Award-winning or Bestselling? Which would you choose?

As we approach award season time, the old existential question is coming up at hotel bars, dives, and other dubious but cheap places that serve alcohol to bitching and whining authors…

If you could be an award-winning author OR a bestselling author, but not both, which would you choose?

And has your preference changed over the years?

Mine has.  I was all about the awards when I was younger.  I wanted to be recognized, and was leery about 'selling out' to the masses (a ridiculous idea, as I see it now.  Why would a book that everyone likes not be a good book?)  

To that end, I didn't consider writing certain genres and actually turned down a lucrative series contract with one of the big five 15 years ago because they wanted to change it from epic fantasy to paranormal romance.  Honestly, I can be an idiot.)

In the thirty years since my first publication, I like to think I've grown up.  With 17 novels, 60 short stories, and a couple hundred comedy credits behind me, my outlook has changed.

Now, ten awards later, I want money.

(I hope you're laughing now.  Has she given up her ideals?  Hell yes!)

This change of heart has prompted me to examine what it is that each accomplishment does for one.

Here's what I've concluded:

Award-winning means you are lauded by your peers.

Bestseller means you are appreciated by the reading public.

No question, a lot of awards are judged by professional authors and professional reviewers.  I've sat on a number of juries myself.  And there is no greater thrill I've found than having professionals in your own field laud you as 'the best' in a category.

But that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to earn a poop-load of money.

Why is it so hard to attain both?

I have an author friend - actually two of them- who consistently make bestseller lists.  One is a million-book seller.  The other, in the tens of thousands per book, but with over thirty books, that amounts to a lot of sales.

Am I envious of the money they make?  Hell yeah!

Neither have won an award.  And I know it gnaws away at them. Does the money compensate?  I expect it does.

But somehow, as authors we crave both. We strive for both.  We want to be acknowledged by our peers as well as loved by the public.  We want to see our names on the bestseller lists, and on the awards list.

At least, that's how I see it at this point in my career.  But to be fair, I've gone to a younger author with Harper Collins, for his take. Here's what he says:

     "It's an age-old question and I have to admit that I'm rather boring when it comes to the side of the fence I fall on. Writing has always been my passion. It's a privilege to be able to do it professionally. And if that means that my work becomes bestselling, or it garners the attention of my peers in awards, then it's an added bonus.

     "I'm envious of other authors - just because they all do such magnificent work. So, to be the ultimate fence sitter, I'll say that either is a welcome and monumental achievement. And one that should be cherished and celebrated far and wide!"  (Jonathan Whitelaw, author of The Bingo Hall Detectives - "a sharply funny read")

Well said, Jonathan! How about you, fellow authors?  If you had to choose, which way would you go?

Man, I'll be glad when this book is finally out (May13.)  Available for preorder most places.

Melodie Campbell writes lamentably funny fiction, usually with a mob connection, from the shores of Lake Ontario. If you enjoyed The Goddaughter series, you also might enjoy this book, which takes place in 1928 and stars Gina Gallo's great-grandmother!

Pulled From The Ether

People ask a lot of questions when they find out someone is a writer. Some show a distinct lack of knowledge about what writing pays. Either the person is chronically unemployed or already has their retirement funded nine times over. In reality, most of us have day jobs or are retired. Some are about research. Of course, I wrote here a couple of times about where characters come from, and, of course, my favorite topic: setting. One question, however, sets almost every writer's teeth on edge.

"Where do you get your ideas?"

From the reader's, or at least non-writer's, point of view, it's a fair enough question. Most people may daydream, but they don't spend a lot of time trying to spin it into a story. Or if they do, not something beyond telling tales in a bar after it's too late to drive one's self home. So, why does this bother writers so much?

Well, ideas come from just about everywhere. I don't care if you're Harlan Ellison cooped up in a hotel room banging out the original version of Star Trek's "City on the Edge of Forever" on your ancient Underwood manual typewriter or my buddy Rick Partlow dictating the first of 5000 words a day while in the shower. You don't know where the ideas come from.

Stephen King often talks about this. Once, he referenced Ellison (I think. The memory is fuzzy after so many years), that famous master of sarcasm, who said, "Oh, I have a service in New Jersey I subscribe to for $25 a month." I read that in 1985, so I'm assuming, with inflation, it's now $75. Seriously, though, while I won't even try to fathom what went through Ellison's mind, I have seen where King's ideas came from.

Carrie - King's breakthrough novel and his debut is also his least favorite. (Me, personally, I don't like Christine, but I like Cell a lot less. But I'm just a silly consumer.) It came from working as a janitor in a high school and cleaning the girls' locker room. What are those weird dispensers on the wall? This was 1973, after all, and that stuff just wasn't talked about. Why were high school girls so mean? What about two girls he went to high school with who were outcasts? His contact with high school resulted in his first three novels: the Bachman books Rage and The Long Walk, and Carrie. He regrets Rage for what happened after the fact, but Carrie ended up in the garbage after a handful of pages. Why? He didn't get the main character. Fortunately, Tabitha King did and helped him finish it.

Pet Sematary - One of the king boys, I think it was Joe Hill, was a naughty little toddler and liked to run out in the road. At the time, the King family lived in a Maine logging town, and little Joe (or was it Owen?) nearly got squished by a logging truck barreling through at a pretty good clip. The incident, of course, prompted King to write his own version of "The Monkey's Paw," but was this latest edition to the Castle Rock continuum made up? A couple of years ago, my family and I toured New England. Driving from Burlington, Vermont, to Bar Harbor, we went through a hamlet situated between a mountain and a large foothill. I told my wife I thought this looked familiar. Might have been the buildings along one side of the road. And then a logging truck blew past us, its wake shaking the car. I said, "Oh, my God, Candy! We just drove through Pet Sematary!"

Cell - My least favorite King novel and a pale copy of The Stand. King hates cell phones. Get off his lawn. What if these idiotic gadgets set off the zombie apocalypse? I appreciate the sentiment, but not the execution. Although this was one of the first novels written after his accident, so give him credit for at least getting back on the horse. (Much prefer Duma Key.)

That's just Stephen King. Some ideas come from more bizarre directions than this. My first novel Northcoast Shakedown had its genesis in some balcony work at an apartment complex where I lived. What if someone pushed the guy off the ladder? On the scifi side, I came up with TS Hottle's Gimme Shelter when I saw a video game ad with ordinary people grabbing assault weapons to ward off aliens, all to the strains of... Well... "Gimme Shelter." I've had short stories inspired by getting stuck out in the rain, obsessive scifi fans, and the titles of Deep Purple songs.

Anthologies provide the best hooks. A few years ago, I was invited to one with a theme of Steely Dan songs. More recently (and unfortunately, I pulled out too soon), I submitted to a one-hit wonder themed anthology and came up with "Black Velvet" and its Elvis-themed lyrics. My favorite, though, was when someone wrote a story based on "Kid Charlemagne," the song itself having a real-life inspiration. 

One never knows when an idea will strike. I walk along railroad tracks a couple of times a week on my way home from Ye Olde Day Job. Between Norfolk Southern's woes and my still-childish need to see a train once in awhile, there may be a toxic heist in the offing.

Associations of a TV / Movie Addict

An upstate friend of mine and I were talking, and she said, "Do you feel like we're living in a black and white 50s horror movie?  The Winter That Would Not Die?"  Oh, hell yes. This winter is like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction - just when you think you've drowned it, it comes back, with a knife in its hand.  And it's turning us all into pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, wandering around with vacant eyes and devoid of human emotion except an intense hatred of the weather forecasts.  

Movies & TV. You can't help but use them as analogies for almost everything. And the lessons we've learned from them!  

First of all, thanks to Stephen Leather for posting this GREAT list:

And I'd like to add a few more observations:

No matter how long someone is held tied up in a chair, room, or cellar, they never soil themselves and, when rescued, never mention that they need to go pee.  

When an assassin / spy / amnesiac and the woman who's helping him have sex, they do it standing up in a bathroom or hallway.  (see Maximum Risk.)

The star of the movie can always find a parking place, even in Manhattan.  (Referred to by Jerry Seinfeld as "the Jack Lemmon parking place".) 

After a month on a deserted island, men will have an advanced beard, but women will have neatly shaved armpits. - Judy Mudrick Colbert in comments section  

A car chase will always knock over a fruit stand, but if there's two car chases that knock over two fruit stands - and a comedian is not involved - it's a stinker of a movie.  (see Maximum Risk.)

A woman going to bed with full make-up on will wake up with same full make-up on, and there will be nary a trace of mascara or lipstick anywhere on the pillow, when in fact it should look like it was used for "Bloodfeast." 

Women can run for miles in high heels with no trouble - unless, of course, it's mandatory for the villain to catch them.  Also, from comments on the internet, "If necessary, a woman can break off her stilettos and have a perfectly comfortable pair of flats."  

A pair of horn-rimmed glasses is a perfect disguise for everyone from Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep) to Clark Kent.  No one will recognize you.

No matter how drunk a woman gets, when her lover calls, she will be instantly sober and ready to go out on the town with him. (Female on the Beach) 

It's easy to gun a car to ramming speed and jump out of it without anyone seeing you (and hide) before it actually goes over the cliff and explodes - unless you're Thelma and Louise.  

That leads straight to Soapland, which has its own set of amazing things:

You thought Glenn Close's character was never going to die? Well, NOBODY ever dies forever on a soap (unless they completely pissed off the producer / money people). It doesn't matter how many people saw them fall off a cliff, explode in a car, get shot, laid out on a slab or attended their funeral complete with open casket:  Sooner or later, they're going to come back from the dead.  

Also, plastic surgery.  And I'm not talking about the Botox school of acting (nothing moves above the eyebrows) which is ubiquitous.  I'm talking about villains who get plastic surgery to look EXACTLY like somebody else, and the surgeon can do it without leaving any scars anywhere.  And - this is the really amazing bit - somehow they ALSO now have the same voice as the other person!  Not to mention body scent and mannerisms!  No one can tell the difference!     

Whenever two people discuss something incredibly intimate or secret in a public place, they are always overheard by either their worst enemy or the snitch who goes straight to their worst enemy. 

Even at home, all women wear full make-up, designer clothes and high heels all the time.  What I'd give to just once see the heroine come home from work, reach under her top, and strip off her bra the way the rest of us do...  And go off and come back in a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt while she pours that glass of red wine.  

Slow learners all:  Nobody is EVER over their ex, no matter what kind of lying, cheating, etc., they were.  Indeed, they generally remarry their exes - multiple times.  

Oh, and those of us who have read pulp fiction, etc., know that all of these apply the detective and spy and thriller stories and novels as well.  

Meanwhile, exploding houses and an update from an old case here in South Dakota!

We've had a hell of a winter (remember land sharks?), and to cap it all off, two houses exploded in the Lake County area.  I always thought there were only two reasons why houses [unmaliciously] explode up here, (1) meth labs and (2) smoking while making ammunition in the basement (more common than you might think). 

But there's a third! Buried gas meters! "Officials are urging homeowners to check to see if their gas meters are free of snow. The City of Madison Fire Department says that in both home explosions, there was 10 plus feet or more of snow on the gas meter."  (KELO)  SO GO CHECK YOUR GAS METER, RIGHT NOW!!!!  And from henceforth and forever more!

And, remember Joel Koskan, former Republican candidate for the South Dakota Senate, who thankfully was not elected?  Now last year it emerged that he'd been arrested for "exposing a minor to sexual grooming behaviors," a class four felony. And it turned out that the minor was his adopted daughter, and that he'd groomed and then molested her for years.  Somehow, he got a plea deal (do not EVEN get me started on the old boy network), in which he agreed to "accept some responsibility for his actions, but ultimately would deny any sexual intercourse had occurred throughout the alleged abuse" and would not have to serve any time or register as a sex offender, or be separated from his other 4 children (who are still living with him).  (All the Cockroaches Coming Out)

Well, huzzah!  The circuit judge rejected his plea deal.  With any luck, there'll be a trial, and Mr. Koskan might actually have to face some REAL consequences for his actions.  (Argus)  

That's all for now.  More later, when hopefully I can find my lawn again.  At least I found my gas meter.

Old Pros

Here’s a George V. Higgins guy talking:

Never did like Nino.  Most guys I’ve done business with, I’ve got along with good.  When something’s happened to them – they got careless, trusted someone they shouldn’t of, did something they’re not sure of?  Then they hadda go away?  I been, you know, sorry for them.  Hoped whatever happened to them, not… too bad.  They didn’t have much pain.  Nothing I could do – ‘cept wish they’d been more careful.  But still, I did feel sorry.  Bad they hadda go away.  Nino, I did not.  Very careless man.  Loud about it, too.  Full of the big talk.  Now Nino’s in Walpole – I’m right?  Will be a long time.  Don’t wanna be there with him.  Always figured him for trouble.  Never liked the guy.

     [At End of Day, 2000]

Here’s one from Elmore Leonard:

     If it was ten or twelve years ago, and Jimmy told Tommy Bucks in those words, ‘Handle it,’ that would be a different story.  I mean, back when he first came over.  Tommy’s a Zip.  You know what I mean?  One of those guys they used to import from Sicily to handle the rough stuff.  Guy could be a peasant right out of the fucking Middle Ages, looks around and he’s in Miami Beach.  Can’t believe it.  They hand the Zip a gun and say, ‘There, that guy.’  And the Zip takes him out.  You understand?  They import the kind of guy likes to shoot.  He’s got no priors here, nobody gives a shit, he gets picked up, convicted, put away.  If he does, you send for another Zip.  Guy comes over from Sicily, he’s got on a black suit, shirt buttoned up, no tie, and a cap sitting on top of his head.  That was Tommy Bucks, ten, twelve years ago.

     [Pronto, 1993]

 

There’s a trick to it.  It’s not actually real speech.  If you sound it out loud to yourself, you hear the cadence.  It mimics real speech, but the rhythms are compressed, or stretched out and exaggerated.  The language feels authentic, even if nobody really talks like that.  You wish they did. 

Twain has the hang of this, too.  The way Huckleberry Finn sounds, the mouth-feel.  A very good case can be made for Twain as the first American writer who’s trying to give you a sense of genuine vernacular speech, and what you hear with George Higgins and Dutch Leonard is a kind of shortcut to that.  It doesn’t sound labored; it sounds natural.

Read the opening scene of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Higgins’ first book.  I’m not going to quote the whole thing here.  You can hear the guy’s voice in your head, at least I can.  Pick up Leonard’s LaBrava and read it for the third time.  If it’s the first, settle in.

There’s something comforting about their work, both of them.  And immediately familiar.  Like the guy a couple of stools down.  You know you’re in good hands, and you can go with it. 

“She made up a story, that Joe Young stole her stepdad’s Model A and abducted her.  I told her, stay with that, and you won’t go to jail.  But then the newspapers got hold of it.  ‘Girl-friend of Pretty Boy Floyd Guns Down Mad-Dog Felon.’  After a while she got over it.”

“And you married her.”

“Not till she grew up.”

[Up in Honey’s Room, 2007]

Seriously.  If you haven’t been in the neighborhood lately, stop by. 

First we had Malice in Dallas. Now, things are Reckless in Texas

Earlier this month, Reckless in Texas—the second book in the Metroplex Mysteries anthology series—was published. It follows last year's Malice in Dallas. If you think these titles are fun, wait until you read the books. (Joseph S. Walker's story in Malice has been chosen to appear in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2023. But you don't have to wait for that anthology to come out this autumn to read Joe's story. Malice in Dallas is available now. Just click here.)

But back to Reckless in Texas. It has ten stories plus a foreword written by my fellow SleuthSayer John M. Floyd. I've had the pleasure of editing both anthologies for the North Dallas Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and I wanted to tell you a bit about the Reckless stories. But rather than talk about them myself, I decided to put the anthology's ten authors on the hot seat. I asked them to (1) talk a little about their stories, (2) share their favorite thing about their stories, and (3) tell where in the Dallas/Fort Worth area their stories are set and why. And here we go:

The book opens with "Monster" by Shannon Taft

Elizabeth believes that her mother-in-law, Alberta, did not have an enemy in the world the night she was stabbed to death. But if that is true, then who killed Alberta—and what do they want now?

 

My favorite thing about this story is that the victim appears to be a wonderful person. In many mysteries, the victim is universally loathed with masses of people who want them dead. The lack of apparent motive makes for a different sort of challenge.

 

I chose Highland Park because I needed a place where wealthy characters might live and it offered me loads of landmarks to work with, including Teddy Bear Park, Turtle Creek, and the Dallas Country Club. 

The next story is "The Prime Witness to the Murder of Dr. Malachi Samson" by Derek Wheeless

He would be murdered by one of the four women he trusted most in all of Dallas. He would be killed in the most fabulous mystery library in all of Texas, surrounded by the most magnificent first-edition tomes in all the world. And best of all, Dr. Malachi Sampson, the leader of the Women of the Arcane Mystery Book Club, would approve of his murder.

My favorite part of the story is the library. I would LOVE to have a library like the one in which Dr. Malachi Sampson is killed. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind dying in a library like that either!

The story is set on Swiss Avenue, a very historic street just east of downtown Dallas with very grand and stately homes that came about during the first several decades of the 1900s. One day, as I drove along the two and half miles of Swiss Avenue admiring the Mediterranean, Spanish, Georgian, Craftsman, and other styles of architecture, I wondered what it might be like if one of these old grand dames had the most spectacular mystery libraries inside. I also wanted to try writing a story in reverse, where the ending came first and the beginning came last. I’d seen an old Seinfeld episode like that and wondered if I could pull off a short mystery with the same approach, yet leaving some twist for the reader to enjoy in the final paragraphs. So I put the two ideas together and thus was born “The Prime Witness to the Murder of Dr. Malachi Sampson.”

 

Next up is "Traction" by Terry Shepherd

 

When a police detective ends up in traction after pushing a perp out of harm’s way, she discovers a mystery with tendrils connecting two of the city’s most prominent families. It’s a web of deception and murder she has to untangle from her hospital bed with only her wits and the spider who keeps her company.

I love puzzles where the only tool we have to solve them rests in our brain. Constructing a scenario where someone with a sharp mind who's sidelined by a broken leg solves a crime was great fun.

This Dallas tale is unique as it never leaves the protagonist’s hospital room. We meet people who do things in different parts of town, but the adventure begins and ends in the same spot.

 

Our fourth story is "The Laundry Larceny" by ML Condike  

 

A retired SMU professor who recently moved Sign Point, a life-plan community, is drawn into a murder investigation when the community's manager is found dead in a laundry room in Memory Care. How will Maggie solve the mystery when the only witness thinks he's Xerxes the Great, a king of the Achaemenid Empire?

My favorite thing about my story is that it shows the camaraderie and friendships formed in an age-in-place senior-living facility. I also love the way Maggie, my protagonist, reconciles the fact that Xerxes may not be the person he used to be, but he's happy with his new life.

 

I chose to set my fictional Sign Point on Preston Road in Dallas because the proximity to Southern Methodist University makes the relationships in the story more believable. 

 

Up next is "Who Shot the Party Crasher?" by Amber Royer

 

When ex-rock star Manda takes a road trip home to Texas with her aunt and her aunt's besties to see where the TV show Dallas was shot, she gets more than she bargained for when they find a dead body in their RV. Can she figure out who shot the guy who kinda looks like J.R.?

 

I love how this story echoes themes from my long-form work. Television and media and our relationship to them are a big part of the Chocoverse space-opera series in which my protagonist's mom is an intergalactic celebrity chef and my protagonist is hiding out from the paparazzi—while basically living inside a telenovela on the page. And Felicity, the protagonist of my Bean to Bar Mysteries, has an ambivalent relationship with her shop's image (after it becomes the site of a murder, in the first book) and social media (especially after a killer learns of Felicity's crime-solving exploits via a podcast and calls her out in book five).

 

This story is set in the north part of Dallas/Fort Worth. I've lived up this way for around six years, and it's an interesting mix of quaint city squares, urban areas, wildlife-friendly parks (we saw a beaver the last time we went walking at night on the path around Towne Lake!) and landmarks—including Southfork Ranch, the house used for the television show Dallas. I didn't want to set a murder at the actual landmark, so I used it just for inspiration.  

 

Our sixth story is "Stood Up" by Dänna Wilberg

 

Who killed Lanky Dave? After being stood up for a date by a local actress, a Dallas detective agrees to sacrifice his night off to investigate a drug dealer's gruesome murder. During his investigation, he discovers fate can be cruel, blood is thicker than water, and things aren't always as they appear to be. 

 

My favorite part of writing "Stood Up" was creating unusual characters, incorporating local history into the backstory, and weaving many interesting locations, spanning from Frisco to downtown Dallas, into the plot.

 

Although I'm from Sacramento, California, I was fortunate to attend a speakeasy in Frisco and dine at Campisi's legendary restaurant. But truth be told, I fell in love with Dallas's potential for staging a murder after taking a city tour on a souped-up golf cart.  

 

Next comes "Steer Clear" by Mark Thielman

 

The sudden disappearance of Bluebonnet, Forth Worth's prize steer, has the mayor demanding answers. To avoid the wrath of his lieutenant, Detective Alpert must shake off his hangover long enough to find Cowtown's favorite bovine. "Steer Clear" is a locked-barn mystery. 

 

I'm combining questions two and three. My favorite part was setting a story in my city, Forth Worth. Although we're the other half of Dallas/Fort Worth, we sometimes get overlooked. I wanted a story that featured Cowtown. Putting a big bovine in the heart of the tale seemed the best way to do that.

 

Up next is "Risk Reduction" by L. A. Starks

 

If your family was threatened, how far would you go to save them? When her new boss makes a shocking request of her, a young financial analyst must reduce the risk to her family in the only way she can—by calculating the odds.

 

My favorite thing about writing this story was giving a taste of the cool, complex mix of people, neighborhoods, and cultures in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.  

 

A key setting for my story is Munger Place in Old East Dallas. When I lived there, residents' aspirations and striving, like those of the main character in the story, were exemplified by a sign at a used-car lot: Su trabajo es su crédito. "Your job is your credit." 

 

Our penultimate story is "Road Rage" by Pam McWilliams

 

A road-rage killing is more complicated than it first appears, especially when the  detective's lost love appears at his door with information that sheds light on the case. 

Two of my favorite characters from "Two-Legged Creatures"—my story in Malice in Dallas—couldn't stand each other for most of the story. But they reappear in "Road Rage," now with a complicated romantic history that took place in between the stories. I also like the way the road-rage killing is about a lot more than two angry drivers. 

Both the victim and the killer live north of the city in affluent areas, and I-75, where the road-rage incident takes place, is one of the fastest ways to get there from downtown, particularly late at night after an evening out.

And we wrap up the anthology with "The Mysterious Disappearance of Jason Whetstone" by Karen Harrington

A Garland journalist explores the disappearance of a mediator at Highland Park's Remedy Clinic—a venue that referees petty or odd disputes—and unfurls the truth about his last two clients: sisters at odds over a family memory. Would one of them commit murder to win the argument?

The story unfurls from a journalist's point of view as she collects various interviews and records about the disappearance of Jason Whetstone, culminating in the kind of true-crime article you might find in a magazine. Writing it that way was challenging and fun as I'm a huge fan of that type of article. 

The crime is solved in Garland, Texas, where I grew up and also where the film Zombieland opens. That should tell you everything.

Barb again: And those are the ten stories in Reckless in Texas. We hope we've enticed you to pick up the anthology, which you can find on Amazon in trade paperback and ebook formats. Just click here. If you've read any of the anthology, we'd love to hear what you think. 

Finally, a little BSP before I go: I'm delighted to share that last week my story "The Gift" was named a finalist for this year's Thriller Award in the short story category. The story involves a high school principal who has always believed in setting a good example. But sometimes the line between right and wrong blurs—especially when family is involved.

"The Gift" was published last autumn in Land of 10,000 Thrills: Bouchercon Anthology 2022. Thanks to Greg Herren, who edited the anthology, and Down & Out Books, which published it, for including my story. You can buy the anthology through the usual online sources, including here. The Thriller Award winners will be announced on June 3rd.

A Bold Move

Many years ago, my then (and excellent) agent had a complaint with my latest manuscript: There's only one murder! she said, even though craze for serial killers was still in publishing's future. I dutifully killed off an elderly birdwatcher who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but my heart was not in it.

So I was interested in Brendan Slocumb's strategy for his debut novel, The Violin Conspiracy. It not only lacks multiple murders, it lacks a death of any kind, as well as rape, grievous bodily assault, stalking, and blackmail. Ah, you think, a cozy. Well, no. There are no detecting cats, no recipes for chocolate cake, no would be Miss Marples. 

What we have in the initial pages is not bloodshed, but a theft, one almost wants to say a kidnapping, of a young violinist's prized violin. Sherlock Holmes would have approved, our founding father being as keen on finding precious objects as preserving fancy reputations, but is it enough for our bloodthirsty publishing business?

This where Slocumb has been ingenious, in both structure and characterizations. His hero, Ray McMillan is unusual in several ways, all of which play nicely into the plot. He is a Black classical violinist. And as succeeding chapters reveal, he began as a poorly trained but very talented and determined musician. There were no pushy parents or private lessons for Ray, whose unsympathetic and avaricious family had no use for music with one exception: his Grandmother Nora, who gifts him with her grandfather's fiddle.

Ray has a difficult road to follow, securing a quality instrument is difficult, strings and even rosin are expensive, and racist bias, often of in a really frightening form, present roadblocks to things as simple as playing a wedding gig, getting to a concert, or getting basic repairs on an instrument. With these obstacles, there is already a considerable layer of drama in The Violin Conspiracy.

But Slocumb has two other strands to work with. One is the violin, dusty, rosin encrusted, much in need of repairs but with a surprisingly decent sound. It is a 100 year old heirloom with an dramatic backstory of its own, and moreover, it is taken and held for ransom, just as Ray is preparing for his chance to break into the big time: the Tchaikovsky Competition.

The Tchaikovsky is a super high stakes affair, and Slocumb obviously knows a lot about the stresses and strategies of big time classical competitions. Even more important for this reader, he shows a genuine love of the violin and of its repertoire. He manages to bring performances to life and although the story of the underdog taking on the world is an old one, in the right hands it still provides plenty of drama.

I couldn't say the characters are subtle or particularly complex. The good are very good and the bad are thoroughly horrid. But Ray is appealing and his love of music is genuine. Faced with a high stakes competition, obstacles from racists, a greedy family, legal threats to his violin before outright theft and a ransom demand, he has his work cut out for him. It turns out there is plenty going on without bloodshed.

The Violin Conspiracy comes at an interesting time when, as a matter of fact, there is considerable interest in the works of Black American classical composers like Florence Price and William Grant Still (both of whom the mystery references), and new operas by Black American Composers like Terence Blanchard (Fire Shut up in My Bones at the Met) and Anthony Davis (The Life and Times of Malcolm X at Detroit Opera).  There are also some fine young Black string and piano players, including the highly praised brother-sister duo, Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Masons (cello and piano). 

A good introduction to several fine Black classical pianists in available on the web at PBS's Now Hear This "Florence Price and the American Migration", glimpses of her life, selections of her work and of the blues and jazz that informed it as well as her classical training.

---

The Falling Men, a novel with strong mystery elements, has been issued as an ebook on Amazon Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SF82P1H

Also on kindle: The Complete Madame Selina Stories
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XMPWWNQ.

The Man Who Met the Elf Queen with two other fanciful short stories and 4 illustrations, is available from Apple Books at:
https://bo, oks.apple.com/us/book/id1072859654

The Dictator's Double, 3 short mysteries and 4 illustrations is available at:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1607321864

Absurd Lines

Weird Al Yankovic

So I’m trying to think up an article and Lenovo Google Display is playing rock in the background when I hear the intro to ‘Blurred Lines’, a song so rampantly sexist even Andrew Tate declared, “Holy Ç¥Œ◊‰, that’s sexist,” and went on to say, “Can I get them b✫tch✫s’ phone numbers? What? What did I say?”

But no, it wasn’t Robin Thicke nor even the originator of the tune, Marvin Gaye. It was Weird Al Yankovic presenting a video perfect for SleuthSayers. I could almost hear Rod Serling intoning, “Submitted for your edification, the words of one Mr Yankovic…”

Whereas most reviewers approved the video, some sourballs have to complain and not even about a couple of naughty bits slipped in. One argument grouched that judgmental grammatical purism promotes social distinctions, while another grumbled about  ‘linguistic prescriptivism’, i.e, we don’t need no rules. This flies in the face of classical education when rhetoric and logic reigned, when the educated believed rigor and precision of language underpinned rigor and precision of thought.

Uh oh. Now I’m channeling Pink Floyd…

That's Easy for You to Say

As you probably know, this blog is about mystery fiction, and while we (and mostly I) occasionally stagger off the path and into movies and TV, our usual posts here are about writing short stories and novels.

Today I'm wandering afield again: I'd like to focus not on the written word but on the spoken word. Or should I say misspoken?

I can remember when, as a kid, I thought calliope was pronounced cally-ope and Penelope was penna-lope. And I had no idea about things like coup, epitome, hitherto (hit her, too?), etc. After all, I hadn't heard those words before--I'd only read them in books. On the printed page, Sean looked like seen, Seamus looked like seemus, and God Only Knew about Siobhan. I also remember seeing the name John Huston in the credits of a movie when I was a teenager and figured his last name was pronounced Huss-ton.

Now that I have (supposedly) grown up, I still find myself confused about some pronunciations, and my more intelligent wife's not always around to correct me.

Having said all that . . . here are some perplexing names and words that have stumped me now and then, along with what I believe is the correct way to pronounce them. See what you think.

Names of writers:

• Ayn Rand. It's not ann. It's ine, as in wine.
• Gillian Flynn -- Not jillian. It's GILL-yan, with a hard G.
• Annie Proulx -- Not prool. It's proo.
• Vladimir Nabokov -- Not NAB-okov. It's na-BO-kov.
• Roald Dahl -- Not rolled. It's ROO-all.
• Dr. Seuss -- Not soos. It's soice, as in voice.
• Rick Riordan -- Not REER-din. It's RYE-or-din.
• P. G. Wodehouse -- Not wode-house. It's wood-house.
• Jodi Picoult -- Not pee-colt or pee-cult. It's pee-ko.
• John Le Carré -- Not la-karr. It's la-kar-RAY.
• Brendan Dubois -- Not doo-bwah. It's doo-boys.
• J. K. Rowling -- Not RAOWL-ing, as in howling. It's ROLL-ing, as in bowling.

Other names:

• Andrew Carnegie -- Not CAR-na-gie. It's car-NAY-gie.
• Martin Scorcese -- Not scar-SAZE-ee. It's scar-SEZZY.
• Ralph Lauren -- Not lau-REN. It's LAUR-en.
• Demi Moore -- Not Dimmy. It's di-MEE.
• Lindsay Lohan -- Not low-hann. It's LOW-en, as in Owen.
• Kirsten Dunst -- Not ker-sten. It's keer-sten.
• Charlize Theron -- Not the-RONE, as in Game of Therons. It's THERE-in.
• Saoirse Ronan -- Not source or sarce. It's ser-shah.
• Gal Godot -- Not ga-DOE. It's ga-DOTE.

(Yes, I know--these last six are actresses. I can't think offhand of any male actors's names I have trouble pronouncing, and if I did I doubt they'd care. Also note: I'm fairly sure this is the only time you'll ever see Lindsay Lohan and Andrew Carnegie in the same list.)

U. S. cities:

• Kissimmee, FL, isn't KISS-im-ee. It's kis-SIM-ee.
• Wilkes-Barre, PA, isn't wilks-bar. It's WILKS-barry (some say WILKS-bare).
• Worchester, MA, isn't WAR-chester. It's WOOS-ter.
• La Jolla, CA, isn't la-JAH-lah. (You know this already.) It's la-HOY-ah.
• Biloxi, MS, isn't bi-LOCK-si. It's bi-LUCK-si.
• Des Moines, IO, isn't duh-MOINS. It's duh-MOIN. No s.
• Islamorada, FL, isn't IZ-lamorada. It's EYE-lamorada.
• New Orleans, LA, isn't new-or-LEENS or new-ORLEY-uns. It's new-OR-luns.
• Spokane, WA, isn't spo-KANE. it's spo-KANN.
• Versailles, KY, isn't ver-SIGH, as in France. It's ver-SAYLES. Seriously. 
• Milan, TN, isn't mi-LON, as in Italy. It's MY-lin.
• Cairo, IL, isn't KY-roe, as in Egypt. It's KAY-roe.

(I won't attempt to phonetically spell the correct pronunciation of Norfolk, VA, but here's a true-story hint: I was once told by a resident that their unofficial school cheer was "We don't smoke. We don't chew. Norfolk, Norfolk, Norfolk.")

Common words:

• Cavalry isn't calvary.
• Athlete isn't athalete.
• Realtor isn't realator.
• Triathlon isn't triathalon.
• Sherbet isn't sherbert.
• Espresso isn't expresso.
• Nuclear isn't nucular.
• Larynx isn't lair-nix. It's lair-inks.
• Potable isn't pottable. It's pote-able.
• Mischievous isn't mis-CHEEV-ee-us. It's MIS-chev-us.
• Gyro isn't JYE-ro, as in gyroscope. It's YEER-o, as in hero.
• Applicable isn't ap-PLICK-able. It's APP-lickable.
• Electoral isn't elec-TORE-al. It's e-LECK-toral.
• Respite isn't res-pyte. It's RESS-pit.
• Gala isn't galla. It's GAY-la.
• Beignet isn't ben-yet. It's ben-yay.
• Boatswain isn't bote-swane. It's boss-un.
• Foyer isn't foy-ay. (Even though we like sounding fancy.) It's plain old foy-er.

Full disclosure: There are some words I will happily continue to pronounce the way I want to pronounce them because I don't like the other ways, correct or not. To me it'll always be bobwire, snuck, Febyouwary, Wensdy, Dr. Soos, care-amel, pah-conns, poinsetta, pimento, surrup (not sear-up), turnament (not tour-nament), Flahridda (not Flore-idda), Nevahda (not Nevadda), dawg (not dahg), man-aze (not mayo-naze), pajommas (not pajammas), aint and uncle (not ahnt and uncle), day-ta (not datta), ee-ther (not eye-ther), nee-ther (not nye-ther), etc. 

Two more points. First, I still think the lived in short-lived should have a long i, as in deprived. (I've been lobbying a long time for that, to no avail. I mean, come on, if it's short-lived it has a short LIFE.) Second--and this isn't actually pronunciation--I don't like the word utilize, in speaking or writing. Use a perfectly good word like use instead. They mean the same thing.

Since writers are also speakers and listeners (and since this is a forum for 'em), what mispronunciations, including regionalisms, bother you the most? Please let me know in the comments below.

I think that's everything that's APP-lickable. See you in two weeks.

Il Grande Lebowski—and beyond

My fellow SleuthSayer Bob Mangeot recently shared a marvelous post about a film that is currently celebrating its 25th Anniversary. It’s the only cult film that I can say I truly obsess about, but I will admit that my experience of it is a little strange. Or shall I say, un po’ strano.

The year was 2003. I had left the United States to live overseas with my new fiancé, who covered soccer for ESPN abroad and had an apartment in Rome. My Italian was so rusty that local television was an exhausting blur. Luckily, Denise had bought a number of DVDs of popular American movies at a local DVD shop, and we spent our evenings watching those—again and again and again—after switching off the subtitles and reverting the audio back to the original English dialogue. No matter what we did, however, we could not shut off the Italian subtitles of a film called Il Grande Lebowski.

I remembered seeing the film in a US theater when it arrived in 1998. And while I’d enjoyed it, I did not rush to see it again or acquire the DVD when it was released to the home market. As a result, I never really comprehended just how much a debt the film owed to Raymond Chandler.

But now I did, and in my new temporary home, this very American film unwittingly became my window to another culture. I boned up on my Italian by ceaselessly watching the same Coen Brothers film and slowly associating the English words I heard the actors say with the Italian phrases printed at the bottom of the screen. Over time, my Italian got good enough that I could spot when an American idiomatic expression was rendered poorly in Italian. For example, the nickname of Jeff Bridges’s stoner character, the Dude, is somewhat mistranslated as Il Drugo, but that monicker sorta, kinda makes sense. (As do the other nicknames Drugo suggests in the film: Drughetto, Drugantibus, or Drughino.)

When we returned to the states and settled in the American south, we were delighted to find that we lived not far from Louisville, Kentucky, which hosts an annual LebowskiFest, featuring lookalike contests, bowling tournaments, live music, and two days of tempting merch. One year, we booked travel and lodging, only to cancel when a crop of unexpected freelance work popped up on our radar. Similar fan events are held in other cities, but we’ve never gone. It’s something I hope to do one of these days, but it’s not like I haven’t had my fill of accumulating Lebowski-themed swag.

For many years, the official artist of the Fest has been the LA-based Bill Green, whose style is truly inventive and wonderful. A signed poster of Maude Lebowski (played by Julianne Moore) hangs prominently in our living room, flanked by three bowling pins that Mr. Green has lovingly decorated with a hand-drawn image of the characters. (Three points to the astute reader who can tell me why Maude Lebowski is depicted upside down on one of these pins.) You can find more of Mr. Green’s artwork at his website.

A few years ago, the organizers of LebowskiFest released I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski, a book of interviews with the actors from the original film. And when some college profs approached them, saying they’d like to present some academic papers about the film at the next fest, the organizers accommodated them, though they admitted that they had no idea this was something brainier fans of the film did in their spare time. The result of these papers is a book entitled The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies. Before you run out to grab this title, understand that it is a collection of truly academic writing. I love Il Drugo with a passion, but I could not keep up with the writing that flowed from the pens of deconstructionists. Turns out, I don’t need to know the meaning of the word metonym. I passed the book along to a friend with tenure in an English department.

Another writer, Adam Bertocci, later weighed in with a much more palatable book entitled Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, in which every line of the Coen Brothers’ script has been rendered as if penned by the Bard. When two thugs burst into the Dude’s shabby apartment and stumble across his bowling ball, the exchange goes like this:

Thug: (extracting bowling ball from a bag): What the f— is this?

The Dude: Obviously you’re not a golfer.

In Shakespearese, the dialogue goes this way:

Thug: Villainy! Why this confounded orb, such as men use to play at ninepins; what devilry, these holes in holy trinity?

Dude: Obviously thou art not a colfer.

The pages of this book are liberally sprinkled with footnotes and etchings that shed light on Elizabethan phrases, history, and culture. I really enjoyed it, and I rooted for a local theater group in our city that wanted to mount this as a production one year. They were put off the plan only when no one could figure out how they could get the performance rights.

Somewhere in my basement is the ultimate prize—a giant one-sheet movie poster of the Italian film. I dream of showing it off someday. I just need a hunk of wall big enough to display it.

Until I buy a new house, until I demo a corner of the living room, until I build a new wall, I’ll have to make do with my assortment of tiny Lebowski bumper stickers.

As the Dude might say, until then, Il Giuseppe abides.

* * *

See you in three weeks!

Joe

josephdagnese.com

Bowling Pins by artist Bill Green.

Swag by artist Bill Green.

Marlowe on the Radio

Welcome to the third in a four-part exploration of the portrayal of Raymond Chandler's iconic private investigator character, Philip Marlowe, in media other than print. Last time out we performed a deep dive into films either influenced by or adapted from Chandler's work.  This time around, we're going to explore Marlowe in radio, and  next time, television.

There have been countless attempts to credibly bring Marlowe to both the radio waves and the small screen. We'll delve into both here. This time: radio, including my vote for definitive performance of the role of Philip Marlowe (if there actually is such a thing).

Radio

Powell (Right) with Mike Mazurky in the 1944 film.

Between 1944 and 1951, the character of Philip Marlowe appeared on radio well over a hundred times, both in one-off radio adaptations of films in turn adapted from Chandler's original work, and in a single series that was, in reality, two. More on that below.

Two of the standalone radio adaptations of Chandler's work starred Dick Powell as Marlowe. In June of 1945 Lux Radio Theatre's "Murder, My Sweet" featured Powell recreating the role of Marlowe he'd portrayed on the screen just the year before (if you like you can listen to the Lux Radio Theatre production here). Powell reprised the role a second time in 1948 for Hollywood Star Time's production of "Murder, My Sweet."

Lux Radio Theatre did another adaptation of a film based on a Chandler novel, also in 1948, this one of Robert Montgomery's The Lady in the Lake, adapted from the 1947 film. Montgomery starred, as he had in the film (which had also directed). Earlier that same year Montgomery had appeared as Marlowe in a "cameo appearance" on Suspense (which he also hosted at the time), as part of a crossover with The Adventures of Sam Spade.

Van Helfin - the picture of gravitas

As for the "Marlowe radio series which was really two," the first, a summer replacement for Bob Hope's show, ran from June 17, 1947, to September 9th of the same year. Entitled The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, the series starred Van Heflin as Marlowe, and led off with a cracking adaption of the Chandler short story, "Red Wind" (you can listen to it here). Helfin's Marlowe was terrific. The actor brought a wonderful gravitas to the role that actors such as Powell and Montgomery, neither of them exactly a slouch when it came to acting chops, could match. Powell's light comic touch worked very well with the wise-cracking side of Marlowe's character, and Montgomery played Marlowe pretty straight. But Heflin really seemed to get "both" sides of Marlowe's character. Someone of whom his creator, Raymond Chandler, once famously wrote: "down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished, nor afraid." In his brief sojourn as Marlowe, Heflin seemed to really get the character.

Jaunty Gerald Mohr 

The series switched networks from NBC to CBS the following year, with veteran actor Gerald Mohr replacing Heflin, and the scripts nearly all original compositions, with little relation to Chandler's original work. There was plenty of grit and and definite hard-boiled feel to the production, and for the three years (1948-1951) he voiced Marlowe, Mohr was great fun, but his Marlowe started nearly every one of the 119 episodes in which Mohr portrayed him so jauntily he could sometimes make Powell's light comic portrayal seem almost restrained.

This is, however, a small quibble. Of course this "lighter-than-air Marlowe" really only appeared at the beginning and usually (but not always) at the end of each episode.  When things got heavy, Mohr, who himself often played a heavy throughout a multi-decade career that spanned film, radio and television, definitely knew how to bring it. And the scripts were solid, as were the actors filling out the supporting roles. An excellent example of the Mohr Marlowe can be found here, with any number of links to other recordings of most of the show's run.

Once CBS pulled the plug in 1951, it would take over a quarter of a century before listeners would be able to find Marlowe on their radio dial. And then only if they could pick up the British Broadcasting Company. The BBC featured American-born TV actor Ed Bishop as the titular character in The BBC Presents: Philip Marlowe in 1977-78, and again in 1988. The series consisted of radio adaptations of The Big Sleep, The High Window, The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister (all produced and released on 1977), and The Long Goodbye (released in early 1978). A rights issue delayed the release of an additional adaptation, this one of Farewell, My Lovely, for a full decade. It was finally broadcast in 1988. Bishop's portrayal of Marlowe veered from "okay" to quick-talking patter that by this time in the 20th century had become the stuff of parody.

The BBC had better luck when they tried again in 2011. They adapted all of Chandler's novels for radio, including the fragment of Poodle Springs Chandler had begun but never finished (Spenser writer and Chandler superfan Robert B. Parker stepped in and did at the behest of the Chandler estate). James Bond villain Toby Stephens (Dame Maggie Smith's son, and, interestingly enough, BBC Radio's choice to also play 007 himself in the network's radio adaptations of Ian Fleming's original novels) played Marlowe in every episode of the series, from "The Big Sleep" in February, through to "Poodle Springs" in October.

The results were spectacular. Faithful to the source material, a terrific supporting cast, and Stephens delivering every line the way I feel Chandler intended. Just my personal opinion, but that's the wonder of radio, and if anyone is the definitive "Philip Marlowe," it's Toby Stephens.

But don't just take my word for it.  Click here and you can listen to the entire series yourself and make up your own mind.

See you in two weeks!

Do You Taboo?

 I have a story in the March/April issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, my 38th appearance there, I believe. 

"The Accessores Club" involves a group of criminals discussing a crime one of them has committed.  If you want to know why I chose that premise, you can find out in a piece I wrote for Trace Evidence, the magazine's blog.  What I want to write about today is a little different.

You see, I had to decide what sort of crime my characters would be discussing.  And as I have said before, plotting (as opposed to premise or character) is the hardest part for me.  

But I had recently come up with a plot device I thought would work: a nifty method for kidnappers to retrieve a ransom payment.  I had a problem with using that, although I'm not sure whether to call my dilemma an ethical issue or an artistic one (if I can use a great big grown-up word like art to describe my stuff).

I have written about kidnappings before.  In fact I have invented so many tales about swiped children that a co-worker of mine said he wouldn't let me near his offspring.  He was kidding.  I think.

But those tales had always been told from the viewpoint of the good guys (well, at least good-ish), trying to catch the kidnappers.  The premise of this story would require the kidnapper to be the protagonist.  And I was not comfortable with giving the main role to someone doing such a heinous deed.  Especially since I was hoping this would be a funny story.

On the other hand, a ransom demand doesn't necessarily require a human victim, does it?  And so my bad guy swipes a rare orchid plant and demands a hefty payment to return it.  

Which struck me as kind of funny.  And my characters agreed.  “Did you have the plant on the phone crying for mercy?” one asked.

So I chose that approach and it worked well enough to sell.  But would it be appearing in AHMM if I had made another choice?

Maybe not.  None of my stories about kidnapped children made it into those pages - although all of them found happy homes in other publications.

Every publication has its taboos (or at least strong preferences) and our field as a whole seems to have at least two. 

For example: Why didn't I have my protagonist kidnap, say, a dog?

Because the conventional wisdom for many years has been that in a mystery you don't hurt an animal.  I have been to panels at several conferences over the years where writers spoke with bemusement about the fact that you can massacre half of a small English village and still describe the book as a cozy, but heaven help you if, even in a noir thriller, you harm one whisker on a kitty's head.  It's a weird thing.

I'm not sure the rule about harming children is as deeply ingrained.  A few year ago I read in rapid succession novels by two well-known authors in which kidnapped children were murdered.  Both books were well-written and the violence was not gratuitous, but I will admit it didn't make me eager to read their next volumes.

Last year I started work on a story inspired by actual events.  I thought I had found an interesting way of recounting the tale but I froze up halfway through when I realized that two animals, family pets, were shot to death.  Did I really want to write about that and endure the fury that would follow?

I decided I didn't so I put the story aside.Then one day the Muse said: Hey dummy!  You write FICTION!

Oh, right.  So I went back to the scene, laid  my godlike authorial hand on the shooter's weapon and deflected the bullets.  The dogs may have suffered psychological trauma but they were otherwise unscathed.

Whether the story sells is, of course, up to different hands.

Meanwhile, what taboos do you refuse to write about?  Or read about?