Article With Intro

Midwinter Blood

Oline H. Cogdill

Swedish bestsellers making their US debuts are now a category all their own in the mystery genre. When it comes down to it, the basics are the same in our countries: family ties, hate, revenge, greed, and violence prove time and again to be universal themes.

Mons Kallentoft’s novel is one of the latest to cross the ocean and Midwinter Blood shows what precise, insightful storytelling US readers have been missing.

Published as Midwinter Sacrifice in Sweden during 2007, where it became a best- seller, Midwinter Blood launches Kallentoft’s series about police inspector Malin Fors, a single mother who battles the tequila bottle and personal problems as she tries to balance her demanding job with her demand- ing teenage daughter.

This dark, angst-filled novel is an exacting procedural, as well as a study of loneliness and how family support or rejection affects a person’s life. Kallentoft’s beautiful prose serves his story well. Malin and her team from the Violent Crime Squad at the Linköping Police Department are investigating the murder of a man found hanging in a tree in a remote area. Bengt “Ball-Bengt” Andersson was an obese man, possibly mentally handicapped, who kept to himself. He was quite possibly the loneliest man in town. His Spartan apartment spoke of “loneliness kept neat and tidy.” Bengt was often the butt of jokes, but it seems unfathomable that anyone would have felt so strongly about him as to murder him in such a brutal way. Malin’s investigation reveals Bengt’s tragic childhood and leads her to a family of criminals who live in an isolated compound.

Kallentoft’s brisk plotting and insightful character studies shine. He showcases Linköping, now one of Sweden’s high-tech centers, surrounded by empty plains and deep forests. We tend to think of Sweden as permanently cold. While the frigid weather plays a major part in Midwinter Blood, it’s the chill of the human heart that shows how “the coldest winter in living memory just got a few degrees less forgiving, that the cold has just shown its true face.”

The intriguing Malin’s personal life is fraught with problems and inconsistencies. She worries about neglecting her daughter by spending too much time at work and suffering emotional angst over her cases, yet she cannot stop herself from rushing to an interview or crime scene. Her strong relationship with her colleagues balances the sexist politics that permeate the upper ranks of the police force. Kallentoft has four other novels in the Malin Fors series that have already been published in Sweden. They can’t be published quickly enough in the US.

Teri Duerr

2012-07-09 19:46:13

Mons Kallentoft’s novel is one of the latest to cross the ocean and Midwinter Blood shows what precise, insightful storytelling US readers have been missing.

Target: Tinos

Tim Davis

So, have you been following the news about those Greeks? Their country has un- believably huge financial problems (i.e., the EU calls it something worse than bankruptcy and cannot figure out how to keep the cradle of democracy from sinking into the Aegean), they’re becoming increasingly uptight and dangerously xenophobic (they blame it on all those Eastern European immigrants flooding into the country), and they’re putting more and more pressure on their government agencies, including the police, to do more with less money.

Add to all this—in Jeffrey Siger’s fourth and highly recommended Inspector Kaldis mystery—two very dead bodies on the otherwise peaceful southeastern island of Tinos, the site of one of the country’s most revered religious shrines.

With Chief Inspector Andrea Kaldis’ wedding only a few days away, and with his self-serving superiors putting the “close this one fast” squeeze on him, the inspector needs to solve this case quickly, but he has very few sensible clues. As a matter of fact, at the out- set, he knows only this: someone had wrapped the two unidentified tsigani (gypsies) to- gether in heavy chains, set them on fire, and covered them with a tattered Greek flag.

In this compelling, well-crafted police pro- cedural driven largely by sharply detailed dialogue, readers follow the soon-to-be-married Kaldis into a fascinating investigation in which all of his country’s problems seemingly converge into one case. Readers already familiar with Kaldis from his previous three adventures will be pleased to rejoin the tough-minded special crimes investigator, a conflicted man who is much respected (i.e., actually feared by colleagues and criminals), and not very subtle (i.e., plainly rude and blunt to more than a few people). As the stress and danger mount, readers and Kaldis come to understand what one investigator meant when he said, “Sometimes we Greeks are just too curious for our own good.”

Teri Duerr

2012-07-09 19:51:36

Cop to Corpse

Joseph Scarpato, Jr.

Peter Lovesey A sniper appears to be randomly killing policemen as they walk their beats in the Bath area of England, and Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond is determined to stop it. When the third victim is found to have a note in his pocket reading, “You’re next!” Diamond begins to believe that the killings may not be the random work of a madman.

As he sorts through the few clues available and tries to find a connection between the three victims, he realizes that it’s possible the sniper could be one of their own. This puts him at odds with most of the people on his team who cannot and will not believe that it is the work of a fellow officer. Rather than further provoke them, Diamond decides to follow up on that possibility on his own. The result is a fast-paced, circuitous investigation that puts Diamond’s life in jeopardy and leads to a very surprising conclusion.

This is the 12th book in the tremendously entertaining Peter Diamond series, and there isn’t a clunker in the bunch. Lovesey writes effortlessly and crisply. The characterizations come through, not so much from long descriptions, but from dialogue—how the characters relate to Diamond and others.

Peter Lovesey is the author of several other series, including the classic Sergeant Cribbs books set in Victorian London and one of my all-time favorite standalone mysteries, The False Inspector Dew. He has won just about every prestigious mystery award on both sides of the Atlantic.

Potboiler

Hilary Daninhirsch

What if a book really wasn’t just a book? What if your favorite spy thriller was part of a larger secret government plot? Jesse Kellerman, in his latest novel, Potboiler, imagines just such a scenario. Arthur Pfefferkorn is a failed writer. Af- ter writing a novel decades earlier, to little or no acclaim, he ended up becoming a creative writing professor at a local college. He is a widower who plods along through life with a secret desire to light the world on fire with a blockbuster novel. His decades-old envy for his old friend, William de Vallée, has weighed him down. Not only has Bill become a successful author, producing a bestselling spy thriller per year, but he also married the woman Arthur loved in college.

When Bill disappears in a boating accident, his widow, Carlotta, implores Arthur to fly across the country to attend the memorial service. Even though he hasn’t been in touch with them for a long time, something compels Arthur to go. While there, Arthur picks up where he left off with Carlotta. And when he sees the unfinished book in William’s writing studio, Arthur steals it as his own...and the adventure begins.

Ultimately, Arthur finds himself in all kinds of precarious situations, taking him to war-torn countries, where he learns that people are not who they seem to be. In fact, the only character who seems to be grounded in reality is Arthur’s daughter. While the plot strains the boundaries of credulity, it is still a fun, farcical romp and a unique and creative premise. Don’t expect a nail-biter, but rather a satirical insight into the nature of the publishing business.

Ransom River

Derek Hill

Aurora “Rory” Mackenzie is back living in her Southern California hometown of Ransom River after living abroad, working for an organization committed to helping refugees seeking political asylum. When funding for her work is suddenly cut off, Mackenzie is back home and serving on jury duty. Despite its folksy, charming vibe, Ransom River is a place filled with dark secrets and ghosts, and Mackenzie has had her share of misery growing up there.

The past and present violently clash when she and her fellow jurors are taken hostage by two masked men during the sensationalistic trial of two police officers involved in a deadly shooting that ends with one cop dead. In the aftermath of the courtroom melee, Mackenzie is singled out by the Ransom River police as a possible accomplice of the gunmen. Mackenzie and her ex-lover Seth, a person she’s known since childhood and who has his own dark past to deal with as well, team up to clear her name. Parting from her usual series novels, Meg Gardiner delivers this standalone book introducing a thoroughly interesting and believable main character in Rory Mackenzie.

While the plotting is fine-tuned and tight, and the mystery at the heart of this tale captivatingly suspenseful throughout, it’s the well-realized characters of Rory and Seth that help make this book so successful. Crime fiction in all its permutations is full of deeply flawed, psychically damaged heroes. Rory is another damaged misfit, as is Seth, but what Gardiner so skillfully accomplishes is never making the weight of their inner pain feel forced or morbid. Rory is a survivor and a tough one at that. She’s also intelligent, and her drive to confront the demons of her past, which are possibly connected to the events at the courthouse, always comes off as plausible and identifiable. She’s a great main character and the pulse at the heart of this gripping read.

Lisa Unger and Truman Capote

Oline Cogdill

ungerlisa_author Try as we might, it is impossible to fit in everything discussed during an interview into a profile for Mystery Scene.

If we did, we would only have one profile in the magazine with little room for anything else.

So the blog has become invaluable in giving readers a little more insight into the authors we feature.

My interview with Lisa Unger that graces the cover of the latest issue of Mystery Scene is pretty complete.

But there was one thing we talked about that I just could not seem to fit into the interview.

And, believe me, I tried.

Like most authors, Unger says she has been inspired by other authors. The author who stands out above the others is Truman Capote.

“I have been such an avid reader all my life and have been swept away by so many different kinds of work.

"But the place where I first fell in love with the prose was Truman Capote’s short stories like Other Voices, Other Rooms and Music for Chameleons. Those are amazing collections of stories,” Unger said during our interview.

But Capote’s In Cold Blood rates even higher for Unger.

ungerlisa_heartbroken “In Cold Blood is probably one of the most influential books for me. [That's where] I realized you could write about very dark, horrible things and do it with tremendous compassion and breathless beauty,” said Unger whose latest novel is Heartbroken. Her other novels include Fragile and Black Out.

“Capote has vivid, searing character portraits of these very disturbed individuals. He shows full pictures of those people without glorifying or condoning or exploiting who these people were.

"It really gave me permission to be who I wanted to be and to write about what I wanted to write about. “

Unger also credits Daphne du Maurier’s famous novel Rebecca with inspiration.

“Rebecca was my first big, gothic thriller. It’s a very purple, big story.

"But it has a theme of the ordinary girl caught in extreme circumstances and she has to extradite herself from it. That’s a theme that runs through my books.

"That book was a big wow moment for me.”

Super User

2012-07-15 09:08:57

The Paris Directive

Lourdes Venard

Although he has moved to the idyllic French region of Dordogne, Inspector Paul Mazarelle still pines for his beloved Paris where he was once a famed policeman called the “Swiss Army knife of detectives.” A high visibility murder case, he thinks, could resurrect his fading career. And that’s what he gets when four Americans are murdered at L’Ermitage, a rented house in the picturesque countryside.

The killer is Klaus Reiner, a hit man who has been hired by two “independent contractors” for the French government; they’ve put this deadly plan in play in the hopes of rectifying a political blunder. Reiner not only kills the target, an American CEO, but the man’s wife and two friends. He frames Ali Sedak, a handyman at L’Ermitage who is also a small-time pusher and thief.

But Mazarelle and Molly Reece, the daughter of the other American couple killed and a New York City assistant district attorney, have their doubts about Sedak’s guilt. Molly travels to France, where she begins to ask too many questions. Mazarelle, who knows that he is not like Maigret, Poirot, “or the other literary detectives,” often overlooks the most obvious of clues; but he, too, continues to investigate after Sedak has been arrested and charged. And this will put both of them in danger, as Reiner is forced to return to France.

This novel, by Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Gerald Jay Goldberg (he drops his last name for this detective story), is many things at once—stylish, dark, humorous, suspenseful—but mostly very readable, with characters who are not always likable but are very well-drawn, and a piercing look at the French countryside, with its mouth-watering bakeries and impressive cave art, but also an undercurrent of racism among some in the population. This is a rich, deep novel that will leave you wanting more. Fortunately, the author is already at work on the second in the series.

The Dead Do Not Improve

M. Schlecht

With chapter headings from The Simpsons (“P Is for Psycho”) and a title that references a lyric by the band Silver Jews, Jay Caspian Kang’s The Dead Do Not Improve mixes a hip-kid's encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture with murder and conspiracy to create a comic noir.

Our narrator is Philip Kim, who works as a “personal break-up coach” at a San Francisco start-up. His idle days of cutting and pasting email responses to clients and getting high with coworkers are interrupted when a older neighbor, known as the “Baby Molester”—don’t ask—is murdered.

Gang activity is suspected, and Kim decides to lie low, literally, hiding out across the street in the company of a woman with whom he is soon having an affair. They drink and share stories of the good schools they recently graduated from, but when one of Kim's colleagues is the next to die, it's clear they need to come up with more of a plan.

Similarly, The Dead is a bit of a jumble. There’s a surfer cop named Finch, who begins his investigation by questioning a porn impresario in a militant organic cafeteria (“Being Abundance”), only to wake up in a storage closet after drinking a tainted smoothie. Finch’s partner, also named Kim, is convinced Philip is involved in the killings, based on suspicious emails in his inbox that reference Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, giving the author plenty of room to digress into contemporary racial politics. The vibe is jaunty and the voice is snarky on these San Francisco streets, but Kang cannot quite pull it all together into a coherent plot. Still, it’s a first novel with plenty of entertaining distractions.

Faithful Unto Death

Oline H. Cogdill

The role of religion and the challenges of being a person of faith in a secular world are well illustrated in Stephanie Jaye Evans’ involving debut.

Minister Walker “Bear” Wells is accustomed to offering emotional support and spiritual counseling to his congregation in the upscale Texas town of Sugar Land. Now Bear’s compassion and help are needed by the family of prominent attorney Graham Garcia, who was found murdered on the golf course. Although Graham was Catholic, he had been seeing Bear for spiritual advice, a situation that police detective James Wanderley insists is crucial to his investigation. While Bear avoids the detective’s questions, the minister becomes closer to Honey Garcia, Graham’s widow and the daughter of a wealthy oil tycoon, and her rebellious son,Alex. Bear’s involvement with the Garcia family is further complicated when he learns his youngest daughter, Jo, is dating Alex, who is suspected of killing his father.

In Faithful Unto Death, Evans finely balances Bear’s devotion to God and his family while showing the minister’s very human flaws and frailties. Evans carefully makes Bear’s involvement in the investigation a natural progression from ministering to the troubled family. Bear never thinks of himself as a sleuth and that sense of realism makes the plot stronger. Bear’s quick wit and his fine intellect are appealing, although long stretches of dialogue take away some of the story’s impact. Faithful Unto Death is a delightful beginning for what should be a long-running series.

Evans is one of the authors who got her start through the Malice Domestic conference when she was awarded one of its two 2010 William F. Deeck -Malice Domestic Grants for Unpublished Writers. Faithful Unto Death shows that grant has been put to good use.

The Taken

Debbie Lester

Vicki Pettersson, author of the Zodiac urban fantasy series, brings readers something new and different with her latest book, The Taken. The first book in a new Celestial Blues series, The Taken features a fallen angel and a rockabilly reporter. Former PI and murder victim Griffin Shaw is now a Centurion—an angel charged with assisting other victims of violent crimes in making the transition to Everlast, Pettersson’s version of the afterlife. When Grif witnesses a violent attack on reporter Katherine “Kit” Craig, he sees a chance to get retribution for his and his wife Evie’s deaths. He and Kit make a deal: He’ll help her solve a series of murders plaguing Sin City if she’ll help him figure out who wanted Evie dead. But things take an interesting turn when Grif’s feelings for Kit become stronger than expected.

Kit and Griffin are about as different as a leading couple can be. She is the positive, upbeat girl and he is the brooding “demoted” angel, but the chemistry between them works and Pettersson is quick to show that there is more going on with these two than meets the eye.

The Taken is a combination of several genres. There are elements of urban fantasy and paranormal romance, but one of the most important elements is the cinematic film-noir atmosphere that Pettersson creates. She allows the reader to sink into her stylized crime drama. Pettersson also shows a high regard for, and understanding of, rockabilly culture through the lifestyle of her tough heroine, Kit.

Despite some heart-pounding moments, the pacing is sometimes too slow. Pettersson’s first book in this series has a lot of atmospheric and romantic potential, but plot wise doesn’t quite get off the ground. Future installments in the series may play out many of the ideas that Pettersson starts here; The Taken shows promise for series readers who like their noir with a dose of supernatural romance.

Deadly Politics

Sue Emmons

Maggie Sefton’s foray into political intrigue is a marvelous look at the shady underbelly of insider Washington. At mid-life, managerial accountant Molly Malone returns to Washington, where her congressman husband committed suicide and where she knows all too well the plots and subplots of political maneuvering. She quickly lands a job with a charming senator from Colorado but soon finds sinister dealings afoot. Attending her first Capitol soiree and renewing acquaintances with old friends and enemies, Maggie is soon embroiled in murder when her niece, who has admitted an affair with her congressman boss, is found shot to death in her car outside the reception. Although police label the death a mugging gone awry, Molly is not so sure and begins her own unflagging investigation of exactly what happened and why. In doing so, she uncovers a plot aimed at the highest level of government.

Sefton’s political thriller is a tightly plotted tale of treachery that has the stamp of a new series, particularly since the most evil of the conspirators emerges unscathed and keeping a watchful eye on Maggie. Sefton is no stranger to writing compelling series. As author of the Knitting Mystery cozies, she is a former Agatha Award finalist for the debut book, Knit One, Kill Two, in that series. She is even better at darker political plotting.

The Night She Disappeared

Sarah Prindle

Gabie Klug’s teenage life is as normal as it gets: the daughter of two doctors, she drives a Mini Cooper and works part-time at Pete’s Pizza. Then one night, Gabie’s coworker, Kayla, goes out to deliver a pizza and vanishes—the victim of a possible kidnapping. As the police investigate, Gabie learns that the man who’d called in the fake order also asked, “Is the girl in the Mini Cooper making deliveries tonight?” She now believes whatever happened to Kayla was meant for her. Even as evidence piles up that Kayla is dead, Gabie has a strong feeling that Kayla is still alive, leading Gabie and another coworker, Drew, to jump into a very dangerous situation to try to find her.

Told from multiple viewpoints, The Night She Disappeared shares the story of a small Oregon town rocked by one young woman’s disappearance. Sprinkled throughout the book are 911-call transcripts, a missing-persons poster, and police reports that bring a horrifying situation to life. Readers hear from Gabie, who, despite her well-off background, wonders if anyone would have cared if she had been the one to vanish; Drew, who is dealing with his own demons and family troubles; and even the twisted mind of the kidnapper.

Author April Henry, who also writes award-winning thrillers for adults, shows a dark part of the world, but also the lengths to which good people will go to make things right…even if it means risking their own lives. As it races to its suspenseful ending, The Night overtakes the evil with good, the fear with strength, the helplessness with hope.

Tote Bags and Toe Tags

Sue Emmons

Fashionistas be warned...this author can be addictive with her intimate grasp of designer labels. Dorothy Howell offers the fifth in this cozy series, with Haley Randolph stumbling into a job many levels up from her part-time clerk’s position at Holt’s Department Store. Her boyfriend, Ty, is an intimate part of the Holt hierarchy, and when a friend reveals that Haley has received her degree from “U of M,” everyone thinks University of Michigan and is suitably impressed. Actually, the diploma is from a bartending school, the University of Mixology. But how can a girl earning $7 an hour turn down an offer to move to corporate headquarters in an upward—very upward—career curve, which lands her the post of events coordinator? But, on the very day that Haley reports to work, the chief of security is found bludgeoned to death.

Cozy fans will adore sassy, sexy Haley, whose penchant for tricky relationships and even trickier encounters with killers is well chronicled. Howell’s book is a delightful mix of sharp repartee and clever plotting as she digs into the behind-the-scenes conspiracies at Holt’s highest levels. This is cozy writing with humor—and style.

Follow the Money

Kevin Burton Smith

Sadly, one of the longest running, most consistently rewarding hardboiled private eyes around, Sydney, Australia detective Cliff Hardy remains almost entirely unknown in this country. Whether it’s cultural xenophobia or simply bad publishing mojo, it’s still a loss for US fans of the good stuff—and make no mistake, this is very good stuff indeed.

Despite the “exotic” setting and the unapologetic “Australianess,” Hardy himself is about as exotic as Joe Mannix; a hard man with a wry skepticism and a sharp eye for hypocrisy who, despite his “mature years,” is still a tough nut to crack. This, the 30th (!) book in this amazing series, finds the recently widowed Hardy once more on the ropes, the recent survivor of a heart attack and bypass, “banned for life from holding a private enquirer’s license” and almost broke, thanks to Richard Malouf, a shifty financial advisor who’s taken a powder with not just Cliff’s life savings but those of a lot of others as well, only to get promptly killed for his efforts. Or has he? Despite positive ID of the corpse, there are rumors Malouf’s been spotted, very much alive, at a local marina.

It’s no surprise that the greed and dirty money games that fueled our own current economic malaise are not unknown Down Under, and Hardy’s investigation, on behalf of another slippery wheeler dealer, soon uncovers even more of it, as well as an unsettling peek into the intricacies of race relations, Aussie-style.

Through it all, Hardy remains an appealing hero: an engaging first-person narrator, battered but defiant, resigned but resolute. “Don’t tell me I’m too old for shotguns,” he tries to reassure his worried daughter. “I was too old for shotguns twenty years ago. We’re all too old for shotguns.” Like the beloved Ford Falcons he favors, Cliff is nothing fancy. But he’s bedrock solid, a dependable battler with a few too many miles on the clock, maybe, but he’ll get you there. Long may he run.

Teri Duerr

2012-07-10 15:01:30

The 500

Oline H. Cogdill

Imagine that John Grisham’s The Firm was set in a high-powered political consulting firm in Washington, DC, that, instead of running organized crime enterprises, was out to control the government.

Former Atlantic reporter Matthew Quirk’s powerful debut uses that premise for a high-concept thriller about power, money, and corruption. The 500—the term refers to Washington’s 500 most powerful people—balances nonstop action with believable, appealing, and easyto- care-about characters.

Harvard Law student Mike Ford believes he’s landed the perfect job when he is recruited by the Davies Group, Washington’s leading consulting firm. Henry Davies, the firm’s founder, has access to and the respect of DC’s elite, and a political pedigree that goes back to Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. What’s more, Henry hints that he is grooming Mike to be his protégé. Mike desperately wants to rise above his background, which includes petty crimes and a con-man father who is in jail. He wants to stop seeing the world “through the eyes of a criminal” and his clients as “marks.” Now he has a beautiful home, more money than he can spend, and a budding relationship with coworker Annie Clark. But it quickly becomes clear that Mike’s skills at picking locks, burglary, and conning people are precisely why the firm hired him. Mike’s realization that these astute businessmen are also assassins—and what he plans to do about it—are at the heart of this outstanding thriller.

The 500’s high-octane plot features Russian thugs, low-level criminals, and compromised politicians. Yet the plethora of bad guys never seems overloaded. Mike emerges as a realistically conflicted character who wants the good life, but isn’t prepared to sell his soul to get it. Davies says he chose Mike because he was “born to live in the grey,” but Mike has to prove to himself that he is not anchored by his past. The emotion that Quirk imbues in the evolution of Mike’s relationship with his father is heart-wrenching, but never maudlin.

The 500 is a superb debut novel. It also should make an exciting film as the screen rights recently have been purchased by 20th Century Fox.

Kingdom of Strangers

Betty Webb

Imagine trying to solve a crime when you are not allowed to drive, can’t travel without a male relative for an escort, and are treated with undisguised contempt by other members of the police force (most of whom want you fired simply because you’re a woman). Those are the problems faced by Katya, one of the only females on the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, police force. Fortunately, her superior—Inspector Ibrahim Zahrani— recognizes Katya’s courage and intelligence, but Ibrahim must strictly guard his own behavior for the safety of them both.

While working together to catch a serial killer who has dismembered 19 immigrant women, he and Katya stand in danger of being accused of “crimes of virtue”—and the Shariah court’s punishments are harsh. Harsh enough that when the married Ibrahim discovers that his secret mistress Sabria is missing and may be one of the serial killer’s victims, he can’t report it because he would then be beheaded for adultery. The only person he can trust to help find her is Katya, but since she’s female, her attempts at investigating Sabria’s disappearance are stifled at every turn.

The atmosphere of the story is often oppressive, but at the same time, that very oppression makes for eye-popping suspense. Will Katya be arrested by the “virtue police” for being seen with an unrelated male? Will Ibrahim’s secret life be revealed? These aren’t idle questions, because every element in this novel ties neatly together.

The title is particularly apt: According to Ferraris (author of Finding Nouf and City of Veils), 90 percent of private sector employees in Saudi Arabia are foreign workers, making the country a true “kingdom of strangers.” A high percentage of these workers are Asian women imported to serve as maids and nannies. Forced to surrender their passports upon arrival in Saudi Arabia, the Asians’ legal rights are then stripped away by work contracts that could best be described as legal slavery. In Kingdom of Strangers, these powerless women are the easy victims for the serial killer roaming the streets of Jeddah.

The author has lived in Saudi, and her descriptions of the inequities for women in social situations and in the courts (where a man’s word is counted as twice the worth of a woman’s) ring with authenticity. Yet love and justice can happen even in the direst of circumstances, and they do in this stern kingdom. If there is a message in Ferraris’ moving book it is that no matter how dark the law, human nature will always struggle toward the light.

Karin Slaughter's Criminal on the Train

Oline Cogdill

slaughterkarin_criminaltrain2 Getting the word out about a novel has never been more important than now.

So I think it is vital that authors and publishers use as many sources as they can to bring attention to a novel.

During a recent family trip to White Plains, New York, my husband, my mother-in-law and myself took the train into New York City for one day.

Once we were seated, I noticed this advertisement for Karin Slaughter's Criminal.

In this latest novel, Slaughter combines her series characters Sara Linton and Will Trent into one novel as the author gracefully explore how some damaged people don’t just cope with adversity, but thrive. In Slaughter’s last couple of novels, Sara, a physician, and Will, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent, have been drawing closer, testing what it would be like to have a relationship.

That description is a direct quote from my review of Criminal. You can read the rest of the review on Mystery Scene's website. Slaughter's other novels include Fallen.

While my husband knew why I was taking this picture, the commuters around me didn't and several looked at me questioningly.

Maybe they were wondering if I was taking their photo or what was so important about this ad.

"Good book," I said to a couple of people.

How effective is this train advertising?

I noticed several people writing down the name or getting out their tablets to, I hope, order Criminal.

I know that other authors' novels have been advertised on trains.

If you think this is effective, or your novel has had this placement, tell us about it.

My 10 Favorite Noir Films...of the Moment

Ed Gorman

bogart_inalonelyplace Dave Zeltserman suggested that I list my ten favorite noir films.

My problem is that my choices vary according to my mood. Right now it’s 8:17 on a Thursday night. Here is the list of the moment, the one several million people have been waiting for. By the way, I’m not saying these are the best in any way. They’re the ones that have most recently given me pleasure.

1. OUT OF THE PAST (1947)
97 min. D: Jacques Tourneur. W: Daniel Mainwaring (writing as Geoffrey Homes), based on the novel Build My Gallows High. S: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas.
The genre at its best and even most elegant. The Mexican scenes, the San Francisco scenes. Jane’s beauty immortal. Mitchum perfect; Douglas as bad guy much more convincing than as good guy.

2. NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950)
101 min. D: Jules Dassin. W: Jo Eisinger, based on the novel by Gerald Kersh. S: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers.
I guess I’m partial to films that move away from genre. This is almost mainstream. To me, the relationship between the grotesque club owner and his faithless wife and the one between the great Herbert Lom and his wrestler father make the film.

3. THE THIRD MAN (1949)
100 min. D: Carol Reed. W: Graham Greene. A: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard.
Perfection. Cotten, Howard, and Welles at their peak and the love story ironically like the bad-boy romance plots of today. Sure, my boyfriend watered down the penicillin and killed a lot of little kids, but nobody’s perfect.

4. KISS ME DEADLY (1955)
105 min. D: Robert Aldrich. W: A.I. Bezzerides, based on the novel by Mickey Spillane. A: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart.
Since I assume I’m going to hell, I’m glad I’ve seen this numerous times, because I’m certain it’s a precursor of what I’ll find there. The opening scenes put you in a choke hold and Robert Aldrich never lets go.

5. CHINATOWN (1974)
131 min. D: Roman Polanski. W: Robert Towne. S: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston.
I’m tempted to make this number one just because it’s so damned good. But I don’t feel as close to it personally as I do to some others.

6. GUN CRAZY (1950)
87 min. D: Joseph H. Lewis. W: MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo, based on the short story by Kantor. S: Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Kroeger.
I buy every minute of this and if you don’t, just turn on the news. Insane people with guns killing people for compulsions they can never quite explain, even to themselves. Scary.

7. IN A LONELY PLACE (1950)
93 min. D: Nicholas Ray. W: Andrew Solt, based on the story by Dorothy B. Hughes. S: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame.
For me, Bogie’s best; and I might say the same for Gloria Grahame. A troubling, moving take on alcoholism, self-loathing, and despair.

8. ACT OF VIOLENCE (1948)
82 min. D: Fred Zinnemann. W: Robert L. Richards, based on the story by Collier Young. S: Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor.
As Robert Ryan’s number-one fan I’m always moved by this picture, because few actors could have invested the sorrow and grief Ryan brings to the role of Joe Parkson. Van Heflin, as the hero war vet Frank R. Enley, is a great surprise; usually he was workmanlike, here as the tortured public figure, he is riveting. And a young Janet Leigh as his wife was never prettier or more appealing.

9. ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959)
96 min. D: Robert Wise. W: Abraham Polonsky (writing as John O. Killens) and Nelson Gidding, based on the novel by William P. McGivern. S: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, Ed Begley.
Ryan as Earke Skater, again at his masterful best, as a bigot who naturally loathes the spiffy Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte). Shelly Winters (much underappreciated) is just fine as Ryan’s girlfriend, and even Ed Begley (who, at the time I’d associated with scenery chewing in a slew of bad Tennessee Williams pictures) was just right as the aging cop. There’s a grit and grimness to this movie that few hardboiled films have ever touched.

10. SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)
96 min. D: Alexander Mackendrick. W: Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, based on the novella by Lehman. S: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison.
I first saw this when it came out. I was 14. I went back the next day and saw it again. I’ve probably seen it a dozen times by now. It is perfection, every frame. Proof positive you don’t need guns to be hardboiled.

This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Summer Issue #125.

Eyewitness: Full Steam Ahead, Looking Back...

Kevin Burton Smith

The last few years have been boom years for digital reissues. E-reading PI fans wanting to dig deeper into the genre’s past should take note.

Dennis Lynds, aka Michael Collins

You’ve all heard the patter. Print books are doomed. Brick-and-mortar bookstores will become bowling alleys and dry cleaners, where the ample-butted will camp out on the floors, whining for free Wi-Fi. Those big, bad publishers, with their editors and their filters, are doomed, we’re assured. This is the greatest time ever for writers, we’re told. Anyone can become a Literary God and dwell in the House of Ego forever!

Yes, well. So far, it’s more like some huge online bookseller/publisher/distributor/vanity-press monolith with all the soul of an abacus is planning to publish every wannabe who ever scribbled a sentence or two.

Make no mistake. I love ebooks. I love the convenience. The instant gratification. The selection.

But I love good writing more.

And sadly, with the status of “published author” now bestowed upon anyone, regardless of race, creed, or visible sign of talent, we can no longer assume that a book’s publication is a sign of anything more than the author’s own desire to see it published.

Quality mattered once. And conscientiousness. And craft. The honing. The polishing. Yes, it was harder to get published. You had to really work at it.

Now?

Not so much...

I miss the respect we once held for proofreading and editing, not just for grammar and usage and spelling, but for continuity, logic, character, plot, pacing, dialogue—you know, the stuff that makes a story magic.

I’ve never bought into the current spurious notion that editing was a conspiracy by traditional publishers to discourage writers. That just seems like the sort of convenient excuse put out by those too lazy to learn basic writing and narrative skills, those who were rejected too many times, or those so affronted by the idea that anyone would suggest that their work needed work that they never bothered to submit in the first place.

Nor am I thrilled with the shrill, never-ending promotion these digital nags will require to stand out from the herd, or the devaluation of legit criticism, replaced by dubious multi-starred, barely literate online reviews by barely literate would-be Anthony Bouchers. Not that any of them seem to have any idea who Anthony Boucher is. Or Dashiell Hammett. Or Raymond Chandler.

dawson_janet But...

The digital boom does offer something extremely exciting for anyone who lives for more than just the newest and brightest and most loudly hyped. And that’s the sudden viability of digitally re-releasing books from the recent and not-so-recent past that have been too long out of print.

Sure, you can plop down 99 cents or $2.99 or $4.99 or whatever the “cool” price point is this week, opting for some hyped-up new ebook from a self-proclaimed genius you never heard of until last week—or, for the same money, you could download some tried-and-true, top-shelf classic whose literary legacy is measured in decades, not days.

Janet Dawson

And you won’t have to stake out a used bookstore, camp out at eBay, or sell off a child to do it.

Not familiar with Jeremiah Healy’s Shamus-winning books about Boston PI John Francis Cuddy, who occasionally paused in his investigations to talk things over with his dead wife and proved Spenser didn’t have a lockdown on Beantown in the ’80s and ’90s? Open Road, one of the most ambitious of the e-publishers, in conjunction with Mysterious Press, have plans to release the whole series. Count me in.

The last few years have been boom years for digital reissues. E-reading PI fans wanting to dig deeper into the genre’s past should definitely take note.

If you’re not familiar with his work, check out Michael Collins, whose Dan Fortune books—starting with 1967’s Edgar-winning Act of Fear and featuring a one-armed dick who wears his political and social conscience on his empty sleeve—are simply must-reads.

Or Stuart Kaminsky, who, starting back in the ’70s, gave us two dozen breezily screwball adventures that follow hapless Hollywood dick Toby Peters down the mean but star-studded streets of Tinseltown in the ’40s and ’50s. Film trivia? You’re soaking in it.

Or Katy Munger’s unapologetically raunchy books about Casey Jones, a lusty South Carolina eye whose Mae West frankness would make Stephanie Plum blush.

Or consider D.C. Brod’s semi-cozy tales about small-town shamus Quint McCauley, which display some unexpectedly wicked edges, Walter Satterthwait’s five novels featuring’s criminally underrated Santa Fe gumshoe Joshua Croft, or John Lutz’s fiery, passionate books about tortured Florida P.I. Fred Carver—books so relentlessly grim and fierce your e-reader may melt.

For something a little lighter, G.G. Fickling’s delightfully silly Honey West returns in the recently republished Honey in the Flesh, first unleashed on an unsuspecting world in 1959. Can the rest of the series be far behind?

gault_william_campbell Of course, self-publishing isn’t the exclusive domain of the talent-challenged. In the ongoing blame game that is modern publishing, even truly good writers get lost in the flood. Ronald Tierney, through his own Life, Death and Fog Books, has re-released the early, out-of-print books in his acclaimed Deets Shanahan series, about an aging Indianapolis gumshoe who refuses to go gently into that good night.

Likewise, Janet Dawson has seized control of her own oeuvre, republishing her groundbreaking, award-winning series about Oakland, California private eye Jeri Howard, one of the most beloved female eyes of that particular tsunami who wasn’t called Sharon or Kinsey or V.I.

William Campbell Gault

And current Private Eye Writers of America vice-prez O’Neil De Noux has taken it upon himself to ensure that his numerous steamy, sticky stories about steamy, sticky eye Lucien Caye in steamy, sticky New Orleans remain available to readers.

Sure, it’s self-publishing, but consider the source.

But the cornucopia reaches further back. Thanks to such revivalists as Prologue and Noir Masters, we can now read entire runs of pivotal but sadly almost forgotten books from the ’50s and ’60s such as William Campbell Gault’s series starring Brock Callahan, an ex-Rams guard turned Beverly Hills dick, and the other spotlighting Joe Puma, the dark-horse LA gumshoe who plays yin to Brock’s sun-kissed yang. Also available again, from the same era, is the hard and often surprisingly bleak Max Thursday series by Wade Miller, about an alcoholic San Diego eye who, over the course of five books starting with Guilty Bystander (1947), crawls his way out of the abyss.

And there’s more to come, I’d bet. If e-publishing is the alternative to drowning in ink-and-paper obscurity, how long will it be before readers will be reintroduced to such greats as Thomas B. Dewey’s Mac, or William Ard’s deftly hardboiled Timothy Dane series. Or John D. MacDonald’s beloved Travis McGee, whose multi-hued adventures are inexplicably out of print. Call that one The Dark Gray Bummer.

I was also going to mention Ron Goulart’s undeniably groovy books about swinging ’70s dick, John Easy, but it turns out they’re coming out next month from Open Road. I told you there was a boom...

tierney_ronald

Ronald Tierney

One final rant before I go: buyer beware.

The older the book, the more likely copyright issues come into play. Some publishers have the legal right to publish works, and behave accordingly, offering well-produced, nicely presented editions with original covers, consistent formatting and even, occasionally, a thoughtful introduction. Other works may be in a curious legal limbo, but stand-up publishers nonetheless try to do the right thing. They make it a point, regardless of copyright status, of “working with authors and estates to get payment to everyone concerned,” as Greg Shepherd of Prologue Books puts it. For publishers like these, he says, it is a “labor of love.”

Other e-publishers, alas, show no such signs of affection...or scruples. They’re little more than fly-by-night operators; vultures feeding off the remains of lapsed or dubious copyrights, running product through a cheap OCR scanner (or nabbing the text from some public domain site), and pushing out product as quickly as they can: shabby, budget-priced reprints full of glaring formatting catastrophes, typographical errors and ugly covers (if they bother with covers at all). Although they may have the “legal” right to release such literary cold sores, these guys show all the class and moral high ground of the dude in the vinyl jacket trying to sell you an off-brand cellphone that he “found.”

But I digress...

Most of these books can be purchased directly through your Nook or Kindle or ithran or whatever, or online (although selection can be curiously inconsistent at times. A certain Mystery Scene editor, with a sudden craving for some Nero Wolfe, discovered the fat man’s novels were widely available digitally on BO.com, but missing in action on Amazon, for example).

And of course many of the publishers sell directly from their sites in just about any format you desire.

Just don’t blame me when the credit card bills come rolling in...

This article first appeared in Mystery Scene Summer Issue #125.

In Death in a Wine Dark Sea

Lisa King

In Death in a Wine Dark Sea author Lisa King takes a big chance with her wine critic/sleuth. To quote the old Victorians, Jean Applequist is “no better than she ought to be,” because the first thing she asks herself upon meeting a man is whether he’d be a worthy bed partner. In Jean’s case, the answer is usually yes. If she were less sexually rambunctious, Death in a Wine Dark Sea could be categorized as a cozy because of its warm, friendly tone, but as it is, her amorous encounters keep getting in the way (in beds, on sofas, in cars, in parks, etc.). Yet with all her hormone-driven activities, this amateur sleuth manages to drive one of the funniest, most humane mysteries I’ve come across. Jean is all heart.

When a close friend’s new husband is murdered during the wedding reception aboard a yacht in the San Francisco Bay, she takes a break from her job at Wine Digest and rides to the rescue. She soon discovers that Martin Wingo, the groom, was a blackmailer who’d amassed enormous wealth by collecting the dark secrets of San Francisco’s most powerful citizens. Stashed in Martin’s dirty laundry hamper are several millionaires, a rising politician of the religious right, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a famous sculptor, and a too-slick nightclub owner. To find out which of these blackmail victims killed Martin, Jean joins forces with his former assistant, the geeky, braces-wearing Zeppo. She discovers Zeppo has many hidden charms—among them, a libido to match her own. The mystery of who-killed-Martin is first-rate, and the descriptions of fistfights, gunfire, and stabbings are great fun, but in the end, it’s Jean herself who keeps you turning the pages. That sexy broad is irresistible.

The Gauntlet Assassin

L.J. Sellers

L.J.Sellers’ The Gauntlet Assassin takes us to the near future of 2023, when most people are jobless and have no access to health care of any kind. To keep the stricken country from rioting, the US government has initiated the Gauntlet, a series of televised physical contests in which the winner receives a large amount of grant money for her/his impoverished home state. Unlike in The Hunger Games, no one is supposed to be killed, but that’s exactly what happens when one contestant is found dead. Former cop-now-EMT Lara Evans, the victim’s roommate and a contestant herself, falls under suspicion. To clear herself, Lara must find the real killer at the same time she’s competing in the Gauntlet.

The Gauntlet Assassin is a thrill ride from the first page to the last, another entry in Sellers’ amazingly prolific career. So prolific is she—eight books in two years!— that I sometimes suspect she’s several people, all writing feverishly day and night. Regardless of Sellers’ extraordinary output, her quality never wanes, and The Gauntlet Assassin is another tightly plotted thriller peopled with unforgettable characters—especially Lara. Burdened by guilt and forced out of the police department because of a questionable shooting, Lara is hanging on by a thin emotional thread, and she knows that the Gauntlet will either kill her or set her free. The Gauntlet Assassin is a wonderful book by a writer you can always count on to deliver the goods.

Racing From Death

Betty Webb

Sasscer Hill brings us another exciting racehorse mystery in Racing from Death. When Maryland jockey Nikki Latrelle, introduced in the Agathanominated Full Mortality, takes several horses to race at a Virginia track, she lands in the middle of several cold cases. Years earlier, two teenage boys were shot to death, leaving their mother in despair. Around the same time, another mother disappeared, abandoning her young son to his cold father. In the present, and possibly connected to those old tragedies, jockeys are dropping dead, victims of a lethal weight-loss drug.

Horse lovers and fans of Dick Francis will love Hill’s youare- there-on-the-racecourse thriller, but the real asset of this excellent series is the hard-riding, hard-partying Nikki herself. After being orphaned, Nikki ran away to the track, where she found her calling. Spirited to a fault, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly, especially when their ignorance harms horses. Nikki’s racetrack friends are worth mentioning, too. Lorna, an exercise rider, loves too hard and too blindly; Mello, an elderly groom, has a touch of the Sight. In fact, Mello’s visions give Racing from Death the touch of magic that separates it from standard mystery fare. Add to the character mix a mysterious crying man who haunts a nearby forest, and we’re given an utterly unique take on racetrack thrillers.

A Bitter Veil

Betty Webb

Libby Fischer Hellmann’s A Bitter Veil takes us to the Iran of the late ’70s and early ’80s, when the religious extremism of the Ayatollah Khomeini regime changed everything, especially women’s lives. The book opens in Tehran, where in a terrifying midnight raid, Revolutionary Guards arrest American Anna Schroder Samedi for the murder of her Iranian husband, Nouri. We then flashback several years to the day Anna first met Nouri in the library at the University of Chicago. After a brief courtship highlighted by the readings of the Persian poets, they marry and move to Iran just before the Revolution.

Well-drawn characters have always been a hallmark of Hellmann’s writing, and here she’s as strong as usual. Upon her arrival in Tehran, Anna, wounded by an unhappy childhood with unloving parents, bonds immediately with Nouri’s warm family. Nouri himself is handsome, romantic, and sensitive—but when Shariah law is implemented, he develops a dark undercurrent of authoritarianism. Love doesn’t conquer all, and Nouri pays the price with his life. Anna, imprisoned in a hellish Iranian prison, can only use her mind to solve his murder—when it’s not reeling from the torture she endures. In a way, A Bitter Veil isn’t really a mystery; it’s a social statement about what can happen when religious fundamentalism trumps human rights, but that’s hardly a drawback in this suspenseful, well-researched book. It might even serve as a warning.

Breakdown

Dick Lochte

For a brief moment, when a corpse with a stake through its heart shows up in a cemetery where several well-born Chicago tweens are paying homage to a shape-shifting raven, it seems as if Paretsky might be joining the woo-woo parade with a paranormal mystery. But, fear not, her popular private eye VI Warshawski is as down-to-earth as always in her 15th iteration. The author is just having a little fun at the expense of Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books by introducing to VI's world a pop fiction series about Carmilla, Queen of the Night. As the corpse suggests, there's a serious side to the parody. Carmilla's young female acolytes quickly become murder suspects, much to the dismay of their families (among them a politician and a wealthy industrialist with a secret), and VI is called upon to sleuth out the real culprit. Additionally, she's trying to unravel the events leading to a possible murder attempt on an old friend. In the course of both investigations, she runs afoul of an assortment of right-wing types (barely fictionalized versions of Glenn Beck, Meg Whitman, and Fox News) which, I suspect, is the real, unmentioned reason for a few low ratings on Amazon.

As far as quality of writing, style and creativity go, Breakdown is among the series' better entries. Ericksen, a television and theater actress, as well as a frequent audio performer, gives the first-person narration a smart, almost curt rendition, nicely conveying the always alert and on the move VI. She's just as efficient in giving voice to our heroine's guarded ex-husband, her croaky, irascible building manager and father figure, Mr. Contreras, her fast-talking, slightly autistic friend Leydon, several young girls, spoiled and otherwise, and a collection of mainly Old Country accents. Dick Lochte's new novels are the noir thriller Blues in the Night (Severn House, 2012) and his and Al Roker's comedy mystery, The Talk Show Murders (Delacorte, 2011).

Teri Duerr

2012-07-13 20:31:19

Get Ready for Killer Nashville

Oline Cogdill

box_cj_with_daisy The chance to meet and hear some favorite authors always is the first—and best—reason to attend a mystery writers' conference.

But the second best reason—at least for me—is the city in which the conference is held.

Killer Nashville ties up both reasons quite well.

The seventh annual conference will be Aug. 23-26 at the Hutton Hotel in, naturally, Nashville, Tenn.

Three best-selling authors will be the guests of honor. C.J. Box, left, Peter Straub, center photo, and Heywood Gould, bottom photo, will speak at the popular weekend conference for writers and readers of mystery, suspense and thrillers.

In addition, more than 85 authors and publishing professionals, both from the U.S. and international, will attend.

And then there is the city of Nashville. I have been there a few times and Music City is a lovely, interesting place to visit. Yes, you have tons of venues offering live music. And while it's known for country music, Nashville also draws its share of musicians of all genres, jazz, rock, pop, blues, and more.

The city also has numerous historical sites, including several related to the Civil War, beautiful gardens, art museums, good shopping and more.

Located on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of Tennessee, Nashville is a lovely city.

KillerNashville_Logo2 Killer Nashville has much to offer.

Loads of panel discussions and seminars will cover all phases of the publishing industry. These will include authors, agents, editors, publishers, publicists and law enforcement/forensic officials, and a staged crime scene by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations. There also will be agent/editor roundtables, and critiques on manuscripts and marketing plans.

And you don't have to go outside the conference hotel to hear good music.

During the Saturday night awards banquet, Jeffery Deaver’s XO Band will perform cover songs based on the lyrics in Deaver’s summer bestselling novel XO. Nashville performing artist Treva Blomquist will provide the vocals.

Deaver also will be speaking at one of the breakout sessions. Deaver is the author of 29 novels, including his two series on Lincoln Rhyme and the Kathryn Dance and the new James Bond novel, Carte Blanche. Deaver was the guest of honor at the 2012 Sleuthfest and I can attest first hand that he is a thoughtful, intriguing speaker who leaves the audience wanting more.

For more information and registration, visit www.killernashville.com. The author book signings are free to the public.

straubpeter_author The three guests of honor are interesting speakers and each has a different approach to the genre. Here's a quick look at them:

C.J. Box
C.J. Box's 15 novels are known for their vivid view of the Wyoming landscape, tense suspense and a precise look at people. His Blue Heaven won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Novel; Box also has won the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. His newest Joe Pickett novel, Force of Nature, debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times Best Sellers List when it came out in April. Box's novels about his native Wyoming have become favorites both in the US and internationally, and are translated into 25 languages. His 2008 novel Blood Trail was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin (Ireland) Literary Award.

Peter Straub
Peter Straub is known for his dark, scary horror novels and, indeed, he has kept me up more than one night. But Straub's work embraces several categories and he has also received praise for his poems, literary novels, and thrillers. He has written more than 17 novels, several poetry and short story collections, seven novellas, and a collection of nonfiction essays. He has received the Bram Stoker Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award, among other awards. Straub's fifth novel, Ghost Story, put him on best-sellers lists, especially when Stephen King called it one of the best horror novels of the latter half of the 20th century. Straub and King collaborated on two fantasy novels: The Talisman and its sequel, Black House.

gouldheywood_author Heywood Gould
Although Heywood Gould is a novelist, most people know him as a screenwriter and filmmaker. He is the author of 13 books and nine screenplays, including Fort Apache – the Bronx, Boys From Brazil, Cocktail, and Rolling Thunder. He has directed four features, One Good Cop, starring Michael Keaton, Trial By Jury with William Hurt, Mistrial starring Bill Pullman and Double Bang with William Baldwin. His script for Fort Apache – the Bronx is a fine piece of work that continues to hold up. The movie Fort Apache – the Bronx pinpoints a specific place in time when parts of the Bronx had stooped to a high rate of crime and violence. Gould's novel Leading Lady (2008) won the Independent Publishing Award bronze medal and was a finalist for the Hammett Prize. His last novel is Serial Killer's Daughter (2011).

Sounds like this will be a good time to be in Nashville.