David Thayer

Wellington Leg: The tulip fields in Skagit County are showing color after a remarkable burst of sunlight on Good Friday. Your reporter navigated the Roosengaarte and surrounding fields of red, yellow, pink, purple, and variegated tulips at five miles per hour.

I finished Alex Carr’s AN ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN a novel I will review for the Philadelphia Inquirer. The novel is due out April 17 from Mortalis, a new program from Random House. The press kit indicates that Mortalis will publish “intelligent thrillers and stories of international intrigue.” The format will be trade paper; beyond that, I don’t know much about Mortalis but I wish them the best of luck.

Cody’s Bookstore is closing their Union Square location in San Francisco. Union Square is not the place I would open a bookstore unless it was a haute couture kind of place where exhausted shoppers fleeing Saks and Nordstrom might linger. Not only the high rent district, Union Square is the gateway to the Tenderloin where confused tourists can be stripped of their valuables and deposited on the Powell & Hyde for the return trip to the Bay. Since Dirty Harry retired the San Francisco Police Department has developed  new strategies to fight crime: criminals are sternly criticized before being returned to Union Square refreshed and ready to mug again.

RN Morris’ A GENTLE AXE was reviewed by Patrick Anderson in the WAPO. Congrats, Roger, that’s the big time on these shores.

Ian Rankin’s latest The NAMING OF THE DEAD is good, really good, reminiscent of THE FALLS or RESURRECTION MEN, two of his finest Rebus novels. Good on ye, Ian.

Dan Conaway is joining Writers House as a literary agent. The news broke late last week via Sarah Weinman.  Dan will be a terrific agent, and I’m sure we’ll be reading about him at Publishers Marketplace.

Pegasus is Charlie Stella’s publisher now. His latest novel SHAKEDOWN is out. It’s a good story set in Little Italy where Stella recalls the Colombo wars, the shooting of Joey Gallo at Umberto’s. I think one of Gallo’s crew actually robbed Ferrara’s way back when. Charlie would know: SHAKEDOWN is a great throwback stuff even if the mob has been downsized.

In an astrological sense it was the perfect time for Clive James to write a New Yorker article explaining crime fiction to the readership. In close proximity to April Fools Day, Opening Day, Passover, Easter, and the dark shadow of April 15th, a full moon and a wobbly stock market, his thoughts clarify the murky world of genre fiction. We love Rebus because…

The New Yorker is best read in elegant surroundings while perched on traditional furniture. Your reporter cannot understand the text, doomed by a Naugahyde recliner and a can of room temperature Budweiser, a vestigial urge to know how Pavano did at home, and a lingering sense that life is so much simpler when Carmen Elektra is in the story ( Clive didn’t mention her. He never does.)

Perhaps like a string quartet opening for the Rolling Stones literary fiction is doomed to be outgunned by the sheer pageantry of commercial fiction, the cool cover art, clever titles, tons of promotion and advertising. I can foresee a day when halftime at the Super Bowl features crime guy John Banville reading aloud from the fifty yard line backed up by a chorus line of Vegas showgirls while the Blue Angels manuever with subsonic precision high above the luxury boxes.

There were some odd moments in the article. I thought Clive was implying that Henning Menkel’s settings were glamorous. He liked Donna Leon’s outsider status but knocked her for choosing Italy, Venice, no less, the Serenissima. Banville set his novel fifty years in the past so that his characters could smoke and drink. He seems to think this is cheating and he lingers around a valid point that place is trumping story in some cases in yet another attempt to signal readers that they will love the book because they love Venice, Sweden, South Florida, or the Rockies. Maybe he fears that success is subversive, that wretched excess lurks beneath the tawdry covers of pulp. Let’s hope so. It’s the revenge of the working class.

Time for a quarterly review of crime fiction 2007. This year’s first 90 days have produced some notable releases from newcomers and veterans alike. Marcus Sakey’s debut THE BLADE ITSELF attracted a lot of ink including a pair of NYT reviews. Not to be overlooked are Killer Year compadres Sean Chercover, Sandra Ruttan, Patry Francis and Toni McGee Causey. Let’s not forget RN Morris’ A GENTLE AX or Donald E. Westlake’s WHAT’S SO FUNNY?

John Banville wrote CHRISTINE FALLS under the name Benjamin Black. Banville is the latest example of a growing trend, literary writers gentrifying the back streets of commercial fiction. This is meaningful to dedicated readers but a non-event for those baffled souls grazing the edges of the literary world looking for something to read. Your reporter is skeptical on the one hand since forays from the literati ala Lethem or Michael Chabon have produced second rate work ie MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN and THE WONDER BOYS. These guys are like a raid from the health department on your favorite Chinese place, they shut the place down for a week and there’s no Moo Shoo Pork.

Tomorrow we’ll discuss how to shop for the good stuff at your local indy bookstore. Here’s a hint: get past the New Release table as quickly as possible. Make that your last stop. Annie Bloom’s in Portland has their mysteries hidden behind a wall to the right after the cashier’s station. You can find it, I know you can.

Natsuo Kirino’s novel GROTESQUE was reviewed in Newsday by Charles Taylor, the San Francisco Chronicle by David Cotner and in the Philadelphia Inquirer by this reporter. Taylor was not as favorably inclined toward the book as I was. David Cotner was positive, picking different elements to focus on, all of which indicates a healthy disparity of opinion about the novel.

GROTESQUE intimidated the hell out of me when I began to read. The style is jarring and the presentation unusual but the reward was great for sticking with it. Is it a crime novel? Probably not. David Cotner describes the narrator as suffering from “unstoppable anhedonia.” I looked it up: anhedonia is the inability to derive pleasure from normal enjoyable experiences. The author makes no attempt to blame the Office Lady Murders for the narrator’s condition, that disorder is in place long before Yuriko and Kasue die.

Ultimately though the nameless narrator seeks love in a disastrous way at the exact moment the novel ends. It’s a high risk approach by Kirino and I thought she made it work.

I’d like to see the work native to the crime genre rip some of the three act confines from within rather than from the literary edge. Natsuo Kirino began her career as a romance writer and she’s now classified as a crime writer in Japan, but she’s a daring innovative writer who will defy classification in a way that harkens back to the pre-Walmart era (1510-1998). Those were the days.

<p> My review of Steve Hockensmith’s latest novel ON THE WRONG TRACK is up at January Magazine. Steve’s main characters are the Amlingmeyer Brothers, a very tough name for your reporter to spell correctly, so I’m asking Steve so shorten it up on behalf of reviewers everywhere. Otto is good: palindromes are great.

<p> Niagara won the playin game so now they face Kansas. The Purple Eagles are my Dad’s alma mater, and I use to listen to their games on the radio. They shouldn’t have trouble with the Jayhawks, unless the game extends beyond the five minute mark.

<p> No word from Andrew Lloyd Webber on the musical WELLINGTON LEG. This may be due to the earl’s disappearance or simply because blog based musicals haven’t fared well. Our own WELLINGTONIENNE has yet to ink a book deal despite three blog entries since the first of the year. Three! I thought Salon or the Observer pegged that as a magic number. Is the cultural press reliable?

<p> On the shag carpet: the Wellington Leg Literary Faire is shaping up as the largest in the event’s history. Publishing guru, Walt of Goth, will explain how slaughtering a lamb in the correct manner is an excellent predictor of success. Everyone in the audience will receive a complimentary lobster bib for this year’s demonstration. “We’re sparing no expense,” said organizer Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe. She also reports that the memoir category has been expanded to include documented, prolonged hallucinations. The cost of each entry remains at five dollars per head: if you bring an extra one, you will be charged. “No exceptions,” vowed DCI Borchardt. As always gastropods get in free.

<p> One of the more interesting voices from the NBCC assembly last week is that of Reagan Arthur, an editor at Little Brown. Her list of authors include many of Wellington Leg’s favorites: George Pelecanos, Elizabeth Crane, Kate Atkinson, Denise Mina, Joanna Scott, Ian Rankin, and Rachel Cusk. Not all crime fiction writers by any means, but stay tuned. Ms. Arthur made the comment that Kate Atkinson got reviewed for CASE HISTORIES because of her fame as a literary writer. It’s an intriguing thought, one that brings us close to the maddening question of what is literary, which is another way of asking what is an important novel, one that many people read, or one that elite readers find worthy?

<p> I don’t know Reagan Arthur, but since I enjoy so many of her authors I will take a stab at identifying the shared elements in Pelecanos and Elizabeth Crane’s work. These two writers by genre seem miles apart, their work would be marketed to different audiences. Am I comparing ALL THIS HEAVENLY GLORY to THE NIGHT GARDENER? Am I crazy?

<p> I’ll throw Kate Atkinson and Joanna Scott’s LIBERATION into the mix and say that all four of these writers use character and setting to dislocate and surprise the reader, to cross invisible borders with great consequence to the story. Crane and Atkinson can be very funny, but they’re not kidding around when it comes to the emotional terrain they work in. Pelecanos and Scott take very ordinary places and infuse them with a living memory that street corners and train cars evoke. Everyone has the experience of walking past a Buick and thinking of their old man in an unexpected association as powerful as the more obvious icons of collective experience. It’s not only the Statue of Liberty that knocks us on our backs, but a little bodega on a dead street that conjures powerful associations of personal experience. That’s what I think these writers have in common, the ability to shape perception into recognition, even if you’ve never been a DC cop, an eight year old girl, an English detective, or a grandmother on a train.

<p> A pile of books arrived at the Druidical & Literary’s posh offices yesterday prompting this reporter to rip open the envelopes before searching for shelf space. A couple of notable arrivals bear mentioning on a day when Wellington Leg broke records in a heat wave: 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Time to inflate the Fred Flinstone pool and smoke a cigar.

<p> By the way Mariano Rivera is working on a changeup. Tremble, Red Sox Nation, tremble.

<p> Okay, I’m reading THE DARK STREETS by John Shannon from Pegasus Books. It may be early in the year for “best of” kind of praise but this novel reminds me why crime fiction transcends marketing labels and snide put downs to simply explore the human condition in extremis. Jack Liffey is looking for a missing college student, a Korean-American involved in making a documentary about comfort women during the Japanese occupation. That’s all I will say for now, other than to say that John Shannon deserves recognition as one of the elite writers in our beloved genre.

<p> Spare a thought for Jason Pinter one of the Killer Year founders and author of the forthcoming novel, THE MARK. As Sarah Weinman reported yesterday, Jason was fired by Crown over a blog post that suggested Starbucks book program was moving product. It’s hard to say what the brass at Random House found threatening in Jason’s observations other than he used Barnes & Noble as a reference point in his comparison to Starbucks. You’d think that Publishers would be excited by the Starbucks program, but no, Howard Schultz & Co. don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know how to select books. They don’t know how to market. Starbucks might as well close all their stores and throw in the towel. And if it’s true about Mariano Rivera’s changeup, we should cancel the baseball season, close the Piltdown Exchange, climb the Alaska Way Viaduct and wait for the Big One.

<p> Although I’m sure Barnes & Noble has their hands full with cranky shareholders and friendly staff are they frightened by Starbucks? ( I am, but who am I?) What if Starbucks were to acquire BN in a hostile coffee throwing takeover greenmail short squeeze throw caution to the winds deal? Hey, they need another book. BN has books in there man.

<p> Friends and Neighbors: Your reporter has a review of David Stone’s THE ECHELON VENDETTA up at January Magazine. Jeff Pierce was kind enough to highlight this event at The Rap Sheet. Links to same may be found on the right ( your right) in the mysterious self-sorting blog roll.

<p> Sistah Terri has a new website. She will be added to the author role this very day. Her novel, WILD GOOSE CHASE, will appear next January from Midnight Ink. Her agent, Jessica Faust of Bookends, has a good blog also found on the blogroll.

<p> Mickey Reidel will guest blog here next week. Look for “How Antimaccasar Can Brighten Any Room.”

<p> A holiday mood prevails in the newsroom with all the Presidents birthdays mashed together into a convenient Monday observance. Wellington Leg is quiet although concerned that the earl’s impromptu attempt at circumnavigating the globe may end badly, not to mention the slight he received from critic Janet Maslin who overlooked VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA in her sweeping article on the current crop of thrillers.  Voltaire reimagined as a short reliever in the Dodgers farm system seems to capture the zeitgeist perfectly, philosophically speaking.

<p> But bitterness is a shallow cup as so many can attest, so let’s plunge into the body of the story without these asides and ponderous reflections. Sure, Voltaire needs work on his command and location, but he’s a Frenchman living in Visalia. Meanwhile at Eddie’s Book Nook this reporter must sort through the new arrivals while wiping a tear from his eye. Currently reading:

<p> THE ECHELON VENDETTA by David Stone. Speared by the aforementioned Ms. Maslin as a DaVinci Code knockoff THE ECHELON VENDETTA is no such thing despite the ominous scenes in a Cortona Italy chapel. Borrowing from Hamlet the ghost of a dead intelligence officer troubles the protagonist on several levels in a risky gambit whose outcome is yet unclear.

<p> John Shannon’s latest THE DARK STREETS promises much and delivers more. Steve Hockensmith returns with ON THE WRONG TRACK featuring his cowboy detectives first introduced in HOLMES ON THE RANGE.

<p> I finished Natsuo Kirino’s GROTESQUE a marvelous strange novel about the murder of two Tokyo prostitutes. It’s due out in March from Knopf.  TTFN, Prince Gaspar of Thuringia ( reduced to blogging after a harrowing encounter with Knights Templar.)

Karen Olsen, author of SECOND HAND SMOKE, dropped by a few weeks ago and was kind enough to mention the origin of the First Offenders blog, four crime fiction authors who have banded together in the blogosphere. Karen writes, “The four of us were on a “first timers” panel at Bouchercon in 2005, became fast friends because we didn’t know anyone there, hung out together and on the last night in Chicago, Jeff said maybe we should start a blog. A month later we were up and running, and it seems to still be pretty popular. I know there are a lot of lurkers, but we’ve got some regulars who post comments frequently. We try not to to get too personal and concentrate on writing and publishing. Although we do get off track occasionally. We also try to keep our posts short because there’s so little time and so many blogs :)”

Lori G. Armstrong, HALLOWED GROUND, Jeff Shelby WICKED BREAK, and Alison Gaylin YOU KILL ME form the rest of the intrepid quartet. Drop by and check them out, buy their books and drive their sales through the roof. Yes, I mean you.

Tod Goldberg, in his defense of his brother Lee, mentioned Fernando Llamas in passing becoming the first lit blogger to do so since the Internet was invented. Fernando’s work inspired me to become a writer and I’m outraged that Tod would include Fernando in a throwaway line considering his impact on post-modernism. Bird of Paradise is more than a flower, and Fernando wears that shirt proudly, as does Dom DeLillo.

Editor’s Note: I’m not sure about Dom DeLillo wearing a bird of paradise shirt. I think he would. I’ve dropped a Letter to Parade seeking clarification.

Additionale: Maybe I’ll be featured in Marilyn Vos Savant’s column.