A Clean Well-Lighted Place to Read

Where do you normally read? In bed? A favorite chair? Listen to audio when commuting?

by Paul D. Marks

Well, since I basically commute from the bedroom or kitchen to my home office, a distance of about thirty or forty feet, I don’t do much reading on my commute. But if I did – and if I had a self-driving car – I’d be reading a hardcopy book or one on a Kindle app. I find that if I try to listen to an audio book my mind drifts too much. I don’t know why.

These days I do most of my reading at home, because I’m home most of the time – you see, there’s a logic to it. There’s various spots I like, nothing out of the ordinary like sitting in a tree or while hang-gliding. There’s three or four places that I do most of my reading: in bed, a chair in the bedroom that faces out to the view, on the family room couch, a particular chair in the living room and outside on the patio. I don’t take many baths but when I do I like reading in the tub, but I’m very careful not to get anything wet…except me. Most of my books look unread and if I got one wet – or too wet – I’d freak out. Not really, but almost. I guess I’m pretty nitpicky about that, but I like to keep them pristine. So much so that sometimes we buy Amy, the wife, a separate book of the same thing so mine doesn’t get messed up. She’s not as particular as I am. And when we had a pool I liked reading outside on the deck or on a pool lounger. I wish I could say I read at the beach these days, but alas I don’t get there as much as I used to. We do live just outside the national forest and sometimes I think about going up there and reading but it’s pretty nice here and if I don’t have to go anywhere, I pretty much don’t.

Here's one of my favorite reading spots with the ubiquitous slip covers because of the dog hair everywhere. I forgot what the upholstery looked like until I took the cover off the ottoman.

When we travel I like to read on planes, as long as there’s no loud or obnoxious flyers, so that does limit plane-reading sometimes. And if we had a boat, ah, but I can dream, can’t I?

Like others have mentioned, I have stacks of TBR books all over the place and a virtual stack on the Kindle app. I have some audio books around that I listen to now and then, but as I said, I tend to lose focus. Amy reads on audio a lot, as she commutes to work on the train. However her brain is wired vs. the way mine is allows her to concentrate on audio books and her mind doesn’t seem to wander. She really enjoys her audio books and I’m envious because I would like to “read” them. It just doesn’t work out.

Buster was enjoying the July/August, 2019, issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, which includes my story Past is Prologue. Then he just zonked out using my leg as a pillow. Hope it wasn’t my story that put him to sleep.

And like Frank, I often have at least one non-fiction (though sometimes more) and one fiction book going. I usually don’t read more than one fiction book at a time, but I might be reading short stories while I have a novel going.

Here's the view at sunset from another of my reading spots.

How about you? Where do you like to enjoy a book? And now excuse me, I gotta go hit the hang glider and get some reading done.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

Don't forget to check out Broken Windows, the sequel to my Shamus award-winning novel, White Heat. Betty Webb at Mystery Scene magazine says: "Broken Windows is extraordinary."

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

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Sparking Oy!

You’ve just read Marie Kondo’s book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,”  and you’re getting ready to clean up your writing space/office. What things “spark joy” and what would you get rid of? Do you keep old drafts of stories/novels, e-versions, paper? Copies of your books, others’ books? Knickknacks? Etc.

by Paul D. Marks

Hahahahahahaha!

Surely you jest.

I look at clean, almost sterile offices and rooms and I envy them. I want to be that way. I vow to be that way. But I will never be that way.

I am a saver, a packrat. Though maybe not as bad as some of those people who have thirty years of newspapers piled up throughout their houses and can barely make their way through the passages between them. Like the infamous Collyer brothers of New York, who died under their piles of “treasures”: https://allthatsinteresting.com/collyer-brothers

The Collyer brothers "treasures"

We’re always trying to declutter around here. And I admit, I’m the packrat, not Amy. I save everything, well almost everything. I’ve finally stopped saving (most) empty boxes ’cause you never know when they might come in handy. Somehow I’ve survived the withdrawal from that. But it wasn’t easy… I had to go to Boxaholics Anonymous.

I’m not sure why I’m such a packrat or why I might be so sentimental. It might have something to do with my father being killed by a drunk driver when I was about a year old. Somehow he made it through World War II, but the mean streets of L.A., even back then… So maybe that loss makes me want to save things that I can.

On top of that, I collect toys and Beatles stuff and some other things as well. And, of course, there’s books and records and movies and CDs. Though I wish I had more of the other kind of CDs, the kind that count as money.

Here’s the thing about the office. It might be a mess…but I know where things are. When I need something I generally know where to find it. If I put it away in a drawer or file cabinet, well, it’s out of sight, out of mind, out of memory. And it usually takes me forever to find it again. It’s like that scene in The Man on the Flying Trapeze, where W.C. Field’s desk is a mess of a mess, but he knows just where to find every piece of paper. Check out this clip from the movie, but the part where he goes to his desk is 3:49 minutes in:

And I like having things within reach. I still keep certain books (like a slang thesaurus and a guide to baby names) within reach, even though I might reach for them less now that I can look up stuff on the internet. I guess I like to have them there as a security blanket. And hey if the internet goes out I’ll need them.

Specifically as relates to my office, there are things I like: a handful of toy soldiers, my pic of Dennis Hopper flipping the bird from Easy Rider, lobby cards, Beatles (and other) album covers, photos of Keith Richards, Ray Davies, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger that my brother took, and my old Underwood typewriter.

My Underwood Typewriter

I still have several old file cabinets, some pretty big ones, full of old scripts and treatments and nine drafts of this and ten drafts of that. I used to save early drafts of things in the pre-computer days in case there was a legal dispute. But I feel like maybe I should get rid of these drafts. I’m sure I could probably cull some things.

On top of everything else, we closed our storage space a while back, so now we have all those boxes cluttering up the hall. But who has time to go through them? Though we have been through some and I found some really cool stuff, like my sign off the train station at the last remaining MGM backlot, the top of a newel post that I took from a Victorian mansion in Bunker Hill (L.A.) before it was torn down and my Corriganville glass. (See pix)

Train Station Sign off MGM Backlot

Bunker Hill Newel Post

Corriganville Glasses

So, while many things spark ‘oy,’ many others ‘spark joy,’ but as long as there’s no real sparks, I’m good with the clutter.

My one saving grace in this regard are all the articles that have come out recently that talk about people with messy desks being more intelligent. This is a huge relief. And I, therefore, declare my genius.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Past is Prologue is out in the new July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Available now at bookstores and newstands as well as online at: https://www.alfredhitchcockmysterymagazine.com/. Hope you'll check it out.

Also, check out Broken Windows, the sequel to my Shamus Award-winning novel, White Heat.

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

Click here to: Subscribe to my Newsletter

All Summer Long

Here comes the summer! Are summers a distinct stretch of the year for you? What's this one got in store?

by Paul D. Marks

Every now and then we hear our song,

We've been having fun all summer long.

—All Summer Long by Brian Wilson & Mike Love

—Performed by the Beach Boys

When I was younger summer was more of a distinct time for me. We’d load up the Woody—okay so it wasn’t a classic Woody, but it was a station wagon with fake wood sides—and go on a Surfin’ Safari,  Surfin’ USA, from “…Del Mar, Ventura County line, Santa Cruz and Trestle, Australia's Narrabeen, All over Manhattan, And down Doheny Way, inside, outside, USA,”* just to Catch a Wave. And I’ve got some great stories, especially about Doheny, but they’re probably for another time.

As California boys we’d be on the lookout for California Girls—“I wish they all could be California girls.”* And I met a Surfer Girl under The Warmth of the Sun at the beach one time and that turned into a three year or so relationship. Do You Wanna Dance, I asked her. And we did, Dance, Dance, Dance. But when I took her In My Room my parents walked in—the less said about that the better… I guess you could say we were Shut Down. Don’t Worry Baby, I told her, but that was the end of our Fun, Fun, Fun…at least for a time. I don’t know if there really were any Heroes and Villains then, but ultimately I grew up and then there were Good Vibrations.

We definitely had fun All Summer Long. But eventually, we went our separate ways and she told me to just Sail On, Sailor. Which I did.

But Wouldn’t It Be Nice if we could relive some of those youthful, exuberant and nostalgic times? I just wish I had more pix of them and could find the ones I do have—in a box somewhere.

***

But that was then and this is now:

Those carefree summers are gone with the wind. These days summer is more like Raymond Chandler’s Red Wind than the Beach Boys:

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Ana's that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.” —Red Wind by Raymond Chandler.

Speaking of carving knives and the like, as I’m writing this the Sunday before it’s due up, a news story broke about a place called Neptune’s Net. A beachy dive on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. A hang for bikers and surfers and others, if you dare. A place I love and have been to a lot. A place I took Amy when we met and since. And even a place I took my dad, who’s very opinionated about food, but who likes clam chowder and amazingly liked this place. So this story about a knifing there really bums me: https://www.malibusurfsidenews.com/p/news-police-fire/la-puente-man-dies-after-stabbing-neptune%E2%80%99s-net-parking-lot 

I even wrote about it in my novel Vortex:

Jess and I sped north on PCH, hoping Bryan and Carlos would assume we were going to be heading north all the way. We ripped past Zuma, flying up the coast. Turned into Neptune’s Net, a seafood dive favored by bikers, surfers and tourists. I didn’t think we quite fit any of those categories. The Mustang was camouflaged in the parking lot among all the other cars. We watched Bryan’s red Camaro zip past Neptune’s. We waited two or three minutes, then pulled out of the lot, cutting across traffic, turning left on PCH. Heading south now and lucky no ChiPs were there to light us up. Hopefully Bryan and Carlos were still heading north, thinking they’d catch up to us sooner or later.

But back to the question:

Aside from the weather, of course, these days summer is largely the same for me as any other season, killing people, mystery, noir, the thrills and chills of writing. I wish there were more chills. It gets hot here. And since I work at home there’s not much difference in terms of my daily routines. I walk the dogs. I do some social media. Might do some stuff around the house. And, if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll even get some writing in.

And, depending on how hot it is, the AC goes on, though I’d always prefer fresh air. But if I had my druthers—if I could ever figure out what druthers are—I’d prefer ocean air.

We’ve done a bit of traveling lately so I don’t think there’s much travel on the sked, except for Amy’s family reunion. It’s been a rough year or so for her as she lost both her parents, so maybe we can recuperate a little this summer. I think we started doing that with our anniversary this month. Also, one of our dogs is getting older and that’s starting to concern us, so I think we want to spend as much time with her as possible.

The thing we do worry about here in summer is fire . We live in a “wilderness” area, at least we pay an extra tax for fire services because of that. And we’ve had to evacuate two or three times and came close another couple of times. Let me tell you, it’s no fun. Rounding up the dogs wasn’t a problem, but you try rounding up two cats while sirens are screaming up and down the canyon.

The flames licking the hill across the canyon road.

The funny thing is the one time we actually saw flames on the hill next to us we didn’t have to evacuate. But we did during the Station Fire, which was huge. It turned the whole sky orange.

Anyway, these days as a writer I like a certain amount of consistency. Maybe it's not for everyone but that’s how I roll. So I like my routine for the most part and try to get as much done as possible. Those days of surfing, sailing and diving are mostly in the past now. But it’s nice to revisit them sometimes.
How ’bout you? What’s your summer shaping up like? Or should I say, what’re you doing All Summer Long?

*Surfin’ USA by Brian Wilson and Chuck Berry
*California Girls by Brian Wilson and Mike Love

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Past is Prologue is out in the new July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Available now at bookstores and newstands as well as online at: https://www.alfredhitchcockmysterymagazine.com/. Hope you'll check it out.

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

Click here to: Subscribe to my Newsletter

This is my Brain...

How do you keep the balance between that little world in your head and the real one?

by Paul D. Marks

The simple answer is, I don’t. And I don’t care as long as I don’t call someone by one of my character’s names. Hasn’t happened yet, like it did when I called a girlfriend by another girlfriend’s name. That was not a good day…

And the best answer is what Susan said on Monday, “What? You mean the one in my head isn’t real?” I don’t think I can top that, but I gotta say something, so here goes:

Mostly it’s not a problem, see I actually know the diff between the real world and the world in my head…at least most of the time. The problem’s actually more acute, as opposed to cute, when I start to say some little silly thing to someone that isn’t my wife. Because, like many married couples we have our own way of talking and cute little things we say to each other. And sometimes some of those have started to pop out, but I think I’ve caught them all ahead of time. And the same goes for stories and characters, they’re always in there running around, percolating. So sometimes I might start to say something out of a story, but so far nothing’s actually escaped my lips.

And the reality is the inside of my head is like some Rube Goldberg contraption. Lots of pulleys and levers and slides and random junk everywhere, kind of like space junk in outer space, just floating around. So trying to get that little ball from one point to another can be a problem. The ball being the finished product, a story or novel.

The other reality is that as writers we’re working all the time, so it truly is hard to keep those little critters – our characters – out of our heads and out of our mouths. Everything we do, everything we hear, every conversation we have and everything we see is fodder for a current WIP or a future work.

As writers, I believe we’re often daydreaming, off in other lands. Sometimes it’s more fun to be in those worlds of our own making. Maybe more exciting than our humdrum everyday lives. Except mine ’cause my day job is as a super hero.

I do some of my best thinking while driving or walking the dogs or even in the shower. Actually, a lot of vexing writing problems have been solved with hot water running down my back. Something about that environment clears the mind. At least this mind. (I know, I know, some people think my mind has been too clear and empty for too long…) So there’s times and places to get lost in the world in our heads and times to be in the real world. But some day I might just go over the rainbow and stay in that other world forever. Of course the world over my rainbow is a dark night with rain-slick streets, glaring neon and venetian blind shadows everywhere.

***

And I want to congratulate everyone who was nominated for an Anthony earlier this week. I know a lot of you and you’re all terrific. I wish you all the best of luck!

***

And for something a little different: For the International Day of Families, my wife, Amy, did a piece on what it’s like to be a writer’s wife at the other blog I write for, SleuthSayers. If you haven’t read it you might find it interesting. So check out “Until a Split Infinitive Do Us Part” at: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2017/05/until-split-infinitive-do-us-part.html 

***

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Twelve Angry Days is in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magaine, on sale at newsstands. Or click here to buy online.

***

I'll be at the California Crime Writers Conference in Culver City, June 10th and 11th. I'm on a panel called "The Long and Short of It: Short Stories and Novellas vs. Novels" with William Kent Krueger, Kate Thornton and Travis Richardson, moderated by S.W. Lauden. Hope to see you there!
http://www.ccwconference.org/

www.PaulDMarks.com

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New York, New York

by Paul D. Marks

Double Header today:

Game 1: New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. Or is it the other way around? We just spent a week in New York City and I’m still not sure.  (Well, I am, but it plays better the other way.) And in Game 2 (later in this piece) I’ll talk a little about place and location in my writing as we’ve been doing this week on the blog.

Amy (the wife) and I spent last week in New York City (New York City!). It came up very unexpectedly when I got an e-mail from Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, telling me that my story Ghosts of Bunker Hill had won the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll and inviting us to come to the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards ceremony, as well as to be their guests at the Edgar Awards. I think I was in disbelief for several days, so we made no plans to head to New York…until the wonderful reality actually sunk in. But eventually it did and we headed off to The Big Apple from The Sour, I mean, Big Orange.

We booked out on Jet Blue because we heard about their great on-time record. We got lucky—they were late both coming and going. I guess someone has to be the exception to the rule.

The week was a whirlwind of adventures and some sightseeing, much of it filled up with literary events. We arrived Monday night and since the hotel is next door to Grand Central Terminal we decided to check it out and have dinner at the famous Oyster Bar. Talk about a cool place. Then we walked around the neighborhood near the hotel late into the night.

On Tuesday we went to the Ellery Queen offices for tea with Janet and Linda Landrigan of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Jackie Sherbow, senior assistant editor for both EQMM and AHMM. Also there were Doug Allyn and his wife, Eve. Doug’s stories came in #2 and 3 in this year’s poll. But he’s been #1 11 times. I think it will be a long time before anyone can top that!

From L to R: Jackie Sherbow, Doug Allyn, Linda Landrigan, Janet Hutchings and me.

Amy and me at the Mysterious Bookshop Party

Everyone was very gracious. And it was good to talk with Janet again and Linda, who I’d met briefly before. And to meet Jackie for the first time in person, but who I’ve had a lot of correspondence with. After the afternoon tea, Jackie very graciously offered to be our guide on the subway, something I really wanted to do. So we subwayed to Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop for a gathering of
Edgar nominees, authors, publishers and more (I think we fell into the “more” category, though now that I think about it I guess I am an author too). It was crowded, it was fun. It was great to see the famous bookstore. And to meet Otto Penzler himself. And to see some people I know, including Edgar nominee Jim Ziskin. And many others. And Doug Allyn was kind enough to introduce me to several people.

Me and Jackie at the Mysterious Bookshop Party

Jackie takes us on the NY subway!

After the party at the Mysterious Bookshop, Jackie was once again our subway guide, taking us to a real New York pizza place that she likes. So she, Doug and Eve, and Amy and I, braved the rain to get to the subway and then the pizza place. And in a scene that could have been out of a Woody Allen movie, we stepped just inside a local market to get out of the rain for a few minutes. I was waiting for the “nasty” New Yorkers to kick us out, but nobody was nasty and nobody kicked us out. Eve grabbed some plastic bags from the produce section to cover our heads and we ventured back out into the rain. We still got soaked by the time we made it to the pizza place. But the pizza was good and it was all worth it. After dinner, Jackie headed home. Doug and Eve, Amy and I took a cab back to the hotel. And this was the one loquacious cabby we had the whole time we were in New York and he was a riot. When we were just about at the hotel he nudged through a crosswalk and some guy in the walk started yelling at him, challenging him to a fight. Now we felt like we were in New York.

In the subway (from L to R): me, Eve Allyn, Doug Allyn and Amy 

Wednesday we had a free day, so we played tourists (which we were). Lots of other tourists all around us. We did a tour of Grand Central Terminal, which was right next to the Grand Hyatt Hotel where we were staying and where the Edgars would be held the following evening. (On the other side of the hotel was the Chrysler Building, which we had a view of from our window. Now that’s pretty cool to be sandwiched between the Chrysler Building and Grand Central. During our tour we had another “New York” experience when some jerk called the tour guide a “dirty scumbag” and neither she nor any of us on the tour could figure out why or what she’d done. But despite that, most everyone was really friendly and nice and we had no problems with anyone.

Our hotel, sandwiched between Grand Central and the Chrysler Building

After our tour of Grand Central we followed Clint Eastwood’s “Speed Zoo” example from the movie True Crime, where he jams his kid through the zoo at the speed of sound, and did “Speed New York.” We bought tickets for the hop on-hop off buses – buses where you can get on at one location and off at the next, hang out, then get back on at the next location. This way we saw a lot of the city in one day. Everything from the Empire State Building to the Flat Iron and various neighborhoods. We also hopped onto the Staten Island Ferry. From there we could see the Statue of Liberty. We ended the day in Rockefeller Center and then Times Square and dinner in a pretty good Italian restaurant off Times Square. Our meal was served family style—and being only 2 people we ended up with enough left over to feed everyone in Times Square.

Amy on the Staten Island Fairy

The next day was the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards, held at a specialized library not too far from the hotel. And it was a truly terrific experience. But the best part (besides picking up the award of course 😉) was being able to meet people in person that I know online but hadn’t met for one reason or another. David Dean. Tom Savage. Dave Zeltserman, who published some of my stories early on in his HardLuck Stories magazine, and whose Small Crimes was just made into a movie on Netflix that released this week, so check it out. Besides hanging with Janet, Linda and Jackie, we also got to hang with Doug and Eve Allyn again, both of whom were great to hang with.

Me and Doug at the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine cocktail party.

And, of course, it was more than a thrill to win the award!

Me accepting the Ellery Queen Reader's Poll Award.

And then it was off to the Edgars that evening. Very exciting. And all was going well, I even liked the food (and who likes the food at these things?), until the Master of Ceremonies, Jeffrey Deaver,

Amy and Jackie at the Edgar Awards

stumbled and then fainted on the stage while doing some introductions. That was scary. Luckily he was okay, though whisked off to the hospital to make sure it was nothing serious. I believe tests showed that it wasn’t—hope so.

That’s the litany, now for the real deal: While we loved New York and all of the events, the best part of anything like this, Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, etc., is the people. The community of mystery writers is a very warm, very supportive group. And, as I’ve mentioned, it was great to see old friends and also meet new people. We saw Jim Ziskin and Catriona McPherson from this blog, and had a nice chat with both of them. Met Otto Penzler. And it was good to meet Sam Reaves, Dave Zeltserman and too many others to name here. And great to spend time with Janet, Linda and Jackie.

New York has a bad rep in some ways and people who know me thought I’d hate it (as I haven’t been there in years…decades). I loved it. I loved the crowds. I loved the energy. I loved the writing community. I loved this whole unexpected trip. And I’m more than appreciative to Janet Hutchings for publishing Ghosts of Bunker Hill and taking a chance on my first story for Ellery Queen, Howling at the Moon (which, by the way, made it to #7 in the Ellery Queen Readers Poll). And to Linda Landrigan for publishing my story Twelve Angry Days in the current (May/June 2017) issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. And to Jackie for everything she does to keep the wheels turning. And last but certainly not least to the people who voted for Ghosts of Bunker Hill and made it #1.

***

Game 2: This week’s topic: “What role does setting play in the books you read or write?”

So, since I’ve rambled on enough already, I’m going to be brief on this and refer to a link to another piece I’ve done that relates to the topic. But I will say that setting plays a major role in most of what I write. Author S.W. Lauden has said about my work, “I just read your next novel Vortex. I loved how the action bounced around Southern California, almost as if the region was one of the main characters.”

To me, location can sometimes be the driving force for the characters. Of course, they have inner motivations, but where they live, the zeitgeist, ambience and flavor of the city or desert or whatever locations the stories take place in adds to their motivations. And being in New York this past week really made me notice the different energies and vibe of different cities. They really do have personalities of their own and those personalities influence and affect the characters. There are some stories that could only take place in New York and some that could only take place in LA and not just by mentioning a street name or a location, it’s more than that. It’s the spirit of the place that comes through.  For me that location is often, though not always (see my story Deserted Cities of the Heart in Akashic’s St. Louis Noir and set there, of course) Los Angeles. And even though LA’s been done to death you might say…you haven’t seen my LA.

For more on my relationship with the City of Angels, please check out this link:

https://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2015/11/adventures-in-la-la-land-redux.html 

***

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Twelve Angry Days is in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magaine, on sale at newsstands. Or click here to buy online.

Truth, Justice and the Crime Writing Way!

What prompted you to become a writer of crime fiction?

by Paul D. Marks

Uh, time to delve into that whole Pandora’s Box of psychopathology that makes me, uh, me. And that made me want to become a writer of crime fiction. But we won’t delve too deep. You never know what you might find down in the depths.

So, what prompted me to write crime fiction: I write it so I can kill people...on the page that I can't kill in real life...........

Related to that is the desire to see justice served as it so often isn’t in real life. That said, in much of what I write there are no neat bow-tied endings. And even when parts of the stories are tied up other parts are left open-ended. Kind of like life. So, justice is often served on some level, but maybe not neatly and maybe not legal justice, but some kind of street justice. Unless it’s a totally noir tale where there truly might not be justice, at least not in terms of how we normally think of it.

Writing crime fiction also gives me a way to comment on things that I want to comment on. Also to explore different points of view about those things, via various characters, including those that might not necessarily jibe with my own thoughts. Kind of like when you did debates in school and you had to take the other side of the issue, whether you agreed with it or not.

And, as RM said earlier in the week, “With crime fiction I get to write about people in trouble, not just criminals and victims, but the people who happen to be police officers as well.” It's so true, and crime fiction is about so much more than whodunit. It's about all the people affected by the crime. As such, it gives us a vehicle to explore the human condition (now that sounds pretty hifalutin) but in a structured story with a plot that keeps us interested (hopefully) and moving forward.

But ultimately I want to entertain. I’ve talked about this before, and I don’t want to beat on a dead Sturges, but the Preston Sturges movie Sullivan’s Travels makes the point very well about entertaining. It’s the story of a film director who makes movies like Ants in Your Plants of 1939. But he thinks it’s light and silly junk. He wants to make the ponderous message movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou. But through his adventures he learns that what people really want is to laugh – and to be entertained.

White Heat on Amazon

Now, there’s not generally a lot of yucks in crime fiction, though there are some exceptions. But the best crime fiction is entertaining first. Sam Goldwyn famously might have said, if I want to send a message I’ll call Western Union. Which is not to say that crime writing can’t have a message, just to say that it shouldn’t hit you over the head. The best writing makes you think, but it doesn’t tell you what to think. A crime writer can illuminate aspects of society, good and bad, without being preachy or moralistic. My novel White Heat deals with race and racism in the form of a fast-paced, intense mystery thriller. And while I hope I make some points about those subjects, my first goal is to entertain. The sequel to White Heat, which may actually see the light of day one of these days, does the same thing about another pressing issue of life today.

And, of course, I enjoy reading crime fiction and watching crime-related movies. As I’ve stated here before, I’m a “movie guy,” and I came to a lot of crime fiction via the movies. Anyone who knows me knows I love film noir and in that genre there are few heroes, at least of the conventional variety. I’ve done a lot of different types of writing, mainstream, humorous/satire, screenplays of various genres. But crime writing/fiction and noir allow me to explore what good and evil are and where the boundaries between them are sometimes blurred.

So there you have it, now I can stuff the bats back into the belfry and close the lid to Pandora’s Box. Why do you write crime fiction?

***

And now for some refreshingly new BSP:

My story Twelve Angry Days is coming out in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magaine, on sale at newsstands starting April 25th. Or click here to buy online.

And I’m thrilled to announce that my short story, “Ghosts of Bunker Hill,” was voted #1 in the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll. If you’d like to read it (and maybe consider it for other awards) you can read it free on my website: http://pauldmarks.com/stories/

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Summer's Almost Gone

Summer's almost done! How did you spend your summer vacation? Or did you even take one?

by Paul D. Marks


What I’d like to do here is quote from Casablanca, where Rick (Bogart) is talking to his former girlfriend, Yvonne (Madeleine Lebeau):

Yvonne: Where were you last night?Rick: That's so long ago, I don't remember.
Yvonne: Will I see you tonight?
Rick: I never make plans that far ahead. ₸

And even though summer’s not really over, whatever happened already seems so long ago that I barely remember it. And what I do remember, well, I hope this won’t be too much of a downer:

A few weeks ago we almost got evacuated—again (this was our 3rd close call, and we’ve actually had to leave twice) because of one of So Cal’s ubiquitous fires. Luckily it didn’t come to that this time. I think we were just on the border of the mandatory evac area. That didn’t stop it from being a very tense few days. I work at home and Amy stayed home from work in case we did have to get out. Watching a traffic jam of horse trailers removing horses from our area really brought home how close it was.

No sooner did that situation settle down than my dad fell and ended up in the ER. While there they discovered that he had a heart valve that needed replacing. After 17 days in the hospital he’s back home recuperating slowly in a sort of two-steps-forward-one-step back routine. Though lately it seems more like five steps back.

On the good news front, Amy got to go home to see her family. But I stayed here to tend to business and take care of the critters. So, I didn’t go anywhere this summer, which is fine with me. Mostly, I got to hang with the dogs and Amy (not putting them all in the same category ;) ). And get some writing done (not enough—it’s never enough!).

From Amy's vacation

And there were some good things on the writing front. I sold my first story to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and got the news that Ghosts of Bunker Hill will be in the December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, the last issue of Ellery Queen’s 75th year anniversary celebration. And both of those are reason for celebration in our house!

But summers aren’t like the summers when I was a kid when all you had to do was head down the California Incline to the beach. No worries. No bills to pay. No appointments to keep or places to be. Not much Responsibility with a capital R. Just Sun, Sea, Sand and Surfer Girls. In fact, I met my first real girlfriend at the beach on one of those lazy summer days. A California Girl on a California Beach. Like the Beach Boys sang in Surfer Girl:

We could ride the surf together
While our love would grow
In my Woody I would take you everywhere I go*

California Incline

All I needed was a Woody, which I never managed to get – and when I met her I wasn’t quite old enough to drive yet. Though at one point I did have a Ford station wagon with fake wood on the side. Does that count?

And now that summer’s almost gone, a few lines about that from the Doors:

Summer's almost gone 
Summer's almost gone 
Almost gone 
Yeah, it's almost gone 
Where will we be 
When the summer's gone?**

Where will we be when summer’s gone? Well, we were supposed to be at Bouchercon in New Orleans. Unfortunately due to the usual circumstances beyond our control it looks like we’re going to have to bow out of that, which is a major bummer!

So maybe next summer will be better but for now I’m looking forward to autumn and winter, such as it is in SoCal. And maybe we’ll get enough rain to fill the creek again. Now that would be something!

***

Check out my story Deserted Cities of the Heart in the recently released St. Louis Noir.

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₸ Written by: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch, Murray Burnett, Joan Alison, Casey Robinson

* “Surfer Girl,” written by Brian Wilson. Performed by the Beach Boys.

** “Summer’s Almost Gone,” written by Jim Morrison. Performed by the Doors.