During the summer, Libby Hellman,  Michael Allen Dymmoch, Kevin Guilfoile and Marcus Sakey conducted crime writing workshops for teenagers and adults in a program sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.

Among the many topics the authors discussed were the importance of opening lines.

Anyone who writes or reads — and that would be all of us, right? — knows the importance of opening lines to engage the reader, the keep the reader and to motivate the reader.

Likewise, this opening line does the same thing for author, making them engage with the plot and characters, keeping them in the story and motivating them to find out what’s going to happen with their creations.

In her blog, Libby says that she ”often can’t start writing a new book until I have the first line. I may change it later, when a better line materializes, but that first line is critical – if it’s good, it gives the reader — and me — an indication of the pace… setting… and mood of the story.”

(By the way, the other authors who blog at The Outfit include Laura Caldwell, Sean Chercover, David Ellis, David Heinzmann, Barbara D’Amato, and Sara Paretsky.)

In her blog, Libby talks more about the importance of first lines.

 And she very kindly included some opening lines that grabbed her. No, that famous one by James Crumley isn’t there — but we all know that one. (If you want a refresher, just look at some of my previous blogs.)

Meanwhile, here’s a few that Libby posted that made me smile, remember and motivated me:

“I was trapped in a house with a lawyer, a bare-breasted woman, and a dead man. The rattlesnake in the paper sack only complicated matters.”
Fat Tuesday, by Earl Emerson

“My bodyguard was mowing the yard wearing her pink bikini when the man fell from the sky.”
Dead Over Heels, by Charlaine Harris

“The man with ten minutes to live was laughing.”
The Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth

“Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them.”
Before The Fact, by Francis Iles (basis for Hitchcock’s Suspicion)

“For a week, the feeling had been with him, and all week long young Paul LeBeau had been afraid.”
Iron Lake, William Kent Krueger

What’s your favorite first line?

Photo: Libby Hellman photo by Jason Creps

Nominations have been announced for the Edgars, the Agatha, the L.A. Times Book Prize (all of which you can read about on this blog). Anyone attending the Indianapolis Bouchercon probably has already received a nomination ballot.

Left Coast Crime recently announced its winners.

And we – well I — certainly can’t let these winners just take their prize and leave.

 Comments must be made.

First, I want to commend the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) for choosing Sean Chercover’s Trigger City  as the winner of its 2009 Dilys Award.

To be truthful, I am happy for any author who wins this prize.

Independent mystery bookstore owners are the unsung heroes of the genre.

They, more so than chain stores or online sites, know their customers. They are well versed in the genre and keep their customers buying books and coming back for more.

 Every author owes these stores a ton of gratitude. Especially when it seems that there are fewer of these wonderful stores each year.

So back to Sean.

  I interviewed him for Mystery Scene’s Holiday Issue. (That’s the one with Donna Andrews on the cover; No. 107, 2008 if you want to order it.)

 Sean is one of the genre’s up and coming authors. His 2007 debut Big City, Bad Blood has won the Shamus and the Gumshoe Award, was nominated for a slew of other awards and made several best of the year lists. (That includes the annual list I do for the Sun-Sentinel.)

Trigger City was named a Killer Book by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, an alternate selection by several book clubs and earned just as many positive reviews as his first. It also made several best of the year lists, again, mine included.

  During our interview, Sean discussed the private eye novel.

Here is an excerpt from the article that ran in Mystery Scene:

  “In his novels, Chercover took the hard-boiled route with a nod to the old-fashioned gumshoe but with a modern spin. Series character Ray Dudgeon is a disillusioned newspaper reporter-turned-private detective. Nearing 40, Dudgeon keeps a gun and a bottle in his bottom drawer with his name etched in gold on the frosted window outside his seedy office.
  “Ray is cynical, but he also is a wounded idealist. He wants officials to be honest but he’s not surprised when they turn out to be corrupt,” said Chercover.
   While Chercover pays homage to the clichéd p.i., the author avoids stereotypes by slowing revealing Dudgeon’s backstory that includes his mother’s suicide.
 “The p.i. novels I love are those in which each of the characters all seem very different from each other. Ray isn’t as self-destructive as [Ken Bruen’s] Jack Taylor. Ray doesn’t understand himself as well as [Lawrence Block’s] Scudder does himself but it took a long time for Scudder to get where he is. Characters who change and grow are appealing. I wanted my character to be affected by the changes he goes through.”

 Sean has good company with the Dilys Award.

Previous winners include William Kent Kruger, Thunder Bay; Louise Penny, Still Life; Colin Cotterill, Thirty-Three Teeth; Jeffrey Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter;  Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book; Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter; Dennis Lehane, Mystic River; Val McDermid, A Place of Execution; Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem.

Brian and I are in Hawaii at Left Coast Crime. The awards banquet just ended and we’re posting the winners.

First up — because the extremely efficient Independent Mystery Booksellers Association had a press release prepared –  the Dilys Award. Congrats Sean!

Best,

Kate

Sean Chercover’s Trigger City  Wins the IMBA 2009 Dilys Award

Honolulu, Hawaii – March 11, 2009 – The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) announced Sean Chercover’s Trigger City as the winner of the annual Dilys award for 2009.  The announcement was made by member store owner, Barbara Peters, on Wednesday afternoon at an awards presentation at the Left Coast Crime 2009 conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Mr. Chercover will receive a specially-made sculpture in recognition of this achievement.

Mr. Chercover has been a favorite recommendation of the mystery booksellers association since the arrival of his first novel, Big City, Bad Blood.   Mr. Chercover, though not present at Left Coast Crime, when contacted said “To know that you enjoyed selling Trigger City is an incredible honor.  I am completely floored by your generosity, and I only wish I could be there in person.  You have made me very happy.”

The Dilys Award has been given annually since 1993 by the IMBA to the mystery titles of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling.  The Dilys Award is named in honor of Dilys Winn, the founder of the first specialty bookseller of mystery books in the United States.  Previous winners of the Dilys Award include William Kent Krueger, Louise Penny, Colin Cotterill and Julia Spencer-Fleming.

The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association is comprised of a network of independently owned retail bookstores across North America and the United Kingdom, devoted to the sale of mystery books.

The IMBA is comprised of a network of individually owned retail bookstores across North America and the United Kingdom, devoted to the sale of mystery books. The IMBA has won several awards for THE 100 FAVORITE MYSTERIES OF THE CENTURY and THEY DIED IN VAIN, published by Crum Creek Press/Drood Review Books. For more information on the IMBA and20the Dilys awards, including past nominees and winners, visit www.mysterybooksellers.com.

2008 Nominees
TRIGGER CITY, Sean Chercover, William Morrow
THE VICTORIA VANISHES, Christopher Fowler, Bantam
SILENT IN THE SANCTUARY, Deanna Raybourn, Mira
CHILD 44, Tom Rob Smith, Grand Central
DAWN PATROL, Don Winslow, Alfred A. Knopf

The Dilys Award is named in honor of Dilys Winn, the founder of the first specialty bookstore of mystery books in the United States. The award will be presented at Left Coast Crime in March.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Hi everyone,

Once again we’ve searched high and low for items for the annual Mystery Scene Gift Guide. In fact, Kevin Burton Smith found so many great gifts that we couldn’t fit them all in. You’ll see a couple of ideas on this page and there will be even more on our blog in the coming weeks. Feel free to post suggestions! And we’d love to hear your thoughts on the first ever color section in Mystery Scene.

Left: Dust jackets are at the intersection of the literary and visual arts and Diane Plumley’s engaging jewelry proclaims your love of both. Prices range from $10.00-18.00 for pins, necklaces, earrings, and tie tacks. Visit picture-perfect-designs.com to see more offerings.

Reading the financial news these days is more horrifying than anything Stephen King ever dreamed up. Don’t you wish that someone as competent as John Putnam Thatcher of the Sloan Guaranty Trust were in charge? Jim Huang is a long-time fan of Thatcher’s creator, Emma Lathen, and in his timely article, “Right on the Money,” makes a convincing case that you should be, too.

As the hometown of our next president, Chicago is also in the news. Sean Chercover gives a rousing tour of “the ultimate insider town” in his well-reviewed sophomore effort, Trigger City. In this issue, he talks to Oline Cogdill about writing, politics, and his ongoing love affair with the Windy City.

After you read the news, you’ll need some cheering up. May we recommend Donna Andrews? Her funny, sweet-tempered mysteries are just the thing to get you back on the sunny side of the street.

It’s not only criminals who are crafty these days. “The Arts & Crafts of Crime” takes a look at a variety of sleuths who interrupt their knitting, pot-throwing, doll-making, home-canning, and quilting to catch bad guys.

Brian’s hands-down favorite article this issue is “Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered,” Scott Ratner’s look at puzzle mystery films from the 1930s. Also in this issue, we’ll look at the intriguing Baroness Orczy of Scarlet Pimpernel fame, check in on Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan who is crossing boundaries yet again, and find out what happened to Erle Stanley Gardner’s missing “Fiction Factory.”

This coming March, Brian and I will be travelling to Left Coast Crime, our first ever trip to this conference as well as to Hawaii. (Hmm, coincidence? I think not.) Mystery Scene is sponsoring a “Meet the New Authors” Breakfast and a “History of Mystery” lecture showcasing fantastic art from the Mystery Scene archives. Hope to see some of you there!

Best wishes from all of us for a happy, healthy, and highly entertaining New Year.

Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief