Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Thanksgiving Weekend Sunday Smatterings

The G&M's Margaret Cannon reviews new crime fiction by Reginald Hill, Nevada Barr, Kenneth Cameron, James W. Nichol, Jill Edmundson, Janet Kellough, and Mary Jane Maffini, among others, and also picks her top eleven books of 2009.

John O'Connell admires the talent on display in BLACK WATER RISING, Attica Locke's debut novel.

David Ulin looks at the reissue of two novels by W.R. Burnett - one early, one mid-career - in the Los Angeles Times.

At the Times of London, the best crime novels and the best thrillers of 2009.

Michael Berry picks his top SF-ish books for holiday gift-giving in the SF Chronicle.

Motoko Rich catches up with Colum McCann a week after his National Book Award win.

Nicholson Baker is an inspired choice to review Ken Auletta's GOOGLED, if only for the paragraph where he recounts all those search engines of old that, well, no longer exist (or barely do.)

John Banville writes about his dog, Ben the Labrador. Because he could. And because it is good.

Scott Martelle profiles Terry Teachout in the LA Times on the occasion of his new biography of Louis Armstrong, which has garnered all manner of rave reviews of late.

Celebrity memoirs: finally on the wane in the UK, it looks like.

Al Roker and the Case of the Mystery-Writing Weatherman

The Daily Beast runs my profile of Al Roker, the TODAY Show's weatherman and feature reporter, on the day that his first mystery novel, THE MORNING SHOW MURDERS, is published. Here's how it opens:

Al Roker is a marvel of time management. He has to be, to keep up the rising-before-dawn regimen he’s maintained for more years than he can possibly count, the last 13 as the Today show’s weatherman and feature reporter. Since July, he’s had to roll back the wakeup call even earlier to co-host Wake Up with Al on The Weather Channel, starting at 6 a.m. Once his smiling face signs off NBC and its many affiliates by 10, there’s another few hours to put in at the office of his eponymous production company, responsible for a range of programming, from edible delicacies to murder and meth addiction. And that’s not factoring in last-minute travel plans, speaking engagements, or hosting gigs, like the two years he emceed the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Awards.

Now Roker has added another project to his already jam-packed schedule. The Morning Show Murders, written with award-winning crime writer Dick Lochte, is Roker’s first foray into fiction, and as the title suggests, it’s a mystery, and a pretty good one at that. Roker’s been reading the genre since he was 7 years old, he told The Daily Beast in a telephone conversation late last week. “The Hardy Boys, Edgar Allan Poe, the Nero Wolfe books in high school,” he said. “I’ve always loved the genre. My mother was an avid mystery reader, too. For years I told myself, ‘I’d love to write a mystery,’ but I never really thought I’d do it. Then in the last couple of years I figured it was as good a time as any to try.”

Eventually we get a bit more into process since much of the credit (right there on the book's cover, in fact) owes to Dick Lochte, whom I really hope benefits from the attention Roker's book has already received, including a lengthy piece by Craig Wilson in USA TODAY on Monday and more at Reuters and - of course! - the TODAY Show.

And yes, there are undoubtedly some similarities between real people and fictional characters, but oddly, Ben Lyons wasn't whom I was thinking of in this context.

Breaking the Wall Between Literary and Mystery Fiction

In this week's Publishers Weekly, Jordan Foster looks at what happens when mystery becomes literary fiction and vice versa - aka, we've got another round of the genre wars debate, but from the angle of dispensing with categorization altogether:

“Categories are like walls,” says bestselling author Michael Connelly, “and walls keep people out.” What separates the genre of crime fiction from literary fiction may be more membrane than wall, but it's still a barrier that is often tricky to penetrate. The very act of categorizing brings with it an implicit ranking and the idea that anything shelved under “genre” is somehow lacking.

John Banville, the Booker Prize–winning author who also writes crime fiction under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, reignited this longstanding debate at last summer's Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. When he writes under his own name, Banville told the audience, he manages to put 100 hard-fought words down on paper each day; writing as Black, he manages several thousand. In his post on the Guardian UK's Books Blog, Stuart Evers summed it up well: “the intimation was quite clear, Black's sentences simply weren't as important.” Evers goes on to say that “at its best, crime writing offers unique insights into society, psychology, and human behavior. It can be both engaging and literate; compelling and well-written. It can be innovative and surprising, but what it can't be, it seems, is feted in the same way as literary fiction. The most a crime writer can hope for is to be told, as Ian Rankin indeed was, that their novels 'almost transcend the genre.' Faint praise indeed.”

But do these categories—crime fiction, mystery, suspense, whodunit—actually come into play when an author is staring at a blank computer screen, about to start a new novel? Or is categorization, as Dennis Lehane claims, “a marketing issue, not a writing issue”? Kate Atkinson—whose series featuring U.K. detective Jackson Brodie usually falls under the umbrella of crime fiction while her early work, such as 1995 Whitbread winner Behind the Scenes at the Museum, is classified as fiction—says, “When I sit down to write, I simply feel as if I'm writing a book. It doesn't mean I'm unaware of the tenets and structures of 'the crime novel,' and the plotting certainly feels a lot more complex, but really I'm still writing character-led novels.”

Lots of ace people - Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, Tana French, Jess Walter, Cornelia Read, John Hart, Cara Black and Karin Slaughter - are quoted in the piece, which also includes a sidebar about how Poisoned Pen saved itself from the brink and six debut writers to watch for in 2010.

Finally, Some Sunday Smatterings! (UPDATED)

Maj Sjowall, in this amazing profile by Louise France of the Observer, talks about the ten-book Martin Beck series, her life with Per Wahloo, and why the money she's made off the books is nowhere near what it ought to be.

Which sounds somewhat similar to the Stieg Larsson estate situation, no? But more importantly, as Prospect Magazine points out, Larsson's Millenium novels extend the Sjowall/Wahloo "Story of a Crime" series further by showing how Swedish society could desecend into an individualist nightmare.

And Christopher Hitchens (!) jumps onto the Larsson-mania bandwagon, writing about the author and the series for Vanity Fair.

Alex Berenson explains why China is such a fascinating subject for a spy novelist for the Week in Review, while James Fallows looks at Charles Cumming's China-oriented spy novel TYPHOON in the NYTBR.

Why does Jason Bourne still have legs, many years after his creator Robert Ludlum's death? David Samuels ponders this question in the National.

Jonathan Hayes expounds on the bloody reality of guts & gore for the Independent.

Michael Moorcock will write a tie-in novel for Doctor Who, which he talks about at more length in the Guardian.

Oline Cogdill has her say on Joseph Wambaugh's newest novel of the LAPD, HOLLYWOOD MOON. 

Hallie Ephron reviews new and upcoming mysteries by Sue Grafton, Mark Arsenault and the folks who comprise the anthology BOSTON NOIR.

Anna Mundow delivers her opinion on Stuart Neville's THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST in the Washington Post.

More thrillers by Philip Kerr, Val McDermid, Stella Rimington, Michael Crichton, Gerald Seymour, Attica Locke and Liam McIlvanney get rounded up by John Dugdale in the Sunday Times, while the Saturday paper's Marcel Berlins looks at recent crime offerings by Elmore Leonard, Frances Fyfield and James Lee Burke.

SPADE AND ARCHER has made its way to the UK, and Joe Gores speaks to Metro about its impetus.

Val McDermid chats to the Irish Independent about how men and women tackle violence in crime fiction differently, her new novel FEVER IN THE BONE, and Alan Glynn's WINTERLAND.

From a while back: Michael Connelly and his unconscious connection to the disappearance of Ani Ashekian in Hong Kong over a year ago.

All April Smith needed was a toy gun; what she got was a bit more than she bargained for.

Jane Alison, after three novels, has penned a memoir, which tells the extraordinary story of two couples who swapped partners - and what happened to their children afterwards.

Speaking of non-fiction books I can't wait to read, Terry Teachout's biography of Louis Armstrong gets a rave review in the Times of London.

Alice Munro talks about the dark side of her short stories to the WSJ's Alexandra Alter.

Emily Arsenault discourses on skulduggery at a dictionary company in her debut novel THE BROKEN TEAGLASS to the Hartford Courant.

And finally, is it a pig? Is it a sheep? Or some combination thereof?

Technology can be an author's best publicist

Over at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Rege Behe gathered an impressive number of writers like Anne Rice, Gregg Hurwitz, Ayelet Waldman, Alafair Burke and Hallie Ephron to talk about authorial presence on the Internet - what works, what doesn't, and how much is too much:

Rare is the writer who doesn't have a Web site, from best-selling authors such as Rice and Stephen King to literary novelists the likes of A.S. Byatt and Ian McEwan. Writers have turned to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to interact with fans and market their work.

"(Publishers) expect you to not only write the book, but you also have to sell it," author Hallie Ephron says. "And the selling is with new media. It makes it both easier and more daunting, because there's so much noise out there. How are you going to make yourself heard?"

I'm in there as the resident critic, too, worrying about over-exposure: "I can't tell you how many examples I can come up with of authors who are out there semi-spamming Web sites, blogs, social networks, mailings lists, etc., because they are desperate to get their names out, and forget that interactions with prospective readers have to have meaning and purpose."

But this topic is more important than ever, especially in light of the news that Oprah's daily talk show has a definite end date - even if it only means she's going to move it to her own cable network (or barring that, someplace else.)

UK Crime News: Otto Penzler and Anthony Cheetham, Together Again, and CWA's Crime Week

A couple of choice items at The Bookseller today. First up, Otto Penzler re-establishes his self-named imprint in the UK, moving from Quercus to Atlantic. The common thread? Anthony Cheetham, who used to run things at Quercus and is now doing the same for Atlantic as director and associate publisher of its new commercial and crime imprint, Corvus. This is the 3th time Cheetham and Penzler are working together in a publishing capacity - they first did so at Random House UK a couple of decades ago when the published licensed the UK rights to the Mysterious Press list.

The imprint, which will publish 6-10 titles a year, will kick off with RIZZO'S WAR by Lou Manfredo, published in the US by Minotaur Books - and blurbed by Penzler. Corvus will also publish the UK edition of AGENTS OF TREACHERY, a massive anthology of espionage stories that will be out here next year from Vintage. 

Meanwhile, the Crime Writers' Association has announced it will host Crime Week, which will run the week of June 14th, 2010. During that time, members of the CWA will take part in readings, discussions, readers' group events and workshops all over the country and the winner of the Young Crime Writers Competition will also be announced.

Perhaps It's Time for an Open Thread

Deadlines looming. Swamped with work. A big interview to finish up and post here soon. But for now, check here for salient news and views.

On Giving Up the Fiction Ghost

Declan Burke's post this morning at Crime Always Pays is a real heartbreaker, and while I hope (as I suspect many do) that he will change his mind, there is a sense of resoluteness about his decision to put aside fiction writing that makes me think it will stick. He has two books out on submission, and it would be great to see either (or both) published, but then reality sets in:

That’s the natural way of things, but lately I’ve started to hear a little voice in the back of my head suggesting that it might not be the best thing for me right now were either book to be published. That’s because, barring a miracle, what will happen is this: an offer will be made that will amount, in practical terms, to no more than a couple of months’ worth of mortgage payments. Following acceptance, edits and rewrites will follow (a good thing, by the way, because I like both stories and their characters, and I wouldn’t mind at all getting back into the stories, especially if doing so is going to improve them). Then the pre-publication promotion will begin, which is very time-consuming; then the publication promotion; and then the post-publication promotion. Most of this will be conducted via the web, given that I am (a) not wealthy enough nor remunerated enough to do it in person; (b) married with a small child, of whom I don’t see enough of as it is; (c) a freelance journalist who works a minimum of 70 hours per week at the job, and can’t afford to take time off, let alone spend good mortgage money on hauling my ass around the world at a time when house repossessions are starting to climb at an alarming rate back home.

  It really is becoming as stark as that. I decided over the weekend, after interviewing James Ellroy, that it is actually immoral of me to steal time to write fiction when I could be writing freelance material that will actually earn real money. And that’s not even factoring in the time I steal away from my family on the ‘writing’, a catch-all word which includes, these days, reading and blogging too. Someone who liked my books asked me over the weekend, rather facetiously, how come I haven’t sold a million books. I said, rather facetiously, that it was because no one put a million dollars worth of advertising spend behind them. It’s not quite that simple, of course, but there’s a significant element of truth in that.

Burke''s story is far from unique; other writers I know, talented ones who by rights should have been published even 2 or 3 years ago, are chucking it in because the economic realities of publishing fiction clash against necessities like earning money, supporting families, and making sure there's still even a smidgen of time to devote to, oh, rest and relaxation.

The Malthusian part of me wonders if it's just the universe performing natural selection, but luckily that part of small, dwarfed by the more empathetic take that if you, as a writer, know exactly what your strengths and limitations are, and realize your own specific gifts aren't wanted at this juncture in time, then that's a damn shame.

Burke certainly seems to recognize where he stands:

Yes, I understand that making it in any business means making sacrifices, but in this particular business, what ‘making sacrifices’ actually means is asking others to make sacrifices on your behalf. Maybe if I was a genius I’d feel comfortable with that, or I simply wouldn’t care. But I’m not. The books I write are (at best) an enjoyable diversion, a pleasant waste of time. They’re not important enough, vital enough or relevant enough to be worth anyone else’s sacrifice, and while there was once a time when I was selfish and ruthless enough to not care about the sacrifices I was asking others to make on my behalf, that time is long gone, and good riddance.

All I know is, I hope one of those two books sells - but even if there's a sale, economic realities may actually make this a worse outcome than if he doesn't find any takers.

Autumn Leaves and Sunday Smatterings

Oline Cogdill chimes in with her thoughts on Louise Penny's newest neo-traditional mystery THE BRUTAL TELLING.

Adam Woog rounds up recent crime fiction by Michael Connelly,Patrick McManus, Martin Limon and Christopher Fowler for the Seattle Times.

Laura Wilson compiles reviews of new crime and thrillers by Alan Glynn, Cathi Unsworth, David Hewson and Arnaldur Indridason.

Lee Child puts on a different hat of interviewer for PARADE Magazine, talking to Robert De Niro about family life, giving credit to others, and his upcoming movie.

Ed Pettit writes of how much almost every writer for any medium owes a tip of the hat to Edgar Allan Poe.

More Stieg Larsson-related news, what with the latest battles between his longtime partner and his father & brother and Mark Lawson's essay on the books as they reflect Sweden and the globe.

James Parker's take on Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME may have one of my favorite ledes of 2009.

Nicholson Baker, Richard Powers, Junot Diaz, Laura Lippman and Dan Chaon are among the major writers telling the Wall Street Journal how they write their novels.

Could someone alert Juan Williams that a novel that went to auction for half a million dollars and was bought - then published - by Knopf in 1996 doesn't actually qualify as "ghetto lit"? Which also explains why his essay slamming this genre is fundamentally flawed.

And finally, this opening line is so going to be stolen by a novelist.

Freshening Up a Detective Series at LAT; Praising TOKYO VICE at the B&N Review

In an act of serendipity, both of my crime fiction columns appeared online on the same day. At the LA Times, my newest "Dark Passages" column looks at how authors try to freshen up a detective series - most recently Marcia Muller, who's taken a rather audacious step with her newest Sharon McCone novel, LOCKED IN: 

When "Locked In" (Grand Central: 282 pp., $24.99) opens, it's "a typical July night in San Francisco. Mist swirling off the bay, a foghorn bellowing every thirty seconds out at the Golden Gate." McCone's on her way back to the office to retrieve a cellphone, a three-block trip from where her car ran out of gas. And then typical becomes atypical when she's shot in the head: The next thing she knows she's in the hospital, able to understand every word and every gesture without reciprocating in kind, a victim of "Locked-in" syndrome: "[N]ow a fragmented bullet was lodged near her brain stem, doing more harm than all the criminals and aeronautical malfunctions could. A deadly little piece of metal, that none of her smarts and guts could combat."

So it would seem, at least: How on earth will Muller write her way out of this brazen predicament she's placed McCone into?

Obviously, Muller does, and in doing so injects her series with some added verve.

Meanwhile, at the Barnes & Noble Review, my newest "Criminalist" piece centers around a non-fiction account of criminal doings abroad. TOKYO VICE by Jake Adelstein, an American reporter working the police beat in Japan, is an amazing book on its own and reflective of a culture that has produced some very strange and wonderful fiction, as I explain in the piece's opener:

Contemporary Japanese crime novelists explore violent territory that Americans, even with their love of serial killings and on- and off-screen horror, would be loath to touch. The 1999 novel Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, as controversial as it was in Japan for its depiction of youthful brutality, might never have seen the light of day here had it originated from an American writer, especially as its initial publication came about around the same time as the Columbine school shootings. Women writers based here certainly do go deep into the heart of the gruesome (Chelsea Cain and Karin Slaughter are the most recent examples), but Natsuo Kirino’s Out, coolly brilliant in its portrayal of four desperate women resorting to the dismemberment (and beyond) of a dead man formerly viewed as a threat, barrels straight through every limit of tolerance.

The fearlessness of Japanese crime writers (not to mention the violence pervading a great deal of the manga published there) owes something to the news they find at hand, despite the fact that the rate of violent acts in Japan pales next to that in America. Consider the case of Issei Sagawa, who murdered and ate parts of a fellow student while studying abroad in the early 1980s. Upon returning home, Sagawa was declared not responsible for his crimes and never served time in jail – instead, improbably, he became something of a celebrity, and now has several books to his name. A series of child murders that terrorized Tokyo in the late 1980s turned out to be the horrible handiwork of a psychopathic teenager. Violent crime may be rare, but when it does happen, it explodes with the force of multiple powder kegs.

Read on for the rest, and an extended Q&A with Adelstein will also appear soon at the Review, and when it does, I'll link here.