Existentialist Man

Meet Me in St. Louis

2011-09-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

My final week frantically organizing things before heading off with Mike Stotter and Roger Ellory to Bouchercon 2011 ‘The World Mystery and Crime-Fiction Convention’ – this year’s event is being held in St. Louis Missouri.

I’m moderating two panels, so if you find yourself at Bouchercon, St Louis next weekend, why not find out something about PI Fiction as well as the globalisation of Crime Fiction.

Saturday Sept 17 10:00AM-11:00AM - I’M ALIVE AND ON FIRE

Rumors of the private eye fiction’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Ali Karim (M), Max Allan Collins, Douglas Corleone, Barbara Fister, Rick Helms, Robert J. Randisi

Saturday Sept 17 11:30AM-12:30PM - FALLS THE SHADOW

Globalization of crime fiction
Ali Karim (M), Mark Billingham, Sara Blaedel, Deon Meyer, Karin Slaughter, Martyn Waites

More information about Bouchercon 2011 can be found here

The Existential Background to Spartan

2011-08-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

I enjoy thrillers based around the looking glass world of international espionage especially by scribes who have the credentials of authenticity, and writing ability that reflects the existential aspects of the world they portray. The best debut thriller that has passed my reading table this year is without doubt Matthew Dunn’s Spartan [aka Spycatcher in the US], coming from Orion Imprint Swordfish in the UK managed by editor / author Rowland White, and from executive editor David Highfill at HarperCollins US imprint Wm Morrow.

Many know my obsessive nature when a powerful debut captures my mind. I just have to learn more about it, as it enriches the memory of the work, and enhances my own understanding of the dynamics of storytelling. So I was interested in discovering how Rowland White had discovered Matthew Dunn, as well as finding a little about his own writing. The interesting factor is that Rowland followed up his bestselling Vulcan 607 and Phoenix Squadron with newly released Storm Front, a tale that perhaps provides insight into why Spartan / Spycatcher appealed to him, with its tale of the British SAS on a covert mission into the Middle-East -

In early 1970, the Commanding Officer of 22 SAS flew into the strategically critical Sultanate of Oman on a covert intelligence mission. A Communist rebellion in the South threatened not only the stability of the Arabian Peninsula but more importantly the West’s vital oil routes through the Persian Gulf.

Six months later, following a coup d’etat supported by the British Government, the SAS deployed to Oman to lead a fierce, secret war against the rebels. While, from a remote RAF airbase in the desert, an elite band of British pilots, flying difficult, dangerous missions in Strikemaster jets and Vietnam-era Huey helicopters, were scrambled alongside them in support.

For the British soldiers and airmen, it was to be no easy victory. The enemy were well supplied with weaponry and training from China and the Soviet Union, and despite confronting the largest assault force ever deployed by the SAS, many months later the rebels were still fighting back.

And at dawn on July 19th, 1972, a force of nearly 300 heavily armed, well-trained guerillas attacked the little fishing port of Mirbat without warning. Between them and glory stood a team of just nine SAS men. And the skill of the British fighter pilots. The scene was set for an epic encounter. Their heroism would become SAS legend.

Drawing on extensive interviews with participants from the SAS, the RAF and the Sultan’s Armed Forces, most of whom have never spoken about their involvement before, as well as previously classified documents from both the UK and Oman, Storm Front weaves an unputdownable tale of intrigue, action, daring and astounding bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.

So like an SAS man, I tracked the busy Rowland White down and asked him to let me know how he came across this remarkable debut novel -

Netting Swordfish’s First Catch by Rowland White

In launching the Swordfish list I wanted to publish books that appealed for the same reasons as those that inspired me when I was growing up. I loved to lose myself in adventure, danger and exotic locations in the company of naturalists, spies, explorers and soldiers. On my reading list were authors like Willard Price, Herge, Ian Fleming, Paul Brickhill, Wilbur Smith and Clive Cussler. I wanted a Swordfish book to capture readers’ imaginations in the same way and, in Spartan, ex-MI6 field operative, Matthew Dunn’s explosive debut novel, I’ve got one. Agent Luigi Bonomi told me, when making his submission, that Matthew’s book would be up my street and it was quickly clear that his instinct was on the money. When I first tucked into the manuscript I was immediately struck by the Spartan’s distinctive tone. It was hard-edged and muscular, with a confidence and authority that was unusual. I was gripped by its immediacy and sense of purpose.

The book’s hero, MI6/CIA joint asset, Will Cochrane, inhabits a world in which there can be no room for self-doubt or hesitation; where split second decisions have massive repercussions, but where not making a decision is not an option. And it had a ring of authenticity only an ex-intelligence officer could bring to it. It’s pumped up, larger than life and exhilarating. Like Ian Fleming, Matthew’s drawn on his own experience of the secret world to create a hero who, while grounded in reality, operates on the limits of what’s humanly possible. Like all the best adventure thrillers, there’s escapism and wish fulfillment in there. Will Cochrane’s not quite superhuman, but he’s certainly the next best thing. For the reader, the feeling you’re at Will’s shoulder as he conducts his mission is irresistible. Spartan is stunningly dynamic thriller-writing. But alongside kinetic, widescreen action sequences, there’s also tradecraft. There’s excitement, but also insight.

In Will Cochrane, Matthew Dunn’s drawn a hero who I couldn’t wait to go into battle with again. But I’m lucky, as Matthew’s Publisher I get to do that before anyone else. Matthew recently delivered the manuscript for his second thriller, titled Sentinel, it drops us alongside Will Cochrane off the far eastern coast of Russia aboard a rusting trawler as he prepares to infiltrate, alone, unseen, ashore. Reading on, I felt the biting wind and sleet as Will climbed down a rope net towards the churning ocean and I knew I was in for another brutal, bloody and addictive all-action rollercoaster ride. I look forward to many more of them.

Then I managed to interview Matthew Dunn for The Rap Sheet, though he was a naturally a tad coy talking about his time with MI6 / SiS but did provide me this interesting essay on how he became an instrument for Her Majesties Secret Service -

The Route to SIS by Matthew Dunn

The application process to join MI6 is torturous and probably one of the hardest selection procedures in the world in terms of the success to failure rate. It’s designed to be that way for the simple reason that the job of an MI6 field operative is incomparably tough and mentally challenging. Applicants have to sit numerous timed cognitive tests which get increasingly harder to the point of absurdity, have to lead role-play problem-solving exercises, are interviewed extensively, and have to undergo an incredibly intrusive security vetting investigation that lays bare every aspect of your private life. Potential recruits can fail at any stage but it is in the interviews that the real work is done to establish whether you have what it takes to become a spy.

The interviewers are senior intelligence officers who are trained to spot indecisiveness, mental inferiority, frauds, fantasists, and potential traitors. Anyone with those and other weaknesses are quickly toyed with and spat out of the system. If you avoid that, the interviewers will focus on your strengths to see if they are up to the exacting standards required of an MI6 officer. One of the questions they ask is, “Who do you look up to?” If you answer something like, “JFK and Gandhi” then the interview is over. If you answer, “Nobody” it continues. The reason for this is that if you look up to someone, then you perceive yourself to be beneath that person in some way. MI6 does not want people like that. It wants people who have the absolute conviction of a supreme leader.

That’s not to say that MI6 looks for arrogance in its recruits. Successful applicants never display an overbearing sense of self-worth and self-importance, or contempt for the weak. The job of the spy often requires you to interact with individuals who are vulnerable and those people need compassion and leadership from the field officer. Moreover, MI6 operatives will sacrifice their worth and status in a shot if it means getting the job done. They are patriotic and totally dedicated to their missions. Arrogant people put themselves first; MI6 officers do not.

However, a self-belief that you can do things that others cannot is vital. MI6 spies are given extensive and ongoing training in highly specialized use of guns, military unarmed combat, explosives and other aggressive tradecraft actions. But in the field, the most vital weapon of a spy if his or her mind. MI6 officers can move through hostile environments with the confidence and precision of an ultimate predator. People don’t see them, or if they do they think they are seeing something else. The mind of a spy can take that person into places and situations that most would think impossible to access. And very often that’s done without the deployment of a weapon.

Many people have a natural inclination toward subservience to people they believe to be more experienced than them, but MI6 officers are different. You could be a twenty five year old female MI6 field operative who is running a sixty year old male general. The agent might have led thousands of men into war, but you would be his leader and he would expect that of you because his life is in your hands and you are the expert in intelligence matters. If you display anything other than absolute strength and a command of the situation, then your agent will rightly wonder if he is going to die.

The tiny number of applicants who make it through the selection process to join MI6 have an even tougher mountain to climb once they’re within its ranks. They have to get through a rigorous pass or fail training course, are on probation for two years during which time they can be dismissed, and even after that they must prove their worth in every day of employment as a spy. A field officer who cannot operate at one hundred percent of what is expected of them will not be deployed on a mission because, if he was, at best that mission could fail and at worst the officer and others around him could be killed.

But very few MI6 missions do fail, because MI6 recruits the right kind of people. They are a very rare breed of animal. They are the best intelligence operatives in the world.

Text “Netting Swordfish’s First Catch” © 2011 Rowland White
Text “The Route to SIS” © 2011 Matthew Dunn
Matthew Dunn author photo © 2011 Adam Scourfield
Rowland White author photo © 2006 Ali Karim

Buy Matthew Dunn’s Spartan Here
Buy Matthew Dunn’s Spycatcher Here
Buy Rowland White’s Vulcan 607 Here
Buy Rowland White’s Phoenix Squadron here
Buy Rowland White’s Storm Front Here

Blunt, Philby, Burgess & Maclean but who the hell is Hanssen?

2011-08-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

As a lover of thriller novels, conspiracies and conspiracy theories as well as investigating how the [mainstream] media operate; I consider myself well-read and well-informed, but this week I uncovered a huge gap in my knowledge. This gap proved to me how reality really is [at worst] controlled, or [at best] shaped and edited as a form of ‘control’. In George Orwell’s novels such as ‘Animal Farm’, the mantra “Four legs good, Two legs bad” gets transformed by the ruling elite [‘the pigs’] following the overthrow of the farmer, into “Four legs good, Two legs better” and its related quasi-sequel ‘1984’; where main protagonist Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, effectively re-writing history and changing the past to create a new and secure future for the ruling elite.

I found evidence this week, how true Eric Arthur Blair [aka ‘George Orwell’] was in his observations on the crucial importance of controlling the masses, or at least by influencing the mainstream media, often deploying the magician’s scantily-clad assistant in deflecting the attention of the observer, and therefore validating the statement ‘that perception is reality’ by the use of smoke and mirrors.

I am referring to my viewing on DVD this week of the 2007 film “Breach”, starring Chris Cooper; and my own annoyance about why, and how I’d missed this outstanding film when it was originally released theatrically. Though the most crucial question I pondered on was - why I had never heard of Robert Hanssen ?

This was due to two factors, firstly Cooper’s career-defining performance as Hanssen, showing a most ‘odd, complex and dangerous’ individual. Despite a strong religious leaning toward extreme Catholicism’s Opus Dei and a robust family background, he hid his secret well, so well that one must question his motivation[s], because they, like his dark side were hidden under a cloak of normalcy.

Secondly I discovered that Hanssen was the most treasonous American citizen in US history, who while holding down a top post at the FBI, sold highly classified US secrets to the Soviet regime for over 22 years. The secrets that Hanssen sold to Moscow, resulted in many US ‘Assets / Agents’ being compromised [tortured and murdered] by the Soviet Security Services [KGB]. The issue I had was despite being well-read, and informed [something I pride myself upon]; I am embarrassed to admit, though knowing much about Aldrich Ames, I was for some reason clueless about Hanssen. Could it do with me living in Britain? I had read significantly about the British traitors Blunt, Philby, Burgess & Maclean more commonly referred to as The Cambridge four [or five]. This conspiracy was mined, loosely to great effect in former ex-SIS recruit turned espionage novelist Charles Cumming in his recent ‘The Trinity Six’ novel.

Here’s a trailer for Breach which sets the scene for this hypnotic thriller that looks into the darkest edges of Human Nature -
http://youtu.be/XJuLFKeRoJg

Here’s an interview with Chris Cooper on how he decides on what roles to take on and why -
http://youtu.be/E10PGyiQU7g

Chris Cooper is one of the most under-rated actors I know and I share his interest in geo-politics and his ‘left of left’ political leanings which often influences his choice of acting roles. This profile of him from the 2007 Edinburgh Festival is most insightful –

Cooper studied drama at the University of Missouri, did a couple of years of summer stock, and then moved to New York City, where he had a ball acting on stage for 12 years. In 1983 he married the actress Marianne Leone (best known here as Joanne Moltisanti in The Sopranos), who pushed Cooper into making films and kick-started his fruitful working relationship and close friendship with Sayles. In 1987 Cooper and Leone had a son, Jesse, who was born with cerebral palsy, who died from causes related to the disease two years ago, aged just 17. Jesse’s parents, who now live in Kingston, Massachusetts, set up the Jesse Cooper Foundation and work tirelessly as advocates for children with special needs (to that end Cooper and Leone are currently collaborating on a film about a mother’s relationship with her severely disabled daughter, Hurricane Mary).

From this background sketch you’ll perhaps have gleaned that Cooper, who speaks like a cowboy, conducts himself with the courtesy of a gentleman rancher, and has experienced something of the bohemian life as well as great personal loss, is a world away from the deceitful but otherwise straight-laced FBI man Robert Hanssen. Cooper describes his own politics as ‘left of left’. Sayles, who most recently cast him as a dimwitted politician and thinly-disguised pre-White House George Bush in the political satire Silver City, calls him a news junkie.

‘As soon as I wake up,’ Cooper confirms, ‘I listen to National Public Radio for the early coverage of what’s happening that day, and I’ll take a look at CNN throughout the day. That really kicked in after 9/11.’

Cooper talks confidently and freely about politics and current affairs: ‘I feel pretty confident we’ll get a Democratic administration next time round,’ he says, ‘but what Bush has done to our world needs a lot of patching up.’ And: ‘We’ve spent so much money on this war our bridges are falling down. As far as the infrastructure goes here, healthcare should be dealt with in this next election.’ And: ‘I’m glad to see Mr Brown is not so comfortable with President Bush. I think he takes a stronger stand on things.’

The actor’s 24/7 interest in news and politics is reflected in his choice of films, which are often distinguished by some degree of political edge: the Bourne films with their indictment of the CIA; Sam Mendes’ war-is-idiotic Gulf conflict drama Jarhead; the oil business conspiracy tale Syriana; and the forthcoming Middle East-set murder mystery The Kingdom. And now Breach, of whose real world basis Cooper says: ‘I remember pretty clearly that it was quite a big piece of news. Only after three or four days of media coverage it disappeared. What I’ve since discovered is this turned out to be a real embarrassment for the FBI. I think they got a hold of the media and shut the story down.’

Read More

After watching Cooper’s hypnotic portrayal of Robert Hanssen [which was mesmerizing] and for me career-defining, I dug a little deeper and then found this report from The Central Intelligence Agency [Langley] which provides a fascinating view into America’s most destructive security beach, one that very few truly understand –

Arguably the most damaging spy in US history, Hanssen repeatedly volunteered his services to Moscow’s intelligence services, cloaking his activities in a fictitious persona (Ramon Garcia) and adamantly refusing to reveal to his handlers the identity of his genuine employer. By all accounts, Hanssen was arrogantly confident in his ability to “play the spy game” according to the rules he created and employed. He gambled that he could deceive the FBI and the Russians and avoid being compromised by any US agent that might have penetrated Moscow’s services.

Many vexing questions exist about Hanssen’s rationale for acting as he did for as long as he did. But nothing has been debated as vigorously as the reasons why he was able to elude detection for two decades. Attempts to confer on Hanssen the mythological status of a “master spy” (e.g., CBS’s made-for-television movie Masterspy: The Robert Hanssen Story) are not supported by the facts of the case, and the key question remains: Why did it take so long for the FBI to catch a mole that had operated with impunity within its ranks for such a long period of time?

Breach, a fast-paced movie directed by Billy Ray, attempts to answer some of these perplexing questions. The movie covers only the last six weeks of Hanssen’s two-decade-long espionage career, opening in the late fall of 2000, when Hanssen first came under the investigative microscope. According to David Wise, author of one of the best of several accounts of Hanssen’s life and perfidy, a successful joint CIA-FBI initiative obtained a package containing a portion of an operational file pertaining to a mole deeply embedded in the US counterintelligence community. [2] In addition to the file, the package contained three other exceptional pieces of evidence: an audio tape containing two brief telephone conversations between the mole and a KGB interlocutor in 1986, copies of letters written by the mole during 1985–88, and two partial fingerprints lifted from a plastic garbage bag the mole had used to wrap a delivery to Moscow. Wise wrote that the purchase price of the package was $7 million.

It did not take the FBI long to piece together the shards of evidence and come to a stunning conclusion: The mole was one of their own special agents. Equally shocking to the FBI was the realization that the person its investigators had firmly believed to be the mole, a senior CIA counterintelligence specialist who had been the object of an extraordinarily invasive counterespionage investigation over the previous five years, was innocent. Despite the absence of evidence, the FBI had convinced CIA officials that it had good reason to believe that one of CIA’s officers had been responsible for compromising more than 50 compartmented FBI operations against the Soviet and Russian intelligence services operating in the United States during the period 1985–2000. [3]

Read more from The CIA Here

Here’s an interview with Ryan Phillippe who plays Eric O’ Neil FBI undercover agent who was responsible for bringing Hanssen to justice, but ultimately made him re-evaluate the personal cost of living undercover to his personal life.
http://youtu.be/0Vk60jb8yMk

Then I realized why I had not heard anything of significance about the Film ‘Breach’, from what Chris Cooper said –

‘I remember pretty clearly that it was quite a big piece of news. Only after three or four days of media coverage it disappeared. What I’ve since discovered is this turned out to be a real embarrassment for the FBI. I think they got a hold of the media and shut the story down.’

In my opinion ‘Breach’ is one of the greatest political thrillers [together with ‘Syriana’ which also stars Chris Cooper] I’ve seen since the golden age of 1970’s paranoia-cinema, such as ‘Three Days of the Condor’ based on James Grady’s novel ‘Six Days of the Condor’, The Parallax View, Richard Condon’s hugely influential novels that were filmed as Winter Kills and ‘The Manchurian Candidate’, or Alan J. Pakula’s ‘The Parallax View’ – though ‘Breach’ like ‘All The President’s Men’ is based on reality, not conjecture or conspiracy theory.

The discovery this week [for me], of ‘Breach’ and then further research on the whole Robert Hanssen affair distracted me from the dreadful civil disturbances and riots that have peppered many cities and towns in the UK, and which started in North London.

A surreal thought did occur to me for a thriller novella, and one that would be interesting for me to write, and these are the scribbles from my notebook which act as a synopsis –

I Predict a Riot

The world is on the brink of an economic and financial crisis. A lack of an understanding of human nature led to the fall of communism in the 1980’s, and now the ‘endless growth paradigm’ in a world of finite resources, [coupled to the self-same lack of understanding vis-à-vis human nature] is pushing capitalism toward the same path – collapse. To distract the ‘general public’ from the apocalyptic anxieties of the Euro-Crisis and the American Debt-Crisis, and their own problems [unemployment and rising commodity prices] a plan is hatched by ‘the-men-behind-the curtain’. Much frantic work is required behind the scenes [without public introspection as to the reality of the situation], to shore up the economy, so a distraction is created. A small cabal of espionage operatives are dispersed [in ‘hoodies’ and ‘gangster rap’ garb] in an operation across UK cities to spark / incite ‘small to medium scale’ civil disorder, which taps into the “under-classes / economically disadvantaged” and “criminals / gangs” who mount ‘copy-cat’ attacks as looting and rioting spreads in English inner-cities, with the police under instructions to take a ‘softly, softly’ approach. ‘Social Media’ is harnessed to encourage and fan the flames of disorder. The world media focus its fish-eye lens onto the British riots, thus keeping the real news, the economic crisis away from the centre of the camera. The ‘men-behind-the curtain’ can now work away with reduced public introspection, and the general public and ‘chattering classes’ get distracted from their current problems of unemployment, lack of job security, increased costs of energy, public-sector cutbacks, higher taxation – focusing instead on the moral issues behind these riots, brewing up ‘racism’ as humans always like someone to blame. The public demands use of water canon, rubber bullets, harsh punishments for the looters, clamp downs and restrictions on ‘social media’, even ‘hanging’ and agrees that we must give up more of our civil liberties, and freedoms as a cost we have to accept for our own safety. The mission creep toward the fascist society Orwell imagined in 1984 comes closer to reality.

I considered the plot way too far-fetched like this one, or this one, this one, or this one and I have many others, which are too unbelievable to consider that anyone could plan such an outrageous conspiracy, and how the media could be so misdirected, as some allege they were in 1969 when the western world feared the shadow cast by the Russian Space program.

“Four legs good, Two legs better”

If this article has interested you, it would be worth checking out the linkages between Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays and Wilhelm Reich – because everything is existential until it becomes real, but always remember the close linkages between ‘perception and reality’.

Others think that I read far too many thriller novels than is healthy for the mind, while others consider that it could be because my family originates from the North-East Indian State of Bihar, where Eric Arthur Blair was born in 1903, and Blair is more commonly known as George Orwell, a man I admire since reading his work as a young boy.

Or perhaps the reason why the Robert Hanssen story, like the film ‘Breach’ is not mentioned that much is because of the embarrassment it caused the FBI / CIA and the wider intelligence community, as his traitorous behaviour was uncovered in 2001, months prior to the other huge security breach that occurred on September 11th - another incident that provokes debate with the talk of conspiracy, conspiracy theories, security failures and ‘grassy knolls’.

The Return of The Lineup

2011-04-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

It seems like yesterday that Gerald So and the Gang started publishing poems with a criminal theme. Now with Volume 4 out on release from The Lineup Editors Gerald So with Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Cortez and R. Narvaez, this new collection features many well known names in the genre such as Ken Bruen, David Corbett, Stephen Jay Swartz and many others.

The most important aspect in writing thought-provoking fiction comes with the editing process, as well as the sparseness in the prose to allow the imagination to populate the proceedings. No better medium to illustrate this than the art of poetry, and Lineup 4, has some work that will imprint themselves onto the psyche like that trajectory of a ricochet. Both Bruen’s [Funeral: Of The Wino] and Coleman’s [Slider Part 7] respective contributions fall in that category, and it is interesting to see how such hardboiled writers tell a tale in short form, which contrasts their collaboration ‘The Tower’. I think another appealing quality of this collection is that it intrigued me to seek out some of the writers who I was unfamiliar with, hunting down their prose.

Gerald asked which of these poems was my favourite, which is a tough call, but I have to say that I have a soft spot for David Corbett’s ‘Bargain’ which is a ‘story’ spoken in a darkly lyrical style.

In case this volume has wet your appetite then why not contact Gerald as The Lineup 5 is open for submissions but remember, some of these short pieces remain long in the mind after the book is put down.To order your copy of The Lineup 4 as well as catch up on the preceding volumes click here

Gerald has fixed a blog tour to showcase some the work from contributors and reader / reviewers here

Electronic Leather

2011-03-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

The world of publishing is going through real change both from worsening economic factors, but also the method of delivery, namely moving toward e-Books from Papyrus. As usual our American friends seem to be leading the way with writers such as J A Konrath, David Morrell, Blake Crouch, F Paul Wilson and many others exploring the digital frontier. It seems like a blink of eye when Stephen King released ‘The Plant’ as well as ‘Riding The Bullet’ as ‘electronic experiments’, but now e-Books seem to be a permanent fixture of publishing and as each day elapses, the importance of eBooks becomes stronger and stronger.

It seem that eBook success has reached our side of the Atlantic, as reported in The Guardian / Observer, and it takes a thriller writer to show us the way –

Self-publishing has traditionally been a surefire route to obscurity and dismal sales. Now a British thriller writer who sells his novels as ebooks for as little as 70p is proving the naysayers wrong.

Not only does Stephen Leather, Britain's leading "independent" writer, estimate he has occupied the number one spot on Amazon.co.uk's Kindle ebook bestseller lists for "90% of the last three months", he is also selling "somewhere in the region" of 2,000 ebooks a day – and making big profits in the process.

Leather, who celebrated his seventh consecutive week at the top of the Amazon chart with his novella The Basement, about a serial killer in New York, also occupies fourth place with Hard Landing, another thriller, and 11th place with Once Bitten, a vampire novel.

He is one of many authors increasingly turning to ebooks as an alternative way to the top. Capitalising on the popularity of e-readers such as the Kindle, a new generation of writers is bypassing agents and publishers and using the flexible pricing model of ebooks to offer their work directly to the public at rock-bottom prices. Some, like Leather, are achieving huge sales, which, not surprisingly, is striking fear into publishers.

Leather enjoys a successful parallel career writing "big international thrillers" for Hodder & Stoughton. But last August, when Amazon.co.uk opened its Kindle store, he saw an opportunity: "I was lucky, in that I had three novellas Hodder had turned down because they were in a different genre from my other books and too short to work as conventional paperbacks. But I realised they might work for the Kindle."

Leather realised the Kindle was going to be "pretty much the most popular Christmas present ever. It occurred to me that on Christmas morning, when people got their Kindle, the first thing they would do would be to buy the books they'd always wanted – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the new Grisham. But they're relatively expensive. After that, people would start looking for cheaper books. I figured that if I could get several of my books in the top 10 or top 20, then when people started looking around for bargains I'd be perfectly placed."
To maximise sales, he priced his books at Amazon's minimum for independent writers – about 70p (the equivalent of 99 cents). At this level, authors receive a cut of only 35% of the price; under Amazon's pricing structure, this rises to 70% if they price their books above the equivalent of $2.99. He then went on various forums to drum up awareness. Within a couple of weeks, all three titles were in the top 20 and "by November I'd knocked Stieg Larsson off the top spot".

"I knew the wave was going to break on Christmas Day. I got myself in position to take advantage, I got on and I've been riding it ever since."

Yet while he is making significant sums just through ebook sales – "up to £11,000 a month" – he still only sees it as a sideline to his main writing career. "I never went into this to make money. I went into it as a way of widening my readership. My hope was that readers would read my book on Kindle, say, 'I really enjoyed that', then when my new thriller came out with Hodder, they'd remember it and buy that too."

Leather's achievements are dwarfed when set against the scale of independent publishing in the US, where ebooks are estimated to be 20% of the total market. The most spectacular example of an author striking gold through ebooks is 26-year-old former care assistant Amanda Hocking, a Minneapolis-based writer of paranormal romances. She had completed eight novels but had failed to acquire an agent when, last April, she decided to publish them herself via the Kindle store.

"I sold 50 books the first month. It picked up over the summer, then really took off in November," she said. Hocking is now the world's bestselling ebook author, selling more than 450,000 titles last month alone.

Read More Here

The Fantastic Four Head to St Louis

2011-03-08T03:05:00.000-08:00

The nature of reality has always interested me, especially when things in my past reverberate into the future. I am blessed by a very good memory so I can recall [with vivid clarity] many things in my past, but some things just seem to stick with me for reasons that only come clear later in my life.

In 1976 I was a teenager and an avid reader of books and American comics and recall [vividly] issue # 167 of The Fantastic Four thanks to a wonderful Jack Kirby cover featuring ‘The Hulk’ and ‘The Thing’ battling on the St. Louis Arch [see above cover © 1976 Marvel Comics]. That bold Jack Kirby image was awesome, as was the story written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by George Perez and Joe Sinnott, lettered by the wonderful Joe Rosen. The 1960’s and 1970’s of my memory are peppered by the books and comics I read, before the weight of responsibility that adulthood brought into my life. I recall at the time wishing to visit the St. Louis Arch, and wondering if I would ever get the opportunity to do so. Now that teenager is well into middle age, that the opportunity has finally arrived to see the St Louis Arch!

One of the wonderful aspects of being involved in the fandom side of the Crime and Thriller community is attendance at Conventions, especially the ‘Daddy’ which is Bouchercon. I have been fortunate thanks to my annual US trips to Thrillerfest and Bouchercon that I have visited the following cities and had excellent company on my travels -

2003 Bouchercon Las Vegas, Nevada [with ‘Grog’]
2006 Thrillerfest Phoenix, Arizona [with Stav Sherez]
2007 Thrillerfest New York [with Mike Stotter]
2008 Bouchercon Baltimore, Maryland [with Roger Ellory]
2009 Bouchercon Indianapolis, Indiana [with Roger Ellory]
2010 Bouchercon San Francisco, California [with Roger Ellory]

I haven’t listed the visits each year to Harrogate, Left Coast Crime [Bristol in 2006], The World Horror Convention [Brighton 2010] and other such events.

This year I have agreed to attend Crimefest in Bristol [England], Theakstons’ Crime-Writing Festival in Harrogate [England] and Bouchercon St Louis [Missouri]. I am delighted to be travelling to St Louis with my friends Roger [R.J.] Ellory and Shots Editor Mike Stotter as well as meeting up with Shots Social Media Editor Ayo Onatade – making up our own Fantastic Four.

It’s 2011 and I still recall vividly that young teenager, who sat transfixed in 1976 by issue #167 of The Fantastic Four, with that wonderful Jack Kirby cover of the battle on the St. Louis Archway; wondering if he would ever see St Louis.

I can report that, that teenager will indeed be visiting St Louis, but as a middle-aged man, who still has not lost his sense of wonder that only Comics and Books can bring to the imagination.

So I hope to see many of you there, especially my pal, writer / editor Gerald So because apart from seeing the St Louis Archway - finally Gerald and Ali go to White Castle!

Crime & Thriller Fiction on World Book Night

2011-03-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

In March last year I was contacted by the producers of BBC 2 The Culture Show as they were commissioned to make a program about genre fiction, focusing on [a] Thrillers and Crime Fiction, [b] Chick-Lit and Romance and [c] Science Fiction and Fantasy. They asked me to appear in an interview talking about Crime and Thriller Fiction, from the perspective of a reviewer and well-read fan. The BBC producers were also interested in my early championing of Stieg Larsson and his ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ and how such an unusual novel became such a worldwide sensation.

Despite my complex schedule, I agreed as I use any [and all] opportunity to enthuse people about reading. I am passionate about literacy and consider reading a hugely important aspect of the human experience, and wish more people would read novels. Reading novels promotes people to ‘think’ deeper than TV or Films can, and allows people to view the world though a different perspective and can challenge ‘conventionally’, ‘channeled’ or ‘manipulated’ modes of thinking. Reading is dangerous [but in a good way], and that is why totalitarian regimes often restrict reading with book banning, censorship, even the destruction of books and libraries. The next stage after clamping down on books / reading, is the ‘disappearance’ of the educated and informed, i.e. the reader.

With today’s global economic woes, the danger of the rise of the extreme right and extreme left can be fought back with an educated / informed society, something that reading does – as it informs ‘thinking’, something that extremists suppress in order to control and manipulate the masses. An under-educated and illiterate society can be more easily manipulated than an well-read and educated one.

So when the BBC Film crew arrived at my business premises last year, I had brought some of my rare books, manuscripts and decorated the board room for the filming. The film crew recorded an extensive interview with me about Crime and Thriller Fiction, and filmed some of my favourite books and manuscripts. We had a great time as the BBC team were all enthusiastic readers, and became amused at my ‘geeky’ knowledge and contacts in the crime and thriller fiction world.

Anyway, during the year I was advised by the Producers of BBC Culture Show that the ‘book-program’ had been delayed, but with my own complex work schedule, I thought nothing more of the filming, apart from it being a bit of a laugh, talking about books to the BBC team.

Then with all the build-up to World Book Night last week, I noticed in the TV schedule for Saturday that there was a BBC Culture Show special entitled ‘Books We Really like to Read’ featuring crime / thriller and romance / chick-lit to coincide with World Book Night, so I wondered if they would use any of the footage the BBC shot with me?

So with drinks at hand, the family settled down to watch the BBC 2 World Book Night Special, especially the ‘Books We Really Like To Read’ presented by Sue Perkins, and yes the BBC did use a snippet of the interview they recorded with me last year. Naturally I was disappointed that the full crime-fiction special didn’t appear, but I was glad that they used a ‘sound-bite’ of mine [in context] for the World Book Night Event, [as literacy is crucial for a functioning and fair society]. It is pity they didn’t use any of the extensive material pertaining to my favourite writers, key works of the genre as well my mentioning the world of fandom from Shots, Deadly Pleasures, Mystery Readers International, Crimespree, The Rap Sheet, January Magazine, Mystery Scene, Mystery Women, 4MA, Dorothy L, Rara-Avis et. al as well as the professional associations such as The CWA, MWA, ITW, PWA etc and the conventions such as Harrogate, Crimefest, Bouchercon, Thrillerfest, Left Coast Crime, Love is Murder etc. I also spent time on the various awards such as the CWA Daggers, MWA Edgars, ITW Thrillers etc. Perhaps one day the footage may be used, one hopes.

So with all the terrible issues facing publishing currently from the economic problems forcing bricks & mortar book stores to close, public sector budget cuts forcing many libraries to shut, changes in print journalism, and the shift in ‘medium’ from paper to electronic – any initiative [like World Book Night] that promotes reading and literacy is a good one and must be supported.
The BBC Culture Show ‘Books We Really Read’ is available online at BBC Iplayer [for one week], though restricted to UK access only so I thought it might be useful to feature some of the highlights for those of you unable to access the show, especially those outside the UK.

These clips were recorded from my lap-top using my Iphone, so they are far from High Definition, but watchable [and of interest] for the crime / thriller enthusiast.

Please Note that all these clips are © 2011 British Broadcasting Corporation and used for no commercial reason or benefit to myself. They are posted due to my desire to encourage reading and literacy, with crime and thrillers an excellent entry point for the casual reader. The Full Program can be viewed here. There is also a program about the 1,000,000 books given away on World Book Night here and the BBC Culture Show highlights 12 debut novelists for WBN here – The programs are available online for one week from those links to BBC Iplayer, though geographical restrictions do apply.

Reading is important, and there is nothing ‘downmarket’ with regard to genre fiction as these clips illustrate with insights from Ian Rankin, Lee Child, Ruth Rendell, Dame Agatha Christie, Felix Francis and my little sound-bite. It’s very flattering to find myself amongst such illustrious company.

So if you are feeling depressed, anxious or generally fed-up, why not crack the spine of a good crime thriller because you will soon find your own problems put firmly in perspective, and the process of reading will enrich your life.

I must thank Jamie Byng [Chair of WBN] and all the people who worked on World Book Night mostly pro-bono to get people to [re-]discover the wonder that is reading a novel.

Clip 1 : Introduction to Crime Fiction featuring short insight from Ali Karim

Clip 2 : The legacy of Dame Agatha Christie

Clip 3 : Lee Child and Thriller Novels

Clip 4 : Felix Francis and the legacy of Dick Francis

Clip 5 : Ian Rankin on Crime Fiction

Clip 6 : Ruth Rendell on the dark side of human nature

So with the very serious problems facing publishing, you may feel powerless to help, but all of us can play our role – and here’s how starting from now you should ensure to talk about what books you are reading in general conversation; for birthday and festive occasions buy books as gifts even for the ‘non-reader’, and support your local bookstore be it an independent, or a chain, and when you see your local library facing the axe – do something, sign the petition, write to your council, your member of parliament, congressman or even your Government. Reading is really that crucial to a functioning and fair society because I can hear the footfalls of the Barbarians as they pick at the locks that protect our Gates.

As the adage says ‘use it or lose it’, because reading novels are far more important than many realize as books are the best weapon against the Barbarian.

Disclaimer -

Please Note that all these clips are © 2011 British Broadcasting Corporation and used for no commercial reason or benefit to myself. They are posted due to my desire to encourage reading and literacy, with crime and thrillers an excellent entry point for the casual reader. The Full Program can be viewed here. There is also a program about the 1,000,000 books given away on World Book Night here and the BBC Culture Show highlights 12 debut novelists for WBN here – The programs are available online for one week from those links to BBC Iplayer, though geographical restrictions do apply.

The Existential Future May Feature Rollerskates

2011-02-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

I recently re-watched Norman Jewison’s 1975 existential SF classic “Rollerball” and as I did so, I became aware that its future world, set in 2018 is getting rather close. I also realized how today’s reality was actually yesterday’s fictionalized future. The whole set-up of Rollerball player Jonathan E [James Caan] working for ‘The Energy Corporation’, in a world of depleted energy reserves and global instability made the TV images of the worldwide economic instability, war on terror and media control resonate in my mind, like the chimes of the plague bell.

It also made me fearful of the future, as I contemplated where we’re headed.

There are many existential risks that have, and still continue to threaten our species and our way of life. Some of these risks are edging away from the domain of the ‘existential’ into the ‘real’. I spend a lot of time reading; and thinking; and observing reality and then joining the dots I see peppering in front of my line of sight. The more dots I see, and the closer I look, the dots start to converge and a picture comes into focus. The view I see from my vantage point is not pretty.

One must always remember that ‘the observer’ actually plays a part upon ‘the situation’ as it plays out. The observer will always be part of the action, and influences the outcome, even if the only action the observer undertakes, is to purely ‘observe’. Two simple experiments that prove this axiom are –

On the macro-level [a] ‘The Hawthorne Effect’ and at the quantum-level [b] ‘The Double Slit Experiment’.

When you distill our current situation of over-population, resource depletion, coupled to [a] the logical failure of the ‘growth engine’ [to keep capitalism sustaining ‘our way of life’] and [b] the failure to understand ‘human nature’ that makes communist / socialist systems unworkable – then the view of the future is bleak, very bleak.

When you consider the nature of reality, and our possible futures, the following scenarios come into play -

Future [1] Becoming ‘more than human’
We see technological convergence creating faster and faster innovation which will lead to a technological singularity and a post-human future. In this scenario we will augment our bodies / minds with technology, and become ‘more than human’. This has started.

Click Here to understand and prepare for this future, but our rapidly depleting oil reserves may prevent this future from happening. We have less than ten years to become post-human, otherwise it will be too late as we slide down the oil curve.

Future [2] Economic Collapse
You should view this video ‘Oil, Smoke and Mirrors’ which was released in 2006 and explains that we have now reached a global ‘peak oil’ situation, and that under-pinning all the global economic problems, global wars, terrorism, famines etc lies the ‘elephant in the room’ – the world has reached the peak on the curve of oil production vs. demand. ‘Collapse’ featuring Michael Ruppert is worth watching as is Oil Crash : A Crude Awakening, but be warned these films are terrifying. We have ten years of troubling problems while we bump along the peak, then the slide starts at the end of the decade, and then it will be really ‘interesting’.

Future [3] Extinction Event
Reading Sir Martin Rees’ book ‘Our Final Century’ [aka ‘Our Final Hour’ in US] will explain this threat rationally, and also answer the question posed by the Fermi Equation or the paradox of “why is the universe eerily silent?” Because there is an inevitability in the evolution of life, in that it will naturally lead to a civilization destroying itself by its own hand, or the hand of nature be it viruses, meteorite impact, solar storm, or the sun’s light being blocked by ash. The life-span of an intelligent civilization from inception to collapse is a blink of an eye, when placed against the eons of time that the universe exists within.

Future [4] Simulated Reality
Many people believe that we are living in a ‘simulation’, or experiencing a holographic projection sent from an Event Horizon [the edge of a black hole], or just one plane of reality from an infinite multiverse. In these scenarios, we are still at risk of the previous possible futures, because the brain can not differentiate between ‘reality’ and ‘simulation’, as many think both these terms are the same in terms of practicality. Even if we are in a hologram, or a simulated reality, the fact is that we’re running out of oil [even if it is simulated into an artificial reality].

So does the future feature rollerskates?

Personally I feel that the real [no longer existential] threat is closer than we think and is posed by a pincer movement of ‘oil depletion’ coupled to the darker side of ‘human nature’. To this end, my memory took me back to the 1970’s and an interesting film called ‘Rollerball’ starring James Caan, which prompted this article.

William Harrison wrote the novella / short story ‘Roller Ball Murder’ which first appeared in 1973 in Esquire Magazine. It was first filmed in 1975 by Director Norman Jewison and scripted by William Harrison and was a critical and commercial success, set in a troubled 2018. I won’t mention the 2002 version as that was an embarrassing and shoddy remake [that had none of the political and philosophical dimensions that made the original story and film so interesting].

I’m not the only one who has noticed the portents that Rollerball raises -

Last week saw a couple of events which highlighted how cynical we have become towards Government. The 9th anniversary of 9/11 and the publication of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's autobiography. In his book Blair defends his reasons for committing Britain to the War In Iraq, yet a lot of the British public still think him a war criminal. Of course, the reason for the invasion, a supposed defense against WMD was never substantiated. Likewise, it seems an increasing amount of people are questioning the official version of events on 9/11. The invasion of Iraq has given people enough reason to doubt what they are being told and it has led to a general disenchantment of politics and old political systems. There is an air of conspiracy in these times we live in. We no longer seem to trust authority.

Rollerball, set in a not too distant future, pictures a cold society that is run and controlled by corporate companies. Imagine if you will Fox News Corporation governing our lives (not too hard to imagine). The corporations in Rollerball supply all the news, control all the information and tell us how to live and think. Jonathan E (James Caan) is a hero to the people as he is the star athlete of the ultra-violent Corporation controlled sport Rollerball, a cross between American Football, Rally Cross and Basketball. The Corporation have asked Jonathan E to retire from the sport as they see him as becoming too powerful and of setting too an individualistic example. Jonathan E refuses to retire from the sport leading to direct confrontation with The Corporation.

Read More

I would suggest you re-watch Norman Jewison’s 1975 ‘Rollerball’. It was spawned with a cynical eye amid a slew of other films [from that era] with conspiratorial themes in mind, such as ‘Winter Kills’, ‘The Parallax View’, ‘All The President’s Men’. Now close to 30 years on, the dark-side of human nature has not changed, but what is frightening is that were speedily running out of oil, and that readers, is the real game changer to our reality.

Intead of looking at solutions, because there are none, despite what you hear about electric cars and ethanol - our media will continue to distract the populace from this looming catastrophe, by feeding us inane stories about z-list celebrities, and reality TV as they calmly rearrange the deck-chairs as the ship’s angle starts to tilt down the slope, and all the while the bands will play on.

Our libraries and bookstores are closing making reading, and therefore ‘informed thinking’ rarer. Coupled to time constraints we all face, we haven’t the time / energy or ability to question, to debate, so we will accept what the mainstream media feed us. People are getting anxious about their jobs, xenophobia, terrorism and what Jordan is wearing so the elites in control, can plan for the chaos that will ensue with the era of ‘no oil’.

Then again I am an observer, and therefore part of the situation that is playing out around me, and so I’m contemplating taking roller-skating lessons.

So should you.

Enjoy the weekend, but start to really observe the reality you see around you. Do not accept what you are feed by the mainstream media. Even if you feel powerless when viewing the impending catastrophe coming [when the oil barrels run dry] - remember the begining of this article, the observer plays a part in the situation as it unfolds, so open your eyes and observe.

Shots Ring Out!

2011-02-07T06:47:00.001-08:00

With the closure of so many bookstores in the UK and US, pressure on the library systems and a general two-pincer attack from the ‘economy’ and ‘new technology’, publishing is having a very rough time.

The loss of libraries and bricks-and-mortar bookstores will make it harder for authors and publishers to get their works noticed by the public. This will have a terrible effect on literacy, something that worries me as reading helps people ‘think’ and remain informed.

I am therefore very pleased at the hard work, my friend and Shots Editor Mike Stotter with the whole Shots Team have been undertaking, re-vamping the Shots Ezine website. I have particular admiration for our webmasters, Tony ‘Grog’ Roberts, Gary Cane and newcomer Richard Orchard for their hard-work migrating the vast archives to the ‘new site’ and their continual updating.

Shots Blog incidentally is rated No #5 in the top Mystery / Thriller Blogs by Best Colleges Online, special thanks goes to the hard working Ayo Onatade for her continual updates, helping Mike and I out, and keeping you all posted on crime & thriller news.

If you’ve not been to Shots Ezine for a while, it’s worth a click of the mouse, to read the regular columnists Mike Ripley, Peter Guttridge, Mike Carlson, Robin Jarossi and the army of contributors that make the site so exciting.

If you are interested in contributing, or perhaps interested in advertising contact Mike Stotter in the first instance by email : shotseditor@yahoo.co.uk and if you have a news story for our social network coordinator, email Ayo at ayoonatade@yahoo.com

No Longer a Secret

2011-01-18T04:19:00.000-08:00

The more books you read, the more films you watch, the harder it is to discover something really fresh, new and exciting. It’s been a while since a film really ‘blew my socks off’, or made me ‘think deeply’. Last night I had the privilege to sit transfixed watching a film that had me hypnotized, paralyzed and made the synapses in my brain spark away like microscopic welding torches. Most importantly it made me think about life and existence, and when the credits rolled - I sat in silence, contemplating the significance of what I had just seen.

Just released on DVD in the UK, this film beat Jacques Audiard’s French prison drama ‘A Prophet’ [Un prophète] for last years Best Foreign Film Oscar. The film I am talking about is of course Juan José Campanella 2009 Argentine crime thriller ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’ (El secreto de sus ojos) based on Eduardo Sacheri's novel La Pregunta de Sus Ojos (The Question in Their Eyes).

I can not recommend this film highly enough, as it is deeply disturbing, moving, complex, multi-layered and existential in themes, which include how can we live a life when there are passions / deeds unfulfilled? And what price do we pay for these deeds done, and those not done, and what exactly is price of fixing these unfulfilled passions and deeds. As worthy as all this sounds, ‘The Secrets in Their Eyes’ is a film that makes you question your own life; and look at the ‘nodes’ and ‘junctions’ that it contains. When we reflect over our lives, we often find times and situations that defined who we are. The film allows reflection upon the randomness of existence [as well as the cruelty of circumstance] without slipping into the arms of madness. I really don’t want to say anymore as the plot has so many twists and revelations, it is a delight to see the narrative unfold toward a jaw-dropping climax[s].

If you like your films cerebral, existentialist in theme and that stay embedded in your mind like slivers of jagged glass, then watch ‘The Secrets in Their Eyes’, [even if you dislike reading subtitles].

Here’s the trailer –

And here’s word from the British Critics

Philip French in The Observer -

There is usually, and often with justification, serious criticism of the movie voted by the American Film Academy to receive its Oscar for best film in a foreign language. It happened again this year when the international critics' anointed contenders – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet – were ignored in favour of Juan José Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes. Well, Haneke's picture is certainly more original and Audiard's altogether harsher, but Campanella's Argentinian thriller is a film of subtlety, distinction and depth that in most other years would have made it appear a very worthy recipient. Moreover, it seems an apt choice to mark what Sight & Sound celebrates on the front page of its September edition as "The Rise and Rise of Latin American Cinema" over the past decade.

The film's subject is the obsessive pursuit of a brutal murder long after its significance has faded into the past, a theme familiar from movies as different as Anatole Litvak's The Night of the Generals and Sean Penn's The Pledge, both based on bestselling European novels. In this instance, the crime is the rape and murder of a pretty schoolteacher recently married to a young bank clerk in Argentina in 1974 when the country was on the brink of its dirty war and dictatorship.

Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent –

Admirers of Michael Haneke's masterpiece The White Ribbon are likely to hold a small grudge against Juan José Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes.
After all, Campanella denied Haneke the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film earlier this year. A few months on, that still seems a very perverse decision. However, film-making isn't a competitive sport. The Secret in Their Eyes is a fine film in its own right and deserves to be regarded as more than just the movie that spoiled Haneke's Oscar night.

The appeal of The Secret in Their Eyes lies in its lithe and mysterious quality. It deliberately blurs genre lines and storytelling styles. This is a murder mystery. It is also a love story, a drama about memory and bad faith and even, in an oblique way, a political allegory about 1970s Argentina. Adapted from the novel by Eduardo Sacheri, the film is primarily set in 1974 Buenos Aires, but with flashforwards to the present day and flashbacks.

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian –

At this year's Oscar ceremony, film critics congratulated themselves generously for having praised the triumphant Iraq drama The Hurt Locker, thus justifying our continued existence in the face of a million bloggers. Then we compounded the conceit by grumbling that the best foreign picture prize had not gone to either of the press favourites – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon or Jacques Audiard's A Prophet – but to Juan José Campanella's little-known Argentinian noir thriller El Secreto de Sus Ojos, or The Secret in Their Eyes. I am ashamed to recall that I, too, joined in with the general air of dismissive bemusement, without having yet seen the film, an omission now rectified.

The Secret in Her Eyes isn't, in fact, as good as either The White Ribbon or A Prophet, but it is a supremely watchable, well-made and well-acted movie with a dark, sinewy sense of history: a tremendously slick thriller from a director who has worked on American TV shows such as Law and Order and House. His movie may in fact be rather closer to boxset-quality television drama than cinema. But respect has to be paid right away to Campanella's most delirious big-screen flourish: an unbroken travelling shot that begins soaring over a football stadium during an evening match, swooping down into the stands where a suspected felon is being sought, tensely following him into the lavatories and then out on to the field itself, bringing play to a halt. It looks like a mix of CGI and a colossal real-world crowd scene, with the join cleverly concealed.

I would state for the record, ‘The Secret In Their Eyes’ to join my personal list of top crime thrillers, because it is wonderful, but a warning – like does open with a very disturbing crime.

The Golden Balls

2011-01-17T06:13:00.000-08:00

Love him or hate him, Ricky Gervais certainly skated close to the edge at The Golden Globes, proving he must have balls of steel.

Before the jokes fly

Introduction

Cringe….

Where’s the table to crawl under

Read more on how Gervais is doing his bit for Anglo-American relations

Life Goes On

2011-01-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Last night while stuck in a traffic jam for a frustrating 2 hours, making a four hour road trip turn into 6 hours at the wheel; I discovered a song on BBC2’s Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie Show that I just could not get out of my head. It was one of their weekly ‘picks’, and I only caught the tail-end of it, but man, I just could not get the song's lyrics out of my mind as it bounced around inside like an echo. The problem was I missed who the band was, catching only the tail-end.

But it left its mark in my mind like a cattle brand.

Then tonight, thanks to the internet I tracked it down, as Noah & The Whale - L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. a band I’d never heard of before, but that song is so wonderful, and due out in March on their Album ‘Last Night on Earth’ - their 3rd album

Wonderful lyrics that resonate in me, and prove the power of words with existential abandon in a world turning more crazy by the day.

Life Affirming -

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N (Life Goes On) © Noah and the Whale

Lisa likes brandy and the way it hits her lips
She's a rock 'n' roll survivor with pendulum hips

She's got deep brown eyes

That've seen it all
Working at a nightclub that was called The Avenue

The bar men used to call her "Little Lisa, Loney Tunes"

She went on almost anyone
From the hard time living 'til the Chelsea days

From when her hair was sweet blonde 'til the day it turned gray

She said :

Chorus

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

You've got more than money and sense, my friend

You've got heart and you go in your own way

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

What you don't have now will come back again

You've got heart and you go in your own way
Some people wear their history like a map on their face

And Joey was an artist just living out of case

But his best word was his letters home
His standard works of fiction about imaginary success

The chorus girls in neon were his closest things to friends

But to a writer, the truth is no big deal
From the hard time living to the sleepless nights

And the black and blue body from the weekend fights

He'd say :

Chorus

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

You've got more than money and sense, my friend

You've got heart and you go in your own way

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

What you don't have now will come back again

You've got heart and you go in your own way
BridgeOn my last night on earth, I won't look to the sky

Just breathe in the air and blink in the light

On my last night on earth, I'll pay a high price

To have no regrets and be done with my life

Chorus

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

You've got more than money and sense, my friend

You've got heart and you go in your own way

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

What you don't have now will come back again

You've got heart and you go in your own way(repeat)

2011 Wishes from Hong Kong

2010-12-30T06:43:00.000-08:00

As a new year dawns, we like to look backwards in time; so please find the opening credits to one of our favourite exploitation thrillers – Brian Trenchard Smith’s THE MAN FROM HONG KONG [1975] , which starred James Bond’s George Lazenby and Jimmy Wang-Yu. It also featured a typically retro 1970’s theme song by British Band ‘Jigsaw’. The song ‘Sky High’ was a one hit wonder.

So on the eve of a new year, enjoy this bit of 1970’s nostalgia -

See you in 2011

A Stark Winters' Reading

2010-12-22T07:36:00.000-08:00

May the Existentialist Man wish you all a happy Christmas Holiday and let’s hope that 2011 will be a good year for us all. So as I finish up, and head out of London, I must let you know what my reading plans are for the holiday.

I’ve had a very hectic year, with great fun at Crimefest, Harrogate and the thrilling time at Bouchercon San Francisco. But now the adverse weather over the last couple of weeks have been challenging due to my work in Logistics. I am looking forward to a week and a half off, with my family, and a huge stack of books and DVD’s to relax.

Last night I selected a couple of boxes of books from my review pile for my winter holiday reading. I also selected several books by Richard Stark [aka Donald Westlake] who passed away in January 2009 as books for re-reading as I have been collecting the University of Chicago re-issues, as well as the Graphic Novels The Hunter and The Outfit from Darwyn Cooke.

To show how important Westlake / Stark’s work was to the genre, Jeff Peirce published at the Rap Sheet comments from the community and my humble offering -

I first discovered Donald Westlake thanks to the movie version of The Hot Rock with Robert Redford, which led me to explore more of the Dortmunder books, as well as muttering “Afghanistan, Bananistan” to strangers from time to time. But my true love was the Richard Stark series featuring Parker. I loved the spartan style of Stark, and was overjoyed when I read Stephen King’s tribute to Stark in his brilliant novel about split personalities, The Dark Half. (“Anyway, for reasons you’d have to ask Westlake about, he eventually stopped writing novels about Parker, but I never forgot something Westlake said after the pen name was blown. He said he wrote books on sunny days and Stark took over on the rainy ones ...”) It was an apt tribute to a great man.

I only met Westlake once when we came to the CrimeScene convention in London in 2005. I was humbled in his presence, despite his modesty and gentle nature. I find it surreal that when I heard of the awful news [of Westlake’s death], the first words that came into my head were “Afghanistan, Bananistan,” which echoed as a lament for our loss. I miss his words already, as the world just darkened a tad, knowing that he is no longer with us.

So let me leave the last word to Donald Westlake on the lead up to Christmas. This paragraph is rather apt as I survey the year because the word ‘family’ should be viewed in the widest possible context -

“Christmas reminds us we are not alone. We are not unrelated atoms, bouncing and ricocheting amid aliens, but are a part of something, which holds and sustains us. As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December's bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same. Christmas shows us the ties that bind us together, threads of love and caring, woven in the simplest and strongest way within the family.”
Donald E. Westlake

Have a great holiday and thanks for reading.

If you haven’t read Richard Stark, perhaps curl up on the sofa and try one of his books, but beware, these are VERY dark novels.

Graphic © 2009 Darwyn Cooke from 'The Hunter'

If you are looking for something to read, head off to January Magazine who have their best of 2010 - plenty of great books to chose from -

Part ii
http://januarymagazine.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-books-of-2010-crime-fiction-part.html

Part i

http://januarymagazine.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-books-of-2010-crime-fiction-part-i.html

The Man from Laramie comes to Yorkshire

2010-12-10T09:24:00.000-08:00

Some great news for thriller readers, as Wyoming based C.J. ‘Chuck’ Box is confirmed to attend the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.

I’m a long time follower of Box’s Joe Pickett novels, as well as his standalones and interviewed him at Bouchercon Indianapolis in 2009 –

As unlikely as this may sound, I made the town of Laramie, Wyoming, my home for a time in the 1980s, when I was traveling around America’s West and Midwest. Fortunately for you, I’m not going to go into all of the reasons why I landed in that once lawless frontier burg. But I will say that I had a good time there and made some “interesting friends” at a bar called The Buckhorn. It was there that I met my first real cowboys, and for a time, was a rather unusual regular--a swarthy man with a clipped English accent, who drank gin-and-tonics and talked incessantly about books.

My Laramie days were still very much on my mind in 2003, when I attended my first Bouchercon, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and met C.J. “Chuck” Box. A Wyoming native, Box by then had had two novels published: Open Season (2001) and Savage Run (2002), both of which starred game warden Joe Pickett. Reading Box’s yarns took me back to my time in the West, when I wandered around the Black Hills and attended the Frontier Days celebration in Cheyenne, an event that offered me my first opportunity to ride a bucking bronco. (Yes, my time in America was filled with action!)

Read The Full Interview Here

Corvus Publishing sent me a press release as they are releasing all of Box’s work in 2011 -

Corvus today announces an unprecedented roll-out of twelve new books by the multi award-winning US crime writer C.J. Box in a single year. Corvus is set to publish one book a month from Box’s New York Times bestselling ‘Joe Pickett’ series in 2011. Together with the paperback publication of the 2009 Edgar award-winning Blue Heaven in January and a new stand-alone novel in August, the ground-breaking venture shows a major commitment by Corvus to publishing C.J. Box in the UK. It will be supported by an intensive year-long publicity and advertising campaign and major book trade promotions.

Publisher Nicolas Cheetham says:

‘Every crime writer needs a series character, and Corvus has the great pleasure of introducing Joe Pickett to the growing number of C.J. Box’s British fans. The Joe Pickett books are addictive, each instalment surpasses the last, and that’s saying something when the first book, Open Season, won nearly every crime writing award in the USA. You shouldn’t have to wait for something this good, so we’re publishing the Pickett novels in quick succession. The best way to watch a hit TV series is to buy the box set and watch them all at once… Why shouldn’t it be the same for books? In more ways than one, this is the ultimate Box set.’

Cheetham first introduced C.J. Box to the UK, acquiring three stand alone novels, when he launched the Corvus list in 2009. Box’s use of very normal everyday characters placed in extraordinary situations has already proved a big hit with male and female readers in the US. Now, his captivating, morally complex and exceptionally written series featuring Wyoming game-warden Joe Pickett should find a broad and dedicated fan base – and as Cheetham says ‘should catapult him into the major league of thriller writers in the UK.’

C.J. Box will make his first ever UK tour in July 2011 and will appear at Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate in the run up to the publication of his new stand alone book, Back of Beyond.

THE C J BOX-SET

January 2011 Blue Heaven [paperback] £7.99
February 2011 Open Season [Joe Pickett #1] £7.99
March 2011 Savage Run [Joe Pickett #2] £7.99
April 2011 Winterkill [Joe Pickett # 3] £7.99
May 2011 Trophy Hunt [Joe Pickett #4] £7.99
June 2011 Out of Range [Joe Pickett #5] £7.99
July 2011 In Plain Sight [Joe Pickett #6] £7.99
August 2011 Back of Beyond [hardback] £7.99
August 2011 Free Fire [Joe Pickett #7] £7.99
September 2011 Blood Trail [Joe Pickett #8] £7.99
October 2011 Below Zero [Joe Pickett #9] £7.99
November 2011 Nowhere to run [Joe Pickett #10] £7.99
December 2011: Cold Wind [Joe Pickett #11] £12.99

More information about C J Box is available here

Lost Classics

2010-11-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

While ploughing through my LOST DVD Box-set I came across this Mama and Papa’s classic song “Make Your Own Kind of Music” used to surreal effect in Season 2’s exploration of what lies beneath The Hatch and the mysterious Desmond, and the 108 minute push-button. I am enjoying watching LOST in a continuous sequence, as it poses many quirky questions and observations about life. I was amused [but not surprised] to see how some people have gotten totally obsessed by Lost, some even attending a cinema marathon screening in London.

Another aspect like the music references, is the plethora of literary observations and winks to many works, including of course Stephen King who is an advocate of the series, and also an influence on the writers.

"Make your own kind of music"
© 1968 written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil

Nobody can tell ya;
There's only one song worth singin'.
They may try and sell ya,
'cause it hangs them up
to see someone like you.

But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music
even if nobody else sings along.

So if you cannot take my hand,
and if you must be goin',
I will understand.
You're gonna be knowing
the loneliest kind of lonely.
It may be rough goin',
just to do your thing's
the hardest thing to do.

But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music
even if nobody
else sings along.

So if you cannot take my hand,
and if you must be goin',
I will understand.
You gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along.

A superb song to kick start anyone’s day

Library Journal Best Crime and Thrillers

2010-11-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

Considering the problems facing our libraries in the US and UK, with budget squeezing, cutbacks, and the like - I am pleased to see LJ battling on. It does seem that Minotaur Books seem to be dominating the L J Selection of the best of the genres 2010, with three nominated books in the crime fiction genre and also I am delighted to see Gayle Lynd’s remarkable ‘The Book of Spies’ selected in the Thriller List, another Minotaur publication.

All these LJ Selections would make excellent presents of Christmas gifts -

MYSTERY
Casey, Kathryn. The Killing Storm. Minotaur: St. Martin's. ISBN 9780312379520. $25.99.As Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong investigates the ritualistic killings of prize cattle, a four-year-old boy is kidnapped, and a hurricane heads straight for Houston. Riveting suspense and nifty plot twists in an outstanding series. (LJ 10/1/10)

Elias, Gerald. Danse Macabre. Minotaur: St. Martin's. ISBN 9780312541897. $24.99. The execution of a man convicted of killing a famous concert violinist draws blind violin teacher Daniel Jacobus into an impromptu investigation. Musical know-how, an intricate plot, and fresh characters elevate Elias's second series title above standard fare. (LJ 7/10)

Harris, Gardiner. Hazard. Minotaur: St. Martin's. ISBN 9780312570163. $25.99.A safety inspector probes a fatal mining disaster in Hazard, KY, that may not have been an accident. This outstanding debut boasts vivid details, insider knowledge of the mining industry, spot-on characterizations, and an engrossing mystery. (LJ 1/10)

Larsen, K.J. Liar, Liar: A Cat DeLuca Mystery. Poisoned Pen. ISBN 9781590587256. $24.95; pap. ISBN 9781590587270. $14.95.Cat DeLuca, owner of Chicago's Pants on Fire Detective Agency, is up to her eyebrows in trouble when she tries to prove a man's infidelity. Her family of police officers and busybody relatives add comic relief in this cozy debut. (LJ 8/10)

Parker, I.J. The Masuda Affair: A Sugawara Akitada Novel. Severn House. ISBN 9780727869258. $28.95.Sugawara attempts to help an abused boy, reconnect with his wife, come to terms with the death of a son, and solve a murder. Eleventh-century Japan is a perfect setting for this perceptive sleuth and complex crime novel. (LJ 11/1/10)

THRILLERS
Connelly, Michael. The Reversal. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316069489. $27.99.Two Connelly protagonists, Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) and Harry Bosch (Nine Dragons), team up in a cold case that gets stranger as more evidence is unveiled. Connelly's latest solidifies his reputation as the master of the modern crime thriller. (LJ 9/1/10)

Dugoni, Robert. Bodily Harm. Touchstone: S. & S. ISBN 9781416592969. $25.A lawsuit against a toy company becomes a gut-wrenching journey for attorney David Sloan. With an intriguing premise and plenty of in- and out-of-the courtroom action, Dugoni's legal thriller will satisfy fans of the genre. (Xpress Reviews, 5/14/10)

Jacobson, Alan. Velocity. Vanguard: Perseus. ISBN 9781593156213. $25.95.FBI profiler Karen Vail (The 7th Victim) must put her personal feelings aside to rescue the man she loves from a killer in Jacobson's best book to date. (LJ 9/15/10)

Land, Jon. Strong Justice. Forge: Tor. ISBN 9780765323361. $24.99.In tackling a case involving a Mexican slave trade with strange ties to her grandfather, fifth-generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong has to face her own O.K. Corral. Land is in top form mixing elements of a modern action thriller with the fine tradition of Western novels. (LJ 4/1/10)

Lynds, Gayle. The Book of Spies. St. Martin's. ISBN 9780312380892. $25.99.A rare book dealer is framed for murdering her husband and ends up working with a former intelligence officer to uncover the legendary Library of Gold in this thrilling spy-laden, history-rich actionfest. (LJ 2/1/10)

Click Here for the complete list of all 2010 genre favourites from Library Journal

Photo © 2010 Ali Karim
Hector DeJean – Publicity Manager Minotaur Books with Jeff Peirce of The Rap Sheet taken at the Minotaur Books Cocktail Party, October 2010 San Francisco

A Larsson Gift for the Reader in your Life

2010-11-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

Word is getting out, about the prefect gift for the reader in your family. In my case – myself, as the Stieg Larsson Millennium Series Box-Set is a must purchase and beautifully produced. This collectors set from MacLehose / Quercus consists of 4 volumes [slipcased] hardcover versions of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest as well as a fascinating fourth volume of correspondence between Stieg Larsson, and Eva Gedin, the author’s editor at Swedish publisher Norstedts, as well as many other snippets for the Larsson reader, placing the adventures of Salander & Blomkvist into context.

Also included is a huge poster featuring the international covers of the Larsson novels, this will be pride of place in many homes this winter.

Just so the US collectors are not left out; an American Edition is also planned for release shortly for the festive season.

The Existential 'Lost'

2010-11-19T04:07:00.000-08:00

I just can’t get to watch scheduled TV due to time pressure, and the complexity of modern life. So when something interesting comes along, I often have to wait for the DVD boxset, and watch the series in a long sequence. The shows that have captivated me most recently are BBC’s ‘Spooks’ [aka MI5 in the US], the re-worked / re-tooled Battlestar Galactica, and to a lesser extent the BSG Spin-off Caprica.

I have waited for some time for LOST series 6 [the final season] to be released on DVD, with the previous 5 seasons in a boxed-set; as several people have been raving about it. I waited until the boxed-set was reduced in price, and this happened this week. So I watched the first four episodes last night and became captivated by this existentially surreal TV series, with its links to the ‘weird’.

I became interested in LOST after discovering a link between a obscure quasi-SF South American novel ‘The Invention of Morel’ by Adolfo Bioy Casares. This little known novel has been referenced by the writers of the ‘Lost’ [which I discovered after viewing the first few episodes]. The introduction to this novel can be downloaded as a .pdf here]. I strongly recommend this slim mind-flipping little book, which also seems to have influenced Christopher Nolan in “Inception” and also Alain Robbe-Grillet, the screenwriter of Alain Resnais’ ‘Last Year at Marienbad’; a film that Nolan acknowledges as an influence on ‘Inception’.

What made me sit up to attention last night, was the close of episode III ‘Tabula Rasa’ which featured a tremendously disturbing song entitled ‘Wash Away’ by Joe Purdy, which like a Leonard Cohen lament has a cheerful tone, which may underpin something far more sinister. The meaning[s] for ‘Wash Away’ are ambiguous; indicating that it is either a song [or lament] about someone changing the direction of their life, or perhaps something far more sinister; a troubled soul preparing for their suicide.

The sequence that the song plays on ‘Tabula Rosa’ is very moving, and one that makes one consider ones’ place in what we term reality.

I got troubles oh, but not today

Cause they're gonna wash away

They're gonna wash away

And I have sins Lord,

but not today

Cause they're gonna wash away

They're gonna wash away

And I had friends oh,

but not today

Cause they done washed away

They done washed away

And oh I’ve been cryin

And oh no more cryin No,

no more cryin here

We get along Lord,

but not today Cause we gonna wash away

We gonna wash away

And I got troubles oh,

but not today

Cause they gonna wash away

This old heart gonna take them away

‘Wash Away’ © Joe Purdy taken from Julie Blue

Withnail and Ali

2010-11-12T06:46:00.000-08:00

I had a very enjoyable week with the highlight being the Galaxy National Book Awards, recorded at BBC Broadcasting House in Wood Lane, London on Wednesday. The only disappointment was that Award Nominated crime writers Peter James, Lee Child, Kate Atkinson and the late Stieg Larsson did not win their categories.

But it was a fun event, meeting up with Shots Editor Mike Stotter and Roger [RJ] Ellory as well many colleagues such as Oliver Rhodes from MIRA UK, Barry Forshaw and many others from the UK publishing industry as well as the world of film and TV. One of the delights was meeting and having a drink with Richard E. Grant, and we was very gracious talking about Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I [considering he must get asked all the time about this iconic film]. Grant was a good sport even posing for a Withnail and I style drinking photograph, which I find most amusing.

I’ll leave you with some of the witty dialogue from ‘Withnail and I’ -

Withnail: I've some extremely distressing news.

Marwood: I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear anything! Oh God, it's a nightmare, I tell you, it's a nightmare.

Withnail: We just ran out of wine. What are we gonna do about it?

Marwood: I don't know, I don't know. Oh God, I don't feel good. Look, my thumbs have gone weird! I'm in the middle of a bloody overdose. Oh God. My heart's beating like a fucked clock! I feel dreadful, I feel really dreadful!

Withnail: So do I, so does everybody. Look at my tongue; it's wearing a yellow sock. Sit down for Christ's sake, what's the matter with you? Eat some sugar.

See you all in San Francisco

2010-10-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Not much to say, except thanks to Roger RJ Ellory, twisting my arm at Harrogate following his winning the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Award for Crime Novel of the Year this summer [‘A Simple Act of Violence’], our bags are packed for the long journey to Bouchercon San Francisco.

Bouchercon is a great place to meet up with our friends; only a few are pictured above , so if you are around – then please say hello as we arrive early hours of Thursday Morning and fly out Monday.

So let’s leave the last word to John Fogerty and Willie and the Poor Boys of CCR -

We’ll have plenty to say on our return, so until then, why not explore Roger’s latest ‘SAINTS OF NEW YORK’.

A Big Hand to Henriksson & Forsyth

2010-10-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

Despite my badly injuring my right hand this week, [hence the bandages and white protective glove]; I thoroughly enjoyed the Specsavers CWA Dagger Awards in London on Friday. Due to my hand injury, I can only type rather slowly hence a very short piece about the event.

As a true fan-boy there were too many people there to comment and write about, however I must admit that my first ever meetings with Frederick Forsyth and Swedish actor Krister Henriksson, who plays Inspector Kurt Wallander were memorable, truly memorable. I somehow managed to remain coherent despite my inner fanboy tendencies. I did discover that Henriksson is good friends with author Henning Mankell. I also had a fascinating chat with Fredrick Forsyth. I later learned from Forsyth’s publisher Selina Walker of Transworld that when Forsyth’s debut 'The Day of The Jackal' was submitted for publication, it was rejected by all and sundry, apart from one publisher. This publisher decided to take a gamble as he liked the book, but commented it broke the 3 golden rules of thrillers [at that time] so he decided, ‘let’s take a punt’ –

# The Novel was filled with ‘matter of fact’ tradecraft ‘ - that was totally unheard of at the time [which now is a staple of thriller fiction]

# The writing style was totally ‘different’ to thrillers of that time; filled with a style that was excessively descriptive and very ‘matter of fact’.

# The novel was based around true life events, and everyone knew that the Jackal failed in the assassination attempt, hence the climax already known.

The rest, Selina Walker said ‘was history’. I admire people who take risks.

I also admire Frederick Forsyth, as when we had a chat about his work, especially his short stories from his collection No Comebacks which I read while at University; he was interested in one of his stories that still resonates in me for obvious reasons –

There Are No Snakes In Ireland is about an Indian medical student in Ireland who is bullied by the foreman at a construction site where he is trying to earn his tuition. Things go too far and the student decides to take his revenge.

There was some drama, very late in the bar, when I attempted to help Krister Henriksson try and find his CWA Dagger that he mislaid in his goodie bag. I thought ‘surreal!’; me helping Inspector Kurt Wallander on a case. When I told my wife, she rolled her eyes to heaven and said, “You do realize that he’s an actor and not really a policeman….”

There were so many key figures from the Crime and Mystery genre, to list them all would be too hard with just one hand, though special thanks go to my Editor at Shots, Mike Stotter - a true friend who helped me with my bandages.

Now I have to look after my damaged hand, for my trip to Bouchercon next week; so if you trap me in the bar, I’ll tell you more - as typing with one hand is proving a nightmare, but I do like to talk a lot about the genre!

Also - I must thank Dan Wagner for his kind words about the Book Reviewing panel that happens on Thursday, and of course check out The Rap Sheet for details on the Friday Panel entitled Inferno, and see you all next week in San Francisco!

Three Seconds and Three Book Videos

2010-10-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

I am getting very excited for my trip with Roger Ellory to Bouchercon San Francisco next week, though there is a lot of work behind the scenes for the trip, especially as I have a couple of panels to moderate, parties to attend and generally meeting my friends and colleagues in the Crime and Thriller Genre –

MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED - our favorite books
Ali Karim (M) - Chris Aldrich, Sarah Byrne, Janet Rudolph, Andi Shechter
Thursday Oct 14th 10:00am in Seacliff A

I am as ever flattered to be moderating the book reviewing panel where we will discuss our favourite books, past present and future with key critics of the genre. Remember it was at Bouchercon that word about Stieg Larsson travelled from Europe to America, so you may well discover what the critics reckon will become the big books of 2010.

And talking about Stieg Larsson [some people indicate I talk about nothing else…], I am also delighted to be moderating a truly international panel where we will discuss crime fiction set against the backdrops of Iceland, Sweden and the Middle East.

INFERNO : Where will the next great idea come from?
Ali Karim (M), Zoë Ferraris, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström, Joshua Sobol
Fri, Oct 15 11:30AM-12:30PM in Grand Ballroom C

Next week The Rap Sheet in a pre-Bouchercon special will be featuring an exclusive 2 part interview with the Swedish crime-writing duo Roslund and Hellström. As I was talking earlier this week about Book Videos, I am delighted to show you three videos revolving around the Swedish Prison Psycho-Drama that is ‘Three Seconds’ –

Video I

Video II

Video III

I hope to see you in San Francisco next week, and those of you who can’t make it, check out The Rap Sheet next week as the exclusive Roslund and Hellström interview goes live on Wednesday and Thursday, during which they tackle the dark subjects that make their fiction so scary, so challenging. Trust me, when I say that they push crime fiction into the very darkest corners of the human condition, making you reflect upon your own value system.

Photo of Roslund and Hellström (c) 2010 Magnus Jönsson

The Making of Mankell

2010-10-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

I look forward to meeting Swedish actor Krister Henriksson on Friday at the CWA Specsavers Dagger Awards in London, where he is nominated for an award for his portrayal of melancholic detective Kurt Wallander. I see that the BBC Series featuring Kenneth Branagh as the depressively troubled inspector has its second series currently airing on US TV. Personally I prefer the original Swedish version from YellowBird Productons featuring Henriksson.

Meanwhile The Independent has a lengthy feature with Geoffrey Macnab including an interview with Henning Mankell, the creator of Kurt Wallander –

Speaking from Sweden, where he has been attending the Gothenburg Book Fair, Mankell ponders the reasons for the extraordinary global popularity of Nordic detectives. "Naturally, I've been thinking about it," he tells me. "One [reason] must be pure coincidence. The second is that I guess I worked as a locomotive in some ways. My success has been an inspiration for others. You remember the tennis player Björn Borg? Before that, Sweden had very few good tennis players. After that, we suddenly had a hell of a lot. Maybe that is one kind of explanation."

The main subject of my interview isn't Larsson or Björn Borg. Nor is it the psychology and unlikely appeal of the morose Detective Kurt Wallander. It is Mankell's ongoing attempts to make an ambitious TV drama and feature film about his father-in-law, Ingmar Bergman – a project interrupted in surreal fashion by the Israeli army.

Earlier this summer, Mankell was aboard the Gaza-bound aid flotilla that was attacked by Israeli forces. To his consternation, part of the screenplay for his new film about Bergman was confiscated by the Israeli soldiers.

"Whatever I do, I am always working on something," says Mankell, explaining how he happened to have the Bergman screenplay in his possession at the same time as he was taking part in a mission to bring aid supplies to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade. "When everything was stolen and confiscated, they [the Israeli troops] also took the manuscript," he recalls. "What the hell are they supposed to do with that?"

Four months later, the Israelis still haven't returned Mankell's screenplay. He jokes that the Israelis must have thought the screenplay – called Crisis in deference to Bergman's directorial debut – was written in code. Mankell very much doubts that the young commando soldiers who took the screenplay even knew who Bergman was.

Mankell, now 62, has spent many years living and working in Africa. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was a political activist, campaigning against apartheid in South Africa and the US war in Vietnam. Being aboard the Gaza flotilla didn't scare him at all. "I am not an afraid person," he blithely states. "In all the years I have lived in Africa, I have had some quite terrible experiences. What I still think about today is how very stupidly they [the Israeli army] behaved. If they really had had the ambition just to stop the flotilla, they should have done something with the rudder and propellers," he reflects on the incident, which left nine flotilla members dead, saw him arrested and provoked a huge international row.

The crime writer's outspoken opinions about the Middle East have been well chronicled. He likens the plight of the Palestinians to that of black South Africans in the apartheid era and expresses his confidence that the Gaza blockade will eventually be broken. He has no intention of letting up on his activism. "I am a very dangerous man because I know that we managed to crush the apartheid system in South Africa without violence. This is also the idea here. Sooner or later, people in Israel must understand that this is an unbearable situation."

Read the full feature here

A Plum Job on American Dragon Tattoo

2010-10-06T01:09:00.000-07:00

The news from the US production team behind David Fincher’s interpretation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo thriller just gets better and better. We reported about Daniel Craig joining the cast, now we hear Christopher Plummer has signed up to play Henrik Vanger. Former action star Sven-Bertil Taube played the role of Henrik Vanger in the Swedish language original. Though I’m not usually too excited about Hollywood remakes of European originals, but after viewing ‘Let Me In’ last week, my opinion has changed.

Though it’s not all good news as the production currently in Sweden has had a set back as Rooney Mara, who is cast as Salander has been reported [but not confirmed] as injured in Stockholm last week -

25-year-old Mara seriously injured her shoulder, according to the Aftonbladet daily, while preparing for the role of Salander in the Hollywood version of the first of Larsson's Millennium trilogy books. Filming has now been delayed for several days while the actress works to recover from her injury sustained while training for the role.

Mara has been in Stockholm for several weeks preparing for the task of playing the gothic hacker heroine Salander, including learning to ride a motorbike, fight and to build up her muscle strength. She has furthermore been undergoing classes to learn how to speak English with a Swedish accent.

Mara has been spotted undergoing rehab training at the private Sophiahemmet hospital in Stockholm to recover from her unfortunate mishap, according to Aftonbladet."She injured herself during the preparations for the role so seriously that she is unable to record any scenes at the moment," said an unnamed person who had seen the actress at the hospital to the newspaper. However, Malte Forssell, the project leader for filming in Sweden told the newspaper he had no knowledge of the injury. In addition, a representative for Sony Pictures told US entertainment programme Access Hollywood that the reports of Mara's injury were "not true". The US film team have identified a number of locations around central-eastern Sweden for the film. Södermalm on Stockholm will featured strongly, with the production using Mariatorget as a base.

Sweden is all a-go-go with the Hollywood Team landing to film their version of Larsson’s internationally lauded crime thriller –

So far, sites in central Stockholm and the nearby archipelago have been confirmed, as have locations in Uppsala in eastern Sweden, according to the TT Spektra news service."They're going to remake building facades and streets on parts of Drottninggatan. It's supposed to look like it did in the 1960s. Therefore, we've given permits to place work trucks and such on the street," Karin Åkerström of the Uppsala police told TT. The filming is likely to cause some traffic headaches for Uppsala residents, with bus service on Drottninggatan set to be rerouted for at least a month. In addition, an estate outside the town of Katrineholm, located about 140 kilometres southwest of Stockholm, is a likely location for filming scenes in the Hollywood remake of the first installment of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.

According to the Katrineholms-Kuriren, the Hofsta säteri estate, with roots back to the 1300s, will serve as character Henrik Vanger's compound on the outskirts of the fictional town of Hedestad in "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.""We're preparing for filming to start in October, but it's not 100 percent finished," Malte Forssell, the film's Swedish producer, told the newspaper.Film crews are also set to descend on locations in Hälsingland province in eastern Sweden, including Bollnäs, as well as Gävle and Söderhamn. A number of scenes will also be shot in central Stockholm and at three locations in the city's archipelago.

Read More

Lee Child No 1 with a Bullet

2010-10-05T10:26:00.001-07:00

It’s Groundhog Day again; Lee Child releases a new book and it hits No 1 in the UK. The interesting factor is that ‘Worth Dying For’ is Lee’s second Jack Reacher novel as earlier this year we had ’61 Hours’ which rocked the house.

So as Jack Reacher escapes the perils of winter in 61 Hours……..

There's deadly trouble in the wilds of Nebraska...and Reacher walks right into it.First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it's the unsolved case of a missing eight-year-old girl, already decades-old, that Reacher can't let go.The Duncans want Reacher gone - or dead. And it's not just past secrets they're trying to hide. They're awaiting a secret shipment that's already late - and they have the kind of customers no one can afford to annoy. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they're just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world.

Click Here to read the first chapter and Click Here to download to Kindle

If you planning to come to Bouchercon San Francisco next week remember Lee is to be honored with the Distinguished Contribution to the Genre Award. Spotlight event: Lee in conversation with Robert Crais!

Chris Fowler’s Cause Celeb

2010-10-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

I know many of you enjoy the work of Christopher Fowler as much as I do. I am always amazed at his prolific work ethic, with novels, short stories, anthology editing, films, and reviewing, well it looks now he’s branching out onto the stage.

For those who haven’t sampled his work - Fowler won the British Fantasy Society [BFS] Best Short Story Of The Year 1998, for Wageslaves. In 2004, The Water Room was nominated for the CWA People’s Choice Award, Full Dark House won the BFS August Derleth Novel Of The Year Award 2004, and American Waitress won the BFS Best Short Story Of The Year 2004. His novella Breathe won BFS Best Novella 2005. His short story The Master Builder became a CBS movie starring Tippi Hedren and Marg Helgenberger entitled Through The Eyes Of A Killer, while Left Hand Drive, won Best British Short Film of 1993.

His fiction details urban decay, and is usually classed as horror, or [dark] general fiction with some science fiction / fantasy elements. Fowler's first four novels set his backdrop of London as the source of his storytelling. He debuted in 1988 with the novel Roofworld, which details a story of rival gangs who live on the rooftops of London, fighting arcane battles while the city sleeps. His second novel, Rune, tells the tale of a disparate group of Londoners who band together to prevent the devil's return to earth via modern technology. Red Bride chronicles a modern marriage made hell by a couple who cannot trust each other - even though their lives finally come to depend on it. While Darkest Day is the story of the occult which was later re-worked in his ongoing Bryant and May Detective series.

I was delighted to have lunch with him a few weeks ago at a literary function when he let me know about his branching out onto the stage -

'Celebrity' by Christopher Fowler
Starring Victoria Jeffrey, Neil Burgess, Mark Martin & Lucy Clements.

Nov 23 - Dec 4 (Nightly 7:30pm, Matinees Sat 4:00pm, No perfs Sun, Mon)
The Phoenix Artist Club,1 Phoenix Street, London, WC2H 0DT. (Off Charing Cross Road next to the Phoenix Theatre) Tickets: £10
To book telephone 020 7836 1077 or email: maurice@phoenixartistclub.com
(+50p CC bookings) Tickets are limited so book today!

‘Celebrity’ is part of the London Fringe Festival

Synopsis:
Once there were stars. Now everyone wants to be a celebrity - how did we get from Cary Grant to Jedward?

It’s 1968. Helena runs Albion PR in London’s Wardour Street, looking after ‘difficult’ stars. She hires 19 year-old Billy to teach him the secrets of the business. Saving the reputations of her clients involves an outrageous amount of lying and cheating, but neither Helena nor Billy realize this innocent era is about to come crashing to an end…

‘Celebrity’ is based on the life of a real London PR agent. Only the names of scandal-struck celebrities will be changed to protect us from libel!

I admire Fowler, as I really enjoyed his memoir about growing up with books in ‘The Paperboy’, though I wonder what Bryant and May would think about his new venture in the West End….

Ralph M. Vicinanza passes away

2010-09-30T01:08:00.001-07:00

One of my favourite novellas is ‘Sandkings’ by George RR Martin, so I was upset with this sad news as reported by Locus that Martin’s literary agent passed away -

Legendary literary agent Ralph Vicinanza, 60, died without warning in his sleep on September 25, 2010 at his home in Old Brookville NY, from what was apparently a cerebral aneurysm. For over two decades, Vicinanza earned worldwide recognition for his vision in opening the international marketplace for US authors, predominantly in the science fiction and fantasy genres.

Born August 8, 1950 and raised in the Bronx, Vincinanza graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School and later studied at Fordham University, graduating from City College of New York. He started out in publishing at the Scott Meredith Agency, working with authors including Norman Mailer, Carl Sagan, and Philip K. Dick, and quickly became known as “Mr. Foreign Rights” for his work in creating a global marketplace for American books. He opened the Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd. agency in 1987, and was soon working with an ever-expanding roster of names: Stephen King, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, George R.R. Martin, Terry Pratchett, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Silverberg, Connie Willis, Robin Hobb, to name a few.

Calling time on our Libraries

2010-08-25T06:03:00.000-07:00

In these times of austerity I am saddened to hear that another blow to literacy is coming, and approaching fast. The library system in the UK is under threat [like in many other countries] as reported today in The Bookseller –

Library campaigner Tim Coates has warned between 600 and 1,000 libraries could close over the next 18 months amid a media blitz on last week's declining library visit numbers.Last week The Bookseller reported figures from the Department of Culture Media and Sport that revealed the proportion of adults visiting a library decreased from 48.2% in 2005/06 to 39.4% in 2009/10.The story has been picked up by the mainstream press over the past 24 hours with them also reporting on Ed Vaizey's library support initiative, which proposes cutting costs by giving libraries to communities to run amid other measures.

This is very sad, in these days of anxiety the need for a refugee [such as only a library can provide] for enquiring minds – has never been so important.

The BBC reports that maybe the solution is that the library system needs to evolve –

Meanwhile, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has announced plans to help the library service take a more central role within local communities.

Ten submissions have been chosen from proposals put forward by local authorities.

"A strong library service, based around the needs of local people, can play a key role in our ambitions to build the Big Society by providing safe and inclusive spaces for people to read, learn and access a range of community services," Mr Vaizey said.

He said he wants people to think "imaginatively about where libraries could be" as there are a number of closures being threatened across the UK.
A pub in the Yorkshire Dales is currently being used as a library after the villagers of Hudswell bought it to save it from closing.

The books are from North Yorkshire County Council but the lending is run by the volunteers.

Other suggestions that are about to be trialled in parts of the country are to have library services in supermarkets, shops or run by volunteers.

In Doncaster three libraries have been earmarked for closure and five are under threat in Lewisham.

The whole library closure issue is close to my heart, as my memory reminds me of the little boy who sought refuge and enlightenment in the 1960’s and 1970’s sitting in the library, and having the same access to knowledge as the kids from wealthy families. I recall my parents being bemused by my weekly trips to the library [returning with carrier bags filled with knowledge, and enlightenment about the confusing and dangerous world that surrounded me]. My library card was my access point to the world, and at that time my most treasured possession.

Technology may well be at play here; as the attention spans in our children becomes eroded, and the Soundbite and Facebook updates dominates the extent of their curiosity. The term ‘use it or lose it’ comes to mind, and it looks as if we’re losing it.

Photo © 2009 Ali Karim - Steven T Murray [aka Reg Keeland] signs Stieg Larsson books at Bouchercon Indianapolis 2010

I have seen the future, baby: it is murder

2010-08-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

Call me Cassandra, but everyday, the drip, drip, drip of bad economic news is worrying me; especially what is happening within publishing and literacy. I understand the need to make fiscal cuts to reduce the borrowings in the UK, but cuts of > 25% and more in UK library budgets are worrying. As a child, our family lived on a very tight budget and the library was a refuge for me, a place of escape and a place to help a developing mind understand the world.

It seems that many writers feel the same.

From Library Journal [US] annual report

"I'm a writer because of libraries," asserted best-selling author Dennis Lehane. "Libraries say to working-class and poor kids that they matter, that they can read the same books as the children of the hedge fund managers."

Jeanette Winterson at Herald Scotland agrees –

The author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, speaking in Edinburgh at an event to celebrate the 25th birthday of the publication of her most famous book, said she is worried about future young readers, who, unlike her when she was growing up in Accrington, Lancashire, may not have access to literary classics such as Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.

Winterson said that as a child her one escape from her oppressive home life was to go to her local library.

Yesterday she said she would “start at A and read Jane Austen and move to B and read the Brontes and go on from there”.

Winterson, 50, said she had been dismayed to visit her old library in Accrington to find it stocked with DVDs rather than books, and said that the less well off, less well-cared for children would not have the same experiences as she did. She said she also feared for libraries under the “Cameron cuts” in Government expenditure and the future of literature as it changes in the digital age.

I know I ‘bang the drum’ about the importance of reading, and how oppressive regimes use illiteracy to control populations – but in these days where the march of technology combined with the economic woes we face, form a perfect pincer-movement against literacy.

We need people of influence, who understand the importance of reading to speak out, like Jason Pinter pointed out in his recent article at The Huffington Post –

As Lev Grossman states in his TIME profile of Franzen, the quotes were taken somewhat out of context, and Franzen did in fact thank Oprah during his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards. Because after all, in our sound bite, knee-jerk culture it was easier to cherry pick the juicy quotes rather than try to understand that, at the time, Franzen was a relatively obscure writer coming to terms with suddenly being a literary post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio. And so now Franzen appears on the cover of TIME, is profiled in Vogue, and has riled up the literary community in a way that would make you think he'd spent the last nine years GTL'ing on the Jersey Shore rather than penning his next novel.

So why the animosity? Why the jealousness? Why are people taking potshots at Franzen rather than celebrating the recognition of a writer who is being put out there, front and center, to represent the importance of the written word, to tell people that his profession is worthy of recognition alongside the most important issues of our time?

The sad truth is, with few exceptions, writers are not recognized by the mainstream population or media. My guess is one hundred people could identify Snooki over every one who could identify Toni Morrison. The celebration of being famous for being loud and sloppy has usurped being famous for the act of actually creating. For once, someone who has created something, who is one of us, who not only knows the value of a book but has devoted his life to them, is being presented to society at large as our representative. And some people scorn this, as though they would prefer writers as a whole to remain anonymous, who seem to believe there is some odd nobility in remaining chained to the same desk chair in which you write your books. Or they would rather feud over who deserves what and why until the whole literary culture is fragmented into tiny crumbs that can be ignored and swept under the carpet.

Read More from Jason Pinter Here

When the written word is only available in digital platforms, and our libraries closed, bricks and mortar bookstores closed, then the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” will become a chasm that no one can traverse.

Then it will be too late, but we’ll all be singing this song below – Unless you do something!

Talk about books to your friends, colleagues, contacts, be seen reading a book, always have a book on you, pass books to friends - Reading is important in making people think for themselves, not be 'directed' by forces beyond our control.

All together now –

The Future © Leonard Cohen

Give me back my broken night my mirrored room, my secret life

it's lonely here, there's no one left to torture

Give me absolute control over every living soul

And lie beside me, baby, that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex

Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture

Give me back the Berlin wall

give me Stalin and St Paul

I've seen the future, brother: it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions

Won't be nothing

Nothing you can measure anymore

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold

and it has overturned the order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

You don't know me from the wind you never will,

you never did I'm the little jew who wrote the Bible

I've seen the nations rise and fall

I've heard their stories, heard them all

but love's the only engine of survival

Your servant here, he has been told to say it clear,

to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going any further

And now the wheels of heaven stop you feel the devil's riding crop

Get ready for the future: it is murder

Things are going to slide ...
There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code

Your private life will suddenly explode

There'll be phantoms

There'll be fires on the road and the white man dancing

You'll see a woman hanging upside down

her features covered by her fallen gown

and all the lousy little poets coming round

tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson and the white man dancin'

Give me back the Berlin wall

Give me Stalin and St Paul

Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima

Destroy another fetus now

We don't like children anyhow

I've seen the future, baby: it is murder

Things are going to slide ...

When they said REPENT REPENT

The Future © Leonard Cohen

Trapped in Inception, Marienbad & Morel’s Invention

2010-08-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

It’s amusing how patterns form around the paths that our conscious, as well as our subconscious mind weaves when we think about specific things in detail. I spend a huge amount of my day ‘thinking’ as well as ‘reading’. Recently I spent time with my friend Roger Jon Ellory at the Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival. At one point we discussed why we [and many others] read so many books, be it fiction, fact or combinations of both, such as Roger’s CIA / Serial Killer conspiracy thriller A Simple Act of Violence. Roger’s answer was “Because in the inquisitive, is a need to try and understand what reality is actually about?” Good answer I thought – because at my core I am an analytical chemist, and someone who just loves detective stories, so that would explain the inquisitive part of my nature. The problem then is something that has bothered me for sometime, and something that Martin Rees [Lord Rees of Ludlow, astronomer royal and master of Trinity College, Cambridge] summed up disturbingly at his stint presenting the 2010 BBC Reith Lectures –

Some of the greatest mysteries of the universe may never be resolved because they are beyond human comprehension, according to Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society.

Rees suggests that the inherent intellectual limitations of humanity mean we may never resolve questions such as the existence of parallel universes, the cause of the big bang, or the nature of our own consciousness.

He even compares humanity to fish, which swim through the oceans without any idea of the properties of the water in which they spend their lives.

“Just as a fish may be barely aware of the medium in which it lives and swims, so the microstructure of empty space could be far too complex for unaided human brains.”

Rees’s thesis could prove highly provocative to other scientists, especially those who have devoted their careers to understanding such mysteries.

Read More from The Times Archive

That is a depressing thought, that perhaps we will never truly comprehend what existence is actually all about, but then again the more you read, the more mysterious existence becomes. It still does not put me off trying to decipher what I see around me. I know at times I can get obsessed when an idea, piece of art, or an image engages. And that neatly sits right at the core of a film that has lead me along a surreal path this week.

With my family away in Dublin, I took some time on Saturday to spend with my elderly parents. Later that day, I took myself off to the cinema to view Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION. To say that the film blew my socks off is an understatement.

If you peruse my Facebook page you can see exactly how deep this particular rabbit hole of mine really is. While viewing INCEPTION, I was reminded of the imagery of the 1961 Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s impenetrable French New Wave Existentialist classic ‘Last Year at Marienbad’. When I got home and searched the internet, I found I was not alone to see the connection –

Like Alain Resnais’ aggressive mind loop, “Last Year at Marienbad,” “Inception” revolves around memories of a past love, which may or may not be “true.” Memory is fallible, dreams are malleable. Charmingly, Nolan has said he’d only ever seen that feat of bold parallel editing after completing this James Bond-scaled movie, but he felt all the other films that had been influenced by “Marienbad” had influenced him. What other influences rest lightly on Nolan’s shoulders?

Though Nolan stated that –

"Everyone was accusing me of ripping it off, but I actually never got around to seeing it. Funnily enough, I saw it and I’m like, Oh, wow. There are bits of “Inception” that people are going to think I ripped that straight out of 'Last Year at Marienbad.' Basically, what it means is, I’m ripping off the movies that ripped off “Last Year at Marienbad,” without having seen the original. It’s that much a source of ideas, really, about the relationships between dream and memory and so forth, which is very much what 'Inception' deals with. But we have way more explosions."

The idea had been seeded in my mind, and so I followed it back in time. The curious thing was that [apart from ‘Last Year at Marienbad’] I had also admired Alain Resnais’ startling documentary ‘Night and Fog’ [original title ‘Nuit et brouillard’] due to my interest in modern history and my curiosity about the [limitless] depths of man’s inhumanity to man. While tracking back Resnais’ writer on Marienbad - Alain Robbe-Grillet, I soon discovered that Grillet appears to have been influenced [or even inspired] by an obscure quasi-SF novel ‘The Invention of Morel’ by Adolfo Bioy Casares. This little known novel has been referenced by the writers of the TV Series ‘Lost’. I quickly found this slim novella / novel remains in print and is available, so I quickly ordered it. If you want to follow me down this rabbit hole - the introduction can be downloaded as a .pdf here. I strongly recommend this slim mind-flipping little book.

Then the really weird coincidence appeared, considering my enthusiasm from Inception, Last Year at Marienbad, The Invention of Morel, Lost – while researching I discovered that Alain Resnais directed a film with Marienbad star Delphine Seyrig, entitled “Muriel ou le temps d'un retour”, literally translated as “Muriel, or the Time of a Return”. This film was released in 1963 as ‘Muriel’ in the UK and US. The peculiar aspect is that my wife of 20 years is named Muriel; and I was born in 1963, the same year that Resnais’ film ‘Muriel’ was released – spooky!

OK – I admit I have read far too much Philip K Dick but when one gets trapped in the riddle that is Marienbad, perhaps it does things to one’s mind, but then again, like Leonardo DiCaprio’s screen wives in Shutter Island and Inception, perhaps reality is more mysterious than the alarming views of existence that these films present.

But to prove that I haven’t lost my sense of humour and that my sanity remains intact – click here for an amusing spoiler from Inception that has done the rounds on Twitter – Warning click if you’ve seen Inception [especially the last frame].

I strongly recommend the films Inception, Last Year at Marienbad as well as Shutter Island, if you like mind-bending movies, as well as the weird novella / novel ‘The Invention of Morel’ by Adolfo Bioy Casares, but a warning - they do mess up your mind. As we may be fish swimming in a reality we don’t comprehend, that’s to be expected I guess, according to Lord Rees of Ludlow.

But don’t worry, you’re probably dreaming.

You Are What You Read

2010-08-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon this interesting piece from John Meacham at Newsweek, which opens with this interesting observation about books and friends –

A friend I thought I knew well startled me the other evening with a sweeping literary judgment that led me, for the first time, to question how much I truly understand him. The subject was mysteries and thrillers. “Oh, I can’t stand books like that,” he said, flatly, leaving no room for argument.

My failure to detect such a colossal character flaw before that moment bothered me, but then—reminding myself that we are always to look outward, toward others, focusing not on the devices and desires of our own hearts—I realized that I should reach out constructively rather than simmer silently.

And since argument from example is often the most effective means of persuasion, I thought I would offer a summertime defense of the mystery-thriller genre.

Now like Meacham, I’ve attended many dinner parties and encountered people [mainly men], who discount reading fiction as “….a waste of time as it is all made-up….” I usually counter the argument by explaining that reading fiction helps us in our daily lives –

[a] In work by enhancing the imagination, which in turn helps resolve the constant flow of business problems that many of us have to confront and overcome.

[b] Understanding the random nature of life and also the motivations within people we interact with by giving greater empathy, especially due to reading fiction [this has been proven by New Scientist]

[c] Seeing and observing the world through another person’s eyes and their value system.

[d] Making one inquisitive and not accepting the world as it is presented by a narrow-ranged [and directed] media.

The reason why I so much enjoy attending literary events such as Bouchercon, is that I am with people who value books and reading, unlike those who enjoy the trivial aspects of our lives, such as what car we drive, the brand label of our suit or what celebrity z-lister of the week is doing today.

While some people [who read novels] use the old chestnut of dismissing reading thrillers as ‘down-market’ and ‘irrelevant’ compared to reading ‘literary fiction, however Meacham makes some interesting points -

Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot. Some mysteries are thrillers and some thrillers are mysteries, but not all mysteries are thrillers, nor are all thrillers mysteries.

It has long been intellectually fashionable to dismiss such books as inconsequential. Thomas Jefferson once joked that he defeated insomnia by trying to write such a tale.

The appeal of both genres for me is precisely the appeal of any other piece of fiction, from Jane Austen to Peter Taylor, or George Eliot to John Cheever. The narratives give us a glimpse, however fleeting, of what William Faulkner called the “old verities and truths of the heart…?love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” Nero Wolfe is no Elizabeth Bennet, nor is Miss Marple another Dorothea Brooke. But Wolfe and Marple—and James Bond and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher—are characters at work in a dark and confusing and fallen world, a world in which murder and betrayal and treason are constant threats and frequent foes. One would like to think of such novels as fantasy, but the fundamental forces with which they deal are all too real.

As dangerous and arbitrary as lists are, here is what I am going to suggest that my agnostic friend (note I forbore referring to him as heretical, or faithless) explore: Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series (Archie Goodwin, who is forever “hot-footing” it up or downtown, is worth the price of admission); anything by P. D. James (her poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh is a model for all repressed men). I am indebted to my friend and colleague Anna Quindlen for recently putting me onto Denise Mina, who writes tough novels about Glasgow; next door in the British Isles, Benjamin Black, a pseudonym of John Banville’s, writes about a compelling 1950s Dublin pathologist with—surprise!—a problem with the drink. Tana French has written three novels, and the first two (In the Woods and The Likeness) are, to me, quite superior to the newest one that is now out, Faithful Place.

In this summer of Lisbeth Salander, no discussion of such books would be complete without a stop in the colder European climes. I like Henning Mankell and just lately began to read Arnaldur Indriðason, whose fictional universe is set in Reykjavík, Iceland.

On the thriller front, my taste runs to the provincial. Daniel Silva’s first novel, The Unlikely Spy, is a masterpiece, and I love his series about Gabriel Allon, an Israeli assassin with a passion for art restoration. The aforementioned Jack Reacher collection, by Lee Child, is great fun. David Ignatius writes brilliant novels about the CIA, and I am an admirer of Charles McCarry’s, especially his Shelley’s Heart. In recent years I have become a fan of Alex Berenson’s nascent CIA series about the post-9/11 world.

Read Meacham’s full piece from Newsweek here

In a world where people lie about what novels they have read, while the ranks of the ‘proudly illiterate’ seem to be massing around us; writers and readers need to make a stand at those who really mean that ‘reading is just too difficult and requires too much cognition’, hence why the knob for reality TV and z-list celebrity culture is thriving around us. Beware the dumbing down of our culture; it’s exactly what the men behind the curtain want. The real threat is from ‘The Blind Commissioner’ and the illiterate and under-educated mob.

Totalitarian regimes burn books, as it helps them prevent the population from developing the cognitive skill of thinking for themselves; and thus more malleable to directed propaganda.

I don’t give a shit if you read on a screen, or on paper, what matters is that you read, because you are what you read. Next time you’re at the dentist, doctor, hairdresser, check out who reads the junk magazines and who reads the novel while waiting.

Top Photo © 2009 Ali Karim “Sunday Morning at Bouchercon Indianapolis Book Giveaway”

If you’re coming to San Francisco

2010-07-31T04:38:00.000-07:00

I was in a dilemma about coming to Bouchercon San Francisco, as it is door-to-door over 20 hours from London, and apart from the cost; I really couldn’t spare the time between work, writing, reading and family commitments. Countering these issues were the memories of previous Bouchercon’s I’ve attended in Las Vegas in 2003 and the last two where I traveled with my friend Roger [R.J.] Ellory, Baltimore in 2008 and Indianapolis in 2009. I also haven’t seen Jeff Peirce the incredibly hard-working editor of The Rap Sheet since 2008 [though we’re in regular email and phone contact]. Even so, the idea of traveling to the West Coast of America, as wife said with puzzlement - “You want to travel 20 hours to the other side of the world, to sit in a hotel bar and talk about books for five nights and then travel 20 hours back…….that is not logical’. Of course she’s right, but so much of my life defies logic – like the eureka moment last week at The Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Festival in Harrogate. When Roger Ellory came off the podium after winning the Harrogate award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, he whispered to me “listen, we gotta go to San Francisco, we always have so much fun……”

Then I thought about how Roger and I first met, after I was one of the first people to review his debut novel ‘Candlemoth’ back in 2003. The surreal thing is the plot revolves around two friends - black guy and a white guy who traverse America…..

Shedding Light on sHuTtEr iSlAnD's Ending........

2010-07-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

I know I am completely obsessed by Dennis Lehane’s novel sHuTteR iSlAnD as well as the Martin Scorcese film adaptation [and Christian De Metter’s Graphic Novel]. I am glad that despite everyone saying how close the film followed Lehane’s narrative, there was [in my opinion] a major difference – one contained in the very last line that Teddy Daniels / Danny Laedis / Leonardo DiCaprio utters at the conclusion. I’m very glad that it’s not just me that has deliberated the intrinsic significance in those lines added by the screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis.

And for those who didn’t get it -

David Cox at The Guardian also deliberates the significance of the ending and twists at the end of both novel and film

SPOILER ALERT – PROCEED AT YOUR PERIL

Shutter Island is no impenetrable art-house enigma: it's an old-fashioned noirish thriller that ends with a massive plot twist. As such, you might have thought it would have been easy to understand. In fact, since the film was released in March, the blogosphere's been awash with debate about what actually happens in the final scene.

Martin Scorsese's film is based on a best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane. The book's protagonist, Teddy Daniels, who's apparently a US marshal, turns out to be Andrew Laeddis, a demented killer. He's a patient in a mental hospital who's been encouraged by his psychiatrist to act out his delusion in the hope that this will dispel it. The role play fails: after a brief recovery, Andrew relapses into insanity and is therefore taken off to be lobotomised.

The film's been described as faithful to the book, and many cinemagoers seem to have assumed that it's telling the same story. Leonardo DiCaprio's Teddy does indeed turn out to be Andrew. However, before he falls into the clutches of the lobotomists, he utters a line that isn't in the book. "This place makes me wonder," he asks, "which would be worse – to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?"

For some, this is to be seen as no more than the rambling of a madman. Others, however, take it as meaning that Andrew's only faking his relapse. His unusual treatment's made him aware of the terrible thing he's done: guilt has therefore engulfed him, and he's deliberately getting himself lobotomised to escape it.

These two versions of what the film means could hardly be more at odds. Yet Scorsese hasn't chosen to indicate which is the right one. Nor has DiCaprio. Perhaps the latter isn't sure himself.

He found his role traumatising, and told an interviewer: "I remember saying to Marty, 'I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing.'"

Lehane is credited as one of the film's executive producers, so you might think he at least would know what's going on. Sadly, even he doesn't seem wholly certain: he explains that he stayed out of the scripting process. When pushed, he tries to reconcile DiCaprio's gnomic inquiry with his own original story. "Personally, I think he has a momentary flash," he suggests. "To me that's all it is. It's just one moment of sanity mixed in the midst of all the other delusions."

Cox speaks to Scorsese's psychiatric adviser, Professor James Gilligan of New York University, who gives the backdrop of 1950’s America and the Psychiatric Institutions that sHuTtEr iSlAnD is carved from.

Read the full piece here

And don’t forget Dennis Lehane is one of the special guests as next years Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival – in 2011 in Harrogate England.

The Genius that is Jim Steranko

2010-07-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

A little while back following a sort out of some boxes of old comics; I ended up spending an afternoon re-living my childhood reading classic Jim Steranko comics I uncovered carefully wrapped in Mylar Bags. Since a kid, I have loved the surreal and existential artwork of Steranko, which fitted into the late 1960’s [and early 1970’s] zeitgeist, the James Bond imagery, the off-kilter reality and the wiff of science fiction entering our reality.

Today in The Guardian, media-talking-head and comic book fan Jonathon Ross interviews Jim Steranko at the eve of Comic Con –

Jim Steranko. Many of you will not have heard his name before, a dreadful truth that troubles me every day. If he were French they'd have his statue in parks, Italian he'd be on their stamps, Japanese and he'd be doing commercials for videogames and fermented soya bean soda. But in the English-speaking world, we still woefully undervalue these master storytellers who choose panels and word balloons to work with.

To my fellow enthusiasts he is a Genius, a Wizard, a Master, a God. A one-of-a-kind, self-promoting hipster/huckster with the finest hair I've ever seen on a man of his age. He is also one of the handful of pioneers who can be said to have genuinely revolutionised the art of graphic storytelling. Glimpse his work and, before you even know exactly how he's doing it, you instinctively know it is different – better – than the norm. You'll also be hopelessly hooked. For life. Non-comic addicts might think I exaggerate – but step away from my hyperbole, and allow yourself a little time with the examples we have printed here. The work should speak for itself.

Ross’s piece and interview is most insightful, and also probes some of ‘eccentric’ tales of Steranko, such as the rumours that he doesn’t sleep –

JR: I know you are health-conscious, which comes from your work in escapology and so on. What's an average day for you now?

JS: I eat one meal a day. I believe everything you put in your body is toxic – I eat raw fruits and vegetables. A very small portion. I live on the side of a mountain and run up it with my dogs every night. I begin working after I have dinner at eight o'clock, and work till about nine in the morning. Then I turn in until about 11 o'clock.

JR: Two hours sleep? Conventional wisdom has it that you need sleep . .
.
JS: I am proof the body can get by on two hours' sleep.

JR: You know how mad that makes you sound?

Read More Here and Click Here for some of Steranko’s wonderful Artwork

If you’ve never read Steranko – this is a good place to start

ITW 100 Thrillers makes the Washington Post

2010-07-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

I was delighted when David Morrell and Hank Wagner asked David Montgomery, Larry Gandle and I to contribute to the ITW 100 Thrillers collection. I have been friends with Larry and David for many years as all three of us are big Thriller Fans and Reviewers for various print and online media. Over the years we have been judges for various literary awards, such as the Barry Awards, The Thriller Awards, The Gumshoe Awards. The CWA Daggers and others. I must admit, the 'inner fan-boy’ in me was very flattered to find my name rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in the world of Thriller Fiction.

The photo above is of the three of us thriller reviewers relaxing at the inaugural Thrillerfest held in 2006 at The Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix Arizona.

Over at Shots Ezine, we have a competition running to give away three copies of the ITW 100 Thrillers book, as well as a bonus essay by Thriller Writer Shane Gericke available for download – Click here for details

I am delighted to see that the ITW 100 Thrillers is getting a lot of media attention; as anything that can help combat illiteracy must be applauded, and Thrillers are a good way of promoting reading and getting people to read books.

Michael Dirda at The Washington Post has an excellent review / feature –

With his very first novel, David Morrell created an iconic character, now as famous as Tarzan or James Bond: "His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing there by the pump of a gas station on the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky." So begins Morrell's electrifying and morally unsettling "First Blood." Some of his other books include the horror classic "The Totem" and one of the most exciting Ludlumesque thrillers I've ever read, "The Brotherhood of the Rose."

Hank Wagner may not write novels, but he certainly knows modern horror, fantasy, mystery and science fiction. He's the co-author of "The Complete Stephen King Universe" and of "Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman." His articles have appeared in publications ranging from Cemetery Dance to Mystery Scene to the New York Review of Science Fiction.

Both novelist and critic are members of the six-year-old International Thriller Writers organization. Its goals "include educating readers about thrillers and encouraging ITW members to explore the creative possibilities of the form." To this end, the group decided to compile this annotated guide to essential thrillers. Enjoyable in itself, the book also offers 100 possible answers to that perennial summertime conundrum: What book shall I pack for the beach?

"Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads" opens with the Greek legend of Theseus and the Minotaur and, by fudging the supposed cutoff date of 2000, closes with Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Each of the chosen titles -- one book per author -- is accompanied by a brief biographical note, followed by a two- or three-page essay of reminiscence, analysis and appreciation by a member of ITW. Among the essayists are Lee Child, Sandra Brown, James Grady, R.L. Stine, David Baldacci, Katherine Neville and F. Paul Wilson.

No one could seriously argue with the recommendations up to the mid-1970s. Here are Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" (1860), Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901), John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (1915), Eric Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" (1939), and even what is, arguably, the single most famous adventure short story of all time, Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924). Moreover, the editors' definition of the thriller is a capacious one that embraces horror (Bram Stoker's "Dracula," 1897), science fiction (H.G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds," 1898) and romantic suspense (Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca," 1938).

Read More Here

More Information on ITW 100 Thrillers including the competition and free .pdf Download of Shane Gericke’s look at John Sandford’s RULES OF PREY is available here

The Existential Wizard behind Money

2010-07-15T01:28:00.000-07:00

I love joining-the-dots about unrelated events, conspiracy theories and trying to see exactly who are 'the men behind the curtain’. Sometimes my mind does wander and I get puzzled about things. As a businessman, the financial crisis, which still continues, has made me scratch my head, and fuel anxiety. Frank Baum’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’ [1900] has always haunted me since seeing it preformed as a musical play when I was a child. I have always believed it to be an allegorical fable based on exposing the ‘truth’ behind what we term money. These rumours have circulated for many years, even the BBC investigated these claims -

It's unlikely its young fans will have been thinking about deflation and monetary policy.

But the story has underlying economic and political references that make it a popular tool for teaching university and high school students - mainly in the United States but also in the UK - about the economic depression of the late 19th Century.

At a time when some economists fear an onset of deflation, and economic certainties melt away like a drenched wicked witch, what can be learnt from Oz?

The 1939 film starring a young Judy Garland was based on Lyman Frank Baum's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. It told of an orphaned Kansas girl swept by a tornado into a fantastical world, but who wants to return home to her aunt and uncle.

Thinking the great Wizard of Oz can grant her wish, she sets out to meet him with her beloved dog, Toto, joined by a scarecrow, a tin woodman and a lion.

Baum published the book in 1900, just after the US emerged from a period of deflation and depression. Prices had fallen by about 22% over the previous 16 years, causing huge debt.

Farmers were among those badly affected, and the Populist political party was set up to represent their interests and those of industrial labourers.

The US was then operating on the gold standard - a monetary system which valued the dollar according to the quantity of gold. The Populists wanted silver, along with gold, to be used for money. This would have increased the US money supply, raised price levels and reduced farmers' debt burdens.

Read More Here

Then there was all this talk about the links behind Pink Floyd’s 1973 ‘The Dark Side of The Moon’ and the film version of The Wizard of Oz, what always made me smile is that the only track from that album released as a single was ‘Money’. The worrying thing is that Floyd’s last studio album was ‘The Division Bell’ which has the icons from Easter Island as its cover motif, and we all know what happened to the people who lived on Easter Island.

This is the opening what is termed ‘The Dark Side of Oz’ – if you want to view the whole film – click here

We live in strange days, indeed, strange days indeed.

Beware “The Blind Commissioner”

2010-07-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of my time reading, not just the Crime Fiction and Thrillers that line the walls and floors of my house[s], but also writings about the world [and reality] I see around me. I enjoy the weekends catching up on my reading, and “joining the dots” of the stories within the mainstream [and non-mainstream] media feeds. I like to see what is really happening, not just what someone or something has ‘spun’ out of reality. So much of the world is presented by the media using miss-direction, double-speak and down-right lies - especially in these troubled times.

What we should all fear most, in these days of economic turmoil, is the danger of the ‘mob’ and the growth of xenophobia stirred up by the extremists [both extreme right and left]. It was Anglo-Irish Politician and Philosopher Edmund Burke who stated that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The danger of the mob first presented itself to me when I was a young child in school, and my fear of people / mobs [especially the under-educated, or manipulated] continues today. It also contributed to my love of reading. People who read books [especially fiction] in contrast [to non-readers] tend to think for themselves, hence why totalitarian regimes burn books. The theme of book burning was raised in Fahrenheit 451, but it was an earlier Ray Bradbury short story entitled ‘The Crowd’ that put my fear of ‘crowds / mobs’ into context. I soon realized that the mob needed to have ‘someone’ in authority turning a blind eye, for their evil to succeed. That someone could be called the ‘Commissioner’.

Today I enjoyed [though ‘enjoyed’ is perhaps the wrong word in this context], a blog post, by the talented writer John Baker, entitled ‘They are selling postcards of the hanging’. The reason for my interest is that it offers insight into one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs ‘Desolation Row’, which in turn reflects the nature of evil. It is strange that I’ve enjoyed John Baker’s work for many years, first meeting him a decade ago via both newsgroup rec.arts.mystery and then at a Dead-on-Deansgate event in 2001. So it was little surprise that he too understands the nature and meaning behind Dylan’s song ‘Desolation Row’ and the evil that it mentions in its surreal lyrics. You need ‘The Mob’, as well as ‘The Blind Commissioner’ [who turns ‘a blind eye’ thus allowing the Mob to rule and for the ‘postcards’ to be taken]. Such evil by mob, augmented by a ‘Blind Commissioner’ occurred in Duluth in 1920, and in November 1938’s Night of Broken Glass and many, many times since. Before you say that, those were in the past - just look at what is happening in Iran, as the mob are alive and holding rocks [not ropes] while the Commissioner remains sightless.

John Baker writes –

On the 15th June 1920, three black circus workers were attacked and lynched by a mob in Duluth, Minnesota.

Rumors that six African Americans had raped a teenage girl gave rise to a mob of five to ten thousand locals.

The circus workers were snatched from the police station and hung from their necks on a corner of the street. Pictures were taken and a postcard offered for sale. The Chicago Evening Post reported, “This is a crime of a Northern state, as black and ugly as any that has brought the South in disrepute.”

No one was ever convicted for the murder of the circus workers, Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton.

A physician’s examination of the teenage girl subsequently found no evidence of rape or assault. Dylan’s song, Desolation Row, from the album Highway 61 Revisited, opens with a reference to the hangings, which took place in his home town 20 years before his birth.

Click Here to read John Baker’s full piece – BUT a warning – it contains the infamous photograph that became sold as the postcard of the hanging.

I loved the way My Chemical Romance re-worked Dylan’s Desolation Row for the closing credits of ‘Watchmen’. When I saw the film for the first time, I smiled as one of my all time favourite songs closed the film version of one of my all time favourite graphic novels.

Before you say, hey, that incident was a long time ago, and we have a black man in the White House now…. yada, yada, yada. My response is simple as my concerns are not leveled at segregated America [as it was then], but the wider world. The mob mentality is truly scary, and to think that little has changed when you hear of the terrible things that happened in Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Bosnia, Darfur, East Timor…and the list of ‘officially’ condoned ‘mob violence’ is endless. The Mob now grabs rocks instead of rope in Iran. It makes one despair.

To read more of the terrible incident in Duluth on 15 June 1920, and Dylan’s links to Desolation Row from The Independent – click here

The warning from Desolation Row "Someone says, 'You're in the wrong place, my friend, you better leave'." has haunted me for many years, as being an outsider, I’ve felt its sting on my psyche many times, and heard those words spoken with hatred, and all the while the commissioner remained blind. I just hope ‘the commissioners’ in Iran see the light, because some things are just plain evil, even a blind man can see that.

Some of you might wonder why the mob, the blind commissioner or extremists are of such concern? I would reply that in times of economic crisis [such as ours], there is real danger for us all. Even EC Comics warned us with a 1952 story ‘The Patriots’ by Al Feldstein. This tale showed these dangers vividly where a Crowd turns into a jingoistic Mob that misdirects patriotism into murder. I respect writers such as Shirley Jackson, who warn us about the dangers of Mobs. She published her novella ‘The Lottery’ [1948], a chilling work that was banned in South Africa at the time; and one that resonates strongly for those of us concerned at the barbaric ‘stoning’ punishment in Iran and other repressive states. The Mob again has their blind Commissioner, to allow the unspeakable to happen.

My day was enriched today thanks to John Baker making me ‘think’ as only a writer can. If you haven’t discovered the work of John Baker – click here and here because his writing is well worth exploring.

And remember what Edmund Burke said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up

The Choice is always ours

Dennis Lehane talks to MovieWeb

2010-06-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

A great interview with Dennis Lehane coinciding with the DVD release of Shutter Island is presented at MovieWeb -

This is the first film that you are on board with as a producer. Can you talk about that experience working with everyone on the film?

Dennis Lehane: Oh, it was great. I just wanted to be involved as a producer because, at that point, I didn't have Shutter Island for several years and gotten it back, gotten the rights back, and I wanted to protect this a little bit. I wanted to be involved with really good people and I wanted to have conversations with those really good people about talent and that was sort of the limit of my contribution to things. The secret of my success is refusing to get involved with anybody who doesn't have a certain level of quality. I just won't do it. I have no problem walking away and leaving a bunch of money on the table. It doesn't bother me.

There was a quote from you that I read where you said that you wouldn't want to adapt one of your own novels because it would be like operating on one of your own children. What is the process for finding a screenwriter for one of your books? Is it like finding a spouse for one of your kids then?

Dennis Lehane: No, I think it's more like finding a really good contractor to work on your house. They're going to be in your shit for a few months (Laughs) and it probably could be aggravating unless you go with someone you really respect. The process started with, when Clint Eastwood and I chose Brian Helgeland for Mystic River, we were 100% in agreement on. We chose him based on what he had done with L.A. Confidential, which was just an unadaptable book and he adapted it. Once you see the gifts on display with really great adapters, just step out of the way, is my feeling. I am not a really good adapter. I think I am a good novelist and I think I'm a good teleplay writer and I think I'm even a decent screenwriter, but I'm not a good adapter. It's a different skill set, it's a different art form and the people who are good at it, man, all you do is sit back and take your hat off. I don't know what else to say about them. They're just a different breed.

Helgeland is one of the best. His adaptations are usually phenomenal.

Dennis Lehane: Oh, yeah. And Laeta Kalogridis killed this, Shutter Island. She just nailed it. I could see in Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard's script for Gone Baby Gone, the same thing. They just got it, whatever it is that I couldn't have gotten. I couldn't do it with my own work. I probably could do it with somebody else's, because you have perspective but when I try to do my own work, I just lack perspective.I saw one of the DVD clips and you were talking about how when Leonardo DiCaprio came in, he was asking you all these questions about the character that even you couldn't answer.

What was it like to work with someone who is such an immersive actor like Leonardo is?

Dennis Lehane: Well, for the writer, a lot of times, we've kind of moved on and he's living in that present tense because he's playing the character. When he's asking me those questions, it was about five years after I had written the character, it was like, 'Wow. If only it was five years ago,' you know what I mean? Or maybe I just should've read my own damn book before I came to meet him. Yeah, he had that same kind of - him and Sean Penn have this real uncanny intelligence, in terms of their characters. I can't describe it, you just have to see it. You see the results on the screen, so it's not that hard to believe.

Click Here to read more from MovieWeb

The Inspiration behind Larsson’s Salander

2010-06-04T11:27:00.000-07:00

I know I have become fascinated, perhaps obsessed by Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Today I read with great interest The Telegraph’s article by Lasse Winkler [editor-in-chief of the Swedish book trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel] when he met with Larsson and discussed his [then] unpublished trilogy in an interview –

It all started one sunny day in late September 2004, on a park bench outside the Gothenburg Book Fair. John-Henri Holmberg, a Swedish publisher, sat down next to me and told me about three manuscripts he had just read, written by a friend of his named Stieg Larsson. They would, he said, make their author the most famous Swedish writer in the world, “bigger than Henning Mankell”.

At that time, Mankell had conquered almost every market around the world, achieving international sales of around 20 million copies. Larsson, who was then working as an editor on an anti-racism magazine called Expo, hadn’t published a single word of fiction.

If it had come from anyone else, I would have laughed off Holmberg’s claim as a piece of far-fetched fantasy. But my faith in his judgment, and the fact that this Larsson character had waited until he had three manuscripts ready before even approaching a publisher, intrigued me. So the next day, I called Larsson and asked if he would let me interview him.

A few weeks later, on October 27 2004, we met in the Stockholm offices of Expo. The fading light of day seeped into a room furnished with a simple table, two plain chairs and a lamp. Larsson, a 50-year-old chain smoker, looked exhausted. After his death, much would be written about his indefatigable work rate, his superhuman capacity to write for hours without a break. It was clearly taking its toll. The only known fruits of his labour were, at that time, his exposés of racist and fascist organisations for Expo, a publication he had helped set up in 1995 in the wake of a spate of neo-Nazi murders. This work had drawn him into the public eye and provoked death threats.

Larsson lived with his long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson, but his name was not on the doorbell of their flat and his address was not listed in any records or databases. The couple had several established routines whenever they left home: sometimes they would leave by the front door; at other times, they went out the back, via the basement. Larsson had a habit of glancing over his shoulder frequently, as if to check if anyone was following him.

Not long before our meeting, the police had informed him that photographs of him and Gabrielsson, as well as information about their address, had been found in connection with a murder investigation they were conducting in Stockholm.

I began our interview by inquiring about this aspect of his life, asking if he took any precautions to protect himself. It was a mistake. “Sure,” he snapped back, “but I’m hardly going to tell you about them, am I?”

Read More Here from The Telegraph

Further interviews are here –

Erland Larsson speaks about his son Stieg and his work

Christopher MacLehose speaks about securing the English Language rights

And where my obsession started in December 2007

All my Larsson related posts at The Rap Sheet are archived here

Photo © 2008 A Karim – Christopher MacLehose and Erland Larsson after the ITV-3 Crime Thriller Awards at Grosvenor House London

Worth Dying For

2010-05-25T10:06:00.001-07:00

Recently Shots and The Rap Sheet sat down with Lee Child to discuss his Novel 61 Hours. Now Child’s English language publishers [Transworld] reveal the title and jacket images for his next novel.

In the UK, Transworld will publish Worth Dying For on 30th September 2010 as a Bantam Press hardback. It will be the fifteenth novel in Child’s series featuring maverick ex-military policeman, Jack Reacher, and the first time he has published two books in the same year.

At the end of his latest book, 61 Hours, published in the UK in March this year, Lee Child left readers in limbo. Was Reacher dead or alive? The British edition ended enigmatically – ‘To be continued, 30/9/10.’

Today, Transworld reveals that Worth Dying For will be another Jack Reacher novel but readers will have to wait until 30th September to find out how Reacher survived a massive underground explosion which was the culmination of 61 Hours.

Dennis Lehane on film adaptations

2010-05-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

The Edmonton Journal has a fascinating article on authors and their feelings about film adaptations of their work with insight from Dennis Lehane –

When author Anne Rice heard that Tom Cruise had been cast as Lestat in the 1994 film version of Interview with the Vampire, she went ballistic, complaining that he was "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler."

It's to Rice's credit that she ate crow after seeing Cruise's performance in the finished film, to the extent of buying a two-page advertisement in Daily Variety, praising his work and apologizing for her earlier diatribe.

However, bestselling author Dennis Lehane is still annoyed about Rice's behaviour. He wrote Shutter Island, and has no complaints about Martin Scorsese's hit film version. Two of his other novels -- Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone -- also became critically acclaimed films, and again Lehane was hugely supportive of what directors Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck did to those two books.

"What I hate, I truly hate -- and I always did, way before I became a published author -- is someone who runs out in front of cameras, talking about how unhappy they were about adaptations of their works," Lehane says. He cites Rice's notorious complaint about Cruise playing Lestat. "Like we're talking about a character of Hamlet's level!" he adds with a snort.
"We're talking about a vampire who ends up in a rock 'n' roll band in the second book, if I remember right. This is not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, (so) shut up! It reminds me of the guy coming out of the whorehouse, complaining he didn't feel loved."

Lehane has his allies. Nicholas Sparks, whose love stories are a continuing gold mine for Hollywood, doesn't complain. In fact, he sometimes finds the result an improvement. Mario Puzo had the good grace to admit that his bestseller, The Godfather, had been elevated to a work of art by director Francis Ford Coppola.

Read the Full Piece Here

But let’s leave the last word to Lehane -

Lehane was recently asked whether selling screen rights to a book is like giving a child up for adoption. His reply was succinct: "No, it's like giving it up to a babysitter. That's exactly what it is."

People are constantly asking him for his opinion on what Hollywood "did" to one of his novels. He figures Hollywood hasn't done anything; "my books are still there." He figures authors who complain aren't drawing the proper distinction.

"A book is an apple, and a movie is a giraffe," he says whimsically. "They don't have much more in common than that. They have basic similar narrative DNA, but they're two separate entities. I have no problem looking at Jaws, the book, and Jaws, the movie, L.A. Confidential, the book, and L.A. Confidential, the movie. They're two different entities and two different beasts."

Caprica – A Singularity in the Making

2010-04-21T05:08:00.000-07:00

How do you follow something as cerebral and exciting as Battlestar Galactica? Well it seems writer / producer Ronald D Moore & Remi Aubuchon and his colleagues decided to go retro with some future-chic providing a glimpse of how machines could become sentient with the existential spin-off TV series Caprica.

Anyone who has followed Vernor Vinge’s 1993 Singularity Theory or is concerned at what will happen with the upcoming Singularity [as long as Mankind does not destroy itself before the singularity occurs], will find Caprica totally captivating.

So with Episode 9 of Caprica ‘End of the Line’ signaling the mid-season one climax, what can we make of Battlestar Galactica’s bastard daughter?

The Guardian reports

While Caprica, like BSG, now has established a large and deep narrative, last night's a cliffhanger episode arguably lacked the punch of BSG's finest mid-season finales. That said, the show still appears to have enough momentum and unanswered questions to fuel a full season.

Caprica has wisely, I think, managed to keep the BSG homages and portents to a minimum so far, focusing instead on building a layered universe with a smart retro-future aesthetic that meshes BSG storytelling and Mad Men style, with the CGI small-scale and non-intrusive. Viewers have to admire the care taken in the world-building, such as the intricate slang and rituals created for the "foreign" Tauron characters. It is familiar yet other-worldly.

There have been plenty of present-day analogies and weighty themes thrown into the mix. Already we've seen sexual politics, moral grey areas, and techno-espionage aplenty, but the depiction of Caprican society has been particularly on the nose. Theoretically it's got it all, embracing the unlimited potential of technology, but something is rotting inside. It's spinning out of control: a world where some would rather flee into virtual reality or join terrorist cults than participate in meaningless conspicuous consumption.

Eric Stoltz as Daniel Graystone has emerged as the real gem in the cast. BSG's producers clearly like conflicted scientists (see also Gaius Baltar), and Stoltz excels at playing a complex genius driven by such grief and hubris that he creates the downfall of his entire race. We saw one particularly gripping character moment in episode eight, when Daniel tried to provoke his daughter into betraying her presence in the U-87 by playing on her childhood fears of fire.

Read More from The Guardian

While Time Magazine stated –

I've really liked this show, even as the ratings have struggled to recover from an initial drop-off. While Syfy continues to tout the show's performance with the ever-important younger demo, I've watched the weekly tally hover right around a million viewers. The numbers for Friday's cliffhanger show 1.1 million viewers, with a 0.5 rating for adults 18-49 (tied for a series high). Yes, the season premiered right up against the Haiti telethon, and the hyper-serialized nature of Caprica has meant that it's harder for newbies to access the series if they missed week 1 or 2. I, for one, think the show would do a whole lot better if it aired on a different night of the week.

But I digress. The show's producers have clearly been building up to last Friday's cliffhanger, and Syfy has now pulled it off the air until the fall, in hopes that a larger audience learns to love the show by then. You can find most of the episodes in their entirety right here, and if you are one of those few who catches up with it during this indefinite “hiatus,” here's betting that you fall into one of two camps: The viscerally bored or the intellectually stimulated.

The gulf between these extremes illustrate's the show's ratings problem.

Caprica may be a Battlestar Galactica prequel, but it's a show that up to this point has almost been devoid of action. It's an insulated bubble of a thing, about two dead daughters, two fathers who aren't quite getting the whole mourning process, and the virtual avatars of these two girls who continue to roam through a futuristic virtual space. (I've written truckloads of detailed copy about the show over at Techland, and you can find all the detailed analysis here, along with an interview with the show's co-creator here). There was a brilliant moment in an early episode where the series all but came to a standstill in a black box, with three avatars looking at each other. In one corner was the virtual representation of a living teenage girl. In another corner was the avatar of Zoe Graystone, who created a standalone virtual replica of herself prior to her death. And in a third corner was the avatar of another dead girl, constructed after her death in a botched experiment. She has no memories of her real-life alter-ego. She is a wandering CG construct, existing unto herself.

Confused yet?

Yes, all of this is quite trippy, but that's part of the show's allure. It keeps scrambling up our conventional notions of humanity, reality and morality. In these three avatars, we see a sliding scale of humanity, between the real girl in a fake world, the echo of a real girl in a fake world, and then the fake replica in a fake world. All three avatars can function, and feel emotion, but they represent very different things. So who's real, and who's not? As Zoe's avatar is downloaded into a robot in the real world, does she owe any allegiance to Zoe's father? After all, technically Zoe is dead. This is Zoe II, with a mission all her own.
For all the series' flaws, they have successfully given us a character who is neither human nor robot. But something in between. That's pretty remarkable.

Now I know that Jim hasn't been covering this show intimately, so it's a little hard for me to bring everyone up to speed. And I guess that's not really the point of this post, anyway. I merely wanted to give a shout-out to a show that I think has turned a rather significant corner. In last Friday's "mid-season finale," each and every storyline exploded (or imploded, depending on how you look at it). Daughters betrayed their fathers, characters attempted suicide, cyborgs that were locked down in computer labs have now broken out, and are engaged in high-speed car chases. Even a sweet-natured high school teacher, who did little more than sit around and talk for the majority of the first season, is involved in a car bombing.
I'm going to refrain from giving away all the twists and turns, and instead encourage you to simply catch up with Caprica while it's away on break. Give some heady, smart sci-fi a try. As someone who thinks that A.I. is the best sci-fi film of the last decade, I have been thoroughly riveted by Caprica, and all the moral implications of its artificial life. If you could bring a dead loved one back in the form of a hologram, would you? Should you? What does it mean, to cheat death and escape mourning? And what would your loved one's replica owe you? Heck, what is love? Is it the exchange of emotion, or a one-way affair?

Read more from Time.com

While we wait for the second slug of Season One of Caprica, you can catch up with more information via the SyFy Channel in the US or Sky One in the UK. If you’ve missed Caprica, the extended pilot is available on DVD for US Here and UK Here while the second part of season one of Caprica is planned for Autumn [if you live in the UK], or Fall [if you live in the US] 2010.

Personally speaking, I’m rather excited to see what happens when human material gets integrated into the machine, because with Caprica, we are taking a glimpse into the future; as long as we don’t destroy all we survey.

What is your OBJECTIVE?

2010-04-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

I love independent SF / Horror movies that have an existential angle; films that divide an audience; films that require thought, attention and imagination such as PRIMER, The Jacket, The Butterfly Effect [I and III]. I was fortunate to view on DVD a remarkable film last week entitled THE OBJECTIVE, and this movie has settled into my brain ever since.

So what’s THE OBECTIVE about?

Forces in the front lines of the war on terror find themselves battling a foe more deadly than a bomb in this thriller. Ben Keynes (Jonas Ball) is a CIA operative based in the Middle East whose is keeping an eye peeled for a potential crisis a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Keynes is checking some readings from a spy satellite when he discovers what appears to be a massive cache of radioactive material in the mountains of Afghanistan. Worried that Al Qaeda guerillas are constructing a nuclear weapon, Keynes arranges to join a reconnaissance mission headed to Afghanistan, using the cover story that he's trying to ferret out an international terrorist leader. Keynes and the soldiers head into the mountains with a local, Abdul (Zindune Chems Eddine), serving as both translator and guide. Abdul warns Keynes and the soldiers that their intended destination is considered sacred ground by Afghans, and that they're risking their lives by trespassing. Keynes pays him little mind, but he and the soldiers soon discover that Abdul's warnings were well founded, and that a supernatural force lurks in the mountains more dangerous than any band of terrorists.

Read More from MovieWeb

Co-Written and Directed by Daniel Myrick, best known for his work as the co-writer / Co-director of 1999’s independent smash-hit movie The Blair Witch Project; Myrick’s THE OBJECTIVE is a far deeper and complex movie which can be interpreted in several ways [as to its meaning and the bleakness of its final reel]. Some people hated the movie, which I put down to that fact many people today watch films and expect the film-team to have laid out the plot and resolution out completely; wheras, THE OBJECTIVE requires the viewer to concentrate in order to understand and interpret what they see. Like the ulimate objective of life and death, THE OBJECTIVE offers no clear answers, except [possibly] one, if you care to concentrate.

I strongly recommend you take the time to view one of 2009’s most interesting movies – and as it's on DVD, it is even more intriguing on a second viewing – But a warning; THE OBJECTIVE is really scary.

THE OBJECTIVE - TRAILER

An interview with Daniel Myrick is here

Video of The Objective’s reception at last years Tibeca Film Festival –

Beware The Ides of March

2010-02-27T06:44:00.000-08:00

As a student I studied Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, and being named Ali, growing up in the 1960’s / 1970's meant that when it came to cast the school production; my deeply-racist drama teacher cast me in the role of Cassius; as one of my [many] nick names growing up in those days was ‘Clay’. I used to have to fight a lot of wankers & bullies, being the only black kid in the school. Many wankers wanted to fight me due to Mohammed Ali [aka Cassius Marcellus Clay] being in the spotlight a lot; and being a sucessful black man was something new for many people to accept. I am glad I was named Ali; like in the Johnny Cash song 'A Boy Called Sue' - if you know what I mean.

I digress as ever.

The soothsayer’s warning line from Julius Caesar ‘Beware the Ides of March’ seems somewhat apt to me today, as on March 12th - two of my favourite contemporary novels hit the silver screen on the same day in the UK. Fortunately I’ve already seen ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ in a press screening last year, so my ticket for Dennis Lehane’s sHuTtEr iSLanD is organized.

I for one do not fear ‘The Ides of March’ – in fact I am rather looking forward to them as both novels like a punch from Ali, float like butterflies, but they linger in the mind like a sting from a bee

The Absurdity and the Friendships

2010-01-31T09:31:00.000-08:00

Having spent the morning reading the Sunday Newspapers, I can cheerfully report that the world appears as bleak as ever.

One must remember that the reality that surrounds you and what we refer to as 'the World' is absurd.

This is a coping mechanism often credited as originating from the French school of existential writing from writers such as Voltaire, Camus, Sartre et. al. But many other writers such as J. G. Ballard had the same thoughts. Ballard was quoted as saying –

"The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction."

That’s why I read so voraciously.

So to close the weekend, I thought I’d leave you with an existential joke -

Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist, is sitting in a cafe in Paris. “Can I get you something, Monsieur Sartre?” says the waitress.
“Coffee, please,” he says. “Sugar, but no cream.”
She leaves him to think, but returns a few moments later. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We have no cream. Should I make your coffee with no milk instead?”

Taken from the Sunday Times – read more here

Personally, the best coping mechanism in the grim and absurd reality that confronts us, is the shelter that our family and friends create. I am priviliged to have a wonderful family and some very dear friends - a few pictured above.

“One day like this a year would see me right!”

2010-01-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

I have someone close who is feeling pretty low currently.

No matter how I try and explain that we have to take solace in the ‘little victories’ in our day - to make ourselves happy. Life is totally relative and the way I cope with the ‘downs’ is to realize how I lucky I am, and that we should always use our good memories to make us remember the good times; rather than look at what’s currently ‘wrong’ in our line of sight.

Happiness is not a constant, but a ripple that vibrates along our journey that is our life, a life unique from everyone else.

I adore a couple of lines from Guy Garvey’s Elbow song ‘One Day Like This’ that seems to put this into persepective.

“So throw those curtains wide!
One day like this a year would see me right!”

There are many great times in my life that I re-visit in my memory when I feel low, and these moments or ‘days’ I re-explore, to make my world seem right.

This Video of Guy Garvey and Elbow singing with the BBC Concert Orchestra [and the Radio 3 choir of the year Chantage] celebrates how we have to smile when we feel low -

One Day Like This by Guy Garvey of Elbow

Drinking in the morning sun
Blinking in the morning sun
Shaking off the heavy one
Heavy like a loaded gun

What made me behave that way?
Using words I never say
I can only think it must be love
Oh, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day

Someone tell me how I feel
It's silly wrong but vivid right
Oh, kiss me like the final meal
Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight

Cause holy cow, I love your eyes
And only now I see the light
Yeah, lying with me half-awake
Oh, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day

When my face is chamois-creased
If you think I'll wink, I did
Laugh politely at repeats
Yeah, kiss me when my lips are thin

Cause holy cow, I love your eyes
And only now I see you like
Yeah, lying with me half-awake
Stumbling over what to say
Well, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day

So throw those curtains wide!
One day like this a year would see me right!

Here’s Guy Garvey putting things into perspective so why not take a wider look at your life, and throw those curtains wide and celebrate what’s good, and when you have a good day, store it in your memory for when you might need to retreat from a difficult day.

I use Books, Films & Music to distract my mind from all that is wrong in my ‘line of sight’ – and to be perfectly fair, I could wallow in ‘sadness’ at what’s wrong.

I chose not to.

I look at what’s right and what’s good in my world; but at times, like my friend, it is very hard to smile – but if you don’t – there lies the path of madness.

Dennis Lehane on Robert B Parker

2010-01-20T09:15:00.000-08:00

There are numerous celebrations of the life of Robert B Parker in newsprint and the web. Suffice it to say, he influenced many writers of crime fiction, specifically PI Fiction with his Spenser and Hawk series. I read many of his novels, including Poodle Springs, the Chandler work and have to state that Robert B Parker was a legend to many of us.

I will leave the last post to fellow Boston writer Dennis Lehane -
“He cast an enormous shadow over all of us, and that gets obscured because of how ridiculously successful he was, ” said Lehane in a WBUR interview on Tuesday. “He was the king of Boston. We were all kind of princes at best.”

Lehane followed in Parker’s footsteps with his own Boston-based crime fiction, including novels such as “Mystic River.” Lehane says the hero of Parker’s three dozen “Spenser” books, the uniquely tough private investigator, changed the way private eyes were featured in fiction. Parker created a character who was tough and fearless but also sensitive, well-read and devoted to his longtime girlfriend.

“There was private eye fiction before Parker and private eye fiction after Parker,” said Lehane. “And you can literally split it into those sort of epochs. It’s BP and AP.”
According to Lehane, Parker also revolutionized the genre by incorporating topical issues and humor.

“He was really, really funny, and that was huge,” said Lehane. “For me and my friends, who were 12, 13, 14, to pass those books around because they were so hard to find. It was all about that Boston sense of humor.”

Lehane says he used to haunt old bookstores to find Parker’s fiction, and met the late author at a book signing when Lehane was 19.

“I still have a vision of him crossing Cambridge St. towards the store,” said Lehane, “and being, ‘that’s Robert. B Parker.’”

Read and Listen to Dennis Lehane talking about Robert B Parker here from wburg.org

The Horror of Haiti

2010-01-14T09:27:00.000-08:00

While surveying the catastrophe confronting the people of Haiti today, I can not but recall a line from Dr Hannibal Lecter, taken from Thomas Harris’s “Red Dragon”, when he talks to Detective Will Graham about the death of the sleazy journalist Freddy Lounds -

Photo Left (c) 2009 Ali Karim 'Better Days' at Bruce Springsteen in London's Hyde Park (Ali Karim, Nick Stone and Stav Sherez)

"Tell me, Will. Did you enjoy it? Your first murder? Of course you did. And why shouldn't it feel good? It does to God. Why only last week in Texas, he dropped a whole church roof on the heads of 34 of his worshippers, just as they were groveling for him. He wouldn't begrudge you one Journalist."

I’m not going to get all Richard Dawkins, despite having a great deal of respect for his work as a fellow scientist. But when a tragedy of the magnitude of the earthquake that struck one of the poorest countries in the World, Haiti; one does have to speculate about our existence and its meaning, if there is any?

I didn’t know anything about Haiti until I read Nick Stone’s blistering debut ‘Mr Clarinet’ several years ago. A friendship developed that lead me to discover more about this land, and what I found was not pleasant, in fact it made me realize how much dignity the people of this land have, considering how they are forced to live.

Nick Stone has taken down all the content on his website, and placed an international appeal to help the people who survived the earthquake, but who now are in dire need of help.

If you are human, and have any feelings I would urge you to do whatever you can HERE. I know money is tough all round, but in Haiti, it is sheer hell and anything, anything, anything you can do to will help.

I saw this picture at The Financial Times, and I am not ashamed to say I cried, looking at the childs face, I cried.

I donated here to UNICEF - it took 2 minutes online, and they emailed back -

"Your support will help to ensure that the rights of children in Haiti are not forgotton - including their right to be healthy.UNICEF has been present in Haiti since 1949.

We are working to provide clean water, shelter and medical help to children and families affected.

UNICEF relies entirely on voluntary contributions and receive no funding from the United Nations budget. "

Time is running out, I urge you to help in whatever way you can –
Nick Stone has links here

Thank you for reading – and if you have faith – Pray for the People of Haiti – if you don’t have faith – send money please.

As a Thank You – please find a short article set in Haiti by Nick Stone originally published in 2006 by Shots and in the US in Crimespree Magazine

I love Smith & Wesson by Nick Stone

The plot for my debut novel, Mr Clarinet didn’t come to me all at once. I got it in two installments. The first came to me in Haiti in December 1995, where I was visiting my family for the holidays. At the time, I hadn’t seen most of them nor set foot in the country for thirteen years.

I remember the moment lightning struck. It was midday – bright and baking. I was pacing around the courtyard with my late grandfather’s Model 10 Smith & Wesson revolver. I was having a nostalgic moment.

We went back, the gun, the courtyard and me. My first memory – age three - is of playing in the courtyard; my second is of the dog that approached me moments later. It was a stray black German Shepherd. It didn’t snarl or growl or even bark. It didn’t run up to me and pounce. It simply strolled into my life and – my third memory - clamped its jaws around my forearm and pulled me off my feet.

What happened next is a blank, although I’ve long since had the empty spaces filled in for me by people who weren’t there. My grandfather was sitting nearby in the shade, watching over me. This was something he liked to do while he still could. He was dying of cancer and knew he didn’t have long to go.

He shot the dog with the pistol he always kept at his side in case of thieves.
Two weeks later he died in his sleep.

My uncle Jean inherited the pistol. He mounted it in a glass case and used to pass it around at dinner parties, whenever the conversation went stale.
I found the gun quite by accident, still sitting in its display case, on top of a cupboard in the house I was staying in.

Jean told me the weapon’s history and then took it out of the case and handed it to me. It had a dull grey finish and a wooden grip which had turned almost black with time. It was heavier and sturdier than it looked.

The day I took the pistol for a walk in the courtyard – all the while mentally recreating the scene where my grandfather had saved my life - I noticed something about it I hadn’t initially seen, something only the intense sunlight revealed. On one side of the grip, close to the end, three thin straight lines, each about a centimetre long, had been crudely scored into the wood.

I guessed what they stood for.

I wondered how my grandfather had felt, being God three times over, for a split second each. I wondered how he’d lived with himself afterwards.

And that was how and when I got the first idea for my novel.
Simple, really:
I’d create a character who’d killed three people. I’d give him bad dreams and a mounting sense of remorse. I’d make him sorry.

*

Haiti, in case you don’t know, is a Caribbean island, situated roughly between Cuba and Jamaica. It shares a border with the Dominican Republic. You can’t miss it when you fly over it. It’s the colour of rust on rust. Its neighbours are all lush and green, healthy and abundant. Haiti looks like it doesn’t belong there, like it’s floated in from another, sorrier part of the world, a place where it barely rains and nothing ever grows or lasts.

Haiti is apart, unique and alone, as are its people. They’re also exceptionally funny: two hundred plus years of living with almost constant natural and man-made disasters means there’s gallows humour in the DNA.

I returned to live and work there in September 1996. I’d got a marketing job in a now defunct local bank, based in the capital, Port-Au-Prince. I stayed until December 1997.

The place was a disaster zone. Think of some war/famine/drought ravaged African landscape teeming with extreme poverty and disease and you’ll get a picture of what it was like.

You couldn’t – and still can’t - drink the tapwater in Haiti. It’s so filthy you’re urged to keep your mouth shut when you’re having a shower. The electricity supply is temperamental. Powercuts can last for days. Everyone who can afford one has a generator. Everyone else lives by candlelight or in complete darkness. There are precious few streetlights in Haiti. It’s not only the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, it’s also the darkest.

A little publicized consequence of the 1994 US military invasion of Haiti was the repatriation of most Haitian criminals from American prisons – hundreds of murderers, rapists, gang members, and drug dealers were flown back to the island and handed over to the country’s authorities. There was a slight problem with this – actually, make that a rather large problem: at that moment in time, Haiti was quite literally a lawless land. Not only was the country without a police force or army (both having been disbanded by order of the UN), all of its prisons had been emptied of convicts and turned into squats, the judiciary had been suspended and all laws annulled pending the drafting of a new constitution. The Haitian “authorities” who took possession of the homecoming convicts were actually nervous airport security staff. They escorted the criminals off the runway and released them. The criminals found their way to Port-Au-Prince and its neighbouring slum, a vast congealed cesspool and home to half a million people, called Cité Soleil. Within months they were running both.

The crime rate rocketed on the island: murders, home invasions, carjackings, rapes, drug trafficking and, very disturbingly, a whole new dark phenomenon - child kidnapping.

Children had always gone missing in Haiti. Most of them had disappeared for good, never to be seen nor heard from again. There were rumours of adoption rackets, black magic ceremonies, child labour and other things I won’t go into here, but kidnapping was a whole new ball game. And for once it wasn’t the poor who were suffering the worst, but the rich. After all, only they could afford to pay the ransoms.

When I heard about this I got the rest of the idea for my book. I’d send my triple murderer to Haiti to look for a missing child. I’d make him a private detective. He’d be haunted by his past - the life he’d lived, the lives he’d taken and the consequences he’d reaped. His name would be Max Mingus, after an old school friend who’d got me reading Kafka, and one of my heroes, the very great Charles Mingus: jazz bassist extraordinaire, band leader, composer, bully, brawler, genius and author of Under the Underdog – the quintessential jazz autobiography, written as lopsided noir.

Now you know.

© 2006 Nick Stone

Dennis Lehane goes to War

2010-01-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

Is there no media outlet left for the talent of Dennis Lehane to explore?

First we have his best-selling novels, film adaptations from Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone and this year’s Shutter Island from Martin Scorcese as well as the Graphic Novel from Christian De Metter.

Now it seems, Dennis Lehane is grabbing a joy-stick and heading into computer game territory with Film Director Sam Raimi – according to Entertainment and Showbiz -

Meanwhile news comes to us that [Sam] Raimi is planning to kickstart another franchise: “The World of Warcraft” written by novelist Dennis Lehane, whose novels Mystic River and Shutter Island has already being transformed into celluloid screen.

So the change in crew means there will be no sequels to Spiderman 3 but now we are going for a prequel ride, hope the new movie comes up with the same magic and action, though fans will be sad for the departure of the old team who have taken the webslinger franchise to a new height and so is Columbia Pictures President Matt Tolmach as he said: “This is a bittersweet moment for us because while it is hard to imagine Spider-Man in anyone else’s hands, I know that this was a day that was inevitable.”

Read More here and from The Film Stage Here it seems that Sam Raimi has cancelled plans for Spiderman IV, and got to know Dennis Lehane following his purchase of the rights to The Given Day.

Photo © 2008 Roger Ellory with Dennis Lehane at Bouchercon Baltimore

Peter James Winter Competition

2010-01-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

There are some thriller writers who I admire for their narrative ability, and there are those who not only tell a good story, but also provoke thought and insight into your own life. Their fiction sometimes can provide introspection – and Peter James is one of those writers.

James is also incredibly generous and full of information about the writing process, as well as ‘left-of-field’ trivia, something I enjoy tremendously.

I often bump into him during various events, and each time is a joy. Last December he generously took a smattering of reviewers and journalists for what has now become an annual tradition – The Peter James Lunch!

After the lunch, Peter James kindly signed 3 copies of his latest bestseller - DEAD TOMORROW for a competition at Shots Magazine, so you have a chance to explore the dark side of Brighton with Roy Grace, Peter’s Detective.Click Here to Enter And to learn about the dark world of Peter James thriller series featuring Roy Grace – Click HereThere are no geographical restrictions to the competition

The Existentialist Man Wishes you Good Luck!

Photo © 2008 Ali Karim : Jeff Pierce of The Rap Sheet, Peter James and Jason Goodwin

Primer – An Extraordinary Science Fiction Film

2010-01-09T06:11:00.000-08:00

“They took from their surroundings what they needed, and made of it something more.”

- PRIMER [2004]

A few years ago, I watched an extraordinary independent science fiction film called PRIMER written, directed and starring a young man called Shane Caruth. I got word of the film in 2005, when it was the talk of the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, winning the Grand Jury Prize.

When the DVD was released, I grabbed a US NTSC copy, which over the last 4 years, I must have viewed a dozen times, and with each viewing, I get another perspective of what I just viewed, and what it meant. What makes it even more interesting is that it allegedly cost $7,000 to make and Caruth refused to pander to the lowest common denominator – making it a truly complex and thought provoking viewing experience.

With its theme of ‘time travel’ underpinning the framework of two friends and their relationship that disintegrates when they start using their ‘machine’; Primer not only entertains, but also provokes very deep thought about our various reflections of the reality that confront us.

On New Year’s Eve, my son and brother-in-law watched it with me, and it certainly made them think. Of course the instant reaction was – “We need to watch this again” – and they remarked, “You love watching weird things” which made me proud.

I guarantee if you watch the first ten minutes of Primer; listening hard to the creepy and surreal narration that opens the film – you’ll be hooked. The weird thing is that Caruth’s main co-actor is David Sullivan who noticed my twittering about Primer and replied back, which freaked me out a little that night.

I also noticed that the whole movie is available to view or download at Google Video Here and the trailer is below -

I would however point out that repeated viewings are essential and ethically you should buy a copy here on DVD.

Trust me, PRIMER will alter the way you view what surrounds you; what we commonly label as ‘reality’ – you have been warned.

If you don’t trust my judgment, then read Roger Ebert’s analysis of Primer –

"Primer" is a puzzle film that will leave you wondering about paradoxes, loopholes, loose ends, events without explanation, chronologies that don't seem to fit. Abe and Aaron wonder, too, and what seems at first like a perfectly straightforward method for using the machine turns out to be alarmingly complicated; various generations of themselves and their actions prove impossible to keep straight. Carruth handles the problems in an admirably understated way; when one of the characters begins to bleed a little from an ear, what does that mean? Will he be injured in a past he has not yet visited? In that case, is he the double? What happened to the being who arrived at this moment the old-fashioned way, before having traveled back?The movie delights me with its cocky confidence that the audience can keep up.

"Primer" is a film for nerds, geeks, brainiacs, Academic Decathlon winners, programmers, philosophers and the kinds of people who have made it this far into the review. It will surely be hated by those who "go to the movies to be entertained," and embraced and debated by others, who will find it entertains the parts the others do not reach. It is maddening, fascinating and completely successful

Note: Carruth wrote, directed and edited the movie, composed the score, and starred in it. The budget was reportedly around $7,000, but that was enough: The movie never looks cheap, because every shot looks as it must look. In a New York Times interview, Carruth said he filmed largely in his own garage, and at times he was no more sure what he was creating than his characters were. "Primer" won the award for best drama at Sundance 2004.

Read Ebert’s Full Analysis Here

Led Zeppelin go Postal

2010-01-09T03:02:00.000-08:00

I was most jealous when Thriller Writer and Wall Street Journal’s Rock Music correspondent Jim Fusilli got to see Led Zeppelin’s reunion concert in London in 2007, in memory of the courtly, influential co-founder and head of Atlantic Records - Ahmet Ertegun –

Filling his father's shoes is asking a lot of Jason Bonham. Not only was John Bonham an inventive and powerful drummer, but his interplay with Mr. Page's guitar lines is as responsible for the band's singularity as its musical wanderlust and Mr. Plant's bluesy, helium-like vocals. That often-intense interaction gave Zeppelin's live shows the possibility of surpassing their recorded music.

Jason Bonham's, and the band's, battle plan Monday was immediately apparent.

They played old Led Zeppelin tunes with incredible raw power, allowing for invention within familiar structures -- and sometimes not-so-familiar ones: The band rarely resisted an opportunity to push the songs, bending arrangements with sheer force and volume. They reworked several numbers -- subtly, to accommodate and exploit Mr. Bonham's gifts -- and played one tune, "For Your Life" (from the album "Presence"), that they'd never performed in concert before. For a band that hasn't been on stage together in almost 20 years -- and almost a decade more than that for a full performance -- Led Zeppelin was as tight as a rock group could be. Its members mixed their brand of rock and metal with an authority that suggested they still might be the best rock band in the world.

Read Jim Fusilli’s full report here

To celebrate the release of Royal Mail’s new Rock n’ Roll postage stamps, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin has been doing the interview rounds. Page is open about the musical aspects of his time with Zeppelin and talk was that he wanted a reformation following the one-off gig in 2007.

The remarkable ‘Kashmir’ live

But when it comes to talk about the darker side of Led Zeppelin, Page is far more coy as reported in The Times -

If Page is ever irked by the speculation concerning this side of the Zep he surely can’t find it surprising. During the 1970s he famously became something of a scholar of the life and work of “wickedest man in the world”, Aleister Crowley, extending to Page owning an occultist book shop and buying the Great Beast’s manor, Boleskine House, on the shores of Loch Ness (he sold it in the early 1990s). Does he still have such an interest in, shall we say, magick? “Well, I’d prefer not to talk about it, really.” It’s hard to tell if the question affronts him, but it feels as though he half-expects it.

Crowley’s credos of self-liberation, not least via sex and drugs, fitted well with Page’s rock-star existence and the level of success the band experienced. Stories of the band’s groupie-tastic, coke-fuelled, booze-binging exploits on tour have captivated the imagination of rock fans ever since. If their excess wasn’t really anything their peers weren’t doing too, then Led Zeppelin’s imperious, untouchable manner, their private jet, the accompanying chaos set them apart, evoking to this day the ultimate rock-stars-on-the-road fantasy. Anecdotes concerning Page being served on a room-service trolley to a room of nubile young women sound like any lusty young man’s dream. But Page has never and won’t substantiate — or deny, it should be said — any of the wild tales.

“The tours took a lot ... well, did it take a lot out of me? I don’t know whether it did. It gave as much to me as it took out,” he says. “It was like being on a permanent adrenalin drip, d’you know what I mean?” Playing live, at least, was “to be right on the edge of the moment”.

Indeed, by 1973, on stage Page was a marvel to behold, whipping himself into rock-star poses as he improvised virtuoso solos with tireless, sweat-pouring intensity, even employing a violin bow drawn over his Gibson Les Paul guitar strings to create eerie, ear-bleeding effects. His costumes became more flamboyant, embroidered with glittery moon and stars, poppies and dragons. Today, they are very much part of rock iconography — I wonder if he still has the famous suits. “Yes I do. Oh, yeah! Carefully stored. The only thing is I’ll never get in ’em again! I think the waist on them is 26in. Absolutely ridiculous!”

What does he make of the rock biographies, such as Stephen Davis’s infamously salacious Hammer of the Gods or, most recently, Wall’s “definitive” tome? “I don’t actually read them, I just hear about them from other people. I did see Wall the other day at one of those award ceremonies and I just told him: ‘I wanted you to know I’m writing a book on Mick Wall . . .’ ”

As we linger on this stuff, though, his sense of humour starts to desert him. The mood darkens as I get on to the subject of the bad energy and harder drugs that crept into the Zeppelin picture in the late 1970s, when Page became near-skeletal in appearance and the Zep juggernaut was shaken by a chain of tragedies, including the death of Plant’s five-year-old son Karac from a viral infection.

Sidestepping any facts, Page offers instead an irritated broadside at biographers perpetuating a lurid fascination with the bad stuff: “Wall’s just writing a book designed to cash in on something he didn’t have anything to do with. He wasn’t a creative force in Led Zep. I’m at something of a disadvantage because I haven’t chosen to read that book, but I hear it’s totally distorted from people who do know about Led Zeppelin.”

But doesn’t he accept that people are interested in the darker side of the Zep legend? “In this day and age there is a sensation that people feed off — towards that aspect of things — with a voracious appetite. It’ll be interesting to see what’s more important at the end of the day — the salacious gossip or the music. I know what I went into it for in the first place. What’s important about Led Zeppelin is the music.”

By now I feel that my questions are starting to goad him — an inquiry into the possible direction the next Zep album might have taken had Bonham not died is met, quick as a flash, with a curt: “I don’t know because we didn’t do it.” He is far more voluble about that 2007 Zeppelin reunion gig, reserving special praise for Jason Bonham, who played in the drum stool vacated by his late father. “It’s great that we did it. I look back on that night with a great amount of fondness, but Jason was the hero. For me that gig was about him.”

I was pleased to see that Royal Mail has picked some other Existential Rock Albums such as Pink Floyd’s Division Bell and Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells among others to sit side-by-side with Led Zeppelin IV. Incidentally many people don’t realize it was thanks to the William Friedkin’s The Exorcist that Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells [which featured on the soundtrack] became a huge seller in the 1970’s and it was one of the first albums released under Richard Branson’s Virgin Label. In fact with [a little help from] The Exorcist; one could speculate that Branson’s business empire had a little help from the darkside too.

Read More from The Independent on which iconic British Rock albums have been turned into Royal Mail stamps.

Christian De Meter adapts Lehane's sHuTtEr iSLaNd

2010-01-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

As a comic book fan and Thriller reader, I was blown-away by last years ‘THE HUNTER’ a graphic novel adaptation by Darwyn Cooke and the late Donald Westlake based on Richard Stark’s novel of the same name, and the one that introduced the iconic Parker.

Now Geoff Boucher at the LA Times provides a review for the long awaited graphic novel adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s incredible Shutter Island from Christian De Metter -

The graphic novel is religiously (and gruesomely) faithful to Lehane’s novel and with good reason — it would be hard to tamper with the circuitry of such a meticulously crafted mystery. The visual demands and page-count realities of the new medium required some tough choices, but De Metter has handled them deftly. The plot of the original novel was purposely confounding in certain dark corners and here those shadowy places are ambiguous in a different but still satisfying way. The climatic sequences of the book in its original form possessed a powerful and satisfying click as they fell into place and, under De Metter's watch, the dread and revelation remain intact.

The story, set in 1954, presents a U.S. marshal and widower named Teddy Daniels who, with his new partner, is dispatched to an island with one dominant landmark: Ashecliffe Hospital, a fortress-like mental institution that is missing one of its mass murderers. A hurricane hits and the entire island becomes a wind-lashed prison where the simple case of an escapee deepens into a surreal puzzle. Daniels, who arrived on Shutter Island with his own inner demons, soon wonders what is real and who can be trusted.

Like Darwyn Cooke’s retro-crime masterpiece “The Hunter,” which was the best graphic novel of 2009, “Shutter Island” finds that less is more when it comes to the color palette; crime and punishment, it seems, are best presented in shades of iodine yellow and drowning-victim blue. There are only a few slashes of bright colors in the 128-page “Shutter” graphic novel and they are carefully placed to deepen the dream-time quality of Lehane’s carefully constructed nightmare.

Read Geoff Boucher’s review at the L A Times Here

As a fan of Lehane’s gothic masterpiece I just ordered it from Amazon and been advised the sucker is en route to my door.

The LA Times also features Dennis Lehane speaking about his reaction to the newly released graphic novel version of sHuTtEr iSLaNd -

You can watch the Dennis Lehane video at the LA Times - Here

So with the Shutter Island Film coming shortly, and now this graphic novel – I am very excited as sHuTteR iSLaNd is one of my all time favourite novels – period! and it's a period peice to boot.

Read More here from Brand X and the L A Times [via Tokyo Pop] who premiered the Dennis Lehane video - Thanks Guys

Richard Matheson's BUTTON, BUTTON

2009-12-30T05:50:00.000-08:00

Richard Matheson is one of my favourite short story writers, with Robert Bloch, Jack Finney, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King and many others. One of Matheson's many classic short story thrillers was Button, Button which was recently reworked by Donnie Darko's Richard Kelly. The film's reception was tepid at best, though I loved it, with the SF twist and retro 1970's feel, though it did give me the creeps.

Here is the original Twlight Zone episode

Button, Button Part I - Twilight Zone 1985

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Button, Button Part II - Twilight Zone 1985

HD TRAILER FOR RICHARD KELLY'S THE BOX

A Disturbing View of Reality

2009-12-29T07:58:00.001-08:00

As another decade passes – I thought I’d share my thoughts about one worrying aspect of reality as we approach the close of 2009.

In my private moments I often think about what the purpose of my existence is. I often consider this maybe the root cause of my excessive reading, my wish to learn about existence and the purpose of reality. I keep a moleskin notebook with me at all times, and when I discover or contemplate an axiom or possible meaning to reality – I scribble it down.

Two years ago I stumbled upon an excellent BBC documentary which in its last 10 minutes offered a very distubing view of reality - view at your own peril as it took several pages of my moleskin notebook to write down, and it is a theory that disturbed me considerably -

Part 5 - Everthing, including you, may not be what it seems.

See all the previous parts of the BBC Documentary on Time and Reality to put the simulation argument into context.

If this intrigued you – check out some worrying thoughts from Professor Nick Bostrom of Oxford University here – there are many technical papers that will provoke thought in what you see around you.

Incidentally Prof Nick Bostrom was involved in the World Science Festival held this summer in New York – and he was on a panel with some of the Battlestar Galactica team discussing Cyborgs on the Horizon

If all this is too heavy for you – why not chill out before the decade ends with one of my favourite John Carpenter movies – They Live, a paranoid look at reality.

The Existential Man wishes all of you a happy new decade – And let’s hope that the wars that rage around the world come to an end, as we wake up to what reality really is; even if we are living in a simulated reality or unreality, and that reality is more complex than our minds can understand.

Ali

NB : I am writing this in Dublin and can not get the HTML links working, so use Google or another browser to search the key words

You got 8 minutes?

2009-12-21T05:43:00.000-08:00

That’s how long it will take to read and click on the links for my review of the English Subtitled film adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo at The Rap Sheet – Here

Extract here –

I was startled to see the Swedish actor Sven-Bertil Taube playing Vanger. In my youth, one of my favorite Alistair MacLean novels was Puppet on a Chain (1969), which was later turned into a film with Taube playing Interpol agent Paul Sherman. That movie featured a spectacular high-speed boat chase through the famous canals of Amsterdam. It was strange to see Taube on screen again after all these years--and yes, he has aged, but when I looked at him on screen, I could still see the handsome looks he had in such 1970s film thrillers as The Eagle Has Landed and Game for Vultures.

And it takes 8 minutes to watch the greatest boat chase filmed [even better than ‘Live and Let Die’] - from the 1970's film version of PUPPET ON A CHAIN

Have a great existential holiday and buy everyone you know some books - reading is important

Dan O' Bannon Passes Away

2009-12-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

I am very depressed today, hearing about the passing of Dan O’ Bannon so The Existentialist Man wishes to celebrate his life with this lament from Dark Star which is strangely apt, so let’s have some music in here Boiler……

Now the years pull us apart,

I'm young and now you're old.

But you're still in my heart

And the memory won't go cold.

I dream of times and spaces

I left far behind

Where we spent our last few days

Benson's on my mind.

Benson Arizona,

blew warm wind through your hair,

My body flies the galaxies, my heart longs to be there.

Benson Arizona,

the same stars in the sky,

The days seemed so much kinder,

When we watched them,

You and I.

‘Benson Arizona’ Music by John Carpenter. Lyrics by Bill Taylor

I’ll miss you Dan, as your work touched my life.

From The Guardian –

As a writer, O'Bannon was adept at taking something standard and adding new twists to it. He may not have originated all the concepts he doled out, but he was usually the first to expand on them and think of how they could be realised in visual terms. Witness the vertical cities he and Moebius put forward in their futuristic comic-book short story The Long Tomorrow in a 1977 issue of Métal Hurlant, which was "borrowed" by Ridley Scott for Blade Runner.

O'Bannon's résumé is full of highly enjoyable genre movies that are full of interesting quirks and character, many co-written with Shusett. There's the downbeat and creepy zombie tale Dead and Buried, the paranoid, surveillance-themed helicopter movie Blue Thunder, and Lifeforce, the muddled but hugely entertaining adaptation of Colin Wilson's Space Vampires that mixes aliens, zombies, vampirism, spaceships, nudity and large-scale destruction of London.

There's also Total Recall, which managed to expand the Philip K Dick original into a high-action script that even managed to add a little ambiguity (Shusett and O'Bannon were way ahead of everyone in realising the cinematic potential of Dick's stories, picking up the rights to a few at a snip long before Scott's Blade Runner upped the price out of their range).

His directing career unfortunately never really got off the ground, but is still worth considering. As someone who had a hand in more or less every department in Dark Star, he wasn't one to delegate easily. As a result his directorial debut, The Return of the Living Dead, apparently wasn't much fun for anyone involved. The story is enjoyably told in B-movie actor Jewel Shepard's frank autobiography, If I'm So Famous, How Come Nobody's Ever Heard Of Me? – it's well worth tracking down a copy. The finished film, however, is great and was a "zomcom" long before Shaun of the Dead; it also had running zombies long before Zack Snyder "invented" them in his Dawn of the Dead remake. 1992's The Resurrected, the rather nifty HP Lovecraft adaptation, is O'Bannon's only other such credit.

Photo : Dan O' Bannon as Lt Pinback from 'DARK STAR'

Sony moving towards US Film version of Larsson Trilogy

2009-12-16T03:21:00.000-08:00

The Existentialist Man is heading to a special press screening of the Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – trailer below

The Girl Who Played With Fire Trailer

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest – teaser trailer

Michael Fleming at Variety reports that the US version seems on its way from Sony Pictures –

Sony Pictures has optioned the English-language screen rights to “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” the first of three titles in the Millennium Series of crime thriller novels by late Swedish journalist-activist Stieg Larsson.

Steve Zaillian is in talks to write the script. Scott Rudin will produce with Ole Sondberg and Soren Staermose of Yellow Bird Films.

The novels focus on journalist-investigator Mikael Blomkvist and a precocious computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. The duo become embroiled in life-threatening mysteries as they attempt to expose institutions that pull the strings behind the scenes.

The deal hasn’t closed yet; it’s been gestating for six months because of a rights dispute between Larsson’s parents and his longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson.

Sony’s pursuit began last summer, when Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal sparked to the novel series.

Read More Here and Here

Larsson dominates the UK fiction Charts

2009-12-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

As a Crime-fiction and Thriller reader, I was delighted to read that the late Stieg Larsson's novels have really hit gold in the UK -

Quercus Publishing / MacLehose Press has just had confirmation from Neilson that THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO has overtaken James Patterson by 3,654 copies to take the No. 1 slot in the fiction Paperback bestseller position, with 38,091 copies sold. James Patterson follows at No. 2 with 34,527 copies.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE Paperback sits at No. 8 with 18,098 copies and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS’ NEST Hardcover moves to No. 6 with 13,807

That means that all three Stieg Larsson novels in his Millennium Trilogy appear in the UK Book Charts top ten in the same week.

In a word - REMARKABLE

Photo : Ed Kastenmeier of Random House and Translator Steve T Murray [aka Reg Keeland] at Bouchercon Indianapolis 2009 © Ali Karim

More Stieg Larsson info here and here

Curzon Group Patron Jeffrey Archer lands £18m Advance

2009-12-06T06:29:00.000-08:00

I have been interested in how The Curzon Group have been fairing, especially as their ‘manifesto’ has gained a little slice of blogo-war with thriller writer Steve Mosby. There seems to have been a truce declared since the recent heated debate, of which one point of contention has been the involvement of Jeffrey Archer as The Curzon Group patron. Whatever one considers vis-à-vis the merit of Archer as their patron, he certainly is a controversial character – being an ex-convict, bestselling writer and peer of the realm.

It seems that life often mirrors art, as the continual rollercoaster ride of Jeffrey Archer’s fortunes mirror that of his own characters – for The Times reports today that Archer is back in the money –

JEFFREY ARCHER is being paid a record £18m advance to write a Forsyte Saga-style epic spanning a century in the lives of a fictional family from Bristol. The deal is believed to be the biggest signed by a British author so far and requires the peer to produce five novels over five years. The first book is due to be published in 2011.

Archer said that he will begin work on The Clifton Chronicles shortly. The novels will set out the trials and tribulations of a character called Harry Clifton who rises from humble beginnings to become a wealthy tycoon.

Born to impoverished parents in 1920, Clifton wins a place at grammar school where he becomes involved with an affluent shipping family called the Davenports

The deal with Macmillan will see one book published every May until 2015, by which time Archer will be 75.

Only a handful of American authors, including Michael Crichton, who died earlier this year, Dan Brown, James Patterson and Stephen King, are thought to have received larger advances than Archer.

In Britain he can be challenged only by J K Rowling, whose contract to write the Harry Potter novels for Bloomsbury has been shrouded in secrecy. She received just £2,500 for the first book in the series. Although Rowling received much higher advances for subsequent Harry Potter books, much of her £499m fortune is derived from royalties and the success of the spin-off films.

The largest advances recently have gone to celebrities writing their memoirs. They include Peter Kay (£2m), Julie Walters (£1.5m) and Ant and Dec (£2m between them). But sales of these showbiz books have been falling away.

Since his first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was published in 1976, Archer, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative party who was jailed for perjury, has made about £100m from his literary career.

Read the full story here

So it seems that The Curzon Group’s patron is back in the Money; so let’s see if Archer's new saga is readable.

Farewell to Arms

2009-12-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

When I was younger, I enjoyed watching screen actor Richard Todd who always seemed to play the quintessential British Army officer [in movies such as The Longest Day, The Dam Busters, D-Day The Sixth of June and many others]. I enjoyed the stoic image he portrayed and so was saddened to hear of his passing [aged 90]. Originally considered by Ian Fleming as the first choice for the role of James Bond [which he lost out to Sean Connery in a peculiar twist of fate] he worked continually in film, theatre and also in later years - raising awareness about the risks of depression. His later life was tinged with tragedy with the suicides of two of his sons, which sparked him initiating a campaign to warn parents of the dangers of depression in the young. Despite always showing his stiff upper lip in his military roles, Todd was born an Irishman in Dublin 90 years ago.

The Telegraph has a lengthy obituary on the life of Richard Todd -

In his autobiography, Caught in the Act (1986), Todd recalled that, while training as an actor, he appeared in the crowd scenes for two Will Hay movies and as an extra in A Yank at Oxford (1938). But the main focus of his ambition was the stage. After leaving drama school he performed in regional rep and in 1939 joined the newly-founded Dundee Repertory Theatre.

The Second World War temporarily prevented Todd from advancing his career. He volunteered the day after war was declared and was commissioned in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in 1941. In 1943 he applied to become a parachutist, and in May of that year was posted to the 7th Parachute Battalion – part of the 6th Airborne Division. For the Normandy landings, he was made the Assistant Adjutant.

In a later article about his D-Day experiences Todd compared the pre-briefing for the landings to "the readthrough and cast list for a new production at the Dundee Rep", and likened himself to an actor who had just been "told the minor role I was to play" after having been "subjected to a four-year rehearsal for the big first night". Yet throughout those years he had kept his profession secret, terrified that he might be put in charge of Ensa: "Not even my closest friends knew I was an actor."

After the war Todd rejoined Dundee Rep before making his West End debut in The Hasty Heart. In 1948 he was invited to London for a screen test and won a film contract with Associated British Pictures.

After making his screen debut in For Them That Trespass (1948) and his triumph in The Hasty Heart, Todd travelled to Hollywood to appear as a bridegroom with a murky past in King Vidor's Lightning Strikes Twice (1950), then starred as Marlene Dietrich's former lover – and a murder suspect – in Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950).

There followed an orgy of swashbuckling heroics in Disney's The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue (1954), which served only to prove that Todd was no Errol Flynn.

His role as Peter Marshall in A Man Called Peter persuaded Henry Koster to cast Todd in his Virgin Queen (1955) as a roguish Sir Walter Raleigh whose dalliance with lady-in-waiting Joan Collins angers Elizabeth I (Bette Davis), before casting him in D-Day, the Sixth of June the following year.

The Dambusters (1954) marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with the director Michael Anderson. He went on to appear in Anderson's Yangtse Incident (1956), as the commander of a crippled frigate breaking a Chinese blockade, and in the Hitchcock-style Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958), he played the mysterious stranger claiming to be the late brother of the heiress Kimberley Prescott (Anne Baxter). He returned as a Wing Commander (this time named Kendall) for their last film together, Operation Crossbow (1965).

Todd worked with a variety of other directors. He was the leader of the escape committee in Don Chaffey's PoW camp movie The Danger Within (1959), and in Leslie Norman's The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961) he played the leader of an Army patrol sent out into the Malaysian jungle. The same year he produced as well as starred in the bedroom farce Why Bother to Knock?

Todd was Ian Fleming's first choice to play James Bond in Dr No (1962), but a scheduling clash gave the role to Sean Connery. Instead he played Inspector Harry Sanders in Lawrence Huntington's Death Drums Along The River (1963), a role he reprised in Coast of Skeletons the following year. In a rather more unlikely casting, he played a counter-culture hippie guru professor in The Love-Ins (1967).

By the late 1960s Todd's star had waned, and his later film parts were mostly forgettable, with the possible exception of Michael Winner's remake of The Big Sleep (1978), in which he played the police commissioner opposite Robert Mitchum's Philip Marlowe.

Read More

The Talented Mr Ripley

2009-12-01T08:18:00.000-08:00

I've known Mike Ripley for many years now, apart from his very droll and award-winning Fitzroy Maclean Angel series, many people don’t realise that he is also a respected critic of crime fiction, writing for the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times and the Birmingham Post among others. He currently writes the "Getting Away With Murder" gossip column at shotsmag.co.uk.

Now we here he has another project as series editor for Top Notch Thrillers with the release of his first four books -

The Terrible Door by George Sims [ISBN 978-1-906288-28-0]
Night Of Glass by Philip Purser [978-1-906288-29-7]
A Clear Road To Archangel by Geoffrey Rose [978-1-906288-30-3]
Snake Water by Alan Williams [978-1-906288-31-0].

When asked about the first batch he selected - “The first four Top Notch Thrillers show the diversity of styles and the sheer bloody inventiveness which is a long standing tradition of great British thriller writing.”

The 'Top Notch' authors

George Sims (1923-1999) was a well-known antiquarian book dealer; a background he used to good effect in several of his thrillers, notably his first, The Terrible Door (1964), and in The Last Best Friend (1967) which Harry Keating chose as one of the “100 Best Crime and Mystery Books”. Sims had the wonderful ability to create a sudden air of menace and a Dickensian flair for describing the seedier parts of London. He was a member of the famous Detection Club.

Philip Purser (b.1925) was the long-standing television critic for the Sunday Telegraph and is an acknowledged expert on TV and films. His thrillers are reminiscent of the early work of Alfred Hitchcock, where un-heroic people are forced to do heroic things. Night of Glass (1968) is not only a cracking thriller but contains many wry observations on the British class system. Philip Purser is married to crime writer and novelist Ann Purser.

Geoffrey Rose (b.1932) was a professional actor for over 40 years before retiring to the south coast of England in 2000. In the early 1970s he wrote three thrillers in his own very distinctive style, which was once compared to that of the early novels of Graham Greene. A Clear Road To Archangel (1973) is a fantastical, almost surreal, chase/manhunt thriller set during the Russian Revolution.

Alan Williams (b.1935) became a best-selling spy novelist with The Beria Papers (1973) and Gentleman Traitor (1975) but his earlier novels were full-blooded adventure thrillers set in exotic locations. Snake Water (1965) is a violent treasure hunt set in South America and introduced the engaging but totally untrustworthy rogue Sammy Ryderbeit who was to reappear in The Tale of the Lazy Dog (1970).

Mike Ripley told me - “I am delighted and honoured to be able to be able to help put these books and these authors in front of a new audience. Each title has a distinctive flavour and atmosphere and together they show the wide range of quality writing in the thriller genre.”

Top Notch Thrillers and all OSTARA titles will be available to order from all booksellers and through internet retailers. Full details can be found on www.ostarapublishing.co.uk and they make excellent festive presents as they are ‘Top Notch’

Martina is UK's No 1 Author [again]

2009-11-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

So who could take on Dan Brown’s position sitting at No 1 in the UK Fiction hardcover book charts? Well others have tried and failed, but I am pleased to announce that it takes Martina Cole’s HARD GIRLS to knock off Brown’s The Lost Symbol as reported by The Bookseller today –

Dan Brown's reign at the summit of the UK bestseller lists is over. The Lost Symbol (Bantam Press) sold 30,113 copies at UK book retailers last week, a sale only strong enough for third overall. The latest edition of fact bible Guinness World Records takes over top spot with a 31,812 seven-day sale, while Martina Cole's latest thriller, Hard Girls (Headline), sold an impressive 30,590 copies in just three days and takes second position. Cole's previous eight novels, beginning with Faceless in 2001, have all scored Original Fiction number ones. Hard Girls makes it nine in a row.

Read more

One of the biggest selling crime writers in the UK is Martina Cole, but she hasn’t become the staple of the bestseller charts overnight. Martina came from very humble beginnings and has worked hard all her life raising her son and writing urban thrillers which have attracted a loyal following. Martina Cole is even busier working back on TV with ‘Martina Cole’s Lady Killers’ as well as the ‘Martina Cole’s Girl Gangs’

Last year I enjoyed celebrating Martina’s success at the launch of ‘The Business’ at Dolce in London’s West End and look forward to her new book Hard Girls, which by knocking off Dan Brown shows how popular she’s become.

I’ve known Martina for many years, and if you are intrigued by the photo I took of her with screen legend Herbert Lom at the top of the post - then click here to read how Britain’s biggest crime writer met Inspector Clouseau’s boss - Chief Insp. Charles LaRousse Dreyfus .

If you’ve never read Martina Cole, you’ve got a lot of great reading ahead of you because when it comes to tough urban thrillers with a heart – Martina Cole is The Business.

Dangerous Lady (1992)
The Ladykiller (1993)
Goodnight Lady (1994)
The Jump (1995)
The Runaway (1997)
Two Women (1999)
Broken (2000)
Faceless (2001)
Maura's Game (2002)
The Know (2003)
The Graft (2004)
The Take (2005)
Close (2006)
Faces (2007)
The Business (2008)
Hard Girls (2009)

More information about the tough world of Martina Cole is available from –

http://www.martinacole.co.uk/

Photo © Ali Karim [Clockwise Martina with her son and Barry Ryan entering the ITV3 CWA Dagger Awards, with Herbert Lom at Crimescene 2002, with cool shoes at Dead-on-Deansgate and with Larry Love of Alabama-3 in London 2008]