Author Archives: Murderati Members

April is the Cruelest Month

So it falls on me to kick off The Long Goodbye, our month-long farewell to our loyal readers, commenters, fans, and friends.

Ironic, since that Chandler title was the first crime novel I read as an adult.

I’ve been mulling over how to go about this and what to say for most of the afternoon without much to report in the way of success.

Talk about writer’s block. (Don’t worry. I won’t.)

Part of my problem is the weird tar baby of emotion I’m wrestling with.

I could be a good sport, chuck all that and just say how truly lovely it’s been, because it has.

I’ll leave that to someone else, though, someone better suited for it.

What I’m left with is grief of course and a certain numbness, mixed with no small amount of doubt and frustration, all mixed in with the usual frantic angst, being behind in everything, plus some small relief at having one less task to tick off my To Do list—a craven, chickenshit relief, admittedly.

There’s also a very considerable amount of guilt. I feel like I’ve let all of you down.

And guilt invariably invites along to the party his old friends self-loathing and resentment—you needy bastards, you imperious word gluttons, how dare you…

I wonder if this isn’t the natural way of things, that every human effort expands then morphs and ultimately fades away, or if that isn’t softy-lofty self-serving bullshit.

I can’t escape the sense that I fundamentally misunderstood something—I didn’t choose the right topics, the right tags, the right tone, the right time.

I trusted more what I knew I could write well than what you actually wanted to read.

And I know this is but one more symptom of the disease we call the writing life, this constant, cancerous uncertainty, not just in the merits of our words but this nonstop crowing for an audience that so often—no, invariably—feels like half tap dance, half begging.

In short, I’m seeing the end of Murderati as a personal failing, which I know is nonsense but Christ, you feel what you feel and that’s the curse of it.

I’m reeling and seething and unprepared to miss this, to miss all of you as much as I will. The fucker snuck up on me as I was getting ready to write this. Who knew?

I’m tempted to identify those of you I will particularly wonder about and wish I could talk to, check up on, encourage and console, but my brain’s such an overworked mess these days I know I’ll forget someone and then feel deservedly wretched.

Why did anyone let me kick this thing off? What were you thinking…?

What I should have done is put up the several hundred YouTube videos I’d bookmarked, planning to use them for Jukebox Hero of the Week.

What I should have done is said nothing but: Thank you.

What I should have done … there’s a plank to walk.

Meanwhile, my terminally, pathologically, ruthlessly cheerful girlfriend is sending me links to fun stuff on the net, hoping to buck me up.

Things like “Can Music be More Effective Than Drugs?”).

Things like the trailer for Trance, the latest offering from Danny Boyle, an art heist caper featuring Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson (I’m so looking forward to this — Gee, maybe I’ll talk about it on … Oh. Right.)

Yeah, I’m crabby and cranky and moody and meh.

I’ll miss this. Miss you.

I have a bunch of announcements I could make, about things coming up, but it feels obscene to do that here and now. Look for it on the Murderati Facebook Page or my Fan Page (Christ, like us already, will ya?).

So this is how the month-long dirge—I mean celebration—begins. Forgive me. I’m just a crappy liar.

I’m sure Zoë will be in a much sunnier frame of mind tomorrow—or pretend she is. So stiff-upper-lip, that woman. Bless her murderous little heart.

I’ll try to get into the swing of things by my next, final posting.

In the meantime: Murderateros, do your best: Cheer me up.

Tell me everything’s gonna be okey-dokey and swell!

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: Maybe the Divine Miss M can work some magic:

The long goodbye . . .

Dear Friends of Murderati,

April marks seven years since we started this adventure. So much has changed. We’ve lost dear friends. Met new ones. Survived makeovers and transitions. Gotten publishing contracts. Stopped writing. Started again.

The writing industry, publishing, marketing, public relations – all have changed too. So has the way people stay connected and buy books. As the world becomes faster, time becomes even more precious. All of these factors – and many others — have weighed into our decision to say this long goodbye.

During this month, we’re inviting former contributors back for final posts (Naomi Hirahara has already responded!). At the end of the month, JT and Pari will post their final entries. After that, JT is going to work on a Murderati makeover to create a useful archived site so that none of our posts will be lost and all can be used as resources/inspiration for the people we’ve touched –through our words — and will continue to touch in the future.

Most importantly, we don’t want to lose touch with you. You’ve been the driving force behind the Murderati community. So we ask each and every one of you to join our Facebook page where the authors of Murderati will post to share news, new releases, and deep thoughts. That way, too, you can still interact with us.

Many blessings on all of you. It’s been a wonderful 7 years.

Murderati

Left Coast Crime report

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I’m back from Left Coast Crime and I always try to do the con wrap-up for anyone who can’t be there in person and so that I can sort out my own memories of the whirlwind that a conference always is. LCC is one of my favorite smaller cons, as laid-back as its name implies and one of the friendliest out there.

The actual conference was in Colorado Springs, but my con experience started in Denver, the night before, because mystery powerhouse and sweetheart Twist Phelan and her wonderful other half, Jack Chapple, were getting married and had arranged the wedding to coincide with LCC so that all their author friends could come (and also to say their vows on the Equinox, don’t think I didn’t notice that excellence of timing).

I’ll set the stage: Denver is a fairly good-sized city in a great bowl of plains, surrounded by a ring of very high snowy mountains. Gorgeous. Downtown is very funky – there’s a Gold Rush feel to it and an instant sense of eccentricity – in the layout of the streets (narrow and veering wildly all over the place, coming to strange triangles everywhere), in the buildings (many of which are built in strange triangles to fit the strange triangular intersections), and the overall dress is Wild West: lots of cowboy hats and boots and fur vests. The people – well, the people are a trip. As in San Francisco (another Gold Rush town – think about it), Denverites cultivate their eccentricities. One of my favorite sightings was a homeless guy perched on a bridge with a sign that read: SPACESHIP BROKE DOWN – NEED MONEY FOR PARTS. And from the look of him, he wasn’t kidding.

I shared a shuttle to the wedding with always amazing Guest of Honor Laura Lippman, superfun debut author Leslie Silbert, conference organizer/goddess Christine Goff, and the debonair Reed Farrel Coleman, who was liking the gender balance very much. Then the women somehow got into a appallingly detailed discussion of rape statistics and Reed had to explain to the suddenly very quiet male shuttle driver, “Crime writers, what can you do?”

The mood lightened immediately upon arrival at the Space Art Gallery. Knowing their friends, Twist and Jack had an open bar before the ceremony got started. The industrial style space was a great backdrop for all the red attire we had been requested to wear, which also matched the paintings. The latent production designer in me approved. And of course crime writers create their own special blend of drama everywhere they go: the vows and Twist’s dress got locked in an upstairs storage room- with a steel door. But that’s where your law enforcement/author friends come in handy – the bride and groom had retired police detective Robin Burcell trying to break in to retrieve everything to get the wedding started.

I’m not usually one to cry at weddings (partly because I’ve often been the minister and that would be bad), but I shocked all my friends by starting in the moment Twist started down the stairs (to “Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night”) in a shimmery pale gold dress that was worth breaking down a door for and being in every way the definition of radiance. I loved her little dance in the aisle. Then when minister Jan Burke (who was rocking her vestments) stepped up and opened the ceremony with a reading from The Velveteen Rabbit, well, it was all over for me – I don’t think I stopped crying, all through the speeches by Harley Jane Kozak and Reed Farrel Coleman, straight through the most excellent vows. I think Jack actually might have outwritten Twist… he started deceptively simply and then killed it at the end (when I told him so after he said, “You do learn SOMETHING about structure, hanging out with you guys…)

It was all perfect loveliness, so wonderful to share an experience like that with the tribe.

As we moved on to Colorado Spings and the Cheyenne Mountain Resort, a storm front moved in. Now, rational people understand that any conference in the winter is going to be dicey, but I am famous for forgetting that outside of California they have this thing called “weather.” As usual I showed up with a suitcase of clothes far better suited to the Bahamas than the Rockies. I had checked Weather.com, but too far in advance to have gotten the latest snow warning.

Still, there are worse things than being confined to a gorgeous resort hotel with stunning views outside and all your favorite people inside. This hotel was probably the best con venue I’ve ever been in as far as views go. Every level of the place had floor-to-ceiling windows. Those of us from California were permanently parked in front of them; we could sit in any number of luxurious armchairs and sofas and watch the snow falling, or blowing, outside, while having conversations that ranged from comparing the storytelling intricacies of Stephen King and Ira Levin (with John Rector) to a howlingly funny discussion of toilet – um, etiquette (with Naomi Hirahara, Keith Raffel, and sparkling Catriona McPherson, who I’m pleased to say won the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award), to the pleasurable challenge of deciphering the accents of designated Scotsmen Craig Robertson and Gordon Brown, Tartan Noir authors and organizers of Bloody Scotland, a brand-new international crime writing festival that is looking to be unmissable. And of course the inevitable ongoing e book marketing conversation (with LJ Sellers, Keith Raffel, and Elle Lothlorien).

There was work involved, too – I did a paranormal panel, the established author breakfast, and my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop, which I am thinking of retitling The Author’s Guide to Great Climaxes. It was more of a challenge than usual – Denver is the Mile High City and altitude sickness is always a problem for me and it’s an actual miracle I got through the workshop without passing out. Just walking across a room was winding for a lot of attendees, not just me. Still, even though I had just 45 minutes to do what I have learned never to attempt in less than a two-hour block, it turned out to be one of the most rewarding workshops I’ve ever taught, on a multitude of levels. I was surprised by how many readers (non-writing) were in the audience and really got a charge out of it. One man I spoke to afterward said he had no interest in writing but he came to conferences, and workshops like mine, to improve his reading ability. I thought that was lovely, and heartening, and it answered a question I asked here on this blog just two weeks ago.

I was pondering how valid the conference experience is going to be in the future, now that authors can reach so many more people at once, and without cost, through online promotions, and Facebook has made it so possible and so much fun to have ongoing conversations between readers and writers. But obviously I had no idea what I was talking about.

A lot of people I know have been freaking out about piracy recently and panicking about how it will cut into authors’ royalties. Well, maybe. And as was to be expected, panels like “The Future of Publishing” generated some friction (she said diplomatically) between authors, booksellers, and publishers.

But there is nothing like a conference to demonstrate that readers are savvy, loyal and intensely interested in preserving “their” authors’ welfares. They know they have to buy us for us to keep writing for them. And we really don’t have to reach a million readers to make a comfortable living at this; a writing career can also be sustained by a much smaller, hardcore core, many of whom you meet and bond with at these conferences. It’s a symbiotic relationship that is fed by these magical encounters. We are a tribe, and I have every confidence that no matter how rough the publishing waters get, the tribe is going to have our backs.

Thanks a million to conference goddesses Christine Goff and Suzanne Proulx and all the fabulous volunteers for throwing a spectacular party!

In other news, as I’m sure people are hearing, Amazon has bought Goodreads, and everyone’s atwitter (sorry…) Others here are far more active on GR than I am, so I wondered what you all thought.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2013/03/amazon-buys-goodreads-twittersphere-upset

And on the subject of Amazon, there’s this new wrinkle that authors need to be aware of.

http://janefriedman.com/2013/03/26/amazon-white-glove-program/

– Alex

WORDS MATTER

by Gar Anthony Haywood

“I can’t believe I did that!” Harry shrieked horrifically.

“I can’t believe it either!” Jane emphatically agreed.

“It was so stupid. What was I thinking!”

“I don’t know. Two thousand exclamation points, and seven hundred adverbs!” Jane cried. “What are we supposed to do with two thousand exclamation points and seven hundred adverbs!”

“Don’t forget the twelve hundred replacements for ‘said’ and ‘asked’ the guy threw in for free. I’m telling you, this was the telemarketer from hell!”

“I know what to do!” Jane exclaimed after a moment of thought. “We could write a mystery, and use exclamation points in place of periods wherever the slightest bit of excitement needs to be conveyed! Sometimes, we could even use them in place of question marks!”

“What!”

“You heard me. And instead of all those boring ‘saids’ when people speak—“

“We could use the replacements and adverbs I bought instead!” Harry chuckled gleefully. “And what a great read our mystery will be. All that emotion and drama!”

“Which we couldn’t possibly convey any other way…”

Okay, had enough? I have. In case you haven’t already guessed, the subject of my post this week is dialogue, and I’ve led off with an example of the worst kind imaginable.

In this author’s opinion, great dialogue, which both sings and moves your story forward simultaneously, has the following characteristics:

It sounds like real people talking. Over-stylized dialogue may win Tony awards on Broadway, but all it does in fiction is take the reader out of your story. Go easy on the clever repartee and only use as much ethnic or professional jargon as realism demands. Otherwise, every time a character opens his or her mouth, your novel will read like a playwriting exercise in Theater 101.

It flows like fine wine. Great dialogue hums with a natural rhythm, similar to a perfectly tuned car engine at idle. To achieve this effect, it’s often necessary to rewrite an exchange of dialogue over and over again, until every note sounds just right.

It suits the situation. I just read a thriller that was humming along just fine until a firefight broke out. The two characters ducking for cover were facing almost certain death — and one was talking nonsense while the other was cracking wise. Neither was saying anything befitting someone afraid for his life. Clearly, the author failed to ask (and adequately answer) a critical question before he opened his characters’ mouths: “What would real people say to each other under these circumstances?”
It’s light on attribution and adverbs. A simple “said” is fine here and there, if only to keep the reader straight on who’s speaking, but that’s it. Anything else draws attention to yourself and what you’re attempting to accomplish.

It’s consistent with the people involved. A character who drops her Gs and says “ain’t” instead of “isn’t” on page eleven shouldn’t abruptly start speaking like a Rhodes scholar on page 44. Keep track of the speech patterns you assign every character and make sure they maintain them throughout your novel.

It’s lean and fast. A long paragraph of unbroken speech coming from a single character isn’t dialogue—it’s a monologue. And just as interminable, droning speeches cause your attention to wander in real life, so do they have the same deadly effect on someone reading a novel. Ever hear of the KISS rule? That’s “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Well, here’s a new rule for you, strictly pertaining to dialogue: KISSS (Keep It Short and Sweet, Stupid.)

It’s almost totally devoid of expository information. Believe me, I know how hard it can be to deliver 10,000 words of crucial data in only 400 pages so that your plot will make perfect sense to the reader in the end—but that’s not your characters’ problem, it’s yours. Charge the men and women in your book with the task of conveying the hows and whys of it through verbal exchanges and a reader will suddenly see them for exactly what they are: Not real people, but imaginary conduits for a writer struggling to lay the groundwork of his story.

Not everybody sounds alike. Patterns of speech are one of the most powerful devices with which to differentiate the people in your novel. If you’ve given them adequate color in this area, you should be able to eliminate all attribution in a stretch of dialogue and still know who is saying what to whom.

Not everybody sounds like you. This is similar to the problem above, except that it’s worse. Don’t ever kid yourself or anyone else who might ask: At least one character in every book you’ll ever write is going to be you, in one thinly veiled disguise or another. I mean, we don’t invent the worlds we write about just so other people can walk around in them, do we? So naturally, a character here or there is going to sound a lot like you when he speaks, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is affixing this particular trait to your entire cast, especially if your pattern of speech happens to be jarringly distinctive.
Not everybody is a comedian. There’s room for at least one smart-aleck in every story, especially if he or she is funny. But invite more than one clown to a party and watch your guests start hitting the exits. As noted in the previous two bullet-points, each of your characters should have their own set of personality traits, and among those traits should be a unique sense of humor (or total lack thereof). Two people constantly trading wisecracks is a bore, but two people trading the same kind of wisecrack is both a bore and a crock. Be careful here.

Exclamations are practically non-existent. Anything less than total outrage or sheer terror is insufficient grounds for an exclamation point. Try to use them only when your character is responding to something along the lines of having just accidentally sliced his thumb off with a steak knife.

Question for the Class: What authors do you most admire for their dialogue, in particular?

An(other) Interview with Cara Black!

By David Corbett

Spring is here! And that of course means it’s time for another Aimée LeDuc novel from the inimitable Cara Black.

This much loved series, set in Paris, seems to grow in popularity with each book, and the latest offering shows great promise of introducing Aimée to a whole new cohort of readers.

The book, Murder Below Montparnasse, allows Cara to respond to her many readers who wanted Aimée to finally involve herself with one of Paris’s most distinguishing treasures: art.

As the Book Passage website explains:

In Murder Below Montparnasse, a long-lost Modigliani portrait, a grieving brother’s blood vendetta, and a Soviet secret that’s been buried for 80 years are all involved in Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc’s current case. In this latest in the celebrated series, Cara Black pits her detective against an art heist, an absent partner, and a gruesome murder as she tries to solve her most exciting case yet.

In trying to come up with a new angle on the old author interview, Cara tipped me off to Bernard Pivot, a famous French journalist and interviewer. He’s most well known for the group of questions he asked each of his guests on his show called Apostrophes. Each question was designed to better define guests in the eyes of those watching and more importantly helped to cast aside their celebrity in favor of a more human view. Pivot adapted his questions from Marcel Proust’s Questionnaire that was created to understand personality.

Cara is in the middle of her most ambitious (read: hectic) book tour ever, complete with numerous WiFi disasters and meltdowns and a five-hour drive through snow to speak at an Ohio library, but she took time to answer these questions, however laconically, by thumbing them into her iPhone.

So, with gratitude and appreciation to a severely overtaxed Cara, not to mention Monsieurs Proust and Pivot, and with some minor, meddlesome tweaking from yours truly, let us commence the Q&A:

What is your favorite word—in English? In French?

Radiance is probably my favorite word in English. French? Louminosité.

Is there a word in either language whose cognate in the other just doesn’t work for you?

Plouff. (Note: Your trusty interviewer tried to find a definition for this word as spelled, and came up empty. He did find “plouf” which was translated as the sound something makes when it hits the water. However, when he used the spelling “Plouffe,” well, things got rather interesting—and not (merely) because of David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager. (Follow the link.)

What is your least favorite word—again, in both English and French?

Oink and quelconque.

What exhilarates or inspires you creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

Light—sunlight, lamplight, moonlight—glinting off the flowing Seine.

What repulses you creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

Small-mindedness.

What sound or noise invariably makes you happy?

Waking up to rain on the roof.

What sound or noise invariably makes you shudder or snarl?

A child’s cry at night. (I’m guessing she means shudder, not snarl – David)

What is your favorite curse word? (Or, if you’d prefer, what is Aimée’s?)

Merde!

What profession other than your own would you like to pursue?

Bookbinding for rare books.

What profession would you never attempt except at gunpoint?

Opera singing.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? (Other than, “Wow. Love what you’ve done to your hair.”)

“About time. Your friends and family have been waiting.” (Apparently Cara intends to outlive them all.)

* * * * *

So Murderateros: What questions would you like to ask of Cara (with the understanding she may be facing but another on-the-road disaster and may not be able to respond promptly)?

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: Well, I think we have to go French here, don’t you? How about the “Flower Duet” from Lakmé by Léo Delibes—one of the most stunningly beautiful and universally loved duets in all of opera — which is why you hear it in so many movies and commercials…

All Good Things . . .

By Tania Carver

Well here it is. My final piece on Murderati.

It’s nearly a year since David asked whether I’d be interested in contributing to the site. Naturally I said yes. How hard can it be? A piece every fortnight and the occasional Wild Card Tuesday? Sure. Dead easy.

Not exactly. It’s been hard work. Much harder than I thought it would be. Boo hoo you, I hear you say. It’s not exactly digging ditches. Well, yes, I know. I mean, I’m a writer, it’s what I do. But sitting down every other week to write something when there wasn’t necessarily anything in my head has been on the one hand a great experience and very helpful for getting me to sit at a desk and write something. Anything. But on the other hand it’s been very scary. Like stepping out on to a tightrope and not knowing if you’re going to make it to the end.

Yes, I could have written anything. I could have let my quality control slip and churn stuff out. Plenty of other people do it (Not on here, though). Well, actually, I couldn’t. No. If it’s got my name attached (or Tania’s) then I couldn’t do that. If someone’s going to read it, then I’d better make it good. That’s been my mantra on every piece of writing I’ve ever done and I’m not going to stop now. No. What actually happened – usually – was that the writing took over. I would start with one thought in my head (or sometimes none) and start writing. And then the process would take over. And I would go with it. Be carried along. Sometimes I didn’t know where it would end up, what I was trying to say. Sometimes I would have to research what I was sayin gto make sure I wasn’t spounting rubbish (every chance), sometimes I just went with it. I would trust what I was doing, trust that the words would come out right, that it would be something worth reading at the end, something interesting. I don’t know if I always did that. I hope I did. I hope people got something from what I wrote.

A director I once worked with when I was still acting always said that theatre should make you laugh, cry and think. Obviously not always in that order but those were the three main ingredients. Put them in, mix them up in the right proportions, you’ll get something halfway decent at the end. That’s been the rule of thumb for me here too. I have no idea whether I succeeded, but I gave it my best shot.

So why am I giving this up? Work. My workload seems to have trebled this year and I just couldn’t keep up. I’m not complaining, mind, I’m very grateful. It’s a privilaged and honoured position to be in. And a rare one for a freelance writer. I’ve got two books coming out this year, the next Tania, The Doll’s House, in September in the UK. Then in November is my sequel to Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black. Then it’s straight on with the next Tania, tentatively entitled The First Day Dead (although that may be subject to change, as these things often are). I’ve also got another project on the go that I can’t talk about yet (Mainly because I doubt too many people will be interested). So with all this going on, something had to give, I’m afraid.

So off I go into the deadline-heavy sunset. There’s a strong tradition on this site with some of the best writers currently being published writing on here. I’ve been in fantastic company here on Murderati. Not just some of my favourite writers, but some of my favourite people in crime fiction. I mean that. I’m very proud and honoured to have been part of the line up.

But . . .

Sometimes endings have to happen. Even if it’s just so that things can start again.

Thanks for putting up with me. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

‘RATI RETROSPECTIVE: THIS WEEK IN REVIEW. . .

MONDAY – SOMETIMES . . .

by Pari

Too much to do
Too much going on
Too much to manage
Too much to feel

Each day a chasm of shoulds and oughts
Each day a trial born of sorrows and nots
My heart a platter of food run cold
My body sensing each cell grown old

And yet, in a moment, of unforeseen clarity
A thought, still nascent, nurtures a true soul charity
Could it be?
Will it I rue?

Pari, do it now. Go to the zoo! (MORE)

TUESDAY – TO CON OR NOT TO CON

by Alexandra Sokoloff

There’s nothing like packing for Denver in March to make you realize you have no clothes suited to temperatures under seventy degrees.

Nevertheless, conference season is kicking in and I’m off to Left Coast Crime this week (with a suitcase full of clothes much more appropriate to cruising the Caribbean.) Setting aside that I’m jonesing for some author company and for some serious dancing, which actually is on the menu this year, I have been wondering why exactly I decided to go again so soon. And then I remember that there’s a special occasion simultaneous to the conference which makes the whole thing make sense.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Left Coast Crime – it’s a big conference for a small conference and one of the absolute friendliest out there. But the business has changed so much, I have to wonder if conferences as we know them are on their way out. When you can reach tens of thousands of readers and sell thousands to tens of thousands of books with one free Amazon Kindle promotion, and when you can reach thousands to tens of thousands of readers with some concentrated Facebook posting, all pretty much for free, then how much sense does it really make to take five days to a week (what with packing and all the attendant readying, pedicures, pet sitting and all) away from time that you could be writing or promoting on line? Even the upcoming LA Times Festival of Books – I’m thinking that that day would be better spent just working it on Facebook – I’d sell more books and make more money from the books I sold. Without having to fight traffic, either.

Now, I know, online connections will never be as meaningful as the personal contact you can make with a reader in person. But do I really mean that? Really? (MORE)

WEDNESDAY – LEFT COAST CRIME 2013

by David Corbett

For much of today, I’ll be en route to Colorado Springs for this year’s Left Coast Crime (where eventually I’ll be joined by fellow current or past Murderatis JT Ellison, Simon Wood, and Alexandra Sokoloff, who posted here about the conference yesterday).

I’ve made myself scarce the last few years on the conference circuit, being preoccupied with other, well, preoccupations, but co-chairs Christine Goff and Suzanne Proulx very graciously (if unwisely) asked if I’d serve as toastmaster, and how could I refuse?

Just one question, I said timidly. What exactly does a toastmaster do?

The answer: Nobody knows…

I even asked last year’s toastmaster, Harley Jane Kozak, and she replied: “You just get up and make people happy to be alive, restore sight to the blind and the will to live in those who are depressed. It helps if everyone’s drunk to begin with.”

Oh. That.

Piece of cake. (MORE)

THURSDAY – IMPERSONAL SERVICE

by Zoë Sharp

They say the best recommendation is word of mouth—a personal tip from someone you know and whose judgement you trust. But increasingly these days we find ourselves connecting with people in a less personal way as more and more of us take to shopping online.

Global economies are tanking as the rich get richer and the rest of us have to cope as best we can. It all boils down to the price of everything without taking the cost into account. We buy online because they don’t have high street overheads and it’s invariably cheaper, and because the high street is losing out on sales it becomes a sad collection of boarded-up windows, charity shops and bargain basements. Personal service seems to be a thing of the past. Soon we won’t have to speak to another real human being during our daily lives at all.

After all, we can order just about anything including our groceries over the internet. Our books, our music, buy insurance, search for a house. And if we do choose to go out we withdraw money from the cashpoint machine without going into a bank. If we do venture inside we’re being encouraged to use the automated deposit slots instead of waiting for a cashier window to become free. (MORE)

FRIDAY – HERMOSA

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

There are parrots in Hermosa Beach and they live in the leaves of the giant palm trees on Pier Avenue. Nothing here is indigenous but the sand and sea. I’ve been here a long time, not as long as some, but longer than others.

I remember when this stretch of street was a street with cars and rugged, sailor bars and angry teenagers smoking dope. I was here for the gentrification, when the street was paved and became a pedestrian-only walkway, when the giant palm trees were brought in and planted by giant cranes, when the high price of rent pushed out the local pubs and the high-end restaurants and nightclubs moved in.

And the Either/Or Bookstore closed down. My favorite bookstore in the city. After 30 years in business. It was where I went after graduating college, to spend the $116 I had in my pocket. I bought as many paper book classics as I could.

And the Bijou theater closed down. (MORE)

HERMOSA

By Stephen Jay Schwartz

And the Bijou theater closed down. With its landmark, art deco architecture. It’s a Chase Bank now.

And L.A. Pasta closed down. That’s where I had my thirtieth birthday party. It’s where I used to write before there were cafes in Hermosa. Before Starbucks and the Coffee Bean. Before Sponda, where Quentin Tarantino used to drink his coffee. Before Sponda closed down.

But the Lighthouse is still here. It’s an old, brick bar, one of the last live-music venues in town. The Lighthouse used to be the jazz venue on the West Coast, back in the day. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker used to play there. All that’s left of the jazz scene are the black-and-white photos on the walls.

I remember when there was a handful of parrots. I don’t know how they got here. Every year there’d be more. And more and more. Little loud dots in the sky. Now we see them hanging upside down from the palms as we sit in our outdoor cafes by the beach.

Hermosa isn’t exactly where I live but it’s been my home for twenty-five years, even when I lived further than I do now. It was my home when I lived here and when I lived in Redondo Beach and when I lived in Northridge and when I lived in Torrance.

There’s a comedy club here, too, by the beach, where Jay Leno does his routine every Sunday night. I’ve never seen him, but I’ve seen other comics there and last weekend one comic talked about how the South Bay was a little “snow globe” of happy perfection.

As I sit here under the winter sun (and yesterday I stood chattering in a thin sweater in the Utah snow) and watch the volleyballers in their bikinis and hear the parrots overhead, and the children skipping by chasing the dogs chasing the pigeons, with the seagulls swooping and the pelicans in formation, I know that he is right, that Hermosa is my snow globe of happy perfection and Hermosa is my home.

Impersonal service

Zoë Sharp

We drive to the petrol station and pay at the pump instead of needing to go inside the kiosk and interact with the person behind the till. And even if we do they’re behind a reinforced glass screen. One supermarket chain near me will only let you pay at the pump and has no attendants at all.

Speaking of supermarkets there seem to be fewer tills open and more self-service lanes so even if we do decide to shop in person for our vegetables there’s no need to interact with an actual person in order to do so.

I wonder if the standard of salesmanship is partly to blame. The last time I tried shopping for electronics in a bricks-and-mortar store the sales staff could only tell me what was written on the side of the box rather than offering any informed opinions of their own. As I learned to read some years ago it seemed a bit pointless to pay a premium for the privilege of having someone else do it for me.

And when I go into a bookstore I love the insights and enthusiasms of the staff. Sadly, most UK independent bookstores I’ve been into offer no contact with the customers other than a bored, “Thanks,” as I open the door to leave empty-handed and if questioned they know less about the books than I do.

I will always pay extra for good service and solid expertise but not for lacklustre indifference, so I’ve gradually switched to doing more and more of my purchasing online too. The rest of Britain is very much the same. In fact, we in the UK are switching our allegiance online at one of the highest rates in the world. In 2010 we made 13.5% of all our purchases over the internet. By 2016 this is predicted to be 23%.

A survey reported on the BBC Business News last year suggested that while only 25% of us would give up sex for a year to maintain our internet connection instead, 65% would give up alcohol, 76% chocolate and 78% would forego coffee.

So, what do YOU buy online that until recently you would have gone out for to a real store. And why have you made the swap? Would anything make you go back to reality shopping for those items rather than virtual? Is there anything you would NEVER see yourself buying online? And finally, what would YOU give up to keep hold of your internet connection or are you sometimes glad to be without it?

This week’s Word of the Week is floccinaucinihilipilification, meaning the categorizing of something that is useless or trivial.

Left Coast Crime 2013

By David Corbett

Just one question, I said timidly. What exactly does a toastmaster do?

The answer: Nobody knows…

Oh. That.

Piece of cake.

Eventually, Christine and Suzanne decided to indulge my pleas for guidance, and gave me a rough list of duties I’d be expected to perform. Basically, I introduce people who are about to introduce other people. (It’s almost a twisted variant of Russell’s Paradox: If the toastmaster interviews all those and only those who don’t introduce themselves, who introduces the toastmaster?)

Actually, the people I get to introduce are quite impressive, from Guests of Honor Laura Lippman and Craig Johnson to “Last Resort” Troubadour Parnell Hall, from Fan Guest of Honor Tom Schantz (with his late wife, Enid, also honored) to Special Guest Lou Diamond Phillips. I also get to extend kind words on behalf of Christine and Suzanne and all the other LCC Committee Co-Chairs, name the various LCC Award Nominees and present the Dilys Award (for the crime/mystery/thriller novel the Independent Mystery Booksellers of America most enjoyed selling in 2012).

As if all that weren’t enough, I also get to warm up the crowd at the awards dinner on Saturday night, and double up with charity auctioneer (and fellow math geek) Robert Spiller to make sure the auction stays lively — though not as lively, I suspect, as what follows:

“Does this shoulder holster make me look fat?” A Concealed Weapon Fashion Show: Emcee: Ellen Byerrum. Gun consultant: Curt Wendelboe. Fashionista: Bonnie Ramthun. Models: Donna Andrews, Rhys Bowen, Parnell Hall, Heather and C.M. Wendelboe, Twist Phelan, Jack Chapple, Brad Parks, and Ann Charles.

But wait, there’s more.

I’ll also be teaching a three-hour (9:00 AM—noon) workshop on character Thursday morning (we’ve already got nearly forty sign-ups).

Oh, and there are the panels:

Friday, 4:00–4:45 p.m.—Truth or Dare (M) Rhys Bowen, David Corbett, Parnell Hall, Laura Lippman, Brad Parks

Saturday, 3:15–4:00 p.m.—Suspense/Thrillers Lisa Brackmann, Jan Burke, David Corbett, (M) J.T. Ellison, Mark Sullivan

If you’re coming, make sure to say hello. If you can’t make it, you’ll be missed.

So, Murderateros: If you were attending the Truth or Dare panel, and could ask an embarrassing question of one of the panelists—forcing them to either tell the truth or chip in to a charity fund—what would you ask, and of whom?

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: I was in Los Angeles recently and got to visit with my good buddy Mark Haskell Smith, his wife Diana Faust, and fellow Murderatero Gar Anthony Haywood. Gar gave me one of the nicest compliments I’ve received lately: He praised my taste in these little music clips. Almost immediately, I thought: Oh Christ, now the pressure’s on.

So with that burden squarely in mind, the burden of living up to Gar’s appreciation, here goes: a forgotten classic from one-hit wonder and tragic heroin casualty James Ramey, aka Baby Huey of Baby Huey & the Babysitters, from 1970: