Mystery writing royalty in Royal Oak

More than 100 people packed the Royal Oak library’s auditorium tonight — April 8, 2008 — for an appearance by Laurie R. King.

As part of an annual reading promotion, book clubs throughout Wayne and Oakland counties read The Beekeeper’s Apprentice this year, so most of the questions revolved around Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. King said that, from the moment she conceived of Russell’s character, “There was no arguing with this person.” Russell is as analytical and repressed as Holmes, but with the drive of a 20th century female detective.

King confessed to a certain haphazardness in her own modus operandi. Her books start as a messy draft and get cleaned up in rewrite, when she adds the the least amount of background research necessary.

“Research just tempts you to use it,” she said.

Complimented on the continuity in the Russell/Holmes series, she admitted that it was somewhat of a chore. She said, when pressed to remember a detail from a previous book to use in the one she’s writing, she sometimes taps the collective memory of those who read her blog. (She includes a link to Barry Eisler’s website there — see my previous post about Eisler and his John Rain protagonist.)

“I learn from each book what a very bad writer I am,” she claimed. Yes, so awful that she’s working on her 19th book, The Language of Bees, the ninth Russell/Holmes book.

Ken now has signed copies of five King books, including A Grave Talent, Beekeeper, A Darker Place, To Play the Fool and her newest, Touchstone. Call for prices.

Shar and Ken have fallen for John Rain

In 2002, Barry Eisler published the first in a series of books about a John Rain, Japanese assassin-for-hire who specializes in making his victims’ death look accidental.  Rain uses a lot of our favorite spook craft as he glides through the shadowy alleys and neon-lit shopping strips of Tokyo and beyond, tricks Eisler picked up in a three-year stint with the CIA.  Eisler draws on his own martial arts training for Rain’s hand-to-hand encounters.

Eisler gives Rain a poet’s melancholy, in a solo existence underscored by classic jazz and flavored with single malt scotches.

Ken was tearing through the six-book series so fast he had to force himself to take a break.

We have the first book, Rain Fall, in inventory and The Last Assassin and Requiem for an Assassin ready to go up to the web, so call if you’re interested in those.

Here’s Eisler’s home page.

2008 Edgar Awards

The Edgar Award winners will be chosen May 1. Read the list of nominees here.

I was particularly pleased to see the pilot episode of USA TV’s “Burn Notice” nominated.  That new series was one of the high spots of last summer. The show was supposed to return to the USA network in June, but the writer’s strike makes that unlikely.

Officer Down by Theresa Schwegel

by Sharlan Douglas

At Christmas I asked Santa for books by Theresa Schwegel and the jolly elf obliged with her first book, Officer Down, which won the 2006 Edgar for best first novel.

The top cops think that our protagonist , Samantha Mack, shot her partner in a raid-gone-wrong. She’s crashing around trying to find the real killer, drinking too much and relying on her married lover and fellow cop to help clear her name.

‘d describe this as more police than procedural.  It captures the politics, paranoia and dark corners of a big city (Chicago) police department but short-changes protocol and rules of evidence.  Nevertheless, Schwegel paces the story well and creates rich details in an award-worthy first novel.

Caught Stealing, by Charlie Huston

by Ken Hebenstreit
OK - this one’s not for everyone, but if you can stand the relentless violence and seriously bad people that populate this novel you’re in for a helluva ride. Take a deep breath before you start reading and then join Hank Thompson and the mess he finds himself in. Hank was a hot baseball prospect in California whose potential career was abruptly ended with an on-field injury and he has been spinning downhill ever since. Now he lives in NYC on the Lower East Side, is a bartender and a drunk. A neighbor asks Hank to cat sit and then disappears. Things quickly turn bad as people arrive looking for the neighbor and turn to Hank for answers that he doesn’t know. The book jacket dubs this neo-noir and if you would like a taste go to the author’s web site (http://www.pulpnoir.com/) and give him a try.

Dennis Lehane’s 5 most important books

Newsweek’s 12/17/07 issue asks Dennis Lehane to choose his five most important books:

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude
2. The Wanderers
3. The Great Gatsby
4. The End of the Affair
5. The Last Good Kiss “The Great American Crime Novel,” Lehane says

Martin Scorcese is to direct a movie of Lehane’s Shutter Island, and you can read an except from it on the Newsweek website.

Ken has seven Dennis Lehane books available online

Life after Easy Rawlins

Walter Mosley will create a new mystery series set in New York featuring African American detective Leonid McGill, the New York Times reported on 12/11/07.   Mosley’s committed to two McGill books and also has a deal for a literary novel, Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, with his new publisher, Riverhead Books.

“Person of Interest” by Theresa Schwegel

Tell Santa I want books by Theresa Schwegel for Christmas.

Janet Maslin reviewed Schwegel’s newest, Person of Interest, on the front page of the NY Times Arts & Leisure section on December 10. Mere books rarely make it to that rarified journalistic real estate. Schwegel’s Officer Down won an Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

In Mystery Scene magazine issue #102, Cheryl Solimini interviews Schwegel, who spent time in Hollywood writing for the screen. Like authors I wrote about in an earlier post, Schwegel says her film stint honed her novelistic skills.

“I became more appreciative of the structure and discipline of screenwriting,” Schwegel told Solimini. “You really have to be selective. You can’t write about the furniture. Every single thing on the page has a purpose and a place.”

Seven books to go for Grafton

T is for Trespass is out, leaving Sue Grafton only “U,” “V,” “W,” “X,” “Y” and “Z” before she gets to retire and spend her days counting her money.

Entertainment Weekly gives “T” a solid A minus.

“As this master of suspense continues to demonstrate in superb mystery after mystery, there are more ugly twists in the human heart than there are letters in the alphabet,” says reviewer Jennifer Reese.

EW reports that Grafton wrote for the TV sitcom Rhoda before hitting pay dirt with the alphabet series.

Question: Why hasn’t there been a Kinsey Millhone movie?

Ken has 24 Graftons, including a first British edition of A is for Alibi and U.S. firsts of “B” and “C” and the rare Keziah Dane.

USA News & World Reports interview with Elmore Leonard

Several years ago, I volunteered with a Detroit area arts organization which was to present an important award to Elmore Leonard. The execs scheduled a meeting with him for lunch to confirm the details, then suddenly realized that none of them had actually read any of his books. They asked me to join them just to have someone at the table who spoke the language.

Turns out we mostly talked about the movies that had been made from his books. In an interview in the 11/5/07 USA Today, Leonard said, “I wanted my books to become movies. That was my aim. I wanted to make some money doing this. My first books, I would get like 2,000 bucks. That was mostly in the ’50s, then it went up to $4,000. I didn’t really make money from books until the 1980s. But I got a lot more from movies.”

In that arts organization meeting, others asked Leonard what authors he read, and his pick at the time was Cormac McCarthy. In the USA Today piece, he mentions Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe and Thomas Lynch, the funeral director-author-essayist-poet from Milford, Mich.

We offer 37 Leonard books online — find them here