Sights and sounds of crime fiction

Sarah Weinman. Photo by Peter Rozovsky

Erik Arneson has uploaded three podcasts (Parts 1, 2, and 3) of the Noir at the Bar readings for which I was MC at Noircon 2014. Readers include Duane Swierczynski, Sarah Weinman, Jonathan Woods, Jon McGoran, and Arneson himself, who weighs in with a killer cat story.

Erik Arneson. Photo
by Peter Rozovsky

I introduced the authors and shot pictures of them as they read.

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Photo by Peter Rozovsky

Over at the Off the Cuff Web site, meanwhile, Dietrich Kalteis and Martin J. Frankson get crowded, bringing in authors Samantha J. Wright and Sam Wiebe for a discussion of short stories and debut novels.  Once again, Dietrich illustrates the post with one of my shadowy shots, this one a late-afternoon view outside an exhibition hall at Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach.
© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Noir at the Bar @Noircon

Sarah Weinman

A few photos I snapped at Wednesday evening's Noir at the Bar, MC'd by the guy who started Noir at the Bar (me), and featuring a roster of twelve readers that included four from the original Noir at the Bar gang, from back in 2008.

Jon McGoran

The evening was part of NoirCon 2014, that other great crime fiction happening that started in Philadelphia. (I think of the two as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutional Convention of crime fiction.)

Jonathan Woods

More to come!

Oh, and %^%$! Jed Ayres and ^&*$#! Scott Phillips.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

NoirCon 2014 is almost here // Noir at the Bar comes back home

I'll be part of another con before Bouchercon, the fourth incarnation of the event that introduced me to the joys of the con, Philadelphia's own Noircon.

This year's event happens Oct. 30-Nov. 2, and it has a more international flavor than the versions in 2008, 2010, and 2012, including several authors who will be part of my Bouchercon panels two weeks later in Long Beach. Stuart Neville will be here. So will Paul Charles, who will join Stuart, Adrian McKinty, and Gerard Brennan on my Bouchercon "Belfast Noir" panel.  Sarah Weinman and Charles Kelly will be here, sharpening their oratorical skills for their appearances on my "Beyond Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane: Lesser Known Writers of the Pulp and Paperback Eras" panel in Long Beach.

The gang from Soho Press is coming to Noircon to receive awards. The delegation will include author Fuminori Nakamura and Paul Oliver, whose current reissues of Ted "Get Carter" Lewis' novels are an event of high importance to noir readers. Trust me: You want to read these books.

I'll be doing my part by MC'ing a NoirCon edition of Noir at the Bar as N@theB returns to the city where I staged the very first ones in 2008.    The list of readers includes several of the original Noir at the Bar authors and moderators, so here's a special thank you to Duane Swierczynski, Jon McGoran (who set this event up), Dennis Tafoya, and Sarah Weinman. Welcome back.

NoirCon 2008 was my first convention, my first chance to meet authors and others in the profession. It's where I met Ken Bruen and Christa Faust and Scott Phillips and Sarah Weinman and Reed Farrel Coleman and Ed Pettit and Charles Ardai and Megan Abbott and more, and not just met them, but hung out with them and talked with them. The experience was so much fun that I signed up for that year's Bouchercon almost immediately, and the rest is history. 

NoirCon: Because Not Everything Great That Started in Philadelphia Was Run By Guys Who Have Their Faces on Money.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Poor Boy's Game: Dennis Tafoya reads

(Photo courtesy of Jon McGoran)

That's Dennis Tafoya at the far right, reading from his new novel The Poor Boy's Game, in New Hope, Pa.,  and me just to the left of the author's head, appearing to be ignoring him, but really just acting fast to keep my steak sandwich from leaping off the plate.

I suggested a few years ago that Tafoya, along with authors such as John McFetridge, David Corbett, and Wallace Stroby, might constitute a school of crime writers who "share certain features: yearning emotion, stories at least as wistful as they are tragic, and empathy with characters whatever their orientation on the legal or even moral compass." and here's part of what I wrote when I first ran into The Poor Boy's Game.

Hear Tafoya and Jon McGoran read, this Thursday at 6:30 p.m., at Mysterious Bookshop in New York. Support good authors and independent bookshops.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Noir at the Bar II: Counteracting the C.S.I. effect

Back in January, I wrote about the excruciating experience of being trapped in front of a big screen showing Law & Order: Special Victims Unit at a pizzeria, and the ordeal had nothing to do with the pizza, which was fine. Rather, my agita was induced by the show's massive information dumps, the scenes in which crime-scene investigators spout facts rather than talk like real people.

That's why I was pleased to host Jonathan McGoran at this evening's Noir at the Bar reading in Philadelphia. Under the pen name D.H. Dublin, McGoran writes carefully researched forensic thrillers, but he never forgets that his job is to tell a story, and that stories are about people.

His series about Philadelphia forensic investigator Madison Cross, now up to three books, adopts the clever strategy of following Cross from the beginning of her police career. This, McGoran says, lets the reader learn along with her. In practical terms, it means there is little need for the globby blocks of story-stopping information that make forensic TV shows hard to watch.

McGoran, while acknowledging that his novels are in essence police procedurals, said he hates the word procedural because it reminds him too much of manual, "something I'd get with my microwave." That's another indicator of the human touch he brings to his work and another indicator that forensic, scientific crime fiction can have heart, and not just severed body parts.

Why not make this a question to readers? What writers manage to make difficult, highly technical, potentially dry material interesting? How do they do this?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008
Technorati tags:
Jonathan McGoran
D.H. Dublin

Noir at the Bar this Sunday

Celebrate America tomorrow; celebrate crime fiction on Sunday at Noir at the Bar II with:

Jonathan McGoran

writing as D.H. Dublin and reading from and answering questions about his latest novel, Freezer Burn

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"Come for the crime fiction; stay for the fried candy bars."

Where: The Tritone1508 South St., Philadelphia, PA
215-545-0475http://www.tritonebar.com

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Noir at the Bar II

With the first Noir at the Bar reading safely in the can, Detectives Beyond Borders is pleased to present Noir at the Bar II on Sunday, July 6. This second crime-fiction event at Philadelphia's Tritone bar will feature Jonathan McGoran, who, under the name D.H. Dublin, has written three forensic thrillers published by Penguin.

The novels feature Philadelphia forensic investigator Madison Cross, and McGoran lends his sometimes grim subject matter a human touch by following Cross from the beginning of her career as a crime-scene technician. This, McGoran says, lets the reader learn along with her. And the reader just may learn quite a lot. One reviewer wrote that "If you are tired of all the unrealistic CSI shows and books and are looking for an author that delivers realistic crime scene and investigative procedures, D.H. Dublin is the author you are seeking. "

The Noir at the Bar reading should be especially enjoyable because McGoran does a terrific job with his characters' voices. varying them enough to keep things interesting without, however, going over the top. He also has a tendency to giggle at the gory parts, which lends his readings an unexpectedly delightful and macabre touch.

So, if you're anywhere in the Northeastern United States a week from Sunday, drop in to the Tritone. Come for the reading, stay for the music, the mahi-mahi burgers, and the fried Mars bars.

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Who: Jonathan McGoran a.k.a. D.H. Dublin
Where: The Tritone
1508 South Street Philadelphia, PA
215-545-0475

“Cool bar. Great food. The most diverse music venue in Philly”

When: Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 6 p.m.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008Technorati tags:
Jonathan McGoran
D.H. Dublin

NoirCon 2008 podcasts

Or is that NoirCast 2008 podcons?

Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards, whose cyber-noir panel at NoirCon explored exciting new ways to think about, publish and broadcast noir, have begun posting their podcasts of the convention at Out of the Past and Behind the Black Mask. So far, they've posted on-the-street and in-the-theater interviews, including Ken Bruen and Gary Phillips, and talks with members of the George Lippard, Philly noir and editors and publishers panels.

Their format is simple but effective: After each panel discussion, Clute and Edwards snatched a member or two for an interview about the panel. The segments are no mere TV-style sound bites. The interview subjects go into considerable depth about the issues the panels had raised.

I was there for the discussions, and I still enjoyed Clute and Edwards with panelists William Lashner and Jon McGoran on why Philadelphia is a great city for crime writers. Civic boosters might not like what the interviewees had to say, though, which buttresses another notion floating about the conference: that noir is and should be a subversive genre.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008