My Blog

Mr. Monk and the Finished Manuscript

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I’ve just emailed the finished manuscript for the fourth Monk novel, MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS, to my editor in New York. The book will be published in hardcover in July 2007. Here’s what the cover copy says (yes, the cover was completed before the book):

Only a special kind of person can keep up with Monk’s
brilliant, if idiosyncratic, methods. One such person is his former assistant,
Sharona.  And now that her ne’er-do-well husband has been arrested for
murder, she’s back in San Francisco, ready to reclaim her place in Monk’s
extremely well-ordered life.

His current assistant, Natalie, is not at all pleased
with this turn of events. As little as her job pays, she’s grown fond of
Monk and would rather not get fired.

While Monk tries to maintain a delicate balance between the
two women,  he discovers a few unsettling snags in the case against
Sharona’s husband.  With bestselling crime novelist Ian Ludlow nosing
around, and other cases taking his attention, Monk may be up against a killer
who not only understands him, but is one step ahead….

Tie-Ins Rule

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Publisher’s Weekly reports that the #2 bestselling trade paperback in the nation is HALO: GHOSTS OF THE ONYX by Eric Nylund…outselling Amy Tan, Lisa See, Paula Coelho, Nicholas Sparks, Clive Cussler, Jodi Picoult, Jan Karon and Elizabeth Kostova to name a few. The book is in its second printing with 180,000 copies in print so far. Not bad for a tie-in novel based on a video game. While critics may sneer at tie-ins, they are wildly popular with readers and publishers are increasingly depending on them to prop up their bottom-lines.

Battlestar Craptica

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It happens on even the best shows and, on Friday night, it happened to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. They had a truly awful episode. Flat, obvious, speechy, boring and illogical. For those of you who saw it, I had one big question while I was watching the episode:  how did Buckshot or the Cylons know where the
Galactica was? And if they knew, why didn’t they send three or four Basestars there to blast it out of space? Wouldn’t that have been a better plan?

The only nice bit was the implication that Balter is having a menage-a-trois with two Cylon women. I wish we could have seen that episode instead.

UPDATE: I’m not alone. TV Critic Alan Sepinwall agrees with me.

Okay, I’m starting to get just a little bit
concerned about the post-exodus portion of the season. The virus
two-parter had some interesting moments and ideas but never quite
clicked, and "Hero" felt like a mess from start to finish.

 

Give Us A Kiss

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Variety reports that Anjelica Huston will direct a movie adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s GIVE US A KISS. Huston directed BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA and the screenplay will be written by Angus MacLachlan, who scripted JUNEBUG, so this could turn out very well for us Woodrell fans.  I enjoyed RIDE WITH THE DEVIL, which was based on Woodrell’s WOE TO LIVE ON, and was done by the same production company as this project.

Casino Royale

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I just got back from the first show (yes, I am a geek). I enjoyed the movie, I liked Daniel Craig a lot and there are some fantastic action sequences… but it isn’t a James Bond movie.  It’s not your father’s James Bond or even your grandfather’s James Bond.  Sure, there are Aston Martins and casinos and exotic locales  and villians with scars near their eyes. But something was missing. Maybe for the better. (Though it could also have missed about twenty minutes, the film goes on way too long).

The producers weren’t kidding when they said they were reinventing Bond (unlike, say, their attempt with LIVING DAYLIGHTS). This truly is a new interpretation, clearly one that’s heavily influenced by the Jason Bourne movies… with a touch of DIE HARD’s John McClaine thrown in for good measure. But if they are jettisoning so much from the old intepretation, the few
hangers-on (the women who swoon at his glance, the scar-faced villains
and Aston Martins) should be scrapped, too.

This Bond is basically Connery’s take on the character as a ruthless assassin, a working-class  "blunt instrument" in a tuxedo.  In fact, you could say that Daniel Craig is dramatizing the formative days of  Connery’s 007.  If so, then the next film will be a James Bond film. At least more so than this one was… or so they seem to be hinting at the end.

Gold Medal Memories

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Ed Gorman pointed me to this excellent and informative overview & history of Gold Medal books and the impact they had on American popular culture:


What if you could trace the French New Wave, Sam Peckinpah, cyberpunk,
"Pulp Fiction," "Mulholland Drive," and "Sin City" back to one business
gamble taken by a third-tier publisher in 1949? In fact, you can, and
without being guilty of too much overstatement. A little, sure, but not
that much.

While the author of the essay justifiably praises Hard Case Crime, he notes:

Excellent as it is, Hard Case Crime bears the same relationship to Gold Medal that Chris Isaak does to Elvis Presley.

That’s a great line…and not far off the mark.

The Name is Radio, National Public Radio

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Many thanks to The Rap Sheet for tipping me off to this NPR piece on James Bond theme songs. David Arnold’s soundtrack album is now up on iTunes, but it doesn’t include the Chris Cornell theme song. The score is another tribute to John Barry, with lots of cues reminiscent of his classic Bond scores. That said, it doesn’t have the sheer energy or inventiveness of TOMORROW NEVER DIES or DIE ANOTHER DAY, by far Arnold’s best Bond scores. This one feels  a tired and familiar, basically a a replay of his past scores, with Arnold resorting to old tricks and an over-reliance on the melody from Chris Cornell’s song. Arnold is the only composer besides John Barry to score more than one Bond film. But unlike Barry, who seemed to take a fresh approach with each film, Arnold is one-note. Compare John Barry’s GOLDFINGER with his score for, say, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. There’s a distinct character and sound to both films, even though they are both unmistakeably Barry scores. But now compare Arnold’s score for THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH with CASINO ROYALE. They might as well be the same film. I love how Arnold reinvigorated the Bond scores with TOMORROW NEVER DIES and evolved the Barry sound for a new generation…but perhaps it’s time to find a new composer. My vote goes to Michael Giacchino, composer of  THE INCREDIBLES (the best Bond score ever for a non-Bond film), who did for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III what Arnold did for the Bond franchise.

UPDATE 11/17/06: Now that I’ve seen the film, I’m even less impressed with the music. The score disappoints even in context. If you’re going to do THE BOURNE IDENTITY, then go with that kind of edgier, less symphonic score. Arnold also makes the mistake of using "You Know My Name" as a substitute for the James Bond Theme throughout the movie — the conceit being that Bond doesn’t really become Bond until the end. It doesn’t work. I missed hearing a rousing version of the Bond theme during key moments in the film that seemed to cry out for it… and "You Know My Name" doesn’t come close.

As If You Don’t Get Enough Of Me Here Already…

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There’s a two-part Q&A interview with me up on Chris Well’s Learning Curve blog. Here’s one of the questions…

WHEN CREATING A MYSTERY, DO YOU START WITH THE PUZZLE AND THEN WRAP THE CHARACTERS AROUND IT, OR THE OTHER WAY AROUND?

I
always start with the characters and the obstacles they are facing. I
ask myself what situation can I put these characters in that will
really test who they are? The mystery almost always organically comes
out of that question. If the characters have nothing at stake in the
mystery, if it doesn’t put them in conflict with others and with
themselves, then who is going to care whodunit?

My Brother Is Too Damn Funny

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My brother Tod’s Letters to Parade feature on his blog should be a book. But until that happens, you’ll just have to visit his blog every Monday for the latest hilarious installment. This week’s is one of my favorites. Here’s an excerpt:

In the case of G. Martinez of Jamaica, NY, the fetish is James Bond.
And G. has a very important question so that he or she can finally
complete their very special project:

As a James Bond fan, I’d like to know who was the tallest 007.

This
question has obviously been edited. What the crack editorial staff of
Parade snipped off when they created this stupid fucking question when
they realized they didn’t have anything on Bond in Personality Parade
on the weekend before the opening of the latest installment, was this:

It
is very important that I get the exact measurements of whichever Bond
this was  — I hope it was Lazenby! Oh, how I have longed for Lazenby!
— as I am building a cage in which the actor could live. Additionally,
I’m creating a suit made of skin I’ve stripped every day from my
thighs, the bottom of my feet and that space between my plumbing so
that Mr. Lazenby could wear me like a tuxedo, a very snug tuxedo,
covered with the aroma of my glands. Please, could you also tell me if
any of the actors who played Bond are claustrophobic? And it would be
very helpful if I could get the address and phone number of the
gentleman who played Jaws in the Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

Walter Scott probably never even saw this part of the question because, well, he doesn’t exist.

Anti-Heroes

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Ever since shows about a mob family (THE SOPRANOS) and corrupt cops (THE SHIELD) hit it big, we’ve been seeing a lot of attempts to do other series about anti-heroes. Most of them have been about bank robbers and thieves, and most of them have failed.

But now there’s a new breed of anti-heroes on TV. On WEEDS, we have a housewife who sells pot. On DEXTER, we have a detective who is a serial killer himself. And now comes word  from Variety that AMC is developing a series about a high school chemistry teacher who manufactures and distributes crystal meth.

Pilot script, which previously was set up at FX, concerns a
desperate man who discovers he is terminally ill and tracks what he’s
willing to do to ensure his family’s survival.

AMC execs say
they’re confident that "Breaking Bad," should it go to series, will
have the support of Madison Avenue — in spite of a protagonist who is
both a teacher and a drug maker.

"It will be much more about the
storytelling and the way we handle the material that will make it OK
for advertisers," net exec VP-general manager Charlie Collier said.
"The story is about a guy who turns to a life of crime because he’s
trying to change his life. … In the classic antihero sense, you’re
rooting for him to figure it out."

Rob Sorcher, AMC exec VP of
programming/production, said the network is willing to take more risks
because of its commitment to find "cinematic" series to pair with its
arsenal of theatricals.

Why is it when networks want to be "cinematic," they think it means going very dark? I find it especially odd considering that whenever you hear movie executives talking about dramas now, they’re saying they want projects that are as compelling as the shows on TV… where all the best drama is being done now (and why so much movie talent….writers, director and actors… are migrating to television).