Fall Preview 2014: Part Ten

There are too many good books due out this fall for us to tell you about all of them, but let's take a look at the ones I have for today.

The Front Seat Passenger (translated from the French by Jane Aitken; Gallic Books, September 9) will be my first book by the late noir writer Pascal Garnier. It looks like a gem for fans of Patricia Highsmith.

Fabien Delorme returns from Normandy to his home in Paris to discover his wife, Sylvie, and her lover were killed in a car accident. The existence of an affair is a shock to Fabien. He spots the wife of Sylvie's lover, Martine, leaving the morgue and, feeling vengeful, decides he needs to get close to her. Insinuating himself into her life is a little difficult due to the presence of her best friend, Madeleine. This is noir, so I'm betting all of the characters do not have a jolly good time.

John Darnielle's Sean Phillips was severely disfigured in an accident when he was 17 and rarely leaves his southern California home. Sean designed and operates a text-based role-playing game, Trace Italian, set in a future post-apocalyptic America and played through the mail. The reader knows a woman was somehow killed when she obsessively played Trace with her boyfriend. It's no wonder Sean takes steps when two Florida teenagers, Lance and Carrie, decide to play the game in the real world.

Darnielle is the singer-songwriter of the Mountain Goats, and his Wolf in White Van (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, September 16) is saturated in pop culture and shifts around in time.

Marilynne Robinson's books are powerful––yet quiet and moving––meditations on faith and descriptions of life and death in the rural American Midwest. Lila (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, October 7) follows Gilead and Home, continuing the three-generational saga of Congregationalist minister John Ames and his neighbors in tiny Gilead, Iowa.

Lila is a homeless stranger in Gilead when she steps into John's church, seeking shelter from the rain. She returns every Sunday thereafter, and, when he's age 67 in the mid-1950s, the widower John marries her. She begins a new life as wife and mother of their son. In Gilead, we learn about John and his forebears. Lila now tells Lila's story.

Wow, I didn't intend to embark on a reading journey about faith and redemption, but here we are, following the gentle Calvinist Marilynne Robinson with Michel Faber, whose highly anticipated fall novel, The Book of Strange New Things (Crown/Hogarth, October 28), is about a missionary named Peter. USIC, a global corporation, sends Peter to the planet Oasis. The Oasans seem very receptive to Peter, so that isn't the problem. Peter's wife, Bea, lives on Earth, and Bea's letters report an Earth wracked by typhoons and earthquakes. Peter is now torn.

Anyone who read Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, featuring a 19-year-old prostitute in Victorian London, knows that this writer is impossible to pigeonhole. This latest book should be good.

I have a difficult time passing up novels about the rural American West. Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and early reviewers think very highly of this one. They call Braden Hepner, first-time author of Pale Harvest (Torrey House, distributed by Consortium, September 9), a masterful story-teller with "a starkly poetic voice."

Hepner's Jack Selvedge grew up working on his family dairy farm in Juniper Scrag, Utah. He's now 20, and the farm is a shell of its former self. His dreams for the future change when he takes up with the beautiful Rebekah Rainsford, who's reticent about her past.

While I was researching Jane Smiley's Some Luck (Knopf, October 7), it cracked me up to see Kirkus refer to her A Thousand Acres as "Lear in Iowa." Yep, that's it in a nutshell.

Smiley returns to Iowa with Some Luck, the first book in a planned trilogy. Instead of the raging Larry Cook and his conniving daughters of A Thousand Acres, we have Rosanna and Walter Langdon, a loving couple who live on their Denby farm with five very different children: first-born Frank, animal-lover Jo, sweet Lilian, bookworm Henry, and Claire, her father's favorite. This book covers the 1920s through the early '50s, while the children grow up and leave or stay home on the farm. Later books will take the family into the 21st century. I don't expect Smiley to be overly sweet or sentimental.

I'm always interested in what Urban Waite is writing, because he sets his crime fiction in the Pacific Northwest, where I grew up, and he does a bang-up job with a man on the run.

His Sometimes the Wolf (Morrow, October 21) involves a couple of characters whom we met in Waite's first book, The Terror of Living: Deputy Sheriff Bobby Drake and his dad, Patrick Drake, a former sheriff turned drug smuggler after his wife died and he fell on hard financial times, now out of prison on parole. Bobby's marriage is in poor repair so he only reluctantly offers his dad a place to stay. Bobby is still angry at Patrick and doesn't know whether he can trust him. Washing up from Patrick's past is a threat neither man can ignore. Then there's the wolf, the first one to be seen in these parts for 50 years; Bobby joins efforts to rescue it before it is killed by ranchers worried about their livestock.

All of us have our eccentricities, and one of mine is an interest in sieges. Here's an international best-seller about the 1714 Siege of Barcelona written by the Catalonian anthropologist and writer Albert Sánchez Piñol. Victus: The Fall of Barcelona (translated from the Spanish by Daniel Hahn and Tom Bunstead; Harper/HarperCollins, September 9) is historical fiction illustrated with diagrams, portraits, and maps. According to reviewers, this isn't dry history; Piñol brings the siege to life in this novel.

Upon the death of the Spanish king at the turn of the 18th century, Bourbons and Castilians are warring against Catalonians in the War of the Spanish Succession. Maneuvering like a Machiavelli among them and fighting on both sides is Martí Zuviría, a military engineer and tactician charged with the defense of Barcelona against the Bourbons.

In recent years, Chicago writer Libby Fischer Hellmann has concentrated on non-series crime fiction that explores the effect of strife or revolution on the human spirit. Set the Night on Fire involves present-day multiple murder rooted in Chicago's turbulent late-1960s. A Bitter Veil is a thriller set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. Havana Lost, set in Cuba, Angola, and Chicago, examines what violence has cost the Pacellis, a Chicago Outfit family.

Hellmann's most recent book is the fourth in what one reviewer calls her "medium-boiled" Georgia Davis series, although it can be read as a standalone. Georgia is a former Chicago cop who is now a private detective. In Nobody's Child (The Red Herrings Press, September 2), Georgia discovers she has a half-sister, Savannah, who is caught up in a human trafficking ring led by a very dangerous old enemy.

For a Western take on Homer's Odyssey: Lin Enger's The High Divide (Algonquin, September 23). Reviewers say they love this book. Publishers Weekly calls it "reminiscent of John Ford's classic The Searchers."

One early morning in 1886, Ulysses Pope grabs a chicken, tucks it under his arm, and leaves his family on the western prairie of Minnesota. He hopes to save his soul by coming to terms with his past. His wife, Gretta, and their two young sons, Eli and Danny, have no idea why he's left or where he's gone. Eli and Danny take off after their dad, hopping trains and following clues to Montana. In a while, heading after her sons and Ulysses, Gretta makes it four Popes on the road (well, okay, five, if you count the chicken, assuming Ulysses hasn't eaten it, and its last name is Pope). All right!

That wraps it up for me today. Tomorrow, we'll see what Maltese Condor has to show us.

Chicago by Book

Having just returned from a short trip to Chicago, Chicago that toddlin' town, I was musing about all the eye-catching places that we visited and were impressed by. This was the first time I had been to the Windy City in the summer and yes, it was windy. But the weather was also balmy, barely reaching 80 degrees most days. One of the better after-effects of the trip was that now I can orient myself as I read my favorite Chicago-area authors.

One of these favorites, who set some of her novels in Chicago, is Libby Fischer Hellmann. For A Picture of Guilt, the second in her Ellie Foreman series, recognizing landmarks like the Navy Pier and some familiarity with the Chicago water system really enhances the story.

Ellie Foreman is a divorced mother of a teenage daughter who works as an industrial video producer. One day, while she is vacationing in West Virginia, she is idly perusing a Chicago newspaper and recognizes the face of a man who is on trial for murder. When she gets back home she tracks down a film with the accused's picture, which should prove him innocent. But she could not prevail and before she could accept that no good deed yada yada, almost everyone she has contacted has become a murder victim and she begins to realize that neither she nor her family are safe.

As is sometimes the case in Chicago, she can't be sure whom to trust. There seem to be crooked lawyers, crooked cops and even crooked friends. In a very Chicago way, where everything is connected, Ellie takes her troubles to the perennial troublemakers, the mob. Now, before she can say Ernie Banks, the feds are on her trail.

Navy Pier

The tension in the story builds, as Good Samaritan Ellie, ordinary gal, finds herself in a Buffy-like situation trying to figure out what's going on before a terrible disaster changes the face of Chicago.

Michael Harvey is the co-creator of the TV show Cold Case Files. His first crime novel, The Chicago Way, also spreads out the city before you in an affectionate way, but he never lets you forget that along with the view of a interestingly green Chicago River, one might get a knuckle sandwich just as easily as a genuine Chicago hotdog. Actually, you might get both if you have the chutzpah to request ketchup on the dog.

"'You wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way….'" (Sean Connery as Officer Jim Malone, The Untouchables)

Private Detective Michael Kelly, a one-time Chicago cop, also has to tread warily through the city's political minefields where, at any second, a bomb can go off in your face. He finds his relaxation in Homer, Cicero (the Greek guy, not Cicero, Illinois) and cups of Earl Grey tea.

Don't worry, the Chicago River only looks like this on
St. Patricks Day.

An unspecified skullduggery from the DA's office railroaded Kelly from the Chicago PD, but he is as good a detective as ever, and so his old partner John Gibbons comes to him willing to pay plenty to have an old rape/stabbing case reopened and solved. When Gibbons handled the case years before, he was pulled aside and told there was no case and if he wanted to stay a cop he had to button up. Now retired, he wants justice. Kelly takes the case but before you can say Walter Payton, John Gibbons is gunned down and Kelly himself is considered a suspect.

The thread that ties this story together is that of rape as seen from various perspectives, from the victims, from the law enforcers and investigators, and also from the legal aspects. This is a dark, gritty read that made me grit my teeth to get through some sections.

The Drake Hotel

Like Ellie Foreman, Mike Kelly turns to the underworld to seek answers that might just save him from the forces of law and order, some of whom are corrupt, but by no means all.

In a tour of Chicago, the buses pass the municipal jail and there is a tinge of pride in the conductors' voices as they mention that the edifice houses a great number of elected officials living alongside fellow felons. Like that twist, there are plenty of curveballs in Michael Harvey's Chicago story, with not a totally unexpected end. I would like to read more from this author. There are a few more in this series.

There are plenty of honest cops in Chicago, one of whom is John Thinnes, a veteran homicide cop in Michael Allen Dymmoch's excellent series that begins with The Man Who Understood Cats. Despite the title, this is not a cozy mystery but a well-done police procedural.

Dr. Jack Caleb is a high-priced therapist, a complex man who, aside from other things, is gay and doesn't hide it. He first meets John Thinnes when a patient of his is murdered. Before you can say Nick Leddy, Thinnes begins to suspect Caleb for several reasons, the very least of which is that Thinnes is a bit homophobic.

Over the course of the series, the pair meet to solve several murders and begin to understand and appreciate each other and work well together. Despite the differences in their current circumstances, they have some common background, both being Vietnam vets. Dymmoch weaves Chicago landmarks and history into her stories that give her novels a wonderful sense of place. (Yes, Dymmoch is female; "Michael Allen" is not the name her parents gave her.)

This title is taken from Dr. Caleb's way of putting people in categories, such as cat people who are patient and don't need persistent reassurance or attention, or dog people who do need to be acknowledged by others on a frequent basis. The series is very well done and appeals to the intellect as well as the gut.

Discussion of Libby Fischer Hellmann's A Bitter Veil

Joining us today are two guests: Judith Starkston writes historical fiction and mysteries set in the period of the Trojan War. She reviews for her website www.judithstarkston.com and for Historical Novel Review. Kathy Delaney is an internationally known quilt designer and teacher who has published seven books (www.kathydelaney.com). In addition, Kathy is an avid reader.

On Tuesday, April 17, at 6 PM (Eastern time, so plan accordingly), Libby Fischer Hellmann will be talking about A Bitter Veil, the state of publishing, and anything else that's on your mind during a 45-minute video chat online! This is a brand-new service that allows up to 500 people to interact together. And it is so easy to use that even her 92-year-old mother will be there. All you do is go to this website (http://shindig.com/event/32-Libby-Fischer-Hellmann). That's it! You'll be able to ask questions, watch a slide presentation (don't worry—it's short) and even chat among yourselves. If you want to know more about how this online video chat works, you can visit the host's site here: Shindig.  So please kick back, move embarrassing items out of the range of your computer's video camera, and join her online. You can RSVP here to get a same day reminder:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHJVcXhobFlYcWJ3eGxKVVNKaW9aY3c6MQ#gid=0

Georgette: Kathy and Judith, thanks for joining me to talk about Libby's latest book, A Bitter Veil, published by Allium Press. It's a 2012 book of historical fiction set mostly in Iran during the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

Okay, let's dig into the book. It opens with a bang, literally! Middle-of-the-night banging on the Samedi couple's front door. Nouri isn't home. Anna, a young American woman married to Nouri, an Iranian, slips on her chador and slides her feet into slippers to hide her painted toenails before answering. Several Revolutionary Guard members tell her Nouri has been killed. One of them grabs a steak knife from the kitchen, announces the murder weapon matches it, and accuses Anna of Nouri's murder. Then, the action moves to Chicago three years earlier to witness Nouri and Anna's first meeting over books of Persian poetry in the University of Chicago's bookstore. It seems centuries between the married Anna of the opening in Iran and the student Anna in Chicago.

Judith: The opening grabs the reader. It works so well partly because the pieces don't add up––the chador and the baby-doll jammies, the painted toes needing to be hidden by the slippers. Libby puts the central conflict of the novel into that opening scene in microcosm and raises so many questions and alarms with the reader.

Kathy: I thought the opening of the book was riveting. I heard the pounding on the door and it was as if my own door was being assaulted. So much happened afterward, that when that scene came up again, the story was brought back full circle. I really appreciated the opening scene later, in the context of the story, and understood it even more.

Georgette: Reading this book is a bit like watching the movie Lawrence of Arabia. I was stunned by Libby's historical research and the cultural detail. Nouri and Anna's wedding. The marketplace where Nouri's sister and Anna shop. When the book's characters eat, it was all I could do not to storm into the kitchen to cook.

The course of the Revolution, the backdrop of Anna's story, made fascinating reading. The reactions of the police to a theater fire and to crowds of protesters. The ineffective maneuverings of the Shah. The arrest of the American hostages by Iranian students. Some acts had unforeseen consequences: kicking Khomeini out of Iraq only enhanced his ability to communicate with Iranian revolutionaries from his quarters in Paris. Did anything in this book surprise you about the revolution in Iran?

Judith: I had not realized how incredibly bloody it was. I guess we Americans were so focused on the U.S. embassy hostages that a teenager here could be oblivious to the suffering of the Iranians and the extent of violence. Somehow it seemed at the time like a popular revolution to me, when to a significant extent it wasn't. I guess religious fanaticism doesn't surprise me anymore. That much seems so predictable these days, the intolerance and willingness to harm others in the name of some version of god or other. Libby does an excellent job of portraying the extremists convincingly without overwhelming the excitement of her clever plot.

The American hostages

Georgette: She certainly does. I hadn't realized how much like the French Revolution the Iranian Revolution was. In A Bitter Veil, a common reaction to hearing of an arrest by the Revolutionary Guards is, "He must have done SOMETHING wrong." The idea that a person could be arrested or executed for no rational reason just doesn't compute. Then people realize there doesn't need to be a reason they understand.

Do you remember the bookseller whose Shakespeare and e. e. cummings books are confiscated because they're an evil influence from the West? He says, "Iranians do not have a physical space in which to hide, so they seek shelter in a different time. They revert to the past, where familiar rhythms and customs bring relief.” Anna likens the revolution to a "raging flood" in which Iranians tried to steer their flimsy lifeboats to safety.

Kathy: It is interesting, Judith, our differences. I did not think the revolution was popular at the time. In fact, reading Libby's book, I was surprised that there were some who WERE happy about it. And what is it about religious beliefs that lets someone believe in love and goodness and such and then perpetrate such the opposite?

Judith: Kathy, you ask how religious beliefs espousing love can perpetrate the opposite––yup, that seems to be one of those eternal questions for humanity. Libby's done an excellent job at looking at that question in a nuanced and intelligent way throughout the book.

Khomeini, Carter, Mohammad Reza

Georgette: Do you remember when Anna argues with Hassan, one of Nouri's Iranian friends? She states that revolution and religion are not a good mix. Anna makes an interesting distinction between people she calls reformers (Martin Luther King was one) and those she considers revolutionaries.

About the revolution itself, Anna says, "It’s as if an entire country—an entire culture—slipped off its axis. Black became white. White became black. Kind people were unkind. Good people were bad." Why is it that for some people, personal loyalty trumps loyalty to the revolutionary cause while others are even willing to betray their own family members and life-long friends?

Do you have a favorite character?

Kathy: I was intrigued by Nouri. He seemed like two people: one in Chicago and an entirely different person once back in Iran. And a third person after the Revolution. Actually, I thought Nouri was quite a weak person, and he irritated me some. I wanted to shake him and tell him to grow a pair––well, at least to grow up. Am I alone in this view?

I think I liked the character of Anna the best. I admired how she was able to cope with the turmoil around her and keep her wits. She turned out to be much stronger than I thought she'd be. I regularly found myself trying to put myself in her shoes and ask myself how I would handle the various situations in which she found herself. Each time, I came up wanting. I like to think I'm a strong person, but next to Libby's characters (in many of her books, not just this one) I've come to realize I'm quite the wuss.

Judith: I find the contrast between Anna and Nouri most interesting. At the beginning, when they meet in Chicago, they are both pretty unformed and untested. They each reveal weak characters that easily bend to the will of others and they are both needy; Anna of love and approval, Nouri of being told what to do and given an escape from responsibilities he finds irksome. By the end, Anna has risen in a human and believable way to the crises and challenges the revolution forces on her. Through her own moral choices, she has formed an inner strength. Nouri is more disappointing, and that provides an illuminating contrast that resonates for me and makes the book more persuasive and engaging.

Rumi

Georgette: I loved the complexity of Libby's secondary characters, particularly Nouri's family and his friends from childhood. How and why these characters change is thought provoking.

This is a timely read while the West imposes sanctions on Iran, Syrian rebels are fighting for freedom, and other countries in the Middle East move on from their own revolutions. Are you inspired to do more reading about Iran? I was thrilled to see a list of books for further reading in the back. I'm anxious to read more of Rumi's poetry.

Would you like to see a sequel to this book? Any closing thoughts you'd like to share with our blog's readers?

Judith: I'm not sure I need a sequel. Libby brought good closure for me at the end and I feel I can trust Anna to carry on. She has found her inner strength and that universal foundation––parental love––has been affirmed for her in a way it never had before. I do think A Bitter Veil is timely and I hope it encourages readers to continue reading about Iran. The more people understand history the less they will leap toward simplistic responses to this ancient and complicated country.

One of the themes I find most important in the book is the idea that ordinary people did terrible things in the Iranian Revolution, as they have in many wars and revolutions. We like to think of the world as made of of evil villains and then people like ourselves who make mistakes but are basically decent. Libby shows the essential human reality that unless we steel ourselves powerfully against it, we ordinary, reasonably good people can be drawn into horrific choices and morally dreadful actions. The same person who would lead an essentially blameless life in an ordinary time can, in times of great stress and upheaval, become the sort of villain we think of when we think of Nazis––and Libby makes a subtle and sophisticated parallel to the Nazis within the book through a clever plot line. Being passively but fairly thoughtlessly "good" isn't enough when the world turns violent and ugly. And we should remember that in the good times and figure out our moral core a bit more strongly than our natural inclination might lead us to. I think that's one of the messages of the book, although there is nothing preachy or heavy in Libby's book. But if you think about her plot and her characters there are many deeper ideas about life, women, and being a principled human being. I think this is a great choice for book clubs––fun to read but with tons of depth for a lively discussion.

Kathy: I agree that this is an excellent book for in-depth discussion. There are so many layers to peel away. This book tends to promote further study of the time and the turmoil.

I have a friend whose Iranian husband of (I think) 38 years has been here 42 years (just became a US citizen a couple of years ago). He, from what I understand, came from a family like Nouri's. His father had been a friend of the Shah, but they did not lose their wealth. My friend could not explain it to me but thought it was because they owned apartment buildings or something. I'd love to talk to Bijan (yes, same name as Nouri's father) about it, but am afraid of insulting him in some way. He travels back to Iran regularly because his family is still there, even though most or all the siblings (nine of 'em) studied here. My friend has had to wear scarves when she has visited. I think she even mentioned wearing the chador (I'll have to ask her about that). She's not interested in visiting again. I'm not sure if it is just the hassle of the trip or something else. I guess I'll have to ask her about that, too. I've recommended the book to her. I'd love her take on it.

I think we have a very slanted view of Iran because of the news media.  I have asked Bijan about some things I hear on the news. He seems to indicate the government is not the people. Two different tracks. I think the Persian culture is very rich and interesting. I think the extreme government and religious leaders are so extreme they dilute the culture and turn it "on its axis."

Georgette: I agree with both of you. A Bitter Veil would make great discussion material for any book club. Thanks for joining me, Judith and Kathy!

Libby Fischer Hellmann: Interview

All of us here at Read Me Deadly are fans of Libby Fischer Hellman. We admire her two series: one featuring Ellie Foreman, a video documentarian (An Eye for Murder, A Picture of Guilt, An Image of Death, A Shot to Die For), and another with protagonist Georgia Davis, a police officer turned PI (Easy Innocence, Doubleback, Toxicity).

We love the 2007 hardboiled crime-fiction anthology she edited, Chicago Blues. It's a top-notch collection of dark stories from twenty-one Chicago crime-fiction writers including Stuart Kaminsky, Barbara D'Amato, Sara Paretsky, Max Allan Collins, Michael Allen Dymmoch, Jack Fredrickson, David J. Walker,  Marcus Sakey, Sean Chercover, Michael Black, J. A. Konrath, and Libby Fischer Hellmann. As Publishers Weekly says, "This impressive volume has soul, grit and plenty of high notes."

Last year, Libby riveted us with a standalone book called Set the Night on Fire, a thriller with a heart that showed us events from the tumultuous 1960s in Chicago and their reverberations in the present day, and an e-collection of her own short stories called Nice Girl Does Noir. This year, she's published both Toxicity, a prequel to the Georgia Davis series, and a novella called The Last Page that she wrote with David J. Walker. And, in addition to another book in her Georgia Davis series, she's working on two new standalones in her "Revolution Trilogy": The first, A Bitter Veil, will be out next year. In that book, an American girl falls in love with an Iranian student, moves to Tehran with him, and the revolution happens around them. The second is set in Cuba during the revolution.

Libby is a former national president of Sisters in Crime, a 3,400-plus member organization committed to strengthening the voice of female mystery writers. She has participated on judging panels for crime-fiction awards. She blogs with 10 other Chicago writers at The Outfit Collective and on her own website, Say the Word. Libby has also begun teaching a one-day, interactive workshop on how to write crime fiction.

When does she sleep?

We forgot to ask her that question in our interview, but we did manage to at least slow her down long enough to get her to answer a few of our other burning questions.

In one sentence, please describe what the writing process is like for you.

How about one word? Excruciating.

Really. I'm a very insecure writer. Which is why I am a master at procrastination. I would much prefer to answer interview questions rather than write. And when I do sit down to write, I'm my own worst enemy. I equivocate, revise, and edit dozens of times. I'd still be revising my first book if there hadn't been a deadline.

Your crime-fiction series books are very specifically set in Chicago's North Shore suburbs. Have you considered setting a mystery elsewhere?

I have and I did. In An Image of Death, my third novel, several chapters took place in Armenia and Soviet Georgia. In Doubleback Georgia went to Arizona and Wisconsin. In Set the Night on Fire, there were scenes in Wisconsin and Michigan. Then I really got brave and set my next release, A Bitter Veil, almost completely in Iran. And the book after that will be set largely in Cuba.

Over the years I've experimented much more – and widely – in my short stories. I have stories set in Pre-war Berlin, Texas, Washington, DC during the Fifties, and the West.

Do you see any evolution in your prose over the course of the books you've written? What have you learned about what to do and what not to do?

No question. And you put your finger on it. It's not so much what to do, as what not to do. When you eliminate all the no-no's, you’re left with prose that often turns out to be rather straightforward. And that's the challenge. To turn that straightforward prose into memorable language, or language that immediately strikes a chord in the reader. Sounds so simple, but it usually eludes me. I love reading James Lee Burke for that reason. His prose is practically a prose poem and he inspires me. On the other hand, I love writers like Joe Lansdale and Val McDermid for the simplicity and punch of their prose.

What nonfiction do you love to read?

Biographies and histories, with a large measure of politics thrown in.

Do you ever get burned out on reading crime-fiction novel after crime-fiction novel, just to keep up with what's going on in the market? What other styles of fiction do you love? What from those other genres do you incorporate in your crime fiction?

I do have to switch it off for a while. Usually I'm reading nonfiction, but have been known to dabble in women's and contemporary fiction. Literary fiction less often.

Did writing a research-heavy novel, like Set the Night on Fire, tempt you to do more historical fiction?

Actually, I think it was my short stories that tempted me. The very first short story I wrote was set in the 1930s in Chicago. I also wrote a story set in the 1930s in Berlin. That gave me the courage to try other times and other places. By the time I started Set the Night on Fire, I already was "knee-deep" in historicals, but recent historicals. You'll never see me writing anything that hasn't occurred from the 20th century on. Of course, I said I would never write any historicals at all, so you have every right to be skeptical.

Which of your books was the most enjoyable for you to write?

Writing for me is NOT enjoyable. (See my answer to question #1). However, some are easier than others. I would say that Set the Night on Fire was pretty smooth sailing. A lot of it just flowed. Same with An Image of Death. I had a few moments of what I call "grace" writing those books, moments where the story was revealed to me, and all I had to do was follow directions. But that is rare. Usually it's a struggle.

Could you tell us about your previous experience in the news and communications business? Any thoughts about the current state of journalism and image management?

Many years ago I worked in broadcast news: at PBS, NBC, all news radio, and I even worked for (don't shoot me) Roger Ailes, when he ran Joe Coors' news operation, TVN. Charlie Rose and Charlie Gibson were there too, btw.

The second part of your question is another of those I-could-rant-forever responses. The state of broadcast journalism today is reprehensible. I hate the 24-7 news cycle. It has had the opposite effect of what was intended… now nothing seems important. It's all drivel. As well as being manipulated and sanitized by its corporate owners. Print journalism isn't far behind. The only thing left is long form or investigative journalism, and that, too, is too infrequent. I can't stand to be yelled at, and that's pretty much what happens in cable news these days. I just turn it off.

Although it might sound like an oxymoron, I do believe in image management… to the extent that I believe everyone has the right to tell their side of the story. Even corporate interests. What I do not condone is active obfuscation and lying, which is pretty much de rigueur these days. I hate to bring up the "good ol' days" – makes me sound pretty ancient, but when I worked in PR (which I did for over 15 years), we did try to stick to the truth. Sure, we'd try to spin it to our client's advantage, but we didn't lie.

Last thing I’ll say… I love Twitter for news. Not only is it my favorite procrastination tool, but I have an entire list of "news" organizations I follow… I can get lost in the links for hours. When I do, I become the best informed person I know about any exotic, strange topic. At least for an hour.

Please engage in a "what if" for a moment. You're not a writer, and your dream job has you doing what?

Um… producing major motion pictures or beautiful independent films with Viggo Mortensen as the star. I love being in the editing room, btw. Even more than shooting on location.

When did you first start reading mysteries and which ones most grabbed you as a new crime-fiction reader?

I came relatively late to mysteries. I gravitated toward thrillers in my twenties, but after a steady diet of them, they all started to sound the same. World in jeopardy of blowing up, hero saves the world, walks off into sunset with woman. My mother, though, was and still is a prolific mystery reader, and one day, when I was complaining gave me a copy of Jeremiah Healy’s The Staked Goat. In a word, I loved it. (You can find out why here: http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-you-have-to-read-staked-goat-by.html.) That started me down the road of reading mysteries. The rest, as they say, is history. Although I will admit to liking modern mysteries and suspense better than historical. Curious, since I'm writing historicals these days. But I am a World War II espionage junkie.

Has any book you read as a child or teenager had a lasting effect on you?

Blueberries for Sal when I was a little girl. Plink, plink.

Gone with the Wind when I was a teenager.

Catcher in the Rye also.

You look beautifully pulled together in every picture I've seen of you. How much of your heroines' wardrobes match yours, and how much is different, and why. In general, do you think women authors are more conscious of costuming--and are more secure about detailing it--than male authors?

First off, thank you! Most of the time I wear sweats, so when I do get dressed, it's kind of fun. Hmm… my protagonists... Ellie dresses like me. She'd rather wear jeans or sweats but when she needs to, she can pull it together, but only because her best friend Susan, the epitome of good taste, is her wardrobe consultant. Georgia opts for a spare, bare bones style. She wears pants and blazers, thick sweaters, and jeans. I think she only has one dress and one suit.

And yes, I do think women have traditionally been more conscious of clothing. We all know that what you wear makes a statement about your character. But what's interesting is that men are beginning to do it too, especially with their female characters. I think that's a hoot. For example, Joe Konrath has a character named Libby Fischer in one or two of his books. He called me at one point to ask specifically what she would wear.

I understand you're a major athletic talent. You won the coveted Worst Bowler trophy at the 1st Annual Bouchercon Bowling Tournament in St. Louis, Missouri, earlier this fall. How often have you been given a chance to brag about your prowess? Will you be defending your title next year? I'm afraid to ask about your practice regimen designed to decrease your bowling skills.

Ahh… I fully expect my athletic prowess will go down in the Guiness Book of World Records. It was quite a feat.

What comment from a fan has meant the most to you and why?

It didn't come from a fan. It came from a member of my writing group. I was reading the first chapter of my first Ellie book (An Eye for Murder) after having read two unpublishable books that featured two male cops. (Which was curious, since I was never a cop, and to my knowledge, a male either.)  At any rate, we read aloud, and the room was so quiet when it was my turn that you could hear a pin drop. Usually the other group members were busy writing down their criticisms of my work. When I finished I looked around and everyone wore a semi-stunned expression, and the woman who'd been the hardest on me said, "That was wonderful! You found your voice!" That is still the biggest compliment anyone has given me.

On your blog, Say the Word, you have some in-depth talk about traditional versus e-publishing. Bottom line, do you think the market for printed, 3-dimensional books is doomed, at least as anything other than luxury collectors' items?

Don't get me started… I'll never stop. No, I don't believe the book will just be a luxury item. It's really quite an efficient tool— portable, flexible, and relatively affordable. It makes no sense to me that we need to use a battery in order to read. In fact, I think the Big 4 (I think we'll lose a couple) are going to rally and ultimately control more of the ebook market than they do now, but they're going to have to move fast. I do think tablets are going to end up being the means by which we consume news and articles in the future, but books will always be around for lazy reads and stories.

A comet is due to end the world tomorrow. Tonight is your last dinner, and a chef will cook anything for you and three other people, none of whom can be your family or friends. In fact, for this dinner, you can raise the dead. What will you ask the chef to serve? Who will be your dining companions?

Viggo Mortensen. If he comes, I won't need anyone else.

The chef will sauté soft shell crabs, and whatever else he or she wants. Actually, I'd like to ask Abbie Hoffman if he thought he was for real. And I'd like to ask Harper Lee if Truman Capote wrote To Kill a Mockingbird and that's why she never wrote anything else. Oh, and I wouldn't mind having George Harrison jam with Dylan and Clapton after dinner. But Viggo is the only one I NEED to have.

Please tell us about a guilty pleasure.

Playing hooky and going to the movies in the middle of the day.

Think fast and say the very first thing you think of.

I hate this song:

These Boots Are Made for Walking (Nancy Sinatra).

I love this movie: 

The Godfather, 1 and 2.

My nightmare vacation would be spent in:

Washington DC in August.

Give me $100 and two hours and you'll find me at:

Nordstrom’s.

A "tchakabiskabockabob" is:

the same thing as a thingamajig in Russian.

Are you the sort of person who can't remember a joke to save your life or do you have one to share with us?

I'm a horrible joke teller. I forget every punch line. There's only one joke I do well, and it's a visual thing. (My daughter cracks up every time.) If you're lucky, maybe I'll make a video of it one day.

A must for a Chicagoan: Cubs or White Sox?

Cubs, Cubs, worthless Cubs…

Thanks, Libby. 

By visiting her website, you can learn more about Libby Fischer Hellmann and her writing.

Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar (And Sometimes It's Not)

I don't know about you, but I enjoy reading about Sigmund Freud's theories. His model of the human psyche is fascinating. It involves a purely pleasure-seeking id ("Gamble, mud wrestle, drink, eat, have sex NOW!"); a scolding super-ego that casts morality in black-and-white terms ("What's the matter with you? You must obey every letter of every single rule all of the time!"); and the rational ego, which gamely attempts to strike a workable balance between the impulsive id and the harsh super-ego ("After work, I'll go home and make love to my partner. I'll be passionate but not weird.").

To pay Freud back for the entertainment he's provided me with his ideas, I wish I had the chance to offer him some good book suggestions. I think he'd particularly enjoy Scott Spencer's Man in the Woods, Libby Fischer Hellmann's An Image of Death, and T. R. Pearson's Polar. Characters in these books are right up Freud's alley. They deal with questions about civilization and their ids or super-egos in ways that might make Freud nod, but they could also break your heart.

"It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct." (Sigmund Freud)

When Scott Spencer's Man in the Woods opens, Will Claff is on the run. He left a comfortable life as an accountant in Los Angeles when he lost a $5,000 bet on a basketball game and didn't have the money to pay it off. Someone was going to come looking for him, but just who that was, Will didn't know. The faceless quality of this someone casts him into a sea of paranoia. Soon, everyone seems to be looking for him; everyone's actions are suspect, even those of a dog he stole from a woman who had befriended him in Pennsylvania. It is this dog that Will is abusing in a park near Tarrytown, New York, when a good man named Paul Phillips makes a stop in the park on his way home. To Will, Paul is that faceless man. To Paul, Will is a man who needs to stop beating his dog. In a minute, they are rolling on the ground.

"[Paul] is coldly angry, and even in his anger he mainly wants to put a stop to the whole fight before the man lands another lucky punch. And even as his anger increases--as the numbness in his lips turn to pain, and he wonders if that head butt has cost him a tooth--it is not the kind of anger that is a portal to madness. No. What is taking place is more like a realignment of inner forces, in which the voice of reason grows fainter and the voice of animal instinct becomes more and more dominant, expressing itself in a long, low, gutteral roar. Except for that interior roar, Paul feels strangely calm."

When the fight ends, Will is dead, and a guilt-ridden Paul drives away with the dog in his truck. There is no question of abandoning the dog because it is "his witness, his confessor, he has seen it all and can still sit next to Paul, breathing with him, trusting him, the dog is the reason, the dog is what has been salvaged from the worst moment of Paul's life, the dog is the bridge which Paul walks upon as he inches his way over the abyss, the dog is God spelled backward." Paul will take the dog, now named Shep, home where he lives with his lover Kate Ellis, a recovering alcoholic who has written a best-selling inspirational book, and her 9-year-old daughter, Ruby, who were introduced in Spencer's A Ship Made of Paper.

Man in the Woods is a book of wry and stunning beauty, in which Paul, a carpenter whose work is so fine Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner employed him and a man who has always lived simply and followed his own personal code of honor, now feels set apart from his fellow humans because he killed a man. It's hard to say which Paul would find worse: that his killing remain undetected or be detected. He and Spencer's other memorable characters try to reassure themselves that they function in a rational world. As Detective Jerry Caltagirone says, "I don't accept the idea that things don't make sense. There's something out there, something that says this is okay and this is not okay." In Man in the Woods' waning days of 1999, amid fears of what Y2K will bring, Paul says that the things we think are going to happen, don't usually happen.

What happens in this book would make it an excellent book not only for Freud, but possibly for you, too. It is a psychological and philosophical thriller without the creepiness of a book written by Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. It provides a chance for contemplating violence; happiness; the relationship between humans and the natural world; faith; fate; responsibility; and love, involving both people and a dog.

"The first requisite of civilization is that of justice." (Sigmund Freud)

To what lengths will a person go to save a relationship with a lover? To bring a criminal to justice? To simply survive? These are questions examined in Libby Fischer Hellmann's An Image of Death. The book begins with a prologue in which a young woman who has lost a tooth is making her way to a house in a bitterly cold Chicago. The landscape is so menacingly empty, so flat, that she wonders if she will take a step and fall off the edge of the world. In a bit, the scene changes to a different part of Chicago, where protagonist/narrator Ellie Foreman, a documentary video producer, receives a mysterious video that appears to show a woman being murdered. She feels compelled to investigate even after delivering the video to the police. This makes a full plate for her, as she's juggling a documentary on foster children; her teenage daughter; and her father, who lives in an assisted living facility nearby. Ellie's lover, who was raised in foster care, is obsessed with a desire for blood ties. Searching for his relatives in Europe is the most important thing in the world to him and, suddenly, his efforts may have produced results that threaten his relationship with Ellie.

While this tale unwinds in the present United States, in alternating chapters the clock turns back in the crumbling Soviet Union. Best friends Arin and Mika try to cope in Georgia as their husbands' military careers evaporate when rubles stop flowing in from Moscow. Months go by, and there is no money. There are no jobs. These brave young Georgians make reluctant compromises with their integrity just to survive. And when this story connects with the one years later in Chicago, it's clear that several murders result from their decisions.

Hellmann's writing is very well done, whether she's relating how the facets in a diamond are cut, creating dialogue, or painting the landscape of Chicago. She is effortlessly entertaining, and she has a gift for making a reader see the world through her characters' eyes, such as Ellie's, below:

"The storm dumped five new inches of snow on the ground, but the streets were clear by ten. So was my driveway, thanks to Fouad, who must have plowed before dawn. I was grateful. I was nursing a wicked hangover; I doubted I could have picked up a shovel. Turning onto Happ Road, I had to shade my eyes. Winter on the North Shore can look like one of those Currier & Ives scenes you see on cookie tin lids. Today, though, the sun shot bursts of light through the trees like artillery fire. Everything was too bright, too intense, too loud."

An Image of Death is the third book in Hellmann's Ellie Forman series. It isn't necessary to read the books featuring this likable protagonist in series order, but An Eye for Murder is first. Georgia Davis, a cop in this book, becomes a private eye in her own series, beginning with Easy Innocence. By the way, we're thrilled to say that our interview with Libby Fischer Hellmann will be published here this Wednesday, November 30.

"Like the physical, the psychical is not necessarily in reality what it appears to us to be." (Sigmund Freud)

While Hellmann's and Spencer's characters grapple mightily with their super-egos, one of T. R. Pearson's characters does no such thing in Polar. Clayton Dupree spends most of his day sitting in a chair with a head-grease stain and ruptured armrests, watching XXX-rated movies on his TV's Satin Channel. When he gets a chance, he likes to tell other people about the movies' plots, and he uses the meeting of his thumb and forefinger along the length of his arm to illustrate the male star's endowment (although one time Clayton "drew both hands apart as if he were describing a trophy carp"). The reader meets Clayton in the grocery checkout line, where he seems his normal self, "phlegmy, unshaven and fragrant in his ordinary fashion, wafting anyway his tangy burly leaf and sweat bouquet with his customary hint of livestock dander and his undertone of Scope." Clayton is in the middle of one of his pornographic descriptions when he suddenly stopped talking and "went exceptional on us." Here's how the nameless narrator, a resident of Virginia's Blue Ridge, describes it:

"That's when it happened. We're most of us in general agreement about that, but we're fairly fractured as to what exactly transpired. There's a school of thought that Clayton fell prey to the bar-code scanner, that the laser somehow bored clean through his pupils to his brain and fused together a couple of pertinent vessels. Among the Merck Manual devotees, spontaneous hemorrhaging is a popular choice, but that Quisenberry has sworn up and down that Clayton never so much as twitched or betrayed in any way that he was suffering some variety of distress. That leaves the considerable faction who subscribe together to the view that Clayton, with all of his vulgar talk and his pornographic pastime, had sorely tried the patience of the Maker who'd seen fit to render him simple, after a fashion, with His wrath."

Whatever the cause, the result is that Clayton lost all interest in pornographic movies. He now asks people to call him Titus, gets out of his chair only to add details with a stick of charcoal to a sting ray-shaped picture on his wall, and issues cryptic little announcements that foretell the future, but in ways that are understood only after the fact. So when Clayton says, "It's Melissa now. Sometimes Missy. Never Angela. Never Denise," a chill shoots straight through the laconic Deputy Sheriff Ray Tatum, who is still searching for Miss Angela Denise Dunn, who was a 3-year-old when she took a walk in the woods three years earlier and disappeared.

One doesn't read T. R. Pearson for the plot. There is a plot, but the joy is in the serial digressions, colloquial prose, and irreverent descriptions of the endearingly eccentric characters who populate Pearson's books of satire set in rural North Carolina and Virginia. This is a book that made me laugh out loud, but some tragic and tragicomic events and a general thread of melancholy tenderness weaving through the narrative make Polar, as well as Pearson's other books, a bittersweet and rewarding read. This is the second book featuring Deputy Ray Tatum. Blue Ridge is the first. After Polar comes Warwolf. I'd also recommend A Short History of a Small Place for readers who'd like to try this neo-Faulknerian writer. Pull up a chair and let Pearson engage your id.

One more id-engaging recommendation: any cookbook by dessert-maven Maida Heatter. Try her Maida Heatter's Best Dessert Book Ever. Heatter writes recipes that any person can conquer. And now, because I can't close without a quotation by Freud involving a man's mother:  "A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror."