Tag! You're It!

I was catching up on my blog reading when I stumbled across an invitation from Mark Coggins to pick up a book and quote from it. Not just any quote...a quote from page 123, the 6th, 7th and 8th sentences. So, with that invitation accepted, here goes...the results are quite interesting.

The nearest book at hand was "The Children of Black Valley" by Evan Kilgore. And on page 123, here's the appropriate quote:

"If I don't know everything about who you are and what you're doing here, I'm going to press this button. Then, it will hurt. Then, we'll start over."

Hmmm, interesting! I hadn't planned on reading this book just yet, but now, my antenna is activated. Sounds like I've stumbled across a pretty nasty character. Better return to page one, and see how we got here. As far as the context of the quote, feel free to use your imagination. I found it fairly shocking.

This feels like one of those chain letters, but with an cool twist. I'd like to send out five invitations to some people who, hopefully, read my blog from time to time (or perhaps, get lost and stumble into it).

Thanks go out to Mark Coggins for this invite.

The Rules Are:

1. Pick up the nearest book at hand (left or right...hand, that is).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence.
4. Post the next 3 sentences.
5. Tag 5 other people (but don't contact them...let them find you).
6. Acknowledge who tagged you.

My choice to play tag!

1. Libby Fischer Hellman, author of Easy Innocence.
2. JA Konrath, author of the soon to be released Fuzzy Navel
3. Sandra Rattan, editor of Spinetingler Magazine and author of What Burns Within.
4. Julie Hyzy, author of a tasty little cozy called State of the Onion.
5. Lee Lofland, author, investigative expert and blogger at The Graveyard Shift.

There are a lot of people I could have chosen, but hopefully, there is something for everyone in this list. I can just imagine a barbeque with this group...the possibilities are endless! Maybe I should send out some invitations (I'll just make sure the fire extinguisher is fully charged...)

Easy Innocence Tackles Some Hard Choices

Libby Fischer Hellman introduces a new Private Eye series with the publication of Easy Innocence, and it's a good start. Georgia Davis, an ex-cop, get hired to find evidence that might clear Cameron Jordan, an autistic man whose been accused of murdering a high school girl named Sara Long. At first, the forensic evidence against Cameron seems insurmountable, but the deeper Georgia Davis digs into the case, the more frayed ends she finds.

As these ends begin to unravel, she uncovers a number of unpleasant facts about the well-to-do and well-to-do wannabes on Chicago's North Shore. Even more disturbing, the prosecution is rushing to wrap up the case as quickly as possible. The reason soon becomes apparent, though not surprising when you remember that the rich and powerful make special efforts to protect their own.

A high school hazing that took place at the time of the murder places the prosecuting attorney's daughter at the scene of the crime, opening up the possibility that others were involved in Sara's death. And as Georgia begins to question the dead girl's friends, someone starts following her, and one promising lead winds up on a slab in the morgue. Eventually, Georgia learns some shocking revelations about Sara and her high school buddies that reveal just how far teenagers will go to maintain their status in a high school where the content of your closet is more important than the content of your character. It may lead Georgia to the secret that got Sara killed...if she can stay alive herself.

Libby tackles several timely social issues, including peer pressure, the sexualization of young girls, and the pursuit of status, all without preaching or alienating the reader. She does it by simply telling a great story. It had me guessing about the identity of the killer until the very end, and also had me thinking about this book long after I turned the last page.

How Do Reviewers Make Their Choices?

Every year, tens of thousands of titles are published, and yet, only a few hundred ever make it into a print review (newspapers & magazines). With such a competitive arena, I've often wondered how those choices are made. Well, here's an article that provides some insight into the process of how books are chosen. It was posted on David J Montgomery's crime fiction blog. Some of the nation's top reviewers are interviewed in the March newsletter of Sisters In Crime. It includes another link if you'd like to download the newsletter in its entirety:



http://www.crimefictionblog.com/2008/03/the-reviewers-s.html

Mystery Fiction - Treating Women Badly?

I highly recommend the book reviews by Marilyn Stasio which appear in the Sunday NY Times book section (online & print). They are often chock full of interesting and new writers, both from the US and abroad. Today's article is no exception. But I don't think that women are treated badly by the genre.

Does our fiction really treat women with indignity? Mystery fiction, that is? To be fair to Miss Stasio, allow me to quote her word for word.

"Denise Mina’s bold, brave crime novels make up for all the indignities women suffer in genre fiction — especially the notion that a female protagonist is better off being likable than being real. Mina smashed that false article of faith with her dead-grim Garnet hill trilogy, featuring a hard-bitten heroine who fights the social conditions that lead to the abuse of women, children and the elderly in a Glasgow slum."

That may have been true in the field of mystery writing fifty, sixty years ago (Nancy Drew comes to mind as a likeable protaganist). And much of noir fiction of the 40's and 50's treated women as either brainless broads or scheming sirens.

But this certainly not true of mystery now. And it didn't start with Denise Mina.

Sara Paretsky introduced us to a tough gritty heroine in 1982 by the name of V.I. Warshawski. That's just the first name that comes to mind. How about authors Sue Grafton and Terris Grimes? And many more.

One can even find good female heroines in noir fiction from fifty years ago, albeit often in re-prints. Branded Woman by Wade Miller, re-issued by Hard Case Crime is one example.

And for those of you who haven't discovered her, I urge you to read Denise Mina. But start with the original Garnethill, which won the 1998 John Creasy Memorial Award for best first crime novel.

I hate coming into a series after it's started, don't you?

Take a Leap off Maiden Rock (But Don't Forget Your Parachute)

I went to Chicago recently for a writer's conference and took a book with me to read on the plane...Maiden Rock by Mary Logue. At first glance, it seemed like the perfect choice. I expected a warm and fuzzy cozy mystery, nothing too demanding, but good enough to keep me from being bored. Even the author's book flap picture was reassuring. She looks like your best friend's mom, ready to offer up a plate of cookies and a glass of cold milk. The perfect cozy, right?

Wrong. This book had me gasping for breath a third of the way into it. I wanted to rush to the end, but at the same time I was worried sick about the fate of one of the characters, so much so that I wanted to scream at her, lest she make a wrong move.

This book scared the hell out of me. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Was it the demented serial killer? The graphic gore and violence?

Nope. The horror of this book rests in the author's ability to take ordinary people, people like you and me, place them in mortal danger, and make us care what happens to them. She does it beautifully. And because we as readers know more than any one individual, we see danger coming long before the characters do. Therein lies the terror.

Maiden Rock is a traditional mystery featuring Claire Watkins, a deputy sheriff in a small midwestern town who investigates the apparent suicide of a teenage girl. But the death may not be a simple case of suicide. The supposedly safe, quiet town where Claire lives is being ravaged by a drug that is striking the community's youth like a plague. The author slowly unravels the town's secrets and we are forced to watch helplessly as first children, and then their parents, are destroyed by meth addiction and its consequences. Her descriptions of the drug's physical and emotional effects on individuals adds considerable realism to the story. Yet her sympathy for the characters (even the flawed ones) makes the tale haunting. It stays with you long after you've read the final page.

Buy this book and read it. Then let your kids read it. I promise, you won't regret it.

Mystery Genre - Does it get the respect it deserves?

I saw an interesting article in the Sunday New York Times about Joan Brady, an American author living in England, who sued a shoe factory near her home for poisoning her with toxic fumes. She was awarded $230,000 damages.

As proof that she was damaged, she presented her novel, Bleedout, a mystery thriller, and claimed it was only written because she could no longer concentrate on her 'literary' novel, which she had to abandon due to neurological damage.

So, in essence, if you write mysteries, your suffering from brain damage!

Here's the link to the article. Let me know what you think.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/weekinreview/03mcgrath.html?ex=1359694800&en=e4c7fdfb2a2473e2&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Cast Your Vote For 'Runoff'

From the very first paragraph of Mark Coggin's new novel, I was hooked. After all, it's not every day that you see a piece of construction equipment crash into the front of a bank at 2 AM. The latest in a series of mystery noir novels featuring Private Eye August Riordan starts off literally with a bang, and it's more than enough to keep the reader interested in the story.

The main problem PI Riordan tackles in RUNOFF, a slim but action packed story, is the theft of a local election through some electronic shennanigans. This is more than a little ironic, given that this technophobe PI has only recently discovered cell phones, and spends more time actually pounding the pavement questioning witnesses than he does sitting in front of a computer screen (imagine that). And the witnesses keep winding up dead, sometimes before August gets a chance to question them, and sometimes after he points his Glock 9 mm at them. But to quote Arnold the Governator, "They were all bad". Even Mrs. Lee, the Dragon Lady of Chinatown, has some dubious qualities about her, and she's the client!

Riordan entertains and solves the case with an interesting cast of supporting characters, some of whom we've seen in earlier novels, such as Chris Duckworth, a friend of August and a computer whiz whose talents prove indispensable in helping to solve the case. Riordan even gets some crucial help from an unlikely source in the criminal underworld, but I won't spoil the surprise by giving too much away.

The book can stand on it's own even if you've never read anything by Mark Coggins, but if you want to start with his first August Riordan novel, look up "The Immortal Game". Otherwise, run to the nearest bookstore or click on your mouse and buy a copy of "RUNOFF". It's more fun than a real election and makes a hell of a lot more sense. This story of money, crime and politics is even more relevant today than it was when first published in 2007.

But remember these words the next time you find yourself battling a John Deere...Don't bring rocks to a backhoe fight.

P.S. Check out the great map showing all the crime scenes in the novel.