The life of a hitman

By PD Martin

A while ago I started a research series here on Murderati and somehow it fell by the wayside. Sorry! But I’m back on the research front with today’s blog, this time focusing on some research I did into professional hitmen.

Note: In nearly all the known cases of contract killers the gender of the killer is male. It doesn’t mean a woman can’t be a hitperson, it’s just much, much less likely.

An article I found in the Journal of Forensic Sciences classifies three types of hitmen: amateur, semi-professional and professional. The amateur ones are probably best characterised as the career criminal or drug addict who takes a few hundred bucks to knock off someone’s wife or husband. Planning levels are low and often these amateurs stuff up the job and/or get caught.

But then we have the upper, upper echelon. I uncovered one research study on this type of contract killer, but the number of subjects was extremely low (five killers, all male and covering a large age range). One assumes that the people who practice in the upper echelons of contract killing simply don’t get caught. In the US in 2008, there were 200 murders that were either known or believed to be carried out for money. Of those, 82 were solved and fall into the amateur or semi-professional categories, leaving 118 unsolved. That’s a lot of unsolved contract kills. And how many killers were there? It’s possible there were a handful of busy killers, or fifty or so averaging two jobs a year. Who knows?

The professional hitman (which my research was focused on) is highly organised and plans the kill methodically. He (or very rarely she) is often employed by organised crime and the target is usually a criminal and often someone within organised crime. There is little to no physical evidence left at the scene.

In terms of this type of contract killer’s personality, they see what they do as a job-strictly business. There’s no psychological or emotional need to kill; in their minds, it’s simply a way of living. However, it’s been found that some contract killers see themselves as doing the ‘work of God’, stepping in where the justice system fails. Either way, these individuals are capable of complete compartmentalisation and so it’s possible that they’re married with children and successfully living a double life.

In the small sample study of five contract killers, they also tested IQ. They ranged from 95 to 115, with the average being 108. However, most of them functioned above their overall intelligence and this was because they had highly developed analytical and organisational skills, plus extremely well-developed social skills.

Most of them are highly methodical with an overdeveloped sense of discipline and many have served time in the military. They do ‘stalk’ their victims but it’s purely for functional reasons, to get to know their routines and to find the best place to kill them. The contract killer feels no bonds or ties to the victims, and as a professional killer, it’s also unlikely he’ll feel any remorse.

How to be a hitman…really?

One of the weirdest (and funniest) things I ran across during my research was a book called Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors. The book was initially published in 1983 by Paladin Press. However, in 1993 a triple homicide was committed by a man who said he’d used the book. The victims’ family sued Paladin Press and in 1999 the case was settled and the book was officially pulled off the market. Of course, it popped up online the next day!

The book details things like: mental and physical preparations; equipment needed; how to make a disposable silencer; different killing methods; surveillance; planning the kill; finding jobs; how much to charge; how to get it right; controlling the situation; and enjoying the fruits of the life of a contract killer. Bizarre, right?

I actually often read out a section at my talks about women. I won’t repeat it here for copyright reasons but I can give you the general gist of it – it my own words. The section reads as a warning against women. I guess you’d call it a back-handed compliment for women, because it says we can be great contract killers but the reasons given are our deceitful natures and because we’re so vicious! It then goes on to say that luckily women are taken off the street because of our nesting instinct…and then we’re busy with babies, laundry and housework. Hard to believe the book was written in 1983 and not 1953 with comments like that.

So, do you think you know a contract killer? Or maybe you bought the book!

Lastly, I wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays. We’ll be celebrating Christmas Day out the back, eating seafood and basking in the Aussie sun – the forecast is for 30C (86F).  Here’s a taste of the Aussie Christmas…a song my 5yro was taught at pre-school. The Aussie Jingle Bells. Probably funnier if you’re an Aussie!

 

And yes, we will be throwing a shrimp on the barbecue. 

THE PREDICTABILITY FACTOR

by Gar Anthony Haywood

Quick:  What kind of book comes to mind when you think of this author?

Or this one?

Chances are, your answer to my first question was something along the lines of “a fast-paced standalone thriller featuring an ex-military policeman named Reacher.”

And your answer to my second question was, in so many words, “an eloquently written mystery featuring a diverse cast of African-American characters in an urban setting.”

How can I be so sure of this?  Because these authors have built a brand for themselves.  Their body of work demonstrates a consistency of subject matter and perspective that readers have learned over the years to recognize as their purview.  Granted, Mosley has ventured outside of his Easy Rawlins/Leonid McGill box on a number of occasions, with mixed results, but for the most part he is defined by those series and the specific type of material they represent.

Is this a good thing?  To have readers believe they know precisely what kind of fiction you write, and will continue to write in the future?

I believe it is.

Readers don’t like to guess what an author’s next book will be like, they want to have a reasonable expectation about it, and if you give them what they enjoy reading consistently, they’ll keep coming back for more.  Seeing you go off on a tangent contrary to their expectations can often disappoint, and not every disappointed reader re-ups as a member of the fan club once you’ve let them down.

The down side to establishing a static brand for readers to latch onto, of course, is that “box” I just placed Walter Mosley in.  No author really wants to think they’re confined to one.  The freedom to take your work in whatever direction your interests might demand, to write what you want to write, when you want to write it, is every author’s dream, as is a reputation for versatility.  Successful or otherwise, nobody wants to be looked upon as a one-trick pony.  That kind of pigeon-holing limits not only your creativity, but the scope of material publishers are willing to pay you to write.

Still, as I’ve mentioned here before, an author has to know his natural limitations, and not allow his creative wanderlust (or his ego) to take him places he is ill-equipped to go.  What we write at the start of our careers tends to be where our true passions lie, and I believe the time to stretch out and move beyond that material is only after we’ve both demonstrated a mastery of it and developed a sizable following for it.   Expanding one’s repertoire sooner than that could be premature, and throw readers and publishers alike a curve just when they are beginning to think they know — and can appreciate — what you do.

Ironically, all this is coming from someone who has failed to take the very advice I’m offering.  Since my first published novel in 1988, I’ve written and sold eleven more, and all twelve cover no less than four mystery/crime fiction sub-genres: hardboiled mystery (my Aaron Gunner series); comic cozy (the Joe and Dottie Loudermilk series); serio-comic, standalone crime (my Ray Shannon novels); and standalone thriller (CEMETERY ROAD and my latest, ASSUME NOTHING).  With the exception of my six Gunners and CEMETERY ROAD, which all feature an African-American protagonist seeking to solve one murder or another in present-day Central Los Angeles, there is little to connect one sub-set of my canon with another.  In fact, anyone reading a Joe and Dottie Loudermilk mystery, for instance, would be hard pressed to recognize me as the same author of either of my Ray Shannons.  The voice I use in each sub-genre is that different.

So why have I taken such a scattershot approach to my writing?  Because it’s been fun.  Changing gears on a whim, or as an anecdote to boredom, has been incredibly entertaining.  And on rare occasions, profitable.  But profit and entertainment are only part of the story, I’m afraid.  There’s also another reason for all the genre-hopping to which, quite frankly, I’m a little ashamed to admit: I’ve been greedy.  No mere cross-section of the crime fiction audience was enough for me; I’ve always wanted the entire pie, the whole enchilada.

Can you say “pompous ass”?

And not a very smart pompous ass, either, because I don’t think I did myself any favors by jumping the Aaron Gunner ship for the Loudermilks’ Airstream trailer when I did.  In my defense, St. Martin’s, who was publishing me at the time, gave up on the series after three books, so a re-evaluation of my fourth book and beyond certainly seemed to be in order.  But I made the decision to change my game without really exploring the possibility of selling the Gunners elsewhere, and it may be that in doing so, I disrupted the momentum of the series unnecessarily.

Even more to the point of this blog post, I may have also left the readership I’d grown to that point to wonder who the real Gar Anthony Haywood was: a hardboiled crime novelist in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, or a funny, family-friendly writer of G-rated cozies?

It’s a question, I fear, many readers are still trying to answer.

Might I be a household name now had I published five or six Gunners in a row rather than take a three year hiatus after Gunner #3 to write my two Loudermilk novels?  Probably not.  But maybe I would be.  Who knows?  Maybe sticking with the Gunners for a more extended period of time would have better established my brand, and drawn more readers to it.

Nobody wants to be predictable, especially where romance is concerned.  But for an author, it’s not such a bad thing.

Questions for the Class: Authors, have you firmly established your brand by writing books that fit within the same basic framework every time out, or have you branched out to do other things?  Readers, what’s your reaction to favorite authors who split their time between writing what you love and writing what you don’t?

Retailers as publishers – the way forward?

By PD Martin

In today’s Wildcard Tuesday, I want to look at Amazon’s move into the publishing business…

Amazon moved into the publishing realm (sort of) in 2009 with AmazonEncore, a program where Amazon selected self-published titles they felt deserved greater attention and marketed them as AmazonEncore editions. In 2010, the imprint moved into a more traditional role, publishing original manuscripts (some selected via the Amazon Breakthrough Novel award and some via agent submissions). Also in 2010 came Amazon Crossing, an imprint that publishes English-language versions of foreign language books. 

However it was in 2011 that Amazon really launched itself as a publishing ‘house’. In 2011, three new imprints launched from Amazon’s Seattle office:

  • Montlake Romance (romance imprint; launched in April)
  • Thomas & Mercer (mystery/thriller imprint; launched in May)
  • 47North (science fiction, fantasy and horror imprint; launched in October)

Then in May this year, Amazon set up its New York-based imprint, appointing Laurence J Kirshbaum at its helm and focusing on non-fiction and some literary fiction. The imprint made its first acquisition in August, with Timothy Ferriss’ self-help book The Four-Hour Chef (for publication in 2012). 

Amazon’s most recent foray into publishing came earlier this month, when the company moved into the children’s publishing book market through its purchase of Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books. The trade publishing list includes over 450 children’s books and the deal was made via Larry Kirshbaum’s publishing unit. One can only assume that acquisitions will follow.

Certainly there’s no arguing that Amazon has been a powerhouse since it launched amazon.com in 1995. As a retail player, it’s revolutionalised the book buying and selling business and of course Kindle has changed the way we read books — forever. And is it even necessary to mention what Kindle and ebooks have done for an author’s ability to self-publish?

So, has Amazon brought its transformation skills into the more traditional publishing sphere? Will its move into traditional publishing be a Midas touch for authors or the kiss of death? I believe that Amazon still requires ebook exclusivity – so an author’s book is only available online via Kindle. Will this change? As an author, I hope Amazon’s new imprints bring a new opportunity — there’s a new publisher in town, another publishing ‘house’ that agents can approach. At least, I hope that’s how it will turn out. But often when it comes to things like this, I lack insight 🙂

What do you think? And will other book retailers following Amazon’s footsteps? 

OLD SCHOOL COOL

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

My sense of cool is Old School. I don’t even know what cool looks like today. When I was young and cool, things like comic books were the definition of not so cool. Now comic books are IT, man, but you have to call them “graphic novels.” Comic Con is supposedly cool, and yet many of my friends say they go there to “geek out.” The pictures I’ve seen of Comic Con make it look like the height of Geek Civilization.

Cool to me is white T-shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes (or biker boots). Tattoos add an element of cool, too, although that’s a more recent phenomenon. It wasn’t so cool when the tattoos said, “MOM,” or “Semper Fi” or when they featured images of sea anchors and raunchy, naked women.

I think the image of cool, Old School, is Steve McQueen.

I’ll also throw in Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy, both of whom I consider “Literary Cool.”

 

And I probably shouldn’t leave out the young Ernest Hemmingway.

Cool has an element of “bad” in it. Bad boys are cool. Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, James Dean. There’s usually an element of danger in the mix. Selfishness, temper, physical strength.

The Fonz was supposed to be cool, but not really. He was “television executive cool” or “Madison Avenue Cool.” Manufactured to appeal to the largest demographics. He was just Henry Winkler, really, a scrawny Jewish kid from New York. That ain’t cool.

 

Butch and Sundance were cool.

Cigarettes were supposed to be cool, but I never bought into that. If I’d been born a decade or two earlier I would have, though. And, of course, I’d be dead by now.

Oddly, however, cigars are a little cool. I’m not exactly sure why. I think it has something to do with Fidel Castro. Who isn’t exactly cool, but he’s a rebel, which makes me think of Che Guevara. Che must be cool, because he’s on all those T-shirts that cool guys wear with their bluejeans and boots.

Malcolm X seemed pretty cool, yet Martin Luther King was merely kind. He was a great man, yes, but I wouldn’t say he was cool. Mother Teresa and Ghandi weren’t cool, for that matter, either.

Fast cars are cool. They always have been and they always will be cool. Unless the Comicon crowd ends up ruling the world. With their Toyota Priuses. Yeah, I know, it’s responsible, but it ain’t cool. There’s no element of bad in it.

Cool is Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ford Thunderbird, Jaguar…most any car from the ’50s and ’60s. Muscle cars are cool.

So are muscles, in fact. When I was in high school, cool was a young body-builder named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Before Conan the Barbarian. And Lou Ferrigno, before The Incredible Hulk. Of course, they were all doing steroids, which we ultimately learned was not so cool.

The Matrix is cool. It reeks of cool, and yet it feels organic. It’s cool by design, yes, but it’s designed so well. Pulp Fiction, too, is cool.

Sports figures are almost always cool. In my day, Muhammed Ali was cool. I’m not a big sports fan, so I don’t know all the cool sports figures. They’re mostly football players, basketball players, baseball players, boxers. Maybe Indy car drivers. Testosterone sports. Not a lot of tennis players or golfers on that list.

I’m sure there was a day when Elvis was cool, but to me he was always an advertisement for what people who never knew cool thought cool should be. Just because he did that thing with his hips. Oh, that’s so cool. But cool came before Elvis – Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane. Dangerous cats with their reefer ways. My God, you could lose your mind listening to their devil jazz.

The Beatles were cool, for sure. They started off kinda dopey, but they got their shit together as the war dragged on.

And Jim Morrison. Scary cool.

 

For that matter….Jimi Hendrix. I mean, really. Uber cool. Backed by overwhelming, misunderstood talent. And Janis Joplin. Too bad about all that overdose shit.

Maybe I’m past my expiration date. I’m an old man already. But, old men can be cool, too. Maybe it’s just what they represent. William S. Burroughs and Charles Bukowski, old and still fighting the fight (when they were alive and fighting the fight). They were rebels. Their long lives represented the fuck you I can live my life the way I want to attitude that defines cool.

What’s cool now? Justin Bieber? Really? It can’t be.

Ask your kids, will you? Maybe your grandkids. You gotta tell me what passes for cool these days. I gotta know, because I’m too old to see it.

And, how do you define cool? What is this concept, and why are we drawn to it?

And, dare I try to relate this to novels? What would you consider a cool novel? I consider Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk the ultimate in cool. Or Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Tell me, please. Educate me. Bring me up to speed.

Thank you and now I’ll shut up.

Three Nuns, a Russian Drug Dealer and a Clown …

Zoë Sharp

I know this sounds like the start of a joke, and in some ways it is. A few years ago I was at a convention – it may even have been ITW – and members of the audience were asked to come up with an opening line for the panel members to pick at random out of a hat and run with.

I wrote:

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings …’

The unlucky panelist who picked that one out?

Lee Child.

Did he run with it?

Of course – in his own inimitable style.

Has he entirely forgiven me?

Hmm, not sure about that one 🙂

So, when I was asked to contribute a piece about beginnings for a bulletin for the upcoming CWA Debut Dagger competition, held every year for unpublished authors by the British Crime Writers’ Association, this line sprang to mind.

And as an aside I asked competition entrants to complete the line in their own style. Here are some of the most entertaining, all of which will receive a copy of one of my e-books. And if anyone else would like to give it a whirl, I’ll give away another copy to the best effort!

Gary Ian David

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings …’

Charlie fumbled desperately in the huge pockets of his unique suit. Out came streamers, sweeties, a disorientated live pigeon that flew to the roof and knocked itself out on a steel girder. A million silk hankies, a rubber sausage and a plastic hammer. A box of confetti exploded as he threw it away and a tramp caught an exploding cigar in mid flight. Children raced after the strange group of misfits, giggling, fighting over the clowns discarded novelties and falling over one another in their haste. A group of workmen did a fair interpretation of Benny Hill’s theme music as the group raced around, everyone chasing someone or something… all that was missing was The Keystone Cops. Wait for it… here they come. Nuns holding their skirts up, showing off their woollen stockings charged ahead of the drug dealer when he fell over and a bag of cocaine burst on the tiled floor. Yoshi Agnetha Yamashita pulled Aiko Frida Shoda back by her hair and screamed when her auburn wig came away in her hand. Michiko Benny Minamoto knocked his mate Atsushi Bjorn Takahashi over as they both struggled to head the nuns. Several uniformed police officers struggled at the back of the pack. The uniformed head of department stepped out in front of the charge and held his hand up. ‘Halt,’ he commanded. He was trampled underfoot. At last Charlie found his phone and held it to his ear. He stopped dead and the crowd ran over him. As they rushed toward a pair of glass doors, they slowly swung open… too slowly. The nuns crashed into them and as they fought one another a dwarf lifted up Sister Mary’s skirts and ran between her legs. He dived on top of the counter and grabbed the Walking, Talking, Weepy, Sleepy, Happy Chappy doll… the last one in the store… in fact the last one in the world. Camera crews filmed him holding the toy above his head and wealthy Harrods customers offered him obscene amounts of cash to part with it. He ignored their pleas and walked out with his head higher than anyone else’s in the store. On Christmas Day his son would be the envy of the world.

KJ Rabane

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings …’

“Right so you say you’ve got the wine and the Russian rug runner-how are you getting on finding the Japanese arbour? The clown answers “they say Harrods is a store where you can find anything but I’m having trouble with the Japanese Abba. And this phone is hopeless I can hardly hear what you want. You should have written it down. What time did you say your mother was coming? By the way I’m wearing the clown outfit so I’ll be ready for the kids when I get home.”

Heath Gunn

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings …’

“Waterloo, how does it feel you won the war”, shrieked the ringtone, the clown, with his mop of thick orange hair, glanced over his shoulder, held up his empty hand and all nine of them stopped dead in their tracks next to some French extra mature cheddar cheese.

“Billy, Hi”, gasped Thomas, the clown, “yes we are aware the fancy dress party started over an hour ago, and as soon as we beat our way to the tube we’ll be there”, “I know but unfortunately people who jump from railway bridges have little consideration for the timing of your birthday party”. He rolled his eyes at his pursuing entourage just as Lydia, the Russian drug dealer, tapped impatiently on the face of her bright yellow wrist watch.

“Billy the quicker I get off the phone, the faster we can all run to the tube station. Yes I’ll pick up some beers on the way, and vodka”. With that Thomas slid his thumb over the smooth screen of his phone and with a nod of his head the unlikely looking group lurched on through the well lit food isle.

Jean Harrington

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings …’

Three nuns and not one a virgin. Why should they be? Zoe loved sticking pins in stereotypes and that sexually innocent women were the world’s most virtuous was one of her favorites. Take these three: a widow, a divorcee and a lesbian. They could probably write erotica if they so chose, but instead here they were in the Amazon fighting sin and snakes without a luxury or a lover among them. As she paddled downstream, they sat without speaking, waiting for their destiny to unfold, waiting perhaps to be pierced by a dart gun as they had been pierced by the Lord. But surely not by anything else.

Sandra Powley

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings…’

“Crap timing Ruth,” gasped the panting clown, clutching the phone to her ear. “The flashmob’s gone pear-shaped here and store security are getting heavy. Wait up…” She ducked down an aisle. Three nuns and a Russian drug-dealer ran past, pursued by a bellowing Japanese Abba tribute band – struggling to gain any speed in their platform heels – followed by two hefty, wheezing security guards giving chase. As the strains of karaoke Water-roo faded, she pulled off her red nose, took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the voice in her ear. “What do you mean Hitler’s been shot? I’ve got News at Ten filming him outside St Pauls in an hour.” She pushed back her curly scarlet wig and scratched her scalp. “I know it’s short notice Ruth, but if Adam’s in hospital, I need a stand-in, so just get down to the protest camp for the news crew…Hang on.”

Spotting a mountain of pannetone, she scooted over the lino like a commando and took cover. “Yes – and you also said that your rabbi is liberal…Hitler-Schmittler, Ruth – global economic crisis trumps religion,” she hissed, replacing a dislodged package in the display. “I’ll call you from casualty, once I’ve seen Adam and found out who shot him – and while you’re sourcing your Third Reich outfit, have a look for your commitment.” She put her phone in her pocket and ripped off her clown suit, scanning the food hall for a place to remove her make up.

Five minutes later, a middle-aged woman slipped out of the ladies room, wearing jeans and tassled loafers with a smart jumper and a Liberty scarf. Her face was bare and a navy beret masked her wig-flattened blonde hair. She took a pair of Prada-framed glasses from her expensive leather handbag, pausing for a moment to browse a row of preserves before she hurried off, empty handed.

Marian Crowe moved purposefully, navigating the crowded streets to the Royal Free Hospital, unaware that her journey was pointless. Adam had been dead for forty-seven minutes and his body had already been relocated by The Service.

Michael Higgins

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings.

“Yes, Mr. President?” said Jo-E, a smile on his face, well he always had a smile on his face, as he slammed open the leather-padded walnut door leading to the East Dulwich Deli. “No, no, I can talk, Mr. President.”

With a flicker of regret, Jo-E kicked one of the tables to the floor with a shoe the size of a London double-decker bus. This really would be a great place to eat, he thought, if it wasn’t for that damn Dancing Queen and her killer poodles.

Janelle Colquhoun

‘Three nuns, a Russian drug dealer and a clown are being pursued through the food hall at Harrods by a Japanese tribute band to Abba, when the clown’s cellphone rings …’

They abruptly halt. The three nuns knock heavily into the Russian. Anger shows on the eldest nun’s monobrowed face. The three members of the Japanese band look at each other with raised eyebrows and shrug.

“Keep going,” the Russian drug dealer yells, lapsing out of his Russian accent.

The cellphone persists with it’s Wiggle’s “Hot Potato” ringtone.

“For fuck’s sake answer the frigging thing!” the youngest nun screams, tearing off her wimple and stamping her foot, “This is fucked anyway! Like, hello, what sort of a daft film script is this anyway?!”

The clown, with his hands shaking and his painted smile drooping at the corners, reaches to press the button to answer the call.

There is an enormous explosion. The last frame the cameraman captures through his viewfinder is the clown’s red nose spinning off into the Harrods’ lobster display.

“And that,” Detective Malevolent said, pressing the remote control button, “Is what we know so far about the explosion at 6:03am in the Harrods’ food hall this morning. Any questions?”

All these are tremendous in their own way, and I wish everyone who took part the very best of luck when their entries to the Debut Dagger go in.

This week’s Word of the Week is pusillanimous, meaning lacking in courage and strength of mind; faint-hearted, mean-spirited, cowardly.

I shall be travelling much of today, but will get to comments when I can.

 

 

Scalps, Bloody Shirts, and Babies Carved in Half

by David Corbett

Got your attention yet?

I’ll get to the gore in a minute. First, some announcements:

From January 23rd through March 12th I’ll be giving an eight-week Monday night course titled Story Not Formula: Crime Fiction Essentials at The Grotto in San Francisco. Follow this link or this one for details on what I’ll be teaching and how to sign up.

I’ll be doing basically the same course online for Chuck Palahniuk’s LitReactor sometime next year, so those of you hoping for an online course, I’ll keep you posted, and check my website for updates.

Also, on the weekend of February 4th-5th, I’ll be teaching a course at Book Passage in Corte Madera titled Integrating Arcs and Acts in Fiction and Film. Here’s the description (follow this link to sign up):

Aristotle believed that plot was the most important and difficult challenge the writer faced. But by plot he meant the architecture of change in the hero’s fortunes. Character and structure are inextricably linked. David Corbett, drawing on five iconic films—Vertigo, The Godfather, Chinatown, Silence of the Lambs and Michael Clayton—will demonstrate how the architecture of story deepens our understanding of character, with scene-by-scene breakdowns of how the drama is built. He will also, in the class discussion that follows, apply the lessons learned to individual student film and fiction projects.

Last, Otto Penzler has selected my first two books, The Devil’s Redhead and Done for a Dime, along with five short stories, for digital reissue as part of his Mysterious Press imprint at Open Roads Media. Hopefully the books and stories will be available for download early next year. I’ll keep you posted.

 

 * * * * *

Now back to scalps and such.

I had a completely different post in mind for today, but then I picked up the morning paper. As I wrote here on Murderati two weeks ago, my hometown suffered a bitter loss recently when a wonderful man and brave cop, Officer Jim Capoot, was murdered in the line of duty. I predicted that a tough political fight would soon be brewing over the issue of police staffing, city finances and public safety contracts.

Boy, that was quick.

A newly elected city council majority has decided to propose a public safety review committee that the police officers union and police supporters find not just pointless but insulting, calling it a travesty to their professionalism and the memory of their fallen comrade. They intend a mass demonstration at tonight’s council meeting, with T-shirts honoring Jim Capoot.

In short, the heat is already cranked up to boil, before most of us even know what’s going on. And this reminded me of one of my favorite historical insights, from Evan Connell’s Son of Morning Star, about General George Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Somewhere in the mid-nineteenth century, a settler actually bothered to ask a Native American why the warriors of his tribe took the scalps of their victims. The response says everything about human nature: “Because our enemies do.”

Henry Adams likened politics to the systematic organization of hatreds. He’d feel right at home in my hometown. If he still had his hair.

In such a charged atmosphere, with emotions so high after Officer Capoot’s slaying, the city council majority’s decision to press forward now with this hot potato demonstrates a level of arrogance and political tone deafness that is almost inspirational. I know the time line is tighter than it seems, with police and firefighter contracts ready to expire in June, but this could easily have waited a month.

Beyond that, though, is the issue of merit. I’ve met a number of the cops in Vallejo and done the prep course for the Citizens on Patrol Volunteer program. I spent fifteen years exposing lazy, incompetent, lying, drug-addicted, corrupt and bigoted cops. I’ve testified against them. I think I have a pretty good nose for the breed. That’s not the problem in Vallejo. In fact, V-town has one of the most professional forces I’ve ever encountered. The problem we have is simple: the cupboard is bare. We can’t afford more police officers, no matter how much citizens and the police themselves may want them.

But the police union’s kneejerk outrage, its decision to crank up the heat and switch off the light, is equally disappointing — though understandable, given the recent murder of Jim Capoot. The only thing more puzzling is that decision about the T-shirts. Apparently nobody’s explained to them the history behind “waving the bloody shirt.” It’s not complimentary. (Carpetbaggers on one side, KKK on the other—talk about systematic hatreds. Is this the political climate we want to emulate?)

Now I know enough officers to realize beyond any doubt that they mean no disrespect to Officer Capoot or his family. Quite the opposite. But they create an impression of a willingness to exploit even the death of a fallen fellow officer in pursuit of a political agenda and protection of their own bottom line.

And the city council creates the impression that they distrust the police on a fundamental level, and lack any faith that the public safety unions will play fair or provide honest information about what’s needed to keep this city safe. Instead city hall needs to create an independent body full of non-cops to gather the facts necessary to determine where we stand. This is moonspeak for “disaster.”

Those impressions, regardless of their degree of truth or falsehood, feed a dragon that exhales poisonous smoke. And that smoke is suffocating this city.

The police are right, the review committee will harm not help public safety, and it will cost money, money this city doesn’t have, any more than it has the money for the increased staffing they want.

Postscipt: I addressed the council chambers tonight and made this point. I can’t support the resolution. But I also requested the debate proceed with a little less heat, a little more light.

One solution to the over-arching problem is to have volunteers, as much as possible, help the police do non-patrol and investigation tasks. I’ve applied to be a volunteer for the police department and intend to put out the call for more. Because the unstoppable force has hit the unmovable object—we need more police, we don’t have the money—and the collision will incinerate this city (and a great many others in this country) if the citizens don’t stand up, get engaged, and empower themselves.

I’m not enough of a Pollyanna to think volunteerism’s the secret magic voodoo answer, but I’m also not so drunk on my own gall that I want to be the one standing there when one side or the other in this fight holds up half a bloody baby and declares victory. Solomon had it easy. Solving this fucker’s gonna take real wisdom.

A recent Vanity Fair piece that covered the approaching financial apocalypse in California, and mentioned Vallejo in some detail, made the excellent and inescapable point that we’re on the cusp of a new social contract, one that demands not just more accountability from government and the powerful but much more engagement from its citizens. The Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements are manifestations of the growing awareness of this transformation. Let’s hope to God they don’t just devolve into systematically organized hatreds.

* * * * *

Jukebox Heroes of the Week: I know I should be putting up a Christmas carol, or at least Robert Earl Keen’s hilariously heart-warming “Merry Christmas from the Family,” and wishing everyone a merry merry happy happy. But I couldn’t help myself—here’s the Boss singing Woody Guthrie:

 

Yes, have a wonderful holiday. This merry is your merry.

WRITER-ON-WRITER CRIME

by Gar Anthony Haywood

Few things in life fascinate me more than plagiarism.  Or, as I like to call it, “writer-on-writer crime.”  The idea of one author consciously stealing material from another — sometimes in massive chunks — in the belief he’ll get away with it, even in this age of instant, multi-platform communication, just blows my mind.  Talk about sociopathic behavior!

Last month at the spectacular Murder and Mayhem festival in Muskegee, Wisconsin, Duane Swierczynski hipped me to the strange and fantastic case of first-time novelist Quentin Rowan, aka Q.R. Markham, who’d just recently been exposed as maybe the most prolific and self-destructive plagiarist of all time.  I won’t go into all the details here of the mess Rowan created — such details are all over the internet in places like this and this, if you’re interested — but in a nutshell, the would-be literary superstar humiliated his publisher, Mulholland Books, and the host of authors who enthusiastically blurbed him (including Duane), by selling them all an espionage novel — ASSASSIN OF SECRETS — that turned out to be little more than a mashup of the works of at least five other authors.   Detailed analysis of the manuscript has revealed, in fact, that lines, let alone paragraphs, of Rowan’s own invention are few and far between.

Yet nobody recognized Rowan’s book as a hodge-podge of disparate material stolen from multiple sources — not his editor, not reviewers (both Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly gave ASSASSIN OF SECRETS a starred review), not the authors who blurbed him — until users of a James Bond message board began to comment on the similarities they were finding between Rowan’s work and that of Ian Fleming and several other name spy novelists.

At first, I found this last amazing.  How could no one have noticed earlier?  But then I read whole passages of Rowan’s “novel” and understood that serial plagiarism of this kind, when done well (if not brilliantly), may not be as easy to spot as one would think.  God bless Quentin Rowan’s black little heart, but hell if he didn’t stitch all that unrelated prose together in a way that actually made for a compelling and, more importantly, seamless read.

Which brings me to this, my first contribution to the fun and games of Wildcard Tuesdays here at Murderati.  Just for kicks, I thought I’d try my hand at playing Q.R. Markham for a day.  The following is a mashup of my own writing and that of five of my Murderati brethren.  Can you tell which is which?

I’ll give away a copy of my new thriller, ASSUME NOTHING, to whoever does the best job of separating plagiarism from original writing.  I’ve numbered every line, so all you have to do is tell me which ones are my work and which ones are not.  There’s no need to specify who I’ve borrowed from in each case.  I’ll give you that info at the end of the day.

Obviously, I’m counting on all of you to play fair — no Googling, Amazon surfing, or skimming through the pages of BOULEVARD, KISS OF DEATH, or FOURTH DAY allowed.

Good luck!

1.  Farrell never knew his mother or father.  2.  He’d grown up alone in the world, fending for himself as best he could against all the hardship life could throw at him.

3.  Which, as it turned out, was plenty. 4.  Monsters on the street saw a kid on his own, no adult around to watch his back, they were swimming in circles around him before he could blink.

5.  Still, Farrell sometimes wondered if being parentless wasn’t a blessing in disguise.  6.  It gave him a kind of freedom from the usual attachments that seemed to hold others back.

7.  Life would be more fluid for him because love and desire and ambition would be a question of choice, not obligation

8.  At least, he liked to think choice was how he ended up this way, teetering on the brink of thirty with his heart firmly tethered to a wife and two teenage daughters.  9.  This wasn’t just something that had happened to him, it was the product of design.

10.  “That’s your study partner?  You’re getting in a car with him?“

11.  “Yes, Daddy.  His name is Steven.”  Cassie snatched her keys off the hallway table on her way out.  “Bye, gotta go.”

12.  Farrell took another look out the front window, not caring if “Steven” saw him or not.  13.  What he saw made him blanch.  14.  The young man was big and pink, with firm layers of fat billowing out from under a bright red polo shirt.  15.  He was shaped like one of those hard rubber Kongs, the type Doberman pinschers used to sharpen their teeth.

16.  And most terrifying of all, his car was a Volvo, bolted to steel wheels better suited to a trailer park Oldsmobile.

17.  “I don’t like it,” Farrell said.

18.  Cassie grinned and flipped a hand, dismissing the warning. 19.   Then she yanked open the screen door, breaking into a run as soon as she hit the porch.

20.  Such was his daily existence now, going from one blown-off note of worry to another.  21.  His wife Natalee didn’t need his protection but Cassie and May, Cassie’s younger sister, both courted death like a rich suitor.  22.  They took chances that would give a circus daredevil pause, leaving Farrell nothing to do but fear for their lives every waking moment.  23.  He could see their end in every accident or natural disaster.

24.  A fire, for instance.  25.  Standing on his bedroom balcony just after lunch, he smelled the smoke first, then sighted it spiraling upward, over the dingy rooftops to the east.  26.  Soon there were fire trucks in the distance, their Doppler-effect wails punctuated with staccato chatter-and-yelp as they barreled through each intersection.

27.  May, he thought irrationally.  May’s caught in the fire.

28.  He dialed her cell phone before common sense could get the better of him and she picked up on only the fourth ring.  29.  He was offering her one of his standard apologies when the line went suddenly silent, as if the phone had been abruptly snatched from the girl’s hand.  30.  Then there was just noise, the ragged sounds of what a paranoid fool like Farrell could only assume was a struggle:

31.  Deep, fight-for-air panting.  32.  Heavy thuds of elbows or boots against a car’s solid metal door.  33.  A long exhaled breath.  34.  Then more silence, before a kicked pebble ricocheted off a beer can as someone moved away.

35.  Farrell couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the need to scream.  36.  Maybe eight years ago, when Natalee had punctuated one of their more violent arguments by closing a taxi door on his left hand?  37.  But he needed to scream now.

No Questions for the Class today, but I would love to hear any great stories of plagiarism you might have to tell.  I just can’t get enough of ’em.

The Simple Act of Showing Up

by Pari

It started as a blog about assumptions. About Christmas and how the dominant culture in our country assumes that everyone is celebrating the same holiday. As I typed, the piece turned into a ponderous post with an overinflated professorial voice.  And who’d want that the week before holiday fever overtakes us all?

Because of the season, the blog then moved to latkes and Hanukkah. I even found this really fun video.

But I’ve written about latkes before (sorry the pix don’t seem to be uploading).

Then it moved to
conversations with adolescents
my old haunts in Ann Arbor
Googling old friends
the joy of looking at Christmas lights . . .

And that, in a nutshell, is the the wasteful, but interesting, side-effect of being a true pantser.  I write to find story — or topic — rather than outlining and finding flaws before making a creative commitment. That means that pages of prose will have traveled from my fingertips onto the computer before I know if an idea that seems good really has legs.

Often, as evidenced by the journey of writing this particular blog, the projects fizzle out quickly. This may have less to do with craft than the fact that when I delve into the meat of the subject, it turns out to be too boring, depressing or weak for more exploration. Sometimes, in the writing, I discover that a thought deserves attention and that I’m not quite in the place to make it come alive yet. I usually put those pieces of stories (or blogs) in a folder for later consideration.

I used to think that writing was almost spiritual in nature. The mental image I carried was of a woman in a 1920s garret in Paris, her hands gloved in scratchy gray wool, an espresso near her fingertips, the heavy smoke of a home-rolled cigarette coloring the darkened room’s air a bluish gray. So rapt in creativity would she be that nothing could distract her from her task. (And, of course, she’d never outline!)

Alas, in the decades I’ve been writing, I’ve never lived up to anything resembling that woman. In childhood and adolescence, perhaps, the act of penning a short story or poem carried a certain romantic aura. In adulthood, however, my creative life has been about simply showing up.

Today, as I went through the 10-15 ideas for this blog, I realized that while showing up may be more oatmeal than éclair, it works for me. It has forced me to produce and produce some more; it has nourished the commitment necessary to keep going even if inspiration falls flat.

And because I show up daily, I always — eventually — stumble upon something truly worth the effort.

Year-end wrap-up

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Somehow it has gotten to be December (how the hell?)  and one of my editors and I have been commiserating about how really freaking glad we both are that this year is drawing to a close. Even if the world does end (or start over) in 2012, it’s just got to be better than this year.  Doesn’t it?

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I’m not one for the in-depth online personal disclosures.  Authors live a little in the spotlight, if just a minor one, and that’s fine, it’s not that I’m shy– but let’s face it, there are some strange people out there and you never know who’s reading.

So without getting too detailed about it, on the personal level this has been an enormously hard year for me. A lot of loss, as in death. Within six months: my father, a beloved aunt, and my cat of 19 years. My father from Alzheimer’s, and all I can say about that is – Don’t get it.  And I hope to God someone figures out prevention and cure to end that scourge.

All of this was coming down while I was not long out of and certainly not recovered from a devastating and permanent split from my significant other.

While here in New Agey California people are liable to say cheery and optimistic things like “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and “God (the Goddess, the Universe) never gives us more than we can handle,” I’m not so sure about that. I think lots of people get more than they can handle.  Just take a look at all the crime and illness and tragedy in the world. People snap all the time. Does that mean they could have handled it and they just didn’t?  Well, yeah, sometimes, but some, I think, really do get more than anyone could handle.

Anyway, I’m handling it, I guess, but I’m also very aware that I’ve been pretty effectively shut down for most of the year, enough so that sometimes I’ve wondered if I’d ever really be coming back from it. Surviving is not the same as thriving.

On the other hand, I’d have to be the biggest narcissist on the planet not to know that I have it a lot better than a lot of people, especially in this economic climate.  I’m making a comfortable living at the thing I most love to do (although I admit, sometimes that love looks a lot like—something not so loving.).  E books are a godsend, and I have a lineup of book contracts that sometimes gives me panic attacks, but after a really rough patch there after Dad died, I have been managing my deadlines and doing a book on the side,  too, as well as getting some of my backlist formatted for e-release.  In fact it’s kind of amazing how much I got out there this year:

– I e-published a second Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbook:  Writing Love, and my first YA thriller: The Space Between.

– I finished the first book in a paranormal trilogy for Harlequin: Twist of Fate. 

– I finished a draft of and am now rewriting a new crime thriller than I’m writing on spec (about which I will say very little because I’m superstitious that way).

– The Unseen came out in the UK.

– I wrote a short story, In Atlantis, for Thriller 3, Stories to Keep You Up at Night, coming out in June 2012.

– I am about 100 pages into Night Shift, my second book in the continuing paranormal series The Keepers, that I’m writing with two of my best friends and favorite authors, Heather Graham and Harley Jane Kozak.

– And this month, I am releasing e versions of The Harrowing, The Price, and Book of Shadows in various countries.

It’s absolutely amazing, really, for me to look at that list, which doesn’t even include the workshops I taught this year, when I feel like all I did sleep and once in a while shuffle around the house running into furniture like some kind of undead thing. And I wanted to put it all on paper (or whatever this is) to prove to myself that I’m haven’t checked out of life completely, no matter how I feel sometimes.

In fact I am actually starting to love writing Night Shift, which is not something I say very often about my writing; finishing is so infinitely superior to the actual process.

And it’s great to be full time in the Hotel California again, except for time on the road, of course…  Both of the books I’m working on now, and my last, The Space Between, are set in California and it’s taken me a while to come around to it, but there aren’t many people more qualified than I am to write about this state. (I know it’s a terrible thing to say but I LOVED those violent winds last week; that was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.) I’m finally far enough out of the Hollywood trauma to write about that, too, and I am truly loving using the movie business as a backdrop to this paranormal thriller.  It’s so easy, in a way; I don’t have to think, I can just have fun.  I can set a scene on Catalina if I want and I don’t have to research it, I don’t have to take a field trip (although I could).

Maybe writing could be this way all the time.

And I may not know where I’m going to live next in any permanent way, but I am starting to have at least the beginning of faith that I will find a direction. Eventually.

Maybe I’ll find the rest of it, too. Eventually.

So, everyone – how was YOUR year?

– Alex

 ————————————————————————————————

!!REVIEW COPIES!!

I am giving away 100 review copies of Book of Shadows, The Harrowing and The Price for potential review on Amazon, Goodreads and LibraryThing.

Book of Shadows for UK readers and anyone in France, Germany, Italy or Spain who might want to review it on Amazon.fr, Amazon.de, Amazon.it, or Amazon.es.

 

The Harrowing and The Price: for US readers and anyone in France, Germany, Italy or Spain who might want to review either or both on Amazon.fr, Amazon.de, Amazon.it, or Amazon.es.

 

If you’re interested, please e mail me at alex AT AlexandraSokoloff DOT com and I’ll get you a copy of your choice.

Thanks, everyone!!

The allure of the short story

Today I’d like to welcome Aussie author Angela Savage to Murderati. This is my second instalment, following on from my interview with Katherine Howell, to introduce some Aussie authors here at Murderati. 

I’ve met Angela a couple of times on the mystery ‘scene’ and ran into her again at Sisters in Crime Australia’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards – Angela won the top honour of the night and I was there as the official presenter. You may also recognise Angela from my ‘photoshoot to kill for’ blog.

Given Angela’s first novel was written after an award-winning short story introducing her main protagonist, and that she’s written extremely successfully in both the short and long form, I asked Angela to blog about the short story and the novel. What attracts her to both forms? Does she approach them with a similar mind-set?

I’ve entered the Sisters in Crime Australia Scarlet Stiletto Awards short story competition twice, once in 1998 and again in 2011.

The first time I was an unpublished writer with an abandoned manuscript burning a hole in my filing cabinet. Short story competitions provided me with focus, opportunities to practice my craft and try something new. The Scarlet Stilettos held the particular appeal of being exclusively for women writers, with stories required to have an active woman protagonist.

In what was my first foray into crime fiction, I submitted a story called ‘The Mole on the Temple’ about an Australian expatriate detective called Jayne who exposes a card scam in Bangkok.

My story won third prize. More valuable than the prize money was the confidence this gave me to persevere with both the crime genre and the main character. Jayne went on to acquire the surname Keeney and became the hero of my first novel Behind the Night Bazaar published in 2006. The second book in the Jayne Keeney PI series The Half-Child followed in 2010 and I’m currently working on the third, working title The Dying Beach.

Funnily enough, Behind the Night Bazaar started life as a short story that just kept growing. I’ve since ‘cannibalised’—to use Raymond Chandler’s word—several of my early short stories for scenes or subplots in my novels.

I’m not the only author to have kick-started my writing career with a prize at the Scarlet Stilettos. So far 15 women, including category winners like me, have gone on to publish novels. But I’m the first established novelist in the 18-year history of the Scarlet Stiletto Awards to return to the scene and take home the coveted Scarlet Stiletto trophy.

So what made me decide to enter the competition again after a 13-year break?

Part of the motivation stems from a crisis I had earlier this year about whether I could call myself an ‘Australian writer’, when everything I’d written was set in Thailand in the 1990s, albeit featuring Australian characters. I challenged myself to set a story closer to home and the result was my winning entry for the 2011 Scarlet Stilettos, ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ set in contemporary Melbourne. The plot, involving a restricted breed dog, became inadvertently topical when a four-year-old-girl was tragically killed in an attack by a pit bull terrier only weeks after I submitted the story to the competition.

As in 1998, the short story form gave me an opportunity to try something new. But this time around I have no desire to develop the characters or plots into a full-length novel.

Pound for pound, I find short stories harder and more time consuming to write than novels. Short stories and novels have different centres of gravity. Both need to hook readers in at the start, but the narratives have different arcs. Short stories are less forgiving. There’s no room for superfluous adjectives or adverbs.

With novels you can loiter a little, while the nuances of the story and characters play out. Short stories have to maintain the pace or they’re dead in the water.

Secretly, like an actor who longs to direct, I’d really like to write songs—to tell a whole story in three or four verses and a haunting refrain.

I’ll just have to keep practising.

 

Angela’s first book, Behind the Night Bazaar, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award as an unpublished manuscript in 2004 and was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Book in 2007. Her second novel, The Half-Child was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly in 2011 for Best Fiction. The Half-Child is available in Kindle version on Amazon or in hard copy through Text Publishing.

We’re interested in hearing your thoughts about short stories and novels. Do you read both? Write both?

Angela will be around to answer questions too!