Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified

My Kingdom for a Voice

Sometimes I forget what I really love until I see it.

Most devotees of crime fiction read for story (plot) and character. That's the baseline. If you don't have that, you don't have anything.

But there are plenty of (choose one: good - likable - interesting - conflicted - complicated) characters out there, and at the end of the day, there are only so many plots. You can find lists all over the Internet of the six or seven plots, and some distill this list to two: "Someone goes on a journey" and "A stranger comes to town."

So that leads us to those other factors that make for a fine read. There's that all-important "good writing," so easy to require but so hard to define (though I've tried here on Mysterious Matters). Pacing is important, too; and I am always drawn to manuscripts that seek to do something new, different, brave, innovative. 

And to that list let me add something that always makes me stand up and take notice: VOICE. And there's nothing that knocks my socks off like a voice that jumps off the page and punches me in the face. Such books are rare; sadly, we're not seeing many really fresh voices in our genre these days, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. (In fact, I just ordered a few recently published books that have a lot of potential in this area, or at least it seems to me based on the Amazon previews.)

And I just finished a book - Liza Cody's MONKEY WRENCH - whose voice made me gasp with pleasure. If someone had tied me up and forced me to make my Top 10 list of breathtaking narrative voices, Liza Cody would have been on my list. There was a time when I regularly gushed about Cody's first Eva Wylie book, BUCKET NUT - the first of a trilogy starring Eva Wylie, the professional wrestler who goes by the name "The London Lassassin."  But it had been a while since I thought consciously of Liza Cody. Then, I was talking with my wife, who recounted a tale in which someone "threw a monkey wrench into the works." That got me thinking. "Monkey wrench, monkey wrench, great title for a book... wait, there's already a book with that title... a book that I love..." And then I remembered that while I've read BUCKET NUT a dozen times (and often recommend it to aspiring writers), I realized that I haven't reread the other two books in the triology (MONKEY WRENCH and MUSCLEBOUND). And so... I opened MONKEY WRENCH again and found myself immediately drawn into its vast pleasures of language.

For those of you who don't know Eva Wylie, she is the adult daughter of a former prostitute who is bound and determined to take the world of wrestling by storm. And she's a mystery. Is she a person of low functioning intelligence, or a person of high intelligence with some sort of personality disturbance or learning disability? These books were published, I think, at a time when the world wasn't quite aware of Asperger's Syndrome (if, indeed, that's how Eva would be classified today). Eva narrates these books in first person. She just wants to be left alone (like Romulus Ledbetter in George Dawes Green's The Caveman's Valentine, another triumph of voice), but she's forever getting sucked into the problems of others. Watching Eva muscle her way through these books - simultaneously spot-on AND clueless in her perceptions - is a marvel to behold. On every page of MONKEY WRENCH I found a delight: whether a word, a sentence, a scene, or an insight. This is fabulous and brave writing with a voice to bring down the house. 

As I finished the book and prepare myself to read the third of the trilogy, I find myself sad that there are no more. Cody stopped her series after the third book; and I wonder if this is one of the reasons that Eva remains as fresh today as she was in the early 1990s. Cody didn't stretch Eva Wylie to death; my guess is that she realized that the perfect conception of Eva made her a credible heroine for three books, and that more than that might have taken a marvelous creation and turned her into a joke. So, for all who have not met Eva Wylie -- run, run to the nearest bookseller and treat yourself.

And a publishing aside: I was reminded that Cody was published in these glory days by Mysterious Press. What a publishing house! I would have given my eye teeth to work there back in the day. That legacy inspires what I do every day.

Rest In Peace, Maxine Clarke (1954 - 2012)

Today I was deeply saddened to learn that Maxine Clarke, one of the world's most voracious readers of crime fiction, as well as one of its best critics, has passed away.  

Mystery lovers on both sides of the pond are well acquainted with Maxine's alter-ego, Petrona, under which she blogged. In trying to think of an appropriate title for this tribute to her, I experimented with several. "The Angel of Mystery" - too sappy. "Mystery's Best Emissary" - not bad, because I'd be hard pressed to identify any critic who loved and supported the genre more. The best I can come up with is "The Conscience of the Mystery" - because she kept everyone honest: writers, publishers, editors, critics, other reviewers.  When she loved something, she told us why and made us go to Amazon to buy the book immediately; when she hated something, she skewered it efficiently, intellectually, devastatingly. In the end, I decided to file this blog entry under "The Best of Mystery" and "The Best of Books" because Maxine belongs in both categories.

I did not know Maxine well, or personally. We corresponded a bit over the years, and she was kind enough to do a guest blog for Mysterious Matters. She was a tireless advocate for crime fiction in translation and, through her blog, introduced me to writers who have since become favorites. What an editor of crime fiction she would have been, if she had chosen that career path instead of scientific publishing, on which she made a mark that was just as deep and important.

Maxine's writing and criticism were a unique mix of intellectual honesty and passion. She said what she thought, directly and openly; let's not forget, this is the woman who, not too long ago, suggested that Otto Penzler is an idiot. (Just typing that sentence makes me nervous.) She wasn't afraid to disagree openly, and she did so often; but what disagreement it was!  It was never of the you're-a-stupid-jerk-for-thinking-that-way, god-what-a-ignorant-fool-you-are variety. It was "You liked that? I didn't; and we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one."  Which, for me, is the epitome of what civilized discourse should be about.

Maxine, all of us who publish, edit, write, publicize, read, and love mysteries will miss you.  Rest in peace.

 

Would I Have Bought It? - A Look at the Bestseller List

In the throes of Hurricane Sandy, I feel like trying something new here on Mysterious Matters. For this one, we'll move beyond mysteries/crime fiction into the book world in general.

I recently met a tenacious youg man who told me that he was not going to let me out of his sight until he understands how I think. I didn't know whether to be flattered or call the police. I chose the former, because he wasn't so much fixated on selling me his work as he was in trying to understand how decision are made. I wished I could have given him a non-blabbering answer.

He shared with me a frustration that I'm sure many writers feel. To wit: He is forever reading junk, and he wants to know how it gets published while he continues to devote 26 hours a day to finding an agent to represent him. 

So today I am going to look at the Amazon Top 100 list (October 29, 2012, at 5:00 p.m.) and I'm going to tell you about the best-sellers and whether or not I would have bought the manuscript. My ground rules for this exercise:

• I'm only going to comment on books or writers with which I have direct experience.
• For established writers, I'm going to base my decision on whether I would have bought their first published manuscript.
• I'm basing my decisions on the published work, which may be very different from the manuscript that made the rounds.

Maybe some of the thoughts below will provide those who are interested with some insight into how a publisher thinks.

Amazon #1

Proof of Heaven

Eben Alexander

Absolutely yes - I would have paid good money for this one. In U.S. society, I see no greater split between those with faith and those without. And as a society we're perpetually arguing about the intersection of faith, business, and medicine. So, here we have the story of a doctor who believes he went to heaven during a coma. As fiction, it would be a hard sell for the mass market, I think. As nonfiction, I think it will achieve a level of credibility (as a result of its authorship) while also openly addressing a yearning that many people feel (but often leave unexpressed). 

 

Amazon #2

The Racketeer

John Grisham

I never had the opportunity to reject a Grisham manuscript, but based on his early published work - A Time to Kill, The Firm - I would likely have passed him by. I have a thing against lawyers, and Grisham has never succeeded in making me like his milieu. Honestly - and here's where it's fair for everyone to question the judgment of those making publishing decisions - I am always surprised when a lawyer book hits the best-seller list. As a society, I think we thoroughly dislike attorneys, which should make us unwilling to read fiction about them. However, I do think some books are published for the dude-lit market, and Grisham fits in that category nicely. Guys can go adventuring with Clive Cussler, or they can engage in power fantasies with lawyer protags, which is why I think the Grisham books sell. And Grisham's protags have a moral center, too, which is helpful in overcoming the lawyer perception obstacle. However, there are still dozens, hundreds, thousands of other corrupt, awful people in the legal profession. Which means that they're usually the supporting cast, which makes me run for the hills.

 

Amazon #11

Fifty Shades of Grey

E. L.  James 

At the risk of sounding snobby: Absolutely not. Never in a million years. Not if you were holding a gun to my head and threatening to pull the trigger if I didn't ink the contract.  The problems here are the most basic problems you can get in a book: poor writing and a dull plot. The fact that it's a mega-bestseller doesn't change the basic truth about the book. Maybe if I'd read the manuscript I would have thought, "Well, she is tapping into society's simultaneous obsession with sex and its deeply conflicted feelings about it" - but then I would have thought, "No, I'm trying too hard to be open-minded." Of course, many will now write to me and tell me that this approach to books is what's killing the industry. 

 

Amazon #13

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn

I would have bought it, but with a few reservations (which I blogged about a few weeks ago). Then I would have gnashed my teeth waiting to see what PW, Booklist, and Kirkus would have said about it. For Flynn's debut novel, Sharp Objects, I would have called to offer a contract the second I finished reading the manuscript.

 

Amazon #16

The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling

I've never done children's or YA books, but I would definitely have passed on the first Harry Potter. I admit, I'm not a fan of Rowling. I find her to be mistress of the painfully obvious. I got through the first 100 pages of The Casual Vacancy and then put it aside for the same reasons I never liked Harry Potter. I can't quite put a finger on exactly why, but I have always found Rowling's tone to be somewhat condescending; it's like she takes herself much too seriously. This is probably why I'm not a children's or YA book editor. Clearly, younger readers like protagonists who are desperately earnest and serious, but as an adult I find such characters painfully dull to read about. The first 100 pages of The Casual Vacancy are an unpleasant affair, and if the author had not been J.K. Rowling, I wonder if the manuscript would have picked up an agent. I think it probably would not have, as the market niche for it would have fallen into the "literary" category, and yet it misses the subtlety, understanding, depth, and sheer wordsmithing of a literary work.

 

Amazon #26

Winter of the World

Ken Follett

While I haven't read Follett's earliest work (published under pseudonyms), I am a huge fan of Eye of the Needle, Triple, and The Key to Rebecca. Follett's plots are ingenious, and (to his vast credit) not so complicated or convoluted that I end up scratching my head. He's also a fine writer and good with character. So, yes, I would have snatched up any of those early books in a heartbeat. And then, when Follett told me he wanted to do a historical novel (The Pillars of the Earth), I would have said to him, "If anyone can move out in another direction, it's you."

 

Amazon #51

Life of Pi

Yann Martel

When the pitch from the agent (which I imagine went something like "A modern Robinson Crusoe is left stranded at sea with a tiger in a tiny dinghy") crossed my desk, I would have rolled my eyes, I'm sure. Animal books are often a safe bet, but I usually hate books that attempt to "update" literature or that feature great historical figures or writers as main characters. What could Yann Martel do in a manuscript that, say, Alfred Hitchock hadn't already done in Lifeboat? But the manuscript would have been one of those eye-opening experiences that made me change my mind by the fifth page. The book is magical and has stayed with me since its publication. I would have bought it and considered in one of my greatest acquistions.

 

Amazon #56

Notorious Nineteen

Janet Evanovich

I know I haven't been above taking potshots at Evanovich here on Mysterious Matters. But there's a reason for that. Like few other writers (except Patterson), she's succeeded in commodifying her work to such an extent that it has become completely empty. When One for the Money came out in 1994, I thought it was a very savvy piece of publishing. Evanovich basically took Sue Grafton's formula, screwballed it up, and made her character a dipstick. I don't think the book could have been published in a more ardently feminist era, but by the early 1990s feminism had begun to harbor some discontents. The world wanted to laugh a bit more, and Evanovich made that happen. So, would I have bought One for the Money?  Yes, but I wouldn't have paid a lot for it. I certainly never would have predicted that the books would become what they are today (note that Notorious Nineteen will not be published until next month, and it is already #56 on Amazon's best-seller list). 

 

Amazon #72

NYPD Red

James Patterson

I don't know the earliest work (which has been extensively republished), but I would have jumped on Along Came a Spider, which displays in all of what Patterson does (or used to do) very well, along with all of his flaws. With NYPD Red, though, we see that Patterson not only doesn't write his books, he can't even come up with original titles any longer. Readers who complain about the lack of really good books out there should help spread the word about what happens when readers keep buying mediocre books by writers who now phone it in, or just outsource it completely. 

 

Amazon #98

The Bone Bed

Patricia Cornwell

Cornwell's Postmortem was published in the early 1990s and represented the other side of the Stephanie Plum coin. For those enraged by Stephanie's under-utilization of her brain, we had Kay Scarpetta, a smart, independent woman who could hold her own. Moving the premise of Quincy, M.E., into the pages of a book, Cornwell tapped into what happens physiologically in murders, moving beyond the simple "whodunnit" formula and even beyond the "whydunnit" into a new world teeming with promise for fictional exploration. I'm pretty sure I would have bought Postmortem. Now, though, I want to know why Cornwell is confusing her positioning by using the word Bone in the title, a la Kathy Reichs?

 

Best Gumshoe: Chosen by Nobody Important

To its credit, TIME magazine recently featured an issue with a large section devoted to books. And yet, I feel the need to complain.

In a column named "Tweet Beat," the magazine asked "Who's the Greatest Gumshoe?"  The responses were introduced thus: "It's been a good week for Sherlock Holmes, whose latest incarnation, on CBS's Elementary, drew 1.3 million viewers for its premiere. Which other fictional detectives could rival that? We asked @TIME followers to solve the mystery."

Why, I can't help but ask myself, must interest in gumshoes be spurred by really poor television shows (have you seen Elementary?  It's awful, with the leads completely unsuited to their parts), especially in a magazine section ostensibly devoted to books? Just about anyone who knows anything will tell you that mysteries are America's favorite genre - a fact to which most librarians will attest. Why does everything in the media have to come back to celebrity, and to people who are already famous?

Here are the answers chosen by the editors, apparently submitted via Twitter:

@StanMorris: "Batman. He isn't just a 9-5 sleuth - he lives it!"

@anuardyygjong: "Miss Marple, 'cause Sherlock is too mainstream and Hercule Poirot is a dork."

@kpa42: "Harry Dresden. Magic, romance, mystery, humor and noir, all wrapped up in one cowboy-boots-and-sweatpants-wearing package.'

@heathernewkirk: "NANCY DREW! She taught girls to test gender norms, fight back, and ask questions. She also drove an awesome car."

@Ian_Lord: "The Dude from The Big Lebowski. He was stoned and still cracked the case!"

Let's take a closer look at this list and the way it was chosen.

I'm guessing the editor is a woman with children. As a good editor, she made sure both men and women are represented, plus she got the kid angle in there with Harry Dresden.

I also note that (she) chose tweets that focus on two classic women detectives while taking a potshot at "dorky" Hercule Poirot. Look at the list of people included here: the key criterion for inclusion is not brilliance, or hard work, or an incisive intellect, but rather a level of Hollywood-style coolness. (Nancy Drew wasn't smart - she drove a cool car. The Dude is stoned, but he's cool.) In other words, Encylopedia Brown and the many other classic gumshoes with brilliant, logical minds don't qualify to be in a list of the best gumshoes. They're just not cool enough. (Sherlock can't make the list because he's not edgy enough; he's too much part of the "mainstream.")

If I asked readers of Mysterious Matters to leave me a list of their Top 5 gumshoes, I would bet that almost none of the submissions would be celluloid-based. More evidence to support my frustrated assertions (in previous posts) that the movies (and TV) get all the attention while books struggle to get noticed. Why do book discussions in our society have to be informed and undergirded by a Hollywood sensibility? 

With a Books section, TIME had the opportunity to bring some really wonderful (but not very well-known) mystery writers to the attention of a public that is getting pretty damn tired of Janet Evanovich and James Patterson (if the Amazon reviews are any indication). Did they do that?  No, they went for the lowest common denominator and chose names that almost everyone would recognize and not spur any real interest in signing on to Amazon and looking for a new book by non-famous author X.  

And what do we know, really, about these Tweeters? Nothing, and that's probably the point. Here's where things get tricky. I can think of at least half a dozen really good editors and agents who could have brought some informed intellect to this discussion. (I want to mention them by name, but don't want them to get bombarded with unwanted submissions, so I won't do so.) I can even think of many devoted readers who would probably have provided a list with some surprises. That list would have been so much more interesting than this fairly useless list.

But I am a publisher who believes we have to listen to readers ... that we've spent too many years in our ivory towers and that many of us are out of touch with what readers want. To do that, we have to be willing to listen to intelligent folks who can guide us as we make acquisition and publishing decisions. Do @anuardyudjong and @heathernewkirk fit into that category? Damned if I know. On Amazon, I can look at a person's reviews and say, "This person knows what s/he's talking about" - but what can I tell about a person from a Tweet reprinted in a magazine? Can anyone really say anything worth hearing in 144 characters or less?

I know, I know: The Tweeters and the Facebookers are the "opinion leaders" of our day. And it's a lot easier for an editor to pick out a few responses from 144-character tweets than it is to read through a bunch of letters to the editor. But magazines are trying to survive, and they're doing it by increasing their online presence, so can I really fault them for giving their online readers a voice? Of course I can't, because I'm catering to those same people by getting our books onto all the major e-readers and encouraging authors to harness the media however they can.

Next time, TIME, can you please give us at least a few recommended titles (so that we can sell some books), a few entries that challenge the status quo, and a few entries in which intelligence is at least as important as being cool?

 

 

 

Bill Pronzini: An Appreciation

Bill Pronzini:
An Appreciation

 

I always knew, but was recently reminded, that the longest-running series in mystery fiction is Bill Pronzini's Nameless series. It began in 1971 and continues through today. The most recent title is BETRAYERS, and I understand that the next installment, HELLBOX, will be published this summer.

Over the years, we've watched Nameless age and take on partners in his San Francisco-based detective agency, including the stoic Jake Runyon, the enterprising Alex Chavez, and the sassy computer expert, Tamara. While I haven't read every book in the series over the past 40 or so years, I have ready many of them, and I can't remember a clunker in the bunch.

How do I like Pronzini? Let me count the ways.

First, Pronzini makes everything look so effortless. The books, which sometimes have a hardboiled element to them, are as smooth as cream. Pronzini knows how to pack meaning into each and every word, so readers never find themselves wading through endless verbiage to get to the point.

Pronzini also keeps in mind what so many other seem to have forgotten: Longer isn't better. He's like the writers for the old Crime Club, who told their story, turned their characters upside down, and threw in a twist every couple of chapters for 180 tight pages. As a result, the books are extremely fast reading, made all the more enjoyable by the multiple plot strands Pronzini tends to weave, especially in later books. 

I think crime fiction, especially first novels, tend to suffer from the "anxiety of influence" that Harold Bloom talked about. Many writers (admittedly, not all of them, but those who are more serious about their careers and success) ask themselves how they are going to make their mark. A lot of them think it's going to happen with some wacky character or a series of punning titles. As a result the books can get loopy and forced - or, on the other side of the coin, pretentious and ponderous. Pronzini has never been a show-off; he does what he does with consummate skill, even when he's pulling off some really twisted plot turns (I particularly like FEVER in this regard).

I think I've said in the past that I like to see themes explored in crime fiction, but not in a heavy-handed way. For me at least, this is the sign of someone who thinks a lot about his or her writing. I'm all for escapism, and I publish plenty of it, proudly. But I like when books make you think just a little bit beyond the last page. And Pronzini's themes are there, proudly and overtly, in his one-word titles. In FEVER, for example, he explores different types of fever, including gambling, series of extramarital affairs, and others. In CAMOUFLAGE, his theme is the unseen camouflage people wear to hide their true motives or personalities. SCHEMERS and BETRAYERS are pretty self-explanatory...and I can't wait to see what HELLBOX is all about. 

Finally, I like that Pronzini has written books outside the Nameless series - books like THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE, which are just as good as the Nameless books.

I think the new generation of aspiring writers can learn a lot from Pronzini - about jumping into a story immediately, about making characters tough but real, about plotting, about not writing the same book a dozen times. He's a passage from FEVER:

The big hype is that cell phones are one of the wonders of the modern age. Bells and whistles galor. You can talk to others, receive voice and text messages, send text messages, take photographs, play music and games, access your e-mail, and, for all I know, track the progress of herds of elephants on the African veldt. All in one self-contained little unit that fits in your shirt pocket and the palm of your hand. Some people seem to worship the things; they're the ones you see every day on streets and highways and sidewalks and in public buildings with cells guled to their ears and rapt, satisifed expressions on their faces. Instant telecommunication orgasms delivered by your choice of jaunty, sappy tunes and other fun electronic noises... A phone, in my old-fashioned world, is an instrument that provides necessary--emphasis on the word necessary--access to another person for a definite purpose. IT is not a toy. It is not a source of public auditory (or visual) masturbation. Above all, it should not be, but too often is, an annoying, attention-distracting, accident-causing, self-indulgent plaything used at others' expense... [But] once you give people a fancy new toy, you'd better not try to take it away from them; it produces tantrums, and in adults tantrums can sometimes be accompanied by guns, knives, and other deadly weapons. (pp. 182-185).

Right on, Bill.  If, someday, this blog goes blank, you will know it is because I have been killed by someone who is texting while driving. I see that every single day of my life.

Is a Sociopath Living Next Door?

I don't venture into nonfiction too often - there's too much crime fiction to keep up with - but every so often a book grabs my attention. A few days ago I finished Martha Stout's THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR, pubished a number of years ago (2005). The cover, which I find eerily effective, is reminiscent of the frontispiece of my copy of Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD, of which I am lucky enough to own a first edition. I've always believed you can tell a lot about someone by looking into his/her eyes.  Of the three pairs shown at left, I'd trust the top set of eyes the least.

I write about the book here today because I think it would be of interest to readers and writers of crime fiction. I had an epiphany as a result of reading this book, but more on that later.

Stout's primary thesis is based on the rather shocking statistic that 1 in 25 people, or 4% of the total population, is a sociopath. Stout cites the DSM's definition of the multiple criteria that help psychologists identify a sociopathic personality, but for her a sociopath comes down to one simple criterion: a complete lack of conscience. The book provides composite portraits, based on real people, of sociopaths, and it was a relief to discover that not all sociopaths are crazed murderers. They're all manipulative and all without a conscience, but some have no grander ambition than to destroy the lives of people they're jealous of, or to find a spouse who'll support them.

I'm not a psychologist, so I don't have the credentials to really evaluate this book. I can say that the author is a marvelous writer; her case studies of sociopaths read like good thrillers. I can't help but question her primary assertion - that 1 in 25 people is a sociopath - which doesn't seem to be supported by any specific data. She also seems to equate sociopaths and psychopaths, and yet I had always understood there to be a difference between the two. I thought a sociopath was more of antisocial personality, while a psychopath is truly incapable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. I looked in my copy of the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, and there I see that the editors do draw a distinction between the two types, considering psychopaths more extreme than sociopaths.

Within the pages of her book, Stout not only describes the way sociopaths behave, she also talks about how to spot them. The key, she suggests, it to look for someone who is consistently manipulative and who constantly plays on people's symapthy to make it seem as though s/he is the victim. That was an eye-opening discussion for me, as I'd worked with a woman a number of years ago I had never liked. She came across as a sweet, hard-working, long-suffering professional who just wanted what's best for everyone. And yet I'd always thought she would have ripped the spines out of anyone who stood in her way. I'll never know for sure - she disappeared into the Midwest a number of years ago - but now I think I understand her better...

But time for the epiphany. I'm not much of a reader of thrillers or serial-killer books. Part of the reason is that the former often seem contrived to me, while the latter often seem like the work of lazy writers who couldn't be bothered to come up with something original. But, thinking about it more deeply, I realized that these books often feature sociopaths as their villains/drivers of the action. And those characters have just never seemed quite believable to me. The men always seem like versions of Dick Distardly tying the heroine to the train tracks, while the women always seem like a version of Natasha Fatale (cohort of Boris Badenov on the old Bullwinkle cartoons). I make these comparisons to cartoons for a reason: The "bad guys" of thrillers and serial-killer books often seem like over-the-top, cartoonish versions of human beings. I just can't suspend disbelief that far to see them as versions of "real people."

And yet, as I learned from The Sociopath Next Door, socipaths are exactly like the bad guys we often see in thrillers and other crime fiction. Stout makes the point that people who have a conscience have a hard time conceiving of anybody not having one; a conscience, she argues, is such an innate part of being human that normal human beings just can't make the leap into thinking that another person would be completely devoid of conscience. Aha! And right there Stout opened my eyes to what happens when I read a certain type of fiction: I can't believe the villain because I can't accept that such a type of person exists. But they do exist, Stout argues; and after reading her book, I believe her. And I am venturing to guess that this newfound realization will affect how I react to villains from now on.

That said, I probably would take the book with a grain of salt. In addition to her primary thesis about 4% of the population being sociopathic, she makes some other questionable assertions. For example, she suggests that Western/U.S. society, with its sense of individualism, is more prone to producing sociopaths than Asian/Eastern culture, because those cultures inculcate a sense of community/ collective responsibility in their children from birth onward. Thus, Stout suggests, while Eastern cultures may have just as many sociopaths, those with sociopathic tendencies may remain on the straight and narrow because society prevents them from blossoming into full-blown sociopaths. The argument here doesn't sound particularly strong to me, but then again I'm not qualified as a psychologist, except an amateur one who likes to make sure that the books I acquire and edit are populated by believable characters who are driven by a set of needs, motivations, and personality traits.

 

A Tribute to the Grand Masters

To do my job, I feel that I have to keep one foot planted in the past and one planted in the future, with the rest of my body in that ill-defined space called "the present."

So, while I do my best to keep up with what's being published and what's succeeding (as well as what isn't), I like to revisit the greats. 

The first Grand Master award for lifetime achievement was bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America on Agatha Christie in 1955. The three most recent recipients have been Dorothy Gilman (2010), Sara Paretsky (2011), and Martha Grimes (2012).

Something I really like and respect about the Grand Master award is that it has been earned. Unlike so many other awards in the various industries (film, publishing, etc.), the Grand Master award is bestowed with care - or at least it has always seemed to me. Reading over the entire list of recipients, it's hard to see anyone who doesn't seem worthy, though there are a few whose links to mystery seem more tenuous (Graham Greene in 1976, John Le Carre in 1984, Daphne du Maurier in 1978, Stephen King in 2007).

More sad, for me at least, is the number of writers on the Grand Masters list who are out of print or receive very little "press" or chatter. I've waxed rhapsodic about Margaret Millar (1983's Grand Master) in the past and tried via Mysterious Matters to get at least a few more people to look for her books. 

I haven't read ALL of the Grand Masters yet, but I plan to do, sometime between now and the time I die. Here are a few books I've read recently by the Grand Masters (with some Agathovian observations). The full list of Grand Masters can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Writers_of_America.

1. GEORGE HARMON COXE (1964 Grand Master), Moment of Violence.

When I first picked up this book, the title seemed very Dell Shannonesque, and I was expecting a police procedural. Truthfully, I did not know much about Coxe; he seemed to be quite respected in his time, but I believe all of his books are out of print. Moment of Violence is what I call a straight-out mystery. The attorney protag, David Payne, flies down to Barbados to help out his former mentor, who is about to be cheated out of a valuable property. Upon arrival, he finds a body - and the investigation proceeds from there, in a very tight 190 pages. Coxe isn't a stylist, but he does make good use of the femme fatale who was so essential to the earliest detective stories. There's very little fat here: Just a solid mystery, good detection, and minimalist description. I enjoyed the book but would have to read more Coxe to formulate an opinion. 

2. DOROTHY B. HUGHES (1978 Grand Master), A Fine and Private Place.

Hughes was very respected in her day, and her talent is on display in A Fine and Private Place. (I also like The Davidian Report, but am less of a fan of Ride the Pink Horse, which I find very s-l-o-w.)  Crazed psychos have become a fairly large part of the modern mystery/thriller population, but I don't think the earlier practitioners of the craft had the vocabulary we have to describe a certain type of person. But in In a Lonely Place (1947) Hughes wrote a very fine portrait of a sociopath and the forces of the law closing in on him. The books holds up very well, and I hope some readers of Mysterious Matters will consider going to Amazon or the local library and finding a Hughes to curl up with.

3. STANLEY ELLIN (1981 Grand Master), House of Cards.

A one-time president of MWA, Ellin was also a strong writer in his own right. Some of my favorites of his include House of Cards, Very Old Money, and Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.  Like Margaret Millar, Ellin never wrote the same book twice; the books can be long and expansive (House of Cards) or short and disturbing (Mirror, Mirror). 

Truthfully, there are some names on the Grand Master list with which I have zero acquaintance: Vincent Starrett (1958), Baynard Kendrick (1967), Aaron Marc Stein (1979), Edward D. Hoch (2001 - I believe he is more known for his short stories than for novels; and short stories are not my strong suit). Sometime between now and death, I'll find something of theirs to read.

Looking at the list, though, one can't help but notice some really glaring omissions. For example, where is Charlotte Armstrong? Elisabeth Sanxay Holding? Margery Allingham? Henry Holt? Leslie Charteris? Celia Fremlin? If practitioners of the Gothic are included (Phyllis Whitney and Daphne du Maurier are on the list), then shouldn't Mary Stewart also be honored? How about Cornell Woolrich, Andrew Vachss? Doubtless we all have favorites with prodigious output whom we'd like to see honored. 

 

 

 

 

Time Capsule: The First Deadly Sin, by Lawrence Sanders

For me, the cooler weather corresponds to the time when I'm more likely to pick up a nice, big, heavy book and hunker down with it. The first book of fall for me was Lawrence Sanders' breakthrough, THE FIRST DEADLY SIN, copyright 1973.

A little background: I had generally liked Sanders but found his work uneven. Some of the stand-alones were interesting and creepy, but I could not stand the foppish McNally, on whom Sanders focused later in his career and prior to his death.

I am, however, a big fan of Captain Edward X. Delaney of Manhattan's 251st Precinct. I rarely read every book by any given author, but my wife and I stopped at a diner a month or so ago, and we were served two massive and sloppy sandwiches that were delicious but not easy to eat. This put Delaney back into my mind, with his penchant for eating sloppy sandwiches over the sink. I looked over the shelves for a book in the Delaney series I hadn't read, then found a nice first edition hardcover for 5 bucks.

Reading the book 38 years after its publication, I found myself asking a lot of questions. 

1. Would this book be published today? That's the $64,000 question. At 566 pages, it is much, much too long. Nothing happens for the first hundred pages, the plot doesn't kick into gear until page 200, and the pace doesn't pick up until page 400. If this manuscript crossed my desk today, I would send it back to agent or editor with a note saying, "Trim 250-300 pages and send it back to me." True, Sanders does spend the first couple of hundred pages leisurely exploring/building character, but I don't think readers have the time, or the patience, for that any longer. For this reason, and a few others I'll get into below, I don't think the book has aged well.

2. Am I a prude?  I don't think I am. I like hardboiled and can handle some rough stuff. But this book contains two scenes that are so objectionable and perverted that I almost had to put the book down. I exclaimed on both occasions to my wife, "What the hell is Sanders doing?" The scenes are not only upsetting, they are also completely gratuitous and add nothing to the plot. I could have suggested one simple change to the author what would have made the inclusion on the borderline of acceptability.  I look back and think, "Well, this was the early 1970s, and the sexual revolution was in full swing," so maybe I'm being hypersensitive? But I don't think I am, and I think that if the manuscript had come across my desk in 1972, I think I would have gotten to the aforementioned scenes, then perhaps called the police.

3. What makes a book timeless vs. time-specific?  This isn't a question I pondered in detail; it's really more a way of pointing out that reading The First Deadly Sin is like going back to New York City, frozen in time in the early 1970s. Those who visit the city (or live there) today may not remember the incredible cesspool of filth and danger it was at that time, when 5 homicides were committed per day within city limits. Sanders really captures the Manhattan of that time, when people were home by dark and rarely walked down a street, even in the best neighborhoods, without looking over their shoulders. It was also a time when a police chief could afford to own a four- or five-story brownstone on the east side on an officer's salary. I thought Sanders also captured the Bohemian aspects of the City well; those are as much in evidence today as they were then. But the New York of The First Deadly Sin is an ugly place. Today, New York City has gay marriage; in this book, cops rattle off the list of undesirables who come out at night: "rapists, murders, flashers, voyeurs, pedophiles, homosexuals." Needless to say, there are almost no women on the force, except those who work undercover to catch prostitutes or serve as proxies when women decoys are needed.

To my surprise and disappointment, Captain Delaney doesn't eat sandwiches over the sink in this earliest installment, though he does enjoy a good sandwich fairly regularly - as well as good amounts of booze, even on the job. 

It's also a dark book, not really shocking given the book's title. But this one is much darker than the others I remember reading. Also, interestingly, I found myself having to consult various lists of the deadly sins. One list had "Lust" as the first one - and that fits quite a bit with the book, especially the first two thirds. But it turns out that the sin in question is actually "Pride," in the sense of arrogance. In that way, Sanders has Delaney match wits with a criminal who is, perhaps, the dark side of Delaney himself, and I found that interesting, if a bit heavy-handed.

Next on my list, I'm going back even further, to Erle Stanley Gardner. I've decided I need to get back to the greats, because too much of what I've been reading lately has been so disappointing. Perhaps, though, with NaNoWriMo looming, I can look forward to the next Janet Evanovich or Mary Higgins Clark crossing my desk in the new year. 

The Joys of the Locked Room

Lately I've been on a Golden Age kick.  I think it's because so many of the manuscripts coming in have been so weak on plot and detection, and I've been hankering for a truly mysterious mystery. In a lot of the older/Golden Age books, the reader is put in the position of needing to be smarter than, or just as smart as, the detective. I like that sort of contest - the type of book in which clues are planted and the killer is fingered through good, old-fashioned thinking, logic, and deduction.

One of the "classic" mystery plots, which I think most ambitious writers have tried their hands at once or twice, is the locked-room mystery. All the greats have done them. Why?  I'm guessing here, but it seems to me that the locked-room puzzle is a particular challenge for writers who want to push themselves. After all, how do you write a locked-room puzzle without doing what someone else has already done?  On the face of it, it doesn't look like there are too many ways to deal with a dead body in a locked room. At the same time, a locked room is often a treat for readers, who get to sit back and scratch their heads wondering: Is there a secret passage? A trap door under the carpet? A hidden window? If we're talking about mysteries as opposed to crime fiction, I can't think of anything more mysterious than a corpse in a room that nobody was able to get into or out of (the room, not the corpse, that is).

I was fortunate enough to read two terrific locked-room mysteries in the last couple of weeks, one by an old pro and one by a newbie, and I'm happy to recommend them here.

 

Schemers

Bill Pronzini

Pronzini probably needs no introduction. He's a Grand Master of the genre with more than 30 books to his credit, almost all of them with one-word titles. (He also happens to be married to Marcia Muller.) His Nameless detective was ground-breaking, though in the later books we do hear his name once or twice (for those who don't know it, I won't ruin the surprise). The books have evolved over the years, yet each stands alone - no mean feat for a series that's been running for decades. What I particularly like about Pronzini is the fact that he doesn't rest on his laurels and doesn't write the same book over and over again. The cast has changed, grown, and evolved over the years; but the joy of reading a Pronzini book is the sense that you know these characters even if you've not read a Pronzini before, because the author so deftly characterizes them.

I also love the spareness of Pronzini's prose. Not a word is wasted; he wrings the maximum meaning out of sentences and paragraphs. But he's never dense or turgid - I usually finish his books in two sittings because the pacing is breakneck and perfect. 

In Schemers, Pronzini juggles several plots and narratives. The first, investigated and narrated by Nameless himself, revolves around the theft of several precious first editions of classic mysteries, such as Christie's And Then There Were None. That's a treat for mystery lovers, of course, but it evolves into an even bigger treat as it leads to a locked-room mystery with a clever solution.  If I personally had to be murdered, I couldn't think of a better place for it to happen than in a library filled with valuable first editions of mystery classics.  The second plot, told in third person, follows Nameless' associate, Jake Runyon, as he investigates the stalker who is trying to wreck the lives of two brothers for reasons known only to the perp. The third plot revolves around "sex and the single girl" and is a bit of a cautionary tale.

If you haven't read Pronzini - if you like a locked-room mystery - or if you're just looking for a great read with strong plot and strong characters, pick up Schemers (or any Pronzini book) - I know you will thank me!

Nine Man's Murder

Eric Keith

Given that one of the rare books stolen in Schemers is an inscribed first edition of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (also known as Ten Little Indians), it was quite a treat to read this homage to that very work. I can't think of too many books that all mystery lovers have read, but I'd venture a guess that And Then There Were None is one of them.

Like Christie, Keith gathers a group of people in a remote location and begins knocking them off one by one. All are graduates of a detective-training school, and they have clearly pissed someone off badly. But motives seem hard to come by, and the murders continue. Because the cast is composed of people with detective training, they bring all their skills of logic and deduction to figure out what is going on - and they are still unable to stop the killer.  

Suspense aside (and this is a book that will keep you reading, simply because it is so puzzling that you must know what happens next), Nine Man's Murder is one of the strongest locked-room books I've read in a long time. I once heard someone describe Europe as a region of "peninsulas on peninsulas" - I would describe this book as locked-room mysteries inside locked-room mysteries, so there's triple or quadruple the pleasure for those who love these types of plots. There's a fairly large cast to keep track of - efforts in that regard are helped out by the Characters list in the frontmatter - all with secrets and grudges, and somehow you never know what's going to happen next or who will be the next victim. Like Christie and the Golden Age writers, Keith plants clues throughout - I was able to figure out one of the major plot points, but the explanations of all of the locked-room murders took me by surprise, which delighted me, as I enjoy an author who is several steps ahead of me. This is an old-fashioned mystery in the best sense of the phrase.

 

 

Small Press Raves: Devil-Devil, Death Line

This week I'm pleased to recommend two fairly new indie books published by terrific small presses.

  DEVIL-DEVIL

  By Grame Kent

  SoHo Crime 

 

I admit to being a huge fan of SoHo Crime, which I think consistently publishes some of the most genre-pushing books published today.  I also love how they take chances on stories that may not seem "mainstream" but are worthy for many other reasons.

Ironically, I'd say that Graeme Kent's Devil-Devil is fairly mainstream (and that is meant as a compliment, because it deserves to have a wide readership).  The first in a new series set in the South Pacific (Solomon Islands) of the 1960s, the book features native police sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita, an American missionary.  With its colonial setting and its respect for native cultures, it reminds me quite a bit of Upfield's Napoleon Bonaparte series.  Devil-Devil, though, has the decided advantage of being written recently and therefore being much easier to read!  

I always feel that writers who set their books in little-known places have a fine line to walk.  There is so much to explore and so much description to be done that the book can feel more like a travelogue or cultural guidebook than a novel. That's not the case here; native religion, local description, colonial politics, and good solid mystery/plot all intermingle here in a seamless way that keeps the story moving right along.  Kent has also left a bit of mystery about the outspoken Sister Conchita, a wise choice for first book in a series.  Perhaps Kent was the recipient of one of my favorite pieces of editorial advice: "Don't satisfy the reader fully - Hold back just a little so that s/he has reason to come back."

 

DEATH LINE

By Maureen Carter

Creme de la Crime

 

Now, here is one of my favorite topics: The dilemma of the "likable" protagonist.  As an editor I get so tired of seeing these protags who are the embodiment of all that is funny, virtuous, and intrepid.  Yes, those are all elements of good genre fiction, and yes, we do want a best friend who fits that bill - but I always find those who are somewhat, moderately, or even heavily unlikable much more interest.  And Maureen Carter has no illusions that any reader will want to become best friends with her detective, Bev Morriss - a foul-tempered, vindictive, Birmingham detective who couldn't care less if you love her or hate her.  She's brimming over with tempest, and a surfeit of emotions that will make many readers uncomfortable.  But I like feeling uncomfortable with a character - it only makes me want to watch her more closely.

Readers of Mysterious Matters may know that I'm a fan of Stuart MacBride and his Aberdeen series; his D.I. Roberta Steele, I had thought, was the most profane and over-the-top police in modern crime fiction.  And then I met Bev and realized that Steele is Louise Penny in comparison.  This book goes right for the gut, dealing with child abduction and child abuse - and the knife attack that almost killed Morriss but did succeed in killing her unborn twins.  It's not for the weak or sensitive, but if you like Vachss, Macbride, Ellroy, or any of the other toughies - you need to make Maureen Carter's acquaintance.