My Bouchercon 2015 panels: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding fits an exciting pattern

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's story "The Stranger in the Car" is  the second reminder I've received in recent months that domestic in crime fiction need not mean cozy.  The first came when I read Dolores Hitchens and Charlotte Armstrong for a panel I moderated at Bouchercon 2015 on lesser-known writers of the pulp and paperback eras.

As part of that panel, I asked the estimable Sarah Weinman to what extent domestic subjects in mid-20th-century American crime writing were the property of female authors, and to what extent Armstrong, Hitchens, and other women drew from the same currents in American life that, say, Raymond Chandler did. (His novel The Big Sleep emphasized the Sternwood family as a locus for drama more than did the celebrated Hawks/Bogart/Vickers/Bacall movie version.)

"Bit of both," Weinman replied, and as nearly as I can tell, she's right. "The Stranger in the Car" is terrific, atmospheric mystery, and the only twists are of the narrative kind. A prosperous businessman is the story's narrator, his wife and daughter figure prominently, and the story includes a fine example of hard-boiled wit. Said prosperous businessman is being driven to silent madness by the family music teacher's piano playing, and then she finally stops:

"'Very nice,' Charleroy said. `Very--' He sought for a word. `Very soothing.' he said.

"It tried to be nice!' said Miss Ewing. `It wanted to soothe you, Mr. Charleroy.' 

'`Ha!' he said, with a benevolent laugh."

 (Click on Holding's name at the beginning of this post to see why criminalelement.com called her the Godmother of Noir.)

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Sarah Weinman will talk about Elisabeth Sanxay Holding as part of a panel all moderate at Bouchercon 2015 called called "Beyond Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, and Macdonald." The panel features authors, editors, and other experts discussing their favorite crime writers of the pulp and paperback-original eras. It happens Thursday, Oct. 8 at 2:30 p.m. There's still time to sign up for Bouchercon. See you!

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

My Bouchercon 2014 surprise: Charlotte Armstrong

I've been touting Northern Ireland crime fiction for years, so it's no surprise that I liked the books I'll discuss when I moderate Belfast Noir: Murder and Mayhem from Northern Ireland on Friday, 11:30 a.m., at Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach.  The real revelations for me have come as I prepared for Beyond Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane: Lesser Known Writers of the Pulp and Paperback Eras, which I'll moderate at 3 p.m. Friday.

The panel will consist of five authors or editors talking about one or more favorite crime writers from out of the past. You may not have heard of all those writers; I certainly had not before I put the panel together.

You'll read more about those writers over the next few weeks, but suffice it to say that each of my five panelists will discuss at least one book that has turned out to be among the highlights of my year's reading.

I won't pick a year's best yet, but I have read no more virtuoso authorial crime fiction performance this year, or maybe ever,  than Charlotte Armstrong's 1947 novel The Unsuspected. The book is a masterfully told tale of suspense in which everything, everyone, is in doubt and knocked out of balance from the first scene to the last, a sort of Agatha Christie meets Georges Simenon meets Cornell Woolrich, with a few sly jabs thrown in. I thank panelist Sara J. Henry for choosing to discuss Armstrong.

See you in Long Beach.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Sara J. Henry joins Team Detectives Beyond Borders for Bouchercon 2014 panel

Sara J. Henry has joined the "Beyond Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane: Lesser Known Writers of the Pulp and Paperback Eras" panel that I'll moderate at Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach, Calif.

Sara is the author of the novels Learning to Swim and A Cold and Lonely Place, the latter of which will be up for the best-novel Anthony Award at Bouchercon. For my panel, she'll discuss Lester Dent, the prolific principal author of Doc Savage, with a few remarks about Charlotte Armstrong, whose A Dram of Poison won the best-novel Edgar Award in 1957.

I met Sara at Bouchercon 2008 in Baltimore, where she made her first big crime-fiction splash when everyone but me mistook her for Sarah Weinman. That's why I'm especially tickled that Sarah Weinman will also be on the panel. (Get a sneak peak at Sara and Sarah here, and see what all the confusion was about.)

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Beyond Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane: Lesser Known Writers of the Pulp and Paperback Eras happens at 3 p.m., Friday, Nov. 14, at the Hyatt Regency, Long Beach. Not everyone on the panel is named Sara or Sarah, spent formative years in Ontario, or is haunted by a crime-fiction doppelganger. Max Allan Collins, Charles Kelly, and Gary Phillips will also take part. 

© Peter Rozovsky 2014