RSVP

 You Are Invited....

-from Susan

I couldn’t resist answering the same question as last week’s: Dinner party for eight, seven of them characters from crime fiction, me the eighth? 

I love planning dinner parties, hoping to spark good conversation among people who may not think alike, but who think, and can talk, and are fun. Usually, there’s some constraint on the ideal guest list: someone will be out of town; person A has a boring partner who can kill conversations with a single syllable; person C doesn’t drive at night any more. But for this – no bounds!

No killers at my party, sorry. They may be fascinating but my guests have enough of crime in their daily fictional lives, and this is a night off. Everyone speaks enough English to participate in the evening, but it’s quite an international crew. Oh, and one more thing: I’d be tongue-tied with awe and fangirl crushes, so I’m sending Dani O’Rourke, my smooth fundraiser and witty observer, in my place. She moves in these social circles better than I do.

Yes, yes, it’s one more than the suggested eight, but that’s how my dinner parties usually work – too many delightful people so I squeeze someone in, spoiling the symmetry but assuring a great evening. I’ll stay in the kitchen, cooking and eavesdropping.

Archie Goodwin, who can slide into any group and operate with charm while getting people to tell him just about anything. Women love him. Ask him anything about New York City.

Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, a.k.a. Georgie, a British royal with no money but lots of class, perfect for Archie to flirt with. Get her to talk about the Irish aristocracy if you want to see her blush.

Aimee Leduc, whose baby will probably be asleep in my guest room along with Aimee’s little dog, Miles Davis, and who gives off waves of Parisian glamor and can talk European politics with expertise and verve.

Elouise Norton, who will probably be wearing her gun even though she’s far away from her LA comfort zone and who can get the women laughing at some male foolishness (to which Archie will merely raise an eyebrow and smile).

Guido and Paola Brunetti, because you shouldn’t even think about one half of this happily married, multi-lingual, brainy couple without the other, even if it means you can’t serve Italian food because Paola is the best home cook in Venice, maybe anywhere.

Precious Ramotswe because she will add the sugar and sweetness, offered in a lilting Botswana accent, that makes her a great storyteller, and because she is always the guest people fall in love with when they get to know her.

Rumpole just so all that sweetness and charm is counter-balanced by a cynical, acid-laced view of the world from an old Brit with a rumbling voice (and freed for the night from She Who Must Be Obeyed).

Bon appetit!

Images courtesy of my friend Mark Jordan, 

whose table designs are famous among his many friends.

Guests courtesy of:

1.     Rex Stout

2.     Rhys Bowen

3.     Cara Black

4.     Rachel Howzell Hall

5.     Donna Leon

6.     Alexander McCall Smith

7.     John Mortimer

Books as presents? But of course!

Early holiday shopping challenge: With Thanksgiving coming up in the USA please give us five titles or criminally good books you think would make great gifts ...and for whom. 



- from Susan


MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE, by Margaret Truman except that we now know it was the prolific and admirable Donald Bain who really wrote the series.  And who could it possibly be for other than the Donald.

MURDER IN SAINT GERMAIN, by Cara Black for my Francophile friends, of whom there are many.

KILMOON, by Lisa Alber for bestselling author Sheila Connolly because when you love Ireland as Sheila does, there's never enough Irish blarney.

MONK'S HOOD, by Ellis Peters for my sister, who spends a week every year at a Greek monastery in California and soaks up the atmosphere minus murder.

LOS ALAMOS, by Joseph Kanon for Brian Shea (my son and a budding crime writer) because weaving history into a mystery is an art in itself and this book has stayed fresh in my mind for years.

And a bonus: MURDER IN THE ABSTRACT, by me for the man I met at an art gallery Saturday who was thrilled to meet a mystery writer and wanted to read all of mine starting with the first.

Happy reading, everyone!

The world is changing faster than you can write - technologically, politically, environmentally etc. How do roll with the changes in your fiction?

- from Susan

By taking the easy way out. My stories are all set right now. Where technology is concerned, that means no need for historical research into things like flat screen TVs and cell phones, like pal Cara Black has to do for her mid-1990’s series, or Sue Grafton has to do for hers. The problem with near history is we’ve all lived it and can spot anachronistic errors instantly. Remember the blinking green c-prompt on the dark screen (shudder)?

Politically? I avoid the topical political environment since it changes daily, as in “Breaking News: The White House has …” But my characters live in a world that is shaped by national and local political realities, even if I don’t enumerate them. In the third Dani O’Rourke novel, the slippery ethics of Silicon Valley and anti-social acquisitiveness of the one percenters play a major role in the story. Tim Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty series stands out for me because he shines an unblinking light on the corruption of the Thai government without sacrificing one iota of gripping story.

In fiction, I haven’t tackled the environment in the U.S. or France, where my new series is set. I wonder if I could do that without turning my traditional mysteries into angry screeds or dark stories about greed, collusion, and tragedy? I think, even if I could avoid that, my books would take a different turn and I’m not sure I could do that well. Could I hold a reader’s interest or would I turn her off if I had a character researching the garbage gyre(s) in the Pacific Ocean or the shocking loss of avian species since 1900? Maybe I can figure out a way. I suggest you read Kirk Russell’s Deadgame as a prime example of the best environmental crime fiction.

I have read some crime fiction that handles some or all of these issues brilliantly. But as often as not, the inclusion of a major plotline about politics or the environment falls with a thud as it morphs quickly into lightly or vastly paranoic lines – a protagonist fighting Them (and They are frequently dark government forces who want to kill anyone trying to save the planet). Not sure that does much good for reforming real political landscapes or protecting the fingerling salmon in California from drought or polluted waterways.

The question is a good one though, and it may make me a bit more conscious of the need and value of reminding readers of what we stand to lose when we don’t bring these issues into our daily lives and deal with them.

 This is my latest, set in France with not a single reference to Macron or his wife. ;-)

Yes to everything, by Catriona

"How do you get yourself and your books noticed by the public? We hear that publishers aren't doing so much these days. How do make your work stand out from the crowd?"

Disclaimer: I'm late with a book, getting very close to the revised deadline, stressed and grumpy and some social niceties have evaporated. Also I can't top or even match the magisterial splendour of Cathy's post yesterday. But here's what I found in the corners of my brain when I had a scrape round.

My default position is "yes to everything". If a publicist asks for an interview, listicle or blog post, I say yes. If someone asks me to go to a bookgroup, library event or literacy fundraiser, I say yes. If anyone asks me to do any of the above naked, I'll let you know.

As well as that, my top three tips - if they're coherent enough to be called tips - about publicity and promotion are as follows:

1. A book is like a suitcase full of money

I want to start by echoing what Susan said on Monday. The most important arrow in your PR quiver is a finished, polished, as-good-as-you-can-get-it book. I think it was at Killer Nashville that someone in the audience asked this question of the panel on the podium: "I've written my synopsis and three chapters and I've got a website and business cards. What's next?" The roar of "chapter four" might have been silent but it was deafening too.

It doesn't matter how well you pitch [see below] or how great your swag is; these things are just promissory notes. They try to persuade people that you have a suitcase and it's full of money. You might be convincing and they might believe you. But flinging open the lid and showing the treasure is something else again.

2. y book in my book in my book in my book in my book in my book in my book in my book in my b

It's not a good idea to bore people if you're hoping they'll spend 10+ hours with you. And few things are more boring than verbal synopses of books you haven't read. It's almost never a good idea spontaneously to talk about the plot, characters or setting of your book except in a book group, where people have read it and can join in. In a nutshell, I'd say never pitch a book unless someone has just asked you to. How do you know when you're pitching? The phrase "in my book" could be included.

It was at the bar at Bouchercon that a man asked me what I wrote. I said "preposterous 1930s detective stories". He replied: "Ah, cozies. Not for me. But you should read my stuff." He gave me a business card. "In my book ..." he went on (and on (and on)). Guess whether I pounded straight to the dealers' room to snap up his book. Go on. Guess.

3. There are worse things than telling Stephen King you love Lisey's Story (but don't lick his face).

So, I can imagine someone reading No. 2 and muttering: "Well, what are we supposed to talk about then, Miss Bossy Knickers?" And my reply is . . . be a reader first. Share the joy of books instead of the miseries of publishing. At conventions, in newsletters, on your website, while teaching workshops, on social media, in the bar, on the bus . . . talk about the books you love. With fellow readers, find out what they love - find one you've both read. Do the same with fellow writers. With heroes, I think it's perfectly all right to say thank you and tell them you love their books, even to let them know what your favourite is. 

But no licking faces.

More fun with sharp knives.

If you've ever seen the film WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, you might remember the scene around the family dinner table where the conversation goes something like this:

"I didn't say Guy Lombardo was Spanish."
"John Wayne was six foot three."
"These mashed potatoes are so creamy."

Well, it's my mother's birthday today (she's in her very very very late seventies (eighty-two)) and we were just eating birthday cake, sorting out the edge bits for a new jigsaw puzzle and discussing whatI'd write if I didn't write crime. Here's the consensus:

"Scottish fiction. What did Sayers write?"
"Crime."
"Oh."
"Remember there was coffee in it too. That's extra liquid."
"Anne Tyler's not crime."
"Some of them just have a tiny wee straight bit."
"Teenage stories for children."
"Eighteen hairpin bends.* And what was the other thing I had to look up?"
"Matlock."
"Oh yes, Dragnet."
"That was crime."

(*On Lombard Street, in San Francisco)

My family are not going to be any sort of help at all, clearly. So I'm on my own. If I was banish-ed (it needs three syllables) from MWA, SinC, and CWA and had to write something else, it would be . . . a cookery book.

The sort of cookery book I love doesn't have a recipe per page with a list of ingredients and a pithy set of instructions; it has the history of the dish; alternatives and additions; perhaps a planting plan for growing ingredients in the garden; and - most important of all - it tells you why you're doing things.

If a recipe says "be careful not to . . . whatever" I want to know why. Will it be tough? Will it break with tradition? Will it fail to rise? Will it taste bad? Will it look funny? Not all of these things matter much to me.

I like nothing better than a chatty cook book that can sit on the kitchen table for weeks to be read over solitary lunches. Even if I only ever make one or two of the recipes, I'll have learned something about food or a bit of kitchen wisdom, or at least have been entertained.

If I could write such a book - called maybe LOW EFFORT, FLASHY RESULTS - I'd be happy.