Crime Fiction Dossier

Book of the Week: Miles Corwin's "Homicide Special"

I'd never heard of this book, which was first published in 2003, so when a friend recommended it I picked it up right away. Journalist Miles Corwin spent a year with the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division, riding with the detectives, sitting in the squad room and observing their investigations. Homicide Special is the fascinating result of that work, a non-fiction study that reads like a Michael Connelly novel. Corwin is a sharp observer and a fine writer. For anyone interested in learning what a homicide investigation is really like, this is indispensable.

Interview with literary agent Simon Lipskar

Simon Lipskar, a literary agent at Writers House, is one of the top agents in the business. He represents a wide range of writers, including major authors in literary and commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction and young adult fiction. He graciously agreed to answer some questions.

Q. What's the best way for an unpublished writer to get an agent?

This is going to sound agonizingly reductive, but the answer is to worry less about finding an agent and more about writing the best possible book.  If the book is great, old-fashioned queries (though hopefully with less paper waste via email submission) are the best way to garner interest.  But don't bother looking until you're confident your book is as good as it can be.  I guess part of the question you're asking is if going to conferences and meeting agents on the prowl will help; my basic feeling is usually not.  What you're selling is on the page: if it's there, it's there, if it's not, it's not.

Q.  What do you look for in a prospective client?

More reductiveness: a great writer.  A determined writer.  A writer who's willing to work as hard on her craft as her career (and vice versa).  Recognizing that writing is a solo act but publishing is a team effort is helpful, but I'll represent a raging egomaniac who is a brilliant writer -- the work always comes first, period.

Q. What are publishers buying right now?

The further adventures of reductiveness: books they can sell.  What that is precisely changes from time to time, of course.  In terms of thrillers, which are your primary area of interest, editors are looking for thrillers that aren't like all the others.  Sure, there's still money to be made writing Da Vinci Code knockoffs, but that's growing staler by the moment.  Originality and freshness seem to be the watchwords on everyone's lips.  I should also add that there's a pretty sour vibe in publishing these days about the marketplace, even more so than usual; nobody is feeling all that great about the health of the bookselling market, and that makes for nervousness all around.

Q. Does it make any sense for writers to try to write to the market or is that a futile enterprise?

Almost invariably futile.  I know one or two cases in which writers wrote books specifically to catch a particular wave in which this gambit worked, but usually this just serves to waste vast amounts of precious time.  Writers should write the books they love.  That way, no matter what the market says, their time wasn't wasted.

Q. What's the one thing that you think all writers should know about the publishing business but don't?

That most of us (publishing folks) really love books.  That most of us really care about publishing books well, that we take it personally. This is not a business for folks who are just looking for a job to pass the time -- it's well beyond 9-5 for most of us, and it usually doesn't compensate the average editor or agent nearly well enough given the amount of time, dedication and passion he or she gives.  So often I get the sense that writers think we really couldn't give a damn about books and publishing them well -- and that's just a profound misreading of this business and the people who work in it.

Book of the Week: Tom Rob Smith's "Child 44"

One of the few books I've read in recent memory that actually deserves the hype it's getting (most of it, anyway), Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 is a fascinating, haunting, depressing thriller set in the Soviet Union during the tail end of Stalin's reign. A serial killer is preying on children throughout the country, but since there is no crime in the Soviet Union -- crime is a problem of the decadent West, not the worker's paradise -- there can be no serial killers. A disgraced former State Security officer risks his life to prove the killer exists and to stop him. There are some wildly improbable coincidences and other flaws with Smith's story, but the way he makes Stalinist Russia come alive is breathtaking in its imagination and despair. Child 44 is a powerful and compelling first novel.

Gumshoe Awards 2008

The 7th Annual Gumshoe Awards are given by Mystery Ink to recognize the best achievements in crime fiction. This year's nominees were chosen from books first published in the United States in 2007.

Best Mystery:

James Lee Burke - The Tin Roof Blowdown (Simon & Schuster)

The Nominees:

John Connolly - The Unquiet (Atria)
Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of Death (Putnam)
Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule (Ballantine)
Laura Lippman - What the Dead Know (William Morrow)

Best Thriller:

Robert Crais - The Watchman (Simon & Schuster)

The Nominees:

Joseph Finder - Power Play (St. Martin's Press)
Michael Gruber - The Book of Air and Shadows (William Morrow)
Richard K. Morgan - Thirteen (Del Rey)
Lee Child - Bad Luck and Trouble (Delacorte)

Best First Novel:

Sean Chercover - Big City, Bad Blood (William Morrow)

The Nominees:

Philip Hawley, Jr. - Stigma (Harper)
Lisa Lutz - The Spellman Files (Simon & Schuster)
Craig McDonald - Head Games (Bleak House Books)
Nick Stone - Mr. Clarinet (HarperCollins)

Lifetime Achievement:

Donald E. Westlake

Donald E. Westlake is one of the most prolific authors in the crime genre, having written books of nearly every conceivable type, ranging from comic capers to thrillers to noir. He's written private eye novels, cop novels, historical novels, even erotic novels. More impressively, most of them are pretty damn good, and some of them are great. For maintaining a tradition of writing excellence for nearly 50 years, Westlake is a most deserving winner of the award for Lifetime Achievement. (Read the tribute essay to Donald E. Westlake.)

Best Crime Fiction Website:

The Thrilling Detective Web Site
http://www.thrillingdetective.com

Edited by Kevin Burton Smith, The Thrilling Detective Web Site has been a comprehensive resource on private eye fiction, and the crime genre more generally, for over a decade. A one-stop destination with a wealth of information, The Thrilling Detective includes author and book guides, reviews, news, information on film and TV, original fiction and more. It is an essential guide for fans of PI novels or anyone looking to learn more about detective fiction.

Are you sure you want to be a writer?

Poets & Writers magazine has an excellent interview with agent Nat Sobel. Everyone should definitely read the whole thing -- it's full of great stories and information and observations about the world of publishing. (The material about working with James Ellroy is fascinating.)

I wanted to highlight one particular part of the interview. Sobel talks about how difficult it is to sell fiction, especially by new authors, and especially by male authors (unless it's a thriller):

Five of us in the agency read submissions...We generally read partial manuscripts, or complete manuscripts. Everyone averages about two of those per week. So, in an average year, that's more than five hundred manuscripts. Last year, from those five hundred books, we took on three new writers. And we were only able to sell one of them.

You sure you want to be a writer still?

Are writers conferences worth the money?

One of the perennial topics that mystery/thriller writers talk about is: Are writers conferences worth the money? It just came up in two conversations I had with authors last week.

I used to be a firm advocate of conference-going. I saw it as an efficient and relatively easy way for authors to interact with a large number of fans all in one place. And that's still true -- a well attended conference will provide that opportunity.

But is it worth the cost, both in terms of time and money? That's not as clear-cut as I once thought it was. If you count up the financial cost -- ballpark figures: $300 airfare, $600 hotel, $200 registration fee, $200 food -- you're looking at easily spending over $1000 for a 3- to 4-day long conference.

Now, a grand isn't a huge amount of money. Most of us can afford it. But does it make sense to spend it when you're only getting a $10,000 advance? Even if you're get $50k per book, is it advisable to spend $1k of it all in one place?

I don't know. Maybe -- maybe not. Those are the kinds of questions authors have to ask for themselves. But it's important to weigh the positive benefits against the financial costs (and certainly the opportunity costs) before deciding to sign up.

I love attending writers conferences. I always have a good time. But I don't look at them as promotional opportunities. (I don't really have anything to promote.) So if I looked at them in terms of the career benefit they provided me, they wouldn't be worth the money.

But they can be worth it for other reasons. Writers conferences are a chance to get together with friends, socialize, network, talk about the business, learn more about the craft, etc. That is what, for me, makes them worthwhile. Writing is an isolated and isolating endeavor. Many of us go weeks if not months without talking to other writers except through email. Conferences can be a valuable social activity -- kinda like playdates for home-schooled kids.

If that's the case, though, how many of these things should you attend? Do you need to go to ThrillerFest and Bouchercon and Love Is Murder and Left Coast Crime and Dave's Backyard Hootenanny? Probably not. Maybe one a year is worthwhile -- and which one that is will depend on a lot of factors, like location, what type of books you write, who's putting the conference on, who the guests of honor are, who else is going to be there, etc.

I do think conferences provide valuable promotional opportunities, especially for newer writers. You can meet influential people in the business, talk to fans, hopefully generate word of mouth. For more established authors, I think it's probably a good idea to make an appearance at least every couple of years, or else people will start to suspect that you're dead.

But should you attend every one? Or even attend every year? Only if you enjoy going to them a lot -- enough to offset the costs. Otherwise, you're probably better off spending your promotional dollars elsewhere.

How not to talk to reviewers

I get emails almost every day from authors, telling me about their books, asking for reviews, etc. And that's fine. I make my email address public and easy to find so that people can always get in touch with me. I like hearing from writers, readers, etc. That's part of why I do this.

Occasionally, though, those emails do more harm than good. Obviously, the crackpots who demand that I review their PublishAmerica masterpiece -- and then just won't let it go -- are among the worst. But sometimes even well-meaning authors say the wrong thing.

For example, I find it irritating when I get a message that reads:

"You should have received a copy of my new book by now. I look forward to reading your review."

Or, even worse:

"I hope you enjoyed reading my book. Please let me know when the review will appear."

I don't know if this is something they teach in management school, or whether some advice guru suggested it or what, but it's annoying.

I am not susceptible to the Jedi Mind Trick. I will not review your book just because you sent it to me. (I get a couple hundred books a month and only review a handful of them.) Most of the time, I can't even read your book. I wish I could. I wish I could read everything and write about most of it. But that's not reality.

Contacting reviewers is fine. Asking if they received the books is fine. (Although you may not get a response.) Anything more than that is probably not a good idea.

Book of the Week: "The Blue Religion" (ed. Michael Connelly)

The Mystery Writers of America have put together a new anthology of short fiction, featuring stories about police officers and their lives on and off the job. I know what you're thinking -- Do we really need another anthology? -- but this one has enough good stories to recommend it. Stand-out efforts come from Michael Connelly, Paul Guyot, Alafair Burke, Jack Frederickson and Edward D. Hoch. (There are some other good ones as well, and only a couple of stinkers.) The world of short crime fiction is the strongest it’s been in years, and anthologies like The Blue Religion are a large part of the reason why.

Literary heroes

Screenwriter Paul Guyot has a new feature on his website that intrigued me. It's a photo gallery of his heroes, drawn from film, literature, music, sports, his personal life and everything else.

Some of the choices are a little odd -- for example, he is obsessed with a horse. And, apparently, people who drive really fast while making left turns. But some of the choices are rather inspiring.

This got me thinking about my own heroes, especially those related to writing and literature. I'm too lazy to put together pictures or anything. But I did start making a list:

Ross Thomas...Roger Ebert...Larry Block...Pauline Kael...Anthony Boucher...Ernest Hemingway...George Pelecanos...John D. MacDonald...Dashiell Hammett...Laura Lippman...Robert Ferrigno...David Morrell...Rex Stout

(This is just off the top of my head -- I know I'm leaving off some great people.)

What about you? Who are your literary heroes?

Ask the Critic: Can you identify this book?

I couldn't... But maybe you can.

The main character is an L.A. detective (recently promoted, I believe), and the book starts quickly with him witnessing the murder of a criminal by his senior peers, iirc in a parking garage, and he is troubled by how to handle it. This is one plot, intertwined with that of a serial killer on the loose. I cannot recall how it all comes together, but basically the young detective winds up in a race to catch the serial killer before being killed or framed by his senior peer detectives, and also to catch the killer before the killer catches him. He tracks the killer to Europe, is helped by a detective over there (Russian I believe). Another sub-plot is this detective has an adult sister who had some trauma so he cares after her... and it turns out the killer is some sort of Duke or something who is about to marry her in Europe..and a big blazing shoot-out in a train garage was one scene. Also the end came together at a museum.

Sounds pretty silly the way I described it, but it actually was a pretty good read...kept me turning pages...

Any ideas?