Aloha from Hawaii

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Big Island March 2009
It's been cloudy and  rainy for the first three days of Left Coast Crime 2009 here on the Big Island of Hawaii, but it hasn't dimmed the enthusiasm of the attendees.  Bill & Toby Gottfried have always delivered great conventions and I am pleased to  report that LCC 2009 is no exception.

I haven't attended many panels (besides my own) but I've enjoyed chatting with readers and authors, something the layout of the vast, open lobby encourages with many comfortable sitting  areas where you can feel the warm ocean breeze (without getting soaked  by the rain). On the first night, I spent a few hours chatting at a table with authors Robin Burcell, Tim Maleeny, and Jonathan Hayes…and as time went on, our number grew to include Twist Phelan, Barry Eisler, Rhys Bowen and Meg Chittenden (by then we'd moved down to the poolside bar). I'd never met Jonathan before  — he's a Senior Medical Examiner in Manhattan and wrote a serial killer novel called PRECIOUS BLOOD. You'd think he'd be a dark and brooding fellow, but he's quite the opposite…charming, funny, and a terrific storyteller. I'm going to have to read his books now.

Twist told me that she and author Jan Burke got lost on their way to see the volcano, which was probably a good thing, because Denise Hamilton and her family also headed there and got so bogged down in heavy rain, that they gave up and camped out at a hotel in Hilo for the night instead.Big Island Authors

Yesterday I sat in on a readers group that was discussing one of my DIAGNOSIS MURDER  novels and that as great fun for me. I was also on a panel about humorous mysteries and my fellow panelist Parnell Hall had the audience howling with embarrassed laughter as he described his battle with an auto-flushing  toilet in a New York airport.  We only discuss lofty writerly issues at these conferences.

I have no silly questions to share with you today or salacious gossip…but i'm working on it.
(pictured on the right…Meg Chittenden, me, Rhys Bowen and Robin  Burcell).

Mr. Goldberg Goes to Hawaii

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Mr-Monk-Goes-to-Hawaii
As you read this, I am on my way to Hawaii with my family to attend Left Coast Crime 2009, where I will be serving a toastmaster and speaking on several panels. Fun, sun, and mystery novels. It doesn't get any better than that. Paradise in Paradise. I am truly a lucky man.  

I have to thank my publishers, Penguin, for donating copies of "Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii" for the attendees…and the USA Network for sponsoring the book-bags that everybody will be toting. 

The authors attending include Barry Eisler, Vicki Hendricks, Rhys Bowen, Jan Burke, Dana Stabenow, Laurie King, and local boy Lono Waiwaiole, one of my favorite authors of dark noir.

I don't know how often I'll be able to blog, so forgive me if things slow down here over the next week…

Morons at the Gate

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There are signs everywhere (and TSA personnel) telling you not to bring liquids on the plane, to remove your shoes, and to take your laptop out of your bag to go thru security…and yet there are still people who *don’t* do this, turning the security check into a crawl. Is it really that difficult to comprehend? Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The Vanity Press Kool Aid

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Mrs. Giggles blogs today about the slew of self-publishing hype lately. She says, in part:

The problem with self-publishing propoganda, if you ask me, is that most of these circus barkers are telling people what they want to hear, as opposed to telling them the hard facts. They tell barely literate high school dropouts that grammar and writing ability don't matter because stories "come from the heart" or something like that. They tell desperate authors that traditional publishers are evil people who deliberately set out to crush their dreams. They tell these people that they are entitled to be authors, and yes, fame and success and respect will follow shortly after because look at the handful of current self-published authors who have made it big, blah blah blah.

[…] Self-publishing is no short cut to success – it is another way to get published, but it is also another kind of hard work awaiting the author. And the rewards are far lower than you would reap with traditional publishing, unless you are an expert in your field with a ready-made audience at your seminars and classes […] or you are content to sell a dozen or so copies and knowing that there is an audience, however small, that appreciate your art.

I couldn't agree more. The problem is that most of the reporters writing about vanity presses either have their own agenda or don't dig deeper than the press releases they are giving. Recently, Publishers Weekly profiled several fast-growing "small presses" but neglected to mention that two of them — Greenleaf and Morgan James — are vanity presses that make their money selling books to authors rather than readers (hat-tip to Victoria Strauss for that one). PW is an industry trade publication…they should know better.

Night and Day

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N274691
NIGHT AND DAY, the new Jesse Stone novel, is so slight, you almost expect the words to evaporate from the white pages. I noticed the white because there's so much of it. I doubt there has ever been so much white space in a book before. The story is barely a sketch with a plot so thin it's practically non-existent. There isn't even a murder in the book…or a real mystery, as such. If anything, it's more of a vignette about Jesse, because the crimes, such as they are, aren't mysterious, involving, or interesting on their own. They aren't even felonies. The story doesn't even feel long or substantial enough to qualify as a novel, so think of it as a extended short story padded with lots of re-stating of information we already know and pages of rapid-fire banter, some of it clever, most of it quite familiar and tired (especially if you've read the Spenser novels). Which all leaves enough white space on the pages to write your own novel in the margins.

It was a pleasant diversion for a couple of hours, certainly not the worst Jesse Stone book (or the worst Parker), but far from the best. It was interesting, though, to contrast the book with the new, and wholly original, Jesse Stone movie that aired the other night. The movie was far better than any Stone novel in the last few years. Selleck and his team have the Parker voice down and managed to craft a much more interesting plot that felt true to the spirit of the early Stone novels. Parker remarked in a recent interview that he doesn't do any rewriting. It shows. 

Don’t Mess with Perry Mason

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PERRY MASON reruns have been playing on a Portland, Oregon TV station every day for 42 years.:

When Patrick McCreery was named general manager at Portland’s Fox KPTV six months ago, corporate bosses gave him a free hand as long as he followed an unwritten 42-year-old rule: Don’t mess with “Perry Mason.”
“It’s untouchable,” McCreery said. “We can add shows and take others off the air, but ‘Perry’ is nothing to fool with.”
[…]Managers don’t know of another U.S. station that’s continuously broadcast “Perry Mason” as long as KPTV, where the show debuted 15 days after ending its nine-year run on CBS. It’s among the least-expensive shows to buy, even as KPTV has moved from showing it on film reels to 1-inch tapes to digital tapes and now digital with closed captioning.
“Most markets don’t want it,” Dunevant said. “They figure that with high-definition sets and 5.1 stereo sound, what viewer is going to want to watch an old black-and-white show? We’ve found very loyal viewers. It’s the linchpin of our daytime programming.”

No More Life on Mars

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ABC has cancelled the US version of LIFE ON MARS. But in an unusual move sure to please fans, they are going to let the producers shoot a final episode that wraps things up. The series only lasted a few episodes longer than the UK original which was, in just about every way, better than the U.S. version, despite the likes of Michael Imperioli and Harvey Keitel in the cast. The question now is…will they use the same ending as the British original or come up with a new fate for time-traveling cop Sam Tyler?