Erotic Suburban Mischief

The first sentence of The Blue Journal: A Detective Anthony Walker Novel by L.T. Graham is naked foreshadowing: "There was no reason for Elizabeth Knoebel to suspect that this was going to be the last day of her life." So by the end of Chapter 1 we've seen Elizabeth shot in the head by "the murderer."

Elizabeth is a lovely, sexy sociopath, the wife of a cold, distant, but affluent New York surgeon. She'd been seducing the men in her husband's marriage therapy group and describes the encounters on her laptop. These reflect her contempt for the men who she never names: "In the end, the greatest aphrodisiac for a man is the pleasure he thinks he has given his partner. This is the way to own him." "Confident men are often attractive men, a combination that makes them the easiest to seduce." "T proved to be an easy seduction. He's the sort of man who needs to feel he's in charge, the easiest sort to manipulate." Unfortunately for the novel's plausibility, Elizabeth seems to be pure malevolence. We never understand (or can infer) why she, who has looks, money, and a small talent to write porn, should be hell bent on destroying other people's lives.

What this means for Anthony Walker, formerly a New York cop, now a Darien, CT, detective, is that he has a plethora of suspects. Just about everybody who has had any contact with Elizabeth has a reason to kill her. The first challenge is to identify the men she's written about, which turns out to be a fairly simple matter. But there are other potential suspects: the therapist who is leading the marriage therapy group for the husbands, their wives, the town's First Selectman, her surgeon husband.

It means the novel is a puzzle that Walker has to solve. Readers who enjoy solving (or at least following along as the detective solves) a complex mystery will have a lot of fun with The Blue Journal. Other readers may be put off by the shifts in point of view and by actions of characters who have clearly never read or watched a mystery.

For example: "[Randi, the therapist] wanted to tell Walker about the anonymous note, about the threatening phone call she had just received, about her fears concerning several of her patients and Elizabeth Knoebel. But not yet, she decided. Not yet." To Graham's credit, she (he?) does not do what inexperienced mystery writers do when a character withholds information from the detective; she doesn't kill Randi off before she can tell Walker what she knows.

This is also a book for readers who enjoy passages from Elizabeth's journal like: "Oddly, there are very few men I have ever known who have the same curiosity about the physiology of the vagina that they have for their own equipment. They tend to view a woman's pussy as a goal to be achieved rather than part of a process to be enjoyed . . . "

Reportedly Graham is working on another Anthony Walker novel and will, with The Blue Journal experience behind her, overcome the challenges of point of view, motivation, and character development that limit this first effort.

How important is it for a writer to have a website?

This may seem like a dumb question to ask on a blog, but I see it come up from time to time. I thought the case was settled, but apparently not. So I asked a writer's group for the cons and pros of a writer's website.

Three cons seem to be cost, time, and learning. While it's possible to spend several hundred dollars to have a website designed, it's not necessary. Using the free tools available on Blogger, my wife and I (neither of us designers or particularly computer savvy) designed and created this site for the cost of a couple of hours of intense concentration and no cash.

Time is an issue. To be effective, a blog, website, Facebook page, Twitter account, and more and more require attention and fresh—you will excuse the word—content. A someone pointed out, a blog or website that has not been updated for six months is probably more harmful than no blog at all.

Finally, you do have to learn how to use the computer and the blog tools effectively, but once you're up and running, it should be no harder than writing a letter.

The pros are more obvious. A website/blog is a way to build an audience while you are writing your next book. It is a way to raise your hand when someone is looking for information, which is why the labels (or keywords) are so important. It's a way share your thoughts about—and around—a topic that's important to you.

And it might actually engage someone enough to consider, look into, buy, read, and recommend your book to someone else. 

Why Michael Connelly is so great

Michael Connelly does not need my praise, but I've been thinking about some of the reasons why I think he's one of the best crime writers in America.

1) He knows where to start the story for maximum dramatic effect. Here are the first two sentences of his latest Harry Bosch mystery, The Burning Room: "It seemed to Bosch to be a form of torture heaped upon torture. Corazon was hunched over the steel table, her bloody and gloved hands deep inside the gutted torso, working with forceps and a long-bladed instrument she called the 'butter knife.'" We are watching an autopsy that initiates an investigation into a 10-year-old shooting.

2) He limits the point of view to Harry Bosch. The reader knows only what Bosch knows. This means Bosch has to learn things from his partner, a young detective named Lucy Soto, and from other people. So the book is crowded with names and places, but we are able to keep track easily and the flow feels natural.

3) His account of LA police procedures and politics ring absolutely true. Because I do not know Los Angeles well, I cannot tell whether places are where Connelly says they are—but I suspect they are. Using real streets, neighborhoods, and locations lends the book authority and verisimilitude.

4) The puzzle Bosch has to solve is both complex and plausible. He is working on a both a 10-year-old shooting and a 21-year-old arson case and the action stops long enough for Bosch and his partner to compare notes, or for Bosch to report to his superiors on his progress, which helps the reader keep track of what's going on.

5) Connelly is able to introduce history (back story) naturally without interrupting the story's flow. For example, Bosch and the reader learn the details of the arson case by reading about it from departmental records. At another point he is talking to a retired detective about an old case and he recalls "the infamous 1997 shoot-out in the streets outside a Bank of America branch in North Hollywood." Bosch played only the most minor role in the incident (part of the team securing the crime scene after it was all over), but the memory has its role.

6) His characters are neither paragons of virtue nor embodiments of evil. Bosch is, in some ways, a loose cannon, although he will get a search warrant when he needs one. He's doing his best to be a good father to his teenage daughter. When Bosch and Lucy meet a neo-Nazi ex-con witness, perhaps the most unpleasant character in the book, the guy seems more pitiful than viscous for all his vitriol.

7) He does not rely on coincidence to help the story along. I believe there is only one incident that might be considered coincidence in the entire 388 pages (a news story that happens to appear on the back of a news clipping Bosch is reading). But it is so natural few readers would question it.

8) The dialogue is crisp and at times funny. For example, a reward has been offered and Bosch gets one of the tip callers who says: "I want to register for the reward."
"What do you mean 'register,' sir? It's not a lottery. Do you have information that can help us?"
"Yeah. I got information. The shooter is named Jose. You can mark it down."
"Jose what?"
"I don't know that part. I just know it's Jose."
"How do you know this?"
"I just do."
"He was the shooter."
"That's right."
"Do you know this man? Do you know why he did it?"
"No, but I'm sure you will get all of that once you arrest him."
"Where do I arrest him?"
The man on the other end of the line seemed to scoff at the question.
"I don't know that. You're the detective."
"Okay, sir, so you are saying that I need to go out and find and arrest a man named Jose. No last name, no known whereabouts. Do you know what he looks like?"
"He looks Mexican."
"Okay, sir, thank you." Bosch hung up the phone, banging it hard into the cradle. "Douche bag," he said to himself....

9) The descriptions of places and people are crisp and to the point. For example: "Ojeda was sitting at a small table. Seeing him in the cold light of the room, Bosch saw that he was a handsome man with a full head of jet-black hair, smooth skin, and a trim built. There was a weariness or sadness in his dark eyes...."

10) He saves a final twist for the last seven pages of the book. It's entirely plausible, a complete surprise—and I'm not going to spoil it here.

I'm sure there's more—and these notes could easily apply to almost any novel. We who are still learning should be taking notes.

How to write a mystery

Generally (and to over-simplify), fiction writers can be divided into two camps: Outliners and Pantsers. Outliners outline the entire novel before they begin to seriously draft. Pantsers write by the seat of their pants, often with only a vague idea of how the book will end. I have done both, and there something to be said for both techniques.

An Outliner's novel can seem mechanical and contrived. Events occur because the writer needs them to establish plot points, not because they grow out of the characters or the situation.

A Pantser's book can seem loose and shambling. Unless the main character engages readers, they may lose interest, wondering just where this thing is going.

When I teach creative writing, I suggest writers begin by creating a character who wants something in a place (character, conflict, setting). As the character acts to obtain what she wants, you create conflict (conflict = drama). Those actions are the plot.

When I teach mystery writing, I suggest writers begin with the crime and the criminal, then create the character who will solve the crime. In my experience, it is much easier to start with the crime and the motivation of the criminal than to start with the person who solves the crime. If the writer knows who done it, she can plant clues and red herrings along the way to aid or frustrate the detective—and readers.

This of course is neither original nor news. As P.D. James says on her official website, ""I always know the end of the mystery before I begin to write. Tension should be held within the novel and there should be no longuers of boring interrogation."

James also advises that "there should indeed be a mystery at the heart of the novel," and I take her to mean every novel. Will Ahab find the white whale? Will Yossarian survive WWII. Will Holden grow up? As it happens, both of my earlier novels include mysteries, but neither is a "mystery" and to be shelved as such in bookstores and libraries because the mysteries are not fatal. And for what it's worth, I wrote both of those as a Pantser.