First off, I want to thank British thriller writer Tom Cain for allowing The Rap Sheet to syndicate his short story, “Bloodsport,” during the early part of this week. Correspondent Ali Karim alerts me to the fact that “Maxim Jakubowski [has] just selected ‘Bloodsport’ for his annual Best British Crime anthology,” and that the tale has generated a goodly amount of publicity on the Web (see here and here, for instance). I hope the notice will encourage Cain to dispatch his protagonist, Samuel Carver, on more brief adventures.
Now on to other news:
• My fellow Spinetingler Award winner, Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders, was interviewed yesterday on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Here on Earth series. During the segment, Rozovsky says, he was able to “tout Ireland as a hotbed of crime fiction, to offer my definition of noir, and to talk about Yasmina Khadra, Seicho Matsumoto, Henning Mankell, Patricia Highsmith, David Goodis, Ian Rankin, Matt Rees, Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor, and Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole. My fellow guest and I both like Jean-Claude Izzo, so we talked about him awhile. (That fellow guest was Hirsh Sawhney, editor of Akashic Books’ Delhi Noir, about which he made some interesting remarks.)” If you failed to tune in to the show’s original broadcast, you can still listen to it here.
• The July/August issue of ThugLit has finally been posted. Included in its contents are stories by Levi Smock (“Life Expectancy”), Joe Clifford (“Red Pistachios”), and Anna Russell (“Let Me Count the Ways, My Dear, Let Me Count the Ways”).
• Tributes continue to roll in for author William G. Tapply (Dark Tiger), who died last week after what I understand was a two-year battle with leukemia. “Anyone lucky enough to meet Bill Tapply (William G. Tapply to library catalogers) knew he was a gentleman and a scholar. To that I would add Fine Human Being,” writes Jeanne Munn Bracken of Writers Plot.
• Will the bloodletting in fiction ever cease?
• In his latest American Eye column for Shots, Michael Carlson joins the chorus of critics on both sides of the Atlantic who lament that U.S. author John Shannon (Palos Verdes Blue) isn’t better known.
• Excellent news here and here.
• When awards are dispensed during next May’s CrimeFest in Bristol, England, expect to see a new third annual commendation added to its existing Last Laugh and Sounds of Crime prizes. “The award will celebrate the best crime e-book of the year, considering titles published for the first time in 2009 ...,” reports TheBookseller.com. “Submission guidelines will be announced at the end of the year, but only titles submitted by the publisher or by a commercially published author are eligible.”
• On his Facebook page, historical crime novelist Matthew Pearl recounts the trials and errors of creating the cover of his first book, The Dante Club (2003). (Hat tip to The Casual Optimist.)
• As critics debate the literary merits of Thomas Pynchon’s new crime novel, Inherent Vice, Entertainment Weekly magazine commissions a forensic artist to show readers how the reclusive author might look today. The illustration is “based on Pynchon’s 1955 high school yearbook photo, one of the last known snapshots of the Gravity’s Rainbow scribe.” See what you think of the results here.
• Meanwhile, Wired magazine has put together a pretty cool interactive map of Thomas Pynchon’s Los Angeles.
• And was the voice-over for the Inherent Vice book trailer provided by Pynchon himself? Inquiring minds want to know ...
• As a prelude to October’s Bouchercon in Indianapolis, Bethany Warner is inviting authors who will be attending that conference to blog at Word Nerd. The initial contributor is Beth Groundwater (To Hell in a Handbasket).
• Finally, does anybody else remember San Francisco International Airport, the 1970-1971 NBC series that starred Lloyd Bridges as the manager of that oft-troubled landing field? It was one part of a “wheel series” called Four-in-One, which also introduced Dennis Weaver’s McCloud and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. (The fourth component of Four-in-One was The Psychiatrist, starring Roy Thinnes.) I don’t recall San Francisco International Airport well (I was only a kid in 1970), but I do remember that I was sorry when it was cancelled after only six episodes.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
The Spark of Innovation
It was on this date in 1890 that the first execution by electric chair took place in Buffalo, New York. As John DuMond of Nobody Move! explains: William Kemmler “was convicted in 1889 of the hatchet murder of his common-law wife Tillie. He was sentenced by the court to die in the electric chair at Auburn State Prison.”
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
“Bloodsport,” Part III:
A Never-Before-Published Samuel Carver Tale
(Editor’s note: The Rap Sheet concludes its exclusive posting of the first Samuel Carver short story by pseudonymous British novelist Tom Cain. Click here to read the opening installment of 
“Bloodsport,” along with the author’s disclaimer. Click here to read Part II. And if you click here, you’ll find an interview with Cain that includes some background on this short but suspenseful yarn.)
“Bloodsport” © Tom Cain
The U.S. Army regards the Heckler and Koch 416 assault rifle, a development of the standard M4 carbine, to be the best gun of its kind in the world. Its elite Delta Force actually helped develop the 416’s design. So Uncle Sam is happy to pay up to $1,425 a unit to provide his top troops with such an outstanding weapon. Samuel Carver, like the men of Delta Force, was armed with an M4 variant. It was called the RAP T68 Avenger, and in the custom specification he required it had cost him just over $4,000, roughly three times as much as a 416. It really was a very, very special piece of kit. The T68 was much quieter than a conventional weapon. It emitted no muzzle flash, making it much harder for any opponent to spot. Its rounds were of a much larger caliber than standard ammunition, exploded on impact, and were virtually guaranteed to take out anyone they hit. The T68 was a game-changer.
For every ladder, however, there must be a snake, and the slithery reptile in this particular case was that the maximum range of the T68 was just 300 feet. For anyone interested in marksmanship--anyone, for example, intending to take out a target with a headshot--the effective range was reduced to a mere 150 feet. Carver was aiming for the body, but even so, he had a lot further than 150 feet to cover. And it wasn’t an easy shot given the downward angle at which he was shooting, the breeze off the lake and the mass of men and women, armed with cameras and microphones, who were standing directly between him and his target. Carver was no great fan of the journalist classes. But he didn’t want to hit one of them.
Overhead, a police helicopter was sweeping the area. It would be gone by the time the couple reached the gate of the property: no one wanted the noise of a chopper to interfere with the audio quality of the prime minister’s interview. But its presence provided a welcome distraction for Carver. It made him forget his moral qualms and worry about a practical issue: the degree to which he was shielded from any thermal-imaging equipment the helicopter or the officers aboard it might be carrying. It was a warm day, with bright sunshine. He was counting on them trusting their own eyes to do the job.
The helicopter made one last pass over the scene of the photocall and the surrounding area, then clattered away across the lake. The air fell silent. Now Carver had nothing to take his mind off his self-appointed mission.
He nestled the butt of his rifle against his shoulder and went into the standard routine of slow, deep breaths, preparing to shoot after he had exhaled, at the calmest point of the cycle. He visualized the process: the smooth, easy trigger action; the repetition as he went for his second and third shots.
Through the T68’s Super Sniper 3-12x50 Scope, he could see every line on the prime minister’s face.
The green crosshairs moved downwards, past the open collar of the PM’s shirt to a point directly between the narrowest parts of the lapels of his casual, holiday jacket, smack in the middle of his chest.
Carver kept the sight there as his target--a man, he reflected, who had done him no personal harm: who could not even raise his taxes, since Carver had long lived in a flat in Geneva--proceeded through the gates of his rented lakeside villa, and up to the mark where he and his wife would stand for the photocall. The mark, Carver knew, was 247 feet from where he lay, at one corner of a right-angled triangle. The ground formed the long, horizontal side. The tree formed the short, vertical side. The line of fire was the hypotenuse.
Basic geometry.
The prime minister reached his mark.
Carver could not shoot.
For the first time in his life, his will, or maybe his nerve had deserted him. He had sabotaged planes and helicopters and condemned their inhabitants to terrible, screaming deaths. He had sent cars spinning across motorways into the paths on oncoming trucks. He had set houses alight, along with everyone in them. He had shot, stabbed, and strangled. But this, for some reason, he suddenly could not do.
He gave a single sharp shake of the head, as if physically trying to dislodge his uncertainty.
Carver settled back into his routine: slow, deep breaths; mental images of smooth, easy trigger-pulls; preparation for subsequent shots.
The prime minister was posing for pictures. He was smiling at his wife. He was, as Carver had predicted, pointing at something across the lake. His wife appeared to find this utterly fascinating. The green crosshairs were still pointing directly at his chest: the fourth button down of his shirt, to be precise.
Still Carver did not shoot.
Now the prime minister was taking a question. It seemed to be a very entertaining question, since he was smiling and even chuckling as he answered.
Carver knew the schedule. There would be three questions. At the end of those questions, the PM and his wife would turn around and walk back the way they came. His chance would be gone.
There was a second question, a second smiling answer.
No shot.
Then the third question was asked. The prime minister nodded thoughtfully and brought his hands up in front of him to emphasize a point he was making.
Carver fired.
He shot three times, and they all hit.
Three crimson explosions burst upon the prime minister’s chest. He staggered backwards, stunned by the force of the blows. Blood erupted over his body, his hands, and the shocked woman standing beside him. As her husband fell backwards to the ground, she began to scream as she saw that the blood was on her too. So much blood, spattering over her pretty summer dress.
The media onlookers were split between those too horrified by what they were witnessing to be able to function and those hardier, more experienced souls who kept their cameras running, tightened the focus, grabbed every second of footage that would now be flashing around the world as a small, domestic photocall became a global phenomenon.
All the policemen, MI5 agents, and counter-terrorism specialists, in and out of uniform, were shouting at one another, looking round to try to find the origin of the shots, desperately calling for medical attention. They were giving in to the momentary loss of control that grips even the best-trained operatives when the unthinkable occurs.
So it took a few seconds for people to notice that the prime pinister was slowly getting back to his feet, rubbing the back of his head where it had hit the tarmac. He was drenched in blood, but he was, as he tried to assure his poor wife, completely fine.
The cameras kept clicking and rolling. The news reporters changed the tone of their coverage from horror at a death to bafflement at an amazing resurrection. And at that precise moment an e-mail arrived at the Press Association in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, copied to the BBC news headquarters at Broadcasting House and CNN’s European headquarters in Great Marlborough Street. It was signed by a number of former officers in Her Majesty’s armed forces and it revealed that they had donated the blood with which the prime minister had just been covered. He now, they observed, really did have the blood of British soldiers on his hands.
Carver, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the total confusion at the scene of the hit to slip out of his ghillie suit, scramble down the tree, and slide into the water of the lake. He swam away underwater, using a standard Special Forces rebreather system.
He left his gun behind in the tree, carefully wiped down to remove any fingerprints or DNA traces.
The RAP T68 Avenger bills itself as the finest paintball
weapon in the world.
“Bloodsport,” along with the author’s disclaimer. Click here to read Part II. And if you click here, you’ll find an interview with Cain that includes some background on this short but suspenseful yarn.)“Bloodsport” © Tom Cain
The U.S. Army regards the Heckler and Koch 416 assault rifle, a development of the standard M4 carbine, to be the best gun of its kind in the world. Its elite Delta Force actually helped develop the 416’s design. So Uncle Sam is happy to pay up to $1,425 a unit to provide his top troops with such an outstanding weapon. Samuel Carver, like the men of Delta Force, was armed with an M4 variant. It was called the RAP T68 Avenger, and in the custom specification he required it had cost him just over $4,000, roughly three times as much as a 416. It really was a very, very special piece of kit. The T68 was much quieter than a conventional weapon. It emitted no muzzle flash, making it much harder for any opponent to spot. Its rounds were of a much larger caliber than standard ammunition, exploded on impact, and were virtually guaranteed to take out anyone they hit. The T68 was a game-changer.
For every ladder, however, there must be a snake, and the slithery reptile in this particular case was that the maximum range of the T68 was just 300 feet. For anyone interested in marksmanship--anyone, for example, intending to take out a target with a headshot--the effective range was reduced to a mere 150 feet. Carver was aiming for the body, but even so, he had a lot further than 150 feet to cover. And it wasn’t an easy shot given the downward angle at which he was shooting, the breeze off the lake and the mass of men and women, armed with cameras and microphones, who were standing directly between him and his target. Carver was no great fan of the journalist classes. But he didn’t want to hit one of them.
Overhead, a police helicopter was sweeping the area. It would be gone by the time the couple reached the gate of the property: no one wanted the noise of a chopper to interfere with the audio quality of the prime minister’s interview. But its presence provided a welcome distraction for Carver. It made him forget his moral qualms and worry about a practical issue: the degree to which he was shielded from any thermal-imaging equipment the helicopter or the officers aboard it might be carrying. It was a warm day, with bright sunshine. He was counting on them trusting their own eyes to do the job.
The helicopter made one last pass over the scene of the photocall and the surrounding area, then clattered away across the lake. The air fell silent. Now Carver had nothing to take his mind off his self-appointed mission.
He nestled the butt of his rifle against his shoulder and went into the standard routine of slow, deep breaths, preparing to shoot after he had exhaled, at the calmest point of the cycle. He visualized the process: the smooth, easy trigger action; the repetition as he went for his second and third shots.
Through the T68’s Super Sniper 3-12x50 Scope, he could see every line on the prime minister’s face.
The green crosshairs moved downwards, past the open collar of the PM’s shirt to a point directly between the narrowest parts of the lapels of his casual, holiday jacket, smack in the middle of his chest.
Carver kept the sight there as his target--a man, he reflected, who had done him no personal harm: who could not even raise his taxes, since Carver had long lived in a flat in Geneva--proceeded through the gates of his rented lakeside villa, and up to the mark where he and his wife would stand for the photocall. The mark, Carver knew, was 247 feet from where he lay, at one corner of a right-angled triangle. The ground formed the long, horizontal side. The tree formed the short, vertical side. The line of fire was the hypotenuse.
Basic geometry.
The prime minister reached his mark.
Carver could not shoot.
For the first time in his life, his will, or maybe his nerve had deserted him. He had sabotaged planes and helicopters and condemned their inhabitants to terrible, screaming deaths. He had sent cars spinning across motorways into the paths on oncoming trucks. He had set houses alight, along with everyone in them. He had shot, stabbed, and strangled. But this, for some reason, he suddenly could not do.
He gave a single sharp shake of the head, as if physically trying to dislodge his uncertainty.
Carver settled back into his routine: slow, deep breaths; mental images of smooth, easy trigger-pulls; preparation for subsequent shots.
The prime minister was posing for pictures. He was smiling at his wife. He was, as Carver had predicted, pointing at something across the lake. His wife appeared to find this utterly fascinating. The green crosshairs were still pointing directly at his chest: the fourth button down of his shirt, to be precise.
Still Carver did not shoot.
Now the prime minister was taking a question. It seemed to be a very entertaining question, since he was smiling and even chuckling as he answered.
Carver knew the schedule. There would be three questions. At the end of those questions, the PM and his wife would turn around and walk back the way they came. His chance would be gone.
There was a second question, a second smiling answer.
No shot.
Then the third question was asked. The prime minister nodded thoughtfully and brought his hands up in front of him to emphasize a point he was making.
Carver fired.
He shot three times, and they all hit.
Three crimson explosions burst upon the prime minister’s chest. He staggered backwards, stunned by the force of the blows. Blood erupted over his body, his hands, and the shocked woman standing beside him. As her husband fell backwards to the ground, she began to scream as she saw that the blood was on her too. So much blood, spattering over her pretty summer dress.
The media onlookers were split between those too horrified by what they were witnessing to be able to function and those hardier, more experienced souls who kept their cameras running, tightened the focus, grabbed every second of footage that would now be flashing around the world as a small, domestic photocall became a global phenomenon.
All the policemen, MI5 agents, and counter-terrorism specialists, in and out of uniform, were shouting at one another, looking round to try to find the origin of the shots, desperately calling for medical attention. They were giving in to the momentary loss of control that grips even the best-trained operatives when the unthinkable occurs.
So it took a few seconds for people to notice that the prime pinister was slowly getting back to his feet, rubbing the back of his head where it had hit the tarmac. He was drenched in blood, but he was, as he tried to assure his poor wife, completely fine.
The cameras kept clicking and rolling. The news reporters changed the tone of their coverage from horror at a death to bafflement at an amazing resurrection. And at that precise moment an e-mail arrived at the Press Association in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, copied to the BBC news headquarters at Broadcasting House and CNN’s European headquarters in Great Marlborough Street. It was signed by a number of former officers in Her Majesty’s armed forces and it revealed that they had donated the blood with which the prime minister had just been covered. He now, they observed, really did have the blood of British soldiers on his hands.
Carver, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the total confusion at the scene of the hit to slip out of his ghillie suit, scramble down the tree, and slide into the water of the lake. He swam away underwater, using a standard Special Forces rebreather system.
He left his gun behind in the tree, carefully wiped down to remove any fingerprints or DNA traces.
The RAP T68 Avenger bills itself as the finest paintball
weapon in the world.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Taking It All In
• Slate’s Jonathan Rosenbaum is disappointed with Thomas Pynchon’s brand-new crime novel, Inherent Vice. (“It’s a kind of southerly remake of Vineland [which was set mainly in Northern California] featuring similar showdowns between freaks and cops and further evidence of defections and betrayals but played, this time, more for cheap thrills than for any fresh historical insights.”) No, let me rephrase that: he’s really disappointed. (“It’s impossible not to be disappointed that the Renaissance intellectual, who blended populist aspirations with the wildest of fancies and cast unnervingly instructive light on our times, has settled for such a modest diversion.”) You can read his whole critique here.
• It’s been 21 years since the last new episode of Cagney & Lacey was broadcast in the United States, but Chris Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey are going to team up once more. Well, the actress who played them are, anyway. As TV Squad reports, Tyne Daly--who of course played Lacey--will guest star on the 2010 season premiere of Burn Notice, which already features Sharon Gless in the role of spy Michael Westen’s chain-smoking mother.
• Every six months or so, some blogger (and I’m guilty of this myself) will lament the fact that a number of the most interesting crime and detective TV series from times past aren’t yet available in DVD format. Kevin Burton Smith
is just the latest to complain. The creator of that invaluable resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site, Smith offers a “top 10 [list of] P.I. shows (subject to update) that people want to see.” Included on his rundown: Harry O, Spenser: For Hire, Longstreet, and City of Angels. Beyond those 10, he brings up The Outsider and Archer, both of which I’d also pay to see again. One show that I’m surprised isn’t mentioned, however, is Banyon, the 1972-1973 period gumshoe drama starring Robert Forster. When, oh when, can we see that again?
• Stupid quote of the week.
• Whoops. I missed the actual anniversary, but this still deserves a mention. It was on August 2, 1909--100 years ago this last Sunday--that the first U.S. pennies bearing Abraham Lincoln’s likeness were issued. In commemoration, Time magazine offers a list of “the top 10 things you didn’t know about the penny.” (No. 3: “The 1943 copper-alloy cent is one of the most enigmatic coins in American numismatics--and reportedly the most valuable Lincoln penny of all. Just 40 of the coins--probably created by accident on copper-alloy one-cent blanks left in the presses in the wartime years when pennies were converted to steel--are known to exist.”)
• Patti Abbott’s “Esther Meaney” is the newest short story presented in Beat to a Pulp.
• Speaking of Abbotts, daughter Megan’s new novel, Bury Me Deep, wins applause in The Detroit News. Critic Susan Whitall (or maybe it was just the headline writer) labels her “the duchess of dark novels.” That’s a title worth spreading around.
• Newsweek’s Malcolm Jones picks “the best detective fiction for your summer reading list.” Sarah Weinman suggests that Jones really ought to try reading more women authors. He might also think about picking up some books published since 1978.
• Good news from BSC Review: “2009 is the year of Gary Phillips. A spate of releases confirms what some already know, that its Gary’s world and the rest of us just live in it. The different releases offer a range of voices in a range of styles in a range of mediums.” Get the full story here. And read much more about Freedom’s Fight here.
• As blogger-author Julia Buckely reminds me, “On this day in 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their own home--apparently hacked to death by an axe. After a couple of days of investigation, police came to suspect one of the Bordens’ two daughters, Lizzie, of committing the act.”
• Talk about fascinating historical facts ...
• Rick Klaw of the Dark Forces Book Group interviews Joe R. Lansdale on the subject of his new Hap Collins and Leonard Pine novel, Vanilla Ride. Part I of their conversation has already been posted, with Part II to follow shortly. By the way, I can’t decide whether I prefer the pre-publication version of Vanilla Ride’s cover (shown at Dark Forces) or the finished version, both designed by Chip Kidd. Does anyone else have a preference? (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)
• Tony Black (Gutted) is grilled by his readers.
• Vote now for your favorite mystery among those nominated as part of the 2009 African-American Literary Awards Show. Walter Mosley and Blair Underwood are among the contenders this year. Click here for more information.
• Marty McKee has been rounding up some fairly obscure TV opening title sequences over at his blog, Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot. His latest two crime series specimens: Hardcastle & McCormick and Tenspeed and Brown Shoe.
• And finally, let me say happy birthday, Mr. President.
• It’s been 21 years since the last new episode of Cagney & Lacey was broadcast in the United States, but Chris Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey are going to team up once more. Well, the actress who played them are, anyway. As TV Squad reports, Tyne Daly--who of course played Lacey--will guest star on the 2010 season premiere of Burn Notice, which already features Sharon Gless in the role of spy Michael Westen’s chain-smoking mother.
• Every six months or so, some blogger (and I’m guilty of this myself) will lament the fact that a number of the most interesting crime and detective TV series from times past aren’t yet available in DVD format. Kevin Burton Smith
is just the latest to complain. The creator of that invaluable resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site, Smith offers a “top 10 [list of] P.I. shows (subject to update) that people want to see.” Included on his rundown: Harry O, Spenser: For Hire, Longstreet, and City of Angels. Beyond those 10, he brings up The Outsider and Archer, both of which I’d also pay to see again. One show that I’m surprised isn’t mentioned, however, is Banyon, the 1972-1973 period gumshoe drama starring Robert Forster. When, oh when, can we see that again?• Stupid quote of the week.
• Whoops. I missed the actual anniversary, but this still deserves a mention. It was on August 2, 1909--100 years ago this last Sunday--that the first U.S. pennies bearing Abraham Lincoln’s likeness were issued. In commemoration, Time magazine offers a list of “the top 10 things you didn’t know about the penny.” (No. 3: “The 1943 copper-alloy cent is one of the most enigmatic coins in American numismatics--and reportedly the most valuable Lincoln penny of all. Just 40 of the coins--probably created by accident on copper-alloy one-cent blanks left in the presses in the wartime years when pennies were converted to steel--are known to exist.”)
• Patti Abbott’s “Esther Meaney” is the newest short story presented in Beat to a Pulp.
• Speaking of Abbotts, daughter Megan’s new novel, Bury Me Deep, wins applause in The Detroit News. Critic Susan Whitall (or maybe it was just the headline writer) labels her “the duchess of dark novels.” That’s a title worth spreading around.
• Newsweek’s Malcolm Jones picks “the best detective fiction for your summer reading list.” Sarah Weinman suggests that Jones really ought to try reading more women authors. He might also think about picking up some books published since 1978.
• Good news from BSC Review: “2009 is the year of Gary Phillips. A spate of releases confirms what some already know, that its Gary’s world and the rest of us just live in it. The different releases offer a range of voices in a range of styles in a range of mediums.” Get the full story here. And read much more about Freedom’s Fight here.
• As blogger-author Julia Buckely reminds me, “On this day in 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their own home--apparently hacked to death by an axe. After a couple of days of investigation, police came to suspect one of the Bordens’ two daughters, Lizzie, of committing the act.”
• Talk about fascinating historical facts ...
• Rick Klaw of the Dark Forces Book Group interviews Joe R. Lansdale on the subject of his new Hap Collins and Leonard Pine novel, Vanilla Ride. Part I of their conversation has already been posted, with Part II to follow shortly. By the way, I can’t decide whether I prefer the pre-publication version of Vanilla Ride’s cover (shown at Dark Forces) or the finished version, both designed by Chip Kidd. Does anyone else have a preference? (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)
• Tony Black (Gutted) is grilled by his readers.
• Vote now for your favorite mystery among those nominated as part of the 2009 African-American Literary Awards Show. Walter Mosley and Blair Underwood are among the contenders this year. Click here for more information.
• Marty McKee has been rounding up some fairly obscure TV opening title sequences over at his blog, Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot. His latest two crime series specimens: Hardcastle & McCormick and Tenspeed and Brown Shoe.
• And finally, let me say happy birthday, Mr. President.
For the Love of Pulp
It sounds as if attendees at this last weekend’s PulpFest in Columbus, Ohio, had a grand old time listening to panel discussions and swapping and buying collectibles. Also announced during the convention was the winner of this year’s Munsey Award, given “to a deserving person who has given of himself or herself for the betterment of the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps or through publishing or other efforts to preserve and to foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy.” That commendation went to Bill Thom, designer of the Coming Attractions Web site.
The next PulpFest is scheduled to run from July 30 to August 2, 2010, and will again take place in the Ohio capital.
The next PulpFest is scheduled to run from July 30 to August 2, 2010, and will again take place in the Ohio capital.
Not Enough Thrills in Parliament Already?
It’s hardly uncommon for political leaders to influence what books the rest of us carry along on our summer vacations. The careers of Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Harlan Coben, and Alex Kava were all boosted after the media pointed out that former U.S. President Bill Clinton enjoyed their novels. And we have mentioned before that the popularity of super-spy James Bond was fueled in part by President John F. Kennedy’s enthusiasm for the works of Ian Fleming, whom he’d met at a party in Washington, D.C.
It seems that UK pols are no less enthralled by reading than their American counterparts, with many of them favoring crime and thriller works. The Guardian reports on the reading habits of the head of Britain’s Conservative Party:
Meanwhile, The Telegraph tells about a new survey of politicians’ reading tastes, conducted by the bookstore chain Waterstone’s. It indicates that Stieg Larsson’s thrillers, along with crime fiction by Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill, and Lee Child, can all be found occupying the luggage of UK politicians heading off for their holidays.
One can only wonder what ideas they’ll take away from such books.
It seems that UK pols are no less enthralled by reading than their American counterparts, with many of them favoring crime and thriller works. The Guardian reports on the reading habits of the head of Britain’s Conservative Party:
David Cameron will begin his 10-day holiday in France next weekend by relaxing with “a really trashy novel,” the Tory leader confided. Aides said later that may mean a date with bestselling American writer, Patricia Cornwell, and her hardnosed forensic pathologist, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, star of 17 corpse-strewn thrillers.Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is currently vacationing in England’s Lake District, has not released his own summer reading list. But The Guardian reported a while back that Brown is a Harry Potter fan. (“As he gears up to steer the country prudently into a new era, the country clearly needs to know what Gordon Brown will be reading over the summer. In a shock revelation, it turns out that our new PM will not be brushing up on his beloved neo-endogenous growth theory, but J.K. Rowling’s final installment of the Harry Potter stories.”) One can’t help but wonder, too, whether Brown has been keeping up with Tom Cain’s new short story, “Bloodsport,” which is being serialized this week in The Rap Sheet.
“I always start when I go on holiday with a really trashy novel. You need something to completely empty your mind and take you back,” Cameron told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.
Cameron keeps a volume or two of Evelyn Waugh novels, witty high priest of reactionary Toryism, on his desk at Westminster. But Cornwell is an even more appropriate source of Tory modernizer’s inspiration as a Republican who fell out (“not a democracy so much as theocracy”) with George [W.] Bush.
She is also a descendant of Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom’s Cabin inspired anti-slavery sentiment before the American Civil War. Her latest thriller, The Scarpetta Factor, newly published in the U.S., is thought to be Cameron’s choice.
Meanwhile, The Telegraph tells about a new survey of politicians’ reading tastes, conducted by the bookstore chain Waterstone’s. It indicates that Stieg Larsson’s thrillers, along with crime fiction by Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill, and Lee Child, can all be found occupying the luggage of UK politicians heading off for their holidays.
One can only wonder what ideas they’ll take away from such books.
“Bloodsport,” Part II:
A Never-Before-Published Samuel Carver Tale
(Editor’s note: The Rap Sheet continues its exclusive posting of the first Samuel Carver short story by pseudonymous novelist Tom Cain. Click here to read the opening installment of “Bloodsport,” along with Cain’s disclaimer. And click here 
to enjoy Ali Karim’s interview with the author, which includes some background on “Bloodsport.” The final part of this story will appear tomorrow on this page.)
“Bloodsport” © 2009 Tom Cain
Carver was high up an oak tree. He’d been there for three days, remaining as motionless as humanly possible, rendered invisible by the combination of thick summer foliage and a shaggy, camouflaged ghillie suit that broke up his outline and blended him into his surroundings.
The oak grew beside a lake in Cumbria. Carver had his back to the water. In front of him was an open expanse of grass, which ran as far as a road that ran north-south, parallel to the eastern shore of the lake. For the past 30 minutes there had been no traffic along the road, nor would there be for another 30 to come. Manned police barriers, approximately 200 yards apart, both clearly visible to Carver, had made sure of that.
Directly opposite Carver’s position there was a turning off the road, which formed a semi-circle of tarmac, ringed by the high brick walls of a large property. This semi-circle was where the media were massed. Their assorted cars, vans, and trucks, now parked along the road on either side of the semi-circle, and the police cars that had accompanied them, had been the last vehicles allowed past the barriers.
The walls were lined with trees and shrubs and bisected, right in the middle of their arc, by a gate. Behind it a tarmac drive led up to the Victorian villa that had been rented for the prime minister’s holiday accommodation. Carver was watching the PM and his wife walk down that drive towards the gate, the waiting media and, though they did not know it, to him.
The official schedule for the next few minutes had been very tightly scripted. Every move that the prime ministerial couple would make, and every word they would say had been accounted for. They’d walk up to the gates, apparently engrossed in happy conversation and pleasurable contemplation of the property’s well-manicured grounds and delightful lake views. The gates would open. The couple would walk through them and pose with the gestures of enforced normality that distinguish pictures of politicians, regardless of race of ideology, attempting to look like normal human beings. Carver felt reasonably certain that this would involve the prime minister pointing off towards the middle distance while the missus followed his finger with a look of adoring fascination plastered on her face. He had never seen any normal human beings do this, but somehow it was expected of our leaders and their spouses.
A few bland questions would be asked, avoiding any reference to contentious political issues and concentrating instead on the general desirability of a family holiday amidst the glories of the British countryside. The prime minister would assure his people, with a cheery smile, that he was enjoying himself enormously.
More pictures would be taken and then proceedings would draw to a close, and the loving couple would walk back through the now-closing gate and up the drive again.
Whoever had scripted the whole charade had cast the stars, brought in the extras and even found a delightful set. The one thing they had not counted upon was the special effects. Samuel Carver would be providing them.
Or would he?
Now that the time was drawing near, he suddenly felt afflicted by doubts and misgivings. The whole thing had been almost too easy up to this point. Carver had contacts from his old days in the forces scattered throughout Whitehall, the private security industry, and even the media--nothing said “credible defense analyst” like actual combat experience. They had managed to find out everything he’d needed to know. He had been careful not to tell them exactly what he had in mind, if only to save them from any legal retribution later. But his general intentions had been clear enough. Yet between them they gave him everything they needed: schedules, locations, security protocols, shift patterns (because the most vulnerable moment for any security operation is the handover between one shift and another), even the precise gap between the couple and the rope holding back the photographers. And then, when he’d asked for one, last personal favor, every one of them had willingly complied. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised. Feelings were running high.
So he had emerged from the lake at 4:00 a.m., three nights earlier, taken up his position, and begun his long wait. And all the while a thought had been growing in the back of his mind, a niggling seed of doubt that had steadily expanded until now it seemed to fill his whole consciousness. For whatever he had done and how many sins he had committed, Carver believed himself to be, if not a good man--there were too many deaths on his conscience for that--certainly a man of honor and integrity. Many years ago he had sworn to serve his Queen and country, and he still felt bound by that obligation.
He was certainly not a psychopath. He had a conscience and a profound sense of right and wrong. And so, as he lay in that oak tree, he kept asking himself, “Can I really go through with this?”
(To be continued)
to enjoy Ali Karim’s interview with the author, which includes some background on “Bloodsport.” The final part of this story will appear tomorrow on this page.)“Bloodsport” © 2009 Tom Cain
Carver was high up an oak tree. He’d been there for three days, remaining as motionless as humanly possible, rendered invisible by the combination of thick summer foliage and a shaggy, camouflaged ghillie suit that broke up his outline and blended him into his surroundings.
The oak grew beside a lake in Cumbria. Carver had his back to the water. In front of him was an open expanse of grass, which ran as far as a road that ran north-south, parallel to the eastern shore of the lake. For the past 30 minutes there had been no traffic along the road, nor would there be for another 30 to come. Manned police barriers, approximately 200 yards apart, both clearly visible to Carver, had made sure of that.
Directly opposite Carver’s position there was a turning off the road, which formed a semi-circle of tarmac, ringed by the high brick walls of a large property. This semi-circle was where the media were massed. Their assorted cars, vans, and trucks, now parked along the road on either side of the semi-circle, and the police cars that had accompanied them, had been the last vehicles allowed past the barriers.
The walls were lined with trees and shrubs and bisected, right in the middle of their arc, by a gate. Behind it a tarmac drive led up to the Victorian villa that had been rented for the prime minister’s holiday accommodation. Carver was watching the PM and his wife walk down that drive towards the gate, the waiting media and, though they did not know it, to him.
The official schedule for the next few minutes had been very tightly scripted. Every move that the prime ministerial couple would make, and every word they would say had been accounted for. They’d walk up to the gates, apparently engrossed in happy conversation and pleasurable contemplation of the property’s well-manicured grounds and delightful lake views. The gates would open. The couple would walk through them and pose with the gestures of enforced normality that distinguish pictures of politicians, regardless of race of ideology, attempting to look like normal human beings. Carver felt reasonably certain that this would involve the prime minister pointing off towards the middle distance while the missus followed his finger with a look of adoring fascination plastered on her face. He had never seen any normal human beings do this, but somehow it was expected of our leaders and their spouses.
A few bland questions would be asked, avoiding any reference to contentious political issues and concentrating instead on the general desirability of a family holiday amidst the glories of the British countryside. The prime minister would assure his people, with a cheery smile, that he was enjoying himself enormously.
More pictures would be taken and then proceedings would draw to a close, and the loving couple would walk back through the now-closing gate and up the drive again.
Whoever had scripted the whole charade had cast the stars, brought in the extras and even found a delightful set. The one thing they had not counted upon was the special effects. Samuel Carver would be providing them.
Or would he?
Now that the time was drawing near, he suddenly felt afflicted by doubts and misgivings. The whole thing had been almost too easy up to this point. Carver had contacts from his old days in the forces scattered throughout Whitehall, the private security industry, and even the media--nothing said “credible defense analyst” like actual combat experience. They had managed to find out everything he’d needed to know. He had been careful not to tell them exactly what he had in mind, if only to save them from any legal retribution later. But his general intentions had been clear enough. Yet between them they gave him everything they needed: schedules, locations, security protocols, shift patterns (because the most vulnerable moment for any security operation is the handover between one shift and another), even the precise gap between the couple and the rope holding back the photographers. And then, when he’d asked for one, last personal favor, every one of them had willingly complied. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised. Feelings were running high.
So he had emerged from the lake at 4:00 a.m., three nights earlier, taken up his position, and begun his long wait. And all the while a thought had been growing in the back of his mind, a niggling seed of doubt that had steadily expanded until now it seemed to fill his whole consciousness. For whatever he had done and how many sins he had committed, Carver believed himself to be, if not a good man--there were too many deaths on his conscience for that--certainly a man of honor and integrity. Many years ago he had sworn to serve his Queen and country, and he still felt bound by that obligation.
He was certainly not a psychopath. He had a conscience and a profound sense of right and wrong. And so, as he lay in that oak tree, he kept asking himself, “Can I really go through with this?”
(To be continued)
Monday, August 03, 2009
And the Votes Are In
Readers were asked to select the winners in five categories for this year’s Crimespree Awards, presented by Crimespree Magazine. With those votes now having been tallied, here are the prize recipients.
Favorite Book of 2008: Trigger City, by Sean Chercover (Morrow)
Also nominated: Yellow Medicine, by Anthony Neil Smith (Bleak House); Envy the Night, by Michael Koryta (Minotaur); Chasing Darkness, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster); and Toros & Torsos, by Craig McDonald (Bleak House)
Best Book in an Ongoing Series: Chasing Darkness, by Robert
Crais (Simon & Schuster)
Also nominated: Trigger City, by Sean Chercover (Morrow); Toros & Torsos, by Craig McDonald (Bleak House); Another Thing to Fall, by Laura Lippman (Morrow); and the Duffy Dombrowski Mystery Series, by Tom Schreck (Midnight Ink)
Favorite Comics Writer: Brian Azzarello
Also nominated: Tim Broderick; B. Clay Moore; Ed Brubaker;
and Jason Aaron
Favorite Original Paperback: Money Shot, by Christa Faust
(Hard Case Crime)
Also nominated: Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, by Victor Gischler (Touchstone); Severance Package, by Duane Swierczynski (St. Martin’s Minotaur); The Stolen, by Jason Pinter (Mira); and The Evil That Men Do, by Dave White (Three Rivers Press)
Favorite Mystery Bookstore: Once Upon a Crime, Minneapolis
Also nominated: The Mystery Bookstore, Los Angeles; Murder by the Book, Houston; Centuries & Sleuths, Forest Park, Illinois; and M Is for Mystery, San Mateo, California
Favorite Book of 2008: Trigger City, by Sean Chercover (Morrow)
Also nominated: Yellow Medicine, by Anthony Neil Smith (Bleak House); Envy the Night, by Michael Koryta (Minotaur); Chasing Darkness, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster); and Toros & Torsos, by Craig McDonald (Bleak House)
Best Book in an Ongoing Series: Chasing Darkness, by Robert
Crais (Simon & Schuster)
Also nominated: Trigger City, by Sean Chercover (Morrow); Toros & Torsos, by Craig McDonald (Bleak House); Another Thing to Fall, by Laura Lippman (Morrow); and the Duffy Dombrowski Mystery Series, by Tom Schreck (Midnight Ink)
Favorite Comics Writer: Brian Azzarello
Also nominated: Tim Broderick; B. Clay Moore; Ed Brubaker;
and Jason Aaron
Favorite Original Paperback: Money Shot, by Christa Faust
(Hard Case Crime)
Also nominated: Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, by Victor Gischler (Touchstone); Severance Package, by Duane Swierczynski (St. Martin’s Minotaur); The Stolen, by Jason Pinter (Mira); and The Evil That Men Do, by Dave White (Three Rivers Press)
Favorite Mystery Bookstore: Once Upon a Crime, Minneapolis
Also nominated: The Mystery Bookstore, Los Angeles; Murder by the Book, Houston; Centuries & Sleuths, Forest Park, Illinois; and M Is for Mystery, San Mateo, California
Spreading the Word
There was a fascinating article in The Observer yesterday, written by Vanessa Thorpe, having to do with the legacy of Swedish writer Stieg Larsson and issues surrounding the films that have been made from his suspenseful novels. I was especially drawn to comments made by Sonny Mehta of Random House U.S. He talked about how Larsson’s work became famous partly through word-of-mouth publicity among “mystery blogs” (such as The Rap Sheet).
According to Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Knopf, Larsson’s U.S. publisher, a Hollywood version [of Larsson’s first novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo] is on the way. “I’m certain that in the months to come people will be reading news about Stieg Larsson in Variety,” he said last month.Read the full Observer piece here.
No deal has yet been closed, but cinema distributors in the U.S. and Britain remain reluctant to bring over a low-budget, Swedish film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that already exists. In parts of Europe this film has pushed the second Dan Brown film, Angels and Demons, off the top of the box-office chart. But why squander the chance to make really big money by screening a subtitled version before the book receives the full treatment from a top U.S. studio?
Mehta says he came across Larsson’s work at the Frankfurt Book Fair when a friend recommended the first book. “She said it was one of the best thrillers she’d read in a long time. In no way, however, did her enthusiasm prepare me for the singular experience of the novel itself.”
Mehta adds, as well he might, that the books get better as the series goes on, and is quite open about the process by which the title went global. He placed influential “mystery blogs” online, but found he was pushing at an open door. Larsson’s Scandinavian fans were already telling English readers to look out for the book.
The lengthy feature also touches on potential conspiracy theories that have sprung up since Larsson’s early and unexpected death in 2004.
“Bloodsport,” Part I:
A Never-Before-Published Samuel Carver Tale
(Editor’s note: Today, The Rap Sheet presents the first installment of a never-before-seen, three-part short story by UK novelist Tom Cain, the creator of shadowy “accident man” Samuel Carver [Assassin]. It comes with the following disclaimer from Cain himself: “The [Samuel] Carver novels may 
contain elements based on actual events, but the events they depict are pure fiction, as are all the characters in them. Nor do I want anyone to feel that the events described in this story are any kind of incitement to violent action of any kind, against anyone. So “Bloodsport” will play by the same rules as The Accident Man. That book included the fictional killing of an unnamed princess in the Alma Tunnel, Paris. Similarly, [in “Bloodsport”] Carver will be stalking an unnamed, fictional British prime minister. It’s a story, pure and simple. Above all, though, I am in the business of writing thrillers. That means that stories twist and endings are uncertain. People reading this may feel sure they know what is going to happen. When they read the opening lines of the first episode and find themselves sharing the view through Carver’s sniper sight, they may be even more convinced of the likely outcome. But in fiction, as in life, nothing ever works out quite the way one expects ...”)
“Bloodsport” © 2009 Tom Cain
Looking through the sniper sight as the couple left their holiday home and walked down the path between the rhododendrons, down to the gate where a scrum of photographers, reporters, and TV crews were waiting, it was the wife Carver felt sorry for. He had nothing against her. Quite liked her, in fact, as much as you can like anyone you’ve never met or even spoken to. From everything he’d seen, she seemed sensible and down-to-earth. She looked like she was doing her level best to show that there was at least one sane person in the country who still thought her husband was up to the job. Carver thought she was wrong, but he admired her loyalty in trying.
So the fact that this perfectly pleasant woman would soon be wiping blood off her simple, unpretentious summer dress--chosen, he supposed, in the hope of pleasing all the bitchy columnists who’d accuse her of dowdiness if she looked too plain, or vulgarity if she went for anything too expensive in these recessionary times--well, that bothered him.
Not enough to call the whole thing off: but it bothered him nonetheless.
Her husband, though--the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and First Lord of the Treasury--he was a different matter. Carver had a bone to pick with him.
After all the politicians’ lies, the corruption, the greed, the mountainous debts, the obsessive control freakery and the rampant incompetence, it had taken the death of a single soldier in Afghanistan to shift Carver out of the general herd of pissed-off, moaning, but essentially inert citizens, into a group of one: the man who was going to do something about it.
The soldier’s name was Mike Swift. In the newspapers, he’d been described as a major in the Royal Marines. The reports said he’d been attached to the British forces’ headquarters staff in Helmand province. They said he’d died in a helicopter accident.
The newspaper reports were bullshit.
Carver didn’t need anyone to tell him that Swift, though his original commission was indeed in the Marines, had actually served as an officer in the Special Forces. He’d arrived in the SBS as a first lieutenant, newly elevated from one elite force into an even more exclusive group of fighting men during Carver’s last couple of years in uniform. Carver remembered Swift well: tough despite his youth and inexperience, resourceful, respected by his men, and blessed with a thoughtful, reflective side to his nature that always conveyed a sense that he saw the bigger picture. Even as a junior officer, Swift had clearly been destined for bigger things. Now he was lying in a coffin, awaiting his last flight back to RAF Lyneham.
It took a call to another former SBS man, Bobby Faulkner, to tell Carver what had really happened. By “accident” the Ministry of Defence did not mean that a helicopter had crashed. The truth was, it had never turned up at all. When Swift had called in, requesting immediate extraction from a job up-country that had just turned critical, he’d been out of luck. The British Army had been forced to act like a third-rate radio-cab company on a busy Saturday night. There weren’t any aircraft available. They were all busy. Those that weren’t already being used were out of service: “Sorry, sir, have you tried the Americans?”
The Taliban made sure that Swift’s body was found, just as they’d done with his red-coated predecessors, back in 1841. There’s something about a body with the skin flayed off its limbs, the entrails neatly piled upon a slit-open stomach, and a crudely carved, gaping wound where the genitalia should be that sends a powerful message.
The general public had not heard the message. Great trouble had been taken to ensure they never would. But Carver had inside channels unavailable to the average punter. He’d heard the message all right. And the moment he did, he decided to act upon it.
Very publicly.
With force.
(To be continued)
contain elements based on actual events, but the events they depict are pure fiction, as are all the characters in them. Nor do I want anyone to feel that the events described in this story are any kind of incitement to violent action of any kind, against anyone. So “Bloodsport” will play by the same rules as The Accident Man. That book included the fictional killing of an unnamed princess in the Alma Tunnel, Paris. Similarly, [in “Bloodsport”] Carver will be stalking an unnamed, fictional British prime minister. It’s a story, pure and simple. Above all, though, I am in the business of writing thrillers. That means that stories twist and endings are uncertain. People reading this may feel sure they know what is going to happen. When they read the opening lines of the first episode and find themselves sharing the view through Carver’s sniper sight, they may be even more convinced of the likely outcome. But in fiction, as in life, nothing ever works out quite the way one expects ...”)“Bloodsport” © 2009 Tom Cain
Looking through the sniper sight as the couple left their holiday home and walked down the path between the rhododendrons, down to the gate where a scrum of photographers, reporters, and TV crews were waiting, it was the wife Carver felt sorry for. He had nothing against her. Quite liked her, in fact, as much as you can like anyone you’ve never met or even spoken to. From everything he’d seen, she seemed sensible and down-to-earth. She looked like she was doing her level best to show that there was at least one sane person in the country who still thought her husband was up to the job. Carver thought she was wrong, but he admired her loyalty in trying.
So the fact that this perfectly pleasant woman would soon be wiping blood off her simple, unpretentious summer dress--chosen, he supposed, in the hope of pleasing all the bitchy columnists who’d accuse her of dowdiness if she looked too plain, or vulgarity if she went for anything too expensive in these recessionary times--well, that bothered him.
Not enough to call the whole thing off: but it bothered him nonetheless.
Her husband, though--the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and First Lord of the Treasury--he was a different matter. Carver had a bone to pick with him.
After all the politicians’ lies, the corruption, the greed, the mountainous debts, the obsessive control freakery and the rampant incompetence, it had taken the death of a single soldier in Afghanistan to shift Carver out of the general herd of pissed-off, moaning, but essentially inert citizens, into a group of one: the man who was going to do something about it.
The soldier’s name was Mike Swift. In the newspapers, he’d been described as a major in the Royal Marines. The reports said he’d been attached to the British forces’ headquarters staff in Helmand province. They said he’d died in a helicopter accident.
The newspaper reports were bullshit.
Carver didn’t need anyone to tell him that Swift, though his original commission was indeed in the Marines, had actually served as an officer in the Special Forces. He’d arrived in the SBS as a first lieutenant, newly elevated from one elite force into an even more exclusive group of fighting men during Carver’s last couple of years in uniform. Carver remembered Swift well: tough despite his youth and inexperience, resourceful, respected by his men, and blessed with a thoughtful, reflective side to his nature that always conveyed a sense that he saw the bigger picture. Even as a junior officer, Swift had clearly been destined for bigger things. Now he was lying in a coffin, awaiting his last flight back to RAF Lyneham.
It took a call to another former SBS man, Bobby Faulkner, to tell Carver what had really happened. By “accident” the Ministry of Defence did not mean that a helicopter had crashed. The truth was, it had never turned up at all. When Swift had called in, requesting immediate extraction from a job up-country that had just turned critical, he’d been out of luck. The British Army had been forced to act like a third-rate radio-cab company on a busy Saturday night. There weren’t any aircraft available. They were all busy. Those that weren’t already being used were out of service: “Sorry, sir, have you tried the Americans?”
The Taliban made sure that Swift’s body was found, just as they’d done with his red-coated predecessors, back in 1841. There’s something about a body with the skin flayed off its limbs, the entrails neatly piled upon a slit-open stomach, and a crudely carved, gaping wound where the genitalia should be that sends a powerful message.
The general public had not heard the message. Great trouble had been taken to ensure they never would. But Carver had inside channels unavailable to the average punter. He’d heard the message all right. And the moment he did, he decided to act upon it.
Very publicly.
With force.
(To be continued)
The Third Man
There was a very nice tribute in Saturday’s Guardian to 20th-century American novelist Ross Macdonald and his best-known fictional creation, Los Angeles detective Lew Archer. Author Tobias Jones (The Salati Case) wrote, in part:
(Hat tip to Tom Nolan.)
Over a series spanning 18 novels private eye Archer became something paradoxical: a memorable character about whom the reader knows next to nothing, the man with the punchy one-liners who is actually a good listener. Macdonald once wrote of his famous creation that he was “so narrow that when he turns sideways he almost disappears”. The thinness was deliberate because Macdonald wanted his detective to be like a therapist, a man whose actions “are largely directed to putting together the stories of other people’s lives and discovering their significance. He is ... a consciousness in which the meanings of other lives emerge.” Macdonald was always insistent that Archer wasn’t the centre of the story. “The detective,” he once advised an aspiring writer, “isn’t your main character, and neither is your villain. The main character is the corpse. The detective’s job is to seek justice for the corpse. It’s the corpse’s story, first and foremost.” On another occasion, he wrote that it was the “other people”--those whose problems Archer is investigating--“that are for me the main thing”.Do yourself a favor. Read the whole essay here.
It’s because of Macdonald’s depth that one critic wrote of him that he didn’t merely write about crime; he wrote about sin. It would be a good line if it weren’t slightly misleading. It makes Macdonald sound Calvinistic, as if he were wagging a finger at wrongdoers, when he often does the opposite. There are many occasions in his novels, most notably in The Doomsters, when Archer sits and listens to a confession and the reader is moved to sympathy for the murderer. Macdonald doesn’t present a paper-thin baddie but a fragile human being who is reciprocating the injustices they’ve suffered. And most of the characters in his books have suffered: they’re abandoned by partners or parents, they’re forced to confront unexpected family secrets, they’re often short of love or money, normally both. As the author himself said: “The Archer novels are about various kinds of brokenness.”
(Hat tip to Tom Nolan.)
Free Is Always the Right Price
As addicted as I am to books-oriented Web sites and blogs, I’d never heard of Ms. Bookish until yesterday. Written by aspiring novelist Belle Wong, it’s a very ambitious blog that covers the gamut of genres and frequently focuses on crime fiction. Wong also puts together regular lists of book giveaway contests being held on the Web. Who knew that there were so many? Her newly updated list features more than 100 current competitions for free books, including The Rap Sheet’s contest to win one of three free copies of Joseph Finder’s forthcoming thriller, Vanished.
Try your luck. Maybe more than once.
Try your luck. Maybe more than once.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Cain Makes a Killing
Beginning tomorrow, The Rap Sheet will post--in three parts, over three successive days--a never-before-seen short story called “Bloodsport.” It’s the work of Tom Cain, the pseudonymous British journalist turned author who has already won praise on both sides of the Atlantic for his first two 
thrillers--The Accident Man (2007) and No Survivors (2008, published in the UK as The Survivor)--and has a third one just out in Britain called Assassin.
Like those novels, “Bloodsport” stars the shadowy figure of Samuel Carver. Cain describes the plot of this first-ever Carver short story this way:
After reading his story, I contacted Rap Sheet editor Jeff Pierce to see if he was interested in taking “Bloodsport.” We e-mailed back and forth a few times, talked once on the phone, and agreed that Cain’s story deserved to be read. Uncut. In three parts. On this page. Cain was excited to hear that his work would see the light of day.
To help introduce “Bloodsport,” I’ve written up an interview I conducted with Tom Cain during the Harrogate festival. During our discussion, I asked him more about “Bloodsport” and whether it’s destined to kick off a whole series of Samuel Carver short stories. We talked about his having recently joined The Curzon Group of British thriller writers, and about the current, abysmal state of print journalism. And I asked him for background on Assassin, a novel that has been earning some great reviews, including one in the e-zine Shots that begins:
Ali Karim: You’ve been out and about a lot over the last year, putting in showings at Bouchercon in Baltimore last fall, and more recently at ThrillerFest and the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. So tell us a bit about your adventures on the convention trail.
Tom Cain: Mostly, I just moan about how totally jet-lagged I am! I seem to have lost the knack of crossing the Atlantic and functioning when I get to the other side. Until I can recover it, I think I should probably attend horror/fantasy conventions instead, because I’m basically a zombie. That aside, by far the best thing about the convention scene to me is the chance to meet other writers, bloggers, retailers, and of course readers. Over the past couple of years, I feel I’ve moved from being an individual, working in my office, to a member of a group of like-minded individuals. Best of all, I’ve made a lot of good friends.
AK: At Harrogate last month, The Accident Man was shortlisted for the Old Peculier Award. How do you feel about success in winning awards versus commercial success?
TC: Well, commercial success is what pays the bills, so I suppose that has to be the main aim, particularly when times are so hard--in general, and in our business, in particular. But these days, big sales are getting harder and harder for anyone outside a very small, elite group to find. So awards are a way of raising one’s profile and, with any luck, [one’s] prestige within the thriller-writing field. That, in turn, may lead to more critical attention, which is one way of increasing sales. Plus, it’s incredibly fulfilling, on a purely human level, to think that one’s work is enjoyed and rated highly by one’s peers. Who wouldn’t like that?
AK: The Old Peculier Award nomination is a measure of your appeal in Britain. But how have the Americans reacted to your first two novels, The Accident Man and No Survivors?
TC: I’ve been incredibly pleased, touched, and I guess honored by the reactions I’ve had from other writers and from the specialist booksellers, magazines, and blogs. Not to mention the people who’ve read my books and enjoyed them. Unlike in the UK, many regular American book-buyers haven’t reacted to the novels one way or another as yet, because they haven’t known about them enough, I guess. That’s the real issue I have to confront and deal with over the next couple of years. Perhaps I need to work harder in the U.S. to build up the readership, especially in today’s tough publishing environment. Of course, if the Accident Man movie ever gets made, that could change, and fast!
AK: Considering the controversial aspects of your work, what with the death of a popular princess in a Parisian tunnel in The Accident Man, followed by a manically fundamentalist Christian nutter who tries to bring on “the Rapture” in your second novel, were you nervous about reader reactions?
TC: Well, I’m used to writing about controversial subjects as a journalist and (though this hasn’t happened for a while). I’ve faced about as much in the way of abusive
reviews, snide profiles, and general media poison as any writer is ever likely to get. I’m pretty much immune to it now. My only concerns would be if I actually wrote something that attracted the attention of the authorities (ever more possible as antiterrorism laws are used to stifle free speech), or I somehow antagonized a special-interest group--or a criminal one, come to that. I wouldn’t want my family to get caught up in any crap of my creating. But, hey, I’ve just written a short story about an attack on a British prime minister, so clearly any worries aren’t inhibiting me thus far!
All that said, I’m pretty careful not to give offense just for the sake of it. Carver is not a remotely political character, the books take no party/political line, and I do let my villains state their case. I always admired the way that The West Wing, while it clearly offered a liberal Democratic fantasy of a hero president, at a time when the real one was George W. Bush, often gave really good arguments to its Republican characters. So I try to let the devils have some reasonably good tunes ... and it’s kept them quiet so far.
AK: So why was the UK title of your second book, The Survivor, tweaked to become No Survivors for its U.S. release?
TC: Actually, it was more like No Survivors got tweaked to The Survivor for the UK release. It was just a case of different publishers having different views on what would work best for the book. My personal choice was No Survivors, because I felt it was more dramatic. On the other hand, I have to admit that The Survivor makes more sense, since it describes the set-up of the book more clearly; it’s more positive; and it also follows The Accident Man as being a descriptor of a person. So in the end, I was easy either way.
AK: Your third Samuel Carver novel, Assassin, has been gathering some great reviews since its release last month in Britain. Did you feel as much pressure in writing this new novel as you did in writing No Survivors, that oft-dreaded second novel?
TC: Yes and no. Yes, because there was a helluva lot of personal/family stuff going on in my life which I can’t really talk about, but which hugely impacted my ability to work. No, because I felt much more confident as a writer; I wasn’t boxed-in by the plot, the way I had been with No Survivors (starting a book with your main protagonist immobile and out of his mind is NOT recommended for an easy life!). And I was absolutely determined to make [Assassin] much simpler and more direct in its structure and plot. No Survivors was incredibly complex, in the way it interwove multiple plot strands. Assassin is far more stripped down. I always compare it to a band that’s just made an arty, complex concept album. Next time they get into the studio, they think, “Fuck it, let’s just rock!”
AK: I did miss Carver’s sidekick in this third book, the exotic Russian spy Alix Petrova. Without giving too much away, tell us: are we going to see her return sometime?
TC: Hmm. I can’t say for sure and I don’t want to give too much away. But I am definitely toying with something Alix-related. Won’t be Carver #4, that’s for sure, because I’ve already started that without her ... But I definitely do have something up my sleeve. I like that girl, that’s for sure, and I wouldn’t mind seeing her again ... Though my wife absolutely hates her. Can’t think why!
AK: In Assassin, Carver’s turned from being a “poacher” to being a “gamekeeper,” now advising high-profile people on how to avoid assassination, and the narrative is peppered with fascinating trade-craft. How much research was entailed in getting that trade-craft just right?
TC: I had some communications with the U.S. Secret Service, and I did all the usual location-scouting and technical research. But to be honest, this [book] was much less research-heavy than the previous two, because so much of the story was character-driven. Assassin isn’t so much of a big, sprawling conspiracy-fest as The Accident Man or No Survivors. It’s much more of a down-’n’-dirty battle between two men--with a beautiful, feisty, funny woman caught (of course!) between them.
AK: Assassin finds Carver traversing America and Europe on the trail of an old colleague-turned-foe in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. There are plenty of complicated twists. So can we assume that you worked from pretty detailed plotting notes?
TC: Nope. When I write a book I have a basic idea of what it’s about, who the main characters will be; [I have] a few key images in my head and a rough sense of how it has to end. Aside from that, though, I never do treatments, chapter outlines, character notes, anything. I just let it rip and see what happens.
It’s scarier that way, because you have no safety net and there’s always the fear that you don’t have enough of a story--I have precisely that terror right now, in fact, about Book 4. But all the best stuff I’ve ever written has come as a surprise to me. It’s just sprung from the dark recesses of my subconscious. So I just trust that the surprises will keep on coming. And then I count on 30 years as a professional writer to provide the discipline to make it fit together on the page. Still, I was relieved to hear Lee Child describe his equally spontaneous working method at Harrogate just recently. Good to know I’m not the only one.
AK: The problems of U.S. presidential security have been highlighted since Barack Obama moved into the White House earlier this year. Was his campaign for the presidency your springboard for Assassin?
TC: I had the rough concept of Assassin by the time that the Democratic Party primaries started, back in February ’08. I knew that there would be a trafficked woman as a main character, and I wanted to have a president who set out to abolish the terrible global evil of 21st-century slavery. I also wanted that president to be African American, because it seemed to be a very powerful image to have a descendant of slaves battling slavery today. An immensely powerful black character saving a helpless white one--Lara Dashian, the girl with whom the story starts--was just interesting to me. Then Obama suddenly became a global superstar and I realized that people might think I was writing about him. I started having to junk a lot of stuff. For example, there was a chapter in which my character, Lincoln Roberts, was interviewed by Time magazine and he set forward this whole idealistic, impassioned belief in restoring the moral standing of America as the “city upon a hill” ... and the next thing I knew, Obama was making speeches that were freakishly similar.
So actually, the only security issue I had about Obama was that I wanted to strangle him for pinching all my best lines and making me rewrite my character!
AK: There is a great deal of detail within your book’s back-story about people-smuggling and the sex trade. Can we assume that your experiences as a journalist provided the background for all of that?
TC: Only insofar as I’d been to a couple of the locations I used in the slavery sections of the book, principally Dubai. Oddly enough, I’d gone there in the winter of 2006, when I was desperately trying to finish The Accident Man. I was rundown, the weather in England was cold and depressing (nothing new there, then), and I just wanted to lock myself in a hotel room, somewhere warm, so I could write, have the occasional swim, and live off room service. I ended up in Dubai. This was at the absolute height of the construction-boom there, when they were essentially building the equivalent to all of Manhattan in one go. The image of the place really stuck with me. As for the slavery itself, I just read books (credited in my acknowledgments, I might add), tracked down a ton of articles, films, etc. online, and used my imagination. And again, I really concentrated on character. I really wanted Lara to be a believable, sympathetic young woman. The other thing I realized is that sex-trafficking is one of those phenomena where no matter how wild our imagination, the truth is even more bizarre and disgusting. The more unbelievable an incident is in the slavery sections of Assassin, the more likely it is to be based on something true.
AK: Carver’s nemesis here, Damon Tyzack, is an interesting character and perhaps the dark side of “The Accident Man.” Had you visualized him before the plotting, or did he appear once the plot was crystallized in your mind?
TC: Tyzack was definitely a character who evolved. His genesis came when I was doing a mad late-night radio talk-show promoting Accident Man. I was sitting in my study in England, talking to a host in California and phone-in callers from all over the States, and I was having a helluva time getting anyone to grasp the point that the book was a novel and that, the [Paris tunnel] crash aside, I’d made it all up. Anyway, the host seemed to think I was some kind of expert on the lives of real-life assassins and he said,
“So how does a guy get ahead in that career?” And while I was trying to think of an answer aside from “How the fuck would I know?” he provided one of his own: “I guess they just kill the guy ahead of them.” So then I said, “Thanks, you just gave me my next book!” That’s where Tyzack started: a guy who wants to kill the next guy up the ladder. I saw it as a metaphor for corporate life. Anyway, Tyzack changed, as I decided that I wanted his motivation to be more personal, more of a long-held grudge against Carver. But the crucial change--which I owe to the wonderful Peta Nightingale, who reads and edits my stuff at my literary agents, LAW [Lucas Alexander Whitley]--was that instead of Tyzack being an obviously psychotic brute (as he had been), he became in many ways superior to Carver. He’s much more socially confident, posher, wittier and, as he points out to Carver, he doesn’t really do anything Carver hasn’t done too. So he’s much more of a challenge to Carver’s idea of himself (and our idea of him) as an essentially good man, obliged to do bad things. Tyzack forces Carver to examine his character and his actions--but in the course of a particularly sadistic interrogation, naturally, rather than a fireside chat.
AK: Tomorrow, The Rap Sheet will begin serializing “Bloodsport,” the first Samuel Carver short story. Tell us how that story came about.
TC: It arose from my appalling addiction to Facebook. At some point in one of my endless online chats, someone said something about Gordon Brown, our prime minister, who is about as popular in the UK as Bush was in the U.S., and I joked, “Maybe I should send Carver after him!” (or words to that effect). And then I thought, “You know what, maybe there’s something in that ...” And from there it all went spiraling into madness!
AK: Like The Accident Man, “Bloodsport” contains a very controversial premise. Were you worried about writing the tale, or publishing it?
TC: I was bloody nervous when someone at The Curzon Group, an alliance of British thriller writers, pointed out that anyone deemed to be inciting acts of terrorism was liable to arrest and, if found guilty, lengthy imprisonment. But when I looked at what I’d actually written, I thought that it was very clearly not an incitement to anything, so then my panic subsided. And luckily, the lawyers agreed.
AK: I really enjoyed reading “Bloodsport,” as it packs a powerful punch and message. Is it also perhaps the first step toward more Sam Carver short fiction?
TC: I think so. I really enjoyed doing it and I loved the speed that the Internet allows--much more like journalism than regular novel-writing. I mean, I go nuts waiting for my books to come out, especially the editions outside the UK, which can be delayed up to a year. There’s such a danger of becoming outdated as the whole process grinds on. With this, I could have an idea and--bam!--there it was. I’d have got it out a week sooner too, if ... no, better not go there! Anyway, I think Carver will definitely have more of these instant, mini-adventures.
AK: I assume you’re familiar with Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male and Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal ...
TC: Oh yeah, absolutely ... and “Bloodsport” is following on from both those books in the sense of it being about a lone hunter stalking a political leader. That said, Rogue Male is one of the most important books in thriller-writing history--you can see the assassin genre being created right there in front of your eyes. And for me, Day of the Jackal is just about the best thriller ever written. It breaks so many rules: the hero is a totally unsympathetic character, whose identity remains unknown even when the books ends; and the ending is inevitable, since it is a historical fact that President [Charles] de Gaulle was not assassinated. Yet it still grips from the first sentence to the last. “Bloodsport,” by contrast, is a very slight piece of whimsy. It’s a little nibble, as opposed to a socking great steak. But I hope it’s a tasty, spicy little nibble!
AK: Let’s go back to your mention of The Curzon Group. Are you involved in that group’s so-called airport tour?
TC: Well, I’ve joined and I blog every Monday. As for the airport tour, which I think is a great idea, I honestly don’t know how much I can be involved--this year, at least--for the family reasons cited earlier. But if they do it again next year, and let me tag along, I’ll certainly be there.
AK: If I can be frank, the purpose of The Curzon Group is to promote British thriller writing--but I think the Tom Cain novels are very “American” in terms of the writing style, even if they are British in origin. What are your thoughts on the differences between UK and U.S. thriller fiction?
TC: I’m quite torn between the two sides of the Atlantic. As a person, I’m very British. I sound British when I speak. I had a very traditional upper-class English education (paid for by the government, but that’s another story). On the other hand, I lived abroad from my earliest childhood, I’ve worked abroad a lot--particularly in the States--and I have a lifelong love of America. To this day, I watch far more American TV series than British ones. I’m as passionate about the Washington Redskins as I am about West Ham (with just about equally disillusioning results). And I read for more American than British writers.
I think the kind of action thriller I do, though there are a host of British precedents, is essentially an American form. England is not a country big enough or wild enough to contain a thriller. Why else is Jack Reacher American? It’s no coincidence that one of the worst [James] Bond books, Moonraker, is the one set in England. Bond needs fancier locations. So does Carver. What Brits do well is seediness, grubbiness, despair, decay, intimacy ... grubby little crimes committed in a country going down the crapper. I can see the merit in that, but it’s never been my thing.
AK: Considering that the Samuel Carver novels are very tightly edited, giving them a fast and visual style, is there any more news on film or TV rights yet?
TC: The whole movie situation is a typical Hollywood tale and I can’t really go into details. Paramount had the original option. That is now in play elsewhere. Suffice it to say that there is reason to hope for some positive news within the next few months, or even weeks.
AK: And as a former journalist, what are your thoughts on the terrible state of the print media? David Simon, a former Baltimore reporter and creator of the TV show The Wire, has said that he fears for society when journalists were being laid off, because they are our society’s watch-keepers.
TC: My thoughts are virtually suicidal. David Simon is right. If you get rid of proper, professional journalism you risk giving unfettered power to politicians, corporations, and anyone else who wants to screw us around without being held accountable. Plus, as a professional writer, I get very, very angry with the notion that there is essentially no such thing as copyright any more, and no reason for anyone to pay to be informed or entertained. I have the old-fashioned idea that I want to get paid for my work, my craft, and my decades of experience. I’ve yet to hear a good moral justification of the notion that I, or anyone else, should not be paid.
AK: I see that you’re on Twitter as well as Facebook. How are you getting on with all this new technology?
TC: I don’t know too much about the technology, but I am addicted to Facebook. I went up to Harrogate recently on the train, five hours there and back. I spent at least three hours of each journey online. I did not open a book. I realized then that, as professional writers of fiction, we are in deep, deep shit. So whatever I say about the unfairness of our situation, we may just have to get used to it.
AK: I know that you are extremely well read in the thriller-fiction genre. Can you tell us what books have passed over your reading table that really impressed you?
TC: This is a helluva corny answer, but the truth is, I bought [Stieg Larsson’s] The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo months after everyone else. I went through the early sections, which are slow, dreary, and lacking in any tension whatever and thought, “Why the hell has everyone got so excited about this?” Then [protagonist] Lisbeth Salander appeared, and I got it. She is such a rare thing: a totally fresh, original character. To be honest, I still don’t give a monkey’s about anything else in that book or the sequel. But I’m gripped just because of her.
thrillers--The Accident Man (2007) and No Survivors (2008, published in the UK as The Survivor)--and has a third one just out in Britain called Assassin.Like those novels, “Bloodsport” stars the shadowy figure of Samuel Carver. Cain describes the plot of this first-ever Carver short story this way:
Samuel Carver is an angry man. The protagonist of The Accident Man, The Survivor, and Assassin, whose specialty is creating deniable assassination by means of unattributable “accidents,” has just discovered that one of his former brother officers in the SBS (Special Boat Service) has been killed in Afghanistan. The man died very horribly and painfully in the hands of the Taliban, lost for want of the helicopter that should have airlifted him to safety.I first heard about “Bloodsport” during last weekend’s Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, when I fell into conversation with Cain himself. The Accident Man was one of 14 books shortlisted for the 2009 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, and he had come to see whether it would beat out its estimable competition. (It didn’t; Mark Billingham walked away with the award for his 2007 novel, Death Message.) During our time together, Cain mentioned that he’d penned a Carver short story, but didn’t know how best to use it. Its subject matter is extremely topical, given the recent controversy surrounding the shortage of British helicopters on the Afghanistan and Iraq battlegrounds, the ever-increasing unpopularity in the UK of the so-called war on terror, and the sagging poll ratings for Britain’s Labour government. However, he admitted that it might rub some people the wrong way, and so few on this side of “the pond” would even consider publishing it.
Suddenly, a situation that has long been a matter of principled outrage to Carver has become very personal. So he reacts in the way that he knows best. He decides to make a bad thing happen to what he believes is a bad person; the person he holds responsible for the death of his friend and many other fine soldiers--the prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In the tradition of Rogue Male and The Day of the Jackal, Carver stalks his prey. In this case he does not choose the boulevards of Paris as his hunting ground, nor the hills and forests of Germany. Instead he goes to the hills of northern England, where the prime minister is taking his
summer holiday.
After reading his story, I contacted Rap Sheet editor Jeff Pierce to see if he was interested in taking “Bloodsport.” We e-mailed back and forth a few times, talked once on the phone, and agreed that Cain’s story deserved to be read. Uncut. In three parts. On this page. Cain was excited to hear that his work would see the light of day.
To help introduce “Bloodsport,” I’ve written up an interview I conducted with Tom Cain during the Harrogate festival. During our discussion, I asked him more about “Bloodsport” and whether it’s destined to kick off a whole series of Samuel Carver short stories. We talked about his having recently joined The Curzon Group of British thriller writers, and about the current, abysmal state of print journalism. And I asked him for background on Assassin, a novel that has been earning some great reviews, including one in the e-zine Shots that begins:
Sam Carver--the “Accident Man”--is back, and appears to be going about his old trade of killing people. But is it really Carver out there, first knocking off a despicable people-trafficker, then a gangland money-launderer? For his MI6 contacts, Grantham and his subordinate, Bill Selsey, the killings certainly carry the Carver hallmark, and the description of the killer matches him to a T. Yet he has supposedly sworn off the killing game for good. So what’s going on?Our interview follows. It provides a good set-up for reading “Bloodsport,” which as I said before, will begin running tomorrow on this same page. Stay tuned.
Coming as this does just prior to U.S. President Lincoln Roberts’ intended public stance against the evils of people-trafficking, with an open-air speech in Bristol, it is a distraction nobody in the security world wants.
Unknown to them all, Damon Tyzack, a former SBS colleague of Carver’s and a man who lost his job because of Carver’s recommendation, is now a hit man with a very high-powered employer, with strong links to people- and drugs-trafficking gangs across Europe. And they do not intend standing by while the U.S. president talks war.
Furthermore, Tyzack hates Carver with a venom.
Ali Karim: You’ve been out and about a lot over the last year, putting in showings at Bouchercon in Baltimore last fall, and more recently at ThrillerFest and the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. So tell us a bit about your adventures on the convention trail.
Tom Cain: Mostly, I just moan about how totally jet-lagged I am! I seem to have lost the knack of crossing the Atlantic and functioning when I get to the other side. Until I can recover it, I think I should probably attend horror/fantasy conventions instead, because I’m basically a zombie. That aside, by far the best thing about the convention scene to me is the chance to meet other writers, bloggers, retailers, and of course readers. Over the past couple of years, I feel I’ve moved from being an individual, working in my office, to a member of a group of like-minded individuals. Best of all, I’ve made a lot of good friends.
AK: At Harrogate last month, The Accident Man was shortlisted for the Old Peculier Award. How do you feel about success in winning awards versus commercial success?
TC: Well, commercial success is what pays the bills, so I suppose that has to be the main aim, particularly when times are so hard--in general, and in our business, in particular. But these days, big sales are getting harder and harder for anyone outside a very small, elite group to find. So awards are a way of raising one’s profile and, with any luck, [one’s] prestige within the thriller-writing field. That, in turn, may lead to more critical attention, which is one way of increasing sales. Plus, it’s incredibly fulfilling, on a purely human level, to think that one’s work is enjoyed and rated highly by one’s peers. Who wouldn’t like that?
AK: The Old Peculier Award nomination is a measure of your appeal in Britain. But how have the Americans reacted to your first two novels, The Accident Man and No Survivors?
TC: I’ve been incredibly pleased, touched, and I guess honored by the reactions I’ve had from other writers and from the specialist booksellers, magazines, and blogs. Not to mention the people who’ve read my books and enjoyed them. Unlike in the UK, many regular American book-buyers haven’t reacted to the novels one way or another as yet, because they haven’t known about them enough, I guess. That’s the real issue I have to confront and deal with over the next couple of years. Perhaps I need to work harder in the U.S. to build up the readership, especially in today’s tough publishing environment. Of course, if the Accident Man movie ever gets made, that could change, and fast!
AK: Considering the controversial aspects of your work, what with the death of a popular princess in a Parisian tunnel in The Accident Man, followed by a manically fundamentalist Christian nutter who tries to bring on “the Rapture” in your second novel, were you nervous about reader reactions?
TC: Well, I’m used to writing about controversial subjects as a journalist and (though this hasn’t happened for a while). I’ve faced about as much in the way of abusive
reviews, snide profiles, and general media poison as any writer is ever likely to get. I’m pretty much immune to it now. My only concerns would be if I actually wrote something that attracted the attention of the authorities (ever more possible as antiterrorism laws are used to stifle free speech), or I somehow antagonized a special-interest group--or a criminal one, come to that. I wouldn’t want my family to get caught up in any crap of my creating. But, hey, I’ve just written a short story about an attack on a British prime minister, so clearly any worries aren’t inhibiting me thus far!All that said, I’m pretty careful not to give offense just for the sake of it. Carver is not a remotely political character, the books take no party/political line, and I do let my villains state their case. I always admired the way that The West Wing, while it clearly offered a liberal Democratic fantasy of a hero president, at a time when the real one was George W. Bush, often gave really good arguments to its Republican characters. So I try to let the devils have some reasonably good tunes ... and it’s kept them quiet so far.
AK: So why was the UK title of your second book, The Survivor, tweaked to become No Survivors for its U.S. release?
TC: Actually, it was more like No Survivors got tweaked to The Survivor for the UK release. It was just a case of different publishers having different views on what would work best for the book. My personal choice was No Survivors, because I felt it was more dramatic. On the other hand, I have to admit that The Survivor makes more sense, since it describes the set-up of the book more clearly; it’s more positive; and it also follows The Accident Man as being a descriptor of a person. So in the end, I was easy either way.
AK: Your third Samuel Carver novel, Assassin, has been gathering some great reviews since its release last month in Britain. Did you feel as much pressure in writing this new novel as you did in writing No Survivors, that oft-dreaded second novel?
TC: Yes and no. Yes, because there was a helluva lot of personal/family stuff going on in my life which I can’t really talk about, but which hugely impacted my ability to work. No, because I felt much more confident as a writer; I wasn’t boxed-in by the plot, the way I had been with No Survivors (starting a book with your main protagonist immobile and out of his mind is NOT recommended for an easy life!). And I was absolutely determined to make [Assassin] much simpler and more direct in its structure and plot. No Survivors was incredibly complex, in the way it interwove multiple plot strands. Assassin is far more stripped down. I always compare it to a band that’s just made an arty, complex concept album. Next time they get into the studio, they think, “Fuck it, let’s just rock!”
AK: I did miss Carver’s sidekick in this third book, the exotic Russian spy Alix Petrova. Without giving too much away, tell us: are we going to see her return sometime?
TC: Hmm. I can’t say for sure and I don’t want to give too much away. But I am definitely toying with something Alix-related. Won’t be Carver #4, that’s for sure, because I’ve already started that without her ... But I definitely do have something up my sleeve. I like that girl, that’s for sure, and I wouldn’t mind seeing her again ... Though my wife absolutely hates her. Can’t think why!
AK: In Assassin, Carver’s turned from being a “poacher” to being a “gamekeeper,” now advising high-profile people on how to avoid assassination, and the narrative is peppered with fascinating trade-craft. How much research was entailed in getting that trade-craft just right?
TC: I had some communications with the U.S. Secret Service, and I did all the usual location-scouting and technical research. But to be honest, this [book] was much less research-heavy than the previous two, because so much of the story was character-driven. Assassin isn’t so much of a big, sprawling conspiracy-fest as The Accident Man or No Survivors. It’s much more of a down-’n’-dirty battle between two men--with a beautiful, feisty, funny woman caught (of course!) between them.
AK: Assassin finds Carver traversing America and Europe on the trail of an old colleague-turned-foe in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. There are plenty of complicated twists. So can we assume that you worked from pretty detailed plotting notes?
TC: Nope. When I write a book I have a basic idea of what it’s about, who the main characters will be; [I have] a few key images in my head and a rough sense of how it has to end. Aside from that, though, I never do treatments, chapter outlines, character notes, anything. I just let it rip and see what happens.
It’s scarier that way, because you have no safety net and there’s always the fear that you don’t have enough of a story--I have precisely that terror right now, in fact, about Book 4. But all the best stuff I’ve ever written has come as a surprise to me. It’s just sprung from the dark recesses of my subconscious. So I just trust that the surprises will keep on coming. And then I count on 30 years as a professional writer to provide the discipline to make it fit together on the page. Still, I was relieved to hear Lee Child describe his equally spontaneous working method at Harrogate just recently. Good to know I’m not the only one.
AK: The problems of U.S. presidential security have been highlighted since Barack Obama moved into the White House earlier this year. Was his campaign for the presidency your springboard for Assassin?
TC: I had the rough concept of Assassin by the time that the Democratic Party primaries started, back in February ’08. I knew that there would be a trafficked woman as a main character, and I wanted to have a president who set out to abolish the terrible global evil of 21st-century slavery. I also wanted that president to be African American, because it seemed to be a very powerful image to have a descendant of slaves battling slavery today. An immensely powerful black character saving a helpless white one--Lara Dashian, the girl with whom the story starts--was just interesting to me. Then Obama suddenly became a global superstar and I realized that people might think I was writing about him. I started having to junk a lot of stuff. For example, there was a chapter in which my character, Lincoln Roberts, was interviewed by Time magazine and he set forward this whole idealistic, impassioned belief in restoring the moral standing of America as the “city upon a hill” ... and the next thing I knew, Obama was making speeches that were freakishly similar.
So actually, the only security issue I had about Obama was that I wanted to strangle him for pinching all my best lines and making me rewrite my character!
AK: There is a great deal of detail within your book’s back-story about people-smuggling and the sex trade. Can we assume that your experiences as a journalist provided the background for all of that?
TC: Only insofar as I’d been to a couple of the locations I used in the slavery sections of the book, principally Dubai. Oddly enough, I’d gone there in the winter of 2006, when I was desperately trying to finish The Accident Man. I was rundown, the weather in England was cold and depressing (nothing new there, then), and I just wanted to lock myself in a hotel room, somewhere warm, so I could write, have the occasional swim, and live off room service. I ended up in Dubai. This was at the absolute height of the construction-boom there, when they were essentially building the equivalent to all of Manhattan in one go. The image of the place really stuck with me. As for the slavery itself, I just read books (credited in my acknowledgments, I might add), tracked down a ton of articles, films, etc. online, and used my imagination. And again, I really concentrated on character. I really wanted Lara to be a believable, sympathetic young woman. The other thing I realized is that sex-trafficking is one of those phenomena where no matter how wild our imagination, the truth is even more bizarre and disgusting. The more unbelievable an incident is in the slavery sections of Assassin, the more likely it is to be based on something true.
AK: Carver’s nemesis here, Damon Tyzack, is an interesting character and perhaps the dark side of “The Accident Man.” Had you visualized him before the plotting, or did he appear once the plot was crystallized in your mind?
TC: Tyzack was definitely a character who evolved. His genesis came when I was doing a mad late-night radio talk-show promoting Accident Man. I was sitting in my study in England, talking to a host in California and phone-in callers from all over the States, and I was having a helluva time getting anyone to grasp the point that the book was a novel and that, the [Paris tunnel] crash aside, I’d made it all up. Anyway, the host seemed to think I was some kind of expert on the lives of real-life assassins and he said,
“So how does a guy get ahead in that career?” And while I was trying to think of an answer aside from “How the fuck would I know?” he provided one of his own: “I guess they just kill the guy ahead of them.” So then I said, “Thanks, you just gave me my next book!” That’s where Tyzack started: a guy who wants to kill the next guy up the ladder. I saw it as a metaphor for corporate life. Anyway, Tyzack changed, as I decided that I wanted his motivation to be more personal, more of a long-held grudge against Carver. But the crucial change--which I owe to the wonderful Peta Nightingale, who reads and edits my stuff at my literary agents, LAW [Lucas Alexander Whitley]--was that instead of Tyzack being an obviously psychotic brute (as he had been), he became in many ways superior to Carver. He’s much more socially confident, posher, wittier and, as he points out to Carver, he doesn’t really do anything Carver hasn’t done too. So he’s much more of a challenge to Carver’s idea of himself (and our idea of him) as an essentially good man, obliged to do bad things. Tyzack forces Carver to examine his character and his actions--but in the course of a particularly sadistic interrogation, naturally, rather than a fireside chat.AK: Tomorrow, The Rap Sheet will begin serializing “Bloodsport,” the first Samuel Carver short story. Tell us how that story came about.
TC: It arose from my appalling addiction to Facebook. At some point in one of my endless online chats, someone said something about Gordon Brown, our prime minister, who is about as popular in the UK as Bush was in the U.S., and I joked, “Maybe I should send Carver after him!” (or words to that effect). And then I thought, “You know what, maybe there’s something in that ...” And from there it all went spiraling into madness!
AK: Like The Accident Man, “Bloodsport” contains a very controversial premise. Were you worried about writing the tale, or publishing it?
TC: I was bloody nervous when someone at The Curzon Group, an alliance of British thriller writers, pointed out that anyone deemed to be inciting acts of terrorism was liable to arrest and, if found guilty, lengthy imprisonment. But when I looked at what I’d actually written, I thought that it was very clearly not an incitement to anything, so then my panic subsided. And luckily, the lawyers agreed.
AK: I really enjoyed reading “Bloodsport,” as it packs a powerful punch and message. Is it also perhaps the first step toward more Sam Carver short fiction?
TC: I think so. I really enjoyed doing it and I loved the speed that the Internet allows--much more like journalism than regular novel-writing. I mean, I go nuts waiting for my books to come out, especially the editions outside the UK, which can be delayed up to a year. There’s such a danger of becoming outdated as the whole process grinds on. With this, I could have an idea and--bam!--there it was. I’d have got it out a week sooner too, if ... no, better not go there! Anyway, I think Carver will definitely have more of these instant, mini-adventures.
AK: I assume you’re familiar with Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male and Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal ...
TC: Oh yeah, absolutely ... and “Bloodsport” is following on from both those books in the sense of it being about a lone hunter stalking a political leader. That said, Rogue Male is one of the most important books in thriller-writing history--you can see the assassin genre being created right there in front of your eyes. And for me, Day of the Jackal is just about the best thriller ever written. It breaks so many rules: the hero is a totally unsympathetic character, whose identity remains unknown even when the books ends; and the ending is inevitable, since it is a historical fact that President [Charles] de Gaulle was not assassinated. Yet it still grips from the first sentence to the last. “Bloodsport,” by contrast, is a very slight piece of whimsy. It’s a little nibble, as opposed to a socking great steak. But I hope it’s a tasty, spicy little nibble!
AK: Let’s go back to your mention of The Curzon Group. Are you involved in that group’s so-called airport tour?
TC: Well, I’ve joined and I blog every Monday. As for the airport tour, which I think is a great idea, I honestly don’t know how much I can be involved--this year, at least--for the family reasons cited earlier. But if they do it again next year, and let me tag along, I’ll certainly be there.
AK: If I can be frank, the purpose of The Curzon Group is to promote British thriller writing--but I think the Tom Cain novels are very “American” in terms of the writing style, even if they are British in origin. What are your thoughts on the differences between UK and U.S. thriller fiction?
TC: I’m quite torn between the two sides of the Atlantic. As a person, I’m very British. I sound British when I speak. I had a very traditional upper-class English education (paid for by the government, but that’s another story). On the other hand, I lived abroad from my earliest childhood, I’ve worked abroad a lot--particularly in the States--and I have a lifelong love of America. To this day, I watch far more American TV series than British ones. I’m as passionate about the Washington Redskins as I am about West Ham (with just about equally disillusioning results). And I read for more American than British writers.
I think the kind of action thriller I do, though there are a host of British precedents, is essentially an American form. England is not a country big enough or wild enough to contain a thriller. Why else is Jack Reacher American? It’s no coincidence that one of the worst [James] Bond books, Moonraker, is the one set in England. Bond needs fancier locations. So does Carver. What Brits do well is seediness, grubbiness, despair, decay, intimacy ... grubby little crimes committed in a country going down the crapper. I can see the merit in that, but it’s never been my thing.
AK: Considering that the Samuel Carver novels are very tightly edited, giving them a fast and visual style, is there any more news on film or TV rights yet?
TC: The whole movie situation is a typical Hollywood tale and I can’t really go into details. Paramount had the original option. That is now in play elsewhere. Suffice it to say that there is reason to hope for some positive news within the next few months, or even weeks.
AK: And as a former journalist, what are your thoughts on the terrible state of the print media? David Simon, a former Baltimore reporter and creator of the TV show The Wire, has said that he fears for society when journalists were being laid off, because they are our society’s watch-keepers.
TC: My thoughts are virtually suicidal. David Simon is right. If you get rid of proper, professional journalism you risk giving unfettered power to politicians, corporations, and anyone else who wants to screw us around without being held accountable. Plus, as a professional writer, I get very, very angry with the notion that there is essentially no such thing as copyright any more, and no reason for anyone to pay to be informed or entertained. I have the old-fashioned idea that I want to get paid for my work, my craft, and my decades of experience. I’ve yet to hear a good moral justification of the notion that I, or anyone else, should not be paid.
AK: I see that you’re on Twitter as well as Facebook. How are you getting on with all this new technology?
TC: I don’t know too much about the technology, but I am addicted to Facebook. I went up to Harrogate recently on the train, five hours there and back. I spent at least three hours of each journey online. I did not open a book. I realized then that, as professional writers of fiction, we are in deep, deep shit. So whatever I say about the unfairness of our situation, we may just have to get used to it.
AK: I know that you are extremely well read in the thriller-fiction genre. Can you tell us what books have passed over your reading table that really impressed you?
TC: This is a helluva corny answer, but the truth is, I bought [Stieg Larsson’s] The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo months after everyone else. I went through the early sections, which are slow, dreary, and lacking in any tension whatever and thought, “Why the hell has everyone got so excited about this?” Then [protagonist] Lisbeth Salander appeared, and I got it. She is such a rare thing: a totally fresh, original character. To be honest, I still don’t give a monkey’s about anything else in that book or the sequel. But I’m gripped just because of her.
Listening in The Lou
If you’re living in or anywhere near St. Louis, Missouri, take note: Tonight is sure to bring out the crime-fiction-loving crowds for the latest Noir at the Bar celebration, set to begin at 8 p.m. at the Delmar Restaurant and Lounge (6235 Delmar Boulevard; 314-725-6565). Reading during this event will be Scott Phillips, Malachi Stone, Jedidiah Ayres, and headliner Theresa Schwegel (Last Known Address) from Chicago. The public is welcome.
READ MORE: “N@B2,” by Jedidiah Ayres (Hard-boiled Wonderland).
READ MORE: “N@B2,” by Jedidiah Ayres (Hard-boiled Wonderland).
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Mad Man Me
To promote the third season of AMC-TV’s Mad Men, which begins on Sunday, August 16, the show’s brilliant minds have launched a Web site that lets you become a character on their stylish series. My creation is above. Give it a try yourself--it’s great fun.
POSTSCRIPT FROM J. KINGSTON PIERCE: OK, Dick, you convinced me. Below you will find what I could do with the same technology.
Your Moments Have Passed
More than a year and a half ago, U.S. crime-fiction publisher Minotaur Books--or, as it was then known, St. Martin’s Minotaur--launched what looked like a promising group blog for its authors, Moments in Crime. The idea was that novelists could spend a week on the site, just ruminating about their writing processes, their individual worlds, the things that mattered to them as wordsmiths and citizens. Although not every post was a gripper, I thought Moments in Crime was a pretty successful venture, allowing readers to enter the minds of people such as John Hart, Norman Green, Linda Barnes, Daniel Judson, Linda L. Richards, Ian Vasquez, and others, not all of whom usually blog.
But earlier this week, I received several e-mail notes from readers asking what had happened to Moments in Crime. It had suddenly disappeared, and been replaced by a Twitter page of the same name. They’d heard no explanation of what had happened, and there was no archive of the blog’s existing material.
Curious myself, I fired off an e-mail note to St. Martin’s publicist Hector DeJean, requesting an explanation. His response:
To my way of thinking, this new Twitter page is boring and useless. While I regularly checked out the Moments in Crime blog, I’m unlikely ever to look at this new Twitter page. It certainly seems to make poor use of Minotaur authors. Writers are supposed to write; that’s what they do best. Tweeting isn’t writing, it’s small talk.
But earlier this week, I received several e-mail notes from readers asking what had happened to Moments in Crime. It had suddenly disappeared, and been replaced by a Twitter page of the same name. They’d heard no explanation of what had happened, and there was no archive of the blog’s existing material.
Curious myself, I fired off an e-mail note to St. Martin’s publicist Hector DeJean, requesting an explanation. His response:
We found that Twitter tweets have been generating more responses than blog posts. At the same time, tweeting fits into authors’ schedules with greater ease, especially helpful if an author is touring to promote their new book; they don’t need to worry about getting online to post a new blog entry while they’re moving around. So the new setup accomplishes our goals even better than the blog did--it generates a lot of involvement between authors and readers, it doesn’t intrude heavily on busy authors’ schedules, and brings together a lot of dynamic Minotaur-related content.All well and good. Except that this change has meant the obliteration of all of Moments in Crime’s previous content. Links across the blogosphere to that material are now dead. Why the Minotaur folks couldn’t have archived Moments in Crime posts, thus preserving all of the links, and then created a Twitter feed in addition to the blog is beyond me. Why destroy everything that had already been done, everything that Minotaur writers had been thoughtful enough to contribute to Moments in Crime in the past?
To my way of thinking, this new Twitter page is boring and useless. While I regularly checked out the Moments in Crime blog, I’m unlikely ever to look at this new Twitter page. It certainly seems to make poor use of Minotaur authors. Writers are supposed to write; that’s what they do best. Tweeting isn’t writing, it’s small talk.
So Who’s Keeping Track?
Yesterday morning, The Rap Sheet finally clocked in its 3,000th post. That’s about a year since we counted our 2,000th, and two years since the blog’s 1,000th post was published. So we are averaging about 1,000 posts a year. Whew! That seems like a terrible lot of work, when you look back on it, but it doesn’t seem so difficult when you’re doing it. Fortunately.
Meanwhile, this blog is closing in on its 600,000 visit.
Meanwhile, this blog is closing in on its 600,000 visit.
But What Do You Really Think?
Admittedly, this has nothing to do with crime or mystery fiction. But actor-writer Sam Anderson’s New York Magazine review of William T. Vollmann’s new non-fiction work, Imperial, is priceless. The most choice chunk reads:
Imperial is like Robert Caro’s The Power Broker with the attitude of Mike Davis’s City of Quartz, if Robert Caro had been raised in an abandoned grain silo by a band of feral raccoons, and if Mike Davis were the communications director of a heavily armed libertarian survivalist cult, and if the two of them had somehow managed to stitch John McPhee’s cortex onto the brain of a Gila monster, which they then sent to the Mexican border to conduct ten years of immersive research, and also if they wrote the entire manuscript on dried banana leaves with a toucan beak dipped in hobo blood, and then the book was line-edited during a 36-hour peyote séance by the ghosts of John Steinbeck, Jack London, and Sinclair Lewis, with 200 pages of endnotes faxed over by Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-great-great grandson from a concrete bunker under a toxic pond behind a maquiladora, and if at the last minute Herman Melville threw up all over the manuscript, rendering it illegible, so it had to be re-created from memory by a community-theater actor doing his best impression of Jack Kerouac.Enjoy the entire critique here.
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