Filed under: Killer Year Members
All this week, we’ll be recommending books that we’ve enjoyed this year.
CAUGHT STEALING by Charlie Huston
Holy crap. I’d heard of Huston for years, but never read his stuff. However, this January I’ll be at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, doing a signing with him, so now seemed like a good time to pick something up.
Holy crap. Really.
It’s a balls-out mistaken identity novel written in a textured noir tone. Huston never overdoes the rhythm, but his structure is entrancing and his storytelling skills are spectacular. This one never lets up — it’s almost exhausting to read. In a good way.
Relentless, brutal, funny, dark, and entrancing.
THE COLD SIX THOUSAND by James Ellroy
If this one doesn’t leave you gasping, you’re dead already. Vivid, vicious, hyper-masculine and uber-stylish, the novel begins on the day Kennedy is killed and follows three men tied up in his assassination through the next five years, culminating with the killings of RFK and MLK. Cameos by J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Sonny Liston, Howard Hughes and others speak to the depth of research Ellroy has put into play. The word “ambitious” isn’t near strong enough for this one — it’s a classic, a novel that deserves study.
Ellroy’s characters are always strong symbols, and between them, the three protagonists span the gamut of American hope and horror. I particularly found Ward Littell fascinating; a brilliant lawyer who works tirelessly for the both mob and Howard Hughes, yet mollifies his conscience by skimming from both to funnel anonymous donations to Martin Luther King.
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THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A BEAR by John Straley
I’m reaching back in time a bit, and also cheating, because this is a book I enjoyed many years ago. But I also enjoyed it again this year. John Straley writes a series of mysteries set in Alaska, featuring substance-abusing private investigator Cecil Younger. The novels are beautiful and lyrical, at times darkly comic, and an amazing view into the Alaskan landscape, as well as the landscape of Cecil’s life. THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A BEAR starts the series, and once you start you’ll find yourself drawn back again and again. I re-read Straley regularly, for the power of his imagination and the wonder of his gift for language. Plus, as mysteries, these are damn fine novels. Start with The WOMAN WHO MARRIED A BEAR. You won’t stop till you’ve read them all.
THE DARK BACKWARD by Julia Buckley
This wonderful debut by Julia Buckley actually came out this year! It starts with a bang — the death and revival of police officer Lily Caldwell during a traffic stop. After she recovers, she attempts to track down the man who tried to kill her, a man she believes is the state governor because of a vision she had during her near death experience. No one believes her, and she has to act on her own to find her would-be killer. This novel is taut and exciting, a real page turner, with unexpected twists and a great finish.
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THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS by John Connolly
This standalone is absolutely astounding. Connolly has reached an entirely new level with this novel — think of the fairy tales of CS Lewis and Roald Dahl. 13 pages in, I was already telling myself I needed to re-read the book, and soon. The story is highly original — a young boy who has lost his mother slips into a fairy tale world. But the book is so much more than this. I was entranced from start to finish, and ended in tears. It was perfect.
I’ve been waxing poetic about this book since June, when I posted this to DorothyL:
“I took BABY SHARK, by Robert Fate, into the bath. Big mistake. When I came up for air, the water was frigid, my skin resembled a chicken, and I’m stuck reading this until I finish it tonight. AMAZING book.”
I stand by that today. BABY SHARK is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I highly recommend you get a copy pronto.
THE LAST ASSASSIN by Barry Eisler
I’ve argued with a couple of people about this book, because they’ve claimed that Eisler has drifted into romantic suspense. I couldn’t disagree more. This was a fantastic installment in the John Rain series. Rain has grown as a character over the course of this series, and the personal relationships are, as always, an outlet for Rain to explore his humanity. He’s tough as ever, and well worth the time.
God, I love Reacher. And Child has such a deft touch with language and pace — he leaves you absolutely breathless. I really enjoyed the book, read it in one sitting, and was sad to close the covers. Reacher is just one of those characters you can read about all day and never quite have enough. I enjoyed the settings in this one too.
Cornelia Read and Tasha Alexander complete my list of favorites, and both have been touched on earlier in the week.
Happy New Year, everyone. We’ll see you in 2007!
All best,
KILLER YEAR
Filed under: Killer Year Members
All this week, we’ll be recommending books that we’ve enjoyed this year.
HOLMES ON THE RANGE by Steven Hockensmith
One of the most fun reads I’ve had all year. Set in the old west around late 1880s (or is it the early 1890s?), two cowboy brothers – Old Red and Big Red get ranch work where they can. Only things aren’t always so simple on the range, especially when bodies start turning up. Good thing Old Red is a fan of the famous Sherlock Holmes and decides to do some detectifyin’ himself. Hilarious and well written. Worth every moment and page turn. (I also just got a hold of Hockensmith’s next Old Red and Big Red adventure ON THE WRONG TRACK, and so far it’s not only as good, but better!)
AND ONLY TO DECEIVE by Tasha Alexander
Yep, I seem to have a period novel theme going. Tasha is an amazing writer, and AND ONLY TO DECEIVE is a thrilling start to what will be a fantastic career. DECEIVE is set in the world of British Society around the same time period as Hockensmith’s HOLMES ON THE RANGE. And where RANGE brings the world of the old west to life, DECEIVE does the same thing for the structured world of the London social scene.
Recently widowed Lady Emily Ashton is nearing the end of her mourning period but is only now getting to “know” her late husband. And as she gets to know him, she starts to realize that maybe his death wasn’t so natural. Suddenly she is plunged into a mystery that flows in and out of the rigid world she is forced to live in. This is another one of those books that sucks you in and doesn’t let you go.
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THE BLONDE by Duane Swierczynski
A rip roarin’ tale of one night in Philly with a Blonde. Fun, fast and funny.
Dark, dirty, and full of dogs. What a great, tough hardboiled read.
Great style, great flair, great fun.
Filed under: Killer Year Members
All this week, we’ll be recommending books that we’ve enjoyed this year.
My book recommendation is Michael Connelly’s ECHO PARK. Connelly once again shows us he’s the master of crime fiction with his continuation of the Harry Bosch series. Bosch looks to find a murderer who slipped past him the first time around, in a case that has haunted him for years. And Connelly’s story and characters — especially Bosch — continue to haunt us long after we finished reading this wonderful book.
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DIRTY SWEET by John McFetridge
Shady realtors, internet porn, Russian mobsters, the Toronto city police and the RCMP all cross paths in this taut, twisted tale. Spiced with just enough kinky sex and action, McFetridge keeps the reader off balance by looking at the story from every angle. You could call it a police procedural or hardboiled… but one thing you could never call it is dull. A fantastic read from a great new Canadian author to watch for.
A FIELD OF DARKNESS by Cornelia Read
Ultimately, this book is the protagonist and if you warm to Madeline Dare you’ll be hooked from the first sentence. Read has an incredible way with language that is fresh and engaging, but it is Madeline that resonates with me long after reading the last page. I relate to the contradictions within her, the challenges and struggles. I don’t want to say too much because I wouldn’t want to give anything away, but it takes a real gem to pull off believable amateur sleuth stories that keep me glued, and Read wowed me with her debut.
This is one of my first paranormal mysteries and it had me on the edge of my seat. Frasier knows how to send shivers up your spine and her characterization is so real, so compelling, the book is an absolute page-turner. She also knows how to put the twists in at just the right points, to keep you off-guard. My mind is always jumping ahead, guessing at how things might work out, and I love the way she continued to surprise me. Anything but predictable, PALE IMMORTAL is a fantastic story. I look forward to the release of the sequel in fall 2007.
Filed under: Killer Year Members
Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow, when we continue our yearly round-up of book recommendations.
Filed under: Killer Year Members
All this week, we’ll be recommending books that we’ve enjoyed this year.
by Marc Lecard
NIGHT AND FEAR by Cornell Woolrich
A centenary collection of stories by Cornell Woolrich, edited with an introduction by Francis M. Nevins. Carroll and Graf, 2004.
Give the gift of terror, anxiety and existential despair to someone you love this holiday season.
If Cornell Woolrich had survived to the current era, he could have extorted a nice little subsidy from the producers of anti- anxiety medications, who could hand out his books the way a dentist hands out hard candy.
Woolrich created a fistful of what have become noir archetypes: the race against the clock to save yourself or someone you love, the only too justified paranoia in the urban canyons of New York City, the unjustly accused man who loses everything in an instant and then has to run for his life.
A barely controlled hysteria is his most typical mood. The violence and fear, along with the sometimes preposterous plots (Woolrich was not afraid of coincidence) push the stories into the realm of hallucination.
Some of the stories (the ones Nevins calls “action whiz-bangs”) traffic in a nonstop violence that comes as a cathartic relief after the nail-biting anxiety of the noir classics. But even the pure action tales manage to suggest an indifferent if not actively malevolent universe.
The cover photo is a perfect introduction to Woolrich’s world: an evocative aerial view of New York City in 1940 that seems to ooze shadow and menace. A bleak landscape for bleak little stories.
For some reason I find all this despair really enjoyable. If it sounds like your cup of battery acid, get this book, and give it to everyone. The holiday season will never be the same.
NIGHTMARE IN THE STREET by Derek Raymond
Let me also recommend a book I’ve just finished: NIGHTMARE IN THE STREET by British noirista Derek Raymond (Serpent’s Tail, 2006). Set in Paris, the novel has some of the rich urban texture and slight claustrophobia of Simenon’s Maigret novels -but far darker and much, much more violent.
Derek Raymond–nom de noir of Robin Cook- spent much of his life living in France, and Nightmare in the Street reads as if (ably) translated from the French. Perhaps Raymond was thinking in French and translating as he went.
The main character is familiar enough—a tough, independent cop from a working-class background who could just as easily have become a criminal. (He keeps in touch with a childhood buddy who still lives the life.) This cop plays by his own rules, and inevitably runs up against a rigid bureaucracy, class prejudice, and hidden corruption. Fun stuff, but we’ve been here before.
What makes Nightmare stand out from other novels with a similar set-up is its depiction of Kleber’s (Raymond’ protagonist) descent into grief and madness. The book takes you to a place of pain, loss, and inner turmoil, of life lived on the fine edge of despair, that is not often found in any writing. The next time someone tries to make hard and fast distinctions between genre and literary fiction to you, tie them to a chair and read Nightmare in the Street to them.
That might change their thinking a little.
I had run across several references to Raymond’s seminal role in Brit noir fiction, and was eager to read him. I finally managed to get my hands on one of his books, and was not disappointed, as you can tell. Let’s hope the rest of his novels become readily available in this country.
Buy this book and read it–but try not to spill shit on it, because it will make a great gift for someone on your list. (Oh—I mean, “and buy another copy for someone you love!)”
Happy Holidays!
Filed under: Killer Year Members
A big Killer Year thank you to Graham Powell, for all you do to keep CrimeSpot the freshest spot on the web.
Filed under: Robert Gregory Browne
When I was fifteen years old, my uncle had a heart attack and died.
A few minutes later, a stubborn doctor brought him back to life.
When he was asked about those few minutes, my uncle refused to talk about them. I sensed that whatever happened to him “out there” must have scared the hell out of him.
This was the beginning of my fascination with the near-death experience.
NDE is not uncommon. Millions of people around the world claim to have experienced it, most of them reporting the usual trappings we’ve all heard about:
Out of body travel. Tunnel. Bright light. The presence of long-departed loved ones.
Many tie this to a religious experience, but these elements cross all cultural and spiritual boundaries. Scientists have suggested that what NDE survivors go through is merely a kind of death dream caused by chemicals in the brain, but it seems odd to me that most survivors dream pretty much the same thing.
It also seems odd that many of the survivors are able to report what doctors and loved ones have said in the room – after they were clinically dead.
Based on my uncle’s refusal to talk about his trip to the great beyond, however, I’ve long had the feeling that the experience as described is not universal. For some of us, there is a darker version of the journey. A scarier version.
And that idea, of course, attracted me as a writer.
When I think of my upcoming book, KISS HER GOODBYE, I look at it as essentially a crime thriller. It’s the story of an ATF agent whose daughter is kidnapped and buried alive, and the unusual lengths a desperate father has to go to in order to save her.
All the elements of a crime thriller are there, but I also wanted to give the reader a slightly different experience, one that allowed me to explore some of the questions about near-death and the afterlife.
These are questions we all think about from time to time. What’s out there? How will it affect me? Will it be painful? Exhilarating? Scary?
Most people are frightened by it. Call me weird, but I think of Death as simply another step in the adventure, wherever it may lead. And while I don’t look forward to any pain associated with dying, I do think Death itself will be an amazing journey.
But that’s me.
I’m curious to know what you think. What’s waiting out there for you?
Filed under: CJ Lyons
Thought that would get everyone’s attention, lol!
Ask any published author and they can tell you about their first time…first time getting The Call, that is.
They will remember exactly where they were, what the weather was like, who was there. They’ll tell you about that giddy feeling when their editor (or agent) said those magic words: we want to buy your book.
My Call came in 2004. I experienced all the usual spectrum of emotions: elation, terror, skepticism—this must be a joke, right? Or some horrible mistake? Followed by the glow of accomplishment.
Ahh…the bliss. Of course, then comes the waiting, then the hurrying with copy edits, then more waiting, then more rushing around trying to update websites, design bookmarks, start a blog, end a blog, start posting on other people’s blogs, calling booksellers, explaining to Great Aunt Martha that yes, your book will be published by a real New York publisher, and yes, she will be able to buy it at a real life bookstore….
I did all that and more. But no book. C’est la vie. Cover art difficulties stranded it in publishing limbo and it may never get published. Sigh…try explaining that to Great Aunt Martha.
Discouraging, yes. But hey, if you’re going to dream, you have to dream big. So I kept on going, found a wonderful new agent, and with her help and the encouragement and support of so many friends, including those here at Killer Year, I continued to write.
Then something wonderful happened.
An editor called my agent. Would I consider creating a new medical suspense series for them? Think Grey’s Anatomy meets ER.
Yes, The Call!! Let me tell you, it’s just as sweet the second time around! Happy little snoopy dances that sent the cat scrambling under the nearest chair, screams of delight as soon as I hung up the phone, that giddy feeling of your stomach turning cartwheels—all back again!
So…drumroll, please…I’m happy and most excited to report that I’ll be writing for Berkley. The first book will be released early 2008.
The series will feature the lives and loves of five women who work at Angels of Mercy Medical Center. Like all my work, in addition to the romances, the books will be filled with gritty medical details and edgy suspense. I hope to have more details posted on my website (http://www.cjlyons.net) next month.
And me? I’m still smiling, blushing, and dancing happy jigs every time I talk with my editor (who is amazing!) or when I sit down to work on the project, so I don’t expect this honeymoon to be over any time soon! I’m looking forward to many years of wedding bliss with my new partners over at Berkley.
Thanks for sharing my celebration!
So a few weeks ago in my class I presented a lesson on where ideas come from. I read a few of my stories to them and we discussed where I got the ideas for them.
The first story I read–before my class started calling me a homicidal maniac for this one–I read them Closure. Now I think I can say without reservations that “Closure” is the story that put me on the map. It won a Derringer. It made me lots of friends.
And reading it to my students for the first time in years, I realized something.
I hate it.
I like the idea of “Closure.” The plotlines, the characters, and so on. But it could be 1,000 words shorter. It could be 1,000 times tighter. And I think that would make the story even more powerful. I remember sitting down to write the story and saying “Okay, I want to write a September 11th story without every putting the phrase 9/11 into the story.” To me, that was the idea of subtle. Now I think I could strip it down even more so.
There’s a point where two cops call Omar a “sand nigger.” I wanted to show that even our “heroes” from that day were fallible. But now it just rubs me as wrong. Too over the top.
As I go back through my older stories, I find that happens a lot. I really cringe at the way I wrote back then. I overwrote. There’s too much description. There’s too much flower. There’s not enough action. And some of the turns of phrase are really bad.
But I wrote and published my first Donne story at age 20. And “Closure” is a damn good story for a 22 year old.
Is WHEN ONE MAN DIES better? I hope so.
I think each of my stories have progressively gotten better in terms of the writing style and word choice. I can say more by saying less.
But still, I cringe at the old stuff.
And I’m sure years from now I’ll cringe at WHEN ONE MAN DIES too.
Over at John Rickards’ forum, there’s a discussion about darkness, graphic violence, and how far is too far.
There’s been a trend in recent years, a one-upsmanship of graphic violence, an unspoken competition to see who can be the Grand Puba of Noir. Yet, for all the arterial blood and brain matter smeared all over the page, many of these stories are not affecting, and their violence seems cartoonish, rather than dark.
Memo to would-be tough guys: An exquisitely detailed description of eyeballs popping out of their sockets does not, in and of itself, make a story dark, and it doesn’t make the writer a badass.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against graphic physical violence. I do some of my violence on-screen when I write, and I appreciate realistically portrayed violence when I read. When done well, violence is messy and disturbing, and it needn’t be prettied-up and sterilized.
Excellent use is made of graphic violence, for example, in Lawrence Block’s Edgar Award-winning Matt Scuddder novel, A Dance At The Slaughterhouse. The story deals with snuff films, so we’re talking about some ugly sexual torture here. Without wallowing in gore, Block offers enough graphic detail to make the violence truly disturbing. And that’s as it should be. The graphic violence in A Dance At The Slaughterhouse is not only justified, it is necessary, in my opinion.
What Block does so masterfully, is to offer a few specific details (one sickening detail, in particular) that stick in your mind. He then summarizes the rest of the torture without detail. In retrospect, you think you’ve seen more detail than you actually have.
And there may be a lesson here for the rest of us. Given the opportunity, the reader will make the violence more horrific than the writer possibly could. Because each reader will fill in the details with specifics to match his/her own worst personal fears. Block describes selected details that send a signal to the reader – this is very dark stuff – and then he lets the reader’s own imagination take over.
But when you spoon-feed every gory detail, you take that power away from the reader. The reader is no longer a complicit partner. Your worst personal fears are not shared by everyone, and will not be as affecting. Pile detail upon detail, and the scene starts to look like a cartoon.
And the writer starts to look like the kid in the schoolyard trying too hard to be a badass. Trying too hard is fatal, and has the opposite effect.
Now, I don’t know where the perfect balance is, and I don’t know how to find it. I just stumble along in the dark, trying this, trying that, until it feels right. I suspect that the point of perfect balance is different for each of us.
Where is yours? What writers do you admire for their use of violence, and for their ability to recruit your imagination in the commission of violence?
Sean Chercover
Author of Big City, Bad Blood
January 2007
The Outfit
