Author Archives: Murderati


Happy Birthday!

 

By Louise Ure

  

 

I turned sixty this weekend and had a lovely time doing it.

My sister and her boyfriend came up from Carmel and we ate and drank our way across the San Francisco summer day. Lots of other friends wrote, called, texted, dropped by during the day or slid improbably wonderful gifts through the mail slot.

All in all, a great way to grow older.

I’ve never worried overmuch about birthdays. In fact, I’ve been saying I’m sixty for several years now, just to encourage compliments. (If you tell someone you’re 56 or 57, you can see the thought bubble above their head: “And you look every inch of it.” If you tell them a few years early that you are sixty, they are more likely to say: “God, you look good for sixty.”) I am shameless in my pursuit of the empty compliment.

In my family, every child got exactly what he wanted to eat on his birthday, and each year I would ask my mother for corned beef and cabbage, followed by strawberry shortcake. It would probably still be my “Last Night Before Execution” meal. It wasn’t so easy to get corned beef in July back in those days. That was a meat offered only around St. Patrick’s Day. She would be brining and corning all day long, just to fulfill my wishes. 

  

 

In later decades, no mater where I lived, the only other constant on my birthday was a phone call from my brother Jim and his family, singing “Happy Birthday” in four-part harmony into a speaker phone. Whether I was in Singapore or Sydney, Paris or Seattle, they figured out how to find me. And there was no more perfect sound.

Bruce and I never really had a birthday ritual except for the roses. Each year he would carpet the house in red roses. Dozens and dozens, all of the same hue. I could have slept on a mattress of rose petals for a week. This year, my friend Jessie fulfilled that role, and brought the most beautiful long stem roses in a red so lush and deep that I knew she’d been channeling Bruce with the purchase. 

  

 

One of my favorite birthdays might have been my 30th. I was single. A bit wild. And certainly ready to party. A group of friends from the ad agency took me out to a country and western bar for a night of drinking and dancing. At some point, my friend Tina approached the table where I sat, pulling a sinewy young cowboy by the elbow. Black hat. Plate-sized silver belt buckle. Blue eyes as clear as a madman’s.

   

 

“This is Jake. He’s your birthday present.” (I truly don’t remember his name. It was one syllable, and ended with a hard “K” sound. Jake. Mike. Rick.)

Oh Lord. The answer to my newly-30-year old prayer. I wanted to eat him up and blow him out like a birthday cake. Cake. Maybe that was his name. In any case, he was perhaps my best birthday present ever.

So here it is Tuesday. Two days post B-day celebration and I’m still celebrating. My sister is still visiting. Two Aussie buddies are in town. I had a gorgeous evening with my foster kids and their entourages. I’m still throwing the party right between my eyes.

How about you, ‘Rati? What was your favorite birthday of all time? Or your favorite present? Or what would it be if you were creating it for yourself?

 

 

 

The Big Thrill

It’s been a surreal couple of weeks.

As many of you have heard by now, THE COLD ROOM was named 2010’s Best Paperback Original by the International Thriller Writers two Saturday nights ago. I was overwhelmed at the nomination – and up against two very good friends, Shane Gericke and Rob Browne, both incredibly fine writers. (And let’s all wish our dear Murderati alum Rob well – his new book, THE PARADISE PROPHECY – also in production as a film, went on sale yesterday, Congrats, Rob!) I have to shout out about their books that were nominated too – TORN APART and DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN – both of which are amazing!

I was a bag o’ nerves going into the conference: I’ve never been nominated for anything, and I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself because I was really nervous about the whole thing. Plus I was teaching at Craftfest and moderating a panel, and you all know how much I adore being the center of attention… not.

Well, someone divine knew I needed to stop fretting, because Tuesday morning before the con I woke with a whoppingly (soppingly?) bad cold. I was shocked they let me on the plane Wednesday, actually. I had to cancel all my Wednesday plans, and suck it up when I woke Thursday for my Craftfest class with Erica Spindler and felt exactly like hell. I left all my sparkle in the hotel room. (Sorry, Erica, for being so scattered and blech!)

I made it through the day, but at the big cocktail party Thursday night, my voice started to go. By Friday, I had none. By Saturday, it was even worse – I was feeling okay, but for all intents and purposes, mute. So our divine Murderati alum Toni McGee Causey moderated my panel for me.

My illness was strangely prophetic on several levels. First, because of my nervous state, I told Randy I’d been praying for laryngitis so if I did win, I couldn’t get up in front of all those people and speak, thus making a fool out of myself. Second, because in the new book, WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE, Taylor is suffering from hysterical aphonia. She has no voice. I joked to my publisher that I was simply starting the marketing early with a personalized story.

And third, when I got choked up and started to cry on stage, I was able to mask it.

Yes, I cried. I am such a girl. I get overly emotional all the time, and this was no exception. To be honored by my peers was utterly overwhelming. I had no speech prepared because I honestly didn’t think I’d win. Our Allison can attest – I was genuinely shocked.

But that’s wasn’t the only magic happening in New York that Saturday night. Many of you know that John Sandford was my direct inspiration to start my writing career. I was reading the PREY series and three books in had this epiphany: I wanted to write a female Lucas Davenport. And so I did. Of course, Taylor is very different from Davenport on many levels, but I absolutely took the idea of a cop who was half rock star, half hero from those books. John’s novel was up for best novel, and lo and behold, he won. Which meant things like this were happening Sunday and Monday following the conference:

Publishers Marketplace:

Sandford and Ellison Top ITW Thriller Awards

I really can’t put into words what reading that headline did to me. Affirmation of my chosen career, a reward for the many hours of labor spent toiling away, especially on a book that had three titles, three covers, twelve drafts, eight revisions, and a threesome with a dead body…. All that combined with winning the award with my heroes in the room…. it was priceless.

And yes, I say heroes, because it wasn’t just John there. Diana Gabaldon, my favorite author, was there too! When she congratulated me, I about melted into the floor.

But it was even more than that. ITW has been a part of my writing life from day one. I will never forget how excited I was when I got my deal just in time to add AUTHOR to my name badge at that first, mythical Thrillerfest in Phoenix. To be honored by the very organization that has been nurturing my career from day one… well, you get the idea. 

My acceptance speech managed to thank my darling husband Randy (though I shouldn’t have started with him, I got choked up immediately), my amazing agent Scott Miller, my incredible publishers Mira Books, my former editor Linda McFall, and the whole of ITW.

But let me take this moment to thank you. All of you. Because you read the books, buy the books, blurb the books. Because you share the books with your mom and dad, your sister and brother and friends. Because you request the books be housed in your library, and tell your favorite bookseller that they need to carry the titles. Because each and every day, you reach out to me: here on Murderati, on my blog, on Twitter and Facebook, through email. Because of you, I am inspired. I have a writing career. And that’s the most beautiful thing of all.

With love,

JT

Wine of the Week: Let’s have a glass of bubbly, yeah? Some Veuve Clicquot, my favorite, would be nice. Here’s to all of you! (ching ching)

Finding Your Character(s)

 

By Louise Ure and Sylvia Marino

Hi Ratis. Most of you have seen the notes from “Sylvia” in our comments section, but many of you don’t know the Sylvia behind the keyboard. She’s Sylvia Marino, a SYSOP wizard, wife, mother of three, and part time mystery writer who was in my writers’ group back in 2003 when I was stabbing out my first novel. I was awed by her charm, wit, gumption and great good heart at that time, and nothing has changed since. Back then, because just trying to write your first novel was not challenge enough, Sylvia also learned how to swim for the first time. And the protagonist she wrote about was a woman swimming from Alcatraz to San Francisco through the Bay’s choppy, chilly waters.

Last week she successfully swam the English Channel with a five-woman relay team.

Now you know why I think she’s such a wonder.

 

–   Louise Ure

 

 

Finding Your Character(s)

By Sylvia Marino

 

  

 

When Louise asked if I would share my write-up on Murderati, my immediate response was, “But there aren’t any dead bodies, will it count?”   She assured me that it would and in the short week that has since passed I realized that whether you’re a writer or one who is perpetually on the first chapter, we all think about and are inspired by finding and developing characters.  No matter where I am, my favorite characters stay with me.

Sometimes, right in the middle of the English Channel.

In the line – “stranger than fiction” the character and characters found on this trek couldn’t be more apt and any one of them could be the lead character in a developing story.

 

**

We had been sitting in Folkestone for four days waiting to get the call that the weather had cleared and we were a go for our English Channel attempt. Five women sitting around obsessing about wind conditions and checking windguru.com multiple times a day and walking to the lookout over the Channel to check the water can drive anyone crazy.  We knew no teams had gone out that week due to weather and the first possible day would be Sunday or Monday. After that our one-week window would close as unfavorable tides and weather would take over until the next window opened later in July.  Many people train for years and make the trip to swim on their scheduled date only to sit and be turned away due to poor weather and tides.  With swims booked years in advance, most cannot uphold the level of training to wait again for another chance to swim.  Our call finally came on Saturday evening to report to Dover Marina the next morning at 5:30am.

Wearing the allowed attire of one regular swimsuit a silicone cap and pair of goggles, our first swimmer started off Shakespeare Beach in Dover at 6:12am on Sunday, July 10 – Britain’s Memorial Day.  Every 60 minutes thereafter a new swimmer in our fixed rotation would go in.  Depending on where you were in the order, we had assigned jobs – watching the swimmer in the water to not lose them to swells, one person warming up the swimmer coming out of the water, one getting ready to swim and a swimmer getting warm from being in the water.  We ran pretty much like clockwork.  When you have a team of women ages 41-53, what else can you expect?  Compared to juggling full-time jobs and families, having only one job to do at a time was a luxury.

The official observer on board was lovely giving us all the rules and regulations from the Channel Swimming Association (http://www.channelswimmingassociation.com/) including one of his own. “You may not use the word ‘awesome‘ at any time.  It’s a terrible word and used quite too much.  Really, how can a burger be awesome?  It’s just a bloody burger!”  With this the mood was lightened.  We were concerned about transitioning between swimmers as one false move can halt and disqualify the entire swim.  He made sure our transitions were flawless. 

The pilots of The Viking Princess – a 60 ton fishing boat – were two brothers named Reg and Ray who have been piloting swimmers all their lives.  Their father Reg Sr. had piloted swimmers before them.   Two men of the sea with matching anchor earrings and who, when urged, could tell stories of past Channel attempts.

We all had a little “boat envy” earlier in the day when other swimmers were meeting their boats at the Dover Marina. We saw some nice boats with padded benches and kitchen galleys.  The Viking Princess turned the corner and it was like expecting a limousine and seeing a weathered tow truck instead.  On board there was really no place to sit except on the metal floor outside the wheelhouse.  All of our gear was in plastic tubs on the deck where the fishing gear (or fish?) were usually kept.  What we soon came to appreciate was our shield against the swells.  As our Observer pointed out – many swims have been lost due to the boat not being large enough to protect the swimmer on their crossing.

The day before we went swimming in Dover Harbor and met Freda Streeter, mother of Alison Streeter “Queen of the Channel” with 43 English Channel crossings, including a few doubles.  Freda was running her Saturday swim clinics for Channel swimmers and chatted with us. “You ladies are from the South End.  I’m not worried about you lot.”  Jane Murphy, wife of Kevin Murphy “King of the Channel” with 34 crossings including a few doubles and an attempted triple crossing (halted at 52 hours due to weather) was equally encouraging explaining that the men whine and whimper while the women just put their heads down and carry-on.  

The conditions throughout the day were Force 3-4 meaning we were in winds up to 17+mph and waves, whitecaps and swells regularly in the 3-6 foot range with sometimes smoother water and in gusts, sometimes a bit rougher. The water temperature was steady at 58-59 degrees, warmer than the San Francisco Bay.  

Over the course of the day, we saw and came close to dozens of cargo ships and large ferries.   We learned about the various lanes, the separation zone between the lanes and found small celebrations in crossing the lanes, crossing into French waters, over the Channel Tunnel (I had the pleasure of swimming across this) and watching Dover disappear and seeing no coastlines to seeing France begin to appear on the horizon.  Our Observer had us charmed with stories of his 23 year-old cat Jessica and rolling with laughter with tales of past swims.

 

  

 

I can say that from my first rotation to my last, each felt natural finding a rhythm in the sea immediately.   The rise and fall of the swells, learning quickly how to swim with the boat on your right (watching it rock towards you can be daunting).  On my second rotation in the water, the water itself was stunning with jellyfish floating below and plankton that glowed making it look like you were staring into a galaxy.  At times I had to remind myself to turn my head to breathe and look to make sure I wasn’t too close to the boat because I just wanted to keep my head down and watch what was happening below.  Keeping the song “My Way” in my head helped keep a good rhythm, even when I saw an empty crisps bag floating a few meters below me and hoping the hand of its consumer wasn’t attached to it.

As we went into our third rotation, we began to calculate how far we were from landing.  The tide had turned and we were going away from Cap Gris Nez and towards Calais.  Soon we could see a truck on a road above the cliffs outside of Calais.  With passing strokes I could see the sun setting behind me under my right arm and when sighting forward, the moon rising over the white cliffs.  I could then start to count the windows on the houses along the beach.  My hour was up, having broken across the tidal line.  

  

 

Finding ourselves at the top of the swim order, our first swimmer went in and made quick work of the last remaining trek of our nearly 31 miles and in 24 minutes with the moon above we could see her stand on the beach in Sangatte and raise her arms.  The horn blew and we were now English Channel relay swimmers.  Above the beach a lone silver firework went off.  Perhaps a backyard party, perhaps planning for Bastille Day, we will never know.  At the moment we simply stared in awe and took it to be for ourselves.

The ride in The Viking Princess back across the Channel lasted three hours and in that time we texted and called family and friends, hooted, hollered, high-fived and then collapsed in exhaustion.  Making it back to our hotel rooms by 2am we popped the champagne and toasted our loved ones and an old soul by the name of Trudy DeLorenzo, a German immigrant who had died a few weeks prior.  Trudy was one of the original women in the 1970’s who took the South End Rowing Club to court so that women would be allowed to join and train in open water swimming in San Francisco.  In an even stranger twist of fate, as we were landing on the beaches of France, the first all-female team from the South End Rowing Club, Trudy’s memorial service was being held in San Francisco.

As is tradition, those who successfully cross the Channel can sign their names on the wall at the White Horse Bar in Dover.  The walls are covered in the “who’s who” of open water swimming.  We found names of people we knew and finally found a place in a corner where in at least one small place of the world, we have been immortalized.  

So ‘Ratis, which character(s) would you choose to develop and hear tales from?  The swimmers?  Observer?  Pilots? Or the Channel itself?

(P.S. from Louise: Or how about from that one particular swimmer; a woman who dared to put both her foot in the water and her butt in the mystery writing chair?)

 

The First of Many

 

By Louise Ure

 

Welcome back from your long holiday weekend, ‘Rati. (Well, the long holiday weekend for you American ‘Rati, anyway.) I hope your weather was as gorgeously lazy and blue as it was here in San Francisco. I did nothing particularly patriotic or unusual … dinner out with several friends, a remarkable barbeque on Monday, a day weeding on the roofdeck-garden which has left my muscles in a state of contrition … but it was good.

Oh, and I bought a car.

I’ve been on a car selling-binge for the last year, auctioning off Bruce’s racecars, the tow vehicle and trailer, but I still had two cars to go.

 

The first was a 1971 Mercedes 280SL that I bought back in the 80’s. I’ve loved that car for over a quarter of a century, using it as a daily driver, a Sunday treat, or a long haul Thelma and Louise touring car riding from Montana to Arizona and back again. That car has seen me at more cowboy bars and roadside motels than it has grocery stores and libraries.

But she’s aged better than I have, and my knees no longer make it easy or graceful to get in and out of that plush leather bucket seat. It was time to say goodbye.

I had a collector over to look at it a couple of months ago and he low-balled an offer I wasn’t interested in. “For that price, I’ll just use it as a Barcalounger in the garage.”

He kept calling back, notching the offer up a couple of thousand every few weeks. Finally, when he reached a price that was three times what I’d paid for it 28 years ago, I said yes.

  

 

The second car, a 2000 Mercedes SUV, reflected the wife, business owner, middle aged woman and dog transporter I’ve become in the last quarter of a century. It’s another car I’ve loved and I could happily keep driving it for another twenty years without a second thought.

With this car, it wasn’t my knees that betrayed me, but technology. As wonderful as that Mercedes was – navigation unit and all – it was still twelve years old and technology has outpaced car design by a long stretch.

I was tired of wearing a Bluetooth headset as my only means of answering a phone call while driving. I wanted easy access to my whole iPod music library and not just a lousy 6-CD changer in the trunk. I wanted a rear view camera to keep me from scraping my bumper on that stubby concrete post at the grocery store. Oh, and a little better gas mileage wouldn’t go astray, either.

So this weekend, I did a little research, found something I liked coming off a lease, and went north to a Marin county dealership and bought myself a car.

I make that sound easy, and it probably would be for most of you. But let me put this in perspective.

I am sixty years old and I have never shopped for and purchased a car by myself before. I inherited my first car through a death in the family. My mother went with me to buy the next car, and my brother fulfilled that function for the third.

By the fourth or fifth car in my auto-resume, Bruce was there, asking mechanical questions I didn’t even understand the answer to, and negotiating deals I thought we had no chance of winning. And I certainly didn’t have a clue about how to value or negotiate a trade in.

So I got internet smart, reading Kelley Bluebook quotes and checking out used car prices at lots all over town. I investigated recommended negotiating techniques and used car dealer tricks. (As my brother Jim reminded me on the phone yesterday, when he and his wife last went in to by a car, the saleman left them alone in his office and then listened in on their negotiation conversation through an open intercom.) I read Edmunds and Car and Driver reviews of various years’ performance. Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks?

The upshot, after a full five hours of negotiation (“Don’t worry about me, take your time, I’ve got my iPad to keep me busy, you take just as long as you need to figure out how to get to this number.”) they came down a few thousand on price, they came up a few thousand on the trade in, they threw in a bunch of extras like an extended warranty and handed me a few hundred bucks more I found lying in the weeds, and I got my car.

I think I’m going to like it. It’s a different brand than I’ve ever tried before and it will take some time to get to know all these flashy new hi tech toys, but it looks good in the garage and I smile when I drive it. (Forgive me for not picturing it here, but author/police officer Robin Burcell told me years ago about the dangers of showing our actual houses, cars or license plates online. I have enough stalkers in my life, thanks.)

And I think that what I’m really smiling about is that it’s yet another first. Another thing I’ve successfully done by myself. Many of my other “firsts” this year have been sad ones. The first Christmas without Bruce. The first road trip alone to Seattle to take care of his father.

Here’s to more happy “firsts” ahead. 

And how about you guys? What is your most recent “first”? Or what “first” would you like to accomplish? It doesn’t have to be a Bucket List kind of thing. It can be tiny. 

I think I’d like to make my first ever squirrel pot pie.

  

 

 

 

Men of Honor

by JT Ellison

We’ve had far too much smart stuff here lately. I thought it was high time to drag us all down into the gutter. So grab your popcorn (or popcorn flavored coffee) and let’s do this.

I have a confession to make. I should be embarrassed; on the contrary, I feel the tiniest frisson of giddiness at sharing.

I have been watching THE BACHELORETTE. And enjoying it.

Phew. Okay. Lighting has not struck me down. You haven’t run away with your hair on fire, screaming obscenities for my lack of culture, grace and intellectualism. (And if you have, we don’t want you here anyway. So there.)

I started watching the show because Jennifer Weiner, an author whom I greatly respect for her ability to not just write great books, but touch people’s hearts, mentioned on Twitter she was planning to live tweet The Bachelorette. Knowing that the manly half of the Ellison household would not stand still long enough to see the opening credits roll, when he went to fetch me a glass of wine, I surreptitiously changed the channel, hit record and got the TV back on track without him noticing. I’m crafty like that.

He left town the next day, so I had an evening alone. And you know what we women do when the men aren’t about – we watch stupid romantic comedies, paint our nails, give ourselves facials and read Jane Austen (or Jennifer Weiner.)

After crying my way through (God, I can’t even remember what movie it was, if that tells you anything) I switched to the DVR and pulled up The Bachelorette. Ashley stood in a ball gown, and a limo full of totally hot guys pulled up (I think I missed the first limo) A very cute man emerged with a bottle of wine and two glasses, and I thought to myself – okay, I can stand a few more minutes of this drivel.

Five weeks later, I am hooked. Hook, line and sinker. I am wondering about J.P., who seems to be the most down to earth among them, or should I say, the earthiest, if you catch my drift. Ames reminds me of every boy I hung out with in college, that sweet, blank wide smile hiding a pretty big brain. Ben F. – he of the smooth opening wine segment, could be a front runner here soon, he seems like the kind of guy who has staying power (and hello… vineyard…). I was thrilled when William left, he wasn’t in it for the right reasons, and his suicidal reaction spoke volumes about what kind of situation she’d be getting herself into with him. Mickey is ridiculously cute, but West, poor West, really made me cry.

And I am furious with Bentley.

For those who aren’t watching, Bentley is the cad. He’s the classic bad boy with a huge sob story. He’s the man Mama warned us about, the one who would use you, hurt you, and leave you breathless in the gutter, heartbroken and praying he comes back. I know he’s a plant. I know this is all scripted. Don’t worry, I haven’t lost all of my mind. But poor Ashley, she who is the Bachelorette, I think actually liked this asshole.

Bentley is a man without honor.

And in my world, that is an unforgivable sin.

The producers are milking it for all it’s worth too, which makes them fall into the same category, though to his credit, Chris, the narrator/host dude, has been rolling his eyes every time Ashley whines about Bentley (which it’s become, whining, so I’m about ready to smack her too. But all they have to do is show her the videos, and let things move on, and I think it’s really disingenuous of them not to, because they’ve gotten snookered here too, so it would be good for the show to make a statement that they won’t put up with this kind of duplicity and move on. And it’s not just duplicity, it’s evil, it’s harmful, and we all need to shut these kinds of people out of our lives. Bentley really gives me hives. I’ve known too many just like him, people who will say or do anything to further their agenda. YUCK!)

Compare and contrast my other favorite shows right now. GAME OF THRONES took a while to get started (and really should be called GAME OF TITS AND ASS FOR THE THRONE) but has me captivated now. Ned Stark, Hand of the King, Protector of the Realm, is a man of honor. He’s so honorable, in fact, that it may end up getting him killed, because he operates in a world that has nothing but greed and avarice, except for the small band of brothers on the wall, the Men of the Night Watch, who have no choice but to be honorable, though some do choose that life. Even Jaime Lassiter, who is on the surface one of the most dishonest worms ever, has a spark of nobility in him. He just needs someone to believe in his goodness and he’ll shatter into a million pieces and rise like the phoenix from the ashes. I see it in him. It’s coming.

No show, no book, can have a hero who isn’t honorable. The trick, of course, is to watch the people around the honorable man use his honor to manipulate him. Honorable men in these stories are almost always naïve, which is what gives them their charm, and is their biggest flaw.

JUSTIFIED, with the brilliant Timothy Oliphant as Raylan Givens, the Federal Marshall who is forced back to his extremely backwater hometown to face all his demons, is another honorable man. He’s a shoot first ask questions later kind of guy too, which makes him all the more intriguing to me. To be that certain in your creed, your code, that you can smell injustice… yum. And his nemesis, Boyd Crowder, is also an honorable man, but a thief, crook, criminal… he’s the perfect anti-hero.

Heroes and anti-heroes must have a code of honor. It’s their armor. It can be pierced, and it can be damaged, but it will never be shed, not fully.

I like writing about heroes with honor. I surround myself with the kind of people I can be secure in, the ones I know live honorable lives. My father, my husband, both knights in shining armor. My friends. My agent. I want people who I can trust, who inspire me, who I want to emulate. So it’s not surprising that these are the kinds of people I like to write.

Taylor Jackson has honor. John Baldwin has honor. Dr. Samantha Owens, the subject of my newest novel, has honor, though she is damaged, possib
ly beyond repair. And there is a man in that book who is an honorable sort as well, who was so, so much fun to write. (That’s all I’m saying about the new book, A DEEPER DARKNESS, which comes out next March. After we get through September and the release of WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE I’ll discuss it more thoroughly. But yes, it is a Sam book, not a Taylor book.)

Men of honor are romantic. Plain and simple. The Bachelorette has captured my imagination solely because of this concept. What started as curiosity became straight on research. I know how I conduct my love affair. To see how a stranger does it, albeit one with a script, is fascinating.

So tell me today, since we’re down in the gutters – What are you watching that you’re slightly embarrassed about? Guilty pleasures? Favorite heroes, male or female – fictional or otherwise?

(Just a quick note – please, no spoilers on GAME OF THRONES, I’ve still got three to watch to catch all the way up.)

Wine of the Week: Evolve 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon – a little something from Ben F.’s winery in Sonoma…

Exciting news! We are honored to have our two newest members up this week. On Sunday, please welcome the lovley and talented Gar Anthony Haywood. And Wednesday, the dashing, delightful Dr. Jonathan Hayes will be joining the ranks. We are super excited to have these two grandly diverse writers become a part of the blog, and I hope you’ll welcome them with open arms and lots of page views ; )

Small Triggers and the Slinky Life

 

By Louise Ure

 

　

I have been so enchanted with the depth and breadth of writing in recent Murderati columns: David’s Ode to the Female P.I., Zoe’s looking back and looking forward in planning her writing life. Tess’ review of a Canadian conference, and Stephen’s paean to Peter Pan and an author’s magical thinking. They are all part of the writing life; an appreciation of the job, the output, and the mystery of making it all work.

I am not centered on the writing life right now, and because of that I sometimes find it hard to leave a relevant or thoughtful comment on my fellow bloggers’ posts. Everyone seems to have more insight than I do these days.

But here’s a tiny insight I found this week that is possibly a small trigger for better days ahead.

We all have those harbingers that we — jokingly or not — claim that blue skies and lucky days are ahead. The visit of a humming bird, the discovery of a penny on the sidewalk (especially if it’s heads). My new harbinger is: purses.

Yeah, purses.

Most of you know about my love affair with shoes. For most of my life, I’ve had at least a hundred pairs of shoes at a time. Bruce was gracious about it, but about ten years ago ruled that if a new pair came in, an old pair had to go out. More than fair.

But what you probably don’t know is that for all those same years … with a hundred pairs of shoes at my beck and call … I only had one purse.

Granted, it was a very special purse. Brown leather and lattigo, with snakeskin and turquoise inlaid on the sides. It was created by a magical artisan named Toyo at his shop, Dark Star Leather, in Tucson. With that kind of bag, what on earth would I want with another?

But this last couple of weeks I’ve gone into a purse buying frenzy.

Bulgy pewter ones that can fit as easily over your arm as over your shoulder.

Lime green bags that go with absolutely nothing in my wardrobe but make an aqua sweater realize that she’d better rub the sleep out of her eyes and comb her hair.

Bright orange asymmetrical bags with enough ruffles and bows to contend with the hats at a royal wedding.

(This blog post was to have been replete with images. I worked like a dog to get all these new bags properly lit, propped and photographed, only to have Squarespace bamboozle me once again. Use your imagination on all those images, please.)

The only thing these bags have in common is that they are all big enough to carry an iPad as well as all of my usual junk. Oh, and they work like a bullfighter’s capewhen you see me coming down the street. There’s nothing subtle about these purses.

Shoes have always been a very private purchase for me. I can wear them at home, or just to the grocery store or taking the trash cans out to the curb. Shoes do not require you to commit to a job interview, a dinner with friends or a trip. The best shoes put no pressure on you to perform.

Purses, on the other hand, are extraverts, hob-nobbers and loud mouths. My person, they say, is so important that she has to have room for THREE PDA devices with her at all times. My person is so on the go that she has to have the ability to have her hands free at a moment’s notice. My person is so cool that she can wear something bright and big that bears no relation to anything else she has on. She’s sure of herself and she’s stepping out.

You truly can’t enjoy a purse unless you go out somewhere. Carrying it from room to room at home will do nothing but occasion snickers from the closet.

Purses demand a committment that you will go out and get involved with life. And that’s a far cry from what I’ve been doing for the last several months.

But maybe purses are the harbinger — my shiny penny, my first robin of spring — that says I’m ready to start.

　

A P.S. from here in Seattle: Things with my father-in-law are going well. His caregiver team is terrific (although he calls both young men from Ghana and Gambia “Barack,” because their names contain a “B” and because he calls all accomplished young black men Barack. They smile back). His appetite, his strength and his interest in life have all improved dramatically.
“Sure, he’s dying,” wrote Gillian Roberts, “at a rate just about the same as the rest of us.”

She’s right. For the moment, he’s comfortable, safe and clean. And we’re heading to the Indian casinos this week to see if he can add to my inheritance.

I see his strength and envision one of those slinky toys, motoring along under its own power, doing what it can do. But then I remember that a slinky can only maintain that momentum while it’s going downhill.

Well, maybe that’s true for all of us.

Here’s to the slinky life. And purses.

 

Do you all have any lucky signs that you treat as omens?

The Value Of A Local Bookstore

JT Ellison

Nelson Fox: Perfect. Keep those West-Side liberal nuts, pseudo-intellectuals…
Joe Fox: Readers, Dad. They’re called readers.
Nelson Fox: Don’t do that, son. Don’t romanticize them.

I was thinking about the movie You’ve Got Mail this week.

I remember talking about this movie once, I think on Facebook, and got scolded by a few commenters who were upset that it was one of my favorite movies. That I was a traitor to the cause because it showed Kathleen Kelly’s (Meg Ryan) The Shop Around The Corner going out of business because of the opening of the monolithic FoxBooks, run by Joe Fox (Tom Hanks). And despite the fact that he’s killed her dream, ruining the best thing in her life (or is it?) she falls in love with him.

I was rather hurt to be scolded, actually, because I was as horrified as the next person that her adorable shop was closed. But it was the reality of the time. The big superstores WERE coming in and putting the little guy out of business. The Internet was a relatively new thing. Email was something we all salivated over – because we suddenly had instant access to our friends. It was unique. And love, well, I am a sucker for a good love story.

All that aside… I hope Nora Ephron is reading Murderati, because it’s definitely time for a sequel to that flick.

Here’s the set up:

Kathleen and Joe have a son, Joe Junior, who is heir to Fox Books. He grows up in an idyllic time, his father’s chain growing and growing and growing, his mother becoming a wildly successful author. And then come the ebooks, the advent of which means Fox is going under. In bankruptcy, his inheritance, his whole future suddenly murky before him, he is strolling the wonderful suburban neighborhood he grew up in on the Upper West Side, wondering what’s next, when he sees a small shop that has a For Lease sign. As he ponders what might work in the shop, an idea comes to him. Open a small, independent bookstore that caters to customers, staffs voracious readers, and has a deal with the GoogleBooks and the Apple iBookstore and Nook and Kobo to sell ebooks directly from the store’s cool, hip, inexpensive new website.

Of course, he must keep this venture quiet from his parents. He goes online to see what he can find about indie bookstores, and through Twitter, meets a smart, beautiful, knowledgeable bookie who happens to want to open a bookstore herself.

Their exchanges go something like this: (FYI: In Twitter world, the @ sign designates who you are talking to…)

@shopgirl I was walking down the street today…

@shopgirl I saw an empty storefront…

@shopgirl I think I should buy it and open a bookstore that specializes in both ebooks and regular books….

@shopgirl We can call it the Shop Around the Corner. Cause it’s around the corner from my Dad’s old store.

@foxyman LOL

@shopgirl I’m serious

@foxyman That would be lovely. It’s something that I really miss.

@shopgirl Why? What do you miss?

@foxyman The simple charm of an actual bookstore, where you can go and talk about your favorite writers, sit in a comfy chair …

@foxyman and just hang out reading. It’s something people want. I miss it. Readers miss it too.

@shopgirl I was just playing around. You’re saying I really should open a bookstore?

@foxyman I’m saying, sometimes, people who are looking for coffee just want coffee.

Nora, if you’re reading, just give me a producer credit, okay?

In all seriousness, the high irony of this situation is that if bookstores can hold on to the marketshare Amazon is stealing, they’re probably going to make it through. Especially the indies. But across the board, that means, in addition to stocking print books, finding ways to connect your readers with ebooks.

I’ll say it again: Finding new and innovative ways to get your clientele to buy their ebooks through you will make all the difference. If you can cater to both the ebook and print book crowd, you’re golden.

So can independent bookstores manage with ebooks? I’m no expert, but look at this little deal I came across yesterday on Twitter, from Powells. That’s a good deal. It gets books in the hands of readers. It was a simple, easy click of a button, and boom: I have 25 novels on my GoogleBooks. Meanwhile, the actual store still caters to the people who come in off the street, but now, because of their clever promotion, readers from all over the country are getting product; booksellers, publishers and writers are all getting exposure.

Not bad. Yes, it’s a loss leader, but just like any sale, get them in the door and maybe they’ll buy something else. Spontaneity. That’s something that ebooks are capitalizing on, this feeling of oh, I want that, and 30 seconds later, you have it.

Also a very good use of social media, something indie booksellers need to focus on. I’m always surprised by how many stores don’t follow authors. Seems a bit counterintuitive, doesn’t it? We read too… (I’m @thrillerchick, BTW)

Anyway, I had already written my little Twitter play up there when I heard some great news yesterday: Ann Patchett is in talks to open a bookstore in Nashville. She makes my point below:

I think we’ve got to get back to a 3000-square-foot store and not 30,000. Amazon is always going to have everything — you can’t compete with that. But there is, I believe, still a place for a store where people read books.

Amen to that, sister.

When we lost Davis Kidd, I was heartbroken. DK was a part of my Nashville mythology well before I was an author. It was the first place my then-boyfriend took me when he brought me home to meet his parents for the first time. (Smart boy, showing me the incredibly fine bookstore I would have daily access to.) A few years ago, Davis Kidd moved their store to the Green Hills Mall, just around the corner from their original, quirky, UNIQUE (again with the unique) home. That homogenization really took some of the glamour out of going there. But go there we did. They had a café, so lunch was a weekly thing. The staff was still the same, awesome and amazing. And there was more room for signings. And a big ass fireplace in the middle, which was very cool.

But as part of the Joseph-Beth bankruptcy, the doors of Davis Kidd Nashville were closed.

Borders closed soon after, leaving downtown Nashville without an original bookstore. There are two great stores that will stock original books on special order (original versus used) but it feels wrong, somehow, not to have a store in downtown Nashville that is the real deal.

When my last book came out, it was right after Borders announced they were closing the store, and I had no place to go sign the books. Going to visit my book in the wild is one of the “rights of passage” for release day, along with Thai food and champagne.

I had no place to sign books.

I was very, very sad. Heartbroken, really. Nashville has an amazing library system, a huge literary community, and no bookstore.

< p>So hearing that Ann is getting involved makes me very happy. I will keep you abreast of the situation.

Today, let’s talk about our favorite bookstores. Even if it’s the Nook ebookstore… that’s fine. Just tell me what is special to you about where you buy your books. I’ll pick one commenter at random to win an ARC of my new book, WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE (9.20.11). Just a heads up (a point I’ll be belaboring from now until September) this one isn’t a thriller, but a gothic style psychological suspense.

Ready, steady, go!

Wine of the Week: Daniel Gehrs Cabernet Sauvignon Deep, dark and luscious, with a really long smooth finish. Excellent.

The Suicide Blog

By Louise Ure

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about suicide this week.

No, don’t worry. I’m not thinking of taking my own life.

But look at all the ways that suicide featured prominently in the news this week.

First, the stories that say, “I am willing to end my life to save another.”

How about the Suicide Team of elders in Japan who have offered to go clean up the nuclear power plants at Fukushima? More than 200 pensioners from the Skilled Veterans Corps have made that offer, stating that, as the cancers they might contract are slower growing in the elderly, they would prefer to do this service for their country, sparing the younger workers to live on.

Or all the stories about heroism coming out of tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri? Stories of convenience store managers who gave their lives in order to protect a ragtag band of employees and shoppers who had taken refuge in the store. Parents who fought to protect the life of their child or a stranger, only to sacrifice their own.

They may not be suicides in the way we normally think of them. We often call them heroes.

And it’s this kind of suicide that we crime fiction writers often focus on. The hero. The risk taker. The brave one. The Paladin. The Samurai.

We love the fact that he’s willing to risk his life for another, but we desperately don’t want him to have to deliver on that promise. (Otherwise, what on earth do we do in Book Two of the series?)

But there’s another kind of suicide in the news this week, and it’s the kind we don’t often deal with in our writing. The kind that says, “I am willing to help someone else die.”

Jack Kevorkian – aka Dr. Death – died of natural causes at the age of 83. He had more than a month of knowledge of his own imminent demise. Did he just wait too long and was then too weak to take his own advice about assisted suicide? Did he not have a doctor or relative who was willing to help?

Or did he just change his mind at the last minute and decide that today was not a good day to die?

And then there’s the third kind of suicide in my life right now, the kind that says, “I am willing to end my life.”

I’m in Seattle right now, taking care of my father-in-law during his last days. We are blessed by the fact that Washington State, like Oregon and Montana, is a Right to Die state, a place where death with dignity is possible. He has not asked me to help with a suicide — at least not yet — but he has been very proactive about making final plans, and wonderfully articulate about what he wants from me. No doctors, no hospitalization, no respiration aid or nutrition or hydration. It will kill me to watch him die and be able to offer nothing but comfort, but I will do it because he asked me to.

(if you have not yet done so, I hope you can watch HBO’s brilliant documentary “How to Die in Oregon.” You probably won’t be able to watch it all in one go — it is just that sad. But it’s also a truly compelling and important story that needs to be told.)

That final day is not here yet for Adolph. Yesterday he wanted fresh Dungeness crab and I made a salad to go along with it just the way his wife used to. Catalina dressing and all.

I am cherishing this time with him. And I think he is cherishing his final days.

But enough about sad thoughts and suicide. It has been 75 degrees and sunny here in Seattle for days … weather so beautiful that you might be tempted to believe that we all got Raptured after all, and this is the afterlife they’ve always talked about.

 

PS: I can’t help myself. One more random thought about suicide: Have you ever heard of a suicide note written in the third person? The closest thing I can come to it are the lyrics from “Miss Otis Regrets,” although that may not count, because she was hung by a mob rather than killing herself. 

So what would a third person suicide note look like? Would it be written in the past tense? And what would it indicate? A massive ego? An assisted suicide? A murder?

Now go play.

When Zeus Cries

J.T. Ellison

It is raining. Hard. Hailing, too. My computer is on fire with alerts. Lightning crashes in the dark sky like a demented strobe light. Thunder rocks the house, making the storm windows shake. I am rapidly decoding meteorologist speak: bow echoes, hail cores, rotation and wind sheer. And we’re all a bit nervous, because Sunday night, a city was flattened by the preceding storm.

Zeus, it appears, is in a truly pissy mood.

   

 

We were in Italy when the storms tore through the south, killing almost 300 people. It happened the day after we had a beautiful, gorgeous overnight mountain thunderstorm. It went on for hours. And I relished every moment, because there was no fear of anything: no straight line winds, tornado warnings, or hail threat, just the gentle rolling thunder and flashes of light that we used to have when I was growing up in Colorado. I think I slept better that night than I have in years.

The next day, we saw that the weather was going to be really bad at home. We started texting with our house sitter, telling her the best place to take shelter, and warned her that the cat has developed a fear of storms and can be found cowering under our bed. Two in the morning, we started getting alerts on our phones that there was a tornado warning at the house. We held our breath until we got the text that everything was okay.

For too many, everything was not okay.

But as quickly as Ringgold, Georgia and Tuscaloosa, Alabama became world-wide news, their plight was pushed off the international news stage by the welcome news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.

We didn’t have the Weather Channel telling us how bad things were. We didn’t have hour of air footage, reporters on the scene, or live streaming video. We made donations, and said prayers, and went on with our vacation.

We spent half the time in the north of Italy with my family, then Randy and I struck off south alone, to Sorrento. We did a lot of fabulous things, then capped off our stay with a Sunday trip to Pompeii.

A whole city destroyed by Mother Nature, as volcanic ash rained down rocks and choking dust and annihilated the people who lived there.

There’s no good way of knowing exactly how many people died. But seeing the casts, the horror was overwhelming. Pompeii is definitely someplace to see in this lifetime, if you’re able. It’s utterly surreal. It certainly makes you realize that tragedy in the guise of Acts of God has been around for a very long time.

Fast forward nineteen hundred thirty two years and three weeks.

Another tornado outbreak, this time in the traditional tornado alley, the Midwest. I’ve been watching bits of THE GREAT TORNADO HUNT, simply to try and learn more about these beastly storms. I experience this knowledge with both distress and gratification. Trying to control something that isn’t controllable, not uncommon for me. Especially after the floods last year, where we found ourselves wholly unprepared for the situation we found ourselves in.

I turned on the television, flipped to the Weather Channel, just as Mike Betts, the day’s most lucky tornado hunter, rolled into Joplin and started broadcasting.

It didn’t take a trained eye to see that this was well beyond anything we’d seen recently.

Joplin, Missouri was flat. As far as the eye could see, it was flat.

And like Mike Betts, I found myself speechless when faced with this devastation.

 

The deadline for my new book is rapidy appraoching, which means my mind is so far deep into this new story that I can’t see straight. But I keep finding myself online, looking at the stories out of Joplin. It’s breaking my heart. And that’s not necessarily the best place to be writing a book from.

And yet… it is.

It’s terribly distracting: having been through a natural disaster of epic proportion myself last year, I can only too clearly imagine what the folks in the Midwest, and the south, are going through. I get lost in the news reports, and find myself crying at the stories. Add in the flooding from the Mississippi, and it’s been an unimaginable few weeks of weather. I get annoyed with people like Kim Kardashian and her 20 carat $2 million dollar engagement ring. Not because I begrudge her a beautiful ring—I think we all deserve a good sparkler, and that one is a beaut—but because all I can think about is how much that money would help the people affected by these storms get back on their feet. So many have lost everything. Everything. And it seems to happen over and over and over again.

Who knew several weeks (and centuries) of weather was going to get me in the right frame of mind for my new book?

Empathy is the writer’s best friend. It allows us to experience the emotions of strangers, and in turn write them into our story, where the reader gets to experience them, and, hopefully, relate. It’s also a dangerous emotion, one that can drive a normal, well-adjusted person to insanity.

I’m in the second act slog on this new book. I finally recognize my writing pattern. It takes me a few months to get the first third of the book together. I rewrite and rewrite, pulling together threads, laying in clues and red herrings, over and over and over again. Suddenly I cross the 30K mark and things come together. I get on a roll, and just as suddenly, WHAM – I’ve forgotten something. I didn’t address a herring from chapter three, or I’ve forgotten to mention a character who’s vital to chapter forty. All stop. Rewrite.

And then, sometime in the 30-40K range, things break loose again and I get on a 20K roll until I hit that 60K mark, when everything all stops. I’ll go back to the beginning, usually with printed pages, and figure out where I’ve gone wrong.

So I’ve been interspersing herrings with tornadoes.

Needless to say, it’s been a strange week.

But the timing, honestly, couldn’t be better.

What I’m writing is deeply laden with emotions. I’ve never done anything like this before. I avoid pain. It’s not something I like to delve into, either personally or narratively. But with this book, I’ve had to open myself up to the universe, so I can experience the pain my characters are experiencing.

It’s hard. It’s very hard. Living in another’s shoes, imagining what they’re going through, living it with them day in and day out, then watching REAL pain on the television…

And where do you draw the line? The last thing you want to do is cause your readers a severe depressive episode because the story is a downer. This book is a thriller. There has to be a redemptive note through the story, or else readers will give up because things are too hard to think about.

Everyone asked me if I would do a flood book. I always answered yes, of course, and had all kinds of plans for it. Instead, I’m writing a book that takes place a year after the flood, about how one person is dealing, or not dealing, with the unimaginable.

Honestly, and you’re probably going to think I’m crazy, it’s much easier to write about murder than it is to write about pain. You know the old writing joke: when in doubt, bring in a man with a gun? I’d rather write about a throat slashing than the loss of a child.

Loss drives us. It’s something we can’t escape. We’ve all experienced it. And we will continue to do so. Some losses are magnified by the evening news. Some, written about quietly in a prison.

I worry about the depth of emotion I’m writing about. Worry that I’ll miss something and it will come across as too shallow, or go too deep, and drag the story into the morass with it. These are the times when I have to rely on the canon for guidance.

So help me out today, ‘Rati. Who are your favorite emotive writers? Do you have a favorite book that’s full of raw emotions? And where do you draw the line at reading stories that might not be uplifting on the surface? Are they okay if they have a happy ending?

Wine of the Week: A varietal on the whole, since it’s produced in a tiny region in Italy: Barbaresco The Montestefano is divine.

P.S.   The Red Cross is always a good place to send donations, if you’re interested. And don’t forget our furry freinds, who are impacted terribly as well. The Humane Society is a great place to start.

P.P.S. My friend Susan Gregg Gilmore is working on restocking the libraries in Ringgold. Read more about it here.

Reading Outside the Genre

 

By Louise Ure

 

By now, most of you know that I shelve my books in a rather esoteric fashion – one that puts me at odds with the vast majority of collectors, librarians and booksellers. You see, I categorize them not by author, but by geography. Specifically, where the murder took place.

Dana Stabenow is up there on the Alaska shelf. Craig Johnson practically owns Wyoming. The San Francisco shelf is huge, with writers like Joe Gores, Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. The Florida shelf is giving San Francisco a run for its money. And the international crime fiction collection on the north wall now outnumbers the Southern mysteries in the room.

I’ve been known to walk into bookstores and say, “I’m a little light on rural Illinois. What have you got?”

The writers who plagued me the most in my shelving were those inconsiderate travelers, Martin Cruz Smith, Lee Child, Nevada Barr and our own Zoe Sharp and Cornelia Read.

I was pleased to discover the other day that there is at least one bookstore that agrees with my cataloguing: Daunt Books in London, where the offerings are arranged by country.

My decision to sort geographically was probably easier than theirs. First of all, I find a strong sense of place to be one of the most compelling parts of mystery fiction. And secondly, since I only collected crime fiction, I didn’t have to also plan on where to put all other kinds of literature.

But all that may have to change, as I’ve now discovered (or rediscovered, I suppose) the joys of reading outside the genre. 

I consider myself fairly well rounded and certainly well educated in the classics, but when I started reading purely for pleasure, I dove headfirst into crime fiction and didn’t come up for air. After all, the genre — with all its degrees of lightness and darkness, fantasy and reality, hopefulness and despair – is a big enough canvas to satisfy any reading tastes.

And yet, for some reason, few mysteries have held my interest in the past couple of months and I’ve ventured outside the genre for that spark.

Here are three recent reads that held me captive in that big leather chair in the front room for hours at a stretch:

 

  

 

In an extraordinary tale spanning almost seven decades, “The Warmth of Other Suns” describes the migration of over six million blacks from the South to the cities of the North and West. Wilkerson brings the migration to life with the revolving stories of three of those travelers: Ida Mae Gladney who was compelled to leave Mississippi for Chicago, George Starling who had to flee Florida for New York, and Robert Foster, a doctor from Louisiana who found success in California. If all non-fiction was as beautifully and evocatively written as Wilkerson’s book, it would be all I need.

 

  

 

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I had a chance to have dinner with this US Poet Laureate. This last two weeks I’ve gotten to know her better as I had more of a chance to read her work. Like Isabel Wilkerson (who won in journalism), Kay Ryan is also a Pulitzer Prize winner, and she did it with this book: “The Best of It”.

One particular favorite of mine is “After Zeno,” a poem she wrote at the age of 19, when her father died:

 

When he was

I was

But I still am

and he is still.

 

Where is is

when is is was?

I have an is

but where is his?

 

Now here –

no where:

such a little

fatal pause.

 

There’s no sense

in past tense.

 

(And I’ve forgiven her for her barb that night – “I love reading murder mysteries. They generate such an empty mind.” – She’s a better poet than she is a comedian.)

 

 

 

 

“The Sisters Brothers” is a western. And I love westerns of all stripes, from Zane Grey and Elmore Leonard to more recent cousins like Steve Hockensmith and his characters Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer.

But “The Sisters Brothers” is also the anti-western. Charlie and Eli Sisters, two killers for hire, are contracted to kill Hermann Kermit Warm. This is their story. It is droll and grotesque and very human and very funny. In some ways it reminds me of Rabelais’ “The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel” which had an equally gay and whimsical approach to violence and crudity.

One reviewer said that “if Cormac McCarthy had a sense of humor” this would be the book he would write. Another called deWitt “a character conjurer.” They are both right: the voice and the characters are pure magic. 

Give yourself a treat this week and go buy “The Sisters Brothers.”

I’ll be traveling again for the next month or so and will have lots of time to read. My question to you today, my ‘Rati pals, is: what should I be reading next? Any genre. I’m probably ready for more mysteries, too. Do tell. My download trigger-finger is getting itchy.