Jake wasn’t the brightest lawyer to work out of Miami. And he often let his awkward ways with women get the best of him. Lassiter had a smart-mouth and a self-deprecating personality that did him few favors.

  But you could never call Lassiter insincere.

  He worked hard for his clients, even when they didn’t return the favor. He knew the law.

  He knew his way around the Miami court system, and when to avoid the courthouse steps during the daily cleanup to remove chicken parts and goats’ heads used in Santeria rituals. Ahh, those only in South Florida moments.

 And he knew Miami, though sometimes he would get lost in Little Havana because numbered streets were renamed to honor heroes favored by the city commission.

  In the hands of author Paul Levine, Lassiter, a Miami Dolphins linebacker turned hard-nosed lawyer, helped launch the current wave of Florida mysteries.

  It seems like just yesterday – not 20 years ago – that Levine started the Lassiter series with 1990’s To Speak for the Dead. 

  It also seems like just yesterday – not 20 years ago – that I started reviewing mystery fiction, and one of the first ones I tackled was To Speak for the Dead.  (For the record, I liked it.)

  Levine, a former newspaper reporter, law professor and a trial lawyer, published seven Jake Lassiter novels during the 1990s, putting the series on hiatus in 1997.

  The series earned Levine the John D. MacDonald Florida Fiction Award. To Speak for the Dead was named one of the 10 best mysteries of the year by the Los Angeles Times.

 Jake Lassiter has returned this month – in more ways than one.

  To mark the 20^th anniversary of his first novel, Levine has put To Speak for the Dead out as an e-book on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords for anyone with a non-Kindle e-reader. 

 That’s hardly a revoluntionary idea with many authors now going that route.

    But Levine is giving ALL proceeds of the To Speak for the Dead e-book to the Four Diamonds Fund, which supports treatment and research at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. 

  “I’ve lost three people to cancer in the last few years, one of them the 14-year-old daughter of my best friend, so this is a cause close to my heart,” said Levine. 

   The Four Diamonds Fund was started by the parents of 14-year-old Chris Millard, a writer of childhood mythic tales, “Sir Millard and the Four Diamonds,” who died of cancer.  A portion of one of his stories is on the website.

   To Speak for the Dead, which was translated into 15 languages and adapted into an NBC movie in 1995, also has a special significance to Levine.

  “The book is meaningful to me, too,” he said. “It got me out of the courtroom. Or at least, out of trying cases. I still visit courtrooms for pleasure and research — but not yet as a defendant.”

   All seven Lassiter novels will be published as e-books in the next year. 

  And Levine is going to bring back the series with the new hardcover novel Lassiter, set for publication during September 2011 by Bantam.

  After his series, Levine moved from South Florida to Los Angeles, where he still lives. He wrote 20 episodes of the CBS military drama JAG, and co-created the Supreme Court show First Monday, starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. He also has written two stand-alone thrillers including last year’s Illegal, plus the four-book Solomon vs. Lord series. 

  It will be fun to have Jake back again.

  So many little nuggets have to be left out because space is tight, whether it’s in a newspaper or a magazine.

  My interview with Carolyn Hart is like that. During our phone interview, Carolyn and I talked for more than 90 minutes. An insightful writer, Carolyn is a gracious lady, warm and witty.

  The interview with Carolyn is in the current issue of Mystery Scene, No. 115.

  Among the things we talked about were World War II and its impact on her.

    Hart didn’t set out to be a novelist – she had wanted to be a journalist ever since she was 11 years old and growing up during World War II in Oklahoma City. Bold newspaper headlines showed how good newspaper reporting gave readers a close up view of the war that dominated their lives stateside, from ration coupons to Victory Gardens.

  “The war also made me understand the importance of newspapers and to know what was happening. I had loved writing and newspapers seemed the most possible way to be a writer,” said Hart.

  While the newspaper career didn’t stick – “my temperament is more suited to fiction” – WWII’s impact has never gone away. She used the war as in the background of her non-series novels Flee from the Past (1975) and  Escape from Paris (1982).

    But it took a bit of righteous indignation over the movie Pearl Harbor (2000) for Hart to write Letter From Home, a stand-alone novel about 13-year-old Gretchen Gilman is working on the newspaper in a small Oklahoma town in the summer of 1944.

  “With all the real heartbreak and drama about Pearl Harbor, that movie was just so false. It was a monstrosity. It took 21^st century attitudes morales and jammed them into the 1940s. I wanted to write Letter From Home to show how people really felt.”

   Letter from Home, the first novel Hart set in her native Oklahoma, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction by the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa; it won the Agatha Award for Best Mystery Novel of 2003.

 But then Nancy Pate, the former Book Editor at the Orlando Sentinel, a long-time mystery fan and, herself a mystery fiction author, posted a link about a Longwood, Florida, woman and the entire focus of my blog changed.

  And this being Mother’s Day, it turns into a mini tribute to my own mother’s good sense. And by extension to other good mothers out there.

  This Longwood woman, upset about the language and situations in a series of Gossip Girls novels that her daughter had brought home, decided to hold the books hostage, refusing to return them to the library. She racked up more than $88 in library fines until she finally returned the books this week without, so far, paying any fines. Basically she wanted the publicity and the chance to show her bad parenting skills to the world.

  My mother would have handled it differently. If my mother had a problem with what I was reading, she would have talked about it with me, discussed some of the situations and language and tried to gauge how this was or wasn’t affecting me. My mother had good sense. My mother also trusted that the values she had instilled in me would have more influence than what I would read in a book.

 My mother also would have understood that reading things outside one’s comfort zone also allows young people to grow and stretch their intellect.

  But that was my mother. 

And while I know the world has drastically changed since I was a kid and novels like the Gossip Girls didn’t exist, the basics remain.

   My mother introduced me to mystery fiction when, after I exhausted most of the kids’ books at our hometown library, she let me read her collection of hardcover novels. She had started reading them when she was a teenager and that’s when hardcovers cost around $1.25. So when I was around 11 or 12, I entered the worlds of Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Dorothy Sayers, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and a host of others). And naturally loved it.

  She’d often drop me at our one-room hometown library and let me wander – and wonder – often in the adult section. The family legend is that when I started to discover Ian Fleming, the library called my mother to make sure it was all right that her 12-year-old daughter read this. It was. So I plowed through the Flemings, caught up in the adventure of James Bond, the exotic places he went and the fact that each time he saved the world. The sex, the adult situations ….well, they went right over my head.

   During that time, I also read the Modesty Blaise novels. I liked the fact that this time it was a girl who was having those adventures and saving the world. But I didn’t like that one of her ways of fighting the bad guys was to open her blouse and stun them with her nakedness. At age 12 or so, I just thought that girls shouldn’t act that way, that their brains and skills were what they should be using.

   See, my mother’s parenting skills were working.

   My late mother would probably be mortified to find herself in a blog that started out to be about Modesty Blaise. But I think she would be proud to know that all she taught me still remains and that a simple act of handing me a book made me become a lifelong reader, an avid fan of mystery fiction and started me on a career path involving mysteries that neither of us would have been able to predict.

  May O’Donnell rest in peace. While I didn’t connect with his work, millions of other readers did.

  I know my mother is resting in peace, with my father in heaven, I am sure.

  And for all the other mothers out there: Happy Mother’s Day. Let your children read, and discuss books with them. Who knows where that will end up.
  

(Nancy Pate is one-third of the mystery writing team Caroline Cousins (with her cousins Meg Herndon and Gail Greer), author of Fiddle Dee Death, Marsh Madness and Way Down Dead in Dixie (John F. Blair, Publisher). Here is her blog on the Longwood, Florida, woman.)

The Edgar Awards were presented to the winners at the 64th Gala Banquet, April 29, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

BEST NOVEL
The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur Books)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Body Blows by Marc Strange (Dundurn Press – Castle Street Mysteries)

BEST FACT CRIME
Columbine by Dave Cullen (Hachette Book Group – Twelve)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives edited by Otto Penzler (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)

BEST SHORT STORY
“Amapola” – Phoenix Noir by Luis Alberto Urrea (Akashic Books)

BEST JUVENILE
Closed for the Season by Mary Downing Hahn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
Reality Check by Peter Abrahams (HarperCollins Children’s Books – HarperTeen)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
“Place of Execution,” Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson (PBS/WGBH Boston)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
“A Dreadful Day” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Dan Warthman (Dell Magazines)

GRAND MASTER
Dorothy Gilman

RAVEN AWARDS
Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Oakmont, Pennsylvania
Zev Buffman, International Mystery Writers’ Festival

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
Poisoned Pen Press (Barbara Peters & Robert Rosenwald)

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER – MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 28, 2010)
Awakening by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)

The winner, announced April 24, is Stuart Neville who won for his debut The Ghosts of Belfast. (In Europe, Neville’s novel was called The Twelve.)

  I was among the judges for this category with my colleagues Sarah Weinman and Dick Adler. This is the second year the three of us have judged this category and it was one of the best and most challenging jobs.

  Challenging to narrow our favorite mysteries down to just 20 and then to 10 and finally to the final five.

  So many good books, but just one prize. Each of the finalists is a winner, in our eyes. Each author did such a wonderful job of drawing us into their worlds.

  Best, because serving with Sarah and Dick was wonderful. Two knowledgeable people whose opinions I respect. We put our egos aside and made it all about the books – which is how it should be.

  In choosing Neville, this is what we said:

   “Stuart Neville’s stunning debut novel delivers an inspired, gritty view of violence’s aftermath and the toll it takes on each person involved – especially on one haunted, redemption-seeking ex-IRA hitman. Along the way, Neville condenses the fear and hate that has troubled Northern Ireland, still under the thumb of decades of domestic terrorism, for decades.”

  The complete nominations for the mystery/thriller category are:

• Megan Abbott, Bury Me Deep (Simon & Schuster)
• David Ellis, The Hidden Man (Putnam)
• Attica Locke, Black Water Rising (HarperCollins)
• Val McDermid, A Darker Domain (HarperCollins)
• Stuart Neville, The Ghosts of Belfast (SOHO Press)

 I wasn’t kidding when I said that each one was a winner.

  Ellis and Abbott have both been nominated for Edgars; and Abbott is again up for an Edgar this year. (The Edgars will be announced April 29 in New York City.)

McDermid was recently was named the recipient of this year’s prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award.

Just this past week, it was announced that Locke is one of three American authors shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, the British award given annually to a novel written by a woman in English. (The Orange Prize will be announced on June 9 in London.) Locke also is up for an Edgar this year, too.

  Congratulations, all.

Portrait of Barbara Viliers, mistress of King Charles II, painted by John Michael Wright c.1670.

History is littered with deceit — and the efforts of sympathetic politicians to set things right.In 1670, an Act of Parliament strove to protect the lamentably gullible men of England:

“All women…[who] impose upon and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty’s male subjects, by scents, paints, cosmetics, washes, artificial teeth, false hair…high-heeled shores, or bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the laws now in force against witchcraft, sorcery, and such like misdemeanors, and that the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void.”

Woman Playing a Viola de gamba, 1663, by Gabriel Metsu

Oklahoma writer Carolyn Hart

Mystery writer Carolyn Hart reflects on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, which before 9/11 was the worst act of terrorism on American soil.

Read “Sky Above, Disaster Below” in The New York Times.

  Ferguson is one of the few talk show hosts who regularly features crime writers on his show. And he doesn’t give them a short interview, either.

The times I have watched Ferguson has given the authors a hefty portion of the show, and he really seems to enjoy talking with them about their work. Probably because the affable Ferguson also is an author.  Other crime writers who’ve made appearances on Ferguson’s show include Ken Bruen, Lawrence Block, Laura Lippman, Michael Connelly and Lee Child.

  Neville’s debut, which was published as The Twelve in the U.K., is a stunning look at the violence aftermath from Ireland’s violent internal wars.

   In my review, I said “In his stunning debut, Stuart Neville delivers an inspired, gritty view of how violence’s aftermath lasts for years and the toll it takes on each person involved. The Ghosts of Belfast also insightfully delves into Irish politics, the uneasy truce in Northern Ireland, redemption, guilt and responsibility.”

  The Ghosts of Belfast has been nominated in the mystery/thriller category of the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, which willl be awarded at 8 pm, April 23, 2010, in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Times building. Full disclosure: I am among the judges for this category, along with my colleagues Sarah Weinman and Dick Adler. There are five nominees in the mystery/thriller category.

   Ferguson also has an option for movie rights to Neville’s book.

 TALES OF HOUSEWIVES AND TATTOOS

  I have absolutely no defense as to why I am addicted to the Bravo Channel’s series The Real Housewives of….

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander Music Box Films photo

These women are tacky, nasty and over the top. But there I am, riveted to The Real Housewives of … Orange County, Atlanta, New Jersey, and, New York City, which is currently on every Thursday at 10 p.m. EST; 9 p.m. CST. I can’t even put a link up to it.

   So I was quite amused last week when the New York segment dipped briefly into mysteries.

    It was during an interview that model and socialite Kelly Killoren Bensimon had with “the most handsome journalist” she claims to have ever met. Listen, I have worked in newspapers and with reporters and journalists for over 30 years and he wasn’t “the most handsome.” He was nice looking, but please.

  The interview, and I use that term pretty loosely, was a real scoop. He was writing a story on Kelly’s recent photo shoot for Playboy. Not exactly investigative journalism, but I guess this is for those who claim to read the magazine only for the articles.

  The conversation turned to reading and this “most handsome journalist” mentioned that he had just read this most “amazing” Swedish novel called The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

  After the blankest look seldom seem outside of this series, Kelly’s vapid response was “I don’t have any tattoos.” MHJ’s equally vapid response was “huh.”

  It was a priceless moment of a mash up between fine literature and the unintelligible.

  Anyone who has read Stieg Larsson’s brilliant trilogy knows that not one  of these Housewives is a match for Lisbeth Salander.

(For the record, I am on team Bethenny.)

His performance in I Spy as one half of the secret agent duo charged by the US government to protect America from Cold War spies and other villains, garnered him nominations for both Emmy and Golden Globe awards.

Culp died after a fall outside his home in the Hollywood Hills yesterday. Read his LA Times obituary here.



Currently all episodes of I Spy can be viewed online at hulu.com

It’s just natural – writers have to have something to write about and life experiences count. Rare is the author who blooms early and continues through a long career.

I’m always interested to know that so many mystery writers come from newspaper backgrounds. Of course, the fact that I sent more than 30 years working for newspapers has a lot to do with it.

Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Elaine Viets, Jonathon King, Clea Simon, P.J. Parrish, Brad Parks, and many more all worked for newspapers during their career.

So did William Dietrich , left, who writes the Ethan Gage series, the latest of which is The Barbary Pirates.
 Dietrich shared a Pulitzer for the Seattle Times for coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and was one of the first reporters to the scene of that story. He also covered the eruption of Mount St. Helens, losing a photographer friend in that disaster. He left the Seattle Times in 2008.

  A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and the recipient of journalism fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Woods Hole, and Scripps, Dietrich’s newspaper career took him around the world.

These included flying with the Blue Angels, skimming Dakota farms on a B-52, aircraft carriers, a Trident submarine, an Indian sweat lodge, Eskimo villages, mines a mile deep, the Kitt Peak astronomical observatory, a Russian missile-tracking ship (where he vomited in the admiral’s cabin), an icebreaker in Antarctica, oceanographic research vessels, Congress, and the Pentagon.

  And if all that weren’t enough, he now teaches environmental journalism and writing at his alma mater Western Washington University.

  Dietrich is now starting his tour for The Barbary Pirates, which include a stop at Sleuthfest.

  Just reading his bio – I am exhausted.  I’m supposed to introduce Dietrich at library event in a couple of weeks. I better rest up.

  And by the way, you former journalists, tell us when you left the business and began writing full time.