Yours truly with Ali Karim, outside the Hyatt Regency.
My first visit to
Long Beach, California, came during the early 1970s. My father had been stationed in Great Britain during World War II, and had worked there as some sort of wheeling-and-dealing army supply officer (picture James Garner’s “Scrounger” from
The Great Escape). But after the fighting ended, he returned to the States aboard the
RMS Queen Mary, which had been painted gray for service as a troop transport vessel. When that ocean liner was finally retired from service in 1967 and subsequently repurposed in Long Beach as a tourist attraction, my father decided he wanted to see her once more. So he packed up our family, and we drove from Portland, Oregon, all the way down to the so-called Aquatic Capital of America to see what had become of the old girl. I was pretty young at the time and don’t recall much of that trip, but I do remember standing on the
dock below the
Queen Mary and staring up in awe at how mammoth the ship appeared (she was, after all, some 200 feet longer than the ill-fated
RMS Titanic).
Last week marked my only other journey to Long Beach, and while I could see the
Queen Mary from my hotel window high above Ocean Boulevard, I never did reach her moorage across Rainbow Harbor. Instead, I spent almost all of my time partaking of
this year’s Bouchercon (“Murder at the Beach,” November 13-16), held at the Hyatt Regency hotel and adjacent Long Beach Convention Center. It was my fifth Bouchercon, after the
2011 convention in St. Louis, so I knew pretty much what to expect. Yet every one
of these World Mystery Conventions offers a little something new, even if it’s only a novel panel-discussion topic (not easy to come by), a happenstance encounter with an author previously unknown to you, or learning about a book that had eluded your radar.
For me, the best part of this whole shindig was reconnecting with good friends I don’t see nearly often enough, especially The Rap Sheet’s ever-energetic UK correspondent, Ali Karim. He and I got to know each other during the early days of the 21st century, when he volunteered to write reviews for
January Magazine (for which I still serve as crime fiction editor), and we have traveled back and forth across the Atlantic to drink together and swap reading recommendations ever since. Ali likes to say we could have been brothers in another lifetime, or perhaps in an alternative universe, and I won’t disagree with that. I value his friendship tremendously. And I’m pleased that he usually makes these Bouchercon forays in the company of two other pals of his,
Shots editor
Mike Stotter and author
R.J. “Roger” Ellory. Between them, their fine humor and equally fine stories leave me laughing for weeks after the conventions conclude.
Other highlights of Bouchercon 2014, though, included: dining out with Canadian-American author
David Morrell (whose novel
Murder as a Fine Art won
the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award); sitting through
Art Scott’s slide presentation of artist
Robert
McGinnis’ gorgeous paperback covers and paintings (during which I learned that McGinnis had imagined both James Coburn and Goldie Hawn as models for his players on the front of the 1971 paperback,
As Old As Cain); two panel talks moderated by
Peter Rozovsky--“Belfast Noir,” which included Stuart Neville and Gerard Brennan as speakers, and “Beyond Hammett, Chandler and
Spillane,” during which Gary Phillips, Max Allan Collins, Sarah Weinman and others swapped stories about “forgotten” crime writers of the mid-20th-century pulp era (
Joseph Nazel,
Dolores Hitchens, and
Ennis
Willie among them); attending the Private Eye Writers of America’s
Shamus Awards banquet with
The Thrilling Detective Web Site’s Kevin Burton Smith and his wife, author
Diana Killian, as well as writers such as
Brad Parks,
Sue Grafton, and
Richard Helms; Poisoned Pen Press publisher Barbara Peters’ interview with International Guest of Honor
Edward Marston, who proved to be a wellspring of entertaining stories (and was later kind enough to remember me, when I went seeking his autograph on a book);
J. Robert Janes’ generosity in gifting me with an out-of-print hardcover copy of his 1991 thriller,
The Alice Factor; Sebastian Rotella’s onstage interview with
Michael Connelly; and a reminiscence-filled post-Bouchercon dinner featuring Ali Karim, Mike Stotter,
January editor and author
Linda L. Richards, and several others who had booked Monday flights home. In addition, my wife and I sat down for dinner one evening with my
cousin Scott and his wife, Lori, at a Long Beach restaurant (and classy converted former bank) called
The Federal Bar.
I don’t have nearly as many chances as I would like to get together with members of my mother’s sister’s family. Since Scott and Lori live in the Los Angeles area, I wasn’t about to miss seeing them on this trip.
In addition to all of that, I spent some time with writer friends such as
Lee Goldberg (who shares my passion for old TV detective series),
Keith Raffel,
Kelli Stanley,
Mystery Fanfare’s Janet Rudolph, and the aforementioned Gary Phillips and Max Allan Collins (the latter of whom, with his wife, fellow fictionist Barbara Collins, hosted the Shamus Awards party). I was only sorry that I didn’t have more contact on this occasion with
Mark Billingham, Sarah Weinman, and
Otto Penzler, and never so much as clapped eyes on a few people I had hoped to meet--
Lyndsay Faye,
Owen
Laukkanen, and
Bruce DeSilva among them--but maybe I shall bump into them during a near-future Bouchercon. I’ll call it compensation that I returned to Seattle with a few goodies, prominent among those being two additions to my modest collection of Robert McGinnis-illustrated paperbacks:
24
Hours to Kill (1961) and
Murder Me for Nickels (1960). I would surely have purchased more, except that the Book Room at this event was conspicuously short of sales tables offering classic paperbacks (and, sadly, didn’t feature a British bookseller at all).
As it happens, my friend Ali is responsible for the programming at
Bouchercon 2015 in Raleigh, North Carolina, so there’s every chance I’ll swing by those festivities next October. I shall use the intervening months to rest my liver and catch up on sleep in preparation.
(Click here to find Part II of our post-Bouchercon coverage.)
READ MORE: Detectives Beyond Borders blogger Peter Rozovsky began posting about Bouchercon 2014 long before the conference even opened, and he continues to do so
here; author Jeri Westerson posted a
three-
part series about Bouchercon 2014 in her blog, Getting Medieval; and Dana King has posted two parts of a Bouchercon wrap-up in One Bite at a Time--see
here and
here; “
Bouchercon 2014 Recap--Tuesday Through Friday (Part One),” by Kristopher Zgorski (BOLO Books); “
21 Years Later--A Third Shamus,” by Max Allan Collins; “
Bouchercon 2014: There Are Faces I’ll Remember,” by Kevin Burton Smith (The Thrilling Detective Blog); “
Bouchercon 2014 Recap--Tuesday Through Friday (Part Two),” by Kristopher Zgorski (BOLO Books); “
Bloody Murder at Bouchercon,” by Erin Mitchell (Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room); “
Bouchercon 2014: Seven Mystery Superstars Give Us the Inside Scoop” (
Book Reporter).
The day before Bouchercon began, Ali Karim and his cohorts visited the studio where the police procedural Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s series of novels, was being filmed. Left to right: Deadly Pleasures critic Larry Gandle; author Roger Ellory; Connelly; Bosch star Titus Welliver; our man Karim; and Shots editor Mike Stotter.
Edward Marston embraces his wife, Judith Cutler.
Ali with author Reed Farrel Coleman.
Fan Guest of Honor Al Abramson.
A study in contrasts: Ali beside Charles Todd, who with his mother, Caroline, composes the Inspector Ian Rutledge series.
Left to right: The ubiquitous Ali Karim with author Bob Truluck and Rap Sheet blogger J. Kingston Pierce.
Anthony Award finalist Sara J. Henry nursing her basketball injury with Bouchercon board member-at-large John Purcell.
Author Jeffery Deaver with You-Know-Who.
Left to right: Mike Stotter, Linda L. Richards, and J. Kingston Pierce with legendary editor-bookseller Otto Penzler.
Mystery writer Brendan DuBois and critic Oline Cogdill.
The Hat Squad: Ali with author David Morrell.
Left to right: The bass-voiced Gary Phillips, an unusually dressed-down Ali, and Stephen Jay Schwartz.
Bouchercon 2014 chair Ingrid Willis with Indiana bookseller Mike Bursaw, aka “Mystery Mike.”
Thrilling Detective Web Site editor Kevin Burton Smith with his wife, Diana Killian, and that strange dude in the white hat again.
J. Robert Janes signing some of his World War II thrillers.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em: Ali Karim, Lee Child. ’Nuff said.
Ali with “Medieval Noir” novelist Jeri Westerson, president of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America, at a Librarian Tea/panel discussion about audiobooks.
J. Kingston Pierce (yes, the one in that slick Rockford Files T-shirt) together with fellow bloggers Jacques Filippi and Ali Karim.
Mike Stotter, Max Allan Collins, and J. Kingston Pierce mug for the camera before the Shamus Awards dinner commences.
Author Cara Black and Ali rest between panel talks.
Michael Connelly being interviewed before an audience by another journalist-turned-author, Sebastian Rotella.
The Guests of Honor Panel closed out Bouchercon 2014. Left to right: moderator Tammy Kaehler; American Guest of Honor J.A. Jance; Toastmaster Simon Wood; Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Jeffery Deaver; Young Adult Guest of Honor Eoin Colfer; International Guest of Honor Edward Marston; and again, Fan Guest of Honor Al Abramson. A good time was indeed had by all.
With the festivities over, Mike Stotter, Roger Ellory, Peter Rozovsky, and J. Kingston Pierce take a leisurely afternoon stroll down to The Pike at Rainbow Harbor. And look, there in the distance--could it be the Queen Mary?
Before all of the Bouchercon stragglers depart, one last dinner. Front row, left to right: Diana Killian, Jodi Pierce, Linda L. Richards, Heather Graham Pozzessere, and Connie Perry. Middle row: Rob Brunet, Kevin Burton Smith, J. Kingston Pierce, Peter Rozovsky, Scott Montgomery, Roger Ellory, and Tanis Mallow. Back row: Mike Stotter and yes, one final time, Ali Karim.
