The books my Bouchercon panelists die for

Five members of panels I'll moderate at Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach next month contributed to Books to Die For, John Connolly and Declan Burke's 2012 collection of essays by crime writers about their own favorite crime novels and stories. Here's some of what my panelist/contributors had to say about the writers who influenced them:

"Dexter's books are essentially puzzles. He once said that he was as anxious for the detective to manage without a pathology lab as he was for the crossword puzzler to manage without a dictionary."

-- Paul Charles on Colin Dexter 

"For all the talk of Hammett and Chandler as the founders of the hard-boiled feasts--and I revere them as much as the next guy or gal--it's Spillane and [James M.] Cain who were the most influential."

-- Max Allan Collins on Mickey Spillane 

"As she grew more successful and confident, the humanity began to drain from her books. Most of us would not act like the unruffled, aloof Tom Ripley, but every one of us could see himself falling into the abyss of cowardice and mendacity that finally drives poor Guy Haines to kill."

-- Adrian McKinty on Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train 

"The greatest thing I've gained from Ellroy is the will to take my characters farther and deeper into the dark places than I, or the reader, might be comfortable with."

-- Stuart Neville on James Ellroy 

"This was not literature that uplifted the race. Cooper wasn't profiled in the pages of Ebony or, I imagine, discussed much, if at all, among the self-identified arts and literature crowd. The Urban League wouldn't be inviting him to speak at their annual dinner."

-- Gary Phillips on Clarence Cooper Jr.'s The Scene

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Paul Charles, Adrian McKinty and Stuart Neville will be part of my Belfast Noir: Stories of Mayhem and Murder from Northern Ireland panel at Bouchercon 2014 on Friday, Nov. 14, at 11:30 a.m.  Max Allan Collins and Gary Phillips will be part of my Beyond Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane: Lesser Known Writers of the Pulp and Paperback Eras panel Friday at 3 p.m..

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

More on Beaux-Arts, books, and bouncers (Ellroy, Paul Charles, Joseph Nazel)

Here's a bit on what I bought in the land of Beaux-Arts buildings and of bouncers who are not so much stupid as they are the very idea of stupidity given human form, thick in body, thicker in mind, the kind who would be rejected for the role of a bouncer in a movie because they go a little over the top. (About the only thing to be said in favor of last night's specimen is that he did not wear a pony tail.)

1. James Ellroy has said he no longer writes crime novels, yet I bought his new book at a crime fiction bookstore, Mysterious Bookshop, where, furthermore, Ellroy will appear next week. The novel's jacket copy makes the story sound an awful lot like a murder mystery, albeit with the grand historical sweep of Ellroy's recent books.
2. 
   Paul Charles' The Beautiful Sounds of Silence, my first novel in this Northern Ireland crime writer's Christy Kennedy series, looks set to take up a gruesome case with a degree of amused detachment. The opening chapter avoids the extremes of trivializing the crime with humor on the one hand and wallowing in its horror on the other. Charles says his inspiration for writing crime fiction was Colin Dexter, creator of Inspector Morse. That's not a bad model.
3. 
   Joseph Nazel's Death For Hire arrived earlier in the week. A hard-hitting tale of black ghetto life in 1970s Los Angeles from an author and editor who also wrote biographies of respected African American historical figures, the novel has its good guys and bad guys, glorifying none, but with a measure of understanding for all. Los Angeles author Gary Phillips discusses Nazel and other Holloway House authors in an article on black pulp fiction at criminal element.com.

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Paul Charles will be part of my Belfast Noir: Stories of Mayhem and Murder from Northern Ireland panel at Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach, California, at 11:30 a.m, Friday, Nov. 14.

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Gary Phillips will discuss Joseph Nazel as part of my panel on Beyond Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane: Lesser Known Writers of the Pulp and Paperback Eras, on Friday at 3.p.m.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Colin Dexter on Sjöwall, Wahlöö, and Swedish sex

I've just has a couple of beers and a plate of fish and chips at my local, and I'm ready for a snooze, so I'll let Colin Dexter do the honors for today.

Dexter is yet another of the current crime authors who wrote introductions to the (relatively) recent editions of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's Martin Beck mysteries (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard in the U.S., Harper Perennial in the U.K., at least in paperback).

The Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969) came fifth in the series and, writes Dexter, "My first preconception was that this husband-and-wife team, with a political stance well to the left, had become rather too bitterly cynical in the sixties and seventies of what they saw as the betrayal of many of their Socialist ideas and ideals."

We took care of that here two weeks ago; Detectives Beyond Borders readers know that strong political sensibilities do not preclude acute observation and sensitive, entertaining storytelling.

We also know about Sjöwall and Wahlöö's wit, though I am pleased to add such a distinguished witness for the defense as Dexter against the canard that Scandinavians aren't funny. "What struck me" about The Fire Engine That Disappeared, writes Inspector Morse's creator, "was the gently underplayed humour of the writing."

One of Dexter's preconceptions involved Ed McBain's influence on Sjöwall and Wahlöö, and I'll save that matter for another post. Another was his belief that anything coming out of Sweden in the 1960s must be saturated with explicit sex.

Instead, he writes, "Sex plays only a very small part in the novel; and what sex we do find is handled with an almost serene simplicity." And if that isn't a beautifully sane (and accurate) assessment, I don't know what is.

Thanks, Colin; and goodnight, readers.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011