Crime Fiction Dossier

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?

Book of the Week: Richard Price's "Lush Life"

Richard Price is one of the rare authors who has achieved fame and accolades as a literary writer, while working solidly within the crime tradition. Like George Pelecanos (his fellow alumnus of The Wire), Price brings incandescent prose, razor-sharp dialogue and depth of characterization to bear in a crackling crime story -- and the results are pure genius. Set almost entirely within a few square blocks on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Lush Life is the story of a young man's murder and its aftermath. As the police investigate the case, Price probes deeper and deeper into his characters -- cops, cons and victims alike -- laying bare their souls on the page. Few writers have the imagination, understanding and skill to bring such diverse characters to life as Price does. The plot is a simple one, but the way Price utilizes his amazing cast gives such depth and nuance to the story that the reader can't help but be riveted. Easily one of the best literary achievements of the year.

Latest Chicago Sun-Times roundup column

My latest column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It includes short reviews of:

Laura Lippman - Another Thing to Fall
Michael Connelly (ed.) - The Blue Religion
Libby Fischer Hellmann - Easy Innocence
Jesse Kellerman - The Genius
Richard Stark - Dirty Money

The last book, for whatever reason, is listed in the article as being by Donald Westlake, but it's actually by his alter ego, Stark. Not my doing, I assure you.