The Queen of Questioning

Congratulations to Nancie Clare, the Southern California-based host of that splendid podcast Speaking of Mysteries, who this week posted her 200th and 201st interviews. Clare’s latest subjects: Denise Mina, author of the brand-new thriller, The Less Dead; and Robert Pobi, who talks about his second Dr. Lucas Page yarn, Under Pressure.

Clare and her partner in this podcast project, Leslie S. Klinger, launched their first episode back in April 2014. It’s been quite a run!

Like Cinderella at the Ball

Titus Welliver as Detective Harry Bosch

(Editor’s note: The piece below comes from Nancie Clare, who co-created, along with Leslie S. Klinger, the podcast series Speaking of Mysteries. She was also a co-founder of the single-issue iPad publication Noir Magazine, and is the former editor in chief of LA, The Los Angeles Times Magazine. Clare last wrote for The Rap Sheet about the 2013 Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival.)

The invitation came through on January 22 to the debut screening of Bosch, a live-action Amazon Prime series based on Michael Connelly’s novels about Los Angeles police detective Harry Bosch. If you’re as wild about Harry as I have been--and as just about every reader of procedurals is--then seeing the character come to the screen after such a “tortuous journey” (Connelly’s own words in an interview I did with him in 2012) was a watershed event.

From my interviews with Mike Connelly, I already knew some of the genesis of the series. When I spoke with him in September 2012, just before The Black Box was published, he and executive producer Henrik Bastin and screenwriter Eric Overmyer had already met and were getting started on the project. They hadn’t yet cast Titus Welliver in the title role, but the rights to the Harry Bosch character had already been secured. For those of you who don’t know the story, Connelly sold the rights to Bosch to Paramount Pictures, a decision he doesn’t regret as it gave him the means to quit his day-job as an L.A. Times reporter and become a full-time fiction writer. But in spite of numerous scripts, a Bosch film never came to pass. When the 15-year term of his contract was over, Connelly sued Paramount to get the rights back. The price to reclaim his own character? Three million dollars. He had three years to pay up.

Maybe it was for the best. In the interim, basic cable outlets such as AMC, TNT, and USA, as well as premium outlets such as HBO and Showtime, and streaming newcomers Netflix and Amazon, had all changed the game by creating quality series in the mystery and thriller genre, shows on the order of Breaking Bad, The Killing, The Wire, Justified, The Bridge, House of Cards, and The Americans. Movies weren’t the only way to bring a character to life and, in many ways, the story of cop Harry Bosch lent itself to a multi-episodic arc instead of a movie.

(Left) Author Michael Connelly

But back to Bosch.

Michael Connelly is a best-selling author everywhere, but he has a special place in the hearts of those of us who live in L.A. Yeah, I know, Connelly now lives in Tampa, Florida, but Harry Bosch is a creature born and bred in my hometown. Bosch is L.A.

So, what better place to premiere Bosch last week than at the ArcLight Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood? It was a fitting as it could get.

Things got off to a good start. In every cup holder at every seat in the place was a pair of commemorative Bosch mirrored aviator sunglasses. How cool was that?

I had already watched the Bosch pilot episode, released on Amazon last year, and for those of you who also saw it, I would highly recommend seeing it again. It has been recut and makes much more sense as the launch of a 10-episode story arc.

I knew as soon as I saw the opening credits that this TV production team got it. With a jazz soundtrack (which was to be expected, considering Harry Bosch’s legendary taste in music), the opening takes us through the city of L.A. in a through-the-looking glass, up-is-down/down-is-up mirror-image montage that I think does a great job of setting the tone that in this city, things are rarely what they seem.

The plot line--at least in the first two episodes, shown during the premiere--weaves together elements of at least three Harry Bosch novels: Echo Park, The Concrete Blonde, and what may be one of my favorites of all time, 2002’s City of Bones. It’s a good mix. There’s the internecine battle going on within a police department that thinks nothing of throwing someone who hasn’t played ball under the bus, the conflicted relationship the police have with Hollywood (there’s a snarky little aside about Harry having sold a story that was made into a film; the movie was terrible, but the fee enabled Harry to buy his house with the view), and an examination of the challenges L.A. police face in regard to their city’s geography, both physical and philosophical.

Going into the experience, I have to admit I wasn’t sure about Titus Welliver as Harry. I’m happy to report, I was wrong. Every single Connelly fan has a picture in his or her mind of Harry Bosch, and when a face is put to that character, it can be jarring. (Personally, I envisioned Harry as more of a Vincent D’Onofrio type, circa Law & Order: Criminal Intent.) Even Connelly admitted during a short introduction, which he presented in company with Henrik Baston and Eric Overmyer before the screening, that Harry had been his--but now he would be Titus Welliver’s. Thankfully, Titus captures Bosch’s stubbornness, commitment, sense of justice and, at least after an exchange with Alan Rosenberg (who plays the medical examiner in this series), his secular humanism. Titus is believable in a way that makes him own Harry’s personality.

The rest of the cast is built with solid character actors, including such veterans of The Wire as Jamie Hector, playing Bosch’s partner, and Lance Reddick as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving. Amy Aquino is especially good as Bosch’s lieutenant, who appreciates him for the good police that he is, at the same time as she bemoans what a pain in the ass he can be. Even characters who could easily slip into “dumb cop” caricatures, Detectives “Crate and Barrel” (Troy Evans as Detective Johnson and Gregory Scott Cummins as Detective Moore), are more than meet the eye. Their handling of possible serial killer Raynard Waits, played by an excellently creepy Jason Gedrick, is subtle but very slick. And, although the romance between Harry and ambitious rookie cop Julie Basher, played by Annie Wersching, is only in its nascent stages by the end of the second episode, I have a feeling that story arc is going to evolve nicely.


An official trailer for Amazon’s Bosch

After the screening, everyone who attended was invited to a party across the street at a restaurant/club called Lure. And, it being a Tuesday night, dress code-wise it was a pretty casual affair. But fun. Most of the cast along with Connelly, Henrik Bastin, and Eric Overmyer showed up to nosh on sliders and mac-and-cheese, and partake of the open bar. No VIP corners for this crowd; everyone was out and about and chatting with guests and graciously receiving their props. I cut out early, though, since I’m a party lightweight and it was a school night.

All 10 episodes of Bosch will be available for streaming through the Amazon Prime service, beginning this coming Friday, February 13. The show is definitely worth the price of admission if you’ve been on the fence about joining Amazon’s delivery-and-streaming mash-up. And, hey, nothing says “Happy St. Valentine’s Day” better than a binge watching of Bosch.

READ MORE: “Bosch Previewed: Harry on the Small Screen,” by DeathBecomesHer (Crime Fiction Lover); “Bosch, Amazon Prime Instant Video, with Titus Welliver -- Preview,” by Robin Jarossi (Crime Time Preview); “Writer Michael Connelly’s Teenage Brush with Crime,” by John Heilpern (Vanity Fair); “Michael Connelly, Bosch Make a Case for Series on Amazon Prime,” by Greg Braxton (Los Angeles Times).

Finishing Touches in Scotland

(Photo © 2013 by Alex Hewitt/Writer Pictures)

(Editor’s note: Below, Nancie Clare files her third and final report from this last weekend’s Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival, held in Stirling, Scotland. Be sure also to read her interview with Lee Child, her observations on the conference’s opening events, and her notes on Bloody Scotland’s first full day of activities.)

The schedule was lighter on Sunday and, as it turned out, I had already seen many of the participating authors in other panels the previous day. So I decided to attend Caro Ramsay’s event featuring the preparation of dishes taken from The Killer Cookbook, a 2012 paperback collection of recipes--supplied by crime-fiction writers--that she edited. I had heard from one of the scheduled panelists, Craig Robertson (Witness the Dead), that he was going to make blood pudding. How appropriate.

By the time the doors to the MacLaren Suite (where this panel presentation was to take place) finally opened, though, the program had changed. According to Ramsay, bustling behind a long table heaped over with glasses, spirits, jars of condiments, and fruits, the folks from Health and Safety had been along and determined that seven mystery authors cooking with high heat and sharp knives was not on. However, mixology was OK.

So two squads were lined up: Team Boy (Craig Robertson and Gordon Brown) vied against the women on Team Blonde (Lin Anderson, Alex Gray, Catriona McPherson, and Ramsay). Team Boy chose to make Tom Black’s Killer Margarita (Black being the husband of Sue Black, director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University), while Team Blonde tackled The Peter James Vodka Martini Writing Special. I looked about and no one else seemed to see the irony that in the middle of Scotch country, we were straining to sample tequila and vodka. Since there wasn’t quite enough booze, Team Blonde also made Aline Templeton’s Bloody Mary Tomatoes.

In the meantime, Alex Gray distributed scones served with raspberry jam and “squirty” cream (UK-speak for whipped cream in an aerosol can) that she had made earlier at home, while someone else was passing around “flapjacks,” oats mixed with dates and honey. Call it the Stirling Silly Season or just a Bloody Good Time; either way it was tasty chaos.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the party early to queue up for the festival’s finale: “At the Top of His Game,” a sold-out event showcasing author Lee Child.

If you have never had a chance to see Lee Child in a public presentation, do your best to remedy that sometime. By his own admission, he went into writing to be an entertainer, and he obviously feels right at home on stage. (Unlike, say, Jo Nesbø, who got his entertaining chops early on as a footballer and a rock star, Child admits that he has no musical talent; so, as he said, appearing at events such as these is his outlet.)

Author Peter Guttridge (The Devil’s Moon) once more acted as interlocutor, and he took Child down memory lane to his boyhood in Birmingham, England--which, Child readily admitted, could get quite obstreperous. In fact, Child was a bit of a “wide boy,” engaging frequently in fisticuffs (often to defend his younger brother, Andrew Grant) and sewing razor blades under the lapels of his school jacket (a defense against someone grabbing him by the lapels. As Child explained, “You only do it once.”). The surprise was not that he went to such lengths, remarked Child, but that he knew how to sew.

For a two-year-old festival, Bloody Scotland drew some impressive crowds. (Photo © 2013 by Alex Hewitt/Writer Pictures)

These tales of a rough-and-tumble youth, Child admitted, inform the character of his series protagonist, Jack Reacher.

At one point, Child was asked whether it was true that he “planned to end the Reacher series after 21 books, an homage to John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee.” Child acknowledged he had always planned such an ending, but now that he’s nearing 21 books (this year’s Never Go Back being his 18th), he isn’t so sure anymore. He said that he had plans to kill Jack Reacher off in an appropriate manner--say, having him take a bullet meant for someone else and then bleeding out in a motel bathroom. Now, he reckons he may not do that. Instead, Reacher might just stroll into the sunset, giving Child’s daughter, Ruth (now in her early 30s), a chance to pick up the franchise.

Another thing learned from this event: Child is a thoughtful wordsmith in that he considers writing a one-on-one experience with each reader. Yes, many people may buy and read his books, but when you pick up any of his Reacher tales, it is really the two of you communing. He finds that meaningful. And I think it shows in the writing.

So that concludes Bloody Scotland for 2013. Next year’s festival will convene on September 19, the day after the referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom is held. It should be an interesting time.

READ MORE: “Video: Bloody Scotland 2013,” by John Dingwall
(Daily Record).

A Bloody Embarrassment of Riches

Swedish crime novelist Arne Dahl attends Bloody Scotland 2013. (All photographs in this post © 2013 by Alex Hewitt/Writer Pictures, used with permission.)

(Editor’s note: Below, Nancie Clare files her second report from the Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival taking place this weekend in Stirling, Scotland. Be sure also to read her interview with Lee Child and her observations on the conference’s opening day.)

It was an unusually (at least for Scotland) sunny Saturday morning, the first full day of Bloody Scotland. Time to attend my initial panel discussion, “Dark Deeds,” featuring authors Denise Mina (The Red Road) and Louise Welsh (The Girl on the Stairs), and moderated by Peter Guttridge (The Devil’s Moon). After each woman read a short passage from her latest novel, Guttridge asked them if they consider themselves “crime writers.” Both demurred. Mina said she writes detective stories, but was a member of the “church of crime.” Welsh sees her writing as a form of stealth politics; she points out inequities and prejudices in society without writing a manifesto.

Both women also write in other media: Mina is currently composing graphic-novel versions of the books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (which include The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and Welsh has written plays and opera librettos. Both enjoy those diversions from the task of crafting books; writing graphic novels, plays, and operas are collaborative endeavors. Mina suggests that being solitary for the 18 months or so it takes to turn out a novel can make you “mental.”

At noon I moved over to a different presentation, this one titled “New Nordic Noir” and focusing on Swedish author Arne Dahl, a pen name used by Jan Arnold. I’m not sure about the “new” part; Dahl wrote his set of 10 books, five of which have been dramatized and shown on the BBC, almost 15 years ago. Because of that TV exposure, Dahl is incredibly popular in the UK; unfortunately, the Swedish Arne Dahl TV series has not been widely broadcast in the United States.

You could say that Dahl (who, as Arnold, was already a “literary” writer) decided to try his hand at crime fiction during a fever dream. In the early 1990s, he suddenly found himself with the flu and a high fever. Lying in bed, he tried to read the works of Franz Kafka, which he acknowledges now was probably not the best choice. Frustrated, he turned instead to Faceless Killers (1997), the opening installment in Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander mystery series. That experience convinced him to try his own hand at crime-fiction writing. Two of the 10 books he wrote over a 10-year period have been translated into English: The Blinded Man (published in the States as Misterioso) and Bad Blood.

(Right) Queuing at Albert Halls for the next event.

Dahl told his audience that he had no idea he’d become so fond of (or so rich from) penning crime fiction. He’s already produced three books in a second, “Opcop” series, this one involving international crime and a detective with Europol.

The 2013 Bloody Scotland festival is certainly an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the renown of its attendees. (Where do I begin? Denise Mina, Val McDermid, Jo Nesbø, Stuart Neville, Lee Child, and Louise Welsh--whose The Cutting Room is probably one of the best Scottish crime novels of all time.) However, I was still excited to sit in on the “Keeping Secrets” session with Charles Cumming and Chris Morgan Jones.

I haven’t yet read any of Morgan Jones’ works, but Cumming is the natural successor, at least in my opinion, to John le Carré. (Last year, Cumming’s A Foreign Country won the inaugural Scottish Crime Book of the Year award. Cumming, who lives in London, was born in Scotland.) Morgan Jones began writing fiction after he’d spent more than a decade working for Kroll Inc., an international risk-management firm based in New York City. His protagonist, Benjamin Webster (The Jackal’s Share), is a former journalist turned investigator for an international corporate intelligence firm.

Morgan Jones pointed out that corporate intelligence investigators are very much like spies, but instead of working for the state, they’re employed by multinational corporations. And also like spies, they often fall afoul of the laws in the countries where they operate. They are ripe for being set up and arrested for obtaining confidential material, especially in Russia and China. Morgan Jones himself worked in Russia and feared that same fate.

Cumming claims he never worked for either of England’s intelligence services (MI5 and MI6), but he tried to. I guess, we’ll have to take his word for it. But he did say that writing so much about spies and espionage matters can make you feel, well, a bit paranoid. He told his audience that a friend of his, a “spook,” texted him while he was in Spain, wishing him a happy birthday. Right away, Cumming was completely convinced that the flat he’d rented was bugged. Until he remembered that he had mentioned he was going to Spain to celebrate his birthday. Occupational hazard, I guess.

Browsing the bookshop at Bloody Scotland.

At the last possible minute I sneaked into the late-afternoon panel discussion “Fresh Blood,” which featured three recently debuted Scottish crime novelists, one of whom was Malcolm Mackay (whose second novel, How a Gunman Says Goodbye, would later win the 2013 Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year award). The other two authors at the front of the room, Lisa Ballantyne and Matt Bendoris, have each published their first novel.

Ballantyne’s The Guilty One is a dual-narrative work about a London solicitor who is defending an 11-year-old boy accused of murder. The case brings up memories of the solicitor’s own violent past.

In Killing with Confidence, Bendoris--who’s employed as a journalist for a Glasgow newspaper--has created a serial killer who uses American self-help techniques to be better at his job, a detective with Tourette’s syndrome, and an overweight, technophobic reporter. The woman sitting next to me during this panel presentation told me that Killing was the best book she’s read so far this year.

The final, 6:30 p.m. Saturday session was “Dare to Thrill,” with Norwegian author Jo Nesbø. The line to get into the 1,000-seat Albert Halls auditorium for this event stretched around the block. Peter Guttridge served as interlocutor, and his introduction provided the startling fact that a Nesbø book is now purchased somewhere in the world every 23 seconds. Nesbø himself talked about his career leading up to becoming a writer: football star in high school, stockbroker, rock star. What was most interesting was to learn that, even after he became Norway’s biggest rocker, he never quit his stockbroker day job. Nesbø would work until the markets closed, catch a plane to wherever he was set to play his next gig, then perform, go back to his hotel for a few hours of sleep instead of partying, and get up the next morning to hop the first flight back to Oslo in order to be seated at his desk when the markets opened again. He kept up this pace, he explained, because he did not want to turn what he loved to do into a job.

(Left) Norway’s Jo Nesbø

Nesbø said that his protagonist, loose-cannon police inspector Harry Hole, is always trying to be a better person. But the author doesn’t see himself as a political spokesman; he sees himself as an entertainer, a storyteller.

He was asked about the coming film version of his novel The Snowman (which was released in an English translation in 2010). It seems Nesbø was disappointed that Martin Scorsese bowed out of the project, but he said he’s not in a hurry to find another director. As a storyteller, he contended, it’s very important to wait for the right director, someone who can best bring the story to the big screen. Nesbø added that the film does not have to be an exact replica of the book. He said he would not like to have anyone interfering with his telling of a tale, so he does not expect to interfere with the film’s director. Once they find one.

Finally, he warned that Harry Hole fans might have to wait a bit to find out what happens to the character, after the book Police is released by Knopf on October 15 of this year. Nesbø’s next novel, due out in Norway next spring, will be a standalone called Sønner (Sons).

Settling in to Stirling

(Editor’s note: Below, Nancie Clare files her inaugural report from the Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival being held this weekend in Stirling, Scotland. Be sure also to read her interview with Lee Child, which was posted yesterday.)

On Friday night, two of Bloody Scotland’s original organizers, Lin Anderson and Alex Gray, were joined by fellow Scottish crime novelist Quintin Jardine to open this second-annual conference with a session entitled “Bloody Minded in Bloody Scotland.”

Anderson and Gray talked about the event that prompted them to take the uncharacteristic step of organizing their fellow Scottish crime writers for the first time in 2012.

It was uncharacteristic, because the Scots as a people--and Scottish crime writers in particular--had long felt a sort of collective insecurity when getting together with their peers to the south, in England. That was true, at least, until a gathering of authors in Lincoln, England, about three years ago, when Anderson looked around her and thought, Bloody hell, there are a lot of Scottish writers here. We should have our own festival. Anderson reminded the audience of something Ian Rankin once said, that “Scandinavia doesn’t necessarily have better crime writers than Scotland, they just have better PR.”

She and Gray certainly live in the right country. Scotland has a slate of festivals celebrating just about everything: the arts, science, sports, and combinations thereof. The Scots did not, however, have a crime-writing festival. Now they do. And this year’s conference is bigger and better-organized than last year’s (which I also attended), and the historic city of Stirling--nestled between the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands, on the River Forth--is a perfect location in which to hold it. After all, atmosphere in Scottish crime fiction is key.

Author Jardine took the presentation in a different direction, talking about the challenges of working with longstanding series and integrating into fiction actual changes in Scottish law enforcement. His protagonist, the bloody-minded Bob Skinner (Pray for the Dying), is a chief inspector in Strathclyde, on the country’s west coast. But with this year’s formation of Police Scotland, a national force, Jardine explained that Skinner can now aspire to greater career heights.

Gray, who pens a Glasgow-based series about Detective Superintendent Lorimer and psychological profiler Solly Brightman (The Swedish Girl), reminded the audience that inspiration for criminous yarns is frequently drawn from recent cultural and political developments. She noted, for instance, that the 2014 Commonwealth Games will be held next summer in Glasgow’s new national stadium. Now, what if someone were to plan to blow up that facility ... You could almost see the creative wheels start turning.

One thing that seems very important to the organizers of Bloody Scotland, and to established authors among its attendees, is encouraging new Scottish crime writers. There appear to be a number of them on hand at this year’s festival, including Outer Hebrides author Malcolm Mackay, whose second novel, How a Gunman Says Goodbye, has been nominated for the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year. Mackay will also feature on Saturday afternoon’s “Fresh Blood” panel, together with Matt Bendoris and Lisa Ballantyne.

And next year, in addition to its Book of the Year award, there are plans afoot for Bloody Scotland to add a prize for Best Debut Novel.

* * *

While they were discussing new Scottish crime writers, Anderson, Gray, and Jardine also touched on the elephant in the room: J.K. Rowling, who as everyone now knows, produced this year’s The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It turns out that Gray was among the well-known Scottish authors who read an early, uncorrected proof of Rowling/Galbraith’s work and blurbed the finished book.

On Saturday, I ran into Gray at breakfast and couldn’t help asking whether she’d known, while she was enjoying that tale, who had actually concocted Cuckoo’s Calling.

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “David Shelley [Little, Brown’s group publisher], had sent me the uncorrected proof from what he called ‘a fabulous new writer named Robert Galbraith’ early in 2013. I read the book and thought to myself, Why bother if a debut writer can write this way? I thought [Galbraith] must be an academic.”

It was Gray’s opinion that The Cuckoo’s Calling ranked up there with the best mysteries she had ever read, and she said so in her blurb. Then this last spring, she received a note, supposedly from Galbraith, thanking her for her kind words and telling her that “he” was a big fan of Gray’s own books.

After Rowling was outed as the actual writer, Gray received another note, this time on Rowling’s distinctive golden owl stationary. The contents of that missive are private, but Gray’s pleasure at receiving it is not: she’s thrilled that Rowling has joined the ranks of Scottish crime writers and is looking forward to her next offering in the field.

New Magazine Clears a Crucial Hurdle

Editor Nancie Clare announced last night that Noir Magazine, the tablet computer-based crime-fiction periodical she co-founded with designer Rip Georges, had achieved the goal of $35,000 in start-up money they’d sought through the crowd-funding Web site Kickstarter. As of this writing, 381 backers have pitched $35,483 toward the launching of Noir as a 10-times-a-year publication.

Financial contributions are still being solicited (the final deadline for drumming up support isn’t until tomorrow). However, Clare and Georges--both of whom worked for the Los Angeles Times’ monthly magazine, until it was shut down earlier this year--can now move on to the business of arranging the final contents of Issue No. 1 (due out “before the end of October,” says Clare) and planning for future numbers.

(Right) A Noir prototype page

When I ask her, in an e-note, to lay out some specifics of what readers will find in the debut edition of Noir, Clare responds: “The first issue will include an interview with John Banville about writing as not only Banville and Benjamin Black, but also being the new Raymond Chandler. Additionally, Lyndsay Faye [The Gods of Gotham] has written an original graphic novella that is being illustrated by Ken Hooper. Annie Jacobsen, New York Times bestselling author of Area 51, has written a profile of Damian Lewis, the Emmy-winning actor of Homeland. I conducted an interview with Michael Connelly on his latest novel, The Black Box, and Connelly answers questions about bringing [series detective Harry] Bosch to the screen and the future of the Bosch clan in law enforcement. [There’s] a true-crime story about the Bernard Finch and Carole Tregoff case. I am also going to write a piece about the first-ever Bloody Scotland crime writer’s festival that took place in September in Stirling, Scotland.”

She adds that every issue will include fiction--“a story curated by Otto Penzler. We will also look for original short stories.”

In addition to the ubiquitous Penzler, other notable authors said to be contributing their talents to Noir or otherwise acting as advisors on this project are Megan Abbott, Robert Crais, Cara Black, Joel Engel, Sara Gran, Denise Hamilton, John Harvey, Stephen Hunter, Leslie S. Klinger, Ian Rankin, April Smith, and Joseph Wambaugh.

The magazine, says Clare, “will open with a news section that will include a hit list of best sellers, audiobooks, movies, what’s being rented and a ‘person of interest,’ someone who works in the genre,

but [is] not necessarily a writer. In our first issue we hope to cover Dick Hill, the voice of Lee Child’s novels.

(Left) Noir video introduction

“We do not plan to review books, but we’ll include capsule ‘best bets’ gleaned from those who work in bookstores around the world. We’ll also list upcoming events and book tours. There will also be a section called ‘out of the past,’ where will highlight books, films, TV, and radio dramas that are ripe for rediscovery. And travel--sometimes covering an event, such as with Bloody Scotland, and sometimes a destination piece with a writer: Denise Mina’s Glasgow, Julie Smith’s New Orleans, etc.”

So what does Clare think will best distinguish Noir Magazine from Mystery Scene, Deadly Pleasures, Crimespree, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and other longer-established publications designed for lovers of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction?

“I’ve been asked this question quite a lot,” she writes. “First, the technology will greatly differentiate the publication: adding media such as sound and video (sampling the song list in Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole series, for example); including exclusive trailers from films and video of interviews with writers and celebrities will change the experience a great deal. Also, the tablet format permits us to really be able to market to an international readership. The largest expenses for a printed publication are paper, printing, bindery, acquisition of subscriptions, and distribution--postage--especially long-distance distribution. We are hoping that our publication will appeal to English-speaking fans all over the world. However, in time we hope to add a printed component to Noir Magazine, perhaps an annual anthology of our original graphic novellas.

“I also want to add that the genre is so large and broad, I think that there cannot be too many publications. Competition is good, and each magazine appeals to different aspects of the readership. Ours will be different in a few ways, I believe. We plan to make it more of a ‘lifestyle’ publication, as it were. I use this term in the magazine sense. So, in the past issues that Rip and I have done, we’ve teased out an aspect found in mysteries (guns, for example) and created a stylized photo essay to go along with it. We both love doing this sort of thing and it’s a very ‘magazine-y’ approach to the subject. Also, Rip and I are coming to this project after years of being magazine professionals at major mainstream publications (Los Angeles Times Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, InStyle, Esquire). We hope to utilize the longtime relationships we have with publicists to gain access to the stars who are in the roles of some of mystery’s most iconic characters. We hope to provide a magazine that not only satisfies longtime fans of the mystery, thriller, and true-crime genres, but attracts new fans.”

OK, so how much cold, hard cash is this tablet-formatted amalgam of literary wonders going to cost readers?

“We are still noodling that with the money folk,” Clare explains. “But, and this is just a very early projection, we hope to charge $4.95 for single issues and between $25 [and] $30 for an annual subscription of 10 issues per year.” She adds that the debut edition “will be [for the] iPad only; subsequent issues will be available in Android (for which I believe there is an application that will make it readable on a computer). And eventually we will have a smartphone app.”

Again, if you would like to pitch a few additional rubles into the Noir coffers, you can still do so here. The periodical has a Facebook page in place, as well as a Web site, though the latter is still in the development phase. Not unlike Noir Magazine itself.