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Sleuthfest Live-blog, Saturday, Part 3: James O. Born

2/28/2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015 4:47 PM

    Author James O. Born, fresh out of his "Facts About Firearms" panel, sat and spoke with me about some of the laughable things books, movies, and television do with guns. Born, who has been an officer with the FDLE for 25 years, said the example he likes to use is Tommy Lee Jones' character in The Fugitive, who stops to rack the slide of his pistol to put a round in the chamber. "He's basically a professional law enforcement officer carrying a boat anchor disguised as a gun," Born said. "In the real world he should've been fired on the spot."
     Born's next novel, Scent of Murder, due on April 7th from Tor, features a K-9 protagonist. I asked the author, whose previous novels--Walking Money, Shock Wave and Escape Clause—feature rugged cop Bill Tasker, what inspired the shift. Born said that the idea is based on a drug case he had at the Palm Beach International Airport 20 years ago. He was in a foot chase with a suspect when a Palm Beach sheriff's deputy, who was not involved in the case, screamed for everyone to stop because he was releasing his dog. Knowing the dog couldn't discern him from the bad guy, Born stopped his pursuit. When the dog caught up with the suspect, Born said he could feel the impact from a distance. He thought the suspect might have been killed by the impact.
     While working with K-9 units for research Born had the brilliant idea to have the dog bite his padded groin. One bite on his hand—through heavy padding—made him rethink that decision.
     I asked Born how he balances his work with the FDLE and writing, and if his work ever crossed over into his novels. "It does afford me an opportunity no other writer has," he said. "I can go to any police unit and ask how things work and receive full cooperation."
     Scent of Murder is rather tame compared to his Bill Tasker series, Born said. While it is a police procedural like the Tasker novels, it's light on the brutality of novels such as Walking Money, which Born says his children, as old as 25, are still not allowed to read.
     On April 23 Born will be appearing at the West Boynton library as part of the Palm Beach County Library system's Writers Live series. He will also appear at Murder on the Beach in Delray on a date yet to be determined.
          —Ed Irvin

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Sleuthfest Live-blog, Saturday, Part 2: James W. Hall

2/28/2015

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Saturday, February 28, 2015, 2:30 PM

    After entertaining the lunch crowd in the grand ballroom, author James W. Hall was kind enough to sit with me and discuss the reasoning behind shelving his popular protagonist, Thorn, and starting a new series.
     I asked Mr. Hall why an established author such as himself would start a new series rather than write standalone novels. I’ve spoken with numerous authors who started as series writers because that's what the industry demands of unestablished authors. Michael Koryta come to mind. Surely Mr. Hall has a large enough following to allow him to write standalones.
     “The publishing industry tracks numbers ruthlessly through Neilson Bookscan, which didn't exist in the 1980s,” he said. "The result is a downward pressure on all sales. There is no great incentive to produce more books than the previous book sold."
     "In the old days," Hall continued, "when you moved to a new publisher they had no idea of sales. They only knew what was in the public sphere and would often overpay."
     "The only way to change the trajectory of sales is to do something new, to convince the publisher that a new set of characters would rejuvenate sales,” Hall said.
     On shelving Thorn, about whom Hall has written 14 novels over the course of 30 years, the author said "I wanted to see if changing characters would change my numbers."
     Sales aren't the only motivation Hall has for shifting gears, though. There are creative considerations, too. "Thorn is easy," he said. "I know his voice. I wanted a new challenge."
     Hall, who never intended Thorn to be a recurring character, has the knowledge going into this new series that it will be a recurring character, which will allow him to develop the character in ways he never did with Thorn.
     Another thing new—or unfamiliar because of how long he has been under contract for Thorn novels—to Hall, now that he is trying to sell a non-Thorn novel, is pitching to a publisher. He is about to submit the first third of his newest novel to his agent.
    I'm sure he'll do just fine.
        —Ed Irvin

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Live-blog from Sleuthfest, Saturday, Part 1

2/28/2015

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Saturday, February 28, 2015, 2:00 PM
”I'm supposed to have drinks with Jim Patterson later on. I'll let him know how that went.” James W. Hall, who leaves the stage to a raucous standing ovation.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 1:55 PM
A few years ago I took my wife to a Madonna concert for our anniversary. The Material Girl took the stage at 11:30 for a show that was scheduled to begin at 8:00. Patterson has reached one hour.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 1:49 PM
”I actually like James Patterson. I think he's terrific. And all of his permutations.” James W. Hall
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 1:24 PM
Still no Patterson, but James W. Hall has taken to the stage to amuse the crowd with stories of absentee orangutans in a novel about orangutans.
—Ed Irvin

Press getting fed like royalty. —Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:59 PM

The character naming sold for $975. I hope they didn't just drop a grand on a character who gets killed on page one.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:55 PM

A 50 page manuscript reading by bestselling author Jeffrey Deaver just sold for $650 during the luncheon auction. Next up on the block is a character naming in an upcoming James Patterson novel.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:30 PM

Author and Sleuthfest featured speaker James W. Hall with Pam Stack, host of Authors on the Air.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:17 PM

The guest of honor is fashionably late. He is scheduled for the press room from 12-1:00 before giving his keynote speech from 1-2:00.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, February 28, 2015, 11:28 AM

SRO crowd waiting for James Patterson.

—Ed Irvin

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FBR's Ed Irvin Live-blogs from Sleuthfest, Feb. 27, 2015

2/27/2015

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Friday, February 27, 2015 10:43 AM

Setting up in the press room has its advantages. After interviewing Lucy Burdette, author of the Key West Food Critic series, who was the only scheduled interview I had, a number of authors approached my table, sat down and spoke with me. The problem? I had only prepared questions for Burdette and am not the fastest at thinking on my feet, especially when unfamiliar with the author's work.
--Ed Irvin

Friday, February 27, 2015 10:30 AM

    Lucy Burdette, author of the Key West Food Critic mysteries was kind enough to grant me half an hour following her morning panel "Ready, Set...," which provided attendees with an opportunity to "learn planning strategies, character motivations, and how to shape your story." The panel offered me the perfect segue into our conversation, which I started by asking how it was she makes Haley Snow, her protagonist, such an endearing character in whom readers can become invested.
    "I think some of it has to be coming from my psychology background," Burdette said.
    She mentioned that one of the authors she shared the stage with in her panel was a meticulous plotter who brought a storyboard complete with notes and Post-its for her presentation.
    "I just don't work that way," Burdette said. "I think about who this character is, what matters to her? I think about even the crime in terms of what her stake would be, what would really draw her in?"
Burdette admitted that, like many cozy protagonists, Haley has "no business sleuthing. It's a stupid idea."           "You really have to have some reason why it would matter enough to overcome that. It's the stakes."
    The author discussed the evolution of her character from the first book, An Appetite for Murder, and the interpersonal relationships among her characters, particularly Haley and her mother. "In the first book she is kind of ditsy, but she's grown a lot, I think, and that's what makes it fun for me. In the second book I really had no idea that her mother would become such an interesting character. But I know mother and daughter relationships and my mother died early so I never got to the stage that Haley is, where she's almost grown up but her mother is still her mother and how do they negotiate that? It's the relationships that are the most interesting to me."
    Burdette, who has written previous books under her given name, Roberta Isleib, said that she was asked by an editor if she could "write light" for a cozy series. Burdette told the editor "I think I can write light but I can't write the murder as though it doesn't matter, as though it isn't a really serious horrible thing with terrible consequences. I don't know if that makes me different from other cozy writers, but it's always in my head," she said. "Who was this person, and who was the person who was driven so far as to take someone else's life?"
I moved on to the romance that is so often teased yet remains unrequited in many cozy series and asked Burdette if she enjoyed teasing her readers. Laughing, Burdette said, "It's so funny because I say that I am a psychologist, so I should know how to make relationships work. But none of my main characters have ever been in a happy relationship, including Haley."
The author said that she received feedback from one reader regarding Haley's budding relationship with Wally, her boss. The reader was very disappointed by the abrupt introduction of romantic tension between two characters who'd never showed any interest in each other beyond professional. "I love hearing from people," Burdette said, "because it makes me think a little bit harder about what's going on. The truth is it really isn't going anywhere. There's not a lot of spark there so—" The author caught herself, then added "Well,you'll see in the one that comes out in July that things are headed for a change."
    "You have to figure out as a writer, if you put the characters together happily, does that leech out a lot of tension or does it just annoy people that you have them undecided or trying to choose between two people over a long period of time?"
   Speaking of the future of the series, the sixth Key West Food Critic mystery, Fatal Reservations, comes out in July. Burdette has just started on the seventh--and last that she is under contract for--which will come out in Spring of 2016. A common theme at Sleuthfest has been the keen eye with which publishers monitor sales. If a series isn't earning its share of the pie, a pie that is sliced very thinly in a heavily saturated cozy market, they won't hesitate to stop buying them.
      Burdette hopes to continue with Haley, though, saying "There will definitely be seven and after that we'll see," before adding "I'd love to write more."
I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love to read more, too.
       —Ed Irvin

Friday, February 27, 2015, 9:13 AM

As I am setting up in the press room I meet author Susan Klaus, whose Secretariat Reborn was reviewed by FBR in 2013. Klaus does an internet radio show and is preparing to interview attendees. She is unfamiliar with our review, but immediately gives me a copy of the sequel, Shark Fin Soup, which she says was received even better than Secretariat Reborn.
—Ed Irvin

Sleuthfest 2015, presented by the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, is taking place Feb. 26-March 1 in Deerfield Beach. Our Contributing Editor Ed Irvin is blogging from the conference, which this year has the title "Along Came A Murder."

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Florida Book Award Winners Announced

2/12/2015

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    Established in 2006, the Florida Book Awards are coordinated by the Florida State University Libraries. Authors must be full-time Florida residents, except in the nonfiction and visual arts categories, where the subject matter must focus on Florida. All book were published during 2014.
    This year's awards will be presented to all award winners at a dinner in Tallahassee in March, and the Gold Medal award winners will be honored the following day at the Historic and Cultural Awards Ceremony sponsored by the State of Florida's Division of Cultural Affairs.
    Here are the winning books, listed alphabetically by category:

Children’s Literature
Gold: Cleopatra in Space (Scholastic) by Mike Maihack
Silver: Hello, I'm Johnny Cash (Candlewick Press) by G. Neri, illustrated by A.G. Ford
Bronze: Just A Drop of Water (Sky Pony Press) by Kerry O'Malley Cerra

Florida Nonfiction
Gold: La Florida: Five Hundred Years of Hispanic Presence (University Press of Florida) edited by Viviana Díaz Balsera and Rachel A. May
Silver: The Peace of Blue: Water Journeys (University Press of Florida) by Bill Belleville
Bronze: Mr. Flagler's St. Augustine by (University Press of Florida) Thomas Graham

General Fiction
Gold: The Invention of Wings (Viking Penguin Group) by Sue Monk Kidd
Silver: The Heaven of Animals (Simon & Schuster) by David James Poissant*
Bronze: The Sheltering (University of South Carolina Press) by Mark Powell

General Nonfiction

Gold: Merlin Stone Remembered (Llewellyn Worldwide) by David B. Axelrod, Lenny Schneir, and Carol Thomas
Silver: Einstein Relatively Simple: Our Universe Revealed in Everyday Language (World Scientific Publishing Company) by Ira Mark Egdall
Bronze: Southside Buddhist Essays (University of Tampa Press) by Ira Sukrungruang

Poetry
Gold: SLANT SIX (Copper Canyon Press) by Erin Belieu
Silver: On the Street of Divine Love (University of Pittsburgh Press) by Barbara Hamby*
Bronze: The Small Blades Hurt (Measure Press) by Erica Dawson

Popular Fiction
Gold: Haunted (G. P. Putnam's Sons) by Randy Wayne White*
Silver: Assassin’s Game (Forge Books) by Ward Larsen
Bronze: The Design is Murder (Carina Press) by Jean Harrington

Visual Arts
Gold: Africa in Florida: Five Hundred Years of African Presence in the Sunshine State (University Press of Florida) edited by Amanda B. Carlson and Robin Poynor
Silver: Everglades: America’s Wetland (University Press of Florida) by Mac Stone)
Bronze: Surfing Florida: A Photographic History (University Press of Florida)by Paul Aho

Spanish Language
Gold: El Arma Secreta (Editora Nacional de la República Dominicana) by José M. Fernández Pequeñ

Young Adult
Gold: Kiss of Broken Glass (HarperTeen) by Madeleine Kuderick
Silver: Knockout Games (Carol Rhoda Lab/Lerner Publishing Group) by G. Neri
Bronze: More Than Good Enough (Flux) by Crissa-Jean Chappell

*You can read FBR's reviews of these books on the Crime Writing, Fiction, and Poetry pages.

—Lynne Barrett

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Tim Dorsey at Murder on the Beach 2/10/2015

2/11/2015

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Tim Dorsey was in Delray Beach on Tuesday to promote his newest Serge Storms novel, Shark Skin Suite. As always, Dorsey was introduced by Murder on the Beach's Joanne Sinchuk, who recently graced the cover of Where to Retire magazine. Sinchuk began by listing the authors who will be appearing at Murder on the Beach in the near future. When she mentioned Stuart Woods Dorsey laughed so hard he nearly spit his coffee on guests sitting in the front row.
"Stuart Woods is such a wonderful human being," Dorsey said..
"He's much better now that he's married for the fifth time," Sinchuk replied.
Apparently Woods has a reputation for being cantankerous.
Dorsey always shares tales from the road—he averages 105.2 appearances a year—from the people he meets to the research he gets to do while driving across the state. "So many funny things happen during the course of a tour," he said. He's met people so enamored with his Florida-phile protagonist they've gotten tattoos of book covers and various Serge-isms, something that Dorsey acknowledges is an honor. "I don't have the sales," he said. "But Grisham doesn't have the tattoos."

During the Q&A Dorsey was asked how he finds the quaint, back road places that Serge frequents. "When I go into an area," Dorsey said, "I map it the way a cat maps a house or NASA mapped the moon."
He was also asked how long he has to be off his meds before Serge comes out. He responded with a story from a past book tour, during which he was asked to speak at a fundraiser. As he was addressing a large auditorium Dorsey had to do his best to contain a violent case of the giggles. One of the event organizers was standing at the back of the room, the audience turned away from her, trying to signal the author to put the microphone closer to his face. Unbeknownst to her, though, she was using the international hand signal for performing fellatio on a man, her hand going back and forth in front of her mouth while wrapped around an invisible microphone.
"My literary goal is to get my dignity back," Dorsey said at the end of the story.

    I've attended at least one Dorsey reading for the last six novels and often find myself annoyed by people who ask questions I've heard countless times. If I've heard someone ask, "Who would you like to see play Serge in a movie?" dozens of times I can imagine how many times Dorsey has heard it. He always handles the questions with diplomacy, though. His go-to reply has always been, "If someone wants to turn my books into movies I don't care who plays Serge." Or something to that effect.
     On Tuesday Dorsey took a different approach to the question. "Normally I avoid answering that question," he admitted. "But, although he's too old to play the character now, I would think Christopher Walken, mainly because I would like to see him deliver one of Serge's death monologues."
   Shark Skin Suite has a much different vibe than his previous novels. Half of the book is every bit a Serge novel, while the other half is written much like a legal thriller. In each of Dorsey's books the author estimates that Serge appears on only forty percent of the pages, thanks to the many plot threads going on. But forty percent is enough for the character not to go stale or seem too contrived.
"Serge is like super-hot sauce in a bowl of chili," Dorsey said. "It may be just a drop but it feels like it's everywhere."

            —Ed Irvin

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Ana Sofia Pelaez, Ellen Silverman, & The Cuban Table at Books & Books

2/4/2015

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     I first met food writer and chef Ana Sofia Pelaez when she was hosting a panel with Top Chef contestant Fabio Viviani at Miami Book Fair International in November.
    There she discussed her decision process about which recipes would go in her book, The Cuban Table, her fascinating encounters with people across Cuba as she researched the origins of Cuban recipes, and the importance of being able to cook and pass down the legacy of traditional dishes through the generations.
    As a second generation Dominican, I value the importance of understanding my family’s culture and see the danger of it being lost to generations who might have no interest in comprehending how to make traditional Dominican dishes.
    I unfortunately had to leave Pelaez’s panel before she could delve deeper into her book and why Cuban recipes are pertinent to her heritage. Therefore, when I found out Pelaez would be presenting her book again at Books & Books in Coral Gables on Dec. 11, in collaboration with the University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection, I made sure to go.
    At Books and Books, the room was crowded to the point that there were no chairs left and people were standing, with more arriving.
    Pelaez was co-presenting with the photographer of her book, Ellen Silverman, who has made a career photographing for cookbooks. Silverman’s talent can be seen throughout The Cuban Table, from capturing the kitchens of Cuban homes and the cooks who peel the onions for family dinners, to showing the chefs who’ve converted their homes into small restaurants or residential kitchens, serving customers. Her photographs are enticing, as if each dish photographed was served fresh and steam might begin to rise from the pages.
    Silverman described photographing during her fourth trip to Cuba: “People were so willing to engage. Being able to travel and collaborate together was really wonderful. It made the experience richer for me.”

Ana Sofie Pelaez signing at Books & Books. Photo: Jeffrey Fernandez

    In the introduction to The Cuban Table, Pelaez mentions how the scarcity of ingredients in Cuba has placed traditional Cuban cuisine in an endangered status.
    Pelaez noted during her very first trip to Cuba people discussing the ingredients which are no longer available and can’t be found on the island. Even worse, her recent trip to Cuba was marked by the extinction of some dishes. “[On] this last trip, it was shocking to see how many things have fallen out of memory.”
    Basic herbs can no longer be obtained on the island. When asked if she could find cilantro, Pelaez explained the herb, which is a staple ingredient in many Latin recipes, hasn’t been available for some time. Many cooks in Cuba now use Culantro as a replacement.
    Towards the end of her discussion, Pelaez opened the floor up to questions. Even though her panel focused on the unfortunate dwindling resources and dying traditional dishes of Cuba, the questions posed to Pelaez ranged from what was her favorite recipe, to whether there was any political iconography in the kitchens that were photographed for the book.
    Yet, I believe Pelaez’s most profound response was her explanation about how much her grandparents influenced her cooking.
    “From my father’s side, my grandparents really loved to cook. I say this in the book, when I asked my grandfather how he learned to cook he said exile. Because when they came to this country in the early 60s, they didn’t know where to start. So they learned together and they came to it late in life, and it was something I think they fell in love with.”

            —Jeffrey Fernandez

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Sleuthfest Live-blog, Saturday, Part 3: James O. Born

Sleuthfest Live-blog, Saturday, Part 2: James W. Hall

Live-blog from Sleuthfest, Saturday, Part 1

FBR's Ed Irvin Live-blogs from Sleuthfest, Feb. 27, 2015

Florida Book Award Winners Announced

Tim Dorsey at Murder on the Beach 2/10/2015

Ana Sofia Pelaez, Ellen Silverman, & The Cuban Table at Books & Books

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