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Book recommendations ARE continuing ... over on my author blog, https://bethkanell.blogspot.com. Come read today's material.

New and Needed! Peter Lovesey's Story Collection, READER, I BURIED THEM

Peter Lovesey's British police procedurals have stacked up enjoyably over the past 50 years, without growing stale. If you're already a fan, the new collection of his stories, READER, I BURIED THEM, AND OTHER STORIES is a must for the shelf.

But there are a lot of great mystery authors in the world, so if you aren't yet familiar with Lovesey's tales, don't blush -- just go pick up this volume. Because in addition to marking his continuing career, the collection offers a fine introduction to his wry sense of humor and adept story twists.

The flavors of the stories make up more than a wide menu. "Formidophobia" (defined as a fear of scarecrows) has the enjoyable feel of a G. K. Chesterton mystery; "Remaindered" manages to combine a gangland spoof with a used bookstore; and "Agony Column" (British term for a Dear Abby sort of pursuit) is funny enough to make anyone in the room with you get exasperated as you giggle or snort.

There are also some clever homages, like "The Deadliest Tale of All," which pictures Edgar Allan Poe suffering through a visit from a journalist, and "A Three Pie Problem" (come on, you know the title this spoofs on), bringing in Peter Diamond's Bath, England.

For the serious collector, this volume is also a must because it offers 17 pages of a "Peter Lovesey Checklist." The author foreword also offers revelations and delight.

The release date from Soho Press is February 1 -- do pre-order, to be sure of snagging a first edition for your shelf, and for much pleasure in both reading and re-reading. Also, if you were about to take a course in how to write short mysteries, just think of all the money you'll save by getting this 384-page volume.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

The Cozy Comforts of Mystery Authors Barbara Ross and Liz Mugavero

Welcome, Barbara Ross and Liz Mugavero, to the Kingdom Books review blog today! It's December 27, release day for the latest New England mysteries for each of you. Congratulations! Yesterday (scroll down, readers ...) we were excited to share reviews of your new titles, ICED UNDER (Barbara Ross) and CUSTOM BAKED MURDER (Liz Mugavero). Now let's settle in for a some post-holiday hot chocolate or a cappuccino together, and do some author chatting.

Your mysteries are releasing on the same date this year, December 27 -- just two days after the merriment of Christmas. You have the same publisher, Kensington, but you live in very different parts of New England. How on earth did you meet each other? Any memories from your early writer-to-writer friendship?

Barb: We met at Seascape, a lovely and instructional writing retreat run on the Long Island Sound in Connecticut by Roberta Isleib (Lucy Burdette), Hallie Ephron, and S. W. Hubbard. After that we kept in touch via Sisters in Crime New England and the New England Crime Bake. Find your tribe, is my best advice for new writers.

Liz: Before Seascape, I remember seeing Barb at many Crime Bakes over the years. She was one of The Published - a real author! And it’s so true - finding your tribe is the most important thing for a writer to do.

What are the special challenges of writing a mystery series? How do you cope with them?

Liz: There are so many! Understanding how my main character needs to grow in a way that makes sense based on where she’s been and what she’s experienced is something that’s top of mind for me. Also, making sure my plot has no holes, that the mystery makes sense and the clues are strategically placed - that keeps me up at night.

Barb: Argh—for me it is first drafts, letting my imagination flow and not judging myself too harshly. And because we both write amateur sleuths, there’s the ever-present problem of “why is she investigating this time?”

What made you choose to write in the "cozy" subgenre of mysteries? Or do you prefer to talk about your book as an "amateur sleuth" mystery, or a "traditional"?

Barb: I have fully embraced the word “cozy,” even though I know other writers shy away from it. It’s true that cozy mysteries never get the big awards or reviews, but they do have a dedicated following. And, it suits me. I don’t go to my desk everyday thinking, “Drat! Another day when I can’t torture animals or children.”

Liz: I’ve embraced it also. As long as I feel like I’ve done a good job with the story, the mystery is solid and the book has a deeper message despite the lighter feel to it, I’m happy.

Your mysteries all take place in and around one small town. Do you think of this place as fictional, or do you rehearse in your mind the layout of the actual New England town you already had in the back of your mind when you started your series?

Liz: My town is fictional, but it’s a hybrid of a couple of towns. I picked and chose the parts of each that worked for me, then added what else I needed to make it a town I would want to spend time it. But I keep the general location real - it’s eastern Connecticut.

Barb: Sort of half and half. Busman’s Harbor is a highly, highly fictionalized version of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where my husband and I own a home. I’ve moved a lot of things around, but whenever my sleuth, Julia Snowden, leaves Busman’s Harbor, I Google map the distance from the real Boothbay Harbor.

People across the world, I discover, have a Normal Rockwellian, Currier & Ives archetype of New England in their heads. Those of us who live here know it’s a real place with real crime and real problems, but the classic New England-based cozy both plays into and against that archetype.

Readers of this kind of mystery series need to bond with the sleuth and celebrate the person's changes -- and the solving of the crime somehow affects those changes. Do you have a long-term arc of character development in mind for your series? Or do you feel you are "reading along" with the rest of us, discovering your protagonist's growth as you write?

Liz: I usually try to think about the character arc in a 3-book span, since that’s usually the length of the contracts. I know what’s happening in the immediate book, then based on that I think about where it would make sense to take Stan’s growth next.

Barb: I had a definite, planned arc for the first three books in the series. The fourth through sixth have been more book to book, and I haven’t enjoyed that as much. So if I’m lucky enough to get three more, I’ll go back to an overall arc for the three.

Don't spoil the suspense for us -- but tell us one "device" of plot or location or clue in your new book that especially tickles you as the author ... so we can watch for it and enjoy it from your perspective as well as our own!

Barb: Fantastic question! In Iced Under, the detective investigating the murder keeps asking one question over and over. It turns out to be the right question in the end.

Liz: Oh, this is a tough one! I would say it’s important to really pay attention to the people around you and not take everything they say or do at face value. If someone is suffering they sometimes try to hide it, but if you look closely you might be able to pick up on a cry for help.

What's the most important thing we readers should pick up on from your latest book -- whether it's handling a challenging romance, or dealing with a dead body?

Barb: Iced Under is a book about family—how it’s complicated and operatically difficult, but ultimately worth the effort.

Liz: There’s a few things going on in Custom Baked Murder. Family is definitely a key component, and how to deal with them. If you don’t typically have a great relationship, murder can make it worse! Also, dealing with serious issues that sometimes people don’t think will surface in a small, cozy town where everyone knows everyone—or thinks they do.

We know you must be partway through the next book in your series. Any hints or draft title that you'd like to share with us?

Liz: Purring Around the Christmas Tree, the sixth Pawsitively Organic Mystery, will be out in late 2017.

Barb: Stowed Away, the sixth Maine Clambake Mystery will be out sometime in late 2017, assuming I make my deadline of March 1. (Ulp.)

Thanks, Barb and Liz! This has been great fun -- and getting to know you and your writing process makes it even more enjoyable to read your newest books. 

 PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Mystery Writers of America 2016 Grand Master: Max Allan Collins

As Dave and I reflect on the past year's adventures among mysteries and their authors, we're especially pleased at the announcement that arrived on November 29 from Mystery Writers of America: naming Max Allan Collins and Ellen Hart as the 2017 Grand Masters.

Today's my day to write a bit about Max Allan Collins and his books. With more than 100 titles, Collins has carved out more mystery, detective, and thriller terrain than any five ordinary authors put together. His most noted series may be the Quarry books, which feature a US marine sniper who returns from the Vietnam War and becomes a professional assassin. It began in 1976 with Quarry and continues, as Quarry in the Black was issued this year.

But for noir fans, the top series is the one with Nathan Heller, where this Chicago "pulps style" private investigator tangles with noted personalities of the 1930s and 1940s. This series is also still running -- this year's title was Better Dead.

The moment I knew that the writing by "M.A.C." had permanently marked my own life and thinking was the evening I finally watched the film version of his 1998 graphic novel  Road to Perdition. Tapping into the American experience of the Great Depression, the story reminded me of what's unique about both our history and our choice of narrative in American crime fiction.

I'm a fan of Collins's blog, where his back stories take on fresh life, at http://www.maxallancollins.com/blog. His reflections on life events, like his prolonged climb to survival of several health events in the past years, as well as the Grand Master award, are told clearly and with some power and a lot of thought -- here's a recent snippet:

I’ve been reflecting on the Grand Master this past week, the only troubling aspect of which is that it’s a reminder that a long career preceded it, and that the remainder of that career will be much shorter. Life achievement awards are something people try to give you while you’re not dead. So that part of it is sobering.

Though it takes years to amass a writing career that brings the Grand Master title your way, Collins is only 68, and with luck and care, we'll have many more of his books ahead. In addition to the ones I've mentioned (see the lists at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Allan_Collins), he's written film novelizations, and co-wrote with others, including his wife Barbara; one of his acknowledged mentors, Mickey Spillane; and Matthew Clemens.

Another aspect that I appreciate is his filmmaking side, which leads him to provide intriguing critiques of others' films as he sees them (an entertaining wrap-up of his 2016 viewing can be found here). And then there's his work on Eliot Ness of The Untouchables. Wow!

Dave and I could barely catch our breath when we finally met this writing legend, at a Bouchercon a few years ago. I see we still have a few of the books for sale that he signed for us then (click here), and he was generous enough to keep signing for a long, long time, as Dave brought many titles, some quite scarce. (The photo here shows Collins at foreground, and Matt Clemens at center.)

Last but not least, Collins's writing and warm friendships bring him lifelong fans. For an enthusiastic and knowledgeable sample of what comes from those friendships, enjoy the write-up from Kevin Burton Smith.

Yes, we'll provide material on Ellen Hart later; the Grand Master awards are presented in April, so there's time to keep reading and thinking about what these authors mean to the mysteries field.

Just a reminder: We're still ready to give away a stack of Ed Gorman paperbacks -- Gorman, like Max Allan Collins, was an Iowa resident. Details here.

PS:  Looking for mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

THE PENNY POET OF PORTSMOUTH by Katherine Towler

When I asked for a review copy of this book by Katherine (Katie) Towler, I had in mind her lovely literary novels placed on an island between and during world wars. Somehow I thought THE PENNY POET OF PORTSMOUTH would be an old-fashioned tale of a long-ago poet who made rhymes and stood on the street corner to sell them.

Nope. If I had looked more closely at the book's subtitle -- A Memoir of Place, Solitude, and Friendship -- I might have made a better guess. But all's well, because I found myself blissfully engaged, page after page, chapter after chapter, in one of the most wonderful surprises of my literary year.

Katherine Towler's life focused on writing from an early age; she was writing poems at 10, and as a young adult she craved both solitude (for writing) and diversion, the kind that comes from moving often. To her own surprise, after years of learning to spend time alone in pursuit of her best writing, she married Jim when the two of them were 35, in a midlife marriage with a great deal of gentleness and ample space to be herself. The couple settled into a rented space in an older home at the edge of the tidal waters of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in a neighborhood where their cat, at least, felt immediately at home.

And it was through a neighbor's cat that she first exchanged word with Robert Dunn, a poet himself, living nearby in far less comfort than she had. Katie's slow dance of becoming acquainted with her coastal town and its residents needed to balance with her urge to withdraw, to create for herself the solitude she felt her writing demanded. Her early perceptions of Robert gave her an ideal to look toward: a man who walked slowly around the town keeping to himself, not making conversation, not even meeting anyone's gaze, living the life Katie believed that her craft -- and his -- demanded.

I admired the nimble grace with which Robert navigated this territory, his ability to maintain a guarded privacy while, in a limited fashion, letting people in. He appeared to have mastered something fundamental I wasn't sure I ever would, though I was feeling my way toward my own kind of balance. For the first time, I appeared to have found a place to live where my warring impulses could coexist, and in my marriage a relationship that could accommodate, although not always easily, my need to disappear.

To Katie's surprise, a connection she formed with Robert through Portsmouth choosing to select him as the town's second Poet Laureate -- she was in the selection group -- tugged her into Robert's circle of friends. It wasn't just the surprise of being chosen for this, but even more so, the discovery of  how many people considered themselves Robert's friends that startled her. Then came the biggest surprise of all: Robert's decision, step by prickly step, to involve Katie in his efforts to stay alive and keep writing while struggling with the diseases that poverty and aging (and cigarettes) put into place.

The struggles that ensue will seem achingly familiar to any creative person agonizing over how to manage enough privacy while also contributing to a family or community. In Towler's book, the frictions of two writers in need of inner solitude -- she with her novels and Robert with his poems -- also come laden with New England revelations about how difficult poverty can be, and how embarrassing and humiliating the lack of power in a personal life becomes.

The slow pace of discovery of Robert's life and secrets mingles with Towler's own slow movement into strength as a published author, a tide of rising and falling parallel to the nearby ocean's. The two poets also intermingle their life lessons in terms of spirituality and religion. Although none of Tower's own poems appear here, those of Robert's often call upon familiar texts while simplifying the language to paint the New England town life accurately, like this one:

Vesper sparrows, turnable of bellbirds,
the small owls have called from tree to tree.
No need to comfort or be comforted.
Pitched high or low, grief is a kind of love
and so must be. Or no one else will know
when the sparrow falls, least of all the sparrow.
       --- Robert Dunn

I ached with Towler in both the beautiful unpeeling of her own life here -- that of Katie the writer adapting to settling in one place -- and the slow realization of Robert's life through his requests to her and her own discomfort in filling his needs. Suspense builds in the telling, as we readers realize, with Katie, the inevitability of Robert's illness and oncoming death, and the enormous efforts of personal sacrifice that both he and Katie choose to make in the long and unpredictable process.

Make time for this one. Pick up a copy or two now (if you've read this far in the review, it's likely there will be people you love, to whom you will want to give this book), but set it on the shelf or table for a quiet rainy afternoon when you can relinquish Ordinary Time and settle into the deep, long sweeps of the narrative.

I will never face writing in the same way again. And the next time I visit Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I expect to be haunted by the ghosts of Robert Dunn and the younger, struggling writer who was Katherine Towler before she stepped forward into her own strong ability to evoke such a portrait as THE PENNY POET OF PORTSMOUTH.

[From Counterpoint Press, and available through bookstores and online.]

Writing the Good One: Skill, Passion, and the Right Place

More mystery reviews this week ... watch this evening for what else is being published in June, or what's perfect to add to the summer reading stack.

Meanwhile, for those who are writing this summer/fall, or thinking of it: Author Julia Shipley in Craftsbury, Vermont, offers a "farmhouse studio" for the perfect writing vacation. Called The Writer's Retreat, this peaceful and richly rural opportunity for "writing on the farm" even comes with the possibility of adding coaching from Julia, who is a gentle yet powerful teacher of writing skills and whose poetry, short fiction, and elegant letterpress work appear at workshops as far away as Wisconsin.

Here are two samples of what Julia recently crafted, perfect for the writing life:

* * *

And another reminder: Writing is a craft. (Yes, an art, too, but that's a subject for another day.) A craft depends on specific skills, learned, practiced, valued, and strengthened. Undertake all of that at your own writing retreat in Vermont -- or indulge in learning from an assortment of writing professionals just outside Boston, at Pine Manor College, which now allows auditing of the summer workshops:

The Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program invites writers to audit graduate-level creative writing courses during its summer residency, scheduled from July 6-15, 2012 on the Pine Manor College campus in Chestnut Hill, MA.

Classes include several sessions taking place as part of State of the Union: Diversity & Poetic Craft, a two-day colloquium designed to encourage cross-pollination between styles and approaches to poetry, open up a broader discourse about the art of writing poetry, and encourage experimentation across poetic “camps.”

Classes are open to serious writers working at all levels; the registration fee is $30 per course for Solstice graduates/$40 per course for the general public. The State of the Union: Diversity & Poetic Craft panel discussion & keynote speech by Stephen Dunn are FREE and open to the public.

For course descriptions, dates and times, a detailed audit policy, and a downloadable registration form, go to: http://www.pmc.edu/mfa-classes-for-audit. The deadline for enrolling as an auditor for summer 2012 Residency is Friday, June 22, 2012.

Summer 2012 MFA classes that are open to the public include:

Fiction:
• Fragmented/Fractured Narrative
• Creating a Sense of Place
• Writing the End

Creative Nonfiction:
• Writing Personal Essays
• Nonfiction as Fiction
• Dateline Zanzibar: Travel Writing 101

Writing for Stage & Screen:
• Writer-in-Residence Dennis Lehane on Writing for Cable Television

State of the Union: Diversity & Poetic Craft:
• Where I’m From: Identity & Subjectivity in Poetry
• Oulipo: Experiments in Potential Literature
• FREE: State of the Union: Panel Discussion featuring all faculty & guests
• An Eye For An I: Lyrical Elements In Poetry—For The Prose Writer
• Incorporating Sound Into Poetry
• FREE: State Of The Union (Or Disunion) Keynote with Stephen Dunn

The Business of Writing:
• Publishing in Literary Magazines

ABOUT SOLSTICE & PINE MANOR COLLEGE
As an undergraduate institution consistently ranked among the most diverse in the country, Pine Manor College emphasizes an inclusive, community-building approach to liberal arts education. The Solstice MFA in Creative Writing reflects the College’s overall mission by creating a supportive, welcoming environment in which writers of all backgrounds are encouraged to take creative risks. We strive to instill in our students an appreciation for the value of community-building and community service, and see engagement with the literary arts not only as a means to personal fulfillment but also as an instrument for real cultural change.

www.pmc.edu/mfa includes all contact info.