Second City to None in Books...

I am amazed and honored to report that TOXICITY was among the books cited by the Chicago Tribune in their list of favorite 2011 Chicago authors’ books!

Several other OUTFIT authors were also listed, including Laura Caldwell, Dave Heinzmann, Jamie Freveletti, and of course, rising TV star, Marcus Sakey. And Luis Alberto Urrea, Keir Graff, Michael Harvey, and Melanie Benjamin, also some fine authors and friends, were on the list as well.

Here's the link so you can read it yourself.

Chicago, the Second City? Bah, humbug!

It Takes Two, Baby...

Did you ever wonder how two people, especially two that are married to each other, can possibly write crime fiction together-- without murdering each other? We did. Luckily, we found someone who could tell us. Please welcome Aimee Thurlo, one half of the Aimee and David Thurlo writing team.


It takes two - at least in the Thurlo household - to create a novel. Our collaboration works because the two of us make one terrific writer.

Our partnership began after a long conversation where we each acknowledged our individual strengths and weaknesses as writers. We wanted to produce the best novels possible, so teaming up professionally seemed the logical way to go.

The subsequent years became a continual learning process. Writing a book is an incredibly uneven, unpredictable process that often takes us on a roller coaster ride of emotional highs and lows. Adapting to your partner’s eccentricities is a must. Taking into account that each of us has our own set of skills, voice, and method of working, we knew right away that we’d have to establish certain ground rules.

Sometimes, as it was in our case, it’s obvious who does what best. For example, my action scenes are horrendous. One time I got IUDs mixed up with IED’s. If David hadn’t caught it in time, our readers would have been rolling on the floor with laughter and our credibility lost forever. I also have no sense of direction, as evidenced by my driving skills. Without looking at my hands and/or wristwatch, I still have no idea which direction is left or right. Don’t even ask me to choose east or west. As a result, we decided right off the bat that David would choreograph all the action scenes and handle those details.

However, there’s also a yin to that yang . David’s weaknesses as a writer are precisely where I excel. My strengths lie in dialog, characterization, and in bringing out the emotions, essential to any compelling storyline.

Our latest Ella Clah mystery, Black Thunder, (Oct. 2011) is a perfect example of how our styles blend. In this suspenseful mystery Ella and her ad hoc investigative team have to track down a possible serial killer before he or she can strike again. At the same time, Ella struggles with pressures from home. Her little girl is now a teen with a mind of her own and those pesky, raging hormones that complicate every mom’s life.

The reviews for Black Thunder, our seventeenth southwest mystery, have been excellent. PW said it was an "insightful portrait of a native culture still evolving between tradition and modernity." Booklist, the Journal of the American Library Association, also gave it a favorable review, calling Special Investigator Ella Clah a "compelling character", and promised that our story "should keep readers on their toes until the final pages."

We also have a brand new romantic suspense novel coming out Nov. 1, Winter Hawk’s Legend. In this story Holly Gates must hide out with Daniel Hawk, the security expert sworn to protect her. She finds herself falling in love with him though, unlike her, he craves no home or family - just the same freedom as the great hawk. This is a story about the power of family, of hope, and the courage to defy the odds.

Winter Hawk’s Legend is a landmark book - our 30th for Harlequin Intrigue. To date our publisher has sold more than a million copies of our Harlequins.

Romantic Times gave Winter Hawk’s Legend 4½ stars, which means “in a class by itself.” My favorite review, however, came out in Genre Go Around. The reviewer said, “Winter Hawk’s Legend is a superb Native American mystery starring a woman in peril who has no concept as to who wants her dead or her unknown adversary’s motive. Thus readers have an innocent doing an innocent thing leading to her danger mindful of Alfred Hitchcock. Readers will relish team Thurlo’s enchanting New Mexico thriller.”

To be compared to Hitchcock, at any level, made our year.

I believe what makes David and I such a strong writing team is that we’re two very different people. We’re opposites in almost every way imaginable. For example, I take things way too personally. A mediocre review can put me either in the dumps or have me diving headlong into chocolate. David is calmer by nature, and his objectivity often helps me maintain an even keel.

Even our approach to writing is different. I can spend countless hours working over a paragraph and have the ability to shut out all distractions when I’m on deadline. Unless the kitchen blows up and I find myself without coffee, I stay on target. David, on the other hand, has a hard time sitting still for long periods of time. He usually plots our books while on the move. Afterwards, I go over the details of the storyline and fine tune it. Once again, though our styles are different - or maybe because of it - we balance each other.

Though our team has been very successful, our collaboration isn’t always smooth. The very fact that there are two of us working on the same words, pages, and story almost guarantees that there’ll be disagreements somewhere along the way. Since our first priority is the novel we’re working hard to create, we’ve agreed to settle those issues in a manner we believe is most beneficial to the work. If it’s an emotional or characterization problem, I have the last say, but David’s opinion takes precedent on any aspect of the plot or the actions scenes.

The rewards of working as a team are clear. When it’s time to celebrate victories, you’ll always have someone who understands the sacrifices it took to get that starred review, or that brand new multiple book contract. Yet, as a married couple who also works together, achieving balance remains our greatest challenge. Pressure can wreak havoc on a partnership, be it business or personal, so it’s crucial for us to find time to do fun things together, too. On Saturdays or Sundays we might choose to watch a football game together while eating gobs of popcorn. At other times, we’ll take our trio of standard poodles for a walk in the bosque, the wooded banks of the Rio Grande, or go for a long car ride down country back roads.

Teamwork takes work, but in the end run, I’ve got to say I’d never trade it for a solo act. As Ella Clah, our Navajo tribal police investigator might say, “When you’ve got good backup nearby anything is possible.”

Crime Fiction Writing Workshops

by Libby Hellmann

Hi, all. Having presented a bunch of smaller workshops over the years, I had the opportunity to conduct a full day on writing crime fiction at the Midwest Writers Conference a few weeks ago. The response of attendees was so good they inspired me. (Warning.. do not get inspired often -- it leads to work.) At any rate, I've decided to offer an intense one-day writing workshop here in Chicago... it will be at the Winnetka Community House on either September 24 or October 29.

Here's the gist of it:

Anatomy of a Crime Novel: The Craft of Crime Fiction"
Conducted by Libby Fischer Hellmann

They say that writing a publishable novel is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. In this hands-on intensive session, you'll sweat it out by exploring the elements of craft that make a crime fiction novel impossible to put down.

Whether you write cozies or hard-boiled, PI or amateur sleuth, you'll learn how the effective use of plot, narrative, voice, setting, character, dialogue, and suspense can take your work to the next level.

The workshop will focus on the practical as opposed to the theoretical, so be prepared for plenty of exercises and discussion.

Included in the price is a critique of 20 pages from your manuscript, provided it's submitted 30 days after the workshop. Libby will mark up the mss. using "track changes" and will talk on the phone with you about her comments.

Price: $375. Includes lunch, amenities, hand-outs, and edit of 20 pages. Class size limited to 12.

Questions? Contact me. Or you can sign up here.

2011 Workshops:
Saturday, September 24
Saturday, October 29
9-4 PM
Winnetka Community House
Winnetka, IL


Thanks. And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Research for Crime Writers: Get it right.

by Jamie Freveletti


With the advent of television shows like CSI and others, those writing detective novels and crime scene investigators are under increased pressure to write details about crime detection. Which is not to say that CSI depicts in any way the actual steps that go into an investigation. I've been to many seminars put forth by forensic scientists and all roll their eyes at some of the more incredible plot lines in the television show. Likewise, many thrillers stretch the truth and the abilities of the tools out there for crime detection. In fact, there are some tools that simply don't exist, but have become embedded into the collective unconsciousness to such an extent that audiences believe they do.


I ran into this latter problem when writing my first, Running from the Devil. In that novel, my protagonist, Emma Caldridge, is on an airplane that's downed in the Colombian jungle. The paramilitary group that downed the plane arrange to take away the airplane's flight recorder and then bomb the remains, making it difficult for investigators to find the wreckage. Early manuscript readers, though, didn't believe that a plane's wreckage would be difficult to find. All seemed to think that a simple google earth search would reveal its exact location quickly.


Not so. In fact, there are hundreds of airplanes that crash and are never recovered or found. Most are in the Pacific Northwest in America, where the wooded areas and mountainous regions do not lend themselves to easy access, and others in countries with areas like the jungle, where dense foliage block any chance of finding it. In order to deal with the readers' lack of credulity about a fact that was actually true, I wrote in an official of the US organization in charge of finding downed planes and had him recite the actual statistics to an (equally incredulous) main character. Problem solved.


Luckily for most authors, there are now classes and workshops arranged by trusted sources that will teach you all you need to know about crime scene detection and give it to you straight. Not only are these classes informative, but they're a lot of fun. The trick to finding them is to scan the events pages of associations like the International Thriller Writers (ITW) or the museums in your area. I recently received a link from the Natural History Museum in London that is putting on a terrific forensic investigation evening on June 24th. In this evening, one can view a crime scene and learn how to determine date and time of death by insect collection (complete with maggots! Love these creatures and used them in Running from the Devil) as well as tips on how to identify sex and height of skeletal remains. I wish I lived in London. If I did, I'd attend this one for sure.


But wherever you live, if you're writing crime you'll eventually have to learn the basics of crime scene detection. Gruesome as it sounds, it's actually quite interesting.


Whatever you do, try your best to get it right or you will receive emails setting you straight. Just about every writer has had a mistake or two surface in their manuscripts and there are whole websites devoted to the continuity mistakes in movies. I guess that's reassuring. Even Hollywood gets it wrong sometimes.

Reviews Wanted for e-Anthology

by Libby Hellmann

Hi, all. I've been very fortunate to hook up with a group of fabulous authors (in addition to those on The Outfit, of course), and we're e-publishing a new anthology April 1. We're looking for reviewers to help it launch it in style. Here's what we're saying:

Hold on tight for a literary thrill-ride into the wickedly clever, frightening, and exhilarating world of Top Suspense, a sizzling collaboration of twelve master storytellers at the peak of their powers in thirteen unforgettable tales. Max Allan Collins, Bill Crider, Stephen Gallagher, Lee Goldberg, Joel Goldman, Naomi Hirahara, Vicki Hendricks, Paul Levine, Harry Shannon, Dave Zeltserman, and yours truly.

This unforgettable anthology – packed full of cold-blooded killers, erotic tension, shady private eyes, craven drug dealers, vicious betrayals, crafty thieves, and shocking twists – is coming out on APRIL 1 and is only a taste of the thrills you will find in the breathtakingly original ebooks by these authors at www.topsuspensegroup.com.

But you can get a FREE ADVANCE READING COPY...in your e-format of choice.


Here’s all you have to do:

1. Send me an email through my website with the subject FREE TOP SUSPENSE BOOK and give me your name and the address of your website or blog (don’t have one? That’s okay. Read on).

2. Agree to post a review, positive or negative (but with no spoilers!) on your blog, website, Goodreads page, Facebook page, or the Amazon listing for TOP SUSPENSE in the next 60 days. (You don't have to buy the book on Amazon to review it there, you only need to have an account).

3. Email me a copy of the review or a link to the post.

Each Top Suspense author has been alotted just 25 copies to giveaway, so if you're interested, you'd better hurry. And once you get your book, sit back, bite down on a piece of strong leather, and prepare to get hit by some gale-force suspense and writing so sharp it will draw blood.


Hope to hear from you! Thanks.

Anthony Award Zone

by Libby Hellmann

There are only about 12 days until the deadline for Anthony Award nominations, and I need help. I don’t know what books to list. After 20 years I’ve finally started to keep a list of books I read, so I looked over my 2009 list. Unfortunately, most of the books I read (or listened to on audio) were published prior to 2009, or were ARCs of upcoming 2010 books. But I am going to Bouchercon, and I want to participate.

So, please, let me know the books you really enjoyed last year. I have just enough time to browse through them, read a few, and make my list. And, yes, if you want to recommend your own book, feel free.

In that spirit, if you haven't made your list, several members of the OUTFIT have 2009 novels that are eligible, including:

For Best Novel:
Doubleback, by Yours Truly
Foolproof, by Barb D’Amato (and Jeanne Dams and Mark Zubro)
The Hidden Man, by Dave Ellis
The Amateurs, by Marcus Sakey

For Best First:
Running From the Devil, by Jamie Freveletti
Starvation Lake, by Bryan Gruley
A Word To The Wise, by Dave Heinzmann

For Best Paperback:
Red Hot Lies, by Laura Caldwell

Of the 2009 books I did read, I do want to give a shout-out to

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
The Defector by Daniel Silva
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
and,
especially, Outfiteer Emeritus Sara Paretsky's Hardball.


OK… your turn! What 2009 crime fiction novels do I need to check out before the end of the month?

Blind Spots

By Irene Reed

Please welcome Friend-of-the-Outfit Irene Reed, a Chicago native and Harvard-educated lawyer who has come to her senses and now enjoys writing fiction. Despite her fascination with murder, mystery and true crime, she swears that she is perfectly harmless and sane. She is in my writing group, and she has a fascinating take on the Amy Bishop murders.


Violence in America is an odd thing. It exists everywhere, yet the details never cease to amaze. And sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.

Last week, professor Amy Bishop murdered three members of University of Alabama faculty. Before that, she had a history of erratic behavior, including suspected involvement in a pipe bombing, a meltdown at a pancake house, and difficult relationships with several graduate students. In 1986, at just 21, Bishop shot and killed her brother, then sought a getaway car from a local dealership.

Bishop, a Harvard graduate, mother of four and respected biology professor, has now taken as many people out of this world as she brought into it. Whether verbalized or not, the questions persist: how could this go on for so long? How did so many miss the signs—and why?

Maybe it’s because Bishop occupied a societal blind spot.

There were the Massachusetts police, reluctant to prosecute a young girl from a good family and middle-class suburb. And her parents, unwilling to face the possibility that their daughter needed help. Later, academic institutions probably focused more on Bishop’s academic success than her character or personality. And finally, there was the fact that Bishop didn’t fit The Profile. She was a 45-year old mother—she couldn’t possibly be that bad.

It happens all the time. Take the Washington, D.C. snipers. Nobody expected them to be Black, because the Profile says that most serial killers are White, male and smart. Ditto for Seung Hui Cho of Virginia Tech. The Profile always works—until it doesn’t.

Why, then, are we so committed to our summaries, analyses and pre-packaged beliefs? I think it is because we need to believe that we can understand evil. That if we encapsulate it, box it away, and break it down, it will finally make sense.

But imagination gives voice to the truth. Crime fiction is popular partly because it is an expression of our greatest horror—that evil cannot be anticipated, understood or controlled. The best fictional killers reflect our underlying fear: that evil is random, pervasive, and without reason. That it simply exists, like air, water or love.

Curiously, Bishop was also an aspiring thriller writer. She had three unpublished novels, including one about a scientist who was also an IRA operative. She is also related to John Irving, whom she hoped would help launch her literary career.
What, I wonder, prompted Bishop to write? Did she know, on some instinctive level, that something was wrong? Was she trying to give us clues? And what did Irving think of her work? Did he even read it? Did he try to help, or was she the crazy cousin he wanted to forget?

And what about the people in our own lives? How many blind spots have we missed? What new, unknown horror have we failed to identify? When I read about Bishop, I always wonder: how many other Ivy League-educated, cardigan-wearing, SUV-driving killers are out there, waiting to be recognized for what they are?

What do you think?


Thanks to Libby Hellmann, my mentor and friend, who has allowed me to guest blog. Also thanks to Michael Dymmoch and Jamie Freveletti, who have offered me endless friendship and support during my creative journey so far.

Eleanor

by Libby Hellmann

A few months ago I wrote about people in the mystery community who have made a difference in the way we relate to each other. Who’ve helped create a sense of caring and concern for all of us, whether we’re readers, writers, publishers, agents, or booksellers.

Well, you’ve done it again... this time in spades. Here’s the backstory.

Many of you know Chicago author Eleanor Taylor Bland. She wrote 9 fine novels featuring police detective Marti McAllister. More important, you couldn’t anyone who was more generous with her time, talent, and money than Eleanor. In fact, she was my mentor. I had just completed my first novel (it was never published, and it shouldn’t be), and Eleanor critiqued 25 pages at the Dark and Stormy Nights conference. I remember her saying, “Hey, you have a lot to learn, but I think you have something here. Don’t give up. “ A year later I landed in her writing group, and although it was tough love, it was love. No one was more delighted than Eleanor when AN EYE FOR MURDER was published.

But my story is just one of many. I knew that then, but I know it even better now. You see, Eleanor’s in trouble.

She’s been battling cancer now for over 20 years. It keeps coming back, and they keep taking out organs to get rid of it. Her last bout was grim – she never really recovered 100 per cent. Furthermore, they told her then they couldn’t do much more for her if it returned. Her body is too frail, and she couldn’t take it.

The cancer came back. In addition, it turns out that she’s broke. She hasn’t been writing or promoting for years, and her royalties have dwindled to almost nothing. She has a tiny pension, but as generous as she’s been to writers with her time, that’s also how generous she’s been to her family. A dollar never burns a hole in her pocket if she can give it to someone else. And just to make matters worse, she was recently evicted from her apartment.

A good friend of hers, Chicago author Mary Harris, filled me in a week ago and asked what we could do. We’ve since put out the word in the community that she needed help, and your response has been overwhelming. I’ve had probably about 50 emails, some from people who never knew Eleanor, asking how they can help. People who do know her keep telling me how much she means to them, how they'll never forget something she did for them years ago. Money is coming in every day. In less than a week, we’ve collected enough for her moving expenses, and we are starting to allocate funds for her future rent and medical expenses.

To all of you who have already contributed, I’m keeping records and will fill you in on the exact amounts and how we've allocated it in the spring. To those of you who didn’t know about her situation, email me if you’d like to help.

But most of all, I want to recognize all of you for caring. The people who make up the mystery and crime fiction community are the most generous, giving people I know. You see someone who needs help, and you are there, no questions, no strings. You want to help. Do you know how special that is? I am grateful to be a small part of this community, and I know Eleanor is thrilled.

Thank you.

Life on Two Tracks, Michael Black, Guest Blogger

Michael A, Black has been a working police officer in various capacities in the south suburbs of Chicago for over thirty years. He has a BA in English from Northern Illinois University and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College, Chicago. The author of 14 books, his first novel featuring Chicago based private detective Ron Shade, A Killing Frost, came out in hardcover in 2002. It was subsequently released in paperback in 2007. He's written two novels with television star Richard Belzer (Law & Order SVU). Black also writes a police procedural series featuring the investigative team of Francisco "Frank" Leal and Olivia "Ollie" Hart. The second book in that series, Hostile Takeovers, came out in September 2009. He has been a friend of Sara Paretsky and other members of the Chicago Outfit for years and says he is honored to take Sara's spot with this guest blog.

When you’re a cop your life is lived on two tracks. There’s the long haul track that stretches out over time, pausing occasionally to twist you into the knots that everyone is subjected to during the trials and tribulations of modern living. Then there’s the short track, which unfolds in little vignettes, often tragic, often funny, and sometimes violent. When I wrote Hostile Takeovers I had hopes to capture a cop’s view of those two tracks. Sometimes these vignettes can unfold in an instant, and sometimes in bits and pieces leading up to a confrontation. But you know they’re coming, you just don’t know when.

I’d been working midnights and the roll calls over the past few weeks had briefed us on this robbery crew. Three male blacks that were hitting guys as they were coming out of bars, taking their wallets and forcing them into the trunks of their cars. The bad guys then drove around for a while and then abandoned the cars, with the victims still inside. Like most such briefing notices, I filed this one away and went out on patrol. This particular shift unfolded into the usual Saturday night activities: suspicious autos, loud subjects, bar disturbances, domestics, traffic accidents . . .

It was about three-fifteen in the morning and the bars were letting out. Traffic had picked up slightly and I was parked in a closed gas station on a rather busy street, finishing an accident report, with two motorists in the back of my squad car. It was late autumn and the night was cool, but not yet settling into the winter chill that was just around the corner. Suddenly a guy came running up to my squadcar with a panicked look on his face.

“Officer, I’ve just been robbed,” he said.
I asked him where this had happened and he pointed toward the street. About 100 yards away, under the train viaduct, I saw a car sitting in the middle of the street.
“That your car?” I asked.
“No, it’s theirs,” the victim said. “They rear-ended me and took mine. And I think there’s somebody in the trunk.”

I ordered the two guys from the traffic accident out of my squad and I called it in as went down to check the other ride. Sure enough, the car that had rear-ended this new guy had someone in the trunk who quickly related that three black guys had come up to him as he was leaving a bar, robbed him, and made him get into the trunk of his car. The informational bits from the past several roll calls came rushing back to me and I knew who these guys were. Moreover, this had just happened so I was sure they were still in the area.

As more units arrived at the scene we spread out, setting up a perimeter and slowly closing the circle. As I rode down those deserted side streets looking for the car with the smashed-in trunk everything felt intensified . . . Silent, yet teeming with deadly potential. Down the street I heard the distinctive sound of several shots. I zoomed forward. It was our robbery crew, and after a brief shoot-out they surrendered. I still had the adrenaline rush as I moved up and handcuffed one of them. The guy looked to be only about seventeen or eighteen. We had recovered their gun, the proceeds, and the second victim’s car in about ten minutes. I didn’t see the robbers again until the case came up in court, and then it was rather brief. They were wearing DOC orange and took the plea bargain for a couple of years in the joint.

I still remember how that little vignette unfolded, with crisp images and sudden violence on that fast track. I wanted to try and capture that, as well as the trials and tribulations of the longer track of life in a book. Like my previous Leal and Hart novel, Random Victim, Hostile Takeovers contains a lot of stuff that happened to me and to officers I know. One of the highest compliments paid to me was from another copper whom I greatly respect.

“You got it right,” he said.

I hope that those of you who read the novel will think so too.

PS Having included one of his short stories in the anthology Chicago Blues, I can attest that Mike gets it right... all the time!

Sneak Preview

by Libby Hellmann

Hi, all. My new thriller, DOUBLEBACK won’t be out until October, but so many of you helped me with the cover a couple of months ago I wanted to show you the final version Bleak House came up with. Btw, I have to give a shout-out to Alan Orloff who suggested we flip a “b” or two. We did, and we love it.



And here’s a peek at the 45 second video trailer for DOUBLEBACK. Many thanks to Renaissance man Brian Gilomen for his editing expertise. Ellie would approve.



What do you think?

Why fiction?

On January 18th, I had occasion to chair a meeting of Mystery Writers of America’s Midwest chapter while chapter Prez Julie Hyzy met with MWA bigwigs in New York. Our guest speaker, Daniel P. Smith, is a freelance journalist and author. Smith said he got the idea for his book from a ride-along he’d done with his police officer brother. One of the first calls of the tour was a homicide, a man shot by his 17 year old stepson. The scene had a transforming effect on Dan. He and his brother spent the rest of the shift searching for the shooter, leaving to Dan wonder how officers deal with their feelings when they have almost no downtime between calls. The result of that wondering was On The Job: Behind the Stars of the Chicago Police Department.

After the meeting, Dan stayed for an impromptu discussion with—among others—authors Sam Reaves, Tom Keavers and Centuries and Sleuths owners Augie and Tracy Aleksy. One of the subjects that arose was why we write fiction when real stories are so compelling and exciting.

A consensus seemed to be that we write fiction because we love justice and closure—things life rarely gives us between the parentheses of birth and death. In fiction we can explain the inexplicable, weave in all the stray threads, punish the guilty, and reward virtue and bravery and cleverness in ways that rarely occur in life. Fiction has a beginning, a middle and an end. Usually. Fiction enables us to know our heroes and our lovers far more intimately than in real life—don’t writers usually provide us with their thoughts and feelings, uncensored in moments of peril and loss?

Our discussion left me thinking about the subject the next day, and I recalled a philosophy course I took in college. The instructor told us that no one—this was forty years ago, mind you—writes philosophy any more, at least not the way Plato and Hegel and Marx did. Today’s philosophers are writing novels, plays and movies. (And, yeah, essays on in the commentary pages of news papers and publications like the New Yorker. But who reads those?) Modern mainstream philosophers are telling it like it is in fiction, unhampered by the need to be fair or to get the facts right. My instructor assigned J.B. by Archibald McLeish, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, and Nikos Kazantzakis’ Last Temptation of Christ. I hadn’t thought about that class in many years, but the instructor was right, I think. He may not have anticipated blogs, and perhaps bloggers are today’s philosophers, but blogs are so ubiquitous and diverse that most serve specialized and largely convinced audiences. The big time philosophies are still being advanced by art.

That’s my take. What’s yours? Whose ideas are you listening to? Any straight philosophers we should know about? Where do we find them?

Hey, You Talkin' to Me?

by Libby Hellmann

The following is part of a conversation for the PWA (Private Eye Writers of America) newsletter between author Kent Krueger and me. You can read the whole thing in a month or so in the next PWA newsletter, but I thought you might like a sneak preview.. as well as a chance to join the conversation.

William Kent Krueger, as many of you know, is a fabulous author and story-teller. He has 9 or 10 books out, all but one featuring Cork O’Connor, who is sometimes a PI and sometimes a police officer in the fictional Minnesota town of Aurora. Kent has won the Anthony Award (as well as a bunch of others, such as the Minnesota Book Award) probably more than anyone I know, and when you read his books, you’ll understand why. Visit him at his website.

Q: Why did you start writing PI crime fiction?

Kent: I started out by having Cork step back from law enforcement, then becoming involved in law enforcement again, and then stepping back once more, mostly to maintain credibility in the things that drive our plots. The “PI” was a convenient way to do that, rather than the “accidental” sleuth.

Libby: “Accidental”, not “amateur”?

Kent: Accidental.

Libby: My transition to PI was for much the same reason. My protagonist, Ellie Foreman was an amateur sleuth, and I kept wondering how many more times she could come up against dead bodies without stretching credibility. After the fourth book, when I was scraping the ceiling for a rationale, I realized something had to change. Happily, Georgia Davis had already been introduced, and I knew I wanted to explore her further. So she, rather conveniently, became a PI.

Q: How familiar were you with the “PI” tradition, and how did that influence your decision to make your protagonist a PI?

Kent: My first entrée into the genre was Philip Marlowe. My next reading jag was Robert Parker and Spenser, so I pretty much knew what the subgenre was about. But I didn’t want to do a traditional noir PI type of book, because that wasn’t the character of the series. When Cork became a PI, he was a different sort of PI.

Q: How was he different?

Kent: He has a family for one thing, so he’s not a loner. He also has a significant network of friends and people that he’s known his own life in this small town. That’s another thing that’s different: Cork operates in a small town. He’s a guy who has fairly middle-class values: he’s Catholic, he practices his religion, he’s a father, and who knows -- he might even be a member of the Lions Club one day.

Q: Sounds like you’re describing Kent Krueger.

Kent: I’m not a member of the Lions Club. What about Georgia?

Libby: She’s more the classic noir PI, but a female version. I read Chandler and Parker, but it was Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller, and Sue Grafton, as well as the “second generation” of PI writers like SJ Rozan and Laura Lippman who influenced me. Georgia’s more of a loner. She’s got baggage, which I’m still discovering. And she’s not afraid to put herself out there, regardless of the danger. She’s still honing her skills, though, and that means she makes mistakes, some more serious than others.

Q: Why did you become a member of PWA?

Kent: The truth is I got tired of watching all these PWA members sneak off at Bouchercon for their secret dinner, and I wanted to know what that was all about.

Libby: I even learned the secret handshake.


Now, it's your turn...

Why do you like PI crime fiction?

Describe the perfect -- or your favorite -- PI.

What would you like to see in PI crime fiction that hasn’t yet been done?


Happy Holidays, everyone.

Sam Reaves Sings the Mean Town Blues

by Libby Hellmann


Sam Reaves, aka Allen Salter, is, quite simply, one of the best crime fiction authors in Chicago. I’ve been reading him since his Cooper MacLeish series,and continued with his Dominic Martell and Dooley books-- he just keeps getting better. I love his prose. His plots and his characters aren't half bad, either. His tenth novel will be out soon, and I'm thrilled he's stopping by The Outfit to talk about it… and more. Both he and I will be around to check comments, so feel free to post. Welcome, Sam!

Some books are easy to write, others are tough. Sometimes a book just fights you from beginning to end; sometimes you start out like a house afire and get bogged down in the middle; sometimes you careen along having fun with the story and then when it’s time to wrap things up you realize you have so much going on you’re going to have the devil of a time making it all come out right, with no loose ends dangling.

Most of mine seem to be tough. Looking back, the easy ones stand out: Fear Will Do It practically wrote itself; Dooley’s Back took eight months from conception to completion, the fastest I’ve ever done a book. Homicide 69 was a lot of work from a research point of view but the writing mostly went pretty well, and I had a great police consultant, the late John DiMaggio, looking over my shoulder. But both Bury It Deep and Get What’s Coming gave me fits. I was struggling with the awkward nature of the Cooper series (essentially an amateur sleuth but stylistically closer to a P.I.) and having trouble getting a handle on the stories. I have bad memories of those books, though I think they came out all right.

Under my Dominic Martell pseudonym, Lying Crying Dying and The Republic of Night went well, making me think I had it down, and then Gitana twisted totally out of my control and wound up being the toughest to finish of all my novels.

Mean Town Blues was one of the easy ones. The premise is simple: we’ve all heard about a woman being persecuted by a stalker and thought, “Somebody ought to just shoot the son of a bitch.” (Admit it, you’ve thought that.) Well, what if you did? And what if when you did, you found out that you’d killed somebody with some very heavy connections? You’d need to be a fairly steady hand yourself to deal with the consequences. And there’s my novel. Tommy McLain, a Kentucky boy just back from a rough tour in Iraq, finds out that Chicago can be a mean town indeed.

Basically I just wound up the story and let it run. And because I knew who Tommy was, knew where he came from and what had forged him and how he thought and talked and reacted, the book pretty much wrote itself.

I wish I could figure out what I’m doing right on the easy ones, so I could do it every time. If I’ve learned anything, it boils down to keep it simple, find the right voice and take care of the prose.

I hope I can remember that when I start my next book.

Sam

PS You can celebrate Mean Town Blues with Sam at his launch at Sheffields on Wednesday, November 12 between 7 and 10 pm; 3258 N Sheffield, Chicago.

Let Me Count The Ways...

by Libby Hellmann

When I began writing crime fiction, I remember lots of chatter about the perfect murder weapon. The undetected murder. The exotic substance that couldn’t be identified. I heard about poisons like
oleander, foxglove, arsenic, and -- moving up the hazardous bio-chemical chain -- cyanide, sarin, and anthrax.
Indeed, I flirted with ricin in one of my novels. I remember hearing the old saw about the perfect murder weapon being a sharp icicle and thinking it was pretty clever.

However, the more I write, the more the manner of death has become a distraction. I don’t really care how someone is killed. The fact that they're alive one moment and aren't the next is enough. The fact that a killer used what he or she thought was an undetectable poison (which, btw, given enough time and the right equipment toxicologists say is mostly a myth) is less compelling than the killer’s character and motivation: the passion or fear or hatred or greed that drove him or her to commit murder.

In fact, all the falderal about intricate death scenarios boils down to this: (NB: The first 15 seconds are all you need to watch)



There’s something else, too. Murder is a heinous act. It’s perhaps the most profane act one human can perform on another. Because I don’t treat it lightly, I’m finding it more difficult to appreciate humorous crime fiction these days. I’m not talking about black humor – that’s something I think we all embrace when trying to deal with the unacceptable. What I’m talking about are the bouncy, breezy stories that show an otherwise normal person solving crimes on their lunch hour or summer vacation.

I’m sure they’re done with the best intentions – to emphasize the counterpoint between the gravity of murder and the joy of life. Indeed, I’ve written some myself. My amateur sleuth, Ellie Foreman, has a dry sense of humor and isn’t afraid to be foolish. Still, I find I’m less willing to trot her out these days. Maybe it’s because I’m getting to an age where life seems more precious every day. Maybe it’s because friends are being struck down long before their time. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t feel right to deal with a death which could have been avoided and then giggle about it. That’s probably why Georgia Davis appeared.

But enough from my end. What do you think? Does the manner of death make a difference in crime fiction? What about humor? How far can you take it? Am I just being cranky?

Chandler, "One Book, One Chicago" and The Outfit

by Libby Hellmann



Last Friday Mayor Daley held a press conference to announce the Chicago Public Library’s spring selection for the One Book,One Chicago program. For the first time since the program’s inception the choice was a crime fiction novel: Raymond Chandler’s THE LONG GOODBYE. Combined with the National Endowment of the Arts selection of THE MALTESE FALCON as their "book to read", this is a very good year for crime fiction, no?


The Outfit will take part in the THE LONG GOODBYE program by blogging about the book and Chandler for two weeks starting Monday, April 14. In addition to the seven of us, some "friends of the Outfit" will be joining us. We’re pretty excited, and we hope you’ll want to be part of the discussion too.

For now – although we’re not officially starting yet – I wanted to share with you the eloquent comments Sean Chercover made at the press conference. BTw, Sean wanted me to make sure I mentioned that Marcus and Sara contributed to the speech as well.

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On behalf of my fellow members of the Outfit Collection: Libby Fischer Hellmann, Sara Paretsky, Barbara D’Amato, Michael Allen Dymmoch, Kevin Guilfoile, and Marcus Sakey, I’d like to thank Mayor Daley, Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey, the Chicago Public Library Foundation for their strong support of the One Book, One Chicago program. And to the dedicated librarians across Chicago who works so hard to make it a reality. We are truly in your debt.

We came together as The Outfit Collective, in part, to raise awareness about Chicago’s growing reputation as a hotbed for contemporary crime fiction. So we were thrilled to learn that, for the first time, a classic crime novel has been chosen as the featured book.

I think the entire city is in for a treat.

It is often said that crime fiction has taken up the mantle once held by the Victorian Social Novel, and later the American Industrial Novel. That crime fiction offers the best opportunity for writers and readers to examine the society in which we live… to address its ills and take note of its blessings.

Raymond Chandler’s THE LONG GOODBYE was one of the first detective novels to embrace that lofty goal. Here we find the place where genre fiction and literary fiction meet. The crossroads.

Chandler owned Los Angeles like Nelson Algren owned Chicago. Long-time readers of Algren will find much to love the THE LONG GOODBYE. It is Chandler’s most ambitious, most political novel, and it has inspired generations of crime writers to boldly take on the bigger issues.

Ross MacDonald said that Chandler “wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.” And it’s true. Chandler’s stories resonate with a gritty kind of romanticism. And he did write like an angel. He told stories that make you think, and used language that makes you feel.

What sets this book apart, what makes it important, are the difficult truths it tells us about the world. The world then and the world now.

Chandler is at his best when he’s talking about social issues, taking on politics, society, religion, commercialism. Hypocrisy and corruption were Chandler’s favorite targets and he went after them relentlessly, no matter where he found them.

Chandler was a firebrand and his words still burn.

On America’s increased commercialism, he writes, “We make the finest packages in the world… the stuff inside is mostly junk.” He calls a situation “as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.” He writes, “There ain’t no clean way to make a hundred million bucks.:

The issues he raises, and the anger behind them, are as relevant today as they were then. Maybe more so.

Chandler came from the hard-boiled school and wrote hard-boiled stories, but he never succumbed to nihilism. He believed in things like justice and honor and loyalty. Above all, loyalty. And although those vales did not always triumph in his stories, he believed they were values worth fighting for.

In private eye Philip Marlowe, Chandler gave us a modern and complex her. A man not always heroic by society’s standards, and who sometimes fails even by his own standards. Marlowe sees what’s wrong in our world, and he forces himself – and us – to look at it squarely, even when he can’t change it. Marlowe pays a high price for this knowledge, but Chandler insists that the cost of willful blindness would be ever higher still.

Putting all the highfallutin’ stuff aside, THE LONG GOODBYE is a hell of a great read. It’s an enormous amount of fun, filled with twists and tension and action that will keep you up way past bedtime.

Over the coming months, members of the Outfit Collective will be participating in the One Book One Chicago program. We’ll be blogging, conducting workshops, and appearing at libraries across the Chicago area. We hope to share some of our passion for the work of Raymond Chandler.

So dive in, Chicago, and enjoy the ride.

Stay tuned... we'll have more in a few weeks. And Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone.

Save the Date for Chicago Blues...

by Libby Hellmann



When: Friday, October 12, 5- 8 PM
Where: Legends (Buddy Guy's Blues Club)
8th and Wabash
Chicago

Forgive my enthusiasm, but I just got back from Bleak House Books in Madison, Wisconsin, where I was able to hold in my hands the first few copies of hot-off-the-presses CHICAGO BLUES. What a rush!

For those of you who are new to the blog, or might have forgotten, CHICAGO BLUES is an anthology of 21 dark crime fiction stories that I edited. It will be released next month, both in hard cover and trade.

Everyone in The Outfit has a story in the anthology. In addition there are stories by Stuart Kaminsky, an old Chicago boy …. Max Allan Collins, whose protagonist, Nate Heller, prowled Chicago streets sixty years ago…. and Kris Nelscott, who wrote her very first Smokey Dalton short story for us. Joe Konrath wrote a new Jack Daniels story, Deb Brod waxes eloquent about the Cubs… and there are stories from Michael Black, Sam Reaves, David Walker, Mary Welk, Sam Hill, Brian Pinkerton, Steve Mandel, Jack Fredrickson, and Ron Levitsky. Rick Kogan, the dean of Chicago neighborhoods, wrote the introduction.

Happily, we’ve been getting nice reviews:

"...This impressive volume has soul, grit, and plenty of high notes…” Publishers Weekly

“Twenty-one excellent reasons to stay out of the Windy City…” Kirkus

A monument in words to this funky, mysterious and eternal American city… a fine collection.”
Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird’s Daughter

Gritty, excellent.. has (our) highest recommendation!” Midwest Book Review

“An impressive group of stories… an amazing group of authors…” Crimespree Magazine

So we intend to celebrate, and you are invited to join us. If you’re in the Chicago area, you like crime fiction, and you want to meet some of the CHICAGO BLUES authors, come to the launch party:

When: Friday, October 12, 5- 8 PM
Where: Legends (Buddy Guy's Blues Club)
8th and Wabash
Chicago

If you can't make it to Legends, click here to find out where else we’ll be.

Btw, we’ve produced a special DVD that will be distributed with the hard cover collectors’ edition. It includes interviews with 15 of the authors about their stories and why they write about Chicago. To request a copy, e mail Bleak House.

Finally, if you’re into video trailers, check this out.

We now return you to your normal programming...

Don't Touch Me I'm A Real Live Wire

By Kevin Guilfoile

It was absurd and chilling. The kind of scene that, as a writer, you wished you'd made up yourself.

Joseph "The Shark" Lopez, defense attorney for accused mobster Frank Calabrese, Sr., was cross-examining Frank Calabrese, Jr., his client's son and the star government witness in Chicago's ongoing Family Secrets trial. Lopez was dressed the part of a mob lawyer in a black suit with pink tie and socks. Frank Jr. was in the middle of a grueling week of testimony in which he had confessed to taking part in more than a dozen murders.

"Are you a serial killer?" Lopez asked him.

"No," Frank, Jr. replied. "I'm just a killer."

If I had to propose a universal theory of suspense novels, a single theme common to almost all mysteries and thrillers (some cozies excepted, perhaps) it would be something like what is suggested between the lines of that exchange. Suspense novels explore, again and again, not just the reasons human beings kill each other but, just as significantly, the reasons human beings don't kill each other more often than we do. Almost all suspense fiction is set at the horizon of decency where we've drawn the line representing mankind's ultimate and universal prohibition against taking another person's life. These stories are frequently about the people who seek to cross that line, the individuals assigned to keep them from doing it, and the people who are terrorized and victimized when that ethical wall is breached. The point of it, if I can avoid making it sound too self-important, is to understand what it means to be human. That's the point of all fiction, of course, but suspense novelists have staked out this particular territory on the edge.

And sometimes, it seems, so have the federal courts.

Lopez's half-serious but still provocative question--Are you a serial killer?--was obviously meant to shock both jury and witness (if it's possible to shock a person with so many notches on his holster). And it's easy to see why readers and writers are attracted to and repulsed by the psychology of serial killers. Our fascination with mobsters might even be more complicated. Men like Frank Sr. and Frank Jr don't seem to be mentally ill. I'm not qualified to say whether any of the men accused in the Family Secrets trial is a sociopath. But what becomes clear in the trial testimony is the way killing is not just a method for mob members to eliminate enemies or remove obstacles in their way. For them, murder is a tool of business the same way retailers have QuickBooks and White Sales. If there were a Malcolm Gladwell for mobsters he might be writing THE WHACKING POINT.

The popular notion of some mobster code in which members of the Mafia limit violence to their own kind is rooted partially in this seemingly business-like approach to murder. The serial killer murders for pleasure or to quench some pathological thirst. The mobster always claims to have a commercially viable reason.

But on another day of the trial we got a glimpse at just how frightening and arbitrary those reasons can sometimes be. After someone broke into the home of mob boss Tony Accardo in 1978, burglars all over town began disappearing. Bobby "The Beak" Siegel had nothing to do with the Accardo break in but he was getting the distinct feeling that he might be next. His fears were confirmed in a conversation with mobster Gerald Scarpelli, who told Bobby that The Outfit couldn't be sure exactly who had been involved and so they had decided to go after any and all small time burglars in an effort to send a message. "They were trying to make it one guy of every nationality," Siegel said he was told by Scarpelli of the hit list. "He said, 'You just happened to be the Jew.'"

Love Won't Be Calling At Your Address

By Kevin Guilfoile

One thing I remember about growing up was that my dad was really excellent at not murdering us. He had a look that made us believe he might kill us even when, it turns out, murder was never really an option.

Not killing your kids is a lost parenting art, apparently.

Experts (whoever they are) claim that the number of incidents of familicide are still quite rare and have remained fairly consistent over the years. They say that when parents murder their children it's always a sensational case and the overreporting in this modern era of media saturation makes it seem like such events are more common now than they actually are. I'll take their word for that, although last month surely represented an unprecedented spike in frequency.

In Chicago the papers are fixated on the case of Christopher Vaughn, who is accused of shooting his wife and three children on a June 14 daytrip to a downstate water park. The local papers ask how a man could commit such an unthinkable crime. It was a "coldly planned execution at dawn," Eric Zorn wrote yesterday. "A betrayal of love, trust, decency and biological imperative so complete it redefines the standard of everyday evil."

Similar columns are being written in San Francisco, but Christopher Vaughn isn't on their radar. Out there the name they're putting on everyday evil is Kevin Morrissey, who on June 18 similarly pulled his car over to the side of the road and murdered his wife and their two children before killing himself.

In Montclair, New Jersey it's Thomas Reilly, who drowned his two daughters on June 21 and then hanged himself, just hours after their mother had dropped the girls off for a visit.

In Delavan, Wisconsin the name is Ambrosio Analco, accused of killing his twin infant sons on June 9, along with his ex-girlfriend and two other people before killing himself.

In Griffith, Indiana it's Mickey Gordon who on June 10 killed his teenage stepdaughter before, of course, killing himself.

Now there is the case of professional wrestler Chris Benoit, who apparently strangled his wife on June 23, his seven-year-old son on June 24, and then, after placing a Bible next to each of their bodies, hanged himself with a weight machine pulley.

And I don't need to tell anyone about Bobby Cutts, Jr. who on June 14 allegedly killed his ex-girlfriend and their unborn child right in front of their three-year-old son.

For those of us who are parents there is something especially repellent and fascinating about a father killing his children. But it's different than fear. There are an almost infinite number of things that I worry might harm my children but obviously I don't worry at all that my boys will be murdered by me.

Maybe that's why there seem to be so few fictional villains whose target is their own family. We might have a visceral reaction to these cases--we might be appalled--but we never think our own family might be in similar jeopardy. The prototypical villain of fiction is the murderer who chooses randomly. The killer who picks his victim because he or she is in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is somebody we can all fear.

(There are exceptions of course and I'd love to hear examples if you have them. The Stepfather is an underrated horror film in which the new head of the household is a serial killer. Terry O'Quinn's performance in that film is so good that 20 years later, when his character does something on Lost and I miss it, my wife still recaps it by saying something like, "The Stepfather just opened the hatch.")

Writers also like to have a motive for the crime and when a father kills his family we are frequently left with no explanation at all. According to forensic pyschiatrist Dr. Louis Kraus, when a woman kills her family it's frequently the result of a mental illness. The mother is depressed or she thinks the children are in some imagined jeopardy and using the logic of insanity decides that the only way to save them is to kill them.

When fathers kill their children, Kraus says, they are less likely to be insane and more likely to be narcissists and sociopaths for whom fatherhood has become inconvenient.

It's the new mid-life crisis. Murdering your kids is the new sports car.

When the killers take their own lives we rarely get any hint at motive. Benoit allegedly sent disturbing text messages to his friends while he was in the middle of his household killing spree. Perhaps that evidence will explain something.

On Memorial Day, 1998*, Daniel LaMere of Gurnee, Illinois sat down at his computer just moments before he would take a shotgun and kill his wife, his two stepchildren, and then himself. He typed:

"I guess your (sic) wondering why I did it. I have stayed as long as I can, but time has run out."

[Note: The original post of this article misstated the year in which this event occurred.]

Virginia Tech

By
Barbara D’Amato

The cruelty and waste of the murders at Virginia Tech are on most people’s minds. The sorrow of the families and friends of the dead will spread out for decades, and the world will miss out on what those young people could have become

Writers of crime fiction may have a bad feeling in addition to sorrow and anger. It’s not quite guilt, but it has elements of it. I don’t think we believe that crime fiction causes crime. Pretty much all studies have shown that isn’t so, and in fact, reading about violence may act as catharsis.

It’s more a matter of suddenly asking ourselves why we write about such horrible things at all. I was working on an interior monologue for a hired assassin when the news of the killings in Virginia came on the television, and it certainly gave me pause.

Why do we read crime fiction, for that matter? I read mysteries and thrillers all the time. A couple of my relatives have asked me, “Why do you like to read about murder?” Well, why do we? Do we enjoy it? We must. Surely we don’t read these books because we dislike the process.

Carolyn Hart was asked once at a mystery convention why people read humorous crime fiction. Murder, the questioner said with some indignation, was not funny. Carolyn answered, “Murder isn’t funny, but people are funny.”

It’s the people, I think, we read to find out about. And write in order to explore. Crime fiction gives us people at extremes—killers, victims, vigilantes, professional righters-of-wrongs. This doesn’t seem to me to be a bad thing, but I would like to know how others feel about it.

Wow . . .

This amazing story, in today's Chicago Sun-Times, provides another look at gunshots, relative to my post of yesterday.

-Sean