Walked down this morning pulling battered yellow travel bag down First Street under waterfront clouds and freeway noise to sign copies of Ancient Rain at the Seattle Mystery Book Shop. A block off the grit of Pioneer Square--my first time here--an oasis of hard-boiled pulp and crime fiction of all sorts, a tenacious independent in a world of the chain market and sanitized. This is the place to get the real thing. Special thanks to Bill and Fran and Marie.
Who is stealing my identity? And why? Twice now I've had someone impersonating me trying to con book stores out of money. I suppose it's poetic justice--I have written two novels about identity theft and fraud--but I'm here to tell ya' that there's nothing poetic nor just about poetic justice.
So I was hoping that I could solve the mystery by visiting the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, where we put our heads together to solve the crime. Fran told me about another bookstore scam in which people ordered a book that couldn't be returned using a bad credit card simply to drive sales of the book. Since I'm the only author who's been targeted twice in this new scam, and I stand to gain the most publicity, we all concluded that I am the prime suspect.
Great. Like I don't have enough to think about. Any information anyone has to clear my name would be greatly appreciated.
What a good day to visit the bookstore! Rainy and cozy, and visits with readers who I've had the privilege of meeting before. And Lithuanians, too! INDEX TO MURDER is my first outing with the eleventh Miss Zukas mystery and this is my favorite mystery bookstore on earth. Thanks, y'all! jo
2008 Edgars
The 2008 Edgar Awards (for book published in 2007) were announced last night in NYC.
Here are the winners:
Best Novel: John Hart, Down River (St. Martin’s, $24.95). Gretchen recommends.
Best First Novel: Tana French, In the Woods (Viking, $24.95).
Best Paperback Original: Megan Abbott, Queenpin (Simon & Schuster, $13). Janine recommends.
Best Short Story: Susan Straight, “The Golden Gopher”, Los Angeles Noir (Akashic, $15.95)
Best Critical/Biography: Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley, Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters (Penguin, $37.95).
Best Fact Crime: Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Norton, $49.95). JB does not recommend.
Our congratulations to the winners and to all of the nominees!
April 2008 Bestsellers
Hardcovers
1 – Amanda Quick, The Third Circle, Putnam
2 – Michael Gruber, The Forgery of Venus, Morrow
3 – Nevada Barr, Winter Study, Putnam
4 – Lisa Lutz, The Curse of the Spellmans, Simon & Schuster
5 – Randy Wayne White, Black Widow, Putnam
6 – tie
Pari Noskin Taichert, The Socorro Blast, Univ. of New Mexico Press
William Dietrich, The Rosetta Key, Harper
Harlan Coben, Hold Tight, Dutton
9 – tie
Kate Mosse, Sepulcher, Putnam
Ridley Pearson, Steel Trapp, Disney
Trade Paperbacks
1 – Susan Hill, The Various Haunts of Men, Overlook
2 – Lisa Lutz, The Spellman Files, Simon & Schuster
3 – Michael Gruber, The Book of Air and Shadows, Harper
4 – Andreas Camilleri, Paper Moon, Penguin
5 – tie
Nicola Griffith, Always, Riverhead
Charlie Newton, Calumet City, Touchstone
Marc Acito, How I Paid for College, Broadway
8 – Robert Fate, Baby Shark’s High Plains Redemption, CCP
9 – tie
Joshilyn Jackson, Between, Georgia, Warner
Lowen Clausen, River, Silo
John Straley, The Big Both Ways, Alaska Northwest Books
Candace Robb, Vigil of Spies, Century
Thomas Perry, Silence, Harcourt
Helene Tursten, The Glass Devil, Soho
Benjamin Black, Christine Falls, Picador
Mass Market Paperbacks
1 -- tie
Gregg Olsen, Cold Dark Place, Kensington
Lee Child, Bad Luck and Trouble, Bantam
3– Caitlin Kittredge, Night Life, St Martin’s
4 – tie
Cleo Coyle, French Pressed, Berkley
Jo Dereske, Index to Murder, Avon
6 –Denise Swanson, Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry, Signet
7 – tie
John J. Lamb, Mournful Teddy, Berkley
Greg Bear, Quantico, Vanguard
Jane Haddam, Glass Houses, St. Martin’s
John Connolly, Unquiet, Pocket
Seattle Mystery Bookshop: Thanks for another fabulous signing and for everything you do to support authors and readers. Don't know what we'd do without you!
Here's to spring reading...
Maybe not a stalker, but a great Scot, anyway. I'm talking about a major surprise here today at Seattle Mystery Bookshop...Ms. Chris Mearns came all the way from Scotland to see me. No kidding. Me. All that way. For all those who doubt this story. I have a beautiful scarf to prove it (courtesy of Chris and the woolen mills of Scotland). I had a great time here, as always! Many thanks to SMB!
It's a gray Seattle day - very different than Ethan Gage's Middle East - and I'm in one of the coziest, most intimate bookstores anywhere, not entirely from the underground places Ethan explores in my new historical thriller, The Rosetta Key. As usual, warmth and charm from dedicated mystery fans. My new book is a sequel to Napoleon's Pyramids, both based on Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt and Israel in 1798-1799, just before he seized power in France. What's fun at a store like this is talking about mixing real history with speculative mystery - about ancient secrets, Knights Templar, the Book of Thoth, and the early story of electricity! And Seattle Mystery Bookshop draws wonderful readers. As I sign copies of The Rosetta Key I'm hard at work on the next Ethan Gage adventure...this one taking him to North America in the first year of Jefferson's presidency.
You can learn more about my books at www.williamdietrich.com.
The sky is blue, the clouds wispy. Could this really be Seattle? I'm here at one of the best mystery bookstores in the entire world (yes, I said, " . . . in the entire world.") where writers are treated like royalty, customers are celebrated and the staff is so knowledgeable about absolutely everything, they could probably convert your Hummer into a green car in a couple of heartbeats.
I signed books and sold them, but for me, the real joy is spending time with people who live and breathe mysteries, who make this whole community the glory it is.
See you in New Mexico . . .
Ciao.
JB wants me to explain the genesis of my new YA thriller, Steel Trapp, so here goes:
I originally wrote a sequel to Cut and Run, my thriller featuring a Justice Department agent, Roland Larson. The sequel was a pursuit thriller involving a young boy with a photographic memory, who discovers a briefcase on an overnight train -- a discovery that led him in a mountain of trouble. After finishing a 700 page manuscript, I moved from Hyperion to Putnam and my new publisher, whom I was thrilled to be with, did not want to continue "older" series characters, but start a new series. That resulted in Killer Weekend (2007) and the upcoming Killer View (July 2008) but left "the train book" on a shelf.
My assistant at the time, Louise Marsh, read the train book and promptly told me it would make a good YA thriller, because she loved the character of the young boy with the photographic memory. I didn't want to hear this, of course, because I'd already written that book as an adult book. But the thought had been spoken and it wouldn't go away. About six months later I approached my agent, Amy Berkhower, and later my editor at Disney, Wendy Lefkon, with the notion of recrafting the train novel as a YA novel. The next three edits brought the young boy to the front and cut 300 pages out of the original, and Steel Trapp was the result.
I see it as a PG version of my typically R thriller novels. But it is certainly not dumbed-down; no punches were held. It is a very fast, tightly plotted thriller that I hope adults will enjoy as much as younger readers.
But that's the story... and now you know.
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