Location. Location? Location! with questions for readers

I'm reading a location-based collection of stories and, by coincidence, the first three stories I read illustrate three approaches to location in crime stories (other genres, too, I imagine).

One of the stories, and not a bad one, laid the tourism touch on a bit heavily, I thought, name-checking well-known locations with just the slightest whiff of the guidebook. A second, a fine story, was a bit more subtle in its invocation of setting but, as good as the story was, it would have worked just as well set in any number of other places. A third story, the best of the lot, to my mind, made superb use of its setting's unique features. The author could have written a similar story and set it elsewhere but, more than is the case with the other two, it would have been a different story.

 Now, your thoughts on setting, please. What novels or stories simply could not be set anywhere else? What novels or stories that emphasize their settings could, nonetheless, work if transplanted to a new location?  What, in other words, does setting mean to you? What constitutes good setting in fiction, crime fiction or otherwise? 

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The book illustrated at the upper right of this post is Maxim Jakubowski's Following the Detectives: Real Locations in Crime Fiction, to which I contributed chapters on Andrea Camilleri's Sicily and Arnaldur Indriðason's Iceland. Arnaldur's novels are more intimately (and literally, in some cases) rooted in their settings than any others I know. What authors do you say are most inextricably bound up with their settings?

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

Crimefest memories: Mike Hodges on how to make a classic movie for £7,000

Ted Lewis' great crime novel Get Carter (along with the rest of Lewis' work) is or soon will be back in print and easily available, thanks to those good people at Syndicate Books/Soho Press.  Five years ago, at Crimefest 2010 in Bristol, England, I had the chance to meet Mike Hodges, who directed the excellent and influential movie version of Get Carter. (This is one in an occasional series of blog posts about Crimefests past and present leading up to Crimefest 2015, which takes place May 14-17.)

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Seven thousand pounds. That's how much money Mike Hodges made for writing and directing Get Carter, the classic 1971 hit-man movie starring Michael Caine, and not a penny more.

Hodges made that surprising statement during Friday's pre-screening conversation with Maxim Jakubowski at Bristol's Arnolfini cultural center. He also said the many humorous touches in the otherwise bleak tale encouraged him in the making of his 1972 follow-up, Pulp: "I really thought I would like to hear laughter."

Hodges said after a panel discussion today that yes, there had been pressure from producers and other heavies to have Michael Caine's title character walk away at the end of Get Carter. But Hodges resisted, and Carter gets— but you'll have to watch the movie to see what happens.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Following the Detectives is in my hands!

I can't review a book to which I contributed, but I can say that Following the Detectives: Real Locations in Crime Fiction manages the neat trick of offering information beyond the ostensible range of its subjects.

The book's core is twenty-one essays, each about a single fictional detective and the real city, country or region where he or she works. One of my assignments was Arnaldur Indriðason's Iceland, for instance, but a full-page insert tells the reader about Arnaldur's fellow Icelandic crime writer Yrsa Sigurðardóttir as well. That sort of efficient conveyance of information is a good idea for a book whose other crime-fiction destinations include London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles. Pretty hard to squeeze all the fictional detectives who call any of those cities home into a single essay.

The extras include maps, graphics, information boxes, guides to television and movie adaptations, walking tours, useful Web sites and, as an accompaniment to my essay on Andrea Camilleri, remarks on the history of Sicilian cuisine with explanations of some of Salvo Montalbano's favorite dishes. Pappanozza. Just the sound of it makes me hungry.

Here's a list of contributors and their fictional destinations:

Boston: Michael Carlson
Brighton: Barry Forshaw
Chicago: Dick Adler and Maxim Jakubowski
Dublin: Declan Burke
Edinburgh: Barry Forshaw
Florida: Oline Cogdill
Iceland: Your humble blogkeeper
London: David Stuart Davies
Los Angeles: Maxim Jakubowski
New Orleans: Maxim Jakubowski
New York City: Sarah Weinman
Nottingham: John Harvey
Oxford: Martin Edwards
Paris: Barry Forshaw
San Francisco: J. Kingston Pierce
Shropshire: Martin Edwards
Sicily: Your humble blogkeeper
Southern California: Michael Carlson
Sweden: Barry Forshaw
Venice: Barry Forshaw
Washington, D.C.: Sarah Weinman

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Order Following the Detectives here (free shipping!), from the publisher, here, here, or from an independent bookseller in the UK or Canada.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

A taste of Following the Detectives

Following the Detectives has taken another step closer to tangible reality: A selection is available for browsing online. Someone put a lot of effort into the book, and it looks good: lavishly illustrated, with useful reference maps and attractive graphics and photos. Alert readers will also spot my name in the table of contents.

The book, assembled by Maxim Jakubowski and issued by New Holland Publishers in the UK, is a travel guide to crime fiction's world, a collection of essays about fictional detectives and the cities, countries and regions where they work and live.

Barry Forshaw contributed, as did Martin Edwards, John Harvey, Sarah Weinman, the Rap Sheet's J. Kingston Pierce, Michael Carlson, Declan Burke, Dick Adler, Jakubowski himself, Oline Cogdill, David Stuart Davies, and me, writing about Andrea Camilleri's Sicily and Arnaldur Indriðason's Iceland.

Here's the blurb:

Whether it be the London of Sherlock Holmes or the Ystad of the Swedish Wallander, Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco or Donna Leon's Venice, the settings chosen by crime fiction authors have helped those writers to bring their fictional investigators to life and to infuse their writing with a sense of danger and mystery. "Following the Detectives" follows the trail of over 20 of crime fiction's greatest investigators, discovering the cities and countries in which they live and work ... allowing the reader to follow Inspector Morse's footsteps through the college squares of Oxford or while away hours in a smoky Parisian cafe frequented by Inspector Maigret, for example.

Following the Detectives. It's the perfect solution to your gift-giving needs.

(Hat tip to fellow contributor Martin Edwards.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

We are the world (of crime fiction)

My advance copy of Following The Detectives: Real Locations in Crime Fiction (right) is on the way; you can pre-order yours at bookstores and computer terminals near you.

Maxim Jakubowski edited this collection of essays about fictional detectives and the cities and countries where they work and live. I contributed chapters on Andrea Camilleri's Sicily and Arnaldur Indriðason's Iceland, but I'm just a sixth-magnitude star in a coruscating firmament of crime-fiction luminaries that includes authors, critics, commentators and men and women about the international crime-fiction scene such as:

• Martin Edwards
• John Harvey
• Barry Forshaw
• Sarah Weinman
• Declan Burke
• J. Kingston Pierce
• Jakubowski himself
• And more.

Only 140 shopping days until Christmas, should you wish to order the book here (free shipping!), from the publisher, here, here, or from an independent bookseller in the UK or Canada.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Paris Noir

1) This is not Akashic Books' Paris Noir. That book appeared in 2008. This Paris Noir appeared in 2oo7, published by Serpent's Tail, edited by Maxim Jakubowski.

2) Michael Moorcock's story may be my entree into fantasy and alternative history. Its science-fiction aspect didn't do much for me, but the imitation of continental detective dialogue is dead on, and the references to the story's alternative history is unobtrusive enough to get a reader wondering and speculating without hitting him over the head.

3) Dominque Manotti's (or visit her Web site, in French, here) and Jean-Hugues Oppel's contributions are terse, cutting, and politically aware, in a manner that I am coming to think of as typically French.

4) When is someone going to publish a collection of Scott Phillips' short stories?

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Get Hodges

The deadpan narration of Watching the Wheels Come Off reminds me of Clive Owen's deadpan voiceovers in Mike Hodges' 1998 movie Croupier.

No surprise there, perhaps. Hodges, who began his movie career directing Get Carter in 1971, published Watching the Wheels ... , his first novel at age 77 and one of the first two titles from Maxim Jakubowski's Max Crime imprint.

I don't quite know why, but I find passages like this beguiling:

Alone, in a long black dress on a tall black bar stool, sits Ursula Letts. Everything about her, from the cut of her hair to the shape of her shoes, radiates style and originality. Even the stigma of a lazy right eye suits her quirky style. Ursula is a primary-school teacher. She also has the dubious honor of being Mark's childhood sweetheart and very first lover. Unfortunately for her, the affair won't quite lie down and die.

It's an odd story involving a faded seaside resort, a plucky public relations man who lives in his office, a fascistic cult leader, a down-at-the-heels detective, and a latter-day Houdini who, at the point I have reached, has vanished into the ocean chained in a trunk.

Here are two more bits I've liked:

He picks up the evil-looking burger. "Jesus, it couldn't be more dangerous than this."

He thinks about taking another bite but decides against it. Instead, he watches Ursula walk out of his life. The waitress moves in to clear the table.

"Anything else?"

"Yes, penicillin."

and

When conferences began to replace communities, every seaside resort in the country built a centre for them. These centres, with the greedy fingerprints of local burghers all over them, were inevitably portentous, ugly and erected on a prime location where nobody could ignore them. ... Conferences make the world go round or, more exactly, give the appearance of making it go around. Like careousels, things tend to end up pretty much where they started.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Detectives between covers

Maxim Jakubowski, that man of exquisite sensibilities and wearer of many crime-fiction hats, is putting me in a book.

Following the Detectives, out from London's New Holland Publishers this fall, is a collection of essays about cities and regions around the world and the fictional detectives who bring them to life. I wrote the essays on Arnaldur Indriðason's Iceland and Andrea Camilleri's Sicily, and let me tell you, that was not the most onerous work I've ever had to do. My fellow contributors include a bunch of people you ought to know, read and admire:

Boston: Michael Carlson
Brighton: Barry Forshaw
Chicago: Dick Adler and Maxim Jakubowski
Dublin: Declan Burke
Edinburgh: Barry Forshaw
Florida: Oline Cogdill
London: David Stuart Davies
Los Angeles: Maxim Jakubowski
New Orleans: Maxim Jakubowski
New York City: Sarah Weinman
Nottingham: John Harvey
Oxford: Martin Edwards
Paris: Barry Forshaw
San Francisco: J. Kingston Pierce
Shropshire: Martin Edwards
Southern California: Michael Carlson
Sweden: Barry Forshaw
Venice: Barry Forshaw
Washington, D.C.: Sarah Weinman

A dummy and sample pages will be on view at the London Book Fair next month, should you happen to be in the neighborhood, and Maxim says the book will be out in early autumn. Your Christmas shopping just got easier.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

CrimeFest, Day III, Part II: Appetizers, dinner and dessert

Donna Moore, Declan Burke, Cara Black and Paul Johnston's panel called "Natural-Born Killers: Maxim's Picks" (the name honored moderator Maxim Jakubowski) took meandering paths with brief stops at several interesting destinations.

Moore recalled her childhood admiration for the Nancy Drew books, for the heroine, her handsome boyfriend, her fun friends and young Nancy's car. But then, she said, "I actually read one a few years ago and decided Nancy Drew was a bit of a whiner, her boyfriend was pathetic, and her friends were neurotic. I still liked the car, though." Perhaps you won't be surprised that Moore's first novel, Go to Helena Handbasket, pokes fun at every crime-fiction cliche Moore could think of.

Burke's comment that "I'm fascinated by the power of the Internet and what it can do" sparked a discussion of that medium's potential, both good and bad, for writers and publishers. Burke works hard to exploit that potential, both in his own fiction and as keeper of the Crime Always Pays blog. If Ken Bruen and Colin Bateman are godfathers to the current wave of Irish crime fiction, Burke is the godfather of Irish crime blogging, so he knows what he's talking about. Still, the discussion was leavened by a bracing sense of dread and blissfully free of the wifty optimism (pure shite, really) that can infect discussions of consumer technology.

I also quite liked Johnston's comment on writing about a country where one lives but is not a native: "That book I wrote about terrorism in Greece, I don't think a Greek could have written."

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The baked cod at the gala dinner in the King's Room was more than acceptable, accompanied by waves of ecstatic verbiage to my left, and graceful acknowledgment to my right. The former came from Ali Karim, world's most voluble booster of Stieg Larsson (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire). The latter came from Reg Keeland, the books' English translator.

Each guest of honor (Simon Brett, Håkan Nesser, Andrew Taylor) gave a short, funny, speech, joyously irreverent of the proceedings. My favorite of the three was Taylor's deconstruction of the prizes he'd been given for each of his many Dagger awards from the Crime Writers' Association. Fook, the gent is twisted.

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As a rule, the reporters' notebooks shut when the hotel bar opens. Still, I can't resist mentioning Kevin Wignall's scintillating impersonation of Marlon Brando as the Godfather, cut short only when Wignall almost swallowed one of the napkins he'd stuffed in his cheeks.

As always, view the complete CrimeFest program here.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

A critical question for readers

A week and a half ago, I quoted Joe Gores' praise of Michael Gilbert's dapper but deadly fictional spies, Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. Gores' thumbs-up appears in a useful collection called 100 Great Detectives, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and winner of an Anthony Award for best critical work in 1992.

Another entry in the book, Peter Robinson's, shines an illuminating light on Georges Simenon's Maigret, demonstrating in the process that criticism need not be diffuse, obscurantist, frivolous or incomprehensible. Robinson writes:

"H.R.F. Keating has noted that the Maigret stories represent the first examples of the detective as writer. Part of this clearly stems from Maigret's desire to understand human motivation and his need to soak up the atmosphere of a place and immerse himself in a complex mesh of relationships until the solution to the crime becomes clear. Simenon's plots are often flimsy or far-fetched, and Maigret's actual detective work can be minimal at times. What makes the books so absorbing is his empathy with the characters he encounters ... " (Highlighting is mine.)

What can I say except that the man is right and that his comments say much about why we read crime fiction.

As it happens, crime-fiction reviewers come in for some criticism on Crime Scraps this week, where a comment laments the shakiness of the Telegraph's recent list of 50 crime writers to read before you die. The commenter complains that:

"With the odd exception — Marcel Berlins, e.g. — reviewers are stringers or staff with a passing interest and without knowledge either wide or deep of the genre, nor of what, in literary terms, constitutes fine writing. And they [don't] particularly care — after all, it's just crime fiction. Today we have no Julian Symons, no Harry Keating, no Jacques Barzun, and that is a very unhappy thing."

That's another bouquet for H.R.F. Keating. Now, how about you, readers? Who's your favorite crime-fiction critic? What remarks about crime fiction have made you stroke your chin thoughtfully and muse, "Hmm, that's right."?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008