DIANA JAMES

On Sunday, February 12th, 4:00 p.m., Darrell James invites everyone to join him in a TOAST TO DIANA.

This will be a time for her many friends to get together, raise a glass in her honor, and celebrate her life.

Smith House Tap & Tavern

10351 Santa Monica Blvd

(N/E corner of Santa Monica and Beverly Glen)

Los Angeles, California 90024

No Host Event.

Free valet parking in the building. Bring your parking ticket and the restaurant will validate. There is also street parking.

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce on the 203^rd anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2011. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at our 66^th Gala Banquet, April 26, 2012 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City. 

BEST NOVEL

The Ranger by Ace Atkins (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Gone by Mo Hayder (Grove/Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur Books)

1222 by Anne Holt (Simon & Schuster – Scribner)

Field Gray by Philip Kerr (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons – Marion Wood Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Red on Red by Edward Conlon (Random House Publishing Group – Spiegel & Grau)

Last to Fold by David Duffy (Thomas Dunne Books)

All Cry Chaos by Leonard Rosen (The Permanent Press)

Bent Road by Lori Roy (Penguin Group USA – Dutton)

Purgatory Chasm by Steve Ulfelder (Minotaur Books – Thomas Dunne Books)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Hachette Book Group – Orbit Books)
The Faces of Angels by Lucretia Grindle (Felony & Mayhem Press)
The Dog Sox by Russell Hill (Pleasure Boat Studio – Caravel Mystery Books)
Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper Paperbacks)

Vienna Twilight by Frank Tallis (Random House Trade Paperbacks)  

BEST FACT CRIME

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars

by Paul Collins (Crown Publishing)

The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge

by T.J. English (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

by Candice Millard (Random House – Doubleday)

Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender by Steve Miller (Penguin Group USA – Berkley)

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter by Mark Seal (Penguin Group USA – Viking)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets

Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of our Time

by Dan Burstein, Arne de Keijzer & John-Henri Holmberg (St. Martin’s Griffin)

Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making by John Curran (HarperCollins)

On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda (Princeton University Press)

Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film by Philippa Gates (SUNY Press)

Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds and Marnie

by Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick (University of Illinois Press)

BEST SHORT STORY

“Marley’s Revolution” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by John C. Boland (Dell Magazines)

“Tomorrow’s Dead” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by David Dean (Dell Magazines)

“The Adakian Eagle” – Down These Strange Streets

by Bradley Denton (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books)

“Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” – Down These Strange Streets

by Diana Gabaldon (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books)

“The Case of Death and Honey” – A Study in Sherlock by Neil Gaiman

(Random House Publishing Group – Bantam Books)

“The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Peter Turnbull (Dell Magazines)

BEST JUVENILE

Horton Halfpott by Tom Angleberger (Abrams – Amulet Books)
It Happened on a Train by Mac Barnett (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Vanished by Sheela Chari (Disney Book Group – Disney Hyperion)
Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby (Scholastic Press)
The Wizard of Dark Street by Shawn Thomas Odyssey (Egmont USA)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

 Shelter by Harlan Coben (Penguin Young Readers Group – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson (Penguin Young Readers Group – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall (Random House Children’s Books – Knopf BFYR)

The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines

(Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group – Roaring Creek Press)

Kill You Last by Todd Strasser (Egmont USA)

BEST PLAY

Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club by Jeffrey Hatcher

(Arizona Theatre Company, Phoenix, AZ)

The Game’s Afoot by Ken Ludwig (Cleveland Playhouse, Cleveland, OH)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“Innocence” – Blue Bloods, Teleplay by Siobhan Byrne O’Connor (CBS Productions)

“The Life Inside” – Justified, Teleplay by Benjamin Cavell

(FX Productions and Sony Pictures Television)

“Part 1” – Whitechapel, Teleplay by Ben Court & Caroline Ip (BBC America)

 “Pilot” – Homeland, Teleplay by Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon & Gideon Raff (Showtime)

“Mask” – Law & Order: SVU, Teleplay by Speed Weed (Wolf Films/Universal Media Studios)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

“A Good Man of Business” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

by David Ingram (Dell Magazines)

GRAND MASTER

Martha Grimes

RAVEN AWARDS

M is for Mystery Bookstore, San Mateo, CA

Molly Weston, Meritorious Mysteries

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD

Joe Meyers of the Connecticut Post/Hearst Media News Group

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER – MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 25, 2012)

Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)

Come and Find Me by Hallie Ephron (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)

Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick (Minotaur Books)

Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry (Crown Publishing Group)

Murder Most Persuasive by Tracy Kiely (Minotaur Books – Thomas Dunne Books)

Chris F. Holm worked his way toward a book deal the old-fashioned way–writing well-crafted stories infused with menace. I edited Chris on two short stories and  they were word-perfect upon submission, such is his care before sending anything out. Since those early days kicking around the e-zines, Chris sold stories to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and a  novella “The Hitter” was selected to appear in THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2011, edited by Harlan Coben and Otto Penzler. Chris is an Anthony Award nominee, a Derringer Award finalist, and a Spinetingler Award winner.  After years of hammering on agents’ doors, Chris was signed by Jennifer Jackson at Donald Maas. Lightning struck with DEAD HARVEST, slated for release  worldwide in February 2012 by Angry Robot Books. A sequel, THE WRONG GOODBYE,  follows in November.

CHRIS. F. HOLM

Here is my interview with Chris, generously given during time over the holidays, along with valuable commentary from Darren Turpin at Angry Robot, and designer-extrordinare Martin Stiff of Amazing 15. —Elaine Ash

CHRIS F. HOLM: One rainy spring day, I got the call. It came while I was at work, and I went outside to get some privacy. Without realizing I’d done it, I spent twenty minutes standing in the icy, pouring rain, while Jennifer filled me in on the details of the offer. The whole day is a bit of a blur.  It’s a two-book deal with an option for a third, worldwide English language rights for both. Jennifer and I elected to retain both dramatic and foreign-language rights, should anyone be interested (hint, hint).

Lucky for me, I wound up with an editor in Marc Gascoigne who really got what I was trying to do. He leapt headlong into the art design for my covers, hatching this fantastic idea of referencing the iconic Marber-era Penguin covers of the ’60s and ’70s.

ELAINE: How did you come to the vintage look?

CHRIS: Trial and error. The weathering’s actually an overlay, so we were able to see what the cover would look like with or without it. What we realized is new, the design just didn’t look right. Our eyes are too used to seeing that style plucked from the discount bin at a used book store; bright white and unread is never how we see ‘em. When we added weathering, DEAD HARVEST began to look like some lost dime store classic. That look was hard to resist for us.

MARTIN STIFF of Amazing 15 posing so artists can copy his stance for the next Chris F. Holm novel. Martin no longer smokes but he struck the pose anyway. And you thought only writers suffered for their art!

MARTIN STIFF: The brief from Angry Robot was quite concise – they wanted to echo the famous Penguin crime novels designed by Romek Marber during the 60s and 70s, with stark images and a minimal colour palette.

MARTIN: I did the Angry Robot books. We do a lot of covers for Titan Books (we did the Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman and we’ve done covers for books by Michael Moorcock, James Blaylock, Kevin J Anderson and Jack Campbell as well as a some Sherlock Holmes spin-offs). We’ve also recently finished a book cover for 24 Bones by Mike F Stewart. You can see the stuff we’ve done on our portfolio website: http://amazing15.com/

ELAINE: Another amazing post with pictures of the evolution of DEAD HARVEST’s cover can be found here. A must-read for authors unfamiliar with the print-publication process, and fascinating.

READY FOR AUTOPSY. A REAL-LIFE SHOT FROM THE MORGUE.

MAR PRESTON, CRIME WRITER

Sgt. Derek Pacifico of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office offers a three-day Crime Writer’s Homicide School, and I’ve just returned, my head swimming with story ideas. Sgt Pacifico is a master storyteller and colorful talker, even while he’s presenting dry facts on probable cause and Mirandizing, and the unlikelihood of arresting a “tax-paying, dog-petting citizen.” He deals in street crime now, after a long stint in Homicide, and he’s honest enough to admit that it’s fun screeching in sideways to a crime in progress, lights flashing and siren wailing.

This three-day course covered the same curriculum he teaches to law enforcement classes across the country (without the tests and memorizing the codes.)  Among the topics were autopsies, crime scene and blood spatter analysis. Did you know that dried taco sauce looks like blood? Did you know that signs of decomposition on a body show up first on the stomach?

Pacifico likens a homicide investigation to a game of 3D chess where the pieces are on multiple levels and can move up, down, or sideways. Another analogy was being handed a paper bag of puzzle pieces and a photograph of a horse in the desert. Putting the puzzle together the detective realizes some of the pieces belong to two different puzzles, some of them are car parts, and once solved he ends up with a picture of a cat on a window sill.

This was my second seminar with Pacifico and I learned details that passed me by the first time. and heard new stories. Most interesting to me was the day spent on Interviewing and Interrogation and the accompanying videos. Interviewing is the bullshitting around, getting the subject to like you. It’s all self-deprecating, familiar, general shuck and jive. As Pacifico puts it, “I am who I need to be, the misunderstood husband, the unjustly accused employee, anybody the suspect can identify with.” Hardly the TV notion of Andy Sipowitz coming in and beating the confession out of the guy.

Interrogation is scripted and planned in a huddle. It’s extremely rare to have a subject waive Miranda rights because often he’s thinking this jovial nice guy who’s talking to him like a human being is just “a stupid, donut-eating cop who couldn’t make it in pro sports.”

The only lie the detective cannot tell is to maneuver someone to confess to something he didn’t do. And Pacifico’s stories are mostly about men. Women don’t often murder. I collect Stupid Criminal Stories and this was a new one for me. To clean up a really bloody murder scene, the guy puts in a new carpet, but he’s lazy, so he leaves the old carpet in the back yard for the cops to test for blood.

Demonstration of angle versus shape of blood droplets help determine the angle of impact and point of origin of blood source.

Fingerprint examination of rolled print compared to latent print recovered at a crime scene.

Tire track evidence comparison that connected two crime scenes 140 miles apart.

For any crime writer–or fan–Pacifico’s Homicide School is a must. Find him at http://www.crimewritersconsultations.com/Crime_Writers_Homicide_School.html He is also available for one-on-one story consultations and presentations of any length and he likes writers. We’re interested, ask good questions, and listen hard. Not always true when he does law enforcement trainings. ###

CHARLES GRAMLICH - A PORTRAIT

Charles Gramlich – A Portrait

http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/charles-gramlich/

Raymond Chandler’s Birthday

http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/raymond-chandlers-birthday-by-william-swank-2/

RAYOMD CHANDLER'S BIRTHDAY BY WILLIAM SWANK

Bouchercn, 2011

BOUCHERCON, 2011 Hilary Davidson flanked by some very sketchy characters

http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/bouchercon-2011-hilary-davidson-robert-randisi-more/

CRIME WRITERS HOMICIDE SCHOOL, 2011

Special Report – Crime Writers Homicide School

http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/special-report—crime-writers-homicide-school/

Deconstructing T. Jefferson Parker

http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/deconstructing-t-jefferson-parker-–-a-scene-from-the-border-lords/

Allen Guthrie’s Thuggish Thirteen – Best of Brit Grit Part 3

http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/allan-guthries-thuggish-thirteen—brit-grit-part-3/

SUPERWOMAN OF PRINT – JOANNE BOLTON

http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/superwoman-of-print-–-joanne-bolton/

REED FARREL COLEMAN - A face made for a book jacket.

Reed enthralls fans at the Bookshop

BEHIND THE CAMERA: HILARY DAVIDSON, Anthony and Crimespree winner, dropped by to have Reed smear some ink on her new copy of HURT MACHINE.

REED poses with wife, Roseanne and family. MANY THANKS to The Mysterious Bookshop for photographs and Alex Hess the Bookshop’s #1 helpman and media wrangler. Also thanks to HILARY DAVIDSON, author of THE DAMAGE DONE  and THE NEXT ONE TO FALL, coming from Forge.

ELAINE ASH

END EXCERPT from HURT MACHINE by Reed Farrel Coleman. Permission to reprint kindly granted by Mr. Coleman and Ben LeRoy of Tyrus Books. THANK YOU!

ELAINE ASH

by Elaine Ash, 2001               Photo (left): David Beeler

TERRY GILLIAM (TG):  I just finished, hopefully, the final draft of Good Omens, based on a book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimen. Way back when the book was first out, they approached me about directing, but unfortunately they took a lot of money from an American production company and it never got made. So the book floated around for years and finally caught up with me again when I was out of a job. I wrote the screenplay with Tony Grisoni, who wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with me.

ELAINE ASH (EA): Tell me about your writing process.

TG: The trick is pulling the structure together—what’s it going to look like? We changed the end because I never liked it. Books are books and films are films, they’re two different things.The question used to be, “Why even waste time adapting a book? Why not write something original? Change the names and nobody will know I’m stealing.” But this one’s too obvious. I can’t do that with this one.

EA: What is your relationship with Hollywood?

TG: I still seem to be an A-list director, despite my best efforts. I burn bridges as often as I can, and they still come and talk to me. I actually made more money than a lot of film directors without my reputation. So it’s never the end as long as you make money.

After The Fisher King, which was an enormous success made by studio rules, Richard La Gravanese and I wanted to option a Philip K. Dick book, A Scanner Darkly, and the studio wouldn’t do it. We just wanted to option the book and write the script, and they said no. So I don’t try to figure it out anymore. Anytime I want to make a film, I just come over [from England] with a couple of big carpet bags and say, “Give me some money,” and see what happens.

EA: Do you call yourself a satirist?

TG:No, I’m a satyrist. I want to have cloven hooves and leap around amongst the greenery, pop out and grab young virgins.

EA: Let’s not go there, Terry. Let’s keep the “a” vowel short. As in s-a-t-i-r-e.

TG: I’m trying to make people laugh at reality. If not laugh, then at least see the straw reality is made of.

EA: Who do you consider your brothers in satire?

TG: The Coen Brothers sometimes get there. Danny DeVito. It’s pretty lonely out here. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park, are supreme and way ahead of anything I’m doing. They’re serious satirists.

EA: Even though you were born in California, you choose to live in England. What are your observations of America?

TG: Language is becoming more and more euphemistic. Politicians won’t say one word when they can use twenty. It’s a symptom of trying to pretend things are under control. Don’t believe it, not for a minute. My film, Brazil dealt with that…these smiling masks that people wear in America, pretending to be helpful, but it’s an illusion.

EA: What about your spiritual life?

TG: I am not a Scientologist. They’re all about how to succeed in business, win friends and influence people. I’m a pagan. I have no idea if there’s an afterlife, but I think we get recycled.

EA: Kind of like a pagan-Buddhist?

TG: Exactly. I went to college on a Presbyterian scholarship. I wanted to be a missionary, but I found it too limiting. I believe that when we die, we re-form. What people need is a belief in things larger than the individual. In terms of worship, I worship the God of Irony. That’s the only God I know exists.

END

*Originally published in MovieMaker Magazine, 2001