Cornwell Funds Scholarships

Author Patricia Cornwell is ponying up another 20 grand for scholarships to the University of Tennessee's National Forensics Academy. (The "body farm" at UofT -- where they study the decomposition rate of corpses -- was used as a model for the one in her book.)

Cornwell takes a lot of shots in the mystery world, due to her eccentricities, politics and overall loopyness, but gestures like this show she's not all bad.

She also has a new book coming out in a couple of weeks that's supposed to be pretty good. If it is, I'm sure that will help restore her reputation a bit as well.

Bouchercon 2004

For the 2nd year in a row, I am moderating a panel at Bouchercon (the World Mystery Convention) that I have no idea what the hell it's about.

The title is "Thinking Dirty: The New Noir." The panelists will be Charlie Stella, Victor Gischler, David Corbett and Terence Faherty.

With terrific writers like those guys I'm sure it will be interesting! I just wonder what I'm doing there.

If there's anything you'd like me to ask them, please leave a comment!

Beantown Crime

Yesterday's Boston Globe had an interesting article on that town's prominence in crime fiction.

With so much fiction gone bad out there, how is it that Boston and its neighborhoods continue to churn out so much of the good stuff? Is it something about the Boston character? Is it the city itself, its brownstones and triple-deckers? The history of so many fantastic true crime stories, from the tales of "Whitey" Bulger to the Boston Strangler to the Irish gang wars to Charles Stuart? Or maybe just the way we talk? In this story, there is no pat ending, no neat resolution. Not even the city's biggest names in the genre agree.

They go on to talk to Dennis Lehane and Robert B. Parker, each of whom shares some insight on their hometown as well as the writing process.

The article also presents "Five of the best Boston crime novels":

MYSTIC RIVER By Dennis Lehane

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE By George V. Higgins

PROMISED LAND By Robert B. Parker

THE BIG DIG By Linda Barnes

SO LIKE SLEEP By Jeremiah Healy

20 Second Book Reviews™

Denise Mina - Deception (Little, Brown $23.95)
A psychiatrist is convicted of murdering a serial killer and sentenced to a long prison term, leaving her desperate husband behind to find out the truth about what really happened. Told in the form of his rambling diary, the story never seems to take off. Although Mina’s prose is compelling enough, her characters aren’t particularly interesting and the plot suffers from rigor mortis.

Kent Harrington - Dark Ride (St. Martin’s Press, OOP)
An excellent debut in the tradition of James M. Cain, filled with lust, violence and misery – the perfect recipe for noir. Dark Ride is the story of a man’s desperate descent into the dark pit of despair. Some of the twists are a little predictable, but the overall level of writing is very high.

Chuck Hogan - Prince of Thieves (Scribner, $25)
This story of a hard luck Boston bank robber starts off promising enough with a fascinating heist, but soon degenerates into a lackluster story of doomed love. Flat characters, overly verbose prose and a lack of suspense condemn this un-thrilling thriller to the bargain bin.

Victor Gischler - Gun Monkeys (Dell, $6.99)
A wonderful hard boiled mystery that unfortunately escaped my notice until now, Gischler’s debut is everything crime fiction should be. From the delicious characters to the dark humor, from the rampant violence to the machinegun plot, Gun Monkeys has all of the elements to succeed. One of the best first novels I’ve read in some time.

A Man of Horrible Skills

My latest review is up on January Magazine, and it's a long one: over 1500 words on Rain Storm, Barry Eisler's latest thriller featuring Japanese-American hitman John Rain.

Here's the summary:

Just when he thought he could retire from the assassin business, Japanese-American John Rain is sucked into an assignment in China that has him jousting with an Algerian smuggler, a hillbilly sniper and an exotic, formidable woman with her own agenda.

Eisler is a very gifted writer and this is his best book yet. The Rain books (this is the 3rd) should definitely be on your reading list.