Posts Tagged ‘Lady Go Die’

You Say Hello, I Say Bye Bye

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

The mass market paperback of the latest Heller novel, BYE BYE, BABY, is out today, with a cover I much prefer over the hardcover edition’s. I also made a few corrections to the text, so completists may wish to double dip to get the final version.

Speaking of covers, here is the revised cover of the next Heller, TARGET LANCER. The version on Amazon has yellow lettering that I found nauseating, and my editor went to bat for me and got this big improvement.

Bye Bye Baby
Target Lancer

Something happened yesterday that was not a big deal but demonstrates the odd position I find myself in at times. A guy called at 8:30 Sunday morning, leaving a message that I should call him – a stranger. Now maybe 8:30 Sunday morning is late for you. For us, it’s early, very damn early (while we live in Iowa, we are not farmers), particularly when I get in at 3 a.m. after a band job. In addition, the ringing phone woke my wife, who does not always have the gentle disposition you might imagine.

Fifteen minutes later, he called again – 8:45 a.m., finding us up and awake (thanks to him). He was calling Sunday morning because he was writing a book about the Irish in Iowa and thought I would like to help him. He was not in particular a fan, although he was familiar with ROAD TO PERDITION (which takes place in Illinois, not Iowa). I tried not to be rude – he seemed friendly and good-natured – but I told him his project was not in my wheelhouse, but that I could give him one useful piece of advice: don’t call strangers at 8:30 Sunday morning.

Writers have a lot of trouble with this kind of thing. Most of us don’t have unlisted numbers, because we want to be accessible as freelancers. A controversial essay has bounced around the net by a successful screenwriter who says (I’m quoting from memory here), “No, I will not read you f**king screenplay. I will also not ask you to clean my f**king house, or wash my f**king car.” Professional scribes are always having people – seldom anyone close to them – expect them to read manuscripts and help them on their way to a successful career.

And it gets awkward. I often have reviewers with blogs ask for blurbs for books they’ve written. This reeks, not so vaguely, as of tit for tat. They’ve given me good reviews, now I’m expected to do likewise for them. It’s harder when a fan, particularly one you’ve corresponded with or know from frequent book signings, wants you to read a manuscript or a self-published book. I get it – they want my approval, on one level, and on another they, too, have a vague sense of having supported me, so I should support them.

When I decline – or worse, say yes, and the book goes on a pile of things I intend to get to, but never do – I feel guilty. I was once a fan who approached Don Westlake, after all – although in fairness, I don’t recall ever asking him to read my stuff (although my first agent, knowing Don and I were friendly, did). And I should note that by the time Mickey Spillane and I became friends, I was about a decade into my career.

For me the greater problem is time – I am reading research all of the time. I am working on my own fiction all of the time. And I avoid reading fiction while I’m writing it, because I don’t want to be stylistically influenced. What little recreational reading I did is, frankly, in the bathroom. I recently finished Rick Harrison’s excellent book on his show “Pawn Stars” (don’t remember the title). I read something else light before that, but I don’t remember what.

Further complicating this is that I am frequently asked to blurb books by other authors. Often directly or through editors, sometimes my own editors, who I don’t want to alienate. And I am put in a position of having to ask other writers to blurb me, a spot editors put writers in constantly. So this makes me a hypocrite and, possibly justifiably, a rude jerk, if I say no.

On the other hand, if you are interested in cleaning my house or washing my car, let me know.

* * *

The cyber tour for LADY, GO DIE! seems to have wrapped up, and the fruits of my labors are blossoming all over the web.

Here’s a fun write-up by Jedidiah Ayres who picks his top five M.A.C. projects.

And here’s a well-done interview with me, about my continuing the Spillane legacy.

The interviewer above takes an in-depth look at the Spillane films here, and follows with a nice review of LADY, GO DIE! (although like a lot of critics who like the book, he seems ashamed of himself).

I was asked to pick my top ten films noir by Film School Rejects. I expected lots of heat (big heat) on my picks, but so far my choices have not been unduly attacked.

This very good interview/article appeared in the Oklahoman and got picked up all over the place.

Here’s an excellent LADY, GO DIE! review at Comic Attack.

Another UK response to LADY, GO DIE! is a tad condescending, but on the whole smart and positive.

A really nice review here, though the comments show what Mickey remains up against.

Here’s a brief, basically very nice review of TRIPLE PLAY. But it demonstrates how odd internet blog reviews can be. The reviewer complains that the language is “dated” (before admitting it’s appropriate to the time frame of the tales) and then claims these stories lack suspense because they are about some of the major crimes of the 20th Century – arguably, the Lipstick Killer is a well-known crime, but the other two are obscure.

M.A.C.

The Weird Ways of the Net

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

For yet another week, I spent much of my time on a sort of internet tour for LADY, GO DIE! (out this week). Later in this update, I will provide links to various pieces I’ve written and interviews I’ve given. How odd it is, to be doing most of my promo on the web – not in book stores or even on TV or radio.

On the other hand, I should note that Barb and I have a book signing this coming Saturday, May 12, at Barnes & Noble in Davenport, Iowa, from 1 p.m. to 3. This is the first signing for both ANTIQUES DISPOSAL and LADY, GO DIE! It’s at North Park Mall, 320 W. Kimberly Road, Davenport, IA 52806.

But isn’t the internet weird? Sometimes wonderfully so. For decades, I wondered and even searched for Ennis Willie, author of the Sand novels that had (along with Richard Stark’s Parker series) inspired me as a teenage writer, in particular Nolan, the series Perfect Crime has recently reprinted in trade paperback. Then one day, out of the blue, I hear from Ennis Willie himself – neither a penname nor an African American (both had been speculated) – in my e-mail box. Since then, he was published two collections of his “Sand shockers” and I have written introductions to both.

Now I’m about to share with you an e-mail and my response. It comes from Ennis Willie’s 1960s editor at Merit Books. When I was 15 I wrote this gentleman, asking him if he’d look at my first novel, without telling him my age (the book was called The Gray Flannel Thugs). He said he’d look at the book. Meanwhile, forty-eight years later, this turned up in my e-mail box:

Max –

As an old man now, I was thinking about fiction I had enjoyed and Ennis Willie popped into my head. Wondered if he had written anything lately. Picked up “A Sand Shocker” from Amazon. Was surprised to see my name in it at least four times. Also, your editor used the short stories I had Willie do for Rascal. He never wrote any before I came onboard.

If you are interested, I might be able to fill you in on some of the Camerarts details. Although not there from the beginning, I did spend four years there.

Lastly, I was/am a big Dark Angel fan. Liked very much what you did on Before the Dawn. You’ve come a long way, baby.

Cheers,

Tony Licata

This was my somewhat astonished response:

Dear Tony —

How amazing to hear from you.

You have the honor of being the only editor who rejected me who I look back on fondly and with gratitude.

As you may recall, I had my parents drive me to your office in Chicago to deliver my first novel manuscript in person. I was, I believe, 15.

You wrote me a very long, helpful, encouraging editorial letter, and when I tried a novelette for Rascal, you responded with a similarly long and helpful letter. You didn’t have to do that. Hard to know just how much you aided me in my career at that very important juncture.

I wound up writing four novels in high school, and then the novel I wrote in community college (Mourn the Living) — very much a Sand imitation — got me into the undergrad Writers Workshop at Iowa City. Richard Yates, author of Revolutionary Road, was my instructor and mentor. The next two books I wrote sold before I got out of grad school, and that community college novel eventually got published, as well.

How odd and sweetly strange it is that you read one of my DARK ANGEL novels as a reader and not an editor. Somehow that’s the greatest compliment of all. I’d love to send a few other books of mine, not based on anybody else’s concepts, to show you how really far I’ve come.

Thank you for getting in touch with me, and thank you for the time you spent with an enthusiastic kid from Iowa, who was writing sex scenes long before he ever had any. Of course, I never did shoot anybody, either, and I’m still writing about that….

Warmly,

Max

* * *

I wrote a very in-depth piece about the process of putting LADY, GO DIE! and the other “lost” Hammer novels together for Lit Reactor.

Here’s a well-conducted interview about LADY, GO DIE! at Slacker Heroes.

The Slacker Heroes interviewer also did this nifty review of the book.

Another nice interview with lots of comics images can be found at CBR’s fun site.

MTV.com asked me to rate my top ten crime comics.

Flavorwire wanted a beginner’s guide to crime fiction, and I chose these ten books.

Finally, Criminal Element presented an excerpt from LADY, GO DIE!, but you won’t need to read that, will you? Since you’re going to buy the book this week….

M.A.C.

South Carolina Snaps / Quarry for $1.99

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

NEWS FLASH: QUARRY and QUARRY’S VOTE will be $1.99 on Kindle for 48 hours! First sale price on Quarry e-books.

Quarry
QUARRY Kindle $1.99
Quarry's Vote
QUARRY’S VOTE Kindle $1.99

This week my update will be a short one, because (a) I just finished writing eight blog entries in support of LADY, GO DIE! (links will be posted), and (b) I am providing a few pictures from our recent South Carolina trip for Mickey’s induction into the SC author’s hall of fame.

But I do need to mention that ANTIQUES DISPOSAL, the new hardcover, is out even as I type this, as is the mass-market paperback edition of ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF.

Also, the Perfect Crime trade paperbacks (with new after words) of the Nolan series are available now or soon will be. They are FLY PAPER, HUSH MONEY, HARD CASH, SCRATCH FEVER, SPREE and MOURN THE LIVING. Actually, the MOURN after word is recycled from the Five Star edition. Otherwise, new stuff.

There’s a nice review here of the new Heller novella collection, TRIPLE PLAY.

And a really nice review of ANTIQUES DISPOSAL from the perceptive Craig Clarke can be found here.

Here’s a fun review of BYE BYE, BABY.

And a very nice recommendation for LADY, GO DIE! right here.

Left to right: Atlantic Ocean, MAC, Atlantic Ocean.

Left to right: MAC, Bogie pretending to be Hammer, Jim Traylor.

MAC and Jane Spillane

MAC sportsman

Potential Crusin’ venue?

M.A.C.

Antiques Chop Talk

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Right now I am in the home stretch of my draft of ANTIQUES CHOP, the seventh “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mystery that Barb and I have collaborated upon. I should finish this week (and I better, because April 1st is the deadline) (no fooling). Nate suggested that, while I’m in the midst of it, I provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the process.

Barb and I begin with a succession of business lunches where we first come up with the basic concept, and usually tie it to a title. The pattern of the titles are to have the word ANTIQUES followed by a punning word, and we have a list of these (continually growing). This time the title ANTIQUES CHOP sparked the premise (sometimes it’s the other way around), leading to the mystery revolving around an ax murder, an unusually gruesome crime for a supposed “cozy.”

We often look at “antique” crimes, which is to say crimes that occurred decades ago but are having latter-day ramifications. So I suggested we make an unsolved Lizzie Border-esque ax murder the centerpiece of the story, and wrote a faux entry about the crime for a non-existent true-crime encyclopedia. From there Barb and I began the back-and-forth process of coming up with a fairly detailed plot. We have to turn in a sample chapter and brief synopsis to our editor at Kensington (and get approval), so we have to have a firm idea of where we’re going before Barb gets started on her draft.

Barb works on that draft for probably six months, although that six months may stretch out to an entire year, because she isn’t always working on it – summers tend to be busy and that keeps her away from the work. Last year, for example, we went on a west coast book tour, plus there’s comic con and other distractions.

As Barb writes, I stay out of her way unless she has a problem or a concern about what she’s up to. Sometimes we discuss a plot point, and oftentimes we discuss it if she feels she has a need to deviate from the plot as originally conceived. Generally, though, I give her all the space she needs.

When Barb delivers her draft, it’s usually about 200 to 225 pages of doubled-spaced copy. My job is to expand and flesh out her draft, providing more dialogue and even more humor and generally apply what I laughingly think of as a more professional gloss. The end result will be 300 to 330 pages. I do my pass in a month or less, working hard and intensely, with Barb editing and suggesting revisions as I go (she reads it, and provides her notes, a chapter at a time). We do a lot of this over business lunches – just yesterday, on what was otherwise a day off, we discussed two plot points that needed shoring up in the chapter I just finished and the one that I will be doing today.

The final step is for me to spend a day or two re-reading the manuscript and marking up a hard copy with revisions, with Barb entering them in the chapter files. Then, common to all writers, we ship it (by e-mail these days) and hold our collective breath, hoping for a delighted response from the editor. On this series, we’ve been lucky to get that response pretty much every time. Occasionally there are rewrites, as on ANTIQUES MAUL where the editor felt the murder occurred too late in the mystery, and we reshaped the book so that it happened virtually on page one and then flashed back.

I said “final step” above, but of course there is much more to do – there will be a copy-edited manuscript to check, and at least one round of galley proofs. We tend to trade off on these assignments, with Barb doing the copy-edited manuscript and me reading the galley proofs. We divide the work that way because (a) I hate the copy-editing stage, since the Moriarty of my career is the Intrusive Copy Editor Who Stalks Me Under Various Names and Guises, and (b) Barb is thoroughly sick of the book by the galley proof stage and is content to leave that step to me.

Do we squabble? Not much. Hardly at all. I may get testy if, as I’m moving forward in my draft, Barb indicates (and she’s always right) that I need to go back and make a few fixes in a chapter that I had considered finished. This occurs, on the rare occasion that it does occur, early in the morning before I have had a chance to become fully human. Let’s just say, first thing in the morning, I’m more Quarry than Mallory.

So there you go. That’s how this particular flavor of sausage is made.

* * *

It’s gratifying to note that I received such a warm reaction to my defense of the film JOHN CARTER – which, let’s face it, was fairly shrill, since the premise of my piece was that anyone who didn’t like the movie was an idiot. Not only did my piece receive more comments than usual, a number of blogs provided links and made favorable comments on my take on this beleaguered film.

I am pleased to say that the early reviews on LADY GO, DIE! are coming in and, so far, are all favorable. The book received a very nice write-up in the often tough Publisher’s Weekly.

And there was a very gratifying (and I think perceptive) review from one of my favorite contemporary crime writers, Bill Crider, at his blog (perhaps the best mystery fiction blog out there).

Similarly, Ron Fortier – another strong contemporary scribe – has written a LADY, GO DIE! review that appears at several blogs, including his own Pulp Fiction Reviews.

The Brandywine site continues to work through the Nate Heller backlist, and this time FLYING BLIND is discussed.

QUARRY’S EX has picked up several, slightly belated (favorable) reviews, like this one at Books Are For Squares and this one at Pulp 300.

Here’s a thoughtful new look at the film version of ROAD TO PERDITION.

And here’s a guy who says he’s addicted to my books. I have to wonder if he discovered Nate Heller through the Amazon reprint series, who essentially gave TRUE DETECTIVE away (for under two bucks) for a while there. You know, the drug dealers really had something with their “first one’s free” approach.

M.A.C.