#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
THE LAST WORD, the final book in the DIAGNOSIS MURDER series, will be published in May. If you are a book critic and would like a galley of the book for review, please send me your name, the title of your publication (or the web address of your review site), and your mailing address.
Today my third original MONK novel MR.
MONK AND THE BLUE FLU will be appearing on shelves in bookstores
nationwide. Here’s what the book is about:
Monk is horrified when he learns there’s
going to be a blue flu in San Francisco—until Capt. Stottlemeyer explains that
it just means the police plan to call in "sick" until they get a better
contract. The good news is the labor dispute will give Monk a chance to get back
on the force. The bad news is it means he’ll be a "scab"—and he doesn’t like the
sound of that either.But before he knows it, Monk has his badge back, and his own squad to
command. Unfortunately, some of the squad members make Monk look like a paragon
of mental health. But despite the challenges, they’ll have to pull together to
catch an astrologer’s killer, solve a series of mysterious fatal assaults, and
most importantly, clean up their desks…
Monk has been working for years to get his badge back, so I thought it would
be fun to see what would happen if he finally got his wish…if only for a
while….and to see him in an entirely different situation than he’s ever been
in before. I’ve been toying with the idea of a "Blue Flu" story ever since I was
first approached to write original Monk novels…but somehow it didn’t seem
right to me as the way to kick-off the series of books.
Part of the fun of doing these books for me is the chance to explore aspects
of Monk’s character that haven’t been dealt with yet on the TV series or, as is
the case with MR.
MONK GOES TO HAWAII, go places and do things that the TV series can’t
for various logistical and production reasons. I’m thinking about sending Monk
to Europe for an upcoming book, but we’ll see what happens.
If you would like a signed, personalized copy of MR.
MONK AND THE BLUE FLU, they are available through Mysteries
To Die For in Thousand Oaks, California. They will be glad to take your
order online and send books almost anywhere in the world.
By the way, this is the last original MONK novel to premiere in
paperback…with the next book, MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS, the
series is jumping to hardcover. That book comes out in July 2007 and, as
you can probably guess from the title, is about the surprising return of
Sharona, Monk’s first assistant. You can find a teaser chapter for TWO
ASSISTANTS in the back of MR.
MONK AND THE BLUE FLU
I took my wife and daughter to the mall, and while they were shopping, I settled down in the food court with a tattered, yellowed, paperback copy of the first EDGE western by George G. Gilman. I’d bought the book — okay, the whole series of fifty titles in a super-cheap lot purchase on eBay — back in June after reading a post on Bookgasm ("These books have no first gear – they’re all in fifth and overdrive") and on a recommendation from western author James Reasoner.
I read the slim book in one sitting and, despite the absolutely gratuitous gore, I really enjoyed it. The writing is crisp, the action swift, and the hero refreshingly sadistic and amoral. I’m glad I got the whole series at once…because I’m obsessive about collecting ALL the books in a series after I read one that I like…and I can see that I am going to gobble these up. EDGE is the perfect quick-read for airplane trips, and it looks like I am going to be traveling a lot in the coming year.
The friendly folks at The Monk Fun Page, the Monk fan supersite, kindly gave MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU a detailed, rave review. Here’s a small excerpt:
The Monk books just keep
getting better. Better than the TV series? I won’t fully commit to that, but
the novels have what the show sometimes isn’t even aiming for: well executed
fair play whodunit mystery plots. The complex story, abundance of colorful
characters and high body count in Blue Flu may demand a little
more concentration than the show or even the previous two books. It’s too
delightfully long and complex for an episode, but trimmed down it would make a
great entry in the series, just as the first novel (Mr. Monk and the
Firehouse) did when it was adapted for the fifth season episode
“Mr. Monk Can’t See a Thing.
I’m also hoping that Andy Breckman, the creator and executive producer of MONK, will consider BLUE FLU for an episode… even if it means Monk has to be deaf, speechless, or paralyzed in this one!
My brother Tod and I were talking the other day about certain authors we know who burst onto the scene with a great book and have been replicating that same novel ever since with ever-worsening results. It’s a dangerous rut for writers to get into, as bestselling author Tess Gerritsen points out.
Selling a book is just the first step in your career as a writer. Look
at all the first-time novelists who later vanished from the publishing
world. They discovered a very painful truth: to make a career in this
field, you’ll have to do a lot more than just sell one book[…]If the books you’re writing aren’t finding an
audience, maybe it’s time to write a different kind of book. In my
case, I first moved from romance to thrillers. I loved writing
romance, but I just couldn’t write fast enough to make a living at it.
Writing for Harlequin was fun and satisfying, and I loved the genre,
but when each book was only earning out around $12,000, I knew I’d
never send my kids to college on my earnings as a writer. As it turned
out, I had a great idea for a medical thriller (HARVEST), which was my
debut novel on the New York Times list.But four books later, I could see that my medical thriller sales
were flat, and even starting to decline. By then I had a crime
thriller in mind, one that I couldn’t wait to write. With THE SURGEON,
I launched the Jane Rizzoli series. And my sales have increased since
then.
If Harlan Coben had stuck with his Myron Bolitar books instead of shifting to standalone thrillers, would he be the international success that he is now? And if Michael Connelly, Ed McBain, Robert B. Parker, Richard Stark, Laura Lippman, Lawrence Block and Robert Crais hadn’t stepped away from their long-running series to write other books (and other series), would their writing have remained as fresh? I don’ t think so. I believe one of the reasons they’ve been so successful is because they’ve branched out into other areas (of course, there’s always folks like Sue Grafton, Lee Child, Barry Eisler, and Ian Rankin who do just fine without leaving the confines of their series).
It’s why I’m glad I had the opportunity the last couple of years to alternate between writing the DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK books…they are two very different kinds of writing, even though they are both mystery series. DM is written in third person and is essentially a drama. MONK is written in first person and is primarily a comedy.
Shifting between genres is also one of the pleasures of screenwriting. I’ve written, for instance, about lifeguards (Baywatch), private detectives (Spenser For Hire, Monk), werewolves (She Wolf of London), clever dolphins (Flipper), cops (Hunter), FBI agents (Missing), cross-dressing comics (Dame Edna), and just this week I wrote a pilot about urban street racing.
I like to think that the challenge of writing in different genres, characters and voices — and doing so in books and TV — keeps me and my writing fresh.
(updated 1.1.07)
Look what I stumbled on…some band in England has recorded a spoofy song about DIAGNOSIS MURDER and posted a video on You Tube. I have no idea what the lyrics are, which makes it hard for me to sing-along. Can you make them out?
DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE DOUBLE LIFE has been getting some very nice reviews from some very kind bloggers. Bill Peschel notes:
Fans of the “DM” series will know exactly what to expect: fast-paced
storytelling, some humor, and a nicely observed interaction between
Mark and his son, a homicide detective struggling to establish himself
away from his father’s accomplishments. It’s to Lee’s credit that, in a
genre that demands neat and tidy solutions, the personal conflicts
never get truly resolved, just as in real life.
While the ScifiChick observes:
Goldberg weaves a complex mystery full of murders and puzzles. As
always, he gives Dr. Sloan so much depth, emotion, and humor that you
can imagine Dick Van Dyke playing the part on TV. Goldberg has proved
once again that he is a master of writing whodunits.
Chris Well says you don’t have to be a DIAGNOSIS MURDER fan to enjoy the book:
Goldberg does an excellent job of building on the
characters we know and love. He also displays a knack of creating
mysteries within mysteries, much like a puzzle box: no sooner do you
have one thing figured out than you discover it’s actually hiding
something even more sinister. As such, The Double Life is not just an excellent continuation of the series — but an excellent mystery novel.
And apparently Chadwick Saxelid didn’t take it personally that I killed him off in this book:
Lee Goldberg has concocted a mystery concept so unnerving, it would even give veteran medical thriller writer Robin Cook the willies.
I want to thank all four bloggers for saying such nice things about the THE DOUBLE LIFE, which leads directly in to THE LAST WORD, the final book in the series, which comes out in May. The cover for the book just showed up on Amazon (Click on the picture for a larger image).
There’s a symbiotic relationship between books and films. The movie business likes to use books for content and cut their risks by relying on pre-sold characters and stories. The book biz likes to use movies as big-budget commercials for their products and piggyback on the huge promotional effort that surrounds new films and TV shows. But as the December issue of Moving Pictures magazine points out, there are some dangers. In one article, headlined "Sin or Synergy," the magazine discusses the recent surge in alliances between publishers and studios…many of whom are owned by the same parent companies. But that doesn’t guarantee hits…for either studios or booksellers.
Maria Campbell, a highly regarded book scout for Warner Brothers, believes "good movies are made because people are passionate about them and have a vision. Alliances can create conversations, but they can’t create good movies.
Ron Bernstein, head of the West Coast Book Department at ICM shares Campbell’s caution. "Books will always be part of the landscape, but it’s certainly not the glory days. With movies based on video games, remakes and TV series, the extraordinary hold that the printed word had on movies is not what it once was."
It works the other way, too. Books based on movies — also known as tie-ins and novelizations — aren’t the booming business they once were, either. The short window between the theatrical release of a movie and it’s availability in DVD has cut down on the need to buy a tie-in novel to re-live the movie experience. Why re-live it when you can own it?
In an article headlined "Novelization is a Nasty Word," the magazine also explores the publishing industry’s continuing practice of turning movies into books. Among the authors they interview is Max Allan Collins, who they dub the "Leonardo da Vinci of pop culture fiction," co-founder (with yours truly) of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. "Novelization is an unfortunate term that tends to diminish the process or, anyway, the end result," Max told them.
Max and Greg Cox do a good job describing in the article the enormous obstacles confronting writers of novelizations…including ever-changing scripts, insanely short deadlines (two weeks to three months) and bad pay. Not to mention lack of respect.
Cox points out [that] novelizers almost never get to see the movie in advance. All they have to work with is an early draft of the script.
"If you’re lucky," he says, "you get a stack of still photos and maybe a copy of the movie trailer. "
But when a novelization scores, it can score big. Max’s adaptation of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN sold over a million copies in the U.S. alone. And when a movie does well, the book it was based on reaps the benefits — according to the magazine, the tie-in reprint of the DA VINCI CODE, with Tom Hanks on the cover, sold five million copies.
Regardless of the potential for these partnerships, the business still remains driven by agents, writers, and studio execs who have to read the material and get excited by it. As Maria Campbell observes, "it takes a village to publish a book. It takes a continent to make a movie."
My friend Richard Prather sent me a signed copy of his book THE PEDDLER today. It’s so nice to see this "lost" classic it back-in-print again in a Hard Case Crime edition with a stunning new Robert McGinnis cover. Prather and McGinnis have reunited after a long and rewarding partnership-of-sorts on Prather’s wildly successful Shell Scott detective novels in the 1960s (over 90 million copies sold!). Those books were Prather and McGinnis at the top of their form…and so is THE PEDDLER. I only meant to glance at Richard’s kind inscription but I was pulled into the prose and before I knew it, I found myself reading nearly the entire book again. It’s a dark, gritty, utterly compelling read…and is nothing like the funny, sexist, and gleefully entertaining detective romps that Prather is best known for. Kudos to Hard Case for making this great book available to readers again!
