April Smith Online Chat

I just got word from April Smith that she'll be participating in an online chat for The Mystery Place (click on author chatroom).

The chat is scheduled for Wednesday, September 29 at 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific).

April is a TV writer-producer and the author of Good Morning, Killer.

La Donna Mobile

Just as Verdi's women are free to change their minds, so too with book reviewers.

When a discussion of Greg Rucka's new thriller A Gentleman’s Game came up recently on Lee Child's message board, I wrote the book off, expressing my disappointment in it. I thought it was dull and uneventful; another stinker from the formerly reliable writer.

After a friend (publicity maven-extraordinaire Maggie Griffin) prevailed upon me, however, extolling the book's virtues, I picked it up to give it another try.

To my surprise -- and pleasure! -- I'm enjoying the book much more the second time around, finding it to be generally well written and interesting.

I still have some definite quibbles with it...Rucka has a tendency to overwrite, giving more details that are necessary, which tends to slow the story's pace down. The book is also a little low on action for a thriller (at the halfway point not much has happened).

The plot, though, is nicely done, filled with a great deal of information about Islam and the Middle East, and a lot of nice touches. (Rucka obviously did his homework before writing this.)

The characters could have been a little juicier -- perhaps that's the point he's making, à la Le Carré -- but they're interesting enough to keep me interested.

This is a very difficult type of book to write well. Most of those who try, fail. Rucka, though, has done a good job and deserves credit.

(Look for my complete review after I finish it.)

Truth in Fiction

Montgomery's Law # 7:
"Everyone is dissatisfied when the subject is their own area of expertise. But no one else cares."

The topic of discussion is "truth" in fiction and what responsibility the author has to get it "right."

A few things to keep in mind:

Lawyers get upset about legal inaccuracies on Law & Order.

Nurses & doctors get peeved by ER.

Cops laugh at NYPD Blue.

As for the rest of the audience, they neither know, nor do they care.

Writers should be slaves to the plot, not to the "facts." (That's almost important enough to rate a Montgomery Law all of its own.)

Unless the viewer/reader is an expert, they will never know. And thus they won't care. (Assuming the creator isn't a lousy writer -- and if they are, the story will be bad for other reasons.)

Authors make up stuff all the time and as long as they do it reasonably well, it's not a problem. Whether or not what they write is strictly "true" isn't really relevant. Certainly it has to be at least plausible, but that's all it has to be.

For the dissenters in the audience, please note: there is a big different between "errors" and the invention of convenient "facts" to drive the plot. Errors should always be avoided, but making stuff up is always fair game.

999 out of 1000 viewers (or readers) won't know the specific legal procedure, nor will they know the proper treatment for an obscure (or made-up) disease, nor the proper investigative method for a homicide.

That 1 out of 1000 who does know will still watch because they will enjoy spotting your mistakes and feeling superior.

So why should a writer sweat the "facts," at the expense of the plot? They shouldn't, of course. A writer's first and most important obligation is to create an interesting and entertaining story. Getting it "right" must be secondary -- or else you'd be better off writing non-fiction.

CSI: NIH?

Among the crop of new television shows debuting this fall is NBC's entry in the "CSI" Sweepstakes, the unimaginatively named "Medical Investigation" (airing 10pm on Fridays).

The series follows a special team from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who are dispatced around the country to cure outbreaks of unknown or unexplained diseases. They do so using their encylopedic knowledge of medicine, investigative savy, and big brass balls.

Not a bad premise, on the surface anyway. The execution, though, is second-rate at best. The first two episodes were both pumped so full of phony emotion, faux tension and vomitous bravado that their fairly inventive plots were buried under the bull.

The series stars the near-albino Neal McDonough (formerly of "Boomtown") and the uber-bland Kelli Williams (of "The Practice"), two adequate actors floundering in over-written, under-nuanced, stereotypical roles.

Even worse, though, is Anna Belknap (late of "The Handler") in the role of press liason, an annoying, pointless character who seems like she's acting on an entirely different show.

The fact that this is a blatant ripoff of better shows already on TV is bad enough. That the producers and writers hardly even tried to make it better is unforgiveable.

If the early episodes are any indication, "Medical Investigation" is nothing more than a road show "CSI," a poor imitator that will be lucky to make it to sweeps month.

Myron Bolitar on the big screen?

I just finished the 6th book in this series (The Final Detail) last night and was wondering about the film rights. Then today, I see this...

From Publishers Marketplace:

Film rights to Harlan Coben's Bolitar series -- DEAL BREAKER, DROP SHOT, FADE AWAY, BACK SPIN, ONE FALSE MOVE, THE FINAL DETAIL, DARKEST FEAR -- featuring Myron Bolitar, a former basketball star and Harvard Law School grad who runs his own sports agency and dabbles in the private investigation business, to Columbia Pictures for producer John Calley, in a major deal, by Joel Gotler at Intellectual Property Group, on behalf of Lisa Vance at the Aaron Priest Literary Agency.

If handled properly, this could be a terrific franchise. Myron and Win are two of the best characters in an ongoing series.

Now I just hope that Coben returns to writing about them!

New Reviews on Mystery Ink

A handful of new reviews went up on Mystery Ink this morning, including my take on the terrific new book from Robert Ferrigno, The Wake-Up.

Yvette Banek writes about Martha Grimes' latest, Winds of Change, finding it to be "moody" and "compelling."

Bob Walch finds that finds that Perri O'Shaughnessy has returned to form with Unlucky in Law.

California Girl -- the Best of 2004?

Finished the latest book from T. Jefferson Parker recently. I believe that Jeff is one of the best of the "lesser-known" crime fiction writers so I was interested to see what did with this.

In a word... WOW!

California Girl is probably the best thing I've read all year. Incredible, mutli-dimensional characters, a fascinating, sweeping plot, wonderful historical and period details -- not to mention some of the finest writing you'll ever find, inside the genre or out. Reading this was pure delight.

California Girl is everything that Mystic River tried to be, but wasn't. You know how publishers like to blurb books saying stuff like "If you read one mystery novel this year, [insert title here] should be it!"? Well, in the case of California Girl, it's absolutely true.

Read this book!