A short trailer for a short film.
TV Main Title of the Week – Canadian Edition
The main title and first few minutes of the 1974 Canadian series THE COLLABORATORS…with special guest star William Shatner
Michelle Gagnon on KIDNAP AND RANSOM
My friend Michelle Gagnon — the lovely, lethal, and talented author of the Special Agent Kelly Jones series — has a new thriller out entitled KIDNAP AND RANSOM that critics are already calling her best novel yet. So I thought this would be a good time to ask her about her work, her craft, and her take on where the business is going.
LEE: The old adage is "write what you know," but the heroine of your books is a kick-ass FBI Special Agent. You've been everything BUT that… a dancer, model, dog walker, personal trainer, bartender, etc. Is writing about Kelly Jones purely an escapist fantasy for you?
MICHELLE: So true, I’m clearly in way over my head. The smart thing would have been to set a book in a Russian supper club starring a modern dancer and call it a day.
Here’s the thing: with THE TUNNELS, I initially set out to write a college coming of age story. But I kept stalling out after twenty or so pages. Each time I went back and tried a different approach, starting with a different scene or tweaking the characters…and each time, I got the same result.
Then one night, I had two of my characters walking through this abandoned tunnel system under the university. And I almost inadvertently killed one of them off. I sat back, re-read what I’d written, and shrugged, figuring I might as well see how it played out. A few pages later FBI agent Kelly Jones walked on to the scene, and the story was off and running. I completed a rough draft within a month.
In retrospect, even though it was entirely unintentional, I feel lucky to have stumbled upon choosing an FBI agent as one of my main characters, because she has the capacity to go almost anywhere. It’s enabled me to have books set in the Berkshires, Arizona, and now Mexico City. And although I’m far from an expert, I’ve done a ton of research on FBI procedures, spent time at the FBI Citizens Academy and Quantico, and had an agent vet every one of my books for accuracy. Although that being said, my favorite quote was from a career FBI agent who said that if I really wrote about what she did all day, the book would only be useful as a sleep aid. I stay true to their procedures as much as possible, but take license when the story calls for it. 
LEE: This latest book, KIDNAP AND RANSOM, is already being hailed as your best work. Wasn't this one inspired by a true story?
MICHELLE: Absolutely it was. While researching border issues for THE GATEKEEPER, I stumbled across an article detailing the kidnapping of Felix Batista. Batista was a world-renowned hostage negotiator who had personally secured the release of over a hundred kidnap victims. While in Saltillo, Mexico for a security conference, he walked out of a restaurant one night, was pushed into the back of a van, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. The irony of the story grabbed me—the hero becoming the victim, an expert suddenly forced into the position he’d saved so many people from. Stranger still was the fact that his kidnapping wasn’t proceeding normally—there was no ransom demand, and no one claimed responsibility for seizing him. It was a true mystery, and I always find those irresistible. Mind you, in KIDNAP & RANSOM every other aspect of his abduction was fictionalized, and the character of Cesar Calderon is not meant to represent him in any way, shape, or form. Hopefully Mr. Batista will be reunited with his family soon.
LEE: Your books are all mass market, paperback originals. But the talk in publishing circles these days is that paperbacks may be an endangered species, soon to be replaced by ebooks. What's your take on that?
MICHELLE: Oh no, I’m doomed! After your Bouchercon ebooks panel, we discussed the fact that you stopped buying paperbacks once you got an ereader. I was an early adopter myself: I received a first generation Sony Reader, Kindle, and iPad as presents over the past few years. Yet I’ve still been buying mass market books. I always bring a paperback on planes to carry me through the inevitable forty-five minutes between take-off and landing when electronic devices must be turned off, or to read at the beach, or in the bathtub. I’ve pretty much stopped buying trade paperbacks, and I usually only buy a hardcover novel if I’ve already read it electronically and loved it so much that I felt compelled to add it to my collection.
So I’m not sure if the mass market format is truly going the way of the eight track. I’d love to see a future where books are bundled in a few different formats—for example, receiving an audio, ebook, and mass market paperback editions of the same book for a certain price. While I love hardcovers, they’re bulky, unwieldy, and really only designed to be read at home- wouldn’t it be great if you could also have an electronic copy of the same novel when you’re traveling, and the ability to switch to the audio version for a long car drive?
LEE: You're an active presence on Facebook, you're a regularly blogger…how important is keeping yourself front-and-center on the web for an author's career these days?
MICHELLE: I think it’s critical, although it can also be exhausting. I’ve tried to be better about turning off my wireless access while I’m writing, and I don’t get on the computer at all after 5pm. Now I share my Thursday slot on THE KILL ZONE blog with the extremely talented Jordan Dane, because I was becoming overwhelmed by the weekly posts (I don’t know how you do it, Lee!)
For Facebook and Twitter, I’ll post articles or other stuff that I stumble across that strikes me as interesting. Even though those networks serve as my virtual watercooler, I’m pretty sure that most of my friends and followers aren’t desperate to know what I ate for breakfast, or how much sleep I got, so I keep those types of posts to a minimum. I have an unfortunate tendency to be easily distracted. So I think that although authors need to capitalize on those resources, it’s necessary to strike a balance, too.
Stinging and Accomplished
Author and screenwriter Stephen Gallagher wrote about REMAINDERED today and to say I am flattered would be an understatement. He says, in part:
Last night I got to see Lee Goldberg’s stinging and accomplished short film Remaindered, and I’m going to recommend it to you without reservation. Yes, I know Lee, and no, friendship has nothing to do with it.The tale’s as well-turned as you’d expect from a pro, and it takes imaginative flight from a reality that’ll be recognised by anyone who’s ever faced the world over a stack of books at a signing table. OK, so not everyone’s done that. But it’s about those dying-inside times when your soul and your sense of self-worth are laid bare for strangers to pick at, and there’s no escaping them as they oblige.
It’s the mise-en-scene, to get fancy about it, that takes it to another level. The small-town Kentucky locale is perfectly textured for the story, and Lee’s choices are all spot-on. From the opening shots you’ve real sense of a place and its people. A special shout-out here for Todd Reynolds as Detective Bud Flanek, whose easy John Goodman-like screen charisma left me surprised to see that he doesn’t have a long resume of Hollywood character roles.
Wow. Thank you so much, Stephen!
What To Do
I have some time on my hands. Today I turned in the manuscript for my 12th Monk novel, MR MONK ON THE COUCH, which means that, for a few weeks anyway, I don't have any deadlines hanging over my head. I still have to come up with the plot of my next Monk book over the next couple of days (the book is due in June), but that's not worrying me too much.
So I'm sitting here trying to decide what project would be the best use of my time, creatively and financially, over the next four-to-six weeks (assuming some paying gig, like a job on a series or a freelance script, doesn't come along!).
1. THE HEIST MOVIE. I've got an incredibly detailed outline for a big heist movie, a project I developed a year or so back for a Big Name Movie Producer…but the project fell through. It's all mine, there are no strings attached to it, so I could write that up as a new spec feature script.
2. THE CRIME NOVEL. I have 20o pages and an outline that I wrote two years ago for a crime novel called KING CITY and then had to set aside for some paying gigs. I could finish that up and give it to my agent…or publish it directly on the Kindle. Or…
3. THE SPEC PILOT. I could go in a different direction and write KING CITY as a spec TV pilot script, since the idea originally began as a TV series pitch that a lot of folks liked, though not enough to actually buy it.
4. THE WALK SEQUEL. My wife thinks I should write a direct-to-Kindle sequel to THE WALK to take advantage of the book's success. The sequel would be set over the same three-day period as the book, but would focus on what was happening to the hero's wife while he was walking across Los Angeles. I have some notions, but I still need to plot the whole thing out.
I'm mulling them all and waiting to see which one inspires me the most over the next couple of days. In the mean time, I've got Men of Mystery to attend in Irvine tomorrow, I want to finish reading Justin Cronin's THE PASSAGE, and I've got lots of episodes of BOARDWALK EMPIRE, NIKITA, and some other shows to catch up on.
Hitchcockian
Media critic Bill Peschel had some great things to say about REMAINDERED on his blog today, singling out the performances of Sebrina Siegel and Todd Reynolds for praise.
“Remaindered” is a tight 20-minute tale of a writer, Kevin Dangler (played by Eric Altheide), whose first novel was the peak of his career and his second was, in the words of the book’s best review, “a 778-page suicide note for a once-promising writing career.” Dangler is reduced to traveling to backwater towns, flogging his third book with signings in grocery stores.
There, he meets Megan, the town librarian with a passion for first editions and those who write them. She’s played by Sebrina Siegel, who gets a lot of mileage out of a black bra and a line like “read to me.”
Needless to say, their meeting doesn’t end well, but I won’t say more. It’s a neat mystery short-story, complete with a twist ending that loops back to the beginning, and in-jokes mystery fans will appreciate, including a “Monk” reference.
My favorite performances were by Siegel, who played the librarian with the right mix of fannish admiration and seduction, and Todd Reynolds as the detective. He had a small role, but he made it memorable (it didn’t hurt that he was given some very sharp lines).
If someone ever decides to retool Alfred Hitchcock’s old TV show, “Remaindered” would fit in nicely. It reminded me of one of the mystery story’s great pleasures: of following a tightly plotted tale with unexpected plot twists and a satisfying conclusion. It’s difficult to pull off, but I’m happy to say that Lee succeeded.
Thanks so much, Bill!
King of the Kindle
Author Parnell Hall sings in this video about wanting to be "The King of the Kindle" and has jam-packed it with author cameos from Bouchercon… including a moment with yours truly.
Read To Me
J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet blog has some very nice things to say about REMAINDERED, the short film that I write and directed in Kentucky. He says, in part:
This may be the only time you’ll ever hear the dictate “Read to me” uttered quite so seductively. Telling more about Goldberg’s plot would spoil its many criminal and comic delights. And even though I immediately caught the mistake on which this story’s conclusion depends, I never lost interest in its unfolding. Remaindered may not be a mammoth Hollywood production, but Goldberg–whose TV-writing credits include Diagnosis: Murder, Monk, Spenser: For Hire, The Cosby Mysteries, and A Nero Wolfe Mystery–has invested no less attention in its crafting because of that.
Remaindered has evidently been entered in several film festivals, but I hope it also receives wider distribution. It’s a quirky, fun picture that members of the crime-fiction community are sure to enjoy.
And cop-turned-author Paul Bishop also said some very nice things to say, including:
Remaindered is a smooth piece of business – not only crisply directed and acted, but with a sense of humor that resists the temptation to go over the top offered by the film’s content.
We haven’t heard back yet from any of the film festivals that we’ve submitted to…but we have our fingers crossed. I hope they like the movie as much as Paul and the Rap Sheet did. Thanks for those great reviews!
Mystery Writers of America De-Lists Dorchester
The National Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on October 6, 2010 to remove Dorchester Publishing from our list of Approved Publishers, effective immediately, primarily because the company no longer meets two of our key criteria.
First, the initial print run by the publisher for a book-length work of fiction or nonfiction must be at least 500 copies and must be widely available in brick-and-mortar stores (not "special order" titles). In other words, print-on-demand publishers and Internet-only publishers do not qualify.
Second, the publisher must not wrongfully withhold or delay royalty payments to authors. We have been hearing an unusually high number of reports from our members of unpaid advances and withheld royalties on their Dorchester books.
Dorchester titles will no longer be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration nor will its authors be eligible for Active Status membership for any books published after October 6, 2010. The board made it clear to Dorchester that it is welcome to re-apply once these problems have been cleared up.
To Speak for the Kindle
Paul Levine's iconic hero Jake Lassiter burst onto the mystery scene with TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD, the first in a widely acclaimed series that has since gone out-of-print. Now Lassiter is making a triumphant return — with the out-of-print titles on the Kindle and with a brand new hardcover release entitled LASSITER coming this fall. So I thought I'd ask Paul what it's like being one of the few authors these days who is both still very active in print and yet diving head-long into the uncharted waters of the ebook biz.
LEE: You're a recent convert to the Kindle… and in the space of just a few months, you've released many of the Jake Lassiter backlist as ebooks, including MORTAL SIN. Have they been successful? What have you learned from the experience?
The success of the books has startled me. “To Speak for the Dead” and “Night Vision,” the first two Jake Lassiter novels, both hit number one on the Kindle “hardboiled” and “legal thriller” lists. So did “Reversal,” my stand-alone Supreme Court thriller. “False Dawn” and “Mortal Sin,” the next couple Lassiter books, hit number two.
These books were long out of print and originally appeared in hardcover in the early 1990’s. So, the point for all authors is this: books you thought were long dead have an afterlife. You can resuscitate your out-of-print and out-of-mind books by electronically publishing them. Also, and this is BIG: the books gather momentum and grow each month. This is the opposite of our experience with dead-tree books, which have the same life expectancy as yogurt in the fridge.
LEE: What are the chances that you'll write an original ebook some day soon?
I have three more Lassiters to put up on Kindle and Smashwords, which then distributes to B&N, Borders, Sony, and the rest. Then…and I haven’t said this publically before…I’m publishing “Ballistic.” It’s a loose nukes thriller I’ve adapted from a spec feature script I wrote some time ago. The script had some close calls, but never was made. After that, who knows?
LEE: Do you think releasing the out-of-print Lassiter books will give your traditional, hardcover release next Fall of LASSITER a sales spike? Or do you think it will work the other way around?
Both, I hope!
But let’s be realistic. I’m the publisher of the “old” Lassiters, so I can charge $2.99 on Kindle and Kobo etc. Will those buyers shell out $25 for a hardcover? Should they? Remember, too, that I have no control over what Bantam will charge for the e-book edition. I will plead for as low a price as possible, but we know that won’t be anywhere close to $2.99.
LEE:. Do you think it's wise for unpublished authors to self-publish? What about mid-list authors who have been dropped? Is this the future of publishing…or just an additional revenue stream for authors?
Some smart-alec at the Bouchercon e-books panel said that self-published authors were producing a “tsunami of swill.” Wait! That was you. It’s true, of course, but as you also pointed out, there is some very good fiction being written by otherwise unpublished authors. It’s so damn hard to break into mainstream publishing now that it’s inevitable that some good writing will be left at the door. The problem is that way too many writers lack the training or discipline or just plain talent to produce readable fiction. Separating the wheat from the chaff produces…a lot of chaff.
For mid-list authors who’ve been dropped, it’s a different story. They have the training, the experience, and some audience. The Internet can provide a new source of income…and satisfaction. We write because we have to….because it’s an illness, a fever…not just for the bucks. If you want to get rich, open a burger joint across the street from a community college.
As for the future of publishing, I’ll borrow William Goldman’s line about Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.”