What’s your speed?

by Tess Gerritsen

My husband says I walk too fast.  He complains about this whenever we stroll together, even when we’re not late for any appointment but just seeing the sights.  “What’s your hurry?” he asks.  “Are you trying to make me feel like a slacker?” Really, I’m not; I just naturally walk fast. How fast?  I think people in Manhattan should stop being so pokey.   

Years ago, when I was working as a doctor in a Honolulu emergency room, I walked into a treatment room to sew up a cop who had a nasty laceration. Before I could say a word, the cop says, “You’re not from the islands, are you?”

“How the heck did you know that?” I ask, completely baffled.  As an Asian American, I look like half the population of Honolulu.  

“It’s the way you walk,” he said.  “You look like you have to get somewhere in a hurry.  Islanders don’t walk that way.”  

Now that’s an observant cop.

Another memory: my husband and I are in London, on a double date for dinner with my UK editor and her husband.  My editor and I walk together, and we both walk fast. We’re talking business while we walk, and we’re so engrossed in conversation that we’re not really paying attention to where our husbands are.  Suddenly we realize we’ve lost them.  They’re nowhere to be seen.  We halt on the sidewalk, wondering if they took a wrong turn or ducked into a pub somewhere.  A moment later the men appear, annoyed and grumbling about “these damn career women, always leaving their husbands behind.”

The thing is, I don’t think I walk fast.  This is just my natural walking pace and if I slow down, I feel as if I’m wading through molasses.  It’s something that’s inborn and not a conscious thing.  We each have our own natural rhythms that determine how much sleep we need and how fast our hearts beat.

In the same way, I think I have my own writing speed, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t change it.  I would love to write multiple novels a year.  I would love to have a new book on the shelves every four months.  The fastest I ever wrote was back when I was writing romantic thrillers for Harlequin, and one year I managed to write two books, but those were only 300-page manuscripts.  Now that I’m writing longer thrillers, I have to work hard to meet my book-a-year deadlines.

Now, this may have something to do with my chaotic process.  I don’t outline, I don’t plan ahead.  I plunge into a first draft and it goes all over the place and it ends up a mess.  Which means I have to spend the next five months cleaning it up.  Oh, if I could just have a logical system with notecards that summarize every chapter ahead of time.  If only I could approach it like an engineer with a blueprint.  But even if I could do it that way, I think I’d still be writing only a book a year.  Because of that natural rhythm thing again.  I write four pages a day and I’m bushed.  Whether those four pages are good or bad, they exhaust me.

And I have to wander off and make a martini to recover.

I’ve given up beating myself over the head about my pokey writing schedule.  Just as I’ve stopped apologizing for how fast I walk.  Too bad I couldn’t be a fast writer and a slow walker.

Then everything would be perfect.

 

 

A post of little things

by Pari

This is a post of little things because I’m making a very big dinner tonight. I started cooking last weekend and got the six dozen matzo balls out of the way. Yesterday I made the chicken soup and the butternut ratatouille. Oh, and did I mention the dozens of chocolate chip and pine nut meringues or the chocolate macaroons? Or the chopped chicken liver? Or the mock chopped chicken liver (veggie version)?

Today I’m preparing the brisket, the salmon with yogurt dill sauce, the sweet potato salad, the charoseth, etc etc.

Elijah – and my other guests – better be hungry!

Begin little things:

Spam #1: Captcha

Yes, we had to turn it back on. Alas, we had to turn it back on. One piece of spam won’t sink a blog, but close to 100 items a day tries anyone’s patience. So please take the time to type in those little letters in order to comment. We adore hearing from you. Believe me, we wouldn’t have decided to use this gateway process unless it was absolutely necessary to our sanity!

Spam # 2:  Please don’t send me your email newsletters, invites on FB, updates etc unless you know me and I’ve asked to be informed. I may sound like a grump, but it’s the accumulation of those little things that render me so.

Spam #3 Okay, so now I’ve exposed myself for the grump I am, I have a couple of questions. How does a person market ebooks w/o spam? How do you grow your virtual world w/o being utterly obnoxious?
Advice please.

Vote on my cover: This is a first mock-up of my FIRST piece of original fiction to be published only in ebook mode. Yep. I’m taking the plunge on a book that editors said was wonderful but that mystery readers wouldn’t want to read because it features a character who communicate with insects and other animals.

I disagree.

But back to the cover . . .

The difference between the mock-ups below is slight. As a matter of fact, it’s only the type of bee in the hand. But it’s enough to give each one a unique flavor. My question to you is which best implies the slightly mystical relationship between human and insect?

#1 — Light bee cover

 

#2 — Dark bee cover

End little things:

Back to my Pesach preparations. I’ve got to buy the flowers, clean the house some more, set the tables, count the dishes to see if I need to buy a few more plates and bowls . . .

But I do have one last question for you:

What smallnesses are affecting your world today?

Write what you know…or maybe not

by P.D. Martin

This is my first Murderati blog and I’m really excited to be part of the gang – some great authors here!

You’ll see from my ‘tag’ that I’m “The Aussie”; however, while I am an Aussie my books are actually set in the US. But more about that later. Given it’s my intro into Murderati I thought I better actually introduce myself 🙂 before I dive into the main part of my blog, which looks at writing what you know.

I grew up with a love of books, and was particularly drawn to fantasy and whodunits. I graduated from Nancy Drew and Famous Five (remember them?) to Agatha Christie at the tender age of eight and in grade five I wrote my first crime novella.

From there I went on a bit of a detour into maths and science, which led me to psychology at university. At this time I was also singing (yes, something totally different again), and through singing and songwriting I rediscovered my love of writing. But it was not an easy road!

After writing three unpublished young adult novels, I decided to try my hand at my other early love, crime fiction. The result was Body Count, my first published novel. Now I have written five novels featuring Aussie FBI profiler Sophie Anderson and one ebook novella.

So, now that you know a bit more about the newest addition to Murderati, I thought I’d focus on something I didn’t do when starting my crime fiction series…

There’s an old adage that’s often talked about when you start writing: Write what you know. It’s great advice, however, things don’t always go to plan!

Body Count is based on a dream (well, really nightmare) I had many years ago. In that dream, I was investigating the deaths of some friends. I was me, but I was also some kind of law enforcement officer. When I decided to turn the nightmare into a book, the first decision I had to make was about my protagonist. Would she be a cop? Crime-scene tech? What I was really interested in was criminal psychology; and so I decided to follow my gut and make my heroine a profiler.

My next step was research, which revealed that profiling wasn’t used nearly as much here in Australia as it is in other countries. It also seemed that the FBI was leading the way when it came to using profiling as a law enforcement tool.

So, now I had an FBI profiler (and ex-cop), but I’ve never been a cop or a profiler. My only link to this world was that I studied psychology and criminology at university. And to top it off, I was setting my book in the US, but I live in Australia.

So much for write what you know! At least my main character is an Aussie!

In many instances research can bridge the gap, including talking to people who are working in the field. It’s an invaluable step when you’re NOT “writing what you know”. The location can be tricky too, even with the wonders of Google Earth and Google’s street view. While these are amazing tools, it’s not the same as actually being there.

I’ve been to America several times, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to visit every location I’ve written about. Body Count was set mostly in Washington DC and Quantico, with a few scenes in Arizona. I managed to get to both DC and Quantico, but not Arizona.

The directions feature of Google Maps is also a great way to add in a sense of place – you can talk about your characters driving down particular streets and highways. Of course, the risk is that while Google Maps says to take certain roads from point A to point B, the locals might say something like: “You’d never take the I-10 at that time of day. Are you crazy?”

Google’s features are certainly fantastic tools for novelists setting their books overseas, and it also helps that I’ve got a few friends who’ve married Americans. So when I need to check an expression or a suburb in LA that ‘fits’ with my character, I’ve got people to call on.

I love visiting the States, and during my last trip I had great fun scouting out different locations for abductions, body dump sites, etc. That trip was to L.A., where my third, fourth and fifth books are set. And I also took extensive photos and video footage of one of my locations for book 5, Kiss of Death. I even posted some of the pics and video footage on my website for readers, as part of my ‘case file’ for Kiss of Death. One of the videos is below – it shows where my victim was attacked and the trail she would have been running down. Please excuse my commentary!

So, while there are disadvantages of NOT “writing what you know” I think it’s still possible to make it work. And on the plus side for me, any time I visit the US it’s tax-deductible!

Road Trip!

By Cornelia Read

I’ve been thinking a lot about driving, this week. Mostly because I had to do all that grownup paperwork stuff that owning a car requires–the kind of thing I suck at deeply and profoundly. I got a speeding ticket on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut last week, then got pulled over in New Hampshire Sunday… and Monday. The New Hampshire stops were because my inspection was out of date. And then Wednesday I went to traffic court for a speeding ticket I got last November. Yea! Not!

Today I’m driving down to New York again, to do some pre-college stuff with my lovely kid, and see my little brother, and hang with the beau, and generally relish time in a city where there’s decent Chinese food and bagels. Yea! Really yea!!

I got that ticket on the Merritt driving my stepmom and half-sister up to New Hampshire from Brooklyn, to look at colleges and stuff.

“Are you sure you want to come all the way down to New York?” my stepmom had asked.

“Absolutely,” I’d said. “I LOVE driving.”

She laughed and said, “well, you come by it honest.”

Which is very, very true. Both my parents were huge road trip people, as were both sets of grandparents. My mom’s father hated flying–he got on an airplane once in the Thirties and swore he’d never do it again. Not because he was afraid they’d crash, but because they locked the doors and he had wicked claustrophobia.

“I’d have no problem with it at all if you could fly with the doors open,” he often explained. But as a result, he and my grandmother went everywhere by ship and train and car, forever afterward.

My father’s father was rather infamous for driving like a maniac everywhere he went, especially when he was going from lower New York up to the Adirondacks. Family myth holds that he was once passing another car on a blind corner when a logging truck suddenly appeared, hurtling towards him. He played chicken with it and it drove off the asphalt and on into the woods. With about five of my seven uncles in the car with him at the time.

My parents were big on cross-country road trips–separately, of course, since they split up in ’67. Mom was the leisurely sort, taking at least two weeks to drive from California to New York at the beginning of most summers. We stayed with friends of hers across the country, or camped out at KOAs along the way. And stopped at every garage sale and junk store she could find for all three thousand miles.

In ’72 we made the trip in a 1967 Ford Country Squire wagon she’d bought for $150–me, my little sister, my little brother, and our favorite babysitter at the time, who’d been over for dinner the night before we left so Mom invited her along for the hell of it.

 

I remember putting a silver spoon on some railroad tracks somewhere in Iowa, because we’d forgotten to bring a knife for our picnic meals. The train squashed it into an excellent slicer/spreader thing, which was way cool.

Unfortunately, Mom had ignored the garage guy who’d suggested she get the brakes done as she was buying the car from him in Monterey. She rear-ended a nifty little red Alfa-Romeo convertible in New Hampshire, that July, and I hit the back of the front seat with my bottom teeth.

We stayed in this place that looked the the Tucker Inn from Seventies Cool-Whip commercials that night.

(And I did not know until Googling for a picture that Mrs. Tucker was played by one of the nuns from The Flying Nun. Cool!)

Mom instructed me to go downstairs to the coffee shop and order a “frappe” with an egg in it, since that’s what they called milkshakes in New England. This was my dinner, as the dentist at the ER had had to pull my two bottom front teeth forward with his fingers from their flattened position over my tongue, and had then given my four stitches on the inside of my bottom lip.

The waitress looked at me kind of funny, and I noticed that my beverage still had lumps of ice cream in the bottom of the glass when she served it up. I figured I could eat a lump of ice cream, so drew one up to the top of the glass with an iced-tea spoon, only to discover that the woman had put a hardboiled egg into my drink.

Dad was more about distance than garage sales, the times I drove with him. We did the California-New York jaunt together the following summer in four and a half days–only stopping in Elko, Nevada for an afternoon because they had a great Volkswagen repair place and excellent “broasted” chicken across the street at a Dairy Queen. Dad lived in his VW camper in those days, so we could just pull over wherever we were when he got tired late at night and sleep in the back.

This mostly worked out okay, except for the night we crossed the Continental Divide and were coming down the eastern side of the Rockies around midnight.

There are not a lot of places to pull over, when you’re going downhill that fast for that long. There was some kind of gorge over to our right that put kind of a premium on parking spots. Finally, when Dad was really bleary and wiped, we saw a sign that said “Garbage Cans, 500 Feet.”

He wheeled the van into the little spot and set the parking brake and we crashed hard on the mattress behind the front seats, both exhausted and immediately falling into comatose sleep.

Until suddenly the entire cabin of the van lit up with a bright light and we were simultaneously blasted by a very, very loud train whistle.

“Cornelia… do you remember if I pulled across any tracks?” asked Dad, rather calmly I thought.

“Um…” I said, racking my brain and pretty much ready to puke on my own feet with terror. But I didn’t have time to finish the thought as a very long freight train suddenly rocketed by, about four feet to my right.

We hadn’t seen the tracks because they were slightly below the level of the highway. Luckily.

I guess travel is in all of our blood–Mom’s maternal grandfather ran a shipping line, and Dad was named after a family friend who opened a bunch of hotels near train stations throughout the Southwest: Fred Harvey.

I did a lot of driving cross-country myself, when my girls were little. I can advise you from actual experience that it is a REALLY REALLY bad idea to drive from Colorado to California along Highway 50 with a pair of two year olds in your back seat. There is a reason it’s nicknamed “The Loneliest Highway in America.” Also, it is really flat and boring. And if one of your kids should happen to do a face-plant into a concrete outdoor bench at a Dairy Queen along the way, you will be lucky if it’s the day the travelling doctor shows up in town that week to run the clinic. Even if your kid doesn’t need stitches.

Anyway, more driving today… and it’s awfully nice to have my iPhone tunes playing on the car radio instead of having to listen to “Brandy” on an AM station all the way across Iowa or Nebraska.

Do you come from a car family? Any great road trips when you were a kid?

Neil Nyren is Back: The 5th Annual State of the Industry Interview

JT and Neil at Thrillerfest 2010 NYCWe are so honored to have legendary editor Neil Nyren back to Murderati for his annual State of the Industry interview. For those of you living under rocks new to the game of publishing, Neil is arguably the preeminent editor in New York: as Senior Vice-President, Publisher, and benevolent Editor in Chief of Putnam, his magnificent list of authors reads like a who’s who of literary dignitaries. He edits several of my favorite authors, too, which led me to seek him out in the first place five years ago to see if he’d be willing to come on Murderati and talk about publishing. He magnanimously agreed, and here we are, all these years later.

An April visit from Neil is a must for all of us in the publishing industry. It is a perfect moment to reflect on the changes we’ve seen in the past year, and look to the future, all in the capable hands of one who knows. If you’ve missed any of our previous interviews, feel free to indulge in their excellence. 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.

So buckle your seatbelts and spread the good word, kids, because this is the best one yet. Without further ado…. I give you Neil Nyren!

Many congratulations on your well deserved win of the 2011 Sluethfest FlaMANgo of the Year award! Do they pass that pretty pink boa on from year to year like the Miss America crown, or do you get to keep it all to yourself?

Thank you, JT, thank you so very much. It was indeed a signal honor, perhaps the capstone of my career, certainly the accomplishment I expect to see in my obit headline. Though – strictly between you and me, now – I have a hunch that the fix was in. One of the people I beat was Dennis Lehane – I mean, come on! And another was Johnny Temple. Have you seen Johnny Temple? Have you seen his hair? No way I beat that dude in a fair fight.

The boa was returned to the tender ministrations of the Sleuthfest boa ladies, for next year.

What’s the biggest misnomer in publishing right now?

“Traditional publishers.” “Legacy publishers.” Ugh. Publishers are publishers.

Is the sky really falling for the traditional New York Publishing Deal? Barry Eisler famously announced his move to self-publishing on the same day news broke that self-pubbed phenom Amanda Hocking was involved in a huge auction for a traditionally pubbed deal. For me, that was a perfect example of how things change, yet stay the same. And the stigma of “self-publishing” seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Is it safe to say we may have two markets forming? To steal from Dr. Suess, are we facing a sneech market – only some have stars on thars?

Ebooks and Eisler and Hocking, oh my!

People have been writing about the publishing sky falling ever since I’ve been in the business. But it ain’t fallen yet, and there’s no reason to think it’ll happen now. I’m going to give a pretty long-winded answer covering a bunch of ebook things, so bear with me.

Look, there’s no question things are changing rapidly, and where they ultimately end up, nobody knows. There are people who claim they know — but they don’t know. They’re just grinding their own axes. At my office – and I’m sure it’s the same for all the other publishers – we keep a constant eye every day on the sales in both print and ebook, and keep adjusting as we go. The main question is not whether ebooks will drive out print books, because nobody with any common sense really believes that, it’s what the ratio will be. Right now, the ebook slice of the market across the industry is about 15%. That’s 15%, not 50%. That differs, of course, from author to author and book to book. Your mileage may vary!

But it’s not going to stay at 15%, we all know that. So we keep recalibrating, on the books for which we’re about to push the button, the books we’ll be publishing six months from now, the books for which we’re drawing up the p&ls to buy for next year and the year after that. We have to figure: How many books do we think we’re going to initial ship, how many should we print, is it less than the writer’s book last year, do we think ebooks will make up the difference? And of course it’s not just ebooks that affect those numbers. We’ve got to take Borders into consideration, too, and the continuing state of the economy.

But some people think we – the so-called “traditional” publishers, the “legacy” publishers — should be feeling somewhat suicidal about ebooks – and that’s just a myth. Yeah, there are changes we have to adapt to, but, you know, that’s always been the case. If you can’t do that, then you don’t belong in this business. The bottom line is: Ebooks are a big part of our future. We like them. We sell them. It’s a different channel, a different format, but it’s the same book. And it’s opening up new markets.

Let’s just look at where we were last year at this time. The iPad had only just been announced, the Nook had only been shipping for a few months, there was no Google books or iBookstore, many of the bookselling apps didn’t exist. One of the bellwethers of electronics is the Consumer Electronics Show in January every year. Last year, the big news was that 8 or 9 different kinds of ereaders were introduced, because the manufacturers finally saw enough upside to make it worth pouring R&D money into them. This year in January, the big news was tablets – nearly 100 different kinds of tablets were introduced. They had all kinds of functions and affiliations and specialties, and many of them will probably never actually see the light of day, but the one thing that most of them – maybe all of them – have in common is: apps. And among them will be bookselling apps and reading apps. And the more ways you have to buy a book, the more ways you have to read a book, the more formats and platforms you have…the more books you’re going to sell. That’s the bottom line. We’re going to sell more books – and so are you.

Now, as to Barry Eisler and Amanda Hocking and the whole ebook self-publishing thing, it was obviously really interesting to everybody to see those two pieces of news on the very same day – just another sign, to all sides in the question, that no matter what your viewpoint, no matter what you think you know… you don’t know.

Barry thinks he can make more money publishing just in ebooks, and maybe he can. We don’t know. We do know that in giving up print books, he’s giving up that huge chunk of the market that is still print. Whether he can make that up, even with the larger share of the royalties he gets, that’s a lot of ground. I know he’s got a lot of stats and calculations up on his blog and elsewhere, but it’s still a lot of ground. In his favor is that he’s going back to the John Rain series. The last two non-Rain books never caught on, so I think people will be very glad to have the series back, and I expect that they’ll be ebook bestsellers. But they might also have been print bestsellers. His last Rain book was very high up on the Times extended list – it would only have taken another book or two at most to break through on that series. So his ebooks are going to do well – but he could have done well in both formats. So I think he’s giving up a lot. But we’ll all see together!

And Amanda Hocking — nobody’s done better than she has with self-published ebooks, she’s amazing, but as I’m sure you’ve all read, the reason she sold that YA paranormal series to St Martin’s was twofold: She was bothered by the fact that nobody could buy her books in bookstores, and she was a little fed up with spending 40 hours a week answering emails, formatting books, designing jackets, hiring editors, and all the rest of it. She just wanted to concentrate on writing. Does anyone here think she’s not going to sell a ton of that series in print? In addition to the ebooks? She could be the new Stephanie Meyer. But, again, we’ll see. I’m not claiming I know, because: See previous statement. Nobody knows.

Now, I think if anyone reading this is considering ebook self-publishing, here’s the thing that’s most important. There are advantages and disadvantages, and you have to decide what’s right for you — for your situation, not anybody else’s, not Eisler or Hocking or anybody.

The disadvantages are that: a) you are giving up that print market completely except for whatever you might get using print on demand, and b) it’s all on you. Not only the editing and the formatting and the covers, but promotion. You think it’s crazy now getting attention to your book? Mix it in with the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of ebooks pouring out, then see how hard it is. The odds of becoming Amanda Hocking or John Locke or any of the other names you hear are pretty slim.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t make some money at it. That’s the biggest advantage. If you’ve got some OP books, or a book that’s a departure from what you usually do, or some short stories – you don’t have to sell huge amounts. If you just make your rent every month, that’s money you didn’t have.

There are just two things I’d ask. First, think about consulting with your publisher, if you already have one. He’s already put time and money into you, don’t forget — and he might be interesting in working with you. On April 26th, for instance, we’ll be publishing a short story by CJ Box as an eSpecial. All the etailers will have it. His new book, Cold Wind, came out on March 22nd – and here a short detour: This was the 11th book in the series…and the first to go on the New York Times bestseller list. I can’t tell you how happy that made us all. It’s a tribute to the old-fashioned way of making a bestseller: book by book till you break through! Anyway –detour over — the short story features his main series characters, Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski, and we’ll be publishing the story shortly after he gets off tour. It’s designed to give both him and his book an extra promotional bump once the first waves of promotion and reviews are over – and to make some extra money all by itself.

That’s the first thing. The second is: If you’re thinking of self-publishing an ebook, please—don’t make it a manuscript dump. Most ms never see the light of day for an excellent reason – they’re not very good. Before you put your book up there, make sure you really think it’s ready. Respect your readers. Because there’s enough crap published already, in all formats. And really if, through all the noise, you do get people to read your self-published book, and they don’t think it’s good – you’ve lost them as customers. And that’s simply bad business. You are in a business, you know.

Now that the NY Times is more representative of how most (not all) books are selling, both eBook and print, does it change its relevance?

An excellent question – I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t change anything yet. You’ll notice that the great majority of the books on the New York Times ebook bestseller lists are the same titles as on the print lists – the promo and readership driving one are the same elements that are driving the other — so I’m not sure if anybody’s really using the ebook lists for anything in particular right now. But they’re very new – let’s see what happens. Meanwhile, it’s interesting to see what kind of new things do manage to peek through.

I applaud the entrepreneurial spirit that is the eBook original author. But sometimes, those authors are foregoing the most important part of finishing a novel – the editor. So many editors were laid off on Black Friday last year – is there an opportunity here?

Black Friday was nothing unique. As long as there’s been publishing, there’ve been editors (and agents and writers) who’ve become freelance editors, for a multitude of reasons, and a book is still a book. Whether you’re planning to publish in print or digitally, you still need a discerning editorial eye to help you get the book in its best possible shape. If you skip that step, you’re just asking for trouble.

What role do independent bookstores play in the new landscape?

Independent bookstores – in fact, all bricks-and-mortar bookstores – are still very, very important players. The things they provide in terms of bringing books to our attention, arranging events, making recommendations, providing services, giving us a place to actually look and feel and browse, are irreplaceable to book buyers. It’s simply not the same online. And the indies will be selling ebooks, too – some of them already are.

Will the agent’s role change and shift with the new market?

First of all, again – most of the business is still print. Ebooks have not taken over the universe. Agents bring a lot of value to the table, and I think that’ll continue to be true. But you know what you should do? Ask an agent to respond to your readers on Murderati. I can guarantee you they’ve all been thinking long and hard about this very subject, and I’ll bet they have some things they’d like to get off their chests!*

So many authors now are crossing genres, writing for multiple houses, and literally working their fingers to the bone. Is it better to focus on a single series, or type of book, or try your hand at whatever story you think will work best? Are authors spreading themselves too thin trying to capture the market trends?

First of all, I’m always worried when authors chase trends, because trends are transitory and can dry up in the blink of an eye. Plus, if you’re chasing trends, your heart’s often not in it, and it’ll show in your work – it won’t have the passion that makes for great reads.

The danger in working in multiple genres is that readers who like one kind of book won’t necessarily care for the others. You want them to keep coming back to you, book after book, and if they don’t know what to expect, you’ve muddied the waters. I always advocate that writers find what they’re best at, and really concentrate on it, so that their audience builds and builds. Of course, sometimes your audience is so strong that it’ll follow you anywhere – just be really sure of it. And if you do have something you want to try, and you’re not sure if they’ll go for it or you actually want to try for a new kind of audience, there’s always that trusty standby, the pseudonym: consumer-tested and effective for centuries!

Is there any good way to gauge outward success anymore?  Do reviews in the NYT, huge print runs and co-op matter the way they used to? I saw Jean Auel’s print run of 1,000,000 copies was halved in anticipation of eBook sales. Is that a common trend?

My opening line here is the same as for the agent discussion above: Ebooks have not taken over the universe. Print is still the biggest piece of the business by far. So, yes, these all matter.

Reviews: The biggest selling tool for books – the most valuable, by far — is word of mouth, and good reviews help spark word of mouth. So do recommendations (especially from friends, colleagues, family members), and media (print, electronic, digital, you name it). And this is true no matter what form the book is in.

Coop: So if you’ve heard some word of mouth, and you walk into a store, and it’s right there on a front table staring you in the face – your odds are much better that you’re likely to at least give it a second look, maybe pick it up, right? Or if you get an email from Amazon or bn.com saying that if you buy that book right now, they’ll give you 30% off, you might consider taking advantage of that offer, right? That’s why coop matters.

Print runs: I discussed above the adjustments in print runs that all publishers are doing on a regular basis in response to the growth in ebooks. However, some of that adjustment  still comes from the lasting effects of the recession, as well – as soon as the economy got rocky, all the accounts became much more careful about their ordering, and that remains the case today. Instead of ordering several weeks’ worth upfront, they order a short-term amount, and then if there’s movement they quickly come back for reorders. All of that naturally reduces the initial printing. The most important thing for publishers when planning print runs is to be realistic – to assess the market for a particular book, add up the advance orders, add a suitable cushion, and then be prepared to go back to press immediately as circumstances dictate.

This is a touchy one. At Left Coast Crime last week, David Morrell pointed out that only about 1,000 authors are actually earning a living as full-time writers. Assuming that the numbers are correct, and 175,000 books are published in any given year, that means less than 1% of authors make a living as full-time writers. Why? And what can we do to change that?

I couldn’t tell you if David’s figure is correct or not, but the gist of it is nothing new. It’s always been true that most writers don’t support themselves full-time from their writing (in the back of my mind, for instance, I remember a 1979 survey of American authors which showed that the median annual income for them then was less than $5,000!). It’s also just as true for most actors, artists, musicians, etc. “Don’t give up your day job” isn’t just a saying, it’s been a standard piece of advice from veterans to newbies in the creative arts ever since I can remember.

For authors who are feeling the pressure of having to spread themselves to thin, and the peril that lies in not foregoing marketing to work on your actual book, any advice?

I think I may well have said this before in one of my interviews here, but, yes, it’s all about balance. You have to balance the needs of your writing – my mantra here is always: The book comes first – with the needs of your promotion. Both are important – but you can’t do everything. You just can’t. And the amount you can do is different for everybody. You have to look at your own unique situation, see what’s most important, see what needs your effort and for how long (not forgetting that you also have a life that needs tending outside of writing!) and what’s superfluous. Then you adjust according to what’s right for you – and you keep on adjusting, because “what’s right” is going to change as you go along.

Will the traditional book tour be a casualty of the new shift in publishing?

It might be – if print books no longer existed. But they do, don’t they? And how else is a fan going to meet and connect with a favorite author, live and in person?

Impossibles:

For all of the next four questions, I make no judgments about “best” or “favorite” – they’re just things that have given me a lot of pleasure!

Best books from April to April?

Last year: Tom Franklin’s Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter; Emma Donoghue’s Room; Tana French’s Faithful Place – fabulous books, all.

This year so far: Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took My Dog; Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!; Julia Spencer-Fleming’s One Was a Soldier —  if you haven’t read ‘em, don’t wait.

Favorite movies?

Nothing this year so far makes my list, but last year! Winter’s Bone (brilliant). That great Aussie crime movie, Animal Kingdom (put it on your Netflix queue immediately!). That equally great Argentine crime movie, The Secret in Their Eyes (ditto!), the Swedish Girl trilogy (the first one was by far the best, but as a trilogy, an impressive piece of work – I’m looking forward to what David Fincher does with the American versions). The Town (a big shout-out to Ben Affleck for laying it all on the line – directing, writing, starring – and bringing it off beautifully). And last, but certainly not least, Toy Story 3 – seriously, why is it that Pixar is the only Hollywood studio to consistently get the one basic fact: Give people good stories with characters they care about, and they’ll come running. Something we should all think about as we do our books, right?

Your favorite bottle of wine?

Right now on my table: a great Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc and a lovely Greek red called Paros Reserve.

Best restaurant in New York?

There’s no such thing as a best restaurant in New York – there are just too many good ones. But if you’re ever up in my neighborhood, JT, I’ll take you and Randy to my favorite neighborhood restaurant, an Italian wine bar and grill named Cavatappo, for a meal of fried olives, gnocchi, pistachio-crusted salmon, a pear and almond tart to die for, and a splendid Italian red!

*  Editor’s Note: As we were preparing this interview – an agent happened to address the role question. Click here to see what Rachelle Gardner from WordServe Literary has to say.

__________________________

Neil S. Nyren is senior vice president, publisher and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons. He came to Putnam in 1984 from Atheneum, where he was Executive Editor. Before that he held editorial positions at Random House and Arbor House. Some of the author’s he’s edited are Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Jack Higgins, W.E.B. Griffin, John Sandford, Dave Barry, Daniel Silva, Ken Follett, Alex Berenson, Randy Wayne White, CJ Box, Carol O’Connell, James O. Born, Patricia Cornwell and Frederick Forsyth; and non-fiction by Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, John McEnroe, Linda Ellerbee, Jeff Greenfield, Charles Kuralt, Secretary of State James Baker III, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Sara Nelson, and Generals Fred Franks, Chuck Horner, Carl Stiner, Tony Zinni and Wendy Merrill.

Dilemma

Zoë Sharp

They say writing’s therapeutic, cathartic. They say that if you have issues, writing is a way to get them out. Writing as a form of therapy, or reprisal.

Sue Grafton is a famous example:

“For months I lay in bed and plotted how to kill my ex-husband. But I knew I’d bungle it and get caught, so I wrote it in a book instead.”

When I’m giving talks, I usually joke that it’s a great way of obtaining revenge – if someone really annoys me, I kill them off in a book. And I say that, since I’ve long since run out of people who have pissed me off sufficiently, I now take requests like a kind of literary contract killer. It always gets a laugh.

But, I’m careful in how I do this when I’m actually writing, and often the recognisable features of my victims are recognisable only to me. A private joke. A private satisfaction, if you like.

But what if they’re not recognisable only to me?

I was talking to someone recently who was faced with a literary dilemma. A member of his family had written what purported to be a novel, but populated it with characters clearly drawn from his own life and portrayed in the most unflattering terms. The writer has taken real events and added his own dark spin – a hinted-at piece of moral turpitude, the sly implication of a cheated qualification.

But what do you do about it without causing horrendous rifts within the family?

You might ask, what does it matter? Surely very few people are going to actually see or read this novel? And, at one point, you would have been right. After all, no traditional publisher would touch something they thought was going to land them in legal hot water, regardless of whether the quality of the writing was of publishable standard.

Enter the internet.

Anyone with something to say can be published to the world at the click of a mouse, and so it was the case here. The book was out there, albeit briefly, for anyone to read a sample or buy in its entirety. The person who felt most damaged by this was, as you can imagine, unbelievably upset by it.

But what can he do without tearing his family apart even further?

OK, ‘Rati, what would YOU do?

Apologies for this week’s post being a short one, but I’m somewhat under the weather. I’ll be back to respond to comments whenever I can stand up. Meanwhile, this week’s Word of the Week is phoney, meaning fake. It comes from the Gaelic, fainne (pronounced ‘fawnya’) and means a circle or ring. In the 18th century, some Irish gold was not considered the genuine article, so gold rings from Ireland were called ‘fawney’, which became English slang for fake. In the 1920s, this name had extended to fake gold rings passed around by American conmen , although the American accent led to the word becoming ‘phoney’ instead.

Noir, Tragedy, and Other Dreary Bummers (Ho Ho)

By David Corbett

First, I want to say that I’m flattered  to be invited to join the Murderati Cabal. The folks who run this joint are not just some of the finest writers but some of the nicest people in the biz. I promise to do my best not to soil the linens, or leave too many surprises in the punch bowl.

To that end: I’ll launch my life as a Murderatero with something I’ve been chewing on for some time, and have written about in one form or another before—on the peculiar perils of being deemed a writer of “noir.” (Don’t worry. It won’t hurt much. Just a tiny little sting.)


The term “noir ” has become so universally misused—like other vague descriptives such as “Freudian,” “post-modern,” and “cute”—that it’s virtually a cipher, obscuring more than it clarifies.

Ask three different people if a certain writer is “noir,” you’ll get three different answers. (Yes. No. Go away.)

Is Charles Willeford “noir?” James Elroy? Lynne Cheney?

This is sloppy, it’s wrong, but mostly it’s annoying—especially when the marketing flacks at major publishing houses slather the term on a book jacket to scare off the pious scoutmasters, breathless virgins and hysteric spinsters whom the publisher fears will fall into palsied seizures in the bookstore aisles if they mistakenly crack the cover.

I speak, sadly, from experience.

If words, like people, can be known by the company they keep, then “noir” might benefit from a higher class of friends. You never seem to see Our Friend Noir without his sidekicks Gritty, Brutal, Grim or the ever-faithful Uncompromising. Throw in Brooding, Dark and Relentless, you’ve got one mean set of dwarves.

And never, never, never be so simple as to believe that calling a book “noir” will boost its sales. One might as well just slap DEPRESSING! on the cover. The only thing conceivably worse than being labeled “noir” is to be considered “political.”

I speak again, sadly, from experience. But I digress.

Getting back to our original question: What exactly is this thing called noir?

To answer these and other questions, I turned to Dark City by Eddie Muller—the “Czar of Noir.” I was particularly struck by his distillation of the noir protagonist’s philosophical dilemma: He can’t choose the world he lives in, only how he intends to live in it. (This leaves out, of course, the question of rent.)

In a way, this formulation calls to mind Sartre’s immortal, “Each of us gets the war he deserves.” Mention of Sartre in turn evokes existentialism, everybody’s favorite easy credit. I have sometimes wondered if the noir protagonist is in fact nothing but the existentialist hero—alone against “the benign indifference of the universe,” stripped of certainty and even a knowable self, burdened by guilt—or, if he plays his cards right, a full-blown psychosis.

Or, put it this way: Maybe the noir protagonist is simply the existentialist hero inserted into—get this— a crime story.

I know. I’m so bright my mother calls me Sonny.

Concerning protagonists: Sophocles is credited with the invention of the tragic hero and he used the word deinos as a descriptive. It is normally translated to mean “terrible, wondrous, strange,” and his heroes were seen as both repellent and admirable.

The Sophoclean hero was also unique at that time for his isolation, especially in relation to the gods, who were largely absent. This absence of divine guidance resonates with the “benign indifference of the universe” I already mentioned (the coinage is from Camus).

Euripides, a contemporary of Sophocles, went one better. His gods weren’t absent, they were regrettably all too present: petty, callous, vengeful.

In many of the plays of both Sophocles and Euripides, the protagonist faces a crisis in which disaster can only be averted by a compromise that, in the hero’s view, would constitute betrayal of something he or she holds to be supremely important. The hero refuses to make this compromise and, as a result, is destroyed.

Put otherwise, the great bulk of Athenian tragedy can be synopsized with: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. In case you were wondering why Sparta won the Peloponnesian War.

Aristotle, writing a century later in his Poetics, argued that the best tragic protagonist was neither a righteous nor villainous man, but “a man not pre-eminently virtuous and just, [but] whose misfortune . . . is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment.”

Or, once again seeking to encapsulate the point in a pithy bon mot, Aristotle considered the major premise of most great Greek tragedy to be: Oops.

But what does any of this have to do with noir, I hear you cry.

Let us review: We have before us a form of drama in which a psychologically and morally complex hero, who is both repellent and admirable, neither pre-eminently virtuous nor just, prone to error, stands alone in the face of an indifferent if not actively hostile universe, confronting a choice between two alternatives, neither of which is acceptable and the one ultimately chosen leads to destruction.

If I may: What’s not to noir?

A great deal, as it turns out. In noir, one often finds a protagonist whose misfortune is brought upon precisely by vice or depravity—his own. Think Frank Chambers in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Think George Neff in Double Indemnity. Think any number of Thompson’s or Willeford’s or Woolrich’s or Goodis’s protagonists. The strength of this approach lies in its ability to submerge the reader in a treacherous, unforgiving world she would normally never visit and, I would argue, a world which the authors believed pretty much resembled what modernity had to offer.

The limitation is thematic: Bad things happen to bad people. Crime doesn’t pay. These motifs are hardly startling, but it isn’t so much the destination as the journey that delivers the pay-off. And besides, as I’ve already mentioned, you can reduce the theme of even the greatest drama of all time to a caustic one-liner.

And though it shares a lack of sentimentality with tragedy, noir discards the necessity for “the moral nobility of suffering” one often finds in tragedic drama. In noir, even nobility is seen as sentimental. And here again the existentialist influence returns. “Existence precedes essence,” the great bumper-sticker slogan of existentialism, means we’re making it up as we go along, there is no transcendental meaning to be had, and there’s nothing inherently noble or degrading about anything. (To borrow a line from Zen: The situation is neutral.)

But another thing noir and the Greek tragedies have in common is their matriculation in the course or the aftermath of a lost war. The “neo-noir” films of the late 1960s and early 1970s—The King of Marvin Gardens, Scarecrow, Mean Streets, Midnight Cowboy, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, The Friends of Eddie Coyle and, of course, Chinatown—are a case in point. Though America had not yet “lost” Vietnam when some of these movies appeared, there was an overwhelming sense that it had lost something. And this was true of noir as well even after victory in World War II. Battle-scarred veterans recoiled from the notion of themselves as heroes because they knew all too well that pitiless luck and certain varieties of “vice and depravity” were what it took to survive combat.

Then again, maybe this is all just a bunch of cynical—and therefore, sentimental—hooey. “Like all dreamers, I mistook disillusion for the truth.” That’s jolly old Jean-Paul Sartre again. How come nobody ever calls him noir?

 

A Ken Bruen Tribute to Murderati

By Louise Ure

 

Last week I received a gloriously sad, thoughtful and marrow-warming note from Ken Bruen. What else would you expect from the Irish King of the Cast Out Angels? It is a love note, of course, to all of us here at Murderati, full of memories from our past years together — an accounting of both our joy and our losses.

 

He’s given me permission to reprint it here.

 

Welcome back, my Tuesday friend. I hope the sun in Algeciras is kind to you.

 

L-

 

 

‘TA SE AN RUD IS EH.’
(IT IS WHAT IT IS)

 By KEN BRUEN
 ALGECIRAS, APRIL 6TH, 2011.
 FOR JIM CRUMLEY, LEGEND, FRIEND, ANAM CARA.

Seems a time ago, Le Temps, if not Perdue, at least so mourned.
I was happy then.
Being a member of Murderati, what was not to love?
Pari minding the crew, Dusty extolling on politics in a way that stirred the grand days of TS O’Rourke, being blog buddies with Louise, Alex having me back, always, and icing on the cake, Murderati was nominated for The Anthony. Plus, Toni Causey and Brett, turning out dark gold.
Heady lovely days.
Barack was the real whisper in the wind and hope was tangible.
I wanted this post to mark the best and the brightest then, for me.

I remember Louise’s post on her late brother, one if the most compelling pieces I ever read, cross me bedraggled heart.
My friend Jerry Rodriguez, his death un-ravelled me in ways I didn’t know.
As would so many to come.
Codlamh samh  … means ‘sleep well my loved ones.’
Louise’s beloved Bruce
And oh Sweet Jesus, Elaine Flinn
Robert Parker
Ed
Joe Gores
Oh Lord, so many, I can’t name them all.
But didn’t know.
Then.
So wrote as If all were indeed possible
Edgars
Movies
The whole espero-que-si scenario.

I’m sitting on the sea front at Algeciras as I write this tribute to the best and brightest. There is a ship for Algiers at 7.00 in the morning.
Tangiers, that ferry sails at 7.00. I’m seriously uncertain. After my graduation, going to try and find Paul Bowles with Irini.
The web, never take the bollix for granted, I shit thee not, on Amazon, in German, a bio of me and my marriage at 21 to a Greek Millionaire’s daughter.
I would have sworn, Mathair An Dia, ( Mother of God) that would never surface.
Me mother would have killed me.

I don’t know.
Peut-etre?
Remembering my languages but eerily, only the terms of ambiguity.
Photos?
Oh yeah, snapshots of the torn mind.
One of my used-to-be favourites, a beach in Galway.
See, the two stick figures, like Zorba, clearly dancing.
She’s gone now.
My wife took that photo, in days when I think she liked me, a bit anyway.
Or Aine, late to my life, a photo, rare as we had little time,
On that promenade in Spiddal, dancing, again! Me? Like seals who didn’t know predators are attracted to motion, especially happy tide.
Emotional chum in the water, frenzy freely.

One of my favourite books, ‘A Movable Feast’, and Hem talking of his delighted love for Mary, says:
‘There was wood all around, I never touched it.’
I’m sure around me, there all kinds of driftwood, in my ignorance, I didn’t touch it either.

Telling some of these tales to David Thompson, ridiculously young and brilliant. Oh Sweet Mother of God, the most get-go publisher I ever had the grace to know.
On tour with Jason ( Starr) in Germany last Sept, we get the call, he is gone.
No.
No
No
Fuckit-dammit-no.

I was 60 on the third of Jan, finally free I hope, espero que si, of cigs but the rest? Jesus wept.
In the blessed nigh on nine years I’ve been part of The Mystery Family, it’s been bliss. I stop here, un momento and sure enough, a guy approaches, goes:
‘Amigo mio, que passé?’
He truly doesn’t want to know so I give him some dinero, he goes:
‘Hoy, el muy bueno hermano.’
Like fook.
I lost my only brother ten years ago.

In my wallet is a photo, I never, ever look at. She’s there, smiling, shite, I know that and who knows, I might have been too but I forget. Thank Christ. I do know she has an expression of such longing, yearning even, but now, I still wonder, for what?
You believe it?
I never asked.
Swear to the God whom I amuse so highly, I never did, lest she tell me and I couldn’t deliver.
I should have asked.
You think?

My Dad, always (siempre) had a look in his eyes, one that defied:
‘Take your best shot.’
Me, the photos, I look like the best shots were already over the day I thought I could live in the world.
In Delaware, Princess died.
And I go:
‘Enough already.’
Well, not really, I’m too nice, Jesus, to utter that but I feel it.

I stand up, think:
‘I really should pay tribute to those I love and respect.’
Murderati
Craig
Jay
Lou
Louise
And the list is endless.

As Paul Brady sang in The Island:
‘Hey, this was never meant to be no sad song.’

I think of the wondrous blogs:
Peter and The Rap Sheet
Ali, of course
Duane (go win that Edgar buddy)
Crime Always Pays
Paul Brazil
Derek Haas
Jen’s Books Thoughts
Spinetingler
Mulholland

The lady I’m with approaches, she’s French so melancholy is not that much of a mystery, she goes:
‘K, there’s a party for your award in like, half an hour.’
I give her me best smile, the one that leaks
Compassion
Empathy
And no humour
None.
I know, I got to practice it a lot at all the funerals.

I start up the incline to the villa provided by the publishers and she asks, slight frown, as me quiet is not common, asks:
‘A gra, OK?’
Sorry, I’ve been teaching her Irish, saved me from talking about the friends I’d so wish to Christ she’d known.

I nearly smile, say:
‘No, I’ve been doing some stuff on the laptop.’
She stops, never … no matter how in the wind they are … underestimate the intuition of a lady who cares for you, she asks:
‘Tom? ( Piccirilli) Lukas? Philip?’
Then she lights up, gets it, says:
‘Jason…. Jason Starr.’
Right.

I have 2 new books near completion but I haven’t written for 2 days.
That’s it, the freaking reason I’m out of sorts.

Man U play Chelsea later and the bar will be full, giving me support for me team and all good stuff, as Lukas (Ortiz) says,
‘It’s all good amigo.’
I drink the equivalent of maybe three Buds (light). God be with the days, yada, but come morning, I’m sitting on our balcony and she, God Bless her, moves right in beside me and you have to know me God-forgive-em moods, to come that close in the morning, she hands me a café con leche, her  arm round my shoulder, casually, like we’ve doing it for twenty years:
‘Yeah… right, I know.’
I think, say:
‘Alanna, what I’m writing is, Je pense, mais no, un cri de coeur.’
Gives me that rare to rarest look, of someone who gives a tinker’s cuss as to what I really think, I know at home in Ireland, cri de coeur is simply, whining … worse, what they call, off-white whining.
She looks out at that Ocean, stretching to Africa, she  still doesn’t know if we’re travelling, asks:
‘Que pense, Kay?
Tempted to go Galway, channel Charlie Stella.
‘Fug-ed.about.it, Kay.’
But I uncharacteristically tell the truth, say:
‘I’m thinking … ti kema, quelle dommage … of Murderati, of the crew of damn nigh Cowboy-angels there.’
And she laughs.
The French laughing is nigh on as wonderful as the Irish telling the truth. She hugs real close and, God forgive me, the warmth makes me afraid, afraid I’ll get used to it. She misinterprets my shudder, asks:
‘Andiamo, diga me?’
Our slumming in about five different languages is one of her main appeals for me, plus, she never …like seriously … judges me. WTF.
I truly tell the truth, tell:
‘It
      Is
           What
                     It
                          Is.’
Ken Bruen.

 

PS from Louise: I’m on jury duty again and will check in during the day as we get breaks.

Welcome Jonathan Hayes!

by Alafair Burke

I met author Jonathan Hayes in 2008 at a Thrillerfest cocktail party for Harper authors at Mysterious Bookshop in New York.  His first novel, Precious Blood, had just come out to rave reviews.  It turned out we had a lot in common.  He also still had a crime-related day job, serving as the city’s Senior Medical Examiner.  He liked good food and bad movies.  And, importantly, given the realities of new friendships in New York City, he lived  three blocks away from me.

A friendship was born. 

I am delighted to report that Jonathan’s much-anticipated second novel, A HARD DEATH, is in stores this week.  I hope you enjoy getting to know him in today’s Q&A as much as I have.  He’s a hell of a writer, so check out his work if he’s new to you.

Many writers have a “hook” in their backgrounds that pulled them into writing.  Michael Connelly was a crime beat reporter.  Our own Tess was a medical doctor.  I was a prosecutor.  Your most apparent lead-in to crime fiction is as a medical examiner, but that’s not actually how you began writing, is it?

It was pretty much an accident. I’d always loved to write, but it wasn’t something I’d imagined myself doing professionally. When I moved to New York, I became active in an online NYC community, where I was being (typically) free with my opinions about restaurants and movies and life in the city. An editor from Paper magazine (“the coolest magazine on Earth”, according to the LA Times) saw my writing and asked if I’d be interested in writing for them.

I dashed off a round up of my favorite NYC Vietnamese restaurants and sent it to her. Then they said, “We’d like you to write about anything you’d like.” I told them I wanted to write about the electronic music and culture of the current rave and nightclub culture. For two years, I was a professional raver (a really schizoid life – I found myself doing autopsies in the morning, testifying in a murder trial in the afternoon, reviewing a restaurant in the evening, then home for a disco nap, up at midnight and out all night at a warehouse rave).

 Hayes’ Motto Back Then (Literally?)

I wrote more and more about food; eventually I was spotted by someone at Food & Wine. They sent me to Vegas for the magazine, and things built from there. Martha Stewart next, then the New York Times, and eventually, GQ, Gourmet, etc. I ended up a contributing food editor at Martha Stewart Living.

I loved – no, loved – writing for Martha – each story was so pretty and perfect, and these jewel-like little pieces balanced out the carnage and destruction of my daily life, particularly during the hard times after 9/11. But eventually, there’s only so many times you can write about edible flowers before feeling somewhat dishonest: I am a naturally profane person, and the delicacy and politesse of writing for (most) magazines began to be a strain. I sketched the outline for a novel that would let me talk about my forensic life, and began to poke at it.

Then, another odd opportunity presented itself: my friend Bill Yosses, a prominent pastry chef, approached me about writing his dessert cookbook. When I met with his agent, she was fascinated by my day job, and asked if I’d ever written any fiction. She insisted that I send her the outline and pages of the novel I’d been working on; she signed me immediately on reading it. Harper Collins bought Precious Blood the next week in a preemptive bid. And suddenly, I was a novelist.

I think that my background in forensic pathology has been a double-edged sword. I probably know more about murder and violence than just about anyone else out there writing crime fiction today, but I worry that I might be seen as a novelty signing, like Ice T. Or, worse, Mrs. Ice T. The fact is, I’d been writing professionally at a high level for a decade before I started writing fiction.

By the way, don’t worry about Bill, he of the dessert cookbook: he’s now the White House pastry chef.

 Booklist accurately describes your new novel, A HARD DEATH, as “a CinemaScope novel, in Technicolor and surround sound.”  I once introduced you at a Mystery Writers of America event for the New York chapter by saying that you write about violence as well as any other writer working today.  Why are you so bloody good at writing about bloody stuff?

I’m not a particularly cerebral person: I am a sensualist. This is one of my strengths as a food journalist – I have a good palate, and a good nose, and can write convincingly and passionately about food at the sensual level, while bringing to the table a strong understanding of the history and culture of food.

It’s the same way with forensic stuff – I understand violence at a fairly profound level, but my approach isn’t a simple description of punching or shooting so much as a focused awareness of the look, feel and smell of violence and its aftermath. I want the reader to understand what it feels like to do my work – what it feels like to kneel down over the body of a murdered man in a blood-spattered room, or to pull the body of a stabbing victim out of a swamp.

 A HARD DEATH is the second novel featuring Dr. Edward Jenner.  Tell us a little about Jenner and the set-up for A HARD DEATH.

Jenner (who, by the way, is mortified by his overdetermined first name, and always goes simply by “Jenner”) was introduced in Precious Blood. A forensic pathologist who’s just passed 40, Jenner has retired, burned out after his 9/11 experiences. He’s hauled back into the world of violent death when the niece of a good friend becomes the target of a serial killer. Jenner survives, but is forced to take several ethically iffy steps during his hunt for the killer; politically out-maneuvered, he ends up with his New York medical license suspended. Broke and desperate to regain his reputation, Jenner jumps when an old mentor offers him several months of work in the ME office of a quiet, rural Florida county on the edge of the Everglades. It’s the perfect opportunity – Jenner can rest and recharge, away from the glare of the New York media spotlight. But then…

 

Your first Jenner novel, PRECIOUS BLOOD, was set in New York, where you are a senior forensic pathologist and live in the East Village.  I could feel the presence of New York City on every page of that book.  For A HARD DEATH, you take Jenner down to the Florida Everglades.  Why did you decide to move your character in only the second book in the series?  And why Florida?

I wrote about New York in a very real way – I love this city passionately, worship it. Seriously, there isn’t a day when I don’t step out onto the street and think, “Thank God I live here!” But I found I couldn’t write Precious Blood honestly unless I talked about what happened here after 9/11. This was a very hard thing for me to do – like many New Yorkers; I took a pretty bad hit back then. The topic is emotionally and politically charged for many of us, and carries very particular weight for those of us who were involved in the recovery and identification process; some of the names in the book are those of cops I worked with back then.

It was difficult to write freely about the NYPD in that book; I realized I needed to get Jenner somewhere where the cops could be really flawed without risking resentment from people I work with on a daily basis.

While I was training in forensics in Miami, I moonlighted on Florida’s West Coast, in Naples, a charming, quiet town, affluent and clean. It was a fascinating experience, particularly after the maelstrom of spectacular death that was Miami. Mostly, my days were incredibly quiet, spent documenting the natural passing of elderly Snowbirds, the occasional drowning. But then the calm would be punctured by really extraordinary things – for example, I had to go by airboat through the Everglades to a remote mangrove swamp to investigate a small plane crash. I was particularly struck by the scene of a stabbing in a migrant worker town 50 miles to the North, by the squalor in which the workers lived in comparison to the luxury of Old Naples.

 

That sort of contrast is great for a writer. Having learned my lessons from Precious Blood, I created the fictional county of Douglas to stand in for Collier County, and Port Fontaine to stand in for Naples (yes, I have friends in the Collier County ME Office, and in the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, and wish to step on no toes!).

Obviously, it’s not a documentary recreation of Naples and the surrounding area. I used details I’d picked up around the country – something a death investigator had told me about Iowa pig farms a few years back when I was lecturing on rave drugs in Des Moines; a lurid article about the particularly scandalous behavior of an affluent Floridian; some other stuff. And I was a bit prescient about the violent nature of Mexican drug cartels, which have, in recent months, managed to catch up with me.

 

We both love to eat, as do many of the other ‘Rati.  What has been a particularly memorable meal?

Last month I was in Chicago for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. I speak passable French, and have an apartment in Paris, so the community of French forensic pathologists has embraced me. At every meeting in the US, it’s my responsibility to find bons tables –­ good places to eat. Usually, that means digging up something typiquement americain; when the meeting was in San Antonio, for example, I rolled up to the rural town of Luling with a Cadillac convertible filled with French coroners in cowboy hats, eager to eat authentic barbecued brisket served on sheets of butcher’s paper and tubs of smoky baked beans, washed down by pitchers of Big Red.

But my friend Laurent Martrille is a true gourmand, and in Chicago we ate at Alinea, perhaps the best restaurant in the country. I’d raved about it in the NY Times a few years back, then wrote a piece with its visionary chef, Grant Achatz, about solid sauces for the Times Sunday magazine; we were greeted like old friends. The meal was 29 courses, some as tiny as half a teaspoon, consumed over four and a half delirious hours. And it was exhilarating.

You can see almost every course – and Laurent – in my Facebook album of the experience.   Make sure you don’t miss the duck press! They brought out a beautifully roasted duck, carved the meat off tableside, then, in front of us, stuck the defleshed carcass, heart, liver, etc, into a giant cylindrical steel press, slowly crushing the innards until a thick red slurry of organ, blood and marrow spattered out from a little spout at the bottom. This was whisked off to the kitchen and added to the jus for the duck. And it was absolutely freakin’ amazing.

Also, for the final dessert, a sheet of woven silicon was draped across the table, and two chefs poured out a variety of chocolate sauces and other elements onto this surface. They quickly bruléed a liquid cream, then brought out a chocolate mousse that had been inflated, then frozen in liquid nitrogen, and shattered it on the table, causing a fog of nitrogen mist to flow across the surface. We ate everything right off the tabletop – seriously, have a look. It was quite extraordinary, and extremely fun.

[Aside from Alafair: I could never be a food writer because my description of said meal would be, “Incredibly tasty.”] 

Sharing a meal at shared neighborhood favorite, Gotham Bar & Grill

You are a fierce Facebooker.  Unlike many writers, you rarely even mention your books or your life as an author.  Instead, you really show your actual life through photos, music, and video.  What rings your bell about Facebook?

Yes, I am the bane of my publicist’s existence – I’m frequently invited to comment on high profile killings on national TV, but always decline. I think it’s inappropriate to hold forth on something so serious about which you only have third- or fourth-hand knowledge. All of us hate to be second-guessed; it’s horrible to watch the jackals come out of the woodwork when a celebrity dies.

I’ve had a strong online presence for more than 20 years – I’ve had the same email address for all that time, and probably as many people call me “Jaze” as call me “Jonathan”.

I find just about everything fascinating – seriously, I could get engrossed in an article about the history of cereal box typography design. As a result, I have the attention span of a magpie, regularly developing odd obsessions that are gushingly watered by the fountain of esoterica that is the Internet. And when I’m passionate about something, I want to share it, hear what other people think.  So I post it on Facebook, or on my Tumblr blog.

Right now, for example, I’m obsessed by a mostly West Coast niche subculture: girls and young women who’ve developed a style fusing psychobilly rock style (fringes, retro clothes, Sailor Jerry-style retro tattoos) with facial and body piercings, breasts plumped up by clothing or surgery, Hello Kitty-style kitschy accessories and My Little Pony hair colors borrowed from Harajuku in Tokyo. It’s an odd look, a deliberate, almost angrily in-your-face miscegenation of Kiddie Cute and Hypersexualized Adult. I think it’s less rock’n’roll than a new incarnation of rave style; that scene was characterized by a conscious infantilization that had kids drowning in brightly colored, deliberately oversized clothes, carrying animal-shaped backpacks and handing out candy while they chewed pacifiers. (Admittedly, those last two were to help deal with the jaw-grinding and clenching that are a side effect of the drug Ecstasy, but, still.)

Uh, here’s my Facebook album for that – careful; depending on where you work, it might not be 100% safe for you.

I don’t talk about my work work on Facebook because it’s not appropriate; people died to make their way to me, and that should be private. This is one of the reasons I write fiction: to talk about the things I see, and the reactions they evoke, without betraying any confidence.

Anyway, I do talk about books and writing on Facebook, but not as much as I probably should if I want to be a better marketer.

My impression is that you have very eclectic friends.  Can you give us an idea of the wide array of company you keep?

Ha! I do, thank God. My first New York City friend was the naughty photographer Eric Kroll, who specializes in what’s charmingly called “glamour photography” – models in 50’s lingerie. I met Eric because he was selling a photograph of the pin-up star Betty Page shot by Weegee, the famous New York crime scene photographer. We quickly became friends, and I hung out a lot with him in his studio, and helped carry his lighting when he was shooting in various odd locales around town. Through Eric, I met a lot of people in New York’s demimonde – strippers, dominatrixes, etcetera. I, of course, found this whole new world fascinating. And in return, I was the only medical examiner they had ever met (I do think that the novelty of having a forensic pathologist as a friend has really worked in my favor – and, I must admit, I’d thought that it would when I decided to move to New York).

After the sex people, an early NYC girlfriend introduced me to friends in the visual art world – a world as cliquey, paranoid and pretentious as the fashion world. Just like the fashion world, when you get to know people individually, they can be great, but as a group, there’s an unusually high quotient of ghastliness (although my reaction might reflect my insecurity about my art world status). Then I started writing, and my next batches of friends came first from the music world, and then from the food world. And finally, the ink-stained wretches – the motley crew of authors I’ve met in the last few years.

I love my friends, though they can be a handful. Occasionally my social circles collide with terrible results, most recently last week when I had a networking disaster: my friend, fetish-y porn girl Adrianna Nicole, has a new film coming out this week, and during the run-up to its release, I’ve been following her presence on the internet. My Google alert flagged a naughty photo of her accompanied by a delirious rant about how amazing she was; this was one of the filthiest web sites I’ve seen – I mean epically obscene. Amused, I tweeted it to her.

Only instead of sending it just to Adrianna, I managed to send the URL to my entire Twitter list. When I realized it, the damage had already been done. I sent out a follow-up tweet, explaining the situation, and sincerely apologizing to anyone who’d clicked through and seen things that they’ll never be able to unsee.

And then I sent a second tweet telling anyone who’d clicked through and been delighted that they were welcome. I mean, what’re you going to do?

Really, though, much of my weird social life comes from living in NYC, and doing a cool job (forensics and/or writing). And being English and non-judgmental probably helps.

 

What’s next for Jonathan Hayes?

What indeed! I’m getting ready for my book tour; I’ll be banging out a bunch of dates in New York/the North East, but I’m focusing on the West Coast this time around (dates are up here). The final stop of the official tour will be, of course, in Naples, Florida, where my Collier County cop and M.E. friends will finally discover the horrific liberties I’ve taken with their beloved town.

I’m working on Jenner3 (set in the mountains in Colorado). After that, I want to do a spin-off featuring the female crime scene detective who readers will meet in this book. Down the road, I think I’d like to try a horror book, but I’m not sure.

And for me personally? I’d like to spend some more time in Paris – I’m an absurd three years into the renovation of my tiny (as in 250 square feet tiny, but perfect) studio in the Marais, and I’d really like to enjoy it for a couple of weeks. And I want to spend a month in Thailand, taking it easy, and reading the rest of Tim Hallinan’s fantastic Poke Rafferty series.

Jonathan (aka Jaze) has kindly agreed to mail a signed copy of A HARD DEATH to one randomly selected commenter.  Feel free to post any questions or comments for him, but we’d both like to know: What is your favorite New York City-centric mystery or thriller?

You can also follow Jonathan on Facebook and Twitter. Order his spectacular new novel, A HARD DEATH, here.  And check out his website here.

One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

By Allison Brennan

I am traveling home today from the RT Book Lovers Convention, where I hooked up with fellow Murderati members and alumni: Rob, Brett, Stephen, and Alex. I haven’t been to RT in three years, and while the last one I was at in Houston left a sour taste in my mouth, this one was so wonderful it more than made up for it. I also brought my book lover daughter, my 15 year-old RT book reviewer, who took my credit card and stocked up on enough books to get her through the next few months . . .

Speaking of reading, I was lucky enough to get an advanced reading copy of Julia Spencer-Fleming’s ONE WAS A SOLDIER, on sale this Tuesday. This is the 7th book in her Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series, and while it was the first I’d read, I didn’t feel lost. There’s a lot of backstory that I assume was in other books, beautifully woven in for us new readers so that the parts relevant to the current mystery and character arc were all there. Julia said, “I trust my readers to follow along without a road map. They don’t need all the hand-holding we authors sometimes think they do.” I, as a reader, greatly appreciated that level of intelligence!

I read virtually every page on Julia’s website (which is a terrific site, BTW, easy to navigate with lots of information) and asked her a bunch of questions as well in preparation for this article. I was tickled to learn that Julia and I are a lot alike—like me, she’s an organic writer (that means she doesn’t plot – yeah!) and her favorite quote is one of my favorite quotes: “I can fix anything except a blank page.” — Nora Roberts. Among her many favorite childhood books was the Narnia series, which I loved when I was a kid and reading them again to my children. But in one of those little twists of fate, I picked up One Was a Soldier not knowing it was set in a small, depressed Adirondack town . . . and I just turned in my next Lucy Kincaid book, set in the Adirondacks. Needless to say, I was hooked on page one!

On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences in Iraq. What they will find is murder, conspiracy, and the unbreakable ties that bind them to one other and their small Adirondack town.

The Rev. Clare Fergusson wants to forget the things she saw as a combat helicopter pilot and concentrate on her relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. MP Eric McCrea needs to control the explosive anger threatening his job as a police officer. Will Ellis, high school track star, faces the reality of life as a double amputee. Orthopedist Trip Stillman is denying the extent of his traumatic brain injury. And bookkeeper Tally McNabb wrestles with guilt over the in-country affair that may derail her marriage.

But coming home is harder than it looks. One vet will struggle with drugs and alcohol. One will lose his family and friends. One will die.

Since their first meeting, Russ and Clare’s bond has been tried, torn, and forged by adversity. But when he rules the veteran’s death a suicide, she violently rejects his verdict, drawing the surviving vets into an unorthodox investigation that threatens jobs, relationships, and her own future with Russ. As the days cool and the nights grow longer, they will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny town to the upper ranks of the U.S. Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.

 

Doesn’t that teaser make you want to read the book?

I love Julia’s heroine Clare Fergusson. The Reverend at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Clare is complex, wounded, matter-of-fact, and facing very real personal and professional conflicts that have no easy or one “right” answer.

“Clare was created originally out of my desire to look at crime from the point of view of someone whose job was to repair the torn social fabric, rather than bring down the bad guys,” Julia said. “At the beginning of In the Bleak Midwinter, she is the very definition of the classic story idea ‘Someone Comes to Town.’ Everything and everyone is new to her – and her role as parish priest is also brand new. So she has a lot of connections to make.”

Keeping a character arc moving forward from book to book is not easy, something I’ve grappled with in my own series as I’m three books in. When I asked Julia how she keeps Clare fresh and growing as a character, she said, “The most surprising way Clare has grown has been in her questioning of, and experience with her ministry. She starts out very unsure of herself, bluffing her way through on her Army leadership skills and a (usually unsuccessful) determination to play the role of “priest” to perfection. As she grows throughout the books, her ability to confidently lead and guide her parish develops, but her self-doubts about her fitness for the priesthood does as well.”

To me, this conflict is so natural and organic that it made Clare real to me as a reader, someone I could see walk off the page living and breathing. And isn’t that the sign of an amazing writer? It’s no wonder that One Was a Soldier has received so many outstanding reviews, included starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist.

“If you allow the characters to be changed by the events that unfold around them, they’ll stay fresh,” Julia said. “I think series characters stagnate when they stop being affected by crime and murder (or vampire slaying, or planetary conquest) like real humans would be. Series characters can’t be stones in the stream of story. They have to be boats, constantly moving forward through a changing emotional landscape.”

Because I’m always curious if a protagonist reflects an author in any way, I asked Julia how she was most like and most different from Clare.

“The way in which we are most alike is probably our sense of humor. Snarky, with a side of wry,” Julia said. “The way in which we’re most different? Clare is almost boundary-free; open to everyone, willing to help everyone. I’m a great deal more tightly buttoned. I wish I could reach out to others the way she can.”

One other thing I loved about the series was the very real relationship between Clare and the Police Chief, Russ Van Alstyne. While not a “romantic mystery,” the interaction between these two characters and the depth of their feelings enhanced the story and the suspense. Since I write romantic thriller, I really appreciate when other mystery/thriller writers create a wonderful hero/heroine who I can root for and respect. In addition, the characters relationships not only with each other but everyone else in Millers Kill created a very real world.

The setting for Julia’s series, Millers Kill, NY, was a character in itself: beautifully described without the description being set-aside and separate from the story—the town came alive through the eyes of the characters and lyrical word choice of the author. I asked Julia whether Millers Kill was based on a real place.

“It’s based physically on the town of Hudson Falls, NY, relocated to the far northwestern corner of Washington County. I get a lot of the details from neighboring North Country towns and villages. I go back several times a year to soak up the atmosphere and take lots of mental notes. I also get a lot of detail from the small town I live in in Maine and the nearby rural area. Like Tolstoy’s happy families, all small towns are essentially alike.

“My home town, Argyle, NY, is the basis for Cossayuharie in my books – rolling hills and dairy farms. The difference is the real Washington County has something like one murder every decade or so—while the homicide rate in Millers Kill is considerably higher!”

Julia is currently researching her eighth book, Seven Whole Days, and I was thrilled to learn that St. Martin’s signed up for three more Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne books!

Julia’s road to publication was a bit different than most–shortly after the birth of her third child, she sent her recently finished manuscript to the St. Martin’s Press Best First Novel contest. She soon after got a call from legendary mystery editor Ruth Cavin informing her In the Bleak Midwinter had beaten out over two hundred and thirty other manuscripts to win the 2001 Best First Traditional Mystery Award. 

How cool is that?

I asked Julia some fun questions, but please ask her some more yourself! She’s going to try and visit us today to answer them for you.


Dog person or cat person?


J: Dog person, though we also have two sister-cats who are very sweet. My current Big Dog, Marvin, is a lab-husky mutt who likes to sprawl next to my chair as I work.

Favorite book(s) as a child?

J: It’s a toss up between the “color” Fairy Books, the Narnia series, and Walter Brooks’ Freddie the Pig stories. I believe “Freddie the Detective” was my introduction to the world of crime fiction.


Favorite classic movie?

J: Christmas in Connecticut

Favorite movie you’ve seen in the last year?

J: Julie and Julia. We got it on DVD so we could watch only the Julia parts.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing or reading?

J: What is this strange space/time anomaly you speak of?

Favorite vacation spot?

J: I’m living in it – the beautiful state of Maine.

One fact about you that most people don’t know …

J: I wore an eye patch to correct amblyopia when I was a kid.

Now the bio . . .
Julia Spencer-Fleming is the Agatha and Anthony-award-winning author of the upcoming One Was A Soldier, the seventh Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery. You can find her on Facebook and on Twitter.   One Was A Soldier is available for preorder at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders. Powell’s Books and your locally owned independent bookstore.

Start at the beginning of the story with In the Bleak Midwinter, now only $2.99 as an ebook. And don’t miss Letters to a Soldier, a free ebooklet with exclusive content and an excerpt from One Was A Soldier.

On her website, Julia ponders an oft-asked question about whether her books are “cozies” or “hard-boiled.” As a reader, I find them neither, but with elements of both, making the books an original voice that I very much enjoyed. If you don’t have a question for Julia, maybe we can discuss labels — whether labels hurt or hinder an author, books that transcend labels, or books that are called one thing but are really something very different.