Crime Fiction Dossier

What's your favorite website?

Each year, Mystery Ink gives out the Gumshoe Awards to honor the best in crime fiction. One of the categories is Best Crime Fiction Website. Past winners have included Lee Child's and Michael Connelly's websites, Sarah Weinman's blog and January Magazine.

So far I haven't come up with any strong contenders for this year's award. Any suggestions? If so, please email me.

Latest Chicago Sun-Times column

My January column ran in the Chicago Sun-Times this morning. It contains the latest books from M.J. Rose (The Delilah Complex), Michele Martinez (The Finishing School), Sean Doolittle (Rain Dogs), Twist Phelan (Spurred Ambition) and Dick Adler (Dreams of Justice: Mysteries as Social Documents).

They all have things to recommend them, but I especially liked M.J. Rose's book, a saucy combination of sex and suspense. It's not the kind of thing I ordinarily read, but I enjoyed it.

Final Tally, Addendum

I extracted a few more statistics to add to my Final Tally for 2005, for those of you who enjoy this kind of thing.

Here are the number of books I reviewed, broken down by publisher. (I combined the various imprints under the main company.)

Bloomsbury: 1 book reviewed
Carroll & Graf: 1 book reviewed
CDS Books: 1 book reviewed
Dennis McMillan: 1 book reviewed
Five Star: 1 book reviewed
Hard Case Crime: 1 book reviewed
HarperCollins (Avon, HarperCollins, Morrow): 9 books reviewed
Holtzbrinck (Forge, Henry Holt, St. Martin's, St. Martin's Minotaur): 12 books reviewed
Hyperion: 2 books reviewed
Kensington (Kensington, Pinnacle): 2 books reviewed
Mira: 1 book reviewed
Penguin (Dutton, Plume, Putnam, Signet, Viking): 8 books reviewed
Point Blank: 1 book reviewed
Poisoned Pen Press: 2 books reviewed
Random House (Ballantine, Bantam, Broadway, Delacorte, Delta, Doubleday, One World): 17 books reviewed
Scholastic: 1 book reviewed
Simon & Schuster (Scribner, Simon & Schuster): 2 books reviewed
Time Warner Book Group (Little Brown, Mysterious Press, Warner): 6 books reviewed

Random House was the big winner, which isn't a surprise, given that they're the largest. The surprising thing I note from these stats is how few books by Simon & Schuster I reviewed. I think that's mostly because they tend not to send me as many of their books as the other publishers do. (Like I always tell the publicists: if I don't get 'em, I can't review 'em.)

The other statistics I have are the number of books I reviewed, broken-down into different book types:

Hardcovers: 57 books reviewed
Trade paperback originials: 5 books reviewed
Paperback originals: 7 books reviewed

Naturally, most of the books I write about are published in hardcover. But I do try to include worthy paperbacks when I can.

I think that's it for the math. You may now return to your regularly scheduled reading.

Weighing in on "A Million Little Lies"

The big literary topic in the news the past week, of course, has been the revelation that James Frey's gazillion-selling memoir A Million Little Pieces is mostly a pack of lies.

Frey's apologists, including Oprah Winfrey, have argued that this is "much ado about nothing" and that the book is "emotionally [true]" (whatever the hell that means). We are told that memoirs are expected to be fabricated, so it's no big deal.

Such defenses, impassioned and even well-intentioned though they may be, are misguided, if not downright dangerous.

There is a general expectation when reading memoirs that, although some details may be misremembered, and some events may be interpreted differently, and that recollections of varying parties will always vary, there is nonetheless a commitment to truth and accuracy that don't depend on subjective perspectives.

If I have a fight with my wife, which of us started it might be a legitimate matter of differing memories. If a pair of songwriters collaborate on a song, they might each remember differently whose the initial spark of inspiration was. If a drunk is on a bender and wakes up covered in vomit in the back of a police car, whether or not that happened in 1993 or 1994 isn't really that important.

However, whether or not a person went to jail, or whether or not they contributed to the deaths of two people, or whether or not they were an FBI informant, are not matters of interpretation or subjective memory. They either happened or they didn't. If you report in an allegedly truthful recounting of your life that they happened when really they did not, then you're a liar and the entire work is suspect.

A few errors here and there are to be expected in a work of autobiography. Inconsistencies on minor details are excusable. Even an attempt to exaggerate one's own importance, or to enhance one's reputation, is natural. But a repeated, deliberate and consistent pattern of fabrication exposes the work to be either fiction or fraud -- and certainly not worthy of this kind of attention.

As readers and consumers, we have to rely, at least to some reasonable extent, on the reputation of a company like Random House to vet the manuscripts they sell under the banner of non-fiction. That's not to say that we have an expectation of 100% accuracy. But if, on balance, a story is more not true than it is true, it is deceitful to publish it as non-fiction. We call such works novels and they should be published and marketed as such.

So, does this even matter? As a former historian, I think it matters a lot. The general public already has a hard enough time differentiating between truth and fiction. The difference between gossip and news is already a shaky concept for too many people. Our collective knowledge of history and our understanding of what did and what did not happen is abysmally poor. And that's a problem.

Sure, most academics and critics and publishing professionals are no doubt savvy enough to realize that a book like Frey's contains, at the least, gross exaggerations. But is the average TV viewer who reads the book based on talk show host's recommendation sophisticated enough? Is a high school kid who picks up the book in the library hip to what Frey is doing?

If it's acceptable to write a book about your life that's full of lies, maybe in and of itself that's not important. But what effect does that have on the public's overall confidence in the truth of what they read? If a non-fiction memoir published by Random House can't be relied upon to be at least reasonably accurate, how can we believe their history books, their biographies or their science monographs?

Even in the field of memoir, there is a reasonable presumption of accuracy, or else the book is worthless as an autobiography. If A Million Little Pieces is no more truthful than The Hitler Diaries, then it should be treated as such.

Missing in Action: Robert Ward's "Red Baker"

Back on the old blog, I started a series on books that have gone "Missing in Action" (i.e., out of print). The series only amounted to one book (Robert Ward's Red Baker), but I hope to write about some more one of these days. In the meantime, I didn't want that essay to get lost -- especially since word is surfacing that Red Baker might be returning to print soon -- so I'm reprinting it here.

I first discovered Red Baker when I met the book's author, Robert Ward, at the Bouchercon mystery convention in Las Vegas a couple of years back. Bob and I became fast friends and spent many hours together during the conference exploring the possibilities inherent in distilled spirits.

From the beginning, it was obvious that Bob was a guy who knew a lot of about writing and loved books with a passion. I also quickly discovered that, although his work was unknown to me, he had one helluva reputation among other writers. Every time we ran into someone, invariably they would get excited when they found out who Bob was and tell him how much they enjoyed Red Baker.

Clearly Red Baker was something I had to read, so as soon as I got back home I set out to get a copy. The book, unfortunately, was out of print, and thus was not immediately available. Fortunately, I was able to find a copy in a local used bookstore. (You can also find it for sale used on the internet.) I gladly laid out a couple of books and took Red Baker home, eager to see if it could possibly live up to its advanced billing.

Needless to say, it did. (Why else would I be writing about it?) From the beginning, I was enthralled. There are some books that let you know right away that they were written by a master craftsman who knows his trade, and that you will be in good hands for the duration. Such was the case with Red Baker.

The story is a powerful one, about a blue collar man (Red Baker) whose life falls apart after he loses his job at a Baltimore steel mill. In a broad sense, Red Baker is a crime novel, as Red eventually crosses over to the wrong side of the law out of hopelessness and desperation. More than that, though, it is the story of the American working class and the lives of "quiet desperation" that so many people live. As such, it is a rare book, as the working class seldom figures into most American novels, and it is all the more powerful because of it.

As the novel opens, Red is laid off at the plant along with 60% of the workforce. Like any good citizen, he dutifully reports to the unemployment office where he is told to stand in the line for unskilled laborers. "Now wait a minute, Miss," he tells her. "Maybe you don't understand just what it is [I do]. I turn bars of steel that are hotter than hell. I don't do it right, the steel jumps the track and somebody ends up walking on stumps for the rest of their life. There's plenty of skill in that, you better believe it."

His pleas fall on deaf ears, though, and Red is consigned to wait with the "dead-eyed, bent-backed guys" who have no prospects and little chance of finding work. His life begins a downward spiral in which he gradually loses his wife, his son, his house, and eventually even his sanity. Red turns to heavy-drinking and drugs, and later to crime, but nothing helps ease the pain of getting up each morning with nowhere to go and nothing to do, all of which leaves him feeling less than a man.

Red wonders "how it is a man knows he believes certain things, but he slips a little here and slips a little there, and eventually he looks the same but he's not even a man at all. He's just a liar, and that mean's he's nothing." He finally lowers himself (as he sees it) to take a position as a parking lot attendant, but he can't even make that work, leading to the ultimate humiliation of being fired from a job he considered beneath him in the first place.

Red Baker is something of a literary conceit, an uneducated man without much introspection who is nevertheless capable of offering articulate and poignant insights into life, as when he says "I had believed that if you worked hard and kept yourself and your family together, it was going to pay off. And worse, I had believed that it was not only going to pay off in this world but in the next one, too. That was the greatest laugh of all."

Always, though, the language is honest and direct, and the sentiment is never maudlin or nostalgic. This is life as its rawest and most human. Red Baker (both the character and the novel) resonates precisely because of that sincerity. The author never goes for the cheap trick, never betrays the story in an effort to make his protagonist more likable or the story more cheerful.

Robert Ward is one of those rare writing animals who is both a talented screenwriter (Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice) and a gifted novelist as well. He uses both of those skills to good effect in Red Baker, creating a plot that is fast-moving, evocative and compelling, and telling it with prose that is raw, authentic and piercingly beautiful.

When it was first published back in 1985, Red Baker got great reviews, from Michiko Kakutani, Jonathan Yardley, Christopher Hitchens, Time Magazine, and others, along with notices from the likes of James Crumley and Richard Price. It went on to win the PEN West Award for Best Novel.

Despite all of that, Red Baker is now out-of-print and that's a damn shame. I'm hopeful that some publisher will one day rectify this mistake. In the meantime, the next time you're in a used bookstore, check under "W" and see if they've got a copy. You won't be disappointed.

Robert Ward's newest novel, Four Kinds of Rain, will be published this fall by St. Martin's Press. His story "Chemistry" appeared last year in Akashic's The Cocaine Chronicles (edited by Jervey Tervalon and Gary Phillips ) and another story of his will appear in Baltimore Noir (edited by Laura Lippman), out this May from Akashic.

Final Tally for 2005

I'm something of a compulsive record keeper, if occasionally an absent-minded one. I keep track of the books I read, the articles I write, the movies I watch, etc.

Although I thought that my review output would go down in 2005, it actually increased by 25%. I also wrote two book-related articles that weren't reviews: one a profile of author Libby Fischer Hellmann for the Chicago Sun-Times; the other a round-up on Bouchercon for the Kansas City Star.

My reading output was also up significanly: 40% over 2004's book count. As always, the vast majority were crime fiction novels.

So here are the numbers from last year:

• 175 Books read
• 70 Books reviewed (3 of them more than once)
• 25 Review articles (these are separate articles, often with more than one book in them)
• 1 Author profile
• 1 Journalistic article

Here are the publications I wrote for:

• Chicago Sun-Times: 55 books reviewed in 11 articles, plus 1 profile
• Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: 2 books reviewed in 1 article
• Philadelphia Inquirer: 6 books reviewed in 6 articles
• Boston Globe: 5 books reviewed in 5 articles
• Washington Examiner: 5 books reviewed in 1 article
• National Review Online: 1 book reviewed in 1 article
• Kansas City Star: 1 article

All in all, a productive year on both the reading and reviewing front. Hopefully 2006 will be much the same, with even more productivity in fiction writing.

Bestselling Crime Fiction Novels of 2005

The Book Standard recently printed their list of the Top 200 bestselling books of 2005, as reported by Nielsen BookScan. Their numbers, in theory at least, represent the best data available on what books people actually bought. (As opposed to the New York Times' list, for example, which is apparently based on voodoo.)

I went through and combed out the mystery, thriller and suspense titles, as best as I could pick 'em. (I might have missed a couple.) Of the 200 books on the list, a whopping 50 were crime fiction novels.

It was a very good year for Dan Brown, of course, with 6 books on the list, including 2 in the Top 10. It was also a stellar 2005 for James Patterson, with 6 books ranked. (Patterson's achievement was perhaps even more notable, as it represented 6 different books, while Brown's entries included multiple versions of the same books.)

John Grisham had 3 books on the list, as did Janet Evanovich and Michael Connelly. Michael Crichton had 2, along with Patricia Cornwell, Dean Koontz, David Baldacci, Sue Grafton and Mary Higgins Clark.

Is there any doubt left as to what kind of books people like to read?

Here are the books:

2005 Rank, Title, Author (Imprint, ISBN, Date of Publication, Price)

5. The Da Vinci Code, Brown, Dan, (Doubleday, 0385504209, 3/1/2003, $24.95)
8. Angels & Demons, Brown, Dan, (Pocket Star, 0671027360, 7/1/2001, $7.99)
11. The Broker, Grisham, John, (Doubleday, 0385510454, 1/1/2005, $27.95)
19. The Broker, Grisham, John, (Dell, 0440241588, 11/1/2005, $7.99)
27. Mary, Mary, Patterson, James, (Little, Brown, 031615976X, 11/1/2005, $27.95)
28. The Historian, Kostova, Elizabeth, (Little, Brown, 0316011770, 6/1/2005, $25.95)
33. The Last Juror, Grisham, John, (Dell, 044024157X, 12/1/2004, $7.99)
38. Deception Point, Brown, Dan, (Pocket Books, 0671027387, 12/1/2002, $7.99)
41. Honeymoon, Patterson, James, (Little, Brown, 0316710628, 2/1/2005, $27.95)
43. 4th of July, Patterson, James, (Little, Brown, 0316710601, 5/1/2005, $27.95)
48. Trace, Cornwell, Patricia D. (Berkley, 0425204200, 6/1/2005, $7.99)
50. Predator, Cornwell, Patricia, (Putnam, 0399152830, 11/1/2005, $26.95)
52. Digital Fortress, Brown, Dan (St. Martin's, 0312995423, 1/1/2004, $7.99)
54. Lifeguard, Patterson, James (Little, Brown, 0316057851, 7/1/2005, $26.95)
57. 3rd Degree, Patterson, James (Warner Books, 0446614831, 1/1/2005, $7.99)
60. Nighttime Is My Time, Clark, Mary Higgins (Pocket Books, 074341263X, 4/1/2005, $7.99)
65. State of Fear, Crichton, Michael (Avon Books, 0061015733, 11/1/2005, $7.99)
70. Eleven On Top, Evanovich, Janet (St. Martin's, 0312306261, 6/1/2005, $26.95)
72. The Camel Club, Baldacci, David (Warner Books, 0446577383, 10/1/2005, $26.95)
76. London Bridges, Patterson, James (Warner Vision, 0446613355, 10/1/2005, $7.99)
78. The Rule of Four, Caldwell, Ian (Dell, 0440241359, 6/1/2005, $7.99)
80. Hour Game, Baldacci, David (Warner Vision, 0446616494, 9/1/2005, $7.99)
88. The Da Vinci Code, Brown, Dan (Doubleday, 0385513755, 11/1/2004, $35.00)
90. The Taking, Koontz, Dean (Bantam, 0553584502, 4/1/2005, $7.99)
101. S is for Silence, Grafton, Sue (Putnam, 0399152970, 11/1/2005, $26.95)
104. R is for Ricochet, Grafton, Sue (Berkley, 0425203867, 3/1/2005, $7.99)
109. White Hot, Brown, Sandra (Pocket Books, 0743466764, 7/1/2005, $9.95)
114. Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, Koontz, Dean (Bantam, 0553587889, 1/1/2005, $7.99)
116. Whiteout, Follett, Ken (Signet Book, 0451215710, 11/1/2005, $7.99)
118. The Shadow of the Wind, Zafón, Carlos Ruiz (Penguin, 0143034901, 2/1/2005, $15.00)
122. Therapy, Kellerman, Jonathan (Ballantine Books, 0345452607, 3/1/2005, $7.99)
131. State of Fear, Crichton, Michael (HarperCollins, 0066214130, 12/1/2004, $27.95)
135. Ten Big Ones, Evanovich, Janet (St. Martin's, 0312936222, 6/1/2005, $7.99)
143. Skinny Dip, Hiaasen, Carl (Warner Books, 0446695564, 6/1/2005, $12.95)
147. No Place Like Home, Clark, Mary Higgins (Simon & Schuster, 0743264894, 4/1/2005, $25.95)
149. Blowout, Coulter, Catherine (Jove, 0515139254, 2/1/2005, $7.99)
159. The Narrows, Connelly, Michael, (Warner Books, 0446611646, 3/1/2005, $7.99)
161. Night Fall, Demille, Nelson, (Warner Vision, 0446616621, 11/1/2005, $7.99)
164. Christ The Lord, Rice, Anne, (Knopf, 0375412018, 11/1/2005, $25.95)
172. Blind Alley, Johansen, Iris, (Bantam, 0553586505, 3/1/2005, $7.99)
174. Angels & Demons, Brown, Dan, (Atria Books, 0743486226, 7/1/2003, $22.00)
179. Hidden Prey, Sandford, John, (Berkley, 0425199606, 4/1/2005, $7.99)
181. The Lincoln Lawyer, Connelly, Michael, (Little, Brown, 0316734934, 10/1/2005, $26.95)
188. The Closers, Connelly, Michael, (Little, Brown, 0316734942, 5/1/2005, $26.95)
189. One For The Money, Evanovich, Janet, (St. Martin's, 0312990456, 4/1/2003, $7.99)