What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Tell us about the first story/stories you ever wrote. First book, published or no.

by Paul D. Marks

I don’t really remember what the first story I wrote was. But when I started writing I was trying to write more mainstream or literary fiction. And just in the last few weeks I resurrected one of those ancient stories, rewrote it as crime fiction and sent it out into the world to hopefully be picked up somewhere. The theme is the same as the original story, as well as some of the elements, but I like it better as a murder mystery than as “serious” fiction. Especially because, as one of my first stories I was horrified at how badly written it was. But I liked the idea enough to keep it in the back of mind all these years and try again with the basic elements from it. I think it works better this time. Hope so anyway.

Breaking News: Speaking of stories, and before I get back to the current question, Coast to Coast: Noir from Sea to Shining Sea, volume 3 in the Coast to Coast series of crime fiction anthologies that Andy McAleer and I co-edit dropped last week. Twelve noir stories from twelve terrific authors, with stories set throughout the US from…coast to coast. The “chronology” of the book (if that’s the right word) goes from the West Coast to the East Coast, noir all the way. The authors are: Colleen Collins, Brendan DuBois, Alison Gaylin, Tom MacDonald, Andrew McAleer, Michael Mallory, Paul D. Marks, Dennis Palumbo, Stephen D. Rogers, John Shepphird, Jaden Terrell, Dave Zeltserman. See the post I did earlier this week at SleuthSayers for more on this collection: Hope you’ll want to check it out: 

Available at Amazon and Down & Out Books

And now we return you to our regular programming already in progress: Another thing I remember is that I began by writing poems and song lyrics. I wanted to be a rock star—who didn’t? But I was always writing something.

One of my early novels—maybe my first completed novel, that’s also hard to remember—a satire about a screenwriter trying to make it in Hollywood, was almost published way back in the 80s. Almost. It was accepted for publication (if that's the right terminology) by a major publisher.  But then there was a "housecleaning" at that publisher: the old team of editors and assistant editors got swept out. And the new team didn't want most of the old team's slate of projects, so I got swept out with the "new broom". So that one almost got published. But by the time it was put into “turnaround” it was too late for it as a lot of the humor was dated. Remember Fawn Hall, Jessica Hahn, Donna Rice and Gary Hart—see what I mean, dated. ’Cause even though it was about a guy trying to make it in Hollywood, it had a lot of topical and satirical humor of the day. I work on it every once in a while to remove the dated satirical elements and make it more neutral in terms of topicality. So one of these days it might see the light.

The first writing that I got paid for was a piece in one of the L.A. papers about John Lennon on, I believe, the one year anniversary of his murder. It wasn't fiction, but it felt awfully good to actually get paid for writing something. But even though it felt good to be paid, I had mixed emotions because of the subject matter. Appropriate that this should appear today as today is John Lennon's birthday.

Available on Amazon

My first published fiction, but certainly not the first story I wrote, was a short story called Angels Flight (before Michael Connelly borrowed the title from me 😉). It was published in the Murder by Thirteen anthology and republished in L.A. Late @ Night, a collection of five of my stories. A review of L.A. Late @ Night in All Due Respect calls Angels Flight the reviewer's favorite story in the collection and says this about the two main characters, "They're a dynamic pair, and I'd like to see them together in more stories," so I might just have to oblige him.

The title for Angels Flight was inspired by the famous funicular railway in downtown L.A. and my love for old Los Angeles. I think the story was inspired when they drained one of the lakes in L.A. and found all kinds of junk there. So in my story they drain Echo Park Lake, find a dead body and the story takes off from there. And even though it was originally published a looooooooong time ago, it's still one of my favorites. I think it's (hopefully) surprise ending brings to mind Shakespeare's quote, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 

Angels Flight

After Angels Flight, I had more stories published and eventually my novel White Heat, and others. And then I happily reached one of my major short stories goals, getting published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and its sister publication Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Another thrill was to be listed on the cover of EQMM, as well as winning their Readers Award. So there’s always hope, don’t give up.

All I can do to end is quote another rock band, the Grateful Dead, "What a long strange trip it's been." 

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

The Blues Don't Care got a nice review from It was a Dark and Stormy Book Club.

“On one level it’s a mystery where Bobby Saxon, with secrets he wants no one to find out, works to solve a murder and clear his name under extraordinary racially tinged circumstances. With a lot of twists and turns, this is an excellent mystery.  It takes place in World War II-era Los Angeles, and the author does a brilliant job that brings the long-gone era alive with memorable characters, scents, descriptions, and most of all, jazz. Highly recommended."

Buy on Amazon or Down & Out Books

***

And Tom Bergin at The Name is Archer Facebook page had this to say about Coast to Coast Noir:

"This is the new book out that contains stories by Archer group members Paul D. Marks and Dennis Palumbo. There are 12 stories in all in this collection and so far I've read the stories by Paul and Dennis. They are both really good stories. Paul's story is called Nowhere Man. The story is set in Southern California and the year is 1965. The story does conjure up the Beatles song but is also a very clever nod to the 1944 movie Laura. The story by Dennis is titled Steel City Blues and is set in Pittsburgh in the year 1970. Here's the opening line of the story - I'm sitting at my usual spot on the roof, back against one of the brick smokestacks, the revolver across my upraised knees. Dennis never wastes any time getting the reader involved in his stories and Steel City Blues is no exception. Interestingly both of these stories deal with obsession. Both stories show what can happen when a man becomes obsessed with a woman. It's noir. Things don't go well. Check the book out. I have a feeling the remaining ten stories will be as good as these two."

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

Sympathy for the Devil

Do characters need to be sympathetic? Why? Why not? Does it make a difference in different genres?

by Paul D. Marks


...get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.
                                                           ―Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli

No. Definitely not. But if you want readers to go along with you they should probably have at least some redeeming qualities. The anti-heroes in many film noirs aren’t good guys, but they have something that puts us on their side anyway. Nor do I think genre makes a difference.

I haven’t read any of the Save the Cat books about storytelling and writing, but I gather that the point of “saving the cat” is to show the reader or viewer a good quality in the character so they’ll root for that character on some level.

Curley and Moe, a couple of cats we actually did save

So let me talk about the people (characters) I know best, the ones I’ve created. Many of my characters are flawed one way or another. Some of them with major flaws like racism, others with everyday flaws like vanity or envy. I think we’re long past the days where the good guys wear white hats, don’t cuss, don’t smoke and don’t throw people off the tops of buildings. And if you look at the examples below I think you’ll see that I’m not “uncomfortable” with much in terms of flaws. Not because I like these traits, but because I think they’re real. And if I want my characters to ring true they have to have real flaws because no one is perfect.

Philip Marlowe, the quintessential knight errant private eye, was misogynistic, racist and more, just as a matter of course. But he was also a product of his times. We notice it today when we read Chandler, but I’m sure many people reading those stories when they first came out wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Nor do I think Chandler would have given it a second thought or consciously put it in his stories. It was just the zeitgeist of the times (if I’m not being redundant). But today, when most of us write characters with these traits we are doing it on purpose to make a point of one kind or another and to round out the character.

In my just-released book The Blues Don’t Care, most of the characters are flawed or less than sympathetic to one degree or another. The main character, Bobby Saxon, is flawed. His goal in life is to play piano with the Booker Taylor band at the famous Club Alabam on Central Avenue in L.A. during World War II. He’s got one obvious major problem to achieving that goal: if he gets the gig he’d be the only white player in the otherwise all-black band. But he’s on a mission. So when Booker offers him a shot with the band…if Bobby will help find the real murderer that James, a band member, is accused of, does Bobby go for it? For selfish reasons? To help the band? To clear an innocent man? Or just to get the gig he’s pining for? All of the above?

Bobby also has other issues to deal with and is a pretty complex character, but I don’t want to give away spoilers. Is he sympathetic? In some ways, he is. He’s also a little selfish. But mostly he’s a young, wet behind the ears guy trying to figure out how to be a man in the world of the World War II home front.

Sam Wilde is someone Bobby comes across in his quest to find the murderer. Wilde is a tough, rough around the edges man who, especially at first, is antagonistic towards Bobby both verbally and physically. But as they get to know each other they both see each other beyond initial impressions.
Bobby also crosses paths with Sgt. Nicolai, of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. Nicolai is also rough around the edges. And he’s corrupt, on the take. He’s given up on the system. He doesn’t believe James is guilty, but the word’s come down from the brass: James is going down for it. So Nicolai’s faith in the system is gone. He’s tired and cynical. He drinks. But he still has a little of the idealism left that brought him to join the force and when Bobby taps into that Nicolai helps Bobby with the case.

Both Wilde and Nicolai have the prejudices of their era, sexist, racist and homophobic, but in the end Bobby appeals to their better angels. The question is who wins, the better angels or the darker ones?

The two main characters in my novels White Heat and Broken Windows are both seriously flawed. Duke, the P.I. main character, is a screw-up in more ways than one, only that’s not the word he uses to describe himself. His partner, Jack, is majorly flawed. He’s a racist—at least on the surface. He says things that maybe other people only think. But a lot of them do think those things. If you only listened to Jack talk you’d think he was a really bad guy, but if you watch his actions, you see that it’s not that simple. Jack is also a good guy. He may say the wrong thing, but he pretty much does the right thing. In Jack’s case actions definitely speak louder than words.

White Heat takes place in and around the 1992 “Rodney King” riots in Los Angeles. And, though it’s a mystery, it deals with many racial issues and concerns—which are still relevant today. So the book is sort of a prism on today, though set in the not-too-distant past. I was so concerned by the raw nature of some of it that I put an author’s note in the beginning of the book. I put the disclaimer in, but I also left in the raw language and actions of the characters. But I was still nervous about how people would react. Luckily the reaction was pretty positive on all fronts and the book ended up winning a Shamus award.

I also see Jack as the little devil on Duke’s shoulder, like you would see in the old cartoons. Jack is sort of Duke’s alter ego, the bad side of Duke, the nature he must fight. And he does. But why, one might wonder, would Duke even be friends with Jack? Because, besides their personal history, Duke sees beyond Jack’s posturing to the real Jack underneath and maybe that person isn’t quite what the surface person comes off as. We all say things we regret, and sometimes do things we regret. Jack pretty much does the right thing, even if he spouts off the wrong thing. And ultimately we are all flawed and can relate to the flaws in others. It makes the characters more human, more accessible. And more real.

In Vortex, Zach Tanner is on the run—mostly from himself, from his past. In that past he might not have been the most upstanding citizen or the most squared away soldier. He did some bad stuff. But recuperating from wounds received in Afghanistan he has an epiphany about his life and realizes the error of his ways. So when he returns home he wants to go straight. The problem is some of his cohorts in crime don’t want to let him, especially because they think he has something they’re entitled to. So, in a sense it’s a story of Zach’s redemption, but the road to redemption is paved with figurative IEDs and landmines (and real guns) that Zach must circumvent if he wants to come out on the other side.

The main character—a cop—in 51-50, a story first published in Dave Zeltserman’s Hard Luck Stories—Psycho Noir edition (so the edition title alone might tell you something about the character), and now in my LA Late @ Night story collection, shoots a gang banger out of sheer frustration, not because of a life-threatening situation. The cop is unraveling throughout the story, the pressures of life on the street are too much for him to deal with anymore. The story was written and published some years ago, but again is relevant in light of what’s been happening in the country today. The cop is not a bad guy. He wants to do the right thing. But dealing with the stress of the streets and the thugs he has to deal with just wears him down.

Ray Hood in Dead Man’s Curve (Last Exit to Murder anthology) is an aging rocker, his glory days as a road guitarist for Jan and Dean are long behind him. He’s selfish, he does bath salts (not the kind you put in the tub), he doesn’t appreciate what his sister is trying to do for him. Definitely not a model of perfection. And he wants to get back in the game. To that end he will do just about anything.

In Poison Heart (Deadly Ink 2010 anthology), Winger is a crime beat photographer, who can’t adjust to the modern world and has become jaded by all the violence he sees in the real world. So he decides to take things a step further and goes way beyond the bounds of the law to get a good pic, selling his soul (so to speak) in the process. Another desperate character who will do desperate things to stay on top and be a modern-day Weegee. Again, his flaws are the petty flaws we all have, but he takes them to another level. A more personal level of envy and the desire to be on top and what he’s willing to do to be there.

Howling at the Moon (November 2014, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine): This one’s a little different in that the character is not a bad person. Not selfish or suffering from envy or any of the other seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride  But he is disaffected and has separated himself from his American Indian roots, especially after coming home from the war in Iraq. He ultimately does something we might think is immoral, but we empathize with him and understand why he does it. Nonetheless, he becomes a flawed person by the actions that he takes.

Most of my characters are flawed because people are flawed. I don’t necessarily set out to write a character with this or that flaw, but the character comes to life in the writing and develops those flaws, just as people do as they go through life. Ultimately, I think the reason most of us like flawed protagonists is that we can relate to them more.  They are more like us. Not perfect, not saints, more like real people, just trying to get by in a flawed world.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

The Blues Don't Care is getting some great reviews:

"It’s the first entry in what promises to be an entertaining and thoughtful series --- mysteries that not only have the requisite twists, turns, surprises and reveals, but also offer a penetrating look into our ubiquitous all-too-human flaws: greed, corruption, fear of the “other” and, especially, racism."
—Jack Kramer, BookReporter.com

"This is a beautifully noirish book, set firmly in the dark days of wartime and offering a sharp insight into the life and times of Los Angeles, 1940s style. Yes, it’s a mystery thriller, but The Blues Don’t Care is so much more than that, with historic detail, chutzpah, a cast of hugely entertaining characters, a really unusual protagonist and, best of all, a cracking soundtrack too."
—DeathBecomesHer, CrimeFictionLover.com

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

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Who's Hiding Behind Your Characters?

Do you ever base characters on real people? Famous or people you know in your real life. And, if so, how do you deal with that?

by Paul D. Marks

This is sort of a two part question. First there’s the question of basing characters on people that you know. Then there’s the question of basing them on celebrities or historical figures. I do both.

A lot of my characters are based on people I know —including on myself. I think there’s a little piece of me in all of them. Or sometimes a bigger piece. But when I do base them on people I know or who I’ve come across they’re usually composites of multiple people. So far no one’s come up to me —probably because the people I know don’t read my books, just kidding —and wanted to bop me on the head for a portrayal. Most people see the good and the heroic in a character in themselves. They don’t see the bad.

Villains are often based on people I’ve come across one way or another. At least certain traits of theirs. But I don’t want to make them exactly like the real person for obvious reasons.

Just released 6/1/20

In my just released novel The Blues Don’t Care, the main character, Bobby, is loosely inspired by a real person. But that person didn’t become a detective in any way, at least to my knowledge. There are other characters in the book also inspired by real people. Tony Leach, the gangster who runs the gambling ship off the L.A. coast, is sort of a combination of infamous L.A. gangster Mickey Cohen and Tony Cornero, the guy who ran the real gambling ships off the coast. But probably a little kinder and gentler than either, though still a gangster under his fancy suits. Cary Grant’s real name was Archie Leach and the gangster’s last name was chosen because of that, so he has a little of Cary in there too. (See my website for my close encounter with Cary Grant.) Bobby’s tough guy pal, Sam Wilde, is based on some people I knew, though I knew them in contemporary times but set their character traits in the 1940s of the story. And there’s a character in The Blues Don’t Care, Mary Cooper, named after a girl I knew a long, long time ago. I’m sure she hasn’t thought of me in ages. But she crosses my mind every once in a while and since she’s a benign character in a small part I used her name. Others in that story are also composites of real people.

In Broken Windows, the second in my Duke Rogers series after White Heat, there’s a producer character named Joseph Hartman who, if you call him Joe the thunder will reign down. He is definitely patterned after a real person —or at least that affectation is patterned on a real producer. Though I think when I’ve mentioned him before I conflated him with another famous person who hung up on someone for calling them by their first name.

I sometimes pepper real people into a story because it hopefully gives the reader a sense of verisimilitude (one of my favorite words) —a sense that the world the characters inhabit is a real world with people they know and landmarks they might have heard of. But you have to use the people in small cameos and not show them in a bad light unless there’s something demonstrably provable that they did that you want to include. They might get only cameo parts but it gives the story a feeling of being set in the real world. For example, in Blues Don’t Care Bobby runs across Gable at the zigzag moderne Sunset Tower Hotel and Louis B. Mayer at the Coconut Grove, as well as others in various situations. The book is, after all, set in Los Angeles and seeing movie stars from time to time is part of the L.A. experience:

Someone bumped into Bobby.
“Excuse me,” the man said in a familiar voice.
Bobby was too flustered to respond to Clark Gable, as the King of Hollywood walked past. Bobby went to the front desk.
“May I help you?” the clerk asked.
“I’d like to see Tony Leach.” The words stumbled out. Bobby hoped his nervousness didn’t show. He’d heard that Leach lived here. Bugsy Siegel too, as well as several movie stars off and on. Infamous gossip columnist Hedda Hopper had said so.
“Can you just call up and tell him Bobby Saxon, from the ship’s band, is here.”
“You play in a band on his ship? I’m afraid he’s too busy for—”

And in Broken Windows, Duke, the main character, goes to a producer’s house above Sunset Boulevard. He finds two Jags in the driveway and expensive art in the house. The character who lives in the house is the Joseph Hartman character mentioned above. But in real life the producer who lived there was another person. And in real life, though he lived in the lap of luxury he wanted me to work for free.

And then there was the time that I based a character on another producer—a major ass—in a script I was rewriting…for him. He never made the connection. And I’m not telling what it was.

The character of Warren in White Heat is based on a friend of mine, though someone who isn’t as angry as Warren.

Duke Rogers series

So, yes, I base characters on people I know or have come across. Which is a good way to have more realistic, well defined characters ’cause you have real life experience in how someone acts.

Everyone I come across is fodder, the way they look, the way they talk. Their character, etc. Not just people I know, but people I may cross paths with for only a few seconds or a few hours. A clerk, someone on a street corner. Someone in a bar. It’s like we costume our characters, disguise them and send them out into the world incognito.

The first novel I wrote, about a screenwriter trying to make it in Hollywood, was basically a roman a clef. All the characters were based on people I knew, some very well known, others obscure and struggling, including little ol’ me.

So, not only do I base characters on family and friends, but on people I dislike, too, enemies. And isn’t that fun? We get our little revenges against people who’ve wronged us and, as long as we disguise them somewhat, we get away with it. What’s better than that? Sometimes just naming the bad guy after someone can be a satisfying way to get back at someone who wronged us.

So, yes, everything, everyone, is fodder. So be nice or reach a gruesome death…at least on paper.
What about you? Tell us about how you base characters on people you know.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

The Blues Don't Care is getting some great reviews:

"It’s the first entry in what promises to be an entertaining and thoughtful series --- mysteries that not only have the requisite twists, turns, surprises and reveals, but also offer a penetrating look into our ubiquitous all-too-human flaws: greed, corruption, fear of the “other” and, especially, racism."
—Jack Kramer, BookReporter.com

"This is a beautifully noirish book, set firmly in the dark days of wartime and offering a sharp insight into the life and times of Los Angeles, 1940s style. Yes, it’s a mystery thriller, but The Blues Don’t Care is so much more than that, with historic detail, chutzpah, a cast of hugely entertaining characters, a really unusual protagonist and, best of all, a cracking soundtrack too."
—DeathBecomesHer, CrimeFictionLover.com

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

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The Beat of a Different Drum

What book(s) surprised you by the impact it had on you?

by Paul D. Marks

There’s been many books over the years that have had an impact on me one way or another.
And I know that a lot of people were influenced by Catcher in the Rye, but I didn’t read it till I was an adult. Others were inspired by Tolkien, but I’ve never read him. Sorry, I’m just not into fantasy. Music had and still has a great influence on me, as does Edward Hopper’s art, but that isn’t the question.

So, if I was going to pick a crime novel it would probably be Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, even though it’s not my favorite Chandler. That would be The Long Goodbye. But if we’re talking about a book—of any genre—that truly surprised, maybe more than any other, it wouldn’t be a crime novel. And, in fact, this question did actually bring up a lot of “stuff” for me, because the book that I’m going to talk about is The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham. If I have to pick one book that really surprised me with the impact it had on me this is it. As with a lot of books, I had seen the movie with Tyrone Power first and I liked it a lot. I related a lot to his character. So I figured I’d read the book.

The Razor’s Edge is the story of Larry Darrell, a World War I vet who’s traumatized and disillusioned by the war, and looking for meaning in its aftermath. Larry’s struggle for meaning in a seeming meaningless and insane world struck a chord with me. As did the things he gave up to achieve some kind of meaning and inner peace (I’m still working on the last thing in particular…).

After high school I couldn’t wait to get out of the house, unlike kids these days. I did some interesting things that are maybe better left for another time. But eventually you have to settle down and figure out what you’re going to do with your life and find some kind of equilibrium. For Larry the answer, at least somewhat, can be found in Eastern religion. And though the story is very personal to me, I didn’t do what Larry does in terms of going to India and meeting with a guru, or even getting into Eastern religion, that’s not my style. But his struggle for meaning and purpose certainly resonated with me. I’m still searching because like Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Though the unexamined life is probably a lot more fun than the examined one.

Larry wants to “loaf,” take things slowly, stop and smell the roses, not something I’m good at. But, like Larry, I certainly didn’t go the approved path that my parents would have preferred and I think they might have thought I was loafing sometimes ’cause they didn’t understand the life of an “artist”. I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious.

I always had this fantasy of being an expat on the Left Bank like Hemingway and the Lost Generation after World War I. Instead I went to bars in Hollywood and West L.A. and hung with other writers there. I don’t think it was quite the same. But what I did do was dedicate myself to being a writer and trying to have some success at it. As we all know that comes with many ups and downs and rejections and it’s the few and far between who are the overnight successes. But most of us toil in obscurity and do it because we can do nothing else. And if we’re lucky we do achieve some level of success.

There’s been two movies, that I’m aware of, based on this book. They are the 1946 Tyrone Power version and the 1984 Bill Murray version. I like the former better, though the latter is growing on me. And, as an aside, I remember seeing Bill Murray on the Warner Brothers lot, though it was probably called The Burbank Studios at the time, the day after it opened, reading the reviews in the paper.

So to bring this full circle: I think The Razor’s Edge helped me achieve a level of some sort of sanity and peace, though not always. Ask people who knew me when I was younger and they’ll tell you about all the fights, verbal and physical, they saw me get into (and I ain’t a big guy). My wife has also helped calm me, but I still have my moments. But the Razor’s Edge surprised in the sense of how much I related to it. How much I related to the character of Larry and what Maugham was writing about. It really spoke to me and helped give me a better perspective on life. Now, if I could just keep that in mind more of the time…

What about you? What book/s surprised you and why?

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

Coming June 1st from Down & Out Books - The Blues Don't Care:

“There are all the essential elements for an engrossing read: good guys, bad guys, gangsters and crooked policemen, and through it all, an extremely well written sense of believable realism.”

            —Discovering Diamonds Reviews, Independent Reviews of the Best in Historical Fiction (https://discoveringdiamonds.blogspot.com/)

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Blind Date With a Book

Books make wonderful gifts. What are your recommendations this year?

by Amy Marks and Paul D. Marks

I thought I’d do something a little different this time. Instead of me recommending books I’m turning it over to my wife, Amy, and some books she’s read and enjoyed. And I’ll have some non-fiction recommendations at the end. So take it away, Amy:


Picking books as gifts is kind of like setting up a friend for a blind date. You never know if they’re going to hit if off or have a miserable time. But, as they say, it’s the thought that counts. So, with that disclaimer, here are my recommendations for mystery/suspense books to gift. I like them and there’s gotta be someone else out there who will like them too.

In The Woods by Tana French

A twelve year old girl is found murdered in the woods near a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. The detectives assigned to the case, Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, are cop-buddies who have each other’s backs and share a secret from the past. Twenty years earlier, three children went missing in the very same woods. One was found with his shirt torn and his shoes filled with blood, but with no memory of what happened. The two missing children are never found. What Rob and Cassie know is that Rob was that third child, the one who was found. His family had moved away after the incident in order to escape the accusations from the locals. And Adam (Rob) was sent to a boarding school in England where he started using his middle name, Rob. He returned to Dublin as an adult to join the murder squad. Cassie knows Rob’s secret and agrees to keep silent when he convinces her that they are the only detectives who can really investigate this murder. But the demons of the past cling and threaten to tear Rob and Cassie apart. Tana French writes with an intimacy that makes you feel that you know these characters personally. You can imagine throwing back a few pints with them at the pub. And you can feel the darkness surround you as you enter the woods with them.


The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Oslo police officer Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman. Her young son wakes up to find his mother gone and a mysterious snowman constructed outside their home facing the house, as if looking inside, and wearing the scarf he gave her as a present. Harry discovers a pattern of similar disappearances and murders and the hunt for a serial killer begins. Harry Hole is like the Dirty Harry of Norway. He breaks the rules and stops at nothing to find the killer. The murders are grisly and shocking, so this not for the faint of heart. But what makes this a great thriller are the intriguing plot twists and Harry’s tortured, alcoholic personality.


By Gaslight by Steven Price

William Pinkerton, son of the famous Allan Pinkerton, who created the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and famous in his own right, travels to Victorian London in search of the con man, Edward Shade, who eluded and haunted his father for decades. At the same time we follow the story of Adam Foole, who Pinkerton suspects knows the whereabouts of Edward Shade. If you know someone who loves Victorian London, the fog, the mysterious atmosphere and the whole steampunk thing, they will enjoy this book.


This Body of Death by Elizabeth George

This is book 16 in the Inspector Thomas Lynley series, but it was the first Elizabeth George book I read and I loved it. You can easily pick up any book in the series and don’t have to start at the beginning (although I am going back now and reading her books from the beginning after reading a few out of order). A woman who has recently relocated from Hampshire to London is found murdered in a London cemetery. The story is interwoven with the description of a shocking child murder that happened several years in the past. Don’t let the description of Thomas Lynley as an aristocratic Scotland Yard detective fool you. This is not one of your cozy British crime mysteries where they solve murders in between playing croquette and sipping tea. They are very gritty and meticulously plotted. And the characters are complex and realistic.


The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

Harriet “Hal” Westaway receives a letter from a lawyer saying her grandmother has died and the family is gathering for her funeral and the reading of her will at her estate. There’s just one problem, Hal’s grandmother died years ago and this is just a case of mistaken identity. But Hal, whose mother died a year ago, is in trouble with a loan shark and is desperate for money. She decides to take a chance on trying to impersonate Mrs. Westaway’s granddaughter in hopes of maybe getting a little bit of cash to get her out of her situation. What happens after that is pure gothic mystery complete with ill-tempered, mysterious housekeeper. This book is one of those guilty pleasures. If you analyze the plot too much, you’ll say “this couldn’t happen, it’s not realistic,” but you just have to go with the flow on this one and enjoy it.


Still Life by Louise Penny

Is it a cozy or isn’t it? It has the small cozy village of Three Pines, the bistro where the characters are always eating freshly baked croissants, the bookstore where everyone knows everyone, and snow is always falling in beautiful sparkly drifts. But the plots and characters are so much deeper and more interesting than most cozies I’ve read. I’m not putting down cozies, I love a good cozy as much as anyone else, but face it, some of them are the equivalent of Hallmark Christmas movies. Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache books are both warm and cozy, but also deep, mysterious and haunting. In this one the body of an elderly woman is found in the woods, the apparent victim of a hunting accident, but Gamache suspects foul play. You could probably pick any book in the series, but I like starting with the first one in this case.


Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

This is the first book in the Quirke series. Set in Dublin (yes, I have a thing for novels set in Dublin) in the 1950s, it deals with Quirke, an alcoholic pathologist, who begins to suspect his brother-in-law when he finds him tampering with the death records of the corpse of a young woman brought into the morgue. He begins to investigate the woman’s death and it leads to uncovering a conspiracy that takes him to Boston and back to Dublin again. Benjamin Black is the pseudonym for Man Booker prize winner, John Banville. Banville’s writing is wonderful. His descriptions, insights and voice are almost like reading poetry. I started by reading the Silver Swan, which is the second book in the series, and do think it’s best with this series to read from the beginning as many things that happen in this book influence what happens in the next.

Oh, and two other books I’d recommend are White Heat and Broken Windows by Paul D. Marks. These crime thrillers follow PI Duke Rogers and his un-PC sidekick Jack Riggs through 1990’s Los Angeles and deal with real-life issues that continue to be in the news today: racism and immigration. I know you won’t believe me if I say I’m totally unbiased, so I just won’t say that. But give them a read and see what you think.

So maybe you’ll hate the blind date I picked out for you and you’ll take me off your gift list next year. Or, maybe it will be a match and you’ll be reading happily ever after with your new favorite writer. Happy Holidays and happy reading!

***

Thank you, Amy!

And just for good measure, I’m (Paul) tossing three non-fiction books into the mix:

The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Owen Hill, Pamela Jackson, Anthony Dean Rizzuto, Foreward by Jonathan Lethem

I think on this the list of authors is longer than my comment. One of the classics of American crime literature and really all literature. And this book gives the context of the times and the place to The Big Sleep. It helps lead to a greater understanding and thus enjoyment of a great novel.


Pulp According to David Goodis by Jay A. Gertzman, Forward by Richard Godwin

As I’ve mentioned many times and in many places, David Goodis is one of my favorite crime writers. Geoffrey O'Brien called him the “poet of the losers”. And though he had some success as both a novelist/short story writer and a screenwriter, he definitely had some personality quirks. But until recently it’s been hard to come by much good biographical writing on him. There was Goodis: A Life in Black and White Paperback by Philippe Garnier, with an introduction by Eddie Muller. For years that book only appeared in French so it was wonderful when the English translation finally came out. And there was Difficult Lives: Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Chester Himes by James Sallis. And good as it is it’s relatively short and covers three writers. So now, with all three of these books, David Goodis fans can finally dive deep into Goodis, his life and his writing.


High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic Hardcover by Glenn Frankel

A look at the Hollywood Blacklist via the making of High Noon, which starred Gary Cooper, definitely not a left-winger. But the movie was made by many people on the left. A fascinating look at the blacklist and the Red Scare era through the prism of the making of one classic movie.

Thanks for stopping by. And Happy Holidays! See you next year.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

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Biting the Hand That Doesn’t Feed Me

Do you have, or have you ever had, an agent? Depending on your experience, mount an argument for or against having one.

by Paul D. Marks

Article deleted

~.~.~

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

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Criminal Minds Think Alike

Do you read different stuff when you're writing from when you're not? Why?

by Paul D. Marks

Another Two-fer today. I’ll respond to this week’s question and also talk a little and post some pix from the California Crime Writers Conference that took place last weekend. The CCWC is a two-day conference that lately’s been taking place every other year in Culver City/Los Angeles at the Double Tree Hotel. It’s worth it just for the cookies they give you when you arrive.

It’s put on by the Los Angeles chapters of both Sisters in Crime and the Mystery Writers of America. I’m on the board of the latter and have been on the board of the former (a long time ago). That sort of helps in determining whether or not to go 😉. However, I would go anyway. This is one hell of a good conference. And it’s local – well fairly local for me. And that helps.

Our own Catriona was one of the keynote speakers. The other was Tess Gerritsen. Unfortunately, I could only be there on Saturday so I missed Catriona’s Sunday keynote speech, but on Saturday she also gave a workshop called “Deep in a Bowl of Porridge,” about how to plant clues. I did catch Tess’s keynote on Saturday. Her speech was short but pithy and to the point. She spoke about something that writer’s rarely talk about: what not to do.

My panel was Bringing the Past to Life. Panelists were Anne Louise Bannon, Jennifer Berg, Rosemary Lord, Bonnie MacBird, me, and moderated by Amanya (“A.E.”) Wasserman. We discussed writing mysteries set in the past and how we do our research for them. Everyone on the panel has a book or books set in the past, covering everything from the 1870’s to the 1990’s. My books White Heat and Broken Windows are mystery-thrillers set in the 1990s, the first during the Rodney King riots, the latter during the Proposition 187 debates about illegal aliens, much of which is still in the air today. I also have a new novel coming out in 2020, The Blues Don’t Care, that’s set on the Los Angeles homefront during World War II. And let me tell you, it was easier to research that than the 1990s books, where the era is still fresh but one has to be careful about what was and wasn’t around then since it was very similar to today…but not the same. Everyone on the panel had interesting things to say about how they went about researching the past.

Audio of this and other panels are available from www.vwtapes.com and you can see a list of them at https://ccwconference.org/panels/.

I also ran into Criminal Mind Terry Shames, and it was nice to chat with her for a while.

So that’s the abbreviated version of my weekend at CCWC. I hope you’ll be able to join us there in two years.

***

And now to this week’s question: No, I don’t really read different “stuff” when I’m writing. The problem, if that’s the right word, is that I’m always writing. Always working on one thing or another. So either I wouldn’t be reading or I might as well just read what I normally read.

Sure, maybe we can be influenced by what we read. This applies to TV and movies as well. It’s impossible to avoid the buzz in the air...or over the air.

Does it mess with my own writing? I don’t think so. In fact, I’d say just the opposite. Since ideas can come from anywhere—we just pluck them out of the air, a newspaper, TV, a snatch of conversation—we can also be inspired by what we’re reading. Of course, we don’t want to borrow something directly, and that’s not what I’m referring to. But a line, a turn of phrase, a character, an incident, etc., from something we’re reading, might inspire us to get over a hump in our work-in-progress.

But, from the Great Minds Think Alike Department, the frustrating thing for me is that sometimes I might be working on something and find similarities in something else that already exists, even though I hadn’t seen it or read it at the time of writing my project. That just happened to me. I’ve been working on a novel and it’s been going well. But I heard there was something that was similar to it. I debated if I should watch it or not, but decided maybe I should. And sure enough, there’s a couple of characters with the same names as my characters. Some incidents that are similar to mine, though I had written several early drafts before seeing this show. So I’ll change the character names, but the events might stay the same since I came up with them on my own. Still, it’s frustrating. But I guess writing about certain subjects one tends to write about similar things that others might have because we’re exploring the same experience.

Sometimes, when reading something by an author you admire you get inspired by them, not to copy or steal, but to take their inspiration and spin it in a different direction or take it to another level. Like reading Ross MacDonald and wishing I could dig into the psychological depths the way he does or being envious of Chandler’s descriptions and metaphors. I think reading some of these great authors has helped me to become a better writer.

James Ellroy doesn’t read fiction anymore (though that was a while ago so maybe it’s changed). But I like reading fiction and crime fiction in particular. It’s a good escape. Often the world comes out better in the end than in real life.

The worst part is finding the time to do the reading. Seems I used to have tons of time for that, but not so much these days. But when I do read I read all sorts of things, from various non-fiction subjects to literary/mainstream and crime fiction. I don’t read a lot of sci-fi or fantasy, YA, things along those lines. To each his/her own, right?

And I suppose the question can be applied to almost any activity, even just sitting in a café listening to people. Inspiration and ideas, whether for a whole novel or just a snatch of dialogue can come from anywhere, so why limit ourselves? Sure we want to create something from whole cloth, so to speak, but even if we were to shut ourselves off in a hermetically sealed room we’d still be influenced by things we’ve read, watched, seen and lived. So there really is no “escape” from having things “mess” with our writing.

So there you have it. What about you? Do you read different stuff when you're writing from when you're not?

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Past is Prologue is out in the new July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I don't have a picture of the cover yet, but the issue should be available 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 www.PaulDMarks.com

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The Demon Dog of Father’s Day

Father’s Day is June 16th – so there’s time for you to recommend some crime-themed reading that could be a useful gift idea for dads of different ages, and with different interests…and allow those reading the blog to order it, and get it in time to wrap it!

by Paul D. Marks

I thought this time around I’d stick with one author for this Father’s Day recommendation: James Ellroy. Seems that people either love him or hate him, both as a person and his books. I’m (mostly) in the dig him daddio category.

He’s a trip. His writing is a trip. His books are a trip. They would be good for anyone who’s into new noir with a retro setting, LA history buffs and the usual suspects.

He writes both fiction and non-fiction, short stories and novels, but I’m only going to focus on the novels here. In the fiction category he’s probably best known for his L.A. Quartet (The Black Dahlia, 1987; The Big Nowhere, 1988; L.A. Confidential, 1990; and White Jazz, 1992.) And, while I’m not going to talk about every novel of his here, I do like most of them with the exceptions mentioned here.

I like the way he deals with corruption and the sultry grittiness of his works. They also deal with the other side of the American Dream. And there's an inner core of darkness and corruption in society, a feeling of fear and paranoia. There's a moral ambiguity. They are the equivalent of an Edward Hopper painting with its cold light and shadows, filled with a sense of alienation and angst.

Ellroy is something to behold, both stylistically and if you've ever seen one of his "readings." The Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction started out with a mild roar, crescendoed to a roar on steroids through a Marshall stack with his L.A. Quartet, but seems to have overdosed on Evelyn Wood (remember her?) speed-writing, making some of his works hard to sink your teeth into.

I used to go to all of his readings. At one event he even had a band with him. And one Thanksgiving my sister-in-law's cousin joined us at my parents’. He was working in a bookstore at the time and had been force-fed a reading by Ellroy. Of course, he thought Ellroy an a-hole in so many ways for his "schtick.” And those were the nice things he had to say. So was it the books or his spiel?  Well, he hadn't read the books but he'd heard a little of one in the reading. That was enough for him. But you have to know him and his mindset and the context of the books. That said, if you’re sensitive and need trigger warnings, Ellroy might not be for you or your dad. But the thing with Ellroy is a lot of it is schtick and he’s trying to get your attention…which he does.

The first book in the L.A. Quartet is The Black Dahlia and that’s the first book I read by him. I remember it took me a while to get into it, but once I did I was hooked on the book and hooked on Ellroy. He had several books before The Black Dahlia, but that’s the book that put him on the map. After reading that I read all of his earlier books and couldn’t wait for each subsequent book.

The Big Nowhere is my favorite book in the L.A. Quartet: All are good, but if I had to pick one as a fave it would be The Big Nowhere. To try to describe Ellroy’s fever dream style is an exercise in futility. The story is set in LA in the 50s right after WWII. In part, it follows Sheriff’s deputy Danny Upshaw through the investigation of a series of mutilation crimes and exposes corruption and hypocrisy amid the “red scare”.

Towards the end of the L.A. Quartet series his writing style became more choppy and staccato. I liked it at first, but with later books it got to be too much. His next series was the Underworld USA Trilogy. And I liked American Tabloid, but Blood’s a Rover and the Cold Six-Thousand left me cold. And much of the reason for that was the style.

His most recent book, Perfidia (2014) seems more back to form for me and is the start of a Second L.A. Quartet. And I’m looking forward to his new book This Storm , releasing on June 4^th…just in time for Father’s Day.

Some of his books, L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia and Brown’s Requiem (filmed under the title Cop), have been made into movies. And he’s worked on screenplays for other films including Rampart, Dark Blue and others.

Here’s a list of his books:

Bibliography:

Brown's Requiem (1981)

Clandestine (1982)

Killer on the Road (originally published as Silent Terror) (1986)

Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy:

Blood on the Moon (1984)

Because the Night (1984)

Suicide Hill (1986)

L.A. Quartet:

The Black Dahlia (1987)

The Big Nowhere (1988)

L.A. Confidential (1990)

White Jazz (1992)

Underworld USA Trilogy:

American Tabloid (1995)

The Cold Six Thousand (2001)

Blood's a Rover (2009)

The Second L.A. Quartet:

Perfidia (2014)

This Storm (2019)

***

I’d also like to say that my books might make good Father’s Day gifts, too. For the most part, they’re gritty L.A.-set stories. Novels: White Heat, Broken Windows, Vortex (stand-alone) and L.A. Late @ Night, a collection of previously published stories. And two collections of short stories that I co-edited with Andy McAleer: Coast to Coast: Private Eyes (14 award nominations, two stories chosen for Best American Mysteries of 2018), Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

New May issue of Mystery Weekly is out. And I'm honored to have my new story The Box featured on the cover. Hope you'll check it out. -- This link is to the Kindle version, but there's also a paper version available.

https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Weekly-Magazine-2019-Issues-ebook/dp/B07RC8XS93

***

My short story House of the Rising Sun and lots of other great stories are in Switchblade - Issue 9, which is available on Amazon (Kindle version): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QW5GVZF. The paperback version is also available: https://www.amazon.com/Switchblade-Issue-Nine-Jack-Bates/dp/0578512971.

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

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