Do Your Job

 For years I have argued with anyone who would listen – and more than a few who wouldn’t – that crime fiction writers have a responsibility to portray the world we live in as realistically as possible. Problems occur every day because people think what they see on CSI or Law and Order or NCIS is how things actually work.

The standard response is, “That’s boring. Our job is to entertain.”

And they’re right. That stuff is boring. We do need to entertain our readers. What’s the solution?

I’ve never heard it put more accurately or succinctly than Mandy Miller did at the last Bouchercon:

“It’s the writer’s job to make interesting things that could be boring.”

It’s as simple as that: Do your job.

I’ve heard all the excuses. People won’t read that. Readers want action. This is more entertaining. Those are beside the point. It’s our job to make the mundane interesting. That’s why we make the small dough.

“Okay, smart guy. How?”

It’s not that hard. It’s not as easy as looking up a detail online, but it’s not rocket surgery, either. What it takes is a conscious desire to get it right, and a little conscientious effort.

The highest compliments I receive as a writer come when people who read my work or hear me speak mistake me for a retired cop, even though I’ve never been closer to being a cop than chatting with Bruce Coffin and Colin Campbell at Bouchercon.

How do I pull it off?

For starters, my research is rarely specific. By that I mean I don’t often find myself looking up a single fact or process. Maybe once a book, if that. What I do is:

·       Read books by cops. Adam Plantinga’s 400 Things Cops Know and Police Craft receive attention every time I begin a Penns River book. Bernard Shaffer’s The Way of the Warrior is another valuable resource.

·       Read books about cops. Connie Fletcher ‘wrote’ five books by getting cops together, buying the pizza and beer, then sitting a tape recorder on the table and letting them talk. David Simon’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is still the gold standard, though it’s over thirty years old. Justin Fenton’s We Own This City gives a behind the scenes look at corrupt cops.

·       Watch selective TV shows and movies. This is trickier. It’s best if the show or movie has been around for a while and been vetted by people who know what they’re talking about. The Wire. We Own This City. 19-2.

The objective is to insert your research between the lines, making the interactions among the cops as true to life as possible. Here’s an excerpt from my first Penns River novel, Worst Enemies:

They found Neuschwander in the bedroom packing up. “I’ll get what I have here out to the lab soon as I get it logged and separated. When it comes back is anyone’s guess.” He held up a hand before Grabek could speak. “This ain’t the big city. We suck hind tit on this kind of stuff. I’ll give them the usual ‘violent offender at large’ spiel, so maybe you’ll get it in six weeks instead of eight. Except for the DNA. Jesus Christ couldn’t come down from heaven and get you DNA results in less than four months.”

“You have DNA?” Doc said.

“We should. She put up a hell of a fight. There’s skin, blood, and fiber under her nails. The ME will bag her hands and send what we find to the lab. If you luck into a suspect in the next few days, he’ll have scratches on him. Willie, you talked to the husband. Did he say anything about puking when he found her?”

“No.”

Neuschwander smiled. “Someone did. I’d guess he lost it when he got a good look at her. I see some swirls and a wipe pattern, so he tried a half-assed clean-up job, but I got a good enough sample to use.”

Now we know the local cops have a guy who knows how to collect DNA, and where DNA might be found, including in vomit, which will be news to a lot of people. We also know it will be four months – at least – before they get anything back.

DNA is not mentioned in the book again, except to remind the reader the results are still pending. And that’s all the reader needs to know about it.

It’s not hard, but it is important. As Thomas A. Burns said at the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference, “There is a difference between factual distortion and fiction.” It takes practice and a lot of reading. A lot. Not just the research-oriented reading I mentioned above, but reading extensively in the genre so you have a feel for who went on too long, who didn’t tell enough, and who got the balance right.

That’s your job. Do it.

Down and All the Way Out

 It’s been a couple of weeks since Down & Out Books expired but I like to let things marinate before opining. As a former Down & Out author who was there during the glory days but got out while the getting was good, I may have a unique perspective worth sharing.

 I’ll start by saying I am grateful for the opportunity Eric Campbell provided me, as well as the support I received from everyone at Down & Out. I was proud to be a member of that group, especially when I saw who my peers were. Bouchercon was made even better by the opportunities to get together with the Down & Out family. Taking over an off-site bar in St. Petersburg and holding our own Noir at the Bar in New Orleans stand out. I’m smiling at the memory of those events.

 So what happened? I’ll try to be as clear as I can in drawing the line between what I know is fact and my own speculation. Eric stepped back a little to take on a franchise opportunity involving home electricians. Why, I don’t know. Entrepreneurs often find running an enterprise not as much fun as starting one up. Maybe he wasn’t making the money he wanted or needed. What I know is that he became less engaged with Down & Out.

 Among the ways this manifested itself was in a lack of accountability. Quarterly statements specified in contracts arrived annually. Interaction with the authors dropped significantly, at least for me. Getting the books out didn’t change, but Eric didn’t handle that end.

 My seventh Penns River novel, White Out, released in July of 2022. I had a good feeling about that book and several people told me it was the best thing I’d written. I signed up with a well-regarded marketer to see if we might be able to boost sales. The plan was to take place in two phases. After the initial effort, I’d check to see if sales increased. If so, we’d go for Phase 2. If not, we were done.

 The campaign ran and I sent an e-mail asking for sales figures and if Eric noticed any trends. (Editor’s Note: This would not have been necessary had I been receiving timely quarterly statements.)

 No reply.

 I tried again a few weeks later.

 No reply.

 A subsequent effort through another channel bore no more fruit than before.

 I was spending my own money in an effort to boost sales that would profit Eric as well, and he was ghosting me. This set me to wondering if the benefits of being a Down & Out author still outweighed the frustrations. (See “The Reward to Bullshit Curve Redux.)

 I invoked my six-month notice to cancel the contract for Bad Samaritan, the only Nick Forte novel published by Down & Out, and was working on a schedule to recover the rights to the Penns River novels when my annual quarterly statement arrived. Apparently the author’s copies I’d ordered to hand sell outweighed my earned royalties; I owed Down & Out money.

 Fair enough. If I owed, I owed. I went over that statement with a fine-toothed comb and found a dozen or so copies I knew had been sold to the Suffolk (VA) Mystery Authors Festival were not included. I immediately wrote to Eric. He replied this time, saying he made a typo when entering the sales in the database.

 That was the straw that broke my back. I wrote Eric to tell him that if my contractually mandated “quarterly” statements were only going to come out annually, they could at least be accurate. (To myself, I wondered how many other sales may have been “misfiled” over the years.) I used a quote from The Maltese Falcon – business should always be conducted in a businesslike manner – and requested the return of all rights, including the source files used for publication, to all my books or I would invoke the termination for cause clause in the contract. Eric made no counterargument and I received everything I asked for within a matter of weeks.

 A lot of my friends are – er, were – Down & Out authors. Their treatment by Eric when he folded the tent is reprehensible. One received his ‘going out of business’ notice a week after his new book dropped. He’ll never see a dime from it. Another had a significant sale take place since the last statement. He’ll never see any of that, either, even though it should have been included in a quarterly statement, were they being delivered.

 I make no accusation of malice or fraud on Eric’s behalf. I’ve tried hard to consider his actions, or lack thereof, as sloppy business practices. Everything I learn about his treatment of authors and contractors, especially as the end grew nearer, makes that harder to do. The editor and cover artist I’d grown to love working with were unavailable for my final Down & Out novel, The Spread. I’ve since learned this was due to “financial difficulties with Eric.” Honorable people aren’t like that.

 Eric turned away from his authors despite obligations defined by contacts he wrote. I understand no one was getting rich at Down & Out, but the authors Eric ignored were entitled to expect a level of professionalism in their intercourse with him. What they received was an intercourse of another kind.

 I enjoyed all my interactions with everyone else at Down & Out. Lance Wright did yeoman’s work handling all the nuts and bolts of bringing a book to life. Eric Beetner’s covers were uniformly excellent and Chris Rhatigan’s editing made every book he worked on better. I particularly appreciated how he came to learn my style and helped me sand off the rough edges. I consider all three of these gentlemen to be my friends.

 Down & Out Books left a legacy in the landscape of small press crime fiction. A lot of authors and anthologies won awards for books published there. It’s a shame things ended as they did. If any good comes of this, let it be as a cautionary tale to writers so eager to land a contract – any contract – that they do not hold their publishers to the same standard of professionalism the publisher demands of them. For us, writing is a calling and an art. It’s business to them, and there are no noble failures to a business. You make money or you’re gone. Never forget that.

Adventures in Publishing (Continued)

 Last January I posted a rant about how I was through with the publishing industry. Since it is an intelligent person’s prerogative to change his mind, I’m modifying the original argument, though the sentiments remain the same (i.e. ‘publishing sucks’).

 

I began to waver when I found I didn’t enjoy releasing my Western, Dead Shot, as much as I thought I would. This rankled because I think Dead Shot is one of my three best books, maybe number one. It took a while to figure out what was missing until it occurred to me there’s a difference between posting something to one’s website – which might as well be a blog post – and putting it out there for people to buy and comment on.

 

What pushed me over the edge was unsolicited feedback I got at both the Bouchercon and Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conferences. People I respect and whose opinions I trust told me my books were too good to give away like some urchin passing out copies of ‘Grit’ in a parking lot. (If that reference doesn’t date you, I don’t know what will.) Audible was suggested, as was Ingram.

 

I think I knew this and forgot, but Audible is part of the evil Amazon empire and it’s Penishead Bezos who started me on this ‘publishing is dead to me’ kick in the first place. So that’s on the back burner, though, as noted above, I’m not saying I’ll never change my mind.

 

I looked into Barnes and Noble self-publishing, which turns out to be a hybrid operation where B&N provides various editing and marketing services for prices ranging from a few hundred to a thousand dollars. ‘A few hundred to a thousand dollars’ pretty well describes my career earnings from writing, so that’s a non-starter.

 

I checked into IngrarmSpark once before and got tangled in their book creation process. A writer I met at C3 suggested I try again; she’d help me if I had trouble. So IngramSpark is back on the table. What happens after creating the books is still undecided. Check this space for updates.

 

My current status is to see what it’s like to work with Ingram and re-evaluate from there. I’ll use either Dead Shot as a guinea pig, or possibly the new Nick Forte novel I want to have out by the end of the year. Could go either way.

 

As for the books now available for free on my website, they’re not going anywhere, with the possible exception of Dead Shot. Anything I self-publish commercially from this point forward will, I hope, be available at reasonable cost. What’s currently free will remain so.

 

Why am I telling you this, when not even I know what’s going on? Two reasons. I like to work things out in writing. The process makes me turn things over in my mind, similar to an archeologist checking every angle of an artifact. Whether I post what I write is a game-time decision, which you will only learn if I post, though it’s not like you’ll feel as though you missed anything if I don’t.

 

Another reason is I have learned there are people who read this blog for educational reasons, if only to learn from my mistakes and, by so doing, avoid them. I’m a teacher at heart, so I’m happy to provide that service, such as it is. Maybe someone who’s struggling with what to do about their writing can benefit from reading about my struggles. If that’s true, this will have been worth the effort.

 

Stay tuned.

·        

Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity 2025

 The 2025 edition of the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference is in the rearview. I can’t think of a conference with a more welcoming atmosphere, or where you’ll get more bang for your buck if you’re looking to meet and talk with authors while learning about the craft. As an example, I have as many notes from the two half-days and one full day of C3 as I have from the two half-days and three full days of Bouchercon.

 Kudos go to Austin and Denise Camacho, Cynthia Lauth, and everyone connected with putting on this gem of a conference, including Susan McBride for her adept handling of the book sales. Additional shoutouts to keynote speakers Tom Straw and Jody Lynn Nye, as well as special guests Ellen Crosby and L. Marie Woods. Their speeches and interviews were entertaining and enlightening.

 What follows are the comments that stuck with me most from conference panels. If no credit is given, the comment belongs to the most recently mentioned author.

 Tom Straw: If you pitch an idea for a TV script, they may buy it for you to write, or pay you for the outline and have someone else write the script.

 John le Carré once said a book is to a screenplay as a cow is to a bouillon cube.

 When arbitrating who gets credit for a script, dialog is the last thing considered.

 Thomas A. Burns: There is a difference between factual distortion and fiction.

 Wendy Gee: Let your cops cry. (At appropriate times, of course.)

 Bryan England: Cops who speak to each other in 10 codes are more than likely part-timers or auxiliaries.

 Brian Paone: Tem codes are going away, as every jurisdiction has their own and the possibility for confusion is too great.

 Bryan England: Cops always have their own codes for dead bodies so people monitoring scanners don’t suddenly start showing up, making the investigation difficult. (Tony Knighton: Ditto for firefighters.)

 Tony Knighton: Firefighters don’t ‘pull hose;’ they ‘stretch lines.’ They didn’t ‘go to a fire;’ they ‘made a job.’’

 Philadelphia firefighters do not respond to ‘cat in tree’ calls unless called by the ASPCA. Even then, all they do is set the ladder. It’s the ASPCA who climbs the tree.

 Wendy Gee: Interference with a firefighter is a felony. Interfering with law enforcement is typically a misdemeanor.

 Tony Knighton: Fire and police departments may have no direct means of communication. He cited an example where he had to get the fire dispatcher to call 911 so a police dispatcher could direct a cop to him when the cop was standing a hundred feet away.

 Wendy Gee: The only sense not used at a scene is taste.

 Bryan England: Vapo-Rub in the nose only works a little in a smelly death scene, and even then only until you open your mouth.

 First responders are actors, not ponderers. They evaluate as they act.

 John deDakis: A good 911 operator will pick up on a situation and adjust their questioning accordingly. Example: if the threat is near to the caller, she’ll ask only yes/no questions.

 Bradley Harper: Some people who have an experience in an altered state – drugs or alcohol, for example – may remember what happened only while in a similar state.

 Glenn Parris: Alcoholics may fill gaps in their memory with fabrications.

 Bradley Harper: Medical examiners may cover the face and genitals of a corpse out of respect while doing the autopsy. There is a way to get the brain out through a relatively small incision in the back of the head if the family wants an open casket funeral.

 Glenn Parris: Even transplants between identical twins require some form of immune system repression.

 Bradley Harper: Identical twins may differ in minor ways due to how their RNA interprets their DNA.

 Louisiana coroners are elected officials who pay others for autopsies out of appropriated funds; they keep anything left over at year’s end.

 Mike McLaughlin, Glenn Parris, Bradley Harper (consensus opinion): The most realistic medical shows ever are The Pitt, ER, St. Elsewhere, M*A*S*H, and Scrubs.

 Next year’s conference will be September 18 – 20, 2026. I’ll be there and, if you read this blog at all regularly, you ought to be there yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer's Favorite Reads

 This is a longer post than usual, but I had an excellent summer of reading.

 

On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder. I bought this during 45’s administration but didn’t get around to reading it until now. Only about sixty pages long, Snyder shows the similarities of authoritarian takeovers, most of which have a disconcerting resemblance to what we’re going through now.

 

Way Down on the High Lonely, Don Winslow. Few writers have the ability to write such consistently excellent books that are each so different. This one takes us into the mountains, where what started out as the search for a missing child turns into PI Neal Carey finding himself in the middle of a war with white supremacists. All the Winslow touches are here, which means I liked it a lot.

 

A Few Days Away, Tony Knighton. This is the first of Knighton’s books I’ve read, but I’ll be back. Knighton’s Nameless Thief draws a little from Hammett’s Continental Op and a lot from Richard Stark’s Parker to create a story that is as tightly-written as the plot is explosive. A great read from start to finish.

 

Get Shorty, Elmore Leonard. I’ve read this at least half a dozen times and it still makes me laugh. Leonard’s funniest book and still my favorite, though I’ll admit several have more compelling stories. (Such as? Hombre, City Primeval, Glitz, Swag, and probably a couple of others that aren’t coming to mind right now. None are more fun.)

 

Fog City, Claire M. Johnson. A 1930 San Francisco PI leaves town, placing the agency in the hands of his young secretary. She wants to do more than keep the lights on and continues to accept cases, one of which puts her well in over her head. Johnson captures the aura of Prohibition-era San Francisco as well or better as anyone since Hammett, and Maggie Laurent is a character whose diligence and enthusiasm make her easy to root for.

 

November Road, Lou Berney. I re-read this as part of preparing to moderate a panel at Bouchercon and liked it even better the second time. Not so much an alternative history as a ‘what if’ story of what could happen when two very different people both decide to leave their old lives behind. Berney can make a grocery list fun to read, and here he has a lot more material to work with. An outstanding book that deserved the acclaim it received.

 

Inverse Cowgirl, Alicia Roth Weigel. I rarely feel the need to read memoirs of people less than half my age, but Weigel’s account of growing up intersex came to my attention as part of researching the current Nick Forte project. A frank and unapologetic look at what life can be like for the intersex community and the problems it brings, as well as ideas for how to avoid them in the future. A powerfully personal, yet eminently readable book that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to learn about this too often neglected group.

 

Money, Money, Money, Ed McBain. It’s Ed McBain. What else do you need to know? This is one of the later books, after Fat Ollie Weeks came around for comic relief. McBain wrote 57 87^th Precinct novels and they all rate at least four stars out of five. This one has drug dealers working behind an unusual front, counterfeiters, and a dead woman eaten by lions.

 

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Micheal Lewis. Lewis happened to be working on a book about Sam Bankman-Fried when the whole FTX operation went tits up, so he got a lot of inside scoop. I have the feeling the publisher wanted to get this one out while SBF was still in the news, so we’re left with no good conclusion, as the legal situations had only just begun to play out. The least satisfying of Lewis’s books I’ve read, but the world of crypto is so shady and built on such a sandy foundation not even he could get me to understand it.

 

By the Dawn's Early Light, Lawrence Block. A long story; not a novel, this is an excellent episode in the Matt Scudder oeuvre. Here he gets a casual friend out of a jam without knowing what exactly the jam is and inadvertently causes more harm. Scudder does find a way to help even the score.

 

Rain Dogs, Baron Birtcher. I’ve been watching Birtcher on panels for years and always promise myself to read one of his books. I finally got around to it and will definitely be back. Rain Dogs is a remarkably complicated story that comes together without artifice or allowing the reader to see what’s going on behind the curtain until Birtcher is ready to show him. Trigger warning: there are a couple of gruesomely violent scenes, but they are not gratuitous, as they provide insights into character and future motivations..

 

Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, Bill Bryson. An entertaining and informative examination of how America has added to and changed the English language. The book covers far more than language alone, which makes for interesting lessons in both history and sociology. Bryson has a dry wit that makes the book a lot of fun to read.

Bouchercon 2025

 A busier than usual September has delayed my Bouchercon wrap-up. Do not let that lead you to think this year’s event was anything other than a success. For me, on multiple levels. (I’ll have more to say about the ‘multiple levels’ business in the coming weeks.)

 I used to break down every panel I attended. I’m not doing that this year because

·       I didn’t go to as many panels as I used to

·       I didn’t garner as much new information from the panels I did go to

This is in no way a criticism of the program. I’ve been attending conferences since 2008 and have published sixteen novels since then. I still look forward to learning ways to make my writing better and more fun for everyone, but much of what I hear now is, with notable exceptions, a variation on something I already know. That’s to be expected when one gets to be my age and has the same level of experience.

 What follows is a recap of the things that struck me as most noteworthy. I credited the speakers when I could, but there were times I’d be finishing one note and something else I wanted to record was said and I didn’t get a chance to see who said it. If your name has been omitted from a comment, please accept my apology. No slight was intended.

 BOUCHERCON NOTES 2025

 Alex Kenna: Neo-noir is an ‘endless smorgasbord of pain.’ (I will definitely use this line in a blurb someday, and told Alexx so.)

 Brian Thiem: Increased reliance on technology has lowered the Oakland homicide clearance rate from 70% to below 50% because of the investigators’ increasing reliance on the tech, and waiting for the results to come in, when they should be knocking on doors.

 Bruce Coffin: The ending of an action scene is the beginning of a sequence based on the consequences of the action.

 Carter Wilson & Bruce Coffin: The diner scene between Pacino and DeNiro in Heat has more suspense than any of the violent action.

 Mandy Miller: It’s the writer’s job to make interesting things that could be boring. (In other words, don’t let ‘this is boring’ be an excuse for improper procedure.)

 Mandy Miller: Knowing the law is less valuable than knowing the procedure.

 Sherry Lewis Wohl: Cadaver dogs can detect cremated remains.

 (Uncertain): DNA taken from a service member can only be used to identify a corpse, never to bring charges.

 

(Uncertain): Some experts will spin evidence so they’ll get hired again. Some never even look at it.

 

Katherine Ramsland: Forensic meteorology is the study of how weather affects a crime scene. (This is actually a thing.)

 Sherry Lewis Wohl: Search & rescue dogs and their handlers are volunteers.

 John deDakis: Cable doesn’t answer to the FCC, so there are no consequences for inaccuracy.

 (Uncertain): Reporters may do a lot of their long-term investigations on their own time. They’ll complete their assignments as quickly as possible so they can work on the other things.

 

Jordan Harper: Writing should be hard the way playing a sport is hard, not ‘lifting a car off of someone’ hard.

 Gary Phillips: Private eye novels are really about the PI looking for themselves. (That hit home for me, given the book I’m working on now.)

 Christa Faust: Location and character are not distinct. POV means everything.

 Kristin Perrin: Explore how a person can change a place as well as how the place can change a person.

 Thanks to everyone we met and spent time with, both old friends and new acquaintances. I don’t want to list names here because I know I’ll leave someone out. Special thanks to Lou Berney, Diana Chambers, Lee Matthew Goldberg, Claire Johnson, and Boyd Morrison for making our panel a joy to moderate. Suffice to say it was great to return to Bouchercon after five years away. We’ll miss Calgary next year, but 2027 in Washington DC is already on the schedule.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bouchercon Advice from a Ten-Time Attendee

 Readers are generally introverts. That doesn’t mean we don’t like other people, and it’s not that we don’t enjoy spending time with others who share an interest, but we’d have to leave the house to meet them and that cuts into our reading time.

 

While Bouchercon provides a golden opportunity to get spend time with like-minded individuals, it can be intimidating. Over a thousand readers and several hundred writers are a bit much for someone with little or no experience in such things. No worries. There is no more welcoming atmosphere than Bouchercon and I can personally attest to that.

 

My first Bouchercon was 2008, in Baltimore, several years before I was published. I was standing on the walkway between hotels with Peter Rozovsky, one of about three people I actually knew then, when he asked if I was having a good time.

Me: Sort of.

PR: What’s wrong?

Me: I don’t really know anyone here.

PR: (Looks around) Do you know Scott Phillips?

Me: I know who he is….

PR: (Waving) Scott! Come here a second! (Scott Phillips comes over.) Scott, this is Dana King. Dana, this is Scott Phillips. He wrote The Ice Harvest. (Peter does not know I am head over heels for The Ice Harvest.)

SP: (Extends hand) Hi, Dana.

(We chat for five minutes and Scott has to go to a panel.)

PR: See? Now you know Scott Phillips.

 

One year later. Indianapolis. I’m on the periphery of the crowd at the bar looking for anyone I know. I see Scott with a group of people, but I only met him for five minutes a year ago; he’s not someone I know. Scott notices me and waves me over.

 

SP: Hi, Dana. We’re going to get something to eat. You want to come?

 

 That’s what Bouchercon is. It’s like Vegas for introverts.

 

See you next week. I’ve made more than one good friend because they read my similar posts in other years and we got together at the conference.

 

I do have one caveat: My eyesight has deteriorated due to macular degeneration in one eye since my last Boucheron. Mostly it’s a nuisance, but a large conference exacerbates the problems. We take recognizing faces for granted, but the level of small, specific detail that goes into such recognition is remarkable. The problem is, picking up small details is what AMD costs me most.

 

So if I know you, or you want to meet me, and I appear to be walking right by you, it’s not because I’m an aloof asshole. I am an aloof asshole, but I’m not blowing you off; I just don’t recognize you, and I probably can’t read your name badge , either. Stop me and say hello. Don’t be shy about reminding me who you are if I’m slow to do so. I’ll appreciate the courtesy.