The Little Press That Could

By Pat Browning


It’s been almost a year since a brand new small press got off the block running with a reissue of my mystery. Now the Krill Press catalog lists four mysteries, with a fifth due in December. Not bad for a press that started out as a bright idea.


Looking back on a whirlwind year, I came across my January guest post on Helen Ginger’s blog: http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/.

I’m reprinting it here as an example of how easy it can be to deal with a start-up press. But first, here’s the current Krill Press catalog:

 ABSINTHE OF MALICE by Pat Browning.
Old crimes come back to haunt a small California town. Penny Mackenzie, Lifestyle reporter for The Pearl Outrider and a cast of unforgettable characters find their lives turned upside down after chance discovery of a skeleton in a cotton field leads to murder...and romance

THE WELL MEANING KILLER by Miranda Phillips Walker.
A maniac is terrorizing Baltimore. "The Wishing Well Killer" is discarding his victims like they were the kitchen trash...stuffing their bodies in plastic garbage bags and throwing them down abandoned wells in the Maryland countryside.

 LITTLE BLUE WHALES by Kenneth R. Lewis.
A sadistic killer stalks the summer beaches of Oregon and the only cop who can stop him is about to let him get away with murder, in this adrenaline rush thriller where the most dangerous secrets to keep...are the ones you don't know you have.

 THE BIG GRABOWSKI by Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton.
When the body of an unscrupulous land developer washes in with the tide, there are more suspects than mourners in the quirky town of Devil's Harbor, Oregon. For Molly Donovan, the murder creates an opportunity to use her crime reporting skills.

Coming in December: COUNSEL OF THE WICKED by Roberto Kusminsky.
Prominent surgeon and ex-Navy Seal Gerson Asher embarks on a harrowing journey from the broad avenues of New York to the back alleys of Buenos Aires in search of stolen WW2 art treasures, Nazi war criminals, and the killers of his grandfather.
***
Here's my nod to other reissued mysteries, and a blow-by-blow account of getting my “new” book out into the world, and the revisions I made during the process. From "Straight From Hel" January 2009:


ITEM: Dec. 5, 2008
From the New York Times top 20 sellers in Paperback Mass-Market Fiction. Of the 20 top titles, three are reissues:


THE MANNING GROOMS, by Debbie Macomber. (Mira, $7.99.) A reissue of two novels: “Bride on the Loose” and “Same Time, Next Year.”
FOUL PLAY, by Janet Evanovich. (Harper, $7.99.) A veterinarian hires a woman who has lost her TV job to a dancing chicken, then helps her prove her innocence when the chicken disappears; a reissue of a 1989 book.
LOVE BY DESIGN, by Nora Roberts. (Silhouette, $7.99.) A reissue of two novels from 1989: “Loving Jack” and “Best Laid Plans.”


ITEM: December 2008
FULL CIRCLE by Pat Browning, revised and reissued by Krill Press as ABSINTHE OF MALICE.


That came out of the blue. It was a three-month ride on a Tilt-A-Whirl, and I’m still dizzy. Krill Press is a micro press in Oregon, with a multi-tasking publisher who puts the pedal to the metal. As in:


SEPT. 1 -- Krill Press was formed, more or less in the mind of said publisher, after the idea was kicked around in an Internet group we both belong to.


First bump in the road: He asked for a Synopsis of FULL CIRCLE, which I self-published in 2001, and also one for my half-finished second book, working title SOLSTICE. I started to sweat out that horror of horrors, the synopsis, for not one but two books.


SEPT. 6 -- Publisher said forget the synopses. He was reading FULL CIRCLE and liked it. He had already read the first three chapters of SOLSTICE on my web site.


SEPT. 14 -- Publisher loved FULL CIRCLE, suggested bringing out an “updated, refreshed 2nd edition” with a new title and new cover. Offered me an advance. I fell over laughing when I read the proposed new title, ABSINTHE OF MALICE, and saw the jazzy, sexy new cover proposed. But the more I thought about it, the better I liked it. We jumped right into proposed changes and details of a business relationship.


SEPT. 17 – We signed a two-year contract for publication in trade paperback, E-book and other electronic download formats, and Amazon’s Kindle.


SEPT. 24 – Advance check. I printed out a copy suitable for framing.


Second bump in the road: Publisher wanted manuscript by E-mail, in Word. I couldn’t find my computer file anywhere. I did have a printout of my iUniverse proof sheet from 2001. Nothing to do but make a new Word file by scanning in that proof sheet, one page at a time. More than 200 pages, one – page – at – a – time.


OCT. 26 – Publisher finished book block and e-mailed it to me for proofing. Last minute updating of cover blurbs and reviews for Krill Press web site, which was still under construction.


NOV. 3 – Book uploaded to printer (Lightning Source). Publisher signed contracts with Lightning Source and Ingram Book Group to have book distributed in Canada, the UK and Europe.


NOV. 6 – Lightning Source sent proof copy to publisher via UPS 2nd Day Air. Publisher made plans for virtual launch party on NETDRAG podcast.


NOV. 7 – Pursuant to my notice of cancellation of contract, iUniverse gave me written acknowledgment and washed their hands of it. It’s no longer listed on their web site.


Ongoing blip: FULL CIRCLE is still listed for sale by online booksellers and will be until they get rid of their last copy. If I could afford it, I would buy them all up.


DEC. 4 – I had copies of my brand new book on hand for a book signing at the local library.


Krill Press is promoting ABSINTHE OF MALICE in every known market. It’s displayed on Google Books, as far afield as an Italian library. Amazon.com has it displayed for sale in the UK, Germany, France, China, Japan … It’s print-on-demand but the publisher, bowing to marketplace realities, offers a heavy discount to bookstores and makes it returnable. He’s sending sell sheets and queries to Internet book review sites.


The publisher is doing his share and then some. I’m more of a hand-seller: “Pssst! Wanna buy a good book?”


It’s an ill wind, as the saying goes. Having to scan the book a page at a time gave me a chance to polish it up, tighten it up, and generally shape it up. It also gave me a chance to rewrite a couple of key scenes.


One has to do with my protagonist, Penny Mackenzie, a baby boomer whose first love shows up after a long absence. I had written her as a bit of a schlump, in a rut. The publisher picked up on a short scene where she whacks off her hair and throws her dowdy duds into a wastebasket. He took it a step further, seeing her as a woman whose long-suppressed vanity reappears when her old flame shows up. I rewrote the scene to fit the sassy, sexy new book cover.


The other has to do with DNA testing of an old bone. When I wrote the book in 1999-2001, DNA testing was fairly new. I misinterpreted a news article I read about a portable DNA machine developed by the military for battlefield use. Since then, of course, I’ve learned that DNA from old bones is mitochondrial DNA, passed down only through female ancestors. The test destroys the bone, making it impossible for a character to run it through a portable machine and then replace it in the police department’s evidence room. I feel a lot better for having rewritten the scene to reflect the differences in DNA, keeping a character from subjecting an old bone to the wrong kind of testing.

While all this was going on, my work-in-progress was shoved to one side. Now I’m picking up where I left off four months ago. Touching base this week with a friend, I mentioned that finishing the second book is essential to the success of the first one. His e-mail reply is taped to my computer monitor.

He wrote: “And if I were you I'd finish that second book. There's only so much promotion you can do without turning into a used-car salesman, and there's hardly anything worse than a used-car salesman who only has one car to sell.”

***

Words to live by!

Rick Mofina

by Jean Henry Mead

International bestselling Canadian novelist Rick Mofina says that writing has been a lifelong affliction. One of the world's leading crime/thriller writers, Rick's work is what James Patterson termed "tense, realistic and scary in all the right places."

Rick, your extensive journalism experience in Toronto and California must have prepared you to write crime novels. How much of your fictional crime is autobiographical?

A larger part of my news reporting experience involved working the police beat. It put me face-to-face with the best and worst of the human condition. I was expected to write about it. I was expected to derive some sense out of horrible incidents that made no sense at all then present it to readers on deadline. Sadly, the true horrors that happen everywhere everyday seldom end well. If they end at all. This is something I bear in mind in writing crime fiction. I try to apply the fundamental code of most crime fiction, which is the restoration of order to chaos. And I try to start with a ‘grain of truth’, to build on a solid foundation for a compelling story.

Novels allow you to drill deeper. To probe a person’s thoughts. Journalistic objectivity, in that sense, goes out the window. Journalism still allows you to convey many things against impossible deadlines. Still, some of the best writers, and copy editors who help them, are found in newspapers. But crime fiction allows you to go deeper into characters, themes, and the actual soul of a story. And maybe on that level you do get closer to some universal truths.

For example, a news story in good hands can convey quite powerfully how sickened a homicide detective is, say, over a child murder. But the novelist can take you further. The novelist can take you into the detective’s heart, make you feel what he or she feels witnessing an autopsy, or informing an inconsolable parent, or questioning a lying suspect, or grappling with their own anguish at night when their head touches the pillow and sleep is a fugitive.The opening of my first published crime novel, If Angels Fall, begins with a toddler being abducted from his inattentive father while they are riding San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit System, known as BART.

Readers have told me that it reads as if I’d drawn it from a real case. I didn’t. The scene is entirely fiction. However, the seed for that moment of terror arose from a real moment of truth I experienced years ago while I was working at The Toronto Star, the paper that Ernest Hemingway reported for early in his career. The summer I was a Star cub reporter, a tragedy hit the city. A child who vanished under chilling circumstances was later found murdered.

Fear gripped the metropolitan area and the story screamed from page one headlines of Toronto’s major papers. In that climate, I was riding Toronto’s subway when I saw a father and his toddler. Dad was hidden behind the newspaper he was reading, one that happened to be blaring the latest on the tragedy. His little boy was toddling up and down the full length of the subway car aisle. The father was oblivious. The train would stop. Doors would open. Waves of commuters would rush in and out, even bumping the toddler. Doors would close. The train rumbled to the next station.The father was had no idea what was happening as the scene was repeated at the next station. Then the next. Then the next.

As I witnessed this, I became a little angry at the father for not watching his kid. Then I grew a little fearful as my imagination went into overdrive. If I were a crazy person, I could easily abduct that boy without his father noticing until it was too late.That moment haunted me until years later, when I fashioned it into the opening of, If Angels Fall, the book which introduces my ongoing series characters, San Francisco reporter Tom Reed and SFPD Homicide Inspector, Walt Sydowski.

I drew a lesson from that subway ride. By beginning with a seed of ‘reality’ I was able to shape a stronger story. It was in keeping with the universally accepted notion that writers should write what they know.

Was the novel you wrote about hitchhiking from Canada to California as a teen ever published?

I was 18 when I wrote it and it was largely drawn from the journal I kept while hitchhiking from my home east of Toronto to San Francisco, a kind of On the Road, thing. It was never published and never will be.

You’ve interviewed murderers on death row, covered serial killings and armored car heists as well as other horrific crimes. Did the real life violence and gore finally get to be too much? And is that why you turned to fiction?

No, not really. For me, writing has been a lifelong affliction. My urge to write reaches back to my earliest years when my mother read bedtime stories to me. She drew me into worlds that were sketched by the writer's words and brought to life in my imagination. This was wild magic.It had captivated me with such intensity that I was compelled to craft my own fiction based on the real things I'd observed. Like how my mother smiled when my father came home and handed me his big lunch bucket, with one cookie left in it for me. Or the way his hands were creased with fine threads of dried concrete as he unlaced his heavy work boots.

I observed the world I was in, and then created fictional worlds based on what I saw. Eventually my parents bought me a typewriter and one thing led to another which led to the sale of my first short story for $60.00 to a magazine in New Jersey. My father stared at that check for a long time, trying to make sense of what had transpired. At age 15, I was a professional writer. Or so it seemed. There was a lot to come; high school, university, marriage, a family and a career as a news reporter, which laid the foundation for me to become the author of several thrillers.

You’ve had some great reviews. Penthouse Magazine called you one of the leading thriller writers of the day. Do glowing reviews actually translate into book sales or do they simply pump up a writer’s ego and keep him writing?

I’ve been very lucky, honored in fact, with endorsements and publishers take notice, as do readers. Most readers, anyway. I think the jury’s still out on whether they translate into sales but they sure don’t hurt the look of a cover one bit!

Your first novel, If Angels Fall, introduced San Francisco reporter Tom Reed and homicide inspector Walt Sydowski, and was optioned for filming along with a following book, Cold Fear. Did you ever quit your day job to write full-time?

Options are not the same as the sale of full film rights. Options are merely a small payment to lock up rights to a book for a short time, so that the interested party can try gather more financial support to advance production. In my case, even though a script was written, the options expired. So no, writing is an uncertain way to earn your living and I am pretty conservative about things. I don’t think I’ll quit my day job. That’s what lottery wins are for.

What does your communications advisory job entail? And when do you find time to write fiction?

My day job entails providing advice on communications. As for finding time to write, well I rise about 4:00 am and review my previous day's writing for 30-45 minutes. Then during my 30-40 minute commute by bus to my full time day job. I make notes in long hand in the journal I create for the work in progress. I let those notes gestate in my subconscious during the day. On the return commute, I revisit the journal and update my notes. If I have enough energy in the evening, I will try to draft a few new sentences, or go for an evening walk with my notebook before knocking for the evening to watch TV and relax a bit. At bed time, I will review my journal notes and make new ones. On the weekends, I sleep in until about 6:00 a.m. I'll work in my home office turning my notes into sentences and paragraphs that grow into chapters. If I am travelling, I'll take my laptop and attempt to work while waiting for flights, aboard jets, in hotels during down time. I adhere to this routine, but it is only possibly because my family accommodates it. I am very blessed that way.

Tell us about your new series?

Early in September, 2009, my publisher MIRA released Vengeance Road, the first novel of my new series featuring crime reporter Jack Gannon. Gannon pursues the case of a murdered nursing student, the disappearance of a single mother, and their connection to a hero detective with a dark past. It will be followed in the summer of 2010 with The Panic Zone, book two in the Jack Gannon series. My previous series, another crime reporter series, is a trilogy published by Pinnacle. It begins with The Dying Hour. It was selected as a Finalist, Best Paperback Original, for a Thriller Award, International Thriller Writers (ITW).

The Dying Hour introduces Jason Wade, a rookie crime reporter with The Seattle Mirror, a loner who grew up in the shadow of a brewery in one of the city's blue-collar neighborhoods. At The Seattle Mirror, he is competing for the single fulltime job being offered through the paper's intense intern program. But unlike the program's other young reporters, who attended big name schools and worked at other big metro dailies, Wade put himself through community college, and lacked the same experience. Wade struggles with his haunting past as he pursues the story of Karen Harding, a college student whose car was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of highway in the Pacific Northwest. How could this beloved young woman with the altruistic nature simply vanish? Wade battles mounting odds and cut-throat competition to unearth the truth behind Karen Harding's disturbing case. Her disappearance is a story he cannot give up, never realizing the toll it could exact from him. The Dying Hour is followed by two other Jason Wade books, Every Fear and A Perfect Grave.

What’s the best part of writing and the worst?

The worst part is the loneliness of the craft. It is a solitary exercise. As for the best part, well, it’s not just one thing. It’s a number of things. Like writing the words “the end”, or hearing from readers, especially those who’ve enjoyed the story and have bought all your books, and have told others to buy your books. And I get a lot of nice comments, like ‘you kept me up all night,’ and ‘you need to write more books faster’. But one that stands out came from a lovely handwritten letter from a woman in Indiana. Seems she was on vacation in the west and bought my first book, If Angels Fall, in a used book bin for 25 cents. After reading it, she liked it so much; she cut me a personal check for the full cover price, $7.00, which she’d attached to her letter. She told me I’d earned it. I was blown away. I thanked her. And yes, I cashed the check, but I’ve kept a photocopy that I intend to frame some day.

Next to hearing from readers who enjoy your work and encourage you do produce more, for a writer there is nothing like the day when you learn your manuscript is going to be published. You’re walking on air for a while after that.What changes do you foresee in the publishing business? With respect to fiction, I don’t think reader demand for good stories will wane. I think the technical vehicle by which those stories are delivered will continue to evolve with portable digital devices becoming more common. I see them popping up more on buses in airports. I don’t think the traditional book format will disappear, much like with the hardcover and paperback formats we’ve seen the emergence of trade paperback. I think digital technology will emerge as another option, another choice and one that will become more popular with digital generations of readers.

Advice to fledgling crime/thriller writers?

It’s a tough business but above all it is a business whereby you aim to sell your product, your talent to craft a story. There are no magic beans, no secrets. You first of all must be honest with yourself and know whether you possess the intelligence, confidence, discipline and the talent to craft a story worthy of investment; investment of a publisher and readers in terms of their money and time.When it comes to writing a book, the product, the only person standing in your way to reaching your goal is you. Be disciplined and write every day. Don't talk about doing it, do it. If the next word you think after reading this is "but" as in, "but I don't have the time, or I have this or that going on" fine. Guess you don't have what it takes. There is never “a good time” to sit down and write that book. That is an excuse, a rationale for failure. Don't make excuses. Create sentences. Read who you like and study them. All the while ask yourself if you know the difference between "being" a writer and "wanting to be" a writer? It's the difference between dreaming and doing.

Rick's web site: http://www.rickmofina.com/

Thankful for Readers

By Beth Terrell

In one of this weeks' blog posts, Nathan Bransford asked his readers (I started to say followers, but that sounded just a little too messianic) what they were grateful for as writers. As you can imagine, the responses ran the gamut, from the ability to write to supportive spouses to paper clips. My list of things to be thankful for hasn't changed much since last year. I'm still grateful for my loving husband; the support of my mom, my brother, in-laws, and countless friends; our dogs (two papillons and a Tibetan Spaniel); my laptop; my terrific critique group; Night Shadows Press, the small press that believed in me enough to reissue my iuniverse mystery; and readers--everyone who has read my book and liked it, and everyone who hasn't read my book, but reads the books of my friends and my favorite authors, thereby enabling the publishing industry to keep on rolling, warts and all.

There is nothing like hearing from a person who says, "I read your book and loved it." One of my favorites came from a woman who said she was so anxious to see what happened that she was sneaking in paragraphs at stop lights. Another said, "When I'm not reading this book, I'm thinking about the people in it and wondering what they're doing." It just doesn't get any better than that.

We need the encouragement, because, as most of us know, few writers can make a living with their writing. I read somewhere that the average income of writers falls just above that of migrant workers. Thank goodness for the likes of Stephen King, Dan Brown, and John Grisham, who pulled the average up! Otherwise, we'd be at the bottom of the heap. One writer, responding to Nathan's blog, said she'd calculated her hourly wages and come up with a figure of approximately seven cents. It's hard to retire to Maui on that.

Then one day you're working out at Curves, and the chatter among the exercisers turns to books. The woman at the next machine, a woman you've never met and who has no idea you're a writer, says, "You know what book I love? I just read it, and it's terrific." And she names your book. You carry that glow home with you. Years later, you can still pull it out of your pocket and bask in it.

So on this beautiful (albeit chilly) Thanksgiving Day, I'd like to take a moment to thank you, the readers. You're the ones who make this crazy business work.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Giving Thanks

By Mark W. Danielson

Perhaps more than any other holiday, Thanksgiving is an emotional cornucopia. To many, it’s a family celebration where long-lost relatives bring enticing dishes to accompany the feast. To others, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade followed by hours of football is the highlight. For those dedicated to Christmas shopping, Thanksgiving is the prequel to the following day’s sales events. This year, some stores will be opening at Midnight, Friday morning, for those so inclined. No matter how you celebrate Thanksgiving, this harvest festival has a special meaning.

Some believe the Spanish celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida. The more prominent version dates back to 1621 where Pilgrims shared their bounty with Native Americans at the Plymouth Plantation. Thanksgiving is not unique to the United States, though. Canada celebrates Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October, most likely because of their earlier winter. Regardless of its history or actual date, Thanksgiving was named so we can be grateful for what we have.

Of course, giving thanks shouldn’t be limited to a single day of the year. One of my best friends turns 94 one week from now. On D-Day, 1945, he was flying a P-47 fighter over Normandy. Today, he is still flying the twin Cessna he’s owned since 1965, takes overnight hikes in the Sierra Nevada, and plays tennis most every day. As a three-time cancer survivor, he truly gets the most out of life, and for nearly three decades, has been an inspiration to me. Whenever I ask how he’s doing, he says, “I’m still taking nutrition.” What a great stance.

Then there’s my dog, Maxx, who always wakes up with a smile. No matter what happened the day before, he’s ready to face today with tail-wagging enthusiasm. You can’t help but smile when you see him in the morning.

Of course, not everyone shares my buddy’s or my dog’s positive outlook on life. Plenty of people have physical or emotional pain that deters them from wanting to roll out of bed. One recent web comment said, “Holidays are really horrible with all the extra pressure . . .” The young woman who wrote that was referring to her mother who she believed had mental issues. Given the right circumstances, we could all feel that way, but it’s a sad attitude to have.

Some people have a difficult time attending family celebrations after a loved one has passed away – especially if their death occurred near that holiday. Holidays can be quite difficult for our soldiers who are deployed overseas, and equally hard on the homeless. If you are alone on a holiday, try reaching out to help others. By doing so, no one is alone, and new friendships can be made.

Since I’m rarely home for a holiday anymore, I give thanks every day for my health, my family, and my job. I don’t need a holiday to remind me of this.

Every day, we have the choice of making it a good or a bad day. I’d be lying if I said every day was gleeful, but I do try. The world would be a lot happier if we all gave thanks for what we have instead of complaining about what we don’t.

So this Thanksgiving, enjoy your homecomings. Talk to your friends and family members as though you truly love them, and hug them as though you may never see them again. Most of all, smile at a stranger and lend them a hand. Doing so will brighten everyone’s day. Happy Thanksgiving.

Palm Sprung

by Ben Small

The wife and I just returned from several days in California, two in Palm Springs, two visiting relatives in Bakersfield and of course Men of Mystery in Irvine, one of my favorite book festivals.

The memory I will hold of this trip is of an empty Palm Springs. And I mean empty. Store fronts empty, streets empty, shops that hadn't closed empty, and restaurants... well, empty.

I could have put a lawn chair on the main drag and felt safe.

In those shops still open, we were the only customers. No golfers, no tourists, and this is supposed to be the high season. Our waiter, blaming everyone but Californians, lamented that the Hollywood types no longer come to Palm Springs; they go to Vegas. But I think Palm Springs' troubles go further than that. Despite nobody on the streets, nobody in the stores, and stores closing everywhere, the J-walking police were still handing out tickets. Sure, they need the money, but with no shoppers, no J-walkers, no revenues, one can only wonder where their salaries come from.

And the stores still open are desperate for customers. You wouldn't believe the sales. Some stores, the owner came outside, trying to draw us in. All we were doing was walking the no-crowd sidewalks, but our footfalls must have reverberated up and down the avenue. At just about every shop somoene came out to ask us in.

We thought it sad.

Normally I'd have said Bakersfield and Palm Springs were worlds apart, but on this trip, their downtowns looked like twins. Except I was not accosted by San Quentin paroles in Palm Springs. Seems San Quentin buses paroles up to Bakersfield and lets them go. According to the guy who hit me up for a buck, it's standard San Quentin procedure. He'd been through it before.

I was just glad I wasn't in Bakersfield during evening hours. I understand the released prisoners aren't so polite then. My niece said she'd had a gun stuck in her face at a traffic light just two weeks ago.

That couldn't happen in Palm Springs.

There's nobody there.

Publishing: Anyone Can Play, Part 2

By Pat Browning


Debbi Mack is no neophyte when it comes to writing. She’s the owner of Mack Research and Writing, providing articles, reports, case studies, white papers and otherwise assisting businesses and organizations with communications needs. She has also done research for legal and reference publishers and attorneys.


Debbi is also a mystery author, whose published work includes a novel, IDENTITY CRISIS, a hardboiled mystery featuring lawyer/sleuth Stephanie Ann "Sam" McRae, and a short story in CHESAPEAKE CRIMES I, an anthology written and edited by members of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

IDENTITY CRISIS is in its second life. First published by Quiet Storm in 2004, then Quiet Storm went out of business. This year Debbi decided to resurrect it, and published it through Lulu. Being computer savvy she was able to set it up herself, so it didn’t cost her any money.

But her ups and downs with Lulu took patience and a sense of humor. For anyone who wants to know how it works, here are a couple of e-mails from Debbi explaining the whole thing. In her own words:


QUOTE
The experience with Lulu . . . hmmm . . . well, it took me a while to get through the process, because (first) I got sidetracked for a bit thinking I might go with CreateSpace instead. But for technical reasons, they didn't work out, so I went back to Lulu.


And maybe it's just me, but I was confused about how parts of the process worked. So I held off on buying a distribution package, because I didn't want to make a mistake. And anytime I had a question, it always had to be sent by email. (Because they don't do phone. Period.) And sometimes the answer wasn't terribly helpful, so I'd have to email and try for clarification. Which usually made things somewhat clear, but not entirely.


Then there was a cover issue I didn't spot until right before I published the book. They don't put ISBNs on one-piece covers. (If I'd only known . . .) The process wasn't exactly transparent. Or idiot-proof (as this idiot can attest to). At that point, the cover had to be broken down into two pieces. So some of the time lag was due to trying to navigate Lulu's process and dealing with the graphic artist who did the cover. He was in school a lot of the time, so it took him a while to get things done. I kept telling myself, patience, patience . . . you've waited this long, what's another few weeks or even months . . .


At some point, I finally uploaded the cover (months after the content had been uploaded) and bought the distribution package. And that was it. Except for one thing. The cover has "ISBN:" in the upper-left corner, but no number. I'd like it taken off. You can pay Lulu for these revisions.


I'm perfectly willing to do this, but . . . when I follow the online directions that are supposed to lead to a button that says "Purchase Revisions," guess what? It's not there. So . . . if it's the last thing I do, I'm getting on the phone with someone from Lulu to straighten this out. (I finally found their number! Ha! You can run, but you can't hide, Lulu.)


Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Well, otherwise, not so bad really, considering it cost me nothing, plus Lulu took care of the ISBN and handles the distribution. I'd use Lulu again, now that I know what the heck I'm doing (mostly).

… there have been a few new developments, since I wrote that. I found out that Lulu couldn't change the cover. So--that part isn't accurate.


Another thing: I've been having difficulty getting my book into the distribution system (I bought the expanded package a couple of weeks after the book was published and there were some formatting issues to work out, which I did). After repeated inquiries, the head of distribution said I hadn't bought the expanded distribution package.


When I corrected her, she acknowledged her mistake, then mentioned the formatting issues, noting that I'd corrected them, but said I needed to buy a copy and approve it before it could be distributed. I forwarded her a copy of an order I'd placed for 100 copies (after the formatting revisions) and asked if *that* was enough to indicate my approval. :) That was today. Hopefully, we can straighten this out soon.


Also, I never did reach anyone there by phone. Basically, I went on Twitter and said, "Does ANYONE know how to reach a human at Lulu?" Lulu tweeted me back and I've been in touch with actual employees (someone other than the usual online support staff, that is) by email since then.


FWIW, I don't think my experience with Lulu is typical. I know others who've had no problem at all with them. (Lucky me. :))


IDENTITY CRISIS
Available in print from Lulu.com and online from Amazon
http://www.debbimack.com/
midlistlife.wordpress.com/
END QUOTE


So … Debbi has it under control but Amazon is still struggling with it. Tonight I checked Amazon and found the old 2004 Quiet Storm edition still listed – for $56.98. The new edition is listed on Kindle for $1.59, with the old cover and a mix of old and new reviews. A happy note: Debbi says Kindle sales have been good.


***
Richard Hicks’ take on self-publishing is short and sweet. He has published several novels with Xlibris. But then Richard steers his own course, so to speak. He lives at Cardiff-by-the-Sea, thirty miles north of San Diego, and a sea breeze wafts through his fiction.


Here’s his bio from his web site at www.richardhicksauthor.com

QUOTE:
I practiced law for twenty-six years, the last seventeen as the head of the business litigation department of a Los Angles law firm. I’d probably still be there if my wife hadn’t announced she was going to walk across the United States for nine months with an ecological group and that I could either come with her, or we’d “visit” each other. Three pair of shoes later I began. . .
…
Today, when not writing, my typical week looks like this: Helping victims of domestic violence get restraining orders (Monday), jamming on my ukulele with a hundred or so other obsessed members of the Moonlight Beach Ukulele Strummers (Wednesday), and sailing with my buddies in San Diego bay. (Thursdays). Oh, yes, since my wife quit cooking seventeen years ago, I cook.
…
Twice a year I charter sailboats (40 to 50 foot monohulls and catamarans) and sail in some exotic locations -- The Caribbean, South Pacific and Mediterranean. My love of the water and passion for sailing has inspired some scenes in my novels, and will continue to do so.
END QUOTE


Xlibris is one of the early self-publishing companies. Since Richard continues to use them, I asked about his experience. His reply was to the point.


QUOTE
And while I've been happy with Xlibris as a POD publisher (they do a decent job, at a fair price, in a reasonable time frame), I think that all the POD publishers raise very unreasonable expectations for their customers, and are now trying to sell them very expensive marketing programs and materials.

I can't comment on non-fiction -- that's a different market -- but there is simply no way that any self-published fiction writer is going to sell more than a handful of books to the people on their holiday list.


I could go on an on … and in fact have given talks on this subject. I write because I love the process. I've had agents (one in NYC, one in Boston and one in Beverly Hills), and for whatever reason they haven't been able to get my books published by a traditional publishing house.


I'm not distraught about this. I love the process of writing fiction, and POD offers a way to at least get the manuscript out of my drawer and into print where it can be read by a small group of fans. That's probably enough fame (and no fortune) for me in this my second career.
END QUOTE

Richard’s earlier novels are standalones but he has started a series of Enneagram mysteries. I just read the first one, MURDER BY THE NUMBERS: THE RIGHTEOUS ONE. I enjoyed it very much. It’s well written, and it’s so clean I thought he must have hired an independent editor. When I asked, he said:


“All of my novels have been line-edited by Dave King, a professional editor. I started working with him in 2000 and I've really learned a lot from him. The place where my novels sometimes need help is in copyediting. I've used a friend to help me with this, since I had already spent my editing budget on Dave King.”


MURDER BY THE NUMBERS is available in both hardcover and trade paperback. When I heard from Richard earlier this week he was on Chapter 35 of the second in the series.


Every author has a unique story when it comes to writing and publishing. Many, many thanks to Tom Sawyer, Debbi Mack and Richard Hicks for sharing theirs.

Publishing: Anyone Can Play, Part 1

By Pat Browning


This week’s news: Harlequin created a new imprint, Harlequin Horizons, for self-publishing. A spokesman said it was "a way to participate in the fast-growing self-publishing market … ” You can read the full New York Times article at tinyurl.com/yz9f2s3.
***


Meanwhile, back in California … there’s news from Thomas B. Sawyer, one of my favorite writers. His new thriller, NO PLACE TO RUN, was No. 1 on the list of Malibu’s Top Ten Books for the first week of November.

 The new novel is also featured in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (The Jury Box by Jon L. Breen):

“Thomas B. Sawyer: No Place to Run, Sterling & Ross, $14.95. Claudia Lawrence, twenty-four, is snatched from her happy life, along with her parents and teenage brother, when a secret revealed by a client to her lawyer father Bill lands them all in the witness protection program. The parents are murdered, and the kids go on the run, with government agents as the enemy. However you feel about 9/11 conspiracy theories, this is a model pursuit thriller, with mystery, menace, strong characters, and cross-cutting action managed with a screenwriter's flair. (Murder, She Wrote, of which Sawyer was head writer, was nothing like this.)”
(www.themysteryplace.com/eqmm/jury/)

 Not bad for a guy whose first novel, THE SIXTEENTH MAN, was rejected by 22 agents before Sawyer lost patience and published it through iUniverse.

That was 10 years ago. I read the book on the iUniverse web site and was so enthralled that I ordered the book immediately. I’ve been a Tom Sawyer friend and fan ever since, and I still have that copy. It was POD – print on demand – when it was a whole new and almost universally scorned concept.


iUniverse was barely a year old when Tom published his book. I was part of an online group that – as I recall – was sponsored by iUniverse. The pros and cons of self-publishing were cussed and discussed. The more I heard, the better it sounded: quick turnaround for a book costing $99.


iUniverse also had a live chat room, the Café. On May 15, 2001, the guest was Thomas B. Sawyer, calling in from Malibu. I still have my transcript printout.

In the chat, Sawyer explained how he ended up with iUniverse. On rejections of his manuscript for THE SIXTEENTH MAN: “They ranged from, 'Your book doesn't work,' to 'I didn't love it QUITE enough to sell it, but I'm sure you'll find somebody who does,' to the capper from a major agent whose name will remain annonymous who said, 'I have yet to see a screenwriter who can write a novel, but you do show promise, so if you're willing to work with me, I'll teach you to write.' Fortunately, that's when I saw the ad for iUniverse.”


Sawyer added: “I also realize, having gone through this, if I had not been a professional of many years, didn't have a bullet proof ego, this stuff could destroy you... It makes me feel very sorry for the people who were vulnerable to it. You really have to believe in your work.”


Later that year, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Sawyer. Excerpts:


***
Wall Street Journal – November 13, 2001
Agents, Editors, Publishers – Who Needs 'Em?
By Matthew Gurewitsch


Thomas B. Sawyer is the author of the thriller "The Sixteenth Man." He is also its publisher, because he was too impatient to wait for a creaky, old-line house to do the job. And because modern technology made it easy for an amateur to navigate the world of typesetting, printing, binding and inefficient bookstores.


Two years in the writing, "The Sixteenth Man" was Mr. Sawyer's first novel after two decades in Hollywood, where as head writer on "Murder, She Wrote" he scripted 24 episodes and plotted some 80 more, collecting a cool $5 million in the process.
…
In the real world, Mr. Sawyer might still be angling for an agent. "I sit on panels at these conventions with novelists whose work I know," he marvels, "novelists with five or six well-reviewed, well-received books in print. And they have day jobs! In Hollywood, they threw money at me, and I thought that's what writing was. But in this country, unless you're one of the six authors who sell 94% of the books, you're in a world of nickels and dimes."
***


That was then. When I e-mailed Tom this week for permission to quote him on his experience with iUniverse, he added these comments:


“When I spotted an advertisement for iUniverse -- then very early in the history of POD -- and visited their website, I immediately saw that it was a new wrinkle in vanity publishing, a path I was unwilling to pursue. So I emailed them with my credits, logline and synopsis, said I wasn't interested in paying them, but that I might be willing to serve as their poster-boy for the professional writer who had chosen to thumb his nose at the system. They responded affirmatively 25 minutes later (call me ‘shallow,’ but I admit to being a pushover for that sort of thing).


“Am I glad I did it that way? Yes and no. The no-part: no bookstore sales. The yes: with the excellent inventive help of my publicist, Milt Kahn, and that of iUniverse, THE SIXTEENTH MAN became one of the all-time bestselling POD books.


“For my new novel, NO PLACE TO RUN, I ‘played the game,’ had an agent, sold it to a conventional house. It took two years to find a publisher, Sterling & Ross (the book is a bit subversive), and another 18 months for it to debut. Am I glad I overcame (‘suppressed’ says it better) my impatience? Yes. I am now ‘legitimate.’”

Tom turns out so much work one might wonder if he’s really twins. His how-to book, FICTION WRITING DEMYSTIFIED, is one of three or four that I would never be without. He teaches writing, both online and in workshops. He and Will Holt wrote the book and lyrics of an opera. That’s not a typo. They wrote an opera – JACK –about the life of John F. Kennedy.


From the synopsis at Sawyer’s web site:“… the almost Shakespearean story of a complex, deeply conflicted yet loving relationship – between an obsessed, profoundly driven father, and his near-textbook second son – and how that young man, in overcoming those and other challenges, would ultimately provoke his own assassination.”


I have a 14-minute video of highlights from the 1995 production of JACK at the University of Oklahoma. It’s dazzling to watch and very moving. A detailed synopsis can be read at the web site: http://www.thomasbsawyer.com/.

Sunday, Part 2. Honest questions and honest answers about self-publishing from Debbi Mack and Richard Hicks.


Debbi Mack is the owner of Mack Research and Writing, providing corporate communications, web content, and white papers. She has just republished her first mystery, IDENTITY CRISIS, to good reviews.


Richard Hicks is a former trial attorney who has published several books with Xlibris. His latest novel, MURDER BY THE NUMBERS, is an Enneagram mystery.

Crossing the Border

by Jean Mead

Drug detection has changed since I covered the Mexican border as a San Diego news reporter. At that time a tall chain link fence marched along the border with large holes cut in strategic areas. The border patrol acquired a small Bell helicopter to patrol the area in 1977, after 23 years on the waiting list, and I was fortunate to have been one of the first from a crowd of reporters to fly in the new chopper, along with a TV cameraman.

What we saw were hundreds of trails leading from the border to dirt hovels from San Ysidro to San Diego, where illegals lived while they looked for a job. Anyone who has driven to Tijuana remembers the long lines and equally long wait to cross back into this country because border agents are searching for drugs and other contraband.

One late night a dark blue van attempted to cross the border with a ton of marijuana on board. The driver might have gotten away with it if he hadn’t tried to run the border without his headlights. No drug sniffing dogs were employed at that time although I’m sure the scent of that much pot was detectable from half a mile away.

Smugglers hide their contraband in strange places--in tires, the engine bay, front and back differentials, seats and exhaust systems. So border patrol agents are allowed to completely dismantle a suspicious looking vehicle without benefit of a search warrant. Customs and Border Protection agents (CBP) are trained to recognize the slightest modifications to cars and trucks, and when they spot one, the driver is pulled over.

One Sunday my family piled into an old VW bug to make the trip from San Diego to Ensenada on the Baja Peninsula. We decided to take the old bug because car accidents south of the border are not covered by most American insurance companies, even if your car is totalled by a native driver. On the return trip, we were pulled over at the border because we were riding in a disreputable looking car. We had to stand by on the hot asphalt as agents conducted a thorough search. An hour later we were allowed to cross the border.

Now, drug sniffing dogs make searches easier for CBP agents. Smugglers, in an attempt to disguise the scent of marijuana, run it through a trash compactor and pack the 4 x 6 inch blocks in plastic garbage bags. Although the contraband used to be transported in large vehicles, smugglers currently use their own cars filled with friends or family members to disguise the purpose of their trips. They’ve also been known to smuggle drugs in motorcycle and bicycle tires.

In addition to marijuana, the Mexican border is the the main thoroughfare for cocaine traffic—some 90% that enters the U.S. from Mexico and Central America.

Under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, American citizens must now carry a passport, passport card or RFID (electronic chip)-enabled ID. Prior to last June, only a driver’s license and birth certificate were sufficient identification.

If you’re contemplating a trip by car to Mexico, don't bring along the following items: pets without proof of vaccinations, more than one laptop, prescription medicine without a prescription, and firearms without a previously applied for hunting license.

Remember to have your I.D. documents handy and resolve to be both patient and flexible on both sides of the border.

Our Nation Divided

By Mark W. Danielson

Currently, our nation is divided over our wars, health care, and the economy, and yet there is little vocal opposition. Compared to the citizens of the Vietnam era, we seem apathetic. As someone who grew up observing anti-war protests while working in Berkeley, I have spent countless hours wondering why the difference between then and now. My best determination is our concerns ended with the draft.

Today’s soldier/veterans receive far more support than those returning from Vietnam. However, few tears are shed over those who have died or were injured in the Middle East because these soldiers “knew the risks” when they volunteered their service. The death toll from our eight years in Vietnam was 58,159, another 2,000 missing, and 303,635 seriously wounded. The September 2009 Middle East Wars Report states that 4,343 lives have been lost and 31,156 seriously wounded in Iraq, and 746 lost lives and 2,238 seriously wounded in Afghanistan. Sadly, these numbers rise daily.

Since I’m targeting the change in our selective service policy as the key to our nation’s apathy, here are some notable facts to back up my claim. While one might believe a citizen’s call to duty dates back to the Revolutionary War, the draft for involuntary military service didn’t come about until President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act in 1940. The newly formed Selective Service Agency was tasked with filling armed forces vacancies that could not be filled through voluntary means. Local draft boards determined who in the 19-26 year old age group was to serve, and allowed deferments for college, special industry employment, and medical qualification. Conscientious objectors were permitted to opt for non-combat assignments. Little has changed in this regard.

The use of the involuntary two year service has varied since World War II. The draft ramped up when the United States became involved in the Korean War, and once again for the Vietnam conflict. On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service Agency changed the system to a lottery using birth dates to draft eligible people. The lottery gave advanced notice to those likely to be drafted so they could enlist in any of the services, or wait to be drafted. There is a misperception that minorities were drafted at a higher rate than non-minorities. According to Richard Kolb, editor of VFW Magazine, only 12% of those drafted were black, and the same percentage was killed in Vietnam. Of all service members drafted, only 50% served in Vietnam. Two thirds of the service members serving in Vietnam were volunteers. 92% of the draftees served in the Army. The remaining 8% served in the Marine Corps.

Anti-Vietnam sentiment dates back to 1945 when US Merchant Marines condemned the US government for using their ships to transport French troops into Vietnam. In September 1950, the United States Military Assistance Advisory Group to Vietnam was established in Saigon to supervise the issuance and employment of US military equipment to support French legionnaires in their effort to combat Viet Minh forces. By 1953, U.S. military aid had leaped from $10 million to over $350 million.

The 1954 Geneva Conference divided Vietnam into two countries. Senator John F. Kennedy later said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam that, "Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism Overflowed into Vietnam." When Kennedy won the 1960 presidential election, his inaugural address included a pledge to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.” However, Kennedy's 1961 policy was that South Vietnamese forces must ultimately defeat their insurgent communist guerrillas on their own. He opposed the deployment of American combat troops to Vietnam, observing that "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences.”
America’s military involvement escalated in August, 1964, after the intelligence gathering ship, USS Maddox, was fired upon by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. After the USS Turner Joy was allegedly fired upon two days later, Congress was prompted to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Johnson the power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war. Between 1961 and 1964, the North Vietnamese Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men. By comparrison, in 1961, the US had deployed 2,000 men, which rose to 16,500 in 1964. The March 2, 1965 attack on a US Marine barracks at Pleiku provoked a three year bombing campaign of North Vietnam.

1965 not only emersed the United States in the Vietnam War, it saw the first organized Anti-War protests with 2500 Students for a Democratic Society attending a teach-in at the University of Michigan with similar protests following at 35 universities. On November 27, several student activist groups led some 40,000 protesters to the White House, calling for an end to the war, and then marched to the Washington Monument. On that same day, President Johnson announced a significant escalation of US involvement in Indochina, from 120,000 to 400,000 troops.

In February 1966, some 100 veterans attempted to return their decorations to the White House in protest of the war, but were turned back. By March, 20,000 people protested in New York City. A Gallup poll showed that 59% approved of sending troops to Vietnam. Interestingly, 71% of those between 21-29 years old approved of the war compared to 48% of those over 50. On May 15, 10,000 anti-war protesters picketed the White House and Washington Monument.
On January 14, 1967, 20,000-30,000 people staged a “Human Be-In” anti-war event in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. On March 12, a three page anti-war ad appeared in The New York Times bearing the signatures of 6,766 teachers and professors. March 17 saw an anti-war group march on the Pentagon. Martin Luther King then led a 5,000 strong anti-war protest in Chicago on March 25th. On April 15, 400,000 people marched from Central Park to the UN building in New York City and 100,000 protested in San Francisco. A July 30 Gallup poll reported that 52% of Americans disapproved of President Johnson's handling of the war; 41% thought the US made a mistake in sending troops; over 56% thought US was losing the war or was at an impasse. On August 28, 1967, US Representative Tim Lee Carter (R-KY) stated before congress, "Let us now, while we are yet strong, bring our men home . . . The Vietcong fight fiercely and tenaciously because it is their land and we are foreigners intervening in their civil war. If we must fight, let us fight in defense of our homeland and our own hemisphere." 100,000 demonstrators protested at the Lincoln Memorial on October 21, 1967. Later that day, an estimated 30,000 marched to the Pentagon for a second rally followed by an all-night vigil. When undercover agents foiled a plot to airdrop 10,000 flowers on the Pentagon, the flowers were placed in the barrels of MP's rifles.

By February, 1968, Johnson’s handling of the war had fallen to 35% approval with 50% disapproving. The national media filmed the April 17 anti-war riot that broke out in Berkeley, California. The filmed response by Berkeley Police sparked reactions in Berlin and Paris. Anti-war protests taunted the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Tensions between police and protesters quickly escalated, resulting in a “police riot”. In August, the Gallup poll now showed that 53% believed it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam. By November 1968, the 2 ½ year bombing campaign that had deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs still failed to end the war.

By March 1969, polls indicated that only 19% of Americans favored the war policy, and 26% wanted South Vietnam to take over responsibility for the war. On October 15, millions of Americans took the day off from school and work to participate in the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. Crowds estimated up to half a million people participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C.. The latest Gallup poll showed that 58% of the respondents believed the US entry into the war was a mistake.

In 1970, National Guard troops fired upon anti-war protestors at Kent State University killing four students and injuring nine others. A week later, anti-war demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest the shootings and the Nixon administration's incursion into Cambodia. Police ringed the White House with buses to block the demonstrators. On August 24, a van filled with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture was detonated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then on August 29th, some 25,000 Mexican-Americans protested in the Chicano Moratorium in Los Angeles.

By 1971, avoiding service in the Vietnam War had become an issue in American politics. Politicians later criticized for this includes Vice Presidents Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and Senators Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. On April 23, Vietnam veterans threw away over 700 medals on the West Steps of the Capitol building. Antiwar organizers claimed that 500,000 marched, making this the largest demonstration since the November, 1969 march. On May 5, 1971, 1,146 people were arrested on the Capitol grounds trying to shut down Congress. In August, 28 people raided the Camden, New Jersey draft board offices. Of the 28, five or more were members of the clergy.

On April 19, 1972, in response to the renewed escalation of bombing North Vietnam, students at many colleges and universities around the country broke into campus buildings and threatened strikes. The following weekend, protests were held in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. By mid May, protests had spread across the country in response to President Nixon's decision to mine North Vietnamese harbors and renewed bombing. The December 24 Hanoi bombing drew harsh criticism from Sweden Prime-Minister Olof Palme, who compared it to Nazi Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s worst deeds, and froze diplomatic relations between the United States and Sweden until March 1974 after the war ended.

Involuntary military service ended with the Vietnam War. This war changed America in too many ways to count. Anti-War protests took place throughout the United States; many of them violent. National Guard members found themselves in the middle; trying to maintain peace and not let their personal feelings get in the middle. Music carried political and thought provoking messages. Many believed we were on the eve of destruction.

Readers can draw their own comparisons between Vietnam and our war in the Middle East. As a Vietnam Era Veteran and having retired from the military, I feel I’ve earned the privilege to state my opposition to our current war. I’m particularly disturbed by our administration’s plan to deploy an additional thirty-thousand troops to Afghanistan. But while I’m not alone in my opposition, few seem willing to speak out. How can our country survive an economic meltdown from this war and a proposed national health program?

Words persuade and stir emotion. I do not advocate violent protests or destroying property, but I do encourage people to send their voices to Washington in writing. Enough letters can influence. To our service members; I am honored to salute and support you. May you have a safe journey home.

Writing at a Snail's Pace

By Chester Campbell

I’m in the process of working on my fifth Greg McKenzie mystery. So far it has been moving like a snail racing across the street. Matter of fact, I wrote something about creating the plot on my personal blog (Mystery Mania) back toward the end of February, and I'm now only a third of the way through the writing. I suppose the problem is still as I characterized it earlier: "the old gray matter, she ain't what she used to be."

When I began working on the plot, the first idea out of the box did not deal with character or setting or plot action. Well, setting, in one of its narrow aspects. We're talking about time. The series has been moving at a leisurely pace through the calendar. Designed to Kill took place at the first of November, Deadly Illusions followed with the first blush of spring (does spring really blush?), and The Marathon Murders sweated out the steamy days of August. So, I reasoned, the next adventure should occur at Christmastime.

Wouldn’t you know, in Greg years, it’s still 2004. If I could do that, I wouldn’t be quite 80 yet. However, it presents a few problems in keeping the details straight. For example, the plot involves professional sports. In 2004, the arena where the Nashville Predators NHL team plays was called the Gaylord Entertainment Center or "The GEC" (pronounced Geck). Now it is the Sommet Center. So in the book it's only referred to as the "arena."

Anyway, back to the plot. As a seat-of-the-pants plotter, I had a basic idea, but I needed a cast of characters to do the work. I didn't want to get stuck with doing all that work myself. I had my main characters, Greg and Jill McKenzie, my indefatigable pair of senior sleuths, but a bunch of people was required for them to bounce off of.

I quickly came up with job descriptions for four possible bad guys or gals. And just as quickly I spotted the one who really “did it.” I picked an age and began to delve into the person's background. What would make this an interesting character? How did the killer become what they were today?

Okay, this is a mystery, and I’m not giving you any clues. I did a lot of Googling and bounced around the Internet quite a bit to track down some facts. Hmmm, come to think of it, back when I first began searching for stuff online, Yahoo was the big thing. But you don’t hear of people Yahooing. They’ve been sort of left in the dust, I suppose.

The subject of the plot is not one in which I’m particularly well versed, so I also searched about for some basic information on the business. Since it involves a conflict between people involved in two different sports, basketball and hockey, I decided my best bet was to talk with a TV sportscaster. Both Greg and I interviewed Rudy Kalis, sports director at Nashville's Channel 4, WSMV.

So far, Christmas has been sort of incidental to the action, but who knows how it will play out. A Christmas party provided an opportunity for Greg to get some information he needed. I suspect there's more to come.

Sometimes I start a book before I’m ready with a full-blown plot by sitting at the computer and writing a first page. It may not be the same first page I end up with, but it gets the window open and the curtains blowing. That's what happened this time. And after five books, it's my first experience with a murder on page one.

So after eight months of dilly-dallying around, promoting the heck out of my latest book and finding places to sign and sell all five current titles, I'm faced with the necessity of locking myself up (would be nice, but won't happen) and knocking out another 50,000 words in the next couple of months.

Wish me luck. And let me know how you're doing on your latest masterpeice.

Devilish Details

by Ben Small

As a writer, I pay attention to nagging little details, not only in my own scribbles but in the writings of others. And it's nice to see even the best can make mistakes.

Take Lee Child, for instance, one of my favorite writers, someone known for his attention to detail. Lee will describe how glass doors set inside rubber bumpers swoosh-suck when they open or close, whether or not that detail is important. And his character, Jack Reacher, notices that a woman on a subway is wearing a winter jacket when the weather isn't appropriate, that she has a faraway look and her hand is inside a baggy bag. To Reacher, in Gone Tomorrow, these details, along with the woman's mumbling and a stubborn refusal to meet anyone's eyes, plus a few other observations, suggest that according to Israeli checklists for detecting suicide bombers, the woman is planning on taking out part of New York City. Of course, Reacher is wrong, and instead, the woman is hell-bent on suicide, the cause of which becoming the story's plotline.

But Child sometimes makes mistakes. Do we care if Child is wrong about the construction or location of a building? No, of course not. But when his details are important to the story, one would expect he'd get them right.

Not always. Take the denouement of Gone Tomorrow, for instance. Reacher makes counting bullets a big deal. Thirty rounds in his machine gun, nine more in each of his two swiped bad-guy 9mm Sig Sauer P220s, Swiss-made, as he points out. But Child forgets that there are also two rounds left in the chambers of these guns. Frankly, I was surprised when Reacher decided to attack two butcher-knife-wielding Afghan-trained female terrorists with a knife, a Benchmade something or other, we're told, instead of loading the rounds he'd taken from these Sigs into his machine gun, or indeed, his decision to leave those two silenced weapons behind. But he makes a big deal of his round count, and then throws those rounds away.

Huh?

Guess it's more exciting to stage a knife fight and carve up two women than to blow your assailants away.

Okay, I can buy that. But then why make such a big deal about the round count in the first place, and why get it wrong?

Doesn't make sense. Or maybe it does. Child lives in NYC, where only bad guys and cops can own a handgun.

And in Child's breakout, outstanding first novel Killing Floor, Child refers to a .22 caliber pistol, a low-end small caliber assassin's gun, as "22 gauge" and attributes its shot dispersion characteristics to a modern shotgun that would do credit to a 16th century blunderbuss. Yes, there are .22 caliber shotshells that can be loaded into a .22 caliber pistol, but the small size of the shell makes these peashooters suitable only for a rattler -- and then only at a distance that would rattle me. Moreover, his concept of evidence is weird: He considers the legitimate possession of a large quantity of a legal item as evidence of a crime.

I know: Picky, picky. But I once put a safety on a .38 snubby -- they don't have one -- and my editor has never let me forget it.

So I enjoy it when another author makes the same kind of mistakes I make. Especially when that author is successful and someone whose writing I really enjoy.

Heck, maybe if I make enough mistakes, I can be famous, too...

Paralysis From Fear And A Dancing Animal

By Pat Browning


Rabbi Ilene Schneider got my attention with her Nov. 11th DorothyL post on writer’s block. I think it describes perfectly what some mistakenly call “writer’s block” when they really mean “fear” – fear of failure, even fear of success.


Ilene really is a rabbi and she really has written a mystery – CHANUKAH GUILT, featuring – who else – a rabbi.

Her bio is fascinating. From a Google search:
QUOTE
Rabbi Ilene Schneider, Ed.D. hasn't decided yet what (or who) she wants to be when she grows up. (She lives by the t-shirt logo: "I may grow older, but I'll never grow up.") In her current incarnation, she is Coordinator of Jewish Hospice for Samaritan Hospice in Marlton, NJ, near Philadelphia. (She was one of the first 6 women ordained as a rabbi in the US, back in 1976.) Interested in nature and conservation, she also is active in the New Jersey Audubon Society at the Rancocas Nature Center.


In addition to ordination, she has earned a few degrees over the years, all in different disciplines and none worth much in the market place. (BA in Publication from Simmons; M.Ed. in Psychoeducational Processes from Temple; Ed.D. in Foundations of Ed. from Temple; honorary D.D. from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College for surviving 25 years in the rabbinate). She also began piano lessons for the first time in her life when she was in her 50's -- a total disaster (especially for the teacher), but fun.


In her spare time (which she finds by never cleaning the house), she's a birder and gardener, although her garden's almost as much of a mess as her house. (She believes in benign neglect: she plants it; if it comes up, great; if it doesn't, she tries something else. She lets nature do the watering, which is why everything in the flower boxes is dead, and refers to the weeds as "wild flowers and decorative grasses." When the weather's nice enough to garden, she's more apt to be birding.


She's been married for over 30 years, and has two teen-aged boys, making her part of the trendy group of "older" parents.
END QUOTE


Ilene speaks for many writers when she describes “paralysis from fear.” I asked her for permission to reprint her DorothyL piece. Permission was graciously granted. Herewith:


QUOTE:
What I have right now isn't writer's block so much as paralysis from fear. I got good reviews for my first novel and I'm worried the second in the series won't measure up. I know I just need to put tuches aufn tisch (Yiddish equivalent of the "Button Chair" -- great phrase, btw), because whenever I do, I'm able to produce quite a bit. But I'm always coming up with excuses as to why I don't have the time (or energy).


As for deadlines, I have very little self-discipline without external time limits, but I always meet deadlines. It took me 10 years to write my doctoral dissertation, but once the university told me it was now or never, I finished it in 4 months, 2 weeks before the deadline I had set myself for scheduling the defense, and 2 months before the university's deadline. Adams Media gave me a target date for Talk Dirty Yiddish, and even though I needed a couple of short extensions, I had that book written within a couple of months.


I did try to set myself goals - done by Malice Domestic, by Bouchercon, by Crime Bake, now by Sleuthfest - but so far haven't met them. Will I be done before February? Well, I did the dissertation and the Yiddish book in that time period, so, if I can convince myself it's an absolute deadline, maybe I'll find the motivation I need. (A contract from a publisher would be a major incentive ... any offers?)


Rabbi Ilene Schneider, Ed.D.
rabbi.author@yahoo.com
www.rabbiavivacohenmysteries.com
www.facebook.com/rabbi.author
Chanukah Guilt, Swimming Kangaroo Books, 2007
Nominated for Deadly Ink David Award for Best Mystery of 2007
One of 2007's Top Ten Reads, www.myshelf.com
Reviewers Choice Book, December, 2007, Reviewers Bookwatch, www.midwestbookreview.com
Talk Dirty Yiddish: Beyond Drek, Adams Media, 2008
"Such a breezy, engaging book, I should be so lucky to write." -- The Forward, February 20, 2009
END QUOTE
***

Along those lines …


While cleaning up My Documents files, I came across a quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut (author of SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE). In 2005 he was interviewed on the PBS program NOW.


Among other things, he said that “when we've destroyed the last living thing on earth, it would be poetic justice if the earth sent up a message: ‘It's done. People didn't like it here.’ And then he said, “We are here on earth to fart around. What the computer people don't realize is that we are dancing animals.”


I love the image of dancing animals. Maybe he's right. Maybe we should spend less time at the computer, and more time dancing and farting around. What do you think?

Writing Fears

by Jean Henry Mead

The single most important drawback to a writer’s success is fear. Fear of criticism from one’s peers or condemnation from the general public. Fear of negative reviews or of spending a year or more writing a book that doesn’t sell. Fear of hiring an agent who won’t send your book to the right publishers. The list is endless.

Fear is a natural human response, especially when you step off into unknown territory such as a new genre, new publisher, new editor. Even bestselling authors fear losing their readers. So how does a writer overcome those fears?

By believing in your abilities and talents. Persistence or staying power must be a tool in every writer’s bag. Marcel Proust couldn’t finish his epic Remembrance of Things Past until his mother died because he feared hurting her feelings. How many other books have been set aside or never published because writers feared repercussions?

The writing profession kindles fear and involves taking risks but writers have to come to grips with their fears and channel them into their work such as thriller novelists who produce chilling stories for their readers. Writer Greg Lavoy advises fellow scribblers not to ignore fear. “Whatever is suppressed not only has power over you, but will help create obstacles to continually remind you of what you’re hiding from, where you feel you don’t measure up, and whether you don’t have faith in yourself. Success often has as much to do with finding what is standing in your way as with talent or persistence.”

Just as plugging in a night light for those who fear the dark doesn’t eliminate fear of the dark, only the darkness, not sending out submissions to new publishers only eliminates fear of rejection. It also eliminates the ladder to success.

The poet W.H. Auden said, “Believe in your pain. Take it seriously, know that it has meaning and utility, and that it grows a powerful kind of writing.” Unfortunately, most of us will do everything in our power to avoid fear and rejection, so we don’t actually learn from it.

One Writer's Place

By Beth Terrell

Last week, I told you I was going to be spending this past weekend at a writer's workshop near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was really a workshop/retreat at One Writer's Place, founded by bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard. You've probably heard of Jackie. Her first adult novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, released in 1996, was the first Oprah selection. It was made into a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Since then, she's written seven other acclaimed novels for adults, as well as a number of YA and children's books. She wrote the first chapters of that first novel at the Ragdale Foundation retreat, and it was that experience that led her to create a retreat of her own. She credits Ragdale with helping her achieve her dream and wanted to do the same for other writers.

One Writer's Place offers workshops, residencies, and manuscript critiques. The workshops, like the one I attended this past weekend, bring three to four writers together to discuss their work with Jackie and with each other. The master's workshop (the one I attended) was for writers who have a completed manuscript. Before the retreat, I sent a copy of my manuscript to each of the two other participants and another to Jackie. I read the other two manuscripts before I left for the retreat. Then, when we got there, we discussed each person's manuscript in depth. Jackie offers encouragement, but also has a gift for diagnosing a story's weaknesses and seeing what needs to be done to improve it. I went home with pages of notes and three copies of my manuscript complete with notes from Jackie and the other two participants. Jackie has said that most authors submit their manuscripts one edit too soon. Thanks to my weekend at One Writer's Place, I know mine is close to ready. According to the website, One Writer's Place offers six workshops a year, some of which are masters' classes and some of which are for writers whose manuscripts are not complete. There is no way to go through a One Writer's Place workshop and not come out of it a better writer.

One Writer's Place is also available for residencies of from one to three weeks. Residencies are free, except for a $150 cleaning fee for a one week stay ($250 for three weeks). Residencies are open to published and begining writers, but three letters of character reference are required. Application deadlines are June 1 for fall residencies and December 1 for spring residencies.

No time for a three-week jaunt to Cape Cod? No budget for the intensive weekend workshop? Jackie also offers critiques for a limited number of partial and full manuscripts. Each critique includes marked pages, written suggestions and observations, and a 40-minute phone consultation.

Thanks to Jackie Mitchard and her wonderful assistant, Pam English, my weekend at One Writer's Place included three ultra-healthy meals a day, a trip to the bay and another to the Brewster tidal flats, and some of the best writing advice I could have asked for.

Close Doesn't Cut It

By Mark W. Danielson

Airline travel can be interesting. At times, I have to ride in the back to start a trip away from my home base. Recently, I met an interesting man I’ll call Ray on such a flight out of Denver. His story reiterates that everyone has at least one story to tell, and this one’s a doozy. It begins with him flying aboard United Express from Denver to Durango. Unfortunately, his plane never arrived.
Before I delve into his story, I should present two sides of the much debated issue on pilot qualifications. Ray’s incident occurred over thirty years ago, but little has changed within the industry since then. The fact remains that the most experienced pilots fly for the major airlines while the lesser experienced pilots fly commuters, hoping to one day fly for the majors. Co-pilot/first officers with minimal experience must still pass the same check rides as those with the major airlines. Having said that, not all pilots are created equal.

Now, back to the story. At the time, United Express was flying a twin-engine propeller airplane called the Convair 580, which was a solid design and carried approximately sixty people. There were approximately forty people aboard Ray’s flight. En route, the plane developed a fuel problem that affected one of the engines. For whatever reason, the co-pilot never looked up the procedure. Instead, she and the captain winged it, but guessed wrong, which resulted in an engine fire. During the process of mishandling their emergency, the crew shut down the good engine. Soon after, the plane crash-landed in a corn field. Remarkably, no one was killed. Even more remarkable was the flight crew deserted their passengers and escaped through the cockpit windows.

Ray and a fellow co-worker were seated in the very back of the plane, so when the plane came to rest, they opened the rear doors to escape. However, since the nose wheel broke off, the tail was too high to evacuate through these exits. When Ray turned around, he was astonished to see all of the passengers still strapped in their seats as though in a trance. Seeing fuel leaking from the aircraft and fearing the plane would soon burst in flames, Ray and his co-worker took it upon themselves to evacuate everyone from the aircraft. Neither Ray nor his co-worker received any recognition for their efforts. Instead, Ray endured years of pain before he received word that he had broken his back in the crash. It took five years for the airline to reimburse Ray’s company for his injuries. Ironically, the airline’s most damning evidence that won Ray’s law suit was the partial refund he received for his flight. You see, it was pro-rated from Denver to the point short of the original destination, AKA, the cornfield.

Compare this to US Airways Captain “Sully” Sullenberger and his crew who did everything right when they ditched their Airbus in then Hudson River. I’d like to think that every crew would handle an emergency as well. The bottom line is the captain is always responsible for the safety of his/her passengers and crew, regardless of the circumstances. That responsibility comes with wearing four stripes.

Some might want to compare Ray’s experience to the recent commuter crash in Buffalo. In this case, the first officer was relatively new and the captain made some poor decisions. While it is easy to draw parallels between these crashes, every emergency is unique. Following the Buffalo crash, the FAA has been considering numerous rule changes that would reduce pilot fatigue. While I would like to think Ray’s United Express crew did some jail time, the reality is they probably just lost their jobs. It’s also important to realize that millions of people fly every year without incident, thus mishaps such as those I’ve described are extremely rare. These days, pilot jobs are so competitive that weak performance is not tolerated. I wouldn’t hesitate to fly on any commercial airliner, regardless of its size. Having said that, getting people close to their destination doesn’t count as an on-time arrival. Fly safe.

What's Up, Let's Argue About It

By Chester Campbell

Last week my colleague Beth Terrell mentioned the challenges involved in the care and feeding of mystery writers. No one knows that better than my wife, Sarah. We always travel together. At our age, you never know how many trips remain in your life's itinerary. But it does make for interesting travels.

Last weekend we drove to Frankfort, KY for the annual Kentucky Book Fair. We alternate driving about 100 miles at a time. Sarah decided to take the first turn, which was a good thing, since that avoided an early argument. I had set up the destination in our Magellan GPS, but it required a few screen taps to get what I wanted it to show--miles to destination. She objects when I start tapping while I'm driving. Really! It's not like I'm texting.

We usually start a trip with a large cup of our favorite beverage, cappuccino. Not the noisy machine-made stuff you get at a coffee shop but the powder and hot water variety that comes from pushing a button at a convenience market. We make it at home using a large container from Sam's. At any rate, we found a Love's up in southern Kentucky and took a pit stop/cappuccino break. I've had a tooth that's been giving me a fit lately (and is scheduled for a root canal tomorrow), so she had to find me a straw, which I used to keep the hot stuff directed away from the recalcitrant molar. I'm not much of a talker normally, even less with dental dynamite going off in my mouth.

I took the wheel at a rest stop shortly before we turned off I-65 on a segment of the Kentucky Turnpike. When we got back on the interstate, Miss Floosie, the GPS lady, didn't come on so I started punching the screen.

"You drive, I'll do that," Sarah said with her best frown.

We probably have more arguments about my driving than anything. Since I have macular degeneration in my right eye, she thinks I can't see well. I had just been to the ophthalmologist, who said I was doing marvelous, that I was one of two or three patients she had where the AMD apparently was slowed by the effects of severe nearsightedness. So some bad things are good.

But that doesn't give me any free passes with my wife. When I turn too sharply and bump a curb, she says, "Didn't you see that?" Of course, I saw it. I just like to jostle her around a bit.

Eventually we made it to the Frankfort Convention Center and dropped off the books I had brought. I got lots of directions for where I should be turning but didn't.

We stayed at the Capital Plaza Hotel just across from the Convention Center. It was a nice room, and we crashed for a couple of hours before time for the Author Reception at Frankfort Country Club. At this event, we sat at a large round table where more folks gathered. Sarah talked to her neighbor and passed around my promo folders. I mostly nursed my food in an attempt to keep the tooth gremlin at bay. I did talk to a mother-daughter combination on my left, learning the younger one had once lived in Nashville and knew about the Marathon Motor works (subject of The Marathon Murders). Both of them bought books on Saturday.

With my chronic cough affecting my voice and the tooth affecting everything, Sarah came to my rescue during the signing, greeting people who passed the table. When she sold a book, I autographed it with a painted on smile. We wound up selling 33 books, which wasn't bad but under different economic conditions surely would have been better.

The trip back home brought more driving discussions, but we made it safely. I'll have to say my wife is a real trooper. She saves the day when I'm selling books, and she does her best to keep me on my toes. We do a lot of arguing, but it always ends with a laugh. As long as we find our disagreements amusing, I guess we'll be okay. I feel that for a much-traveled mystery writer, I'm well fed and cared for.

Fort Hood Shootings Weaponry

by Ben Small

Pat Browning asked some good questions via email about the Fort Hood shootings: How could so many bullets be fired by one person, and how many bullet hits can a body withstand without perishing?

The reports I've seen indicate that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was carrying an FN Five-Seven pistol and a .357 revolver. All rounds he fired came from the FN, a semi-automatic pistol which fires a 5.7x28mm cartridge, often called "the cop killer," because some forms of the round have been known to pierce a bulletproof vest.

Lee Lofland hit the nail on the head when he said Hasan intended suicide-by-cop. It's a phenomenon we're seeing quite often these days, where someone is too cowardly to pull the trigger on himself, or maybe is hopes to avoid a life insurance suicide exception, so he decides to let someone else do the job for him, and wants to make a public statement at the same time.

I'm sure there will be further investigation as to Hasan's motives, and I'll let the professionals handle that aspect. But I'd like to make a few comments about the cartridge and the gun Hasan used. I don't own one, but know the former CEO of FNH USA, have discussed the pistol with him, and I have friends who own FN Five-Sevens. I've shot them, and plan eventually to own one. This shooting will not deter me. It's an outstanding weapon.

The cartridge fired by the FN Five-Seven is the 5.7x28mm, a cartridge developed originally in the late 1980s for a personal defense weapon, FN's P-90. The cartridge is really more like a rifle cartridge than a pistol cartridge, much like the .22 Hornet. Here are pictures of the 5.7X28 mm cartridge and the standard 9x19mm Parabellum ("9mm) cartridge. The differences are self-evident.



The 5.7x28mm cartridge weighs roughly half as much as a typical 9mm cartridge, allowing extra ammunition to be carried easily. It also produces roughly 30% less recoil, improving control. It's a high velocity cartridge and features a high ballistic co-efficient, which means it's not only fast but accurate. And the lack of recoil means the gun stays on target, allowing for faster follow-up shots. It's a small, very pointed bullet, which means it will sometimes, in some forms, pass through a so-called "bulletproof" vest. That's why some versions are called "the cop-killer. In fairness, however, it should be noted that the armor-piercing version is only offered to the military and law enforcement, not commercial users. The ATF classifies the commercial versions of this round as "not-armor-piercing."

The FN Five-Seven pistol was designed to take advantage of this cartridge's favorable ballistic characteristics, primarily for military and police work, but it's also available commercially. The FN Five-Seven carries twenty rounds in its magazine, conceals well, and eleven round extensions are available, so it's possible to have thirty-one rounds available -- one in the chamber -- with just one magazine. Assume Hasan had extra magazines available and one can understand how some witnesses estimated a hundred rounds were shot in total. Hasan could have had ninety-one rounds available with just three magazines. Add in the shots fired by police, and the total approximates the round estimates from witness statements.

The FN Five-Seven has found more acceptance internationally than in the U.S. Cops and the U.S military don't like the round because of concerns for excess penetration, given the bullet's high speed and small size. One bullet can hit numerous targets. And the pistol has not been popular commercially because of high cost, both for the pistol and the ammunition. Plus, local gun stores don't usually carry the ammo; you'll probably have to order the round over the internet from large ammo dealers like Cabelas, Cheaper Than Dirt or Midway USA.

But to shoot one of these guns is to want one. The combination of low weight, accuracy and magazine count makes this pistol fun at the range. You won't believe how good your target looks. If you're shooting a beer round, make sure you choose this pistol for your turn.

So Hasan was able to put a lot of rounds downrange in a hurry, and with the penetration capabilities of the round, it's very possible numerous targets were hit with just one bullet. On the other hand, since the bullet itself is very small (only forty grains), its lethality is not assured unless a major organ is struck.

Hasan himself was struck several times but lived. How is this possible? Pat asked. Well, it depends on where he was hit and by what. The usual police carry gun is the 9mm or .40 S&W. The standard U.S. military gun is the Beretta, a 9mm pistol. Its adoption in the 80s was controversial, as the 9mm too is a small bullet. A famous shootout in the 80s in Miami between some bank robbers and the FBI left a number of Febs dead or wounded, as their 9mm weapons and some tactical mistakes allowed the wounded bad guys to keep shooting their much higher powered weapons. This event led to the development of the 10mm cartridge, now used almost exclusively by hunters. The 10mm cartridge proved to be too powerful, i.e. too much penetration, so the cartridge was cut down to a smaller size: the .40 S&W cartridge. A 10mm pistol will shoot the .40 S&W cartridge, but a .40 S&W cannot shoot the 10mm cartridge. A 10mm cartridge will not fit in the cylinder of a .40 S&W gun.

I suspect the shooting officer was firing a 9mm Beretta. If she had used a .40 S&W or the even larger .45 acp, it's more likely Hasan would have been incapacitated sooner. A .45 acp round will cause massive damage. It's about mass. Get hit with a .45, and more than likely, your involvement in the shooting is over. Get hit in the arm, and you'll likely lose that arm. The leg, and you'll likely bleed to death. The same cannot be said of the 9mm cartridge. With that cartridge, it's all about placement. No wonder our military don't like the 9mm cartridge; no wonder officers often opt for a .45 acp 1911.

I also don't know if our heroine, Sergeant Munley, was using a fully jacketed round or a hollow point. I'd guess a fully jacketed round, because that's the standard military round, whereas police generally prefer a hollow point bullet because of the risk of collateral damage with a fully jacketed round, which will pass through a human body. But I don't know this, and I could be wrong. Regardless, the lethality of what she was shooting would depend both on the bullet and where Hasan was hit. And those are facts I do not know.

It's interesting to note that Hasan did not shoot his .357 magnum revolver. That's because it only holds five, six or seven rounds, depending on model, and reloading would take awhile even with a speed loader. With the Five-Seven, however, Hasan just drops the mag, slaps in another, racks the slide, and he's back to shooting again. A new mag might take as little as a second-and-a-half to load.

Regardless, please don't forget: Guns don't shoot people; people shoot people. This guy was intent on killing people and having the cops kill him, and he could have chosen any number of means to achieve his purpose. He probably had access to shotguns, flame throwers and other weaponry, and he targeted a place where he could access a number of folks in a short period where they had no ability to escape. I believe I read Hasan also had available a number of Improvised Explosive Devices ("IEDs). He just happened to choose the FN Five-Seven pistol for his malevolence.

Meatballs and Terra Cotta Soldiers

The Great Wall. My husband and I roamed through China in 1989.

By Pat Browning


Making meatballs, thinking about Xi’an. Not that there’s a connection, although the old Silk Road traders probably roasted bits of yak over open fires. They didn’t have grinders to make yak meatballs. Or maybe they did. People were surprisingly clever 2,000 years ago.


National Geographic will exhibit several of Xi’an’s terra cotta soldiers in Washington, D. C. from November through March 31. They’re worth seeing. Aside from their historical value, they are simply beautiful. From The Washington Post:


QUOTE
The discovery of the Terra Cotta Warriors sent thrills through the archaeology community and the complex where they were found is a World Heritage Site, protected forever.


It was in 1974 that a group of farmers, digging a well outside the town of Xi'an in central China, discovered the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, who ruled the country from 221 to 210 B.C. It had been underground for more than 2,000 years. As they excavated, Chinese archaeologists discovered a vault with thousands of figures, including 2,000 soldiers, 100 chariots, 400 horses and 300 cavalry horses. It is estimated that 700,000 workers participated in building the underground complex, an effort that lasted more than 36 years. The warrior sculptures were lined up in formation, arranged to protect the emperor in the afterlife.
END QUOTE


You can read the story and watch a video of the soldiers being unpacked at
http://tinyurl.com/ylje2rx.

This was no dinky project. There’s also the story that those thousands of life-sized soldiers and horses were to fool and discourage any spies who might be snooping from a distance. Probably both stories are true – protection in this world and the next.

Xi'an's terra cotta soldiers, on guard for more than 2,000 years.

So, farmers digging a well in 1974 discovered them. I came along with a tour group 25 years later and saw them in the excavation pits. I was the only one of my tour group to visit the pits. Everyone else was back at the hotel, sick in bed. China is a tough trip.


My husband didn’t stir from bed all day. That night, the front desk sent up two doctors who didn’t speak English. When body language couldn’t make them understand that the patient needed a laxative and was allergic to penicillin, the hotel manager was called to translate. He was from Hong Kong, so he had no problem with English. The tab for consultation and medication was about $26.


By the time we got to Wuxi three days later, several group members went straight to bed. An English-speaking doctor made the rounds, giving injections about every six hours at $5 a pop. According to the doctor, the medicine was “western” for younger patients, and “eastern,” meaning herbs, for older ones.


Whatever it was, it got everyone up and about for three days in Shanghai and the flight home, but just barely. Some of our people were sick for weeks afterward. My only problem was that I smelled that wretched red Chinese sauce all the way from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Other than its famous, or infamous, red sauce, I loved Shanghai.


But Xi’an was the place that captured my imagination. I had a few déjà vu moments. I like to think in another life, Xi’an was my jumping off place for a trip on the old Silk Road. I’m the wandering type. The old Silk Road would have been just my cup of tea. Or yak milk.

Old city wall of Xi'an


As if reading my mind, Google took me to the American Museum of Natural History web site. AMNH recently announced a “Traveling the Silk Road” exhibition Nov. 14-Aug.15, 2010. From the press release:


“This intriguing exhibition brings to life one of the greatest trading routes in human history, showcasing the goods, cultures, and technologies from four representative cities: Xi’an, China’s Tang Dynasty capital; Turfan, a verdant oasis and trading outpost; Samarkand, home of prosperous merchants who thrived on the caravan trade; and Baghdad, a fertile hub of commerce and scholarship that became the intellectual center of the era.”


Ah, Xi’an. I could write a book just on the Jianguo Hotel in Xi’an. It’s doing beautifully now. Its listing on the Internet says:


“Each of the 800 rooms at this 4-star hotel have all the comforts and conveniences of home. Hair dryer, air conditioning, in-room movies, tea/coffeemaker, minibar are among the amenities guests will find in every room. In addition, this property in Xian has cocktail lounge, dry cleaning and laundry, conference rooms, business center, restaurants. For the enjoyment of guests interested in sports or leisure, there are sauna, massage, indoor pool, fitness center on the grounds. Guests seeking that perfect blend of attentive care and modern convenience will find it at this lovely hotel.”


I don’t doubt a word of it, but when we checked in that Easter Sunday of 1989 we waited in the lobby for four hours while they finished our rooms. I use the word “finished” loosely. Upstairs, we found hot water but no electricity. Some toilets didn’t flush. In one room the window had no pane. During our 2-night stay the hammering in our wing seldom stopped. Even so, we loved the hotel because the service was superb. Translation: they waited on us hand and foot.


China is so old, so historic, and so cultured, it sometimes seems as if everything began there. I’ve always wondered about the origin of the American Indian. I lean toward the theory that they came from China, across an ice bridge to the American continent.


But then there’s a language study that has early East Coast Indians speaking with a Portuguese accent. Well, why not? The Portuguese were formidable wayfarers once upon a time. And there are those who believe American Indians are descended from the Lost Tribe of Israel. Will we ever know?


Closer to home tonight, the baked meatballs are delicious. I ate a couple for a bedtime snack, and put the rest in the freezer.

Irish/Italian Leukemia Cure

by Jean Henry Mead

The Emerald Isle has been known for many things, including whiskey, the Blarney stone, poetry and literature. But this week, the online news magazine, Irish Central, announced that researchers at Dublin’s Trinity College, along with colleagues in Belfast and Sienna, Italy, teamed up to develop a cure for a common strain of Leukemia.

The research project, funded by the Irish Cancer Society, has proven that Pyrrolo-1.5-benzoxazepine-15 (PBOX-15) kills previously resistant strains of leukemia. Researchers in Dublin’s neighboring city of Cork also announced that curry can kill esophageal cancer cells, a fact known for years by doctors practicing alternative medicine in this country, much of which is outlawed.

Professor Mark Lawler of the Trinity School of Medicine in Dublin said, “This important discovery is the result of a truly collaborative approach, involving researchers across the different disciplines of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular medicine at TCD, together with our colleagues in Sienna and Belfast. The complimentary expertise allowed us to approach the problem of killing CLL cells from a number of angles.”

Lawler also said that the PBOX-15 drug kills resistant cancer cells by breaking them down and killing them when they become resistant to fludarbine, a chemical most often used to fight leukemia.

John McCormick, head of Ireland’s Cancer Society, said his organization "is proud to have funded this high quality research. The society is the largest voluntary funder of cancer research in Ireland and one of our objectives is to fund researchers that will ultimately develop new and better treatments for cancer patients. . . These findings now need to be brought from the laboratory to the bedside so they will ultimately benefit patients with this common form of leukemia.”

Meanwhile, at the University of Cork, researchers revealed that turmeric, the spice used to make curry, has molecules that kill esophageal cancer cells. They also announced that the chemical curcumin, which is found in turmeric, starts destroying throat cancer cells within the first 24 hours of treatment. Their findings were published recently in the British Journal of Cancer.

Nearly 17,000 cases of esophageal cancer will have been diagnosed in the U.S. by the end of this year and some 14,530 victims will die of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. The number of cases is Ireland averages 350.

Because I’ve lost four members of my immediate family to cancer, I’ve done considerable research of my own. Exercise and deep breathing exercises retard the growth of cancer cells while sugar feeds them. Three cups of green tea daily help to prevent cancer growth as does regular meals containing broccoli, cabbage or cauliflower. Half a cup of low fat cottage cheese as well as daily doses of wheat germ and flax seed sprinkled on cereal or salads have also been known to reduce or prevent cancer cell growth. Blueberries, raspberries and alkaline based drinking water, as opposed to acidic, have also been reported as cancer preventers.

The chemotherapy patient survival rate has been reported variously from 9-20% in this country, so those diagnosed with the disease should do copious research of their own to complement standard methods of treatment.

Love and the Mystery Writer

By Beth Terrell

I'm writing this post from Brewster Massachusetts, very near Cape Cod. I'm here for a writer's weekend workshop. I'll write about the workshop next week, since it doesn't actually start until tomorrow. I bring it up now because, if it weren't for this workshop, I wouldn't have spent the last two days driving from Nashville, Tennessee to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and I wouldn't have gotten a first-hand demonstration of true love in action.

Preparing for a trip like this involves a number of tasks. Do laundry; pack suitcase; make sure manuscript copies are in notebooks and loaded up; read the manuscripts of the other authors; pack a bag to take to the dog trainers' (where they'll be staying while Mike and I are gone); get Mom to take care of the house, cat, and birds; give the animals lots of attention before dropping the dogs off at "Aunt Peg's."

My husband, Mike, is also getting ready for a trip. He and a group of his friends are going to a gaming convention in Gettysburg, stopping at a number of battlefields and museums on the way. But in the midst of preparing for his trip, he took the time to print out maps detailing every step of my route. Not only did he print them, he took them to Kinko's and bound them. He made sure we had AAA memberships and that I had a brochure with all the services listed. He bought me an adapter for my lighter so I can plug in multiple devices at one time. And then he gave me an mp3 player loaded with songs he knew I'd like. When I thanked him, he said, "I'm just trying to make your trip more pleasant."

When I got into the car, one of the first things I did was plug in my GPS ("Daniel"). Mike gave Daniel to me several years ago for our anniversary, and programmed "him" with the British male voice because he thought I'd like that best. He makes sure Daniel's maps are up-to-date so that when I travel, I don't have to worry about getting lost and having to ask for directions.

You'd better believe that, when I got behind the wheel of my little black Honda Accord and plugged in my mp3 player and put the coordinates for the workshop location into Daniel's memory, I was feeling protected, taken care of, and very, very loved.

It's the same way I feel when he drops me off at the front door of a restaurant because it's raining and he doesn't want me to get wet. I don't generally mind getting wet, but it still touches my heart when he does it.

I know the care and feeding of a mystery writer can be challenging sometimes. We spend our "mad" money on writers' workshops and conferences, we need a boatload of reassurance that we do indeed have talent, and--as Ben pointed out after his trip to Croatia--we think of murder at the strangest times.

So I'd like to thank my husband, Mike, for all the many little things he does to show support and love for this mystery writer.

May you all be lucky enough to have someone who'll do the same for you.

Rebuilding is a Chore

By Mark W. Danielson

Many years ago, I built an airplane. Other than the expense, it was a relatively simple task. All it took was following the plans and putting in long hours. Okay; that’s simplifying it a bit, but it wasn’t insurmountable. At the time, I was living in Victorville, California, and every Friday afternoon, I would drive to my hangar in Pomona and work steady until Sunday night. I even slept in the hangar on a roll-away bed. Needless to say, I had no social life, but nothing got done unless I was there doing it.

I completed my bi-plane in July, 1979, and flew it for many years performing air shows and giving passengers their first view of an upside-down world. When I first built this plane, its front cockpit was open with a passenger aboard and covered with a plate for solo flight. After I got married, I thought it would be more comfortable to have a canopy over both cockpits, so I spent a year modifying the plane, building new instrument panels for both cockpits, changing the design of the turtle deck behind the rear cockpit, installing new fuselage fabric, and repainting the airplane. Ironically, my former wife never flew in it after I modified it. I have since sold the airplane and changed wives.

Right now I am in the process of rebuilding a manuscript. I many ways, the course is the same as building and then rebuilding the airplane. My first draft is always the most enjoyable because it’s new and fresh. Then comes the editing, and once I’m finished, my editors have their own take. Thus, the rebuilding phase is nowhere near as enjoyable as scripting it the first time.

One time I got so frustrated building a wing that I stomped around my hangar, desperately searching for something to bash without damaging anything else. I had heard of people destroying their entire projects as a result of a Rube Goldberg chain of events, so I was being careful not to repeat their mistakes. In desperation, I picked up a rubber mallet and slammed it over a sawhorse hoping it would make me feel better. Instead, the head broke off, flipped backwards, and hit another part! Needless to say, my first problem remained unsolved and I created another one because I had lost my temper. Comparing this incident to writing, there are moments when I’ve wanted to delete or shred an entire manuscript, but like my airplane project, I knew that setting it aside and walking away was the better course of action.

Nothing compares to the fulfillment of completing an airplane or manuscript. Both take flight when they are finished, and I’ll always have a sense of satisfaction when looking back. Perseverance is what sees my projects through. As they say, no pain, no gain. I only wish I was good enough to get things right the first time.

Warped

by Ben Small

As some of you know, I just returned from touring Croatia and a bike tour of parts of Slovenia, Italy and Austria. And of course, my mind turned to murder. I don't recall anybody writing a murder mystery involving a bicycle tour, but why not? Seems to me one could develop a story very Agatha Christie-like on a bike tour.

So many methods for the killer to use. He could oil a sharp turn on a downhill switch-back. Or she could reach down and thrust a stick or rod between someone's spokes. Or he/she could bat someone across the bean while passing.

Great. Now I'll be thinking about bike-murder all day...

Consider this: We had eleven people in our twenty person bike tour (not including two guides) who were part of one group from Ormond Beach, FL. Who knows the relationship these folks had before the trip? Maybe one has been cheating with another one's wife or husband. Maybe two of them are related and there's a will contest going on. Maybe one is the parent of a child arrested because of drugs supplied by another tour member. Whatever. These folks knew each other before the bike tour, and they'd had interactive lives.

What a chance for murder.

Just try to account for twenty people on a bike tour. Who's where at any time? Folks ride in different groups, and mix it up after rest stops or meals. Trying later to reconstruct who was with whom and when would be difficult -- again, just like an Agatha Christie murder.

Riding on paved or hard-pack gravel trails in beautiful valleys underneath the Julian Alps is a dreamlike journey. The air is crisp and cool, fresh, and spirits are high. The heart is pounding and the muscles are burning. Who's paying attention to details? Oops, somebody missed a turn. Okay. We'll catch them later. Or will we? What if they don't come back? What if somebody bumped 'em off at the last turn?

Okay, I'm sick. But so are you. C'mon, admit it. You go places and think about murder too, don't you?

Don't be surprised if there's a bike in my next book...

Robert Fate: Making His Own Luck, Part 2

Robert Fate’s photo from his web site.




By Pat Browning


BABY SHARK’S JUGGLERS AT THE BORDER by Robert Fate, fourth in the series, is now in bookstores.


This time we get into Otis’s story, when his estranged wife, Dixie, is murdered. Despite gunfire and body count, an underlying theme in the Baby Shark books is love and loss. Dixie is a major character in JUGGLERS, even though we only know her through others. I can’t say more without giving away the plot, but this book has the best last line since “Nobody’s perfect,” Joe E. Brown’s famous parting shot in the movie “Some Like It Hot.”


In a letter to his “buds from the old days in Oklahoma,” Robert Fate (Bealmear) talks about his career, and the realities of publishing and promotion.


***
QUOTE
I have had some questions asked about the crime series that I write, how did I get the writing thing started? How hard was it to get published? How does it all work? ––that sort of stuff. So, here are some answers to some of the questions about what happened after I turned 70 and wrote a novel. Hit delete when you get bored.


I chose to use my middle name as a pen name, since (admit it) most can’t spell my last name and were never sure how to pronounce it. So, Robert Fate writes the books.


What were the odds that if I wrote a book I would ever get it published? Here is what Colin Cotterill, a writer I admire, had to say about getting published: “Go into a bookshop, any bookshop, and count the number of writers you've heard of. Subtract this from the estimated number of books in the store. Then multiply that number by 100,000, because that's the number of people out there who are trying to get published.

Granted, there's a large percentage that can't write to save their lives, but there are many thousands of great writers who can't get their work in front of a publisher.

So, not getting published isn't such a big deal. Write for yourself. Write for your friends. Put stuff on the Internet. But don't shoot yourself if you can't get published.”


BABY SHARK by Robert Fate
Book one in the Baby Shark series was published in September 2006. It was an Anthony Award finalist at Bouchercon 2007, and was optioned by the producer Brad Wyman in the spring of 2008 to become a motion picture. A screenplay adapted from the book is scheduled to be in production by mid-2010.


Book one took eighteen months to write. It got over sixty rejections before a small publishing house in Colorado picked it up. That publisher is Capital Crime Press. The way that happened was I met the senior editor at a social event in L.A., we hit if off, and he agreed to read the manuscript. He liked it. We struck a deal.


Some who rejected the book told me to give up writing, since I wasn’t going anywhere. It may have been good advice––the jury is still out.


My publisher told me recently that book one would go into a second edition by next spring. To give you some perspective. The largest number of books I have ever sold at a single bookstore signing is 84. I did that once. At a number of signings over the years, I’ve sold 50 to 60 books. However, it is also not uncommon for me to sell only 5 or 6 at a signing. I followed the author Michael Connelly at a bookstore where I was delighted to have sold 20 books.

A couple of hours before I got there, Michael signed 150. He signed at two other stores that day and sold an equal number of books at those venues, as well. The thriller writer Lee Child told me he sold a book every six minutes somewhere in the world. So, these are numbers to shoot for, but a lot of books have to get written and a lot of readers have to like reading you before that can happen. That is one reason it would have made more sense to start this effort at a younger age––ah, hindsight.


Baby Shark’s BEAUMONT BLUES --
Book two in the series was published May 2007. It was an Anthony Award finalist at Bouchercon 2008, and was given a Starred Review in Library Journal.

Here’s the scoop on the Anthony Award – it is given out yearly at Bouchercon, the largest fan-based mystery convention in the U.S. – several thousand mystery readers and a hundred or so mystery writers (some big names, too) attend these happy events. It is scary how seriously these readers take their mysteries. They can make or break a crime writer.

The convention moves from city to city, i.e., Indianapolis, Baltimore, Madison, Chicago, etc. Hundreds of titles are nominated, five are chosen as finalists in each of the different categories. Because I was totally a new guy, it was a stunner to even be considered, and an honor to be a finalist.


Here is what a starred review means – librarians and bookstore managers and owners are buried in book reviews, hundreds a month come at them––nonstop, month after month, so stars are a way for the reviewers to help the buyers choose the reviews to read.

The four big reviewers are Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. They have reputations, cannot be bought, and are careful when they award stars because they know they influence purchases. This doesn’t mean other reviews are chopped liver––all reviews are important, but these four are the big kahunas. So, a starred review from Library Journal for book two was huge. Just to prove the point, Baby Shark’s library sales jumped after the review was released.

Here is that review –

Library Journal - Starred Review
“P.I. Kristin Van Dijk charges through her second entry (after Baby Shark) in this tremendously satisfying glimpse into the underside of 1950s Dallas/Ft. Worth. She and mentor-partner Otis Millett have been hired to find kidnapped teen oil-heiress Sherry Beasley, who needs to be kept safe until her upcoming 18th birthday. They retrieve her once, along with lots of cash, but free-spirit Sherry escapes almost immediately.

Unfortunately, crime boss Vahaska and his entourage of unsavory characters desperately want to find Sherry since she witnessed a double murder. Moving adeptly from pool halls into the ritziest hotel in Dallas, Otis and Kristin keep asking themselves whose money is in their safe and how it ended up in a remote farmhouse.

Mix in a few dead bodies and an attractive detective from the Dallas PD, and you've got one hot little crime story. Fate's witty dialog, colorful characters, and nonstop action make this pulp-style piece sparkle. Let's hope for more in this series. Highly recommended.”
—Teresa L. Jacobsen, Solano Co. Library, CA

It took less than a year to write Beaumont Blues (It got written while I was waiting for something to happen with book one) and by the time I was finished with it, book one was appearing on many top ten lists, real reviews were appearing on Amazon that hadn’t been written by my friends and relatives, and my publisher was happy with me.

A writer’s first book can often be a fluke, so the second book is important in establishing a readership. I was fortunate––it passed the test.


Now readers of the series were waiting for book three. It was tiny, tiny, tiny, but I had a readership. The names Baby Shark and Robert Fate were starting to be recognized among the fans of crime fiction. I had been writing novels for about four years at this point, and had been published for two years.


Baby Shark’s HIGH PLAINS REDEMPTION --
Book three in the series took a year to write, was published in May 2008, and received a Starred Review from Kirkus (a tough reviewer) – here’s how that went: The publisher phoned me from Colorado and said that Kirkus had reviewed High Plains. I was surprised the reviewer knew my books. I said I didn’t want to hear it, because Kirkus is often so hard on authors, especially new guys.

My publisher said, No, wait. It’s a starred review. Sure, I said, and since he is not above pulling a writer’s tail, I remained unconvinced. But he finally got me to listen and it was close to walking on air. A good Kirkus review is major news, especially for a nobody writer with a small readership.

A review from Kirkus with a star next to it is golden. It was after Kirkus that publishers in Japan and France got in touch concerning foreign sales possibilities. Nothing yet, but maybe, one of these days…

KIRKUS – Starred Review
“Baby Shark's in a sea of troubles involving bootleggers, racketeers, crooked politicians, a wounded partner, a cooling romance and hordes of hit men out to do her in.

Kristin Van Dijk and Otis Millett, partners in a Fort Worth private investigation agency, don't much like the gig because neither of them much likes their client Travis Horner. But when big Otis indicates that he has a reason for taking it on, Kristin, aka Baby Shark-a renowned pool hustler from a young age-stifles her protests.

Otis's reason, she soon learns, is gorgeous Savannah Smike, who might not be all there mentally but is fully present from the neck down. She hasn't exactly been kidnapped, Horner tells Otis while handing him a bag of ransom money, but the bad guys are keeping her in her underwear. It turns out, of course, that Horner is a lying scalawag and that Otis and Baby Shark have been set up. After Otis goes down with bullets in his chest, Baby Shark's outnumbered by a whole mess of murderers.

Not that there's ever any real doubt that this smart, tough, endlessly cool platinum blonde will be able to cope. Love her or hate her, everyone knows Baby Shark is lethal. A lively addition to a highly diverting series.”

The first two books in the series had garnered reviews from two of the four big reviewers.
So far so good.


And then Baby Shark got a boost up from an unexpected quarter. A well-known, award-winning, mid-level writer with a big time NY publisher surprised me by writing a letter of recommendation for book three to the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

She and her husband had read my books, and were fans. That author was Julia Spencer-Fleming. The complete letter is at robertfate.com if you’re crazy to see it all. Here’s a taste of it:

“High Plains Redemption is a hugely entertaining pulp-style masterpiece for today's reader. With bootlegging, billiards, Buicks and babes, this unique series is a blue-ribbon trip down memory lane. Fate is a unique storyteller. Who else would have penned a young, blonde, female protagonist in post-WWII Texas? Fate's style is modern, spare, propulsive, almost a screenplay. I loved the tough, oh-so-human heroine. My husband loved the twangy Badlands sensibility.”

A couple of other writers weighed in, so now the series was getting praise from other authors, my contemporaries –– well, maybe they aren’t as ancient as I am, but from a new direction anyway ––check your hat size, my wife wisely cautioned me.

And the truth was, I was still an invisible writer with a small (but growing) readership. “Who?” They say at Barnes & Noble. “We can order that for you.” Ah, to just be on the shelves––is that too much to ask?

Actually, they do show up now and again––a fellow in New Zealand who had read the series said the library in his town had put stars on the covers to signify the staff recommended them. Holy smokes! New Zealand!

Baby Shark’s JUGGLERS AT THE BORDER –
Book four in the series was published in October 2009. It took a year to write, and has gotten early reviews from the two remaining ‘big four’ reviewers:

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review
“At the start of Fate's masterful fourth 1950s PI novel (after 2008's Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption)¸ Kristin Van Dijk, who's been tied up in a farmhouse by two silver thieves she was tracking, manages to free herself and take out a killer, later identified as a sociopathic felon, who a little earlier showed up and gunned down the two thieves, unaware of her presence. Meanwhile, word reaches Kristin's partner, Otis Millett, that his ex-wife, Dixie Logan, a former stripper known as the Dallas Firecracker, has been murdered.

Dixie's last job was at a bank in Mesquite, Texas that had been held up a few weeks before and her body was found with that of a man who may have been one of the robbers. Kristin, a hard-as-nails heroine who's completely credible, and Otis dedicate themselves to solving Dixie's murder and sorting out whether she colluded in the bank theft. The pages will speed by for readers who enjoy gritty crime tales with plenty of flying bullets.”


Booklist – Starred Review
“With her pool-hustling career gathering dust like the parched Texas border towns where she was raised, Baby Shark, aka Kristin Van Dijk, is now a full-time private eye. The year is 1958, and the case is personal. The estranged, ex-stripper wife of Baby Shark's partner, Otis Millett, has been murdered. But her’s will not be the only bullet-riddled corpse to dot these pages. The violence seems to be centered on a series of successful big money bank robberies and a lunatic mastermind with little interest in splitting the take.

Cutting a deal with Fort Worth police detective Carl Lynch, Baby Shark and Otis talk their way into participating in the investigation—as bait. But Baby Shark Van Dijk is bait that bites back, while Otis covers her play with guns blazing. Fate fills his novels with verisimilitude; we smell the unfiltered smokes while jukeboxes play old songs that somehow feel brand new.

With book four in this gritty series (following Baby Shark’s High Plains Redemption, 2008), Fate again jacks pulp fiction up a notch or three beyond the old Black Mask formulas. Hard-boiled just doesn’t get much better than Baby Shark spinning another .38-caliber tale. — Elliott Swanson”

So now I’m writing book five, a stand-alone (not in the Baby Shark series). It’s a contemporary noir, 3rd person with a male protagonist. I call it Kill The Gigolo. It will be published in the fall of 2010. I will be 75 (won’t we all) and wondering why I didn’t start this particular adventure much earlier. Well, anyway.


In the fall of 2011, book six (five in the BShark series) will be published unless my readership has gone from tiny to miniscule and my publisher no longer likes me. We’ll see.

So far, from year to year, the readership for the series has grown. Maybe, when the movie Baby Shark comes out, that will encourage sales even more.
END QUOTE
***


Special Note: The first 3 of Robert Fate’s books are available on Kindle. And speaking of Kindle -- Amazon has announced that in November it will offer free software so that Kindle books can be downloaded as pdf files and read on PCs. One disadvantage is that you have to sit at your PC to read a book, but I’ve read several books recently as downloads. I’m surprised by how easy it is. – Pat Browning