Novel Twists

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Variety reports that The Weinstein Company has drafted mystery novelists Terrill Lee Lankford and Michael Connelly to script the feature film version of the TV series THE EQUALIZER, to be directed by  Paul McGuigan.

Connelly acknowledged in a statement that "times have certainly changed
since the days of the television show" but said he and his co-scribe
"plan to build a character that is of these times but to also keep the
heart and soul of the show intact."

It’s highly unusual for studios to turn to novelists to adapt anything, especially something as tricky as turning a TV series into a feature film…so this is a big deal. Lee and Michael must have made a hell of a pitch and knowing them as I do, you can bet it’s going to be a great script.

Meanwhile, ABC has greenlit production on MARLOWE, a pilot that’s a "contemporary update" of Raymond Chandler’s classic LA private eye. Greg Pruss and Carol
Wolper are writing and producing (Anyone remember the last "update" of Marlowe starring Robert Mitchum…and set in London!?)

Dumb Questions

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Not long ago at a signing, a reader asked me:

"How much of your books do you write?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I was wondering who writes the dialogue," she said.

"I do," I said.

"Really?" she said. "And who writes the rest?"

"I do," I said.

"Oh really," She looked at me skeptically. "Then why is Dick Van Dyke’s picture on the cover?"

I’m bringing this up because I had an eerily similar conversation when I spoke at a luncheon this week. A woman asked me:

"Who writes the dialogue in your scripts?"

"I do," I said.

"And who writes what happens?" she asked.

"I do," I said.

"So you’re telling me you write the dialogue, the mystery, the action, and everything else," she said.

"Yes, ma’am," I said.

"I thought the actors made up what they say."

"That’s certainly what the actors think," I said.

Literary Cannibalism

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Here’s a new twist on the fanfic debate:   an article in the Daily Telegraph implies that  Thomas Harris stole from Hannibal Lector fanfic for his novel HANNIBAL RISING. The article quotes some fanfic passages and compares them to passages in Harris’ new novel.

Trawling through the Lecter fanfic, one comes on other tantalising parallelisms. Six years ago, for example, ‘Leeker17’, on www.typhoidandswans.com
posted a narrative which uncannily forecasts the opening chapters of
Hannibal Rising in its detailed description of how the hero’s parents
and sister met their ends in 1944. So close is it that one might fancy
that Leeker17 had some privileged connection with Harris. Or that
Harris himself, under a nom-de-web, may be the ‘leaker’. Or, like
Blythebee, Leeker17 may just have struck lucky.

If
an author picks up and uses something from ‘his’ fanfic is he
plagiarising, collaborating, or merely playing games? One thing’s
certain. Harris won’t tell us.

(Thanks to Sarah Weinman for the heads-up!)

Charlie’s Angel’s Lawsuit

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My cousin Danny tipped me off to the California State Appeals Court’s decision this week rejecting actor Robert Wagner’s claim against Columbia Pictures seeking a piece of the profits from the two CHARLIE’S ANGELS movies. Wagner and his late wife Natalie Wood won profit participation in the original CHARLIE’S ANGELS television show as part of a complicated negotiation for the two of them to star in an unrelated TV movie.  The written decision offers a fascinating peek behind-the-scenes into the business of television.

Mr. Monk and the Good News

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I just got a double-header of good Monk news.

On January 14th, the USA Network is running a Monk Viewer’s Choice
marathon. Fifty thousand viewers cast their votes for their fourteen favorite episodes. Their viewers’ choice for the best-ever episode of MONK airs at 10
pm…and it’s MR. MONK GOES TO MEXICO written by yours truly & William
Rabkin.

On top of that, I learned today that my book MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU was #18
on Barnes and Noble’s overall mass market bestseller list last week.

 

Monk Scraps

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I’m in the midst of reading the copy-edited manuscript for MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS.  My editor has made some trims and I agree with all of her cuts. But I thought you might get a kick out of this deletion:

We passed the turn-off for Buttonwillow & McKittrick, a collection of fast-food restaurants and gas stations right off the freeway. I didn’t know anything about Buttonwillow, except that it probably wasn’t as charming a place as it sounded. But I’d written a report about McKittrick when I was in fifth grade and I was tempted to terrify Monk by telling him what I knew.

It was a pioneer town that was built to serve the people who mined the natural tar that seeped out of the earth. Because of the intense heat and the sticky gunk, the miners worked in the nude. They
wouldn’t bother cleaning up for lunch, they just gather naked and covered with tar, and sit on newspapers in the communal mess hall. At the end of the day, they’d have to scrape each other clean with knives.

That was an image that would have haunted Monk but I took mercy on him and kept the story to myself.

The passage may still end up in a future MONK book. I have a file of deleted bits and pieces that were either cut in the writing stage or later during the editorial process. I never throw anything out.

Parker is Prolific

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There are a couple of interesting things about Robert B. Parker’s latest Amazon blog post. For one, he’s openly soliciting people to buy the movie option on his Sunny Randall novels (and offers the name and address of his agents)…which I find extraordinary for an author of his experience and success in both the publishing and TV business.

But the really amazing thing about his post is what it reveals about how prolific he is. His last Spenser came out in November. He has a Jesse Stone novel coming out in February, a young adult novel in April, a Sunny Randall in June, and  Spenser in October. I figure he must be writing a book at least every eight to twelve weeks. That’s an amazing output…especially for a  bestselling author in his late 60s (or is he in his 70s?) who really doesn’t need to work that hard any more.

Diagnosis Murder Galleys

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Dmlastword
THE LAST WORD, the final book in the DIAGNOSIS MURDER series, will be published in May. If you are a book critic and would like a galley of the book for review,  please send me your name, the title of your publication (or the web address of your review site), and your mailing address.

The Airleaf Morons

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Today, I picked up a letter sent to me in care of Mysteries To Die For, a bookstore in Thousand Oaks, California. The letter was from Airleaf Publishing, the vanity press company formerly known as Bookman Marketing, and they were offering to "sell MY GUN HAS BULLETS to a national audience!"  for the low, low price of $3000.

I wrote about these parasites back in November… when this same "opportunity" to flush your money down a toilet cost a whopping $7000. Since then, it appears that they’ve become a shade less greedy but monumentally more stupid.

The incompetence represented by this letter is so extreme, I almost don’t know where to begin. Let’s start with them sending this pitch to a successful, published author who has castigated them publicly for their business practices before.

And where do these idiots send their letter? They send it to me in care of a bookstore that’s already selling my books.

The folks at Airleaf Publishing are obviously trolling the catalogs at  iUniverse and other competing vanity presses,
figuring if the aspiring authors could be suckered once, they could be
suckered again.

But the dimwit who is doing the trolling apparently
doesn’t know when he’s picking books that are part of either Mystery Writers of America Presents or Authors
Guild’s Back-in-Print programs (both of which reprint
previously published books through iUniverse as a free service for their members).

The dimwit doesn’t realize that when he picks books from the MWA Presents or Back-In-Print authors,  he’s
dealing with experienced professionals who haven’t paid to be published and who know
better than to be suckered by an insanely pricey vanity press come-on.

The Airleaf Publishing corporate policy must be to hire people who are "mentally challenged" or born with only a brain stem…and to hope whoever gets their letters are just as stupid and have high credit lines on their Visa cards.