Big Names in Kentucky

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The roster of writers participating in the second  annual International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro Kentucky just keeps getting more and more impressive. LAW AND ORDER showrunner Rene Balcer has been added to an impressive list of speakers that includes CSI creator/showrunner Anthony Zuiker, author Mary Higgins Clark, and actor/author Gene Hackman. The Festival, which features the world premiere of half-a-dozen mystery themed plays, starts June 12 and runs through the 23rd.

Harvesting New Suckers

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As I warned back in December, it appears that the Jones Harvest vanity press is following the loathsome example set by Airleaf, the notorious publishing scam, and is targeting the elderly with false promises of bestseller success and instant celebrity. The Airleaf Victims blog reports:

In the past six months, I personally have received nine different
horror stories about Jones Harvest Publishing primarily from senior
citizens who invested thousands of dollars into an Airleaf-type dream
and in all but one case, after they invested and lost thousands of
dollars at Airleaf.

[…]When the
first set of victims came to me in November, I told them to request
their money back as I did all of the future ones who wrote to me. Some
of these new victims had their money returned after they wrote Jones
Harvest a letter threatening to report the company to the FBI and
Attorney General. However, there are other victims whom I have recently
learned about who have not had their money returned.

[…]Another note of interest: Part of the hook is promising reviews to customers. In a standard letter, it stated:
"Also
enclosed is a review we've received after sending it to a professional
reviewer… "

People pay Jones Harvest to get their books
reviewed. I read the review. It was signed by Tim, Brien's former phone
receptionist and college nephew. His title under his name was "Media
Researcher and Educator, T&R Reviews." The T&R stands for Tim
and Rosa, Tim's wife. That's really a credible "professional" source to
pay money for, isn't it?

It's no surprise that Jones Harvest is running the same, old scams.  Jones Harvest was founded by former Airleaf exec Brien Jones. I love this part of his pitch, which he has the gall to make to the Airleaf victims:

We will not be satisfied until we place [Your book] in bookstores
everywhere and [You] is a celebrity. This program has a one-time fee
of $7500. There are no further charges of any kind.

Sincerely,

Brien Jones, President

P.S.
In your case, the price is $5,000. That is my way of apologizing for
the past misfortunes AND showing you what we can accomplish at cost.
Please keep this offer confidential. All but a very few authors must
pay full price.

The solicitation is straight out of the Bookman Publishing/Airleaf book of scams and, if the Airleaf Victims report is accurate, is just as dishonest (That said, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for any Airleaf sucker who falls for this scam, too. Those people are beyond stupid…they must be brain dead).

It seems that Jones is intent on meeting the same fate as his mentor Carl Lau, the Bookman/Airleaf conman who lost his vanity press business and is finally being prosecuted by the Indiana Attorney General for his scams. I just hope the Attorney General's office doesn't take as long to investigate Jones Harvest as they did to look into Airleaf.

Devil May Care

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…but the reader won't. DEVIL MAY CARE is billed as a new 007 novel by Sebastian Faulks "writing as Ian Fleming." But he's not. He's writing as Richard Maibaum, the Bond screenwriter, only not as well. This feels like a limp effort to rip-off GOLDFINGER…the movie, not the book…and it fails on just about every level. This isn't a bad book, it's not just a very good one. It's literary cool whip and, as an adventure-thriller, not nearly as satisfying as even the weakest book by Barry Eisler (the RAIN series) or Lee Child (the REACHER series). It feels as if Faulks, the brilliant author of the amazing BIRDSONG, dashed this off in a weekend, making it up as he went along. Here's an example of the prose:

Bond lit a cigarette. It was pointless to argue with M
when he had one of these bees in his bonnet. "Is there anything else I
need to know about Dr. Gorner?"

Bees in his bonnet? Not
only is that a cliche, it's not something I would I would expect Bond
to say…Miss Marple maybe, but 007?

DEVIL MAY CARE is filled with references — direct, indirect, figurative, and pastiche — to previous Bond novels and films, characters and situations. Most of all, he tries to evoke FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and GOLDFINGER, practically lifting scenes and characters from those tales and rewriting them in new locales. It doesn't work and only makes you realize how much better those books — and movies — were than this thin and unimaginative novel.

Faulks' own creations are familiar and, at the same time, preposterous. The mwa-ha-ha bad guy is a pale imitation of DR. NO…with a simian hand. Yeah, you read right, one of his hands is exactly like an ape's. And he has a sidekick that's yet another variation of Oddjob and, dare I say it, Jaws.

The biggest problem with the book — beyond the thin writing and familiar scenario — is the depiction of Bond himself, who comes across slow-witted and strangely chaste…and not the least bit dangerous. He may have "cruel eyes," but that's all that's nasty about him. He knocks out bad guys instead of killing them (when doing so puts his own life in jeopardy) and refuses to bed women who offer themselves to him. Ho-hum. Even worse, he makes one dumb move after another… and the reader will be way, way ahead of Bond when it comes to the "twists" in the book, which are so loudly telegraphed that they might as well be emblazoned across the cover.

All in all, DEVIL MAY CARE is a weak tie-in and a poor continuation of the literary franchise. I expected much, much more from an author of Faulks' talents.

UPDATE: I just read an interview with Faulks where he says he purposely wrote the book in six weeks to mirror Fleming's own work-pace. It reads like he wrote it faster than that. By comparison, I wrote most of my DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK books in eight week to 12 weeks, often while also writing and producing a TV show or movie, to meet rigid publisher deadlines. My brother Tod wrote his BURN NOTICE tie-in in eight weeks and, though I am obviously biased, it is a hell of a lot better than DEVIL MAY CARE.

Another Man’s Moccasins

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There's more at work in Another Man's Moccasins than a compelling mystery. Craig Johnson has crafted a deeply affecting story about people shaped by their pasts, seeking escape, redemption or reconciliation…and the high price they must pay in blood, tears, and sacrificed dreams to achieve it. Johnson's lean prose is deceptively powerful, haunting you like the ghosts that follow Walt Longmire in this tragic and redemptive tale of longing, loss and responsibility.

Monk Galley Giveaway Winners

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Monk Germany Cover
The winners of the MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY galley giveaway are Kathleen Hurst of Lawton, Oklahoma, Bobby Vasquez of Tucson, Arizona and Peter D'Antonio of Washingtonville, NY. Congratulations…and thanks for the great reviews! (I know I said I was only giving away two…but it turns out I had three extras).

FAST TRACK rave

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I have no idea who this guy is…or where he saw FAST TRACK…but he gave the movie a rave:

The lives of four characters criss-cross when each of them gets
involved with the world of illegal street racing.  And lots of fun it
is, too. Lee Goldberg has created four very interesting characters and set up some cool
dynamics between all of them.  It's got a few good stunts here and
there, but most of the two hour pilot is devoted to the relationships
betweeen the characters: the deeply-in-debt owner of a garage and her
boyfriend, a cop who secretly street races for thrills.  Her friend,
Mike, wants to be a street racer if she will give him the chance.  She
won't, but a rich, bored trophy wife is happy to jump into his world,
and he's happy to jump into her bed in return.  There's some criminal
hijinks and a few gun battles along the way and – by the end of it all
– the four leads have bonded into a very unusual team.  I would love to
see more.

Thanks Michael!

BookExpo Hangover

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I am a still recovering from BookExpo and sorting through the hundreds of books and galleys I brought home. I didn't just grab stuff for myself, but a ton of teen fiction for my daughter and non-fiction books for my wife. So it was Christmas for them, too. My shoulders and back are aching from the bags of books I lugged around the convention floor before unloading them in my car (I must have made a dozen trips to my car over the weekend to unload galleys…thank god I parked near the entrance!). But it was worth it. I wonder how many of the books I'll ever get around to reading.

Not only did I scoop up galleys of new books from Dennis Lehane, Robert Crais, Thomas Perry, Anita Shreve,  and scores of other other "name" authors…I also got the JUNO screenplay, Roger Ebert's book about Scorcese, and the official episode guides for RESCUE ME, 24, and a few others TV shows. I didn't expect to find those among the freebies.

Aside from all the free stuff, I spent a lot of time chatting with librarians and booksellers, meeting new authors, and browsing through the offerings at the various publishers' booths. That was great.

I was surprised how many teams of book dealers were there, working the
autograph area, hustling between  lines (and often shouting across
them) to get signed galleys and books they could turn around and sell. I found it really irritating. I wish there was a way to
keep them out, though I realize they count technically as booksellers, too. That said,
most of the booksellers who were there sell *new* books, ordered from publishers
and paying royalties to authors, not the freebies they snag at
BookExpo. It's one thing for the dealers to dominate the signing lines
at events like the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books or Bouchercon,
but I felt an industry event was the wrong place for them to be
clogging up the lines. Maybe I'd feel differently if so many of them this year weren't so loud, pushy and rude.

I bumped into a lot of friends, including Marv Wolfman, Mark Evanier, Harry Hunsicker, Brett Battles, Penny Warner, T. Jefferson Parker, Bob Levinson, Patricia Smiley, Bill Fitzhugh, former Mystery Bookshop proprietor Sheldon MacArthur and agent Ken Sherman among others. Paul Levine was carrying around a galley called THE LANGUAGE OF SEX  (or something like that) under his arm and, while I was talking to him, a guy stopped to ask if Paul wrote it and where he could get a copy. Paul, of course, claimed he not only wrote it, but the JOY OF SEX as well. I surprised Victoria Rowell, one of the stars of DIAGNOSIS MURDER, who
was signing the paperback edition of her memoir and we had a warm
reunion. I ended my visit with a long dim sum lunch in Chinatown with my book agent Gina Maccoby. We talked about what I should do next now that I'm not juggling two books series and writing four books a year. I pitched her one of the mystery/thriller ideas I have and she loved it…so maybe I will try to start writing it in-between Monk books this year…or I may just write it as a spec script first and see what happens.

Speaking of specs, I better stop procrastinating here and finish the one I'm working on….