Lee Goldberg

False Advertising

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Scop_reviseA while back, author Sandra Scoppettone blogged about how the back cover of her THIS DAME FOR HIRE galley promised booksellers all kinds of advertising and promotion to support the book… which never happened. Why? Because they were lies and publishers assume booksellers won’t notice. Her editor even copped to it:

He said he knows it’s a problem and he’s talked about it at meetings.  Not
just my book, but the whole process.  He’s even said, “Why can’t we be honest?” 
I’m surprised he wasn’t fired for that.

I’m surprised they think booksellers are that stupid.

Garry Disher is Back

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Australian crime writer Garry Disher has a new book coming out this month "down under." It’s SNAPSHOT,  the third in his Inspector Challis series.

The neat suburban homes of the peninsula seem like an improbable setting for
sex parties, blackmail and murder. Winter is closing in on the coastal community
of Waterloo, and behind closed doors its residents have some peculiar ways of
keeping warm.

When Detective Inspector Hal Challis is called to investigate the brutal
murder of Janine McQuarrie–shot in a deserted country lane while her
seven-year-old daughter looks on–his progress is hampered by a web of lies and
secrets. It doesn’t help that Janine’s father-in-law is Challis’s
superior–bureaucrat, golfer and toady Superintendent McQuarrie–the Waterloo
coppers battle personal and political agendas from all sides.

Everybody has something to hide, something to lose. And someone in Waterloo
is determined to kill again.

I like the Challis books, but I love his hardboiled,
darkly-funny "Wyatt" capers,  which are obviously inspired by Donald
Westlake’s Parker books.  My friend Scott Phillips introduced me to Disher’s books
a few years ago and I’ve been grateful to him ever since. I read them all, one after another, over a solid week, along with several Wyatt short stories and novellas.

(Thanks to Perry Middlemass for the heads-up)

 

Raves for Tod

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The litblog Bookslut loves Tod’s new book SIMPLIFY:

Simplify captures a wide range of emotions and style in his debut
collection of short stories. Goldberg has thought a lot about the human
condition and the way our hearts and minds define us. He is effortlessly
brilliant with his pared-down prose and attention to detail. In a society that
is disinclined to contemplate our own deaths, Goldberg hits it head-on with no
qualms or fluff. His stories will provoke and startle you. There is a distinct
balance in each of his stories, giving just enough humor, thought and sincerity
to the entire collection. It’s rare to find a book that can evoke such strong
emotions within a single collection, however, Tod Goldberg’s Simplify
is a force to be reckoned with.

Out of Touch

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MdscastIt used to be that I’d catch at least one episode of every new drama series on television. That day has passed. There are just too many networks — broadcast, cable, and subscription — for me to keep up. I’m setting my Tivo to catch as many new falls shows as I can…but I know I will fail. And if I, a TV-junkie and professional TV writer, can’t find the time to  sample everything, how can we expect the average viewer to do it?

Here are some of the shows I’ve missed: TRU CALLING, KEVIN HILL, THE INSIDE,  ONE TREE HILL, SUMMERLAND, TARZAN, CARNIVALE, ROSWELL, CLUBHOUSE, THE MOUNTAIN, JACK AND BOBBY, NORTH SHORE,  MISS MATCH, THE LYON’S DEN, THE BROTHERHOOD OF POLAND N.H., JUST CAUSE, DINOTOPIA, GIRLS CLUB, HAUNTED, PRESIDIO MED, and MDs.

Granted, most of America missed those shows, too, since the majority of them didn’t survive a season. But that never used to stop me before. I saw everything.

There are a few series, like WANTED and THE 4400, that I haven’t seen yet and could still catch. And some of those old shows, like CARNIVALE, ROSWELL and TRU CALLING, I could always catch up with if I wanted to — I’ve got Emmy cassettes or DVDs for them somewhere and many of them are also out in boxed sets at Best Buy. But with so much to catch up on that’s new, I can’t really bring myself to go back…

Real Movies

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Finally, just as the summer is coming to an end, along come two real, honest-to-goodness movies to see — THE CONSTANT GARDENER and MEMORY OF A KILLER. It’s so refreshing and unusual to watch movies that are intelligent, well-written and brilliantly acted.  Go see them!

Watching THE CONSTANT GARDENER I couldn’t help but reminded of the idiotic Nicole Kidman movie THE INTERPRETOR, which was attempting to achieve the same impact and failed miserably. I was also reminded of OUR MAN IN PANAMA and THE QUIET AMERICAN…and countless other tales in that reliable genre of  "espionage and conspiracies at the foreign office in faraway lands against the backdrop of political and social turmoil." This was one of the better ones.

MEMORY OF A KILLER is a clever thriller from Belgium about a hitman with Alzheimers. I know it sounds like set-up for a comedy, but it’s far from it.

Different Diff’rent Strokes

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Remember DIFF’RENT STROKES? Now imagine it as a drama. Variety reports that UPN has signed producer Darren Star to produce two pilots, one of which is described as:

Neither Sony nor UPN would comment late last week, but it’s believed the
project being penned by [Dan and Ashley McDermott] concerns a pair of orphaned teens who end
up living with their wealthy New York aunt and uncle.

It Runs In the Family

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President Bush has been harshly criticized for the government’s inadequate response to Katrina.  He just didn’t seem to get how extreme this crisis really was. Now we know why. Here’s what his mother, Barbara Bush, had to say about the victims:

Barbara Bush, who accompanied the former presidents on a
tour of the Astrodome complex Monday, said the relocation to Houston is "working
very well" for some of the poor people forced out of New Orleans.

"What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want
to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said
during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace."
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged
anyway, so this is working very well for them."

It’s "scary" that the survivors want to stay in Texas? The fact that they lost loved ones, their homes, their possessions and their jobs in a flood of sewage is "working well for them?" My God.