liars and cheaters and con men, oh my

by Toni

She made the dumb mistake of trying to steal it all right before Christmas. Three weeks before, to be exact, and if she’d picked any other month, I probably wouldn’t have caught on quite as quickly.

She didn’t come in a villain package. She was 26, married with two kids, and when you met her, there were a few things you noticed right away: she had some sort of defect with one eye (it didn’t track with the other) and then inside of a couple of seconds, you quit noticing because of her smile and warmth and vivaciousness. She was pretty. Not gorgeous, not beautiful, but pretty, and she made you comfortable.

I needed someone capable in the office, someone versatile, so I could finally have time to write.

I interviewed a lot of people for that position–accounting / clerical –and there were several very good candidates, so if the top two choices had fallen through, there were others. She had a personality that caught my attention and there was an easy-going charm about her that I knew would give her an edge on the phone. Still, had it not been for her stellar references, there might have been a toss-up between her and the next candidate, a young man who probably had a little more experience, but who interviewed with the personality of a stick of wood.

His references barely remembered him, so they couldn’t really vouch for him. Her references raved. The references were from very large corporations; I’d looked up the numbers myself instead of relying on the ones on her resumé, called directly, went through the phone system and the secretaries, so I knew the people I spoke to were legitimately employed at the companies in question.

They could not say enough good things about her.

So why wasn’t she still working for them? I’d ask, and was told that it was an unfortunate matter of their company having completed a big project and then laying off extra employees, last one hired, first one fired. She had the unlucky misfortune to be late to the game. This was typical in the area–there had been a lot of construction surges and downturns in the previous five years, so I understood how that could happen. I understood how a young mom could be trying to build a career only to have it sidetracked, and with the economy the way it was, have a hard time finding a stable place. Each reference stated they’d hire her back if given a choice.

I would find out later that those references were relatives or, in one case, a friend of hers.

It’s hard to prove fraud for a telephone reference, especially when it didn’t occur to you to record it.

The insurance background check was the last hurdle, and she was clear. She went to work for us some time in October. We had a new accounting software package, but since it was new to us, we also did one other thing: we made her manually track what she did for the day. We were a small company–tiny, actually, so this wasn’t abnormally difficult.

This was pre-online banking. This was get-a-statement-once-a-month times, and if you wanted your bank balance, you had to call and talk to an officer of the bank because the tellers wouldn’t tell you over the phone.

She made me laugh. Daily. I enjoyed her company, and really liked her. We had a lot in common. She was one of those rare people I didn’t mind being around every day, and I’m fairly grouchy and introverted and would just as soon be a hermit most of the time, so this was a major feat. Three weeks before Christmas, she came into the office in tears. She’d just discovered she was pregnant for her third child. She couldn’t afford to lose her job, and didn’t want us to think she’d misled us. We told her not to worry–she had already won over some of our crustiest clients and she worked hard, was very efficient, and we figured we’d find a way to work something out. We couldn’t offer her maternity leave, but when it was time for the baby, I could hold down the fort for a while ’til she could come back. She was elated.

I think she cashed the first forged check that day.

She came in for the rest of that week and everything seemed perfectly normal. We talked about what we were going to get for our kids for Christmas. Our Christmas was going to be relatively small that year because we were climbing out of a construction slump and we were just that month starting to have a real turn-around. We didn’t want to over-do it or be too optimistic, and there were a lot of reasons not to be. We hadn’t even done the first bit of Christmas shopping yet, but that was okay because that year was going to be the first in a couple of years that we were going to be able to shop a little ahead of time instead of just a day or two before. I didn’t explain that to her–almost everyone here in this state had been through some tough times. Just being able to afford to hire her had been a victory; we’d seen companies two or three times our size go belly up the previous few years and we’d managed to survive.

She told me the things she’d been able to buy her kids. It was going to be one of their best Christmases, she said, because she finally had a good job.

We’d not only survived, we’d managed to grow, and now, here was a young family, benefiting.

She’d cashed several more forged checks by that Friday.

She started missing work the first couple of days the next week. Morning sickness. I understood that, and she was great about calling in.

I went to make a bank transfer, and there was no money in the accounts. None.

I double-checked the accounting program, and there was money according to the balance showing on the computer, but somewhere, there had been a mistake. Thousands of dollars of a mistake, and my honest first assumption was that we’d written a check we’d forgotten about and hadn’t remembered to tell her, or else we’d input a deposit twice. I then compared the computer register against the manual one, and the balances were the same.

But some of the entries were vastly different.

Which didn’t make sense. The room grew icy cold, my hands felt numb and there was a chill up my spine. It was a surreal out-of-body moment where I could not believe what I was seeing. I was almost certain I was making a mistake, that there was a logical explanation for this, and it had to be somewhere in that data. Because it could not have been purposeful. The numbers on the ledger grew large and bold as the world around it grew fuzzy and I thought you’re making it up. You’re just making it up because somewhere you screwed up and you’re just wishing for a better excuse. Right? I couldn’t possibly have been that naïve.

I went to the bank the next day and had a copy of all of the checks pulled. The bank was quick to help, and by that afternoon, I had copies of everything that had cleared to that date. I normally wouldn’t have seen these checks for another two weeks, when the bank statement came in.

Multiple checks had been made out either to cash or to her or to people we didn’t know. The signatures had been forged; she’d endorsed the back. When I compared these to the checks on the computer, I discovered a flaw in that program (which ended up being the demise of that program, nationally). A check could be written, printed and then voided and never show up as having ever been written.

By going through the blank checks in the office, I realized there was one more check out. It would turn out to be a very large one, which coincidentally matched the amount of the very large check we were expecting. I put a hold on the account.

Two days before Christmas.

The police issued a warrant for her arrest. She called in sick again that day. Then she said she didn’t think she’d be able to come back to work for us because the morning sickness had gotten so bad, and she knew it wasn’t fair to us to not work for another month. She’d understand that we would need to replace her. We confronted her over the phone with the facts; explained that there was a warrant for her arrest. Explained that she had one shot at not being arrested for Christmas, and that was to turn herself in. We’d work with her through a first-offenders program, and this was strictly because she had kids. She’d have to plead guilty, but she’d get to stay out of jail and repay while she was on probation and, once she’d paid everything and if she stayed clean for a year, her record would be expunged. She agreed.

She failed to show up the next day.

The police don’t care if someone’s having Christmas, by the way, if they’ve stolen thousands of dollars. In fact, it often makes the criminal a wee bit easier to find.

There were witnesses, handwriting proofs, and evidence galore. When the police arrested her, her car was packed with luggage–she was moving to Arizona, to live with a sister.

Later, I would see a photo of evidence of all sorts of new toys and electronics they’d found at her house.

We really didn’t have much of a Christmas that year; wouldn’t have had any, had it not been for family who stepped in and helped. My kids were 8 and 4.

I was 28.

Crime wasn’t new to me. I’d had enough of it in my life at that point, and was aware enough of the world to realize it was common. But it was the first time I’d experienced a targeted, systematic con aimed directly at me. It was the first time my judgment had completely failed. Everyone who’d met her was stunned, but that didn’t help assuage the fear that if I could so completely misperceive something of that magnitude, how the hell could I trust what I believed about anyone else?

The financial damage she did lasted a very long time. The economy here was about to take another downturn and we’d struggle. But what she took from me was more valuable than money: faith. Faith in my own judgment, a willingness to trust. Eventually, I’d realize I didn’t want to let the actions of one person poison my perceptions of everyone else I met, and I’d find a balance, but it would take a long time. It would take even longer to forget.

This past Christmas was the first Christmas day I didn’t think about her. Not even once. And I didn’t realize it until a month later.

17 years.

What she gave me, though, turned out to be more valuable than what she took.

She didn’t come in a villain package.

~*~

I write about crime and try to find the absurd and a way to deal with it while showing its repercussions. I think reading about an interesting villain failing to succeed will always hold a certain lure. So what draws you to crime fiction?

~*~

If you’re anywhere near Denver from Thursday through Sunday, come on out to Left Coast Crime. A ton of us will be there and we’d love to see you.

How do you teach writing? (Part 2)

by Alex

To start off my PRICE tour I did the Southern California Writers’ Conference in San Diego last week. The conference is run by a WGA friend of mine, the irrepressible writer/director, Michael Steven Gregory, and his perfect straight man, Wes Albers, a writer/cop and the best of both professions. I love this conference because it feels like home, of course, but especially because of the unique dynamic between the instructors and attendees. The conference is made up primarily of workshops rather than panels and so attending authors end up doing a lot of teaching and also one-on-one sessions, and the whole atmosphere of the conference is so casual and friendly that I think students can get a lot of in-depth attention just by asking for it.

In prepping for my workshops and doing the actual teaching I realized that I have no idea how to teach people HOW to write. That is, if someone can’t put together a descriptive sentence, or a dramatic paragraph, I am not the person who is going to be able to help them with that. I can tell you how to make an existing sentence more effective and I can tell you what paragraphs you need to expand on to bring out the full potential of the situation, but I can’t tell you how to start from scratch. Honestly I think that skill starts extremely early – like, with third grade journaling. Storytellers are writing down stories from practically the time they can write (but that’s my theory – would love to hear what people have to say about late starters.).

I also have to admit that I hate with a singular passion the kinds of writing exercises in which an instructor gives you a situation, or a set of characters and you have to put together a story from those elements. I’m perfectly capable of coming up with my own elements, thanks very much.

But I am finding I am useful in explaining to people how to tell a story.

The classes I taught were “Creating Unbearable Suspense” and two sessions of “Screenwriting Tips and Tricks for Novelists (and Screenwriters)”. I’ve picked up a lot of structure tricks over the years and I’ve managed to distill them into a form that was translating amazingly well to the three classes of students I had last week. And one thing I found that worked really well was that I asked the students to give me examples of books and movies in their particular genres, so we were dealing with a set of examples that I knew would resonate with the classes. It’s a fun way to teach because you end up expanding your own repertoire and learning something (imagine that!)

Another huge perk of teaching is that in going over al these classic examples of great storytelling you remember why you wanted to write in the first place, which I admit I sometimes forget. Someone paid me the supreme compliment – he’d been ready to move on from his first novel and just send it around as is because he thought he’d taken it as far as he could go – and then after my class he said he was excited about diving in to the rewrite and taking it to a deeper level. That was especially nice for me to hear because I need to do exactly the same thing with my own book and all the back and forth with the classes jazzed me about doing it.

I like using examples of both films and books because the entire class is more likely to have seen the same movies and actually remember them than books. And the examples I find myself using over and over again are SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (which should surprise to no one), JAWS, STAR WARS, THE WIZARD OF OZ, HAMLET, THE SHINING and PET SEMATERY. I love these stories because they are pretty much perfect examples of construction, and some other techniques that I love to teach. OZ and STAR WARS are particularly good for demonstrating how the hero’s journey plot works; JAWS is a great example to kick start a discussion of high concept premises and obligatory scenes, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is a stunning example of using fairy tale archetypes and motifs to make your story resonate (RED DRAGON is great for this as well); THE SHINING and PET SEMATERY are wonderful for demonstrating the power of fate, inevitability and the hero’s ghost; HAMLET and OZ and SILENCE and STAR WARS are fantastic for subplots and supporting characters.

I picked up some great new examples from my classes, too – BLACK FRIDAY for a knockout premise (terrorists plan an attack on the Superbowl – genius), and WITNESS for a brilliant exploration of theme, especially in the climax.

So since I’m in the mode, what I’m wondering today is – for those of us who teach, what do you think you teach well, and not so well? For example, I know RGB teaches a great seminar on character, which I’m not sure I would know how to do – would love to see him break it down for us on Murderati sometime.

And when you teach, or even just when you go off on a rant about great books and films – which are the examples that come up over and over for you, and why?

I’m really interested in hearing what stories are touchstones for our Rati readers and writers.

It’s CRAP, I tell you!

by J.T. Ellison

I was watching Richard Roper on Jay Leno the other night. The teaser before the segment’s commercial break was, "When we return, we’ll talk about the worst movies of the year." They came back and had a very interesting discussion about bad movies. Leno asked if there are times when the director knows the movie is going south during filming and moves forward anyway, or do they truly believe that they are making a great movie.

Roper replied, "Well, no one sets out to make a bad movie."

Of course they don’t. No one in their right mind wants to produce crap, be it a movie, television show, or even a book. We’ve all read a book or two that’s a complete stinker. I’ve had a few moments when I look back to see who the editor is, who the house is, and find brand names in the acknowledgments. How does that happen???

Yes, criticism is subjective at best. What I love, another will hate, and vice versa. And it is sooooo easy to read a book, or watch a film, and say man, that sucked. But can we explain why? And if it’s so terrible, how did it make it into our hands and onto our screens???

I need to limit this to discussing books, because I’m hopelessly lost when it comes to movie production. I’d love it if a few of our movie folks would chime in from that side of the fence.

As authors, we strive to make each book better than our last. We struggle and soar, we research and express, we do everything in our power to give good quality entertainment to our readers. Sometimes we have a deeper message. Sometimes there’s a lesson to be learned. Sometimes, it’s just plain escapist fiction, fun for the writer to write and the reader to read.

So how do we produce clunkers? Because I have to tell you, there isn’t an author on the planet who hasn’t written a book they believe in, given it to their editor, who is enthusiastic, gone through the process of being sold-in to booksellers, who are also enthusiastic, then gotten slammed with a crappy review. Does that mean a book is bad? No. A review is a review is a review. Nothing more, nothing less.

What about the books that get brilliant reviews, but the readers hate? What causes the disparity in opinion?

And how does a book that everyone, and I mean everyone, agrees is terrible, make it through the process? The books only a mother could love. How does the editor let it through? How does the publisher get behind it? How does it make it into stores???

Again, no one sets out to write a bad book. No one sets out to produce a terrible movie. But they do exist. So where’s the quality control? Where are the editors and publishers and agents who need to red light the process, send the book back to the author and say, "You need to rewrite this puppy."

I can understand how much more difficult that might be in a movie. Our Toni is producing an indie film right now, and she shared some of her duties with me. I was flabbergasted. Imagine that on a George Lucas scale, with millions upon millions of dollars invested into a film. Have you even really read the credits at the end of a movie? Thousands of people are involved. Scrapping it to start over isn’t exactly feasible.

But if a novel isn’t up to snuff, what can we do? We’re one person, working with one editor, one agent, etc. There aren’t a million people on the payroll. Why can’t we full stop and start over?

As strange as it may seem, authors are people. Which means that they are experiencing this little thing called life, which has a tendency to get in the way. Say, God forbid, a loved-one passes away mid-way through a book. Is that novel going to be the author’s best effort? Maybe, maybe not. But can you insert a disclaimer in the preface and apologize to the reader? Or should the book be pulled from the queue and the author given a pass until they feel ready to produce again?

I’m speculating here, and I’m curious about your opinion. How do the bad books/movies make into the hands of the consumer? Do we do ourselves a disservice by not having a system of checks and balances to make sure that bad work doesn’t make it out there? Does it matter???

Wine of the Week: Tenuta dell’Ornellaia Bolgheri Superiore Ornellaia 2004

 

 

Walking in L.A.

There’s a lost art out here in the west. It’s still alive in many other areas of the country (and world for that matter) but here in California, more specifically Los Angeles, it’s a rare thing. What am I talking about?

Walking.

I love to walk. I’ve been a walker since I was a little kid. My parents tell me that my paternal grandfather used to love when we would come for a visit because he knew he could go on long walks with me around the neighborhood near their snowbird home in Yuma, Arizona. My grandfather was a farmer from northern Minnesota, so I’m sure walking wasn’t just a hobby with him, but something he did every day when he was actively working the fields.

Me, I have no excuse. Like I said, I started young, so no profession could account for my preference to walk than to drive. I just always loved to do it. And unlike most other kids that didn’t mind walking, I’ve never grown out of the phase.

How does this related to writing? In two ways, actually.

The first speaks directly to the desire to succeed at my craft. And by succeed, I mean become published. I’ve written before about my dedication to specific hours to write. Part of what made that possible was the fact that I purposely chose places to live that were close enough for me to walk to my day job. Now, for someone who loves to walk, that could have meant somewhere within a half hour to forty-five minute walking radius, but to achieve maximum writing time, minimum stress transit time, and not arriving at work in need of a shower, my first place was about fifteen minutes from my office. Later I moved even closer…now it’s ten minutes from living room to office desk.

What’s so big about that? You’re probably thinking. You can understand the living close to work to give you more time to write, and eliminating the mind-numbing chaos that is L.A. traffic. Why wouldn’t someone do that walk?

See, you have to know something about the L.A. culture. I had friends at work that lived even closer to the office than I did, and they DROVE EVERY DAY. Crazy, I know…irresponsible even…don’t think I didn’t bring that up to them, multiple times.

But that sad statement on L.A. society aside, walking gave me the time to write the book that finally got published.

The second way walking helps my writing is that it’s a great way to think about things. I’ll often go on a long walk as I try to work out some problem. I’m strolling the streets of the city, often the only one on the sidewalk, and working out the best way to throw Quinn deeper into whatever his latest mess is. I love doing that. Thought, admittedly, I often get distracted by the things I see around me. Billboards or items in store windows or people in cars will send me thinking about something else entirely. Suddenly ten minutes will pass and I’ll realize I hadn’t been thinking about my manuscript at all. That’s the price you pay, I guess. I still love it.

Often on these walks, whether it be to the day job, to work out a story point, or to the store, I’ll see something or think of something that triggers an idea for a new story. Some times so many ideas that I can’t remember them when I get home. (I know, I know. I should carry a notebook with me. Never can seem to remember to do that.)

I have a daydream of walking up the coast of California. Just lacing up the boots, throwing some water and snacks in a small backpack, and just going. Sure, it would be crazy. I’d need a little more planning than that. But who knows? Maybe someday I’ll wake up and say to myself, “Why not?” Then I’ll head out the door and see how far I can get. I’ll bet I could write a whole novel on a trip like that.

Again, the trick will be remembering it.

What do you do to kick start your ideas? (And Rob, I don’t want to hear any more stories about long showers or car drives…) And more importantly…walker, driver or passenger?

A COUPLE OF NOTES:

1. If you are still reading this on the last Thursday in February, and it’s not passed 6 p.m. Pacific Time, you still have a chance to enter my sweepstakes for an advance copy of my next novel THE DECEIVED. Info Here.
2. THE CLEANER gets its UK & Ireland release next Thursday March 6th. It’s a mass paperback so perfect for carrying around and reading when you have a moment or two of downtime!

Brett

Dirty Lives and Times

I recently finished
a book called "I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon."
It’s a collection of reminiscences, a sort of oral history, by the people who knew him: his kids, his
writing and playing partners, his friends, quite a few ex-girlfriends, etc. 

Now, I’ve been a Zevon fan since his self-titled album came
out in 1976. I’m one of the few people I know who actually owns a copy of  Transverse City.  The man’s music has had a
major effect on me and, I think, on my writing.

But in reading this book, I can
only come to one conclusion: the guy was a raging asshole,

I’m not talking "lovable scamp" here. I’m talking
about mean, selfish, manipulative, egomaniacal, emotionally and on occasion
physically abusive, and a pretty horrible dad to his
kids, at least when they were little.  

To be fair, Zevon did
improve some once he quit drinking. The book also details moments of great
tenderness and generosity on his part. And I give him all due respect for telling Crystal Zevon. his
ex-wife and mother of his kids, to write the book and to tell it all, even the
bad stuff. But on the whole, while reading the book, I just kept thinking “this
was a guy who really needed his ass kicked, perhaps more than once.”

And yet… 

The guy was also a freakin’ genius. If all you’ve heard of Warren Zevon is
his novelty hit “Werewolves of London,” you really ought to check out  the
three albums that kicked off his career (Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy, and Bad Luck Streak in Dancing
School
) as well as his last three (Life’ll Kill Ya, My Ride’s Here, and the
phenomenal The Wind, recorded in the last year of his life.) There are plenty of over the top gonzo anthems, like
“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” “Excitable
Boy,” or “Basket Case” (written with Carl Hiassen): 

My baby’s gonna
celebrate

I’m being dragged
through the nuthouse gates

Got my straitjacket on
and I’m taking her place

My baby is a basket
case
 

But Zevon could also
write songs that could only be described as brutally compassionate. like his noir take on Marilyn Monroe, “The
French Inhaler”: 

Loneliness and
frustration

We both came down with
an acute case

When the lights came
up at 2:00

I caught a glimpse of
you

And your face looked
like something Death brought in in his suitcase

Your pretty face

Looked so wasted,

Another pretty face

Devastated… 

(Makes “Candle in the Wind” look kind of candy-ass, doesn’t
it?) 

Nothing I’ve read about Warren Zevon can detract from my
love for his music (well, most of it. The aforementioned Transverse City is just a mess). But the book got me thinking about how many great artists were,
to say the least,  very hard on the
people around them. Jackson Pollock springs immediately to mind, as does Jerry Lee Lewis. And there are some people I
know for whom finding out the sordid details of an artist’s personal life
detracts from their enjoyment of that artist’s work.  I actually once heard a person I’d already regarded as pretty literate say she hadn’t read Fitzgerald because "why would I read some drunk?"

How about you, ‘Rati? Has your perception of an artist’s work ever been affected by your knowledge that he or she was a world-class asshole? What is
the connection, if any, between being a great artist and a terrible person?

And, if I was a bigger jerk, could I sell more books? Because I could be, you know (and yes, I know I’m leaving myself
wide open here; take your best shots).

 

She Glides Along … the Solitary Hearted


By Ken Bruen

Dusty, on his blog, wrote an amazing piece on depression and it always takes cojones to write of such. I’ve suffered from clinical depression all me life and when I finally got diagnosed, I tried the medical route and it didn’t suit me. Now, when it hits, I bury meself in work and try … Jesus, do I try, not to let it affect those I love.

Depression is still unacceptable here, you tell someone you have it, they go

“You need a hobby to take your mind off yourself!”

Maybe fooking knitting, you think.

I can certainly knit me brows.

One bright spark, a life coach, told me and I quote

To “get a grip on meself!”

Through gritted teeth, I asked him

“Which bit of me should I grab?”

As a child, I learned to turn anger inwards, the classic cause of depression, recently, I’ve tried to do the opposite and not that I’m now a latent fuse but I reply faster and more openly to abuse.

You call me out, I’ll reply.

Dusty raises another oft discussed topic, if you had the choice, would you be happy and not write or … unhappy and writing.

No contest for me.

Writing is what keeps me going.

When I was asked recently, are you a very dark person? … I told the truth, always a no brainer, I said

“I write dark, I try to live in the light.”

My Rabbi, David Wolpe, in Floating Takes Faith writes

“Sometimes a mitzvah is seeing for yourself and coaxing a smile from the darkness.”

I ran that line by the grumpy priest I know and he sighed, his eyes expressing

“God almighty, here he goes again.”

He said

“Be more in your line to follow the faith you were raised in.”

But I knew he wouldn’t leave it alone and sure enough, later in the day, I was watching Boston Legal and he phoned, said

“I’ve been thinking about those Zen things you read and I’m now convinced, you’re a holy terror.”

I was delighted.

You get the clergy to actually come back at you, you’ve certainly got their attention and he finished with

“I can only hope it’s not true that the new book of yours isn’t, as I hear, taking a shot at nuns?”

I said

“Nuns, why would I do that?”

He said he’d pray for me.

The title of today’s  blog comes from the poem ‘She was a Queen’ by Hartley Coleridge and has as a second line, “a smile of hers was like an act of grace.”

Few moments as shining as when you see a person’s face light up in pure delight.

The Hilary/Obama duel gets huge press coverage here and yes, we have found an Irish ancestor for Obama, as we did for Reagan and, whisper it, Nixon.

Last week, I was at a function for Down syndrome and it ran late, I was walking home along the canal and a guy was calling a girl every obscenity under the sun. Plus, he had a grip of her hair and not gently. I’ve sworn so many times to mind me own business but his language was beyond belief so I said

“Could you ease up on the language?”

He let her hair go and she faced me,  called me every kind of bad bastard under the Galway sky and, bottom line, to go fook meself.

I wondered if that was in the neighborhood of  “Get a grip on yourself?”

I don’t see her having that smile of grace but maybe I caught her on a bad night.

When I got home and was making some soup, I realized me hands were shaking, doing a veritable full on jig.

The line in me head

She walks in darkness.

It’s been that kind of week, full of twists and turns, it started with the revelation that Gerry Adams driver was a double agent, followed by the announcement that for the coming student Rag week, they were handing out 65,000 condoms and I can’t wait to hear what me priest has to say about that.

Me doorbell went early on Valentine’s Day and no, not a bunch of heart scented cards, god forbid, but a package of books I’d been waiting on. The postman,  I’ve known for longer than I care to admit, gasped

“Jaysus, what happened to yer hair”

I said it was a buzz cut and thinking, I haven’t even had me coffee and I’m explaining me hair?  … or lack of. He said

“It’s fooking brutal is wot it is.”

But the ones who know you, they lash you and then try to leave you with a little something, if not uplifting, at least less harsh, he said

“You look fooking dangerous, you know that.”

Try telling that to the girl on the canal.

I get me coffee, tell meself

“Two months to Noir Con, plenty of time to have the hair grow back.”

I open the package and the day brightens considerably

Among the gems

Gutted … by Tony Black

The Cold Spot … the Picc himself

Damnation Falls … Ed Wright

And Will Thomas

Few authors quoted as often as Mark Twain but I can’t help but think of him and

Good friends

Good books

And a

Sleepy conscience

This is

The ideal life.

I’d trade a lot for that sleepy conscience

As I sit before the blank screen, I read a quote I’ve put aside for a chapter heading

… above the roar of the wind, Hector hollers,

“If we survive this, bud — if you take those cocksuckers out — well, then I’ve got a hankering to head into the high country.”

If I could only quite figure out where the high country for me is?

If I could take on board what my friend Lou Boxer says

“To let go

No seeking, no striving

No stewing

In my own juice”

I receive a query as to where is the best place to start with Louis MacNeice and ‘Autumn Journal’ remains as fine as ever and you have to love a writer who described his own race as receiving from their country

… neither sense nor money

Who slouch around the world

With a gesture and a brogue

And a faggot of useless memories.

Lest all of the above tends more to the dark than the light, I remind meself of the following:

“Why have you come my son?”

Pause

Then

“To seek truth

To ask salvation

But mainly … to have a good laugh.”

KB

How did I get here?

by Pari

A friend of mine is going to turn 60 in April. I asked her how she felt about that and she said, "Pari, I’ve survived ovarian cancer for seven years now. I’m just glad I’ve made it this far."

But I’m feeling like David Byrne right now. You know the song, Once in a lifetime, with its famous question (it’s the title of this post).

And then there’s the cartoon on p. 52 of The New Yorker today. The one with the mayfly looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, despair writ large on his little face. He says, "I’ve got a wife, kids, a career — Jesus! I’m twelve hours old! How did this happen to me?"

Boy, can I relate. For the last few months, I’ve been staring mortality in the face. She’s got too many wrinkles, a hairy wart on her left cheek, and a wicked grin.

Yeah, sure, we never really know when we’re gong to die (unless we take it into our own hands). Still most of us avoid looking into that mirror unless we’re forced.

Enter birthdays that end in 0 . . .

When I turned 40, I could double the number of years I’d lived and imagine that an equal number awaited me. Or more! (Even though genetics aren’t in my favor in that regard . . . )

This week, in spite of the power of positive thinking, the math doesn’t work as nicely. When I face my age head-on, I get this lowdown, nasty, cramp-the-gut feeling. Damnit! I’m not gonna be here forever.

Enter distractions . . .

The day after tomorrow, I start a two-week period where I’ll be on the road 80% of the time. San Francisco, here I come! Denver, you’re looking mighty fine!

But a person can’t run forever; this birthday feels critical.

I want to take advantage of it, to live more intentionally.

What’s important? What isn’t?

I’m becoming lighter somehow, more willing to shed those activities, thoughts, goals, definitions and people that don’t deserve the mental/emotional real estate they’ve occupied in the past.

I’m redefining "success." Not "settling for less," but looking at the real value — at least for me, in my life. Fan letters suddenly mean more than reviews; there’s incredible satisfaction in knowing I’ve created a satisfying read.

I’m not as desperate to go traipsing around the country for every potential promotional opportunity; real relationships are the goal now. The old quality vs quantity question is a no-brainer.

I’m writing more than I ever have before, taking risks . . .

Who knows where any of our lives are heading? With this birthday, I’m finally old enough to realize that I don’t.

And, because of that, I’m paying more attention to today, to every day.

_____________________________________________________________________

Next Monday, Steve Brewer will be guest blogging here at Murderati. He’s got a great post and I hope all y’all will make him feel welcome. 

Shane Gericke guest blogs today…

Toni here… I’m finishing up page proofs, so please welcome fantastic writer and guest blogger today, Shane Gericke!

Ideas

By Shane Gericke

 

Ever wonder how us writers come up with ideas?

It’s simple. We don’t sleep.

Well, I don’t, anyway. At least I didn’t Friday.

So grab your coffee, sit back, and relax as I spin this tale
of woe-becomes-redemption. If you yawn a bit, that’s fine. Believe me, I
understand.

I wrote book chapters till one a.m., then went to bed.

Couldn’t sleep.

Two a.m.

Couldn’t sleep.

Three a.m. Four a.m.

Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep.

“^%&%#$$#,” I mumbled. With a “*%^%” for good measure.

Not wanting to stare at the ceiling any more, I swung my
legs over the side of the bed, knees crackling like bacon in an iron skillet.

“What are you doing?” my wife said, stirring.

“I can’t sleep. I think I’ll go to the gym.”

Now?” She, of
course, works out after work, when the sun is out. “What time is it?”

I peered at the alarm clock, which was not my friend this
night. “Uh, four thirty.”

She touched my arm. “It’s too early. Come back to bed, hon.”

“Can’t.”

“Please?”

“Darling, I wish I could. But I’m wide awake and don’t want
to lay here any more.”

“Maybe if you just lay down and close your eyes …”

Note to singles: when you’re married thirty years, this
counts as hot monkey love.

Separate note to you Murderati Power Readers who are chortling
at me, because you’ve been up since four with work commitments, family, exercise,
and life in general, and you do it every day, and you’ve done that as long as
you can remember: Be gentle with me. The only pitch-black skies I ever see in
the morning are from thunderstorms.

“Nah,” I decided. “I’m gonna go to the gym.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” she pointed out. “Are you
sure it’s open?

“Twenty four hours a day,” I said, with pride of ownership
that certainly wasn’t earned. In all the years I’ve hit the gym—well, in
actuality, a suburban health club with a mauve and black motif and
whiny-white-guy music videos in the locker rooms and signs that say, “No
Grunting” in the same mauve and black– I’d never arrived before dawn. I was
looking forward to it. This was going to be Shaney’s Big Adventure.

OK, so it’s not cave exploration in Borneo or saving
children in Africa. Sue me.

The first thing I noticed when I walked onto my driveway was
the quiet. I live in Naperville, a Chicago suburb of 150,000.
It’s a real city, and when I normally rise and shine, nine-ish, things have
been hopping for hours. But this was … different. No horns. No whooshing cars.
No garbage trucks. Nothing but breeze and streetlamps.

Nice.

I drove as quietly as I could to the health club—er, gym. It’s
twenty degrees out, but I rolled the window down, to better drink in the quiet.
My favorite breakfast haunt wasn’t open. Most of the places I go weren’t open.
The car dealers weren’t out grabbing shoulders and yakkin’ it up. I got to the
gym in record time. No traffic.

Forty souls were inside the well-lit barn, burning shoe
rubber on the treadmills and starting at the overhead TVs as if hypnotized. I
took a look. One showed dead soldiers in Iraq. The one right next to it proclaimed:
“Hepatitis horror!” Then, in smaller type right underneath: “Celebrities at
risk!”

My God, celebrities at risk. I couldn’t stomach that. So I
headed for the weights, smiling at all the treadmill people as I departed. They
didn’t smile back.

Too early for that, too, I guess.

I did my entire weight circuit, then did it again just ’cause
I could. Amazing how much you can get done in those four extra hours. I didn’t even
set off the siren—which they so graciously call the “Lunk Alarm,” as in only a
lunk would grunt and sweat and swear when the weight defeats them. That made me
happy. If I didn’t scare the natives, maybe they’d smile at me next time. I finished
the workout, hit the locker room, headed for the car.

Stopped dead in the still-perfect quiet.

I was in the middle of a big asphalt parking lot. The lot
was scraped clean of the recent heavy snow and ice. It seemed to go on forever,
a sea of blackness and little white stripes. The sodium vapor lights—think
“maximum security prison”—lit the asphalt into a million tiny diamonds.

No, wait, not diamonds. Something smaller. Finer. More
majestic.

Fairy dust.

I was mesmerized. I had no idea asphalt glittered like a
treasure chest, not from what was on top of it, but what was in it. Did you? It was like Tinkerbell backed
up the endloader and spread the fairy dust by the ton. It reminded me of the
stars in the sky, but reversed, like a photo negative, in the days when there
were photo negatives.

I finally got too cold and started the car.

On the way home, my favorite restaurant was open. Traffic
was getting heavy. The honking had started. The trucks were hissing. The noise
was back.

I came home, kissed my wife, went back to sleep.

Well, almost. This is where the “how writers get their ideas”
part comes in.

I’d just about hit dreamland when my eyes sprung open. The “aha”
moment had arrived, and I needed to write it before it disappeared. I rolled
out of bed, knees cracking like strings of little firecrackers, and hustled to
the keyboard. Started pounding the keys, the idea mushrooming with each heavy
hit.

I’m writing the third book in my Emily Thompson crime
thriller series. Emily is a police detective here in Naperville. She’s smart, pretty, tenacious,
passionate, and adores her friends. She fights crooks with gusto, has fended
off not one but two serial killers, has fallen deeply in love with the first
man to attract her since her husband was murdered, and at age forty three, is
rediscovering how much joy there in life.

For the past couple days, I’ve needed to get Emily from A to
B: from her house to the home of her best friend, Annie Bates, a Naperville
Police commander. The visit kicks off a fireball of excitement and drams, but I
just couldn’t think of how to get Emily there in the first place. She drives a
maroon Accord. I suppose I could have her drive there. Maybe take a squad car,
jazz things up a bit. But cars are, ultimately, boring. This is a thriller, and
thus supposed to thrill. What to do, what to do? How do I make mere transportation
a song about the characters? It was
driving me nuts.

Till now.

The sparkly asphalt.

Emily would walk. Miles and miles, alone with her thoughts.
Passing house after darkened house at four thirty in the morning, wondering
about the people inside. Did they have children? Were they happy? Are they
criminals or honest johns? Did their house burn to the ground like hers did, at
the hands of a madman? She shortcuts through a car dealership, looking at models
here and there, free of the hassle of salespeople. She strolls across an
oak-filled park, crunching grass. And when she’s halfway across the supermarket
parking lot that separates Annie’s subdivision from the rest of Naperville…

She stops in her tracks, astonished at the millions of twinkly
winks from the inky sea. She’d never noticed them before, because when you’re a
cop, midnight patrol is just as busy as daytime. But because she couldn’t
sleep, because she got herself out of bed, because she went for that long, long
walk with just her and her thoughts, she discovers a wondrous something that
she’ll never forget.

A wondrous something that later saves her life.

Remind me to thank Mr. Sandman for not coming around last
night. I know Emily will.

So tell us… where’d one of your unusual ideas come from? What sparked that creative moment for you?

 

– – –

 

 

National
bestselling author Shane Gericke spent 25 years as a journalist, most
prominently at the
Chicago Sun-Times, before plunging into crime thrillers.
His first,
BLOWN AWAY, appears in five languages and was named Romantic Times magazine’s debut mystery of
the year. His current, CUT TO THE BONE, also from Kensington Books, continues
the escapades of hard-charging police detective Emily Thompson, and he’s
hard at work on Number Three. Shane also writes for a variety of national
magazines, is a founding member of International Thriller Writers Inc., and is chairman of AgentFest and the charity auctions at ThrillerFest 2008 in New York City. Visit him at www.shanegericke.com

Blown_away

 

“Shane Gericke is the
real deal, and Cut to the Bone is an
A-grade thriller.”
—New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

 

“A frightening thrill ride, with beautifully drawn characters, sharply
observed detail, and exceptional writing. This is a damn fine book.”
—New York Times bestselling author
Douglas Preston

 

Cut to the Bone is one of those scary rides through criminality
that can melt away a fifteen-hour flight. The scenarios (trust me on this) will
haunt you for weeks.”
John J. Nance—New York Times bestselling author  John J Nance

“Shane Gericke writes with the clear eye
of hard-nosed
reporter and the sweet
soul of an artist. His power is visceral and unforgettable.”
Cut_to_the_bone
—New York Times bestselling author
Gayle Lynds

Shane Gericke“Cross James Patterson with Joseph
Wambaugh, and you get Shane Gericke.”

—Roy Huntington, American Cop
magazine

 

 

 

 

Meet Guest Blogger Theo Gangi

Hi all!

I’m traveling to the Palmetto State today to attend the South Carolina Book Festival. Lots of familiar names and faces to play with, including our darling Dusty, upcoming guest blogger Cara Black, and friends of Murderati Tasha Alexander, Marcus Sakey and Jim Born. Plus, I get to have a ridiculously cool fan girl moment — Harlan Coben is going to present on Sunday. Cross your fingers that I don’t make too big a fool of myself. If you’re attending, I can’t wait to meet you!!!

So in my spot today is a wonderful new author I’m sure you’ll enjoy. The story below shows some of the darkness we mystery writers mine for our work, and shows that hope can be found, if we look hard enough.

Give a warm Murderati welcome to ITW debut author Theo Gangi!

—————

The Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center wasn’t the first prison I’d been to. But it was the cleanest.Bangbang_2

I sat in the congenial waiting room beside snack and soda
machines, bright like a hospital. Amy the librarian came out of the heavy,
reinforced steel doors to greet me. She was blonde, down to earth and seemed
like she could laugh just about anything off. The first set of doors led to a
small hallway that led to another set of doors. I was reminded of the Eager
Street prison where I used to work in Baltimore—cameras everywhere, door after
door, and you had to wait for the first door to close before they’d open the
second. Amy could see the door operators through the transparent hallway and
she waved, smiling.

The main hallway was eerily quiet, aside from our shoes
clicking on the hard, white tiles. We passed doors to our right and left with
bars behind the small porthole windows. In Baltimore, the hallways reeked of
either filth or ammonia. This smelled pleasantly like nothing at all.

Amy brought me to the library first. It was a small room
with tables and chairs in the center, surrounded by books organized by theme.
Amy complained about the size if the room, the number of books. She walked me
through the stacks, explaining her rationale for each purchase, how she thought
they might connect to Richard Wright but didn’t, how they always went for the
street lit.

“They were really excited when they saw your book,” she told
me, that the four copies she had ordered were in the cells with the inmates.

I noticed she had two copies of The Great Gatsby. “Do they go for this?” I asked.

She shook her head. I ran my fingers over the two, uncreased
bindings of the books.

She brought me into the maximum-security hall. Cells
surrounded the massive mess area like cages around a Roman amphitheater. A
large, black corrections officer greeted me, asking the inmates in bright
orange milling around if they were coming into the classroom. “These are my max security kids,” the CO told
me. “Murderers and rapists.” The juxtaposition of the words ‘kids’ and
‘rapists’ startled me.

The classroom looked like any classroom— rows of desk chairs
facing a dry erase board. The CO called to the mess hall again and the room
filled up with over 30 orange shirts with young black and Latino faces. Four of
them had my book; tattered, worn copies that had been passed around. Their
chorus commenced:

“How I get
published?”

“How I stop
people stealin’ my work?”

“You know
Teri Woods?”

“She cool?”

“How much
you get paid?”

The CO yelled for them to calm down. I wondered what he
would do if they didn’t, but they settled. In the quiet they looked less like
children. Though their bodies slumped with young agitation, their faces
betrayed a life-weary cynicism that aged them. Many of them would go straight
to adult jail.

I read a passage about Izzy, my main character, and his
first encounter with violence as a nine-year-old boy. He witnesses a
convenience store robbery where the robber shoots several bystanders and the
clerk. He tries to shoot Izzy but the gun jams, so the murderer leaves,
confused.

The kids were sincerely quiet this time. I discussed how
Izzy was frozen by this event, how he grows up to be a 38-year-old ‘Stickup
kid.’ The story comes full circle, and Izzy finds himself committing a robbery,
his partner demanding Izzy kill an innocent bystander.

“In this book, Izzy is faced with a choice. The code of the
streets makes a demand of him, asks something of his humanity this time. He can
chose to reject that code. He can either be the man he has been or the man he
would like to be. That’s a choice we make every day—will we let the actions of
our past define our future?”

The old-young faces averted their eyes, tapped on their
desks and restlessly adjusted themselves. Two returned my gaze flush—a light
skinned black with a serious face and short dreads, and a skinny darker skinned
kid who still resembled a kid. I realized then that some of them had no choice
about their future. No matter what they would like to be, the actions of their
past had already fixed the road ahead.

I wondered if I was somehow insulting them by suggesting
they could change. Now that they were locked up, the behavior that got them
there would be needed to survive. Still, they were so young, I figured if I
could send any message at all, reform had to be it. Even if they couldn’t quite
get my words, the sound might seep through like music sung in a foreign
language.

The serious kid raised his hand. “You like first person or
third person?” he asked. “My book is both.”

I smiled. “It’s best to pick one and stick,” I told him.

“What’s the difference?” asked the kid kid.

And just like that I was having a conversation about
narrative, perspective and voice with five or six young, aspiring novelists.

“Who should
we read?” one asked.

I turned and wrote a list on the dry-erase board of the
untapped resources in their library, beginning with Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

We talked up until their
lunchtime. As I left through the mess hall and out of the belly of the
institution, I thought of the sheer endurance of the stories lived in the tiny,
hidden cells all around.

 Theo Gangi is a
novelist who’s first book, Bang Bang (Kensington) was released in November 2007. Hailed
by Mystery Scene Magazine as “The hip-hop Elmore Leonard,” his stories have
appeared in The Greensboro Review, The
Columbia Spectator
and The Kratz Center
Sampler.
His articles and reviews have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Crimespree Magazine, 3AM Magazine and Crucial Minutiae.com, where he has a
weekly column. The son of a prisoner’s rights advocate and graduate of Columbia
University’s MFA program, Mr. Gangi currently teaches writing at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. His second novel, Twist the Trees (Kensington) will be released in 2009.

Wine of the Week:  How about some suggestions from you this week??? What’s your favorite?