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Edgar Award Nominees Announced

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Here are the nominees for the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television, published or produced in 2012. 

BEST NOVEL

The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Gone Girl: A Novel by Gillian Flynn (Crown Publishers)
Potboiler by Jesse Kellerman (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Sunset by Al Lamanda (Gale Cengage Learning – Five Star)
Live by Night by Dennis Lehane (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley (Penguin Group USA – Riverhead Books)
 

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay (Random House Publishing– Ballantine)
Don’t Ever Get Old by Daniel Friedman (Minotaur Books – Thomas Dunne Books)
Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal (Random House Publishing– Bantam Books)
The Expats by Chris Pavone (Crown Publishers)
The 500 by Matthew Quirk (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Reagan Arthur)
Black Fridays by Michael Sears (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
 
Complication by Isaac Adamson (Soft Skull Press)
Whiplash River by Lou Berney (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks)
Bloodland by Alan Glynn (Picador)
Blessed are the Dead by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books – Emily Bestler Books)
The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books)

 
BEST FACT CRIME

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin Group USA – Penguin Books)
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper)

More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers' Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered by D.P. Lyle, MD (Medallion Press)
Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (Crown Publishers)
The People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo – and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up by Richard Lloyd Parry (Farrar Straus & Giroux Originals)

 
 
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
 
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: The Hard-Boiled Detective Transformed by John Paul Athanasourelis (McFarland and Company)
Books to Die For: The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest Mystery Novels edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books – Emily Bestler Books)
The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics by James O’Brien (Oxford University Press)
In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero edited by Otto Penzler (Smart Pop)

BEST SHORT STORY

"Iphigenia in Aulis" – An Apple for the Creature by Mike Carey (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books)
"Hot Sugar Blues" – Mystery Writers of America Presents: Vengeance by Steve Liskow (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books)
"The Void it Often Brings With It” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Tom Piccirilli (Dell Magazines)
"The Unremarkable Heart" – Mystery Writers of America Presents:  Vengeance by Karin Slaughter (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books)
"Still Life No. 41" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Teresa Solana (Dell Magazines)
 

BEST JUVENILE

Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O’Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind by Tom Angleberger (Abrams – Amulet Books)
13 Hangmen by Art Corriveau (Abrams – Amulet Books)
The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Abrams – Amulet Books)
Spy School by Stuart Gibbs (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage (Penguin Young Readers Group – Dial Books for Young Readers)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

 Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak (Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group – Roaring Brook Press)
The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George (Penguin Young Readers Group – Viking)
Crusher by Niall Leonard (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte BFYR)
Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield (Penguin Young Readers Group – Dutton Children’s Books)
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney Publishing Worldwide – Hyperion)

 
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“Pilot” – Longmire, Teleplay by Hunt Baldwin & John Coveny (A&E/Warner Horizon Television)
“Child Predator” – elemeNtarY, Teleplay by Peter Blake (CBS Productions)
“Slaughterhouse” – Justified, Teleplay by Fred Golan (Sony Pictures Television/FX Productions)
 “A Scandal in Belgravia” – Sherlock, Teleplay by Steven Moffat (BBC/Masterpiece)
“New Car Smell” – Homeland, Teleplay by Meredith Stiehm (Showtime/Fox21)

 
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"When They Are Done With Us" – Staten Island Noir by Patricia Smith (Akashic Books)
 

GRAND MASTER

Ken Follett
Margaret Maron
 

RAVEN AWARDS

Oline Cogdill
Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego & Redondo Beach, CA
 

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
                                                                                           
Akashic Books

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER – MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, May 1, 2013)

Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)
A City of Broken Glass by Rebecca Cantrell (Forge Books)
The Reckoning by Jane Casey (Minotaur Books)
The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books)
Sleepwalker by Wendy Corsi Staub (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper)
 

The Mail I Get – Made My Day Edition

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I was very touched and flattered by this email, so I had to share it with you:

I say Thank You for my discovery of reading. That might sound strange coming from a 51 year male whose wife has thousands of books in our house. But I have never read a book since I was forced to in high school, even then I'm not sure I actually did.

While my wife was looking at books at a tag sale my daughter was looking at Mr. Monk is Miserable, she put it down, after my wife purchased several books we were leaving when the man gave my daughter the book. It was very nice of him, but what happened next has changed my life.

My daughter read the book. And when she was done she said, Dad, I know you don't read, but please try reading this book. My wife reads hundreds of books a year and had never gotten me to pick up a book, but when my little girl asked me to, I did. I could not put the book down. It was so easy to read, problem was it was the 7th book. I have a lot of catching up to do. So for my birthday I got book #1, Christmas, books 2, 3, and 4. So reading the acknowledgments I saw your website, and got your email address, and just wanted to say thank you.

You know I'll be getting the rest of the series to read, and after that I'm sure reading is in my future.

Isn't that amazing? I am going to keep this email on my wall so that when the writing gets tough, I'll be reminded of readers like him, stop my whining, and press on.

 

Sleazy Rights Grab

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The Authors Guild reports that magazine publisher Conde Nast (Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Self, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Wired, among others,) is attempting to screw freelancer writers out of a significant chunk of the TV & movie rights to their articles. Movies such as Saturday Night Live and Hurt Locker began as magazine articles. 

[They] would slice writers' share of potential film and television income to freelance works appearing in its magazines by more than 50%. Its new boilerplate contract — introduced last year — would give the company a free, exclusive 12-month right to option dramatic and multimedia rights. Under the contract, Condé Nast could choose to extend that option by up to 24 months for a modest sum. Should Condé Nast exercise the option, the writer would, under boilerplate terms, be paid just 1% of the film or tv production budget. Negotiated film and tv agreements typically pay the author 2.5% or more of the production budget. […] Christine Haughney of the New York Times writes about the contract and dispute today in an article that quotes Jan Constantine, the Authors Guild's general counsel.

 

The Mail I Get

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I got this solicitation today from a woman I don't know:

I am the owner of this new platform a company that is launching now..

www.menduniversebuzz.wordpress.com

i am looking for some referrals re a writer for a novelization that launches as the prequel book to this universe…

I am half way through with an outline that needs to be re-edited and dialogue added…

full 118 page film script available to work with and my original epic and my team and all else.. I own all the rights to these works – registered at the writers guild etc.

I couldn't make any sense out of the email, so I looked at the site. That was even more incomprehensible (though just as badly written). It appears to be a blog dedicated to some fantasy world she's created and wants to exploit in books,movies, and a store. I think it has something to do with the magic of music, or musical magic, or God knows what. It's a real rambling mess.

It appears what she's looking for is someone to novelize a movie script of an outline of a novel that doesn't yet exist, except as a book proposal and an incoherent blog.

Well, she came to the right guy. I can't think of something I'd rather do or a more valuable use of my time. But darn it, I'm just too busy with other committments to jump at this great opportunity.

So it's all yours. Go for it.

Authors Behaving Badly

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Oh my, author RJ Ellory can't resist promoting himself under fake names. Now he's been banned from Wikipedia after logging on under false identities to delete links to news stories about his outrageous "sock puppetry" on Amazon. The Telegraph reports:

Officials made the decision afterfinding that he had tried to delete stories from the profile as well as links to Telegraph.co.uk, and had breached its "self promotion" rules.

[…]Ellory took to this Wikipedia page to amend the wording of a “controversy paragraph” and the newspaper links which he says gave “completely the wrong bias on this issue […] there is a significant matter of misrepresentation in the press regarding the extent to which I had manufactured 'reviews' on amazon [sic].”

This is clearly a guy with a huge ego (or is it raging insecurity?) who is so intent on praising himself that he doesn't realize how self-destructive his actions are, that all he succeeds in doing is making himself look desperate and pathetic.

The Mail I Get – Tell My Story Edition

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I get lots of emails from folks who want me to write about their lives. I have no idea why, since I don't write biographies. The query I got today struck me as particularly odd.

hello, my name is jeremy XYZ. i have recently been convicted of fraudulant practice. just wondering if you or any other author would be interested in making a book. i am still not found guilty in court. but i am convicted of changing bar codes on products. this is a new trending crime. i am looking to do a tell all, once all court business is taken care of. i am not much of an author, but i feel that i can help someone publish a detailed book with alot of info that will catch readers minds and have them spreading the word. please feel free to call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx or e-mail me back. 

I'd call him, but there's a real glut of adventures set in the thrill-packed world of barcode fraud.

My Final Monk

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Lee Goldberg and Traylor Howard-2Mr. Monk Gets Even, my 15th MONK novel, was published today. The series of books will continue, with my friend Hy Conrad picking up where I left off, but this is the end for me and my long, wonderful, association
with Adrian Monk.

It began when “Monk”
creator Andy Breckman hired me and my then-TV writing partner William Rabkin to
write an episode of the TV series entitled “Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico,” which
would end up being the first of three episodes we wrote for the show.

At the time, Bill
and I were about to begin writing & producing the Lifetime TV series
“Missing” and I was deep into writing the “Diagnosis Murder” novels, based on
the TV series of the same name that we’d also written & produced. When Andy
was approached about writing “Monk” novels, he passed on the opportunity and
recommended me for it instead.

I took the job,
which was an insane thing to do, since it would mean writing a new book every
ninety days, alternating between “Monk” and “Diagnosis Murder,” at night while
also running a TV series during the day. That’s how much I loved Monk. I kept
up that brutal pace for two years before ending the “Diagnosis Murder” book
series.

Andy liked my first
“Monk” novel, Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse, so much, that he hired Bill and
I to adapt it into an episode of the TV show. The episode, “Mr. Monk Can’t See
A Thing,” may be the first time in American TV history that a tie-in novel of a
TV show has been adapted into an episode of the series….and by the author of
the book, no less (if it’s been done before, we haven’t found it. And if it
has, it’s obviously a rare occurrence!)

If it wasn’t for
Andy’s enthusiasm and support, I doubt I would have written so many “Monk”
novels or had so much fun doing them. He gave me his trust and the creative freedom
to make the book series my own, and for that I will always be grateful. 
Lee at mystery bookstore booth

I want to thank
Kerry Donovan, who has been my editor on this series from the very beginning,
my agent Gina Maccoby who put together the deal, and my go-to medical and
forensic expert, Dr D.P. Lyle.  I also
regularly leaned on my “cop buddies” Paul Bishop, Lee Lofland, and Robin
Burcell for their expertise on police matters and I hope I didn’t embarrass
them too much with the great liberties I took with the information they gave me.

It’s not easy
writing two books a year, particularly if you’re doing it part-time while
making your living in television. I can trace my life in these books, like Mr.
Monk in Outer Space and Mr. Monk Goes to Germany, both of which I wrote
while writing, producing and shooting a movie in Berlin and Cologne. They kept
me sane, and out of trouble, while I was far away from home.  

For the most part,
though, the time I spent on these books was time I didn’t spend with my family,
particularly on this last one, which required more than a few all-nighters. So,
with deep appreciation, I want to thank my wife Valerie and my daughter Madison
for the sacrifices they made during the last seven years while I pretended to
be a woman assisting an obsessive-compulsive detective on his investigations.

And finally, I want
to thank all of you for being such devoted readers, and for the many emails,
letters, and kind words you’ve shared with over the years about these books. It
meant a lot to me.  

Jack Klugman, RIP

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Sad to learn that Jack Klugman died today. I had the pleasure of working with him twice on episodes of DIAGNOSIS MURDER. I spent hours talking to him during the course of those shoots…and he was very candid about what a prick he was to the writers on QUINCY. He said: “Be glad you’re working with me now and not back then!” When we cast him, he was just glad to be working…since his problem with his voice had really cut down on the number of acting jobs coming his way. Here are the opening scenes of the DIAGNOSIS MURDER episode “Voices Carry,” which guest stars Jack Klugman. I think it was one of the best episodes of our show. 

 

A Ballsy Scam

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I stumbled on this post from Writer Beware very late…but wow, what a ballsy and inept scam. A fake PR firm, the Albee Agency, advertised itself with fake endorsements from non-existent novelists and even a few real authors…and actually thought they could get away with it. Victoria Strauss caught'em. 

Now, these are all authors I'd never heard of before. Maybe their books never got published, or went out of print, or something. Maybe my Google-fu was just not up to par. But wait–here's an author I do know: Chuck Wendig (if you're not familiar with his blog, you should get to know it). Wow, Chuck really had a great experience with Albee, didn't he?

However, I have a suspicious mind. So I dropped Chuck a line, asking if he'd indeed hired The Albee Agency to do PR for him. His response:

WTF? Who is the Albee Agency? They have a testimonial from me on their main page that I never made. thealbeeagency.com (@victoriastrauss)

[…]So….fake testimonials. Nonexistent authors; authors quoted without permission. There are no gray areas here: The Albee Agency is engaging in fraudulent behavior. This just emphasizes–as if y'all didn't already know–that writers need to watch out for scams.

The bigger point, though, is that even without the fake testimonials, there is plenty to beware of here. If Albee were absolutely, scrupulously honest about the authors it has worked with, it would still be offering services of dubious value for too much money, with no assurance of professional expertise.

And that, my friends, is a much bigger danger these days than an outright, bona-fide scam.

Transporter: The Series

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Transporter-Ex-ElitesoldatFrankMartin-ChrisVance2I saw the first episode of the troubled TRANSPORTER tv series. And it's immediately obvious from the opening scenes why they've blown through two showrunners over just 11 episodes of what ened up being an aborted 22 episode order…and that the studios involved ended up putting their line producer and a director in charge. 

There's lots of European-shot 2nd unit car chases cut into a few scenes of Canadian-shot "drama." But beyond that, it's not a TV series as much as it is a TV adaptation of a co-production contract. Someone along the way forgot there's supposed to be characters and a story in a TV series. There's no creative vision whatsoever to the show, just deal points being honored, ticked off one by one without regard to whether any of it adds up to entertainment.

It doesn't.

 The only thing that's interesting about it, purely from a technical/editing standpoint, is studying how they matched their 2nd unit footage from Europe (which is 60% of the show) with the stuff they shot on streets and stages in Toronto. Sometimes it's very smooth, other times you can really see the rough edges. The actors (namely Chris Vance, stepping in for Jason Statham) clearly spent a lot of time acting with green screens. Watching the show reminded me of how Bill Rabkin and I built episodes of COBRA (syndicated 1993) around Steve Cannell's stock footage library to save money. 

The writing on the series is just atrocious and, since there is no human connection to the action, the stunts/chases lack any visceral impact. You just aren't invested in any of it. The martial arts sequences, though, are  cleverly done and well-staged.

But as Bill and I learned on MARTIAL LAW, that just isn't enough to sustain a series (at least Chris Vance speaks English and doesn't have to work with Arsenio Hall).