Indianapolis Bound

As a devotee of Crime / Thriller Fiction, I always enjoy my annual US trip to Bouchercon and/or Thrillerfest. It takes a lot of planning as I have a very busy life [as well as a lot of understanding from my wife and kids]. My family all know how much I enjoy spending time with my US friends and colleagues who share my fascination with books set against the thriller / crime fiction backdrop. I have a lot of fun talking about books with my friends and colleagues as this photo indicates - of Ken Bruen and I being escorted from the Casino High Roller area [in The Stratosphere Tower] as my impersonation of a Middle-Eastern Prince failed to get me into a $10,000 table. The problem was that Ken Bruen and I had been taking a “pub crawl” along the Las Vegas strip earlier that afternoon…..Probably just as well as I could have ill afforded losing $10,000 in Blackjack.

That was my first Bouchercon [in 2003] when I went with Shots webmaster ‘Grog’ to Las Vegas. Both ‘Grog’ and I turned 40 that year so we combined the Bouchercon experience with a tour of America’s South West, and California. That was a special time so I took a lot of photographs that help remind me of the time that now resides only in my memory.

I recall spending time [with this years Bouchercon Guest of Honour] Mike Connelly who attended the event, and who used the time to research ‘The Narrows’ – a novel that set Harry Bosch against ‘The Poet’ in a deadly game of cat and mouse on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

I see that the city of Indianapolis is gearing itself for close to 2,000 fans of Crime, Mystery & Thriller genre descending for Bouchercon 40.

Mike Connelly is featured in the Indy Star today –

Is this your first Bouchercon, or have you attended before?

I haven't been to one in at least four or five years. I do think the event's an important tool for writers in the genre. In the beginning of my career, and throughout the '90s, I attended a lot of them. It's a great place to network and meet all kinds of writers, because ordinarily we're spread out doing our own thing. It's not like you see a lot of other writers unless you go to conventions like this.

What will you be doing there this year?

I'll be doing a bunch of stuff. So many writers attend that it's almost all panels. Being guest of honor, you get to have the spotlight for yourself for an hour -- that'll be on Friday. Not being much of a speechmaker, I elected to have myself questioned by another writer for an hour. I'll also be participating on a panel on (Edgar Allan) Poe.

"9 Dragons" is your 14th book in the Harry Bosch series. How is it different from previous Bosch books?

For one, it's a fish-out-of-water story. About a third of it takes place in Hong Kong, where Bosch has to go to find his missing daughter. And as far as his daughter is concerned, it's really a story about Bosch's vulnerability. Harry Bosch is a guy who believes he has skill in rooting out evil, and intentionally bills himself as being invulnerable. But maybe five books ago, he found out he had a daughter he didn't know he had. This is the book where he realizes he could get gotten to.

Read More Here and Here

Meanwhile the Indy Star also features a short piece from Jim Huang, co-chair of Bouchercon 2009. Included in the feature are comments from Terence Faherty, a tremendous PI writer who was on a panel - ‘Social Commentary in Crime Fiction” which I managed to moderated back in Las Vegas in 2003 despite intense sleep deprivation as this photo indicates [Faherty is on my left], flanked by Martin Edwards.

Read more here

Last years Bouchercon in Baltimore was a very special time, amazingly organised by Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobalik. These links explain why Bouchercon 39 in Baltimore was so wonderfully special – The Photos are at The Rap Sheet, and my report is here - Part I, Part II and Part III

I am now packed, and ready to depart for Indianapolis on Wednesday, when the fun starts. I am usually like a vacuum when I leave Bouchercon, as I get very little sleep, and feel melancholic saying goodbye to my friends and colleagues [until next year]. However this year I have the CWA Dagger Awards in London to occupy my sleep-deprived mind on my return.

I will have plenty of photos and stories of my adventures from Indianapolis when I get back – So have fun while The Existentialist Man is at Bouchercon

It's all Larsson & Brown on Super Thursday

When it comes to Crime Thrillers – it seems that Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown are the big guns on Super Thursday reports The Guardian

A deluge of 800 new hardbacks hit bookshops last Thursday but it was a translated crime novel by the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson which saw off celebrity autobiographies from the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Peter Kay and Chris Evans to jostle its way to the top of the book charts.

Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest soared into second position in the UK's book charts last week, selling 34,152 copies in just three days, according to book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan. It came in behind Dan Brown's thriller The Lost Symbol, which remained in the number one spot for the third week in a row with sales of 79,008 copies. Larsson's novel, the third in his bestselling Millennium crime trilogy, follows the adventures of computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. It was one of the 800 hardbacks published last Thursday – 10 times the daily average, which has led to the day being christened Super Thursday by the book trade.

Waterstone's, which changed window displays in its stores across the country overnight on Wednesday, replacing older titles with new books from the likes of Kay, Jeremy Clarkson and Audrey Niffenegger, described the Larsson novel as its "runaway success".

"I saw somebody buy four copies and I heard from one store where somebody bought 10," said spokesperson Jon Howells. "Our Piccadilly store opened an hour early, at 8am, for Stieg Larsson – we're not talking Harry Potter or Dan Brown numbers but there was a definite steady flow of people wanting to get a copy or two."

Read More

Battlestar Fantastica

I have been incredibly busy with work and catching up on my thriller and crime fiction reading / reviewing, my own writing, as well as preparing for my trip to Bouchercon Indianapolis next week. Hence my blogging has become somewhat sporadic and erratic.

Due to my high work load; I rarely watch TV preferring to read in the evenings. The only TV series that have caught my eye and forced me to track down the DVD box-sets have been Spooks [US Title MI5], ‘The Wire’ and previously Millennium. Both those series still haunt me and I regularly watch them when I can. I have never got into the excitement of ‘Lost’, ‘Prison Break’, ‘24’ or many of the recent ‘Star Trek’ incarnations – though when I was younger [and had more time], I was very keen about the original 1960’s ‘Star Trek’ and ‘The Man from Uncle’. Now I stumbled rather late into a TV series that has really rocked my world; a series that dominates my mind and provokes deep thought.

Earlier this year, I went to see Bruce Springsteen at Hyde Park [London] with Stav Sherez and Nick Stone. While we caught up on what’s new in our lives; Stav mentioned how much he was enjoying “Battlestar Galactica”, which made me roar laughing. I was never a fan of the 1978 series, and as I don’t really watch TV, I was unaware of the 2004 series which re-worked the original premise. Stav and I are both fanatical about the work of Philip K Dick and explained that if I liked Dick’s look at reality, I’d love ‘Battlestar Galactica’.

Stav told me that I must watch Ronald D Moore’s re-imagined ‘Battlestar Galactica’, and was truly evangelical about it. But as usual, life and work got in the way; that is until last week when I read amazing reviews in the British press to coincide with the release of the complete DVD Boxset of ‘Battlestar Galactica’. Remembering Stav’s excitement and despite the cost, I ordered the sucker. Within the box-set, were the 3-hour Miniseries, seasons I – IV, ‘Razor’ a ‘Battlestar Galactica’ film as well as many extras.

I have since been watching the entire series [in sequence] and have been devastated by its sheer brilliance. Everything about the series is exceptional, and for my money it is the best TV series I have ever watched. It could be the best TV series of all time.

The premise is sheer poetry, the characters as vivid as real-life, the filming like a combat news-reel, extraordinary special effects, but most of all it resides in your brain as it works through the moral dilemmas that cloak our reality. All day it haunts me until I can get back and watch it late into the evenings. It is the stuff of exhilarating madness.

I would urge you to watch this wonderful series, because it is exceptional and beyond ‘entertainment’.

Following the miniseries, were two episodes that can be viewed online –

‘33’ - This is episode one from series 1

Link:

‘Water’ - This is the second episode from series 1

Link:

All that is left is The Plan – a feature length film due out on DVD later this month and which will be on cable in November.




There is a spin-off series ‘Caprica’ which has recently piloted in the US and available on a US import DVD with the series coming to screen in 2010.

I really don’t want to say anymore, because you really must watch it for yourself, because ‘Battlestar Galactica’ is the best TV you are likely to see – “So Say We All”

Lehane on Connelly

I read this fascinating essay by Dennis Lehane on Mike Connelly’s Harry Bosch character which appears at Mike Connelly’s website. We present a excerpt from this feature for all you Thriller Fiction readers waiting for Bosch's return in Nine Dragons -

Where Chandler found the personification of his hero ideal in Philip Marlowe, the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, deeply principled and often philosophical private investigator, Michael Connelly has given us Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch, the relentless, tortured, highly principled but deeply pessimistic police detective who entered the literary stage in The Black Echo and has journeyed through fourteen more novels since. Detective Bosch shares his name, of course, with the Dutch Renaissance painter who slathered his canvases with ghastly visions of Hell, and one can certainly draw parallels between the hideous, fallen world of the paintings and the cauldron of sin and injustice that Harry Bosch confronts in modern day Los Angeles.

When Chandler sent his knight errant down Los Angeles' mean streets alone, "neither tarnished nor afraid," its mean streets were not, with all due respect to the master, nearly as mean as they are now. Harry Bosch, if rarely afraid, is certainly tarnished. He is the personification, in fact, of Nietzsche's admonition that those who fight monsters risk becoming monsters themselves. If there is a unifying tension that threads its way through all of the Bosch books, it is that—Bosch is always perilously close to succumbing to violence he not only fights but which inhabits him.

From that first book, The Black Echo, it's clear that Harry Bosch is a damaged soul. You worry about his physical health from dangers both within (he smokes so many cigarettes you can't help but assume a heart attack or at least an angioplasty awaits him at novel's end) and without (a group of ex-military killers and drug smugglers; a possible femme fatale). But more so, you worry about his psychological well-being. This first case will be the one that triggers memories of his service in Vietnam, and Connelly does a masterful job of evoking the claustrophobia and isolationism of a former "tunnel rat." At the end, we leave Bosch staring at a print of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, that epitome of broken dreams and alienation. Bosch, not surprisingly, identifies with the "darkness. The stark loneliness. The man sitting alone, his face turned to the shadows. I am that man, Harry Bosch would think each time he looked."

These are the musings of a psychic orphan with attenuated emotional development. But it's merely warm-up for what will be revealed about Bosch's psyche in books to come. Because in the annals of American crime fiction series protagonists, it's hard to imagine one who had a more traumatic history than Harry Bosch.

We soon learn that Harry Bosch entered McClaren Hall, an orphanage, at the age of eleven. He didn't know his father and was removed from the home he shared with his mother, a prostitute, deemed UM ("unfit mother") by the State of California. His mother, Marjorie Lowe, would later be murdered and the solving of that case would be the subject of Connelly's fourth novel, The Last Coyote.

Read More

This article originally appeared in the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera on April 30, 2009. Courtesy of Il Corriere della Sera, RCS Quotidiani Spa.

Nine Dragons will be released in the UK and Ireland on October 1, 2009, in the USA and Canada on October 13, 2009, and in Australia and New Zealand on October 21, 2009. The audiobook, Kindle, eBook, and large-print editions of Nine Dragons will be released simultaneously with the hardcover.

Related Nine Dragons Links:Synopsis l Excerpt l Introduction by Michael l Video l Audiobook Clip l Photos l Q & A l Book Tour l Dennis Lehane Piece

Here Comes The Blind Commissioner

With the family away in Ireland for a few weeks; I spent the entire weekend transcribing interviews and writing a few articles, as well as reworking my own SF-tingered thriller OBSERVATION.

To give myself a reward to look forward to after all the work, I picked up the WATCHMEN DVD which I rocked to last night. Watchmen is a special graphic novel that blew away my world back in the 1980’s. I recall vividly when I attended COMICANA in London, I guess in 1987 when the Graphic Novel came of age with not only Watchman, but also Frank Miller’s re-interpretation of Batman. Both Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore as well as Frank Miller attended Comicana. I enjoyed meeting both of them and having my comics signed.

Anyway, despite loving Bob Dylan’s original, I have to admit My Chemical Romance’s reworking of DESOLATION ROW that closes the movie is spectacular. I had difficulty getting the song out of my head, so I’m now streaming it directly into yours.

Watchmen despite some mixed reviews, is still a remarkable movie and those opening credits with Dylan telling us ‘Times they are a Changing’ are superb.

My Chemical Romance - Desolation Row Lyrics

They’re selling postcards of the hanging
Well, they’re painting the passports brown
And the beauty parlor’s filled with sailors
The circus is in town

Oh now look here comes the blind commissioner
Well, they’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other’s in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Oh Cinderella, she seems so easy
“Well, it takes one to know one,” she smiles
And she puts her hands in her back pockets
Oh Bette Davis style
And now but here comes Romeo, moaning“You Belong to Me I Believe”
And then someone says,"You’re in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave”
And then the only sound that’s left
After the ambulances goIs Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Yeah

Now at midnight all the agents
And superhuman crew
Go out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do (knows more than they do)
They’re gonna bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that no one is escaping
To Desolation Row

‘Cause right now I can’t read too good
Don’t send me no letters no
Not unless you’re gonna mail them
From Desolation Row

Song Information
Released January 26, 2009 (digital)

Recorded 2008 Genre Alternative rock

Length 2:59

Label Reprise Records, Warner Sunset Records

Writer Bob Dylan

Ingrid Pitt at WHC 2010

I was delighted to get this update from the WHC Organisers, as I met Ingrid Pitt many years ago and she is as charming as she is beautiful. Many people didn’t realise that Pitt penned a thriller ‘Cuckoo Run’ as well as her autobiography “Life’s a Scream”. She told me about the time she worked with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton on WHERE EAGLES DARE and the tragic death of Mary Ure [her co-star] in 1975. She is a wonderful actress, writer and an icon of the Horror Genre.

World Horror Convention 2010 is delighted to announce that our very Special Media Guest is Hammer Film’s “Queen of Horror” – actress and author INGRID PITT.

The Polish-born actress’ roles in THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970), COUNTESS DRACULA (1970), THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1970), THE WICKER MAN (1973), Clive Barker’s UNDERWORLD (aka TRANSMUTATIONS, 1985), MINOTAUR (2006) and the ‘Vampirology’ episode on the URBAN GOTHIC TV series have established her as an icon in the horror film genre. Her latest credit is a new version of Edgar Allen Poe’s THE TELL-TALE HEART (2009).She has also written THE INGRID PITT BEDSIDE COMPANION FOR VAMPIRE LOVERS, THE INGRID PITT BEDSIDE COMPANION FOR GHOSTHUNTERS and THE INGRID PITT BOOK OF MURDER, TORTURE AND DEPRAVITY. Additionally, she contributed an Introduction and an original story to THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF VAMPIRE STORIES BY WOMEN, and her autobiography, LIFE’S A SCREAM, was published by Heinemann in 1999.

At World Horror Convention 2010, Ingrid Pitt will be selling signed copies of her books, photos, DVDs and other memorabilia. There will also be a fee for her to sign items brought into the event. However, she will not charge to sign copies of the convention’s hardcover souvenir book and THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF VAMPIRE STORIES BY WOMEN. Please do not embarrass her (or yourself) by asking her to sign any other items for free.For your copy of the Pitt of Horror catalogue or information about The Ingrid Pitt Fan Club, please send your address and a large s.a.e. (or three International Reply Coupons from overseas) to: Pitt of Horror, PO Box 403, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 6FW, England, or visit the web site at www.pittofhorror.com* * *Celebrating its 20th Anniversary, The World Horror Convention will be held over March 25-28, 2010, in the historic Regency seaside city of Brighton, on the picturesque south coast of England. This is the first time that the event will have been held off the North American continent.

The theme is “BRIGHTON SHOCK! – A CELEBRATION OF THE EUROPEAN HORROR TRADITION FROM VICTORIAN TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY”, and the convention will host numerous panels, talks, presentations, readings, workshops and displays devoted to horror, macabre, mystery and thriller fiction and art in all its varied and fearsome forms.

The venue will be the historic Royal Albion Hotel, which dates back more than 180 years and is situated directly opposite the iconic Brighton Pier and a stone’s throw from the beach. There are plenty of alternative hotels and Bed & Breakfasts in the immediate surroundings, catering for all budgets, and Brighton is filled with restaurants, wine bars and clubs. Antiquarian shopping precinct The Lanes, the Sea Life Centre and the world-famous Royal Pavilion are also within easy walking distance. Brighton has direct transport links from Gatwick International Airport and the centre of London, and is easily accessible for overseas visitors, especially those from mainland Europe. And if you want to extend your stay, then Britain’s annual National Science Fiction Convention, Odyssey 2010, is being organised near to Heathrow airport the following weekend. Come for World Horror and stay for Eastercon!

INGRID PITT joins Author Guests of Honour TANITH LEE and DAVID CASE, Artist Guests of Honour LES EDWARDS and DAVE CARSON, and Editor Guest of Honour HUGH LAMB. Best-selling author JAMES HERBERT is the Special Guest of Honour, and Mistress of Ceremonies is JO FLETCHER. Other writers, artists, agents, editors and publishers already registered as attending World Horror Convention 2010 include: ANGRY ROBOT BOOKS (UK), Kelley Armstrong, Randy Broecker, Edward W. Bryant Jr., Pat Cadigan, Ramsey Campbell, CENTIPEDE PRESS (USA), Basil Copper, Peter Crowther, Ellen Datlow, Scott Edelman, Bob Eggleton, Christopher Fowler, Jane Frank, Gary Fry, W. Paul Ganley, GRAY FRIAR PRESS (UK), Simon R. Green, Heather Graham, John Jarrold, JEMMA PRESS (Greece), Stephen Jones, Paul Kane, Nancy Kilpatrick, Allen Koszowski, Tim Lebbon, Samantha Lee, Brian Lumley, Dorothy Lumley, L.H. Maynard & M.P.N. Sims, Gary McMahon, Farah Mendlesohn, MORTBURY PRESS (UK), Mark Morris, Lisa Morton, Yvonne Navarro, Adam L.G. Nevill, NEWCON PRESS (UK), Kim Newman, Reggie Oliver, Weston Ochse, Sarah Pinborough, David Pirie, John L. Probert, PS PUBLISHING (UK), REBEL E PUBLISHERS (South Africa), Tony Richards, David A. Riley, Mark Samuels, SCI FI WIRE, SCREAMING DREAMS (UK), Steven Savile, Robert Shearman, Michael Marshall Smith, SNOWBOOKS (UK), Alexandra Sokoloff, David A. Sutton, TARTARUS PRESS (UK), TELOS PUBLISHING (UK), Lisa Tuttle, Stephen Volk, Ian Watson, Conrad Williams, and F. Paul Wilson, amongst many others.The Horror Writers Association’s prestigious annual Bram Stoker Awards for excellence in horror and fantasy fiction will be presented at a gala Fish & Chips Banquet on the evening of Saturday, March 27. This event will be one of the highlights of the convention, and will include past Stoker Award winners and our Guests of Honour as award presenters.And don’t forget, registered members of the convention can now vote for the World Horror Convention’s prestigious GRAND MASTER AWARD, which will presented at the Stoker Banquet. An electronic voting form is available on the convention website and a printed version was included in the printed Progress Report #1. A list of past recipients – who have included Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz, Anne Rice, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell and Tanith Lee – is displayed on the same page.All information about the convention, hotel and location is available on our website:www.whch2010.org, including an easy to use PayPal Registration Form (which will automatically convert your payment at the current exchange rate). Or you can print off the form and send it with a cheque (sterling only) to:

World Horror Convention,
PO Box 64317,

London NW6 9LL,

England.

PLEASE NOTE: The registration price will increase on October 1st, 2009, so if you have not already – book NOW!

With numerous writers, artists, editors, publishers and booksellers expected to attend from all over the world, this is the one event that the dedicated horror fan, professional, collector or dealer cannot afford to miss!Wish you were here? Well, now you can be . . .

WORLD HORROR CONVENTION. MARCH 25-28, 2010.

BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.www.whc2010.org

Porter's 'Dying Light'

I really enjoy Thriller writer and journalist Henry Porter’s weekly political column in the British Sunday Observer, as he often casts his eye over the growing erosion of our civil liberties in Great Britain. Though I am growing very concerned about the future of this great newspaper. Like most of print journalism, the Sunday Observer, part of The Guardian Media Group is under threat of closure if rumours are to be believed. Henry Porter is well known in London literary circles, as he has written for most national broadsheet newspapers. He was editor of the Atticus column on The Sunday Times, moving to set up the Sunday Correspondent magazine in 1988. He contributes commentary and reportage to The Guardian, Observer, Evening Standard and Sunday Telegraph. He is the British editor of Vanity Fair and divides his time between New York and London.

Porter apart from his journalism is also an accomplished writer of politically charged espionage thrillers. In fact he won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2005 for his novel ‘Brandenburg’ from Orion.

I bumped into him in February at the Orion Authors Party, during drinks I asked him when his latest work would be released. He advised me that ‘Dying Light’ would be out this summer, and it touches upon my own concerns about us all sleep-walking into the pages of Orwell’s 1984.

Today Porter writes in The Independent about ‘Dying Light’ as well as why he is writing about his growing concerns about the role of state endorsed surveillance -

What is the certain evil that animates the contemporary spy writer now? Jihadism would be it, if terrorist actions and lunacy had not outstripped the imagination of any writer. Crime syndicates and arms dealers – possibly. Big business and the behemoths of the Internet age – certainly. Twenty years ago, a chief executive officer saying, as Google's chairman Eric Schmidt did, that the mission of his company was quite simply to organise all the world's information would have signalled some kind of mental disorder. That dominance will bring undreamed of opportunities for abuse in a world where more than ever knowledge is power, and I look forward to the first thriller set in a company like Google.

But it is the state, now so often propelled by the same controlling and monopolistic vices of big business, which has become the certain enemy. This is not new, but the technology at the disposal of the state is, and so is the collapse of liberal self-belief. As Russia and China developed what the Israeli academic Azar Gat described as "authoritarian capitalism", the West no longer needed to distinguish itself or define its beliefs in response to a totalitarian ideology.

We lost the use of a muscle and began to ditch the things that we stood for during the communist era. Governments, particularly in Britain, edged towards milder versions of this authoritarian capitalism, stripping the inventory of freedoms on the pretext of protecting the people, while extending the power of the state. So east and west have begun to draw inexorably towards each other, like Smiley and Karla on the bridge, which is why the conclusion of Smiley's People now seems so clever.

My last adult novel, Brandenburg, also ended on a bridge between East and West Berlin, but at the time of fall of the Wall and a moment of incredulous joy. The book describes the journey of a former Stasi agent through the October demonstrations in Leipzig and Berlin to the moment when East Germans burst into the light of a free society on 9November 1989. I was always fascinated by what had gone on in the six weeks before, and East Germans' defiance of the 80,000 members of the Stasi with their database and networks of informers.
My new novel, The Dying Light, is set in Britain of the near future and describes a society that is moving ever so gradually in the opposite direction; a country that has woken too late to a power grab by the state.

Read More

While over at The Economist, Porter’s ‘Dying Light’ is reviewed and described as a very British Thriller –

OVER the past decade, Henry Porter has regularly produced a new thriller every two years. The long break since his last book, “Brandenburg”, is the direct result of his growing involvement in the fight over civil liberties and free speech in Britain, first under Tony Blair and now under Gordon Brown. Refusing to succumb to complacency, Mr Porter has become a rallying figure for concerned liberals, first through his pointed commentaries on the op-ed pages of the Observer and more recently as the organiser of the Convention on Modern Liberty. His worries about what Britain is becoming now fill his fiction.

His fifth novel, “The Dying Light”, is set somewhere in the middle of the next decade. Ever since the 2012 Olympics in London, Britain has become more and more of a database police state. Hotel guests have to fill in registration forms that are filed with the authorities. You cannot leave the country without informing them too. Sophisticated computer software tracks every purchase, every hospital visit, every car journey. Coroners’ courts, that traditional bastion of independence, are under secret political control. British subjects are routinely put under surveillance by flying drones or harassed by the police, the tax authorities and social services. “We do not want any mischief at this stage,” the prime minister explains. “Mischief”, which describes everything from anti-social behaviour to terrorism, is a word Mr Porter’s prime minister uses a lot

Read More

Photo of Henry Porter taken at Orion Author Party Feb 14th 2009 London © 2009 Ali Karim

Larsson's Virtual Stockholm

I know I border on the obsessive when it comes to the work of Stieg Larsson, especially as the excitement is building again. Firstly I’ve been invited to a special press screening of the Swedish film version of ‘Men Who Hate Women’ [aka ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’] in London soon. I heard that talks are advanced about a US version; and of course Vol III of the Millennium Series ‘The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest’ is due out in the first English Translation this Autumn from Quercus.

It seems I’m not alone about my love for Larsson’s work. I wrote about the Swedish tourist board following the international success of this late journalist turned crime-writer’s work. I have over the years travelled the world, and I enjoyed the brief time I spent in Stockholm, which included buying books at Hedegrens Bookstore back in 2001.

I was pleased to see that the Swedish Tourist Board have now put on a virtual Stieg Larsson Millennium tour –

The books; ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’ and ‘The Girl who Kicked over the Hornet’s Nest’ became mega-hits in Sweden and the English, French and German language translations of the first two sold millions of copies.

Södermalm, where most of the intrigue in the Millenium series takes place, used to be a blue-collar area of Stockholm and is one of fourteen islands that make up the capital city. Over the past couple of decades the area has been spruced up, for good or for bad, and is the setting for much of the action in his books – and of the Millenium tour, run by the Stockholm City Museum.

This 90-minute walking tour is in English and French and its highlights include Götgatan, where Mikael Blomkvist’s, the trilogy’s main character, office is; the view over Riddarfjärden from his apartment and ‘Kvarnen’, a legendary drinking hall on Södermalm frequented by Lisbeth Salander, another main character in the books.

Click Here to see the Millennium Virtual Tour

If that hasn’t slaked your thirst for Sweden’s crime fiction then why not take the Kurt Wallander virtual tour of Ystad -

The beautiful south-coast town of Ystad draws Kurt Wallander fans from near and far to the settings and crime scenes of Henning Mankell’s dour detective’s world. Ystad is a small town with a big harbour, with boats going to and from Poland and Bornholm (Denmark). The network of streets in the old part of town is pretty much the same as it was back in medieval times and there are many fine examples of houses and buildings from this period. On the guided “Wallander” tour around the town you get to see Hotel Continental, where Wallander frequently dines out, the flower shop on the corner of Pottmakaregränd and Västra Vallgatan, and Mariagatan, where Wallander lives. You also visit Ystad Studio, the police station where he works and his favourite hamburger and pizza joints.

For a plethora of my articles, interviews and features on Stieg Larsson and his work – click here

Ghosting Thrillers

I loved Robert Harris’ ITW Award Winning political thriller ‘The Ghost’ with its satirical portrayal of a controversial ‘ex-British Prime Minister’ writing his memoirs, via a ghost-writer [including his role in the so-called ‘War on Terror’]. I loved the book which fictionalised not only the PM but also the role of a ghost-writer. I recently interviewed thriller writer Joe Finder [Vanished] who was the head judge for the ITW Best Novel Panel that selected Harris’ The Ghost, and this is what he had to say –

Ali Karim: Last year you served as a head judge for the 2008 Thriller Awards, handling the Best Novel nominees. What sort of work did you face in that position?

Joe Finder: It involved reading hundreds of novels, which was incredibly time-consuming. There was plenty of crap, but there were also a lot of really good thrillers. The problem my fellow judges and I faced was how to choose among some very different sorts of thrillers--romantic suspense, action, military, high-tech, quiet and literary, fast and gripping. We ended up choosing Robert Harris’ The Ghost, which is a wonderful book. But there were other novels equally good that year, to be honest. They just didn’t grip everyone in the same way.

Though there are many rumours within the industry about co-written thriller novels as well as fully ghosted thriller novels. So, I was amused to see that in these times of hardship for professional thriller-writers due to the economic crisis forcing cutbacks in conventional publishing; two thriller-writers are looking at ghosting as a method to augment their income, reports NPR today –

When Grant Blackwood got out of the Navy in 1987, he decided he wanted to write thrillers. He knew it might be awhile before he could support himself by writing, but in the meantime he was willing to do whatever it took — including chopping wood and driving a limousine — to make his dream come true.

Twelve years later, Blackwood had his first novel published and figured he was home free. But he quickly learned that becoming a successful novelist is like a series of graduations with no guarantee of what happens afterward.

"You decide to sit down and write the book, and you do it — that's a little graduation. You finish the book — that's a little graduation. You find an agent, you find a publisher — that's another one," says Blackwood. "After going through all those hurdles, you think 'OK, I've made it. I've broken that last wall.' But the sad truth is you've only come up against a bigger wall."

That bigger wall is getting your book sold — and then selling the next one. Jenny Siler, who also writes thrillers, got her career off to a great start when her first novel brought in a $150,000 advance.

"That enabled me to start writing professionally and support myself through my writing," says Siler. "[But] as time went on, my books became more literary and my advances became smaller."

Siler's most recent advance was $20,000, and though her husband also brings in money and they live modestly, that still isn't enough to support her, since it takes her between 12 and 18 months to write a book.

So both Siler and Blackwood have chosen to supplement their incomes by turning to ghostwriting.

For Blackwood, the decision came when the sales of his novels started dwindling. After his publisher turned down his fourth novel, Blackwood's editor promised he'd help him find work.

"It wasn't more than six months later when he called, and he said, 'I have this book. It's perfect for you. It's right up your alley, and we want to pay you for it,' " Blackwood says.

Read the full article here including an audio track

Note : Jenny Siler also writes under the name Alex Carr

Mad Men Drummers, Bummers & Indians in the Summer

Jeff Peirce at The Rap Sheet alerted me to -

To promote the third season of AMC-TV’s Mad Men, which begins on Sunday, August 16, the show’s brilliant minds have launched a Web site that lets you become a character on their stylish series.

So I thought why not give it a go - so please find my Mad Men Avatar complete with my favourite suit and coffee mug.

Avoiding a Cain Mutiny

I was amused to read about Tom Cain’s controversial fictional online-thriller Bloodsport in this morning’s Sunday Times. It seems Roland White in his Atticus Column is equally amused -

Any similarity to real PMs is coincidental

As if the Lake District weather wasn’t bad enough for Gordon Brown’s holiday, a fictional assassin is currently stalking the area in search of a fictional prime minister.

The author Tom Cain’s latest thriller, Bloodsport, tells how Sam Carver, hero of three previous books, hunts down this entirely fictional leader in revenge for the death of a friend in Afghanistan. The story kicks off today on a website called The Rap Sheet.

Have you understood clearly that this prime minister is entirely fictional and not based on any current leader (no names, no pack drill)? Good, because Cain has been very aware of the 2006 Terrorism Act, which is very strict about writers who encourage assassination attempts.

“I must emphasise that no real prime ministers were harmed in the making of this story,” he says. “Although the only complaints I’ve had so far are from people who are peeved that I’m using a fictional prime minister.”

Read the full Atticus column here

Remember The Rap Sheet will feature an exclusive interview with Tom Cain later today Sunday 2nd August, and serialise Bloodsport on Monday 3rd Aug, Tue 4th Aug with the conclusion on Wed 5th August. It is an explosive read – believe me.

For more information about Cain’s Bloodsport – click here and why I decided to get involved in the project here

Singing Outside of the Choir

I am excited about The Rap Sheet publishing Tom Cain’s ‘Bloodsport’ online thriller story next week, which will certainly turn a few heads. Some may wonder why I chose to help facilitate this project; and many other such projects over the years.

Can I be brutal? Can I be Passionate? Yes I can!

I am huge bibliophile and reader who loves to talk and discuss books. I have become saddened by the terrible state of publishing and literacy brought on by books being marginalised, especially in the young. I write for various magazines, and ezines with a strong bias toward Crime and Thriller Fiction [though I read widely including Literary, SF and Horror]. The venues I write for, are peopled and read by my fellow readers [and colleagues]; but sometimes I feel I’m singing to the choir, when I should be trying to get non-readers back into the fiction-reading habit. I spend a lot of my time when not ‘singing to the choir’, telling people about books. My hairdresser [and her staff and customers] enjoy my presence once every two months when I get my haircut, as I tell them about all the books I read and enjoyed since my last visit. At dinner parties, I’m the guy talking about books. I supply photos of writers to many magazines, libraries and ezines worldwide. I write non-fiction about books and the literary world. On Twitter I have many ‘followers’ who don’t read [anywhere near] as fanatically as I do; but if I talk loud enough, many often respond. Many people buy books I recommend, review and talk about. I always give books as presents. Basically what I am saying is that I do sing outside of the choir, enthusing people to read fiction, which I believe is important.

I am passionate about the written word

Look at how totalitarian states suppress books, burn them and dumb down their populations, filling their lives with mind-numbing TV, a form of mind-control. I don’t watch TV, period. I can control my own thoughts thank you very much, and I chose what I read very carefully, including which newspapers, magazines I subscribe to.

Back in 2006, I arranged via Stav Sherez to bring with us writer and Telegraph editor - Damien Thompson to the inaugural Thrillerfest convention held at the Arizona Biltmore. On our return to the UK, Damien had managed to get a three full page feature in the Saturday Telegraph, which included a link to http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/ where I work as assistant editor. This resulted in a huge number of hits forcing us [willingly to invest in more bandwidth]. Since then some of those Shots readers, stayed with us and currently we’re the No 2 website in the world covering Crime, Mystery and Thriller Fiction, second only to Kevin Burton Smith’s Thrilling Detective. Due to the huge amount of material at Shots, which includes author interviews, reviews, features, competitions we get >18,000 unique hits per day, which though not anywhere close to the numbers internet pornography or internet gambling receives, for crime / thrillers is pretty respectable. I have to thank our advertisers who help fund the site; though to be fair it is really a labour of love and takes a huge effort from our staff, especially Grog and Gary our wonderful webmasters and of course Editor-in-Chief Mike Stotter – a great friend and fellow advocate. I owe a huge amount to Mike, a debt I can never repay.

Going back to Tom Cain’s Bloodsport - what we hope to achieve thanks to Jeff Peirce of The Rap Sheet; and Tom Cain is to provide an excellent [if rather controversial] online experiment by featuring Cain’s gripping story. We have a view to reach out to as many people who don’t normally read thrillers as we possibly can. This little [but powerful] story may well provoke casual readers to venture into a bookstore and perhaps pick up a book or two. When you tot-up the ratio of book-buyers to non book buyers, it is very worrying. Next time you’re on a train or waiting at an airport; count up the ratio of people reading novels to those reading the dreadfully written ‘free’ newspapers, or twiddling with I-Pods, cellphones. Then tell me that the publishing industry is not in trouble, because the market for fiction is shrinking fast.

But I refuse to accept this as the future, as the future is not yet set

I see my job as a writer, reader, reviewer and blogger - to enthuse as many people as I can into reading books, because books are dangerous, but in a good way, because they make you think about life and existence. They do this far better than any damned cell-phone, I-Pod, tatty free newspaper or the great controller – TV.

I read this article from David Simon, which worried me about the state of print journalism – When it comes to books and newspapers – use them or lose them. It’s as simple as that. When we lose the writers and journalists who patrol societies edges and extremes, then the men-behind-the-curtain will have succeeded, and we’ve lost. But I will fight on until they tear my books from my bleeding fingers or smash my reading glasses. Sometimes I'm reminded / haunted by the image of the late Burgess Meredith from the apocalptic episode [about the obsessive reader] from The Twilight Zone - you know which one.

So when you next get the opportunity - Please talk about books to everyone; please help get reading back up the agenda, not relegated to ‘any-other-business’.

I hope to see you all on Sunday at The Rap Sheet as Tom Cain will start to tell you about his writing in a new interview, and then on Monday 3rd August starts the 3 part serialisation of ‘Bloodsport’ – and trust me, it’s a blast [literally] and please tell your friends, especially those who don’t read novels. This little story may well remind them how exciting reading is at its zenith.

Let’s remind everyone that reading is a crucially relevant part of existence; and an integral facet of the human experience - End of sermon, fellow choir members.

"After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books." – Albert Camus

Happy Birthday Dennis Lehane

Advance notice for Dennis Lehane’s birthday on Tuesday 4th August which he shares with President Barack Obama [who turns 48]. I was most fortunate to interview Dennis earlier this year when he made a rare visit to London – Click Here to read the feature.

As a big fan of his gothic masterwork Shutter Island, which is coming to a Cinema Screen this autumn - I think it only appropriate that we get Leonardo DiCaprio to light the 44 candles on Dennis’ cake.

Peter James back on top

A writer who I admire, both as a businessman and film producer as well as a novelist is Peter James. I seem to have been bumping into him on a regular basis recently, and he is extremely generous in his nature as well as his time. James also is always brimming with information and trivia, so when in his company I always feel completely at home. Considering his highly successful and award-winning Roy Grace Police Procedurals, he remains one of the most modest people I know. I was pleased to see him joining Twitter, but considering his technological background I was hardly surprised. I strongly recommend his latest DEAD TOMORROW [the fifth novel in the award winning Detective Superintendent Roy Grace crime series] –

Lynn gripped the sides of the armchair, trying to p\ut aside her own inner terror. 'I can't believe I'm thinking this, Ross. I'm not a violent person, even before Caitlin's influence, I never even liked killing flies in my kitchen. Now I'm sitting here actually willing some stranger to die'.

The body of a teenager, dredged from the seabed off the coast of Sussex, is found to be missing its vital organs. Soon two more young bodies are found...
Caitlin Beckett, a fifteen-year-old in Brighton, will die if she does not receive a liver transplant, urgently. When the health system threatens to let her down, Lynn, her mother turns in panic to the internet and discovers a broker who can provide her with a black-market organ - but at a price. Prepared to do whatever it takes, Lynn scrambles to raise the money. A few days later, with Caitlin deteriorating by the hour, the organ broker tells Lynn she has found a perfect match.

With his beautiful girlfriend, Cleo, and his recent promotion, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace knows he should finally be feeling positive for the first time since his wife Sandy disappeared, nine years ago. But this new case haunts him, even more than all the others. Following the clues from the bodies, he finds himself on the trail of a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a race against time to save the life of a young street kid, while a desperate mother will stop at nothing to save her daughter's life.

It was little surprise to see that Dead Tomorrow hit the UK top ten this week.

Peter James kindly invited Shots Editor Mike Stotter and I [with Carla McKay and Barry Forshaw] for lunch at the prestigious Ivy restaurant during the Christmas Holiday. We discussed many matters, including his latest novel –

Were you bookish in your youth?

Yes, I was an avid reader – also an avid letter-writer to authors. I once wrote to Enid Blyton saying that I had just read Five Go To Treasure Island and I was very worried that the five of them had spent seven days on an island and not one of them had gone to the toilet in all that time. She wrote a nice letter back telling me not to worry, they had all gone several times but she didn’t think little boys and girls were interested, which was why she hadn’t put it in her book!

What books had you read in that period that perhaps led you to become a fiction writer yourself?

I really wanted to be a crime novelist when I began reading Sherlock Holmes at about twelve years old. Then one day in my mid-teens I read Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock and I was totally blown away by it – probably even more so because it was set in my home town. I promised myself that one day I would try to write a crime novel set in Brighton that was just half as good as this one.
What I love most about this timeless novel is that it is both a thriller and a crime novel, although police play only a tiny part. The story is almost entirely told through the eyes of the villains and two women who believe they can redeem them. Greene has a way of describing characters in just a few lines that makes you feel you know them inside out, and his sense of "place" is almost palpable. The book has one of the most grabbing opening lines ever written, and one of the very best last lines, clever, tantalising and very, very "noir". Greene captures so vividly the dark underbelly of Brighton, as relevant now as when it was first published in 1937, and the characters are wonderful, deeply human, deeply flawed and tragic. What lifts this even further is the way that Greene uses this novel to explore the big themes of religious faith, love and honour, without ever letting the pace slacken, for even one line.

Read More

More information on the world of Peter James can be found from the following links:

WEB http://www.peterjames.com/
BLOG www.peterjames.com/blog.htm
TWITTER http://twitter.com/peterjamesuk

Thinking the Unthinkable

Understanding and predicting future-reality requires people with imagination; even if the ideas initially appear rather nutty. Think of Tom Clancy and his idea for crashing a plane [or drone missile] into the Pentagon, think of Chris Carter’s Lone Gunmen episode which featured a passenger plane attack on the Twin Towers in New York. I find the use of writers to think the unthinkable very interesting, in fact I have written about it a few times, thanks to my interest in both Science Fact as well as Science Fiction.

This week David Montgomery of The Washington Post has a fascinating article about the fine line between Science Fiction / Science Fact and features Greg Bear, who wrote the wonderful Blood Music, one of the first SF novels to feature Nanotechnology in an SF setting.

The line between what's real and what's not is thin and shifting, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to explore both sides. Boldly going where few government bureaucracies have gone before, the agency is enlisting the expertise of science fiction writers.
Crazy? This week down at the Reagan Building, the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference has been going on. Instead of just another wonkish series of meetings and a trade show, with contractors hustling business around every corner, this felt at times more like a convention of futuristic yarn-spinners.

Onstage in the darkened amphitheater, a Washington police commander said he'd like to have Mr. Spock's instant access to information: At a disaster scene, he'd like to say, "Computer, what's the dosage on this medication?"

A federal research director fantasized about a cellphone that could simultaneously text and detect biochemical attacks. Multiple cellphones in a crowd would confirm and track the spread. The master of ceremonies for the week was Greg Bear, the sci-fi novelist whose book "Quantico" featured FBI agents battling a designer plague targeting specific ethnic groups.

The downer in the piece is yet another bookshop facing economic pressure due to the global credit crunch which is seriously pressuring the publishing industry –

At Reiter's, a place for science browsers since 1936, the dystopian future includes the possible demise of another struggling independent shop. It's getting hard to pay the rent, said owner Barbara Nelson. On the shelves was at least one factual hard-science text edited by one of the fiction writers on the panel. The tome, "Observatories in Earth Orbit and Beyond," was marked down to $130 from $179. The same unsold copy had been here a year ago.

This annual sci-fi security event, co-sponsored by the Washington Science Fiction Association, is the only night of the year Reiter's sells novels. The fans lined up for autographs of their newly purchased fiction, ignoring the science.

Read More Here

Gerald and Ali Go To Bouchercon

Many attend Bouchercon to meet their favourite authors; but I also love to meet the enthusiasts who help support the Crime / Thriller genre, with reviews, interviews and their own writing. The enthusiasts publish books, magazines, fanzines, blogs, web-zines, organize conventions, conferences and festivals as well as involvement in award judging – and much of this work is more a labour of love than for financial gain. The enthusiasts [or as George Easter calls them ‘Uber Fans’] have become a family – meeting up at conventions worldwide, and their enthusiasm is infectious and always good-natured. ‘The Daddy’ of conventions is of course Bouchercon, though there are many others such as Thrillerfest, Left-Coast Crime, Harrogate, Crimefest, Murder in the Midlands, Love is Murder, Magna-cum-Murder et. al.

Last year the biggest gathering of enthusiasts occurred at Bouchercon Baltimore. We had Jiro Kimura from Gumshoe Japan, Maggie Griffin, Jeff and Beth of Cincinnati Media, Janet Rudolf of Mystery Readers International, The Deadly Pleasures crew led by George Easter and Larry Gandle, Sarah Weinman, Dana Kaye, The Jordan clan from Crimespree, Jim Huang of the Drood Review, Peter Rozovsky, The Mystery News and Mystery Scene gang, Jeff Pierce from The Rap Sheet, Linda Richards from January Magazine, The Strand Magazine team, David Montgomery of Mystery Ink, Rae Helmsworth, Gangs from Dorothy L and Rec.Arts.Mystery [RAM], Maddy Hertbruggan and her cabal from 4-MA, Gerald So of Thrilling Detective, Sandra Ruttan and Brian of Spinetingler, Russel Mclean of Crimescene Scotland, Ayo Onatade from Mystery Women, as well as myself with many hats including my bullet-ridden Shots, Rap Sheet, Deadly Pleasures, Crimespree, Books and Bytes, Mystery Readers International and CWA Red Herrings Hat[s]. I should also add that there were more bloggers than you can toss a mouse at, and far too many to name here. Apologies for those I haven’t mentioned here, as the genre is healthy despite all the economic gloom that pervades the media.

Events, such as last year’s Baltimore Bouchercon allowed enthusiasts who communicate with each other on the internet, to actually meet in person. Word of mouth today is driven by the internet, so it is good to actually meet physically, and the convention is a brilliant method of linking the enthusiasts – and considering the global reach – as we are all scattered around the world, it’s great fun to sit back and physically meet each other, rather than just Twitter.

I was delighted to actually spend some time [last autumn in Baltimore] with Gerald So - after many years of reading his work as fiction editor at Thrilling Detective, his blogging, his Twittering and his work as editor at ‘The Line-Up’. Gerald and his fellow co-editors Patrick Shawn Bagley, R. Narvaez, and Anthony Rainone have now produced Volume II of their collections of Crime-Fiction Poetry. Gerald kindly asked me to contribute to this volume, but due to my usual deadline juggling battles was unable to meet the timeline. I got my copy of ‘The Line-Up’ Vol II and was very impressed to find amongst the collection, pieces by award-winning poet Sophie Hannah as well as CWA Diamond Dagger Winner John Harvey both of whom incidentally attended the Baltimore event last year.

I strongly urge you to grab both volumes – which you can order here and if you’re not convinced, let me leave you with a few lines from someone who is far more persuasive than I -

"Like the best crime fiction, the best poetry concerns itself with mortality and anguish, and The Lineup explores this terrain with a candor and fearlessness that is sure to shake readers from their slumber. You can keep your 400-page tomes with their windy, discursive narrators -- this is the real stuff, as concentrated and corrosive as a shot of 190-proof Everclear."
— Charles Ardai, award-winning author and co-founder of Hard Case Crime

If you want a sample – check out a downloadable MP3 file on Seth Harwood’s CrimeWav Here

I really enjoyed chatting with Gerald in Baltimore; who like myself has his family origins in Asia. Being from an ethnic minority can have its challenges, believe me. Whenever I see positive role-models of Asian Americans, or British Asians I am always pleased because there are so many negative images feed by the media. As a kid growing up in the 1960’s and 1970’s in England things were less enlightened; so I was proud to let my friends know that the lead singer from Queen, Freddie Mercury [Farrokh Bulsara] was actually a British Asian like myself.
While at Bouchercon, I remarked to Gerald jokingly, that the two of us look like grown-up versions of Harold and Kumar, the two Asian-American stoners who feature in two of the funniest, if somewhat silly movies I’ve seen in recent years. The popularity of the Harold and Kumar movies have helped the careers of Asian-American actors John Cho and Kal Pen; with Cho featuring in the recent J J Abrams’ Star Trek film in the role of Mr Sulu.

If you’ve not seen the two Harold and Kumar Movies I strongly urge you to do so. Despite the silly premise, and the idiotic adventures they find themselves in, there is a serious message about how people from ethnic minorities can be stereotyped by some people. The two stoners first appeared in ‘Harold and Kumar go to White Castle’ [2004], which was re-titled ‘Harold and Kumar get the munchies’ for European release. In truth it is a very silly film, but one that made me laugh so much, I actually felt I was stoned!

The duo returned last year in the very funny ‘Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay’ [2008].

Both Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg have announced plans to write and direct a third Harold and Kumar movie, with Greg Shapiro returning as producer, and Kal Penn and John Cho expected to return in their title roles. Though their co-star Neil Patrick Harris may not return as he was shot in the whore-house scene; but we don’t know if he actually died. If the producers are looking for co-stars then look no further than Gerald and Ali and Jon Jordan.


Neil Patrick Harris for Harold and Kumar
So if the poor state of the economy is getting you down, then why not order in a case of beer, get your friends round, and sit back and watch a Harold and Kumar Double Bill on DVD – it just might cheer you up, and make you look at stereotypes in a different light.

The scene below always makes me laugh out loud no matter how many times I’ve seen it, a coda to the Wayne’s World scene when the characters sing along to Freddy Mercury and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

And make your plans for Bouchercon 2009 in Indianapolis if you want to meet fellow crime thriller enthusiasts as well as the authors who populate the crime and thriller genre.

Maxim and Wootton on Chandler

I was sorry when Maxim closed Murder One bookstore earlier this year, but knowing how busy he is anyway, I knew he would be back writing, editing, publishing – but he is taking up teaching at Faber & Faber with Adrian Wootton.

How to Read: Raymond Chandler

with Maxim Jakubowski and Adrian Wootton [photo (c) 2004 Ali Karim]

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Raymond Chandler’s death, the Faber Academy presents a one-day course on the life and works of the man without whom crime fiction as it is today might never have existed. Chandler himself claimed that he had brought back mystery writing to the gutter where it belonged and almost single-handedly created the archetypal, imperfect private eye, the melancholy loner who roams the mean streets in search of justice or redemption. He was also the author who brought Los Angeles to life like no other in his books, anchoring a sense of place which is often unique to the best of crime writing. The course will examine Chandler’s place in the history of popular fiction, his major novels, his short stories, his often conflicted life which took him from Dulwich to California, his time in Hollywood and the way cinema has treated him as well as his illuminating letters and essays about the art of writing. The principal tutor will be writer and critic Maxim Jakubowski and guest lecturer will be film expert Adrian Wootton.The day will take place at the beautiful Georgian offices of independent publisher, Faber and Faber.

There are no hard and fast criteria for attendance, save the following:

To have read some or all of Chandler’s work
To come with a lively, open mind
To ask interesting questions and be prepared to have your opinions challenged

Saturday 12 September 2009
Faber and Faber

Bloomsbury House

74-77 Great Russell Street

London

WC1B 3DA

England

More Information on booking a place here from Faber & Faber

Finding Thrilling Comics

Many Thriller writers and readers [of a certain age] were weaned on US comics from Marvel, DC and the other superhero stables during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Now with the popularity of Comic Book Superhero film adaptations reaching a zenith with recent box-office hits such as Batman, Wolverine, Watchmen etc - there is a full circle movement going on, with many of the top thriller writers now getting involved writing comics. As a long term thriller and comics reader, this is a welcome addition to my reading.

A few years ago, I interviewed Robert Crais over breakfast in Manchester, and was impressed at Crais’ knowledge about comics, and discovered that his first published work [like my own] was in the letters page of a Marvel Comic [as an adolescent] -

Ali : Going back to your childhood in Louisiana, did you read avidly when you were growing up?

Robert : Yes, I read a great deal, starting with comic books, and this grew into my life-long love of comics.

Ali : Which ones did you read?

Robert : I started with DC, which is now known as the Silver Age, Batman, Justice League of America, Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Flash, Green Lantern and on, and on. Then I got turned onto Marvel Comics when I read issue #7 of Spiderman.

Ali : Steve Ditko?

Robert : Yes I consider Steve Ditko as a comic-book God, he was amazing. I think it might have been Spiderman vs. Green Goblin and his work with Stan Lee really transcended the genre. This contrasted with what DC Comics were doing at the time – Marvel were doing superhero as human being. Peter Parker was very relatable as a human being [as well as being Spiderman’s alter-ego] and very vulnerable, very human, the misplaced outsider, the child who needed a strong father figure.

Ali : And that’s interesting as we touched upon the theme of father-figures in your work, especially within the plot of your latest The Two Minute Rule.

Robert : Yes, we begin to see how this all loops together and so as a youth I got totally turned onto Marvel.

Ali : I acknowledge the importance of Ditko but what about Jack Kirby?

Robert : Yes Kirby was brilliant but Ditko remained my favourite because of the emotional power of his work. There was also Dick Ayers and a whole load of other guys, but for me it was always Ditko centre-stage as his artwork was perhaps more expressive as to what the characters were feeling - he better defined the emotions in the characters than perhaps the others working the field, or so it seemed to me. I became a total Marvel maniac; I had a massive comic book collection at the point. One of the highpoints of my career was my first national publication, which was a letter in a Marvel Comic.

Ali : [laughing]….and the highlight of my career was also having a letter published in a Marvel Comic. Mine was in Kazaa The Savage aged sixteen.

Robert : [laughing]….it’s hard to beat that…[laughing]…everything is downhill from there on in…

Ali : I guess it is…[laughing]…so where did you get your letter published?

Robert : It got it published in The Amazing Spiderman, I think issue #67 by which time John Romita had taken over. I got a ‘no-prize’ and was a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society, and - cut to many years later - I’m in Hollywood with quite a nice career as a TV writer/producer and I’ve been hired by Warner Bros. Television to write two TV pilots – the first being The Amazing Spiderman.

Ali : Is this the Hammond series?

Robert : No, this is after the Nick Hammond series, as someone got hot to do another series, so I was hired to write Spiderman as well as Dr Strange. So when I first got the call, an executive at Warner Bros. asked me to come meet Stan Lee. So I go to this lunch to meet Stan Lee.

Ali : Amazing – meeting Stan Lee!

Robert : Yes, amazing. I told the executive that it would be nice to have lunch with Stan Lee…[laughing]…So as I put down the phone I immediately ran around the house screaming, hunting around for my ‘no-prize’. Now comes the day of meeting, and I arrive at this lovely restaurant. There are a load of suits from Warner Bros. in their Armani jackets, and I’m there trying to look like an adult when Stan ‘The Man’ Lee walks in. The suits introduce me, ‘Mr Lee, this is the writer we’ve talking about, Mr Crais, and then they introduce themselves to him, and then there’s the yada, yada, yada….and in the middle of all these suits talking millions and millions of dollars, I say, ‘Stan, look at this, I got a “no-prize”’….[laughing]….and Stan just laughed and signed it for me. Hey, no matter who I am, or what I do, that ‘no-prize’ means so much to me. It is the real me, addressed to Bobby Crais and has my Baton Rouge home address when I was a kid. Stan was thrilled, and he wrote this inscription while the suits watched in confusion as we were meeting to discuss a ten million dollar production, while here’s me doing this total fan-boy act with Stan Lee. I had it framed and it hangs in my office…

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Stephen King as ever the pioneer, found many of his works adapted for the comics medium, as did Ian Fleming’s aristocratic spy James Bond, who has been adapted many times in comic book form. More recently we’ve seen David Morrell writing Captain America, Duane Swierczynski, Victor Gischler and many others penning comics. I was pleased last fall [thanks to Jon Jordan] to be introduced to Brian Azzarello, author of 100 BULLETS at Bouchercon Baltimore so I was rather pleased to read this snippet from one of my favourite thriller writers, Boston based Joe Finder –

Before I wanted to be an author, before I wanted to be a secret agent, before I wanted to be almost anything, I wanted to draw cartoons. I love cartoons, and always have. Visit my office and you’ll see several classics framed on my wall, including a Charles Addams original.

Reality got in the way, as it often does. The only D you’ll see on my college transcript was – yes – an art class. I realized I was better at words than at pictures, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But the dream never completely died, and at last year’s Bouchercon (the World Mystery Convention), I met a couple of guys from DC Comics. By coincidence, I was working on a subplot in VANISHED involving the main character’s teenaged nephew, Gabe, who was writing and illustrating what he called a “graphic novel” about a superhero based on his uncle, Nick Heller.

So I took the opportunity to talk comics and graphic novels with them, and discovered a world I’d barely imagined. I knew that several major mystery and literary authors were working in the graphic novel arena – Michael Chabon, Brad Meltzer, Gregg Hurwitz, Duane Swierczynski, to name a few – and at Bouchercon I met Brian Azzarello, author of 100 BULLETS and (with Lee Bermejo) THE JOKER.

This fired my imagination; I’m always looking for ways to introduce my works to new audiences, and what better way than a comic book, especially if a comic book was part of my plot? And what if the comic book included a clue to the central mystery of VANISHED, itself?

I took this idea to DC Comics Senior Editor Will Dennis, who was kind enough to encourage me. He helped me find a Spanish artist, Benito Gallego, who could create the images I imagined for Gabe’s fictional superhero, The Cowl – classically heroic images in the tradition of the comics I read as a kid, by artists such as John Buscema and Joe Kubert.

Writing a comic book, however, isn’t like writing a novel. It’s somewhere between writing a screenplay and writing a series of epigrams, and it’s not what I do. I had a story for The Cowl, but didn’t know how to bring it to life.

Brian Azzarello to the rescue. I asked if he’d be willing to take over The Cowl’s story, and he agreed – and came up with a script even better than I’d imagined, about the origins of The Cowl in a post-Apocalyptic Washington, DC.

The Cowl – the secret identity of international security consultant Nick Heller – takes to the streets of Washington, DC to fight the nefarious Dr. Cash, a scientist who rules with an iron hand and an endless supply of a mind-altering chemical that enslaves the city’s young men.

The idea of a comic book based on the creation of a fictional character is a little complicated, and putting it all together was complicated as well – me in Boston, Benito in Spain, Azz in Chicago. But the first copies came off the press a couple of weeks ago, and I’m delighted with the result. Over the next several months I’ll be giving copies away, and my publisher, St. Martin’s, will make copies available to booksellers along with advance reading copies of VANISHED.

It’s been a great adventure, and I’m grateful to Brian and Benito for letting me achieve my childhood dream, with a little help from my friends.

To learn more about Joe Finder’s Vanished Click Here, or follow him on Twitter Here.