Posts
Sandra Parshall
At a recent book signing, I met a couple who live in a four-room apartment with 8,000 books.
I cannot tell you how deeply I envy them. Our home is bigger than theirs, and we don’t have 8,000 books. I’ll bet we don’t have more than 3,000. But it’s not from lack of trying -- or buying, I should say. I can’t go into a bookstore without wanting to own every volume in it. What in this world is more wondrous, magical, intriguing, alluring than a book? An entire world contained between two covers!
It’s not the content alone that I love. I enjoy the feel of a book in my hands, I admire a sturdy spine, I appreciate an attractive cover and an elegant design. I’m a type junky and always check to see whether the book includes a note about the type. I’m disappointed when I don’t find that information. (My favorite typeface, at least for the moment, is Sabon, which is used in Stephen Booth’s British editions.)
Once I own a book, I never want to let it go. When we moved, about 15 years ago, from one Washington, DC suburb to another, we decided it was a good time to thin our book collection. We went through them all and filled box after box to donate to the Arlington County Central Library’s used book room. As soon as they were gone, I began to suffer the most agonizing remorse. How could I have them go? How could I live without them? For a long time after we moved to the county next door, I made regular trips to the Arlington Library, where -- yes -- I gradually bought back a fair number of the books we had donated. They’re mine. They belong at home with me, not with strangers.
I’m constantly adding new ones, but that doesn’t mean I’ll dump the old ones to make room. We have a Modern Library edition of The Grapes of Wrath with a $1.65 price on the cover. We have one of the early editions of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I consider the greatest American novel ever written. We have a 1910 edition of David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson and a copy of Middlemarch that is so old the pages have turned dark brown and I'm almost afraid to handle it.
I’ll admit that I never look inside most books after I’ve read them. I just like to see them on the shelf. A few, though, call me back again and again. Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass still enthrall me after many readings, and make me homesick for a romantic, idealized East Africa that I’ve never seen and which, in truth, probably never existed. It doesn’t have to be real; I can go there anytime I want to by opening a book. I also reread passages from Thomas H. Cook’s psychological suspense novels when I feel as if I’ve forgotten how to write (a dismayingly frequent occurrence). Cook shows me the way. Dinesen’s memoirs, plus To Kill a Mockingbird and one or two of Cook’s novels, are the books I never want to be without.
Occasionally I get the notion that I should reduce the glut of books in our house. But how to do it with minimal trauma? I could try the method I once heard Donna Andrews describe. She has plastic bins in her garage where she places books she’s decided to give away. This gets them out of the house proper without the agony of a sudden, final parting. They’re still there in the garage if she changes her mind. When she’s used to the idea of parting with them, they’re finally donated. Yes, I could try this approach. But I know myself too well. Regardless of where I donated books, if they remained accessible to me I might try to get them back before long, even if I had to pay for them.
But enough about my passion for books. Let’s talk about yours.
How many books do you own?
How many have you bought in the last year?
What is the oldest book you own?
What is the one book you will never part with?
Which book do you reread (in part or in full) most often?
How many books do you own but have never read?
How many books do you give away in an average year?
Do you ask friends and family to buy you books as gifts? Do they -- or do they insist on giving you “something more personal”? (And don’t you just hate that?)
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Time Travel
Sharon Wildwind
Come with me for a short foray into time travel. Thirty-seven years ago today I climbed on a plane to go to Vietnam. I was a lot younger then.
Friday, May 15, 1970/Travis Air Force Base, California
Waiting is so hard.
The terminal building is a large grey warehouse of corrugated iron; combat boots make hollow sounds on the concrete floor. Inside men in fatigues or summer uniforms wait everywhere, sleep on grey wooden benches, read paperback books with the cover folded back, or wander and smoke cigarettes. I’ve been down here three times only to be told I’m not yet manifested on a plane.
Sue and I are afraid. We have heard stories that the Viet Cong rape women prisoners, that they never take women prisoners alive, that in Tet of ’68 nurses were issued a suicide capsule. Since no U.S. service women has ever been captured, our imaginations, fed by boredom and anxiety, are overworked. We are afraid of being captured, raped, tortured. We are afraid of our plane crashing and never getting there. Most of all, we are afraid of somehow not measuring up.
A lot of the Army is like this, proving you are as tough or tougher than the guys. It is the kind of thing that worried us about going to basic. We had seen movies and heard stories about being awakened at 0430 and having to run 5 miles and do physical calisthenics for any infractions of rules. In the end it wasn’t like that at all. It was “Yes, Ma’am” and “No, Ma’am” from the enlisted men and the sergeants. Sometimes we were a little disappointed, as if they didn’t think we could pass the rigorous tests, so they never gave them to us. We wanted to be tested. We still want to be tested.
After supper, we take a walk along the fence that protects the airstrip. The sun is going down. A med-evac plane has just landed and casualties are being loaded from the plane onto a bus. We stand with our fingers interlocked with the mesh fence, our faces pressed up against the metal links. I wonder where the casualties have been, who they are, if I know the nurses are who cared for them. I am so tired of waiting, so keyed up that I want to jump the fence and do something—adjust I.V.s, check dressings, take vital signs—anything to be a part of what is happening. I look at Sue’s face and know she feels the same way. We have been preparing for this for a long time. We want to be a part of this war.
About 9 P.M. I make one more visit to the manifest desk. The rather bored Specialist verifies my name and serial number on a clipboard. “Two A.M. Saturday morning.” My mouth goes dry. I’m really going to Viet Nam! I go back to the Officers’ Quarters and say goodbye to Sue. I wish we could travel together, but she still isn’t manifested on a plane. We know we will probably never see each other again.
I try to sleep, but am too excited. Finally I get up, dress and fuel myself with several cans of Coke. I call a military taxi to take me and my duffel bag over to the terminal about midnight. My duffel bag contains everything I can cram into one long green cloth tube; what’s in there has to last me a year. Six sets of fatigues, two pairs of combat boots, a couple of summer dresses, underclothes, tennis shoes, a robe, extra shampoo and toothpaste, my diary, a small camera, a tape recorder, my address book and some stationery. The bag has my name stenciled on the side and it’s locked with a padlock. I wear the key around my neck beside my dog tags.
The night is dark and warm. A hot breeze blows across the runways and large orange lights illuminate the terminal. I hear a ghetto blaster from the barracks down the road from the terminal; the building is just too far away to make out the song. Inside the terminal, I’m the only woman in the building except for a black specialist checking names at the embarkation desk and a woman in a Red Cross uniform on the far side of the terminal who’s serving coffee, juice and cookies.
When it comes down to this hot California night, when my duffel bag disappears along the sterile aluminum chute, when I have a ticket in my hand and my name on a manifest list, I am terrified. I should be working in a hospital in New Orleans or Atlanta, surrounded by civilians and peace. Why have I gotten myself into this twilight zone of barn-like terminals, blaring intercoms, people with drawn and scared faces? I don’t belong here.
Yes, I do. When I saw those men carried off the plane yesterday, I knew I had to be here, to do what I am about to do. I can’t let them go to this war alone. It wouldn’t be honourable. When I was in high school I read Starship Trooper by Robert Heinlein. In that world people who had done a tour of voluntary service could vote and people who hadn’t, couldn’t. I think that’s the way it should be. We have to do something to earn the right to be citizens.
It’s more than that, a lot more personal. Viet Nam has been so much with me for the past five years. I saw the fear of this war on the faces of the boys in university every time an exam paper was handed back, felt it on the Halloween night when I was at a party and Johnson announced the mining of Haiphong harbor. This war had run through the past decade of our lives. My brother can be drafted. I don’t want him to be here in this terminal. I can’t let those boys from university, from that Halloween party do this alone. And yet, it is only discipline that brings me to the ramp of the plane where a black sergeant looks over his clipboard.
“Name, rank and serial number?”
“Grant, Sharon M, First Lieutenant.” I have memorized my serial number so I can rattle it off in short bursts: three numbers, two numbers, four numbers.
He salutes and I board the plane.
©Sharon Grant Wildwind, Dreams That Blister Sleep: A Nurse in Vietnam, River Books, 1999.
-----
Writing Quote for the Week
Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another. ~ Toni Morrison, writer
Come with me for a short foray into time travel. Thirty-seven years ago today I climbed on a plane to go to Vietnam. I was a lot younger then.
Friday, May 15, 1970/Travis Air Force Base, California
Waiting is so hard.
The terminal building is a large grey warehouse of corrugated iron; combat boots make hollow sounds on the concrete floor. Inside men in fatigues or summer uniforms wait everywhere, sleep on grey wooden benches, read paperback books with the cover folded back, or wander and smoke cigarettes. I’ve been down here three times only to be told I’m not yet manifested on a plane.
Sue and I are afraid. We have heard stories that the Viet Cong rape women prisoners, that they never take women prisoners alive, that in Tet of ’68 nurses were issued a suicide capsule. Since no U.S. service women has ever been captured, our imaginations, fed by boredom and anxiety, are overworked. We are afraid of being captured, raped, tortured. We are afraid of our plane crashing and never getting there. Most of all, we are afraid of somehow not measuring up.
A lot of the Army is like this, proving you are as tough or tougher than the guys. It is the kind of thing that worried us about going to basic. We had seen movies and heard stories about being awakened at 0430 and having to run 5 miles and do physical calisthenics for any infractions of rules. In the end it wasn’t like that at all. It was “Yes, Ma’am” and “No, Ma’am” from the enlisted men and the sergeants. Sometimes we were a little disappointed, as if they didn’t think we could pass the rigorous tests, so they never gave them to us. We wanted to be tested. We still want to be tested.
After supper, we take a walk along the fence that protects the airstrip. The sun is going down. A med-evac plane has just landed and casualties are being loaded from the plane onto a bus. We stand with our fingers interlocked with the mesh fence, our faces pressed up against the metal links. I wonder where the casualties have been, who they are, if I know the nurses are who cared for them. I am so tired of waiting, so keyed up that I want to jump the fence and do something—adjust I.V.s, check dressings, take vital signs—anything to be a part of what is happening. I look at Sue’s face and know she feels the same way. We have been preparing for this for a long time. We want to be a part of this war.
About 9 P.M. I make one more visit to the manifest desk. The rather bored Specialist verifies my name and serial number on a clipboard. “Two A.M. Saturday morning.” My mouth goes dry. I’m really going to Viet Nam! I go back to the Officers’ Quarters and say goodbye to Sue. I wish we could travel together, but she still isn’t manifested on a plane. We know we will probably never see each other again.
I try to sleep, but am too excited. Finally I get up, dress and fuel myself with several cans of Coke. I call a military taxi to take me and my duffel bag over to the terminal about midnight. My duffel bag contains everything I can cram into one long green cloth tube; what’s in there has to last me a year. Six sets of fatigues, two pairs of combat boots, a couple of summer dresses, underclothes, tennis shoes, a robe, extra shampoo and toothpaste, my diary, a small camera, a tape recorder, my address book and some stationery. The bag has my name stenciled on the side and it’s locked with a padlock. I wear the key around my neck beside my dog tags.
The night is dark and warm. A hot breeze blows across the runways and large orange lights illuminate the terminal. I hear a ghetto blaster from the barracks down the road from the terminal; the building is just too far away to make out the song. Inside the terminal, I’m the only woman in the building except for a black specialist checking names at the embarkation desk and a woman in a Red Cross uniform on the far side of the terminal who’s serving coffee, juice and cookies.
When it comes down to this hot California night, when my duffel bag disappears along the sterile aluminum chute, when I have a ticket in my hand and my name on a manifest list, I am terrified. I should be working in a hospital in New Orleans or Atlanta, surrounded by civilians and peace. Why have I gotten myself into this twilight zone of barn-like terminals, blaring intercoms, people with drawn and scared faces? I don’t belong here.
Yes, I do. When I saw those men carried off the plane yesterday, I knew I had to be here, to do what I am about to do. I can’t let them go to this war alone. It wouldn’t be honourable. When I was in high school I read Starship Trooper by Robert Heinlein. In that world people who had done a tour of voluntary service could vote and people who hadn’t, couldn’t. I think that’s the way it should be. We have to do something to earn the right to be citizens.
It’s more than that, a lot more personal. Viet Nam has been so much with me for the past five years. I saw the fear of this war on the faces of the boys in university every time an exam paper was handed back, felt it on the Halloween night when I was at a party and Johnson announced the mining of Haiphong harbor. This war had run through the past decade of our lives. My brother can be drafted. I don’t want him to be here in this terminal. I can’t let those boys from university, from that Halloween party do this alone. And yet, it is only discipline that brings me to the ramp of the plane where a black sergeant looks over his clipboard.
“Name, rank and serial number?”
“Grant, Sharon M, First Lieutenant.” I have memorized my serial number so I can rattle it off in short bursts: three numbers, two numbers, four numbers.
He salutes and I board the plane.
©Sharon Grant Wildwind, Dreams That Blister Sleep: A Nurse in Vietnam, River Books, 1999.
-----
Writing Quote for the Week
Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another. ~ Toni Morrison, writer
Monday, May 14, 2007
Mystery and Metaphor
by Julia Buckley
It's been a crazy week; I spent lots of it doing paperwork, and in the breaks I tried like a madwoman to clean my house for my son's Communion reception. There wasn't a lot of time to prepare my blog, but I thought it might be fun to share a mystery in the form of a poem by Sylvia Plath. This one has been a favorite of mine since high school, but it's especially poignant for mothers.
METAPHORS
by Sylvia Plath
I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.
The last line is my favorite.
I'm curious to know if there are other poems out there which are also mysteries; Browning's "My Last Duchess" comes to mind--but what others? Share your ideas with Poe's Deadly Daughters!
(image:http://www.vistabroadband.com/~college/question_mark.jpg)
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Hey, It's Different for Me
Reed Farrel Coleman (Guest Blogger)
I envy readers. No, I really do. When I see the sheer joy my wife gets out of reading, I confess to being more than a touch jealous. Between traditional reading and books on tape and CD, she goes through two to three books a week! Not me. For one thing, I may be a quick writer, but I’m a slow reader. Second, reading is no longer just about pleasure for me. For me, reading is part dissection and part analysis. It’s difficult to lose myself in a book the way I once did. An occupational hazard, I suppose.
I remember Orson Welles once being asked, by Merv Griffin of all people, if he enjoyed movies. “No,” he said. “I know too much about the process to be taken in.” It is no coincidence that Welles was an accomplished magician. Magicians don’t say wow, they ask how. The joy of the trick is lost on them. Writers ask how too.
When I wrote Lee Child to compliment him on One Shot, his email reply was very telling and much along the lines of Welles’ view. Although this isn’t quite an exact quote, it’s very close. “I take that as high praise,” he wrote, “from someone who knows how the man behind the curtain works the machinery.” When writers read, they are always looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz.
There’s yet another factor that robs me of some of the joy of reading. As a New York based author and someone who’s held high office in Mystery Writers of America, I’ve had the great good fortune of meeting and developing relationships with a broad range of authors. Some incredibly famous. Some relatively unknown. Many, like me, in that murky mythical land of the midlist. The odd thing about my good fortune is that I often get to know the writer before I have the opportunity to know his or her work. So when I pick a book off my bedside stack, it can be a perilous activity. There can be a personal price to pay if I like an author more than his or her work. I have been lucky in that I have yet to come to blows or lose a friend over this issue, but I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been some pretty awkward moments on panels and at conventions.
It doesn’t end there. These days, I am frequently asked to blurb books—though I’m not quite sure why—judge books for awards, and to act as a first reader for some of my colleagues. Blurbs are a very touchy subject in the business and there’s a broad spectrum of opinion on the issue. In fact, blurbing probably deserves its own dedicated blog. I will say that people have been very generous to me with their praise, so that when I read to blurb, I read with both a critical eye and open heart. However, a judge and or a first reader needs, for obvious reasons, to leave his heart out of the equation. I would be doing a disservice as a judge and first reader to give anything but my most critical assessment. As you might imagine, these sorts of activities don’t exactly add to my reading pleasure.
There is still the rare occasion when I lose myself in a book and enjoy the act of reading the way I did before choosing the life of a writer. In the last two years, it’s happened three times. The books were Die A Little by Megan Abbott, Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell, and Miami Purity by Vicki Hendricks. Although Megan and I have subsequently become good friends, we were only casual acquaintances when I first read the book. I’m also now an occasional first reader for her. I think Vicki and I have met in passing at a Bouchercon and I’ve never met Daniel. But I was so impressed by Miami Purity that I sent an unsolicited blurb to her new publisher and I sent an embarrassingly gushing fan letter—my first real fan letter—to Daniel Woodrell.
So, yeah, reading is different for me and I’m really kind of jealous of the freedom enjoyed by the casual reader or mystery fan. And those rare occasions when I can get in touch with that unbridled joy are marvelous, but they are few and far between. On balance, I wouldn’t give up my writing to regain my innocence as a reader. There are many days, however, when I struggling with a single paragraph or sentence, that it does seem like a deal I might be willing to make.
Reed Farrel Coleman's The James Deans won the Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Awards for Best Paperback Original. His new book, Soul Patch, is in bookstores now.
Friday, May 11, 2007
INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR SHANE GERICKE
By Lonnie Cruse
Morning all. Author Shane Gericke (pronounced Yurkey) and I did an interview recently while he was recovering from shoulder surgery (nightmare for a writer, of course.) I think you'll enjoy getting to know him. His website is at: http://www.shanegericke.com
LC: Good morning, Shane. Please, tell us a bit about your books.
SG: I have two: BLOWN AWAY, my 2006 debut, and CUT TO THE BONE, which launches worldwide in June, 2o07. Both are about Emily Marie Thompson, who at age 40 abandoned her safe existence as an office manager to become a suburban cop. She’d hoped catching bad guys would free her from the unspeakable tragedies in her life that had looped themselves around her neck and dragged her into the mud of perpetual gloom. Her instincts were right—at long last, her life was sorting itself out, she was leaving the tragedy behind, and she was coming into her own as a cop and a person. Then came the jackals: ferocious serial killers out for blood and vengeance. My story is simple: Emily battles evil without losing herself back to the mud. How she accomplishes that, and interacts with the fascinating folks she meets along the way, provide the drive and sparkle of the stories. And oh, yes, there’s a truckload of shoot-em-ups and blow-em-aparts. Can’t write a thriller without thrills!
LC: Wow, I do love thrills! What inspired you to write this book and/or these characters?
SG: Cops are fascinating, and I like strong women. So I put them together to create a cops-and-robbers series with a worthy female protagonist. But one that wasn’t one of the two female-cop stereotypes I hate most: hard-drinking, jaded, profane and violent (Mike Hammer in a dress) or cutesy-wootsie cop-gal who’s forever leaving her gun in the cookie jar because eek it might go off (Stephanie Plum). I wanted to write women cops as I know them: tough when it counts, vulnerable when appropriate, standing shoulder to shoulder with colleagues and friends, neither two steps behind nor a step ahead. I wanted lipstick and steel, so I created Emily. And her male and female friends, who do so much to shape her life.
LC: Sounds like my kinda gal! Is this a series, or do you write stand-alones?
SG: A series, thanks to my good fortune in finding Kensington Publishing, who saw what I was trying to do and said, “Go for it.”
LC: How did you sell your first manuscript?
SG: By scouring the countryside for a literary agent. It’s almost impossible to get into a big house without one. I found Bill Contardi, who’s been in the game a long time and is highly respected in New York publishing. He’d just come aboard Brandt & Hochman—the firm representing Scott Turow, among other literary worthies—to build the “blood-thrill” side of the agency. Bill picked me up, went through my manuscript, and set me loose on New York publishers.
LC: Wow, you found the right agent! How did you find your publisher?
SG: That was Bill’s department. As agents do, he sent the manuscript to a select group of editors. Michaela Hamilton at Kensington was the first to say "yes." As a first-time thriller writer, I was, well, thrilled to latch on to such a big outfit. Working with Michaela was, and is, a bonus. Her edits are a master’s class in writing, and I learned a ton. I was in the newspaper business for a quarter century, but that does not a thriller writer make.
LC: Two very different kinds of writing, I imagine. What sends you running to the computer to write (aside from a need to make money?)
SG: Fear—that if this doesn’t work out I’ll have to work at a mini-mart. Seriously, I’m happy when I write and unhappy when I don’t. That’s the motivation. I was a newspaper editor for 25 years and my dad was a cop for 30, so both are in my blood. The great clash of good and evil is fun to explore, and writing lets me do it without getting hurt or killed like a real cop.
LC: What writers do you love to read?
SG: John Sandford is my favorite, followed closely by Lee Child, Gayle Lynds, James Rollins, Eric Larsen and anything that appears in The Atlantic Monthly magazine. And there’s a new writer to keep your eye on: Robert Fate. He pens a terrific young-female P.I. series called BABY SHARK. It’s set in 1950s honky-tonk Texas, and his writing is some of the crispest and freshest I’ve seen.
LC: Your BLOWN AWAY just won Best Debut Mystery of 2006 by Romantic Times Book Reviews. No. 1 in the nation for your very first novel! And it became a national bestseller, too. How has that changed your life? Larger hat size? Writing faster? More respect at home?
SG: My hat size has always been too big. Otherwise, I’d never have abandoned a perfectly good paycheck for the vagaries of cop fiction. As for home, I’ve always gotten the utmost respect: my wife Jerrle is the one who pushed me to leave newspapering and follow my dreams of becoming the next Lee Child. She meant it, too—she knew that my leaving the Chicago Sun-Times, where I was a senior financial editor, would instantly cut our income 50 percent. So I could literally have not taken this step with her encouragement and backing. Now as before, I work seven days a week. Sometimes just a few hours, sometimes all day and half the night. Each day is a mixture of writing, book promotion, keeping in touch with industry friends (I hate the term networking. It’s so cold. I think of it as hanging out with people I like and swapping useful information) and keeping my desk somewhat cleared of its perpetual mess. How much I do of what depends on how close I am to my manuscript deadline, how many stops are on the upcoming “road trip” of book promotion, and whether my butt can stand another two minutes in the ^%^^&$#%$ chair.
LC: Ahhh, the chair. Makes all the difference to how long we can sit and write. Where did you get that wonderful picture on your home page?
SG: By accident. I’d gotten a new digital camera and was taking photos in a local coffeehouse. Someone volunteered to take my photo, and placed me in front of a bright picture window. Instant backlight, just like in the movies. The result made me look scary and mysterious, and I knew that would be the one for the home page. In art as in life, it’s better to be lucky than good.
LC: What else would you like our readers to know about you?
SG: I was born in a manger, no crib for a bed … uh, wait, wrong guy. Well, let’s see. I was named after the cowboy movie “Shane.” It came out in 1950, I came out in ’56, and my folks liked the possibilities. “Gericke” is pronounced YER-key. Back in Ye Olde Country (Germany) there was a U in there: Guericke. That provided the YER sound. At Ellis Island, someone “Americanized” it by whacking the U, making it unpronounceable. Thank you, Immigration! What else? I like to read all sorts of things, including the backs of cereal boxes. I like to mow the grass because I get my best ideas when I sweat like a fiend. I like guns and shooting. I like Scotch, neither stirred nor shaken. I like to paint (canvas, not houses), but never get the time. I like breakfast out, supper in, the former to read my three daily newspapers, the latter because we’re both good cooks. I do a fair amount of housework, as I have a home office. Doing a little every day keeps our weekends free for friends and other good stuff. I don’t have kids, but would like a pack of beagles someday. At age 11, I was held at knifepoint in a state park toilet and told I would die. The fates and other people intervened before I literally went down the one-seater. Yay! The experience gave, and gives, tremendous insight into the minds of crime victims and other survivors. That really helps the writing sing. To paraphrase whoever said it, That which doesn’t kill you makes your writing stronger. BLOWN AWAY is available in Turkish and Slovak (out as we speak in those countries), and later this year, in Polish and Chinese. Who knew my little cop tale would have so many fans in languages I can’t read? I love foreign editions—and especially the crazy cover art that comes with.
LC: Thanks, Shane!
SG: Thank you for thinking of me, Lonnie. It’s an honor to meet your readers.
Morning all. Author Shane Gericke (pronounced Yurkey) and I did an interview recently while he was recovering from shoulder surgery (nightmare for a writer, of course.) I think you'll enjoy getting to know him. His website is at: http://www.shanegericke.com
LC: Good morning, Shane. Please, tell us a bit about your books.
SG: I have two: BLOWN AWAY, my 2006 debut, and CUT TO THE BONE, which launches worldwide in June, 2o07. Both are about Emily Marie Thompson, who at age 40 abandoned her safe existence as an office manager to become a suburban cop. She’d hoped catching bad guys would free her from the unspeakable tragedies in her life that had looped themselves around her neck and dragged her into the mud of perpetual gloom. Her instincts were right—at long last, her life was sorting itself out, she was leaving the tragedy behind, and she was coming into her own as a cop and a person. Then came the jackals: ferocious serial killers out for blood and vengeance. My story is simple: Emily battles evil without losing herself back to the mud. How she accomplishes that, and interacts with the fascinating folks she meets along the way, provide the drive and sparkle of the stories. And oh, yes, there’s a truckload of shoot-em-ups and blow-em-aparts. Can’t write a thriller without thrills!
LC: Wow, I do love thrills! What inspired you to write this book and/or these characters?
SG: Cops are fascinating, and I like strong women. So I put them together to create a cops-and-robbers series with a worthy female protagonist. But one that wasn’t one of the two female-cop stereotypes I hate most: hard-drinking, jaded, profane and violent (Mike Hammer in a dress) or cutesy-wootsie cop-gal who’s forever leaving her gun in the cookie jar because eek it might go off (Stephanie Plum). I wanted to write women cops as I know them: tough when it counts, vulnerable when appropriate, standing shoulder to shoulder with colleagues and friends, neither two steps behind nor a step ahead. I wanted lipstick and steel, so I created Emily. And her male and female friends, who do so much to shape her life.
LC: Sounds like my kinda gal! Is this a series, or do you write stand-alones?
SG: A series, thanks to my good fortune in finding Kensington Publishing, who saw what I was trying to do and said, “Go for it.”
LC: How did you sell your first manuscript?
SG: By scouring the countryside for a literary agent. It’s almost impossible to get into a big house without one. I found Bill Contardi, who’s been in the game a long time and is highly respected in New York publishing. He’d just come aboard Brandt & Hochman—the firm representing Scott Turow, among other literary worthies—to build the “blood-thrill” side of the agency. Bill picked me up, went through my manuscript, and set me loose on New York publishers.
LC: Wow, you found the right agent! How did you find your publisher?
SG: That was Bill’s department. As agents do, he sent the manuscript to a select group of editors. Michaela Hamilton at Kensington was the first to say "yes." As a first-time thriller writer, I was, well, thrilled to latch on to such a big outfit. Working with Michaela was, and is, a bonus. Her edits are a master’s class in writing, and I learned a ton. I was in the newspaper business for a quarter century, but that does not a thriller writer make.
LC: Two very different kinds of writing, I imagine. What sends you running to the computer to write (aside from a need to make money?)
SG: Fear—that if this doesn’t work out I’ll have to work at a mini-mart. Seriously, I’m happy when I write and unhappy when I don’t. That’s the motivation. I was a newspaper editor for 25 years and my dad was a cop for 30, so both are in my blood. The great clash of good and evil is fun to explore, and writing lets me do it without getting hurt or killed like a real cop.
LC: What writers do you love to read?
SG: John Sandford is my favorite, followed closely by Lee Child, Gayle Lynds, James Rollins, Eric Larsen and anything that appears in The Atlantic Monthly magazine. And there’s a new writer to keep your eye on: Robert Fate. He pens a terrific young-female P.I. series called BABY SHARK. It’s set in 1950s honky-tonk Texas, and his writing is some of the crispest and freshest I’ve seen.
LC: Your BLOWN AWAY just won Best Debut Mystery of 2006 by Romantic Times Book Reviews. No. 1 in the nation for your very first novel! And it became a national bestseller, too. How has that changed your life? Larger hat size? Writing faster? More respect at home?
SG: My hat size has always been too big. Otherwise, I’d never have abandoned a perfectly good paycheck for the vagaries of cop fiction. As for home, I’ve always gotten the utmost respect: my wife Jerrle is the one who pushed me to leave newspapering and follow my dreams of becoming the next Lee Child. She meant it, too—she knew that my leaving the Chicago Sun-Times, where I was a senior financial editor, would instantly cut our income 50 percent. So I could literally have not taken this step with her encouragement and backing. Now as before, I work seven days a week. Sometimes just a few hours, sometimes all day and half the night. Each day is a mixture of writing, book promotion, keeping in touch with industry friends (I hate the term networking. It’s so cold. I think of it as hanging out with people I like and swapping useful information) and keeping my desk somewhat cleared of its perpetual mess. How much I do of what depends on how close I am to my manuscript deadline, how many stops are on the upcoming “road trip” of book promotion, and whether my butt can stand another two minutes in the ^%^^&$#%$ chair.
LC: Ahhh, the chair. Makes all the difference to how long we can sit and write. Where did you get that wonderful picture on your home page?
SG: By accident. I’d gotten a new digital camera and was taking photos in a local coffeehouse. Someone volunteered to take my photo, and placed me in front of a bright picture window. Instant backlight, just like in the movies. The result made me look scary and mysterious, and I knew that would be the one for the home page. In art as in life, it’s better to be lucky than good.
LC: What else would you like our readers to know about you?
SG: I was born in a manger, no crib for a bed … uh, wait, wrong guy. Well, let’s see. I was named after the cowboy movie “Shane.” It came out in 1950, I came out in ’56, and my folks liked the possibilities. “Gericke” is pronounced YER-key. Back in Ye Olde Country (Germany) there was a U in there: Guericke. That provided the YER sound. At Ellis Island, someone “Americanized” it by whacking the U, making it unpronounceable. Thank you, Immigration! What else? I like to read all sorts of things, including the backs of cereal boxes. I like to mow the grass because I get my best ideas when I sweat like a fiend. I like guns and shooting. I like Scotch, neither stirred nor shaken. I like to paint (canvas, not houses), but never get the time. I like breakfast out, supper in, the former to read my three daily newspapers, the latter because we’re both good cooks. I do a fair amount of housework, as I have a home office. Doing a little every day keeps our weekends free for friends and other good stuff. I don’t have kids, but would like a pack of beagles someday. At age 11, I was held at knifepoint in a state park toilet and told I would die. The fates and other people intervened before I literally went down the one-seater. Yay! The experience gave, and gives, tremendous insight into the minds of crime victims and other survivors. That really helps the writing sing. To paraphrase whoever said it, That which doesn’t kill you makes your writing stronger. BLOWN AWAY is available in Turkish and Slovak (out as we speak in those countries), and later this year, in Polish and Chinese. Who knew my little cop tale would have so many fans in languages I can’t read? I love foreign editions—and especially the crazy cover art that comes with.
LC: Thanks, Shane!
SG: Thank you for thinking of me, Lonnie. It’s an honor to meet your readers.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
It's Hard to Write a Mystery
Elizabeth Zelvin
I wrote a poem the other day. I’m well qualified to do this. I have been writing poetry for 30 years. I’ve had two books published, I Am the Daughter (1981) and Gifts and Secrets: Poems of the Therapeutic Relationship (1999). I turned to writing mysteries a year or two after the second book came out, putting the poetry on the back burner. I never sat down to write poetry on a regular basis, the way novelists have to do if they want to produce a completed manuscript. I waited for the poems to come to me. Here’s how my creative process worked, from a poem called “Night Poem” that appeared in Gifts and Secrets. As you’ll notice, besides being about writing, it’s a love poem.
it’s like The Red Shoes only instead of dancing
I keep getting up to write poems
a dozen times between 3 and 6 AM
I curl back around you in the dark
and pull the blankets up
but then a line tugs at my mind
and I go stumbling through the hall
groping for light and pen
each time I lie back down
the images pop up like frogs
clamoring to be made princes
and you grumble and roll over
as I shuffle into my slippers once again
and go kiss the page
That’s pretty much how it worked this time, except that it happened in the daytime, so I didn’t lose any sleep over it. (I have a light-up LED pen on my bedside table nowadays, anyhow.) If I have a muse inside my head, that’s how it gets my attention: it tugs. I rushed to the computer, the images already forming in my mind. In 20 minutes, the thing was done. I felt as I imagine a hen might when she’s laid an egg. There it was, a whole poem. I didn’t need to change a word, and I was ready to cluck with satisfaction.
Writing a mystery, on the other hand, is a messy process. It takes time—lots of time. No way can it come out all at once. It involves reams of scribbles and cryptic notes in Word files. If you’re an “into the mist” writer like me, the plot dribbles out bit by bit onto many post-its. I also carry a digital recorder, especially when I run, so many of my pearls of prose get recorded in jerky syllables with panting in between and the slap of running shoes on the track in the background. My protagonist’s voice frequently starts talking in my head, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll use what he says on any one occasion. The good news is that after writing three full-length mysteries and a short story about him, I’m finally convinced I don’t have to worry about his having nothing more to say. The bad news is that I’m never finished.
Then there’s the story. Many of my poems are stories, too. But they’re short stories. Very, very short. Furthermore, as I have said to audiences at many readings over the years, everything in my poems is true. As my husband once said to an enthusiastic fan who burbled about how wonderful it must be to live with a poet, “Yeah, well, now you know I snore and get kicked out of bed for it.” A novelist can’t get away with that kind of candor. Instead, we say, “Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We make it up. Yet we have to get it right—“it” being anything from forensics and police procedure to beekeeping or quilting or whatever occupation our fictional protagonist happens to take up. For mystery writers, “they do it on CSI” is on a par with “the dog ate my homework.”
Above all, our fictional characters must ring true. One of the characters in my mystery has a few traits in common with my husband. It would have been fun to make this character a bit of a curmudgeon. But my husband, whom I love dearly, is a bit of a curmudgeon. So my character had to be sweet. In fact, I had to work hard not to make him so sweet he was too good to be true.
I wrote a poem the other day. I’m well qualified to do this. I have been writing poetry for 30 years. I’ve had two books published, I Am the Daughter (1981) and Gifts and Secrets: Poems of the Therapeutic Relationship (1999). I turned to writing mysteries a year or two after the second book came out, putting the poetry on the back burner. I never sat down to write poetry on a regular basis, the way novelists have to do if they want to produce a completed manuscript. I waited for the poems to come to me. Here’s how my creative process worked, from a poem called “Night Poem” that appeared in Gifts and Secrets. As you’ll notice, besides being about writing, it’s a love poem.
it’s like The Red Shoes only instead of dancing
I keep getting up to write poems
a dozen times between 3 and 6 AM
I curl back around you in the dark
and pull the blankets up
but then a line tugs at my mind
and I go stumbling through the hall
groping for light and pen
each time I lie back down
the images pop up like frogs
clamoring to be made princes
and you grumble and roll over
as I shuffle into my slippers once again
and go kiss the page
That’s pretty much how it worked this time, except that it happened in the daytime, so I didn’t lose any sleep over it. (I have a light-up LED pen on my bedside table nowadays, anyhow.) If I have a muse inside my head, that’s how it gets my attention: it tugs. I rushed to the computer, the images already forming in my mind. In 20 minutes, the thing was done. I felt as I imagine a hen might when she’s laid an egg. There it was, a whole poem. I didn’t need to change a word, and I was ready to cluck with satisfaction.
Writing a mystery, on the other hand, is a messy process. It takes time—lots of time. No way can it come out all at once. It involves reams of scribbles and cryptic notes in Word files. If you’re an “into the mist” writer like me, the plot dribbles out bit by bit onto many post-its. I also carry a digital recorder, especially when I run, so many of my pearls of prose get recorded in jerky syllables with panting in between and the slap of running shoes on the track in the background. My protagonist’s voice frequently starts talking in my head, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll use what he says on any one occasion. The good news is that after writing three full-length mysteries and a short story about him, I’m finally convinced I don’t have to worry about his having nothing more to say. The bad news is that I’m never finished.
Then there’s the story. Many of my poems are stories, too. But they’re short stories. Very, very short. Furthermore, as I have said to audiences at many readings over the years, everything in my poems is true. As my husband once said to an enthusiastic fan who burbled about how wonderful it must be to live with a poet, “Yeah, well, now you know I snore and get kicked out of bed for it.” A novelist can’t get away with that kind of candor. Instead, we say, “Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We make it up. Yet we have to get it right—“it” being anything from forensics and police procedure to beekeeping or quilting or whatever occupation our fictional protagonist happens to take up. For mystery writers, “they do it on CSI” is on a par with “the dog ate my homework.”
Above all, our fictional characters must ring true. One of the characters in my mystery has a few traits in common with my husband. It would have been fun to make this character a bit of a curmudgeon. But my husband, whom I love dearly, is a bit of a curmudgeon. So my character had to be sweet. In fact, I had to work hard not to make him so sweet he was too good to be true.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The Teapot and the Orphan
Sandra Parshall
Of course I’m thrilled that my 2006 book, The Heat of the Moon, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel at the Malice Domestic conference on May 5. I waited a long time to see it published, I feel both happy and relieved that reviewers and readers have received it well, and I’ll cherish the award (which comes in the shape of a teapot) forever.
I’m a little torn, though. While my first book is getting so much attention a year after publication, my second, Disturbing the Dead, is waiting on the sidelines like a neglected orphan. It’s had good reviews, for which I’m grateful, and readers who have already read The Heat of the Moon and liked it have bought the second book. The Agatha nomination and now the award have made a whole new set of readers aware of the first, though, and I feel almost as if I’m launching it again. I thought I would spend this year talking about and promoting DTD, and I was geared up for that, but lately I’ve talked mostly about THOTM.
Terrible problem to have, right? I’m not complaining! I’m just remarking on a situation I’d never imagined, much less planned for. When someone buys a copy of the first book, I thrust a copy of the second forward. “This is the sequel. It’s new! It’s a great story! You’ll love it!” (Maybe I don’t sound desperate, but that’s the way I feel.) If they smile and say they’ll read the first before considering the second, I make sure they have a bookmark or promotional card with quotes from the reviews of Disturbing the Dead. Don’t forget my new baby, I plead silently. I have a feeling that if DTD were getting all the attention, I’d be begging people not to forget the book that came first.
I’m still relatively new to book promotion and perhaps too attached to my books to be businesslike about selling them. I want everybody to love them equally. I don’t want anyone to favor one over the other. If I have the good fortune to publish a dozen novels, will I drive myself nuts trying to nurture all of them at once? Or will I eventually learn to promote one at a time and let the rest wait in the shadows? I’ve asked more experienced writers a million questions about every other aspect of the business -- okay, I’m a pest, I admit it -- but this is one subject that’s never come up. I’d like to hear how other writers feel about it.
I have to find a place for the Agatha teapot, where it will be safe from the paws and tails of our two curious cats. I’ll give THOTM a kiss on the cover and say, Well done, kid. But I’ll give DTD a reassuring pat and whisper, Hang in there, I haven’t forgotten you.
Of course I’m thrilled that my 2006 book, The Heat of the Moon, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel at the Malice Domestic conference on May 5. I waited a long time to see it published, I feel both happy and relieved that reviewers and readers have received it well, and I’ll cherish the award (which comes in the shape of a teapot) forever.
I’m a little torn, though. While my first book is getting so much attention a year after publication, my second, Disturbing the Dead, is waiting on the sidelines like a neglected orphan. It’s had good reviews, for which I’m grateful, and readers who have already read The Heat of the Moon and liked it have bought the second book. The Agatha nomination and now the award have made a whole new set of readers aware of the first, though, and I feel almost as if I’m launching it again. I thought I would spend this year talking about and promoting DTD, and I was geared up for that, but lately I’ve talked mostly about THOTM.
Terrible problem to have, right? I’m not complaining! I’m just remarking on a situation I’d never imagined, much less planned for. When someone buys a copy of the first book, I thrust a copy of the second forward. “This is the sequel. It’s new! It’s a great story! You’ll love it!” (Maybe I don’t sound desperate, but that’s the way I feel.) If they smile and say they’ll read the first before considering the second, I make sure they have a bookmark or promotional card with quotes from the reviews of Disturbing the Dead. Don’t forget my new baby, I plead silently. I have a feeling that if DTD were getting all the attention, I’d be begging people not to forget the book that came first.
I’m still relatively new to book promotion and perhaps too attached to my books to be businesslike about selling them. I want everybody to love them equally. I don’t want anyone to favor one over the other. If I have the good fortune to publish a dozen novels, will I drive myself nuts trying to nurture all of them at once? Or will I eventually learn to promote one at a time and let the rest wait in the shadows? I’ve asked more experienced writers a million questions about every other aspect of the business -- okay, I’m a pest, I admit it -- but this is one subject that’s never come up. I’d like to hear how other writers feel about it.
I have to find a place for the Agatha teapot, where it will be safe from the paws and tails of our two curious cats. I’ll give THOTM a kiss on the cover and say, Well done, kid. But I’ll give DTD a reassuring pat and whisper, Hang in there, I haven’t forgotten you.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Anything for Art
Sharon Wildwind
Last week, I wrote about cleaning out my stash of old writing and art supplies, which is why this week I’m contemplating painting watercolors while sitting in my bath tub au natural.
One of the things I discovered in my stash were some very old paints. I read up on watercolors, which led me to experiment; experimentation led me to three conclusions:
a. Watercolors can be messy, even in experienced hands.
b. Mine are not experienced hands.
c. I’m willing to do anything in order to achieve great art.
Except—truth to tell—I’m not willing to do anything for art. At least, not any more.
Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within was one of the first books, and one of the most influential, I read about being a writer. She wrote about writing in cafes, flotation tanks, and laundromats. I thought, if she could do that, I could write absolutely anywhere.
I’m not talking about writing in the requisite doctor’s offices, malls, and airports. Sooner or later, all writers write in those places. I’m talking about writing in places that were exotic, strange, or just plain idiotic.
Such as six feet underground, in a survival snow trench the exact dimensions of a grave, in January, in the Yukon.
Such as in abandoned tunnels running like catacombs underneath a university campus.
Such as in the parking lot of a police station, fifteen minutes after a beat cop had been killed two blocks away from that same station. The killer still roamed the neighborhood and policemen, dressed in bullet-proof vests and carrying high-powered weapons were pouring out the door.
Such as wandering through any open corridor I could find in a legislature building—the jurisdiction shall remain nameless—taking photographs and making notes in my journal about potential ways to enter or leave the building undetected. Just in case this blog is being monitored, I later destroyed every one of those photographs and notes.
Right: the author, embarking on a non-writing flight.
I admit that I did not write while flying in the open cockpit of a Stearman Kadet, but that was only because the pilot wouldn’t let me take anything with me on the flight. Even my button-down pockets had to be emptied out.
The world has changed in so many ways that having the audacity to write in truly strange places has either become either life-threatening, or is guaranteed to lead to long interviews with people who have absolutely no sense of the absurd. All that’s left in those surrealistic situations we all find ourselves in occasionally is to observe carefully, take mental notes, and write it out once I’m back behind the safety of a locked door.
It just isn’t the same, somehow.
Writing quotes for the week:
There are only two rules for keeping a journal: 1. Write everything. 2. Erase nothing. ~Natalie Goldberg, writer and teacher
Writing begets writing. Keep the hand moving. ~Natalie Goldberg, writer and teacher
Last week, I wrote about cleaning out my stash of old writing and art supplies, which is why this week I’m contemplating painting watercolors while sitting in my bath tub au natural.
One of the things I discovered in my stash were some very old paints. I read up on watercolors, which led me to experiment; experimentation led me to three conclusions:
a. Watercolors can be messy, even in experienced hands.
b. Mine are not experienced hands.
c. I’m willing to do anything in order to achieve great art.
Except—truth to tell—I’m not willing to do anything for art. At least, not any more.
Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within was one of the first books, and one of the most influential, I read about being a writer. She wrote about writing in cafes, flotation tanks, and laundromats. I thought, if she could do that, I could write absolutely anywhere.
I’m not talking about writing in the requisite doctor’s offices, malls, and airports. Sooner or later, all writers write in those places. I’m talking about writing in places that were exotic, strange, or just plain idiotic.
Such as six feet underground, in a survival snow trench the exact dimensions of a grave, in January, in the Yukon.
Such as in abandoned tunnels running like catacombs underneath a university campus.
Such as in the parking lot of a police station, fifteen minutes after a beat cop had been killed two blocks away from that same station. The killer still roamed the neighborhood and policemen, dressed in bullet-proof vests and carrying high-powered weapons were pouring out the door.
Such as wandering through any open corridor I could find in a legislature building—the jurisdiction shall remain nameless—taking photographs and making notes in my journal about potential ways to enter or leave the building undetected. Just in case this blog is being monitored, I later destroyed every one of those photographs and notes.
Right: the author, embarking on a non-writing flight.I admit that I did not write while flying in the open cockpit of a Stearman Kadet, but that was only because the pilot wouldn’t let me take anything with me on the flight. Even my button-down pockets had to be emptied out.
The world has changed in so many ways that having the audacity to write in truly strange places has either become either life-threatening, or is guaranteed to lead to long interviews with people who have absolutely no sense of the absurd. All that’s left in those surrealistic situations we all find ourselves in occasionally is to observe carefully, take mental notes, and write it out once I’m back behind the safety of a locked door.
It just isn’t the same, somehow.
Writing quotes for the week:
There are only two rules for keeping a journal: 1. Write everything. 2. Erase nothing. ~Natalie Goldberg, writer and teacher
Writing begets writing. Keep the hand moving. ~Natalie Goldberg, writer and teacher
Monday, May 7, 2007
Congratulations, Sandra!
Many congratulations to our own Sandra Parshall, Deadly Daughter Extraordinaire, who has won an Agatha for Best First Mystery at this year's Malice Domestic. We are so proud of you, Sandy!Sandy's mystery, of course, was the wonderfully moody and suspenseful The Heat of the Moon, and if you haven't read it you must do yourself a favor and get a copy today. Then, once you're addicted, you can get a copy of Sandra's new novel, Disturbing the Dead.
We Deadly Daughters are most proud to be blogging with this award winning mystery writer!
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Fact to Fiction to Fact
Lou Allain (guest blogger)
Lou with her two pals. Friday, aka Strudel, age six, is an apricot mini-poodle. Shogun, originally Hogan, then Logan, is border collie, saved by a British Columbia collie rescue association. He's two.“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life,” Oscar said, but I’m not sure I agree. Life came first, after all. As a writer with five books in my Belle Palmer series set in the Nickel Capital, a standalone in a Michigan university, and a forthcoming series set where I now live, in the quiet fishing-tourist village of Sooke on Vancouver Island, I’ve seen that cycle evolve many times.
I took the image of the Lady of the Lake handing Arthur his Excalibur and froze her hand sticking through the ice for Northern Winters Are Murder, then leaned on the residential school scandal for Blackflies Are Murder. Bush Poodles Are Murder included a scam man similar to a local figure who bilked seniors out of a few million dollars. Just as he left jail, the book appeared. So much for art imitating life.
But the process turned, and turned again. When I was writing Murder, Eh? three years ago, I was addicted to CourtTV and fascinated by the trial of a prominent rabbi in New Jersey, who hired a hitman to murder his wife, then hired the same man as a private investigator. Sounds wildly improbable, but the nefarious plan almost worked. The hitman, supposedly ex-Mossad, probably merely delusional, decided when flattered by a nubile female reporter, that if he spilled the beans on the charismatic rabbi (who had so far skated free), he’d be pardoned and enjoy the spoils of the tabloid sales. The reporter contacted the police, who set a wire, and now both men, and a more feeble minded accomplice who actually struck the woman, are spending life sentences in jail. The rabbi still pleads his innocence. Sometimes I believe the silver-haired and golden-tongued devil.
I confess to using the concept of this crime as well as the brilliant conversion of a former Molson brewery in Barrie to a thriving grow-op (the criminals roasted coffee in their alleged business, which hid the smell of pot in the copper vats). I’d passed the old plant en route to Toronto many times and laughed when I read about the bust.
About nine months before Murder, Eh? appeared, fiction would turn to fact in Sudbury. The wife of a prominent businessman and devoted mother of two teenaged girls disappeared in the dead of winter. In the initial search, her empty van was found nearby their upscale home. Due to the heavy snowfall and severe weather conditions, searches were difficult. Eventually, all water courses in the area were combed. As the months passed, hope faded that she would be found alive.
Fast forward to March and the fifth book, Memories are Murder. This time I arranged a killing in the dense bush about forty miles south of town in an area called Burwash, site of a former prison, from which no one ever escaped. Now the plots start linking. Guess whose body turned up in that very area, just across Highway 69, only a few hundred yards from the main highway to Toronto? Rabbit hunters discovered the mutilated corpse of the missing wife and mother, wrapped in a rug and dumped in the bush months before. And like the rabbi, the husband, first to suspect, had an unbreakable alibi. Rumours in the coffee shops abound about his mistress, his wife’s supposed lover, and the scenario that a relative of his flew in from a distant country, did the deed, and flew out again. A small community of around 100,000, Sudbury has only three or four murders a year, mostly alcohol or drug-related. To this date, the murder is unsolved, and unless someone talks to the tabloids, the perfect crime has been committed.
In my new community, where the rain forest meets the sea, a young girl went missing a few years ago. Heartbreaking pictures of her still curl and fade in store windows and a descanso with flowers and toys stands across from the bus stop from which she vanished. Her classmates have had the same dream about her body lying near a creek beside a woodland pool. In my next book, half completed and tentatively titled And on the Surface Die, a teenager is murdered on a deserted beach, and later another goes missing. By the time it’s published in 2008, will the girl have been found, or will she remain a ghostly mystery swirling in the fog while the lighthouses blow their eerie horns?
Lou Allin’s website is http://www.louallin.com and she welcomes mail at louallin@shaw.ca.
Lou with her two pals. Friday, aka Strudel, age six, is an apricot mini-poodle. Shogun, originally Hogan, then Logan, is border collie, saved by a British Columbia collie rescue association. He's two.“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life,” Oscar said, but I’m not sure I agree. Life came first, after all. As a writer with five books in my Belle Palmer series set in the Nickel Capital, a standalone in a Michigan university, and a forthcoming series set where I now live, in the quiet fishing-tourist village of Sooke on Vancouver Island, I’ve seen that cycle evolve many times.
I took the image of the Lady of the Lake handing Arthur his Excalibur and froze her hand sticking through the ice for Northern Winters Are Murder, then leaned on the residential school scandal for Blackflies Are Murder. Bush Poodles Are Murder included a scam man similar to a local figure who bilked seniors out of a few million dollars. Just as he left jail, the book appeared. So much for art imitating life.
But the process turned, and turned again. When I was writing Murder, Eh? three years ago, I was addicted to CourtTV and fascinated by the trial of a prominent rabbi in New Jersey, who hired a hitman to murder his wife, then hired the same man as a private investigator. Sounds wildly improbable, but the nefarious plan almost worked. The hitman, supposedly ex-Mossad, probably merely delusional, decided when flattered by a nubile female reporter, that if he spilled the beans on the charismatic rabbi (who had so far skated free), he’d be pardoned and enjoy the spoils of the tabloid sales. The reporter contacted the police, who set a wire, and now both men, and a more feeble minded accomplice who actually struck the woman, are spending life sentences in jail. The rabbi still pleads his innocence. Sometimes I believe the silver-haired and golden-tongued devil.
I confess to using the concept of this crime as well as the brilliant conversion of a former Molson brewery in Barrie to a thriving grow-op (the criminals roasted coffee in their alleged business, which hid the smell of pot in the copper vats). I’d passed the old plant en route to Toronto many times and laughed when I read about the bust.
About nine months before Murder, Eh? appeared, fiction would turn to fact in Sudbury. The wife of a prominent businessman and devoted mother of two teenaged girls disappeared in the dead of winter. In the initial search, her empty van was found nearby their upscale home. Due to the heavy snowfall and severe weather conditions, searches were difficult. Eventually, all water courses in the area were combed. As the months passed, hope faded that she would be found alive.
Fast forward to March and the fifth book, Memories are Murder. This time I arranged a killing in the dense bush about forty miles south of town in an area called Burwash, site of a former prison, from which no one ever escaped. Now the plots start linking. Guess whose body turned up in that very area, just across Highway 69, only a few hundred yards from the main highway to Toronto? Rabbit hunters discovered the mutilated corpse of the missing wife and mother, wrapped in a rug and dumped in the bush months before. And like the rabbi, the husband, first to suspect, had an unbreakable alibi. Rumours in the coffee shops abound about his mistress, his wife’s supposed lover, and the scenario that a relative of his flew in from a distant country, did the deed, and flew out again. A small community of around 100,000, Sudbury has only three or four murders a year, mostly alcohol or drug-related. To this date, the murder is unsolved, and unless someone talks to the tabloids, the perfect crime has been committed.
In my new community, where the rain forest meets the sea, a young girl went missing a few years ago. Heartbreaking pictures of her still curl and fade in store windows and a descanso with flowers and toys stands across from the bus stop from which she vanished. Her classmates have had the same dream about her body lying near a creek beside a woodland pool. In my next book, half completed and tentatively titled And on the Surface Die, a teenager is murdered on a deserted beach, and later another goes missing. By the time it’s published in 2008, will the girl have been found, or will she remain a ghostly mystery swirling in the fog while the lighthouses blow their eerie horns?
Lou Allin’s website is http://www.louallin.com and she welcomes mail at louallin@shaw.ca.
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