My Blog

WGA Crime Scene Rally

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On Tuesday December 18th , the Writers Guild of America is holding a bicoastal “Scene of the Crime” Rally for writers of crime and cop shows. Writers
and stars of over 35 current and past crime/cop/law shows will be in
attendance in Los Angeles and New York.

This is a great opportunity for
fans of TV crime dramas to show their support for the writers who bring them shows like CSI, MONK, LAW AND ORDER, DEXTER and many more.

 
And here’s the best part – in Los Angeles, we’re holding the rally at the headquarters of the AMPTP. The Death Star itself.
 
In New York, the rally will be held at historic Foley Square downtown, in full view of the Federal and State Courthouses. Here are the details: 
Los Angeles: December 18th, 10 am to 12 pm PST
AMPTP HQ, 15503 Ventura Blvd., Encino, a few blocks
west of the 405 at the corner of Firmament.
 
New York: December 18th, 12 pm to 2 pm EST
Foley Square, Downtown NYC
 
I’m in Munich right now, but I am rushing back to be in Encino in time for the rally. I’ll be the Pierce Brosnan look-alike with the picket sign and the bloodshot eyes, staggering around in a jet-lagged haze… 

Mr. Monk and the Bookgasm

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The fine folks at Bookgasm enjoyed MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE. The reviewer, Ed Gorman, says:

You know you’ve landed in an alternate universe when you meet “Mr.
Snork, security chief of the starship Discovery,” one of the many fans
also dressed up like people on the show – the ones who wear elephant
trunks being my favorite.

The only thing goofier than the fans is when Monk looks at them and
says, “I don’t associate with freaks like that,” and then proceeds to
do some riffing on the ’60s to “prove” that they’re all “high on LSD.”
A great scene.

This is probably my favorite MONK book…

A Subtle Clue

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Here’s a true story from the writers room. We were helping a freelancer, a first-timer to crime shows, plot her story. We needed a subtle clue to link two killings that previously seemed unrelated.

"I’ve got it," the freelancer said. "What if there is a tiny hole in the victim’s head and we
discover his brain has been drained out of his skull and replaced with dog shit."

"I don’t think that’s subtle enough," I said.

"Why not?" she said. "It’s a small hole."

Needless to say, she ended up backing out of the assignment.

Tongue Tied

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A friend of mine sent me this description of a kiss from ON CHESIL BEACH by Ian McEwan, one of the New York Times’ "Best 100 Novels of 2007."  If there’s an award for bad writing about sex, I would nominate this bit:

With his lips
clamped firmly onto hers, he probed the fleshy floor of her mouth, then moved
around inside the teeth of her lower jaw to the empty place where three years
ago a wisdom tooth had crookedly grown until removed under general anesthesia.
This cavity was where her own tongue usually strayed when she was lost in
thought. By association, it was more like an idea than a location, a private
imaginary place rather than a hollow in her gum, and it seemed peculiar to her
that another tongue should be able to go there too. … He wanted to engage her
tongue in some activity of its own, coax it into a hideous mute duet. … She
understood perfectly that this business with tongues, this penetration, was a
small-scale enactment, a ritual tableau vivant, of what was still to come, like
a prologue before an old play that tells you everything that must happen.

 

World’s Ugliest Book Covers

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I keep getting emails from J. Crowder at Lightsword Publishing. The emails have no message, just a link to their site. Brilliant marketing, huh? I finally gave in and clicked it. The link takes you to an astonishingly amatuerish website. But if you think the site21hrflmpiml_ss160_
looks bad, you should see their book covers. They must have hired a class of third graders as their art department. You have to wonder what J. Crowder hopes to gain by these emails…

Now and Then

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NOW AND THEN isn’t the worst book Robert B. Parker has ever written (that award would go to the latest Sunny Randall novel), but it may be the laziest.  It’s definitely one of the weakest Spenser novels. Susan’s Harvard education was mentioned six times before I stopped keeping track. At one point, there’s a big shootout at Susan’s house involving Uzis and shotguns and not  a single neighbor calls the cops. Sadly, Susan survives.

I’m a Robert B. Parker fan, but he hasn’t written a good book since APPALOOSA. I hope the upcoming sequel is as good because this is one fan who is loosing his faith.