Harrogate Crime Family Adventure, Part I

After returning home from ThrillerFest in New York City, I had a mere two days to catch up on work issues, e-mail messages, and my own writing before I was off again, this time to attend what has become Britain’s premier crime- and thriller-fiction event, the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. Only on this occasion, as I would be heading to North Yorkshire, rather than flying across the Atlantic, I decided to take my family (my wife and three children) with me. They often complain that when I’m home, I’ve either got my head stuck in a book or I am tapping away at a keyboard, or else I’m on the couch, catching up on my lost sleep. (Apart from all that, I’m a fine father.) So this was my opportunity to spend more time with everybody, and to give them a taste of my “other life” among books and with book people.

I must explain that my wife and children had never before been to a crime-fiction event. My wife, Muriel, was somewhat nervous about rubbing shoulders with people whose imaginations could be so dark. However, the children were excited, as they are big readers and wanted to meet the authors whose works adorn my many bookshelves. A few years ago, my oldest child, Sophia, reviewed Carl Hiaasen’s juvenile novel Hoot for January Magazine; and my son, Alex (shown above with Harlan Coben), reviewed both Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Ryder novels and Charlie Higson’s James Bond junior novels for Shots.

While Southern England was being deluged by monsoon-like rainfall, causing flooding in some areas, the Karim clan headed north. We arrived in the historic town of Harrogate on Friday afternoon, the first full day of the conference. Unfortunately, we’d missed the event’s start, but upon entering the city’s Crown Hotel, we saw none other than a beaming Allan Guthrie, who just the evening before had received the 2007 Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for his book Two-Way Split (2005). Guthrie told me (as he did so many others) that he was genuinely shocked to win that commendation.

Soon, Lee Child appeared in the lobby and came over to greet my family. He was charismatic, as usual, and my wife and kids were interested to meet him, as they know that I have been an ardent reader of his work from way back. Child must have made a particularly big impression on my children, for as I chatted with the author about our recent ThrillerFest experiences, all three sneaked into the convention’s Waterstone’s Book Room and bought Jack Reacher novels for signing later. Later, Child said to me, sotto voce: “I think your family are charming, they are delightful. Are you sure you didn’t hire them out for the weekend?”

Our first “official” gathering of that day was the Publishers’ Party in the hotel ballroom, where we mingled with writers, editors, agents, and publishing reps, all of them knocking back wine and canapés. At one point, U.S. author Harlan Coben appeared from nowhere. I’ve known Coben as long as I’ve known Child, and not only have I enjoyed his books, but I’ve found him to be delightful company. Like Child, he kidded that I’d “borrowed” my family from some rental agency, as I could not possibly have time enough in my busy schedule to play dad. We chatted, too, about the French film that was made from his breakthrough novel, Tell No One (2001), and has become a European box-office smash. And we laughed as we remembered him coming across “the pond” to promote Tell No One at London’s late, lamented Crime in Store bookstore--back when he still had hair, and mine hadn’t yet turned gray (see the photographic evidence here.) One little-known fact about Coben is that his long-ago roommate at Amherst College in Massachusetts was Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code fame, and Coben was one of the first to recognize the commercial potential of Brown’s fourth novel.

Leaving my family in the very capable hands of Coben and Child, I mingled. I talked for a while with Ayo Onatade and Lizzie Hayes of Mystery Women, who were there scouting for new recruits for their UK literary group. I had a beer with Paul Johnston, who said he was delighted by the excellent reviews his latest novel, The Death List, has received. It was great seeing Johnston, after he was out of circulation for a few years, due to a health scare. Afterward, I bumped into Nick Sayers of the UK publishing house Hodder & Stoughton, who was there with Dan Fesperman, an American journalist and political thriller writer preparing to launch his latest novel, The Amateur Spy, in the UK. (The same book won’t be released in the States until March 2008.) Fesperman and I agreed to meet up later for an interview.

From there it was on to Mark Timlin, the creator of British private eye Nick Sharman, who had arrived with his partner, Lucy Ramsey, publicity director at the upstart publishing house Quercus. Ramsey was still brimming with excitement over the fact that one of her authors, Australian Peter Temple, had picked up this year’s Duncan Lawrie Gold Dagger award for his novel The Broken Shore. Another power pair in attendance were Martyn Waites (Bone Machine) and his Simon & Schuster editor, Kate Lyall-Grant. I spent a few minutes, as well, with former Crime Writers’ Association chair and Harrogate programming director Natasha Cooper (who also writes the Trish McGuire series [A Greater Evil]), before being dragged off to dinner by my loving family.

One Cantonese banquet later, we returned to the conference just in time to see Lee Child being interviewed in front of an audience by Paul Blezard of Britain’s Oneword Radio. Probably as expected, this was a packed event. Child was as self-deprecating as usual, as Blezard quizzed him about his writing, the widespread appeal of protagonist Jack Reacher, and how it was that Child first got into the writing game. The author explained that he’d moved in that direction after being laid-off from Granada Television in the mid-1990s. We had discussed much the same thing back in 2003, when I talked with him for January Magazine:

[Karim:] What was the lead-up to losing your job like? And when did you conjure the idea of trying your hand at novel writing?

[Child:] As I said, the dismantling of Granada was traumatic--and for me, it lasted ages. I was one of five guys in a certain role, which was so complex that it took them two years to replace us. During those two years, pieces of our jobs would disappear week by week. It wasn't a fun time. In August of 1994, I was told my job would be gone by Christmas. Knowing how inefficient they were, I mentally planned on leaving the next summer, which is how it turned out. So I was faced with finding another way to make a living. An added complication was that I was the union shop steward, so I knew I wasn't high on anyone's wish list elsewhere in the industry. So I decided to make a complete break and be my own boss. Writing novels was the only thing I could think of.

With the interview done, my wife and kids queued up to have their newly purchased Reacher thrillers signed, while I sneaked into the nearest bar for a quick drink. There I encountered Becky Fincham and Vicki Mellor of Headline Publishing, and we all toasted Joseph Finder, whose Killer Instinct was named this year’s Best Novel by the International Thriller Writers organization. Also toast-worthy was Nick Stone, whose book, Mr. Clarinet, had won the ITW award for Best First Novel. He rolled into the bar together with several fellow authors and Penguin Books literary editor Beverly Cousins, who ordered drinks all around to celebrate the August launch of Stone’s sophomore effort, King of Swords (a prequel to Mr. Clarinet).

In order to demonstrate my impartiality, I left the Penguin people and went over to visit with Fiona Macintosh of HarperCollins UK. We joined up with Michael Marshall (Smith), and I was pleased to tell them both that advance reading copies of Smith’s new book, The Intruders, had been handed about liberally at ThrillerFest, as Marshall’s U.S. publisher, William Morrow, is keen on that tremendous novel. Speaking of HarperCollins authors, I commented on how great it is to see Val McDermid providing a new adventure to investigators Tony Hill and Carol Jordan in Beneath the Bleeding. I’ve been a fan of the prolific Ms. McDermid fan for more years than I really care to remember.

The Foul Play players: (L-R) Stuart MacBride, Laura Lippman, Simon Brett, Stella Duffy, and Mark Billingham.

Finally, my family returned, all smiles, from having Lee Child ink their books. So I said good-bye to everyone in my circle, and went to see the stage production Foul Play, subtitled “The Corpse Who Stayed Out in the Cold.” The work of novelist Simon Brett (Death Under the Dryer) and performed at the Harrogate festival by authors Mark Billingham, Stella Duffy, Laura Lippman, and Stuart MacBride (photographed above), it was a hilarious send-up of British crime fiction’s so-called Golden Age, complete with groan-inducing clichés and plot conventions. However, the five crime writers who took the parts displayed genuine acting and comedy skills, and even more of their good natures.

As we left for our hotel that night, ready to put the children to bed and rest ourselves, my wife whispered to me, “They are awfully nice people, considering they write about such terrible things.” I could only smile knowingly.

(The second and final installment of Ali Karim’s recollections from the 2007 Harrogate Crime Writing Festival can be found here.)

Author’s note: I want to pass along my thanks to Sharon and Adina, two Harrogate organizers, who found me a suitable hotel to accommodate the complete Karim clan. And the Harrogate team should be given a huge round of applause, as I heard they sold close to 8,000 tickets for this year’s superb program of events.

Whitman’s Never Made Samplers This Good

• Only in the last few months have I heard of Mike Doogan, a former Anchorage newspaper columnist and current Democratic member of the Alaska House of Representatives. In April, his book, Lost Angel, won this year’s Best First Novel award from the Oregon-based Friends of Mystery, and then earlier this month, that same novel picked up a Shamus Award nomination from the Private Eye Writers of America. Anybody still wondering about his work should click over to Marshal Zeringue’s My Book, the Movie, where Doogan casts the part of cop-turned-private eye Nik Cane, “the battered, violent, uncertain hero” of both Lost Angel and its sequel, Capitol Offense, which is due out in August. Unfortunately, this author’s choice of an actor happens to be dead. Read more here.

• TV Squad has the early read on TNT’s three-part adaptation of Robert Littell’s acclaimed 2002 novel, The Company, which begins running this coming Sunday night. Read more here.

• The 23rd issue of Crime and Suspense has now been posted by editor Tony Burton. It contains stories by Warren Bull (“The Daily Double”), Agnes Dee (“Forever Gone Wrong”), and Gary R. Hoffman (“Luck of the Shot”), along with book reviews and an interview with Elmore Leonard, which was strangely inaccessible when I tried to look it up. (A note said that it has been removed. Let’s hope that this removal is only temporary.) In case readers have not been following the downs and ups of C&S’ future, Burton adds this note to his front page: “This is the final issue in the free-access format. Remember, we are on hiatus for September and October, resuming with the November/December issue for paying subscribers. And also remember that access to future issues of the Crime and Suspense e-zine will be only for paid subscribers.” Yeah, I think we’ve finally heard the message now.

• Add another cover to our roster of spooky tree fronts, this one from a book published in Australia. Only on this occasion, the tree is a palm. Click here, if you dare ...

• I love it when well-read authorities dig up worthy old crime novels that I’ve never so much as heard of, and Elizabeth Foxwell certainly does that with Re-enter Sir John (1932), a thespian sleuth adventure penned by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. This is apparently only the latest entry in Foxwell’s “occasional series” about books that were considered “essential” reads by Ellery Queen and Edgar Award-winning anthologist Howard Haycraft. For previous installments of the series, look here.

• The winner, in the “Detective” category, of this year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (for deliberately bad story openings) is Bob Millar of Hässelby, Sweden. His clever entry:

I’d been tailing this guy for over an hour while he tried every trick in the book to lose me: going down side streets, doubling back, suddenly veering into shop doorways, jumping out again, crossing the street, looking for somewhere to make the drop, and I was going to be there when he did it because his disguise as a postman didn’t have me fooled for a minute.

All of the 2007 victors and runners-up can be found here. (Via Dave’s Fiction Warehouse.)

• Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine columnist Jon L. Breen shares his thoughts about the “rules” of writing fiction in our modern age, at the blog Criminal Brief. Personally, I appreciate his third rule: “always go the second mile in doing research. How could I argue with this one, right? But I sold eight stories in a period of about three years to Ellery Queen’s [sic] Mystery Magazine about baseball umpire Ed Gorgon without ever actually meeting an umpire or going behind the scenes at a ballpark. After I wangled press credentials to Anaheim Stadium for one game and actually talked to some umps, I found I was unable to write another Ed Gorgon for about four years. (In fairness, when I finally did return to him, I used some of what I picked up that day at the ballpark.)”

• Peter Guttridge talks in The Guardian with Scottish wordsmith Denise Mina about her next Paddy Meehan novel--the third--called The Last Breath; how “[c]rime fiction now is big enough not to need tidy resolutions”; how Mina was “‘famously naughty’ and rebellious at [the] various convent schools” she attended as a teenager; and the oft-recurring themes of her work. “Mina laughs ruefully at mention of her themes,” Guttridge writes. “‘Every time I write a book I despair because I say to myself, “You’ve written the same fucking book again!’ Crime is a very hard genre to feminise. If you have a female protagonist she is going to be looking after her mum when she gets older; she is going to be worried about her brother and sister; she will be making a living while bringing up kids.’” Read the whole piece here. (Via Sarah Weinman.)

• Christa Faust, who will soon be the first woman novelist to join the Hard Case Crime stable, is among the winners of the “first annual” Scribe Awards, given out by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Author-blogger Lee Goldberg has the whole list of winners at his Web site.

• Finally, Laura Lippman is this week’s interview subject at Things I’d Rather Be Doing. Blogger John Kenyon asks Lippman about her latest novel, What the Dead Know; the relative values of writing series vs. standalones; and her “calculated” candor on the Web. Their full exchange can be found here.

Restless in Uppsala

“I haven’t seen this many Swedish names since the closing credits of an Ingmar Bergman film,” January Magazine’s David Thayer quips today in his review of Kjell Eriksson’s second English-translated crime novel, The Cruel Stars of the Night.

Eriksson tends to fill his books (including his earlier, critically praised work, The Princess of Burundi) with extensive casts of cops, much as Ed McBain did with his own 87th Precinct stories. Yet most of the action in Cruel Stars concentrates around single mother and inspector Ann Lindell of the Violent Crimes Unit of Sweden’s Uppsala police department. In these pages, she must simultaneously look for a vanished professor, figure out who’s responsible for the apparently motiveless murders of two elderly gents, and deal with the professor’s 35-year-old daughter, a woman whose mental state is rapidly deteriorating--becoming a danger not only to the married man she fancies from work, but ultimately to Lindell herself.

Read all of Thayer’s assessment here.

Is There Anybody Still Without an Award?

There have been so many awards nominations and winner declarations lately, that we thought it a good idea to round up all of those, in case you’ve missed some:

• 2007 Anthony Award Nominations
• 2007 Ned Kelly Award Shortlist
• 2007 Barry Awards Nominations
• 2007 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award
• 2007 Thriller Award Winners
• 2007 Shamus Award Nominees
• 2007 Dagger Award Winners
• 2007 Macavity Award Nominees
• 2007 Arthur Ellis Award Winners
• 2007 Quill Award Nominees
• 2007 Nero Award Finalists
• 2007 Lambda Literary Award Winners

We’re still waiting to hear news of a winner of the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Short Story Award and a shortlist of books in the running to receive the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger (formerly the Ellis Peters Award).

“A Saint With a Gun”

The last seven days turned out to be Ross Macdonald Week here at Rap Sheet headquarters. Not officially, but as an upshot of the fact that two reminders of that renowned American detective novelist’s talent came winging through the mail slot almost simultaneously.

First was a finished copy of Tom Nolan’s The Archer Files: The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator (Crippen & Landru), which collects a dozen previously published short stories--all featuring Macdonald’s empathic Los Angeles career gumshoe--together with 11 Lew Archer story fragments that have never before seen print. I wrote about this volume at least a couple of times before its release (see here and here); posted editor Nolan’s memories of discovering the 11 forgotten false starts, or “case notes,” that cap this edition; and even featured in The Rap Sheet one of those never-before-seen yarns, “Heyday in the Blood.” Yet not until this week had I actually seen the book in its completed state. And a truly handsome work it is. Illustrator Jeff Wong based his cover design on Mitchell Hooks’ illustration for the 1955 Bantam paperback publication of The Name Is Archer, which contained seven of Macdonald’s Archer yarns. (At the time, Macdonald--whose real name was Kenneth Millar--was still using the pseudonym “John Ross Macdonald.”) In Wong’s artistic homage, the tough-jawed, gun-toting Archer of Hooks’ painting has been replaced by a pen-holding Macdonald. (Click over to Wong’s Web site to read a full explanation of how this cover illustration evolved.)

As visually appealing as The Archer Files is, though, it’s still the text inside the covers that makes this volume most valuable. And I don’t just mean the short stories that appeared earlier in The Name Is Archer and two subsequent works, Lew Archer, Private Investigator (1977), and Strangers in Town (2001). Nor am I referring primarily to those unfinished story openings (the most satisfying of which may be “Little Woman” and “Do Your Own Time,” in addition to the aforementioned “Heyday”). While it’s certainly interesting to read the tales that Macdonald couldn’t quite get out of the starting gate, and see how they resemble other stories he did eventually complete or how they carry through themes familiar from his full oeuvre, I think that some applause should also be given to Nolan for his 11,000-word introduction, “Archer in Memory.” This is essentially a biography of Lewis A. Archer, gathering together the many clues about that fictional figure’s history and thinking that Macdonald dropped like bread crumbs throughout his prose. It’s particularly interesting to those of us who’ve read Archer’s adventures over a long period of time, and are reminded of his various cases by the quotes, developments, and relationship’s Nolan cites.

Here, for instance, we are briefed on Archer’s growing-up years in Long Beach, California; his Catholic mother and prizefighting Uncle Jake (“the first of several veteran battlers,” Nolan writes, “who’d instruct Lew in the finer points of how to slip a punch, stay on your toes, lead with your left, and throw a combination”); and his fondness for Hollywood films. Also recalled are Archer’s adolescence as “a junior-grade hood” and lover of fast cars; his short experience as a member of the Long Beach Police Department, and his difficulty in remaining honest among so many corrupt colleagues and politicians; his apprenticeship as a private detective, his service with the U.S. Army during World War II, and his abbreviated marriage to a blonde named Sue (who “didn’t like the company Lew kept”); and the moral ambiguities of doing his job (“This is a dirty business I’m in,” Archer said in Find a Victim [1954]. “All I can do is watch myself and keep it as clean as I can.”). Archer understood that the world wasn’t a black-and-white, good vs. evil place, and that he might find himself forced to straddle moral fences, as he sought to help the injured and wronged (another character called him “a saint with a gun”). Fortunately for him, as he grew older he moved away from cases involving organized crime and toward those involving dysfunctional families, torn apart by the coincidence of historical violations and violence reverberating in the present. “The man without a family of his own,” Nolan writes, “became counselor and adjudicator to other people’s families--a substitute parent, guiding and protecting the sons and daughters he himself never had.”

Here, too, we find a suggestion of what ultimately happened to Lew Archer. Nolan notes that the private eye was born on June 2, “probably in the year 1915” (six months before the novelist himself took his first breath). So if he were still alive, he’d be 92. But the editor suggests that Archer has not been around to celebrate his birthdays for a while:

Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer novels stopped in 1976 with The Blue Hammer, a premature conclusion caused by the onset of Macdonald’s eventually diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease. We can only guess at Lew Archer’s ultimate fate.

On the outer edge of possibility would be a violent end for the detective who had so many weapons aimed at him through the years in Southern California, where handguns sometimes seemed as plentiful as used cars.

A more plausible and in a way more awful fate may be theorized: the private eye may have succumbed to the same disease that halted the author who’d written about him for a quarter-century.

Nolan must have re-read every one of Macdonald’s 18 Archer novels, plus all of the short stories, in order to write his introduction to The Archer Files. That in itself is an accomplishment of which to be proud. But it’s what he has done with that reading and simultaneous note-taking that is to be most applauded. “Archer in Memory” honors both the character and his creator--the former, because it reminds us that Macdonald’s sleuth rose from troubled roots to become a good man, a saver of people no less lonely than he; and the latter, because this essay recalls quite clearly why it is that The New York Times dubbed Ross Macdonald’s stories “the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American.”

One can only really understand that endorsement, however, by reading the full novels. Which is why my receipt last week of a brand-new edition of The Way Some People Die (1951), the third entry in Macdonald’s Archer series, was so welcome. It seems that, with a movie adaptation of The Galton Case (1959) being developed for 2009 by Brokeback Mountain producer James Schamus, U.S. publisher Vintage Books has decided to capitalize on the pre-publicity by reissuing stylish paperback versions of the Archer novels under its Vintage Crime/Black Lizard imprint. Some of these works have been out of print for the last decade, and it’s good to have them back.

Vintage Books publicist Julia Baxter tells me in an e-note that The Way Some People Die is just the first of half a dozen Macdonald reissues coming down the pike, with the next release being The Ivory Grin (1952). Over the next year, she says, “Vintage Crime will be reprinting four more Lew Archer stories, The Barbarous Coast [1956], The Blue Hammer, The Doomsters [1958], and The Instant Enemy [1968], although we unfortunately don’t have cover art ready at the moment. The first should come out in December’ 07 ...” Even if the jackets of these fresh editions follow a recent trend toward the use of split imagery, they remain both moody and evocative of the earlier eras and settings in which Archer plied his sometimes sordid trade. Very eye-catching.

Of The Way Some People Die, Karl-Erik Lindkvist, the Swedish creator of an excellent Web site called The Ross Macdonald Files, remarked some years ago in January Magazine that it is “the first really full-fledged Archer novel. The previous two, The Moving Target [1949] and The Drowning Pool [1950], hinted at the things Macdonald wanted to accomplish as a writer, but in those he didn’t quite reach his goals. In The Way Some People Die the plot is still fairly simple, compared with his later works. But it was far ahead of the hard-boiled stuff then being turned out by other authors. ...

This adventure starts at a house in Santa Monica, where a worried mother hires Archer to look for her daughter, Galatea (“Galley”), who has been missing for more than three months. The only sign that she’s still alive is a card, posted to her mother from San Francisco on Christmas Eve of the previous year. When Archer starts asking questions at the hospital where Galley used to work, he realizes that she is mixed up in some kind of organized-crime racket responsible for running drugs from Mexico into California. There’s $100,000 worth of heroin missing, along with $30,000 in cash that was supposed to pay for the drugs. After his own gun is used in a murder, Archer is sought by both the mob and the police, and before his case is cleared up, the reader has found out why Macdonald gave his novel such an odd title. This is the first book in which Lew Archer encounters homicidal women, and it is filled with male-female conflicts--a principal concern of Macdonald’s later novels.

As I recall, The Way Some People Die was one of the first Macdonald books I ever read. The first was The Moving Target (later made into the 1966 Paul Newman picture Harper), given to me by an assistant librarian at my high school, and the second might have been The Barbarous Coast, the Bantam paperback edition of which carried the photograph of a topless blonde, guaranteed to attract an adolescent boy’s attention. If my memory serves, The Way Some People Die was No. 3, to be followed in short order by the remaining 15 Lew Archer books, plus Macdonald’s six non-series crime novels.

I look forward to re-reading The Way Some People Die, and the Macdonald reissues still to come. I’ve been thinking for years that I should take the opportunity to enjoy this author’s work all over again, and now seems like an ideal chance. Unlike the first time I read these books, though, I do so today with a fuller understanding of P.I. Archer’s background, weaknesses, and hopes, thanks to Tom Nolan’s “biographical sketch” of the character.

“That’s Enough Crucifixion, Thank You”

Clever columnist and author Mike Ripley (The Legend of Hereward the Wake) is back with the August installment of “Getting Away with Murder,” his ever-readable contribution to the e-zine Shots. This month’s subjects include the sudden proliferation of crucifixion as a fictional homicide technique; Cath Staincliffe’s latest case for Manchester P.I. Sal Kilkenny, Missing; a recent gathering of crime concocters in Cambridge, England; and his lament (relative to the recent Dagger Awards presentations, which saw only a single Briton walk away with a prize) that “British crime writing seems in danger of becoming a minority sport.” Read the column in its entirety here.

The Wheel Thing

I’m still working my way through the DVDs from season one of Ironside, the 1967-1975 NBC-TV series starring Raymond Burr (formerly of Perry Mason) as a headstrong, wheelchair-bound former chief of detectives with the San Francisco Police Department, and already I hear that season two is being prepared for release. The Web site TV Shows on DVD reports that the collection of 25 episodes from 1968-1969 will hit stores on October 16. Great! It will be about that time that, having sampled all of the new network offerings from the fall season, I shall be in need of something else that’s actually worth my viewing time ...

So Much for Paradise

After running his latest Hickey family crime novel, The Do-Re-Mi, through Marshal Zeringue’s Page 99 Test, author Ken Kuhlken recalls that this 2006 book was born of his early 1970s experiences “in a small Oregon town where friends had bought a couple acres.” He explains, in part:

Hundreds of hippies had come to the area and were living on “communes” the more capitalistic among them had bought. The place was as close to the hippie ideal as I ever encountered. A community garden where pretty girls stood alongside the road passing out veggies to whomever came along. Open parties with talented acoustic musicians entertaining. Lovely bodies skinny-dipping in the rivers and streams. Plenty of land where folks could camp or build shelters without getting hassled by building inspectors (if the town even had any). And lots of marijuana, with which hippies supported their easy living.

But a year passed, and the place turned into a nightmare, like I imagine Tombstone, Arizona, around 1880.

Bikers had moved in, and were poaching the hippie’s cash crop. They wore side-arms, bandoliers, and carried rifles in holsters strapped onto their Harleys. Most of the hippies went around armed, at least with sheath knives.

Observing that, I started to doubt hippie ideals could stand up to reality. Later, I started thinking of that time and place as emblematic of the flaw in human nature Christians call original sin. So, a story grew.

Read all of Kuhlken’s post here.

Escape to New York, Part III

(The first installment of Ali Karim’s recollections from ThrillerFest 2007 can be found here. Part II is available here.)

Saturday morning, the third day of this year’s ThrillerFest--and the one bound to generate the most headlines--found Shots editor Mike Stotter and I breakfasting like potentates. After which we went to support Bookreporter’s Joe Hartlehaub, a friend and the moderator of a panel titled “Protect and Defend: Lawmen Who Track Crime Coast to Coast.” His panelists were real-life lawmen James O. Born and George D. Shuman, along with John Ramsey Miller, Michelle Gagnon, and Jeffery Deaver. I was particularly interested to see Shuman, a 20-year veteran of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police force whose very first book, 18 Seconds, was vying for the International Thriller Writers Best Novel award. But after the discussion was over, I couldn’t help also approaching Deaver and asking him when he intends to write another Golden Age-style thriller on the order of his 2004 standalone, Garden of Beasts, my personal favorite among his books and a past winner of the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. My friend Stotter, who has heard me pester Deaver with this query before, groaned openly as I made my way toward the author once more, my question/hint loaded and ready. But I found time afterwards, too, to say hello to John Ramsey Miller (Too Far Gone), a very interesting writer from America’s Deep South, who sat on a panel I moderated during last year’s ThrillerFest.

Following the “Protect and Defend” session, I sought a bit of relaxation at the Grand Hyatt Hotel’s nearest bar, only to run into Anthony Rainone. He of course is a contributing editor of January Magazine and one of my fellow Rap Sheet bloggers. (In the photo above, he’s the one with the glasses.) We have similar reading tastes, but I had never had the opportunity before to meet him face-to-face. So we pulled up a sofa in the bar, grabbed a couple of cold beers, and commenced to talking. And talking. Apart from being well read, Rainone also has a wicked sense of humor, and therefore enjoyed being introduced to Stotter, though he had a bit of difficulty understanding my editor friend’s cockney rhyming slang.

When it was time, I escorted Stotter to the panel on which he was to appear. Actually, he’d signed on originally as moderator, but a recent eye operation (which left him looking rather too much like Mr. Magoo) compelled Stotter to hand those duties over to Connecticut author Justin Scott (McMansion). Just as well, since the panel’s topic seemed a bit on the weird side: “Strangers in Paradise: Toting Guns and Sunblock.” Joining those two were multiple award-winner Jeremiah Healy, Don Bruns, Tina Wainscott, and journalist-author Rick Mofina, my friend and fellow ITW judge. Together with Deadly Pleasures editor George Easter, über-books blogger Sarah Weinman, and others, I positioned myself squarely in the front row--just so that if Stotter’s vision got any worse than it already was, he’d at least be able to see us. As it turned out, Scott did an admirable job on short notice, encouraging his panelists to recount their best scary stories about traveling to tropical and politically unstable lands. (He also asked that I pass along his best regards to Mike Ripley, a UK crime writer and Shots columnist.)

Once more, there was a post-panel retreat of reviewers and literary judges to the bar. Along with Rainone, Easter, Weinman, Stotter, and myself, the crowd this time featured Deadly Pleasures’ Larry Gandle and Maggie Mary Mason, along with Elaine Flinn (Deadly Vintage) and critic David J. Montgomery. Ours was a big enough group that we attracted attention, with writers stopping by to say hello and share drinks. So comfortable was this arrangement, that we carried on right through the formal presentations of ThrillerFest’s two guests of honor: James Patterson, recipient of this year’s ThrillerMaster Award for outstanding contribution to the genre; and Clive Cussler, who was given that same honor in 2006. Oh, well ...

However, I wasn’t about to miss that afternoon’s St. Martin’s Press cocktail party, to which I had been invited. It turned out to be a terrific affair, during which I bumped into British spy novelist Charles Cumming--a real delight, since I had just finished reading his latest novel, The Spanish Game. This was apparently the first time Cumming had attended a conference of this size, and he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. It wasn’t easy talking with him, though, as he towered over me, as he did over most other ThrillerFest-goers. (In the photo at left, he’s shown with author Barry Eisler.) So I eventually had to mingle, chatting with Gayle Lynds, Lee Child, and several of the “Killer Year” authors, such as Brett Battles (The Cleaner), Sean Chercover (Big City, Bad Blood), Marcus Sakey (The Blade Itself), and J.T. Ellison (All the Pretty Girls). After an exhausting round of good-natured debate, though, I had to thank our St. Martin’s Press hosts and hustle off to get changed for the main event, the Thriller Awards banquet.

Done up finally in suits and ties, Stotter and I descended to the ballroom, where we encountered award nominee Nick Stone (Mr. Clarinet) and his wife, who had just arrived from Florida. While Stotter was seated with the Stones and Larry Gandle, I was placed at a table with Elaine Flinn and “P.J. Parrish” (aka Kris Montee), among others. Montee was noticeably edgy, and explained that she’d been nominated for awards so many times, but had never walked away with one in hand; she was expecting to lose this evening, as well. I reassured her, telling her to remain confident of her chances--which turned out to make me look far more prophetic than I’d expected. (An Unquiet Grave, which she’d penned with her sister and collaborator, Kelly Nichols, would be named that night as the ITW’s Best Paperback Original of 2007.)

While the dinner was fine, the drinks were horrifically priced and, in fact, the banquet all told was rather expensive--and far less well managed than last year’s, if you ask me. The show seemed to drag on and on. And on. And apart from a blistering rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” the performances were disappointing. What made the banquet worth remembering were the awards presentations. After ringing through to Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce, who was standing by in Seattle for news of the winners, ready to spread the word online, I managed to corner the victors for photographs. I was happy to see Joseph Finder pick up Best Novel kudos for Killer Instinct, and Parrish/Montee’s acceptance speech was very moving, as she burst into tears of sheer joy. Nick Stone pulled some of the same heart strings, as he accepted the commendation for Best First Novel. I also met the wonderful, glamorous, and prolific Heather Graham (The Dead Room), whose family was huddled around Stone, since they were all apparently major fans of Mr. Clarinet.

After the awards presentation, I dragged Gandle, Stotter, and Stone off for a drink with Vince Flynn (Act of Treason), who like Stotter enjoys his Knob Creek. We had a vigorous discussion about the realities of today’s “war on terror,” as seen from a liberal viewpoint. Then I chatted briefly with Andrew Gross (The Blue Zone) and James Patterson, before finding my way back to the bar, where toasts were offered to the night’s winners and runners-up. Finder (pictured here on the left, with Nick Stone) was most entertaining, as he seemed genuinely shocked to be among the honorees. Not until I had spread my congratulations around did I retire for the evening, exhausted, only to find Stotter already in the room we shared, sound asleep in his suit and snoring like a sawmill.

The next morning, Saturday--the final day of this year’s ThrillerFest--came sooner than I would have preferred. While Stotter slumbered on, I showered and changed and hit a 9 o’clock panel discussion on horror fiction chaired by David Morrell (Creepers). For somebody like me, who’s long been interested in that genre and, sadly, watched it implode in the 1980s, it was relieving to see this attention being again paid to horror. Even if what I discovered from that panel discussion is that horror romance novels featuring werewolves and vampires are hot right now--not exactly my taste. I think I’ll stick to more thriller-oriented fare by Peter Staub, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and F. Paul Wilson.

Two more panel events awaited me. First, one of ThrillerFest’s most popular gatherings, a discussion of ways in which writers and publishers get you to buy their books. Contributing to that exchange were Tess Gerritsen, M.J. Rose, Jason Pinter, and David Montgomery (the last of whom wrote about it in his own blog). Second, I participated in a panel talk about how writers and readers interact with the Internet, and how very draining that involvement can be. I had a chance to share not only my experiences with The Rap Sheet and Shots, but memories of how I got into this whole Internet thing back in the late 1990s through the newsgroup rec.arts.mystery (RAM). And I pointed out author J.D. Rhoades (Safe and Sound), who happened to be seated in the audience, and was a fellow RAM poster way back when.

Then it was off to this convention’s finale: a brunch in the Grand Hyatt ballroom. ThrillerFest coordinators M. Diane Vogt and Shirley Kennett received thanks for their tireless efforts, and they in turn thanked the many volunteers. M.J. Rose followed them, explaining to the audience that next year’s ThrillerFest will likewise be held in Manhattan (news that raised a mixed response), but that after that, it will go “on the road,” as it were. As a capper, Jeff Deaver took the stage to recount how he got involved in the novel-writing game, and to take questions. Stotter kicked me under the table when I once more asked about his doing a follow-up to Garden of Beasts.

And suddenly, the conference was over, and we had to say good-bye to our friends, colleagues, and faithful drinking buddies. One always has a hollow feeling at the conclusion of intense events such as ThrillerFest, when you must walk away from people who share your passion for the smell of books, the excitement to be found in turning new pages, and the images that fine prose can paint in one’s mind.

Tuesday, two days after ThrillerFest ended, was our last day in the Big Apple, so Stotter and I went off to explore famous Central Park. The sun was beating down as we negotiated the pathways and were awed by this urban greensward’s dimensions. On our way out of the park, I noticed Stotter squinting at a hooded figure who was walking at a rather brisk pace in our direction. “Hey,” my friend proclaimed, “it’s Christopher Walken!” I quickly said hello once Walken came face to face with us, and greeted him in the way I thought most appropriate: as the “King of New York.” He smiled, said “Good to meet you,” shook my hand, and then ran off, waving as he went. It was a very surreal ending to our New York City adventure. But it proved that Stotter’s vision was finally on the mend.

London, here we come!

READ MORE: “BookBitch” Stacy Alesi’s own three-part ThrillerFest report here, here, and here; “Non-fiction Terror,” by M.J. Rose (Buzz, Balls & Hype).

Now Make Way for the Anthonys

Wouldn’t you know it? I spend all day away from my cluttered office, attending the wedding of my favorite (and, actually, only) niece, Amie June Brumble, only to return and discover that the Bouchercon folks have chosen today, of all days, to announce the nominees for the 2007 Anthony Awards. Thanks to Sarah Weinman for letting me know that the contenders had been identified. I shall reserve my own comments until after you’ve had a chance to glance through the full list of contestants.

Best Novel:
• All Mortal Flesh, by Julia Spencer-Fleming (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• The Dead Hour, by Denise Mina (Little, Brown)
• Kidnapped, by Jan Burke (Simon & Schuster)
• No Good Deeds, by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins)
• The Virgin of Small Plains, by Nancy Pickard (Ballantine)

Best First Novel:
• A Field of Darkness, by Cornelia Read (Mysterious Press)
• The Harrowing, by Alexandra Sokoloff (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• Holmes on the Range, by Steve Hockensmith (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• The King of Lies, by John Hart (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• Still Life, by Louise Penny (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

Best Paperback Original:
• Ashes and Bones, by Dana Cameron (Avon)
• Baby Shark, by Robert Fate (Capital Crime Press)
• The Cleanup, by Sean Doolittle (Dell)
• A Dangerous Man, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine)
• 47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers, by Troy Cook (Capital Crime Press)
• Shotgun Opera, by Victor Gischler (Dell)
• Snakeskin Shamisen, by Naomi Hirahara (Delta)

Best Short Story:
• “After the Fall,” by Elaine Viets (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine [AHMM], January/February 2006)
• “Cranked,” by Bill Crider (from Damn Near Dead, edited by Duane Swierczynski; Busted Flush Press)
• “The Lords of Misrule,” by Dana Cameron (from Sugarplums and Scandal; Avon)
• “My Father’s Secret,” by Simon Wood (Crimespree Magazine, Bouchercon Special Issue)
• “Policy,” by Megan Abbott (from Damn Near Dead)
• “Sleeping with the Plush,” by Toni L.P. Kelner (AHMM, May 2006)

Best Critical Non-fiction:
• The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder, by Daniel Stashower (Dutton)
• Don’t Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques to Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D.O.A., by Chris Roerden (Bella Rosa Books)
• Mystery Muses: 100 Classics That Inspire Today’s Mystery Writers, edited by Jim Huang and Austin Lugar (Crum Creek Press)
• Read ’Em Their Writes: A Handbook for Mystery and Crime Fiction Book Discussions, by Gary Warren Niebuhr (Libraries Unlimited)
• The Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, the Real Forensics Behind the Great Detective’s Greatest Cases, by E.J. Wagoner (John Wiley & Sons)

Special Services Award:
• Charles Ardai, Hard Case Crime
• George Easter, Deadly Pleasures
• Barbara Franchi and Sharon Wheeler, Reviewing the Evidence
• Jim Huang, Crum Creek Press and The Mystery Company
• Jon and Ruth Jordan, Crimespree Magazine
• Ali Karim, Shots
• Lynn Kaczmarek and Chris Aldrich, Mystery News
• Maddy Van Hertbruggen, 4 Mystery Addicts

Like Weinman, I’m surprised to find that all five of the Best Novel selections were written by women. Last year, only two of the five finalists for that prize were by women, and the Anthony went to a man (William Kent Krueger for Mercy Falls). The very same odds prevailed in 2005, with the commendation again going to a male writer (Krueger once more, though that time for Blood Hollow). However, in 2004, only one out of five finalists was written by a woman ... and she won (Laura Lippman for Every Secret Thing). The picks this year may simply reflect the facts that (1) more and more books in this genre are being written by women, and (2) women now tend to dominate crime-fiction conventions, such as Bouchercon. While many other awards are judged by equal numbers of men and women, Anthony nominees and winners are selected by the breadth of Bouchercon attendees. Ergo, the odds of a distaff dominance here are increased.

I’ll resist the urge to identify those books I think are most deserving of Anthony wins (though I did very much enjoy Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range and Stashower’s Beautiful Cigar Girl). But, while everybody in the Special Services category deserves to be thanked for their efforts, I do have a favorite in that race, and it’s Ali Karim. I might be biased because Karim is a contributor not only to the British e-zine Shots, but to The Rap Sheet and January Magazine as well. More important, though, he also harbors a rare enthusiasm for crime and mystery fiction, coupled with an extraordinary knowledge of the genre and a palpable interest in spreading word of its wonders to the widest possible audience of readers. The energy he devotes to reviewing books, interviewing authors, and keeping apprised of developments in this genre could keep the lights bright in a small country. And he isn’t making a blessed dime off most of his contributions to this field. Karim does it because he loves crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. It seems his contributions should be better recognized, and an Anthony win would be a good step in that direction. Just a thought ...

In any case, winners of this year’s Anthony Awards (named for Anthony Boucher, a founder of the Mystery Writers of America) will be announced during Bouchercon 38, to be held in Anchorage, Alaska, in late September.

Four of a Kind

• Two weeks after novelist Duane Swierczynski (Severence Package, The Blonde) delivered the first installment of a “short noir story” called “Sidewalk Tiger” in Philadelphia’s alternative weekly, the City Paper, he brings us the tense conclusion. To recap, Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 is here, and for the final section, click here.

• Former Royal Air Force pilot turned London Times arts correspondent and novelist Peter Cooper, better known to the crime-fiction-reading community under his pseudonym, Colin Curzon (The Body in the Barrage Balloon [1942], The Case of the Eighteenth Ostrich [1940]), has died at age 88.

• Mitch Silver, who’s the creative director of an advertising agency in New York state as well as the author of In Secret Service, a debut spy novel featuring Ian Fleming, creator of the legendary James Bond, submits that new book to Marshal Zeringue’s Page 69 Test.

• And GalleyCat reports that Georgia writer Karin Slaughter (Beyond Reach) is teaming up with “comics publisher Oni Press to launch Slaughterhouse Graphic Novels, a new line of original comic books and graphic novels [that] will be devoted exclusively to creations written by established writers from the world of prose fiction.” Read the whole story here.

Escape to New York, Part II

(The first installment of Ali Karim’s recollections from ThrillerFest 2007 can be found here.)

With our heads still banging from the previous night’s drink, and with Mike Stotter’s throat sore after singing that Mary Poppins favorite “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” we decided to skip ThrillerFest’s Friday morning breakfast for debut thriller authors (hosted by Lee Child) and instead wandered off to Midtown Manhattan’s Pershing Square restaurant, where we consumed plates of Eggs Benedict. To be quite frank, this wasn’t exactly to my taste. But, coupled with plenty of strong coffee, breakfast revived me.

Then it was back to the Grand Hyatt Hotel for our first panel discussion of this convention, “The Day of the Thriller,” with Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, James Rollins, and David Hewson, and moderated by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston (shown in the photo above). The conversation was light-hearted, and there was much discussion of sex in thrillers, which caused Lynds to laugh out loud--a lot. Talking about pivotal novels in the thriller genre, the one that all panel members seemed to agree on was Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male (1939), which had made such a deep impression on me as an adolescent. Morrell went on to recount how he had long ago corresponded with Household (who died in 1988) and had sent him a review copy of his 1972 debut novel, First Blood, in hopes of receiving a favorable “cover blurb.” Household, however, declined, stating that he found Morrell’s novel too violent, which brought out laughs from the audience. Morrell also gave us an update on the progress of Thrillers: 100 Best Books, a volume he’s been laboring on with Hank Wagner, and which collects essays about “the top 100 thriller novels” from writers, editors, and genre enthusiasts. That book is currently doing the rounds, and Morrell indicated that he and Wagner hope soon to have a publisher lined up. I was flattered last year to be asked by Morrell to contribute to this collection, and went on to compose a lengthy piece about Eric Ambler’s 1939 novel, The Mask of Dimitrios (aka A Coffin for Dimitrios). As a consequence, I am really looking forward to this book becoming available.

Back at the panel debate, Rollins soaked up a round of applause after Preston and Child noted that his latest Sigma Force thriller, The Judas Stain, hit the New York Times hardcover bestseller chart at No. 4. Rollins was, as ever, self-depreciating and came back with some witty lines about how we was pleased to become an overnight success after a decade of scribbling. That brought on a standing ovation.

After the panel discussion, Stotter and I whipped off to a crowed auditorium to listen to Vince Flynn. Now, despite Flynn being classified as something of a right-wing wordsmith, there’s actually a hidden liberal strata that ripples through his prose. Due to work demands, I missed seeing him last year, when he visited the UK, promoting Consent to Kill (which annoyed me no end, since his publisher, Simon & Schuster UK, had offered London critics a helicopter trip along the Thames and then a visit to a gun range). So I wasn’t about to miss him this time. Flynn’s talk was very funny, given his deadpan sense of humor. He mentioned that he’d once met George W. Bush, who told Flynn how much he loved his books. (The author said he wasn’t sure whether this was much of a compliment, given that Bush isn’t known as much of a reader.) Apparently, Bush inquired, too, as to the identity of Flynn’s sources in the U.S. Secret Service, adding, “the boys in Langley love your work, but are hunting down your mole.” Flynn said he’d also met former President Bill Clinton, who--despite being much more liberal than his unpopular Republican successor--said he appreciated his books, as well.

Flynn was delighted to find that I like his storytelling, given that I’m a man of color and that many of his yarns revolve around the CIA’s top counter-terrorism operative, Mitch Rapp, confronting madmen from the Middle East. Flynn even posed for a photograph with me (that’s Flynn on the right, by the way). And, in the same spirit of generousness, I told Flynn--who is actually much taller than I am--that if he ever needs a bodyguard, he knows who to call in London. Since there were many people queuing up after Flynn’s presentation, all hoping to have their books signed, the author suggested that Stotter and I resume our discussion in the fall, when he’ll be back in the UK to promote his eighth Rapp outing, Protect and Defend.

From there, we decided to take a break and join the gang from Deadly Pleasures magazine--Maggie Mary Mason, Larry Gandle, and editor George Easter. With rare-books dealer “Mystery Mike” Bursaw, we assembled in ThrillerFest’s book room, where Easter and I soon put everyone in stitches with our accounts of Stotter’s Dick Van Dyke routine of the night before. Bursaw was laughing so hard, I feared he’d make himself sick. He later told me that he’s been tapped as one of the organizers of Bouchercon 40, to be held in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2009, and that he wants me to run a one-panel presentation entitled “Ali Karim Talks About Books,” in which I could roll out my full repertoire of jokes, anecdotes, and insights into books and book publishing. Hmm. Unlikely. But it was great to be with the Deadly Pleasures team again, as I have known and trusted them for so long, and every time we get together we have a great time.

The next commitment on our schedule was a panel called “Honor Among Thieves,” chaired by Barry Eisler (Requiem for an Assassin) and featuring Brits Zoë Sharp and Humphrey Hawksley, along with Jeff Buick, Bill Cameron, and Vicki Hendricks. Again, this was a very amusing panel, its members debating the traits of heroes and villains. I was most interested to hear from Hendricks, as Michael Connelly had only recently asked if I’d read her work, and I was ashamed to admit that I had not. I subsequently grabbed up her latest novel, Cruel Poetry, of which Connelly had written: “I loved this book. It’s a private ticket into a secret world of desire and sex and the raw edge between them. I don’t know why the book has chapters. I read it page to page with the fever of the addicted.” That was a good enough recommendation for me.

During the question-and-answer session that followed this discussion, I couldn’t resist delivering my own query: “Considering that Hannibal Lecter has been portrayed by Anthony Hopkins and Brian Cox, while the Die Hard movies feature Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons as bad guys--why is it that the British make such compelling villains?” This provoked a humorous back-and-forth, with the conclusion being that (a) the British accent sounds very intelligent and intimidating, hence ideal for a super-villain, and (b) that the UK’s long colonial past may have left the world with the impression that Britons are somehow villainous. All food for thought. We were only lucky that Stotter didn’t choose that moment to break into his Dick Van Dyke-as-cockney-chimney-sweep repertoire, else the pair of us might have been lynched.

Seeking another respite, Stotter and I headed for the bar--he to meet his fellow panelists for the next day’s “Strangers in Paradise” discussion, and I to sip a glass of the strong gin I’d carried with me across the Atlantic. I bumped into my dear friends Sarah Weinman, Elaine Flinn, and Mary Reagan, with whom I shared my bottle (after warning that the gin was so concentrated, it might well burn through organic matter, if spilled). Over the course of our exchange, I mentioned to Flinn that I’d enjoyed her latest Molly Doyle mystery, Deadly Vintage. She beamed, knowing that my taste usually runs to hard-boiled stories, but that every so often some “perfect traditional mystery” (as Stephen Booth characterized Deadly Vintage in his review) catches my eye.

And then it was on to a lecture by David Morrell, who talked mostly about his relationship with award-winning American screenwriter Sterling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night, Marlowe, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure). I knew some of their association already, having asked him about Silliphant during the course of a 2003 interview for Shots:

Ali: You have said that in your teenage years, you got into serious trouble, but aged seventeen you found direction from the TV Show Route 66, scripted by the great screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. Would you care to explain in what way?

David: In my early teenage years, I ran with street gangs and committed crimes such as shoplifting. Most of the kids I hung around with went to prison. But somehow my life took another turn, perhaps because I knew that I wanted something better and was willing to work to get it. Then on the first Friday in October of 1960, the classic TV show ROUTE 66 premiered. Its premise was that two young man in a Corvette convertible drove across the United States in search of America and themselves. Very Jack Kerouac ON THE ROAD. Each episode was filmed on location. The scripts by Stirling Silliphant were an amazing blend of action and hip philosophy that knocked me out and changed my life. I had never been so captivated by stories. Out of the blue, I had the idea that I would be a writer like Silliphant. I wrote letters to him. He encouraged me. I owe everything to him. Incidentally, it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I realized that both main characters were orphans and that one of them, a street kid from Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, was a parallel to my own life. Silliphant was eventually the executive producer of the miniseries of my novel THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE.

Morrell explained during his ThrillerFest presentation that over the years, he and Silliphant became friends, and it was a terrible blow to him when his mentor passed away in the Far East in 1996. His stories were all very moving. Then the lights dimmed and Morrell put on an episode of Route 66 featuring a very young Robert Duvall. Unfortunately, due to the jet lag and my difficulty in sleeping the night before, when the lights went out ... so did I. I woke up just as the episode’s closing credits were coming up, and to my shock I discovered David Morrell sitting in what had been an empty chair right beside me. I quickly rubbed my eyes and tried to appear alert, and hoped that I hadn’t snored during the presentation. Graciously, Morrell didn’t remark on my nap.

After he returned to the front of the room, to admit that he may have unconsciously employed some themes from Silliphant’s In the Heat of the Night in his own novel First Blood, I slipped out discreetly, embarrassed at having snoozed through Route 66.

Back at the bar, I found Mike Stotter and Larry Gandle waiting for me, and very soon we hitched up with unpublished writer C.J. Carpenter, Australian author Mike Robotham, photographer Mary Reagan, and Elaine Flinn for dinner. Carpenter proved to be an amusing dinner companion, and Robotham was effusive in his appreciation at having been nominated this year for the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award (Stotter was one of the judges for that commendation). But I was exhausted, despite that nap during Route 66, and Stotter and I decided to retire early, as we knew the next night would be a late one. That would be the evening, after all, of the Thriller Awards presentations--with much partying expected afterward.

(Part III is available here.)