Dear Rod...

I know, I know. I really should be blogging more. As the Thrilling Detective Web Site stumbles on  towards its twentieth anniversary, it seems in so many ways old-fashioned and out-of-date, always playing catch-up. 

But I digress. That's another story, another post.

My mini-rant today is about those BSP morons who think the Comments section on assorted web sites, blogs, Facebook posts, etc. is the perfect place to salt the internet with their own dubious stabs at self-worship of the most one-handed kind. As soon as one of these stable geniuses tries it on my blog, I delete it.

But don't worry -- you're not missing out on much, be it vital information on some self-published masterpiece (200 5-star reviews!) or some questionable service or product (Steam clean your woo-woo at home!). There are exceptions, though -- like this one, which popped up today on on an old post about William S. Burrough's stint as a private eye. It was so stupid and utterly irrelevant that I felt I just had to share it with you, before I pressed DELETE.

Dear Rod, 
I might want you to realize that I hold no feelings of spite against you. Your demeanor is like that of the larger part of ASPA individuals, who might take sides without much information of the main problems involved. 
With regards to the particular incident of Facebook, you have done no off-base. I know you like a joke. It was a minor excusable slip. The fault is on the individuals who misused the circumstance and included the inept curve with a specific end goal to cast questions about my individual. 
Your sincere and significant expression of remorse is ordinary of a decent individual and wood not fail to receive any notice. It is esteemed and increased in value by me.-- Matrimonial detective agency in Delhi 

I'm still not sure who Rod is/was.

Still, if this sort of stuff puts a smile on your face, you ought to track these guys down -- their web site is full of examples of their mastery of the English language, and sure to "relieve your sufferings and anxiousnesses and acquire you the clear picture."

After all, they look "forward to make a long-run relationship with you while you connect our fellowship."

(By the way, just by coincidence, I noticed that today is Rod Stewart's birthday -- he's 73 today. All you young punks should do yourself a favour, and check out Every Picture Tells a Story, still one of the great shape-shifting rock'n'roll albums of all time. Folk? Rock? Soul? Gospel? He nailed it. And his work with the Faces and the Jeff Beck Group and most of his solo stuff hasn't been too shabby, either.)

Happy Birthday to Me (Having Some Cake & Bleating, Too)

It was twenty years ago today that I uploaded a tentative few pages of what became THE THRILLING DETECTIVE WEB SITE, for a pal to see. 

That pal, Peter Walker, seemed to like it, so I invited a few more friends on Rara-Avis, the old hard-boiled list serv, to check it out. 

Encouraged by their response, I scrambled to make it more presentable, and I officially released the site to the big bad world on April 1, 1998, trying (and inevitably failing) to keep up with the ever expanding world of private eye fiction -- past, present and future.

And the site kept growing.

Let me tell you, it's been one wild ride. A time-consuming monster that gobbles up every bit of time it can. And I've loved it.

The site has changed my life in ways I never expected. In all sorts of ways. Personally. Professionally. Some good, some bad, some ugly. But mostly good.

I've discovered some great P.I. fiction and some great writers, been invited to speak at conferences, conventions and bookstores, and to contribute to blogs, web sites, books and magazines. I've made some great friends from all over the world (and a few enemies) and even met the love of my life in person, after crossing swords online with her for a few years. And the site kept growing.

I've been on radio and television, and cited in other peoples books. And the site kept growing.

I even recently helped get a previously undiscovered Dashiell Hammett story into the proper hands. And the site kept growing.

And so it goes. There'll be some changes to the site coming up, but I have no idea what they'll be, exactly. 

It's mostly out of technical necessity. When I first started the site, it was a joke, a diversion, a non-boring way of practising html. Truth is, I hate coding. But I had a client waiting.

So I found a great little program from Adobe called PageMill. It was a simple, inexpensive WYSIWYG web and site management program that allowed even codaphobes like me to create simple, basic web pages. Most of those early practice pages, done two decades ago -- some of which still haven't been updated, even now -- don't even take advantage of CSS, and yet, they're still up. And the site kept growing.

But of course, they're relatively few, because the site's been evolving constantly, as old entries become updated and new entries are created. Along the way, Adobe dropped PageMill, replacing it with a more sophisticated (and costlier) program called GoLive. Rather than recreating an entire web site, I just kept going, updating and creating pages with GoLive, learning to love style sheets. And the site kept growing.

So I've been using GoLive for the last ten years or more. Oh, I've got the latest Adobe web site program, DreamWeaver (for which we pay the Adobe overlords dutifully every month), which replaced GoLive, and have even used it for a few clients.

But just between us?

DreamWeaver is a nightmare; a feature-bloated, anti-intuitive, overly complicated nightmare with no discernible advantage over GoLive; a Hell App that even uber-geeks don't like, never mind us mere mortals. It offers bells and whistles when all I want is simplicity. I pretty much hate it.

GoLive seemed like a natural step up from PageMill; a progression that felt logical. Dreamweaver is from a whole other planet, junking a whole array of dependable, common sense features that its predecessor offered and imposing a huge learning curve that I still haven't mastered. 

But, to add insult to injury, there's no easy way to import my existing site into DreamWeaver. Which means every file must be imported separately and recreated in Dreamweaver. Stylesheets created in GoLive will have to be renamed and links will have to be re-checked. And I have a lot of links. And a lot of files (over 3000, last count). The best estimate is it would take weeks to import the site into Dreamweaver. And that's if I ignore almost everything else in my life. So, best scenario? Months and months.

So just keep using GoLive, right? Except by January 2018, when Apple releases it's latest software update, GoLive will cease to function completely, and I'll have to use DreamWeaver (unless there's an alternative I can find). GoLive by now is an ancient program, already starting to sputter -- its beloved site management features becoming wonkier and wonkier, when they work at all.

I know, I know... why update, then? Because in this day and age, NOT updating would cause even more problems.

I don't know why Adobe's done this -- I've been a loyal customer for as long as I've had a computer, and love their other programs, following them through update after update. I love Photoshop and Illustrator and Acrobat and even learned to love InDesign, after working with Quark for fifteen years. Updates have been for the most part logical; with new features that made sense and opened up whole new vistas. But DreamWeaver?

Ugh.

And what makes it worse is that, while there are a ton of spiffy programs, from open source to $$$$, that are allegedly great at CREATING new web sites, I haven't found one yet that's worth a spit at MANAGING a site that's already been created in another program.

So... any of you web monkeys out there have any suggestions?

Like I said, there'll be some changes to the site coming up, but I have no idea what they'll be. Stay tuned...

Zero Avenue: Dietrich Pulls a Fast One

In the halycon days of pulp back in the thirties, Paul Cain, best known for a handful of hard, fast short stories that appeared in Black Mask, cranked out an equally jacked-up novel (his one and only) full of treachery and throbbing energy with the tell it like it is title Fast One.

Fast One? He wasn't kidding.

And now Vancouver crime writer Dietrich Kalteis has pulled a fast one of his own, that takes the fire and fury of early pulp and adds the magic ingredient we didn't even know was missing: punk rock!

Zero Avenue is a balls-to-the-wall last chance power drive through the turbulent 1970s punk scene of that fair city. By now, it should be no surprise that Dietrich can pull it off -- he's already spat out several turbo-charged standalones, including Ride the Lightning (a personal fave of mine), The Deadbeat Club and Triggerfish, and he's had almost fifty of his short stories published around the world.

But this Zero Avenue is something else again.

I fucking loved it. It’s like the Ramones covering Elmore Leonard covering the Ramones; so hard, so fast and so funny I almost expected each brief blitzreig chapter to kick off with a 1-2-3-4! count out and end with a big fat drum roll and a crash of angry, buzzing power chords. (Coincidentally, one of Cain's short stories is called "One, Two, Three." Coincidence? I think not.)

Yet it's not all bang-bang-bang-bang — like any truly great punk song, there’s melody tucked in there somewhere too, in the nuances of characterization, and the kind of sly wit that pervaded the early days of punk, before it became so po-faced (a lot of folks seem to forget how funny punk rock was, but Dietrich remembers).

Frankie Del Rey is a rocker with a heart of gold, or at least some sort of shiny metal; her guitar slung low like some hip-chick gunslinger. All she cares about is her music and her band, Waves of Nausea, and to that end she's slinging dope for -- and reluctantly "dating" a true and proper scumbag, club owner and drug dealer Marty Sayles, who's got his fingers in an awful lot of pies. He owns a couple of clubs, and several pot farms scattered around the area, including a grow patch and barn situated out in the boonies further south on Surrey, B.C's notorious Zero Avenue, which straddles a mostly unprotected and little watched stretch of the U.S./Canada border. Marty's crew uses the barn to process the drugs; and allows Frankie and her band to use it as a rehearsal spot.

But it gets even more incestuous -- Johnny, who's taken a liking to Frankie, tends bar and runs Falco’s Nest, a struggling punk dive that Marty owns, while Frankie’s bass player, Arnie Binz, who sleeps in the Nest's backroom, comes up with a half-baked (literally) scheme to rip off Marty's unprotected grow patch, not taking into account Marty's psycho enforcer Zeke Chamas, or Marty's not-quite-right pot farmers Sticky and Tucker.

They could all have so easily become jackhammer cartoons, but somehow Dietrich manages to imbue each one -- even the minor ones -- with just enough grit and wit to make them count. Not always an easy task when your cast features a bunch of punk rockers and other assorted dreamers and schemers: wannabe crimelords, bartenders, bouncers, bikers, skizzy moneymen and a couple of doofus drug dealers whose last functioning brain cells lit out for the territories years ago.

And the setting! I was 3000 miles east, but everything Dietrich describes reads a lot like a postcard from the Montreal punk scene I flopped around in back in the day: the swirl of punks and metal heads and disco clowns fighting it out in dubious clubs, each seedier than the next; a ramshackle world of beer-sticky floors, pot smoke-filled johns and jury-rigged sound systems, always one police raid away from being boarded up, full of misfits and malcontents not quite sure what was happening, but aware something was happening. Dietrich gets it all right.

I caught up with the man himself recently via the interwebs, and asked him how he did it.

Q: Hey, Dietrich. It’s not like this is the first crime book to use the punk scene, but it’s the first I’ve read that gets it right. How involved were you in the Vancouver punk scene? Or were you?

A: I wasn’t in Vancouver at the time. I was living in Toronto in the late seventies, and I was aware of the punk scene there, as well as with what was going on in the U.S. and the U.K. Aside from D.O.A and The Subhumans I wasn’t familiar with much of the Vancouver sound until after I moved here in the early nineties. And I discovered more of the long-gone local punk bands once I started researching for the book.

Q: You’ve written five books now, all standalones. Ever thought of doing a series? Will we ever see Karl the bounty hunter turned process server from Ride the Lightning again?

A: I love a good series, and I have thought about it. I did borrow a minor character, Dara Addie, from my first novel Ride the Lightning, and made her a main character in The Deadbeat Club. That’s as close to a series as I’ve come. Usually by the time I get halfway through one novel, I’ve got a couple of ideas brewing for the next one. And so far there just hasn’t been anything that would play out as a series.

Q: What inspired Zero Avenue?

A: I liked punk’s rawness, anger and edge, and the way it threw a middle finger at the establishment. And Vancouver was this backwater place back then, a sharp contrast to what it is now. All of that just seemed to make the right setting for a crime story. And the late seventies were also a time before Google Earth, Google Maps and satellite imagery, back when pot fields were a lot easier to hide.

I knew some guys who tried to rip off a field back in the day and had rock salt shot at them. I always loved that story and wanted to include elements of it, although the way it plays out in Zero Avenue sure has a different outcome.

Q: Marty, the club owner, is a particularly odious weasel. Was he based on anyone in particular?

A: No, he’s all fiction. Marty Sayles just unfolded into the kind of protagonist he needed to be to allow the conflict to grow. Along with madman Zeke Chamas and Tucker and Sticky, Marty and his crew were more than enough for Frankie and Johnny Falco to take on.

Q: You also name-check various real-life characters and bands, like Joey Shithead of D.O.A. and Teenage Head. Were you concerned about weaving them into your story? Did you ask permission or just roll with it? How many did you catch?

A: I tossed in a few real-life characters to lend some realism to the story, just enough so I wouldn’t need to worry about getting permission. And how could I make the story sound authentic without at least mentioning a local legend like Joey? He was like the godfather of punk in these parts. And there are a few others that I wanted to pay tribute to with a mention.

Q: Your characters seem to be folks from the fringe, or straights who fucked up. Or fuck-ups trying to go straight. They’re dealers or ex-cons or failed bounty hunters or brain-fried bozos — never captains of industry or movie stars or big shots, which really harkens back to classic noir and pulp. But they’re never really cartoons — do the characters shape the story, or does the story create the characters?

A: It’s true, my characters are often marginal, folks from the fringe. At times I like them to be unwitting, just pulled into a situation they’re ill-equipped to handle. That can make them seem both believable and vulnerable, and perhaps less predictable. And these characters often bring some sense of levity in their thoughts, words and actions which creates a nice balance in a tense situation.

But the characters definitely shape the story. When I start writing a novel, I start with a scene which might be inspired by something I’ve heard, read in the paper, or seen on TV — ideas that get me thinking well, what if this happened … I drop in the kind of character I’d like to see handle the situation, and as the character takes shape, I let them roll with it and see what comes next.

Q: Your style reminds me of a boiled-down, rawer Elmore Leonard, particularly in the way the dialogue and action moves. Which writers influenced you?

A: Definitely Elmore. He was the master of character and dialog. And there was the early stuff by George V Higgins, another master of dialog. And I love anything by Don Winslow, James Crumley, Charles Willeford. And there’s Robert B. Parker, particularly his Jesse Stone series. And James Lee Burke, James Ellroy, Ed McBain, Robert Crais, Carl Hiaasen, and Canadian great Marc Strange. There are also many greats outside the genre: Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski, Jack Keroac, J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck. Suffice to say, I’m inspired by what I consider great writing, those voices that resonate with me.

Q: Hell, so many of the characters are so spot on, I’m beginning to wonder if any of your characters were based on real people. Personally, I think I dated Frankie, but it might have been her cousin from Montreal.

A: Sorry, Kevin, but Frankie is pure fiction. My characters are all made up and aren’t based on anybody I know. But I do like to observe people, the way they speak, their quirks and tics, and I often attribute some of these characteristics to my characters. Sort of mix'n'match.

Q: What do you listen to these days?

A: I listen to a wide range of music, from classic, to jazz, to folk, to blues, to rock — once in a while taking a stroll (or pogo) down memory lane and playing some old-school punk. If I had to narrow it down, I’d say Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen are my favorite songwriters. And I love to listen to anybody that can play like Hendrix, Miles Davis and Robert Johnson; or belt it out like Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin or Freddie Mercury.

Q: Do you play music when you write? What were you listening to while writing ZERO AVENUE?

A: I always listen to music when I write. When I started writing full time I found distraction in the usual sounds of a household: kids, cats, dogs, ringing phones, dinging doorbells, trucks and sirens going by. So I played music through my headphones. At first I thought I would go mad, or at least I wouldn’t be able to write, but I got into the rhythm of whatever music I was listening to. It was a constant sound, and it had a way of blocking out the white noise. So, I kept doing it, picking music that went with the vibe of what I was writing. And for the nine months it took to write Zero Avenue, that’s what I listened to, punk.

Q: If you had to compile a playlist for Zero Avenue, what ten songs would be on it?

Sadly there are no tunes from Middle Finger or from Frankie’s band Waves of Nausea. Just Frankie’s lyrics at the front of the book:

Oh baby, got to find a new space’cause everything’s shittyand I’m feelin’ out of placein this no fun city.

If we’re talking strictly Vancouver songs from back in the day, I’d include “World War Three” and “Disco Sucks” by D.O.A, “Barbra” by The Modernettes, “Out of Luck” and “What do you want me to do?” by The Pointed Sticks, “Past is Past” by The Dishrags, “Hawaii” by The Young Canadians (formerly the K-Tels), and I can’t forget Vancouver classics like “Firing Squad” and “Fuck You” by the Subhumans. And let’s add one by Vancouver’s first punk band, the Furies, and their song “No Fun City.”

If we stretch the playlistI’d add songs from Toronto bands: The Viletones, The Diodes, The Ugly and The Cardboard Brains. And why not throw in some by the major punk bands from around the globe who were around in the late seventies: The Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, The Stooges, Black Flag, The Buzzcocks and so on.


Q: Is punk dead? Who killed it? Who killed Bambi?

A: I’m not sure about Bambi, but when punk came along, there was a certain shock that came with it. Although its fanbase grew in various cities around the globe, punk was never well received in the mainstream. Major labels were reluctant to sign punk bands, radio stations wouldn’t play their music, and clubs wouldn’t book the acts. 
When I first heard it, though, I immediately liked its edgy sound -- a welcome change to disco, but if truth be told, I thought it was a fad that would burn out fast. It turned out the only thing that died was that initial shock from when it started over forty years ago. Punk-laced bands like Rise Against, Bad Religion, Blink-182, Rancid and Green Day are still going strong. And it’s interesting to note that Johnny Rotten, Iggy Pop, Joey Shithead, Jello Biafra, Patti Smith and Mick Jones are still standing and still involved in making music. So, although punk’s changed over the years, it’s still  kicking.

Q: What’s next?

A: Poughkeepsie Shuffle is next and due out from ECW Press in June, 2018. The story takes place in Toronto in the mid-eighties and centers on Jeff Nichols, a guy just released from the infamous Don Jail. When he lands himself a job at a used-car lot, he finds himself mixed up in a smuggling ring bringing guns in from Upstate New York. Jeff’s a guy who’s willing to break a few rules on the road to riches, living by the motto “Why let the mistakes of the past get in the way of a good score in the future.”

I also have a story called Bottom Dollar included in the upcoming Vancouver Noir, part of Akashic Books’ Noir Series, edited by Sam Wiebe.

• • • • •

You can visit Dietrich at dietrichkalteis.com or at ECW Press. He blogs regularly at Off the Cuff and at 7 Criminal Minds, and he’s also on Facebook and Twitter.

Tracing Skip Tracer (1977)

Hey! Did I just dream this? Or did I really see this obscure bit of Canadian nastiness?

It was a bleak, decidedly non-glamourous, low-budget character study released in 1977 that did zip and was (mostly) immediately forgotten, featuring a cast of unknowns and starring David Peterson (who?) as John Collins, a low-key, taciturn debt collector "hero" prowling the streets of a gloriously seedy Vancouver, hunting down deadbeats.

Make no mistake -- Collins is no goody two-shoes. In fact, he's a cold, heartless son of a bitch.

Or maybe just an asshole, as a commenter on IMDB put it.

But however you put it, it's that trait that has made him the top skip tracer for GSC, a Vancouver loan company.

In the course of this fragmented and episodic little gem, Collins must deal with an ambitious young associate, viscious death threats, physical violence, and a suicidal debtor, not to mention severe job burnout. All this while vying for GSC's coveted "Man of the Year" award for an unprecedented fourth year in a row. And discovering that maybe, just maybe, he is human after all.

Yeah, it sounds like a downer.

And it is.

But oh, what a downer.

This is noir in its essence. No fedoras, no fancy lighting tricks, no smoke machines, no jaw-dropping camera work -- just a bleak, no-frills x-ray of a man's soul as he circles the drain.

Despite it's obscurity (it did very little box office during its short theatrical release in Canada, and it aired maybe twice on British television back in the early eighties), it continues to rate highly among those lucky few who have seen it. Peterson's performance as Collins has been praised as being "wonderfully sustained," and the film itself has been compared to everything from Across 110th Street and Superfly to On the Waterfront and, of course, Repo Man, while Collins' obsession with tracking down and collecting from one elusive skip has been likened -- I shit thee not -- to Ahab's quest in Moby Dick. Me? For some reason it reminded me of Drive, that Ryan Gosling flick from a few years ago, based on the James Sallis' book.

But whatever, Skip Tracer's got a pretty good rep for a cheap little flick that hardly anyone saw.

It's too bad it's not available on DVD. I saw it years and years ago on VHS, rented from some hole-in-the-wall Montreal video store back in the mid-eighties that seemed to have a lot of videos of dubious provenance. Yet it's haunted me ever since.

Was it as cheap-looking as I remember it? Was it as unapologetically morose and bleak? As creepy and unsettling? I'm almost afraid to find out, but I'd really love to know.

Alas, as far as anyone can tell, the film was never released on DVD or Blu-Ray. And of course, it never occurred to me, when I was updating this entry on Thrilling Detective, that it might be on YouTube.

Turns out it is. Now to see how much I've misremembered...

Don't Call It a Bargain!

You see 'em everywhere online.

These big, dirt cheap e-compilations of novels and short stories by some of the better known (but not A-list) authors of the genre. Twenty-Five Hard-Boiled Classics, Volume Eight! The Amazing Sherlock Holmes and Watson Megapack! Gritty Crime from the Pulps, Collection 15! Five More Great Awesome and Amazing Crime Novels by Whomever!

Stories or complete novels by some really great and/or popular P.I. writers. William Campbell Gault, Thomas B. Dewey, Robert Leslie Bellem, Stewart Sterling, Spencer Dean, John Carroll Daly, George Harmon Coxe, Norbert Davis, Raoul Whitfield and the like.

Some of the writers in these books are personal favourites; some are of historical interest; some are just fun to read. But what they do all have in common is that the authors (or more importantly their copyrights) are all dead.

Which means some publisher can grab a bunch of stories and squirt out an ebook without ever having to pay any of the writers a cent. Amazon and the other online enablers are littered with these things, generally selling them for as little as 99 cents.

Yeah, I know the price is right, but I’m not a fan.

There are some publishers who do reprints right: they offer class, not crass. They edit, they commission artwork, they introduce new and relevant material into the mix. They treat the material with respect. They curate. They care. They actually edit. Outfits like Hard Case Crime, Stark House, Crippen & Landru -- they do it right. (And let's have a moment of silence for the late, great Rue Morgue, who rescued so many classics from obscurity. Tom and Enid? Thank you. Particularly for the Norbert Davis stuff).

Mind you, all of these publishers charged more than 99 cents a book. But their books were worth it. Well worth it.

These cheesy public domain hit-and-run e-compilations, though? At 99 cents, they can ship an awful lot of units, without ever having to pay anyone a damn cent. At 99 cents, you might even call it a steal.

But I think they devalue, if not outright disrespect, the act of writing and creativity, and lower the reader’s expectations of what writing is truly worth. It may look like a boon to non-discerning readers, but in the long run it hurts both writers and readers.

Or at least the ones who can tell the difference between shit and Shinola. Believe it or not, there are still some of us out here. Even in the era of La Donald.

But beyond the dubious ethics, if not legality, of these books, these quickie cyber-turds are poorly curated (if at all), often lack any thematic or editorial cohesion, generally sport lousy generic covers, and are often riddled with typographical and formatting errors. So we're not exactly talking quality control here. I also doubt any effort is made to share the profits with or obtain the cooperation of the estates of any of the now deceased authors. And often they mix in stories by their own “authors” to make it look like they’re in the same league; another rather dubious tactic.

Erle Stanley Gardner. Joe Phlegminski, Jr.. William Campbell Gault. Which of these things is not like the others?

Anyway...

What prompted this? A reader of my site recently contacted me, asking me to explain a story by Thomas B. Dewey that he'd just read in one of these collections. He complained that it just didn't make any sense.

Now, Dewey's one of those P.I. writers I really like, and his plots are generally well-constructed, with all the loose ends neatly tied up; solid, dependable fare that's always a bit more clever and insightful than you expect. I know this because I’ve read a lot of his stuff over the last few years, in preparation for that book I’m working on.

But I hadn't read that specific story in decades. So I told him it’s possible it didn’t make sense because the publisher had inadvertently left out part of the story. I’ve seen this happen before with these sort of collections. The publisher grabs (or scans) a bunch of old stories and slaps ‘em together for a quick buck, without any real editing.

In fact, this particular publisher apparently expects typos and errors, because when I checked out the free sample, I noticed that they apologize for typos  right on their copyright pages. Think about that. What sort of legit publisher apologizes in advance for errors? "Don't worry about them," they say, in essence, "We'll probably fix 'em with the next upload."

But these bottom feeders can’t just lay it off on poorly scanned source material (assuming they actually scanned the original material -- I suspect many of these clowns simply rip off their fellow e-scavengers. Besides, looking at the copyright page, it was clear they’re fully capable of introducing plenty of their own errors. So if they don't even bother to edit their own material, should we really expect them to be any more conscientious with other people's work? Especially if those authors have already shuffled off this mortal coil?

And if they can't be bothered to treat their authors right, what do you think they'll care about treating you right?

So it’s not exactly a stretch to believe the "publisher" may have lost a few paragraphs along the way. Ooops.

So, yeah, the price may be right, but as both a reader and a writer, I just think these guys are all wrong.

Bouchercon 2014: Never Can Say Goodbye, No No No...

Check out time at the Are You Okay? Corral. From left: Roger, Mike, me, Ali and Diane. Just when we thought we'd get out, Ali pulls us back in.

Bouchercon 2014: it’s said that they got off with quite a haul...

Part of the haul, a combination of book bag loot and multiple visits to the Dealer's Room. Can you guess which are mine and which are Diane's? I'll spot you one: I am giddy with the ARC of Laura Lippman's new one.

Bouchercon 2014: There Are Faces I'll Remember

Top row: Mike, Ali. Second Row: Rob, me, Jeff, Jodi, Scott, Roger, Tanis. Third Row: Diane, Jodi, Linda, Heather, Connie

... and there were no survivors.

Or at least that's how it feels from this desk. There are so many faces and names, so many memories, thoughts, events both large and small still being sorted and sifted that it feels like Diane and I were away for months, not a few days.

It was a big deal for us. We hadn't been to a Bouchercon together since Wisconsin (I'd done a few quickie hit and runs to Bouchercon in San Francisco and Left Coast Crime in LA; she'd been to a few Malice Domestics), and we both felt it was high time to reconnect with the mystery community; to sniff the air and test the waters. Mr. and Mrs. Detective stepping back into the ring.

Yes, we also had ulterior motives.  I was anxious to see if Thrilling Detective still mattered to anyone but me; Diane wanted to relight the pilot light under her pen name of Diana Killian (aka "The Girl Detective;" aka "D.L. Browne") with which she'd written eight or so mysteries. We've been awful busy over the last few years on life and other projects (some classified; some about to be announced) but we wanted to get back to where we once belonged.

But mostly we wanted some time together that involved more than the two of us passing by the coffee machine, sleep drunk, on the way to our computers. To reconnect with old friends and to make new ones. And each other.

We succeeded.

Bouchercon 2014 was a riot. A head-spinning kaleidoscope of fictional murder and mayhem; of quick chats and long discussions, warm hugs and cold beverages; an orgy of books and words and the rush of knowing, for a few days anyway, that we were surrounded by people who were as passionate and obsessive (or flat out mentally unstable) about crime fiction as we are. As Ali Karim put it, after a particularly passionate discourse on the bleak, nihilistic philosophical underpinnings of HBO's True Detective, "If you talked about all this fuckin' biff anywhere else, we'd all be arrested."

Like I said, it's all still being processed, but here are a few thoughts and memories. Scrambled, with a dash of pepper.

The panels and official whoop-ti-doos were fine, but by far the best time was the time spent in conversations, over drinks, at meals or just standing in the hall ways getting in the way of everyone else. Let's face it -- that's really what Bouchercon does best. And why it's so important to have a decent bar open from about midday and easily accessible to all attendees. One that offers not just booze but good coffee and other non-alcoholic beverages for the four attendees who don't drink, light meals and snacks, and plenty of seating. Woe to any Bouchercon organizing committee who thinks they can skip this step. Remember the notorious shoe store-turned- bar in Vegas, which, when it was open (which, rumour has it, it was occasionally), had all the charm and conviviality of, well, a shoe store?

But man, reconnecting with friends, getting -- in some cases -- the first chance to really talk with people I've "known" on the internet for years? That was the main deal, right there.

There are tons of folks it was a delight to hook up with -- once again or for the first time. I know I'm gonna screw this up and leave out someone really important to me, but man, what a show. What great people!

But then, like almost everything that matters, it's always, when you get right down to it, about people. 

That crazy Canadian Content Wednesday night with Jacques Filippi (Cowansville!) and John McFetridge (my eternal homie, connecting at not just the Canadian and Montreal level, but right down to the sub-nuclear, Greenfield Park level), meeting Peter Rozovsky (Montreal!) of Detectives Beyond Borders, Thrilling Detective contributor Scott Adlerberg, Tanis Mallow (Ontario!) and Cara Brookins (winner of The Best-Dressed Grease Monkey Award five years in a row). Even Sara Henry (honourary Canadian outta Vermont) dropped by. And wouldn't you know it? We all ended up talking at one point about hockey.

Americans worried about some covert Canuck takeover need not worry, though... President Weinman will explain it all.

Or how about Thursday night, meeting my panelists Rex Burns, Thomas Sawyer and Cathi Stoler (who, it turns out, is the right Cathi) to prep for our early the next morning panel, as well as Kathy Bennett, the temporarily wrong Kathy, former LAPD cop turned writer, who turned out to be just right (Honest, Kathy, I was on my way back!). And then being bumped at the bar by my old pal Terrill Lee Lankford, asking me to scoot down a little so some guy called Michael Connelly could sign some books. Meeting the Legendary Lisa, the events manager from the Barnes and Noble at The Grove. In Palmdale we consider ourselves lucky to get self-published local wingnut slogging poetry or a self-help manual; Lisa had not only had Connelly sign so often there they were friends, but she had Jimmy Page there signing HIS book the other night. THE Jimmy Page!

In Palmdale, we're apt to land the replacement drummer for a Motley Crue cover band selling a cookbook for sushi.

Friday night was the Shamus Awards Dinner put on by the Private Eye Writers of America, where Diane and I ended up at what they should have called the press table. Sitting with Jeff Pierce of January Magazine and The Rap Sheet, Ali Karin and Mike Stotter of Shots, and Peter Kozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders. Just an awesome night. Back at the bar, Diane and I met old Wicked Company buddies Rick (and Elaine) Helms and Jack Bludis, and then later, a rematch with Ali, Mike and Jeff, where we were joined by January Mag founder (and freshly-minted poker hustler) Linda Richards.

And oh the hit-and-runs! Knowing nods and bursts of chatter. Jan Long (aka "Steve Hamilton"); running into (and then losing again) Em Bronstein; comparing hair styling tips with Reed Farrell Coleman; and questioning the peculiar American dislike for rodent-mentioning titles with Ian Hamilton. Chatting about the Great Lost White Whales of crime fic with Jim Huang and Austin Lugar. Hooking up and talking software (I kid you not) with crime author Rob Brunet (Toronto via Ottawa and Montreal). Maggie Griffin, publicist to the stars, and some guy she was with called Child. Gary Phillips, whose voice can still manage to shake a building shake like it's 1977 and it's half an hour to closing at the disco... and somebody just turned the bass way way up. Max Allan Collins, writer, director, musician, collector, fountain of knowledge, uber-fan and my crime convention go-to since 1992, when I first embarrassed myself in front of an author, gushing about how much I loved their stuff. And speaking of stuff, then there were the Mysterious Boys, Richard Brewer and Bobby McCue.

Not that I've become cool and jaded, mind you. There were still plenty of other times I know I embarrassed myself this time out, gushing  without even actually explaining what I the hell was talking about. David Morrell and Jason Pinter are probably still scratching their heads. And possibly considering hiring some personal security for their next convention.

I also got to see some of my old DAPA-Em buddies! Art Scott, whom I spotted before we'd even checked in, and has an awesome new book on cover artist Robert McGinnis. The two Teds, Ted Fitzgerald and Ted Hertel. Steve Steinbock. Also spotted Marvelous Marv Lachman, but couldn't nail him.

And then there were the panels. The most rollicking one by far was the LA Noir at the Bar group reading, a high-energy tag team of mostly great writing; marred only by a few too many juvenile -- but well-written -- attempts at shock-and-awe. Granted, with only 60 seconds to read, context was mostly tossed aside, but is the overuse of the word "Fuck" and the lovingly detailed descriptions of dripping viscera really the essence of noir? As the Divine Ms. Christa Faust put it as she wrapped up her own excellent (and far from genteel) little snippet, "Is that the best you can do?"

The difference, gentlemen, is writing.

The Forgotten Pulp Writers of the Pulp & Paperback Era was another great panel, moderated by Peter, featuring Gary, Max, Charles Kelly, Sarah "I do all my own stunts") Weinman and Sara Henry, scratching just the surface of overlooked, obscure or forgotten writers. Anyone in the audience whose want list didn't grow by a few sizes after that one shouldn't have been there at all.

But by far the greatest, most amazing time happened after the conference was over. Diane and I stuck around, used the hotel pool, had a nice quiet lunch, figured we'd drive home Monday. Ran into Ali that afternoon sneaking out for a smoke. He invited us to dinner with "four or five" other people. At Gladstome's, the scene of the crime for the Shamus Awards a few nights earlier. But by the time we got there, the four of five had grown a little. We ended up back in the private room where the Shamuses themselves had taken place -- there was no room for us anywhere else.

It was a wonderful evening, a fantastic meal, a booze-prompted (but not booze-fueled) panel round table about books, literacy, rock'n'roll, technology, writing, Robert Parker, publishing and passions, moderated by an equally booze-prompted Ali. Perhaps all Bouchercon panels should be held in bars. 

It truly was a magical evening, starring Ali (aka "The Hardest Working Man in the Crime Biz") and co-starring Diana Killian, Heather Graham, Linda S. Richards, Jeff and Jodi Pierce, Mike Stotter, R.J. Ellory, Tanis Mallow, Peter Rozovsky, Rob Brunet, Connie and fellow bookseller Scott Montgomery. Look at the grins plastered across those mugs at that picture up there.

Man, those people.

In my life, I'll love them all.

Location, Location, Location: Bouchercon 2014

Noir at the Bar: Bouchercon 2014