FAN FAVORITES

by Janice Law

One of the nice things about book chats—and blogs—is the chance to promote favorite authors. Some, perennial inhabitants of the best seller lists, need no introduction. But there are others, equally worthy in the fan’s estimation, who never reach the popularity their quality would suggest.

Magdalen Nabb

Two of those this week: the late Magdalen Nabb and the very much alive Fred Vargas (Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau), both excellent women writers who have escaped the sort of celebrity that bloats up neat, taut books into door stops and encourages over production and formulaic writing. Nabb, who died following a stroke in 2007, trained as a potter. A move to Florence and friendship with a local carabinieri gave her insights into the Italian police force and led to the creation of Marshal Guarnaccia, whose adventures eventually spanned fourteen books.

Patient and diffident, the Marshal was perhaps too modest and unflamboyant a character to achieve bestseller status. A devoted family man, a kind boss, and a compassionate guardian of his Florentine neighborhood, he lacks fancy vices and glamorous sorrows. Instead of an addiction, he has hay fever, and his struggles are with his diet, not alcohol. The nearest he comes to conventional investigator behavior are his exceedingly polite and low key conflicts with his superiors.

The Marshal is so normal in his concerns and affections that, in the context of mystery novels, he is almost eccentric, but this gives the stories unusual realism and resonance. The Marshal is serious without being gloomy, and compassionate without ceasing to be clear eyed. His methods, like his personality, are modest. Yes, he relies on forensics and lots of legwork, but at bottom, Marshal Guarnaccia solves his cases by listening, not to the words necessarily—he is notoriously dreamy and abstracted and slow on the uptake—but to the emotions behind them. On these he is rarely wrong, having the knack to recognize his own emotions and struggles in those of others. Polite and insecure about his intellectual abilities, the Marshal is the diametric opposite of the familiar smarty pants detective and none the worse for that.

Fred Vargas (Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau)

His counterpoint in the Vargas novels, Chief Inspector Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg of the Parisian Brigade Criminelle, is also an unexpected type: small and disheveled and attractive rather than handsome; seemingly idle; good with infants and animals; attractive to women but unreliable with the woman he really loves. A shepherd’s boy from the Pyrenees, Adamsberg is even dreamier than the Marshal. His idea of working on a case is to wander along the Seine and see what floats into his mind.

Fortunately, he comes with Adrien Danglard, the overly hard-drinking but ultra-responsible single father of five, who is as rational and detail—and paper work—oriented as his boss is improvisational. Imagine this pair as a dreamy Dr. Watson as the genius detective and Sherlock Holmes as his detail man and you won’t be far wrong.

Further assistance comes from other members of his team like Violette Retancourt, an immense woman, the brigade’s “half-track” as she’s indelicately referred to in one novel, whose talents range from a rapport with the Snowball, their only apparently useless mascot feline, to night vision and an astonishing turn of foot. Retancourt is only one of many characters who are unexpected, eccentric, and stereotype busting.

Adamsberg can also count on the services of three peculiar historians, one interested in WWI, one in the middle ages, and one in pre-history. These “Three Evangelists” prove useful to the Chief Inspector in a history-soaked city like Paris—and in novels by a moonlighting historian and archeologist. And have I mentioned his IT people? They’re pair of elderly ladies who’ve mastered the computer and international financial manipulation, pretty much in that order.

Befitting this gallery of oddballs, Vargas’s plots are peculiar to say the least. Who has shot a fine stag in Brittany and removed only its heart? Who is going about Paris painting medieval plague signs on people’s doors? Who is making neat chalk circles around corpses in the 5th arrondissement? Can there really be a giant wolf—or is it a werewolf—stalking the Pyrenees? And can a long dead killer possibly be haunting Adamsberg in Canada of all places?

Well may you ask. These and many other puzzles are unfolded in the six novels devoted to Chief Inspector Adamsberg, all characterized by a great fertility of invention, vigor of characterizations and graceful prose. Vargas manages to be serious without being humorless, and Adamsberg’s cases are unusual without being totally implausible.

If you are tired of fat, heavy novels with all too familiar types and plots, either Nabb or Vargas will provide an alternative. Nabb for the simple humanity of her characters; Vargas for the luxuriant eccentricity of her imagination. Either way, you are in for a treat.

The DEAN of SOUL

by Leigh Lundin

David Dean has appeared in Criminal Brief and Ellery Queen numerous times, but this quarter he appears on EQ’s covers twice in a row featuring his latest ‘Tomorrow’s Dead’ and ‘Praying Mantis’. David will tell you about ‘Praying Mantis’, but I’ll take a moment to talk about ‘Tomorrow’s Dead’.

In many ways, ‘Tomorrow’s Dead’ struck a chord with me. David and his stories embody modesty, strength, and gentleness. The dynamics of his action heroes are in the mind and heart, and he’s one of the few people who knows the reason I especially admire these character qualities.

For the story ‘Ibrahim’s Eyes’, David won the Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award in 2007 (the year after I did) and he’s been nominated for Shamus, Barry, and Derringer Awards. David served as a paratrooper with the 82^nd Airborne Division and besides being an award-winning author, he is currently a New Jersey Chief of Police.

Catch the July and August issues of Ellery Queen while you can. How can you resist reading about …

Father Gregory and Chief J

by David Dean

Leigh Lundin recently asked me if I would be interested in writing something about my story, ‘Praying Mantis’, in the current issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. At first, I modestly demurred, because I did not feel especially qualified to write about writing. I seriously doubted there was much I could say on the subject that the enlightened readers and contributors to Criminal Brief didn’t already know. 

Yet, with artful logic and cunning flattery, Leigh was able to persuade me at last— actually with his second e-mail on the subject. Not, however, to write about that elusive and maddening subject of writing, oh no; but I did think it might be interesting to say something about the continuing characters of Chief Julian Hall and Father Gregory Savartha. 

I first met Father Gregory at Mass many years ago. Of course, his name was not Father ‘Gregory’, but he was a priest from India. In the beginning his accent made it very difficult to follow his homilies (his native tongue was Tamil), but as time went by he became easier and easier to understand. I even began to comprehend his jokes, which were often convoluted and told with only the slightest of smiles. Mild disappointment would crease his face when his parishioners failed to get the punch line, and this was often— Father Gregory’s sense of humor and command of the English language were not entirely in synch. 

He was, however, extremely engaging, and I have met few men in my life with such a genuine and warm love for humanity and God. He simply demanded (not literally, of course) to be included in my writings.

America was a new experience for him— as was driving. In India he had had no need of a car, but the Diocese of Camden had other plans. His first call for help came shortly thereafter. In the beginning, it was a simple parking ticket in a loading zone. Later, things would progress. Eventually, I just gave him my cell phone number to facilitate his movements across southern New Jersey: 

“Hello… Chief Dean?”

“Father…?” I answered cautiously.

“I have caused an accident, it seems.”

“Was anyone hurt?” 

 “No, thank God; all is well…but the police are coming here and I don’t have my driver’s license on my person!” I had never heard such panic in his voice.

I paused…it was wicked, I know, but too good to pass up. “What? No license on your person? Well, you’ll probably be deported then.”

There was a long silence. “Oh my Lord,” he said at last. “What is to be done?”

My joke had gone over about as well as one of his…I felt like a heel. 

“No, no, Father, I was just joking. It will be alright. Just explain to the officers that you forgot it and they’ll look it up on the computer. If there’s a problem, ask them to give me a call and I’ll vouch for you.”

I could hear his sigh of relief. “Thank you, thank you, dear man.”

It made me wonder what happens to unlicensed drivers in India.

If you’ve read any of the Father Gregory/Chief Hall stories their genesis must be disappointingly obvious by this point in my narrative. The truth is I barely made up my fictional priest and ditto for the chief. My secret is out— I don’t have much imagination and was forced to rip the characters from today’s headlines!

Okay, maybe not headlines exactly. But I am a chief of police and I did (do) enjoy a friendship with a man-of–the-cloth that is substantially similar to Father Gregory. I did make up the names, however; all by myself. Chief Julian Hall is named after my son whom I often refer to as Julian the Apostate, but that’s another story.

Julian Hall (patrolman extraordinaire) was the focal character in my first published story, and his heroic bravery and insightful intelligence was drawn entirely from my own personality. So he was easy.

He reappeared four more times over the following years then went dormant for many more. Other subjects, themes, and characters clamored for attention— like Picasso, I went through several ‘periods’. He didn’t show up again until I promoted him to chief and paired him with Father Gregory for ‘Erin’s Journal’ in EQMM Dec. 2009, and again in the rather cynical ‘A Prayer Answered’ the following year. 

From the beginning of their relationship, Chief J, as he is dubbed by his ecclesiastical friend, was doomed to second-fiddle status. Don’t ask me why, but the little Indian priest would not take a back seat to the now-mature and wonderfully wise police executive. 

In fact, in ‘Praying Mantis’ (the current issue of EQMM) Chief Hall simply refuses to lend a hand in spite of Father G’s appeal for aid. He appears to grow weary of the inquisitive prelate— sort of a “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” moment.

In the story I’m currently working on, Chief J’s role continues to diminish (perhaps as divine punishment for his earlier lack of faith). It remains to be seen whether this dynamic character can tolerate such indifference. Father Gregory, on the other hand, commands center stage while remaining solidly on his home turf— the entire story takes place in a confessional.

Of course all this begs the question: Why, if I am a policeman, do I focus more on the priest? Well, if you happen to be a practicing Catholic, for better or for worse, priests play a big part in your life. And the inspiration for Father Gregory played a ‘for better’ role in my own, and not just in terms of my writing efforts. 

Sadly, the ‘real-life’ Father Gregory was recently transferred to another parish. Priests are little bit like soldiers in that they must march when commanded to do so. We remain in touch (my number is still on his speed-dial) but I miss him greatly. The Christmas before he left, my wife and I gave him the six-part DVD of the PBS series ‘The Story of India’ which the reader will find him watching (or trying to) in ‘Praying Mantis’. On the day the parish gave him his farewell party he laid his head on my shoulder and wept. I ask ya, who wouldn’t put him in a story? 

 I have written many stories without priests, of course. Most of them feature ordinary people generally getting it all wrong, or losing their way somehow and regretting it. Father Gregory, however, remains a touchstone, being both fun to set in motion as well as entertaining. He has the additional charm (both he and the man that inspired him) of being the one character that always knows where he will arrive; even when I don’t.

In closing, a confession: I have never told my friend that he inspired my curious and fictional priest and, to my knowledge, he has never read any of my stories. I would like to think that he might be flattered if he did, but I fear that he would find my homage a caricature. Certainly, in trying to encompass his remarkable personality, my skills remain sadly inadequate.

IN THEIR SPARE TIME

by John M. Floyd

Since most of what we discuss at this blog involves crime fiction, it makes sense that most of the series protagonists we discuss are connected in some way to law enforcement. Detectives, beat cops, marshals, sheriffs, lawyers, federal agents, etc. They’re the heroes because they’re in the best spot to regularly experience the kind of action required for that kind of story.

That’s what we do, as writers, when we choose our viewpoint characters: we create people who are in a position to best observe—and be most affected by—the sequence of events. As a result, our protagonists are usually not plumbers or accountants or shoe salesmen.

But sometimes they are. Some protagonists do have conventional jobs and live normal lives, at least until trouble finds them. Especially if you roam beyond the bounds of mystery/crime fiction and into the area of thriller/adventure. Know what Luke Skywalker was, before signing up at the Jedi draft board? A farmer. Alex McKnight’s occupation? He owned a bunch of vacation cabins in the north woods. Tony Soprano? His business card said “waste management consultant.” Jane Marple? Well, I’m not sure about Miss Marple’s line of work. But she sure didn’t carry a badge, or even a P.I. license.

Anyhow, the more I thought about this area of series action/suspense heroes and their occupations, the more I wanted to—you guessed it—make a list. (I need to find some kind of pill I can take to suppress that urge.)

NOTE: I tried not to include any law enforcement tie-ins, but I couldn’t resist the occasional hit man or M.E. or bounty hunter.

Here’s what I came up with:

Cliff Janeway—bookstore owner
Myron Bolitar—sports agent
Chili Palmer—loan shark/movie producer
Allan Quatermain—explorer
Sookie Stackhouse—waitress
Han Solo—trader/smuggler/starship pilot
Travis McGee—salvage consultant
Clark Kent—newspaper reporter
Flynn Carsen—librarian
Bernie Rhodenbarr—bookseller/burglar
Lucas McCain—rancher
Jason Bourne—CIA assassin
Steve Austin—astronaut
Henry (Indiana) Jones, Jr.—professor/archaeologist
Anna Pigeon—park ranger
Jack Foley—career bank robber
Peter Parker—photographer
Stephanie Plum—bounty hunter
Casey Ryback—cook
Jessica Fletcher—writer
Angus MacGyver—inventor
John Keller—assassin for hire
Vito Corleone—owner of family business
Kay Scarpetta—medical examiner
Bret Maverick—gambler
James T. Kirk—starship captain
Michael Dundee—crocodile hunter
Richard Kimble—physician
Marty McFly—college student
Conan—barbarian

I suppose the only real requirement for a series protag in the suspense genre is that he (or she) must be a trouble magnet. He doesn’t necessarily have to search for or create the problems, as long as the problems can easily locate him and turn his world upside down. And if you happen to be a friend or relative or colleague of these lightning-rod characters, well, good luck—you might find it difficult to obtain life insurance.

I think I wind up enjoying that kind of story more, sometimes, than the routine adventure or crime drama. Protagonists with “average” jobs can seem more interesting because those of us who also have average jobs can relate to them. And if the occupation is fascinating in itself (park ranger, explorer, movie mogul, whatever), that can add more depth to the story—and can even teach the reader something in the process.

As a matter of fact, the crimefighting protagonist of the little mystery series I’ve been writing for Woman’s World is not a detective but a retired middle-school teacher. (I just reached a milestone, of sorts: I sold my 40th story to WW a couple weeks ago—and 31 of those have been Angela Potts mysteries.) She works closely with the county sheriff, who’s one of her former students, but she usually ends up correcting everything he does and solving the case.

Can you think of other series suspense heroes who had non-law-related occupations? I’m sure I left out a great many.

One final point. All of us know the ideal character traits for our protagonists: courage, honesty, intelligence, sense of humor, etc. Well, I’d like to add another one. It usually helps if they’re unlucky.

Look at poor Alan Grant. A mild-mannered paleontologist, happily digging for bones in Montana. Then he got invited to Jurassic Park. Little did he know . . .

(GIVE ME THAT) ARMCHAIR DETECTION

by Steven Steinbock

Last week I told you about two mystery fan publications, C.A.D.S. and Old-Time Detection. In order to avoid using the word fanzine, I dubbed them both portmanteaus. My suggestion was cheeky, and my dislike of the f-word overstated. But I’ve had time to think about it, and if I had to come up with a name for non-commercial fan journals, I’d be hard pressed to find a better term than portmanteau.

Who knows? The 2079 edition of the OED may include a reference to Criminal Brief in its entry on portmanteau.

The Armchair Detective

This week we go back to the mother of all mystery portmanteaus, The Armchair Detective. From 1967 until it ceased publication in 1997, TAD was the preeminent fan magazine for the mystery field. Although it occasionally featured short fiction, TAD was primarily filled with interviews, literary analysis, reviews, and retrospectives. And checklists. Lots of checklists.

In the mid-1960s, a young Minnesota biochemist named Allen Hubin had an analytic mind, a love of detective fiction, and a growing frustration that there was no serious forum for mystery enthusiasts to discuss or read about the literature they love. Hubin sent a letter to Anthony Boucher – at the time book critic for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The New York Times Book Review – lamenting the lack of a mystery fan magazine. Boucher was so supportive of the idea, and encouraged Hubin to pursue it.

Hubin says that he didn’t want so much to write or edit such a magazine, rather just to be able to read it. But a correspondence with Len and June Moffat (about whom I’ve written here) led Hubin to send out a call for articles. Boucher, in turn, used his platform to get the word out. And The Armchair Detective was born in October, 1967.

What strikes me when I set the early issues of TAD side by side with issues of Arthur Vidro’s Old-Time Detection is how similar they appear. The earliest issues of TAD were hand-typed and mimeographed on 8½ by 11 paper and stapled along the left edge. They ran from thirty to more than sixty pages without any ads.

By the mid-1970s TAD was being professionally published by Publisher’s Inc. of Del Mar, California. Subscriptions were $10 for four issues. With the October 1978 issue, TAD took a great leap forward when Otto Penzler took over as publisher, marked by a really cool Jim Staranko cover.

In its later years, TAD ran a column by William L. DeAndrea called “J’Accuse!” in which DeAndrea wrote about whatever he felt like. He was clever, funny, and often unapologetically politically incorrect. Even if you disagreed with him, you had to love him for his elan. DeAndrea added a degree of excitement to the magazine. He also probably drew his share of cancelled subscriptions. But it wasn’t enough to sink the magazine.

In fact it wasn’t until after DeAndrea’s untimely death that TAD closed shop. I’m sure it is no reflection on me, but two issues after I began writing reviews for The Armchair Detective, it ceased publication in 1997.

WHO IS THAT MASKED MAN?

Deborah Elliott-Upton

Tell the truth: If you saw someone on a television news program wearing a ski mask, bandana covering his face or even a Halloween mask when it isn’t Halloween, would you question his honesty? What if he tries to cover his face with either a jacket or his hands, would you assume he is guilty of something? It happens every day on various televised news accounts. Usually the person is at least suspected of being guilty of a crime if he is accompanied by a police officer. But in this country, he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, right?

Body language is a thinly disguised masking, too. Do we believe it when we see a defendant cry in court?

In fiction there have been several heroes that wear masks to protect their identity. I’m thinking of the Dread Pirate Roberts a.k.a. Wesley in “The Princess Bride,” Don Diego de la Vega as “Zorro,” a number of comic book heroes and the most famous masked man of all time, the Lone Ranger, portrayed by Clayton Moore. And who can forget Don Juan Demarco? Was he guilty of being insane or simply a romantic who was telling the truth while masked?

Fictional characters often wear invisible masks hiding their true self from others and themselves, sometimes without their even being aware of the fact. I think this is a common thing in real life, too.

One of my friends admitted she is different around different people. Who isn’t? Would a character would react differently on a Saturday evening opening the door and finding his beer drinking buddy to when he opened it and saw his clergyman. Or what if it was his mother or his mistress? Aha, see where I’m going? We all wear masks occasionally. And that’s okay. It makes us three dimensional.

There’s nothing worse than reading about a character that is boringly flat on the page, his dialogue meaning exactly how the words are defined in Webster’s. When characters say one thing and mean another, there is a dance that excites the reader. Consider the witty repartee between Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity.” I adore that movie. The writer put the words and actions on the paper, but the actors sold that to an audience who couldn’t wait to hear the next exchange.

Dialogue is so much more than what is said. It is how it is said. In a film, it’s easier to convey because we use all our senses to catch the nuances of the actors and we can discover what we believe is the truth of the wording. When we are surprised by a twist ending, perhaps the mask has slipped and we saw what the writer wished us to see at that moment.

A good writer should allow us to see beyond the mask, and isn’t it a delight when we do?

IT’S WONDERFUL TO WRITE

by Robert Lopresti

I’m sitting at the keyboard
       with a frown across my face
Just wishing this first draft of mine
       would tumble into place.
I sing the song of everyone                                
       the writing bug has bitten:
It’s wonderful to write
       but it’s better to have written.
                                                                   
The storyline keeps stretching out.
       but never seems to bend.
The one cliché I haven’t yet
       found use for is “The End.”
My plotting feels so clumsy,
       like I’m typing with a mitten.
It’s wonderful to write
       but it’s better to have written.
 
Once done I get to edit.                                   
       That’s the best part of the labor.
I’ll make sure each word is right,.                     
       and working with its neighbor,
Matching mood and metaphor
       to make the pieces fit in.
It’s wonderful to write
       but it’s better to have written.
 
Proof-read time will follow
       just as spring comes after winter.
What a joy to grab the pages
       fresh out of the printer,
Reading words I used to love
       to see if I’m still smitten.
It’s wonderful to write
       but it’s better to have written.
 
When it’s finally published, that’s
       the part I love the most
The struggles all seems worth it..
       Now’s the time to bask and boast.
I’ll still repeat my mantra, but
       I’ll purr it like a kitten:
It’s wonderful to write
       but it’s better to have written.
 
First to chant that phrase, I think
       was one who tried to scrawl
The story of a mammoth hunt
       on some deep cavern wall.
Writers of each rank agree
       From Bard to Bulwer-Lytton:
It’s wonderful to write
       but it’s better to have written.
 
Sing it out, you scribblers from
       Botswana to Great Britain
It’s wonderful to write
       but it’s better to have written.

CUT IT OUT

by Melodie Johnson Howe

I am in the middle of teaching at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, so this will be a short column. My workshop is on “editing your novel or writing is rewriting.” The writers read five pages of their manuscripts aloud and the others critique it; then I give my observations on what the writer should take out, put in, or rearrange to get to their story more quickly.

First of all let me say that the level of work is very good. Alas that does not mean it’s publishable. But it ‘s always easier to work with a writer who can write than one who can’t and doesn’t know it.

The problems the writers have are similar. They begin their novels with too much description of the scenery, the objects in a room, etc. Or they start inside their character’s head giving us an array of internal thoughts that begin to blur the person before he/she speaks to another character. And the one mistake that everybody seems to do is start with the past.

You don’t have to be a new writer to have this problem. In revising my own novel I took out Chapter Two because it slowed the book down by weighing too heavily on the past. It took awhile for me to come to this decision because it was well written and I liked it. But unlike my students, I knew it needed to go. And once I drew a big X through each printed page I could feel my book spring to life.

It’s not easy to tell people that the only thing left of the five pages they just read to the class are two paragraphs. One writer asked me, “Do you know how long it took to me to write that?”

“Yes, I do,” I answered, then I added, “Do you want to get published? And if so, do you think a hurried, harried agent is going to take the time to wade through five pages until you finally reach your opening sentence? Because that is not going to happen.”

I try to do this with humor, which helps relieve the sting of what I am saying. But I know if these writers don’t do what I’m asking they will go the way of so many others. If they don’t have the strength to be objective and ruthless with their own work they’re not going to make it.

As the week goes by these new writers will begin to look tired, confused, and even a little beaten up. Reality is settling in. Some will never get over it and give up. Others will go on and finish their books and not get published. A few, a very precious few, will listen, will think, will X out page after page to get to what they now know is the beginning their story. And, maybe just maybe, they might get published.