Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Memorial Day Weekend Smatterings

I think I'm pretty well recovered from BEA now, though as happens every year, it split my brain in several directions and will take a little while to put everything back together. But one of the highlights was talking with Lee Child, Karin Slaughter and Justin Cronin on Thursday morning, and both GalleyCat and the New York Observer took notes.

Michael Wilson visits with Partners & Crime, the West Village-based independent mystery bookstore and my "alma mater" of sorts.

Oline Cogdill reviews Declan Hughes' latest private eye novel, CITY OF LOST GIRLS, in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Hallie Ephron digs into THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE on its 40th anniversary.

The Chicago Tribune's Julia Keller talks with Lee Child about his newest #1 bestselling Jack Reacher novel, 61 HOURS.

Tom & Enid Schantz have their say on new mysteries by Kenneth Wishnia, Laurie King and Robert Barnard in the Denver Post.

Jeffery Deaver will pen the next James Bond novel, and interestingly enough, it will be released next year by Deaver's usual UK and US publishers, Hodder & Stoughton and Simon & Schuster.

Congratulations to Alan Bradley, Howard Shrier, Peter Robinson, and other winners of the Arthur Ellis Awards, handed out earlier this week.

Luc Sante praises the work of Charles Willeford - who is one of my all-time favorite crime writers - as he talks to the WSJ about I WAS LOOKING FOR A STREET, Willeford's entertaining memoir of his youth spent perpetually on the move.

I linked to the WSJ's gargantuan summer book preview package, but it's worth breaking out both Tom Nolan's mysteries & thrillers roundup and this quote from George Pelecanos on what he's reading this summer: "I'm not going to play that game. Everyone says something that sounds smart and ends up taking Michael Connelly to the beach."

Yes, Bill Clegg was a crack addict and has written a memoir about it. But the real story, to my mind, is that he's made even bigger, flashier deals for his clients since returning to agenting with William Morris Endeavor. Moral of the story: everyone loves a comeback. And that's a good thing.

John Grisham chats with the Telegraph about his first foray into children's fiction with THEODORE BOONE: KID LAWYER.

Howard Mosher reviews DIAMOND RUBY by Joe Wallace in the Washington Post, and while I wish the piece wasn't so much about plot summary (seriously?) I'm very glad to see a newspaper give this wonderful book its due!

The Guardian asks a number of writers, including John Banville, Ian Rankin and Margaret Atwood, to answer questions they've never been asked. Some of the chosen authors clearly missed the point (seriously, Barbara Trapido? No one asks you how you research your novels?) While Banville went the extra satirical mile.

And finally, how to cross the English channel with the help of helium balloons.

Dark Passages: Michael Koryta Tackles Ghosts New & Old

My newest Dark Passages column for the Los Angeles Times had a small agenda, I must admit. Most reviews and profiles concerning Michael Koryta, who debuted with quite the deserved splash in 2003 with his award-winning PI novel TONIGHT I SAID GOODBYE, tend to stress certain topics, and understandably so. But with his sixth book, SO COLD THE RIVER, Koryta has a new direction (reality-grounded supernatural thrillers) and a new publisher (Little, Brown) and those seemed more important matters to discuss than how old he is.

Age, specifically youth, as a hook is fine for a first novel, maybe a second - it's a marketing game, and anything that garners attention when an author is just starting out is part of that game* -- but several books in, who cares? Readers don't. They want to embrace a good book or ignore a bad one. SO COLD THE RIVER is a good book, so the conversation stuck pretty close to its contents. Here's an excerpt from the piece:

Much of [the book] takes place at the opulent West Baden Springs Hotel, which Eric visits soon after its restoration: "It started with that misplaced quality out here in the middle of nowhere, and then built on the astonishing design and a restoration job so carefully and perfectly completed that entering the building was like walking out of one century and into another."

Koryta had a similar reaction upon seeing the hotel's actual restoration in 2007 (West Baden and French Lick are real towns, the Lost River is an actual river, and Pluto Water was a real bottling plant) after decades of disrepair and ruin, a long way from its heyday. "Ask anyone involved in the town in 1924 what its future was: It would have been glorious. It was an international destination. This was where [ Franklin] Roosevelt first announced his presidency run. Then the Depression hit, and the town really died, just vanished."

The sight of the restored hotel helped transform some half-formed ideas ("In terms of crime novels, everything kept turning into a casino heist novel," he said) into a story full of all sorts of ghosts: "I thought that was such a beautiful slice of real history that could say so much, that I could manipulate so well for story purposes."

For what it's worth, age did come up in my talk with Koryta, who was in New York for BEA, but in a different way: many of his novels, SO COLD THE RIVER included, feature elderly characters with a significant role in the story. I asked Koryta what drew him to writing about such folks, specifically Anne McKinney, an eighty-something lady with a very spry personality and an obsession with the weather:

I think part of real fun of writing is to put yourself in a very different place from your own life. I don't like to try and pass off a young character as a wise voice, as it's not generally true. It also renders books hollow, in a way, if you only feature perspectives of youth. I've always drawn towards wiser influences because they have been important in my own life. There's a little element of...I hear lots about my age - it's mostly good-natured, and I take it that way. But there is certainly an element of wanting to write from perspective of 87 year old woman to see if anyone would buy it. It seemed like a lot of fun.

For a complementary take on Koryta and SO COLD THE RIVER, see Lauren Mechling's profile in the Wall Street Journal, part of their epic Summer Book Preview.

*Boy, am I glad I am no longer in my 20s. That's one trap I avoid when I get around to publishing a book.

Living Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

The Daily Beast has been running a series devoted to emerging writers, and their first two choices - THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE by Julie Orringer and EVERYTHING LOVELY, EFFORTLESS, SAFE by Jenny Hollowell - are very much on the mark, at least in my book. So too is Charles Yu's HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE, which won't be published until September but which I'm pleased to be writing about now, because the book is such a joy: brainy and accessible, entertaining and ruminative.

Here's an excerpt from the piece:

Yu doesn't shy away from asking tough existential questions—is it possible to kill your own future? What does it mean to be trapped in a time loop? Can you occupy the same space in several universes?—and sparks all sorts of brain explosions in the reader with schematic diagrams, fragmented, occasionally perpendicular narratives, and humorous bullet point lists. But Yu's literary pyrotechnics come in a marvellously entertaining and accessible package, featuring a reluctant, time machine-operating hero on a continual quest to discover what really happened to his missing father, a mysterious book possibly answering all, and a computer with the most idiosyncratic personality since HAL or Deep Thought (and certainly the most memorable neuroses, including a crippling case of low self-esteem that creates boot-up havoc.)

Not surprisingly, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe as written in a non-linear fashion. "If I were to describe the geometry of the book's construction, I guess I would say it was built from the inside out, in concentric rectangles, if that makes any sense," Yu told me in a recent e-mail interview. "I started with the idea that here's this guy, he's in a box. This box he's in is a vehicle of some sort. He's moving through space in his vehicle. But wait, it's not just space. It's time. Okay, he's in a box moving through time, but now, hold up, there's a problem, and I think this is a general issue in trying to create a time travel story, as in, what are the constraints? Because you have to have constraints in a time travel story, and probably a lot of them, otherwise there are going to be way too many degrees of freedom."

Read on for the rest, and I'll be posting some bonus material that couldn't make it into the piece closer to the publication date.

The Criminalist: The Age of Salander

Of course I was going to write about Stieg Larsson. I haven't been able to shut up about the Millenium books since January of 2008, when the UK edition of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO arrived on my doorstep, I took it with me on a spiritual retreat and spent that time reading instead of doing the spiritual stuff. But I also knew I had to assess all three books at once and now that THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST's American publication is imminent, I could do just that.

Behold, my newest Criminalist column for the Barnes & Noble Review. It's spoiler-ridden as essays tend to be and runs in a million different directions (and could have run in a million more), so I'll only tease the first paragraph:

By now, the narrative of Stieg Larsson is well-established to the point of near-myth. So it goes with a bona fide cultural phenomenon whose creator did not live to see the truly global success of the Millennium Trilogy. The surrounding legal drama between Larsson's longtime partner and family owing to his lack of a will, the excellent movie adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the glut of articles about the Nordic crime boom, and the new and forthcoming release of several biographies all underscore and obfuscate the bottom line: these three books resonate for millions of readers as few thrillers do. They—like me—are so hooked that the prospect of an end to the series produces low-to-mid-range frustration. To misquote Samuel Beckett, there can't be more. There must be more. There is no more.

And no, I'm not mentioning the partial fourth manuscript. If it sees the light of day, great, of course I'll read it, and I'll probably feel even more cheated for having read it because it will be unfinished and so many more loose threads will show up. But as long as it's in legal limbo it doesn't count, and book #3 does sum things up very nicely, even if it's akin to a page break and not a true fin. 

There's also going to be so much more Larsson-mania in the weeks to come. Already available are Michiko Kakutani and Laura Miller's reviews, Charles McGrath's NYT Magazine article as well as Lev Grossman's overview of the whole crazy backstage drama (the anti-Larsson rant is fun, too.)

Smatterings on a Shiny Sunny Sunday

Oline Cogdill has her say on Paul Doiron's excellent debut novel THE POACHER'S SON in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Margaret Cannon reviews new crime fiction by Donna Leon, Olen Steinhauer, Paul Doiron, Jenny White, Anthony Bidulka and Garry Ryan in the Globe & Mail.

Maureen Corrigan invokes Edmund Wilson in her review of Elizabeth George's new Inspector Lynley novel, and also echoes many of my frustrations with George's most recent books (namely, was this book truly necessary?

Barry Forshaw examines the latest crime novel by Stuart MacBride, DARK BLOOD, in the Independent.

Margaret Maron delivered the commencement speech at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro this weekend. Among her advice to graduates: "Life does not come with a GPS. So pack your bags...and enjoy the ride!"

Domenic Stansberry is one of those writers whom I suspect will be appreciated most when it's too late. The SF Chronicle does their best to appreciate him now, but seriously, the Dante Mancuso novels are all worth reading.

Ryan Brown takes a cue from his mother, Sandra, in getting into the thriller writing business. But his tack is a little different - a little more undead, as he tells the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Juli Zeh chats with Anna Mundow about her philosophically minded crime novel of many titles: IN FREE FALL (US) DARK MATTER (UK) and SCHILF (her native Germany.) 

Also in the Boston Globe, John Waters discourses on his massive book collection, current favorites and why he likes to put the most shocking tomes in the guest bedroom. 

Mathew Pritchard talks with the Yorkshire Post about growing up as the grandson of Agatha Christie, administering her estate and which of her books endure the most.

Why is Emily Dickinson having her moment now? Holland Cotter investigates.

Canadian children's book icon Robert Munsch delves into his demons - some conquered, others not - with the National Post.

The Studs Terkel radio interview archive, stretching between 1952 and 1997, will be digitized. I am salivating over the hours and hours I could conceivably spend sifting through these auditory treasures.

One hundred and seventeen days of James Patterson.

Finally, with Law & Order now cancelled, what does it mean for New York City's economy?

Mystery Fiction Favorites on MPR's Midmorning

Thursday morning from 10 AM to 11 AM Eastern, I'll be on Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning along with Jason Pinter to talk with host Kerri Miller about favorite characters in mystery fiction - "the classic gumshoes, spies, and femme fatales of crime, mystery, and spy novels." It's a call-in show, so please don't be shy! I'll only have a chance to mention a handful of my own favorites and must-mentions, and am eager to hear the gamut of suggestions posed by all.

A Question of Audience: What the Publishing Industry Should Know About Those Who Report About Them

Sometime soon, Julie Bosman will move beats and report on the publishing industry for the New York Times, replacing Motoko Rich (who will now report on the economy.) Bosman's a familiar face, having filed book-related stories between September 2006 and February 2007, and I presume her prior experience vaulted her to front-runner status for Rich's old job because the learning curve wouldn't be as steep. It also pre-empted a half-joking post in my head for a while that would have offered advice to the paper's incoming publishing reporter. Or at least, mutated it into a larger consideration of what it means to report on a specialized niche for an audience that may have different wants and needs than the niche.

I've become increasingly aware the longer I've written about publishing for a business news site that some stories that are big news within the industry carry little relevance outside of publishing circles. That means certain news items I pay attention to and analyze to death via Twitter, such as Random House's most recent reorganizations of the Bantam Dell/Ballantine and Crown divisions, won't merit larger stories. It also means that certain topics that are discussed endlessly in the publishing bubble (especially the digerati-populated one), while relevant to the outside world, have to be written about in a way that might come off as eye-rolling rehash. 

So yes, I suppose what advice I'd have for Julie Bosman, or any incoming publishing reporter at any consumer-oriented publication, is to remember that your industry contacts and sources want you to get the story right and be comprehensive and thorough, instead of picking and choosing what will make thee best narrative (this, I think, has been the crux of Publishers Lunch's semi-ongoing series of posts playing factcheck on the NYT's e-book and agency model stories over the last few months.)

But I also think it's important for the publishing industry to remember that the NYT isn't catering to them, and that their audience, being broader and larger, has very different considerations. Just as that paper's considerations will differ from its so-called competitors, so that certain stories are a natural for one publication and will never appear in another.

None of this is earth-shattering, but I don't think I've seen a real breakdown of what kinds of book and publishing stories appear from each publication. So let me offer my own interpretation of who's covering the beat and their publication's given audience:

Associated Press (Hillel Italie): Exclusive scoops on book deals by notable politicians (George W. Bush, Sarah Palin), Celebrities/Hollywood types (Marilyn Monroe, James Cameron, John Sayles) or journalists (Bob Woodward). Plagiarism scandals. Lengthy profiles of historians, biographers, politically-minded folk, and literary figures with some degree of longevity (Deborah Eisenberg). Notable awards, like the National Book Awards, the NBCC Awards, and the latest inductees into the American Academy of Arts & Letters.

New York Times (formerly Motoko Rich, now Julie Bosman): Higher-end revolving door, such as CEO exits, massive layoffs, authors switching houses when there's a lot of money involved, book deals of a seven-figure variety. Increasingly more stories on e-books and digital developments as it affects readers. Profiles of recently published or about to be published authors with some buzz. Notable awards.

Wall Street Journal (Jeffrey Trachtenberg): quarterly reports for big publishing houses. New digital developments (like Google Editions, when an e-reader is supposed to ship/why it's been delayed). Some author profiles, especially from an industry/book sales standpoint, though increasingly those are being done by colleague Alexandra Alter.

USA TODAY (Bob Minzesheimer): big features on authors, either bestselling (Stephenie Meyer, Rick Riordan) or on track to be (Wes Moore). Snippets of information relating to the USA TODAY bestseller list. Notable awards. Ever mindful that its audience is national, reads the paper at hotels, doesn't have a lot of time for depth.

New York Magazine (Boris Kachka): analysis on the so-called end of the publishing industry. Q&As/in-the-field pieces on authors who have a specific anchor to New York City. More of a "glamor" (trade publishers, big six, agents and editors you've heard of) focus instead of a business one.

New York Observer (formerly Leon Neyfakh, now Molly Fischer, who spends most of her time editing the Daily Transom blog): Andrew Wylie's latest literary estate grab. Book deals by hot new literary writers. Profiles of bright young literary things. Reorganizations at large publishing houses, with analysis. E-books, not so much.

GalleyCat (Jason Boog): Publishing moves, with memos attached; Q&As with literary agents, editors and other industry types; job ads; half for publishing industry types, half for authors. Increasing emphasis on e-books and digital.

EBookNewser (Craig Morgan Teicher, though not for much longer; replacement TK) What the name says: all things e-book and digital. Product reviews and conference reports. Some crossposting to GalleyCat.

DailyFinance (moi): Quarterly reports. Ron Burkle and his ongoing battle with Barnes & Noble. Borders successful last-ditch effort to secure more financing and stay alive. E-books and digital with a financial or retail angle. Publishing moves at the executive level (i.e. Random House adding an M&A person, Macmillan falling afoul of the World Bank.) 

The National Post (Mark Medley): author profiles; the "ecology of publishing" series from many vantage points, including editorial, book publicity, marketing, e-books.

The Globe & Mail (John Barber): Author profiles of the NYT "lots of buzz" variety. Not as much on the purely industry news side, and those big stories - Amazon opening up a consignment warehouse in Canada proper, the parallel importation debate - are handled by others, including James Adams. 

FYI, I'm leaving out truly trade-oriented publications and websites (like Publishers Weekly, Publishers Lunch, Shelf Awareness, Publishing Trends, BookBrunch, Book2Book and The Bookseller in the UK, Quill & Quire in Canada, Publishing Perspectives for the entire world, to name a few) - that are geared towards the publishing community, or varying slices of it, as well as book-focused but not necessarily publishing focused publications who, say, might write up literary galas and book awards but aren't so concerned with publishing. (Jacket Copy, run by Carolyn Kellogg, has some industry and digital stuff, but the focus is more generally bookish. Almost all the newspaper-run book blogs are just that, so less concerned with industry news.)

It also goes without saying there are fewer people who are devoted outright to the publishing beat. The Washington Post had Bob Thompson for years, but he's retired and no one has really replaced him. Josh Getlin covered publishing for the Los Angeles Times until he was laid off in 2008, and while author profiles abound, publishing stories really do not. Keith Kelly used to pay more attention (hence "NY Post dollars" for book deals, due to the inflated numbers almost always reported in his stories) but less so these days. When Mike Fleming was at Variety, he used to report on publishing as it related to the film business every now and then. Now that he's at Deadline, it's less of a priority.

In any case, I hope this haphazard guide - which, based on past experience, is subject to immediate and obsolescence-inducing change - explains why some stories run in some publications and not others, and why audience is a huge consideration in what you'll read in said publications.

The Great Sunday Smatterings Catchup

Marilyn Stasio reviews new crime fiction by Paul Doiron, Michael Harvey, Donna Leon and Jassy MacKenzie for the NYTBR.

Oline Cogdill has some fun with Elaine Viets' new "Dead End Job" mystery, HALF-PRICE HOMICIDE.

Marcel Berlins has his say on new crime & thrillers by Donato Carrisi and Simon Conway in the Times of London.

The Seattle Times' Adam Woog looks at what's new in the genre by Michael Gruber, Jon Talton, Elizabeth George & Robert Dugoni.

The G&M's Margaret Cannon rounds up new mysteries & thrillers by Deon Meyer, Sam Eastland, Ariana Franklin, Elizabeth George, Dan Smith and Marc Strange.

Lee Child explains his predilection for minimalist apartment decor and a sizable book collection in the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Esquire editor in chief David Granger loves the Jack Reacher novels, but appears to miss the point on the latest, 61 HOURS, by a mile.

John Connolly riffs on his fears of jumping the shark and how series characters go stale in the Irish Independent. His new novel, THE WHISPERERS, is reviewed by the Independent's Mark Timlin.

Scott Phillips reveals the contents of his record collection to the Riverfront Times.

From last week, a good piece in the LA Times about Michael Connelly's hands-on research for the Harry Bosch novels.

Alexandra Sokoloff faces what appears to be a frivolous lawsuit about someone's name being used in her most recent book.

Miguel Syjuco talks with the National Post, the NYT and the Wall Street Journal about his debut novel ILUSTRADO, which won the Man Asian Literary Prize and followed an unusual route to publication.

David Mitchell makes the essay rounds in honor of the UK publication of his most excellent new novel THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET, discoursing on writing his first opera libretto in The Guardian and his thoughts on historical fiction in the Telegraph. He also reveals his life in travel to the Independent and the profundity of photocopying in the Observer.

A.O. Scott ponders whether Generation X is in a midlife crisis. Considering how many men hovering around age 40 I've encountered over the last few years who traffic in passive-aggressive behavior that barely masks deep rage, yeah, I'd say so.

Also from last week: the 2010 Derringer Award winners, and the Agatha Awards were given out at Malice Domestic.

And finally, TWILIGHT influences the hot baby names of 2009. If that doesn't signify what a cultural phenomenon the books (and movies) are, I don't know what does. Will "Lisbeth" be among the most popular names of 2010 then?

True Crime: Some of my Best Books

The Daily Beast asked me to list what I consider to be the best books in the true crime genre, and I obliged. Many offerings are what you'd expect - IN COLD BLOOD, THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG, HELTER SKELTER - but there was no way I was going to come up with a list like this and not include one of the formative books of my reading experience, Jurgen Thorwald's CRIME & SCIENCE, published in English in 1967:

I received this book as a birthday gift from my college roommate during my freshman year, and I think it played a huge role in why I pursued a master's degree in forensic science. Thorwald writes with exceptional clarity about cases obscure and famous that were solved through forensic techniques like blood typing and elemental analysis of gunshot residue. They may now seem quaint in the age of DNA and CSI-style glamorization, but current criminalists owe a lot to their chemically-minded pioneers. Both this book and its earlier companion volume, The Century of Detective—which lost the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime to In Cold Blood—ought to be rescued from out-of-print neglect to educate and entertain new readers.

Jurgen Thorwald wasn't his real name, and he wasn't a practicing criminalist or doctor - he was a journalist who studied his chosen subjects in depth and then worked very, very hard to convey complex concepts as concisely as possible to the layman reader. 

And, in THE CENTURY OF THE DETECTIVE, he got the essence of why Sherlock Holmes appealed to millions of readers nearly 100 years after his creation - and still appeals now:

Sherlock Holmes was the harbinger of a kind of criminological investigation which did not fit into any of these special [forensic] disciplines, and which ultimately far surpassed them in range. What Holmes did was to avail himself of all the chemical, biological, physical, and technological methods which were springing up at the turn of the century.

These are two books I'll be rereading again soon; they are well worth anyone's time, especially those looking for a good history of how the fields of forensic science and medicine came to be.

Dark Passages: The Anxious Fiction of Emily St. John Mandel

My newest LA Times column looks at THE SINGER'S GUN, the new novel from Emily St. John Mandel that will very much appeal to crime fiction readers, though it doesn't quite fit neatly inside genre lines, as I explain in the opening paragraphs:

Crime fiction, for good or for ill, adheres to a discrete series of states. Order out of chaos — that's the mystery novel, hard-boiled or cozy, in a nutshell. Chaos out of order — that's the ethos of noir. Those existential constraints are equal parts limiting and liberating. But when the world itself refuses to stick to these scripts (Eyjafjallajökull, anyone?) and a healthy dose of escapism can't quite convince people that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, something a little more ambiguous, even ambitious, is called for.

Emily Mandel's two novels to date are essentially crime fiction viewed through a series of cracked, opaque mirrors. Her much-lauded debut novel "Last Night in Montreal" (Unbridled: 248 pp., $15.95 paper), had it stayed within the comforts of genre lines, would have been a straightforward account of a Philip Marlowe-style private detective with a big secret on a perpetual search for a parental kidnapping victim.

That storyline would have made for a fine first effort, but the reading experience of "Last Night in Montreal" is more rewarding for the multiple vantage points on offer, shining a veritable halogen lamp upon that grown-up girl's obsession with disappearance and reinvention, those left baffled by her actions, and the general nagging feeling of not being who you're supposed to be or making the right decision — or the wrong one.

Mandel's talent is clearly visible from the get-go, but what's more pleasing is the added strength and control of her far superior sophomore effort, "The Singer's Gun" (Unbridled: 288 pp., $24.95). Lingering narrative tentativeness and some wobbly sentences have all but disappeared here, as carryover themes of identity confusion and fractured relationships and newer explorations of pervasive corruption and moral quagmires deepen and ripen. The net effect is akin to an Eric Ambler novel with greater development of internal consciousness for multiple protagonists...

Read on for the rest. THE SINGER'S GUN stayed with me in a way that much of what I've read so far in 2010 has not, and I suspect the experience will reward those who give the book a shot. The novel's received a great deal of love from independent booksellers, who designated it their #1 pick for May's IndieNext list.