Favorite Reads, Spring 2026

 I’m a little late with my Q2 list. That doesn’t mean I had trouble finding books to recommend. On the contrary, it was a good quarter.

 The Big Empty, Robert Crais. I’ve been a fan of Crais’s work for over twenty years. His consistency is such I’m hard pressed to say which of his Elvis Cole books is my favorite. Until now. The Big Empty is the work of a master of the craft at the peak of his powers. Not only is this a compelling story with characters as well drawn as any in the literature, Crais handles with aplomb things that cause even the best of writers to stumble, such shifting points of view and timelines. Even if you’re not typically a fan of PI fiction, do yourself a favor and read this one.

 Mirage City, Lev AC Rosen. A new voice to be reckoned with in the PI genre. Rosen sets his novel in the gay community of Los Angeles in the 1950s, when homosexuality was still a crime. The story is complex and well told, and Rosen never stoops to preaching. The issues of the time – more than a few of which still linger, though not officially – are described matter of factly to allow the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. Outstanding book. I’ll look for his earlier novel.

 Gray Dawn, Walter Mosley. There aren’t any compliments for Mosley’s Easy Rawlins novels that haven’t already been said, so I’ll leave it at this: Gray Dawn has everything one would expect from a Rawlins novel without seeming repetitious in any way. Easy’s family life evolves, but he still reaches back to former acquaintances for help when needed. His name may be misleading – things are never easy for Mr. Rawlins – but reading Mosley’s books is never a chore. The writing flows like water over a cliff. No oner does a better job of putting readers firmly in a place they’ve never been.

 Hatchet Girls, Joe Lansdale. Hap and Leonard ride again. I don’t know if there’s anything exceptional about this book when compared to the rest of the Hap and Leonard oeuvre – except maybe the premise – but the voice is so comforting and familiar to readers of the series that you feel like you’ve settled in with an old friend you haven’t seen for a while by the time you finish the first page.

 Crooks, Lou Berney. This book is currently on all kinds of award lists, and deservedly so. The story of a family of, well, crooks, who are proud of their heritage and happy to work together to enhance it. Berney’s writing is easy on the eyes and the story – stories, actually – each could stand alone as novellas. In Berney’s deft hands a framing story ties everything together as the children make their own ways after Mom and Dad had set their courses. Crooks proves a book can be great fun and still thought-provoking.

 At Their Own Game, Frank Zafiro. Why isn’t this guy better known? He’s worked on multiple crime series himself and collaborated on two others (that I know of) and I’m hard pressed to say one is better than the other. Usually a police procedural writer, At Their Own Game takes the POV of a cop turned criminal to examine both sides. The story is complex, with several twists I didn’t see coming until I found myself mumbling, “Of course,” though I never felt adrift. If you’re not familiar with Zafiro’s work, you’d be wise to take a look. Everything he writes is good.

 The Killing of the Tinkers, Ken Bruen. I picked this up at a used bookstore shortly after I heard of Bruen’s death. Two chapters in I realized I’d read it before but never thought of stopping. Jack Taylor is Jack Taylor, and sometimes Bruen makes him suffer more than he should, but Bruen’s ability to tell a tragic story with a little whimsy, and his unsurpassed control of the language, make everything he wrote a treat. His passing is a great loss.

Staying Fresh

 

Last week I wrote about the convergence of my writing process with Joe Lansdale’s description of his before I even knew what his was. This week I’ll conclude those thoughts; great rejoicing may ensue.

 

We left off with how much more free time retirement provides, which doesn’t mean I spend all that time with fingers on keyboard. I try to write at least three times a day, in bursts of 45 minutes to an hour. Longer than that and my ego starts to intrude, and, as Milch says, the ego is the enemy of creativity. Set it aside, do anything else for a while, come back. Worries about this process being more indicative of sloth than art were put to rest in Joe’s post: “I try to write only about three hours a day. I stay fresh that way, and don't get so tuckered out that next day I do nothing.” Staying fresh is a big deal. I now look forward to the next session, rather than feeling as though I have to get it in out of a sense of duty.

 

Staying fresh is also forestalls burnout, as taking too many “maintenance” days can make it too easy to postpone writing altogether. Joe again: “I try to work five to seven days a week, and it takes something special to throw off that approach.” That’s exactly what I do. Paraphrasing Stephen King, “It’s true you do your best work when the Muse strikes. It’s helpful if the Muse knows when and where to look for you.”

 

All this cultivation of the subconscious is necessary and fruitful, but the subconscious is not the best arbiter of what’s good or we’d all get rich by transcribing dreams. Per Joe: “There's a lot of stuff there in the subconscious, and the disorganized materials have to be trained to line up, and this is a primary duty of the conscious mind, which for me works best after the subconscious has sorted things, and has in fact done a lot of secret plotting. The conscious mind scrapes off the edges, jettisons the useless, the materials that will not work in your story.” In other, less entertaining words, editing.

 

Two other great writers’ ideas come to mind:

Hemingway: Write drunk. Edit sober.

Milch: There are no mistakes, only things that need to be better.

How I think of it: The subconscious can create a baby but only the conscious can properly prepare the little bastard to go out into the world.

 

I could go on, but I won’t. As the philosopher Harry Callahan said, “A man has got to know his limitations.” Writing is not hard; it’s difficult. It’s not ditch digging, but it’s also not for the faint of heart. Understanding what we’re doing won’t necessarily make us better, but it will prevent us spending our free time learning to tie nooses and looking for open beams. If you have to take your medicine, it might as well come from someone like Joe Lansdale, who can make it go down so much easier.

 

(Thanks to Joe for allowing me to quote him in these posts.)

De- and Re-fining Process

 Last week I wrote about Joe Lansdale’s thoughts on first readers and got tangential a few times. This week I have more from Joe’s Facebook posts on writing, dealing with the process itself.

 

Again, it’s gratifying and validating for someone with my level of accomplishment to see my method has evolved along the lines of one of the greats. I am comfortable with not having the same level of talent or success. What matters is, however good my writing may or may not be, it’s not because of things that are under my control. I’ve done my due diligence.

 

The topic of Joe’s post was, “How Many Drafts Should You Write?” Joe’s answer fits in with what my practice and research have shown me: there is no right answer. Joe writes: “Each writer finds their path. I do one, and then a polish. Now and again I end up doing more polish than expected, and each day I revise as I go, so how many drafts do I do daily? No idea.”

 

I’m a bit more OCD, so I have a pretty good idea, but the number of drafts has changed dramatically over the years. I used to keep hacking until I couldn’t bear to look at the manuscript anymore and was spending most of my time adding and removing the same commas. Then I started using each draft for specific things: one for descriptions, one for each character to get their voices right and unique, one for action and narrative, then the overall polishing. That took forever and require too much polishing, as the multiple drafts left me with a story that didn’t seem organic.

 

I winnowed that down by beginning each day by looking over and tidying up yesterday’s work. This probably saved a draft and had the added benefit of reminding me exactly where I was the day before.

 

Then I came across David Milch’s concept of “resting transparently.” (It’s actually Kierkegaard’s concept, but since Milch distilled it into something I can understand, I give him the credit.) My version is to think as little as possible about what needs to be written today because that’s the conscious mind looking for a logical continuation of what I wrote yesterday, which is not always where the story needs to go. Now I sit quietly, letting my mind wander until I know what I want to do. At first I’d often as not fall asleep. Now there are days where I sit for as little as thirty seconds before I’m virtually propelled out of the chair and off to the keyboard.

 

This isn’t much different from Joe’s advice, though arrived at from a different direction: “The most important thing I learned as a writer was to work from the subconscious. This sounds easy, and pretty much is once you are able to tap into it, but it takes practice.” Resting transparently is my way of releasing my subconscious. With practice I find I barely need the actual process. My subconscious now knows when to feed me what it’s been working right when I need it.

 

What stimulates my subconscious? Many of the same things Joe describes. “Reading novels, stories, comics, non-fiction and viewing films, TV shows, are fuel for the subconscious…” I used to feel like I was stealing when I took an idea from a previous work and adapted to my needs until I saw a d read enough to realize how many stories are adaptations of things that came before. Just because I first saw a scene by Author A doesn’t mean he hadn’t seen a variant of it elsewhere. I used to feel bashful about changing the ending of my first Nick Forte book to use a concept I saw in the movie Three Days of the Condor, especially after it received a Shamus nomination. Now I’m looking forward to thanking James Grady the next time I see him, less for “giving” me the idea, than for putting something out there I was able to adapt to my own purposes.

 

The subconscious is not as low maintenance as one might suppose, especially when you hope to get some benefit from it. Milch tries never to think about writing except when he’s doing it. Unsaid is that his subconscious, left to its own devices, is always churning away, whether he’s aware of it or not. He likes to operate on faith and I believe a lot of that faith is that his subconscious will not abandon him.

 

Lansdale has a similar attitude: “But, during the day, if I could learn to relax and think about anything but story, ideas would develop, and certainly at night a seed would be found.” I retired at the end of last year and now, a month or so down the road, I find I’m much more creative. More story ideas, more ideas on how to improve what’s in progress, more ideas about what I might want to revisit. I believe that’s because I’m no longer tied to thinking about workaday things half my waking hours, five days a week, with those concerns also intruding on my “free” time. Now I spend an hour or three most days taking care of household business, then my day is free.

 

(Next week I’ll conclude this series with a post on pacing yourself to stay fresh. Thank to Joe Lansdale for allowing me to quote from his posts.

 

 

 

 

 

How Many Cooks do You Need?

• 

Last week I mentioned coming across notes on the writing process from Joe Lansdale, which meant I read them immediately because anything Joe Lansdale says about writing is worth knowing. Imagine how gratified I was to learn my process has been evolving toward what he does.

 

That doesn’t mean I’ll reach Joe Lansdale levels of accomplishment, just as my appropriation of David Milch’s concept of “resting transparently” sets me up to approach HBO about rebooting Deadwood. It’s still nice to see, having already moved in this direction, what Joe might have to say I haven’t thought of.

 

On first readers, Joe writes*, “Frankly, I'm my first and second and third reader, and then the editor is the fourth, and finally the proof reader, and myself again.” I read each chapter of the first and last drafts to The Beloved Spouse™, then send it off to the publisher for editing and proofreading; in between it’s all me. I used to run books through a laborious process of reading damn near the whole thing to a writers’ group a chapter or two at a time, until I moved far enough away that getting back there twice a month was a chore. What I might be missing worried me until I noticed the books still received the same feedback as before, even though I invested a lot less agita in the writing.

 

That’s no rap on the group. I wouldn’t be half the writer I am now were it not for the two writers’ groups I worked with ten years ago and more. The things is, as Joe puts it, “I decide to have faith in myself and do. Sometimes my faith can let me down a little, but mostly it doesn't. I've learned the hard way in years past that I don't want to muddle up my thinking with someone else's, as I lose my power over the story, my feeling for it…Early on I showed manuscripts and even created a writer's group. There were enough opinions there to confuse and contradict, and frankly, in the end, all that mattered to me was if I liked it, and if the editors liked it, paid me and published it.”

 

Joe and I operate on entirely different levels of the industry; that’s fine. Talent, like water, finds its own level. This may be even truer for me than for Joe, as I’m not making a living from writing, so I have no concerns about a disruption of my income stream if my editor or published decides to give a book a pass. It’s like the man with a two-inch erection picking up a woman. She gets a look and says, “Who do you expect to satisfy with that?” He says, “Me.” I like to think my books are at least three-and-a-half-inch erections, but the point is still valid.

 

I’ve commented in the past on what I call “bestseller style” and why I read so few bestsellers for that reason. I suspect bestseller style is often a result of writing by committee, everyone feeling they need to make a “contribution” until there’s little to distinguish the writing of one author from another. Quoting Joe on waiting until he decides he’s finished: “By then the cake had been baked, and I'm willing to listen and see if they have some good ideas for the icing. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they aren't aware I don't like coconut in my icing, so I ignore certain things and demand my own brand of chocolate, but I don't mind listening to their advice about how to smooth it on with a cake knife.”

 

That kind of advice is always welcome, even if only two reasons would apply. (There are more, but these are the big ones.)

• 1   I know what a specific sentence is supposed to mean but people not resident in my mind may not.
•  I am not always the most elegant cake icer. Sometimes a little smoothing out is in order.

That’s said, not all cakes need to be white (read: vanilla), and I detest coconut in any part of mine.

 

My level of accomplishment may give pause to some about listening to my advice, but I have always believed the author has to remember whose name will be on the cover. Acknowledgements can share the credit, but the blame will all be yours. Well-meaning constructive criticism is not a synonym for improvement.

 

*-- All Joe Lansdale quotes used with his permission.

 

Favorite Reads of 2020, Part One

I can’t read nearly as fast or as much as I used to, so I’m pickier about what I do read. Books get far fewer pages than before to prove their worth. Lucky me that I’ve already read five I was sorry to see end.

The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis. I planned not to read any books about the trump administration, but this was Michael Lewis. The germ of the narrative is how the trump team handled the transition from the Obama Administration, or, more to the point, didn’t handle it. What begins as an examination of how power changes hands spins through a description of the expertise that resides in government and then into a parable about being careful what you ask for. It’s brilliant, Lewis’s finest work, and that’s saying a lot.

Cold in July, Joe Lansdale. I’m late to the party on Lansdale but that’s among the reasons I’m trimming some of my other reading, so I can catch up. A damn near perfect book with well-drawn characters and one that belongs on the pantheon of greatness, namely Jim Bob Luke. What begins as a simple home burglary turns deadly and a solid revenge story starts to spin out until a plot twist that made me lower the book and take a deep breath. There are a couple of things that might defy the suspension of disbelief in lesser hands, but Lansdale pulls off the ultimate success: an ending that seems surprising yet inevitable. The movie’s good, but it only scratches the surface and makes a few odd choices. By all means read the book.

Apprehension, Mark Bergin. Just because I’m fussier about what I read doesn’t mean I’m only reading big names. Bergin’s debut is a combination police procedural/courtroom drama that succeeds on all counts in a manner that would make Joe Wambaugh proud, a fascinating story that is far more about how the cases work on the cops than how the cops work on the cases.

The Ghosts of Galway, Ken Bruen. Been a while since I read a book by Bruen. Can’t let that happen again. His style is as unique as Ellroy’s in its own distinctly Irish way. This time Jack Taylor gets involved in a classic MacGuffin tale that’s ostensibly about a rare book that ends up not being any more about the book than The Maltese Falcon is about the Audubon Society. Everyone uses Taylor for a pawn, not the least of which is a young woman who give Alice from the Luther TV show a run for her money in the crazy bitch department. What no one figures is the man they dismiss as an aging, broken-down drunk has limits to what he’ll put up with and skills to do something about it.

Cozy up to Death, Colin Conway. You might have assumed I don't read many cozies. The figure "none" comes to mind. This is a cozy with a difference. Sure, it's in a quaint New England seaside village. Sure, the protagonist owns a mystery bookstore and the bookstore has a cat. The lone police patrol officer rides a bike. Ah, but the store owner is a biker who ratted on the MC and is in Witness Protection, where he rubs up against some people he should really have stayed clear of. Delightful way of turning the genre on its head while still observing all the conventions.

Bear and Roaming in Albany, Day Three

Saturday, September 21

9:00 (That’s right, nine in the morning) Big Man on Mulberry Street: Creating the perfect villain

This panel hit the ground running. None were of the “criminal mastermind/serial killer” school of villainy. Steve Hamilton called out Mags Bennett from Season 2 of Justified as the perfect villain. She poisons a man for talking to the police, then adopts his daughter, going so far as to side against her own sons to protect the girl.

Noteworthy comments came too fast for my note taking skills to keep up. Among the more memorable ideas expressed:

Every villain is the hero of his own story.

The panel’s consensus, first expressed by moderator Barbara Fister, is that the serial killer/dogged detective genre may have run its course. A lot of people are sick to death of them. (Me, for one.)

Joe Lansdale pointed out that villains are not made notable because they have an eye patch or a wooden leg, but by how they feel about having an eye patch or a wooden leg. Two books he recommends: They Don’t Dance Much, by James Ross; You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up, by Richard Hallas. (One of the great titles of all time.)

John McFetridge said most criminals understand they’re breaking the law, but they think of laws as being temporary. He noted the now-respectable fortunes made by Canadian alcoholic companies smuggling whisky and beer into the United States during Prohibition.

John also has a great idea to get all the James Bond villains together to write a book about how to succeed in nefarious enterprises. Rule Number One: Don’t tell Bond your plan.

10:20 You May Be Right: Law enforcement and crime fiction—serve, protect, and entertain

Moderator Colin Campbell ran the session as a mock interrogation and his panel was up to the task. He began by asking if anyone was faint of heart, upset by graphic descriptions, or offended by foul language, then told them they could fuck off right now.

Former New York detective Robert Knightley gave it to us straight:

· Cops are evaluated by how quickly they can get a confession. Means and method are secondary.

· In New York, they don’t bring in the video camera until everything has been agreed upon; they’re taping a performance, not an interrogation. The real work was done off camera. He’d been involved in interrogations that ran in shifts, going on so long one set of cops goes home for some sleep and their replacements are still at it when the original cops return.

· CSI evidence is nice, but it works best with a confession.

Something too many writers get wrong: suspects do not have to be read their Miranda warning upon arrest. It’s only when the police are about to ask questions. Patrol officers are sometimes told never to Mirandize suspects; leave that for the detectives, who may try to dance around it.

Tim O’Mara, the only non-cop on the panel—he does have cops in th family—had several entertaining tales of how life as a New York schoolteacher isn’t always mush differen from life as a cop, though his solutions to the resulting incidents were much different. And entertaining.

Connie Dial said she was rarely cursed at by a criminal without receiving an unsolicited apology.

The writers’ most frustrating inaccuracies in books and scripts:

· Calling for an ambulance instead of the medical examiner for an obviously dead body.

· Detectives working alone in situations where they clearly would not.

· Cops saying they’re “on the job.” Cops only say that when they’re pulled over for speeding.

· Unlike in Law & Order, people do not continue what they’re doing when police question them.

When asked by an audience member what police do when they find a false confession, Knightley replied there are no false confessions from their point of view. Once the guy confesses, they’re done with him; the case is closed. He also strongly recommended Ken Burns’s latest documentary, The Central Park Five, about the 1989 case of the Central Park jogger who was raped and murdered in an alleged “wilding” incident.

12:30 Famous Last Words: Writing multiple series/ending a series

Max Allan Collins began with the final word on when to definitively end a series: the publisher doesn’t want any more. Collins spoke of continuing and ending Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer series, at the behest of Hammer, with whom he worked closely late in Spillane’s life. (I was shocked to learn Spillane wrote only thirteen Mike Hammer novels; Collins has completed six more that Spillane had begun, thus completing the series.)

As might be expected, there was discussion about continuing a series someone else had started. Collins didn’t feel that was what he had done with Spillane, as Spillane had started all of the books Collins completed. He also didn’t see anything wrong with writers picking up where dead authors left off.

Reed Farrel Coleman is finishing his Moe Prager series, but also went back to write a Moe prequel. His money quote in setting stories in the past—in his case the late 60s—was not to take the easy way out and give everyone long hair, tie-dyed shirts, and bell bottoms. The great majority of people in every time period—well over 90%--get up every morning and go to work.

Laurie King named Josephine Tey as her most influential writer prior to 1995. I’ve been tripping over Tey references since I read Books to Die For; I need to track her down. (Congratulations to good friend Declan Burke and John Connolly for winning an Anthony for BTDF.)

2:30 Noir at the Bar

Well, sort of. Eric Beetner hosted a speed dating version of the popular series, giving each author one minute to read enough of his or her work to make the audience want to read more. All succeeded, though few so well as Les Edgerton with his fifteen-second poem. There was plenty of talent in the room to hold a crowd without the book giveaways, but giving away books is always a cool thing. A little hurried, but a rousing success, even though high winds caused the cancellation of the much-anticipated human sacrifices.

3:30 Terrence McCauley (with guest game show host Todd “Big Daddy Thug” Robinson)

Terrence picked up where Noir at the Bar left off, literally, re-convening half an hour later to continue the readings. This time was more of a slam, with anyone who had something to read encouraged to do so. Todd Robinson broke things up by awarding free books to anyone who could correctly answer Thuglit trivia questions. The talent level was considerable here—both for writing and trivia—and my copy of Todd’s short story collection, Dirty Words, will remind me we’ll always have Albany. (My correct answer: What was the UK title of Stuart Neville’s Ghosts of Belfast? The Twelve.}

Enormous thanks are due to Terrence McCauley for enticing most of his hard-earned crowd to stay for what had potential to be a drone-a-thon, a one-sided “discussion” of the modern relevance of Raymond Chandler’s ideal hero. The time and attention devoted by the audience are much appreciated.

Dinner: The Beloved Spouse returned from a family visit to make a good weekend even better, accompanying John McFetridge, Rick Ollerman, Jacques Filippi, and myself to The Hollow, where I had a bacon cheeseburger with egg yet again, though this time the egg was over easy. As was I, by that time.