Choosing What you Read

Terry Shames weighing in on choosing books:

This was the topic of a lively Goodreads conversation I recently participated in. What I discovered was a big surprise.

A lot of people in the self-selected discussion group said they choose books by the cover. I would never have guessed that. I thought people would choose by recommendations from friends, by books that have won awards, or from reviews.

Many said they ignored reviews and blurbs because they thought those were manipulated. They figured that the author knew the person blurbing or reviewing their books, and therefore it wasn’t really valid. That suspicion even applied to trade reviews. People speculated that publishers have an “in” with trade review publications.

                  Come on! Is this a manipulated review?:

“…still, like a good shade tree mechanic, (Craddock) gets the job done."

-Publishers Weekly, August 4, 2014

This means to me that the publishing industry is not doing enough to let people know that trade reviews are largely outside their influence.

But is that true? Certainly my publicist seems to hold her breath when reviews are due. Will the review be positive or unenthusiastic? I’m with a small-medium publisher. Do books from the Big 5 publishers get a more lenient look from reviewers? I don’t know. But I do know that whatever the review is overall, the publicist picks out the best line of the review to promote the book. Stands to reason.

There may be reason to suspect that some blurbs are meaningless. Some big name authors seem to blurb indiscriminately, always with superlatives, like “Dynamite!” Do they actually read every one of the books they blurb? The authors I ask to do blurbs for me seem to read the whole book, but there’s no way to signal readers that one blurb may be any more valid than another.

I was also surprised to find that readers didn’t depend on word of mouth. I personally will pay attention to advice from fellow readers, especially if I know they like the same books I do.

As for choosing by cover, I actually think it’s a good idea. The cover can tell you a lot:

1)     The general sub-genre. I don’t read many cozies. If a cover has a picture of a kitchen with a pan of muffins, I know it’s probably not going to be for me. But that same cover will tell cozy readers that it’s perfect for them. If a book cover features a picture of a bulked up man with a gun, I figure it’s probably going to be a thriller, so I’ll read the teaser on the back cover to find out more.

2)     Regarding the “teaser:” When we say “cover” we automatically think of the front of the book, but the back cover usually has a short description of the story. That’s why it’s so important for writers to come up with a good grabber in that back cover copy.

3)     The cover also has the name of the book. How many “Girl” book covers were sold after Gone Girl? Some titles leave me cold, while others are intriguing and I can’t really say why. This is why authors and publishers spend enormous and energy on titles.

4)     The author’s name. Have I read the author before? Have I heard of her? Most readers said the author’s name only mattered if he or she was a “big” name.

The other thing I do when choosing a book is read a few passages. I’ll read the first page or two, and if it looks like the writer knows how to put together sentences, I’ll turn to an interior page and sample more.

So if I were to give advice to someone who wants to sell books, I’d say first write a good book. Then be really careful to make sure the cover is eye-catching, the title intriguing, the cover copy snappy….and change your name to Lee Child.

Murder X 5 – 5+ Crime Novel Gift Ideas

With Thanksgiving coming up in the USA – please take the chance to give us five titles or criminally good books you think would make great gifts…and tell us for whom they’d be suitable.

by Paul D. Marks

Only five? There’s so damn many good mystery-crime books out there cutting a list down to five is, well, criminal. I also run the risk of being repetitive since I’ve probably mentioned some of these books here in the context of other questions. For this week’s question I’ll stick just to crime/mystery novels. And my tastes probably tend to run to darker, harder-edged stories.

The Poet: Michael Connelly is probably best known for the Bosch books. And I’m among Bosch’s fans. But I’d have to say my favorite Connelly book is the stand-alone The Poet (1996), though Jack McEvoy, the main character does appear in other books. The story follows reporter McEvoy as he investigates a string of cop suicides, including his own brother’s and ends up going down a hellish spiral into a world of pedophiles. It also introduces FBI agent Rachel Walling, who shows up in other Connelly novels. The Poet is dark and unsettling, but I think the reason I like it so much is that it is so well plotted, with a lot of twists and turns, and that it really keeps you on edge the whole time. I think this story is for anyone who likes a good crime yarn, but it’s not for the squeamish.

Tapping the Source: These days Kem Nunn is arguably better known as the co-creator of the TV series John from Cincinnati, as well as a writer on Sons of Anarchy and Deadwood. But he’s also the author of, I believe, six novels. Tapping the Source (1984) is his first and is something special. If it’s not the novel that invented the “surf noir” genre it’s certainly an early and foundational entry. This is not the Beach Boys’ version of sun, sand, surf and surfer girls, but a much darker vision of life on SoCal’s storied beaches. Ike Tucker, an aimless young man, treks to Huntington Beach (a.k.a. ‘Surf City’) to find his missing and possibly dead sister. There he gets hooked up with bikers, sex and drugs. No Gidgets or Moondoggie’s here. And Ike will be lucky if he gets out alive. I like this one so much that I looked into acquiring the film rights. Unfortunately they were already taken. Now, if whoever has them these days would just make the damn movie already. Tapping is good for anyone who loves surf, sun and murder.

Down There (a.k.a. Shoot the Piano Player): David Goodis has been called the “poet of the losers” and his stories of people on the skids certainly bear that out. I came to Goodis through the movies, which is how I’ve come to several writers and/or novels. I’m a fan of the Bogie-Bacall movie Dark Passage, so after having seen it a couple of times I decided to check out the David Goodis novel it was based on. I liked it enough that I began to read pretty much anything of Goodis I could get my hands on, but this was before he came into vogue again so mostly I had to pick up very scarred paperbacks (many, though not all of his books were only published in paperback), and I devoured his whole oeuvre. And, though I liked pretty much everything to one degree or another, Down There (1956) really stood out for me. It’s the story of a World War II vet, a former member the elite Merrill’s Marauders who, for a variety of reasons, is down on his luck—way down. Francois Truffaut made the book into a movie called Shoot the Piano Player which, to be honest, I don’t like very much, but that’s why the title of the book was changed from Down There and is probably better known today as Shoot the Piano Player. I think it would be good for fans of classic noir, old movie buffs, and others.

Mallory’s Oracle: NYPD detective Kathy Mallory is a hard-as-nails cop and not just because of her bright red nail polish. Even her creator, Carol O’Connell, describes Mallory as a “sociopath”. Mallory’s Oracle (1994) is the first in the Mallory series and probably the best place to start. I’ve talked with people about Mallory and recommended the Mallory books to several people over the years. And it seems people either love or hate Mallory. I’m in the former category. I love her no-nonsense, doesn’t suffer BS approach to her job. Nothing, including the law, will stand in her way. Not that I’d necessarily like to be friends with her if she suddenly came alive and jumped off the page. I think the Mallory books would be good for someone who likes solid crime stories, strong female characters and doesn’t mind one that’s a sociopath…

Devil in a Blue Dress: Pretty much anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for L.A., past and present. LA history. LA culture. And novels and movies set in the City of the Angels. Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), the first Easy Rawlins novel, hits all those bullet points. And, much as I Iike Easy, I really dig his psychopath friend, Mouse. Not someone you want to get on the wrong side of but certainly someone you’d want to have your back when the you-know-what hits the fan. (I wonder how Mouse and Mallory would hit it off?) Devil in a Blue Dress, and the other Easy novels, would be good for LA history buffs, noir fans, general mystery fans.





The Big Nowhere: James Ellroy’s The Big Nowhere (1988) is the second of his LA Quartet books [the others are The Black Dahlia (1987), L.A. Confidential (1990) and White Jazz (1992) ]. 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” . I used to go to many Ellroy book events and signings and he truly is the Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction. At one event he even had a band with him. 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.

The Grifters: Since math has always been a weak subject for me—you should have seen me trying to do diving physics…—I guess I’m doing more than five books here. Jim Thompson’s The Grifters (1963) is a good book and an even better movie. If you like people living on the down low, if you like con artists, and if you like the grift, this is the book for you. It would be good for fans of Jim Thompson (how’s that for stating the obvious?), noir fans, hardboiled mystery readers.

Bonus Round #1: White Heat / Vortex / LA Late @ Night (uh, all by me): Well, since I’m not

above a little BSP I couldn’t very well leave out this trio. White Heat is a noir detective thriller set during the Rodney King riots. Vortex is about a soldier returning from Afghanistan and finding more trouble in LA than in the war. LA Late @ Night is a collection of five of my previously published stories. And all three would be good for everyone! Well, anyone who likes hardboiled, noir and detective fiction.

Bonus Round #2: As many of you know, I have a thing for both Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. I think they’re in spheres by themselves, especially Chandler, but Macdonald too. I don’t think you could go wrong with any of Chandler’s or books—because he’s just such a damn good writer. And Macdonald blows me away with his explorations into the psychological aspects of crime and stories that boomerang back on the characters—the past always comes back to haunt them. I like pretty much everything by both of them, but if I had to pick I think I’d choose The Long

Goodbye (1953) for Chandler and The Chill (1964—a good year for the Beatles too!) or The Galton Case (1959) for Macdonald. These books would be good for pretty much anyone interested in mysteries and the crime fiction genre, but especially as an intro to a young or new reader of mysteries. And as an introduction to classic mystery and detective fiction.

What about you? What books would you recommend as gifts for the people in your life?

***

And now for the usual BSP:

Please check out the interview Laura Brennan, writer, producer and consultant, did with me for her podcast, where we talk about everything from Raymond Chandler and John Fante to the time I pulled a gun on the LAPD and lived to tell about it. Find it here: http://destinationmystery.com/episode-52-paul-d-marks/

www.PaulDMarks.com

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Read All About It! About what? About Everything!

"With American Thanksgiving just around the corner, it's getting near to present-buying time. What five criminally good books would you recommend and for whom?" By Catriona

I've recently read all of these and loved every one. Loved some of them so much I wondered why I bothered. That feeling is the essence of bittersweet, the best bit of reading and the worst bit of writing, and (it now occurs to me) maybe not hitting the right note for the second day of Nanowrimo. So proceed at your own peril.

There's cozy, hard-boiled, literary and classic here. And a master-class on how to start a series. I'm looking at you, Vicki Thompson.

Okay . . .

For jaded palates: If you're feeling as if you've read it all before and it's been a while since a book surprised you . . . try ERRANT BLOOD, the debut novel by C.F. Peterson. It's set in the Scottish Highlands - but not the shortbread tin version of the Highlands. Forget Hamish Macbeth. Forget Whisky Galore. There are refugees billeted in the roadworkers' houses and lots of dodgy Russian money sloshing around.  There's also a death scene more visceral and compelling than any I've ever read. And beautiful writing about landscape, about cruelty, about loyalty.  And laughs too.  It's a crime for a debut to be this good, frankly.

If you loved The Sting: then here's a treat. I adore a sympathetic grifter, I adore a dazzling heist and if there's a rich historical setting thrown in too, all the better. Victoria Thompson's new series debuts with CITY OF LIES and it is splendid stuff. The true history of a murky moment in US suffragism is woven skillfully through the story (you will fume, I promise) and the character of a boorish, repellent, New York real estate mogul begging for comeuppance is good for a wry chuckle too.

Want a heroine to fall for? I'd recommend Bobbi Logan, a fierce, funny, vulnerable, kind, wounded, brave . . . hairdresser. Bet you weren't expecting that, eh? SEVEN SUSPECTS is Renee James' third novel about Bobbi, and it's a structural (and emotional) belter, violent and searing, with a moral centre made of granite and a heart bigger than Jupiter. The setting is a love letter to Chicago too.

But if you don't want to moan with horror so loud that a guy on a train asks you if you're okay (yes, really) then why not curl up with a little more comforting?

To be taken with a hot toddy (in your whitewashed cottage on a clifftop, ideally): Alexia Gordon's debut, MURDER IN G MAJOR, must be the hardest novel ever to pitch in an elevator.  Ahem, it's an orchestra-themed, fish-out-of-water, Ireland-set, amateur sleuth story. With a ghost. Gesthemane Brown spends the novel drinking whisky, conducting a high school orchestra, communing with the spirit of a famous composer and - oh yes - solving a mystery. And you can carry right on to Book 2 now: Death in D Minor is all that and a ghostly sea captain.

And finally . . .

If you think you don't like Agatha Christie, if you reckon she's twee, if you wonder why she's still revered: read one of her masterpieces whose genius plot you don't yet know. There's no point trying to see The Orient Express for what is was on publication day. Or Roger Ackroyd. But try one where you haven't looked behind the curtain yet. It could be the psychologically creepy SLEEPING MURDER, or the out-and-out horrid serial-killer novel, ABC MURDERS but I'd recommend - THE MOVING FINGER. For me it's the very best of Christie's explorations of shame.  She's brilliant at shame and never better than here. Go on.

Perfect reading choices for...by Cathy Ace

With Thanksgiving coming up in the USA – please take the chance to give us five titles or criminally good books you think would make great gifts…and tell us for whom they’d be suitable.

For lovers of cozy mysteries: THE MARSH MADNESS by Victoria Abbott. This book is the fourth in the book collector series by mother and daughter writing team Mary Jane Maffini and Victoria Maffini. The book won the 2017 Bony Blithe Award for best Canadian Light Mystery, and I’ve had it since then…but have only just got around to reading it. Light, bright and using the Ngaio Marsh canon as frequent reference points (I love Ngaio Marsh!) it’s a fast, fun read. 

 

For those who enjoy police procedurals: THE SEAGULL by Ann Cleeves. The not inconsiderable figure of DI Vera Stanhope has inhabited the world of crime fiction since Ann’s first book in this series (THE CROW TRAP, 1999) and she’s far from done (thank goodness). Ann’s writing style makes me a) want to try harder and b) give up writing altogether…pretty much in equal measure. A joy to read (you experience the book, rather than read it) and an excellent story, well told. I enjoy all the Stanhope books, this is the most recent…but you might want to treat yourself by starting with the first book and reading from there (this is the 8^th in the series). 

 

For those who enjoy anthologies: MOTIVES FOR MURDER edited by Martin Edwards. This anthology was put together to celebrate the 80^th birthday of one of my favourite authors, Peter Lovesey. From the blurb: Members of London's famed Detection Club have joined together to honor Peter Lovesey, winner multiple times of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger and Silver Dagger, and Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement. He has also won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar for Best Novel, as well as Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He is the creator of Victorian sleuths Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray, Inspector Peter Diamond, and the almost true-to-life Bertie Prince of Wales. Honestly, there isn’t a bad story in the entire collection, and that’s saying something!

For those who like a bit of international terrorism: DEATH BY DESIGN by Barbara Nadel. This was published in 2010 and is the 12^th in what is now a 19 book series featuring Çetin İkmen, a member of the Istanbul police force whose chain smoking and heavy drinking don’t seem to impact (usually!) his ability to grapple with complex cases. Always an interesting read, this particular title takes İkmen to London – a trip I probably enjoy more than he does. Excellent plots, well-drawn characters, and never a dull moment. 

 

For those who want a change from crime: MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING (2 volumes) by Julia Child. I love to eat, thus I love to cook. This boxed set was a Christmas present years ago, but it doesn’t matter how you get your hands on these two volumes, just get them, and read them. There’s so much inspiration, so many useful tips, and such wonderful recipes you and all those for whom you might ever cook will be grateful you did! 

Cathy Ace is the Bony Blithe Award-winning author of The Cait Morgan Mysteries and The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries.  You can find out more about Cathy, her work and her characters at her website, where you can also sign up for her newsletter with news, updates and special offers: http://cathyace.com/