M is for Mensch: A Fond Farewell to Ed Kaufman

By David Corbett

Ed Kaufman, the elfin, indefatigable owner of M is for Mystery (and More …) Bookstore, passed away on December 20^th from complications resulting from kidney disease.

He was known by many of us in the writing biz—and cherished. You arrived in his store and felt like royalty. He not only actually read your books, he generously and knowledgeably expressed his enjoyment of them. He knew what you were up to and respected it. His encouragement crackled in his voice and in his eyes. 

Ed Kaufman spoiled me. After my first acquaintance with him, I suspected—or more appropriately, I suppose, hoped—that his level of intelligence, energy, and personal fondness might propel me along like the current of a river throughout my career. If only. Men like Ed are rare. Which is why his passing hits so hard.

More than once he came at me like a buzzsaw: “Where’s the next book?!” For a slowboat writer like me, it was half pat on the back, half kick in the pants. But I knew he was saying it because he genuinely believed my books were worth reading, not just putting on the shelf.

He also offered me the chance to introduce and interview writers like Michael Connelly and Richard Price, two men I very much admire.

He was the quirky uncle with a steel-trap mind and the metabolism of a dervish. His smile engulfed you, and his handshake was always warm and strong. I’m sure he could be prickly and impossible and self-absorbed at times—like I’m one to talk—and his employees were no doubt more long-suffering than we might imagine. His manager, Pam Stirling, remains one of the people in the book business whose warmth and appreciation remain among my fondest memories as a writer, and the other members of his staff, Jen and Ann and Warn and Charlotte, were always so welcoming and kind.

He closed the bookstore in December, 2011, and it felt like someone had dropped a nuclear bomb in the business. You can imagine what his death feels like.

There were two lovely obits online, one in the San Francisco Chronicle, the other in the The Daily Journal, and they flesh out his prior years—his growing up in Ohio, his service in the military as a plainclothes Counter Intelligence Corps officer, the chance to serve as clerk to US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart that Ed turned down because he needed to make more money for his family, his longtime work as a lawyer in Los Angeles, his passion for art and opera—and his marriage to Jeannie, whom most of us got to know as well: She was the lovely, witty, wise-cracking counterpoint to Ed’s almost boyish enthusiasms.

In 2012 the Mystery Writers of America bestowed on Ed the Raven Award for outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing. But awards only say so much. Here are some words from other writers to give you an idea of what he meant to us all:

I am so very sad. I loved Ed, loved his drive, his manners, his charm and energy. He built a great business and you could see he just loved it when an author grew almost right in front of him. I was so nervous on my first visit there, with my first book, that I almost passed out. And a few years later, after a packed event during which I signed about 85 books, he put a few hundred more books in front of me to sign and date — and I almost passed out again, this time with shock! But it was always nothing but a pleasure to do anything for him, because he was a wonderful supporter of authors and of the mystery. That sparkle of passion was always there, even if he seemed weary the last time I saw him. —Jacqueline Winspear

Here's my favorite Ed story: I was once in M is for Mystery talking to Ed and I saw a copy of The Kite Runner on the front table. I looked at him and said, "Really Ed? The Kite Runner in a mystery store?" And he kind of grumbled and said, "There's a kidnapping in it. Besides, as far as I'm concerned, if someone in the story gets a parking ticket, it's a crime novel." —Mark Haskell Smith

What a champion he was of first-time authors, and how loyal. I remember how supportive he was so early on and how it never wavered. Then, as recently as August, he called me at home out of the blue to congratulate me on a review. Whenever I saw him we talked about his love of opera. When he spoke of it, his face just lit up from within. —Megan Abbott

I always looked forward to visiting Ed Kaufman.  He was a kind, enthusiastic, cultured man, with a love not only for the contents of books but for the artifact of the book itself.  A generation of great booksellers is passing, and we will not see their likes again. —John Connolly

Ed Kaufman was a gentleman of the old school, unfailing in his support of authors at all stages of their careers. I treasure the memories of events I was honoured to participate in at M is For Mystery. He made me feel so welcome, and did so much to help bring my work to American readers. I shall always remember him with gratitude and great joy. —Zoë Sharp

I met Ed when I was in law school in the bay area, well before I ever realized my books would be among those in his store. He was my friend, and I will miss his big hugs and sweet laughs. —Alafair Burke

I had the tremendous honor of presenting a Raven Award to Ed in 2012. I have always thought of him as "The Mensch of Mystery," and it was awfully nice to be able to honor him in return for his having hosted my very first signing at M is for Mystery. What a lovely, lovely man. —Cornelia Read

Ed was my hometown bookseller and a broke-the-mold guy. One of my highlights every year on tour was seeing him at the store. Because I'm from the Bay Area, he got to know my family and friends over the years and always remembered them and had a good word -- and a book recommendation or two -- for them. I miss him. —Gregg Hurwitz

Ed was such a gentleman, but always with that little twinkle in his eyes. He made me feel welcome, and special, and I'm sure he did the same for readers as well as authors. Most of all, you could feel his passion for books. —Deborah Crombie

I thought Ed treated me as a friend because he was an ex-New Yorker and a reader of The Wall Street Journal. Then I learned he treated everyone with warmth and friendship. He was a sweet man who was a joy to visit and a tireless advocate for authors whose work he admired. I miss him and am so glad we met. —Jim Fusilli

Ed was a leprechaun of a bookseller; kind and mischievous, delighted by literary finds both bound and unbound (in the form of the visiting authors), he regarded books and writers as gold to be treasured, promoted and championed. Ed and the staff at M is for Mystery—Pam Stirling, the manager, Ann, Charlotte, Jen—were like a family to me. I'll miss him—and the wonderful Xanadu they built together--forever. —Kelli Stanley

Ed was a superb lawyer, an extraordinary bookseller, a wise counselor and a supportive friend. He will be greatly missed. —Sheldon Siegel

When I interviewed Ed K last year to write something up for the Edgar Awards program - he was awarded the prestigious and well-deserved Raven - I met him for coffee which turned into Ed taking me to lunch, yes that was Ed, but in all the years I knew him I realized I didn't know where his love of books came from. So I asked him. 'Years ago when I was a young lawyer I travelled all the time. Always on the road, my family at home. But I discovered bookstores. From then on I was never without a book under my arm - airports, waiting rooms, hotels, conference breaks in law offices.  A book was always my companion. Then as now you won't find me without a book under my arm.' That's how I always remember Ed, holding a book.  —Cara Black

When my first book came out I got a phone call from Ed, inviting me to sign at his store. I was new and completely unknown and felt so honored that he'd asked me. Never mind that only a couple of people showed up. Ed has been a dear friend ever since and even ordered me to bring my Celtic harp to play once. If you know how shy I am about playing instruments in public you'll know in what high regard I held him. His passing has left a hole in my heart. —Rhys Bowen

Ed made new writers feel incredibly valued, cherished. I'll always cherish him for that! —Pari Noskin Taichert

When my first book came out, Ed read my industry reviews and then took the initiative to contact my publisher and request to host my book launch (shown here).

I remember how he toured me, my husband, and our pug around his shop. My stage fright soon melted away in the warmth of Ed's welcome. He made this first book event so special for me. He even taught me how to sign my books. Such a mensch! Ed loved literature and was a true champion of authors. He had a keen intellect and a big heart. I'm sure that everyone who knew Ed was all the better for it — and Ed knew a lot of people! —Cynthia Robinson

What I remember most is Ed's infectious passion for mystery writers and anyone who shared his passion. Ed made me feel like I'd finally found my clan. I think that's why the local chapter of MWA always held their Christmas party there. Being in that store and standing among those bookshelves, seeing your name on the spines of some of the books and listening to Ed's stories, that was as big a thrill as getting published for the first time. He made a small bookstore in a small town a destination, because Ed was the destination.

Ed was also a great connector. He called me several times, sometimes at the last minute, to guest-host a number of author events, either at the store or occasionally at the local library. Usually they were authors I knew, but sometimes he just had an instinct an event would work if he threw certain authors together, and he was always right. I made some great friends at those events because Ed had a matchmaker's eye for people with shared passions. He was a great soul, and whatever bookshelf he gets in heaven, I hope it stretches as far as his reach did on Earth. He's the kind of guy we should all write stories about. —Tim Maleeny

As a final note: I posted the following on my website in 2007 when the publication of my third novel coincided with Ed’s birthday:

I and a number of other northern California mystery writers—including Rhys Bowen, Ann Parker, Camille Minichino, Nadia Gordon, Tony Broadbent, Tim Maleeny, Kirk Russell, and Dylan Schaffer—threw a surprise birthday party on Friday evening, March 23rd, for Ed Kaufman, the owner of M is for Mystery in San Mateo, one of the premier crime and mystery bookstores in the country.

The evening was billed as a reading for my new novel, Blood of Paradise, but when Ed and I booked the date, he let it slip that it was his birthday, and the scheming began.

Ed's wife Jeannie, store manager Pam Stirling, and the rest of the M is for Mystery staff were in on the caper, and even though Ann and Camille, with all the best intentions in the world, almost blew the surprise by walking in a bit early with balloons, Ed didn't catch on until the cake appeared. (Though he did, in introducing me, express a little surprise that so many folks had turned out for my event—hmm.) Cara Black and Steve Hockensmith, unable to attend because of other obligations, nonetheless sent congratulations from afar, and a grand time was had by all (even Tilly and Morgan, the canine celebrants). The inscription on the cake read, "M is for Mensch," and truer words were never written—certainly not with icing. Many happy returns, Ed!

As it turned out, there were only five more happy returns. Far too few.

You’re missed, Mr. K. More than even a bunch of writers can say.

* * * * *

If you have any words or a recollection of Ed you’d like to share, please feel free.

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: In honor of Ed’s abiding love of opera, here’s Angela Gheorghiu in a live performance of Puccini’s “Vissi d’arte,” from Tosca. (Yes, it’s a crime story—she sings this aria right before murdering the villain, Scarpia):

Bonus Track: Ed's wife, Jeannie, when we emailed back and forth about possible arias, said, "just about any aria from Puccini's 'La Boheme' -- such as 'Che gelida la manina' ("...how cold is your little hand..." he flirts) and Pavarotti never disappoints. And neither does Puccini."

When I told her I was thinking of Puccini's "Vissi d'arte," she responded, "Oh, Vissi d'arte even better! Of course -- I lived for art, etc. etc. How silly of me not to think of that! (though Ed loved the schmaltz of the Boheme youthful flirtation)."

So, in honor of Ed's love of schmaltzy youthful flirtation -- as well as crime: 

Building a series

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I am writing my first series ever right now, with the exception of my part in The Keepers  series, which is not a traditional mystery series but rather a series collaboration between three authors, Heather Graham, Harley Jane Kozak and me: related books set in the same paranormal/urban fantasy world with the same core characters.  That is totally AMAZING fun, btw – sort of like repertory theater, only with authors as director/writers.  Love it!

But I wrote my new crime thriller Huntress Moon  with the absolute intention of making it a mystery/thriller series, and while I do have plans to do sequels to two of my other books (Book of Shadows  and The Space Between, which MUST be a trilogy!), I didn’t write those two thinking of them as series, they just turned out that way in the writing process.

Writing a series deliberately from the get-go – that’s a whole different thing.

The thing is, I don’t read many series.  The ones I do, I’m obsessed with, but have never been one of those who have to read in order. I really expect a book to work completely as a standalone, whether it’s in a series or not, so I’ll pick them up randomly and work my way through them in whatever order I get to them.

I’m not much of a TV series watcher, either.  I watch many more movies than TV series.  Well, not so much lately, since feature films seem to have hit a total low creatively, thanks to the corporate culture in Hollywood, which has driven all the good screenwriters to cable TV and jacked the quality of cable series up to mindblowing proportions.  I think it’s a second Golden Age of Television, honestly, and I often spend days watching an entire cable show on Netflix (Mad Men, The Wire, Deadwood, Wire in the Blood, Luther, The Walking Dead) without moving from my chair for much of anything.)

Hmm, I may be digressing, but it’s true.

But since I am obsessing about the series thing, I wanted to ask you all today to talk about your favorite series. What are they, what draws you to them, what hooks you, what keeps you reading, what’s your burnout point (if any!)?

Here’s my list.  (Yes, the Top Ten List I’m always preaching about!)

- Lee Child’s Reacher series

- Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery/Flea Marlowe series

- Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series

- Denise Mina’s Paddy Meehan series

- Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli and Isles

- Val McDermid’s Tony Hill/Carole Jordan series

- Karin Slaughter’s Georgia series

- Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series

- F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series

- John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series

And, well, I have to add Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, but the rest of the Hannibal series I try very hard to pretend never happened at all.

Now, the first thing I have to say about all of the above authors is that – it’s not the series, it’s the authors.  I would read anything any of the above put to paper, and pretty much have already, repeatedly. And I’m actually often more interested in books OUTSIDE the series than the next one in the series.

Writing a book, any book is an obsessive, encompassing, borderline psychotic thing.  (I threw in that “borderline” just for a laugh, cause, you know...)

Writing a series is all that, exponentially.  You have an ongoing, multidimensional, multi-generational parallel world inside you ALL THE TIME.

Does anyone else feel like that’s just – crazy?

Some worlds crazier than others.

I worry about Michael Connelly a little, or maybe I mean a lot, walking around with Harry Bosch in his head all the time. Because Harry is so fragile, you know.  To be constantly accessing that mindset, to be living in Harry’s skin... wow.  What would that do to you? You just want them both to have a BREAK from that, sometimes, but  - yeah, like that’s going to happen.

I guess I should be worried about Lee Child, too, because Reacher isn’t exactly the pinnacle of mental health. But Reacher has better social skills than Harry.  Even if Reacher never sticks around, he does make strong human connections consistently.  It just seems more balanced, somehow.  There was a point around the book Nothing to Lose, and then again in 61 Hours that I thought Reacher might finally be losing it entirely, but he seems to have pulled it together since then, at least for the moment.  I feel like Reacher can take care of himself because he’s actually aware of the need for help and really expert at recruiting it, while I always feel like someone should be taking care of Harry.

Notice how I’m talking about those characters as if I know them?  Well, don’t we?  That’s kind of the point of a series, right?  There is a lead character, sometimes two or three, that you want to get to know, that you commit to for a long-term relationship.

And for me, those characters are complicated and haunted and flawed.  Which might be putting it mildly – most if not all of the above characters seem to be genetically set on “self-destruct” and half of the suspense of the series is whether or not they’re going to survive the next book at all, or with sanity intact.

Actually, all the series above have some pretty strong things in common, besides the fact that they’re mindblowingly well-written.  They’re very, very dark. No happy endings (HEA) guaranteed here; in fact, you know going into any of those books that you’d better brace yourself for what’s coming.  They deal intensively with real human evil, and often with sexual abuse and child abuse, and they deal with it in a way that only a psychopath could be titillated. The characters fight that evil constantly and the battles are always bittersweet; there is no resolution, the battle may be won but the war rages on.  I think that’s just reality, and I appreciate that those authors don’t sugarcoat it.

There is a sensuality and lyricism to the writing that is hypnotic and addictive. The male/female relationships are twisted but incredibly erotic. The stories often let secondary characters take major roles (a trick I first noticed with Tess Gerritsen, one of the first series writers I got hooked on – I read her series more consistently than I did those of other authors because she would let a secondary character take the lead role in many of the books, which kept the series fresh for me).

All of those things are what I aspire to with Huntress Moon.  There are all kinds of ways that I’m trying to live my series, so I can do it justice. I’m taking kickboxing for the first time to see how my Huntress feels, physically and mentally and emotionally, when she has to fight.  (And I have to say that’s a real trip.  It’s not so different from dancing, really, a handful of basic moves that create a language of fighting, and then infinite variations on those.) I’m doing Lee Lofland’s Writers Police Academy in September to go through the law enforcement training that my FBI agent lead, and many secondary characters, would have had, and of course am addicted to Lee's blog, and Doug Lyle's, for fantastic forensics information.  I am living with my nose buried in atlases and Google maps and taking any number of road trips to be in the places that my characters are traversing, so I get that physical experience right.

But most of all I’m grateful to have such stellar examples as the authors I listed above, and many more that I have missed, to look to for guidance about what I am trying create. It is an amazing thing for us as authors that our favorite authors are also our teachers – for life.  All we need to know about how to do this is right there for us - on the pages of our most beloved books.

So please – readers, talk to me about your favorite series, and writers – give me some tips from your experience writing them!

- Alex

Bloody Noses, Broken Hearts

 By David Corbett

Zoë Sharp recently posted an excellent piece on the question of why we—meaning you, me, and the shy, skulking, blinky stranger in the threadbare overcoat crouching over there in the corner with the thumb-worn paperback—why we, dear friends, read crime fiction.

Given a natural, almost irrepressible inclination to let my mind wander and generally, hopelessly digress, I soon found myself mentally drifting into the conjectural weeds, wondering about a related question:

Why do we write crime fiction?

I’m hoping all my fellow Murderateros chime in on this, because I have a nagging little notion that the answers will prove not just revealing but jaw-dropping.

I mean, why does a conscientious, civil, well-educated, upstanding, socially responsible, personally hygienic, cheerful, brave, clean and reverent soul and lifelong swell gal like Pari Noskin Taichert or Phillipa Martin—to take but two blushing examples—come to share the blue-skied expanse of their otherwise benign imaginations with schemy lowlifes, bumbling thugs, skin-curdling perverts, gun-toting birdbrains, shuffling miscreants, jolly sadists, penny-ante lawmen, bogus medicine men and anarchist shoplifters?

I hope the dozens-to-hundreds of the rest you toiling away in the crime fiction boiler room—whether famous or obscure, published or soon-to-be-published or dreaming-of-being-published or willing-to-kill-to-get-published—will also pipe up and be heard. Why oh why do you do it?

I can only speak for myself, of course, and what purpose would generalizations serve? So here is my sad and sordid tale, my ars poetica.

Let me take you back to the tranquil midwestern burg known as Columbus, Ohio—a great place to raise a family, it was often said. Or brew up a first-rate neurosis. Everything of any import, I was convinced, happened elsewhere. In particular, it happened in books.

I was a brainy, tubby, near-sighted kid who read voraciously, tirelessly, endlessly, so much so my less print-bedazed brother considered me an excellent target for mockery, torment and contempt. To little avail. I devoured the Hardy Boys and Danny Dunn and the We Were There novels—We Were There at the Battle of the Bulge, We Were There on the Chisolm Trail, We Were There at the Oklahoma Land Rush—and the Random House American history set that taught me about everything from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show to the U.S. Marine assault at Belleau Wood. I had the kind of knowledge that would serve me well later as a PI—a thousand miles wide and two inches deep. All of it from books.

Meanwhile, there was a gas station in my neighborhood run by the Moro brothers who always bought the change from my paper route, and once that transaction was complete I normally bought a soda from the machine and a candy bar and hung out for a while. Though not exactly Tom and Ray Magliozzi—NPR’s infamous Click and Clack from Car Talk—Jimmy and Johnny Moro weren’t far off, and they mesmerized me. They were earthy, funny, fouled with grease and full of fun. They laughed loud and seemed to possess that rarest of gifts I so wanted to share: They lived.

I wondered if it wasn’t an Italian thing, for I saw much the same kind of gioia di vivere at my buddy Vince Milletello’s house, even though he was even pudgier than me. His mom and aunts were gorgeous, their husbands charismatic, the food incredible—I didn’t know why everybody didn’t hang out at that house. (Mrs. Milletello was constantly trying to get me to go home, to the point, on occasion, of shaking her shoe.)

These people just lived larger than my family did. In my home, anything remotely emotional remained studiously in check—until unleashed by alcohol, or uncorked by rage.

This resulted in the all too familiar fate of the bookworm: self-loathing. I was convinced an essential piece to the puzzle of life was by its very nature nowhere to be found—by me. And it was the piece that had to do with the dirty business known as Life As It Is, not Life As It Appears In Books.

My egg-headedness began paying dividends, though, at least in attention from teachers—I still got the usual ragging crap from classmates—and I embraced my IQ as the quintessential essence of my life. Or at least the most direct way out of puberty. I was the guy who got straight A’s, but with a bit of a mouth, the class clown attitude, a rough edge here and there. I was never top of my class but always close. And in the pit of my black little soul, I sensed that any hope I had of getting a girl, it would probably be because I was so doggone smart.

What an idiot.

But I was also musical, played guitar in the campus coffeehouses, and then took a year off from THE Ohio State University to join a bar band, touring Midwestern backwaters like Beckley, West Virginia; Lima, Ohio; Kokomo, Indiana; Midland, Michigan.

It was a formative time. I met many cocktail waitresses.

(If you want an idea of what one of our signature tunes was, go here.)

But the siren call of campus life drew me back. There’s only so many times you can play “Color My World” to a roomful of horny, polyester-clad divorcees drenched in Old Spice—or sweet Midwestern fogheads nodding on quaaludes—before you begin having unhealthy imaginings, replete with knives and curdled in bile.

I returned to college and somehow bumbled my way into a math major. I was the department freak—a hippy entranced with diophantine equations and Fermat’s Last Theorem. I continued playing in coffeehouses, dabbled in writing, won a poetry prize (figure that one out), hung out with dancers—I mean, who wouldn’t?—and was basically on a collision course with full-blown academe.

But I had no clue what to do as a graduate student. I threw a dart, hit linguistics—a perfect marriage of my fascination with language and my scientific soul—and won a full scholarship to U.C. Berkeley.

Within a matter of weeks, I was drowning in doubt and my own lack of talent, not to mention a serious deficiency of oomph. I saw the life my professors were living—marrying young, the girl across the table in the library, then divorcing at 40, lustily chasing their students—and I ran screaming. On some deep level I knew I had to climb down out of the ivory tower and wander the world. Get my heart broken, my nose bloodied.

But I still had that artistic itch, so after leaving school I studied acting and began writing short stories. Ironically, it was two of my friends from acting school who turned me on to the PI firm where I would spend the next thirteen years of my life. One friend worked as a receptionist, the other as a stringer (serving subpoenas, spending hours in his car conducting surveillance), and they both made it clear—if I wanted to write, I couldn’t beat this job for material.

I bugged the owners of the firm, Jack Palladino and Sandra Sutherland, for nine months, and was finally hired because I wore them down (they graciously referred to me as the most persistent applicant they’d ever had—persistence, incidentally, being of far more use to a PI than anything else). As for my writing, I told myself: These will be my years at sea. What I saw and did would provide not just the subject matter but the texture and worldview that would inform everything I wrote for the rest of my life.

The job rooted me to the real world like nothing had before. I was now working for men and women whose freedom, life-savings, even their very lives were at risk. Half measures wouldn’t do. The stakes were high and the lights were on. I loved it, like no other job I’d ever had. I felt like I could finally go back home, walk into the Moro brothers’ gas station and not feel like a phony. I was no longer waiting for my life. I’d found it.

Up to this point, no joke, I hadn’t picked up a crime novel since the Hardy Boys. I associated crime fiction with B movies, fun but campy, and preferred Kafka and Borges and Robbe-Grillet, Pinter and Stoppard. Now that I was actually working in the world of crime, I figured: Oh, what the hell. I picked up Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. Shortly thereafter I devoured Cain’s Double Indemnity, and then the clincher, James Crumley’s The Wrong Case.

No, I wasn’t hooked. But I got it. And the point hit home in a way it hadn’t before. I saw the world I knew, the world of the justice system—witnesses, criminals, victims and cops, snitches and lawyers—transplanted to a literary landscape, a smart one (of course, I couldn’t give up that), and my artistic sensibility and my real-world existence had finally meshed in a way they never had before.

Here was the literary representation of the authenticity I’d been craving since my boyhood, the world where people didn’t think about life, they lived it. Yeah, sure, they existed in books, so sue me. Or shoot me. The characters in those books suffered the terror of their smallness before the crushing wheel of power, they fought and even killed for just a little more, they needed, they craved, they believed, they despaired. Justice might be small but it was everything. And even the most cynical had an inner fire.

Due to the heritage of American realism, there was a convincing lack of prettiness, a sharpness, a directness and hard-edged simplicity that rang true for me. I didn’t completely forego lyricism but the mode was now decidedly minor. And though I didn’t give up on literary fiction I needed the edge I found in crime, that same lack of sentiment, that commitment to a life faced squarely and lived fully, damn the bloody noses and broken hearts.

Please chime in: Why do you write crime? And if you don’t write, what do you expect from the crime writers you read that you don’t expect from others?

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: My own music career was behind me when Steve Earle came out with “Copperhead Road,” but on one of my very first author panels—which I got to share with both Laurie King and Michael Connelly—I admitted that this song probably had as much influence on me as writer as anything I’d ever read. Still does:

BY ANY OTHER NAME

by Gar Anthony Haywood

Quick: What do the following upcoming films and television shows all have in common?

 

If you said they all feature poster art suitable for the Louvre, you're wrong.  And you're blind.

If you said they all feature A-list talent whose work you never miss, well . . .  I don't quite know what to say about that.  Though the expression "get a life" does spring to mind.  (Taylor Lautner??)

If, however, you said all four are burdened by an incredibly unimaginative and dumb-as-a-stick title, you nailed it.  And therein lies the tale of this Murderati post.

Several months ago on my own blog, I wrote a post describing how much it mystifies me when creative people consciously decide to attach a one-word, generic title to something they've spent months, sometimes years to produce.  This is what I wrote in part:

"Now, I know not every writer cares to spend a thousand sleepless nights trying to come up with a title for their book or film that's as fresh and original as it is memorable.  It's a pain in the ass process and, sometimes, it hardly seems worth the effort. . .

"But here's where I'm coming from with all this:  A writer busts his ass for months, maybe even years, to write a novel or a screenplay.  He puts his heart and soul into the work, trying with all he's got to make it something special, something different, something he and he alone could have written.

"After all that, why on earth would he want to give the work a generic, overused, blatantly obvious title that anybody with a fifth-grade education could have come up with?

"I don't get it."

I was careful to point out in that post that this sort of thing happens far more often in the realms of film and television because the creative process in Hollywood, as Alex and Stephen know far better than I, is almost designed to produce something ridiculously simplistic at every turn, so as not to confuse our feeble minds when it comes time to turn on our TV or buy a ticket at the box office:

"Hollywood has a long tradition of treating the movie-going public like a herd of mindless cows that would forget how to chew cud if you gave them anything other than grass to think about.  And its penchant for dumbing down titles to their most obvious and uninspiring form is only getting worse."

And every published novelist knows that the title his book winds up with is not always the one he chose for it, because publishers make the final call on such things.  So my gripe is not with authors in any medium who are forced to live with a Dumb-Ass-Title (hereafter referred to as a DAT) by forces beyond their control.  Authors who go with a DAT by choice are the ones with whom I take issue.

What, in my opinion, constitutes a DAT in the literary world?  The following trifecta of death, "death" in this case being no interest from me whatsoever in reading the book so afflicted:

• A length of one word (or two, if you include a preceding and pointless "the").  Think about it --- the entire scope and breadth of your novel can be reduced to ONE WORD?  What kind of message is that to be sending to potential readers?
  
  
• Ubiquity.  If the word you choose for your title is as commonplace and ordinary as sliced bread, why should anyone expect your writing to be any different?

And most importantly:

• Predictability.  "Detective" is a nice word, and it really comes in handy when you write crime fiction, but I think we can all agree that it's rather lacking in multiple meanings, yes?  Chances are, if the title of a book is DETECTIVE, its storyline involves someone who could most accurately be described as. . . well, a detective!  Big surprise, huh?  Yet another way to appeal to potential readers --- announce by way of your book's title not to expect anything unexpected.

To really qualify as a DAT, a title has to meet all three of the criteria above.  For instance, BEAT may only be one word (yeah, Schwartz, I'm talking about you), but is that word particularly ubiquitous?  And does BOULEVARD immediately suggest what the book is about?  The answer in both cases is no, so these titles don't make my DAT cut.  (Okay, Stephen, you can exhale now.)

In the comments to my original post, I engaged in a rather lively debate with a crime writer who objected to my assertion that he'd given his latest book a DAT.  He argued that the title he'd chosen was in fact an ingenious one because, as readers of the book would discover in the end, it had a secret meaning.  I won't rehash all the ways I debunked that argument here, except to say that the cleverness of a title with a "secret" or double meaning is completely lost on somebody who hasn't yet read the associated book --- i.e., somebody cruising the shelves at their local book store looking for something great to read.  Like a duck, if it looks like a DAT, sounds like a DAT, and smells like a DAT, people are going to be inclined to assume that it is a DAT, and won't grant you 389 pages to disabuse them of that notion.  The time to impress potential readers with your capacity to surprise is at the start of your book, not the end of it, and that start --- even before page 1 --- is your title.

If you're beginning to get the idea I could go on and on about DATs if left to my own devices, you wouldn't be far off the mark.  This phenomenon doesn't just confound me, it saddens me a little, in the same way that all avoidable, self-destructive behaviors we humans sometimes engage in do.  However, as I've beaten this poor, dead horse into the ground online once already, and don't particularly feel like being the negatron I usually am, what I'd like to do today is turn my old post on its head and devote the rest of this one to singling out some relatively recent crime novel titles that I think are the polar opposite of a DAT.  The following are Kick-Ass Titles (KATs), the kind a reader can't help but notice and be drawn to, and in my estimation, all are no less exceptional and creative than the fine novels --- and authors --- they represent.

(As an added bonus, I'm including an Alternative DAT for each, just to demonstrate what might have been, had the gods not smiled upon us all.)

A BAD DAY FOR SORRY - Sophie Littlefiield

This title has blown me away since the moment I first heard it.  Its primary message is immediately and abundantly clear: Somebody in Littlefield's terrific book is about to suffer the effects of a full can of whup-ass.  And seriously, what more should the title of a crime novel ever need to say?

Alternative DAT: PISSED

THE BARBED-WIRE KISS - Wallace Stroby

Shit.  This title ticks me the hell off, and always has, because I wish to God I'd thought of it first.  It makes all the jacket copy for Stroby's debut noir thoroughly unnecessary, as everything you need to know about his story is right there: Love; pain; sex; betrayal.  No title in the tradition of Chandler and Ross Macdonald could be a more a fitting homage to the masters than this one.

Alternative DAT: THE FLAME

EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE - Lawrence Block

All of Block's titles for his Matthew Scudder novels are memorable --- A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, TIME TO MURDER AND CREATE, etc. --- but this one, I think, is his best.  Some reference to death in the title of a mystery or crime novel is a no-brainer, but it's hard as hell to work it in in a way that isn't blatantly obvious or unoriginal.  Block managed that trick here.

Alternative DAT: MORTALITY

THE CONCRETE BLONDE - Michael Connelly

Blondes are a fixture in classic crime fiction, and concrete is often used as a metaphor for the cold, hard city.  Put these two things together and you have a title that promises nothing but trouble for a beautiful woman --- and by extension, Connelly's homicide detective Harry Bosch.

Alternative DAT: BURIED

61 HOURS - Lee Child

One thing a great title does, even as it's offering hints as to what kind of book it belongs to, is raise questions.  Note that Child didn't title this Reacher novel 24 HOURS, or 48 HOURS --- it's 61 HOURS.  And what in the hell can happen in exactly 61 hours?  You have to read the book to find out, and Child is counting on you becoming curious enough to do just that.  Clever.  Very clever.

Alternative DAT: THE CLOCK

DARKNESS, TAKE MY HAND - Dennis Lehane

Lehane's another author whose book titles all tend to stick in the mind --- MYSTIC RIVER is a prime example --- but this one, for his second Kenzie-Gennaro mystery, which deals with a serial killer who targets children, is my favorite.   It alludes to the temptation evil sometimes holds over us all, and what could be a more ominous intro to a crime novel than that?

Alternative DAT: TWISTED

THE BLADE ITSELF - Marcus Sakey

Nothing conveys life-altering heartache quite like the expression "cut to the bone," and Sakey's title for his debut novel evokes this experience brilliantly.  Could there be any doubt that this is a noirish thriller with serious attitude?  None whatsoever.

Alternative DAT:  THE DEFENDER

FUN & GAMES - Duane Swierczynski

Though Swierczynski is capable of dropping a DAT of his own every now and then --- THE BLONDE?  Really? --- more than a few of his titles hit the Kick-Ass Title sweetspot for me.  It's a toss-up which title I like better --- this one or POINT & SHOOT --- but they both speak volumes about Swierczynski's old school, pulp-era sensibilities, and the emphasis he places on entertainment above all else.

Alternative DAT: THE BRUNETTE

FEAR OF THE DARK - Walter Mosley

Actually, my appreciation for this title to Mosley's 2006 Fearless Jones/Paris Minton novel is entirely selfish, because it immediately reminds me of a debut novel near and dear to my heart that was published 19 years earlier:

Remember what I said earlier about THE BARBED-WIRE KISS being an homage to Chandler and Ross Macdonald?  Well, that's got to be what this was, right?  An homage to me?  So I'm flattered.  Really.  I swear to God.

Alternative DAT: SPOOKED

One last word before I sign out: There's another level to the moronic-title descent into hell that I call "Just Plain Stupid."  JPSTs can be of any length, yet still manage to be even more obvious and devoid of originality than DATs, and the reason I chose this subject for today's post is a JPST that's been all over billboards lately that makes me want to tear my hair out, rather than shave it cleanly from my scalp:

Hmmm.  You think maybe this film has something to do with horrible bosses?  Talk about a title that requires zero brainpower to interpret.  The only mystery in it is just how long the geniuses behind it took to come up with it: four seconds or a whopping fourteen?

Pathetic.

Questions for the class:  How about you, my fellow 'Ratis?  Do DATs make the top of your head come off the way they do mine?  If so, name a few that really bent you out of shape.  Or conversely, name some titles that you think qualify as KATs instead.

Read Me A River

by Brett Battles

I just finished the draft of my latest WIP, and am feeling a little tired. Make that a LOT tired. Since November 18^th, I’ve actually written two books (one all the way through several rewrites, the current one with no rewrites at all yet), and did a thorough rewrite pass on a YA novel I wrote last summer. Yeah, I write fast. The thing is, we all write a different speeds, and have different amounts of time we can dedicate to the process. So it’s not a "wow," or a “how do you do that.” It’s just an “is.” That’s all. To achieve this though, I keep this insane schedule (not my words, I’ve been told by many people.) The result is that I basically wipe myself out, day after day. Not great for the old social life, but works well on the writing front.

Anyway, this is a long way around for me to say I’m going to go with an easy one today. Something fun.

It thought we could talk about recent reads. I’ve read a string of winners since the holidays, which is not always the case. I’m on number six in a row, and have at least three more lined up that I have high hopes for! This makes me very, very happy.

First up: THE HUNGER GAMES/CATCHING FIRE/MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Collins

Several years ago, I read the book BATTLE ROYALE by Koushun Takami (translated by Yuji Oniki) about a group of school age kids that get picked against their will by a fictional oppressive government in the future to partake in a game of sorts where they have to kill or be killed and the winner is the last one standing. I absolutely loved it. Have read it twice. Well, over the holidays, I finally read THE HUNGER GAMES, about a group of school aged kids that get picked against their will by a fictional oppressive government in the future to partake in a game of sorts where they have to kill or be killed and the winner is the last one standing. Yep. There’s no denying that the plots are…eh…similar, down to the fact that two of the last players standing are in love (or appear to be in one of the two books.) But even so I loved this book, too! And the plot similarity didn’t bother me. I think both books rock. (One of the big differences is that in THE HUNGER GAMES most of the deaths occur off screen. Not the case in BATTLE ROYALE.) Anyway, I loved Collins so much, I rushed out and bought both of the sequels (CATCHING FIRE and MOCKINGJAY) and devoured them, too. The first was the best of the series, but the others were good, too. Big recommend from me. (If I find out BATTLE ROYALE has a translated sequel – and yes, I know there was a sequel movie, I’m talking book – I’d read it in a heartbeat.)

Next: THE REVERSAL by Michael Connelly

How can you not enjoy anything Connelly writes? I loved the combo of Haller and Bosch in this one. Well worth the read.  

And then: THE SENTRY by Robert Crais.

Yep, I went from one L.A. based series to another. That was actually kind of fun. In fact there were scenes in both books set in areas that I frequent a lot. I always love that. As far as THE SENTRY goes, I just have to say I would never want to have Joe Pike on my ass. You might as well purchase your grave marker right away. Not surprisingly, this was another page turner.

And, finally: THE WANDERING GHOST by Martin Limon

This might be my favorite of the bunch. It’s from Limon’s Sueño & Bascom mystery series about two Criminal Investigation Sergeants in 1970s era Korea. They try to do the right thing, but are also great at getting themselves into trouble. WANDERING GHOST is no exception. I love this series, and Limon is such a good writer that I can’t wait to pick up another one of his. Couldn’t recommend this series more.

There’s six recommendations (seven if you count BATTLE ROYALE) from me to you. So whatca’ got for me?