Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Gretchen Made Carrot Cake

Just finished signing cospies of CARROT CAKE MURDER at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop.  What fun!  JB's wife made carrot cake and it was delicious.  Finally had a chance to meet Laura Lippman -- what a nice lady!  And to add icing (that would be cream cheese) to the cake, IT DIDN'T RAIN!

Jo Fluke

The Gold Raincoat Visits Seattle

Technically, I suppose this is my tour for my 13th book, ANOTHER THING TO FALL, but who am I kidding? (Whom -- gosh, that sounds stilted.) This tour is really about the gold raincoat. It has taken on a life of its own. People react as if meeting a celebrity. A very minor celebrity, to be sure.

Seriously, of what little wisdom I have gleaned from the road, the thing I always try to remember is that the tour is not about the author. And it's not even about the raincoat. It's about readers, a group that includes booksellers and librarians and everyone who loves books. I'm not here for me, I'm here to check in with my bosses, get my annual evaluation, etc., etc. This happens to be Day 8 of my first 10-day swing; I'll be doing a Midwestern swing later this month. And if you ever catch me complaining about any of this, slap me hard. It's a privilege and an opportunity to tour.

And if you're lucky enough to sign with Joanne Fluke, there might be chocolate. I just ate a brownie so good I almost passed out. Then I licked my fingers, so I wouldn't get any smears on the gold raincoat.

Laura Lippman

STALKED and The Night Stalker

We're right around the corner from the Seattle Underground tour, which is an appropriate place to be signing copies of STALKED.  Well, it's appropriate for us.  Fans of the old television series The Night Stalker (the original, with Darren McGavin) will remember that the pilot movie featured a 125-year-old serial killer who haunted the buried streets of Seattle.  It's neither here nor there, but the killer was played by Richard Anderson, who was taking a break from mentoring the Bionic Woman (the original, with Lindsay Wagner).  Anyway, Marcia and I used to peer out from under the covers at The Night Stalker back in the 1970s....so here we are, looking at sewer grates at our feet and wondering who might be lurking there.

It's a reminder that setting is so important in mysteries.  A lot of readers ask me why I use Duluth as the locale for my Jonathan Stride series, and I tell them that extremes enrich the drama.  Duluth has a wonderful atmosphere of extremes -- the great lake jutting into the city like a knife, the northern woods encroaching with their isolation and vastness, the crazy-steep San Francisco-style streets, and the arctic blizzards.  So the city becomes as much a character in the books as the people.  That's what you get in a place like Seattle, too -- that distinctive sense of atmosphere, of old stone and water-stained ceilings, waiting for Richard Anderson to sneak up on you.

So if you've already seen The Night Stalker, prepare to get STALKED.  But keep the lights on and grab a heavy sweater.

Brian Freeman

Mary Daheim is On the Mark

     Hooray!  As usual, I had a wonderful time at the store.  And what was refreshing was that no one mentioned POLITICS.  I am SO sick of all this campaigning that begins as soon as the polls close on the previous election--an utter waste of time and money.  Why, oh why didn’t we follow the Mother Country's lead and say, "Hey, Prime Minister, you're doing a crappy job and you're outta there in six weeks?"  I did not vote for candidates just so they could immediately beginning for a higher/better office.

     Worse yet, registering by party in this State is absolutely undemocratic.  I refuse to do it and I refuse to vote.  I found out that I can do what a friend of mine in New Jersey did years ago when the same outrageous system was put in that state--I can register as a Whig and I will.  Who the hell votes a straight ticket except for party hacks?  U.S. pundits and others criticize the Russians for rubber-stamping candidates but I don’t think we have a right to criticize when our own system has deteriorated to virtually the same kind of handpicked nominees.  The political conventions used to be fascinating (and campaigning didn’t start until the Labor Day weekend).  I'm old enough to recall even the drama of the Democrats' 1948 convention when all the Southern Dixiecrats walked out rather than approve a plank in favor of integration (good riddance, I said at the time), not to mention whichever convention or party it was when one delegate set another delegate on fire for not going along with the party line.  Now that was fun!

     And by the way, I have yet to hear ANY candidate talk about what of the biggest issues facing this country today.  As you folks know all too well, people are not reading books any more.  I honestly think that if this trend continues (and no, I'm not being completely self-serving), the USA will continue on a downhill slide.  I figured we peaked as a nation circa 1980 and, as history tells us, no single country has ever maintained the #1 spot for more than a few centuries.  The future color isn't green, it's Chinese red (no slam on China--we painted our fireplace mantel that color and it's very nice).  China's been up there before, going way back, and now it's their turn again.  Meanwhile, American's brains are shriveling and their perspective is getting more and more narrow.  IQ doesn't rise or fall by much, but knowledge vs. ignorance is a different matter.  We spout about "thinking globally", but ask someone to find Budapest or Burlington, VT, on a map and...well, you get my point.

Otherwise, I'm in a pretty good mood.

Mary Daheim

February's Bestsellers from IMBA

February’s Bestselling titles compiled from reporting member stores of the
Independent Mystery Bookseller Association

More info at www.mysterybooksellers.com

Hardcovers:

1) AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE by Jacqueline Winspear
2) L.A. OUTLAWS by T. Jefferson Parker
3) ATOMIC LOBSTER by Tim Dorsey
4) AUNT DIMITY, VAMPIRE HUNTER by Nancy Atherton
5) THE ANATOMY OF DECEPTION by Lawrence Goldstone
6) THE BLACK DOVE by Steve Hockensmith
7) A PALE HORSE by Charles Todd
8) HELL'S BAY by James Hall
9) PREPARED FOR RAGE by Dana Stabenow
10) THE CRAZY SCHOOL by Cornelia Read

Paperbacks:

1) THE FAITHFUL SPY by Alex Berenson
2) MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust
3) THISTLE & TWIGG by Mary Saums
4) MAGIC CITY by James Hall
5) PUSS 'N CAHOOTS by Rita Mae Brown
6) A FATAL GRACE by Louise Penny
7) THE WATCHMAN by Robert Crais
8) CHRISTINE FALLS by Benjamin Black
9) WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TO DIE? by Patricia Sprinkle
10) STORM RUNNERS by T. Jefferson Parker

1982ing in the Window

I couldn't even legally DRINK in 1982, but when I got to Seattle Mystery Bookshop, they immediately plastered The Mighty Rack with STAFF PICK stickers and got me to stand in the display window so they could take pictures of me doing the robot, which is ABSOLUTELY circa 1982, and I REALLY think they should have given me a drink first, even though I was in 1982 a virtuous and teetotaling high school freshman. So, yes, there SHOULD rightfully have been cocktails, because I am CERTAINLY not a high school freshman NOW, even though I am SO sleep deprived and punchy that dog fart jokes seem TRULY MADLY DEEPLY funny in a way they haven't since I leapt the hormonal hurdle of 14.

TO BE FAIR... they only asked that I get in the window. They didn't actually SAY I had to do the Robot, but Fran HINTED that I should by singing DOMO ARIGATO in a Styx-ian, suggestive manner. SO their DESIRES were clear. I live to serve, but I DID wish I had had the drink. Irish Coffee. Because Seattle is a coffee town.

Digression: My discreet media escort would not tell me who, but she told me she once had an author get in on a ten am flight and when they got to the car she said, "Want to go by your hotel first and drop off bags" and he said, "No. I want to go by a bar and drop IN some whiskey." And this was BEFORE anyone gave him paper STAFF PICK nipples and asked him to, I dunno, Charleston his way down the stacks. Which I bet they did if he stopped by here.

This ain't your sainted Granny's bookshop.

Joshilyn Jackson

Faster Than Kudzu

"Criminal Paradise" in Seattle

This is my first visit to Seattle and I am trying to decide if I like it better than San Francisco. I think maybe I do. Love the watery environment, all the seafood restaurants and boats, ferries coming and going. The archetecture is striking as well, lots of fine old brick buildings with elaborate ornimintation that take the imagination back to the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Very cool city.

I am at the wonderful Seattle Mystery Bookstore starting on the first leg of my first book tour signing and talking about "Criminal Paradise," a crime novel set not in cloudy Seattle but in sunny Southern California. In it, a pair of relitively "good" criminals undercover a sordid slave-trading operation and clash with the "bad" criminals, saving a young girl and creating several days of meyhem along the coast between Newport Beach and San Pedro. The coastal environment is actually a kind of character in the novel, which celebrates not only the joys of crime but of palmy beaches and blue seas as well.

"Spiritual Criminals," the second novel in this series, featuring armed robber and burglar Robert Rivers, has been accepted by Random House and will be published in 2009.

Best,

Steven M. Thomas

Sharan Newman

Keeping any business alive in this economy is a challenge. Keeping an independent bookstore going is a miracle. Seattle Mystery Bookshop has stayed vibrant because of the enthusiasm of its staff and the welcome they give to everyone who comes by. I was glad to come back for a visit. Of course, as usual, I left having bought more than I sold. But that's part of the pleasure of being there.

Sharan Newman

Sweatshirtless in Seattle

What a thrill to finally meet the great folks at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop!  Thanks to friend and fellow writer Cherry Adair, I was lucky enough to discover the neatest store on the west coast.  Only problem?  Seattle in March isn't warm, especially not to a south Floridian who didn't think to pack sufficient warm clothing?  I'm making many shop keepers happy as I buy warm clothing and coffee at every turn.  Thanks for the hospitality SMB! 

Rhonda Pollero

www.rhondapollero.com

Our February Bestsellers

Our February Bestsellers

Hardcovers

1 – Earl Emerson, Primal Threat, Ballantine

2 – Jacqueline Winspear, An Incomplete Revenge, Holt

3 – Dana Stabenow, Prepared for Rage, St. Martin’s

4 – Louise Ure, The Fault Tree, St. Martin’s

5 – Cornelia Read, The Crazy School, Grand Central

6 – Robert Ferrigno, Sins of the Assassin, Simon & Schuster

7 – C.J. Box, Blue Heaven, St. Martin’s

8 – Robert B. Parker, Stranger in Paradise, Putnam

9 – tie

Marcus Sakey, At the City’s Edge, St. Martin’s

T. Jefferson Parker, L.A. Outlaws, Dutton

Paperback

1 – Christa Faust, Money Shot, Hard Case Crime

2 – Cornelia Read, A Field of Darkness, Warner

3 – Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy, Jove

4 – James W. Hall, Magic City, St. Martin’s

5 – tie

Lowen Clausen, River, Silo

Sue Ann Jaffarian, Too Big to Miss, Midnight Ink

Marcus Sakey, The Blade Itself, St. Martin’s

8 – tie

Yasmine Galenorn, Darkling, Berkley

Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs, Penguin

Patricia Sprinkle, What are You Wearing to Die?, Obsidian

Michael Connelly, The Overlook, Vision