Gaelic Karma

My life has a tendency to balance out, for which I am more often grateful than frustrated. During my tenure at Castle Voldemort, I once received a nice bonus at work. Several years later, during a stint playing in a community band, I decided it was time to buy a new trumpet. Within a few weeks another windfall came to me, almost exactly what the horn would cost. That’s how I roll.

I should have expected as much when The Beloved Spouse and I failed to score any autographs for our copy of Books To Die For at Bouchercon. With thirty-plus authors ready to sign, we waited for the line to thin before queuing up. Little did we know demand for signatures would be so great most of the authors had to leave for other commitments by the time we got within hailing distance of the signing area, and we bailed ourselves. So it goes.

The Sole Heir has somewhat better karma. Things tend to drop right for her. Today’s tale shows how her good fortune balanced things out for me, without her even knowing about it.

Last week was my birthday. (I’m now in what I call my Ketchup Year: 57.) She bought me a book from my Amazon wish list (Down These Green Streets, so there’s a Declan Burke angle here, too), but, as she told me during the unwrapping, there was a story behind it.

She had the choice of buying the book new, or used. Daughter of a fledgling author, she opted for new, thinking new is better for a gift, and the authors get paid. When it arrived, she noticed it lacked the sheen a new trade paperback has, and the edges were less than crisp. The pages had obviously been turned. This was not a new book, and she was not amused. Short on time before my birthday, she was about to send it back, but thumbed through it first.

Turns out someone at Amazon made a mistake: she’d scored an autographed copy. Ten contributors had signed, including Declan Hughes, Colin Bateman, and Ian Ross. (We’re still decoding the others.) She gave it to me as is, with the offer to swap it for a new one if I preferred.

Like hell. They’ll pry this copy from my cold, dead fingers.

This was better than balancing out. Books To Die For is just as good, signed or not. Having the unexpected signed copy of Green Streets, and a story to go with it, puts me well ahead.

And the kid’s only half as Irish as I am. Go figure.

Getting Mad

Let’s begin by extending sincere thanks to Seana Graham for her kind words about Wild Bill on her fine review blog, Not New For Long. (No, it’s not a “fine review blog” because she liked Wild Bill. It’s a fine blog, period. That she liked Wild Bill threatens her reputation almost as much as it enhances mine.) The review ends with Seana saying she would like to have seen “more of Madeline ‘Mad’ Klimak, a strong female protagonist who shows that King has a range beyond the macho trope. Maybe [she’ll] appear in a sequel?”

I worked harder on Mad than on any other character in anything I’ve written. She’s integral to the story in several ways; the book could not have been written without her. That being said, I’d never written a female character with the mix of qualities Mad had to have, and I sweated bullets every time I read a Mad chapter to The Beloved Spouse or my writers group. Seana’s compliment is not the first Mad has received in a review, but it’s the first from a woman, which makes it doubly gratifying.

I’ve looked for opportunities to write Mad again, notably by including her in a PI series set in Chicago I’ve worked on for several years. She’d be a perfect foil for Nick Forte, but they live in different fictional Chicago universes, and the accommodations that would have to be made are too great. (For the dozens of people who’ve read Wild Bill, at least.) Thoughts of giving her a book of her own always break down when I remember the angst of writing her as a supporting character.

Seana’s remark, coupled with Patti Abbott’s comment to my “Best Reads” post, got me to thinking seriously about how much time I spend with female writers and characters. Frankly, it’s not much. Looking back on my list of books read, I thought to have read more female writers than I have. I may have subconsciously shied away from female characters in the two Penns River books I’ve completed because Mad caused me so much agita.

That has to stop.

Not for political correctness. (No one who knows me would think that, but in case some stranger wanders by…) There are woman writers whose work I like a lot. Megan Abbott, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Zoe Sharp, Laura Lippmann (when she’s not writing Tess Monahan) come to mind immediately. My Books Read list goes back to 2006, and has names and books I liked a lot, but somehow never got around to reading the next. I’m cheating myself out of a good time by skipping over them.

As for characters, well, half the people in the world are women. True, most of my characters are either cops or crooks, and those are male-dominated fields. I’m careful not to fall into the crime fiction trap of making women either strippers or hookers or victims—though I have done all three, in conscious moderation—and can only broaden my stories, and my writing, by becoming more inclusive.

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, and don’t need one here. I’ve already added woman writers to my TBR list, and will find at least one new one from those recommended in John Connolly’s and Declan Burke’s Edgar-nominated compendium Books To Die For. (Congratulations, gents.)

The writing will require only a small course change. I’m nearing the end of the first draft of the next Penns River novel. A change I’d planned for the second draft will suit adding a woman nicely. I hope to spend the summer tidying the first two Nick Forte PI novels for Kindle releases. The series has a couple of strong continuing female characters, and the second book is virtually controlled by women. Maybe revisiting them will remind me of the benefits in writing characters of complementary plumbing to my usual casts, while remembering it’s not the plumbing that makes them relevant. I’m hoping folks like Seana and Patti and others can not only keep me honest, but make sure I do it well.

As for Mad, I’m looking for a good story for her. Maybe I’ll ignore the parallel universe issues and add her to my PI stories. (Or vice versa, depending on the story.) Aren’t reboots all the rage now?

What’s In a Name?

Character names take me right out of a lot of popular crime fiction. I don’t know any women named Taylor or Alexandra or men named Maxim or Baldwin; I don’t think I’d want to. I grew up and tend to hang with people named Andy and Larry and Mary and Linda.

Same with surnames. Popular fiction has so many WASPy names a paper cut could send you into anaphylactic shock. I grew up with people named Rychlinksi and Kurpakis and Policcichio and Dzanaj. Robert Langdon means dick to me.

Character names are important. Elmore Leonard tells a story of a character in a story set in New Orleans. He gave the guy a French name and couldn’t find anything for him to say. Leonard changed the character’s name (something Irish, I think) and said he couldn’t shut him up.

The story of Tim Hallinan’s upcoming Junior bender novel, The Fame Thief, revolves around Wanda Altschuler, from Scranton, Pennsylvania. That’s a good, Scranton-sounding name. She ended up in LA trying to be an actress and changed her name to the far more exotic and celebrity-like Dolores La Marr, which probably conjures up an entirely different image from the woman who was Wanda Altschuler. (Which is, of course, among the reasons actors change their names. That’s why a lot of them become actors, so they won’t have to be who they are.)

I spend a lot of time on names. For some reason, I decided Will Hickox in Wild Bill was from the Scranton area. (Probably why learning about Ms. Altschuler got me to thinking along this line.) When I wanted a genuine sounding Scranton name for Will’s maternal grandfather, I hit Wikipedia for famous people from the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area. “Biden” didn’t have the ring I wanted, but Volodymyr Palahniuk was perfect. I already had the first name—Willard, “Big Will”—but the original surname of actor Jack Palance fit perfectly.

When I needed a shit-ton of Italian names for the mobsters in Wild Bill—preferably Sicilian—I pulled up Google maps and went to Sicily, where towns named Enna and Agrigento and Ragusa and Caccamo served better than anything I could make up.

My current series is set in a small town very similar to where I grew up, so my high school year book and RSS feeds from the local paper provide Western Pennsylvania placesetters like Napierkowski and Neuschwander and Wierzbicki. (I meant to add a pronunciation key to Worst Enemies when I formatted it for Kindle, and will ask Stark House to correct my oversight when Grind Joint comes out next year.) Names like those not only help to personalize and even describe the character, taken as a group they can become part of the setting. I don’t need to spend any time reminding readers where we are when a conversation takes place between Stush Napierkowski and Rick Neuschwander.

What about you? Do names matter in the books you read? In the books you write? Why, or why not? Writers, how do you come up with them?

Best Reads of 2012

I read 62 books this year; four more were started, but not finished. It was a good year, so I’m not going to bother with naming the ten best, or five best, or twelve best. These are the books I’d be happy to recommend to anyone looking for a good read. (Books are listed in each category in the order in which I read them. No qualitative ranking should be implied.)

Fiction:

Tumblin’ Dice, John Mcfetridge – The Saints of Hell play more of a supporting role in this entry in the continuing saga of the biker gang gradually taking over organized crime in Canada, but their presence looms over everything that happens. A rock band gets together for a reunion tour on the casino circuit and proves you can’t always get what you want. (It’s not only Mcfetridge who can quote Stones’s titles.)

Falling Glass, Adrian McKinty – Michael Forsythe makes a cameo here, though, as above, his presence affects everything that gets done. The most Irish of McKinty’s crime fiction, Falling Glass probes a little deeper and lingers a little longer on societal and interpersonal relationships without losing any of its momentum.

Wolf Tickets, Ray Banks – Now he’s showing off. Tells the story in first person, from the points of view of two alternating characters. Far from taking the reader out of the story, the technique gives insights into both characters, foreshadowing issues in the flow of thoughts instead of hitting you over the head with them. A fast and fascinating read.

The Bone Polisher, Timothy Hallinan – The more I read of Hallinan’s Simeon Grist novels, the more I like them; maybe I picked the wrong entry point. Here Grist fills in the gaps far-flung small town cops would never be able to coordinate to solve Los Angeles murders.

Cleansing Eden, Ben Sobieck – I don’t like serial killer novels, and generally avoid them. Sobieck adds a twist to make this psycho far more believable—and thereby creepier—in a story with overtones of the Washington sniper killings of ten years ago. An exceptional debut.

Mafiya, Charlie Stella – The poet laureate of mob fiction brings in the Russians, both the mob and an OC cop, in what might be Stella’s most compelling story.

Breaking Cover, J.D. Rhoades – The twist comes early, so I can’t say what makes Breaking Cover different from most “hunted man” thrillers. Rhoades has a knack for redneck noir, and never have the necks been redder in one of his stories. He also stays away from the pat and expected ending, which earns major points.

The Fear Artist, Timothy Hallinan – The latest Poke Rafferty thriller involves Poke in Thai terrorism and a ghost from the Vietnam War’s Phoenix program. Uses the broadest cast of all the Rafferty stories to good effect, and needs them all. I spent a day of my summer vacation reading the whole thing in virtually one sitting. Had my bladder been twenty years younger, one sitting would have done it.

Fire Season, Jon Loomis – Let’s hope some publisher figures out how to market Loomis. He’s writing a series of what should be borderline best sellers and hardly anyone knows about it. Provincetown MA detective Frank Coffin and the usual crew of LGBT accomplices combine for another tale that will keep a smile on your face until you laugh out loud, but never trivializes the violence.

Rough Riders, Charlie Stella – A bit of a change, moving away from New York to North Dakota. Rough Riders picks up the story from Eddie’s World but is not really a sequel, as a retired NYPD detective follows a trail looking for the man Eddie Senta disfigured in self-defense, who now wants revenge. Throw in some local and federal law enforcement, and a heroin ring operating out an air force base and you have Stella’s most complex and multi-layered story.

A Choice of Nightmares, Lynn Kostoff – The story of a second-rate actor and third-rate person who allows himself to be drawn into a drug smuggling conspiracy thanks to his own lack of introspection and impulse control. The fact this could happen to a lot of people if they don’t pay attention makes the story even more compelling.

Slaughter’s Hound, Declan Burke – Burke goes Ray Banks and Allan Guthrie one better in this maniacal story of what happens when Eightball Boogie’s Harry Rigby gets out of prison and goes straight. Funny, terrifying, and disturbing, this is Burke’s most accomplished work to date, though definitely not for the faint of heart.

Skin Deep, Timothy Hallinan – The first Simeon Grist book, published third (this is the strangest business in the world, except for movies), and the best. Grist is hired to babysit a thoroughly contemptible TV star long enough not to queer a syndication deal. None of the characters live in the American mainstream, but you’ll feel like you know them all by the time you’re finished reading. Nice twist to the ending, where payback is a bitch.

Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut – Yes, it took me over fifty years to read Player Piano. It’s just as well. Vonnegut was either remarkable prescient or things haven’t changed as much in this country as we like to think, as his dystopian idea of the logical consequences of mechanical efficiency may be even more disturbing now than when he wrote it in the 50s.

Perfect Hatred, Leighton Gage – Ha! The rest of you won’t get to red this until February, when I’ll have a full review to accompany release. The electronic ARC I read shows Gage taking his game up a notch, weaving together stories that pull Chief Inspector Silva in different directions while pushing him between them at the same time. All the things that make the Silva series so good are here, plus a new level of complexity and danger.

The Adjustment, Scott Phillips – Talk about books that aren’t for everyone. Wayne Ogden may be the most selfish character ever written, yet I couldn’t stop reading about him. Only Phillips can get me to read about such a person and like it.

Sacrifice Fly, Tim O’Mara – Excellent debut about a former New York cop turned schoolteacher who treads the line between cops and civilians in the search for a missing student. Well-drawn characters, great dialog, and an unexpected plot direction make this a book that will get O’Mara another contract if there is any justice.

Notable re-reads:

The Last Good Kiss, James Crumley – I didn’t like it much when I read it the first time, but continued to hear so much good about it I gave it another chance. What can I say? I was bedridden with mononucleosis the first time, not in the best condition to render objective reading opinions. It’s as good as they say.

Dead I Well May Be, Adrian McKinty – Another book I gave short shrift when I read it the first time, though without illness as an excuse. The best of the McKinty’s Forsythe books, getting inside Michael’s head as he evolves from criminal gofer to bad motherfucker.

The Guards, Ken Bruen – Originally read the same week as The Last Good Kiss, with the same original results and re-evaluation after the re-reading.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle, George V. Higgins – I don’t have anything to add to what I and others have said before. Quite possibly the greatest piece of crime fiction ever written.

Non-Fiction (since it’s not really fair to compare it directly with fiction):

Making Story, edited by Timothy Hallinan – Essays from twenty-some published authors on how they put their books together. Includes plotters and pantsers and everything in between. Highly recommended for all writers, if only to show you can’t be doing it wrong if there is no right way.

Books to Die For, edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke – Over a hundred authors pick books they think are important in the crime fiction oeuvre, writing essays on each. A must have for any serious reader or writer of crime fiction. I guarantee you’ll find something, or someone, new here.

Gang Leader For a Day, Sudhir Venkatesh – Graduate thesis research takes a SoCal boy to the most notorious housing project in the country, Chicago’s late Robert Taylor homes. A fascinating story, not unlike David Simon’s The Corner, but more from the gang’s point of view.

Sacrifice Fly

It’s not often I discover a new author because he asked for the shirt off my back. Happened exactly once, at the bar during this year’s Cleveland Bouchercon. Ordering my drink and I hear, “I want that shirt.” Okay, he didn’t actually want mine; he wanted one exactly like it. (The shirt is question is a tasteful black tee shirt, with WWASD stitched over the left breast, and “What Would Al Swearengen Do?” on the back, a Christmas gift from The Beloved Spouse several years ago.)

Turns out the guy’s name is Tim O’Mara, a New York schoolteacher with a book due out right after the conference. Tim’s a nice guy, we’re both seamheads, and a pleasant conversation ensued, during which we exchanged cards. I then went home and placed his book on the list with the other hundred or so I’d like to read. Good luck.

Couple of weeks later I noticed the book (Sacrifice Fly) getting some love on a blog I frequent. Another few weeks down the road I saw a brief piece by Tim in the Criminal Element blog that was intriguing enough I bumped Sacrifice Fly up the list and bought a copy.

Well done, me.

Sacrifice Fly is the story of former cop and current schoolteacher Raymond Donne. Donne pulled a few strings to get student Frankie Rivas into the local Catholic high school on a baseball scholarship, but the kid can’t go unless he graduates middle school, and he can’t graduate middle school unless he starts showing up, which he hasn’t done for several days. Donne takes it upon himself to get Frankie tightened up and discovers he’s no longer staying with his grandmother, but with his father, who can charitably be described as a ne’er-do-well. Donne follows up and finds Frankie’s father dead and Frankie and his younger sister in the wind.

Sacrifice Fly does so many things well, it’s hard to know where to start. Donne left the police force after a serious injury. He doesn’t miss it—normally—but searching for Frankie draws him so close to Job he can’t help crossing the line. His internal debates always ring true, and O’Mara has done us the courtesy of not making Donne fight the demons of alcohol or drug abuse. He’s a guy, like any guy, who wants to do the right thing. He also has some skills and experience that will serve him well as he treads a little farther over the line with each episode.

The supporting cast is introduced and used judiciously and to good effect. There are quite a few characters, all so well delineated you’ll have no trouble keeping them straight. They also have a convenient combination of skill sets, but not so convenient they feel like cut-outs. It’s more a matter of Donne knowing a lot of guys who can do a lot of things. His job is knowing who to call for what, and when.

Most of the story takes place in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, which is a nice change from the general “New York = Manhattan” vibe too many books put out. It’s a neighborhood—true, a changing one—but the people care about it and each other without becoming mawkish.

The plot is paced and organized perfectly. O’Mara understands suspense is the sense that something is going to happen, and knows how long to make you wait before the law of diminishing return kicks in. No outrageous surprises complicate things, but there are plenty of complications. Nothing that doesn’t make sense, but there are things you have to wonder about until the reveal makes them seem inevitable. Everything comes to make sense and he never hurries. Many writers never learn to do either.

The dialog sounds like people talking, especially when Donne is talking to other men. This must be harder to do than people think, because hardly anyone does it well. More straightforward than George V. Higgins, O’Mara’s dialog still creates the feeling you’re eavesdropping on a conversation, not reading a speech.

This is a lot longer than my standard review, frankly, because Sacrifice Fly delivered a lot more than I expected. I have high expectations for books written by authors whose work I already know, and who have receive a lot of acclaim, not for guys I meet in bars. Maybe I need to spend more time in bars. O’Mara is working on another book. I’ll read it, too.

Merry Christmas

 Another year? Well, holy cow,
That sure did fly by quick.
We were not too adventurous
And no one got real sick.

 The biggest news, as usual,
Was wrought by The Sole Heir,
Who spent five weeks in France to learn
How doctors do it there.

She’s interviewing now to find
A med school to attend,
So when the old man falls apart
She’ll give advice to mend.

Memorial Day the clan convened
In Jersey (where there’s bears),
Extended families combined
With memories to share.

 In May a deal by Dana signed,
A book will be in print,
It won’t come out till oh-fourteen;
The process is no sprint.

 Accompanying Dana to
This annum’s Bouchercon
Gave Corky her first chance to meet
The writers he dwells on.

 (Oh, Bouchercon’s a mys’try fest,
The largest on the Earth,
Where writers and their fans can share
A few pints and some mirth.)

Apart from that, a quiet year,
No surgeries or floods,
The days rolled through from one to next
Some triumphs, fewer duds.

 The timing good for such a year,
As next one will be busy,
Two graduations and a trip
Will keep us in a tizzy.

We wish you many happy days,
Both holi- and routine,
And hope too much time will not pass
Before by us you’re seen.

The Adjustment

Everyone has a writer about whom they say, “No one else writes like this.” Excepting the times the phrase is used as a meaningless platitude (which is too often), this means the author in question has gotten off the main trail and is finding his or her own way and no one is likely to follow because it’s scary down there. No light, no handholds, forks and switchbacks that can get you lost in a heartbeat, never to be heard from again. Sheer rock wall to your left, a thousand-foot drop on your right, and the path is a foot-and-a half wide. Then there’s the bridge across the Gorge of Eternal Peril, where if you fail to give the right answers, your bones will join the others strewn about, the careers of writers who lacked the courage of, and confidence in, their convictions. They should have turned back a long time ago.

James Ellroy’s name comes up a lot in such discussions, with good reason. My personal favorite is Scott Phillips.

In The Adjustment, Phillips builds his story around a thoroughly unlikeable character (Wayne Ogden). Ogden is a true sociopath, a small-town version of Warren Zevon’s “Mr. Bad Example.” Wayne’s greedy and he’s angry and he doesn’t care who he crosses. He likes to have a good time, and he doesn’t care who gets hurt. Really. Times two.

It’s not that Ogden is amoral. He knows what the right thing to do is most of the time, and is willing to do it, so long as it doesn’t interfere with what he wants or feels like doing at the time. He puts up with his pregnant wife’s abysmal cooking because he feels bad when he hurt her feelings one time, then goes out a sleeps with pretty much whoever will have him. He’s a strong advocate on condoms, though it’s primarily because the clap will keep him from getting laid as often as he’d like. This is 1946, so AIDS is not an issue for Wayne. Pregnancy is an issue, but only for his partners.

That’s an unappealing picture, and Phillips does nothing to soften Ogden’s aura. Writing in the first person, no apologies are made for Ogden’s actions or attitudes. He is what he is and you can take him or leave him. Ogden’s okay either way, and he’s too busy to talk you into anything. It’s the matter-of-factness that makes the book so readable, that and Phillips’s wit, which is considerable. By “wit,” I don’t mean what passes for wit in popular culture today, Judd Apatow least common denominator cleverness (which, admittedly, can be quite funny), but the dryness present in Thurber or Robert Benchley. Not that either Thurber or Benchley would touch a character like Wayne Ogden with a cattle prod. You’ll read the description of an unsavory, heavy R-rated action through Ogden’s eyes and find a smile growing at the same time your conscience is stripping off its clothes, looking for a place to burn them.

The Adjustment is not for everyone. (Including, I believe, Phillip’s agent at the time.) You may find yourself smiling at things that are only funny from Ogden’s perspective. The writing will bring the smile, but any self-aware reader will be unable to escape what an unsavory narrator he is. If you enjoy atypical novels written with understated panache and don’t mind spending time with a main character who will screw your wife and piss in your drink while you’re in the bathroom, you really ought to check it out.