Author Archives: Murderati Members

The consequences of violence

The violent events of this week in Manchester, which led to the deaths of two female police officers, have once again raised the debate in the UK about the routine arming of the British police.

At the moment, most branches of the police in the UK do not carry firearms and most, it would seem, prefer it that way. The president of the Association of Chief Police Officers has issued a statement saying he’s not in favour, that it distances the police from the community, and that officers lost to firearms incidents in other countries often do not get a chance to draw their weapons in any case.

In other words, if criminals know the police are armed, they tend to shoot first and ask questions later.

If you look at the figures provided by the National Police Memorial Day organisation (NPMD this year is September 30^th), since 1945 a total of 256 police officers have been shot and killed in the UK and 21 have been stabbed to death. None of these deaths happened in Wales; four were shot and two stabbed in Scotland; 51 shot and 19 stabbed in England. But in Northern Ireland, where the police service IS routinely armed, 201 officers were shot dead.

In real life, I can see the advantages of allowing officers better means to protect themselves and the public, and equally I can see that arming the UK police as a matter of course is probably not the answer.

In fiction, though, it’s another matter.

One of the reasons I took Charlie Fox to work as a bodyguard in the States is that she is able to carry—and use—a gun, but I did not do this lightly. Yes, she has been forced to use a firearm in anger on numerous occasions. That ability to act with extreme violence when the need arises—both armed and unarmed—is part of the fabric of the character. She comes from a military background rather than from the police, and she’s working in an atmosphere where her opponents are likely both to be carrying and to be prepared to use all kinds of available weaponry against her.

More than that, she knows that when someone prepares to attack a target who has close-protection personnel the first rule is to take out the bodyguard. Her fast reactions, and her willingness to use whatever means necessary to defend her principal, is at the heart of her job. In FIFTH VICTIM: Charlie Fox book nine, I even have her throwing a horse at somebody. She is nothing if not inventive …

But although I was once accused of having a somewhat casual attitude to violence in my books, I feel I don’t treat the subject in a cavalier fashion. Violence has consequences, and that’s the way it should be. When Charlie gets injured, it damn well hurts. And it continues to hurt long after the event.

A broken sternum in one book still troubles her in the next. And when she is shot twice halfway through SECOND SHOT: Charlie Fox book six (and I’m not giving away too much there—the clue is kinda in the title) not only does she spend the rest of that book severely handicapped by her injuries, they have serious repercussions into the story that follows. I did not want her to take a round in the shoulder and leap up crying, “It’s just a flesh wound!” before beating the bad guys into the floor.

But at the same time I was aware that she was becoming reliant on having a gun to hand. So for the latest instalment, DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book seven, she wasn’t going to have that luxury. This is my tribute to the Bruce Willis movie, Die Hard, which is one of my all-time favourites—mainly because of Alan Rickman’s inspired performance as the bad guy. So, I put Charlie into a situation where she is unarmed, cut off from support, and trying to make life hard for the bad guys while working out a way to rescue the hostages.

Although I had a ball writing it, all the time I was trying to keep the reader aware that violence has consequences. Not everybody will survive. Those that do will carry the reminders for a long time afterwards. This is not quite real life, but it’s not a cartoon either.

I know there’s been a trend in recent years for ultra-violent crime fiction—stuff that’s almost gore-porn. I want to make you feel it, but not to the point where you squirm. For me this is escapist entertainment, maybe with just a little hint of an underlying message.

So, where do you stand on violence in fiction, fellow ‘Rati? Should it be toned down, ramped up, or don’t you care if it fits with the story?

This week’s Word of the Week is verbivore, meaning someone who has an enjoyment of words and wordplay. From the Latin verbum meaning word, and vorax from voro meaning devour. It was coined in the 1980s by Richard Lederer, following along the same lines as carnivore and herbivore.

By the time my next ‘Rati blog comes around I shall be at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in Cleveland Ohio. I hope to see many of you there. If you spot me before I spot you, please come and say “Hi!”. I’m on a panel at 11:30am on Friday morning—‘I Am Woman Hear Me Roar’ on protagonists that are kicking butt and taking names—moderated by Nora McFarland, with Sara J Henry, Jennifer McAndrews, Meg Gardiner and Taylor Stevens. Should be fun!

And finally, a little gentle BSP, if I may be so bold. I was honoured to be asked to contribute to the excellent MAKING STORY: Twenty-one Writers on How They Plot, available on both Amazon UK and Amazon.com. Editor Timothy Hallinan has done a wonderful job of pulling all this disparate information together, and it should prove an invaluable resource.

It’s All About Me

By David Corbett

For my last two postings (not counting September 11^th), I’ve tried to lighten things up a bit. Now I’m going to do something even more unusual, at least for me: blatant self-promotion (aka BSP).

Gar has previously written here about how uncomfortable the old hard sell makes him. I read his remarks and felt an implicit and profound simpatico. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s the Catholic upbringing that Gar and I share, but asking people to give me something, no matter how understandable—or necessary—feels like the coarsest type of vanity.

Worse, it feels like begging.

Alex has made the excellent counterpoint that without promotion—indeed, aggressive and smart and relentless promotion—your chances of finding a readership that can sustain you professionally are akin to those of capturing the Higgs boson in a Klein bottle (or words to that effect).

As much as I concede the wisdom in Alex’s remarks, I still feel a little soiled by the whole thing, and somehow suspect my conscience is wagging its finger at me. Better poor and proud, I can hear it say, than rich and self-aggrandizing. But, of course, my conscience doesn’t have a mortgage to pay.

So—I embark upon the following two entreaties with considerable ambivalence.

(Not that you care, I realize, but I thought if I started with a little self-abnegation the rest of this would be easier to plod through. Because that’s the true subtext of all self-promotion, whether it’s a breeze or makes your skin crawl: It’s all about me.)

So, first, I’ve launched my own manuscript review and editing service. I dove into this end of the pool after being approached by an agent and several students to look at works-in-progress and give my best advice on what works, what doesn’t—only to discover I’m rather good at it.

It’s a natural extension of my teaching, which I love, and allows me to delve more deeply with individual writers into the whole of their manuscripts.

The best part is providing these writers with confirmation of just where their strengths and weaknesses lie, for I’m often just an external voice echoing what they themselves already know: This is excellent, this needs work, this can be cut, etc.

(And nothing is more gratifying than offering a suggestion and having a writer’s eyes light up as she says: Of course! Often, it’s just the slightest refocusing of a theme or plot point that can turn confusion into clarity.)

I provide four levels of service, from review of a synopsis to a full line edit of the complete manuscript, with two mid-level approaches also available. For full details, go here.

I’ve been told by others in the field I’m ridiculously cheap. So, sign up before I wise up.

Second, for those of you who don’t already know, my story collection, Killing Yourself to Survive, is now available in a variety of ebook formats at the insanely hospitable price of $2.99 through Open Road Media and Mysterious Press (also the publishers of fellow Murderateros Gar Anthony Haywood, Martyn Waites, and Ken Bruen).

I’m known more for my novels than for my stories, though one offering in this collection—“Pretty Little Parasite,” from Las Vegas Noir—was chosen for Best American Mystery Stories 2009.

For a bit of a teaser:

One hand on her hip, the other lofting her cocktail tray, Sam Pitney scanned the gaming floor from the Roundup’s mezzanine, dressed in her cowgirl outfit and fresh from a bracing toot in the ladies. Stream-of-nothingness mode, mid-shift, slow night, only the blow keeping her vertical—and she had this odd craving for some stir-fry—she stared out at the flagging crowd and manically finger-brushed the outcrop of blond bangs showing beneath her tipped-back hat.

Maybe it was seeing her own reflection fragmented in dozens of angled mirrors to the left and right and even overhead, or the sight of the usual trudge of losers wandering the noisy maze-like neon, clutching change buckets, chip trays, chain-smoking (still legal, this was the `80s), hoping for one good score to recoup a little dignity—whatever the reason, she found herself revisiting a TV program from a few nights back, about Auschwitz, Dachau, one of those places. Men and women and children and even poor helpless babies cradled by their mothers, stripped naked then marched into giant shower rooms, only to notice too late—doors slamming, bolts thrown, gas soon hissing from the showerheads: a smell like almonds, the voice on the program said.

Sam found herself wondering—no particular reason—what it would be like if the doors to the casino suddenly rumbled shut, trapping everybody inside.

A second story—“It Can Happen,” from San Francisco Noir—was nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Short Story of 2004:

Lorene took up position bedside and crossed her arms. She was a pretty, short, ample, strong woman. “Don’t make me go off on you.”

Pilgrim tilted his head to see her, eyes glazed. Every ten minutes or so, someone needed to wipe the fluid away. It was a new problem, the tear ducts. Three years now since the accident, reduced to deadweight from the neck down, followed by organs failing, musty skin, powdery hair, his body in a slow but inexorable race with his mind to the grave. He was forty-three years old.

In a scratchy whisper, he said, “I got my eyes and ears out there.”

“Corella?” Their daughter. Corella the Giver, Lorene called her, not kindly.

“You been buying things,” he said.

“Furniture a crime now?”

“Things you can’t afford, not by the wildest stretch—”

“Ain’t your business, Pilgrim. My home, we’re talkin’ about.” She pressed her finger against her breastbone. “Mine.”

Lorene lived in a renovated Queen Anne Victorian in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, hardly an exclusive area but grand next to Hunter’s Point, where Pilgrim remained, living in the same house he’d lived in on a warehouseman’s salary, barely more than a shack.

Pilgrim bought the Excelsior house after his accident, when he came into his money through the legal settlement. He was broadsided by a semi when his brakes failed, a design defect on his lightweight pickup. Lorene stood by him till the money came through then filed for divorce, saying she was still young. She needed a real husband.

Actually, the word she used was “functional.”

A third story, “The Axiom of Choice,” appeared in The Strand.

It was discussed in an online forum titled Mathematical Fictions that focuses on narrative works that deal with mathematics or mathematicians. (I’m oddly proud of this, for reasons which escape me.) I also think the story is one of my best, and is one of my few attempts at first person narration:

As I sat here waiting, wondering how to explain things, I caught myself remembering something often said about set theory. I teach mathematics at the college, I’m sure you know that already. It’s sometimes described—set theory, I mean, excuse me—it’s oftentimes described as a field in which nothing is self-evident: True statements are often paradoxical and plausible ones are false. I can imagine you describing your own line of work much the same way. If not, by the time I’m finished here, I suspect you will.

I see by your ring you’re married. Perhaps you’ll agree with me that marriage, like life itself, is never quite what one expects. I’ve even heard it said that, sooner or later, one’s wife becomes a sister or an enemy. I’m sure for a great many men that’s true. I’d put it differently. Again, if I can borrow a phrase from my area of expertise, I suppose I might say of Veronica’s essential nature—her soul for lack of a better term—what Descartes said of infinity: It’s something I could recognize but not comprehend.

Now, I can imagine you thinking, given what you saw in our bedroom, that such a statement reveals a profound bitterness, even hatred. I assure you that’s not the case. But there’s no getting inside another person, no rummaging around inside a wife’s or a lover’s psyche the way you might dig through a drawer. The gulf between me and my wife, her and Aydin—that’s the name of the young man whose body you found beside my wife’s: Aydin Donnelly, he was my student—the gulf between any two people may feel negligible at times, intimacy being the intoxicant it is, but the chasm remains unbridgeable. It has nothing to do with facts—my God, who has a greater accumulation of facts than a married couple? No, I’m not speaking out of bitterness. On the contrary, I feel humbled by this observation. What I mean to say is this: If you simply bother to reflect on the matter seriously, or just open your eyes, absolutely everything, even oneself—and especially one’s wife—remains mysterious.

So if you’ve got three shmazolies to spare, give these stories a spin. Guaranteed to keep you turning those digital pages.

There. I’m finished now. Time for:

Jukebox Hero of the Week: Meet the Korean hip-hop sensation PSY. You want to talk about successful promotion? Who doesn’t envy someone who can claim more than 194,665,000 hits on his YouTube video?

VISION QUEST

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

Let’s make this clear – I’ve never met Eraj Asadi. But he’s been in my home. In fact, he’s been everywhere I’ve been, although he doesn’t know it.

Eraj is with me when I open my computer or my iPad. He’s there when I turn on my phone.

It started when a good friend of mine gave me a Facebook link to a set of photographs taken at her son’s wedding. Clicking through the photos I couldn’t help but gasp at the beauty of every captured moment – these were wedding photos like nothing I’d ever seen. The intimacy of every shot was balanced with an almost circus-like absurdity that somehow caught the essence of the bride and groom and all their guests.

Instead of contacting the groom to congratulate him on his marriage, I contacted his mother, my friend, and said, “Who the fuck shot that wedding, Annie Leibovitz?!”

And thus began my friendship with photographer Eraj Asadi. Now, when I want a unique, visual perspective on life, I open my computer, or iPad, or iPhone and check out the recent uploads of his work.

Eraj has an exceptional eye. His photographs make me pause, and breathe, and reflect. As an author I often struggle to “see” my characters or the settings I wish to describe. I capture an image in my head and then I lose it. Eraj’s photos remind me that there’s more to it than merely describing the three dimensional characteristics of the body or the place. A description should capture the soul, the humanity, the intent. A description should describe the describer.

Eraj’s photographs tell me as much about Eraj as the characters he chooses to shoot. His work inspires me, and I thought they might inspire others at Murderati, too. This is why I asked him to join us today.

I asked Eraj to tell me a little bit about himself and how he came into photography. And then I asked him to pick a handful of photos to share – about a dozen. This is an almost impossible task, as I personally could never choose a dozen photos to represent the incredible breadth of his work. It was hard for him, too, but he came through. I urge you to “friend” Eraj on Facebook or visit his website to get a better understanding of the world he sees, all the time, everywhere he goes. And, although he’s chosen to show a select group of photos to demonstrate a select group of feelings that presently come to mind, I urge you to take a look at all of his work, particularly his portraits of the people he encounters every day in the streets of New York City. You’ll be amazed.

I’ll shut up now and let Eraj say a few things for himself…

Eraj: Thanks so much for having me here on Murderati, Stephen. Well, I’m the ’60s child of an Iranian father (now passed) and Indian mother (who resides near her son in Cliffside, NJ). Pre-school was a convent run by Italian nuns (!) who really didn’t want little boys in their vicinity, but were forced to take them by the govt, middle school was an English curriculum school called St. Christopher’s; at the age of 11, I was placed in 7th grade Bahrain School, an American school started by the US Dept of Defense geared toward the children of military personnel and oil executives living in Saudi Arabia (who would send their kids to this boarding school). These were very influential years for me as the school was run by Peace Corp teachers who were very open-minded and encouraged free thought (I’m still connected to some of these teachers on Facebook). My mother had a degree in Microbiology from an Indian university in the mid-1950’s so education was a very high priority for her – she put me in BHS because she intended for me to come to the United States to receive higher education.

In my last two years in BHS, I became very involved and intrigued with photography – these were pre-digital days, so it was all film, and I shot primarily B&W photos, both of friends in high school and then local characters of interest to me. For some reason, I suspected these guys wouldn’t be around forever so I wanted to preserve images of them (you can see some of these in my “Roots & Culture” album). I would develop my own negatives and spend hours in a darkroom I had at home working on them. Was so involved in my photography, I told my mother that’s what I wanted to do as a career, and her response, not unlike many Mom’s was “don’t be silly…you need a good job in order to support yourself and your family; you’re going to business school.” And that’s what I did…came to Georgetown Univ for a year only to fall in love with NYC so much each time I’d visit (my brother was in his last year at NYU), that I transferred to NYU after a year. Finished my BS and MBA (Finance, ’86) at NYU.

And then I got into the world that’s been my career, financial institutions/investment banking (today, I’m the Chief Operating Officer of a start-up finance company capitalized by a major, high flying hedge fund in NYC called Perella, Weinberg Partners after having run the securitizaton business for a major international bank, Rabobank, from 1999 until 2011). And it’s also how I’d describe my “dark period”…focused on career, put down hobbies and passions aside (other than running…I’ve run 5 New York Marathons, last one being in 2009) and didn’t do much to cultivate the artist in me.

I joined Facebook just about four years ago, and started to upload some of the photos I’d taken on the island, the character studies I’d mentioned earlier. I invested in a digital camera about three years ago. Combined with the difficulties in the banking industry and some personal tragedies, I literally threw myself back into photography in order to continue to find beauty in this world when there seemed none left. I met the burner contingent (Preston, whose wedding photos you saw on line, and all his merry cohorts) by walking into a party I thought was a rave two years ago only to realize I’d tapped into NYC underground nightlife, and the people in that scene are often the subjects of my controlled shoots. So, essentially what you’re seeing now is a person who’s almost come full circle, back to this passion that I loved as a child as it connected me to the world, now when I need it most.

“The Fisherman” is a milestone photo for me as I took it when I was only 16 years old in the old fish market in Bahrain, the island on which I grew up. I had the feeling that that market, and the people who dressed and looked like this wouldn’t be around in a few years as the island was rapidly modernizing. I liked the fisherman’s “get a load of this kid wanting to take my picture” expression. I entered it into a local photography competition and won 1st Prize with it. Even back then, I was always interested in people, their characters, and the way they looked upon life.

“9-11” is a photo I shot from Weehawken as I watched my adopted city burn. I always loved the Twin Towers and couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t hear or smell anything as the wind was blowing in the opposite direction on an otherwise picture perfect day. No one spoke a word. It was like experiencing a silent horror movie. A part of me died on that day.

“10th St” speaks to me because it was taken at the corner of 10th and Stuyvesant, in the East Village, where I lived for my entire NYU years. This was one of the first snowfalls I’d ever seen. I was struck by the quiet and serenity of the city as the snow fell. Looking back upon it now, it just seems like a much quieter and simpler time. I love the cars in this capture too.

“Canyons” is a photo I took just about two years ago as I was driving home to NJ from the city. The sky was lit up this bright orange, and as I always do, I had my camera with me and realized traffic would prevent me from getting to the West Side of the city before the sun dropped. So, I just shot the image this way, and in hindsight, actually prefer it to an open sky. This is just one of the incarnations of my beautiful town.

“City Abstract” is just another one of those images that “appear” if you happen to look around in NYC. I was actually waiting for a meeting to begin in a conference room high in the GM Building on 59th and 5th, and happened to look down, saw this, ran for my camera bag, and shot it. It’s how I think of NYC when I see it in my minds eye – a meld of yellow cabs and people everywhere..

“The Blind Man” represents one of my most recent street candid “portraits.” This man passed me as I walking along 18th Street and I was struck by his features, gaze, dress sense…and aura of pride, even though he couldn’t see. I doubled back and tapped him on the shoulder and asked if I could take his photo. He asked why and what I planned on doing with it. I said that I take photos of New Yorkers and put them in a “cool people” album if they strike me, and he certainly did…and that’s when he said “sure” and I shot this. I can’t imagine the fearlessness of a young, handsome man like this facing life with the hand he’s been dealt, with the grace in which he was doing so. Inspiratioinal, to say the least.

“Culture Clash” is a photograph I took earlier this summer, on “Sikh Day” in NYC. I was pretty much done with shooting the festival itself and was on my way out of the park when I saw these two eyeing each other up. On Facebook, I captioned this photo “Close Encounters of The Hipster Kind”…it still makes me laugh every time I look at it…this city is a huge melting pot, but seeing two totally different cultures getting a load of each other in this manner was priceless.

I shot “Gulf Oil” in the dead of winter in Hunt’s Point Market which is in the South Bronx of NYC, early one Sunday morning. It’s an industrial area, so absolutely no one was around. What I like about the image is that it reminds me of what Andy Warhol might have done if he focused on gas stations instead of soup cans.

In my heart of hearts, I’m a portrait photographer, trying to capture people’s essence. “Maria” is Maria Kreyn, a formidable and incredibly talented (and beautiful) Russian artist who paints in the tradition of The Masters. She is incredibly creative and artistic and we’ve done a few shoots of her together with her art. This happens to be one of my favorite portraits of Maria…I was fiddling around with the settings on my camera, looked up and saw her doing this with her gorgeous hair, and shot it.

“Panda” is a wedding photo I took of my friends Preston and Annie (Preston and Annie makes PANDA, get it?!) in Nov. 2011 in Mexico. They’re burners, so completely unconventional, and I told them the night before that I’d like to try and catch them both as they prepared for their wedding service later that day. This photo is a clear homage to John & Yoko’s classic, but it still makes me laugh at just how game these two were to play along. It’s the wedding album cover, and it was a huge hit with them and their friends too.

“The Guitar Man” is a guy I saw walking across the street when my wife, son and I were returning home from The Bronx Zoo…I walked over to him and asked if I could take his photo, and he said, “Are you going to publish it anywhere?” Usually, the “right” answer to that question is “No…its just for my personal use”..which is what I laid on him, and that’s when he said “No, man…I need someone’s who’s going to make me famous!” and so I now had to back-pedal, tell him about how I have a following on FB etc etc and how “you never know”…at any rate, he finally acquiesced and let me take this pic, and I really enjoy it…

I shoot a lot of things, even though people and portraits are my favorite. It’s interesting, some of the people that follow my work prefer my naturescapes and cityscapes the most, even they’re probably the least interesting to me. “Fall Leaves” happens to be a nature shot I really like; those leaves appear “gifted” to us by the many trunks of that magnificent maple tree. I took this photo about four years ago near Wayne, PA.

Eraj – thank you for giving us this opportunity to get to know you and to see the world through your eyes. I hope everyone will take a moment to friend you on Facebook and get to know you better through your vast collection of photographs. Keep up the great work!

Communication and misinterpretation

by Pari

Years ago when I lived in D.C., I felt so emotionally exhausted one day that I unplugged my telephone. This was in the Dark Ages, when cell phones — if they existed — were the size of dinner plates and had the reception reserved for those crappy mics at drive-through restaurants where what you get in that take-out bag may be leagues away from what you actually ordered.

Anyway . . .

I completely forgot that my phone was unplugged.

As the weeks went by with nary a ring, I sank into deeper and deeper despair. No one loved me. No one cared whether I lived or died. No one would discover my body until the end of the month when the rent came due.

Fast forward to today and the ever-expanding ways we can let someone else know we’re thinking of them: snail mail, cell phone messages, emails, tweets, FB comments and likes, pokes, IM-ing and so many more of which I’m not aware. But what happens when one or two or three of those fail?

I thought about this when my home email froze the other day. People were surely contacting me, but I couldn’t respond . . . I had no easy way of even knowing who had tried. Then I lost my mailbox key for a couple of days. Was there something in that metal box that deserved more attention than the usual grumpiness I feel when faced with a handful of bills?

Communication isn’t what it used to be. At least back in those Dark Ages, a person wouldn’t assume you were ignoring him or her if you didn’t respond.

Today expectations have changed. I think we’re all a bit more irritable and more apt to assume slights where none are meant. An era ago, a letter took weeks to arrive and weeks for a response. Phone calls went unanswered and, even more importantly, they often went unknown because there weren’t machines to capture the miss.

Now, I propose that the assumption is usually that an unanswered phone call, email or comment has a meaning when, in truth, it simply might not have been received.

All this comes up today because we’ve been having troubles with comments on Murderati.
It’s difficult to post them right now.
They disappear.
They get “moderated” for some odd reason.
The discussion behind the scenes is filled with concern: Are we losing our readers because they can’t interact with us? We don’t know.

I sure hope not.

And I hope that if you have a comment and can’t post here, you’d know to contact me — or my fellow ‘Rati — on our personal website emails . . . or on Facebook.

For now, we’re trying to figure out how to work with Squarespace to resolve the issue. Please accept my — our — apologies . . . but don’t assume we’re ignoring you!

My questions for today:
1. Do you agree that the way we communicate has changed since the advent of, say, the pocket-size cell phone?
2. Have our expectations (and, perhaps our patience) changed?

Back to school!

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Funny how the first day of September FELT like the first day of fall, a temperature drop of 15 degrees, the onset of Santa Ana winds, and an actual blue moon. All pretty auspicious if you ask me.

Fall is my favorite season by far. It always feels like the real new year to me, that back to school energy.

I’m excited for this fall/New Year and also overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed because I’m…

– Selling my house (yes, one of the five most stressful things a person can do. Some even say it’s #1!), and looking for another.

– Apparently I need to buy a new car, too. And if you think selling a HOUSE is stressful, baby – just trying being a femme the way I am definitely a femme and figuring out how to buy a car without a S.O. man involved…

– I have two conventions to get to in the next two weeks (the Writers Police Academy and Bouchercon) Which is AWESOME, don’t get me wrong, but the devil is in the details. Southwest should be paying ME at this point, is what I think.

– I haven’t done last year’s taxes yet (yes, I DID get an extension, I’m not THAT much of a femme…)

– I’m trying to get a new book, the sequel to Huntress Moon, out in November

– I need to do some serious Halloween promotion for my other books. That means OCTOBER.

– Everyone expects me to do an intensive story structure blog series for the month before and during Nanowrimo and I can’t imagine NOT doing it. That also means OCTOBER.

– I have a group anthology that we’re planning to release as an e book in OCTOBER.

Piece of cake, right?

Cue hysterical laughter.

Let’s get real. I can’t possibly do all of the writing things I should be doing this fall. I’d need to be a whole other person on top of the person I am to get it all done.

And yet I am surprisingly cheerful about all of this.

I have theories about this optimism. First, I took a vacation for the first time in ages (actually it was half work, but still, half a vacation in AUSTRALIA is pretty great!) and I can feel that my whole outlook has been rearranged; I’m still having crazy Australian dreams, too, a fun perk. And I came back to real life and even as I wade back into the deluge, I feel that enough of it will get done for me to keep on keeping on, the world hasn’t come to a standstill because I took some time off. Good to know!

Also, it’s a huge weight lifted that Huntress Moon is doing so well. Between that launch and the sales of my other e books, I’ve made the Top 100 Indie Bestselling Author list, and the relief that I actually made the right choice in breaking out into e publishing, and that I might actually understand how to make this work on my own, is vast. Besides that, e publishing makes actual sense in a way that traditional publishing never did: I know what I have to do and I understand approximately why it works, and I see the quantifiable results month by month; there’s no longer that bullshit cloud of mystery around the whole process that there used to be. And I KNOW WHEN I’M GETTING PAID now that I’m not subject to the whims of publisher “float”. Believe me, that makes my life a whole hell of a lot easier, just that.

I am further encouraged that my author friends like Murderati Zoe and Rob and Brett and Dusty, and other author friends in the Killer Thrillers! collective, who have always been doing the same kind of traditional publishing that I have been doing, are now doing much better at e publishing – by doing the same things that I am doing.

That’s a really fine feeling to have. Stabilizing, even.

I have a lot to handle this fall, but grueling as it all may be, it’s all positive, compared to a lot of not so fun stuff I’ve had to handle in the last few years. I’ve made some extreme choices that thankfully have paid off.

And I know what I need to do in the next three months:

– Finish Book 2 in my Huntress series by the end of October

– Sell my house

– Find a new house that’s a good investment, hopefully by the end of the year

– Buy a new car, but rent one until I have time to actually look properly

– Launch the anthology

– Do my taxes (grrrrrr…)

– Go to Bouchercon and the Writers’ Police Academy

– Do a research trip to San Francisco

– Do the promo runs I need to do for Halloween

– Keep up with social media

– Dance more (a point really driven home now that I’m being able to take class with my favorite hip hop teacher in NC while I’m prepping the house. I can barely walk, but OHH, it hurts so good… and better than that, I feel human again.)

– Enjoy life!!!!!

So, ‘Rati, what I want to hear today is – What is YOUR fall (New Year’s) resolution list?

– Alex

Huntress Moon, an Amazon bestseller!

And baby makes four

by PD Martin

All the Murderati contributors know the deal, but some of our readers may have noticed my absence from comments for the past three to four weeks. Maybe?

Well, I’ve had good reason. I’ve been an extremely busy girl! First was a trip to Hawaii (which I blogged about), then South Australia for a writers festival (also blogged about that), and then the biggest event of them all — off to Korea to pick up our son. Told you I had a good reason.

We started the process of adopting our second child from Korea nearly three and a half years ago. Since we adopted Grace in 2007, the Korean international adoption program has changed dramatically. I could blog about that (in detail) but I won’t. All I will say is that while I think the ultimate goal is great from a societal point of view (to keep all Korean children in Korea, with loving Korean families) the actual outcome at the moment is probably not in the best interests of the children (in my humble opinion). Now, while there are less children being placed overseas, the ones who are adopted by American or Australian families are much older than they used to be. When we picked up Grace she was 4 months old, but our son was/is 16 months old. That being said, we know we’re both lucky and blessed and he IS settling in brilliantly. And we owe Korea a lot – our family. Now, onto the experience…

We got the news that we were allocated a baby boy in October last year. With this exciting news came the ‘bad’ news that the estimate for when we’d pick him up was early 2013 — so he’d be nearly two years old. We prepared ourselves for the long wait as best we could, knowing we were lucky to have Grace to focus our attention on.

Then, in July this year, we were asked to lodge a final bit of paperwork. Could this mean he was coming to us earlier? The government department that deals with intercountry adoption felt it was a good sign. We started to hope that maybe, just maybe, he’d be with us before Christmas. Maybe even by November. Then we suddenly got the call — you can pick him up in two weeks’ time!

We arrived in Korea late on Monday night, 27 August. Our first meeting was scheduled for 11am on Tuesday 28 August but at 9am we got a phone call bringing it forward an hour. Ahh!!! We managed to get ourselves ready (and presents wrapped) on time — just.

Our little boy arrived not just with his foster mum, but with his foster dad and one of his foster brothers (the foster mum has two boys, both at college). This immediately told us that they were all extremely close and it was going to be very difficult for them to say goodbye.

MinSeok was hesitant at first, but eventually warmed to us, led by Grace who was an absolute angel! The first meeting also involved the exchanging of gifts (Korean tradition) and in addition to some presents for us all, the foster family gave us a huge canvas trunk full of clothes and toys for MinSeok, plus two massive photo albums (including one professional album that features MinSeok in about 10 different outfits/shoots!). There was also an additional bag of his favourite toys. Incredibly generous (although luggage instantly became an issue!) We were also told he preferred men to women and about his routine.

At the end of the meeting I asked the foster mum if she thought he’d respond okay to us holding him, and she said he was normally okay, so yes. Both my husband and I got to hold him briefly. Very exciting, very surreal.

The big ‘handover’ day was set for Monday, but we decided it would be good to have another meeting in between, maybe on the Friday. So we asked our social worker at Eastern Social Welfare Society about it. At this point, we discovered the foster mum had been sick and in hospital and that it would be too much to get them to come in again (they live 1.5 hours by car from Eastern). We now believe this is probably why it all happened so suddenly in the end for us. Eastern rushed us through, knowing the foster mother was sick.

Our second meeting (which would be the handover) was very strange. For some reason, they’re holding these meetings in the foyer of Eastern. And while it is a ‘closed/private’ environment, there are Eastern workers walking around, other couples and families who are adopting, etc. Very strange. We’d witnessed three incredibly traumatic handovers in this pretty public forum and we weren’t looking forward to it. However, MinSeok was extremely good during that meeting and while the foster mum was crying at the end, MinSeok was in my husband’s arms and went off with him/us no problems and no tears. We took him straight to the room (we stayed at Eastern, which has two levels of rooms in their guest house), where he played for a bit, and still didn’t cry. Then again, we did have our secret weapon (5yro Grace).

The next day was tough…the tail-end of the typhoon caused shocking rain and after being cooped up for most of the morning and the first half of the afternoon we decided to brave it just to get out for coffee. We got soaked even with umbrellas. We raced back and had food in the fridge for Grace and MinSeok for dinner but only corn chips (and beer!) for the adults and it was too wet to even consider going out. Eventually we got Grace and MinSeok fed and Grace in bed, and after much walking MinSeok was asleep, too. The rest of our last night was spent packing and eating our dinner of corn chips with a couple of beers.

We weren’t sure what to expect the next day on the plane, but we had a dream flight. The first leg (Seoul to Hong Kong) was three hours and MinSeok kept himself busy. For the second leg, we’d only been up in the air for about 20 minutes when he fell asleep on my husband’s front (in the Ergo carrier) and he didn’t wake up until we’d been through Immigration and collected our bags in Melbourne! Hubby didn’t get any sleep, because any time he tried to put MinSeok into the plane cot or into my arms, MinSeok would wake up screaming. We only tried twice!

MinSeok (who at first wouldn’t really come to me at all) is now looking to me for comfort, food and also smiling and laughing. We’ve started him on a new routine (from a book I had when Grace was younger) and it seems to agree with him.

He’s really coming out of himself the past couple of days. Smiling, laughing, etc. Not that he’s ever appeared distressed or unhappy — more like he was just watching and taking it all in.

He’s absolutely gorgeous — if only I could post pics! We’ve signed something with the Victorian Government agreeing that we won’t post any photos or transmit electronically until we’re his legal guardians. It’s frustrating, but I can see their reasons.

So, after many years of waiting, I’m a mum again 🙂 My writing time is out the window, of course, but it’s more than worth it!

Also, Eastern Social Welfare Society does amazing work in Korea, helping the elderly, disabled, and orphaned and abandoned children who can’t be adopted due to the legal requirement of relinquishment. You can find out more at their website. We sponsor a gorgeous little boy who’s in Jacob’s House. Look at the sponsorship section if you’re interested.

…AND YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER

by Gar Anthony Haywood

At this point, there isn’t much more to write about the most recent literary sockpuppet scandal that hasn’t already been written. R.J. Ellory has been the subject of more ink and page-views over the past two weeks than Clint Eastwood’s empty chair. The poor bastard’s been slammed from pillar-to-post for writing fake reviews under phony names that not only glorified his own work, but trashed the work of others, and enough of his fellow writers have stepped up to condemn him — and, to some extent, even defend him — that one would think there’s no angle to this shitstorm that hasn’t already been examined a thousand times over.

Well, I can think of maybe one.

As Martyn demonstrated here earlier this week, the vast majority of the outrage people have expressed over Ellory’s behavior has been due to the reviews he pseudonymously posted ripping other authors, including Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride. People wonder what could have possessed the man to do such a thing. After all, aren’t we in the crime writing community all one big happy family? Don’t we all share a mutual respect for one another that supersedes any jealousies or resentments we could otherwise harbor toward those more successful than we are? Aren’t we above all the foolish and petty infighting that has marred the landscape of literary fiction for years?

Uh, no, no and no.

The truth is, crime writers are just as capable of making enemies of other crime writers as Gore Vidal was of making one of Norman Mailer. We may all be in this writing game together, but some of us are sinking like a stone while others are tanning themselves on the deck of the Good Ship Lollypop, and the disparity between the two states of being sometimes goes to a crazed person’s head. Most of the time, this crazed person is the writer holding the short end of the stick, but not always; sometimes, the fear and paranoia behind all the venom are actually a byproduct of being the one on top looking down.

I know a thing or two about this enemy-making business because I’ve made more than a few myself. I know this leaves you incredulous — “An old softy like Gar Haywood making enemies?” — but it’s true. I’ve done it in various ways:

Daring to criticize other authors by name. Just as the first rule of Fight Club is “You do not talk about Fight Club!” (followed by the second rule: “You DO NOT talk about Fight Club!”), some crime writers believe a similar, even more sacred rule exists for Authors’ Club: “You DO NOT talk about other authors!” Which is an admirable sentiment, to be sure, but a rather unrealistic and immature one, as well. I mean, “If you can’t say something nice . . .” might work fine as an operating principle out on the playground at PS 44, but no adult who enjoys thoughtful discussions of matters literary as much as I do should be expected to adhere to it.
Needless to say, there’s a line between honest criticism and personal attack that should never be crossed, and I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever crossed it. But this is a distinction lost on some of the writers I’ve publicly taken to task for one perceived technical failing or another. To them, any negative word spoken by one writer about another in the public square is tantamount to slander, and whoa be to him who breaks the Brotherhood’s code of silence in this manner.

Taking myself too seriously. Humble as I am, I am not without ego, and some of my peers have confused a healthy dose of self-confidence with insufferable hubris. This is perfectly ridiculous. How could anybody with my Bookscan numbers be afflicted with insufferable hubris?

Not taking myself seriously enough. Believe it or not, not everyone finds my brand of self-deprecating humor, as illustrated above, hilarious. In fact, they think it cheapens my profession, which happens to also be their profession, so a joke at my expense is a joke at their expense. And how will they ever convince the Pulitzer fiction committee to give their work a serious look with clowns like me constantly mucking up the genre with a sense of humor?

As near as I can tell, the general assumption has been that R.J. Ellory posted those malicious reviews of Mark Billingham’s and Stuart MacBride’s books simply to scuttle their careers and advance his own. And maybe his motives were precisely that impersonal.

But I doubt it. My guess is — and it’s only a guess — somewhere down the line, Mr. Billingham and Mr. MacBride, individually or as a pair, did or said something that Ellory found personally painful, and deserving of some kind of payback. So he gave it to them.

If I’ve learned anything about myself and my fellow crime writers over the years, it’s that, by and large, we are all rather delicate creatures. Which is to say, we bruise easily. We don’t like criticism and we don’t trust the judgment of anyone who would presume to offer it, especially another writer.

Let me give you an example:

There is a Big Name Author I used to appear on panels with quite frequently. Let’s call him Leonard. I have always liked and admired Leonard, and have a great deal of respect for his work, as many readers of genre and non-genre fiction alike do to this day. But back then, Leonard, like everyone else who’s ever shared an open microphone with me, was often at the heart of the one-liners I like to sprinkle throughout a panel appearance, and unbeknownst to me, he didn’t like it. Stephen or David will tell you, having seen it firsthand, that no co-panelist of mine is safe from my rapier-like wit, I’m an equal-opportunity quipster — but Leonard had the idea I was always singling him out for special ridicule.

So the phone rings on my desk one day, not long after we’d done a panel together and a month or so before we were scheduled to do another. And Leonard — who’d never called me on the phone before — says, “I can’t do our panel.”

I’m thinking he’s fallen ill. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“No, no, I’m fine, it’s not like that. I mean, I can’t do another panel with you. I just can’t.”

“What?”

The rest of the conversation is a blur after all these years, but through my shock and awe I heard Leonard tell me that he couldn’t take my making fun of him anymore, and he wasn’t going to. We’d appeared on our last panel together, he was about to call the organizers of our next one to cancel and he just wanted me to know why he was doing it, first.

I was blown away. He thought I didn’t like him. Eventually, after I’d explained that nothing could be further from the truth, and offered to pull out of our panel appearance in his stead since he was the real draw of the event, not me, cooler heads prevailed and he agreed to do the thing, after all.

But as you might imagine, nothing has been the same between us since.

I hesitate to suspect Leonard “hates” me now, because that sounds incredibly pompous considering our difference in professional stations. You’d think he had more important people to hate on. Still, if I cared to, I could probably build a case for him continuing to strongly dislike me based on some rather damning evidence, some of it eerily similar to that which earned R.J. Ellory such recent infamy.

I bring all this up now to pose a single question: Is writer-on-writer crime a damn shame?

Answer: Absolutely.

But nobody should be surprised by it anymore.

Eleven Years Later

By David Corbett

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. I thought it would be appropriate to interview a first responder—in this case, someone who has worked in fire and emergency services for thirty-two years, both here in the U.S. and in New Zealand.

His name is Mark Chubb and he has served as a fire chief, emergency manager, engineer, inspector, and investigator in addition to his time on the frontlines as a firefighter. Mark is a member of the affiliated research faculty of the Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, and is a weekly contributor to HLSwatch.com.

He also assisted me in the writing of the fire-related sections of Done for a Dime, and by some sad, strange quirk of fate also happens to be my nephew.

I wanted to hear Mark’s opinions both about the attacks and where we find ourselves in public safety services eleven years later. Here’s what he had to say.

You were overseas in New Zealand on 9/11. How did New Zealanders react to the news? Was there a common sense of shock and vulnerability?

Because of the time difference, most New Zealanders learned about the attacks when they woke up on September 12th. By then, the Twin Towers had already collapsed and television news was presenting images of dazed and distressed New Yorkers fleeing Manhattan on foot, which I can only describe as post-apocalyptic.

New Zealanders like others around the world found these images not only shocking but deeply disturbing.

As you might imagine, my wife and I felt particularly vulnerable as we watched these images. She was born in the city and still had family there. Some were near Ground Zero when the attacks occurred. I had many friends in the area, some of whom responded to the World Trade Center and others who were emailing and texting their observations.

When we left the house we were taken by surprise as friends, neighbors, and total strangers embraced us. My wife stopped for breakfast while taking the kids to school. A lady near her, hearing her American accent approached and asked, “Are you alright?” She had been holding it together pretty well until then, and simply broke down in tears.

Before leaving home, I erected an American flag at our front gate. By the time I got home, people had left flowers, candles, and notes beneath it, transforming the site into an ad hoc neighborhood shrine that grew day by day.

You knew some of the firefighters who died in the towers. Has that personal element had an effect on how you view the job now that you’ve returned to the US and are once again working in public safety here? How has it affected others you know?

Just before the attacks, I had been selected for promotion to a uniformed command position with the fire service in New Zealand. The attacks made me more aware than usual of the responsibility I was assuming not only for the welfare of my community but the safety of those I supervised.

As you said, I knew two of the 343 firefighters killed in the World Trade Center collapse. One was Battalion Chief Ray Downey who oversaw the fire department’s special operations command. The other was Firefighter Andrew Fredericks who was assigned to one of the special operations squads deployed early in the incident. Both of these men were not only highly skilled and passionate about what they did, but also more willing than most to share their experiences with others.

Andy was particularly articulate and wrote for a trade magazine for which I was also a contributor. Ray Downey was probably the quintessential New York City firefighter. He had worked in all the toughest assignments, and not only enjoyed the work but shunned the rewards. His promotions, especially his last one, were practically forced upon him.

Even today, I think about the sacrifices made by Andy and Ray and so many others. To some extent, I take consolation in the thought that they died doing something they were passionate about. They truly put the welfare of others ahead of their own safety.

On the other hand, I wonder why others in responsible positions did not take the firefighters’ safety more seriously and withdraw everyone before the second tower collapsed. I don’t think anyone realistically expected the first tower’s collapse, but after it occurred the second one coming down was all but inevitable.

It’s hard to know what the incident commanders knew. They too paid the ultimate price that day. But in the aftermath we know everyone who could be saved had already evacuated by the time the towers fell. The civilian loss of life on floors below the levels of aircraft impact were minimal. Those above the impact never stood a chance of getting out alive.

I think this incident still haunts anyone close to it or to the people who were there. The lesson I took from the attacks and the fire service response to them was the importance of keeping my head and heart connected when I’m making high-stakes, time-critical decisions that affect others’ lives.

What were some of the differences you saw in firefighting and public safety in general once you were back here in the states — was it a sea change or pretty much the same as before only more so?

I think the fire and emergency services have become self-absorbed and even opportunistic since 9/11. Some of these changes were already in process before I left the U.S. in 1999, but I think 9/11 accelerated the trend quite a bit.

After Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway and Timothy McVeigh’s attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, firefighters were pleading their case before Congress for more federal financial assistance.

The argument went something like, “Hey, the cops get $11 billion per year in federal assistance. Don’t count on us to go into a subway filled with nerve agent if you don’t give us the money to equip and protect ourselves.”

The professionalization and militarization of public safety services has left those who provide these services more and more disconnected from the communities they serve. These days many cops and firefighters live well outside the communities where they work. As a result, public safety is now a service procured from others instead of something the community organizes to provide for itself.

You’ve been among a group of insiders in the public administration domain who’ve tried to sound the alarm that salary and benefit packages for public safety employees have to be sustainable to be realistic. This obviously isn’t popular, especially in a post-9/11 world. With three California cities filing for bankruptcy largely due to the burden of their public safety contracts — one of them my hometown — this is hardly an abstract matter. How do you see this scenario playing out, and how do you see fire and police services transitioning in the era of austerity many see coming?

I have been pretty outspoken about the salaries and benefits paid to public safety employees, and I do consider the current situation in many communities both unrealistic and unsustainable.

Before I address the problems I see, I need to make it clear that I am a firm believer that government jobs should pay not just a market wage but also a living wage.

The question about what constitutes a living wage is the subject of some controversy, but most citizens would agree that a living wage is one that pays enough for someone to live and raise a family in the community where they work.

Market-based wages are another question entirely, though, especially when it comes to public safety employees. Unlike many other government jobs, police and fire service are monopoly enterprises. It’s hard to find truly comparable jobs in the private sector to draw comparisons with.

When I started my career in the early 1980s, most cities were coming out of a period of very hard times. The response from many cities was to make public safety services more innovative and productive. Paramedic programs started in this era. Firefighters acquired new skills in rescue and hazardous materials response.

Starting about the same time, the incidence of fires dropped dramatically. Most of the decline seems to have occurred not because of but rather in spite of fire service efforts (or lack of effort for that matter).

As a consequence, a fire department’s main job these days has little to do with fires. In most cases, fires account for 2-5% of all emergency calls. Medical emergencies account for 70-85%. The rest of the calls are minor accidents, investigations, and false alarms.

Even with the sharp increase in medical responses, most fire departments have seen overall activity levels drop, at least on a per capita basis.

Meanwhile, it has become clear, at least to those who have studied the matter closely, that investments in staffing to reduce response times make very little difference. Building and staffing a fire station with career firefighters for something like $1.6-2.0 million per year rarely results in equivalent savings to the community in terms of life and property, productivity, insurance premiums and so on.

Do you see a possible silver lining in the cutting back of fire and police services, in the demand for greater citizen engagement with their own safety?

Yes, I do. Bankruptcy is unappealing to say the least. But it forces the kind of reckoning I think is inevitable.

For starters, it opens the eyes of the community and its public employees to their shared plight. The lack of common cause is a big part of the problem today, and bankruptcy puts everyone in the same boat.

Clearly, the expectations of citizens in bankrupt cities have changed. They take a more active interest in defining what needs to be done and deciding how and how well it should be done.

Disasters affect individuals as members of a community. None of us has the capacity to confront the challenges of recovery alone. If we didn’t need help, it wouldn’t be a disaster.

Creating conditions that give us confidence in the community, not just in the public servants we pay to protect us, makes it more rather than less likely that we will come through together when the chips are down.

* * * * *

Anyone who wishes to comment, in any way they wish, please feel free.

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: Igor Stravinsky. His use of a major seventh chord in this beautiful arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner earned the wrath of the Boston Police in 1944, who warned him he could incur a $100 fine for any “rearrangement of the national anthem in whole or in part.” The incident soon established itself as a myth, in which Stravinsky was supposedly arrested for playing the music. (The mug shot you see on the YouTube video is a hoax.)

Unfriendly Ire

By Tania Carver

OK. I wasn’t going to comment on the sock puppet issue because I’ve had plenty to say about it in the last week, through various outlets and none of it complimentary to the writers involved. Both Linda and I signed the letter too. And I was going to let it die down because it should. Or I was going to let other writers talk about it. But then I saw something on Facebook that no one else commented on and I couldn’t let it go. Because I think it may have repercussions for all of us.

The thought of writers inventing false names to big themselves up and give fake reviews isn’t, to my mind, the bad part. I can understand that in the wider context of PR and publicity. After all, how many of us have been complicit with our editors when they have approached other writers to blurb our books? How many of us have gone into a branch of Waterstones or Barnes and Noble and turned our books face out on the shelf? Little things, not necessarily morally right but not big enough or bad enough to hurt anyone. Incidentally, I in turn have been asked to blurb other writers’ books. And to be honest, if I’ve liked the book I’ve done it, if I haven’t I haven’t done it. I can’t speak for other writers but that’s what’s worked for me. If the book’s no good and it’s got my (or Tania’s) name on it, I can’t feel too happy about that. So thinking about what you have to do to get your book noticed in a crowded marketplace, assuming another identity to talk yourself up in forums and on Amazon, while being something I wouldn’t do, I can at least understand.

The four writers who have figured most prominently in this – Stephen Leather, John Locke, Roger Jon Ellory and Sam Millar – have only succeeded in making themselves look foolish by their actions. For instance, Ellory proclaiming himself a ‘magnificent genius’ just seems laughably pathetic, although that kind of Messianic self-delusion seems to be common amongst Scientologists. No, it’s the flipside of this that has, quite rightly, earned them anger. The attacks on other writers. It emerged that Stephen Leather had maliciously targeted another writer who didn’t like his books, even going so far as to set up a website in the other writer’s name with the sole intention of praising his own books. He also made nasty personal attacks against Jeremy Duns and Steve Mosby when they uncovered evidence of his behaviour. Ellory posted spiteful and vindictive reviews of Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride’s novels on Amazon. The review of Mark’s book – hastily taken down when the story broke – along with other things he has anonymously said against him on Amazon forums wasn’t just unpleasant but tipped over into slander and possibly libel. Sam Millar – although he still denies it despite what seems to be damning evidence that again hastily disappeared – targeted Stuart Neville and Laura Wilson in a similarly bilious manner.

Now, here’s my disclaimer. The writers targeted by spitefully bad reviews mentioned above are all good friends of mine. I’m just stating that in case people think I have some particular axe to grind. I don’t. I’ve seen what they’ve been going through as a result of this and it’s horrible. Getting bad reviews is awful enough but it’s so much worse coming anonymously from fellow writers.

And another disclaimer: I know how they feel. It’s happened to me.

Back in 2000 when my third book, Candleland, came out, I was subjected to a review in a prominent (at the time) magazine. It was a dreadful review. Awful. Almost incoherent in its rage against my book. At that time there were limited opportunities for new crime novels to find an audience and I’d just lost some valuable publicity. People judged the book by that review. People began to judge my other work in context to it as well. I was trying to make a bit of a name for myself and doing what I could to help the books take off and this was a setback. And then I found out something else. The author of the review was actually another writer. I checked this out, looking through all his (I’m assuming it was a he since he had a male name) other reviews. They were all equally scathing, all aimed at writers who had showed a bit of promise. Another writer told me he knew this person’s identity but he refused to tell me. I tried to find out but couldn’t. I figured it was someone I knew and even had a vague idea who it was but couldn’t prove it. I found it really difficult to go to CWA meetings and publishing events knowing that there was a very good chance that the person who had written that was sitting there, possibly even sitting with me, maybe accepting a drink from me. Pretending to be my friend. And then I started to think that maybe he was right. Maybe the book was awful. Maybe I didn’t deserve to think of myself as a writer. Maybe I should give up. And everyone else, all the other crime writers – was that what they all thought of me? Did they agree? Were they right?

Luckily there were other reviews, good ones – notably a great one in The Guardian – and things eventually began to pick up. This reviewer eventually disappeared. The person behind him decided he had had enough. And that was the end of that. But it really rankled. It hurt. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to make a career out of crime writing. I love being part of the crime fiction community, look forward to getting together when we can and am honoured and blessed to have made some truly wonderful friends in the community. So I remembered how much it hurt me when I saw what had been exposed this week. And I knew what my friends would be going through.

I’ve said some very angry things this last week sticking up for my friends. I’ve been challenged as to what gives me the right to talk like that, whether I’m so perfect I’ve never made mistakes or done things I regretted. And the answer is yes. Have I done things I regretted? Of course. Have I made mistakes. Definitely. Have I ever launched a deliberate, malicious attack on a fellow writer with the sole end of damaging their career and livelihood? Of course not. I would never dream of it, no matter what I thought of them or their work.

So when the dust started to settle over this affair I began to think that would be that. It was Amazon. Just Amazon. Yes, it screwed with their rating system and created false readings and recommendations. Did writers down and others up. Even before this happened I always mistrusted the reviews on Amazon. I can honestly say I’ve never bought a book because of an Amazon review. And besides, there are still professional critics and reviewers who provide impartial, accurate reviews with no axe to grind. The readers can still trust them.

Well, perhaps.

This is the thing I saw on Amazon that no one has commented on. Larry Gandle, who reviews for Deadly Pleasures magazine and the Tampa Tribune, posted a message of support for Ellory but – and this is the kicker – ended by saying ‘As far as his negative reviews on other authors – he is entitled to his opinion and I agree with almost everything he has said about them.’

Now, I don’t know if I’m being naïve, but is that acceptable behaviour for a reviewer to exhibit? A reviewer who wants to be taken seriously? Fair enough, Ellory may be a friend of his and he wants to give his support. Fine, but it may make his readers regard Gandle’s future reviews with a cooler eye and be less persuaded by them. But it’s that last sentence I have a problem with. Obviously, we are all allowed our opinions but it strikes me that making such a statement is at least unprofessional and at worst potentially damaging to Gandle’s reputation. How can his reviews be trusted to be impartial if he’s making statements like that?

So what should we do? Should reviewers have to declare their interests before they write? Or is that a little prohibitive? If that’s the case then perhaps we can’t trust any reviews or reviewers and if so that’s a sad state of affairs.

Right. What do we do next? How do we move this on? We’ve all signed the letter condemning this practise. Fine. The Crime Writers Association have made a statement. But nothing has really changed. I’ve got an idea as regards Amazon. Despite the practice of creating sock puppet accounts being illegal in this country, they’re not going to take any action that will affect their sales. They’ll ride this one out. However I do think there’s a way forward and my proposal is this. Any author found making anonymous attacks and posting malicious reviews on the site should have the ratings system removed from both themselves and their books. The books can still be sold on the site but there would be no reviews. And they in turn would not be allowed to make any. This again may be open to abuse but it’s the best and fairest I can think of.

Does anyone else have a better idea? If so, let’s hear it.

By the way – and here’s a bit of shameless, sockpuppet-free plugging – the new Tania Carver novel, CHOKED, is out in the UK next week. You can order it through Amazon here. And the latest Tania to be released in the States, THE CREEPER, is out too. You can buy that here.

A SHINING EXAMPLE

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

Sitting at the dinner table with my wife and children I notice that my life has become the shining example of what my children should avoid. As I relate one riveting childhood anecdote after another I notice my wife carefully spinning each adventure into a somber cautionary tale. She always ends with the words, “And your daddy was lucky to survive. Don’t ever try that yourself.” Then she turns and gives me the look and all I can do is nod sagely and say, “Your mother is right.”

How did this happen? I used to imagine myself as Jack London, imparting lessons learned from voyages of survival in a world of unprecedented danger. These are rite-of-passage stories, rife with moral lessons gained from personal experience. My boys should know the things their father has faced in his life, if only because they might find themselves in similar situations down the road.

However, more and more I notice that my role in these adventures has been relegated to that of “foolish lad” or “incompetent prince,” a character whose actions serve as a warning to the more sensible villagers whose only desire is to survive another day.

It’s usually around the time I twirl the last string of pasta on my fork that a tale like this begins…

“Did I ever tell you guys about the time I wrestled a steer?”

“Is this when you fell off the mechanical bull and stayed in bed for a week?”

I stare at my youngest, cringing from the memory he evokes. “No, not that time. I’m talking about when I was in high school. Remember how strong I was in high school?”

Their eyes stare blankly back at me.

“Well, I was really strong back in high school. I weight-lifted, like, almost every day. And Wednesday nights I would stay at my friends house on the barn and we’d get up at four o’clock in the morning to feed the pigs and sheep and this big-ass, gigantic bull with long, thick horns sticking out of his head. One day I said to my friend, ‘I’m going to grab that bull’s horns, Scottie.’ ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ he said.”

“It doesn’t sound too smart to me,” my twelve year old says.

“Quiet, now, let daddy tell his story,” my wife says, smiling in a way that makes me feel a little less than comfortable. She pours some wine in my glass and nods for me to continue.

“Okay,” I say, timidly. “All right,” I continue, taking a sip of the cool, white wine. “I climb over the fence and the bull is looking right at me, like he can’t believe I’m coming in. I walk right up to him and clasp my hands on his horns. His eyes widen like you see in old cartoons. He tries to step back, but I hold him still. He starts to turn his head slowly, testing my strength. It feels good, this burn in my forearms, a lot like the forearm curls I used to do in the gym. But then he begins to snort a bit and his pulling gets rough. That burn in my forearms begins to sting and I realize I can’t break away from this, it’s not like an exercise where I can stop and take a rest.”

“So, what did you do?” my wife asks, smiling into her own glass of wine. The kids look from me to her. Suddenly it seems like she’s telling the story, like it was always her story to tell.

“Well,” I say, “I look back at my friend and he has this pale look on his face, his lower lip beginning to tremble. By now the steer is pulling pretty hard and there’s this low, guttural sound coming from his snout. Now I see that those horns which looked so blunt from a distance look pretty damn sharp up close. I’m starting to wonder what the next move will be. I decide I’ll just count down from five and by the time I get to one I’ll know what to do.”

My kids have stopped eating and they stare at me with all the anticipation a kid can muster. I swell with pride at the sight.

“And when you counted down to one?” My wife prods.

“I let go of those horns and bolt,” I yell, slapping my knee with excitement. “I run for that fence with all my might. I can hear him coming behind me, those hooves kicking up dirt, his snorting and farting getting closer, his hot breath on the back of my neck. I swear I can feel his horns cutting the air just below my shoulders, nicking my shirt as he swings his head left and right. I hit that fence and leap, pulling myself up like a trapeze artist. I land flat on my back on the other side and when I look around I see that bull pounding his head into the metal fence, making big, loud clanging sounds that cause porch lights to flicker on across the neighborhood. I look back at Scottie and raise my fist in the air. He stares at the ground, shaking his head like he’s lost some terrible bet. Damn, boys, now that’s a story!”

My wife pours herself some wine, ignoring the empty glass I hold towards her. She turns to face the kids. “So, who can tell me the first three things that daddy did wrong?”

My fourteen year old raises his hand. “Ben?” my wife asks.

“He didn’t listen to his friend.”

“That’s right,” my wife agrees. “His friend, the farmer, knew the bull wasn’t just a big dog, or a pony, or a goose. He knew the bull was a dangerous animal that shouldn’t be messed with.”

Another hand goes up. “Yes, Noah?”

“He thought he was stronger than he was.”

“Yes,” she says. “Daddy did that a lot. It’s called magical thinking, and it happens when people believe their own fantasies. A lot of people die doing things they think they can do, like skiing off mountain-tops or drag-racing cars in the street.” I nod at her reference to the stories I’d told them on previous nights.

Ben raises his hand again. “He thought he was smarter than the bull.”

“Yes, daddy often thinks he’s smarter than he is, which also gets him into trouble. Let this be a lesson to you both, be smarter than daddy was when he was your age.”

The whole thing kind-of dampens my enthusiasm and after dinner I usually find myself skulking over to the TV to Netflix episodes of Breaking Bad.

Most of these cautionary tales fall into the following categories:

Man v.s. Beast: The above story is a case in point. Other stories of this ilk include the time I jumped into the badger cage at the zoo in Window Rock, Arizona, or the time I rode that runaway rodeo horse in the mountain snow, or the time (this one was witnessed by my wife and kids) when I ran onto the highway in Central California to save the life of a tarantula, only to chase it directly into the path of an oncoming S.U.V. The entire family heard the explosive “pop” when the wheels flattened that sucker. Try facing your kids after that.

Pyrotechnics, or What Not to Do with Fire: I made Super 8 movies when I was a kid and they all had to have explosions and titillating special effects.

Fire seems to have played a significant role in my creative development. Recently an old friend contacted me on Facebook, telling me how he’ll always remember how we poured flammable film splicing cement over tennis balls, lit them on fire, and filmed them bouncing around my mother’s garage, in slow motion. I, myself, had forgotten this moment until my friend brought it to light.

All my early films had to include at least five explosions. Most of these films featured me and my high school buddies carrying plastic machine guns and chasing each other through ski runs, hiking trails and dusty New Mexican neighborhoods. When a character was shot, we found it imperative that he also explode. We accomplished our pyrotechnics by using gunpowder extracted from the rocket engines sold at hobby stores. We turned them into blasting caps we ignited using electrical leads that went from the “explosive device” to the battery on my mother’s car (“Mom, can I borrow the car keys for a sec?” “Sure, honey”).

Then there are the stories of high school camaraderie, where teams of listless youth banded together to create warring factions that battled it out in the desert in order to protect their tribal lands. I remember bottle-rocket fire-fights that ended in stalemate until someone lit a Roman candle and pointed it in my direction. Balls of colored fire skimmed the top of my head, igniting the tumbleweeds and sagebrush behind me. I remember the warring factions working as a team (there’s the moral, kids! We’re all in this together!) stamping out flames with our melting sneakers.

I often regal my kids with tales of neighborhood kids left to their own devices, how we turned the time-honored dirt-clod war into something truly exceptional by incorporating our community archery set, using safety-conscious, rubber-tipped arrows. All is well and good until you douse those puppies in FLAMMABLE FILM SPLICING CEMENT and strike a match! This was long before anyone had even heard of the Hunger Games.

I remember once sitting in the shadows watching the fire department extinguish the pine tree in our neighbor’s front yard.

There are other stories, of course, stories from a genre I call Altered States, which have their grounding in a period of my life where I experimented with drugs. These tales are usually adjusted at the dinner table and transformed into what I call “things I did after a couple of beers.”

There’s another favorite genre I call Adventures with Girls, which is my attempt to relate valuable courting instruction to my teenage boys. These stories usually get me the “stink eye” from my wife and are followed by the comment, “Never treat a girl the way daddy did. You boys should be gentlemen, the kind that opens doors for girls and showers them with kindness and affection.”

At this I smile and wonder if my boys get the subtext of all these tales. It wasn’t the kid who opened the door that got their mommy’s attention. It was the kid who lit the fire.