Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Dark Passages: The French Detection

My newest LA Times column looks at the Inspector Adamsberg novels by Fred Vargas, one of the best series of detective novels being published right now. They are delightfully odd books, but what's also odd - though less satisfactory - is the scattershot way they have been published in the US. Here's how the piece opens:

Lately, English-language publishers have developed an unfortunate habit with crime fiction in translation: Instead of starting at the very beginning of a series -- as Pantheon did in bringing out the 10-book "Story of Crime" opus by Swedes Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo in the proper sequence -- books appear out of order, in haphazard fashion.

Heads are still being scratched over why "The Man Who Smiled," the fourth outing of Henning Mankell's popular detective, Inspector Kurt Wallander, was the last to be published in America. Because Jo Nesbo's Norwegian sleuth, Harry Hole, first showed up on British soil with "The Devil's Star" -- book five in the series -- it spoiled important plot points in "The Redbreast" (book three) and "The Redeemer" (book four), published in subsequent years. And I can't help but wonder if Stieg Larsson had lived to complete all 10 books he allegedly envisioned for his series characters Lisabeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" would have been published in English long after some mythical fifth or sixth volume took the entire world by storm.

Publishers choose the nonlinear approach for all sorts of reasons, such as commercial viability and what book in a series may grab reader attention best, so they will seek out earlier installments. "Jar City," for example, was a smart choice to introduce Iceland's undisputed crime-writing star Arnaldur Indridason because it was a major step forward, creatively and sales-wise, from the first two books featuring Inspector Erlendur (which remain untranslated). But readers who want to commit wholesale to a new series character and follow him or her through all manner of delightful and dangerous adventures are understandably frustrated at the disregard for series order....

Read on for the rest, including my thoughts on the "newest" Vargas novel just out here - THE CHALK CIRCLE MAN, which actually introduces Adamsberg for the first time and was published in France way back in 1996.

Don't Expect a Fourth Book from Stieg Larsson

Publishers Lunch today reported on the ongoing dispute between Stieg Larsson's heirs - father Erland, and brother Joakim - and Larsson's longtime partner Eva Gabriellson, who was shut out of receiving any royalties from the Millenium trilogy because Swedish law did not recognize common-law partnerships. There's a lot of stuff to glean, which I'll quote later, but the bottom line, for now, is that the 200 or so pages of the fourth book in the series, left unfinished by Larsson's death in 2004, won't ever see the light of day, as Joakim Larsson told PL "we have an agreement not to publish" those pages.  Eva Gedin, fiction publisher at Norstedts--which bought world rights to the first three books directly from the author--further confirmed her understanding that the Larssons and Gabrielsson "mutually decided that a fourth novel will not be published."

PL started looking into it "after being alerted by members of the international publishing community that the Times article and other similar pieces were completely disconnected from their knowledge of the situation." Specifically, Gedin said: "we have had a very good cooperation and discussions with Erland and Joakim Larsson during the years. And from my point of view it seems that the allegations that Stieg did not ever have any contact with this part of the family (father and brother) seems wrong. But it is of course just a very sad thing that this matter hasn't been solved during the years since Stieg died."

But here's an interesting wrinkle:

In one sign of potential cooperation, Joakim says that "we have a little project going on together," in which they hope to license a theater company in Copenhagen to produce a play based on Larsson's work. "Eva will take care of everything in the management of the theater project. She will get all the money." Joakim says "she said she wants to do it"--but at the same time, he indicates that they have no direct contact with Gabrielsson, even though they would like to. "It's a start to have some contact with her," he notes, adding, "For me she's still a part of the family. I would like to have a good relationship with her, and so would my father."

Which contradicts his sentiments in this YouTube clip, but so be the case. And for those keeping score, Knopf reports that their hardcover edition of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO sold 220,000 copies, with another 550,000 copies of two paperback editions in print. And with 12 million copies of the whole trilogy sold to date worldwide, this story is far, far from resolution.

Summer Reading on MPR's "Midmorning"

Yesterday on Minnesota's Public Radio, Both Ron Charles and I appeared to talk about summer reads of all stripes - though I concentrated heavily on mysteries and thrillers. It was a hell of a lot of fun and the audio of the hour call-in show hosted by Kerri Miller is now up.

And in administrative matters, expect light posting this week, what with deadlines, travel, another guest round at Publishers Lunch on Thursday and the Fourth of July Weekend.

Sunday Smatterings with a Two-Step

Oline Cogdill calls BLACK WATER RISING by Attica Locke "clearly one of the year's best debuts."

Val McDermid, as part of the Times of London's summer reading issue, reviews a plethora of new novels by the likes of Reginald Hill, Sophie Hannah and Declan Hughes.

Hallie Ephron devotes her Boston Globe column to new mysteries by Elizabeth Sims, Michael Robertson and Tim Maleeny.

David Montgomery rounds up new crime fiction by Attica Locke, George Pelecanos, Travis Thrasher, Dennis Tafoya and Ken Bruen in the Chicago Sun-Times.

In the Globe and Mail, Margaret Cannon has her say on thrillers and mysteries by Philip Margolin, Ross Pennie, Arturo Sangalli, John Sandford, Janet Evanovich and Sean Costello.

Also in the Sun-Times, Lee Child's latest is praised by Randy Michael Signor while also profiling Child's younger brother Andrew Grant.

Dick Adler raves about Theresa Schwegel's new crime novel LAST KNOWN ADDRESS in the Chicago Tribune.

The Kellermans have another writer in the family - 16 year old Aliza, who with mother Faye has collaborated on a young adult novel, PRISM. The two are profiled in the Kansas City Star about the book.

Jon Stock talks about researching his new thriller DEAD SPY RUNNING in the Telegraph, which loved the book's contemporary take on espionage tactics.

Man Booker International Prize winner Alice Munro gave a reading at Trinity College Dublin, which the Irish Times covered (though she wouldn't be interviewed.)

Publishers Weekly's Jonathan Segura went to Iceland and, among other things, met up with crime writing star Yrsa Sigudardottir.

Rege Behe at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review chats with Richard Lange about his gritty debut novel THIS WICKED WORLD.

John Grisham's A TIME TO KILL is 20 years old, and USA TODAY celebrates that anniversary - quite a bit's happened since then...

There's to be a new edition of Ernest Hemingway's memoir MOVEABLE FEAST, as edited by his grandson Sean.

Intuition vs. Deliberation, as Seen Through Janet Evanovich

With FINGER LICKIN' FIFTEEN now in stores, Janet Evanovich is on quite the media blitz of late. She spoke with the Globe & Mail's Sarah Hampson while in Toronto to promote the book and the topic of discussion starts right away with her face-lift ("Oh, I had a little work done"). That said matters quickly turn to the books and more specifically, the careful way she set out to sell a lot of them:

“I made a choice that I was not going to be a pretentious writer,” she responds without hesitation when asked how she deals with the perception that she is a mass-market, low-brow novelist. “I work real hard so the reader doesn't have to. I don't want them to have to look up words. And there are no flashbacks. This is a linear novel.”

...She studied mystery writers, from Sue Grafton to Tom Clancy, and figured out a hole in the market she could fill. “I wanted to take what I liked from the romantic genre – the sexual tension and positive characters and the humour – and move that into the mystery structure. … Sue [Grafton] and others brought the female detective to the front of the stage but they were still pretty hard-boiled, and my lady was soft-boiled. She is a girly girl. She is a Jersey girl.” Stephanie is actually a composite, Ms. Evanovich says, of herself (she grew up in New Jersey, the daughter of a factory worker and a housewife) and people she knows.

“I became very deliberate. What I realized halfway through writing romance is that you start out intuitive, and you make all these choices mostly based on yourself and what you like and what talent you have, and … if you want to have any quality control over your product, you have to stop being intuitive and start being more of an analyst.”

Now let's go back to her view that she "works real hard so the reader doesn't have to" because this rationale is at the crux of David Montgomery's excellent review of FINGER LICKIN' FIFTEEN for the Daily Beast, which pokes some fun at the critics who "wouldn't touch Evanovich with a 10-foot pole—she might sully their tweed jackets" while reminding them "if what Evanovich does is so easy, then why do most of her imitators fail so miserably? We could dismiss her success as being just another example of the lousy taste of the great unwashed, but we’d be wrong."

I'll say this: I stopped reading the Stephanie Plum books after book seven, I think, once it became apparent that the ping-ponging between Morelli and Ranger would be a permanent state of purgatory for Ms. Plum. I'm pretty sure I've made Jules & Jim jokes in the intervening years in discussing Stephanie's ultimate romantic fate with other crime fiction readers and fellow reviewers. But if television viewers can wait for the non-revelation of the unknown title character of How I Met Your Mother or (justly) preferred it when Maddie & David's sexual tension remained unresolved in Moonlighting*, then the situation comedy that are Evanovich's novels should follow similar lines.

The sitcom comparison is no accident, because sitcoms have to be scripted beat by beat, joke by joke, and what remains constant are the stars and supporting cast even as they don't necessarily follow a motivational arc. All of Friends' episodes were titled "The One With..."; episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond are, at least to me, interchangeable. At their best, sitcoms give the viewer half an hour of pleasure that doesn't require much brainpower but does entertain and make 'em laugh. Which brings me to Montgomery's penultimate paragraph:

Evanovich understands on a fundamental level how to tell a good story and that’s something that is all too rare in today’s fiction, whether you’re talking about genre, literary, or otherwise. Along with her sense of story, Evanovich’s greatest talent is her ability with characters. In the Plum series, she’s created a likable collection of players, most of whom appeal because they’re so much more screwed up than we are. Unlike the heroes in most suspense novels, Stephanie Plum isn’t smarter than us or better than us or braver than us. Instead, she’s just like us: lazy, indecisive, selfish, lonely, and apt to go to the store in sweatpants because she’s too damn tired to get dressed.

And hey, I may have quit (for now) after book seven, but I didn't stick with Night Court - one of my all-time favorite sitcoms - for every single season, either. But here's the thing: Evanovich's continued success sets the stakes for writers to knock her off her perch, and I wonder if the reason scant few can even come close to doing so is because they forget how mightily difficult - and deliberate - it is to create new situations for Stephanie to get mixed up in, and that even the sameness of situations still requires a high degree of technical merit.

*I know Moonlighting isn't really a sitcom, but it often felt like one to me, especially when the episodes got odder (hello, Rhona Barrett?) because of offscreen problems.

Exit the Dancing Machine

Every few months, whenever stress levels would increase and desire to work would decrease, I'd go on a YouTube jag of Michael Jackson videos. Specifically his early years with the Jackson Five, when he was younger, seemingly more innocent, and still full of apparently unfettered joy about performing for an audience, even if he would be shy and awkward in interviews. I'm not entirely sure why except that watching someone so obviously a star, so in his element and, even so young, so clearly dominant a performer damn near took my breath away. Not to mention the sense of unlimited potential, realized at the end of the 70s with OFF THE WALL, rocketed into stratospheric territory with THRILLER and BAD and then, then, the decline and fall.

Tributes, analysis and critiques of Michael Jackson are already taking over the Internet. Things are only getting started what with basic questions about the state of his finances, family relationships and the real story behind the child molestation allegations requiring answers. All I really have to add to the general sense of things is that Jackson represented the ultimate American narrative, reared from an early age to work hard and produce, to support a family rife with internal tensions and jealousies and to appease the hangers-on, trapped by his penchant for excess and flaws tragic and monstrous. Dreiser might have had a field day with a character like him. But when it comes right down to it, what brings me back to MJ's classic songs, his groundbreaking videos and those breathtaking live performances is the way he moved, his total command over space, the upward slope of his arch and downturn onto the balls of his feet.

There's the Moonwalk, obviously, and the gasp of pleasure at seeing that iconic move for the first time. But go back in time and see its ancestor in "Dancing Machine", the hops and skips, the whirligig 360 turns, the straight-legged robot moves. He was younger and cockier, but still not quite in full command of his dancing prowess. But the sure way he glided across a given stage set further stages for greater flights of dancing fancy.

THRILLER showed Jackson at the peak of his dancing powers; those lengthy videos wouldn't have worked if not for the hours upon hours spent repeating, honing, zeroing in on what worked with his body and what did not. BAD wasn't that far off the mark, but watch the dance sequences in the title video (directed by Martin Scorsese and scripted by Richard Price) and already, the turns aren't quite as crisp, the movement is just off slightly. Then watch "Black or White", especially the segment where Jackson moves in and out of animal guise, and the erosion becomes clearer. Even more so with "Scream", where he's moving enough, but sister Janet is clearly the more agile one. And when Jackson replicated "Dancing Machine" at the 2001 Madison Square Garden concert, it's almost painful to watch how his body can't keep up with his muscle-memory for what he's supposed to be doing.

Time will tell what Jackson's state of mind was nearer to the end of his life, but knowing so much money was riding on him delivering the goods at a series of concerts at London's O2 Theater next month couldn't have helped. But in the deluge of stories and the inevitable and definitive biography and biopic get released, I hope the most important relationship Jackson might have had - the one with his feet - doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

Esther Kreitman: More Than Just "The Other Singer Sibling"

At Tablet Magazine - though when I conceived and wrote and revised the piece, the place was still Nextbook - my essay on Esther Kreitman and her greatest work, the novel Der Sheydim Tants (published here first as DEBORAH, now reissued as THE DANCE OF THE DEMONS) appears today. I'd been wanting to write about Kreitman for years, not just because she was the eldest sibling of a family of notable Yiddish writers, but because her work had a certain feral quality to it, inspired as it was by a mix of her unhappy upbringing and adult life and the supernatural quality that appears in a lot of Yiddish literature.

Here's how it opens:

“There are two Singers in Yiddish literature, and while both are very good, they sing in different keys,” wrote Irving Howe in 1980. He was right about the brothers’ literary cadences; Israel Joshua died prematurely in 1944, but not before producing multigenerational sagas that dealt equally with Jewish themes and larger historical and socioeconomic concerns such as The Family Carnovsky and The Brothers Ashkenazi (recently called “the best Russian novel ever written in Yiddish” by Joseph Epstein). Isaac Bashevis, nine years younger, earned a Nobel Prize for novels and short stories where playful and demonic archetypes clash against the stark reality of 20th-century Eastern European Jewry.

Howe was wrong, however, on one major count. There was a third Singer, Hinde Esther, oldest of the Orthodox clan that spent its formative years in the Polish shtetls immortalized in Bashevis’s oeuvre. She, in fact, was the first of her family to set her ideas down on paper, but her early work is lost—she burned it not long after she was married—and only two novels (Der Sheydim Tants and Brilyantn) and a short story collection (Yikhes, published in English as Blitz and Other Stories) from later in life, survive as testament to her talents.

Read on for the rest. I really do hope Der Sheydim Tants gets re-translated in a more up-to-date fashion so that it properly reflects not only the Yiddish text, but the cauldron of emotions contained within.

The Violent and Work-Filled World of Parker

Late last week I went on a binge-read of the first six Parker novels by Richard Stark, reissued over the last few months by the University of Chicago Press. I'd read THE HUNTER before, as well as THE MAN WITH THE GETAWAY FACE, and more or less caught up with the most recent (and thus, final) entries in the series, but I didn't feel like I understood the character completely. But then, perhaps oddly, something clicked when I viewed Parker through the prism of Darwyn Cooke's excellent graphic adaptation of THE HUNTER, which IDW publishes next month.

Douglas Wolk, reviewing the book in the Washington Post last week, pretty much nailed why the graphic novel works:

Cooke has a particular gift for the space-age designs and stripped-down chiaroscuro that were in vogue a half-century ago -- he previously explored them in his "DC: The New Frontier" comics -- and his loose, ragged slashes of black and cobalt blue evoke the ascendancy of Hugh Hefner so powerfully you can almost hear a walking jazz bass. At times, he seems to be demonstrating how few brushstrokes it can take to communicate a precise degree of amoral machismo. Parker's a very bad man, but it's hard to take your eyes off him.

And in an essay for the Barnes & Noble Review on those first six books, Leonard Cassuto highlights Parker's enduring appeal:

The Parker series offers a criminal's take on the business of working, with Parker as a central character with no inner life at all -- he just eats, sleeps, has sex, and works. He never talks, except to say something concrete. He has no permanent home and no friends, just business associates and sex partners. Parker never ruminates; he just plans. When wronged, he becomes a fearless revenge machine. (In one of the later Parker novels, Parker brazenly seeks out a homicide detective who's looking for him. Parker uses his presence at the man's home as a dare; he knows that the cop can't go after him without risking his wife and children. The detective's conclusion: "He used my weakness.") In short, Parker is Westlake's vision of a skilled professional manager run amok.

Absolutely humorless, Parker is also pitiless. He takes no pleasure in killing, for he's "impersonal, not cruel," and killing represents an additional complication to him. But he's nobody's philanthropist either. When he tells a gun merchant, "I don't give a damn about you," he could be talking to anyone, anytime, anywhere in any Parker book. Westlake said of Parker that he'd "done nothing to make him easy for the reader." Indeed. The character is all hard surfaces and sharp edges, so it's no surprise that "his clothes fit him like an impatient compromise with society." (I love that line.)

Yet Parker is oddly easy to root for. To start with, he's better than the company he keeps, so he rarely suffers by comparison. But more important, Parker cares about doing things right. He weds precise skill to total self-interest without emotional complications like greed -- he never wants more than he can use -- or sentiment.

But it's not just that Parker strips away all unnecessary elements in favor of the basics, what makes him such a marvelous creature is how those basic needs all serve his greatest purpose of work. From THE HUNTER on through THE JUGGER, and almost undoubtedly in subsequent books, Stark includes a passage, like this one from THE HUNTER, along these lines:

It was always like this after a job. He would be fierce, and strong, and demanding, and exultant, allowing his emotions the only release he permitted them. For weeks after a job [Parker and Lynn] wouldn't skip a night and often it would be more than once a night. Then his passion would slacken, lessening with their cash reserve until near-celibacy just before the next job. The pattern was always the same, and Lynn had grown used to it, but not without difficulty.

In other words, Parker's way beyond workaholicism, which implies he can't do anything other than work. Parker IS his work, and the jobs are Parker, so when they go wrong, of course he has to avenge those wrongs or deliver his special brand of violent-filled payback. It's not so much that he enjoys killing or doesn't enjoy it, but that all his actions are a necessary means to get the work done - and thus keep the essence of his existence going.

The most recent books, to my mind, veer away a bit from the purity of Parker and work, but I'm looking forward to revisiting them once I've caught up more fully with the whole series as they get reissued over time.

Sunday Smatterings for a Rainy Season

In the NYTBR, Dennis Lehane makes a surprise appearance reviewing THE SECRET SPEECH by Tom Rob Smith and Marilyn Stasio rounds up new crime fiction by Janet Evanovich, Tarquin Hall, Jim Kelly and C.J. Box. And in the NYT Magazine, Ginia Bellafante uses Jodi Picoult's novels as a means of examining the growing need for "children-in-peril" stories.

This weekend, THE NARROWS, the film adaptation of Tim McLoughlin's novel HEART OF THE OLD COUNTRY, hits theaters. As a result McLoughlin gets the interview treatment from the New York Daily News and the Brooklyn Eagle.

Oline Cogdill has her say on Lisa Unger's nervy new thriller DIE FOR YOU.

Not sure why it took so long to show up online, but David Montgomery reviewed Michael Connelly's THE SCARECROW for the Chicago Sun-Times last week. Connelly is also profiled in Monday's Washington Post by Bob Thompson.

Is Matt Hilton's Joe Hunter the next Jack Reacher? A good bet, says the Observer's Alison Flood.

Lots of crime-related reviews in the Guardian, as John O'Connell has his say on new thrillers by Dan Fesperman, Reginald Hill, David Ignatius and Rory Clements,while Steven Poole has a good time with Denis Johnson's noir caper.

The Times' Marcel Berlins looks at crime fiction by Reginald Hill, Tony Black and Andrea Camilleri.

Declan Burke interviews John Connolly about his newest Charlie Parker novel, THE LOVERS, for the Irish Herald.

Attica Locke gets some deserved ink for her amazing debut novel BLACK WATER RISING what with profiles in the Houston Chronicle and The Daily Beast and a pair of reviews by Janet Maslin and Maureen Corrigan, respectively. 

Also in The Daily Beast, John Marshall profiles Alan Furst on the paperback edition of THE SPIES OF WARSAW.

SMP/PWA contest winner Keith Gilman's first PI novel, FATHER'S DAY, prompts the Philadelphia Inquirer to feature him.

Helen Oyeyemi's WHITE IS FOR WITCHING disturbs and compels Clea Simon.

Also in the Boston Globe, J. Courtney Sullivan talks about her debut novel COMMENCEMENT, which others liken to Mary McCarthy's THE GROUP but reminded me of a cross between Rona Jaffe's THE BEST OF EVERYTHING and CLASS REUNION. And since, frankly, Jaffe doesn't get nearly as much credit as she ought to (I reread THE BEST OF EVERYTHING annually) this is a good comparison indeed.

J. Robert Lennon tells the truth about writers in his essay for the LA Times: they don't actually spend a lot of time writing.

John Freeman outlines some kind of working manifesto for how he'll approach being Granta's acting editor in the Independent.

Kaye Gibbons' troubles are beyond sad.

Finally, the Literary Saloon expertly tracks the publicity-seeking about-face of the Erotic Review's new owner.

2009 Barry Award Nominees

And the nominees for the joint awards presented by Deadly Pleasures and Mystery News are:

                    Best Novel (Published in the U.S. in 2008)

Trigger City by Sean Chercover
The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason
Envy the Night by Michael Koryta
Red Knife by William Kent Krueger
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow

                    Best First Novel (Published in the U.S. in 2008)

The Kind One by Tom Epperson
Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer
City of the Sun by David Levien
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley
Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn D. Wall

                    Best British Crime Novel (Published in the U.K. in 2008, not necessarily written by a                     British writer nor set in the U.K.)

A Simple Act of Violence by R.J. Ellory
Ritual by Mo Hayder
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Shatter by Michael Robotham
Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor
Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

                    Best Thriller

Collision by Jeff Abbott
The Deceived by Brett Battles
The Survivor by Tom Cain
The Finder by Colin Harrison
Night of Thunder by Stephen Hunter
Good People by Marcus Sakey

                    Best Paperback Original

The First Quarry by Max Allan Collins
Money Shot by Christa Faust
State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy
The Black Path by Asa Larsson
Severance Package by Duane Swierczynski
Echoes from the Dead by Johan Theorin

                    Best Short Story

"The Drought" by James O. Born (The Blue Religion)
"The Fallen" by Jan Burke (EQMM August 2008)
"A Trace of a Trace" by Brendan DuBois (At the Scene of the Crime)
"A Killing in Midtown" by G. Miki Hayden (AHMM January/February 2008)
"Proof of Love" by Mick Herron (EQMM September/October 2008)
"The Problem of the Secret Patient" by Edward D. Hoch (EQMM May 2008)

Congratulations to all the nominees! The winners will be announced at Bouchercon in Indianapolis - the exact date, time and location to be announced at a later date.