I'm making my upteenth visit to Seattle's premier mystery bookstore today, signing copies of No. 6 in the Ethan Gage series, 'The Barbed Crown,' as well as other titles. The store is always friendly, despite its shelves being filled with gruesome crimes, and warm, despite the outlines of coldblooded killings, and comprehensive, meaning they carry my books! I also learned the back alley is sometimes used for fashion shoots by local photographers. What's not to like?
In 'The Barbed Crown,' my American hero lands in France in 1804 bent on revenge against Napoleon, and is soon entangled with spies and counterspies in plans for Bonaparte's invasion of England, his coronation as emperor, and eventually the decisive naval battle of Trafalgar. His wife Astiza comes back from the dead (explained, of course) and his four-year-old son Harry plays a critical role. Skirmishes, storms, battles, new-fangled weapons and the birth of the modern police (French) and spy service (British.)
Hope you browse my signed books at the store and all the others of Mystery Bookshop's magnificent collection. Thanks to J.B. and gang for the warm welcome again.
On my way over to Seattle Mystery Bookstore, my media escort, Eileen, took me for a quick stroll by Pioneer Square. She pointed out the pergola, a beautiful turn of the century structure originally made in Paris. "One time," she told me, "a truck was turning at that corner, and accidentally crashed into the pergola and took it down. The trucking company paid for its restoration." Just as she finished telling me this, sure enough, a truck cut the corner too close and clipped the side of the pergola. Within minutes, it became wedged over a bollard and under the overhang of the perola's roof!
Bystanders stared in disbelief, and soon after started snapping photos. Everyone began speculating over how to solve the riddle of getting the truck unstuck. As for my media escort and I, we couldn't believe our eyes. "Wow," Eileen said. " I suppose I should've said one time I won the lottery, just to see what happens."
She walked me over to the bookstore, where as people drifted in and out, the main refrain was: "Did you see what happened to the pergola in Pioneer Square?" I settled into the store, and eventually Eileen went to go take a walk. I asked her if she was going back to the scene of the crime. "I'm going to buy a lottery ticket," she said with an impish smile.
Here's to hoping Eileen buys a winning ticket, and that the mystery of how to get the truck unwedged from the pergola is quickly and safely solved!
The following is a post by William Kent Krueger which he posted on his own blog today, April 22nd. He kindly gave us permission to repost it.
When I was a kid, every town had a bookstore. An independent bookstore. Some towns had several. They were as ubiquitous as local drugstores with soda fountains and as important as any other element to the life of a community. It’s not like that now. Our local, independently owned bookstores are an endangered species. They’re the victims of big chains and of Amazon, yes. But they’re also endangered because of our own lethargy and our insensitivity to both the necessity and the importance of these very valuable resources.
Borders has gone the way of the dodo bird. If what we hear is true, Barnes and Noble is on the ropes. And when that chain is gone, know who’s left? Amazon. The big faceless corporation for whom books are simply another commodity and each of us is simply a revenue source.
Buying from independents is in our own best interest. It assures that no one large entity will control what’s available to us as readers. Freedom—and it does come down to this—is all about choice.
Most of the signings I do are at independents. I’ll be signing on Friday at a wonderful small bookstore in Hudson, Wisconsin, called Chapter2Books. Like most independents, they walk a fine line between red ink and black. If you live in the area, I would consider it a personal favor if you came and experienced this lovely shop and began to do your book buying there. Here’s a link to a great blog about these folks and their plight.
Thanks for listening. And remember: Think globally. Shop locally.
Thanks, Kent, for your efforts on behalf of us little guys!
One thing that happens a lot is that I get an idea that excites me but it's not big enough for a book so I stick it in my idea file. Months later I get a similar idea. Then, some time in the future, I realize that I can stick the seemingly unconnected ideas together and I'll have a whole book. That happened with Sleight of Hand, my latest thriller.
I always wanted to write a book where the bad guy is a criminal defense attorney who kills witnesses to win his cases. I also love The Maltese Falcon. In Sleight of Hand I bring back Dana Cutler, the popular star of my Washington Trilogy (Executive Privilege, Supreme Justice, and Capitol Murder) in her own book. Dana is approached by a mysterious Frenchwoman who wants her to travel across the country in search of a gold, jewel encrusted scepter that was owned by the Sultan who conquered Constantinople in the 1400s. During her quest for the mysterious object she meets many odd characters who are right out of The Maltese Falcon, and, you guessed it, there is more to her quest than meets the eye.
Back in Washington, D.C.. chrismatic criminal defense lawyer Charles Benedict, an amateur magician and hit man for the Russian mob, murders a prosecutor then uses magic illusion and sleight of hand to frame her multimillionaire huband for the crime. The two cases dobn't appear to have anything to do with each other, but I promise you, they do.
(We only have one or two signed copies left in stock, get them before they are gone! -SMB)
-->How many rejection slips did you get before your first novel was published?
Enough so that I was able to wallpaper an entire bathroom with them! Really, true story!
-->Have you ever thrown away a book that you just couldn't make work?
That’s never happened, I save EVERYTHING!
-->Is it still exciting to publish a new book even after all this time?
Every time I see a new book of mine in print, my heart races and I start smiling. I have always loved being a writer (Especially the Hannah Swensen Mysteries).
-->Do you get ideas for new books all the time and you keep them written down, or does one come to mind when you need one?
It happens both ways.
-->Do you have entire story arcs mapped out when you begin a trilogy or a series of related books?
I have each book mapped out, before I begin in outline form, but I have never plotted an “arc” of a series. I just write one book at a time- focusing on each one individually.
-->Do you know how a book/series is going to end when you begin it?
Yes.
-->Do you have to enter a different mind-set to write different stories for different names / characters?
No.
--> Is there any kind of book you would like to write but haven't?
Of Course.
-->If you could change anything about your writing career, what would it be?
I wouldn't change anything about Hannah. She wouldn't let me.
-->If you could have written any single work – novel, screenplay, stage play, poem, history, biography – that you most admire and adore, what would it be?
I wish I had written a check to myself for a million dollars that hadn't bounced!
-->Anything you’ve always wanted to be asked about your writing but no one ever has?
My affair with Seattle begins at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop --- all the crime and mystery novels I can devour. This is the best place to Launch a book on Pub Day and I'm thrilled to launch Murder Below Montparnasse set in Paris in a Northwest semi-equivalent with almost as many cafes.
Big merci's to JB, Amber, Fran and Adele for a brilliant and warm launch!!!!!!!!!!
Stopped in at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop to sign on opening day. Weather is Seattle springish -- gray and sweet smelling. First stop on the tour and I'm pretty stoked.
Dan Dos Santos's cover art is incredibly beautiful. There is always something in one of his paintings that is amazing. On Hunting Ground, it is in the detail of the ribbon on Anna's sweater. Bone Crossed had the drops of water hanging from the crowbar and Mercy's chin. For Frost Burned, its the incredible way that he made the tail light on Mercy's doomed car light up.
-->How many rejection slips did you get before your first novel was published?
Zero, and that was NOT a good thing. I sold my first completed novel in about five days, and instantly got a three-book contract. I had to live with some half-baked, half-thought relatioships. Ever since, I put a book away for months before I show it to anyone.
-->Have you ever thrown away a book that you just couldn't make work?
I have, and there are a few I WISH I had, but I'm not saying which ones since other people seem to like them.
-->Is it still exciting to publish a new book even after all this time?
It's flabbergasting. I sit alone in a room for months and months and then all these people swing into action, actually turning my daydream into an actual slab of paper that real bookstores can foist upon an unwitting public.
-->Do you have entire story arcs mapped out when you begin a trilogy or a series of related books?
I never have any idea where a book is going. I start with a basic idea and a handful of characters and then I just follow the characters, which is why I throw the occasional book away.
Author Neil Low's additional info on Earp in Seattle!
I really enjoyed the Wyatt Earp link, already being familiar with the story.
The block where Earp opened a gambling house has a very colorful history. The bar was located right next to the G.O. Guy’s at 2nd and Yesler, where in 1901 Chief of Police William Meredith tried to gun down John Considine, the gambling ringleader who opposed Wyatt Earp.
In June of 1901, Considine accused Meredith of shaking him down illegally. When that didn’t get the reaction he hoped for, he told the City Council that Meredith had impregnated the star performer in his stage show, a young contortionist. The City Council demanded Meredith’s resignation.
Available information makes it look almost like a chance meeting between Meredith and Considine, but my analysis suggests that Meredith was waiting for the Considine brothers with his own posse of sorts: Sheriff Cudahy, a detective (who later became police chief) and a beat cop—which very much reminds me of the shootout at the OK Corral. My hunch is that after Wyatt Earp’s visit, Meredith felt emboldened enough to try this kind of western street justice on Considine.
After writing his resignation, not effective for another three weeks, Meredith took action, seeking his chance at heroics and fame. Heavily armed and letting all who saw him know that he was after Considine, he fired two blasts from a sawed-off shotgun but only winged Considine, who had just entered the G.O. Guy’s Pharmacy with his brother Tom. The wild shotgun blasts also wounded a patron at the soda counter. John reacted quickly and ran toward his assailant, grabbing him in a bear hug. Meredith tried to draw a handgun from a pocket, but John took it away and struck the chief on the head, fracturing his skull. Others who crowded the doorway disarmed Considine and held his brother Tom, pinning his arms back, keeping him out of the fray. Meredith staggered and tried to draw another pistol (one of three he was armed with), but John Considine broke free from his captors (Meredith’s accomplices), pulled his own revolver, and shot the chief three times, killing him.
Cudahy, who had been Meredith’s detective partner, while on the police department, before becoming the Sheriff, arrested the Considine brothers for pre-meditated First-Degree Murder. Meredith was given the largest funeral Seattle and the Northwest had ever seen. The Considines were acquitted at trial, and John soon partnered with Alexander Pantages, establishing vaudeville in this area, putting distance between himself and the tenderloin.
Considine was also involved in founding the Fraternal Order of Eagles and moved to Hollywood to make movies. His grandson is Tim Considine, whom you might remember from Disney’s Hardy Boys, Spin and Marty, and "My Three Sons". Pantages stuck with vaudeville and lost most of the fortune he’d made, while defending his reputation against charges of immodest behavior with a juvenile.
Although he was still the Chief of Police, William Meredith’s name does not grace the walls of the Justice Center with those who died honorably. Also interesting is that nobody has raised the specter that this was clearly an ambush and that Sheriff Cudahy and the detective (I believe to be Wapentstien) were not charged as accomplices.
We're living in strange and confusing times. It seems hard to find what's true about ourselves and the world around us. We're bombarded with messages that send us down blind alleys. This was one of the original things that drove me to begin "This Is What We Do." My characters, James and Lily, have looked in the mirror and see emptiness and false imagery. They desire something authentic in their lives, but putting their pasts behind them proves more difficult than they imagined.
Carola Dunn was in to sign her new Cornish mystery, The Valley of the Shadow. She brought Trillian with her. Then Russell came in to see her and brought his puppy Teezle. Great Fun!
Dec 13th addition:
Here are Carola's answers to our Author Questions -
--> How many rejection slips did you get before your
first novel was published?
Not counting SF short stories (at which, obviously, I do
not excel), three or four. I was really lucky to hit the right editor at the
right time with the right book.
--> Have you ever thrown away a book that you just
couldn't make work?
Never! They just sit in the files hopefully waiting for
the day... In fact the one I'm writing now was started some time ago but I
decided the story was too complicated. It's still almighty complicated but
luckily I have a patient editor.
--> Is it still exciting to publish a new book even
after all this time?
Every time. If I'm counting right (and if you count my
Regency novella anthologies), The Valley of the Shadow is my 59th, or is it
58th? But it's still a thrill to finish writing, to get the first copy, and to
see it in the stores.
--> Do you get ideas for new books all the time and
you keep them written down, or does one come to mind when you need one?
It varies. I get ideas all the time but I don't write
them down. I figure if they're really good ideas, I won't forget them and conversely,
if I forget them it means they weren't very good.
--> Do you have entire story arcs mapped out when you
begin a trilogy or a series of related books?
No. I never took writing classes (except in high school)
or read how-to books, so I'm still not entirely clear on what a story arc is.
My mysteries just move from one story to the next, connected by the main
characters. My Regency trilogies all happened because I finished one book and
had a hero or heroine left over in need of a marriageable partner.
--> Do you know how a book/series is going to end when
you begin it?
Not always. For instance, when I wrote Sheer Folly
(Daisy), I knew the villain was one of two people but I didn't find out which
till the next to last chapter. Interestingly, one reviewer claimed to have
guessed less than halfway through, while another was baffled to the end. I'm
not sure if that means I did it right or did it wrong!
--> Do you have to enter a different mind-set to write
different stories for different names/characters?
Absolutely. For a start, I have to be "in the
period," that is, the 1920s or the '60s/70s (or the Regency when I was
writing those books). Then, I can't be thinking like Daisy when I'm writing
from Alec's point of view, and of course the same goes for Eleanor and Megan.
Multiple personality disorder...?
--> Is there
any kind of book you would like to write but haven't?
Yes, several. I've pretty much proved my inability to
write SF but there's half a novel in the filing cabinet. I have a sort of caper/coming-of-age-at-50
with 3 chapters and outline written. I'd love to write about the Byzantine
Empire in the eleventh century (though I'm rather daunted by the research
involved), and likewise for Egypt 14th century. But I'm not a historian so I'd
probably have to call both those fantasy or get nailed by real historians.
They're both based on real people though.
--> If you could have written any single work – novel,
screenplay, stage play, poem, history, biography – that you most admire and
adore, what would it be?
Pride and Prejudice. But I would have had to write it in
the early 19th century...
With his new book, The Black Box, Michael Connelly marks two decades worth of Harry Bosch novels. To celebrate this landmark, his publisher put together this poster featuring covers of the books from around the world. The poster was also signed by Michael (you can see his silver signature at the right edge down toward the bottom.
Very classy: for the publisher to go through the time and expense of creating, printing and sending out these posters and for Michael for taking his time to sign them.
Thanks to Michael Connelly and his publisher, Little Brown, for 20 years of Harry Bosch!
--> How many rejection slips did you get before your first novel was published?
I was lucky. I was already a screenwriter and had a film agent at William Morris. So when I finished the manuscript of THE SILVER BEAR (after five years of writing, putting it off, writing, putting it off), I gave it to my film agent and said, "I wrote this. I don't know if it's any good or there's a market for it." My film agent sent it to Mel Berger, a WME literary agent in NYC. He read it and said he loved it and wanted to try to sell it. I thought maybe he was humoring me because my film agent put him up to it. The book sold the next week. To be fair, I had a lot of rejection slips when I was coming up in screenwriting, so this overnight success story is really ten years in the making.
--> Have you ever thrown away a book that you just couldn't make work?
Yes, the first novel I tried to write out of college was titled THE ANNUNCIATION and was about a boy, today, who an angel appears to and tells him where and when the Second Coming will take place. A bunch of people try to kill him after that. I didn't know what I was doing then and wasn't much of a writer. It had its moments but it has long since been trashed.
--> Is it still exciting to publish a new book even after all this time?
It is extremely exciting and nerve wracking. It is much different than a movie, where everything builds up toward a release date and you are made or broken in that first weekend. A book's release can be a long process, and a book can catch on months after it first hits shelves. The best part is finally getting reader reviews and press reviews and seeing if that book that has been in your head for so long actually entertains.
--> Do you get ideas for new books all the time and you keep them written down, or does one come to mind when you need one?
I wish I did! No, I usually have just a kernel of an idea for the next book I want to write and then I start writing and see where it goes. I usually figure it out about a 1/3 of the way through… at least I figure out the ending… and then I work to that. A lot of times I figure out what the last line of the book will be and then I just set that as my target and everything drives toward that last line.
--> Do you have entire story arcs mapped out when you begin a trilogy or a series of related books?
Not at all. I barely know where that particular book is going to go when I first start typing. Do you have any ideas for where the sequel to THE RIGHT HAND should go?
--> Do you have to get into a different creative space to write novels than you do screenplays?
You
don't have to be in a different mindset to write novels versus screenplays… the
same muscles that help you put audiences on the edge of their seats apply when
you want readers flipping pages. It is all about pace, and writing movies
certainly influences the style of my prose.
--> Do you have to enter a different mind-set to write different stories for different names/characters?
Yes… you definitely have to switch hats when you change points of view. I like to write driving, page-turning stories… so I usually get some loud rock music blaring and then go to work.
--> Is there any kind of book you would like to write but haven't?
No, I've been lucky enough to write some crime and some espionage thrillers. That's what I enjoy, and that's what I'll continue to do.
--> If you could change anything about your writing career, what would it be?
I pinch myself that I get to do this for a living. I would, of course, like to reach more readers, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. I just write the best books I can and hope people will pass them along, recommend them, and tell all their friends.
--> What’s the most interesting question you’ve ever been asked about your writings, and what was your answer?
I was asked, "How does your wife sleep at night next to you knowing her husband writes these stories about hit men and death and destruction." My answer was, "I've been asking myself that question for 18 years."
--> If you could have written any single work – novel, screenplay, stage play, poem, history, biography – that you most admire and adore, what would it be?
I am blown away by Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES. Perfect novel. I get writer envy all the time though. I just read Neal Stephenson's REAMDE and thought, "how the hell does he write that many words and tie all that plot together with characters I actually care about?"
--> Anything you’ve always wanted to be asked about your writing but no one ever has?
I've always wanted to be asked… "Derek, you are a national best seller, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, with entire rows of bookstore shelves dedicated to your books… how does it feel to have so many readers?" Strangely, I haven't been asked that yet.
So when my editor sent me the cover for COLLARED, the first Gin & Tonic mystery, I was thrilled - the art was cute, and the copy was dead-one for tone and...wait a minute. Wait, what? "...the neighborhood PORTLAND bar?"
So I called my editor and I called my agent and said "SEATTLE! Not Portland - SEATTLE!"
And the "oops" was heard 'round NYC.
So while here at Seattle Mystery Bookshop, celebrating the launch of COLLARED, I'd like to apologize to everyone, and swear that yes I do know the difference between Seattle and Portland, truly I do. And I've done my very best to make sure that what's INSIDE the book is true to Seattle, a city that I love second only to my own NYC.
And I have been promised first kicking rights, as soon as someone in the copy department fesses up...
“Where do you get the ideas for your books” is the first question my readers always ask. And when I tell them that I got the idea for my latest mystery, The Bones and the Book, from two business cards, they look a bit stunned. But it’s true. I really was inspired to begin the historical novel by one business card and to finish it by another. The first card once belonged to a long-dead Jewish fortune teller named Dora Meltzer and the second to the very much alive one-time Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, now Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy in the other Washington. Here’s how it happened.
After a tour of Manhattan’s Tenement Museum in the late 1990's, I was in the gift shop where I was drawn to a piece of note paper decorated with the facsimile of Dora Meltzer’s business card. About a hundred years before, Ms. Meltzer lived in one of the tiny, teeming, unplumbed apartments I'd just explored. Her white square card claims that she can predict how matters of love, money, health, travel, and the law will work out for her clients. I figured she must have been gutsy to defy rabbinical strictures against fortune telling. According to the rabbis, only god knows what the future holds, and we humans aren't supposed to compete. I've always been a fan of women who defy the rules men make for us, and I wondered what drove Dora Meltzer to take up a forbidden profession. What was her story? The minute I heard myself “say” the word story I wanted to make Dora’s story up, to write a novel about an Orthodox Jewish immigrant girl who becomes a palmist in the late Nineteenth Century. As I stood in line at the cash register in that gift shop, Dora moved into my head and I renamed her Feigle, the most Yiddish-sounding name I could think of. Feigele stayed in my head for nearly a decade.
Feigele had to share the space in my head with the menopausal protagonist of my 8-book Bel Barrett Mystery Series. It took me so long to get around to telling Feigele’s story because I was still writing of Bel’s adventures and because in 2003 my husband and I relocated from the east coast to Issaquah WA. Soon after we moved, I attended my first meeting of the Puget Sound chapter of Mystery Writers of America. The speaker was Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. After his talk he handed each of us one of his business cards and promised that if we called needing forensic advice, he’d connect us with experts in the SPD. I stashed Chief Kerlikowske’s card away and held onto it.
By 2005, I'd written the last two Bel Barrett books and was ready to begin telling Feigele’s story. I had a rough outline of parts of it sketched out. Feigele would travel from the Ukraine to New York to Seattle, to Alaska, and back to Seattle where she would be murdered in 1907. She would tell her story in Yiddish in a diary, the book of the title. A century later a tourist would spot Feigele’s bones and her diary in Seattle’s Underground Streets. The demolition of the Alaskan Way Viaduct would have disinterred the bones from their makeshift grave. A modern Yiddish-speaking Seattle widow would translate Feigele’s diary, be moved by her story, and figure out who killed her. I began to research Feigele’s life. In late 2006 I finally let Feigele out of my head and onto the page where I wrote the English translation of her diary. It took me over a year.
At last I was ready for forensic advice to help me figure out who murdered Feigele and how and how the murder would be solved. I plucked Chief Kerlikowske’s card from the drawer where I'd kept it and made the call. He was as good as his word. Thanks to him I met with the King County Medical Examiner’s Forensic Anthropologist Katherine Taylor, PhD. The bad news was that I'd barely sat down before Dr. Taylor pointed out a giant flaw in my fantasy forensics. Feigele’s bones would not have lasted one hundred years in Seattle’s soggy soil! Her bones would have remained intact only until the 1960's. The good news was that this information saved me from making a serious forensic error and drove me to revise my plans for the rest of the novel. It would not take place in the 21st Century but in the mid-1960's. Goodbye modern career woman as amateur sleuth/translator. Hello aproned housewife Rachel Mazursky as amateur sleuth/translator. Rachel is a widowed Jewish mother with an empty nest, an empty bed, a passion for history, an inside line to god, and a story of her own to tell. She is so moved by Feigele’s account of loves and losses that she not only figures out who killed the diarist but also mines the diary for lessons that strengthen and enrich her own life..
Two different business cards inspired me to invent two strong, smart, and caring Jewish women, each a creature of her time, who together tell one wrenching murder story. Enjoy!
Our signing with Jo Nesbo was a boffo success. It's been awhile since we had such a long line of fans waiting to get their books signed. If you couldn't make it, here are some shots from the day.
Here's the line of patient people - it eventually reached to the back of the shop.
And, finally, here's his #1 fan - our Adele - getting her collection signed.
