My Blog

Amazon Launches The Dead Man Kindle World

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KindleWorldsEaterofSoulscover
Today my series The Dead Man joined Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries, and the works of Kurt Vonnegut among the many “franchises” in Amazon’s Kindle Worlds, their fanfiction publishing program. Now anyone can write, publish and sell Dead Man stories and novels on Amazon…and earn significant royalties.

I know what you’re thinking. Is this the same Lee Goldberg who has been railing against fanfiction on this blog for years?

Yes, indeed.

My problem with fanfiction has always been that it is copyright infringement… that people are ripping off characters and stories that they don’t own without the permission or involvement of the creators or rights holders.

Well,  now Amazon has cleverly solved that problem.

Everyone who writes in the Amazon Kindle Worlds are doing it with the consent of the rights holders…and both parties, the fanfiction writer and the rights holder, are profiting from the relationship. In fact, the Amazon Kindle Worlds are more akin to tie-in writing than fanfiction (but I’ll have more on that in a few days, when I do a Q&A interview here with the executive in charge of  Amazon’s Kindle Worlds).

You can find out more about how you can contribute to The Dead Man Kindle World here. In the mean time, you can read the very first Dead Man Kindle World title… Joseph Nassise’s Eater of Souls.

My 10 Favorite Western Authors

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71UgoZxb2ML._SL1500_I love a good western novel…but there are so few writers who can do them well, avoiding the dusty cliches and tropes of the genre to deliver a powerful, memorable, original story with flesh-and-blood characters. So here are my 10 favorite western authors, in no particular order:

Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo are two of the best westerns ever. Some of his follow-ups were entertaining, but never matched these two.

Frederick Manfred (aka Feike Feikema) – His Lord Grizzly is a classic, but I’d also strongly recommend Scarlet Plume, Riders of Judgment (made into a miniseries entitled The Johnson County Wars scripted by McMurtry) and Conquering Horse.

Bill Crider – I loved his books Outrage at Blanco and Texas Vigilante, which should be read back-to-back as one, wonderfully-told tale. I’ve been trying for years to get a movie version of those books off the ground and have come tantalizingly close several times. But I haven’t given up hope! He’s also written several other great westerns, too.

A.B. Guthrie – His novels The Big Sky and The Way West are not only classic novels… but classic movies, too. His wonderful westerns should be read in order (Big Sky, Way West, These Thousand Hills, Arfive, The Last Valley and Fair Land, Fair Land) since they are essentially a series.

Ed Gorman – I’ve raved about his books Trouble Man and Wolf Moon on this blog many times. But you’ll also enjoy Death Ground,Guild, hell, anything with his name on it.

H.A. DeRosso – One of the darkest western writers out there…and one of the least well known. His books include .44 , The Gun Trail, and Under the Burning Sun.

Glendon Swarthout – His terrific novel The Shootist is a classic and, fittingly, was the basis for John Wayne’s final western.

Harry Whittington – His westerns (Trouble Rides Tall, Vengeance is the Spur, etc.) are every bit as tightly-plotted and leanly-written as his fine crime novels…and were his only books to be adapted for films and movies.9780618154623_p0_v1_s260x420

Elmore Leonard – Before he was the king of crime, he was the king of westerns…many of his books and stories became beloved western movies, too… like 3:10 to Yuma, Hombre and Valdez is Coming.

Thomas Eidson – His book The Last Ride became the vastly under-rated film Missing directed by Ron Howard. His western St. Agne’s Stand is also terrific.

Other western writers I love include James Reasoner, Richard Wheeler, Bud Shrake (The Borderland), Marvin Albert, Lauran Paine, Frank Bonham, Thomas Berger (Little Big Man), Robert B. Parker (Gunman’s Rhapsody and Appaloosa), Tom Franklin (Hell at the Breech), Scott Phillips (Cottonwood), Jonathan Evison (West of Here), Patrick DeWitt (The Sisters Brothers) and Philipp Meyer (The Son). There are many more. In fact, I’m sure other authors and their great books will occur to me the instant I’ve posted this list…but that’s the risk you take when you do one of these.

2024 UPDATE: I would also recommend James Robert Daniels’ The Comanche Kid and Jane Fury, Jonathan Evison’s Small World, David Wagoner’s Road to Many a Wonder,  Clair Huffaker’s The Cowboy and the Cossack, and Jim Bosworth’s The Long Way North

(Hat tip to James Reasoner…whose list of his favorite western authors inspired me to share mine).

The 8 Diagnosis Murder Books in Order

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I get asked all the time what the correct order of my eight DIAGNOSIS MURDER books is… so here you go, in chronological order:

TheSilentPartnerThe Silent Partner  – Dr. Mark Sloan is assigned to LAPD’s “unsolved homicide” files. As he reopens one case on the murder of a woman whose killer currently sits on Death Row, Sloan learns that the wrong man was charged. And that the real killer is still at large..

The Death Merchant – A dream vacation in Hawaii turns into a nightmare for Dr. Mark Sloan and his son, Steve, when a man they’ve befriended falls victim to a shark attack. But when Mark discovers evidence indicating the victim was murdered prior to becoming shark food, he and Steve comb the beaches to find a different kind of predator…

The Shooting Script – Dr. Mark Sloan is drawn to the sounds of gunfire at his neighbor’s Malibu beach house. There, he discovers the bullet-riddled bodies of an aspiring actress a Hollywood producer. An obvious suspect is the producer’s wife-who has gunpowder residue all over her clothing, but also has a perfect alibi. However, Mark thinks that the crime scene resembles a hit more than a crime of passion. When he and his son start investigating a local mob kingpin’s involvement, Mark soon finds himself unpopular with the police-and, of course, with the murderer.

The Waking Nightmare – Dr. Mark Sloan saves a would-be suicide victim, but her jump from a building ledge has left her in a coma. Obsessed with learning why she attempted suicide, Sloan stumbles into a manhunt for a cop-killer-who may turn his attention to nosy physicians next.

The Past Tense – Dr. Mark Sloan is startled to discover a dead woman—dressed as a mermaid—washed up on the beach outside his home. Even more bizarre, the autopsy reveals a digital memory card within a capsule inside the body’s stomach. The card contains the report of a forty-three-year-old murder in Los Angeles—the first homicide case Mark ever solved, when he was a struggling intern and newlywed father. When a second body is discovered—a woman who was apparently the victim of an impromptu autopsy in her own kitchen—the good doctor realizes that he must find the connection between the two murders. And perhaps more urgently, the connection to his own past

The Dead Letter – A blackmailer, a dead detective, and a mysterious letter that make an unusual request of Dr. Sloan: avenge a murder.

lastwordbetterThe Double Life – When Dr. Mark Sloan wakes up in his own hospital’s I.C.U., he doesn’t remember how he got there-or anything from the last two years of his life, including a wife he doesn’t recognize, and grandkids he never knew existed. He learns that he was run down in the street while investigating a series of mysterious deaths, all of whom were patients recently recovered from life-threatening illnesses and accidents. Mark resumes his investigation, only to realize that his “accident” was no accident, and that there is little time left to prevent another murder-his own.

The Last Word – The final book in the Diagnosis Murder series. When a young woman falls down a flight of stairs and is left brain dead, her family agrees to donate her organs. Dr. Jesse Travis oversees the grim task, saving several other seriously ill patients. But one of the organ recipients returns to the hospital with a complication no one could have seen coming-West Nile Virus. Soon, other patients who received organs at Community General begin dying of West Nile-related illnesses, and Jesse is suspected of being at fault. Dr. Mark Sloan knows his friend isn’t to blame-and he soon uncovers a conspiracy of greed and personal revenge that may mean the end of his career.

The Mail I Get – Show Me The Short Cut Edition

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George R.R. Martin
George R.R. Martin

Every day I get emails from writers asking me how to break into the TV business. Most of them are looking for a short cut (namely, by using me, my agent and my friends).  And most of the writers, it seems, have only a vague idea of what being a writer or producer really involves. They just like the idea of it. Take this email, for instance:

I am contacting you to ask if you can give me advice on how to be a TV writer. I discovered you on a WritersStore.com article in which you gave advice on how to break into the TV business.

My dream is to one day be an Executive Producer or Show runner for my own scripted show on television. However, I am not sure the correct route to achieve that dream. I understand that some people eventually have their own show by being a writer on many other scripted shows and working their way up. This is a path that I am reluctant to take because I am adamant about working on and putting out my vision. I am not really interested in contributing to other people shows or vision because I feel I have something unique to bring to television. Also, I have heard that some people get a TV show due to their work in the fiction world such as George R. R. Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones. I like this route better because he was able to keep his unique vision of his story without really compromising to any network or producer.

I have a lot of ideas and concepts; however, I don’t really know how to put together a cohesive story for the screen. Also, I understand to achieve any success in the film business it takes at least 10 years of hard work and networking. I was considering getting an online degree from Full Sail in creative writing or doing some kind of online writing program. What would you suggest I do considering all of this?

Do you think it is a good idea just to write a lot of short stories first as a way to get my work noticed by people? It bothers me that as of yet I have not been able to write any full length story of any kind. Can you give me advice concerning my questions? Thanks a lot.

There are so many misconceptions and bone-headed opinions in this email that I think the best thing to do is to tackle them one by one in the order in which they came up.

I am contacting you to ask if you can give me advice on how to be a TV writer. I discovered you on a WritersStore.com article in which you gave advice on how to break into the TV business.

Did you actually read the article? Because I answered almost all of your questions in it.

I understand that some people eventually have their own show by being a writer on many other scripted shows and working their way up. This is a path that I am reluctant to take because I am adamant about working on and putting out my vision.

No, that’s not the reason you are “reluctant.” You want to take a short-cut. What you don’t seem to realize is that a TV series represents a $100 million or more investment. Before a studio or network will hand you that money to “put out your vision,” you will have to earn their trust in your skill and faith in your creative vision. You earn that by proving you can write a script and produce a TV show. Which you do by working your way up. Alternatively, you can earn that trust by writing a blockbuster hit movie or perhaps writing several internationally bestselling books…but even then, they will probably pair you with an experienced showrunner…someone who has worked their way up and gained the necessary experience to run a show.

I am not really interested in contributing to other people shows or vision because I feel I have something unique to bring to television.

You don’t. There’s an old saying in TV: ideas are cheap, execution is everything. No one is interested in your ideas or your vision. Everybody has those. What’s rare is talent and skill. You may not be interested in contributing to other people’s shows or vision. Too damn bad. That’s how the business works. It’s not going to be re-invented because you a) are too full of yourself to follow established path or b) are too lazy to put in the work involved.

Also, I have heard that some people get a TV show due to their work in the fiction world such as George R. R. Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones. I like this route better because he was able to keep his unique vision of his story without really compromising to any network or producer.

game-of-thrones-season-4You like this route better because you think it’s a short-cut. It’s not. Because it’s a fantasy. I hate to break it to you, but George did his time working on other people’s shows (ie Beauty and the Beast, Twilight Zone, etc ) before getting a shot at writing his own pilots. He eventually left television and concentrated on his books. He is not running Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B Weiss are. Both of them, incidentally, worked their way up writing books, movies and TV shows for other people before getting this show.

I have a lot of ideas and concepts; however, I don’t really know how to put together a cohesive story for the screen.

If you can’t do that, why would anyone entrust you with $100 million to write & produce a TV series? That is why you need experience and skill…built over years of working in the business…because if you can’t put together a cohesive story, and have no idea how, you are not a showrunner or a writer. You are a development executive.

I was considering getting an online degree from Full Sail in creative writing or doing some kind of online writing program. What would you suggest I do considering all of this?

Yes, getting an education and some training in the field you’d like to enter would be a very good idea. Go back and look at the article of mine you supposedly read for more details.

Do you think it is a good idea just to write a lot of short stories first as a way to get my work noticed by people? It bothers me that as of yet I have not been able to write any full length story of any kind.

It should, especially given your grandiose notions of your own amazing talent. No, I don’t think writing short stories are the path to becoming a TV writer and showrunner. Short stories have nothing to do with TV writing and producing.

Plotting As You Go

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McHugh_Born_of_Hatred_cvr_FINALEverybody plots differently. I could never plot a book the way my friend Steve McHugh did with his two acclaimed novels “Crimes Against Magic” and “Born of Hatred.” But he might not finish a book at all if he took my approach. Creativity isn’t cookie-cutter. Everyone has to find their own way to their muse, so I asked Steve to tell us about his approach…which, considering how successful his books are, has clearly worked for him. 

If you ever ask a writer what type of plotter they are, you normally get one of two answers. They either have everything arranged and know what’s going to happen from one scene to the next, or they throw caution to the wind and see what happens. But there is a third group, the one that does a little bit of both. And that’s the group that I fall in.

I started my first published work, Crimes Against Magic, about 4 years ago. I’d just finished writing a book that will never see the light of day and decided that I needed to write something new. I only knew two things. 1. That the main character would be Nathan Garrett, a sorcerer and thief whose memories had been forcibly removed some time before the start of the book and 2. That it was going to be hard work.

I had almost zero notes for the story beyond a very basic outline and just decided to figure it out as I went. The first draft took about 6 or 7 months and was an abhorrent piece of rubbish, as were the next 2 drafts. I re-wrote the book 4 times in total until I found a story I actually liked and then I set about editing. That was another 4 or 5 drafts. I’m not sure how many it was in the end, but it was a lot and it took a very long time. In all, it took me 3 years to finish the book. After which, I decided to self-publish it and it, to my great shock, did very well.

I knew that I couldn’t take 3 years to write the sequel, so in between editing Crimes Against Magic, I started plotting Born of Hatred. When I say plotting, I mean in detail I knew what was going to happen at every moment.

Steve McHugh
Steve McHugh

That whole plan lasted about 3 chapters before the book went off on a tangent and I changed a bunch of things. This happened a few times during the story and I quickly realised something. I was not a detailed plotter. Once I’d re-done the plot so that it was just  the beginning and end with details about what I wanted to happen and roughly when, the story flowed a lot easier. I finished the first draft in 6 months and then the 2nd a few months later and that was it. The story was then edited, but that only took another draft or 2. It took me a lot less than a year to write book 2 and it was an even bigger success than book 1. Enough that 47North picked up both books, which were re-published last month, and book 3, which will be published next Feb.

I learned a lot from the experience of writing both books. And when it came to write book 3, I started with how I’d finished book 2. Enough details to guide me though what I wanted, but not enough to know every little detail. I know now that I like to be surprised, but still have that guideline to know where to go, even if I don’t know how I’ll get there.

It can take time to figure out which way of plotting works best for you. Some people take books to get to a place they like, and some do it with the first thing they write. And while you can read about how other people do it, the trick is trying different ways until you get it just right for you. Once that happens, you’ll find that your story comes together much easier.

 

The Mail I Get – Big Fat Liar Edition

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Reverse-mortgage-fraud-scamIf you’re fattening up your credits with fakery, I’m probably one of the last people you want to contact. This tale of lame fraud began as a typical, badly-written solicitation for a blurb with the usual flattery at the beginning (I’ve taken out anything that might identify the author). The miss-spellings, awkward sentence structure, etc. are all his:

Let me start by saying I absolutely hero-worship you!  I own every one of you Monk DVDs and I have one of my servers named after him. (The other one is Columbo.  Needless to say not a single hacker of a virus gets past onto Monk and Columbo.)  I have read 7 of your Monk books and the new one, The Heist, that you have written with Janet Evanovich.

I love, love, love your sense of humour and the way you weave your homour in so effortlessly.

I was delighted to find your email address and am writing to ask if you would, by some off chance, be kind enough to review my book, XYZ, is due out with publisher  XYZ, on the 6th of November.

It is literary suspense fiction, a psychological and legal thriller around an aching love story set in London and on the beautiful Scottish and South English coasts. I have injected some humour into it and would love your feedback.

SEE  MY BLURBS <link>

We should ask you to do the review it as a note to yourself in the first instance please since the book is being released only on the 6th of November. We can contact you when the book is published so that you could cut-and-paste your review on to Amazon.com.  I shall be happy to provide my publisher’s email address if you wish to provide the review to her.

I live in hope that I might hear back from you due some good karma.

I’m sure he’s regretting that hope now. Here’s what I wrote back:

Thanks for thinking of me, and for your kind words about my books, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to blurb your novel. However, I did look at your web page, where you advertise XYZ as an Edgar-nominated novel. I don’t see how it’s possible for the book to be Edgar-nomated, since it hasn’t been released yet. You also mention in your bio that you are an Edgar-nominated author.  So I looked in the MWA Edgar database, and could find no mention of you or your books. Were you nominated under another name for a different book?

I knew for certain that he was lying about being an Edgar Award nominee, but I was being polite and wanted to see how he’d explain himself.He immediately wrote back:

It is in the works and the web site is only in preparation for the release that is coming in a month. The applications have been made to MWA with a galley of the book.

He was obviously unaware that I was chair of the MWA membership committee, that I helped draft the Edgar submission rules, and that I’ve been an Edgar Awards chair and a judge. I am absolutely the wrong person to try to con on this subject. So I wrote back:

Applying for an Edgar award does NOT make you an Edgar nominee. An Edgar nomination is a great honor and highly coveted and you have not earned one yet. You need to remove the Edgar references from your site right away.

On your website, you also excerpt reviews of your book from the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. I have checked both newspaper sites and can find no record of the reviews. Are the reviews upcoming?

I knew that wasn’t the case, and that the reviews were fake, but I wanted to see how he’d try to talk his way out of this one. He shot back a quick reply, probably realizing by now that he’d made a big mistake contacting me and inviting me to look at his site:

Yes, from galleys.

While I was still reading that lame response, he immediately followed up with an email that he hoped would get me off his case.:

Mr. Goldberg: Don’t worry about the review. My publisher will handle the review galleys. I have to get permission from my publisher before presenting the galley for review and they have informed me I do not have permission too present it to you.

They’d informed him in the three minutes between our emails on a Sunday morning? Yeah, right. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook yet. He was, after all, falsely claiming to be the author of an Edgar-nominated book that the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune had drooled all over. And that pissed me off. So I pressed on:

Do you mean that you’ve submitted the galleys for review…or that the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune have both reviewed the book in galleys and have sent you an advance peek at their to-be-published reviews?

I knew that wasn’t the case, either. But again, I was being outwardly nice about it. He, on the other hand, was scrambling. He replied:

They will publish the reviews on the right dates.
My website is not public until the date of publication either. It is just a work in progress for the publication date.

That explanation didn’t make much sense to me… and probably not to him, either. He’d been cornered and was not a good liar under pressure. So here’s what I wrote back:

I understand…but if you are directing potential reviewers and “blurbers” like me to a link to see the blurbs on your site, the blurbs should be real, not fake place-holders for the real reviews you hope to receive. It’s misleading.

BTW, your publisher is not on the list of MWA-approved publishers so your book is not eligible for Edgar award consideration. Your publisher needs to be vetted and approved by the membership committee before the book can be submitted for consideration.

He still wasn’t willing to admit his reviews were fake…or that he’d made a big mistake calling himself an Edgar-nominated author and his unpublished book as an “Edgar-nominated” novel. He wrote:

To clarify, the manuscript I sent was compiled my own working copy of the manuscript and not the actual galley from the publisher.
I have got a slap on my knuckles for being over-eager and enthusiastic to get into a discussion with you.

We are simply preparing things for the publication date.

We understand the requirements of the MWA. Thank you for your advice.

Here is some more advice:

1) before you contact an author for a blurb, make sure you have a well-written and coherent pitch letter.
2) Be sure you know all about the person you are contacting for a blurb. If you’re pretending to be an Edgar award nominee, don’t approach someone who used to be closely involved in the running of the Edgar Awards.
3) If you are pretending that your book has won acclaim from The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune, don’t send your book to someone who has an internet connection and has heard of Google.
4) If you are plumping up your website with lies, don’t send a link to your site to someone who delights in ridiculing inept pitches and skewering liars regularly on his blog.

The Mail I Get – Foot in Door Edition

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AFootInTheDoorEvery day I get emails from people asking me how to break into television. Here’s one that stood out this week…

I often find myself thinking that I have a “voice” that can be fine tuned into a television writing machine.  I was captain of my basketball team and voted biggest flirt and class clown.  I recently got in trouble for underage drinking at my buddy’s house and, even though I won’t get in a lot of trouble, still seem to find the funny in all of it.  As I sat on the floor of my friends house after receiving our Minor in Possession of Alcohol ticket, I couldn’t help but notice how nice the paper felt.  I didn’t think that this whole process will cost me hundreds of dollars, or how ashamed my parents were going to be, but about how silky the texture of this ticket felt.  I recently read your article on how to write a spec for an already running TV show.  It got me thinking that I can write in this industry.  Now I know that I need to craft my talent but I definitely have the self-motivation to succeed.  One of my favorite quotes is by Thomas Jefferson and he says, “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”.  I believe in this 100%.  My question to you is, how does someone get their foot in the door of this business?

It requires more than a voice, or being a flirt, or appreciating the texture of a ticket. You need to have some writing skills and you have to learn the craft of screenwriting. It’s a good thing you’re willing to work hard, because you will have to. I’d start by taking a screenwriting class. You could also read Richard Walter’s book The Essentials of Screenwriting and my book Successful Television Writing for more tips.

The Lost Ella Clah Pilot

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Ella Clah cover
The cover for “Aimee & David Thurlo’s Ella Clah: The Pilot Script.” The paperback, nook and kobo editions will be available soon.

Aimee & David Thurlo‘s Ella Clah, a Navajo Police special investigator, is one of the most enduring and popular characters in detective fiction today. Ella’s dedicated fans have long dreamed of the bestselling, critically acclaimed series coming to television…and it almost happened.

In 2001, CBS commissioned a pilot script, a sample episode of a proposed series, from William Rabkin and yours truly. Sadly, the Ella Clah pilot ultimately wasn’t produced, but ever since, the script has been hotly sought-after by fans. So we decided that it was time, at long last, to make that rare pilot script available to fans… along with the original sales treatment, six episode ideas, a foreword by the Thurlos, and a detailed account from Bill and me about how we approach our adaptation and what our plans were for the TV series. The book is called Aimee & David Thurlo’s Ella Clah: The Pilot Script and is now available on Kindle and Kobo (Paperback and Nook editions are coming soon) Here’s an excerpt from our introduction…

It was the end of the 2000-2001 TV season. CSI had become an unexpected hit on CBS. Every network was suddenly looking for a new spin on the traditional cop show and we thought we had one in Aimée & David Thurlo’s Ella Clah novels…but we’d have to make some big changes to pull it off.

In the books, Ella is an ex-FBI agent working as a special investigator in the Navajo nation’s police force. It was a character, and a world, that we hadn’t seen on television before. And we knew we never would. That’s because the concept had three big strikes against it: the setting was rural, the stories were all about Native Americans, and the lead was a woman. Remember, this was twelve years before Justified and Longmire, both of which are on networks that had yet to produce an episodic drama series, and there hadn’t been a hit, female-lead cop show since Cagney & Lacey.

Despite those major drawbacks, we believed there had to be a way we could make Ella Clah work within the current television landscape. So we went back to the books and analyzed what the key elements were that attracted us to them. And, not surprisingly, it came down to Ella herself, a woman torn between two different cultures; mainstream America and the Navajo nation…

To find out more, you’ll have to read the book. We hope it’s an exciting story for Ella Clah fans and aspiring TV screenwriters alike…and a cool peek behind-the-scenes of network television.

Paul Levine Grills Jake Lassiter, Gets Punched Out

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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.)