Cozy Up to the Bar, Pal

Jeffrey Cohen

I write "cozies."

That's what people tell me, anyway.  When I wrote my first novel (entirely by accident--it's really a screenplay gone horribly wrong) in 2001, and then had the unmitigated gall to show it to people in the publishing business, I was told that it was a "cozy."

This was a surprise to me, as I thought a cozy was something you put under a teapot, and I don't drink tea.  No, they said, a cozy is a mystery story in which there is little or no gore (Al, Vidal or otherwise), no one uses "bad language," (which apparently doesn't mean ending one's sentence with a preposition) and there isn't any sex.

All in all, cozies didn't sound like much fun, but that wasn't what bothered me.  When I looked over the book, and saw that a character is almost run over by a car, then shot repeatedly, that a major subplot hinges on the use of what has apparently become known as "the F bomb," and the main character and his wife, not to mention other characters in the book, had sex on a fairly regular basis, I figured my book was really an "Uncomfortable," or at the very least, a "Slightly Irritating."  Apparently not.

See, I thought I had written a comedy.  Granted, it was a comedy that had a murder and an investigation of the crime, but then, so did Charade, and I don't recall anyone calling that a "cozy."  I wasn't even sure I'd written a mystery novel so much as a pastiche of one, but the publisher told me it was a mystery, and I certainly had nothing against the word, so I agreed it was exactly that.  It was the "cozy" part that was throwing me off.

I'd never heard the term used that way before.  In college, during Detective Fiction class, I remember hearing about "hardboiled" detectives, and that was certainly a descriptive phrase, but if those stories were all about how some woman or another could reduce the hero to a quivering mass of gelatin, perhaps these heroes needed another minute or two in the boiling water.  And I loved The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep and all the Chandler/Hammett books. If those guys were hardboiled, what was Robert B. Parker's Spenser?  Over easy?

That wasn't the thing that bothered me, though.  You want to buy my novel and call it a cozy, be my guest.  If you want to buy my novel and call it an orangutan, you have my blessing.  Just buy the darned thing.  (Oops--that's a little too cozy a word.  Buy the goddam thing, then.)

I wrote the book without grisly violence (except a little in one scene) because I thought graphic pain would get in the way of the jokes.  It's hard to laugh when someone's intestines are being pulled out, unless you have a really odd  sense of humor.  I wrote it with whatever profanity felt natural to the characters.  If they'd been gangsta rap musicians, they probably would have spoken differently, but I wasn't gettin' jiggy wit dat, yo.  I'm pretty sure.  I wrote the book without a lot of explicit sex because, well, my mother reads this stuff, for goodness sake.

What bothered me, once I got more familiar with the subgenres and the publishing industry in general, was the perception that cozies are not the kind of thing that a true "red-blooded" man would write.  Apparently, you can eat all the quiche you want, but Real Men Don't Write Cozies.  Since I've been a man for quite some time, and I'm relatively sure I'm real, this was worrisome.

So, I took it upon myself to investigate the Cozy Caper.  Find out whether one's masculinity was truly in question if one wrote a book that aimed to make people laugh without buckets of blood, torrents of curse words and enough sex to make Paris Hilton blush.  I consulted with other writers of cozies, like David Skibbins, Parnell Hall and Jeffrey Marks.  We met at the Malice Domestic conference, where cozies are called "Traditional Mysteries," and the ratio of women to men is about the same as at some of the colleges we should have gone to if we'd had half a brain.  We had invited Mr. Parker, Harlan Coben and J.A. Konrath, but each of them said their books weren't cozies, they weren't at the convention, and we should leave them alone.

We met in the bar.  Each of us ordered a beer, although one of them was lite (I don't remember which one, but it might have been mine).  We adjusted our pants a lot, talked about The Game (although I'm not sure which sport we were discussing) and looked around for a spittoon, but there was none.  We referred to women as "chicks," called each other "dude" a lot and went off later to have steaks cooked rare.  We never did get around to discussing cozies.  But I remember a heated discussion centered around whether something or another "tasted great" or was "less filling."

(By the way, none of this ever happened.)

This didn't help at all, I decided after the hangover went away.  But I couldn't think of anything else to do.  A seance calling on the spirit of Agatha Christie seemed a little much.  I emailed Marilyn Stasio for clarification, but apparently the restraining order extends to computer communication, as well.  So I'm stuck for an explanation.

It's enough to make a guy commit violence, swear and then try to have sex with someone.  Or so I'm told.  But I've made my peace with it.  In fact, you could say that right now, I'm downright...

Never mind.

ON THE BUBBLE with LOUISE URE

Louise Ure's FORCING AMARYLLIS is so filled with entrancing prose it made me want to throttle her. Oh, don't get me wrong-I adore Louise-but damn, it's just not fair to be that talented.  But, honest person that I am - I admit I am insanely jealous of the way she crafted a story so compelling, so filled with Southwestern imagery (as only a fourth generation Arizonian can) you can feel feel the blistering Arizona sun bouncing off the pages!  It's no wonder Kirkus, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly and a score of other reviewers gave this debut glowing praise.  FORCING AMARYLLIS is out in paperback now-so if you missed it (I wouldn't admit that if I were you!)-go get a copy and plan to be mesmerized!

Oh, did I tell you another reason why I'm so jealous of Louise?  Wanna really feel underaccomplished along with me?  Okay, try this on for size - she speaks seven languages, she races Shelby's and has a pilot's license.   Just your garden-variety suspense writer, huh?  Yeah. Sure.  But don't hold this against her - I mean, she has her good points - she puts up with me, and also has a great sense of humor.  She'd have to - to agree to be On The Bubble.

EE:  Isn't it true that writing suspense novels is really a cover up for your many trips to Arizona to go treasure hunting?

LU:  Too true.  But one man's treasure is another man's taco.  In truth, I set my books in Arizona so that I have another good reason to go home and sample my mom's homemade tacos and green  corn tamales.

Oh, sure - give us another smoke screen.  But then, homemade?  Honest?  Uh, did I ever tell how much I love tamales?

EE:  My Number One Spy has just informed me that on your last trip to Tucson for research for your new book - THE FAULT TREE - you made some very strange trips out of town.  To be specific-the Superstition Mountains-and you had some pretty spiffy surveying tools in your car.  Does the Lost Dutchman Mine ring a bell?

LU:  Those weren't surveying tools; they were dowsing rods!  Finding water would be a bigger treasure in the desert than that silly Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine.

Okay, okay - you wanna play that game, I'll bite - for now.

EE:  But if you're really only looking for water, then what the hell were you doing at Weaver's Needle?  Maybe you wanna pretend you're not after the Lost Dutchman, but come on, Louise - isn't tha Needle one of the landmarks on those old maps to old Peralta Mine?  Another fabled lost treasure?

LU:  That wasn't me, it was Twist Phelan.  (You know how often we're mistaken for each other.)  Twist is the one who's conversant in phrases like scree, dryfall, rappelling, and chute.  I'm the one who says there aren't enough chairs in nature.

Twist?  Are you sure?  Damn my spys!  Not worth the free books I give 'em.  But then, you two do look alike.

EE:  But I'm still not buying into your answers.  I mean, considering your amazing linguistic skills, I find it hard to believe that your fluency in Spanish and Portuguese is not playing a part in this caper of yours.  It's just not a coincidence they are needed to decipher the Peralta stone table found in 1952?

LU:  I've always wanted to get my hands on those; I'm sure they misread the clues.  Carvings of a horse a witch, and the misspelled 'corazon?'  Those aren't hints to the location of a lost gold mine, they're ads for some great 'ranchera' and mariachi songs.

Oh, sure - now you want me to believe that too?

EE:  Since I've let the cat out of the bag about your flying skills - thought your secret was safe, huh?  How about explaining why Pari hired you to take her over the desert in New Mexico?  Was it to check out those new circles allegedly made by UFO's?   

LU:  Oh, I'm not trying to  hide the pilot part;  I've been flying for about thirty years now.  But I have few takers for passengers these days, ever since I ran out of gas and had to land on I-10 near Picacho Peak.  And then there was the time I forgot to tighten the lug nuts on the engine cowling.  I think Pari was very brave to have asked for that New Mexico flight.

Brave?  I'll say she was brave!  Bet she won't go up with you again after reading this! 

EE:  Well, since I'm not getting anywhere with your treasure hunt questions, let's go to more banal subjects.  Here's a hard one:  What is your fondest ambition, besides outselling Dan Brown?

LU:  To have Barbara Kingsolver say:  "I've always wanted to write like Louise Ure."  Or even to have Barbara Kingsolver say, "Louise Ure?  Who's that?"

Oh, I thought maybe you might mention...well, nevermind.

EE:  Here's a toughie:  tell us your Walter Mitty dream in less than 50,000 words.

LU:  Ah, the lottery fantasy!  Not the measly ol' California lottery.  The BIG ONE.  And every week I imagine who I would tell first (after my husband, of course).  Maybe my publisher?  Maybe that nasty new writer who crowed about her big advance?  Maybe the high school counselor who said she thought I'd be real good in retail?

Oh, by all means - the nasty new writer who crowed about her big advance!  And how about that other new one who's head is so big she can't get through the door and said...well, nevermind.  We'll dish later...

EE:  By the way, Louise - driving race cars is -well, a pretty tough hobby.  How hard has it been for you to show up all those macho race car drivers when you take to the speedway in your 1966 Shelby 350 GT?  I mean, they must really have some testosterone fits!

LU:  At first, they were a little unnerved when I suggested we repaint the car from it's original black and gold to match my new driver's suit.  They finally came around when I offered to file my fingernails into the shape of Phillip head and regular screwdriver shapes to help with their repairs.

You did what???  Ohhh, Louise!  How utterly brilliant of you! 

EE:  Hey, how about this just in from my spy in L.A.?  Word is that Meryl Streep has asked you to be her language coach on the movie she's doing for a famous Bollywood producer, but you turned her down?  She called me this morning, crying huge tears.  She said you were the only one she could trust to teach her Bahasa Malay, and could I intervene?  Jeeeezzzeee, Louise!  How the hell could you be so cruel??  I mean, Meryl Streep???  She even promised to thank you at the Oscar's when she wins her award!

LU:  Dear, sweet Meryl!  I heard her first attempts and they sounded like a javelina in a rut.  But, if you insist, I'll teach her the key phrases.  She'll need, "Waiter, I need more Gin."  And - "When's the next plane to Bali?"

Oh, come on!  Give it the old try, okay?  There's tickets to the Oscar's in it for us, kiddo.  Just think about it-the red carpet, the Vanity Fair party after, the table hopping, the suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel...

EE:  Whilst you think that over, tell me which writer you'd like to be with in a cozy corner of the bar at Thriller Fest in a few weeks.

LU:  You, of course!  Cause you have all the dirt on everybody!

Yes, the Shadow knows all.  Muhahahaha....We'll have the waiter leave the bottle on the table.

EE:  In that case, since you know my vast network has allowed me to be privy to ALL - how about coming clean about that little tete-a-tete you had with Bruce Willis last week in L.A.?  For once, I did my own leg work and it was moi sitting at the next table.  Yeah, that was me in the long red wig.  I didn't catch everything - but I did hear Bruce mention that old Bogie movie - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  I mean, it did kinda make me think he's in on your treasure hunt.  And it does kinda fit in with all those trips out there, doesn't it?  See? I got you good on that now!  No more of the looking for water stuff now!

LU:  My lips are sealed.  Well, not quite sealed, but almost closed in a smirky sort of way.  Bruce did comment on that great red wig of yours - he's a real connoisseur of hairpieces.  As to anything else we discussed?  'Waiter!  Another margarita, please!"

Damn, but you're a tough nut to crack!  Okay, okay...don't tell me then!  See if I care.

EE:  You're also a tough interview!  We'll just have to go back to the easy stuff.  So, Louise - who would be your perfect book tour mate?  And don't say Barry Eisler!  I've got dibs on him.

LU:  Oh, that's easy: Tony Bourdain.  He's a fine mystery writer, he smokes, he drinks, he'll eat anything, and he's sexy as hell.  Aside from that, we'd be guaranteed massive crowds at every stop.  Of course, if he's busy, Barry wouldn't be a bad stand-in.

Hmmm.  Could you use an assistant?

EE:  If you were to write an epic - which country would you use for a setting?  I mean, hell - you do speak seven languages - this should be an easy question!

LU:  It should be easy, but it's not.  Let' see, I speak French, but do you set that story in Dijon orDa Nang?  Is the Italian epic set in Lucca or Little Italy?  Hell, you could set the English one in Singapore.  Come to think of it, I've always wanted to write a story about the Japanese occupation of Singapore.  Guess that'll have to wait until the Arizona trilogy is done.

And I don't really speak seven languages, just six.  Unless, of course, you count that Masters degree I have in verbal abuse.

Ohhh...I like the Singapore idea!  Sure you don't need an assistant?

EE:  Okay, let's get serious.  Tell me about that job you once had - watching for the Loch Ness monster.  Really, Louise...that was rather bizarre.  I laughed when my sources mentioned it.  But I have to admit I was taken aback when they went on to say you'd actually taken photos of Nessie coming up for rays-but the photos went missing the next day.  Is that REALLY true???  Do you have any clue who took them?  Could it have been that waiter at the local hotel you got chummy with?  the one you later discovered was really an undercover with MI 5?  And how the hell did you find out about him?  Oh, the intrigue is just killing me!

LU:  Yes, the pictures did go missing and yes, the waiter was definitely a spy, but in this case the two things are not related. You see, he was showing me how to set up my pup tent on the banks of the loch (and why are those things called pup tents?  Is it because they're only big enough for small dogs?) when I slipped and...

Again! She did it again!  You'd think by now I'd get a straight answer from her?  Huh?  Wrong.  Okay, I'll play her game.  How the hell should I know why they call them pup tents?  I don't camp out.  I only stay at five star hotels.  We are, after all, the Evil E.

EE:  Here's your last chance to come clean.  What's with the clay raisin animation saga that set the television commercial industry all agog?  You know the one I'm talking about, Louise!  Those commercials for the Dancing California Raisin's? They were hysterical, but did you really okay one of them to be a Michael Jackson look-alike?  Ewwwww.  How could you?

LU:  Hey, it wasn't my idea!  Michael Jackson approache us,asking if he, too, could be a California Dancing Raisin.  Said he wanted to be remembered as fondly as that 'other Michael'.  'Huh?' we had no 'Michael's' on the raisin crew.  "You know, Michael Angelo."  Ah...that other 'Michael'!

So we made the commercial with a Jackson-like raisin singing and dancing to a crowd of other anthropomorphic fruits.  Within a week we go so many calls from angry parents about the Strawberry swooning when the Jackson-raisin grabbed his crotch, that we pulled it of the air.

I'm laughing so damn hard ... I can't think of a thing to say!  In fact...I had to type this twice!

Thanks Louise - for being so much fun, for being fearless, for adroitly not giving me straight answers, and last, but not least -for writing FORCING AMARYLLIS!

EE:

MISSING

JT Ellison

6/10/06 UPDATE -- THE STATE, Columbia's newspaper, has a story today. New DNA found in Dail's case...

On September 24, 1992, Dail Boxley Dinwiddie disappeared from Columbia, South Carolina.

It happens everyday. You hear it on the news, read it in the papers, see alerts on the highway signs. And with the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, Amber Alerts and a more responsive police force, these commonplace disappearances sometimes end with good news. I wish that could happen for Dail.

The facts of this case are cut and dried. On the evening of September 23, 1992, Dail attended a U2 concert. When the concert ended, she headed down to the Five Points area of Columbia with a few friends. They finished the evening at a bar called Jungle Jim’s. She got separated from her friends, and spoke to the bouncer at approximately 1:15 a.m. – 1:30 a.m. He remembers her leaving the bar as if she was going to walk home. She went north on Harden Street. And then she simply disappeared.

She was wearing an olive green long sleeved shirt, a blue LL Bean jacket tied around her waist, faded blue jeans and brown boots. She’s barely five feet tall and less than 100 pounds, has light brown hair and brown eyes. Her ears are pierced, and she has a crippled finger on each hand.

On every missing poster, under circumstances of disappearance, the words UNKNOWN and ENDANGERED MISSING appear. The posters, which were plastered everywhere we could get them, all over the country, read: 

KIDNAPPED. $50,000 REWARD for INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST AND CONVICTION OF PERSON OR PERSONS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE KIDNAPPING OF DAIL DINWIDDIE.

Despite a $50,000 reward, no credible links have been made to Dail's disappearance.

What happened to Dail? She wasn’t the type of girl to just run off. She lived at home, was taking art classes with an eye on graduate school (she majored in Art History at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.) Her parents and close friends immediately knew something was dreadfully wrong; she just wouldn’t have not come home, not called, if she could.

Dail and I went to college together. I don’t claim to be one of her closest friends. Though RMWC is a small school, she and I didn’t cross paths until senior year. The Dail I remember was a bright, fun woman whose smile could light up a room. She had an infectious laugh. She was smart as a whip.

I remember getting that phone call – Did you hear? Dail’s gone missing. I remember how my heart sank. How I felt like there was nothing I could do. How my fervent prayers went unanswered, and slowly, over the years, Dail’s face faded from the news cycle.

I have a little bit of Dail’s case in each of my books, something of a tribute to her. She has become a number, which saddens me. She’s in the Nation’s Missing Children Organization and Center for Missing Adults (MPCCN Case File 455F90) She is part of the Doe Network (Case File 635DFSC), and The Kristen Foundation (Investigative Case Number 92-31749). She is listed in news stories, columns, even appears in Wikipedia under the heading of Missing White Girl Syndrome.

None of that is important. Finding Dail is all that matters. If you know anything, or think you know someone who might, please call the Columbia Police Department at 803-545-3525, or the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) at 803-737-9000.

The case is open, and they’ll listen to anything you have to say.

Killer Year -- The Class of 2007

A brief note from JT Ellison...

Stolen from the Man in Black...

Killer Year is a brand new website for mystery and thriller authors whose debut novels are being published in 2007. Once it's up and running, the site will feature news, reviews, articles, blogs, info on all members of the class of 2007, and much, much more.

If you are thriller/mystery/romantic suspense writer whose debut novel is being published in 2007, email jason@jasonpinter.com with the following:

Your Name
Book title
Publisher
Publication month
website/blog URL
Jpeg of your book cover
Contact info

We've already begun compiling a database of our members, and will be sending out blast emails and organizing fun events and promotions as we approach 2007. Editors and agents, please pass this along to your authors. This will be a great way to learn about exciting debut crime writers, and get exclusive content on upcoming releases.

So get ready, because 2007 is gonna be a Killer Year.

Telling Tales

Personally, I’d rather run with the bulls of Pamplona than read in public.  It takes me back to my school days where every pupil in the class had to read a passage out loud from the current class book.  Since I’m dyslexic, this was torture.  Needless to say, these were not my finest school hours.

But now as a writer, I don’t have a choice.  Reading passages from my books or short stories is expected.  I put this task off for as long as possible.  I could adlib and riff off a question for ages, but read a prepared statement—Danger, danger, Will Robinson!  It got to the stage where some bookstores demanded in their best Tony Soprano voices, “You will read.”

With the gauntlet thrown, I got my act together.  I never read from the book.  I print out the passages first in a big, bold, friendly font.  I tend to make fewer screw ups that way.  Smaller fonts mean too many words, which makes it hard for me to read.  I rehearse my passages.  I don’t learn them all by heart, but I know it well enough that I know how things flow.  With my reading issues, I have a tendency not to read what is on the page and read what I think is on the page, so if I know where the passage is going then I won’t to stray far from the actual story.

Now these things sound like useful tools for me, but they are also good tips for any author who has to read to his/her (hopefully) adoring public.  Reading aloud is all about preparation.

The above tricks got me only so far.  Reading is one thing, but making it entertaining is another.  I attended author readings to get ideas about what worked and what didn’t.  I went to some good ones and I went to some dire ones that made me think, “Oh, God, do I sound like that?”  From these readings (the good and bad ones) I learned a lot that I’ve incorporated into mine.

Always read something that’s going to be intriguing or interesting.  A reading is a hook that you hope to snag readers with.  Read something that will grab the listeners’ attention.  This doesn’t have to be your opening chapter.  Pick a passage or scene that gives a feel for the book’s tone.  And if you aren’t going to read from the beginning, don’t forget to fill the listeners in on the back story.   

Read something interesting!  This might seem like an obvious tip, but you’d be surprised how many authors forget this.  I can’t tell you how many authors read passages where nothing happens.  At the end of it, I’m left wondering, “Why should I buy this book?”

Less is more.  Don’t read too much.  I know people can listen to audio books for hours without a break, but that’s at the listener’s discretion and comfort.  When your reader is stuck in a store, unable to do anything, it’s amazing how short their attention span is.  I estimate that I can get away with 15-20 minutes of reading at a stretch.  After that, listener attention wanes.  So don’t read a 40-page chapter.  Instead, read two 10-page passages and in between give the listeners a flavor of what they’re missing.

Don’t give away the ending.  I know you don’t have to read the beginning, but don’t end your reading with the unveiling of the killer.  It’s a surefire way to kill your sales.

Voice.  I find this is a tricky area.  Very few authors have the ability to read as well as a professional reader or actor.  It is difficult to pull off the various characters, accents and inject real energy into a reading.  If you can’t pull it off, then read the piece straight, putting the tone and voice that you put into the story when you wrote it.  A lot of people like hearing the author read because they want to hear it the way the author wanted it to sound.  Any author can do that.  You wrote the piece and you’re passionate about it.  When you read, your natural voice will carry the tale.  Warning: You can’t be timid.  Too many authors read too quickly, too quietly, or overcompensate by being overly dramatic.  This will come with practice and time. 

You may never feel 100% comfortable reading aloud, but with a few tips and a little effort, you’ll get a lot closer.

Simon Wood