There are bridges, and then there are bridges

While a huge population of the mystery community is gathered in San Francisco right now, we're seeing lots of pictures of the famous, beautiful, Golden Gate Bridge.

(taken by Tasha Alexander)

And rightly so.  It's gorgeous.  And brings with it a lot of history and romance.

But there's another little bridge that has a very special place in my heart.  

It's not well known and even to the people who know it well, it probably rarely sparks the emotion it does for me.

It's this wonderful bridge that takes you into Cambridge, Maryland across the Choptank River.  

The second our car wheels hit that bridge heading toward Cambridge I start crying.  It's just so beautiful, and my heart knows it's home.

We won't even talk about how hard I cry when the car wheels hit that bridge when we leave. 

Although I've always heard it referred to as "The Bridge," the real name of the original bridge is The Emerson C. Harrington Bridge.  

The Emerson C. Harrington Bridge began construction in 1933 and was dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935.  Prior to that, ferries were used to cross the river. Presiden Roosevelt was on board his presidential yacht Sequoia, when it became the first vessel to pass through the draw.

The President delivered a congratulatory speech at Long Wharf in Cambridge, which is now the site of the Harbor.

A memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the faux smoke stack (it was actually an elevator shaft) from his later Presidential yacht, U.S.S. Potomac, is located there.

The Emerson C. Harrington bridge that was there all my life while I was growing up was this reallllly really narrow, scary narrow, 2 lane bridge.  Plus there was a sidewalk that ran the entire length of it that people used to stand on to fish.  I swear to God - you never knew when someone might reel in a fish with too much enthusiasm and it end up slap on your windshield.  (well, okay, I made that part up.  I never ever heard that this happened, but it could have, right?!)

When they built the new bridge in 1987,  they used remains of the old bridge to build a fishing pier adjacent to the new bridge.  Which I thought was very cool.  That old bridge has a lot of memories attached to it.  Memories I'll never accumulate with the new one, since my only forays across it are the visits we now make home every few years.

I remember sitting in the car waiting while the bridge gate keeper would open the swing span long enough for boats with tall masts came through.  Traffic would back up pretty often for this.  And that was all that man did all day long.  Sit in that little room on that bridge and wait for big boats to come by so he could open and close the swing span.

Give me a stack of books, sit me in that room on that wonderful bridge with a view across my beloved Choptank and I'd be one very happy camper, I do believe.  

for real.

So long as this cute guy wasn't too far away . . . 

oh yeah - or this little guy - - -

2010 ANTHONY AWARDS, MACAVITY AWARDS, BARRY AWARDS and SHAMUS AWARDS

2010 ANTHONY AWARDS

BEST NOVEL
THE BRUTAL TELLING - Louise Penny [Minotaur Books]

BEST FIRST NOVEL
A BAD DAY FOR SORRY - Sophie Littlefield [Minotaur Books]

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
STARVATION LAKE - Bryan Gruley [Touchstone]

BEST SHORT STORY
"On the House" - Hank Phillippi Ryan, QUARRY: Crime Stories by New England Writers, [Level Best Books]

BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION WORK
TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION - P.D. James [Bodleian Library/Knopf]

2010 MACAVITY AWARDS

The Macavity Award is named for the "mystery cat" of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats). Each year the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in four categories. 

The awards were presented at Bouchercon by the Bay on Thursday evening by Janet Rudolph - 

Best Mystery Novel: Ken Bruen & Reed Farrel Coleman: Tower (Busted Flush Press)

Best First Mystery Novel: Alan Bradley: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Delacorte)

Best Mystery Nonfiction: P.D. James: Talking about Detective Fiction (Alfred A. Knopf)

Best Mystery Short Story: Hank Phillippi Ryan: "On the House" (Quarry: Crime Stories by New England Writers, Level Best Books)

Sue Feder Historical Mystery:  Rebecca Cantrell: A Trace of Smoke (Forge)

THE BARRY AWARDS

The Barry Awards are nominated on and voted on by subscribers to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.

BEST NOVEL - John Hart, THE LAST CHILD, Minotaur 

BEST FIRST NOVEL - Alan Bradley, THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE, Delacorte

BEST BRITISH NOVEL - Philip Kerr, IF THE DEAD NOT RISE, Quercus


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL - Bryan Gruley, STARVATION LAKE, Touchstone

BEST THRILLER -  Jamie Freveletti,  RUNNING FROM THE DEVIL, Morrow

BEST MYSTERY CRIME NOVEL OF THE DECADE - Stieg Larsson,  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO,  Knopf

BEST SHORT STORY -  Brendan DuBois, "The High House Writer," AHMM - July-August 2009

SHAMUS AWARD WINNERS

Best Hardcover P.I. Novel: LOCKED IN, by Marcia Muller (Grand Central)

Best First P.I. Novel: FACES OF THE GONE, by Brad Parks (Minotaur)

Best Paperback Original P.I. Novel:  SINNER'S BALL, by Ira Berkowitz (Three Rivers Press)

Best P.I. Short Story: "Julius Katz," by Dave Zeltserman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2009)

Lifetime Achievement Award: ROBERT CRAIS

Congratulations, everyone!!!! 

A Perfect Fall Day in Boone

Two-Faced by Barbara Fradkin

Barbara Fradkin is a child psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. She is the author of the award-winning Canadian detective series featuring the exasperating, quixotic Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green. She also has a new book in the offing in the exciting Rapid Reads series from Orca Books. The Fall Guy, starring Cedric O’Toole, is due out in the spring. Hot off the press this fall is Beautiful Lie the Dead, the latest Inspector Green novel about the deadly complications of love. 

 

TWO-FACED
By Barbara Fradkin


The ink isn’t even dry on my trial separation and I’ve already got myself a new man. Lest you think things are really hot and exciting up here in Canada, let me clarify. I’m Barbara Fradkin, up till now the faithful creator of the Inspector Green mysteries. There are eight of them, all gritty, psychological whodunits set in Ottawa, Canada’s capital. I’ve lived with Mike Green twenty-four hours a day for more than ten years. I’ve talked to him, argued with him, found myself thinking of him when I was walking the dog or emptying the dish washer. Even woken up at night thinking about him! I’ve solved his cases for him and followed him through his trials both at the station and at home. In fact, in an effort to keep the relationship lively, I gave him most of those trials.

He’s an infuriating, entertaining, loveable character. I’ve often said I’d never want to be married to him, but the truth is, I am. More than married.

Lately, however, I’ve found myself feeling restless. Confined. Wanting to break out, to experiment with a new cast of characters, a new setting, a new structure to the novel. I think all writers of long-running series feel the urge to stray. To write a stand-alone or a second series. One of my friends with a particularly short attention span has four series on the go! There is a fear that we might grow stale, tell the same story over again, or fail to grow and take risks. Green and his cronies are comfortable old friends, and it’s fun to be with them, but life’s too short for comfort alone.

Just after I put the finishing touches to Green’s latest adventure Beautiful Lie the Dead, which is hot off the press, I decided I wanted a break from him. I was just pondering what else I might like to write, when a wonderful opportunity fell into my lap. Orca Book Publishers in Victoria, B.C. is developing a line of short, entertaining novels called “Rapid Reads”, which are designed for those who want a quick, easy read or who have literacy challenges such as ESL or LD. The editor invited me to submit a proposal.

Having been a school psychologist for twenty-five years, I’m aware of not only the employment and educational hurdles faced by those who struggle with literacy, but also the erosion of their hope and self-esteem. I also know how few good adult books there were available to help them develop their skills. I was thrilled to be part of the initiative and spent some dog-walking and dishwasher-emptying time thinking about the kind of hero who would appeal to this readership. I wanted a hero readers would identify with and draw inspiration from. An everyman.

Thus Cedric Elvis O’Toole came into my life. I’ve spent about two months with him now, and am astonished to discover I’ve created a character completely the opposite of Green. What was my subconscious telling me? Just as you crave sweet after a steady diet of sour, thus my mind created the anti-Green. They have some similarities. Both are entertaining, endearing, stubborn men, intelligent and moral in the ways that count. Maybe I need at least that in my men. Beyond that, antithesis.

Mike Green is an inner-city boy who loves baked asphalt and crumbling corner stores. He hates the very thought of cows or wilderness. He lives with his wife, two children and family dog in residential Ottawa, and grumbles about mowing the lawn. Cedric lives by himself on a scrub farm in the country, with a goat, hens and several barns full of junk. Mike is a high-ranking police officer with a Masters degree in Criminology. Cedric is a struggling handyman who barely passed high school. Mike navigates the complex urban landscape of homelessness, drugs and immigrant despair, of teeming tenements, elegant avenues and highrise condos. Cedric drives his rattle-trap pick-up over the gravel back roads, rivers, and creeks of the Canadian shield.

Mike is a first generation son of gentle Jewish immigrant parents scarred by the Holocaust; Cedric likely traces his roots to Ireland but for at least six generations the hard-edged O’Tooles have eked out a living on the same worthless farm he inherited. Mike likes loud rock music; Cedric loves the natural sounds of the wind through the trees and the crickets in the marsh. Mike loves women, Cedric gets tongue-tied.

I could go on, but I want to leave a little mystery for others to discover. It’s an intriguing question. Are there other writers out there who have created two series with opposite characters? Opposing sides of themselves, perhaps? My country self and my city self.

Barbara's Country Work Space

Answers

Today's date is 10/10/10.  Interpreted as binary code, it is 101010 or 42.  The number 42 is, according to Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything."

So, my friends, here's to 10/10/10, and may you find your answers today; if not all - at least one.

Here's the one question I'd most like to find the answer to      -   -   -  

Will I EVER be able to retire??!!!

and because great minds apparently do think alike, Vicki Lane just happens to have a few words to say about this also!  Check it out here

An Interview with Reed Farrel Coleman by Sara J. Henry

Reed Farrel Coleman has published eleven novels—two under his pen name Tony Spinosa—in three series, and the stand-alone Tower co-written with award-winning Irish author Ken Bruen. He’s won the Shamus Award for Best Novel of the Year three times, won the Barry and Anthony, and twice been nominated for the Edgar. He is a co-editor of The Lineup and was the editor of the anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn. You can reach Reed on his website, Facebook, or Twitter. 

Innocent Monster (Tyrus Books, Oct. 5, 2010) delves into the art world and the life of a young artist “wunderkind” – what took you down this path and what type of research did you do?

I think child prodigies are a fascinating subject. As crazy and dysfunctional as my childhood was, at least I had one. What if you were never allowed to have a childhood? Worse, what if you were your family’s sole source of income? Talk about the child being father to the man. I also saw a documentary on a childhood prodigy artist. It was very well done and Innocent Monster deals, in a fictional way, with many of the questions raised during the documentary. Lastly, my son is an artist and, when he gets out of college, this is the world he’ll be stepping into.  

With this book, you came up with the title first, and built the book around it. Has that happened before, or do you usually come up with your titles later?

I always have a title for my novels before I write them, but I have never had a title so completely influence the book itself. I was just playing with words one day and the two words innocent and monster appeared in my head in juxtaposition. Wow! I was like, now there’s a title I can do something with. I didn’t know then that the title would do something with me.

Why is your main character, Moe Prager, such a terrible swimmer?

Because I’m a terrible swimmer. Moe and I have that in common. I didn’t swim at all until I had kids. Then I learned enough to swim if I had to.

Your five other Moe Prager novels are now available in reprint paperback editions, eBooks, and recorded books through Audible.com. How important are these publication options?

I wish they weren’t important, but they are, especially to younger readers and people who travel a lot. To deny their increasing relevance is to deny the obvious truth of things. I do, however, believe that paper books aren’t going anywhere just yet and that they shall always be a part of the market.  

Some of the characters in Innocent Monster – including a dog – are named after friends of yours. How do they react to this?

The dogs or my friends? :-) My friends think it’s a great honor. It’s also a way for me to pay back some folks in the industry who have been kind to me along the way.

All your Moe books now have been recorded – tell us what that experience has been like.

Luckily, I’ve become pretty friendly with Andy Caploe, the gentleman who performs the Moe books for Audible.com. We spoke early on and he asked me to do something for him I had always previously resisted. He asked me to cast the books. I never tell people who would play Moe in a movie or who would play Mr. Roth or Katy. I want readers to see who they see, not who I see. But Andy explained that it makes it easier for him if he has a particular actor in mind when he voice books. So I gave Andy a cast for each book. The funny thing was his asking me to cast characters I’d forgotten about. Andy would send me an email asking about so and so and there I’d be, sitting at my desk, looking feverishly through my books for that character.

Describe Moe’s perfect meal – what and where. And maybe with whom.

That’s a funny question because I don’t think of Moe in terms of food. I know kosher deli would be his comfort food. But his perfect meal … Thai crispy duck in tamarind sauce comes to mind. A mixed green salad with peanut dressing. Mango ice cream. A nice Santa Barbara Pinot Noir to start. A French cabernet with the duck. Perrier Jouet Champagne with dessert. He would choose to have his meal with Katy, the Katy he fell in love with just after they met.  

You shocked some of your fellow writers recently when you signed onto Twitter – why were they so surprised, and why did you finally take the plunge?

Because I’m a Luddite at heart and I have always felt that my energies should be put into the writing and not the marketing.

When and where will we see Moe again?

Hopefully next year in Moe #7, Hurt Machine

Have you ever considered spinning off some of your characters into their own books, as Michael Robotham has done?

Yes, actually I have. I have toyed with spinning off Carmella Melendez, but I’m not sure there’s any demand for it. I already have a million books in my head to write.

What other projects are on the horizon?

I’m considering doing a few collaborations. I have a short story anthology project about the Holocaust that’s been in the works for years with Busted Flush.And there are several stand-alones I want to write. And I think maybe I’ve got an eighth Moe book in me.

To close, a Reed Farrel Coleman poem:

The Dying Man

His chest heaves.

He shudders.

There’s a red dot,

a dime-sized hole in

the belly of

the dying man.

The dying man has a name

but I don’t know it.

No one helps the dying man.

We want him to ask for help.

We wait for permission.

Simon says help the dying man.

The ambulance comes.

Men poke at the dying man.

The dying man’s chest

does not heave.

His fat body does not shudder.

The dying man stops dying.

He’s the dead man now.

He’s the murdered man now, forever.

The murdered man had a name.

I will never know it.

Reed Farrel Coleman

(originally published in The Lineup, Issue 2)

*       *       *

Interviewer Sara J. Henry’s first novel, Learning to Swim, will be available from Crown in February 2011. Visit her at www.sarajhenry.com.

The Anatomy of a Book Trailer by Jeri Westerson

Noir and hard-boiled fiction seem to be in Jeri Westerson’s blood. She was born and bred on the mean streets of Los Angeles, inhaling smog and enduring earthquakes. Newspaper reporter, would-be actress, graphic artist; these are the things she spent her time on before becoming a novelist. She took all that gritty edginess and plunked it into the Middle Ages, creating the newest hard-boiled detective, Crispin Guest; disgraced knight turned PI, solving crimes on the mean streets of fourteenth century London in her “Medieval Noir” novels. Jeri’s debut, VEIL OF LIES, garnered nominations from the Mystery Reader’s Journal Macavity Award for Best Historical Mystery and the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel, the first medieval mystery to be so honored.

The Boston Globe called her detective, “A medieval Sam Spade, a tough guy who operates according to his own moral compass and observes with detached humor…this book is pure fun.” Booklist said, “…this authentically detailed medieval mystery has an intriguingly dark edge.” Library Journal gave it a starred review: “…Westerson’s mystery debut is a brilliant tale of survival in a hostile environment, where anything can lead to death…Highly recommended.” Historical Novel Society Review made it an Editor’s Choice title: “…To say Veil of Lies is a remarkable novel doesn’t do the book justice. Just when the plot seems set on a fixed course, the author deftly arranges another neat surprise and keeps the pages turning…”

The second in the series, SERPENT IN THE THORNS, was a finalist for the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award and is a finalist for this year’s Macavity. Kirkus Review said, “Crispin’s derring-do is distinctly entertaining,” while Library Journal said, “Readers who can’t get enough of medieval historicals will snap this one up.”

The third in the series, THE DEMON’S PARCHMENT, will be released October 12, 2010. Library Journal gave it a starred review and said, “Westerson skillfully lulls her sleuth and the reader into a sense of ‘I know what is going on,’ then zings them with the truth. Absolutely first-class; highly recommended for fans of medieval mysteries,” while Publishers Weekly called it “The best yet in the series!”  

Westerson is on the board of directors and newsletter editor for the southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America, is president for the Orange County chapter of Sisters in Crime, a member of the Los Angeles Chapter, is a member of Private Eye Writers of America, and the Historical Novel Society. She is married to a commercial photographer, has a son in college, and herds two cats, a tortoise, and the occasional tarantula at her home in southern California.

Jeri writes the movies she sees in her head of her continuing medieval mystery series. The latest, THE DEMON’S PARCHMENT, can be found on her website. Read the first chapter! www.JeriWesterson.com 

The Anatomy of a Book Trailer
By Jeri Westerson

More often than not when I mention it, people ask me, “What is a book trailer?” The simple answer is that it’s like a movie trailer only for a book. And then the blank stare. “You know,” I say, “it something that helps to advertise the book.” But then again, if people don’t even know that book trailers exist, how does it advertise the book?

Well, I guess the answer is “sometimes.” If readers are directed to my site through all the ways I contrive to get them there—like this post—then they will stumble upon it. Or if people are YouTube savvy, they might also stumble upon it. Or if they are regular readers of mystery writer posts, they might go to it. Or if they are a bookseller and look at the catalog of books provided by St. Martin’s they will find it listed there.

I’d love more people to see it because I did debate with myself the cost effectiveness of getting a book trailer produced. For what I wanted, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it myself. I wanted something high quality and as close to a movie trailer as possible, partly because I think that high quality and the content would make potential readers into buyers and partly because I wanted it to be an advertisement to Hollywood types to entice them to consider it as movie fodder.

Will that pay off? Only time will tell. It’s difficult to quantify something like this in terms of sales; how many clicks per purchase, for instance. I don’t know if anyone can really collect that data as there is no direct correlation between someone watching the video—which you will see below—and buying a book at their preferred retail outlet. Or going to the library and checking out the book and then perhaps /later/ buying it.

As of this post, there have been 2,450 views of the trailer. With this post, I hope that number will rise.

But how did this whole thing come about?

It’s Laurie King’s fault.

I’ve been on a couple of panels with Laurie King and she started sending me her newsletter. In it, she told of this media group who approached her, wanting to make a book trailer for her. When I saw Laurie’s, I knew it was just the thing I had been looking for. But there were two things I was pretty sure of. One, at over three minutes, it was too long, and two, I knew I‘d never be able to afford it. Nevertheless, I contacted Two Rock Media, congratulated them on a fine video, that I was looking for the same sort of movie trailer style, but for no more than a minute running time as I felt that anything longer than that will lose the viewer. She agreed and then we talked turkey. No, I definitely couldn’t afford what Laurie paid for hers. My budget (that I had been thinking about for a week or so) was considerably less. And then, of course, she said she could do it for the amount I had budgeted. Yikes! I was suddenly committed to doing a book trailer!

I told her I wanted a series trailer rather than for one book so that it would have relevance for far longer and we also talked about the fee for adding new books as they were released (which would mean adding the cover photo and the title in the end credits). That cost was minimal so we went ahead. I told her I wanted to capture the mood of “Medieval Noir,” my series subgenre. And most important of all, I wanted my protagonist, Crispin Guest, my ex-knight turned detective, to be the voice over, and that meant a particular British voice.

This was all very exciting as we delved into it. I supplied her with word docs of the first two books and she read them in order to write the script for the voice over. I described my character and my sense of the mood and feel of the piece. She supplied me with a timetable of how and when everything should go down.

When a script was ready, she submitted it to me for corrections or suggestions. I made very few. And then it was time to audition the voice of Crispin. She sent me six samples of British actors reading the script and it was a truly interesting exercise listening for just the right pitch and tone. Some actors sounded too old (one sounded like Gandalf to me), one had an accent that wasn’t posh enough, one was sort of too high pitched. And then I heard the current voice, Christopher Kent. His had it all (I found out later that he is also the voice of British Airways. Crispin in the sky!) Naturally, he was also the most expensive. But he was the one, and so Two Rock started putting the pieces together. Amazingly, all the images, both video and stills were all stock. As was the music! Nothing new was created for the video. All the images of Crispin were supplied to me by St. Martin’s from the book covers.

I got to look at a raw runthrough, corrections were made, and finally it was up and ready to go. This last year we added the third book, which meant that we had two videos out there, the old and the updated. It helps us keep a record of how many views we’ve had.

Altogether, I’m pleased with the outcome. I know it’s sold a few books. How many I don’t think I’ll ever know. For now, it’s out there, waiting for its viral marketing. Waiting to be passed from one email to another and perhaps landing on the computer of a movie producer who would like to take it all the way.

In the meantime, enjoy!

Halloween Came a Little Early this Year

It all started with a pumpkin.

A pumpkin named Pearl.

Pearl has been quite the celebrity in our neighborhood this year.

Her Mom, Jill, has taken very good care of her and fed her all the right things to help her grow big and strong.

And Pearl grew to be 659.4 pounds and won 4th place in the Elkin, NC Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off.  Yay, Pearl!!!

Jill and Bumble getting ready to cut Pearl's vine

(this is Pearl's belly button)

Miss May wanted to say bye to Pearl

This is gonna be some big work!

EEK!  Did Pearl eat May?

Serious studying needed here . . . 

Ta DA!  The Lift!

And for more about Pearl's journey to the big time from here; see Jill's story - about "The Life of a Pumpkin Named Pearl."

And then . . . .

Ta DA!

PumpkinFest !    Yay, Yay !

Pearl and her family

 

We played.  We laughed.  We ate well.

I love our neighborhood.

(more pictures & story at Jill's blog)