Crime Fiction Dossier

Worlds Collide: James Bond and the Vesper Martini

Perhaps no one in thriller literature, or literature in general, is as associated with the Martini as James Bond. With just three short words he launched countless thousands of Martini drinkers off into the arms of Bacchus: "shaken, not stirred."

I won't go into why this is the wrong way to prepare a Martini -- actually, I will: briefly, it spoils the crystalline purity that is one the drink's sublime pleasures -- nor will I offer a diatribe on how Bond convinced so many drinkers that a Martini should be made with vodka instead of gin. (Something akin to making cookies with peanut butter and calling them chocolate chip.)

No, the purpose of today's post is to discuss something that Bond -- actually his creator, Ian Fleming -- did right: he created a new drink.*

Here is the relevant passage, from Casino Royale (1953), the novel that introduced 007. Bond walks up to a bar, accompanied by his CIA contact, Felix Leiter, and orders a drink:

"A dry martini," [Bond] said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet."

 "Oui, monsieur."

 "Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?"

Bond called the drink the Vesper, after the book's love interest, the beautiful double agent, Vesper Lynd.

It's basically a Dry Martini with vodka substituted for some of the gin in order to mellow out the flavor a little. Kina Lillet, used instead of vermouth, was a French aperitif flavored with cinchona bark (quinine), giving it a slightly bitter taste, but leaving it still a little sweeter than the typical dry vermouth.

All in all, a tasty way to make a Martini. Sadly, Bond never drank it again. The book does not end well for Vesper Lynd -- it never does for Bond's ladies, does it? -- and he discarded the drink along with her memory.

Here is the recipe:

 

The Vesper Martini

Shake with ice:

3 oz gin
1 oz vodka
1/2 oz Lillet Blanc

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add a lemon twist for the garnish.

 

Bond liked his cocktails on the large size (see below), so this will make a hefty drink. You can adjust the quantities if you'd like. Just keep the ratios the same.

For the gin, I recommend a strong-flavored London Dry, like Tanqueray. This will approximate the flavor of the British Gordon's gin of Bond's time. (A different animal from the Gordon's sold in the U.S. today.)

For the vodka, Bond preferred Russian or Polish, but distillied from grain, not potatoes. So you might use Stolichnaya or Sobieski. (In the movies Bond usually drank Smirnoff, but that's because Heublein paid the studio a lot of money for product placement.)

For the Lillet, it gets more complicated. The Kina Lillet that Bond requested is no longer available. The company now makes an aperitif called Lillet Blanc, which is similar, but doesn't have the quinine (and thus the bitterness) of the original. The drink will still have the same basic flavor profile, but it will be slightly different.

One possible substitute, first proposed by Jason Wilson, is to use Cocchi Americano instead. Cocchi Americano is a French aperitif wine akin to Lillet Blanc, but flavored with gentian root, giving it a similar bitter flavor to the original Kina Littlet. I have not tried this combination, but it sounds promising.

Regardless of how you choose to prepare your Martini, I will leave you with one final piece of advice, also related by Monsieur Bond in Casino Royale:

"I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad."

Sound advice from a man who knows.

*According to Dale Degroff, the recipe was actually created for Fleming by Gilberto Preti, who tended bar at Dukes Hotel in London. Ted Haigh, however, says this is doubtful.

Worlds Collide: Raymond Chandler and the Gimlet

I recently started a website called Professor Cocktail that covers another passion of mine: fine spirits and cocktails. I've been writing a series of posts over there called "Worlds Collide" that deals with the intersection of my two major pursuits, namely crime fiction and spirits. I'm going to start cross-posting those essays here.

Raymond Chandler, one of the great American writers of all-time and one of the two finest practitioners of the classic hardboiled detective novel, is best known for his immortal creation, Philip Marlowe. The Los Angeles private eye appeared in several novels and solved many cases. But perhaps his greatest achievement lay in the spirituous realm, for Marlowe (and Chandler) gets credit for helping to popularize a classic cocktail: the Gimlet.

The Gimlet is reputed to have been invented by Sir Thomas D. Gimlette, a surgeon who served in the Royal Navy around the turn of the 20th century. He supposedly created a drink made from gin mixed with lime-juice cordial as a way of inducing sailors to consume Vitamin C, and the cocktail eventually took his name. (This story is quite possibly not true, but it's a good story.)

Despite its antiscorbutic properties,  the Gimlet failed to catch on in the United States, where the Martini and the Manhattan still held sway. That began to change, allegedly, when Raymond Chandler, one of the most popular authors of his time, introduced his readers to the Gimlet in the pages of The Long Goodbye (1953).

Early in the novel, Philip Marlowe meets up with Terry Lennox, an alcoholic British ex-pat, in a bar called Victor's. The pair get to talking and begin to bond over several rounds of cocktails. Marlowe recalled:

We sat in the corner bar at Victor’s and drank gimlets. “They don’t know how to make them here,” [Lennox] said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.”

There's no doubt that the Gimlet is a fine cocktail -- a true classic that any bartender worth his salt can make, and many drinkers will enjoy. And Lennox is right that a Gimlet must be made with Rose's Lime Juice. If it's made with anything else, it just isn't a Gimlet.

But those proportions! That's enough Rose's to make a fish pucker, and drown the gin like a medievil witch. So here's a recipe for a Gimlet that's a little more palatable. It still has more Rose's than most recipes you'll find, but we're mixing it in honor of Marlowe.

 

Gimlet

2 oz. Gin (Plymouth Gin is a good choice)
1 oz. Rose's Lime Juice

Shake (or stir if you'd rather) with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

 

Nothing could be simpler. The bartender at Victor's eventually buys a bottle of Rose's so that he can make Marlowe a Gimlet. But by that point Lennox is gone and the detective has lost his taste for them.

That won't stop us, however, for mixing up a cocktail and raising a glass in honor of one of the finest writers who ever lived.

Cheers, Mr. Chandler!

Who is the best thriller writer working today?

I've been thinking about this question for a while now... Who is the best thriller author working today? For historical reference purposes, my favorite thriller writer of all-time is Ross Thomas.

But who's the best who's still writing?

I've come up with a list of candidates -- obviously I'm leaving off a lot of people here -- in alphabetical order:

John le Carre
Lee Child
Harlan Coben
Jeffery Deaver
Barry Eisler
Robert Ferrigno
Joseph Finder
Alan Furst
Lisa Gardner
Gregg Hurwitz
Gayle Lynds
David Morrell
Thomas Perry
John Sandford
Daniel Silva

This is a somewhat arbitrary number, but the person should probably have published at least, say, five books. Maybe Harper Lee can achieve immortality based on one book, but not so for most writers.

So, what do you think? Who is the best and why?

(Remember, we're looking for thriller writers here.)

Michael Crichton dies of cancer

I'm shocked to learn that Michael Crichton has died at the age of 66. According to the AP story, he had been "privately battling cancer." I was just wondering the other day when we might see a new novel from him -- I assumed we'd have the chance to read many more. And now this news...Very sad.

Over a decade ago, Michael and I were email correspondents, discussing topics like writing and filmmaking and depression. He got a kick out of a draft of the Jurassic Park screenplay that I sent him, an online discovery back in the early days of the web. (He hadn't written it and had never even seen it. He later mentioned it in an interview with EW as an example of how you need to be careful about what you read online.) We gradually lost touch after a few years, but he was a smart and funny guy, and always kind.

Michael Crichton was an occasionally controversial figure, using his books to put forward theories like skepticism about global warming or unfettered scientific research or the dominance of the Japanese economic model. More importantly, though, he knew how to tell a good story, packing his books with action, adventure and lots of fun. He wasn't a great prose stylist, but he knew how to entertain. I always looked forward to his books with a sense of anticipation, knowing I'd be in for a good time.

It's been a tough time for the literary world these past few months. My sympathies to Michael's family.

Goodbye Elaine

I've been trying to think of how to express some of the thoughts and feelings I've had since learning that my friend Elaine Flinn passed away over the weekend. My inclination was not to write anything at all -- there's something a little awkward about public displays of grief, especially when conveyed through a medium as crass as a blog.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Elaine would have wanted people to talk about her. Not because she was vain or needy, but because she liked being a part of things and loved being a member of the crime writing community. She took great pleasure in spending time with other writers, introducing people to each other, dispensing advice and cracking wise. So I think she deserves a last turn in the spotlight.

I first met Elaine five years ago. She wrote me a polite email before the publication of her first mystery, Dealing in Murder, to let me know she was a new author and that she hoped I'd have a chance to look at her book. I dug it out of the "get rid of" pile, read it -- and loved it. I ended up reviewing it in the Chicago Sun-Times.

We met in person a few months after that first email, at the Bouchercon mystery conference in Las Vegas. We got together in the bar (along with Elaine's wonderful husband, Joe, a man with a great sense of humor) and it was like we'd been friends for years.

Elaine was the kind of person who knew more about a variety of subjects than you'd ever expect. We'd be talking about some new mystery novel we'd read -- and she read most of them, it seems -- and she'd bring up Camus or Dostoevsky or some other writer I'd always meant to read, but never had.

Elaine had not only read a lot of literature, and could discuss it intelligently, she could discourse on philosophy, politics, whatever. The conversation would turn to sports and she'd tell some funny story about Jimmy Connors and Roscoe Tanner. (She and Joe had staged tennis tournaments in the Bay Area back in the early-'70s.) Just when you thought you had her figured out, she'd surprise you.

I don't think it will come as a shock to anyone if I state that there is a lot of phoniness in the mystery community. A lot of it is good-natured -- it's generally a convivial bunch of people, after all -- but it does get tiresome after a while. Elaine didn't have any patience for it. She had no tolerance for the bullshit and backstabbing. She was never rude, but she was honest. You knew where you stood with Elaine.

Elaine didn't write books because she was trying to be the next big bestseller or make a lot of money. She wasn't looking for a movie deal or a six-figure advance. (She'd already had a couple of long and successful careers.) She wrote because she loved it. She loved to tell stories, loved to entertain fans. She was as crazy and neurotic as all the rest of us -- when you get right down to it, virtually every writer is barking mad -- but her motives were among the purest: she wanted to write books that people would enjoy reading. And she did.

Elaine was a dear friend, and even as we were made richer by her friendship, losing her has robbed us of something rare and special. I'm going to miss her.

James Crumley, dead at 68

Just learned the sad news (via) that author James Crumley has died. Crumley was best known for writing one of the definitive private eye novels, The Last Good Kiss. That accomplishment alone is worthy of a whole career, but he made many other fine contributions as well.

I spent an evening with Jim five years ago at Bouchercon in Las Vegas. Jim, Bob Ward, Dennis McMillan and I went to a cocktail party in the lovely Riviera hotel and casino, and then spent a few hours in the bar. It was my introduction to keeping company with book folks and initially I was a little intimidated. Jim quickly broke the ice, though, with his friendly attitude and curmudgeonly wit. My liver has never been the same.

I knew Jim had been in failing health for some time, but it's still sad news. He'll be missed.

Robbing the literary grave

BBC News has announced that author Eoin Colfer (the Artemis Fowl series) has been hired to continue the uber-popular Hitchhiker series created by the late Douglas Adams. According to the article, Adams' widow has given approval for the project. And Another Thing will be published next October.

Adams died seven years ago at the much-too-young age of 49. His early death meant that there were many books he couldn't write -- and that's a damn shame. He was one of the most inventive and entertaining writers around. He even wrote two excellent pseudo-mystery novels (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul). And the idea of someone trying to continue writing in the world he created saddens me.

In the BBC article, Colfer is quoted as saying, "My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series." And he should have stopped right there. Because his instinct was right. It is an outrage and nobody should tamper with this incredible series.

Authors die, and their books and their series die with them. Sometimes this is a crushing blow -- when Ross Thomas died, I felt like I'd lost a friend, even though I knew him only slightly. But I knew his books intimately, and it hurt to know that there would be no more. But you can't change the past.

Even if another writer comes along, they can't recreate what that original author did. They might play in the same world and with the same characters, but it will never be the same. And it's a mistake to try.

The most egregious example of this type of literary grave robbing in recent years was the offense done to the works of Roger Zelazny. One of the finest fantasy writers ever, Zelazny created the beloved Amber series, a ten-book magnum opus that represented some of the most inventive and engrossing storytelling ever created. (Yes, I really mean those superlatives.)

Zelazny also died at too early an age -- only 58. During his lifetime, Zelazny made it abundantly clear that he wanted no other authors to write in the Amber world. Author Neil Gaiman once approached Zelazny with the idea of publishing a book of Amber stories written by other authors -- and Zelazny put the kibosh on the idea.

Even so, in 2002 John Gregory Betancourt -- with the permission of Zelazny's literary estate, allegedly administered by a family member from whom the author was estranged -- began a series of Amber prequels. Apparently the books were garbage, but that's hearsay, as I refused to read them.

I can understand fans wanting to read just one more book featuring the characters and worlds that they loved so much. But it's not possible. Even if a talented writer creates something worthwhile in that existing universe, it will never be the same. This is especially true when the original creator was someone as uniquely talented and innovative as Adams or Zelazny.

Obviously when there is money to be made, deals like this will happen, and some of the curious will play along. But I'm going to decline. I think the true fan is satisfied with the exiting works, few though they may be. Why read an imitation when you can still go back and read the real thing?

The Palm Beach Post spills ink all over James O. Born

Jim Born, FOTD (Friend of The Dossier), got a nice write-up a couple days ago in the Palm Beach Post. I'm not familiar with that publication, but I assume it's legitimate and not just something Jim's brother-in-law publishes in his garage.

The piece has some interesting stuff in it, including a few details about The Human Disguise, the science fiction novel that Born wrote, which will be published by Tor under the pseudonym James O'Neal.

Born's one of the true good guys in this business -- and a damn fine writer to boot. (He also did a kick-ass weapons and tactics demonstration at the first ThrillerFest in Phoenix, one of the best things of its type I've ever seen.)

So check out the article. It's good.

Three authors you couldn't live without

I saw this question on a message board and thought I'd steal it...

Who are the three authors whose work you would miss the most if they stopped writing?

The choices are inevitably somewhat arbitrary... But after thinking about it for a while, I came up with a solid top 3:

• Lawrence Block
• Michael Connelly
• George Pelecanos

I look forward to books by those three writers more than anyone else. So I'd be the most disappointed if any of them stopped writing.

How about you? Who's in your top 3?

Ask the Critic: Dashiell Hammett

Reshma Thomas writes in to ask:

Have you ever read any works from Dashiell Hammett? If so, what do you think of him as a person and as a writer? Are there any authors that remind you of him?

I have had limited, but enjoyable experience with Hammett's work. He was a very talented and influential writer -- his book The Maltese Falcon in particular had a huge effect on the development of popular fiction in the U.S.

He essentially created the genre of the American detective novel -- a distinct, more realistic and harder-edged form than that of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes -- and helped to garner literary regard for the mystery novel more generally.

All the subsequent American detective writers, from Raymond Chandler to Mickey Spillane and John D. MacDonald, all the way up to Sue Grafton, Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly, owe him a debt. You can see echoes of what Hammett created in all of their works.

Hammett drew in some ways on his personal life -- where he had been a Pinkerton detective -- in his writings, but I don't know much about his life other than that.