Favorite Reads for March and April

Events overtook my shout-outs for my favorite reads in March so we’ll catch things up here.

Trigger, David Swinson. The third of the Frank Marr trilogy finds Marr trying to clean up his act. Well, a little. The thing with Marr is that he likes how he is but comes to realize he’s paying too high a price in other aspects of his life to continue to indulge in the “WWHSTD?” lifestyle. (What Would Hunter S. Thompson Do?) Here Marr’s helping his old police partner defend himself in an officer involved shooting that looks dirty. Marr wants to help but is less than enthusiastic about the prospects until he runs into a former adversary he almost killed in The Second Girl. Watching Marr trying to bring a former banger along as a partner gives the reader insights Marr can’t get into on his own even in a first-person narrative and makes this book stand out. I still like The Second Girl best of the three, but that may well be because it was so unlike anything I expected.

November Road, Lou Berney. A worthy successor to The Long and Faraway Gone, a book that won so many awards organizations had to invent new ones. The story takes place immediately after the Kennedy assassination as a mid-level New Orleans mobster who was peripherally involved realizes he’s a cut-out and hits the road, where he hooks up with a housewife who’s had enough and is taking the kids west to no one knows what. He needs her as cover, she’s in over her head and doesn’t see through him until it’s too late. There are few around who tell a story as well as Berney and though I wasn’t crazy about the ending I’ll still bet November Road end up in the ten best books I’ll read this year. (I don’t like saying something doesn’t work for me and not saying why, but that would be a spoiler in this case.)

I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime, Joe Kenda. Kenda is a retired Colorado Springs detective with a homicide clearance rate of well over 90%. The show based on his career, Homicide Hunter, is a staple of Investigation Discovery’s programming. This memoir moves from his younger days in Western Pennsylvania (less than an hour from where I grew up and based Penns River) through his career in Colorado Springs and his early retirement. Kenda shows more personality in the book than the TV show allows, including a dry wit that he uses in just the right amounts. An informal and entertaining book that should be read by anyone interested in how law enforcement actually works.

American Tabloid, James Ellroy. While not the Great American Novel, is it certainly a great American novel, and the Quintessential American Novel. Here’s to all the rogue cops and shakedown artists and wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers who shaped American history as we know it.

Bouchercon 2017: Thursday

This year’s Bouchercon in Toronto wasn’t just a conference for The Beloved Spouse™ and I; it was an adventure. The road trip we took merits at least one blog post of its own. First we’ll cut to the chase.

Thursday, October 13

10:00 Heroes and Antiheroes: Are heroes possible even in fiction? Do we need them?

I don’t have a lot to say about this panel, largely because I was in it. That’s not due to any false modesty on my part; it kicked ass. The problem is that I couldn’t very well take notes while on the dais, and there are no recordings this year. My mind fully occupied, I can barely remember what I said, let alone everyone else. Suffice to say J. Kent Messum led a star-studded cast of Eric Campbell, Allison Gaylin, Stuart Neville, and David Swinson through a thought-provoking and fast-paced hour while I tried to keep up.

2:30 Adapted For…About books made into movies or TV shows

Watching the audience file in for this one it occurred to me how many people with infirmities attend Bouchercon. It makes sense. Those with physical infirmities often find reading a recreational activity they can continue to enjoy without an ability to move around as freely as they’d like. Those with mental infirmities become writers.

Our friend Sam Wiebe was unable to attend Bouchercon this year due to jury duty. We learned right before the panel his book, Invisible Dead, was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Guess now we know which jury he was on.

The panel was worth getting good seats for, as Shawn Reilly Simmons led an all-star crew through a discussion of both sides of the process of moving a book to the screen. Here are some highlights:

Yrsa Sigurdardottir: The book is like your child; the movie is a grandchild. It’s not appropriate for the grandparents to be too involved in its creation.

Lou Berney: It’s tricky to collaborate with too protective an author.

Maureen Jennings: “Collaboration” means “interference.”

David Morell: When selling rights, insist on print control of the characters. (He got to write the novelizations for the Rambo sequels and change not only the themes, but the plots.)

David Morell: Tracing the historical antecedents of books showed the evolution of British thrillers and, by extension, how all books stand on the shoulders of their predecessors.

Ann Cleeves: Once you send a book out to the public, it’s not really yours anymore. It belongs to the reader’s imagination. A TV/movie adaptation is another step down that road, as they’re entirely different storytelling media.

Lou Berney: Adapting a novel into a screenplay is like distilling a haiku out of an epic poem.

There were more panels I could have gone to, but the adventure in getting to Canada and the rush from the anti-hero panel wore me out. Come back next week for a look at what transpired on Friday. 

May's Best Reads

I started a program to be sure favorite authors don’t fall through the cracks a couple of months ago and it’s already started to pay dividends. Not that I’m no longer looking for new stuff, but I have a tendency to try to keep up which leads to some favorites slipping unintentionally off the radar. This sometimes calls for a re-reading of old favorites, but there.s nothing wrong with that, either.

All the Dead Voices, Declan Hughes. The best of the Ed Loy books. Hughes remains true to his Ross Macdonald roots, as the solution to Loy’s cold case lies far in the past, though this time not just a family’s past; the Irish Troubles are in play. Few can pull off shifting time perspectives of a book written primarily through the main character’s first-person POV. Hughes not only pulls it off but makes it a strength of the storytelling with all of the linguistic poetry one comes to expect from Hughes, but a plot a little more complex but less complicated than some of his other books. This is the one to read if you’re looking for an entry point in the Loy series, as you’re definitely going to want more.

Crime Song, David Swinson. Swinson wasted no time climbing to the top of my list of “must read” authors and to the even more elite circle of those whose books I’ll read as soon as they’re available. Crime Song follows onto the acclaimed The Second Girl without missing a beat. This time we get a little more backstory into grossly flawed antihero Frank Marr with a peek into his family life. Swinson knows police procedure and attitudes as well as one would expect from a retired cop, and is as familiar with DC’s drug trade as one would expect from a cop who worked narcotics for as long as he did. Those are assumed from reading his background. What’s surprising is the writing talent that allows neither of the above to ever sound perfunctory or formulaic, and creates prose that is worth reading for its own sake while never getting in the way of the story. The ending would do Ray Donovan proud. Another brilliant book by Swinson. If only he wrote faster.

Jimmy the Wags: Street Stories of a Private Eye, James Wagner (with Patrick Picciarelli). A laugh-out-loud cautionary tale of a retired police officer’s life as a PI. Wagner is as tough as one expects an NYPD lifer to be, gradually falling prey to increased expectations and the lifestyles of those around him. It’s both apologetic and unsparing and worth the time of anyone interested in PI stories. Or character studies. Or just entertaining stories well-told. I’ve read this book multiple times and hope to be around long enough for many more.

The Walkaway, Scott Phillips. Possibly Phillips’s best book; certainly the most affecting to me personally. A sequel of sorts to The Ice Harvest, this is the story of Gunther Fahnstiel, retired Wichita cop who walks away from his assisted living community looking for…well, he’s not exactly sure. A lot of people looking for Gunther aren’t exactly sure, either, but a critical mass of them come together through the intersection of two cold cases that might lead to the old man’s whereabouts. All the delightful turns of phrase and perverse side stories one looks for in Phillips tied together with a plot that begins as disparate threads yet pulls together neatly in the end.

                 

Best Reads of 2016

I read 67 books in 2016; started and failed to finish nine more. Below are my ten favorites, though not necessarily released in 2016 (I think only two were). I’m not saying they were the best books. These are the ten that stuck in my mind as the best reading experiences. (Listed alphabetically by title.)

A Detailed Man, David Swinson. Often neglected in the well-deserved buzz that surrounds The Second Girl, A Detailed Man deserves attention on its own merits. The story of a burned-out cop as he decides how badly he wants to rebuild his career (or not) and the various vicissitudes of having no regular gig in a police department.

Flash Boys, Michael Lewis. The stock market may have been intended as a way to create fluid capital and bring buyers and sellers together, but the people making the big money have nothing to do with any of that. They think of it as a casino and Lewis’s book described how they filter the skim for themselves.

King Maybe, Timothy Hallinan. The first of two Junior Bender adventures this year continues the series in good form, in part by returning Junior more to his roots as a burglar who gets by more on his wits than on hardware.

LaBrava, Elmore Leonard. Among the few Leonard novels I hadn’t read, ad from his prime crime period. As good as I’d heard it would be. True, his characters and plots have a lot of similarities, but they’re similar in good ways and just different enough you don’t mind. Besides, no one reads Elmore Leonard for the plots.

The Lost Detective, Nathan Ward. Maybe the best book I’ve ever read about a writer.

The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou Berney. Deserves all the acclaim. A departure from Gutshot Straight and Whiplash River, though the elements that made both of them so good are here, as well as an added layer. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

The Martian, Andy Weir. The biggest surprise read of the year. It’s been a long time since I read a book I enjoyed more.

Once Were Cops, Ken Bruen. Snuck in under the deadline to remind me how good Bruen is, even with awkward material.

Rain Dogs, Adrian McKinty. Book Five of the Troubles Trilogy shows why McKinty didn’t stop at three. He had a lot more for Sean Duffy to say and do.

World Gone By, Dennis Lehane. Sequel to Live By Night, and I liked it better.

Honorable Mention

The Hunter and Other Stories, Dashiell Hammett. A good cross-section of Hammett’s shorts.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. Finally got around to reading this, thanks to David Swinson. I see why it’s such a big deal, though it probably would have moved me more had I read it in school.

L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy. A big, glorious mess of a book. If you’re into Ellroy’s writing for the sake of the writing, read it. If you have a mission to read the entire LA Quartet, read it. Otherwise, see the movie.

The Long Good-Bye / Bay City Blues, Raymond Chandler. One of the Big Three Chandler novels, and one of the best shorts.

One or the Other, John McFetridge. The Olympics came to Montreal in 1976, and Eddie Dougherty was there. Take a look at how the Olympics affects a major city from the ground up.

Rumrunners, Eric Beetner. No one writes books that lend themselves to movie treatments better than Beetner. Unlike many others, his are outstanding books, too. Picture Harry Dean Stanton as the tough as nails old man here.

Rough Trade, Todd Robinson. Boo and Junior are in over their heads again, and Robinson gets them out in a way only he can.

September's Best Reads

September was a whirlwind of travel and conferences, containing both Bouchercon and the beginning of C3. October has been stay at home busy, looking back with conference summaries while moving forward with new book releases. I’m not complaining, but that’s why it took me halfway into the month to talk about the best books I read in September. (I know how much you look forward to these posts. Go ahead. Admit it. No one will judge you.)

A Detailed Man, David Swinson. A little overlooked amid the acclaim for The Second Girl, Swinson’s premier effort is solid. It’s got some Wambaugh in it, showing what it’s like for a cop who has no real home in the department, working cases as they come. (The title has double meaning, referring not only to the protagonist’s attention to detail, but to the fact that he’s on a detail, or temporary assignment.) Swinson does a nice job of keeping multiple balls in the air without confusing the reader, while showing how easy it can be for a cop to become overwhelmed. The Second Girl is a home run, but A Detailed Man is a stand-up double and would be a great way to pass the time while waiting for Swinson’s upcoming Frank Marr book to drop next spring.

Hustle, Tom Pitts. Two young street hustler drug addicts come up with a plan to get off the streets by blackmailing one of their more affluent johns. Pitts has a gift for describing a degrading and hopeless life without turning it into misery porn. Big Rich and Donny have hopes—likely false—but they’re all the boys have. Of course, there’s more to life than watching their scheme come together and things go terribly wrong. Pitts manages to create empathy for two characters who, frankly, won’t have a lot of people who relate to them. The story had just enough twists and everything is well prepared and executed, showing Pitts’s unique ability to create distinctive characters and setting while working out a complex plot. Hell of a book.

Flash Boys, Michael Lewis. An expose of how high frequency traders use microseconds in computer transmission delays to essentially skim money from the stock market without contributing anything to the process. Read this and you’ll have to fight off an urge to stuff your 401(k) in a mattress. Lewis has a gift for writing technically challenging subjects in terms an intelligent layman can understand and do it with wit. I’m going to have to work my back though more of his stuff.

The Second Girl, by David Swinson

It doesn’t mean much to me when a writer signs a deal with a major publisher. The publisher typically has dreams of a best-seller and I don’t generally care for best sellers. I’m happy for the writer, as I’m in favor of anything that gets a writer paid and doesn’t involve potential prison time. I’m just not likely to read the book.

Hold that thought.

I first became aware of David Swinson at Bouchercon in Long Beach, where I saw him on a panel and made a note that this guy has more on the ball than most. I hadn’t got around to reading his first book, A Detailed Man, by the time I got to Raleigh last year, where I saw him on another panel just as educational and thought-provoking, but did score an advanced reader’s copy of The Second Girl. The big publishers—in this case Mulholland—don’t fool around. They held events at Bouchercon a full eight months before the book was to drop. They expected big things.

Much as it pains me to agree with a large publisher, they were right to think so. The Second Girl is a hell of a book.

Frank Marr is a former Washington DC cop with a problem. Several, actually, but the one that keeps him jumping in his new job as private investigator is his cocaine habit. PI work doesn’t pay enough to keep Frank in the quantity and quality of drugs to which he’d like to become accustomed so he rips off drug dealers to make up the difference. It’s on one of these covert raids he discovers a teen-aged girl chained in a bathroom. Marr’s a drug abuser and kind of an asshole, but he’s not a bad person. He rescues the girl while concocting a story about how he came across her that won’t incriminate him.

Bad luck for Frank: now he’s a hero. Another family with a missing daughter hears the story and begs him to help them. He doesn’t want to but can’t help himself and agrees. Actually, he can’t help himself from helping himself, as what he has to do to get the second girl back draws on all his expertise—legitimate and otherwise—and shows him in concrete ways where his life has gone off the rails.

Swinson has an economical style that tells Marr’s story without apology or self-justification. He’s the kind of anti-hero that could require a book of its own to do justice. A good guy with many bad habits and tendencies, he wavers and often does as much as his conscience demands, only to find his conscience has been only temporarily satisfied and wants more. The internal and external struggles compete without a hint of melodrama.

I’m also not much for awards discussions, but if The Second Girl doesn’t receive substantial notice at awards time next year, it’s prima facie evidence the various bodies are even more clueless than I suspected. This is a substantial and relevant book that is still entertaining, and David Swinson is a writer to whom we should all pay much attention in the coming years.

Twenty Questions With David Swinson

David Swinson did all the usual stuff before he became a cop: attended Cal State as a film major; booked and promoted punk rock and alternative music in Long Beach CA: started a Wednesday night evening of conversation and spoken word at Bogart’s with luminaries such as Hunter S. Thompson, Dr. Timothy Leary, John Waters and Jim Carroll; developed and co-produced the spoken-word compilation Sound Bites from the Counter Culture for Atlantic Records; and, with Timothy Leary and friend Bill Stankey, conceived the film Roadside Prophets.

Then he spent sixteen years as a DC cop where, after working his way up the ranks to Detective, he received numerous awards including the department’s prestigious Detective of the Year Award for 2003; Meritorious Service Medals for significant, outstanding and sustained achievements; Achievement Medals of Honor for a significant case investigation and several Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Annual Law Enforcement Awards for significant case investigations.

And then he turned to writing, so fuck him. Leave some juice for the rest of us, okay?

I might have left it there had I not met him at Bouchercon and scored a copy of his new book, The Second Girl. In addition to being as unassuming a person as one is likely to meet, he’s written a book that was as good as anything I read last year, or so far in 2016. (I’ll have more on The Second Girl next time.)

As you’d expect, what he has to say is worth listening to, so here you go.

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about The Second Girl.

David Swinson: It’s about, Frank Marr, an ex-cop who was forced into early retirement because of a drug addiction. The department had to keep the addiction quiet because defense attorneys would have a field day if they found out. Marr worked some big cases as a narcotics detective. Now he works as a PI, but that is still not enough to feed his habit so he targets the homes of drug dealers for their stash. During the course of one of these burglaries he runs into something he can’t walk away from, and that is what propels the story.

It is also a book that freed me as a writer because I would always get so bogged down with proper procedure as well as putting a bit too much of me into the characters. Marr is nothing like me, and even though he does have a bit of a code, he is not bound by having to follow certain procedure.

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was careful to ask where you got this idea.)

DS: Right after I retired in 2011, and while still trying to get A Detailed Man published. I had a basic Frank Marr character in my head, but he was an actual burglar, not an ex-cop. He stayed with me for a while, and the more he developed the more I thought it would be stronger if he was an actual retired cop who committed burglaries, but only burglaries that he could justify in his head as necessity (for his habit) and because they were bad people. The story developed after the character.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write The Second Girl, start to finish?

DS: I like to work things out in my head, and then on paper for a while. That took almost one year for The Second Girl. After that I wrote it fairly quick, about nine months.

OBAAT: Where did Frank Marr come from? In what ways is he like, and unlike, you?

DS: Like I said, Frank Marr came into my head several years ago, but undeveloped. I loved the idea of an unrepentant, non-complaining good bad man or bad good man. I am a man of procedure, and rules. Everything is either right or wrong for me. Marr is nothing like that. He allowed me to break free from all that, and run a bit wild.

OBAAT: You were a D.C. cop and worked in the part of town where much of the book takes place. How much of what you did and saw there is in the book?

DS: There are no actual cases that I worked that are in the book. The crimes that occur at certain locations are based on the times I worked: 90s through 2010. I did try to stay true to the neighborhoods as they are today. The crime is not as rampant in most of the neighborhoods anymore, but the drugs are still there. Much of what I experienced as a detective, through debriefing defendants, interviewing witnesses, and interrogating suspects is what brought this to life. It is an accumulation of years of that kind of stuff, not based on anyone in particular or like I said, any case or event.

OBAAT: Frank Marr is as clearly delineated an antihero as I can remember. His heart is in the right place despite his best efforts to deny it. His life is in an inherently unstable state that has to either get better or worse. Are we going to see more of him?

DS: I’m working my way through book two now. We’ll see how the first book is received. Hopefully well enough that there will be a third book. I’d like to see how far I can take him.

OBAAT: How did The Second Girl come to be published?

DS: Cool story, actually. I finished the book a couple of weeks before Bouchercon 2015, in Long Beach. My incredible agent, Jane Gelfman, sent it to Josh Kendall, the editorial director at Mulholland Books. When I got to Bouchercon, Jane called me and told me that Josh Kendall was also there, and to feel free to introduce yourself to him if you see him. He found me first. After a panel I participated in. He introduced himself, and I said, “I know who you are.” In a friendly way, though, but I’m sure it came across like, ‘I’ve been stalking you.’ Well, he wasn’t scared away, and we chatted for a bit. He said he’s only halfway through The Second Girl, but really liking it. Apparently, both Chris Holm and Matthew Quirk, who are also on Mulholland, were talking me up to him. Chris and Matthew had not even read the book yet, but they know my background and love for music so they thought Josh and I would get along. We got together for drinks later that night at an Irish pub, and talked for about three hours over good scotch. I didn’t even talk about my book. We talked about our daughters, relationships, but mostly music. He kept telling me that Mulholland was like a big family, and all I could think is “Man, I want to be a part of that family.” I may have even told him that. Actually, I think I did. A few days later, when I was back home, Jane called and told me the Josh made an offer. She knew it would be a great home for me as an author so they worked out the deal. When it was done, I had a nice phone conversation with Josh, and he admitted that he was worried after we met because he had not finished the book yet, and he might have to reject it if it doesn’t follow through. Fortunately, it did. I’ve accomplished a few things in my life, but nothing has ever worked out as naturally as this did.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

DS: I go through phases, but I love character driven fiction, like Tana French, and Marilynn Anderson, and enlightening non-fiction, like Scott Stossel’s, My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind. When it’s something I want to read more than once, then it is something meaningful. Those are the books that find a comfortable place on my bookshelf so I can pick them up again when I need inspiration or just want to smell the pages.

OBAAT: What made you decide to be an author?

DS: It wasn’t something I decided to do. It is something I always thought I was or rather, would be. I always loved to write. I wrote my first book when I was seventeen, and my first devastating rejection came a few months after. I continued, though, and always had hope that I would be a published writer one day.

OBAAT: What do you like best about being a writer?

DS:  When you surprise yourself, but mostly when the book is done.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences? (Not necessarily writers. Filmmakers, other artists, whoever you think has had a major impact on your writing.)

DS: There are so many artists who have had a great influence on my life. I’ve always been a fan of Nick Cave, and also the movies he wrote screenplays for, and composed the music for – The Proposition and Lawless. As far as a book, I would have to say Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was my greatest influence. I also spent a few years in Stockholm, Sweden in my teens, and got into Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. They are the mother/father of all police procedure. What I like most about their books is not only that it encompasses a ten-year span in the life of one detective, but it also captures all that is going on politically and socially in Stockholm at the time. Stockholm is just as much a character as Beck. I can’t go without mentioning Dickens because I grew up reading him. His character are so real and wonderful, and a lot of what he wrote is based on his life experiences.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? Do you even wear pants when you write?

DS: I never outline, but I take a lot of notes. The pages for the notes are probably longer than the book. Everything is mapped out in my head before I start, but as you well know, things always change when it takes on a life of its own. Pants are important. It keeps my ass from sticking to my leather chair.

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions? Something in between?

DS: I will sometimes get myself caught up with continuous editing, returning to the beginning every day. I have to force myself not to do that most of the time, but even then I go back over the last few pages I wrote, and hopefully move forward. It is a tougher process, but usually pays off because the first draft is cleaner.

OBAAT: You have a background in the music business. Do you listen to music when you write? Do you have a theme song for this book? What music did you go back to over and over as you wrote it, or as you write, in general?

DS: I never listen to music when I’m actually writing. I’ll usually listen to music at night when I’m thinking about the book or taking notes. I like to make playlists for the books. Music is important to me. Certain songs can really inspire me. I need a lot of inspiration because the process can be difficult for me. I have a couple of theme songs for The Second Girl; “To Lose Someone” by Taken by Trees, and “Fear is a Man’s Best Friend,” by John Cale.

OBAAT: You’ve had a career progression that sounds like a fictional character’s: concert promoter, cop, author. How’d that happen?

DS: Like I said, I’ve always considered myself a writer first. I just fell into other things along the way, mostly by accident. It’s as if one thing segued into another. A natural progression. Except for the decision to become a cop, and eventually a detective. That was a clear choice that I made after I gave all the other pursuits up.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of advice, what would it be?

DS: Don’t quit. Also, once you realize how difficult it is you’ll cripple yourself so slap that thinking right out of your head.

OBAAT: Generally speaking the components of a novel are story/plot, character, setting, narrative, and tone. How would you rank these in order of their importance in your own writing, and can you add a few sentences to tell us more about how you approach each and why you rank them as you do?

DS: I always come up with a character, and setting first. The character sets the tone.  I develop the story when I feel good about the character, but it rarely turns out the way it’s supposed. Usually, that’s good. Frank Marr propels the story in The Second Girl. Without him, the story means nothing.

OBAAT: If you could have written any book of the past hundred years, what would it be, and what is it about that book you admire most?

DS: Without a doubt it would be To Kill a Mockingbird. I first read that book in my teens, and have since read it more than a dozen times. Usually when I need to be inspired. To me, To Kill a Mockingbird is everything a book should be - literary, mystery, and suspense. It’s all there.

OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not reading or writing.

DS: Hanging with my wife and daughter, and our dog, Buster. Being outside. Definitely a good night’s sleep. Oh, drinking wine and reading too.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

DS: I’m deep into the second Frank Marr book, Crime of Music. I really love it, and I usually don’t like anything I write. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

OBAAT: Assuming you like how The Second Girl came out, I’d say that’s good. I’ll have more to say about that next week.

November's Best Reads

November was a well-rounded reading month. Added a new author to the list, caught up with a favorite, and was reminded why a Grand Master is a Grand Master. Can’t ask for more than that.

The Second Girl, David Swinson. I scored a pre-release copy at Bouchercon. My review and an interview with the author will run in the spring. Suffice to say, you’re going to want this book, and you’re going to want to keep an eye on this writer.

Big Shoes, Jack Getze. Getze has a deceptively easy style that sounds like protagonist Austin Carr is bullshitting with you. Writers know that’s a lot harder to pull off than it sounds. Just as difficult is switching from first person to third person point of view, and he also does that without taking one out of the story. That’s writer, “inside baseball” stuff. What matters is that the fourth book of the Carr series has all the wit and wacky plotting the first three books (Big Numbers, Big Money, and Big Mojo) have led us to expect. Great fun, and Austin Carr wears well as a series protagonist.

The Choirboys, Joseph Wambaugh. I reviewed this one in detail last week. Suffice to say my opinion has not changed. A classic from a master.

Noir at the Bar - Washington DC

Last Saturday night Ed Aymar hosted Noir at the Bar at the Wonderland Ballroom in Washington. Ed picked a great line-up (plus me), and no one disappointed. (My established standards are such that I rarely disappoint anyone.)

First, kudos to Ed and everyone connected with the venue. The weather was crappy, parking is difficult in that part of DC, and yet the room was SRO. Events such as this sometimes come down to writers reading for their peers on the bill. Not this time. A large and enthusiastic audience was there. This was such a good crowd, I sold a book. Can’t get much better than that.

Lest you think my sale skewed my thinking, here’s who else was there:

Peter Rozovsky (his excellent noir photos of the event are at his blog, Detectives Beyond Borders.)

David Swinson

Ed (E.A.) Aymar

Nik Korpon

Sarah Weinman

Art Taylor

Austin Camacho

Jen Conley

There were a few raffles sprinkled in, with books and booze distributed free gratis to several lucky winners. I was one, scoring an ARC of Davis Swinson’s The Second Girl, scheduled for a June release by Mulholland.

I’m not going to try to sum up the stories. First, I couldn’t do them justice in summary, and, B.) you didn’t go, so it sucks to be you. Suffice to say the standard of writing was high, the atmosphere was perfect, and it’s safe to say a good time was had by all.

Noirs at Bars are popping up faster than Republican presidential candidates all over the country, and gaining a foothold in Europe. If you hear of one near you and are into excellent noir-ish fiction, by all means, go. Admittance is free (of course food and beverage are on you; literally, if you’re not careful around the bar) and you’ll be in the company of others who not only take their crime fiction seriously, but know how to have fun with it.

Ed hopes to make a pre-Bouchercon DC event a regular thing. I know I’ll be there. Whether I get a reading slot, or not.