Reed Farrel Coleman

ROBERT B. PARKER’S THE DEVIL WINS     

A nor’easter blows into Paradise, bringing unexpected tragedy with it. In an abandoned building collapsed by the storm, police discover the body of a murdered man wrapped in a blue tarp. Only feet from him they also discover the skeletal remains of two teenage girls who had gone missing from a 4th of July celebration twenty-five years earlier, many years before Jesse Stone came to town. Adding to the trauma and mystery is the fact that these girls were childhood friends of Jesse’s right hand, Molly Crane. Things get even more complicated when the mother of one of the dead girls returns to claim her daughter’s body and is promptly murdered. Jesse must lift the veil off the past to see how the murders are connected and to bring justice to the victims.

               When I took this gig, I knew my life was bound to change in ways I couldn’t imagine. Of course it changed in ways that were easy to imagine as well. After almost a decade and a half of publishing novels, my public profile was raised more in twenty-four hours—the day following the announcement that I was taking over the Jesse Stone series—than in the previous twenty-four years. It was also nice to be able to pay some bills instead of watching my wife be the greatest financial juggler the world had ever seen. What’s that country song about mothers not letting their sons grow up to be cowboys? Well, I have similar advice about letting sons and daughters grow up to be writers. The pay generally stinks. The hours suck. It’s frequently lonely, frustrating, and torturous. Otherwise it’s grand. Oh, and it’s the only thing I ever wanted to do or was any good at.

               But I want to talk a little bit about the unexpected consequences of taking over one of the great series in crime fiction. One is that the fans of the series, whether they came to it originally through the novels or the TV movies have, for the most part, been more than kind and understanding. Largely, they have been supportive and keen on my attempts to keep the series fresh. I have maintained the form of the novels—third person omniscient, short chapters, snappy dialogue—but I have never tried to imitate either Bob Parker’s writing or Michael Brandman’s. Michael is the gentleman who wrote the three Jesse Stone novels immediately following Bob’s passing.

               And it’s Michael Brandman I want to talk about next. I replaced him under circumstances I am unfamiliar with and with which I wish to remain unfamiliar. Yet Michael has been nothing but gracious and kind to me. He has written to me wishing me luck and success. He has discussed with me the shooting of the Jesse Stone movies. We’ve talked about having lunch together the next time I’m in LA. Michael is still heavily involved in the Jesse Stone movies that will hopefully, for all of our sakes, continue to be produced. There seems no end to their popularity. And no, for everyone who asks, I’ve never met Tom Selleck.

               I’d also like to talk about two of Bob Parker’s friends, Mel Farman and Jim Kennedy. When you pick up your copy of Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins, you’ll notice the book is dedicated to these two gentlemen. And gentlemen they are. Mel Farman was Bob Parker’s oldest friend. They had dined together once a week for something like fifty years, the last twenty at Legal Seafood in Harvard Square. Bob and Mel had been in the advertising business together many many years ago. When I got the gig, Mel wrote to me, introduced himself, and invited me to dinner at Legal Seafood the next time I was in Boston. I took him up on the offer. Amazing. Amazing. He had me sit in Bob Parker’s seat that has a plaque next to it at the bar. Mel and I hit it off as if we were old pals.

               Jim and Bob don’t go as far back as Mel and Bob, but he is definitely part of the inner circle. He too wrote to me, introduced himself, and welcomed me. And as sweet as Mel’s offer was to take me to dinner, Jim had an even more unique way have dinner with me. Last year I appeared at the Pewaukee Library in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. A fund raising dinner was held as part of the event and guess who bought a ticket and showed up … Jim Kennedy. Hey, the guy lives in California! I mean, Pewaukee is beautiful when it’s not winter, but come on. He was great.           

                When I took this gig, there were a lot of potential challenges, not the least of which was worrying about how I would be received by the fans of the series and by Bob Parker’s friends. Well, so far so good. I could not have asked for a better reception.

Mel Farman, Jim Kennedy, and Ace Atkins who now writes the Robert B. Parker Spenser novels

Reed Farrel Coleman is the New York Times Bestselling author of Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone series. He has also been signed by Putnam to start a new series featuring retired Suffolk County cop, Gus Murphy. The first novel in the series, WHERE IT HURTS, will be released in January 2016. Reed is a three-time Shamus Award winner for Best PI Novel of the Year and a three-time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories. He has also won the Audie, Barry, Macavity, and Anthony Awards. He is a former Executive Vice President of Mystery Writers of America and a founding member of MWA University. Brooklyn born and raised, he now lives with his wife on Long Island.

Author Spotlights Are Back

Some of you might remember when Meanderings and Muses did author spotlights.

A lot of author spotlights.

What started as a once a month feature became a once a week feature, and then a twice a week feature with the third on many weeks, and then even the occasional fourth.

After slowing back down last year, I decided to give it a rest this year.

But, I've missed having writer friends here chatting about anything they wanted to chat about.

So.

I've asked three of my favorite authors, who happen to also be three of my favorite people, to come by for a chat.

Margaret Maron will be here in August.

"Long Upon the Land," the 20th in her Judge Deborah Knott series is scheduled to release August 11th.

Reed Farrel Coleman will be here in September. 

"Robert B. Parker's the Devil Win," book 14 in the Jesse Stone series, the second in the series written by Reed, is scheduled to release September 8th.

Hank Phillippi Ryan will be here in October. 

Her "What You See," the 4th in her Jane Ryland series is scheduled to release October 27th.

Once I have their exact visit dates pinned down, I'll let you know.

I'm excited about them being here, and I know many of you are too.

So much fun having favorite authors as friends.  Hopefully, there will be more visits.  Stay tuned!

Reed Farrel Coleman On Being 1/3 of Robert B. Parker

On Being 1/3 of Robert B. Parker

       

It was early May 2013 and the day before I was to leave for St. Louis to do my annual Suspense Night gig at the St. Louis County Library. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon and I was relaxing after having packed for my trip. My agent’s phone number flashed across my TV screen. The conversation that followed went something like this:

        “Hey, David (David Hale Smith of Inkwell Management), what’s up? Something wrong?”

        “Reed, I think you need to sit down.”

        “As a matter of fact, I’m laying down, watching TV.”

        “Good.”

        “Why, David, what’s wrong?”

        “Are you sure you’re not standing?”

        “David, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m gonna shoot you.”

        “How would you like to be Robert B. Parker?”

        The rest, as they say, is history. Or it soon will be. On September 9^th, two days from now, Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot, a Jesse Stone novel by Reed Farrel Coleman will be on book shelves and available through your favorite e-tailer. These last sixteen months have been quite an interesting journey. Most of it has been wonderful, but many aspects of it have been frustrating as well. That’s pretty much how everything in life goes, right? There always seems to be this odd balance in life and this experience has sure borne that out.

        First, I got the call from my agent about a week after I finished The Hollow Girl, the final novel in my Moe Prager Mystery series. What, I sometimes wonder, would have happened had they offered me this gig before I had completed the Moe series? When I asked my new editor at Putnam if she was aware that I was wrapping up the Moe series, she said she had no clue. I figured that I got the gig not only based upon my writing ability, but also on the essay I wrote for the book In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero, edited by Otto Penzler. My essay? “Go East Young Man: Robert B. Parker, Jesse Stone, and Spenser.” Yet again, I was wrong. My editor only read the essay after I was hired.

        One of my great frustrations was that I wasn’t permitted to make this deal public for eleven months. Yes, I could tell my family, but for the most part I operated under the threat of losing the deal if it became public knowledge. Only I needed to be able to tell some colleagues in order to seek their advice and to access their expertise on Jesse Stone and Mr. Parker. At points during the writing of Blind Spot, I felt more like an undercover operative than an author. It really came to a head at Bouchercon Albany when I was sitting in on a panel about the future of PI fiction and the moderator, Ali Karim, asked me my opinion on the phenomenon of writers taking over series made famous by now deceased authors. You can imagine that I was biting the insides of my cheeks pretty hard when I said, “I guess it depends on the writers involved and the series.”

        For the most part, though, it’s been great and all the little frustrations worth it. It is a total honor to have been chosen to follow in Robert B. Parker’s footsteps and to continue one of the great series in crime fiction history. Jesse Stone is that rarest of commodities: a perfectly flawed protagonist. There are many flawed protagonists. There are some perfect protagonists. But very few are perfectly flawed. What do I mean? If you know the series, you know what I mean. If Blind Spot is your first Jesse Stone novel, you’ll get it right away. If you have read any of my own work, you know I have a real weak spot for strong, yet vulnerable protagonists. But Jesse and Moe are very different creatures. Moe wore his heart on his sleeve. The only thing Jesse wears on his sleeve is his Paradise Police Department patch. While I haven’t tried to do a direct imitation of Mr. Parker’s style, I have tried to be true to his characters. I think of it this way: I use the same camera as Mr. Parker did, but I've changed lenses.

        I do wonder how the book will be received by critics and longtime fans of the series. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

News - Good News and Incredibly Sad News

The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association has announced the nominees for the Dilys Awards, given to the mystery title of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. The Dilys Award is named in honor of Dilys Winn, the founder of the first specialty bookseller of mystery books in the United States, and is presented at the Left Coast Crime mystery convention.

These are this year's nominees -


The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellroy
The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson
The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
The Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan

and

Mystery Writers of America has announced, on the 201st anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2009. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at their 64th Gala Banquet on April 29, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.


BEST NOVEL


The Missing by Tim Gautreaux (Random House - Alfred A. Knopf)
The Odds by Kathleen George (Minotaur Books)
The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books)
Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston (Random House -  Ballantine Books)
Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett (HarperCollins)
A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books)



BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR


The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano (Grand Central Publishing)
Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley (Simon & Schuster - Touchstone)
The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf (MIRA Books)
A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield (Minotaur Books – Thomas Dunne Books)
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke (HarperCollins)
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur Books)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL


Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)
Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano (Akashic Books)
The Lord God Bird by Russell Hill (Pleasure Boat Studio – Caravel Books)
Body Blows by Marc Strange (Dundurn Press – Castle Street Mysteries)
The Herring-Seller’s Apprentice by L.C. Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press)


BEST FACT CRIME


Columbine by Dave Cullen (Hachette Book Group - Twelve)
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn (Simon & Schuster)
The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston’s Racial Divide by Dick Lehr (HarperCollins)
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo (The Penguin Press)
Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti (Random House - Alfred A. Knopf)


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL


Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James (Random House - Alfred A. Knopf)
The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives edited by Otto Penzler (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)
Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak (Thomas Dunne Books)
The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s Press)
The Stephen King Illustrated Companion by Bev Vincent (Fall River Press)


BEST SHORT STORY


"Last Fair Deal Gone Down" – Crossroad Blues by Ace Atkins (Busted Flush Press)
"Femme Sole" – Boston Noir by Dana Cameron (Akashic Books)
"Digby, Attorney at Law" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Jim Fusilli (Dell Magazines)
"Animal Rescue" – Boston Noir by Dennis Lehane (Akashic Books
"Amapola" – Phoenix Noir by Luis Alberto Urrea (Akashic Books)


BEST JUVENILE


The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity by Mac Barnett (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour by Michael D. Beil (Random House Children’s Books – Alfred A. Knopf)
Closed for the Season by Mary Downing Hahn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books)
Creepy Crawly Crime by Aaron Reynolds (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers)
The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer (Penguin Young Readers Group – Philomel Books)


BEST YOUNG ADULT


Reality Check by Peter Abrahams (HarperCollins Children’s Books – HarperTeen)
If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)
The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford (Penguin Young Readers Group – Viking Children’s Books)
Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone by Dene Low (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books)
Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY


“Place of Execution,” Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson (PBS/WGBH Boston)
“Strike Three” – The Closer, Teleplay by Steven Kane (Warner Bros TV for TNT)
“Look What He Dug Up This Time” – Damages, Teleplay by Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler & Daniel Zelman (FX Networks)
“Grilled” – Breaking Bad, Teleplay by George Mastras (AMC/Sony)
“Living the Dream” – Dexter, Teleplay by Clyde Phillips (Showtime)


ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD


"A Dreadful Day" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Dan Warthman
(Dell Magazines)


GRAND MASTER


Dorothy Gilman


RAVEN AWARDS


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


ELLERY QUEEN AWARD


Poisoned Pen Press (Barbara Peters & Robert Rosenwald)



THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 28, 2010)


Awakening by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)
Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof by Blaize Clement (Minotaur Books)
Never Tell a Lie by Hallie Ephron (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
Lethal Vintage by Nadia Gordon (Chronicle Books)
Dial H for Hitchcock by Susan Kandel (HarperCollins)

and

Sadly and ironically, on top of all this, as we send our congratulations to all the above nominees, we learn that Robert B. Parker (himself the winner of two Edgars and a former MWA Grand Master) has died.

Many writers in the crime fiction community mention Robert Parker as one of the reasons they started writing in this genre, and many readers will mention Robert Parker as one of the reasons they read crime fiction. Not many of us could resist the wise-cracking closeness of Spenser and Hawk. The first book in the Spenser series, The Godwulf Manuscript, still retains its original appeal and its popularity and is referred to often as "a classic."

Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind might be the best place to watch for updates as updates and tributes continue to come in.

I am one of a multitude of fans who will miss this giant of a man.

9/17/1932 - 1/18/2010