How editors make a difference

by Tess Gerritsen

It’s called a death spiral, and I was in one. The year was 2000, and I had just turned in my fifth thriller, The Surgeon. In the U.S., my first four books had hit bestseller lists. In the UK my career was, if not dead, barely twitching. In publishing, “death spiral” describes the steady decline in an author’s sales over time, a decline that’s almost impossible to reverse. With each new release, the orders are smaller. With smaller orders there’s less visibility and poorer distribution, leading inevitably to even poorer sales.

Eventually, no bookstores will order your books. And no publisher wants you as their author.

That’s the position I was in back in 2000. My sales had all but crashed and burned in the UK. I’d already failed with two different publishers, and now no one there wanted to touch me. The Surgeon, it appeared, would not be released in the UK at all.

Then a plucky new editor at Transworld Publishers picked up The Surgeon and decided she had to acquire the book. The author’s track record was dreadful, getting the book into stores would be a battle, but she was damn well going to do it. She forced (that’s the description I heard!) all her colleagues to read the manuscript, and now they were getting excited too. She was the cheerleader, the taskmaster, the evangelist for The Surgeon. I was only vaguely aware of her efforts at the time; after all, I’d failed miserably in the UK before, and my hopes were no higher this time. She sent me the cover design that she was so excited about: a sink drain with splashes of blood.

I just didn’t get it. She assured me it would work in the UK market. Anyway, what did I know about the UK market? I was already deemed a failure there, and I was sure to be a failure again. When the book was released in hardcover in the UK, I paid little attention because it was just too depressing to think about.

But this editor wouldn’t leave me alone. She kept sending me cheery emails and sales figures. While The Surgeon wasn’t hitting any bestseller lists, it wasn’t a complete flop. The corpse of my UK career actually took a breath — if only a shallow one.

The following year, with the publication of The Apprentice in hardcover and The Surgeon in paperback, Transworld invited me for a UK book tour. It was the first time I’d been asked overseas, and I still have one vividly depressing memory of a group booksigning I did in London. I was sitting next to a bestselling crime author who had a line of fans to buy her book. One man came with a whole box of books for that author to sign. Then he looked at me, shrugged, and said: “I have no idea who you are.” He bought one of my paperbacks, but I could see it was only out of sheer pity.

The Surgeon, in paperback, miraculously made it to the top-ten bestseller list.

In the years that followed, as my UK sales continued to climb, this editor and the entire Transworld team never stopped flogging my books. They continually re-packaged the series. They brought me over again and again for tours. They invested in publicity and promotions.

In 2006, I finally hit #1 on the London Times paperback bestseller list with Vanish. And last year, I hit #1 on the hardcover list with The Killing Place.

Transworld not only breathed life back into this old corpse, they got it up and walking and then sprinting ahead of the pack. It demonstrates that even a career that looks dead can be reanimated — given the right team with the right book. It’s a lesson that authors and publishers need to take to heart. If an author writes great books, even if his sales are moribund, he deserves a second look, a second chance. Because he just might be your next #1 bestseller.

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about how authors don’t really need publishers anymore because we can self-publish with e-books. Hey, we can do it all ourselves, make more money in the long run, and have complete control over our destinies. To some extent it’s true; we can publish our own books. The question is, can we publish our own books well?

(Even in the world of self-publishing, publishers will still play a vital role as gatekeepers. Spam now clogs online booksellers with 99 cent e-books that are either junk or blatantly plagiarized. A publisher’s seal of approval can help separate the worthwhile books from the fake ones.)

Over my twenty-five career, I’ve worked with some truly gifted editors. Every single one has been a pleasure to work with, and my books are all the better because of their input. True, a self-published author could hire a private editor to help polish a manuscript, but the fact is, editors do a lot more than edit. They advocate. They strategize. They even harangue, all on your behalf.

And sometimes, they become your dear friends. This is something we don’t talk enough about: how important friendships are in the publishing business. It’s not all about sales figures and bean counting. Long after our business associations end, long after we stop needing each other for deals, the friendships remain.

Last month, it was announced that my wonderful UK editor, Selina Walker, is leaving Transworld to take an impressive new job as publisher for Century and Arrow Books. I guess that’s what happens when you do a smashing job — you get promoted. I’m thrilled for her, of course, but I’m also sad that she’s leaving. She was the one who pulled me out of my UK death spiral. And that, I will never forget.

(I am attending the Romance Writers of America convention, so may not be able to answer comments.)

The best unlaid plans

by Pari

The other day I went to buy a garden gnome (yes, you read that right) and ended up with a garden hippopotamus instead. In reflecting on this odd turn in my original mission, I realized that it exemplified much of my life: I think I’m walking a straight line forward and end up on a curving one 93 degrees in another direction.

Mind you, I’m not complaining; the journey is always interesting. But in watching this motion, I’ve been wondering about why I keep striving for control.

What’s up with that?

Certainly not logic.

Many of the best moments in my life have come from mistakes, wrong turns or unbridled curiosity. I have so many examples of this . . .
In my last year of college, I thought I’d signed up for a history colloquium on death and dying. Instead I landed in a seminar about jungles. Yeah, jungles. And it ended up being one of the most fascinating classes I’ve ever taken.

Another Ann Arbor experience ( . . . and I got to Ann Arbor in a roundabout way too):
I saw several people walking toward a building with great enthusiasm and purpose, so I followed them. Guess what? Somehow I ended up in a master class about pantomime taught by Marcel Marceau. He must’ve known I didn’t belong there, but he let me stay. Would I have ever had that opportunity if I’d followed the rules and tried to register? I doubt it. The class had been sold out for months.

Food
While a student in Hong Kong, I ordered a bowl of corn chowder. I thought it’d be the first truly western meal I’d had in months. Instead it contained silver fungus. Did I like that crunchy cartilaginous content? Nope. But it has made for a good story in the aftermath. The same can be said for snails, the spinal cord of a pig, sea slugs, molasses-cured grasshoppers, kidneys and blood sausage. Would I have eaten them if I knew what I was getting? Probably not. Am I glad I did? Well . . . mostly. I’m not a fan of congealed blood and sea slugs are the culinary version of snot.

Work
My professional career has been just as unpredictable though I ALWAYS thought I’d make my living as a novelist. I certainly never intended to go into public relations and never bothered to get the credentials that some employers look for. And yet every job I’ve had has involved PR. Tomorrow I start a new full-time gig as a program manager. My fiction has helped my nonfiction and it’s the latter that is going to carry me through this financially tumultuous time in my life.

Relationships
If you’ve been reading my blog entries, you know I’m in a period of tremendous transition. The forward dreams I held about my marriage and future are in shambles. However, I have faith, given my fortuitous unplanned life experiences so far – that in spite of my efforts to control my life – everything will be fine and, probably, entirely different from what I expect.

What about you?

I’m in the mood for happy stories, so . . .
Do you have an example of planning/ controlling that went awry and became something better?

Or you can help me name my hippo. I’m leaning toward “Petunia,” but am open to suggestions.

Create

EXISTENTIALISM (THE MURDERATI NEWBIE EDITION)

By Gar Anthony Haywood

Well, I’ve finally made it. The Big Time. I’m a Murderati contributor.

As a long-time fan of the site, I was thrilled to get the call, of course. Who but James Patterson wouldn’t be? But once the initial thrill wore off, I found myself asking some really big questions, like, “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”

In other words, exactly what kind of Murderati contributor will I be? What can I possibly bring to this party on a regular basis that JT, or Alafair, or any of the eleven other fine writers on hand here, doesn’t already deliver in spades?

One of the things I’ve always appreciated most about this site is its diversity. The writers who blog here have traditionally run the gamut in terms of backgrounds and experiences. Some are A-listers, some aren’t quite there yet, and others are working toward getting on their first significant list of any kind. Some, like me, have been on and off so many lists, they barely know up from down anymore. Alex is a genius at blogging about the technical aspects of writing; Stephen likes to get under the hood of the writer’s psyche; and almost everyone is expert at writing about agents, marketing, and the debatable efficacy of book tours.

See? In terms of perspective on the crime writing life, it would seem Murderati has all the bases covered.

So where do I fit in?

Some background: I sold my first book, FEAR OF THE DARK, way back in 1987, by winning the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writer’s of America’s “Best First Novel” Contest. (Damn, what a mouthful. Can you imagine having to say that every time someone asks how you sold your first book? And yes, you read that year right: 1987. I’ve been around that long.)

Anyway, winning the contest made securing an agent a simple matter of asking the best one I knew if he’d be willing to represent me and having him say yes. With his help, I sold two more books in my hardboiled Aaron Gunner P.I. series to St. Martin’s, then moved on to G.P. Putnam’s Sons with two serio-comic mysteries about Joe and Dottie Loudermilk (two fifty-something retirees who buy a truck and an Airstream trailer and take flight from their five grown Children From Hell, solving crimes as they travel willy-nilly across the U.S.A.). Putnam’s promptly dumped the Loudermilks and asked me to revive Gunner, so I sold them three more books in that series.

When Putnam’s tired of the Gunners, I did a total reboot (adopting the pen name “Ray Shannon”) and sold them two standalone thrillers, MAN EATER and FIRECRACKER, for more money than I’d seen for my previous eight books combined.

Putnam’s then lost interest in my standalones and, well, then they lost all interest in me. The mid-list crunch was on throughout the industry and my sales numbers made me an easy target for dismissal. I never got a Dear John letter, but figuring out Putnam’s and I were through didn’t take much reading between the lines.

What followed, in 2004, was a crater in the ol’ career path not unlike the one that asteroid in Armageddon might have left on the face of the earth had Bruce Willis and company not blown it to smithereens. No one wanted to touch the proposal I’d written for a third standalone and any conversation about a new book in either of my two series was a non-starter. Oh, and that burning smell I was gradually beginning to notice turned out to be my agent’s disappointment grinding his faith in me as a saleable commodity down to a smoldering nub.

It was time for another reboot, this one sans the pseudonym. But Gar Anthony Haywood, ver. 3.0, was not going to be an easy fix. I would have to write the complete manuscript of my next book before shopping it, and to have any chance at all of being sold, it would have to be better than anything I’d written previously. That latter part didn’t faze me in the least, but the former was a real pain in the ass, because I write the way Arctic snow melts in January. It was two years before I had CEMETERY ROAD done.

The book was far from high concept. It wasn’t easy to pitch in a single line. In fact, like most of what I’d written before, it was a tough, unapologetic, urban crime novel about various people — mostly men — of color. But hell if I didn’t think it was my crowning achievement.

My agent? Not so much. His first question for me upon reading it was, “What are you expecting this book to do for you?”

Uh oh. That burning smell had stopped. The man had no more faith left to grind down. We reached a mutual agreement to go our separate ways.

So now I needed a new agent.

If this were my unabridged autobiography, and not merely my first Murderati blog post, I would amuse you to no end with the full story of how I came to find the wonderful agent who now represents me. But it isn’t, so I won’t. Suffice it to say, with a little bit of help from my friends (bless you, Michael Connelly), I signed on with an agent who saw in CEMETERY ROAD what I did, and almost two years later (that’s right: two years), we sold the book to Severn House in the UK, where I remain to this day. Paid like a pauper but treated as I imagine Knopf once treated John Updike.

Quite a ride, huh? The old “rollercoaster” analogy would seem to be most fitting. Highs and lows, starred reviews and no reviews (thanks for nothing, Marilyn Stasio), big advances and little advances. Day jobs that sucked, day jobs that were more fun than Disneyland, and long periods of time in which no day job at all was necessary. Movie options, I’ve seen a few (a finished script for my third Gunner, YOU CAN DIE TRYING, came this close to becoming a Spike Lee Joint), as well as the occasional TV-writing gig. Hell, you name it, and anything just short of serious bestsellerdom or a rung above POD, I’ve been through it. So… Getting back to that existential question I asked earlier:

Where do I fit in the Murderati universe?

I’m still not sure. It may take me a while to find my proper place here. But for now, the niche I think I’ll try to make my own is that of the seasoned veteran who all too often sounds more like a rabid, overly-opinionated reader than a professional writer. Because, even this many years into my career, I still think of myself in those terms: I’m a reader first and published author second. It’s the hyper-critical reader within who keeps me honest, and forces me to confront the weaknesses in my work head-on.

Ultimately, the process of writing involves making choices, and explaining why I make the choices I make to conform to my sensibilities as a reader, is the conversation I’d most like to have here, every other Sunday, as a Murderati blogger.

So let the games begin.

First question for the class: What do you think is the most important thing your Inner Reader contributes to your work?

OMG OMG OMG, Mea culpa culpa culpa…

Hi everyone,

Hugest apologies for posting so late in the day. We have screwed up the schedule over at Lipstick Chronicles, so I’m now supposed to blog at both places on the same day, only I thought it wouldn’t start until NEXT Saturday, and have been on a cruise ship with seventy-five-cents-a-minute internet for the past ten days, and am currently en route from Anchorage to Newark.

So, not only am I late, but I’m going to double post the same thing I have up at LC.

Hope everyone is having a great summer so far, partied on the solstice, and will forgive me… My first plane is boarding right now, and I’ll try to catch up with comments in Seattle if I can get wireless access during the stopover.

xx Cornelia

By Cornelia Read

So I just finished my first-ever voyage on a boat (not counting ferries or dinghies or floatingish thingies that are inflatable and/or require what the sailor types in my lineage always refer to as “a nice breeze” to locomote). Which was pretty damn cool, I have to tell you.

The trip was an enormo-prezzie to the fam from my mother, in honor of three of her grandkids having graduated from various and sundry schools this month.

Mummie (hey, if you are a parent of the female persuasion and gift your offspring with splendiferous adventures of this magnitude, you deserve the classically haute-Mitfordian pronoun, right?) treated me, my sister, my sister’s husband, my eldest girl, my niece, my nephew, and two school pals of niece and nephew to the proceedings, which was damn fine and gobsmackingly generous of her.

Mom does tons of awesome stuff for us all, and I don’t know how she comes up with the buckage for it. I think she subsists on cardboard soup and government-cheese fumes in between these stunning bouts of maternal largesse or something. Really.

I have learned many things during my time at sea. Here are some of them:

1. If you are a woman who has two sons in the Navy, DO NOT let them take you drinking in Pearl Harbor, because you might wake up with a two-foot-tall tattoo of angel wings from your shoulder blades to your waist, even though the last thing you remember is being led into a room with all these weird pictures on the walls and one of your kids saying, “you can do Mom in the other room, me and my brother will stay together.” And then waking up with your nightgown stuck to your back, totally hospital-cornered into the guest bed so tightly you can’t move.

On the bright side, this woman’s sons did this to her because they think she IS a wonderful angel, and she already had a number of tattoos. And it’s really pretty (she showed us by pulling down her tanktop straps on the Denali Lodge shuttle bus, and also I saw her getting her formal portrait photo done on the ship). But still.

And hey, could be worse:

Although I think this one might be suitable revenge on the guy who did the angel wings tattoo at one’s children’s behest, if one were to, say, kidnap him and take him to a rival tattoo parlor, after nuking him with one of those Marlin Perkins Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom tranquilizer darts.

2. Go to the fire drill on the first day. Because you’ll want to know what to do if bad stuff happens. Which it so totally probably won’t, but still. Sometimes it does. And I say this because this is the ship my Grandmother Smith christened in the ‘30s.

3. Bring stretchy pants. Because you will eat the entire side of a house at every meal. With ice cream on it. Probably flambé.

And then a couple of bowls of gravy and some chocolate mousse. And twice your pre-cruise weight in smoked salmon.

4. If you are bringing your own luggage to the departure dock, make sure that the guy you give your stuff to attaches THE TAGS FOR THE ACTUAL CRUISE LINE YOU ARE GOING ON to each of your bags (e.g., if you are going on a Princess Lines cruise, having the guy apply Holland America tags is a really, really bummer idea.

As you may have surmised, I speak here from personal experience.)

5. If you forget suggestion number four, be on a ship that has nice people working on it. Because you will need awesome, awesome people who will make it nice for you even though you are wearing the same clothes for three days (and totally feel like Immigration is going to send you back to fin-de-siecle wherever from Ellis Island–with “Scarlet Fever” chalked on the back of your itchy homespun-tweed shmatte where you can’t even see it–well before the Holland America boat decides to take its sweet time lolling into Juneau.)

The people on our ship made Gavin McLeod and Lauren Tewes

look like rank amateurs. Even though they only played captain and cruise director on TV and stuff (okay, I do admit I kept expecting to find Isaac mixing frothy/frosty day-glo libations in a blender behind the Lido deck bar,

and to run into various bejeweled Gabors in the elevators.

Or at least Paul Lynde or something.)

6. A lot of people end up crashing in Alaska from elsewhere. And their stories are pretty great.

But here is a caveat from a tourbus person about the whole “there are five single men to every single woman here on The Last Frontier” thing:

“Sure, the odds are good. But the goods are odd.”

7. IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP: Do not let your fine-looking teenage daughter go party with the dudes who run the zipline for the rest of the day until the ship embarks after they send her whizzing along cables above the tree canopy for an hour and a half unless you want her to hang out with some guy named “Steve the ‘Stache” and discover an entire galaxy of body-piercings neither of you had ever envisioned in your wildest nightmares. Even though she is rock-solid on assuring me that she is not interested in any of them, but she got great pictures of them sent to her by Steve the ‘Stache over the last several days. Isn’t texting fun?

So even though I worry she might change her mind, which she insists she totally won’t, I did love hearing about the slightly exaggerated ruler (with witty disclaimer caption) the aforementioned Steve has reportedly had tattooed on his inner thigh–which had me doing spit-takes of mirth throughout dinner that night, every time I thought of it. Which almost makes up for the whole piercing-galaxy thing.

And, hey, she just got another text from Steve the ‘Stache. Who is a mere eleven years older than she is.

Yea.

8. Deleted.

9. The legal smoking age in Alaska is nineteen, which becomes an important thing to know if you have recently decided on a whim to buy each of the three kids in your traveling party who just graduated from high school his or her very own sixteen-dollar Arturo Fuentes Hemingway Classic from the ship’s cigar bar.

Like, especially if you have just told the bar-server chick who’s kinda-sorta in charge of the place for the evening that your young companions are all eighteen. Whether or not they are actually, uh, seventeen. Allegedly.

Ahem.

Not least if the bar-server-chick-k/s-in-charge-of-the-place-for-the-evening only remembers that the smoking age in Alaska is nineteen after you’ve helped your young companions set fire to said trio of sixteen-dollar cigars.

Though it is rather fine to finish smoking your respective Hemingway Classics on the fantail of the Promenade deck at midnight when it’s the longest day of the year, still totally light out, and you happen to be sailing through a really groovy-looking fjord in Alaska. Just saying.

Especially when you and your three young smoking companions can sing all of the verses of Lonely Island’s “I’m on a Boat” from memory, afterwards.

Complete with lyric-appropriate arm motions.

[DISCLAIMER: My young traveling companions are all really nineteen. I have intimated that they were underage merely for humor purposes. They were slow learners and all held back for a year in grammar school. Cross my heart and pinkie swear. And I didn’t let any of them sample my rocks glass of Scotch, either. Because, let’s face it, a fine single malt is, like youth, wasted on the young.]

10. Pack your sleeping pills, your toothbrush, your deodorant, and a change of undies in your carry-on bag.

Even if you didn’t sleep at all the night before you flew to Vancouver because your writing group is on California time and you are Skyping in from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to hear what they thought of your second draft–which means 8 p.m. for them is 11 p.m. for you, and doesn’t leave you a whole lot of sleeping time by the end of the session before you have to get back up again.

Because despite that stuff, all-nighters are no excuse for stupid. Or crappy packing.

11. The long-term parking lots for the Newark Airport are actually located in Western Pennsylvania. So you’ll want to get up at 3:30 and not 4:00. Even if you didn’t sign off with your writing group until 1 a.m. And this is especially true if Air Canada’s ground crews are on strike. But I’m pro-labor so it was worth it to leave earlier.

12. Douglas Adams was absolutely correct when he posited that “no one has uttered the phrase ‘as beautiful as an airport.’” Especially when it’s in New Jersey and you’ve been awake for circa forty-eight hours.

(I will spare you an illustration.)

Although he might have reconsidered if he’d been admiring the interior design of the Vancouver Airport for two hours from a bench next to the baggage claim. It’s pretty great.

(But, you know, still an airport. Not, like, a splendid afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne or the view across Florence from Fiesole at dawn or whatever.)

13. Denali (AKA Mount McKinley) is REALLY FUCKING BIG. And I say that having trekked to the base camp on Annapurna.

Trust me, the Himalayas are totally pussified by comparison.

Kind of like Vancouver’s hockey team.

Heh.

14. I make a habit of dancing once a decade. I recommend doing this on a cruise ship. I just did. It was totally great. Especially when me and my niece’s pal dragged my mother out onto the dancefloor for “We Are Family.”

And now I will not dance again until 2021. Phew.

15. I found out my new $49 iPhone takes video. My old $200 iPhone did not, but it was four years old or something.

Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how I’m going to post them. So here’s a nice lady on a ship waving goodbye, instead:

Tell me about a trip that you loved… And please forgive me if I don’t check in very often the day this is posted–ten-hour flight back to the East Coast, and spotty internet…

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 ; )

Cult research – part 1

By PD Martin

Welcome to the second blog in my research series (and to my first Thursday blog!). In case you missed it, I recently joined the Murderati gang and started off on Sundays for a few posts before moving to my new permanent spot of Thursday. And at the moment, every second post of mine will be looking at some of the weird and wonderful research crime writers do in the name of good books! And yes, coincidentally that’s back-to-back research posts from Murderati…I put it down to the collective unconscious. Hope you’re lapping up the research stuff.

Today, I want to focus on some of the fascinating research I’ve conducted into cults (mostly for my fifth novel, Kiss of Death, although I’m also currently ghost writing a non-fiction book called Death in a Cult). In fact, I’ve got so much to say on this subject that I’ve broken the post into two parts! This first post will be a bit of an introduction and look at some of the psychology behind cult members. Then, next post I’ll focus on gurus. And I guess in some ways, this is the stuff that I would have loved to incorporate into Kiss of Death, but of course I could only use much smaller parts of it to avoid the dreaded research dump Allison brought up yesterday. I still think it’s a fascinating subject!

The word cult immediately rings alarm bells for most people – we think of Charles Manson and his murderous followers, of Jim Jones and the estimated nine hundred and seventeen members who died with him at Jonestown, of David Koresh and Waco and of the Tokyo subway poisoning by Aum. In fact the word “cult” has got so many negative connotations that cults themselves want to disown the term. And who wouldn’t when it paints a modern-day group with the same brush as Charles Manson, Jonestown and Waco?

So what is a cult? The Random House dictionary has several definitions – from the more neutral ‘a particular system of religious worship’ to the negative ‘a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader’.

By these definitions, cults have been around for thousands of years. For example, some hunter-gatherer tribes had a cult-like belief system and structure with the shaman as guru; the Assyrians around 880BC have been described as a tree-worshiping cult; and let’s not forget the recently revived Knights Templar and Opus Dei, which can easily be described as cults.

In the past few decades our understanding and tolerance of cults has increased, largely due to the many studies in this area. Scholars such as sociologists and psychologists have studied cults, cult members and their leaders. These scholars generally use the more politically correct term of new religious movements or NRMs for short.

It should also be noted that the bad wrap cults have is largely due to destructive cults. And while it’s these cults we tend to hear about in the media, there are thousands and thousands of other cults that simply go about their business.

NRM members

People outside cults/NRMs often wonder what sort of person is attracted to a cult. In fact, many people believe that cult members are somehow mentally unstable, depressive or simply weak. Psychologists have studied members, cults and their leaders (gurus) looking for patterns and commonalities. And some of the recent studies have revealed some distinctive personality traits in members and ex-members of NRMs. For example, a 2008 Belgium study looked at ex-members of NRMs and compared them to the general population and to current members of NRMs on certain self-reported personality traits. The study, conducted by Coralie Buxant and Vassilis Saroglou, identified four main areas of vulnerability: insecure attachment to parental figures during childhood; limited social relationships; negative life events; and a higher need for order. The negative life events were traumas such as the death of a loved one, marriage break up, major life-threatening illness, bankruptcy, etc.

Other research has found that people who join new religious movements often share characteristics such as: a sense of not belonging during childhood and adulthood; identity confusion or crisis; alienation from family; feelings of powerlessness; a recent psychological stressor; low self-esteem; and social anxiety. Notice the cross-overs from the list above.

Are cults dangerous?

History has shown us that cults certainly can be dangerous – but many cults are harmless.

Deciding whether a cult is dangerous – and how to deal with it – generally falls into the hands of law enforcement. In a 2000 article for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, experts identify risk factors, neutral factors and positive or protective factors within NRMs.

Risk factors include:

a history of violent episodes or clashes;
the leader’s past or present state of mind and condition (e.g. violence, drug or alcohol abuse, etc.);
an abrupt reversal of direction (positive or negative);
recent attempts to obtain the knowledge to carry out a violent act;
recent purchases of weapons or other arms;
training in the use of weapons;
instances of violence within the NRM;
setting an exact date for the imminent transformation of life on earth;
moving the date of that transformation;
phrasing prophesies or predictions in a detailed and specific manner (otherwise they tend to be vaguer so the leader can’t be proved wrong);
envisioning an active role for the NRM in the coming transformation; and
having the knowledge, means and ability to carry out a plan.

And while some of these risk factors are obvious — it’s common sense that any group stockpiling weapons (or purchasing a tank like the one above!) is potentially dangerous — other factors are not as readily identified by the general public. However, it makes sense that if a guru is very specific, for example claiming the world will come to an end on a certain date, that they may plan a mass suicide of their followers before or on that date in ‘preparation’ for the coming Armageddon.

The FBI article is also quick to point out that just because an NRM has one or more of these risk factors, it doesn’t mean the group’s about to implode (suicide) or explode (committing violence against the public or law enforcement).

The authors also stress that a dynamic or situation that we may think is strange or dangerous, isn’t necessarily so. The neutral factors identified are: members offer absolute and unquestioning adherence to their leader and the belief system; the group physically segregates itself from others; and members adopt unfamiliar customs or rituals (i.e. diet, dress, language, etc.). In fact, these three factors are often present in all NRMs.

The law-enforcement experts also talk about “protective” factors – factors that will make a cult less likely to be violent. These factors are: members taking practical steps to plan for the future; and the group adopting routines and administrative processes (e.g. transcribing teachings and disseminating information about their group to others).

So, that’s it for cults and me today. I hope you were glued to the page/computer just like I was when I was reading these research materials!

Field Trip!

By Allison Brennan

You’re probably here expecting David Corbett to challenge your mind with a smart and thoughtful essay, but we switched days because it’s his birthday and he’s out being happy. You can read his post from last Sunday here.

So you’re stuck with me today.

David is a recent addition to Murderati and after reading his first post, I emailed JT and said:

“Where’d you dig up the smart guy? Sheesh, I feel so inadequate. I think I’m going to have permanent blog-writer’s block :/”

Seriously.

So I’m not David, no great insights from me today! But I want to talk about one of my favorite subjects: research.

I’m giddy about my next research trip. Tomorrow I’m participating in another FBI SWAT training session, this time as a hostage. I can’t tell you how exciting these things are for me. First, I lead a boring life. It’s all writing and kids. That’s it. So when I get to research in the field, I feel like I’ve been released from prison. But most important, there’s nothing like hands on research.

90% of my research comes from books and talking with experts—cops, feds, doctors, lawyers, private investigators, coroners, rape counselors, pilots, business owners, mechanics, you name it. For my upcoming book IF I SHOULD DIE (11.22.11) I contacted the press guy for Argus Thermal Imaging Products about air surveillance; my regular contact at the FBI for information about working with Canadian law enforcement; a trauma surgeon I met through one of the hands on training programs about triage in the field; and even my daughter’s boyfriend who rides dirt bikes to get his input about ATVs. I poured over brochures and online maps related to the Adirondacks, learned the make-up of St. Lawrence County, New York, and researched mining history in upstate New York. I even pulled out my criminal psychology books to make sure I understood the psychology behind not only my primary villain, but because there are a lot of people involved in keeping this criminal organization running, I wanted a better understanding of group psychology.

But in the end, research shouldn’t be visible in the story. I absorb what I read and hear, but I can’t put any of it on the page. Research works only in context to the story. My readers aren’t going to be impressed that I now know how to dress a wound in the field—they don’t need me describing it in detail. What they want to know is what my main character Lucy is thinking and feeling while she’s assessing how seriously Sean is hurt after falling down an abandoned mine shaft. Because she is trained in first aid, she’s not going to be thinking about step A, B, C … she’s just going to do it.

The other 10% of my research is field trips. Touring Quantico and Folsom State Prison. Being a victim in an active shooter situation. Playing hostage. Viewing an autopsy and asking questions. But my questions are different than others. I can look up the procedures of an autopsy, but I want to know what the pathologists are thinking. Do they talk about what they’re doing? Do they chit-chat? Are they formal? Do they joke? What do they do to unwind after a difficult case? Do they tease the newbies? What’s their background? What are the strange cases? What do they like best about their job? Least? Pet peeves?

Or consider how different characters view the same scene. A pathologist is going to look at a corpse much differently than a jogger who stumbles across a body in a park, so I try to view every situation from a different perspective. What does the first responder think/feel? The untrained observer? The killer? The victim’s family? What do they notice that someone else might not?

This is where the field trips really help me. I’m lucky in that I can put myself in other people’s shoes, so-to-speak. I try to understand the world from different perspectives. When I play hostage tomorrow, it’ll be running the same scenario multiple times. I can “be” the hostage and imagine that it’s real (and they way they run these drills, it feels real—I’m hyper-alert.) I can also “be” the bad guy and watch and listen and imagine why is he doing thing? What made him snap? Is it emotional or calculating? Because he’s stressed or because he wants something? And one of the my favorite parts of these drills is when, after the fact, the trainer comes through with the team and analyzes the operation. I get to listen to why decisions were made, what they were thinking, all the information they have to process immediately. If I can understand a scene from all three viewpoints—cop, suspect, hostage—I can write it.

Don’t be surprised if a hostage situation shows up in one of my upcoming stories. 🙂

Too many beginning authors spend a lot of time researching, then dump their newfound knowledge in the middle of a scene. BORING! Okay, okay, there are some people who like all the technical detail, and there are some authors who have made a name for themselves with involved, elaborate, and accurate descriptions of technology or science or forensic investigation. And sometimes, a bit more detail is necessary for the story—but as Elmore Leonard advises, try to leave out the boring parts.

I confess, I’ve been guilty of research dumps, usually because I learned something really cool and I want to share. Fortunately, my editor usually stops me from going overboard. And I never forget the advice of a good friend of mine, Karin Tabke, who’s married to a retired cop. It’s the details that’ll hang you, especially when you’re not an expert, so only share what’s necessary for the immediate story and move on. (But then I remember two emails I received a week apart on my book THE HUNT—one cop wrote that I got everything wrong, another cop wrote that I must have worked in law enforcement because I got it all right. Go figure.)

In the end, research needs to serve the story, not the other way around. Raise the stakes, tighten the prose, maintain the proper pacing, and be true to each character. Incorporating research is just the window dressing.

Next week I’m off for a two week trip! Not a book tour or anything fancy like that (being a mass market original author, touring isn’t an option.) But I will be at RWA and Thrillerfest, both of which are in NYC back-to-back this year. Toni McGee Causey and I are rooming together and hopefully will have time to do tourist stuff between conferences. After six (seven?) trips to NY, I have yet to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, so that’s up this time. Any must-see Broadway shows? Go-to restaurants or shops? One of those “you have to do this before you die” experiences? Are you going to one of the conferences? Bouchercon? Maybe next year?

I printed up a promotional copy of my digital novella, Love is Murder, to give away at the conferences. Comment or say ‘hi’ and I’ll randomly send five people a copy (which also includes an excerpt of my upcoming book.)

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?

So About That Pre-Order Gift…

by Alafair Burke

You may recall that a few months ago, I solicited your advice about a pre-order campaign for my first standalone thriller, LONG GONE, which comes out … OMG, tomorrow! After giving pre-orderers (that’s a word, right?) a keychain last year for my novel 212, I wanted to know what readers might appreciate this time around. Another trinket I could send to every person? Or a smaller chance at being one lucky winner of something big, like an iPad?

Well, in more than fifty comments, y’all made three preferences very clear: 1) It’s more about the gesture than the monetary value; 2) Better to give something to every reader than to just one lucky winner; and 3) The more personal to the reader-writer relationship, the better.

Thanks to your input, I made a decision I never could have reached on my own. In fact, I got so excited that I disclosed the decision in parts. Because we all love mysteries, I decided to make the LONG GONE pre-order gift a surprise.

Like all good mysteries, this one came with clues.

1. It consists of thirteen parts that can be assembled in less than three seconds.

2. You put its parts together with your fingers, but you will not want to hold it.

3. What force and strength cannot get through, this, with little effort, can do.

4. It is not a car or an iPad. It is something little old me can actually give everyone who buys a book.

Got it?

Did you figure it out?

…

Try one more time?

…

It’s a thirteen-letter password! And in that case, it’s a password to a private book club. It’s private in every sense of the word. It requires a password, available only to early supporters of Long Gone.

It is also private because it provides a behind the scenes look at the writing of Long Gone: thoughts about various scenes and characters, information about the real locations depicted in the book, and other content that I hope will enhance the reading experience.

Y’all told me readers wanted something personal and connected to the books. I couldn’t think of anything more personal and Long-Gone related than exclusive content from the gal who wrote the novel. Although the password to this club was intended to be a pre-order “gift” to readers and a small token of my gratitude, it has turned out to be a gift to me as well.

In the past, I constantly had to admonish readers on Facebook and the web not to post comments with SPOILERS! The private book club is a place where we can all start on page 1 together (tomorrow!) and read together for 10 days. Every post begins with a page number, so anyone who falls behind can skip that post and come back later. Faster readers can wait for the rest of us to catch up, then jump into the conversation. I am really looking forward to talking to readers about LONG GONE in real time as they read. Then on July 5, at 9 PM EST, we’ll wrap up our club with a live webchat.

Since all of you here helped me come up with this experiment, I thought you might want the details. And because some of you may even want to join the club, I’m extending membership applications through the week.

How do you get the password to the club? Just purchase a copy of LONG GONE by June 25 (earlier is better, though, because we start reading tomorrow!). It can be an e-copy or a paper book. Either forward your proof of purchase to offer@alafairburke.com, OR fill out this handy, dandy pre-order offer form, whichever is easier. Then I’ll send you the club location and password. How simple is that?

The book club might be a completely transformative way to read a book with a community, or it could be a total trainwreck. Either way, I’m looking forward to the experiment, and appreciate the willingness of others to follow me on the journey.

Learn more about LONG GONE, read an excerpt, and watch the video trailer here. You can find many of your favorite booksellers here and here. For signed copies, contact stores listed here.

And since I’m totally pimping myself out today, I’ll go all in with the advance praise:

“I loved this book.” —Michael Connelly

“Long Gone is a tremendous novel, and Alafair Burke is one of the finest young crime writers working today.” —Dennis Lehane

“Alafair Burke’s first standalone is an absolutely riveting must read—and the ending is a shocker you’ll never see coming.” —Lisa Scottoline

“A red-hot firecracker of a thriller. If you already love Alafair Burke’s novels, buckle up for her best book ever.” —Lisa Unger

“Highly addictive. The ending will leave you breathless.” —Karin Slaughter

“Very smart. The dialogue crackles, the plot is intriguing, and the pacing is perfect.” —Nelson DeMille

Seriously, everyone: Thanks a lot for your input about this in March. I’m very happy with the little “gift” we came up with, and hope some of you here will enjoy it as well.

Comment time: What was the last book (other than LONG GONE, natch) that you purchased? And was it hardback, paper, or e?

P.S. I’ll be the featured guest blogger this week for Powells Books, posting everyday this week. Stop by and say hi!

Women Make the Best Detectives

David Corbett

Due to conflicting family obligations, Allison and I have exchanged posting days this week. I’m appearing today, and Allison will appear this Wednesday.

In my fifteen-plus years as a private investigator, I had the opportunity to work with numerous detectives, men and women both, but in retrospect I find myself particularly impressed with the latter.

Perhaps that’s because the qualities they brought to the profession weren’t the ones usually associated with it: toughness, intimidation, bravura. Their talents lay elsewhere, and turned out to be perfectly suited to the business.

Three women specifically stick out in my memory.

The most famous, and the materfamilias for the others, is Sandra Sutherland, who was my boss, along with her husband Jack Palladino. Together they lent their names to arguably the best investigation firm west of the Mississippi at the time: Palladino & Sutherland.

Jack was a Bostonian, raised by a shipyard worker, street-smart and book-smart too (brilliant, really, an encyclopedic mind), flamboyant and ambitious, a bully to some but that’s a compliment to others, especially in that field. He’s Sicilian, I’m Irish, and we spent the first year-and-a-half testing each other’s tempers, then settled down into a solid working rapport.

But this about Sandra and she was something else—a diffident Australian, former journalist, single mom (until she married Jack), arch-lefty to the bone, anti-authoritarian and literary and gentle by nature but fiercely proud, savagely loyal—crossing her was madness—and voraciously hungry for the story beneath the story. She was perhaps best renowned for spearheading the firm’s efforts in the Michael Jackson Case.

Some of the things that made her brilliant could not be taught, though in observing them I did lift a few pointers for the old trick bag. She relied on her intuition about witnesses with uncanny insight, knowing what to say, when to say it, and most importantly when to stop.

I once read a government transcript of a secret taping by an informant in a drug case in which Sandra, appearing at his door as background for a grand jury defense, tried to engage him in admissions about events he was concealing from his handlers. She played the dithering blond thing to perfection, priming the pump with harmless anecdotes about this suspect or that (most of them our clients), offering sly little openings for the snitch to fall into, which he did. Liars can’t help but brag. Sandra knew that, knew it in her core.

She taught me that my most essential tool was my own personality, my instincts, my ability to put people at ease. The rest was the easy stuff. Without the gift of being able to get people to open up, though, you were useless.

The second woman who astonished me was Melody Ermachild, another P&S investigator until she launched off to start her own firm with Barry Simon (yes, back then women needed a man in the frame to legitimize their “toughness”).

Melody shared Sandra’s essentially gentle spirit — a perhaps counter-intuitive quality for a detective of either sex — which is what made them both such sly interrogators: People trusted them. And she shared Sandra’s core moral sympathy for the underdog. But that sympathy felt more grounded in Melody—perhaps because of her longtime Buddhist practice—and that was the impression she gave you: This woman is fundamentally decent but also centered, strong, smart.

I worked with Melody on the second People’s Temple Trial. She’d been one of the key investigators in the first go-round, which ended in a hung jury. She’d gone off to form her own firm by the time the second trial commenced, and so we divvied up witnesses for the reconnection necessary to make sure, in the event courtroom appearances were necessary, the Temple survivors were up for it.

This was no small matter. These people were devastated. They had been betrayed by one of the most monstrous religious con men in the history of America, seen their personal histories of abuse and their thirst for social justice turned hideously against them, watched themselves and their families manipulated and brainwashed into unspeakable privations and ultimately death, only to become pariahs to anyone who learned they’d once been associated with the temple. They needed to be coaxed gently into the light. Many refused. I met with witnesses in ghetto coffee shops, condemned buildings, prison—and the Berkeley fourplex where, unknown to me at the time, my wife-to-be also lived in an upstairs apartment.

None of my successes would have been imaginable, frankly, without Melody. She’d paved the way, meeting with many of them in the first round of interviews, building a bridge of trust with these brutalized people that I relied upon each and every time. She was meticulous, thorough, determined, resourceful—but her greatest asset was her simple humanity. She inspired me not just professionally. I think I became a better person, a better man, because of working on that case, working with her.

Melody is also the author of two wonderful books: Altars in the Streets: A Courageous Memoir of Community and Spiritual Awakening, and Meena: Heroine of Afghanistan.

The last of the three women I want to discuss was also an operative at P&S, but she never went on to glory in the field, never formed her own firm. She in fact left the business shortly after I came on board, moved to New Hampshire (if I recall correctly) and opened a boutique. Her name was Bonnie Ferro, and she was a tiny redhead with paprika freckles and an infectious laugh. I remember her precisely because she wasn’t an investigator by nature—no dogged insistence on the truth, no fierce sense of justice, no uncompromising allegiance to the underdog. She was just brave.

I can’t even recall the name of the case now, but it involved the murder of a Cow Hollow woman whose remains were so water-logged by the time they were found, wrapped in a sleeping bag in the bay, that the brightness of her recently manicured nails stood out as the one recognizably human feature on her corpse.

We were hired by the defense team for her husband, a mousy accountant, who was charged with her murder. The investigation led us to a seedy hotel on Market Street, where there resided a trio of young men with suspiciously precise knowledge of the murder. Bonnie went in undercover to befriend them, get them to open up to her, living in this fleabag SRO for three weeks until she thought she’d go mad. But she didn’t go mad. She got the goods.

And yet that success did not induce a hunger for more. She recognized that, unlike Sandra and Melody, she had no core longing for the work. But she didn’t pack it in until after she’d done the job asked of her, as disturbing and dangerous as it was.

These three were by no means the only women investigators at P&S who also worked hard and well and inspiringly: Stephanie Voss, Jacqui Tully, Dee Modglin, I remember them as well. And though Nancy Pemberton, another San Francisco PI, never worked for P&S, I know Nancy well, know her work—her professionalism, her integrity, her determination and profound sense of morality—and if I were in trouble I’d want her on my team.

As for fictional private investigators? Sadly, there I prefer a man: His name is Jackson Brodie, and he’s the most imaginatively, convincingly and profoundly fleshed-out investigator I’ve ever come across in the pages of a novel. Some consolation: his creator is, indeed, a woman: Kate Atkinson, a literary novelist who turned her hand to writing a detective and struck gold. I’m sure some wag would say her books “transcend the genre,” but that’s a phrase only used by pedants and lit-crit fetishists who wouldn’t know “the genre” and if it came up and bit off their . . .

But I digress.

* * * * *

So, chime in on your favorite women detectives, flesh-and-blood or fictional. I don’t mean women cops, like Jane Tennison pictured above, but private investigators.

Do the fictional women PIs you love possess the same traits I found in my real-life avatars — specifically, gentleness of spirit, simple humanity, integrity — or are they obliged to bring more traditionally masculine traits to the game?

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: The late great Solomon Burke, joining Italian rock legend Zucchero in a rocking stomping bit of bilingual Gospel-soul called Diavolo in Me (I Got the Devil in Me) — and I do.

Please abide about the first 40 seconds or so — the track is live, with introductions, etc. — then get ready to boogie with your bibles and jump up for Jesus — CRANK IT UP!: