Paul Levine Grills Jake Lassiter, Gets Punched Out

StateVsLassiter_FINAL COVER 8-24I invited my friend, bestselling author Paul Levine, to write a guest blog about his new book, “State vs. Lassiter,” tenth in his acclaimed series about the former linebacker who became a night school Miami lawyer of dubious ethics.  Professing to be too lazy to do a blog item, Paul instead interviewed his protagonist with predictably hilarious results.

 Paul:  You look like you’re still in shape to play for the Miami Dolphins.  How do you do it?

Jake:  Being fictional helps.  By the way, you look like pelican crap. 

Paul:  You’re just peeved because I got you indicted for murder in the new book.

Jake:  I don’t get “peeved.”  I get pissed, and when I do, someone gets decked.

Paul:  Let me ask you a tough question.

Jake:  Take your best shot, scribbler.

Paul:   You’ve been called many things.  “Shyster.”  “Mouthpiece.”  “Shark.”

Jake: Careful, pal.  They don’t call me a shark for my ability to swim.

Paul:   But murderer?

Jake: I’m not bad.  You just write me that way.

Paul:   Okay, in “State vs. Lassiter,”  your client’s money goes missing…

Jake: I never stole from a client, bribed a judge, or threatened a witness, and until this    bum rap, the only time I was arrested, it was a case of mistaken identity.

Paul:   How’s that?

Jake: I didn’t know the guy I hit was a cop.

Paul:   Okay, at the start of the book, you’re having an affair with a beautiful woman who  also happens to be your banker.

Jake: So sue me.  Women think I look like a young Harrison Ford.

Paul:   One keystroke, I’ll turn you into an old Henry Ford.  You and your lady are having a fancy dinner on Miami Beach.  She threatens to turn you in for skimming client funds, and next thing we know, she’s dead…in your hotel suite at the Fontainebleau.

Jake: Is there a question in there, counselor?

Paul:   What happened?

Jake: I take the Fifth.  Every heard of it?

Paul:   You go on trial for murder.

Jake: Hold your horses.  No spoilers!

Paul:   “Hold your horses?”  What are you, an extra in “Gunsmoke?”

Jake: Sorry if I’m not hip enough for you, scribbler.  You won’t find my mug on  Facebook.  I don’t have a life coach, an aroma therapist, or a yoga instructor, and I don’t do Pilates.

Paul:   So you’re not trendy.  You’re not a Yuppie.

Jake:  I’m a carnivore among vegans, a brew and burger guy in a Chardonnay and paté world. 

Paul:   You’re a throwback, then?

Jake:  If that’s what you call someone with old friends, old habits, and old values.

Paul:   May I quote one of the five-star reviews on Amazon.com?

Jake:  Do I have a choice?

Paul:   “Blend the wit of Carl Hiaasen with the dialogue of Elmore Leonard and throw in John Grisham’s courtroom skills, and you have Jake Lassiter.”

Jake:  Makes me wish one of those guys was writing me.

Paul:   Bring us up to date.  You first appeared in “To Speak for the Dead” in 1990.

Jake:  Yeah, and they made a TV movie a few years later with Gerald McRaney.  My ass is better looking than him.

Paul:   Who should play you in a movie?

 Jake:  Easy.  The Duke.

Paul:   John Wayne?  You’re kidding.

Jake:  “I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on.”  Sort of sums it up, don’t it?

Paul:   “State vs. Lassiter” is your tenth book.  But you’re facing life in prison.  Is this the end?

Jake:  Not entirely up to me, is it scribbler?

Paul:   I’m thinking it’s time you hang up your shingle, no matter what happens in the trial.

Jake: (Reaches across the table and pops Paul with a left jab.  Ka-pow!). 

Paul:   Ouch!  What the hell!

Jake:  What’s the matter, noodle neck?  You don’t think I’d be a good jailhouse lawyer?

(“State vs. Lassiter” is available in paperback at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and as an e-book exclusively at Amazon Kindle.  More information on Paul Levine’s Website.)

 

The Mail I Get – Requests Edition

jennifer_anistons_house_is_a_finally_a_homeI constantly get requests from readers to send them things — mostly free books and signed photos. Here are two recent, odd examples (the names and other identifying info has been changed to spare the senders embarrassment):

Please send me a couple of your business cards signed and an autograph photo to XYZ . Could you please sign them to XYZ and date them? Well I will tell you a little about myself. I hope to one day to have a successful career in politics. I have four dogs named W, X, Y and Z. My favorite school subjects are History and Political Science. I was born in New York State…

I don’t know why he’d want a signed business card…or why knowing about his pets and the subjects he likes in school would convince me to accept his request. Then again, his request is a lot more reasonable than this one:

Can you please send me a picture of your home and car? I collect these pictures so I know how the authors that I read live and so I can picture it.

I can’t imagine there are many authors who have sent her pictures. But I’ve asked. And in the mean time, I’ve sent her a picture of Jennifer Aniston’s house and the Batmobile.

The Mail I Get – Awesome, Outstanding, Astounding Edition

I got this email the other day…

I read a few of your reviews and I admire your candour.

I am searching for reviewers for my Kindle books and I am finding this extremely difficult.

I am a Beauty therapy mentor from Europe and I wondered if you have any suggestions.

I have no idea what a “beauty therapy mentor” is, so I checked out her Amazon author page, where it says that she is “a former therapist and an outstanding tutor,”  that “doctors are impressed with her astounding knowledge,” and that she is “an understanding person with great insight” who is  “an inspiration to all therapists” because she possesses “deep insight into health and client care” and demonstrates “her outstanding talent through the books she has written.” She forgot to mention her awesome, outstanding, and astounding modesty. But after reading all of that, I don’t know what praise a critic could give her that she hasn’t heaped on herself. Maybe that’s why she is having a hard time finding reviewers…

Report from Bouchercon Albany

Joel Goldman, Lee Goldberg, Jeffery Deaver at Bouchercon Albany
Joel Goldman, Lee Goldberg, Jeffery Deaver at Bouchercon Albany

The success of a Bouchercon has less to do with the venue, and the organization of the conference, than with the collective vibe of the people who attend…which is a good thing, because this was the worst location, and the most poorly organized, Bouchercon I’ve ever been to. That said, the people were great and I had an absolutely terrific time.

So let’s start with the good part. I’m long past attending the Bouchercons for the panels or the special guests…I rarely go to any panels or interviews anymore. I go to Bouchercon to see old friends, to get introduced to new authors and new books, to meet with my editors and executives from the publishing companies that I work for, to buy books, to talk shop, and to pick up the latest news in my little corner of the industry. I spend almost all of my time in the book room, or in the corridors of the conference center, or going to parties, or hanging out for hours in the hotel bar, talking with editors, authors, readers and booksellers. I usually come away from the event re-energized, full of new ideas, and armed with a fresh understanding of the marketplace. All of that happened this time.

What I like best is when I bump into people I’ve long admired but have never met…like Dexter producer Clyde Phillips and Law & Order SVU writer Jonathan Greene… or have a chance encounter with authors I’ve never met before that leads to long and interesting conversations….and that happened with Chris Povone and Jamie Mason, among others…or get to meet enthusiastic readers of my books…and I met many of them. I was especially thrilled to hear how much they liked The Heist. What really surprised me was how many of those fans were men.

I chatted with scores of authors, including Sue Grafton, Harlan Coben, Joseph FinderAlison Gaylin, Zoe Sharp,, Roger Hobbs, Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, Matt Hilton,  John Lawton, Lisa Lutz, Dick Lochte, Hannah Dennison, and Hy Conrad, to name just a few. The big topics of conversation, of course, revolved around the massive changes in the publishing industry…all prompted by the big elephant in the room: Amazon.

Kentucky Colonels Sue Grafton and Lee Goldberg at Bouchercon
Kentucky Colonels Sue Grafton and Lee Goldberg at Bouchercon

And Amazon was there in force… at least in terms of the editors from Amazon Publishing and their many authors in attendance, among them my friends Kendra Elliot, Melinda Leigh, 2013 Anthony award winner Johnny Shaw, John Rector, 2013 Anthony Award winner Dana CameronSean Chercover, Joel Goldman, Max Allan Collins, and Helen Smith. But Amazon was also strongly represented by the many professional authors and attendees who are using KDP, their self-publishing platform, to republish their out-of-print backlists (in the case of the pros) as well as new books (in the case of pros and “newbies” alike), a list that includes big names like Lawrence Block, as well as lesser known, but successful, authors like Stacey Cochran.

There’s no question that the explosion of self-publishing, the emergence of Amazon’s imprints (two of their Thomas & Mecer authors scored Anthonys for best novel and best short story), and the Kindle device have changed everything…and authors trying to figure out where they fit in, where the best opportunities are, where the pitfalls are, and how all of this changes their approach to both the business and craft of writing. The big takeaway is that this is an exciting time to be a novelist…perhaps the best ever. Authors have choices they never had before, especially those of us who have been at this a while. But what about new authors? What is the path to success in this rapidly changing landscape? Where do agents fit into it all now? All of that is far less clear…at least from the vantage point of the Albany convention center last weekend.

Look closely and you'll see John Saxon running from the lesbian overlords of future earth...
Look closely and you’ll see John Saxon running from the lesbian overlords of future earth…

Which brings me to the venue, which had all the charm of a bus station men’s room, minus the urinals. The windowless pit was buried beneath the Empire State Plaza, which looked like a matte painting from a busted, 1970s Gene Roddenberry sf pilot. Finding your way into that bleak pit required a sherpa… or directions from one of the many crack addicts, toothless meth-heads, smelly panhandlers or opportunistic drug dealers on the streets surrounding the far-flung hotels where everybody had to stay (the convention center was virtually inaccessible for the handicapped). The conference rooms where the panels were held had terrible accoustics and the ambiance of police interrogation cells. The only author who probably felt at home in them was Marcia Clark.

Because bleak, destitute downtown Albany revolves around government workers, everything shuts down early in the afternoon and is closed up on weekends…those few places that already boarded up or out-of-business… meaning there was no place to eat on Saturday and Sunday….unless you wanted to wander into crack alley for a soggy burger or go back to the understaffed, woefully unprepared Hilton Albany, the nearest hotel…where even if you got served, it was a crapshoot whether inedible meal that was delivered was the one you actually ordered. The bar was even worse.

What were the Bouchercon organizers thinking when they picked this shithole? Who knows. But I can tell you this, Long Beach next year will be a big improvement…and I’ve already booked my tickets.

The Mail I Get – Tie-In Edition

Tied In

Tied InI got two very similar emails today asking, basically, the same question about tie-ins. Here they are:

I’m seeking guidance on writing a novel series for a past TV franchise that continues to hold a loyal fan base.  You had accessibility to writing the Monk novels from your freelance work on the show and your established relationship with the creator.  Any suggestions on who would be the appropriate contact to query regarding rights from a past dramedy for which I am interested in writing a novel series?  Would it be the creator via his agent or someone else?

And here’s the other one:

wanted to let you know that lately I’ve read several of your Monk novels and have enjoyed them greatly. I wanted to ask you how would someone approach studios regarding writing novels based on existing shows? I’ve a Doctor Who novel and was wondering if you had any pointers on how I should approach publishers. Who do I approach – do I approach BBC Books direct or do I approach the TV company, copyright holders?

The simple answer is that, in most cases, TV tie-in books are publisher-generated and do not come about because of an author’s interest in the property. The way it usually works is that either the rights-holder (usually a studio) with a hot series property auctions the publishing rights to the highest bidder…or a publisher approaches the rights-holder (usually through the licensing department of a studio) about licensing the publishing rights to a property. Either way, the publisher will pay the rights-holder a license fee as well as a percentage of the sales. The rights-holder also maintains creative control of the project and provides photos, logos, and other marketing materials related to the show. Once the rights are secured, the publisher then seeks out authors to write the tie-in books…usually going to established professional writers who they know can work within tight guidelines and deliver a strong, clean manuscript in very little time.

As unproven authors, you really have nothing to offer the rights-holders of a classic, or hit, TV series that would motivate them to license the novel rights to you. If a publisher is already producing books in a tie-in series…like, say, STAR TREK or DOCTOR WHO, you could contact the editor and pitch yourself as someone to consider to write one of the books, but the chances of that approach succeeding are, to be blunt, nil.

So the bottom line is there’s really no way for you to interest a studio in letting you write novels based on one of their shows unless you approach them with a publisher attached…or you are already a big name in your own right and having you attached to the book would guarantee significant sales and publicity. You can learn more about tie-in writing, and how the tie-in biz works by reading Tied In: The Business, History and Craft of Media Tie-in Writing

The Mail I Get

This email is the opposite of a persuasive pitch:

I bought one of your “Monk” books and your mother’s book.  I don’t honestly know why I kinda like you, but I do. […]My new book is historical fiction about a little town in Kansas next to a Pawnee Indian reservation and the things that happen to the people who live there.  The year is 1875.  So I had to do a lot of research.  It’s an easy read and I think you’d like it.  It’s only $1.99 on Kindle.  Sooo, if you are bored between 1:00 a,m, and 3:00 a,m, or are stuck on an airplane, it’s a good read.

Connie

Here are a few useful tips if you want me to read your book, Connie. Don’t think that because you bought my book (or my mother’s) that I feel any obligation to read yours. Don’t imply you can barely tolerate my existence. Don’t say that the main reasons for reading your book are that you worked hard on it, it’s cheap and it beats being bored on a sleepless night. And, finally, don’t expect me to read it if you neglect to include both your full name and the title of your book in the email.

UPDATE:  I’ve heard back from Connie:

Don’t think that because you are a published writer you have the right to be rude. winnie-connie-a-neal-paperback-cover-art The name of my book was in the subject line of the email.  You can be assured I’ll never purchase another one of your books.  And, the one you wrote with Janet is boring.  You need to find a sense of humor somewhere.  In no way was I implying that you should read my book because I read yours.  My email threw you, didn’t it?  I believe you have taken on Monk’s personality – close minded and degrading.  Please do not read my book –  It’s much too clever for you.

She’s right about one thing — the title was in the subject line. My bad. Sorry about that. The book is Winnie (Life in 1875). So I took a look at it. The cover looks like an ad for Excedrin, but I don’t think they had that medication in 1875, though judging by the writing in the sample, you will need a bottle if you decide to read the book. I’m sorry, was that rude?

The Unsung Pros of Crime Novels and Westerns

Robert VaughanThere are scores of professional writers out there who are incredibly prolific, sell huge numbers of crime novels and westerns, and yet are virtually unknown. One of those writers is Robert Vaughan, who has sold 40 million books, mostly westerns. He was interviewed about his under-the-radar career recently and he’s pretty frank about his lack of celebrity.

I have written well over 400 books. If I had written every one of those books under my own name, Robert Vaughan would be a name that is immediately recognized. I would have established something of value that my survivors could capitalize on after I die…(such as I am doing for others now….continuing the name of a deceased author for the benefit of his survivors). Don’t get me wrong. I am also benefiting from this name….but with this author….and with two others, I have had seven books make it onto the NYT best seller list. Two novels, LOVE’S BOLD JOURNEY, and LOVE’S SWEET AGONY, which I wrote as Patricia Matthews, made number one on the list. In 1981, I sold 6 million books. In my life time, I have probably sold 40 million books, but nobody knows who I am.

But I bet he didn’t really have a choice. Like many writers, me included, he probably took the jobs that came along to pay the bills (do you think I wanted  to write for The New Adventures of Flipper or Baywatch?) and didn’t necessarily take a long-range view of what the cumulative effect might be on his career.

I have enormous respect for authors like Vaughan. They are true craftsman, and don’t get nearly the attention, or financial compensation, that they deserve for their crimes novels and westerns. I’m talking about pros like James Reasoner, Mel Odom, Bill Crider, Robert Randisi, Ed Gorman, Raymond Obstfeld, Mike Newton, Chet Cunningham, Donald Bain, to name a few… guys who can write just about anything in any genre…thrillers novels, crime novels, western novels, romance novels and do it well.  And who have ghost-written scores of books, or toiled under house names (a pseudonym created by a publisher or book packager for a novel or series of books), while others repeated the lion’s share of profits from their efforts. A few such writers have emerged from the shadows into wide popularity… guys like Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, John Harvey, and John Jakes… but most toil in obscurity, writing sometimes hundreds of books in virtual anonymity as “work-for-hire” authors.

But I believe that is finally changing, thanks to Amazon and the e-book revolution. There has been a massive shift in the economics of publishing, and it’s increasingly becoming financially impractical for a prolific, self-starting professional author to toil in the “work-for-hire” field,  where you don’t own the copyright, advances can be as low as $3000, and royalties as pitiful as 1 or 2%…if you get any at all.  When-Hell-Came-To-Texas-183x300

More and more writers who used to live on work-for-hire gigs are now turning to self-publishing…which offers them the opportunity to own their books, make more money, and become known for their work. For example, Crider, Odom and Reasoner are writing and publishing the Rancho Diablo westerns… just the kind of “house name” series they used to toil on as anonymously “work-for-hire” writers with no ownership stake.

Vaughan, meanwhile, has a new western out under his own name (When Hell Came to Texas) and is also writing romances for Pocket Books with his wife Ruth under the pen-name “Sara Luck.”

And though the Sara Luck books don’t have my name, Ruth and I at least own the name.

And that means something.

 

A Calculated Book on a Calculated Life

ACalculatedLifeAuthor Anne Charnock is a former journalist for such publications as The Guardian, New Scientist, Financial Times, and International Herald Tribune who self-published her first novel, “A Calculated Life” at the end of 2012. It sold so well, and garnered so much acclaim, that Amazon’s 47North imprint quickly snapped it up and is releasing a new edition on Tuesday, rushing it through the editing/production process in less than two months. I had to know more about this book…and a story that people found so immediately captivating…so I invited her here to tell us about it.

My attention is always grabbed by a book that asks, “what if?” So I’m delighted to see that Lee’s thriller “The Walk” ventures into this territory with the question: What if The Big One were to occur and someone had to walk home across a landscape of destruction? That is, what would happen if an apocalyptic earthquake ripped along the San Andreas Fault and demolished Los Angeles?

My debut novel, “A Calculated Life,” is a “what if’ novel, though the starting point is not a catastrophe. Instead, I imagine humanity walking (or sleepwalking) into a new world where genetic tinkering at birth has freed society from addictions – from drugs, alcohol, gambling, everything. No addictive tendencies means virtually no crime. Sadly, life in this near-future world is not all rosy. The population is now compliant and segregated so that high achievers live in the inner cities and suburbs, while menial workers live in subsidized but spartan enclaves.

Although my story is classed as science fiction it gradually morphs into a thriller. One reader told me there are “blink and you’ll miss it” moments. He’s referring to the clues I lay in the book that explain the final outcome. So my worst fear is that readers who skim through their novels will miss these key bits of information! Maybe this is a worry for all authors of mysteries, thrillers and whodunits.

Jayna, my main character, is hyper-intelligent and she’s a star performer at a top corporation that forecasts economic and social trends. A string of events contradicts her forecasts, and she suspects she needs better intuition and more contact with the rest of society. The reader follows her journey as she stumbles into a world where her IQ is increasingly irrelevant… a place where human relationships are difficult for her to decode. And along this journey she crosses the line into corporate intrigue and disloyalty.

In effect, I prompt Jayna herself to ask the question, “what if?” by placing her in  awkward social situations and by making her confront the fact that she’s making mistakes. She starts to look more critically at her privileged yet restricted life and it dawns on her that there are attractions to living life in a different way, on the margins. Jayna is not the only character who is dissatisfied – maybe the grass is always greener on the other side.

“The Walk” is set in the immediate aftermath of The Big One and dramatic events occur in frightening and quick succession. In my novel, I imagine society taking a slow walk into a new genetically engineered future, but the impact in the long term could be as seismic as any earthquake.

 

Finding Havana Lost

The Chicago Tribune hailed my friend Libby Fischer Hellmann’s new novel HAVANA LOST as her “most ambitious book, a sprawling novel that spans more than six decades and a number of countries and comes peppered with passions, love affairs, kidnappings, conspiracies, CIA and Outfit thugs, and, naturally, a pile of dead bodies.” Sounds great, doesn’t it? So I asked Libby to tell me how this book came about… 

FINALHLebook-245x369I was talking to my sister on the phone after I finished A BITTER VEIL. I was already about 60 pages into my next Georgia Davis thriller, but something was preventing me from investing in it. I considered writing a World War Two thriller—I’m continually drawn to periods of extreme conflict in which some people are heroes, others cowards, and you never knew whom to trust. Unfortunately, I realized there was probably nothing I could write about World War Two that hasn’t been done better by someone else.

Our phone conversation turned to other time periods and settings of extreme conflict, and my sister brought up Cuba. As soon as she mentioned it, I started to get that itch—the kind of itch that can only be scratched by diving into a subject. We both remembered how my parents flew down to gamble in Havana. This was when Batista was still in power. I must have only been about 6 or 7, but I remember being jealous that they were going to a foreign country and culture. I wanted to go. Of course, they didn’t take me.

A few years later Fidel took over and Cuba was suddenly off limits to Americans. Soon afterwards it turned Communist, and Communism was our enemy! Because of that, Cuba seemed even more mysterious and exotic, and I wanted to know more about it. A year later, of course, came the Bay of Pigs, followed fifteen months later by the Cuban Missile Crisis, both of which made Cuba even more impenetrable and threatening. So close and yet so far.

Finally, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, I recalled one of the Godfather films where Al Pacino (Michael Corleone) and Lee Strasberg (Hyman Roth aka Meyer Lansky) are on a rooftop supposedly in Havana discussing how they’re going to own the island. Shortly after that, Michael sees a rebel willing to die in order to overthrow Batista . Michael changes his mind about doing business with Roth.

That clinched it. I realized I had most of the elements for a terrific thriller: revolution, crime, conflict, an exotic setting. And while I knew it would be a stand-alone story, rather than a series, there is a thematic link between HAVANA LOST, and the two previous stand-alone thrillers I’d written: A BITTER VEIL and SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE. That theme is revolution and what it does to an individual, a family, a community, a country, a culture. In fact, I consider HAVANA LOST the noir leg of my “revolutionary trilogy.”

There was only one other element I needed.  I enjoy—actually it’s more than that… it’s probably an obsession at this point—writing about women and the choices they make. I needed a female character I could insert into the middle of the volatile situation. It would be fascinating to see what she did and how she coped. How would she survive? What kind of a woman would she become? I found that woman in Frankie Pacelli, the daughter of a Mafia boss who owns a Havana resort. She’s eighteen when we meet her but in her seventies by the end of the book.

The rest was, as they say, is history.

Btw, I finally did make it to Cuba in 2012 with my daughter, and it was just as fascinating as I thought it would be. I want to go back. In the meantime, I hope you’ll take a look at HAVANA LOST.

Chicagoan Libby Fischer Hellmann is the award-winning author of ten compulsively readable thrillers. They include the Ellie Foreman series, which Libby describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives” and “24,” the hard-boiled Georgia Davis PI series, and two standalones, SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE, and A BITTER VEIL. Her tenth and newest release, also a stand-alone, is HAVANA LOST, a historical thriller set largely in Cuba. She also has written nearly twenty short stories and novellas. A transplant from Washington DC, she says they’ll take her out of Chicago feet first.