Tuesday Night Music: Dean Martin

Marital Strife

BREAKING BAD is the biggest source of tension at our house.

I think it's the most brilliant TV show since THE WIRE. Phil thinks it glorifies the drug business by making it so much the subject of interest. It think it exposes it as the soul-sucking business it is. If he didn't run off to check the Tiger score so often, he might see the scenes where Walt is exposed as the slimebag he's become.

I detest Drive-ins, Diners and Dives. Shuffle the deck-every episode is the same. Phil loves it. Loves watching meat cook on a grill. I can respect a good cooking show, but damn, this isn't it.

I know we need another TV, but we both kind of think we can find common ground. Right now, JUSTIFIED and MAD MEN are the only shows we both like. And I ask you, how different is JUSTIFIED from BREAKING BAD.

Is there a TV show you and your spouse or partner disagree about? Or do you go to your separate corners.

"How I Came to Write This Story" Paula Fleming and Paul Brazill

Uncle Albert's photograph falls off of any wall it's hung on. He looks just like Phil did in his youth. We never knew the man in life but he haunts us if we let him.



Two Stories from Deadly Treats

Treats, Tricks, and Terror in Tin Lake.” Paula Fleming

Anne Frasier contacted me about a Halloween-themed multigenre anthology she was editing and asked if I would write a story for it. Saying yes was easy. I love Halloween. And I love multigenre collections, being an omnivorous reader myself. At first I thought I’d do something set in pagan Britain where the holiday has its roots. But Anne was looking for stories in the 3,000-word range, and I didn’t think I was skilled enough to develop a historical setting unfamiliar to many readers as well as tell a good story that succinctly. So I opted for a contemporary setting everyone would immediately recognize, one I wouldn’t have to devote any words to explaining.

Then I asked, What’s fun about Halloween? Costumes. Costumes are definitely fun. We can be anyone we want on Halloween. We’re granted the power to reimagine ourselves. And costumes are close cousins of disguises. What if a lizard lady from another planet wore a burka in public so she could pass as human? And what if she was stuck in a small town where a woman in a burka was just slightly less alarming than a lizard lady from outer space? I thought that was interesting. I had a protagonist.

What else is interesting about Halloween? From its origins to today, it’s a test of the bonds of community. Children, the community’s most vulnerable members, have license to demand food from the adults of the community, even adults they don’t know. Adults who deny this basic hospitality may be subjected to nonviolent “tricks.” My homesick, burka-wearing lizard lady would view Halloween as an opportunity to be accepted into her adopted community. But maybe in past years, no one let their kids go to the Muslim woman’s house. So this year, she takes a more aggressive approach. My protagonist had a goal.

And how does an unfriendly community react when confronted by outright hate? My thought is, with decency. I had a plot.

And then I wrote it, and tone and voice emerged, and the story was told.

"This Old House" Paul Brazill

Like Bukowski said, it's the little things that send us to the mad house. The shoelace snapping. The gate creaking. The leaky tap dripping. The toilet blocking.

The mundane. The everyday. Horrible, horrible things. Things that make a horrible life worse.

We've all seen it: someone buys a house or a flat which is supposed to be a bargain and then the place eats their money as they try to fix the unfixable. And then the rest of their life starts to crumble.

So this was the idea behind This Old House, the story that Anne Frasier has published in Deadly Treats. And I'm so pleased to have the story in there.

Shakin' Stevens meets Oscar Wilde would be my pitch. No, really.

Bio: Paul D. Brazill's stuff has appeared in loads of classy print and electronic magazines and anthologies, including the 2011 Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime. His noir/horror series Drunk On The Moon and short sharp story collection Brit Grit are out now.His blog, You Would Say That, Wouldn't You? is: http://pdbrazill.blogspot.com/

###

One- Book Wonders

Saw a good documentary on Harper Lee called HEY, BOO: HARPER LEE and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. ("Hey. Boo," is what Scout says, when she finally meets Boo Radley.)

Lee kept her silence both in this film and over the years. She has not been interviewed since the sixties. It is also poignant that she never wrote another book. No one knows why although I suspect it was the very success of this one.

Quite nauseating though how Truman Capote ended his lifetime friendship with her when she won the Pulitzer. He insinuated for years that he had a hand in the book.

Who are some of the other one-book wonders?

"HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY" Chris LeTray

How I Came to Write This Story:

Chris La Tray



"Vampires are Pussies"

in Noir at the Bar





It's all about being in the right place

at the right time. Last Fall I was

scheduled to be in St. Louis, and

it just happened to coincide with a

Noir at the Bar episode slated to

occur while I was in the vicinity.

So I dropped Jed Ayres a note to see if I could get on the bill. I could hear

 the heavy sigh in his return email when he said, "Yeah, I guess. If we can't get

anyone better." Apparently they couldn't, and I was on the flyer.*



Fast forward a couple months and all of us N@B readers were invited to contribute

a story to a print anthology that was being compiled to benefit Subterranean Books,

the shop just down the street from where we'd rocked the house. The idea was to use

the story we had read at our reading, or something else, whatever we wanted.



The story I'd read, "Buster Lee and the Chucklehead Who Wouldn't Stay Down,"

had just come out in Crimefactory's special Kung Fu Factory edition,

so I wanted to do something a little different. So here’s the overwritten

backstory of where my story came from.



I’ve only recently returned to doing any kind of fiction writing.

Two summers ago I’d taken a couple writing workshops, all around the time

I first started reading a lot of crime fiction for the first time.

I was also reading some great crime/espionage graphic novels;

stuff like Ed Brubaker’s Criminal and Incognitoseries,

Greg Rucka’s Queen and Country, and a great little story by Beau Smith

called Cobb: Off the Leash. All of this reading and writing inspired me to

take a shot at Nanowrimo that Fall; I wrote a mess of a novel that I realized

has sort of an Urban Fantasy vibe to it. Since that genre usually makes

my skin crawl.

I shelved it because I wasn't sure I wanted to pursue it any deeper,

nor did I know what kind of market there is for what I was trying to pull off.

It is a superhero story, with the main character being enlisted as the "official"

superhero of the US government. His "hero" name is US Idol, and he hates it.

I’d read one other superhero novel and didn’t like it at all, and wondered

if one could even work.



Then I read Christopher Farnsworth's Blood Oath, a novel where the setting

is kinda/sorta like what I envisioned, about a vampire who is basically

the President's secret weapon (the follow-up, which came out this year,

is actually called The President's Vampire)(coincidentally, I’d only picked the book

 up after getting a recommendation from Beau Smith to do so). The book kicked my ass

all over the place, and suddenly my superhero story seemed more viable. It made me

realize that something akin to an urban fantasy didn't have to be painted with the

“hot-chick-in-leather-on-a-motorcycle-and-a-katana-on-her-back-who-has-a-werevampire-

lover” brush. It could be fun, and gritty, and cool. I’d wanted to take the things

I love in crime and espionage and adventure and horror-type stories and throw them

all in one big hopper, the probe set high to near overflowing, and here was a guy

pulling it off in grand fashion. I was inspired. So I started playing around with

my idea again.



I'd considered serializing the novel online, and still might . . .

but when the opportunity to write a story for N@B came up, I thought I'd take a stab

 at something featuring US Idol. I wrote it and submitted it to Jed along

with another, more "typical" crime story. Jed was game to use either one, and

I chose the Idol yarn. It's quite a bit different from the other stories in the collection, but I'm happy with it and grateful to Jed, and Scott Phillips, for not only putting the anthology together but also for letting me participate in N@B. It's been a lot of fun. Hopefully people will survive the other tales in the book sane enough to appreciate my little yarn at the very back of the thing.



* This isn't exactly how this went down. I offered to pay for a slot.

Jed said, "Hey, ten bucks is ten bucks...." and I was in.



Chris has generously offered to provide an e copy of NOIR AT THE BAR to a commenter

who correctly identifies the city where that bar is.



All correct responder's names will be thrown into a hat. 



Bio: Chris La Tray is a rocker, a writer, and a wannabe adventurer.

His nonfiction writing has appeared in the Missoula Independent, 

Vintage Guitar magazine, and World Explorer

Sunday Writer's Forum

Do you have someone read your story before sending it out if so do you take suggestions seriously or are you your own best critic?

(Michael said no, that he is his own best critic)

I always have my husband read my stories--although he is way too easy on me, but that's okay because I factor that in. I also run most stories by my writing group and they are good at picking up troublesome factoid things. Like is that amount of money feasible. Would that be enough time.

But since they don't have much time to digest it, in the end I have to be my own critic.

HOW I CAME TO EDIT THIS BOOK: CHRIS RHATIGAN

How I Came to Edit this Book: Pulp Ink by Chris Rhatigan

Last winter I was emailing back and forth with Nigel Bird about his brilliant collection of short stories, Dirty Old Town. He mentioned that I should put together an ebook of my stories. I didn’t feel ready for that.

But I got to thinking. I was reading all of these excellent writers on the internet. Writers who made me fall in love with the short story. Why not get them together for an anthology?

I threw this idea out to Nigel and said I would do it as long as he was on board. We batted around a few ideas about a theme until we settled on soundtrack titles and snippets of dialogue from a Tarantino movie as prompts. Then we put together a list of some of our favorite writers and asked if they would be interested in this project.

I was stunned that almost every writer we asked signed on. The stories rolled in and they were exactly what we were looking for – dark crime fiction with style and swagger. Nigel and I made some minor changes, but every story was a gem when we received it. Steve Weddle with Needle Publishing signed on, too, taking the formidable task of formatting the whole book and giving us good advice, and we were on our way.

Of course, there were a few bumps in the road, and I’ve learned a few things about being an editor. One thing is that you can recover from any crisis. Nigel is fantastic about this – a cool head every time – and I’ve taken my cues from him. Every problem that’s come up we’ve managed to solve.

And I think that’s because our original vision was sound. We wanted to put together a collection featuring authors whose writing we loved, loosely link their stories together, and make it very affordable.

Bottom line is that editing Pulp Ink has been a fantastic experience. It’s a little contribution to the form that I love – the short story.

Saturday Night Music, Phil Ochs

Voyeurism in the Movies

Jackie works as a CCTV operator in the 2007 Scottish film RED ROAD. Each day she watches over a housing estate in Glasgow, protecting the people living under her gaze. One day a man appears on her monitor, a man she thought she'd never see again.

This film took its time in explaining itself, but in the end was a good one.

RED ROAD is about watching other people and some great films have dealt with the subject. In this case, she is paid to watch. But in many cases, the watching comes about in other ways.

What is your favorite film about watching? I'm going to pick the obvious choice since it's my favorite movie and go with REAR WINDOW.

The Summing Up, Friday, August 26, 2011

Check out my review of POINT BLANK on Crimespree Cinema.






The Summing Up, Friday, August 26, 2011

Patti Abbott, Replay, Ken Grimwood
Yvette Banek, The Album, Mary Roberts Rinehart
Joe Barone, Another Man's Moccasins, Craig Johnson
Paul Bishop, Snowball, Jimmy Sangster
Bill Crider, Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters
Scott Cupp, Sacred Locomotive Flies, Richard Lupoff

Martin Edwards, The Piccadilly Murder, Anthony Berkeley
Ed Gorman, Hollywood Rock, Marshall Crenshaw
Jerry House, Shadow of Night, August Derleth
Randy Johnson, Brass Knuckles, Frank Gruber
George Kelley, Red Lights, Georges Simenon
Margot Kinberg, Maigret and the Yellow Dog, Georges Simenon
Rob Kitchin, The Big Mango, Jake Needham (Marshal Cavendish)
B.V. Lawson, Murder Intercontinental, ed. Cynthia Manson and Kathleen Halligan
Evan Lewis, The Punisher in "Welcome Back Frank"
Steve Lewis/William Deeck, The Beautiful Mrs. Davenant, Violet Tweedale
Todd Mason, Epoch, Fall 1955; Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (F & SF) Sept. 1955
J.F. Norris, Frost, Donald Wandrei
Richard Pangburn, How to Sell, Clancy Martin
David Rachels, The Cage, Kenzo Kitakata
James Reasoner, Dial "M" for Man, Orrie Hitt
Gerard Saylor, Criminal, Ed Brubaker * Sean Phillips
Ron Scheer, Isidro, Mary Austin
Kerrie Smith, The Hunting Ground, Francis Clifford
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, Dead Famous, Ben Elton

Friday's Forgotten Books, August 26, 2011

I'll be away on September 18th. Week off perhaps since a bunch of us will be in St. Louis? Or would someone else like to gather links?

Blogger has spacing issues today. Sorry.

Patti Abbott, REPLAY, Ken Grimwood

REPLAY by Ken Grimwood was written in 1986. It tells the story of man who has a coronary in his late thirties and wakes up to find himself a high school student again. He quickly comes up with the idea of having an older friend place bets on horse races and football games where he knows the outcome and proceeds through this new life, a hugely wealthy man until it happens again.
And again, and again, with each life taking unexpected turns as he makes new choices.
He meets two other replayers, which allows him to discuss his situation.
This was a real page turner (recommended by Jeff Meyerson). Grimwood manages to insert some complexity into the thinking while keeping the pace up. Highly recommended. I can't help but wonder why this was never a movie. Could have been a terrific one. Or even a TV series. That might be even better.

Ed Gorman is the author of STRANGLEHOLD and TICKET TO RIDE. You can find him here.
I've always liked Marshall Crenshaw's songs especially the heartbroke ones which he manages to write with a light but no less painful touch. I saw him once in person just after his career started to slide. He's an interesting guy and a fine musician.

The interesting guy angle is on display here with this guide to rock'n roll movies.

The Guide goes all the way to 1994. The reviews are sometimes serious demonstrating that besides being a true rocker he's also a perceptive critic. But the most fun for people like me who grew up in the fifties are his reviews of the rock movies of that decade (and on into the sixties).

God were those movies terrible. I lost count of how many had the same basic plot--town/suburb of oldsters hate rock but kids put on a show for charity/fame and convince even the crabbiest oldster in the film what great young `uns they are after all. And those were the ones that were at least about rock `n roll. There were hybrids put together by adults who didn't have a clue. Thus in the same movie you might have Chuck Berry, the Platters and Liberace.

One of these was so bad that Crenshaw calls it "The attempted murder of rock `n roll." This starred Jimmy Clanton as "Teenage Millionaire." The first thing wrong with it Crenshaw notes is that Clanton "looks about twenty-eight." Here you had Jackie Wilson and Dion appearing with Zasu Pitts (talented actress who started in the silents) and that great actor...Rocky Graziano. Crenshaw's summary line for this one: "The producers of this film are probably on the run because there's no statute of limitations on crimes like this."

Inevitably he gets to Elvis movies and has a great time with them. He says that in "Kissin Cousins" "Elvis fights heroically for a nuclear missile site" to be implanted in this lovely bucolic setting (thanks El). There's also a weird sad note for those of us who liked the Fifties western series "Sugarfoot." At the time Will Hutchins appeared in his Elvis movie he was employed by a studio as a bicyle messenger. Edd Byrnes deserved this fate not Will Hutchins.

A dazzling, smart, fond look at the good and bad that has been done to rock `n roll in both American and British films (The Brits were at least as goofy as we were). You can't go wrong with this one.

Yvette Banek
Joe Barone

Paul Bishop
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards

Jerry House

Randy Johnson
George Kelley

Margot Kinberg

Rob Kitchin

B.V. Lawson

Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/William Deeck
Todd Mason
J.F. Norris

Richard Pangburn
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Gerard Saylor
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang

My Life at the Theater, Oleanna

WARNING: This is a tough final scene and it does not always end like this.

I saw this David Mamet play at the Library Theater Company in Manchester, England in 1995. At that time I felt the conflict over sexual harassment was interesting and it was a well done production starring Melanie Hudson and Robert Jezek. It concerns accusations of improper behavior between a professor and a student. It was a nerve-wracking play to watch with a particularly difficult second act. It is said Mamet wrote it in response to the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings.

I have seen it again in a local production and as a movie. The ending of this play and audience response to it has changed over the years. Who comes out on top and what we think of it has changed, in other words.

It has become clear that Mamet never intended this to be a fair-minded look at sexual harassment. At the time, we knew less about him and his views.

I wouldn't see it again.

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Rob Kitchin

The Rule Book

by Rob Kitchin

The advice: The first line needs to jump straight down your throat and grab you.My response: Now there’s an idea.

The line: His eyes fixed on the sword and started to travel its length, down from the black handle, over the plain hilt and along the two inch wide shaft to where it penetrated the young woman’s mouth.

It all fell into place pretty quickly from there. A police procedural following several police teams as they try to catch a killer who is leaving a trail of seemingly random victims dotted around Dublin, Ireland, each accompanied by a chapter from a book on how to commit the perfect murder. I’m a fan of police procedurals. Choosing to write one was an easy decision.

There were four things I wanted to try and achieve. First, that the police investigation was as realistic as possible. I normally don’t mind authors taking liberties with how things would normally occur with the exception of fiction, such as police procedurals, that seek to portray a social realism. Too often I get frustrated, and I know police officers do as well, with stories that include procedures or events that simply would not happen in real life. The result is that The Rule Book has a fairly large cast of characters as in cases where there are multiple linked murders, each murder is investigated by a separate team that reports to a central coordinating team. No set of murders are investigated by a single inspector with his trusted sergeant working in seeming isolation from anybody else. To give a focus to the book, the lead character is a Detective Superintendent whose job it is to run the central coordinating team. To make sure I got all the detail right, I spend quite a bit of time talking to a former Detective Superintendent from the Irish National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and he read through drafts of the manuscript a couple of times as well.

Second, I wanted the lead character to be an ordinary police officer, not some maverick or super-intelligent investigator. I wanted him to be immersed in a situation where he is out of his depth, where he’s trying to cope with multiple pressures at home and work and isn’t doing such a good job of it. Third, was to keep the tension and pace high from the get-go. Fourth, I wanted to subvert the usual endings of crime novels. A large proportion of crimes in real life are not solved and cases are often open-ended and messy.

The next stage of finding a publisher took way longer than writing the book. In the process, the manuscript was edited and tweaked in response to the advice of agents and editors. One victim was my fourth aim. The view of agents and editors seems universally to be that ambiguous or open-ended or messy endings are a definite no-no; there should be definite and clean resolution. We compromised. Kind of. There were a couple of other compromises around the description of characters and violence. The original draft had little of both. I prefer readers to use their imagination in respect to both, filling in the gaps based on what characters say and do. I was asked to add in both. Thankfully the reviews to date have been very positive (see http://theviewfromthebluehouse.blogspot.com/p/rule-book.html), but where I have received critique it is related to these two aspects. I’m happy with the book, but if I have a regret it’s that I didn’t resolutely stick to my guns on all aspects of style and content.

The other thing I probably shouldn’t have done was write the second in the series without having placed the first book. There’s not a lot you can do with a child book when the parent is still waiting to see daylight. That book, The White Gallows, has subsequently been published (see http://theviewfromthebluehouse.blogspot.com/p/white-gallows.html). The third, Ghostland, is finished and presently under consideration by a publisher.

The Rule Book was recently released in the Kindle format. Here are some links if it sounds like your kind of book.

Paper

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rule-Book-Rob-Kitchin/dp/1906710570/
http://www.amazon.com/Rule-Book-Rob-Kitchin/dp/1906710570/

Kindle

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Rule-Book-ebook/dp/B004XDBBIA/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Rule-Book-ebook/dp/B004XDBBIA/

The Scariest Scene in a Horror Movie

In Sunday's NYT, a few horror movie directors were asked the single scariest scene in a movie and this scene from THE SHINING was mentioned often.

I think the sound of the wheels of Danny's bike going down the hallways was even scarier.

What about you? What is the scariest scene you have watched?

How I Came to Write This Story: Glenn Gray

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY

Glenn Gray

BIGOREXIA

Basically, it was like this: I gotta write another muscle story. I’d been working on this novel about black market steroids for a while. I needed a break. I wanted to write some stories about the muscle world; steroids, rage, gyms. The psychopathology associated with the hardcore element of this subculture. And the characters that populate this world. Figured it would help flesh out that world in my mind.

The first story was “Jacked,” in Thuglit (thanks Big Daddy). Then “Mr. Universe,” which ended up in Blood, Guts and Whiskey (thanks again, Big Daddy). Then “Muscle Chick,” in PWG #3, “Balls to the Wall,” in Pulp Pusher, “Johnny Boy,” and “Strong Island Disco Doorman,” in Powder Burn Flash, “Marvin K Stein’s Killer Penis,” in OOTG 6 Sexploitation, and “Ass Shot,” in the long silent, Shred of Evidence.

Then I figured if I wanted to put a bunch of these muscle-themed stories together as a collection someday, I would need a couple more. Some longer stuff. Brainstormed. Decided to tap into the crazy days I spent pumping iron in Venice Beach in the early 80’s. Out came “Venice Beach Birthday Boogie.” Steve Weddle and crew were kind enough to accept it for an upcoming NEEDLE. Awesome.

Okay, maybe one more.

Bigorexia. In my mind, that’s a word that begs to be a story title. Ever since I heard it, I knew it had to be a story. Bigorexia is a real psychiatric term and is relatively new, coined in the 90’s. Roberto Olivardia, PhD wrote the first article in 1996 describing bigorexia/muscle dysmorphia. It’s also referred to as Adonis Complex. Some refer to it as reverse anorexia, and it’s part of the spectrum of body dysmorphic disorders. It’s like this:

Anorexic: I’m so fat. I can never be thin enough, even if it kills me.

Bigorexic: I’m so small. I can never be big enough, even if it kills me.

There are multiple criteria that need to be filled to make the diagnosis. I wanted the character in this story to exhibit most, if not all, of these traits. So I already had a fully fleshed out character. I wanted my character to be the ultimate bigorexic, not just using steroids, but site enhancement oils too.

I get the whole concept of wanting to be big, muscular. Training like crazy, dieting. Feels great. I even understand the desire to use anabolic steroids, to get to new levels. I mean, you still need to train like an animal, eat right. It’s damn hard work. Muscle doesn’t just “happen”.

BUUUUTTT. Injecting site enhancement oils. Man, that’s a whole different ball game. Instant size with no work. Once I started researching, I was hooked. Fascinated. Googled, “synthol freaks,” and was blown away by what I saw.

Who does this?

To this extent?

……..The BIGOREXIC.

Site enhancement oils were first developed by a German bodybuilder, Chris Clark in the early 90’s, as a way to fine-tune right before a contest. Just a few cc’s. Maybe if the calves were weak, you could give them a little boost. Or maybe one bicep was a tad smaller, asymmetric, you could add a bit of oil right before a show, even things out.

BUUUUTTT. Some people just can’t control themselves.

It’s a disease.

Now, there’s a story.

Glenn Gray has numerous stories published both online and in print. He has stories forthcoming in Shotgun Honey, Pulp Modern, Needle and Beat to a Pulp: Round 2.

D*CKED

This book should be loads of fun.

Thanks to Kieran Shea, Greg Bardsley and Jed Ayres for bringing it to fruition and including me.

You can buy D*CKED here. I am sure mine ("Are You Going To Take Care of This Guy or Not") is the tamest one of the bunch.

Forgotten Movies, A Taste of Honey

In the 1960s British working class life had a good run at the movie theater. A Taste of Honey was one of my favorites. It featured a knockout performance by Rita Tushingham as Jo, a girl tossed out on the streets of Salford by her Mum, who gets pregnant by a black man and eventually finds a home with a gay man.

The gritty look of this film suggests noir and it is. The song, performed by Herb Albert among others, was a big success. When did we give up making domestic dramas about real people. If we get this sort of gritty film today, it usually concerns a crime.

The film was directed by Tony Richardson.

Other forgotten movies can be found here.

Carmen in 40 seconds by Jean Pierre Jacquet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZRXQ2TzzqTY

Take a look so Jean Pierre can win!

Sisters in Crime-Blogging Challenge from Barbara Fister

And the challenge is: blog about books or stories written by women. If you'd like to join in, Barbara Fister is here.

BLACK SECONDS is the second book by Karen Fossum I've read. And the ending really caught me up. An unexpected ending is not a prerequisite for me so I am always amazed when someone pulls it off. And pull it off, she did in a most satisfying way. It all made sense, the clues were there, and yet I didn't see it coming.

Fossum takes elements of the police procedural and mixes them with psychological drama in BLACK SECONDS. Women writers seem more interested in doing this. Less concerned with action and more concerned with motivation and character, which makes for a good read for me. The great exemplar of this sort of writing was Margaret Millar and I think Fossum is a worthy successor.

Inspector Sejer is the series detective in the two Fossum books I have read and it is he who doggedly follows the few threads he is able to find in the story. BLACK SECONDS concerns the disappearance of a ten year old girl on a yellow bike.

A secondary plot deals with a cousin of the girl--a teenager who crashes his car. This plot gradually dominates the novel. But the two strands come together in the end.

Karin Fossum is very adept at both keeping you reading and in putting depth and complexity in her plot. I am anxious to read a third book by Ms. Fossum.

Anyone else read Karin Fossum?

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY" Jack Bates

Hat tip to Rob for the Hopper picture.

How I Wrote This Story: Four Lanes

by Jack Bates

When I was an undergrad, I did an assignment for a poetry class that I based on the paintings of Edward Hopper. The poems were sharp, brief, and cut to the quick of the emotion of the subject. It coincided with an earlier assignment I’d had in an acting class where we had to study a painting and do improvised scenes based on what we saw or imagined we saw within the borders of the frame. I never forgot how both of those exercises opened and strengthened my creativity.

Earlier this past spring, Jim Harrington from Apollo’s Lyre asked me to contribute to a special summer post of writers from our crime fiction writing group. I went back to my book of Hopper paintings. I chose Four Lane Road, altering the title to Four Lanes, to be the foundation of my story. If you’ve ever looked at Hopper’s work, I’m sure you’ve noticed the stark images of people lost in thought or just lost. Nighthawks, which I recently saw ‘live’ on a trip to Chicago, is the picture of noir for me: lonely souls in an isolated location at night and no one talks but everyone has something on his or her mind and it’s probably troubling.

Four Lane Road depicts a man sitting on the back porch of a 1930’s era filling station as he stares absently down an empty stretch of divided highway. Leaning out a window behind him is a woman, presumably his wife, who appears to be giving him an earful about something he’s heard all too often from her. For me, that became the genesis of the story. The man had dreams of cars filling his pockets with cash as he filled the tanks. Unfortunately, that reality has been slow in happening and she’s not shy about letting him know it. Pushed to his breaking point by an eroding dream and a nagging spouse, he takes matters into his own hands and it is definitely troubling.