Banned Books Week: Three Lessons

Today on Dead Guy: My take on Banned Books Week.

Dear Kobo

In which I get a little cranky and assert that not all marketing people are stupid.

I was surprised—shocked, even—to see not one single ereader company at Bouchercon, the largest gathering of crime fiction fans and authors in the world, particularly since according to the latest poll from Harris Interactive, 47% of ebook purchasers are mystery/thriller readers. Contrast that with the next largest group—science fiction—at only 25%, and even with Harris’ questionable methodology, it’s clear that this is a group about which companies like Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Amazon should care.

Of the big 3 ereaders, I’m rooting for Kobo for a number of reasons. But following their Big Announcement and missed email marketing opportunity this week, I’m not holding out a ton of hope for them.

First, the email. On Thursday, I received a marketing email from Kobo. I always open them even though I never click because I’m curious to see what their Top Picks Just for Me! are. Most of the time, they’re neither top nor for me, which just tells me they have folks writing marketing emails who don’t read the books they’re touting. Which is a damn shame.

This one was especially noteworthy because they’re suggesting the new book based on the TV show Castle. That’s fine of itself—I’ve heard these books are actually not horrible—but that they don’t make some kind of funny joke about the fact that on the show, the character Castle was signing the cover of “his” book rather than the title page is an opportunity missed. Guess they don’t watch the show either.

Later that same day, Kobo began touting that they would have Really Big News in conjunction with Facebook’s Really Big News. I can see it now: The intrepid PR team on the phone with The Kobo Client saying, “And we’ll drive excitement around the announcement by previewing it through social media!” Perhaps someone even squeeed.

And what was the news? That Kobo is making it “easier” to share what you’re reading on, you guessed it, Facebook. Hate to break it to you, gang, but that’s not news. You might well have news, but when you hide it behind:

Kobo will soon launch a revolutionary advancement in social eReading, and this news will change the nature of how and what we read,” said Dan Leibu, chief technology officer, Kobo.

your audience (including media and consumers) neither understands nor cares. You might get a footnote in some of the Facebook stories, but nothing that will impact your business. The only impact on your brand will be negative.

Oh, and have you noticed that not everyone is all gaga about Facebook right at the moment? Might have been an idea to hold off on this Big Announcement until next week. Or not do a traditional announcement at all (gasp!).

I really do hope the good folks up at Kobo get their marketing act together. That they come to realize that books tend to be purchased by people who, um, read. And that said people already congregate online and in person. A little observation would go a long way.

Lessons from Bouchercon

Today's Dead Guy post contains some of the lessons I brought back from St. Louis.

THE PERFECT SUSPECT by Margaret Coel

With a title like this, it has to be a whodunit, right? Right? Not so fast. THE PERFECT SUSPECT is a suspenseful tale, yes, but the murderer is revealed on the very first page.

Ryan Beckman is a gifted police detective, the likes of which we’re seeing more of in popular culture these days (think Kate Beckett in Castle). She’s beautiful and smart, clever enough to succeed in a man’s world. Her heart, however, is painfully human and tragically flawed, as we learn when we meet her moments after she’s shot and killed David Matthews, a golden-boy gubernatorial candidate.

When Beckman is assigned to investigate the murder she just committed, we have the setting for a feverishly fast-moving and imminently readable story, at the heart of which are people, few of whom are what they at first appear to be. This is a story of secrets and the drive to keep them.

Investigative reporter Catherine McLeod is our central character looking to uncover, understand and explain these secrets, while keeping a few herself. This is Coel’s second book featuring McLeod (the first was BLOOD MEMORY), who is, at her core, similar to Beckman in many ways, thereby creating a perfect foil without being stereotypical.

Denver—and the areas surrounding it—play a crucial role in the story, and I felt slightly handicapped by my utter lack of knowledge of this part of the world. It was easy to look up the geography, but if you are familiar with the “tone” of Colorado, Denver, and its neighborhoods, I expect you’ll enjoy the story even more. Coel respects her readers, and she doesn’t over-explain, which I always appreciate, even when it means I have to work a bit harder at reading a story.

THE PERFECT SUSPECT is inhabited by characters who are clearly drawn, while leaving room for us readers to use our imagination. For those among you who work with or for media, I’ll warn you: The Journal, the fictional paper where Catherine McLeod works, is less than realistic in the details of how a modern-day newspaper operates. Given that this is a work of fiction, though, this didn’t bother me (much). The inaccuracies aren’t so grievous as to detract from the story.

THE PERFECT SUSPECT starts out as a simple, black-and-white/right-and-wrong tale, like a Picasso image wherein the pieces are all there, just in different places. Within only a few pages, though, it morphs to something more resembling a Gauguin, a story with lines, yes, but slightly blurry ones, and a depth that makes the story a pleasure.

Author's Website: www.margaretcoel.com

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This Book is Rated PG

I have a bunch of reviews lined up, in addition to reports from my experiences at Bouchercon St. Louis, but in the interim, last week's Dead Guy post was about assigning age recommendations to books.

The 99 Cent Book

Today's Dead Guy post is about why I don't believe in $0.99 pricing for books.

Flash Fiction Challenge

I read fiction. I don't write it. That said, I was compelled to write the piece below in response to a call from Flash Fiction Friday because it benefits two fantastic causes and also because Fiona Johnson is an admirable writer and is celebrating her birthday with this challenge (which was limited to 700 words).

So here's my crack at fiction. It's very much a work in progress...that might never get finished. Your thoughts, comments, and criticisms are more than welcome and always appreciated. And special thanks to my husband and to Jen Forbus, for giving me the courage to post this, and to keep exploring the story.

The walk to school was much longer than it should have been.

There were obstacles—the dog she was certain would chew off her right arm if given half the chance—but also the distractions that comprised her secret life, the one in which she was alternately a thief, an avenger and a zoologist.

Everyone knows that looks are deceiving. She learned early to use this to her advantage. It was easy to steal things because nobody suspected the kid with the bright eyes and innocent smile. She wasn’t really shy, but she knew that out in the world, she could be anyone but herself.

The Swiss Army knife was nothing special really, but it gave her power. It was a weapon and a survival tool. It was tiny, and in the days before metal detectors at the entrances to schools, it was easy to keep it in her pocket. Having it close comforted her. When she was told by the cranky owner of the store from which she stole it never to return to his establishment, she simply turned and walked out.

It never occurred to her to wonder how many kids led multiple lives. Whether it was normal to be a teacher’s pet, thief, miniature zoo volunteer, and the one who let women keep getting killed? She almost told the docent at the Woodland Park zoo, the one who let her hold the tiny baby snow leopard.

It’ll be our secret the docent said, because letting her touch the baby leopard was most definitely against the rules. The docent was talking about the leopard-holding, but she wondered just for a moment whether this frumpy woman with tortoiseshell glasses could keep a real secret.

Running away was never a serious option, mostly because she didn’t want to. She had a routine. She had a knife. And best of all, nobody really noticed her. She didn’t have to tell anybody much of anything because nobody ever asked.

She knew that eventually someone would probably want to know what she wanted to be when she grew up, and so she tried a few different professions on for size. Got a part in a school play. Learned to play the piano. Used the shavings from the pencil sharpener to lift fingerprints from the windowsill. Ultimately, the future seemed at best unlikely, and so she focused on the immediate. On her distractions.

She stored her loot in a hole in a tree trunk. She shoved it into a plastic bag, where she knew it would be safe. She never left the knife there, though. As items accumulated, she sometimes redistributed them, handing a dollhouse chair to a little girl at the zoo who looked sad and a pack of gum to the boy who whose mom had just smacked him.

She had heard that the rain somehow attracted killers, caused them. She knew the truth, too, that the rain for which the Pacific Northwest is famous made it easy for people to…ignore. Running from shelter to cover, never looking up. It made people easy to grab, to hide. Anonymity was a given when everything is covered in constant sheets of gray. She also knew that most serial killers are never caught.

Because cops are fucking inept, she concluded, yet again.

The thing was, they’d had him in custody. She was home with the sitter she liked, the one who let her stay up to watch Mr. Bill on Saturday Night Live. Dad was expected back by midnight. But he was late. Really late. Or early, depending on how you looked at it. Turned out he had been picked up because he matched the description.

Yeah, no shit. He matches the description because he kills people.

But they let him go. Probably because he had a kid waiting at home.

Interview with Mark Billingham

I find few greater joys in life than discovering a new book series that I really enjoy, especially when said series has been around for a while so there are plenty of books to read. My latest discovery of this type is Mark Billingham’s Tom Thorne series.

The latest Tom Thorne tale to be published in the U.S. is BLOODLINE, out now from Mulholland Books. Last month, Billingham was kind enough to sit down with me for a chat following an event at the Sarasota Library where he was interviewed by none other than Michael Connelly.

Tom Thorne lives in London, and one of the things I like most about Billingham’s books is that he doesn’t condescend to his readers by over-translating cultural references. He said that he sometimes asks American friends about phrases that might be unfamiliar to Americans but are important in the context of the story he’s telling, but he remains true to his voice.

When I asked him about differences between American and English readers, he explained that he’s found American audiences quite willing to give his books a try, although he’s heard from some who are less tolerant of “bad” language and sex outside of marriage.

I’m sorry, but these are police procedurals. What do readers expect?? Geesh.

Billingham said that while the general likes and dislikes of readers are fairly parallel, he is acutely aware of how much easier it is to tour in the UK than the US. After all, one can fly from Aberdeen to Bristol in just over an hour. Compared to the 6+ hours it takes to fly from Seattle to Miami, connecting with American readers becomes a herculean task.

Because police procedurals are probably my single favorite genre, I was curious to understand how Billingham interacts—if he does—with the Greater London Metropolitan Police Service, commonly known as the Met. He explained that when his first books came out, he was assigned a detective to whom he could pose questions, and who would put him in touch with specific units he needed to contact for research. As Billingham’s career has progressed, his Met contact’s has as well, and he’s now quite senior within the Met hierarchy.

Interestingly, though—and this very much shows in his books—Billingham said that his primary concern has always been telling great stories, rather than including every possible precise detail. He explained that when he reads, he wants to use his imagination—because that’s what reading is.

Can I have an amen!?! I find Billingham’s books all the more accessible for having just the right amount of detail, and that he approaches this aspect of his writing as a reader first is worthy of a cheer.

Billingham made the excellent point, too, that great stories stand the test of time, but smaller details sometimes do not. For example, as regards crime scene technicians, SOCOs are increasingly called CSIs in the UK.

One of the aspects of crime fiction series that has always fascinated me is how one book becomes a series, and whether an author knows, when he meets a character, that he’s begun a series. Billingham said that when he first wrote Tom Thorne in SLEEPYHEAD he certainly hoped it would be a series, in part because the process of being wooed into publication through an auction was a lot of fun, involving lavish buffet spreads specifically designed to make him feel like a Very Important Author (smart publishers!).

Proving that he’s smart enough to make even seasoned crime fiction readers think, one of the most interesting concepts Billingham described is that with a series, the author—and the series characters—have to both love and hate the city in which tales are set. I’d never thought of it this way exactly, but it makes perfect sense, whether it’s Mickey Haller in LA, Dave Robicheaux in New Iberia, or Tom Thorne in London.

While Billingham shares some traits with Thorne—including his love of real country music and opinions on the National Health Service or London’s public transportation—he said that Thorne is much braver than he is. But Thorne’s (funny) jokes? All Billingham.

Have I mentioned that Billingham has a most excellent sense of humo(u)r? His background as a stand-up comedian probably helps, and he is one of the wittiest authors I’ve had the pleasure to speak with. Also, seems to me there are few braver acts than sharing a story you’ve written with the world!

Billingham’s first two books, SLEEPYHEAD and SCAREDY CAT have been made into a TV series, Thorne, and if the previews and critical acclaim are any indication at all, it’s a doozy. Billingham said that he hopes it will be available in the U.S. once they’ve completed more episodes (in the UK, a series is often shorter than an American season). When he talked about the TV series, he seemed genuinely excited—which, of course, only makes me want to see it even more. He served as an executive producer for the series, and so he was able to oversee the inevitable changes that come with moving a written work onto a screen. He did share that he’s had some complaints from readers, everything from Thorne being too tall to the absence of his cat from the series. As much as I love cats, it made me want to see the series no less.

And speaking of stories in different formats, Billingham had an interesting take on ebooks. He said that he has no issue whatsoever with the concept, but does have concerns about the quality, especially of self-published ebooks because, “there isn’t a writer on the planet who doesn’t need editing.” Each writer’s process is slightly different, and Billingham explained that he edits carefully chapter by chapter, so his first draft is really more like a 101^st draft. He believes, he said, in the value of editing “brutally and carefully.”

Next up on my Billingham reading list is IN THE DARK, his stand-alone that was published in 2008. Billingham spoke fondly of this book, pointing out that for many authors of successful series, it is their stand-alone books that bring them to a broader global audience. That will keep me going until FROM THE DEAD and GOOD AS DEAD are published in the US (the latter will be called THE DEMANDS when it comes out here next year).

And while we await the arrival of the Thorne TV series, check out the thorne app, which has fun videos, including a series of “Tom Thorne’s London” shorts introduced by none other than Mark Billingham himself.

I’ve seen Billingham’s books described more than once as “literary,” and they certainly are. The description, though, bothers me somewhat because my experience of his books is that they are imminently accessible. Whether you’ve ever traveled across the pond or watched an episode of The Bill (did I mentioned Billingham had a part on The Bill in 1989? Yeah, he’s that cool), you will enjoy his books. You don’t need to “speak” London to see Tom Thorne’s city come to life.

I’m very grateful to Mark Billingham for taking the time to chat with me, and also to his lovely wife and kids, who let me borrow him for a bit!

BLOODLINE by Mark Billingham

When I picked up Mark Billingham’s BLOODLINE, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. Billingham had long been on my list of authors to try, but proving yet again that there are far more books out there than I’ll be able to read in my lifetime. I love police procedurals, but the reality is that they’re certainly not all created equal; I’ve had hit-and-miss experiences.

Turns out that Billingham generally—and BLOODLINE specifically—is a home run (or six).

The hero of Billingham’s series is Tom Thorne, a detective in London who loves country music and is as far from one-dimensional as can be. He’s smart, for sure, but doesn’t always know exactly what to do in any given moment. He makes the wrong choices on occasion, and sometimes with disastrous results. He misses things. He sees the worst in people on a regular basis. He is as flawed as all the best detective characters are.

BLOODLINE begins at the end of the story, a tricky literary device of which I’m not generally fond, but Billingham uses it without it being confusing or unsettling. It also sets the stage for the story itself, about a serial killer born of past events. Like many police procedurals—especially those involving serial killers—BLOODLINE is quite graphic and somewhat unsettling. For me, though, these stories aren’t meant to be full of butterflies and unicorns, and nothing in this story is gratuitous. Each plot twist, character, and line of dialog works together in a framework of pacing that is neither exhausting nor boring to create a compelling tale. It feels natural at every turn, never forced.

At several points in BLOODLINE, I thought I had it all figured out, that I could coast through the rest of the story. I was wrong. But being lulled into a smug sense of figured-it-out-ness and then yanked back out kept the story moving, and reminded me that these characters weren’t going to let me, as a reader, coast.

BLOODLINE also does justice to London, one of my favorite cities on the planet (which says a lot, seeing as I’ve never visited another planet). It isn’t a pristine portrait from the pages of a convention center brochure, but neither is it solely grit. It brings the city to life in a manner that reminded me of my trips to Atlanta with Will Trent or LA with Charlie Hardie.

BLOODLINE is the latest Tom Thone book to reach American shores. But the latest-latest is GOOD AS DEAD, currently topping bestseller lists in the UK. It will be out here next year, but will be called THE DEMANDS. In the meantime, and while we await the arrival of the Thorne TV show, check out the thorne app, which includes fun videos, including one with Billingham on the bridge where BLOODLINE opens and details on each book in the Thorne series.

Still not convinced? How about this: I'm giving away, to one lucky reader, copies of both of Billingham's first Tome Thorne novels. Just enter your email address below. I'll pick a winner at random next week!

Blurb: A taut police procedural that keeps readers guessing

Author's Website: www.markbillingham.com


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PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer

“Arse” is the last piece of Irish I have.

(Go ahead…laugh. I’ll wait. That’s just one of thousands of similarly clever lines in PLUGGED.)

Eoin Colfer is well known for his Artemis Fowl series of YA books, which, in the estimation of some, are at their core crime fiction. In that context, it’s little surprise that his first venture into adult fiction is firmly planted in the tradition and tone of Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard and even a little EdMcBain…but with an Irish accent.

The cadence of PLUGGED is definitively Irish, for sure. The thing about Irish English is that it works beautifully on the page and spoken, and stage actor John Keating’s reading of PLUGGED is a ton of fun. He captures the timing perfectly, and this story lends itself to audio.

PLUGGED’s protagonist is Daniel McEvoy, an Irishman in New Jersey who, while minding his own business—including being a doorman (aka bouncer) at a casino and nurturing his newly installed hair plugs—happens to find himself surrounded by dead people, cops, and a maybe-ghost. Not an overly complex premise, to be sure, but one to which Colfer brings genuine laugh-out-loud humor and precisely the right level of detail. Colfer also plays with language in a manner that takes a combination of skill and heaven-sent talent.

McEvoy has an excellent back-story, including a stint in the Irish Army and an American mother who reverse-emigrated to Ireland, and Colfer weaves his history through the story in a way that brings him to life in vivid detail. He’s a good guy, and I liked him immediately.

Following McEvoy around through his history and current adventures could be dizzying, but for that Colfer really knows how to tell a story. How to start a storyline, switch to another, and then pick up the first later without letting the reader (or, in this case, listener) forget the start of the tangent tale.

In Irish culture (or, more precisely, on the north side of Dublin), one often encounters references to begrudgers, people who feel hard done by and are compelled to blame any and everyone who isn’t similarly miserable. McEvoy has dealt with begrudgers back home, but his description of them—and of his experiences in The Lebanon—are imbued with a sharp affection that is also uniquely Irish.

I don’t listen to a lot of audio books, but PLUGGED is good enough to have made me a convert. It felt downright luxurious to have someone reading to me. Keating “does” the voices of each character, but not in a manner that’s overwhelming. He doesn’t try to hide the fact that one guy is reading the book, and he reads neither too slowly (my complaint about the last audio book I listened to) nor too quickly.

And the really good news? The folks at AudioGO have given me a copy of the PLUGGED audiobook to give away! To one of you! All you need to do to enter is fill in your email address below. Next week, I’ll pick and address at random and Bob’s your uncle. This was the most fun 8 hours I’ve had in ages, and so I’m happy to be able to share it.

Of course, if you prefer to buy a copy, you can do so here. 

Location, Location, Location

Today's Dead Guy post is about the role and importance of location in stories, and how location helps with marketing.