Crime Fiction Dossier

William F. Buckley Jr. dies at 82

William F. Buckley Jr. died this morning at the age of 82. Although best known as the godfather of the modern conservative movement, Buckley also wrote numerous novels, many of them spy thrillers featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes.

The books weren't great -- Buckley was a far better essaying and polemicist than novelist -- but some of them were quite entertaining, especially the early ones. (The first, Saving the Queen, includes a scene describing Oakes' recruitment into the CIA that was based on Buckley's own experience with the Company.)

Bill is survived by his son, Christopher Buckley, a wonderful author of satirical novels (and one excellent, underrated thriller: Wet Work). Bill was a true gentleman -- he was the first writer I ever corresponded with -- and he will be missed.

Paul Guyot on blogging and life

Paul Guyot has an excellent guest post over on Bryon Quertermous' blog. (Bryon just got married. Congrats, man!!)

Having blogged for almost 5 years now, I agree with almost everything he writes about the enterprise. It's seldom useful, always self-indulgent, of limited educational or promotional value, and probably a great big waste of time.

Yet I do it anyway. It's a kind of sickness when you think about it...

Dennis Lehane on literary fiction

From Dennis Lehane's appreciation of Richard Price (on the National Book Critics Circle blog):

I was in graduate school when Clockers came out. It was right at this point that I was growing disillusioned with where a lot of (though, by no means all) American literature seemed to be heading. It felt as if so many of the alleged "literary" works being produced at that time were excessively insular, navel-gazing affairs, more often than not centered upon some disaffected, overly verbose young asshole or his/her late-middle-aged counterpart, an academic of some sort having an affair with a student. The third type of book that predominated was the "homage," which involved grafting the plot of a Shakespeare play or some similarly pantheonic work over a contemporary setting, thereby proving the writer had read his/her classics and was therefore worthy of our attention and esteem but also wholly overlooking the small fact that he/she was too devoid of originality to tell a story that he/she had actually, you know, created.

He then goes on to say that Clockers is "one of the few Great American Novels in the North American canon."

George Pelecanos on Richard Price

George Pelecanos has an excellent essay on Richard Price over at the National Book Critics Circle blog.

Here's a snippet:

[Price's] books are a record of America at a certain time. David [Simon] and I have talked about this many times--we think that Clockers is The Grapes of Wrath of our generation. And I really feel that way. I think it’s as important a book.

Pelecanos also talks about how Price's writing helped open up his own novels to new themes and possibilities.

Definitely read the whole thing. It's not very long.

2007 Agatha Awards Nominees Announced

Malice Domestic has announced the nominees for the 2007 Agatha Awards. Agathas will be given in the categories of Best Novel, Best First Novel, Best Short Story, Best Non-Fiction and Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel. The awards will be presented at the Malice Domestic XX convention during the Agatha Awards Banquet on April 26, 2008. 

Malice Domestic XX Agatha Nominees:

 

Best Novel
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, by Donna Andrews (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Her Royal Spyness, by Rhys Bowen (Penguin Group)
Hard Row, by Margaret Maron (Grand Central Publishing)
A Fatal Grace, by Louise Penny (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Murder With Reservations, by Elaine Viets (NAL)

 

Best First Novel
A Beautiful Blue Death, by Charles Finch ( St. Martin 's Minotaur)
A Real Basket Case, by Beth Groundwater (Five Star)
Silent In The Grave, by Deanna Raybourn (Mira)
Prime Time, by Hank Phillipi Ryan (Harlequin)

Best Nonfiction
Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life In Letters, by Charles Foley, Jon Lellenberg , and Daniel Stashower (Penguin Press)
The Official Nancy Drew Handbook, by Penny Warner (Quirck Productions)
 

Best Short Story
"A Rat's Tale", by Donna Andrews (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Sept/Oct, 2007)
"Please Watch Your Step", by Rhys Bowen (The Strand, Spring, 2007)
"Casino Gamble", by Nan Higginson (Murder New York Style, L & L Dreamspell)

"Popping Round To The Post", by Peter Lovesey (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November, 2007)

"Death Will Clean Your Closet", by Elizabeth Zelvin (Murder New York Style, L & L Dreamspell)

Best Children's/Young Adult
A Light In The Cellar, by Sarah Masters Buckey (American Girl)
Bravo Zulu, Samantha!, by Kathleen Benner Duble (Peachtree Publishers)
Cover-Up: Mystery At The Super Bowl, by John Feinstein (Knopf [Random House])

The Falconer's Knot, by Mary Hoffman (Bloomsbury USA Childrens' Books)

Theodosia And The Serpents Of Chaos, by R.L. LaFevers (Houghton Mifflin)

Put that on the paperback

"Scooby-Doo-meets-The Sopranos."

From Entertainment Weekly's review of Lisa Scottoline's Lady Killer.

Book of the Week: Steve Hockensmith's "The Black Dove"

Steve Hockensmith returns to the rambunctious frontier world of the late-19th century American West, with his deducifying detective duo of Old Red and Big Red Amlingmeyer. The Amlingmeyers are between jobs, having been fired by the Southern Pacific Railroad, and at loose ends in San Francisco. When their friend Dr. Chan is murdered, the brothers head for Chinatown to track down his killer. The Black Dove is an amusing homage to the great Sherlock Holmes (the Amlingmeyers' hero) and an entertaining period mystery.

Oscar Predictions

I used to be famous for my Oscar Prognostications -- I once won a newspaper contest 3 years running. I don't pay as much attention to the competition as I used to, but in case you need some picks, here ya go:

BEST PICTURE
No Country for Old Men

BEST ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

BEST ACTRESS
Julie Christie, Away from Her

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Ruby Dee, American Gangster

BEST DIRECTOR
The Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Diablo Cody, Juno

BONUS PREDICTION
Host Jon Stewart will do a better job than Ellen DeGeneres (Carrot Top could do better than she did), but he'll still pale in comparison to Billy Crystal and Steve Martin.

2/25 Edit:

Six out of eight right -- not too shabby! The ones I missed were Best Actress (Winner: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose -- never heard of her or the film) and Best Supporting Actress (Winner: Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton -- I had originally picked her before I changed it to Ruby Dee. I thought Dee would get the sentimental vote, but apparently not. Cruel, unsentimental Academy voters!)

Latest Chicago Sun-Times roundup column

At long last, my new mystery/thriller roundup ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times.

It contains:

T. Jefferson Parker - L.A. Outlaws
Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin
Christa Faust - Money Shot
William Bernhardt - Capitol Conspiracy
Alex Berenson - The Ghost War

Big publishing speaks

Jason Pinter, author of The Guilty and formerly an editor at St. Martin's Press (among other places), offered the following thoughts on the subject of vanity press publishing. For background on the discussion, see my post "Big publisher is watching." (This was originally posted on Lee Goldberg's blog. Jason kindly gave permission for me to repost it here.)

Having worked in publishing, with actual editorial experience at three "big publishing" houses, I thought I'd dispel a few myths that have been bandied about here. In my five years in editorial, I acquired both fiction and non-fiction. I've sat in hundreds of editorial meetings, and gotten thousands of submissions from reputable--and disreputable--agents. This is not to toot any sort of horn, but merely to offer proof that I know what I'm talking about. Anyway:

1) Amazon, despite what Yvonne says, is not a distributor. They are a retailer. There is a huge difference. A distributor buys x number of books from a publisher, then "distributes" them among their sales channels. Levy is an example of a distributor. Ingram is a distributor. Distributors have a financial stake in the success of the book. If it does not sell, they lose money.

2) Amazon is not the preferred distributor, or retailer, or anything like that. They are a piece of the puzzle, sure, but as of today only about 3%-5% of that puzzle. Brick and mortar stores, with few exceptions, are the most important part of the puzzle (though big box stores, like Sam's Club and BJ's are growing in importance). It costs Amazon nothing to put up a page for a self-published book, and it certainly doesn't mean they have to order any copies. If a self-published book doesn't sell any copies on Amazon, they lose nothing but the time it took to post the page.

3) There are authors who benefit from self-publishing, but they are extremely rare. They are, with very few exceptions, non-fiction authors who have either a substantial platform or take part in many speaking engagements at which to sell their books. In this case, they benefit from increased royalties. Many NF authors that publish with traditional publishers actually negotiate to buy back a certain amount of copies--at a large discount--in order to both sell at their lectures as well as in B&M stores. Though yes, it is true that sometimes publishers do acquire a book solely because the author commits to a substantial buyback. Yes this is cynical publishing, but publishing is a business, and publishers do what they need to do to stay in business.

4) Big name publishing is only watching if you make them watch. The fact of the matter is, when a self-published novel comes in on submission, it is assumed, often correctly, that the novel could not find a mainstream publisher. Yes, there are self-published novels that are well-written and do eventually land contracts, but again they are exceedingly few and far between. Anyone who thinks self-publishing is the best route to getting a mainstream contract, give me a ring, I have some real estate to sell you...

5) "Big Publishing" generally takes longer to publish books because it takes months to properly sell and promote the book to their accounts. Any publisher, if they wanted to could, put out a book out lickity split. In fact, those books are called "crash books," and they're only done if a book is especially timely and/or publicity driven. But if you print a book in a month just because you can, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, etc...wouldn't take diddly squat because they'd have no reason to.

6) Publishers do drop the ball. That's the way it works, unfortunately. Good books go unread and don't get the promotion they need or deserve, and bad books become monster bestsellers. Hell, "Fools Gold" was #1 at the box office.

7) There's no doubt publishing is changing, though change is certainly taking its time. The Kindle might be doing well relatively, but ebooks are such a small fraction of book sales (like 1% of 1%) that it's far too early in the device's release for it to have made anywhere near a dent, or even a smudge, on the market.

Just a few thoughts.

Jason Pinter