michigan. He works in the appellate division, trying to keep felons in jail. This week he was successful with the State Appellate Court in two cases.
Steven Grant's was a high-profile case. He killed and dismembered his wife, Tara, up, stuck her in a freezer in the garage, called the cops and reported her missing. With two children at his side, he was interviewed (tearfully) again and again. Finally he took off barefoot and was chased across the state, arrested, tried and sentenced to a very long term. His appeal was based on not being able to get a fair trial due to the publicity surrounding his case, publicity he was largely responsible for. (A book on this murder came out this week following one last January).

Josh's other case was a mother who stabbed her two young daughters to death, claiming voices told her to do this. She claimed these voices also told her to kill herself but said she had trouble doing this since she had used a knife to kill the two small children (plus the family pets). There were no wounds on her.

Sometimes it worries me that I have two children who spend their days thinking about murder.
But what's a mother to do. Congratulations to Josh for two cases well-prosecuted.

A few other My Town Monday posts can be found at Clair Dickson's blog here.

Childhood Passions

A friend is looking for an online writing group, if you have any ideas about locating one, please comment. Thanks.


On NPR, I listened to a woman who'd basically centered her life around the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, even moving to the town where she lived on the Great Plains. I have met people like this in real life, people who are curators or docents at houses of famous people like the Alcotts or the Brontes, or those who make pilgrimages, write books about it, or collect memorabilia. A childhood passion becomes a lifelong one.

Are our childhood passions deeper than ones that come later? Why did I merely pass my passion for the books of Maude Hart Lovelace to my child rather than keep the flame going myself? Are their adult characters in adult books that hold as significant a place in our hearts as Harry Potter, Robin Hood, Thomas the Train, Nancy Drew, Tom Sawyer, The Little Mermaid, Anne Frank, Tarzan, Superman, Betsy, Tacy and Tib? What passions did you have and did they stick?

THE THINGS YOU DO FOR LOVE

Last night, we wadded through the rain in Greenfield Village (recreation of historical homes village--I bet you have one in your area). It might have been lovely on a dry night with lighted pumpkins along the way, people dressed up like scarecrows and headless horseman, pumpkin, nursery rhyme characters, a few stations handing out candy (although not nearly enough for the price).

We adults griped the whole way about what a shame it was that it was raining, that we couldn't see very well, that it was all outdoors on such a night. Our almost 3 year old didn't say much, just walked along in his Elvis costume (picked for its glittery guitar).

At the end of the 75 minute trek, as we headed for the gate, relieved to be almost in the car, he said, "Can we do it again?"

What was a chore for us was heaven for him. If only we had known it from the beginning? Sorry, Kev. We'll do better at the Zoo Boo in two weeks, rain or shine.

THE SUMMING UP, Friday, October 9, 2009

Next week, I will list the usual suspect with links as I will be out of town. If any of the usual suspects does not have a review, please alert me.



Friday, October 9, 2009

Dick Adler, The Cracked Earth, John Shannon
Victor J. Banis, Island Song, Alan Chin
Paul Bishop, The Mystery Box, Fredrick Highland
Bill Crider, Family Values, K.C. Constantine
Martin Edwards, Patterns in the Dust, Lesley Grant-Adamson
Ed Gorman, In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck
Randy Johnson, Ballroom of the Skies, John D. MacDonald
Lois Karlin, Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
George Kelley, The Other in the Mirror, Philip Jose Farmer
B.V. Lawson, Good Cop, Bad Cop, Barbara D'Amato
Steve Lewis/Bill Prozini, Stiffs Don't Vote, Geoffrey Homes
Todd Mason, Fatal Rendevous, Milo Manning
Donna Moore, Ashes by Now, Mark Timlin
Eric Peterson, Hicksville, Dylan Horrocks
Richard Prosch, Trail Town, Ernest Haycox
James Reasoner, The Hide Hunters, Lewis B. Patten
Rick Robinson, Trouble in Bugland, William Kotzwinkle
Kerrie Smith, Satan in St, Mary's, P.C. Doherty
Jay Stringer, The Walkaway, Scott Phillips
R.T. The Limehouse Text, Will Thomas
Jim Winter, Beyond the Beyond, Lee Goldberg
Dave Zeltserman, Mixed Blood, Roger Smith

Friday's Forgotten Books, October 9, 2009

Sinatra reading.







Starting out with a new feature this week: recent books that were missed. This is a hard time to get noticed with the dearth of print reviews. So send me reviews of recent books that never appeared on the radar as well as old forgotten ones. Here's one Dave Zeltserman read recently.

Dave Zeltserman's book, PARIAH, is out October 1, a follow-up in theme to SMALL CRIMES. Next up, KILLER. You can find him here.

MIXED BLOOD by Roger Smith can’t be considered a forgotten book, not with the hardcover version coming out last March and the trade paperback version being published this December by Picador, but this sledge hammer of a Cape Town crime novel deserves to be discovered by a much larger audience.

What got me interested in Mixed Blood was Smith and I both had movie deals announced for our bank robberies gone bad books within days of each other, and I thought it would be interesting to see his take on it. This being Smith’s first novel, and it taking place in an area I knew nothing about (Cape Town, South Africa), I wasn’t too optimistic when I bought my copy. Less than a page into it I was hooked as I found it a riveting crime novel with this compulsory vibe to the writing, the style reminding me of both Elmore Leonard and Richard Stark.

Mixed Blood has a lot of moving parts with the plot involving an American, Jack Burn, on the run after participating in a bank robbery that ends badly. He has brought his family to Cape Town, South Africa and a seqeunce of events caused by a home invasion from a couple of gang members and a very corrupt and desperate cop, send Jack’s, his wife’s and son’s lives spiraling out of control.

This is a very violent book, but unlike a lot of today’s violent hardboiled books where the violence is over-the-top and has a cartoonish, smirky quality, here the violence is played realistically and in an unsentimental manner. This is powerful stuff, depicting Cape Town as a violent city where life is cheap and there exists little hope for the lives trapped there by poverty and prejudice. Mixed Blood moves at lightening speed towards its inevitable conclusion with Jack and his family doomed by his earlier actions. Without a doubt this is one of the best crime debuts I’ve read in years. The writing has such a mature quality to it that it’s nearly impossible to believe it’s a first book. I’ve since been able to read Smith’s next book, Wake Up Dead, which is out next year, and it’s even better. Readers who love hard hitting, realistic crime fiction—the type of stuff that Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake excelled at—need to discover this book, because Smith’s the real deal, and one of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction I’ve come across.

Victor J. Banis is the author of more than 160 published works in a career spanning nearly half a century. He has been called the "godfather of modern popular gay fiction" (Thomas Long, PhD). Learn more at http://www.vjbanis.com

Island Song

By Alan Chin

Zumaya Boundless, 2008

When it was first suggested to me that I write something for this blog, my mind went quite awhirl. Crime, she suggested? Oh, the choices available. Who, today, other than the occasional scholar, has read James M. Cain's Serenade, though in many ways it is his best work? But the very field of crime novels (perhaps the most American of all literary genres) conjures up so many delicious possibilities, so many reads permeated by Chandler's "scent of fear." Hammet's The Glass Key, perhaps? Is that really his "least interesting work," as some have suggested, or, as others have described it, "his most accessible?"

But wait. Not necessarily a crime story, I was told, which opens a still wider door. What of Maugham's The Summing Up, surely an elegant (if, as it turned out, several years premature) coda to the remarkable life of a man who still today remains an enigma. Or Forster's Maurice, whose essence is the mystery of one's own nature, and truly remarkable for having been written in 1914, so far ahead of its day that it dared not be published until 1971?

In the end, though, and not without great mulling about, I chose what might be considered, length notwithstanding, a "small" book, one which has not been around long enough to be described as forgotten, though I do think it has been unjustly neglected. Nor is it quite a crime story, though there are crimes in it. Violent crimes, yes, but more significantly, in my opinion, crimes against love, which surely ought to be heinous enough for any reader.

Alan Chin's Island Song is, for want of a better description, a love story, but it is so outside the boundaries usually pertinent to that genre that I fear I am starting off on the wrong foot by labeling it so. It could also be described as a "gay novel," but I don't think that label is any more appropriate, either. It is a novel about love, but of many sorts and of many aspects, and some of that love occurs between two men, but this is truly not the thrust of the story, only one element of it.

The novel begins on an eerie metaphysical note. An ancient Hawaiian shaman, known to everyone only as "Grandfather," and his grandson, Songaree, come to a small island in the middle of the night to perform a mystical ceremony, summoning the ancient island Gods, Kane and Pele. "Bring forth the Speaker," the old man chants. "Bring forth the Speaker."

The story's focus shifts to Garret Davidson. Two years after the AIDS related death of his lover in San Francisco, Davidson comes to Hawaii to write a book about his lost love. He wants only to be alone in the beach shack he has rented, to stare out at the endless ocean and heal his wounded spirit.

He has rented the shack, however, from Grandfather, who sends Songoree to serve as Davidson's housekeeper and man-of-all trades. At first, a bitter Davidson resists Song's ministrations, but the old Kahuna has his own plans for these two and in time they become entwined in an extraordinary relationship, a relationship increasingly resented by Song's surfer friends. Violence follows, vicious and sudden, like the bite of a great white shark.

Island Song is not only about the love that gradually grows between Song and Davidson, however. There is as well a profound love between grandfather and grandson; the love that both of them have for their island traditions; the love of friends. Even the all-sacrificing love of a dog for his human partner. Most especially there is a love of nature, and of the mystical.

Wafting through it all, like the tropical breeze rustling the leaves of the palm trees, is the author's love for his idyllic island setting and for the interconnectedness that he sees lying beneath the surface of all existence: "All things begin within the density of silence."

Alan Chin has penned an uplifting read that transports one not only to Hawaii, but ultimately and far more importantly to the island that lies within, the island of the heart. What the author would have us understand is that it is on this island where the wounded and the unhappy—and isn't that at one time or another each of us—will find the healing, the peace, they seek. This is its song.

A beautiful book. The real crime here would be in not reading it.

Donna Moore lives in Glasgow. Her first book is GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET.
You can find her here.

ASHES BY NOW - Mark Timlin
Published: 1993
Setting: London
Protagonist: Nick Sharman
Series?: 9th
First Lines: 'That morning, one not much different from any other, I let myself into my flat, kicked off my shoes and opened the fridge to find out what was left there in the way of alcohol.'
Private Investigator Nick Sharman is contacted by 'Sailor' Grant - a man Nick helped to put away for rape and murder twelve years before when he was a young, enthusiastic policeman. It's a case that has preyed on his mind since then. And now Sailor wants Nick to help him clear his name. Edgy, tough, hard-hitting and exciting - this was my first Mark Timlin novel but it definitely won't be my last.

Jay Stringer is a crime writer, blogger and lover of strawberry milkshakes. His debut novel is under submission, and you can find him at dosomedamage.com and jaystringer.com

THE WALKAWAY by Scott Phillips

THE WALKAWAY was literally a forgotten book for me. At least, it was until recently. I had it on my bookshelf, right next to THE ICE HARVEST which I’m a big fan of.

But something about the follow up stopped me from cracking it open. Maybe it was because it was about Gunther. Really? Of all the characters to follow up with?

He didn’t seem to have any pull for me, not compared to all the other characters that had been drawn so vividly in the first book. More fool me.

One of the strengths of Scott’s writing is that he can take that and make you feel foolish. He invests character into every part that he writes, no matter how small, so that there is something there to return to and draw you in. At this point, I couldn’t imagine the book without Gunther.

It’s a complex book to describe, but a very simple one to read. It spans two time periods, one in the 1950’s and one in the 1980’s. The former is a deliciously messed up slice of noir; it has pimps, addicts, sleaze and violence. It has a sex lottery, and a sociopathic soldier who wants apiece of the action. In the middle of this, Gunther Fahnstiel fins himself trying his best to stop everything going to hell.

The 1980’s builds on this story, but is a separate narrative. Gunther got very lucky at the end of THE ICE HARVEST, but that luck didn’t solve all his problems. The end of the decade finds him living in a care home, fighting a losing battle to keep his memory. Through all of that, though, he is still trying to put things right. He knows that he has something out there somewhere that will bring back his wife and help his friends. He just can’t remember what it is or where he left it.

I can’t think of many, if any, books that manage to combine so many dark noir elements with a real heart and tenderness. This has some real heart of darkness stuff, make no mistake, but it boils down to a very simple and moving love story.

It tends to get billed as both the sequel and the prequel to THE ICE HARVEST. And sure, it is both of those. But that doesn’t really do the book justice, it stands alone as one of the best crime novels of this decade or any other.

Ed Gorman is the author of THE MURDER ROOM and many other crime and western novels. You can find him here.

Ed Gorman, In Dubious Battle

It's bracing to remember, in this time when mega-corporations control our lives, to recall a time when people fought back against those who enslaved them.

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck, a novel I prefer to the preachy and over-calculated Grapes of Wrath, is set in a tiny California town where apple pickers are angry at the growers' association for cutting wages by fifteen cents. The year is 1936 and the forces of the rich and powerful are at war with the powerless workers. Mac and Jim are the lead characters and it is Mac who takes Jim to a meeting of the Communist Party, which wants to convince the workers to strike. They are joined by Doc Burton, a medical man who keeps the worker camp clean so that the cops can't close the place down because of sanitation violations.

Steinbeck's passion can be found on every page, in every detail. The camp and its people are depicted realistically. Steinbeck is not writing a tract. Some of the workers are here just to make trouble; others are stalking horses for the Communists. Others for the growers' association. The poverty, the despair and above all the rage are palpable. As is the sorrow.

For me Jim is the most interesting character in the book because he changes over the course of his experiences. He begins to see that the concept of "the working man's friend" is a lie. The Communists exploit the workers just as the Capitalists do. Doc has his vision of how things should be; Mac believes in political movements; but Jim finds no comfort. The misery he has seen in his years seems a brutal and irrefutable fact of life.

Steinbeck was long ago judged as second-tier to his enemy Hemingway. I never quite knew why. Good as he was, Hemingway could not have painted on a canvas this large and done it with such grace and power. You'll never forget the people you meet here.


Bill Crider

Kerrie Smith

James Reasoner

George Kelley

Randy Johnson

Rick Robinson

Paul Bishop

Todd Mason

Martin Edwards

Eric Peterson

Dick Adler

Richard Prosch

Steve Lewis/Bill Prozini

B.V. Lawson

Lois Karlin

Jim Winter

R.T.

Did They Ask for the Wrong Abbott?

(If they did, I'm taking it anyway).

Hope you'll join me in Phlly. I'll show you my old neighborhood, where I made cheesesteaks all day for $.50 an hour, where I hung out with my car-stealing boyfriend--all of it.

Now what could be better than that-

Maybe meeting the scintillating writers on the list below.

From Busted Flush Press

DAMN NEAR DEAD 2, just a year away!

With the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention nearly upon us (next week in Indianapolis... and if you haven't yet registered, it's not too late!), I thought this would be a good opportunity not only to announce the list of planned contributors to BFP's sequel to the award-winning "geezer noir" anthology, Damn Near Dead (edited by Duane Swierczynski), but also to give a plug to the convention at which it'll be launched next November!

First, the scheduled line-up (with possible surprise additions later!) of Damn Near Dead 2...

Patti Abbott
Ace Atkins
Neal Barrett, Jr.
C. J. Box
Declan Burke
Scott Cupp
Christa Faust
Ed Gorman
Carolyn Haines
David Handler
Gar Anthony Haywood
Dean James
Jennifer Jordan
Toni Kelner
Russel McLean
Denise Mina
Gary Phillips
Scott Phillips
Tom Piccirilli
Bill Pronzini
Cornelia Read
James Reasoner
Kat Richardson
SJ Rozan
Anthony Neil Smith
Don Winslow
Dave Zetlserman

Wow!! It doesn't get much better than that. All of it presided over by editor Bill Crider (whose story, "Cranked," from the first Damn Near Dead was nominated for the Edgar & Anthony and won the Derringer!) and with an introduction by Charlaine Harris!

As we get closer to the release, we'll feature on the blog, excerpts & bios & whatnot, so please stay tuned through 2010. But you definitely need to mark your calendars now for the main launch event: NoirCon 2010 in Philadelphia! There's a good chance that many of the contributors will be at the convention (which is, of course, dedicated to noir & hard-boiled crime fiction... books, graphic novels, movies, TV, more!), so what better place to get your copies signed by several authors.

NoirCon will also mark the release of Akashic Books' latest in their noir anthology series, Philadelphia Noir. Guests of Honor include George Pelecanos & Johnny Temple (owner of Akashic Books). Please go here for more information on NoirCon (or to register).

An Editor's Rejection

I'll stop licking my wounds long enough to say, go check out my review of THE INFORMANT!


I just got a rejection from a zine where I have published before. (It's not one of the usual crime fiction zines). He sent along the reasons he rejected the story. I have never done this before but I send a nasty email back.

The story was about a blue collar, black man. Most of the story took place in his head and he thought largely in cliches. I did this intentionally
because I believe a man like this would think about things this way. He's been trained by society to use such expressions. Now if I am writing this in the third person omniscient, I can't use these cliches, but in third person close, I have to. If I am in his head, this is what's going on.



Second problem, the editor disputed the violence at the end of the story (again true). Now this is the real problem as far as I am concerned and what I want to throw out to you.

If a story is true but a bit over the top, do you have to make it less true to make it believable? In this story, a new stepfather sees his daughter being manhandled by a security guard and overreacts. (It's been setup that he is very anxious to fit into his new family). They get into a scuffle and the guard gets him into a chokehold and he dies. This happened in a mall in Detroit a few years back. So what do you think? Is it so ludicrous that a guard would accidentally kill someone in trying to restrain him that I should have changed the ending? Would you?

First Wednesday Book Review

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TIMEBENDS by Arthur Miller

If someone asked me what autobiography I’ve most enjoyed, I would name TIMEBENDS. Arthur Miller was one of America's most famous playwrights (All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Price, etc.) TIMEBENDS tells not only the fascinating story of his own life, but the story of the last half of the 20th century. Born to modest means, he elevated himself through hard-work and sheer brilliance, having a Broadway hit with All My Sons in his twenties. He recounts here the story of his own life, career and marriages, but what makes this book great is his take on the people he knew and the times. It is also a history of theater and film. We travel through the McCarthy Hearings, HUAC, the Vietnam War, his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, all of it. He is tough on himself and tough on the times. Most autobiographies focus on the self; Miller also focuses on the rest of it. I have seen a half-dozen of Miller’s plays and always taken away a lot to digest. His life, even more so. Highly recommended.

Cynicism

Ida Lupino reading.


In a very interesting post, Richard Wheeler discusses the reason he finds himself unable to enjoy many movies and televisions shows. He feels a disconnect from the cynicism such fare exhibits toward mankind. Any attempt to portray life in a more positive light is regarded as sappy.

I have to agree with him. Over a lifetime, I have watched the trend toward a misanthropic take on everything grow. My daughter often reminds me that labeling a movie "sentimental" was a common insult in our household as she grew up. Did we do her any favors by promoting this view?

What's wrong with making movies about people who are kind and generous? I know we want to see characters as multi-dimensional, but have we gone too far with it? Have we, in fact, reduced them to one-dimensionality we sought to avoid if only the at the opposite end of the spectrum. Is it easier and more fun to make characters weak, evil, degenerate?

Can you think of some movies or TV shows for Mr. Wheeler and myself that see humanity more positively and are still interesting and compelling? FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS manages to create many likable characters that still seem realistic. What about a movie about well-meaing if not noble people? I'd say JUNO did this pretty well. What else has a benevolent view of mankind?

HUMMINGBIRDS, Joshua Gaylord

Congratulations to Josh, my SIL, whose book debuts this week.

HUMMINGBIRDS, Joshua Gaylord

IndieBound Indie Next Notable, November 2009

In Gaylord’s winning debut, teenage girls and their male teachers vie for power at a Manhattan prep school. The author, himself a teacher at a Manhattan prep school, is a keen observer of this privileged world. He captures [the adult] point of view in such lush language that readers might overlook his shrewd, subtle presentation of the students. A very grown-up novel about adolescence and the folly of adults, by an impressive new voice in American fiction.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Provocative and well-written.
—People

The Carmine-Casey prep school girls flutter through Gaylord's debut, but they're not alone; their teachers are insecure flirts and cheats amid divorces and trysts. . . . [T]he complicated web of loyalties, attraction, competition and camaraderie provides much tension as things play out—but not in an expected way. . . . Gaylord's tale of overeducated men and the teenage students who exhibit the finesse and understanding their teachers lack hits all the right notes.
—Publisher's Weekly

Especially good at characterization, Gaylord has delivered a story that's ripe with acute and wry observations on men and women, competition, sexuality, and secrets. He's created a slippery slope, but readers will find the terrain surprisingly navigable as the novel ends. Highly recommended.
—Library Journal

Signings

October 14
Wednesday
6:00 p.m.
Book Launch
Reading/Signing
The Corner Bookstore
1313 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10128
212.831.3554

October 15
Thursday
Time TBD
Panel Discussion
Boston Public Library
Details TBD

October 19
Monday
5:00 p.m.
Reading/Signing
Square Books
160 Courthouse Square
Oxford, MS 38655
662.236.2262

MY TOWN MONDAY, Philadelphia-Society Hill Playhouse

There are few things I enjoy more than going to a play. Last weekend I saw a great one at Performance Network in Ann Arbor, THE BLONDE, THE BRUNETTE AND THE VENGEFUL REDHEAD, all played by the wonderful Suzi Regan.

Growing up in Philly, I didn't get to the theater much-if at all. It wasn't in our budget. But if I had been able to go, one theater I would have gone to is the Society Hill Playhouse, now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

From their website because they say it better:

Society Hill Playhouse is located in the heart of the Society Hill District (just 1/2 block off the "hot" South Street Corridor). It's housed in the historic David Garrick Hall.

This century-old building with its Victorian pressed tin walls and ceilings presents good, entertaining shows. No highbrow, high-falutin, artsy stuff here. Although most of the productions are new comedies or East Coast premieres, these shows are not only accessible, but they also reach out and pull you right in, sometimes literally. Shows like the long-running �Lafferty�s Wake� involve the audience; others let you sit back and enjoy the laughs.

Deen Kogan and husband, Jay, launched Society Hill Playhouse in 1960 as Philadelphia's off-Broadway theater for contemporary American and European playwrights. Gradually, it developed a niche in populist comedies, and Nunsense, scheduled for six weeks, ran for ten years. The Red Room cabaret on the first floor seats 99 - and the main stage located on the second floor seats 223.

Deen is also involved with Lou Boxer in NOIRCON 2010. Stop by and see a play this season if you live nearby.

For more My Town Monday posts, see Clair Dickson's site here.

The Wise Child

Second only to the sex-crazed senior citizen female in TV's overused conceits is the "wise child."

I don't know when this convention began, but in many TV shows, there is a wise-beyond-his/her-years child to balance the lunacy of their parents. This is also a device used in many movies. Witness the recent DEFINITELY, MAYBE. Or JUNO, who had more on the ball than most of the adults in her world.

On TV, ABSOLULTEY FABULOUS had Saffron to balance the antics of Edina and Patsy. On DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, Susan's daughter brings sanity to that household. The new show, COUGAR TOWN, has a teenager with gravitas to balance Courtney Cox's hysterical performance.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE has a twelve year old who seems wiser than any of the adults he lives with. HITCH's son on the SHOWTIME series was a voice of reason. Even the therapist on IN TREATMENT needs the advice of his daughter in his personal life.

When did this trend begin and what other examples are there? I remember the wisdom of Cliff and Clair Huxtable-not their children. It was Ward Cleever who made sense of the world for his sons? Have kids gotten wiser or is this just a TV conceit? And why do they use it over and over?

THE SUMMING UP, Friday, October 2, 2009

Friday, October 2, 2009

Paul Bishop, The Princess Stakes Murders, Kin Platt
Bill Cameron, The Last One Left, John D. MacDonald
Bill Crider, The Assassinator, David Vowell
Martin Edwards, Dupe, Liza Cody
George Kelley, The Mind Thing, Fredric Brown
Ed Gorman, Danger is My Business, Lee Server
Randy Johnson, Wine of the Dreamers, John D. MacDonald
Rob Kitchin, The Lime Pit, Jonathan Valin
Steve Lewis/Bill Prozini, Rogue Male, Geoffrey Household
Steve Lewis/Newell Dunlop, The Brass Go-Between, Ross Thomas
Todd Mason, I'm Dying Here, Damien Broderick and Rory Barnes
Terri Moran, Story Poems, Louis Untermeyer, editor
Scott Parker, The Beasts of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Eric Peterson, Torsos, Brian Michael Bends
Misa Ramirez, Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
James Reasoner, Trail of the Hunter, Dudley Dean
Rick Robinson, Used and Rare, Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
Kieran Shea, M31-A Family Romance, Stephen Wright
Andi Shechter, No Human Involved, Barbara Seranella
Kerrie Smith, The Perfect Murder, H.R.F. Keating
R.T. A Sound Like Thunder, Sonny Brewer
Terry Thayer, B is For Burglar, Sue Grafton
James Winter, Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

Friday's Forgotten Books, October 2, 2009

Eighteen months worth of forgotten books are here, in a slightly convoluted fashion, should you be interested





Terri Thayer is the author of two mystery series, The Quilting Mystery Series and the Stamping Sisters Series. Her latest releases are OCEAN WAVES (A quilting mystery) and INKED UP (a stamping mystery). She can be found blogging on Fridays at http://www.killerhobbies.blogspot.com.

B IS FOR BURGLAR, Sue Grafton

B is for Burglar is perhaps not a so-forgotten book. But the second
installment in Sue Grafton's iconic alphagraphic series was an
important one. It won an Anthony and a Shamus award and offered up
proof that this was a sleuth and an author to keep an eye on.

This was the first mystery series that I remember wanting to follow in
hard cover, not being willing to wait a year for the paperback. I had
to read each book as soon as it came out. I had to own it. B is for
Burglar was the reason. The return of P.I. Kinsey Milhone, just two
weeks after the denouement of the case filed in A is for Alibi, is
welcome. She's still reeling from having killed for the first time but
her spunk and her wit and her heart are intact. Her dealings with the
local police in that case impact her here. She's unable to get the
help she needs and so is forced to form new alliances and, at the very
end, rely solely on herself. As every good sleuth should.

The puzzle is a good one. She's asked to look into the case of a
missing woman, Elaine Boldt. According to her semi-estranged sister,
she's supposed to be in Florida but her neighbors haven't seen her
there. Kinsey crisscrosses the country, looking for answers. In
Elaine's home base of Santa Teresa, California, she finds the remnants
of a murder. Her next door neighbor was killed just before Elaine left
town. Kinsey believes the cases are related, but can't quite pin the
two together. She follows Elaine's tracks, using her cat, her fur
coat and her unpaid bills as clues to her whereabouts. Solid detective
work, cultivating sources and drawing conclusions get Kinsey to where
she needs to be to solve the crime.

A good plot is essential but getting Kinsey's spin on the people and
places that surround her is much of the appeal of this book. We see
the beginnings of her relationship with Henry, her landlord and
Rosie. She has a quick wit and an unique vision of the world that
keeps readers coming back again and again.

Misa Ramirez is the author of Living the Vida Lola (available now) and Hasta la Vista, Lola! (available Feb. 2, 2010) from St. Martin’s Minotaur. Visit Misa at http://misaramirez.com and at Chasing Heroes, a site all about...hereos! (http://chasingheroes.com).

Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

It may seem crazy to some to think of Gone With the Wind, a perennial favorite for close to 75 years now, as a forgotten book. Yet, among many women of my generation (I’m 43), it IS forgotten. That is to say, my friends KNOW about it, but they’ve never READ it. Something unknown keeps them away from it, tempted though they may be. They toss around all kinds of explanations as to why they haven’t read it: it’s dated, it’s too long, they don’t read historical, they’ll watch the movie instead...

I think they’re nuts!

I first read Gone With the Wind when I was in eleventh grade. I couldn’t put it down--even sneaking away to the back room of the little store I worked at to read when I should have been dusting shelves or stocking or any of a number of other retail tasks. But I had to see what Scarlett would do next. How Rhett would respond. What he’d do in return. I was lost in Atlanta, a city I didn’t know from Adam, but which held magical charm for me. And Scarlett’s life philosophy--After all, tomorrow is another day--are pretty good words to live by.

I’ve tried to get friends to through caution to the wind and read the book. I chose it for book club and it was a smashing success. Startling after all these years how the book holds up, how there is so much to discuss in terms of the Civil War, Scarlett’s choices, Rhett’s commitment and unique system of honor, carpetbaggers, yankees, midwifery, the South, and so much more. It was an interesting reminder, as well, to recall how different the movie is from the book. Katie Scarlett had children! Several children, not just the tragic Bonnie Blue Butler.

Scarlett was a feminist--of a sort-- before feminism existed. She used whatever means she had to--whatever was at her disposal--to get what she wanted, and she made no bones about it. Was she always right? No. In fact, usually she was wrong. But we cheer her on anyway because she’s so determined not to let life beat her down.

Gone With the Wind probably isn’t as forgotten as most of the books talked about on this cool web site--in fact, I could take the other side of my own argument and say it will never be forgotten--but to those women who’ve not made the leap yet, or who would rather watch the movie, and to my daughter’s generation (she’s 9), it could well become forgotten unless we, who love it, pass it on.

Here’s to Margaret Mitchell, for creating one unforgettable heroine and a book which should never be forgotten.

Ed Gorman is the author of dozens of novels in the crime and western genres. he also edits anthologies. You can find him here.

DANGER IS MY BUSINESS by Lee Server

Before he became known for his excellent biographies of Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner and Samuel Fuller, Server wrote and co-edited several books about noir. I collaborated with him on two of them. His knowledge of noir films made me feel like the tourist I am.He also wrote one of the finest books on pulp fiction I've ever read, Danger is My Business. It's filled with full colors of cover from every genre of pulps and stories about the writers and artists and editors who made them so successful for two decades. Just one example--do you know how Myrna Loy got her last name? I didn't. It turns out the mysterious Peter Ruric, author of Fast One and several classic hardboiled Black Mask stories, gave it to her when she was still a dancer in a nightclub. Very little is known about Ruric who's real name was George Sims and who was born not far from Cedar Rapids. Each genre gets it own chapter-horror, adventure-western, private eye, romance and sex, hero pulps and science fiction as well as a chapter on the so-called Fiction Factories that ruled pulp land. The romance and sex chapter surprised me. These pulps took real risks given the prevailing morality of the era. Robert Leslie Bellems set the tone for the naughty hardboiled male writers while women turned in the real erotica. Same with the horror pulps. Looking at the covers I'm struck by how many of them depicted female bondage. The scantily clad (and usually great looking) heroines were always tied up by some fiend.We all know how a lot of blurbs work. One writer wants to help another writer so he praises the book. You can usually tell when the blurb writer is log rolling. "I don't think I've ever read a novel as stupendously suspenseful or as monumentally wonderful or as Nobel-worthy as Sure I Killed, I Killed Him Good. And there's print on every page! Honest!"But here are two blurbs that ring true for sure."Danger is My Business Takes me back forty years to my beginnings. Thank God for the pulps!" Elmore Leonard"Danger is My Business is pure gold. It is so much fun to read. Lee Server's enthusiasm is well-matched to a writing style so witty and a knowledge of the subject so wide-ranging that Danger I My Business is a total page-tuner, as involving as any of the magazines he's opened for us." Donald E. Westlake This is a book that belongs in your library.

Andi Shechter has been a publicist, chat host, interviewer, convention-planner, essayist and reviewer. She lives in Seattle with far too many books.

NO HUMAN INVOLVED, Barbara Seranella

The other day, in a fit of rereading (I get this way after trying two or three new books and finding them wanting) I picked up DEADMAN'S SWITCH by Barbara Seranella. This is a book I've read at least three times and will, undoubtedly read again. It was the last book Barbara wrote and I got annoyed thinking about that. It was the first book in a new series that featured a fascinating and terrific new protagonist, a woman with an interesting job in crisis management and an interesting life. Charlotte Lyon has obsessive compulsive disorder , an at times seriously disabling condition and Seranella it brilliantly – she was the "un-Monk" to me. (I know people with OCD and cannot watch the overbearing neurotic "Monk" who simply refuses to deal with his illness but instead expects the world to deal around him. Rrrrr.)

Sorry, off track. But see, the thing is that Barbara Seranella died in January of 2007 and that really frosts me. I'm still mad. I wasn't ready to lose a friend and to lose the person who created Munch Mancini, one of mystery's best protagonists. Her first book was NO HUMAN INVOLVED and it featured a character few of us had ever met. Munch was a junkie, an addict and was in trouble. In this first book, it's Munch's last day as an addict. She's going to get clean and sober. Throughout the history of the series, we watch her learn about all the life she missed while she was on drugs, all the hell she left behind and watch her try to get beyond it – something that's hard to do. She has debts she'll never pay, but she is learning to join society , as she puts it. Munch takes on responsibilities, sobers up without being preachy, faces the world pretty squarely and is just great to spend time with.

A couple years after I read NO HUMAN INVOLVED, I was hosting a discussion about hard-boiled mystery at a convention on a Sunday morning, It was a casual thing, a bunch of us sitting around in a circle and chatting. One of the participants in the conversation was so interesting, had so much to say and yeah, that was Barbara Seranella. I valued her friendship and the chance to catch up with her when she came to town on a book tour, and I miss her still. She had talent and used it. Her books are well crafted, and her protagonists unforgettable. This week, I'm reading my way through the Mancini series and being impressed all over again. I don't want her to be gone.

Todd Mason
Kerrie Smith
Martin Edwards
Paul Bishop
Rick Robinson
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
Scott Parker
Bill Crider
James Reasoner
RT
Jim Winter
Bill Prozini/Steve Lewis
The Rap Sheet
Kieran Shea
Steve Lewis 2
Terrie Moran
Eric Peterson
Rob Kitchin
Rick Robinson

What Makes a Movie Cult?

CONGRATULATIONS TO RANDY ROHN (r2)FOR HIS SELECTION IN THE BEST MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR!!!!

Kieran Shea commented the other day that THE BIG LEBOWSKI is a cult movie. And I hear that all the time so I guess it's true. But for me, the humor in it is pretty mainstream. It has an A-actor cast and well-financed directors that get wide distribution.

I have always thought of cult movies as low budget, campy kinds of things. Like ROCKY HORROR or PLANET NINE.

What makes a movie a cult movie? Is is strictly that it becomes popular after its initial release? Is it that it has a small but ardent audience who will view it repeatedly. Is it that it has unusual themes? You tell me. What is your favorite cult movie?