David Thayer

Wellington Leg: As our beloved Gastropods stumble on a home stand after flubbing on the road I thought it an opportune moment to mention the crime fiction titles whizzing across the aisles at Eddie’s Book Nook. Eddie was supposed to write this column but a white rhino charged through the display window at the height of rush hour. Retail gets tougher by the moment.

Review in January Magazine: Alex Carr’s PRINCE OF BAGRAM PRISON is now up and running on January’s crime fiction page. Alex Carr is Jenny Siler who is always welcome at Eddie’s Book Nook once we clear away the Rhino debris and attendant vampire bits.

VODKA NEAT is the work of UK based Anna Blundy. Blundy is published in the UK by McMillan, the US by St. Martin’s. As a North American you’re going to be confused probably buying eleven of her books to discover there are really only three: the good news they’re terrific, so you won’t care.

THE WATER’S EDGE by Daniel Judson. Wellington Leg is Judson country although he prefers to set his stories on the eastern fringe of Long Island more Hampton Bays and Moriches Inlet than the summer hot spots further east. His characters drive through East Hampton but don’t linger. This is his finest novel yet and that’s saying something.

The Earl to the Yankee pen? Don’t be surprised by a June call up for the forty third earl. Yankee brass are working on a deal whereby the earl can take afternoon naps even during day games! This was the big sticking point last year along with the midges on the shores of Lake Erie. Stay tuned….

Wellington Leg: Eddie’s Book Nook has a list of mini-reviews posted today. Eddie has his thoughts on the latest from Alex Carr ( Jenny Siler) Steven Sidor, Jose Latour, Joseph Wambaugh, Brent Ghelfi, Kjell Eriksson and Cervantes.

THE MIRROR’S EDGE by Steven Sidor: Okay, you don’t like the horror genre. You don’t like scary books. This is one of the most well written novels you’ll read this year, so get over your genre angst and go get the book.

THE PRINCE OF BAGRAM PRISON by Alex Carr. This is Jenny Siler’s second Alex Carr novel published by Mortalis a Random House imprint. Your reporter is writing a full scale review for January, but I can tell you that Eddie liked it. He spilled coffee on his shirt and still liked it.

HIDDEN IN HAVANA by Jose Latour. Reviewed in January. Great story, wonderful setting, subtle sense of fun in the prose.

VOLK’S GAME by Brent Ghelfi. Picador has a wonderful list often overlooked by Big Box Candy Mountain. Let’s find a hero in Mother Russia.

THE DEMON OF DAKAR by Kjell Eriksson. We take terrible liberties with Eriksson’s work swiping blog post titles hijacking entire Swedish cities into Wellington Leg. I use the word “we” to spread the blame around. Sometimes I wish this were a group blog.

Miguel Cervantes: this is the guy who started it all. Well, he’s back in the form of spam. There’s a Dylan song with a reference to Cervantes but I can’t think of which one it is.

Editors Note: Almost forgot HOLLYWOOD CROWS by Joseph Wambaugh. If you’re a fan this is like coming home again. I’m not crazy about the acronymic title, but this has all the elements of his best work updated in the service of youth.

Wellington Leg: After a whirlwind visit from shelving consultant Sarbanes Ochsley Eddie Parker of Eddie’s Book Nook has hired sports editor Mandy Rice-Davies to restore order. “I think Sarbanes meant well,” Eddie said. “But a whole section of ‘boring books’ seems self-defeating to me.”

Mandy agrees. “I’m putting the new Wambaugh under the letter I which stands for “I like it.” She has the latest release by Daniel Judson under I for “I haven’t read it yet,” and Danielle Steele under I for “I didn’t like it.”

The Is have it: Eddie’s Book Nook now has a Bulge near the midsection of the alphabet: “Mandy has everything under “I” so I’m moving the espresso machine and the fax machine, which is really one machine, over toward the Clintonia section of the store.”

Sending Coffee Over the Airwaves: the espresso fax machine was invented in 1897 by the Ninth Earl of Watership Down. The device fell out of favor until 1964 when someone reading LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN fell sideways at a sidewalk cafe in Wellington Leg’s arty warehouse district. “An arc of coffee, much like a rainbow, flew southwest without delay or distraction into the offices of Herself, a Magistrate.”

Eddie faxes coffee along with his New Release tearsheets to subscribers in 44 countries. He recently jolted the Chinese Politburo with a Sumatra blend and the latest Richard North Patterson.

Not everyone appreciates faxed coffee. Boris Norris is a traditionalist. He faxes chocolate bars from his office on Rittenhouse Square. “I sent a Snickers to John McCain. He sent it back Fedex. It was forty three feet long,” he said.

Concetta Comedia del’Arta reporting.

Wellington Leg: Crime author Sandra Ruttan has launched a new site called AT CENTRAL BOOKING that features a short piece by this reporter. Sandra’s novel WHAT BURNS WITHIN is forthcoming from Dorchester this May. Her ezine SPINETINGLER announced contest winners from 2007, some great nominations with winners including Laura Lippman, Sean Doolittle, and Allan Guthrie.

Several minutes later…I hope My Sharona was a suitable musical interlude for the interruption. AT CENTRAL BOOKING is linked under the author’s category.

Coming Soon: Debut author Terri Thayer’s WILD GOOSE CHASE from Midnight Ink. Terri will visit Eddie’s Book Nook and answer questions posed by the Druidical & Literary’s crack team of inquisitors.

Wellington Leg: No sooner had the news come across The Wire, the book reviewing staff at the Druidical & Literary raced down The Mall toward Eddie’s Book Nook where the eponymous Eddie was discovered to be “on line” examining the Mystery Writers of America website with uncommon focus. The fuss revolves around the Edgar nominees. Eddie’s vast mainframe is perhaps a vestige of an earlier era as it fills several rooms with winking diodes and requires acolytes of technology on hand in the event of a breakdown. Equipped with the Earl’s Own Cable & Wireless Deluxe Package the vast machine also provides power to neighboring shops and the battery powered guillotine on Great Rampling Strasse.

Wellington Leg’s favorite on the paperback original list is Kevin Wignall for WHO IS CONRAD HIRST? Kevin will be invited to the Leg as soon as the Dowager Princess recoups her losses on the NFL playoffs and resumes her iron fisted reign by fiat and decree.

John Hart’s DOWN RIVER is the choice by proclamation from the Tower according to police sources. DCI Borchardt, himself an auteur, and avid reader nominated Hart in the Best Novel category. “The Flying Squad sits ready to provide security arrangements should Mr. Hart appear at Eddie’s Book Nook,” Borchardt said. There will be no repeat of the chaos surrounding William Jefferson Clinton’s recent appearance Borchardt added.

Apparently the Earl’s latest travesty RIMBAUD was excluded from consideration probably due to inclement weather preventing the book’s timely launch. RIMBAUD runs to thousands of pages and when serialized by the Wellington Leg Intelligencer caused a precipitous drop in circulation.

Smoke emanating from Eddie’s mainframe signaled the election of several write in candidates although many feel the process is corrupted by vanity publisher Yur Soveign. A committee will be formed to investigate vowed Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe, heiress to the Smythe Oven fortune and doer of deeds: her own novel of crime and punishment was destroyed in a shredding accident several weeks ago. “We have bits and pieces,” she said. “We await the arrival of an adequate supply of Crazy Glue.”

Literary Editor Rex Love-Handles reporting.

Wellington Leg: As Obama ascends and Mitt declines, Wellington Leg goes its own way, blown about by Freshening Breezes and the vagaries of feudalistic mismanagement.  This cliffhanger edition of One More Bite of the Apple seeks to rise above the sturm und drang to answer Infrequently Asked Questions, the annual rite of passage that explains why references to cosmetic surgery are rare in crime fiction.

Doctor Sky Randolph has opened his literary salon and cosmetic surgery practice on Great Rampling Strasse in Wellington Leg’s greasy grimy tenderloin. Dr. Randolph earned an honorary degree as a Doctor of Pith. He knows his way around arcane tax rulings and his potboiler PHILLIPA AT THE RAILING is a heart stopper about first communion.

OMBOTA: Your advertisement in the Druidical & Literary mentions fleeing Latvia. Were you practicing in Latvia?

Doctor Sky Randolph: There are only so many people there and they were all my patients. Eventually they all looked alike. The men resemble Mitt Romney.

OMBOTA: Will we, the residents of Wellington Leg, look like Mitt?

Doctor Sky Randolph: In due time. For the ladies I have three looks in my mind inspired by the noir films of the 40s, the femme fatale, the girl next door, and the girl next door to the femme fatale.

OMBOTA: So, Mitt will meet the girl next door?

Doctor Sky Randolph: He won’t notice her right away. Obama will though  and maybe Mike Huckabee.

OMBOTA: How about Rudy?

Doctor Sky Randolph: Well, a lot of angry Latvians resemble Rudy and I don’t want to repeat that mistake.

OMBOTA: Good luck Doc.

Doctor Sky Randolph: Don’t forget to purchase PHILLIPA AT THE RAILING on your way out.

I live next door to the girl next door and she lives next door to me. I think the femme fatale fell behind on her rent payments and some dirty rat kicked her to the curb. The guy looked a lot like Fred Thompson only Latvian somehow….okay, that’s a suspense pocket.

Wellington Leg: It’s maddening. In order to select the best books of 2007 this reporter has until mid-November to choose the five for review in January Magazine. This means that 2007 runs from January through late September by publication date because to get them read, thought about and written about takes me six weeks, less if a book is assigned, but, come on, that’s only happened to me twice. Good books slip through the cracks, good writers don’t get talked about.

Theresa Schwegel and Megan Abbott come to mind. Neither of these writers are on my top five list this year although the reasons are different; Schwegel’s PERSON OF INTEREST arrived in a torrent of fifteen books one afternoon last week and Abbott’s QUEENPIN never arrived at all. Maybe Jeff Pierce or one the other Rap Sheet All Stars will pick me up here.  In this case both writers hardly need my help in launching their careers since the NY Times is covering their work. Theresa Schwegel won an Edgar and Megan Abbott will win one too.

There were a few noteworthy reviews from the weekend: Christopher Sorrentino reviewed TOKYO YEAR ZERO very well in the NYT. Sorrentino nailed both the substance of the story and the presentation. He had some things to say about mysteries in general in his opening paragraphs “while contemporary crime writers are capable of more than tossing on the dish known as “noir” too often the mystery today seems ossified.”

In my mind there is a huge difference between mystery and noir. These are not interchangeable terms: mystery is ossified more or less by design by the form and the need to create the puzzle-sleuth solution formula. Noir is wide open, character driven, owing less to Agatha than to Aristotle and his Poetics.

Sorrentino, to his credit, examines TOKYO YEAR ZERO as literature and treats the book accordingly.

Ed Champion and Ian Rankin? Like Hugo Chavez at a Mike Huckabee rally Ed visits the heartland of thriller writing using words like “agnomina” and “minatory” in hashing over an early Rankin manuscript now published in book form. Hilarious.

Wellington Leg: January Magazine will run its year end crime fiction feature wherein various contributing editors offer five mini reviews for the year end round up. Your reporter is among the contributors but the advantage of numbers is obvious in this case: more thoughts about more books broadens the horizon far beyond my limited view. Entire publishing programs escape my notice but I have a sense of what’s happening on on the crime writing front.

2007 came and went without much distinction from 2006; the pressure on the genre comes from within as the ranks expand to include novels from many other sub-genres. Like a mad stock boy marketing types want their releases on Aisle Nine: Crime. We’re turning into Whole Foods when crime fiction is suited to the unadorned aisles of Soviet Food Store Number Four where shoppers bring their desperation with them and ambiance is just the French word for cured concrete.

This gentrification process started long ago and it is not a terrible thing. There are now rules for the genre, so many rules that any sort of instant replay would consume hours. That’s okay if authors break those rules but it’s tough to misbehave and be rewarded.

Our genre is broader than ever but flatter too, more gently reassuring than mind expanding. The high point of 2007? David Peace’s TOKYO YEAR ZERO. The low? Chelsea Cain’s HEARTSICK, a novel that most resembles a sleek new product rolling off a spotless assembly line.

The truth is some percentage of books published in a given year are completely forgettable. Publishing cycles last far longer than twelve months, given the lead time required to produce a book. That’s why 2007 is submerged by trends that emerged a few years ago. If you remember the motion picture PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE alien invaders tried to resurrect the dead in order to slaughter the living but forgot that zombies, whatever their good qualities, are really hard to govern. The newly dead consumed the newly arrived, the alien invaders themselves, whose commander resembled Rudy Giuliani in a Nehru jacket.

In analyzing crime fiction I have to ask: where have all the zombies gone?

Wellington Leg: Arthur Murray is Wellington Leg’s premier private investigator, a man so tough that when he orders a White Russian at his local no one dares laugh. Arthur has had a difficult time because of his name, you know, the ballroom dancing thing. Arthur enjoys dancing, but that’s a dirty little secret. This entry from his log book says “I didn’t come here to flamenco.”

It was gray that morning low fog on the windowsill of my office downtown. I had a three o’clock with a dentist but that was six hours away, six hours of bad coffee, bad posture, and pigeons rustling in the mist. I yelled to Connie when the office door opened and a chiarascurro, one of those little Mexican dogs, clicked on in. I saw its nose in my doorway and thought, “here comes sixty four ounces of trouble.”

The dog had an owner and she blew on in like a new breeze off the lake. “Arthur Murray?

I flinched. Here it comes. The dog, the legs, the hooded eyes: she wanted dance lessons.

“Who’ s asking?”

“Call me Babs. I’m here to cancel your dentist appointment.”

That’s when the dog barked. That’s when she pulled the cannon out of her designer handbag. That’s when I hit the deck. She blew a hole in the window and I noticed something under the desk. My palm pilot. I’ve been looking all over for that thing.

Next week MacMillan New Writing will publish David Isaak’s thriller SHOCK AND AWE in the UK. It’s a great read by a gifted writer, who, by the way, is an American. How did David Isaak wind up in the MNW publishing program? Well, they had the good sense to read his work and make an offer which is the basic transaction between author and publisher often overlooked in the all hype surrounding modern publishing.

MNW began its program in 2006, representing at the time the end of civilization as we know it, a reversion to a world without literary agents; yes, these manuscripts arrive over the transom, are read and evaluated by publisher’s personnel. Almost two years later, there is little doubt that MNW has located some fine writers and published novels worth reading.

Like all published works David’s book has had a long strange trip on its way to book form, but that’s his story to tell. Zip over to Tomorrowville, the title of another great Isaak manuscript, for the backstory.