You can take Jack out of L.A. — in this case, all the way to Napa Valley — but you can’t take the L.A. out of Jack, as this excerpt from THE LAST HEIR at CriminalElements.com conclusively proves.
Meanwhile, I talk to The Sirens of Suspense about the writing process, and how my three careers — lawyer, author, and vigneron — all came together for this book:
Because I haven’t attended many conferences at this (early) stage of my writing career, particularly “fan-based” events like the Left-Coast Crime 2013 gathering this past weekend in Colorado Springs, each remains a unique and memorable experience for this crime-fiction newbie. Allow me to share a few of these incipient memories:
Since the event was a mere seven hours by car from my home near Cortez, CO — or roughly the length of a Quentin Tarrantino film — I elected to drive to Colorado Springs, a decision made easier by the fact that my route through Durango and Pagosa and over Wolf Creek Pass is one of the prettiest on the planet. Pretty, that is, in the glorious sunshine of my departure. Less so in the snowy, treacherous conditions of my return, the sights of which included several crashed or abandoned vehicles and an 18-wheel semi lying on its side. But that’s another story.
Since I don’t really know that many of my crime-fiction contemporaries, I was heartened to learn that the irrepressible Deborah Coonts would be in attendance, up from the neon Gomorrah of her native Las Vegas. I first met Deb in Anaheim, at the American Library Association’s 2012 annual conference, where she and I mugged our way through a two-person panel of the use of humor in mystery fiction. This year, at LCC, we were scheduled to share not one but two different panels — on humor, and on writing the legal thriller (Deb is also a recovering lawyer.) And this time, we’d have company.
One thing I didn’t know about Deb is that she’d spent great chunks of her childhood in Colorado Springs where, like Eloise at the Plaza, she’d roamed the halls and hills of the iconic Broadmoor Hotel. So the first order of business on Thursday was a guided driving tour — along with authors David Gates and Chuck Rosenthal — of Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs and environs, including the Garden of the Gods (pictured) and, of course, the stately and historic Broadmoor itself, where we had a lovely reunion dinner on Thursday evening.
Things began in earnest on Friday morning with the New Authors’ Breakfast, where each of us who’d debuted in 2012 was given one minute to pitch his/her novel to the rest of the conference attendees. After that, having no panels on Friday morning, I was able to kick back and listen to some of the best writers currently working in American crime fiction, including David Corbett, Hilary Davidson, Brad Parks, Rhys Bowen, and Margaret Coel, expand on topics ranging from literary inspiration to the balkanization of crime fiction into its various sub-genres. Some enlightenment ensued.
The Friday morning program ended with a bang, and in one of my favorite moments from the conference: Margaret Coel’s one-on-one interview with “Fan Guest of Honor” Tom Schantz, the publisher of Rue Morgue Press and the owner of one of America’s earliest mystery-only bookshops. Tom is a walking encyclopedia of crime fiction, and his insights into the past and future of the genre were both fascinating and, at times, a little unnerving.
I participated in two panels on Friday afternoon. They were “The Lighter Side of Death and Dismemberment” with Deb Coonts, Harley Jane Kozak, Brad Parks, and Rochelle Staab, followed by “You Don’t Have to be a Lawyer to Kill Like One” with Deb, Parnell Hall, Paul Levine, and Chuck Rosenthal. The humor panel in particular was not only great fun but was very well attended –possibly the most popular panel of the weekend — and it came with homework. Asked to bring a funny line from another author’s work, I chose a chestnut from Nelson DeMille’s Wild Fire in which protagonist John Corey says of his ex-wife, “she thought cooking and fucking were two cities in China.” Now that’s a line I wish I’d written.
Each conference panel was followed by a fifteen-minute signing session, in which fans can stop by and chat with the panelists. I met some great folks at these sessions, some of whom had already read Hush Money and some of whom were kind enough to buy it. In fact, all of my books (both Hush Money and Hard Twisted) had sold out of the on-site bookstore by Saturday afternoon.
Mystery writers are fans as well, and in many cases we’re ardent fans of our fellow panelists. I was delighted, for example, to meet Laura Lippman — she and I are finalists for the Audie Award for Best Mystery audiobook of 2012 — and congratulate her (see picture) on What the Dead Know, to which I’d just been listening on the drive up from Cortez. It was also good to see Craig Johnson again, as I owe him a debt of gratitude for his role in helping Hush Money find its publisher, Minotaur Books.
Another highlight of conferences such as these is the opportunity to make new writer friends. So while I did miss the RMMWA reception and “concealed weapons fashion show” held on Friday night, I missed it because I was out to dinner that evening with Naomi (Strawberry Yellow) Hirahara and Diana (Coldwater) Gould, swapping L.A. stories and, in my case, memories of my pre-auctorial past. The next (Saturday) morning, I made a bee-line to the bookstore to purchase a copy of Coldwater, Diana’s debut novel, and I’m so looking forward to digging in.
Saturday’s day-long program included Twist Phelan’s Proustian one-on-one interview with Laura Lippman, entitled The Woman with a Gun, in which we all learned the words to the song “Mommy Time,” and were warned of the hazards of on-line shopping. You had to be there.
In the finest tradition of saving the best for last, the final panel of the day on Saturday was “Writing the West,” on which I sat with my fellow Rocky Award (see photo) finalists Craig Johnson, Margaret Coel, Darrel James, and Beth Groundwater. Craig, as always, stole the show with his patented mix of homespun humor and razor-sharp observations on the craft of writing. It was an honor for this debut author to have been on the same stage with these bright and talented veterans of the business.
The high point of the conference was the Saturday night awards banquet and charity auction, ably hosted by David Corbett. While all of the award nominees deserve recognition, the eventual winners were: Rochelle Staab for Bruja Brouhaha (Watson Award), the hilarious Catriona McPherson for Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for Murder (Bruce Alexander Award), Craig Johnson for As the Crow Flies (Rocky Award), and Brad Parks for The Girl Next Door (Lefty Award). I can only hope that somebody filmed Brad’s acceptance “speech” — which included an impromptu song-and-dance number with Laura Lippman — and if so, that it soon finds its way onto YouTube.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the evening’s high point, which may have come after the last bow was taken, when conference Guest of Honor Craig Johnson sat for a one-on-one interview with a flight-delayed Lou Diamond Phillips, whose grit and sportsmanship in battling his way to Denver in a raging snowstorm earned him a well-deserved standing ovation from the banquet guests. Fans were rewarded with an hour of wit, wisdom, and war stories from the set of Longmire. All good things must end, alas, and end they did on Sunday morning.
Although I may not have brought home the Rocky, I did bring home something even better — cherished memories and new friendships. So, big thanks and hugs to all who made me feel so very much at home, and special thanks, for no special reason, to Deb, David, Naomi, Diana, Chuck, Rochelle (congrats!), Brad (ditto), Harley Jane, Paul, Mike, Laura, Margaret, Beth, Darrel, Parnell, Craig (double ditto), and Catriona, plus Linda Joffe Hull, Peg Brantley, Steve Brewer, Bonnie Biafore, Terri Bischoff, Bonnie Ramthun, and Janet Rudolph, but most of all to Christine Goff, Lucinda Surber, Stan Ulrich, Suzanne Proulx and everyone else who played a role in organizing this wonderful, magical weekend.
See you all next year!
As a writer edits his novel-in-progress, he invariably leaves chunks of feeble prose on the cutting-room floor. More often than not, the discarded material ends up where it belongs, and what remains is improved by its absence. Sometimes the cuts are painless, and sometimes they hurt a little. “Murder your darlings,” wrote the Edwardian author Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, and for generations, novelists have reluctantly followed his advice in pursuit of a tighter, leaner manuscript.
When editing Hush Money (Minotaur), my 2012 debut legal mystery, I was compelled to lop a limb or two that still, a full year later, tingle with phantom sensation. Below is a scene that never made it to the final, published novel, but that was fun to write, and therefore, painful to excise. While the prose may have died in utero, I did salvage the character name Jordan Mardian, and it will appear – in a very different context – in Green-Eyed Lady, the next installment in the Jack MacTaggart mystery series, which will be in bookstores in June of 2013. Continue reading
Most of the reviews for HUSH MONEY have included some variant of the phrase ‘we hope this is the first in a series.’ Here’s another, from the good folks at Stop, You’re Killing Me. Which is all good, because Jack will be back in GREEN-EYED LADY, coming in May:
Hush Money (Minotaur 2012) introduces Jack MacTaggart, a junior lawyer with Henley & Hargrove, the oldest and snobbiest law firm in Pasadena, California. When socialite Sydney Everett’s champion show-jumper Hush Puppy dies unexpectedly, Jack is assigned the insurance claim. The vet doesn’t find any sign of trauma and gives a verdict of cardiac failure, but the insurance company suspects foul play. Jack finds the brittle and calculating Sydney Everett distasteful, but is instantly attracted to her stable manager, Tara Flynn, who sincerely mourns Hush Puppy’s death. Tara, a grand prix equestrian competitor, helps Jack understand the complex world of professional show-jumping and provides a disconcerting riding lesson to demonstrate the physical strength needed by the riders. Jack’s investigation into Sydney’s stables uncovers high monthly payments that look like blackmail, and then the necropsy on Hush Puppy turns up a parasitic infection that appears to have been intentional. A sudden death that just could be murder adds to the tension, and Jack fears that he might be the next victim. Jack is an engaging narrator, his quips balanced by true empathy for those he feels are deserving of help. His other client is Victor Tazerian, a trash collector whose insurance company refuses to pay for a medical procedure that might cure his leukemia. The procedure requires harvesting Victor’s bone marrow while his leukemia is in remission, which the insurance company claims is an unnecessary procedure since Victor is not sick while in remission. The quirks and tricks of legal negotiations are presented with humor in this fast-paced legal thriller, hopefully the first in a series.
You can read about more books on their August list here
With apologies to the late Herb Caen, here are some scenes and impressions from my weekend in L.A., where I attended the 2012 American Library Association’s Annual Conference, held on June 21 through 26 in Anaheim:
Wednesday, June 20: My ALA odyssey began on Wednesday afternoon, with a five-hour drive from my ranch in Colorado to spend the night in Albuquerque in order to catch a nonstop crack-of-dawn flight from the ABQ Sunport to LAX . . . Finally got to listen to the audiobook version of HUSH MONEY on the drive down, which was a strange, exhilarating, and, at times, frustrating experience . . . Actor Dan Butler does a fine job overall, but his pronunciations of certain Hispanic names and equestrian terms (i.e., Enrique to rhyme with unique, and dressage to rhyme with message) had me shouting at the dashboard . . . Approached downtown Albuquerque at around 6:00 p.m., just in time to witness a brushfire flaring in the Rio Grande bosque that had drivers pulling to the side of the I-25 to snap photos . . . New Mexico, Colorado and the greater Southwest remain tinder-dry, even along the rivers . . . Thinking of those impacted by the fires, I retire early, for the ungodly 4:00 a.m. wake-up call.
Thursday, June 21: First time I’ve ever boarded an airplane (American Airlines, in this case) to find the plane otherwise full, but the exit row empty, so, needless to say, I extracted my 6-foot, 3-inch frame from my assigned seat and took advantage . . . Drove my rental car from LAX to Pasadena, where my good friend (and Pasadena City Councilman) Steve Madison’s guesthouse would serve as my weekend headquarters . . . Had a delightful lunch at Julienne in San Marino with the brave and wonderful Bonnie Anthony, whose husband Don Mike’s untimely passing is the subject of a recent blog post . . . Visited a few local attractions, including Vroman’s Bookstore (purchasing a great One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest t-shirt for my niece), the Pasadena Museum of California Art (Edgar Payne exhibition), and the Autry Center in Griffith Park (Howard Terpning exhibition) . . . Southwestern Colorado has its charms, but great art museums are not among them . . . Dinner at Le Grande Orange, where I was introduced to the principals of LitFest Pasadena, the Crown City’s nascent literary festival, to which I now hope to be invited next May . . . Did I mention that Pasadena is a great city for authors?
Me and Deb Coonts at lunch
Friday, June 22: Started the weekend with a bang when, in a three-way morning conference call with my N.Y. literary agent (from the David Black Agency) and an L.A. film-rights sub-agent (from CAA), I detected genuine enthusiasm on the latter’s part for turning HUSH MONEY’s Jack MacTaggart into a television series character, and my forthcoming true-crime novel HARD TWISTED into a theatrical motion picture . . . I’m a realist, of course – some might even say a cynic – but still, it was a damn good meeting . . . Drove to Anaheim to have lunch with author Deborah Coonts (of Lucky O’Toole fame) and plan our one-on-one panel “Laugh or I’ll Kill You,” scheduled for Saturday morning . . . We finally decided to just be funny . . . During lunch, received an unexpected e-mail from the Wolfe Pack, the Rex Stout fan club/literary society, inviting me to address their Saturday Afternoon Assembly, which is part of their annual Black 
Orchid Weekend in NYC in December . . . Huge thrill for me, as I cut my teeth on Wolfe, a fact which is also the subject of an earlier blog post . . . Finished the day off with Woody Allen’s new film To Rome With Love at ArcLight in the old Cinerama Dome in Hollywood (where, if memory serves, I first saw Star Wars many moons ago) . . . Has anyone noticed that there’s an awful lot of traffic in L.A.?
Saturday, June 23: Having no idea what to expect, I was stunned to arrive at the Anaheim Convention Center and witness first-hand the spectacle that is the ALA Annual . . . Over 20,000 attendees – mostly librarians – plus hundreds of exhibitors, authors, booksellers, and fans of all things literary, filling every nook and cranny of an enormous convention facility . . . It was, to paraphrase Warren Buffett, like attending Woodstock for bibliophiles . . . Here’s Molly Ringwald, signing her memoir . . . There’s the lone figure of George R.R. Martin, sitting, somehow unnoticed, at the Tor/Forge booth (I gave him a signed copy of HUSH MONEY) . . . Over there is a poster announcing the Rock Bottom 
Remainders’ final performance, slated for later that evening . . . The panel with Deb Coonts, held at the Pop Top Stage on the open convention floor, was a hoot, and we each signed dozens of books afterward . . . I caught up with my old friend Luis Herrera, who now heads up the City of San Francisco’s public library system, and made a point of introducing him to the City’s own Kelli Stanley . . . My afternoon panel with authors Mike Lawson, Caroline Todd, Brian Freeman and Charlie Newton – and moderated by Kelli – entitled “Location, Location, Location,” was both spirited and informative, and we all flirted with writers’ cramp in the signing frenzy that followed . . . Met my old friend Lenny Catalano afterward, and we drove up to Staples Center in L.A. in time to meet Steve and his wife and catch the Ortiz-Lopez fight, which was a classic . . . Fight crowds are noticeably different from library gatherings.
Sunday, June 24: Spent my getaway day with Steve and with our friend Mike Hurley at Doña Rosa, in Pasadena, solving the problems of the world . . . Always great to visit L.A., where I spent four years of college and 25 years of law practice . . . Soaked up plenty of local color and atmosphere, which I’ll try to capture in the pages of GREEN-EYED LADY, the first sequel to HUSH MONEY, coming in May of 2013, and in the many Jack MacTaggart books to follow . . . And now, back to the vineyard, and the horses, where I’ll resume praying for rain . . .
