Bouchercon 2013 panels: Keeping it fresh, the Dana King edition

Here's a recycled post about how one of my Bouchercon 2013 panelists keeps things fresh. Such a question may be especially relevant on a panel that will discuss the tradition-encrusted genres of noir and hard-boiled fiction. The author in question, Dana King, may well have such matters on his mind already; he'll also appear at one of Bouchercon's new Author's Choice sessions, discussing “Is Chandler' s Concept of the Ideal Hero Still Relevant?”

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I write occasionally about how crime writers keep established sub-genres such as P.I. or spy stories fresh (here, here, here).

Dana King's Wild Bill makes a running theme of one such example: FBI organized-crime agents' complaints that their resources are being depleted by another, more headline-grabbing priority:

“Rumor had it he had his eye on moving to an upcoming counterterrorism task force that could be a career maker, organized crime too Twentieth Century for him.”

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“`Frank Ferraro might be the most dangerous criminal in the country. The only reason he’s not on the Most Wanted list is because he shaves and doesn’t wear a rag on his head.'”

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“`About half our resources will be assigned to counterterrorism.'”

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“`Careers are easier to make in counterterrorism than in OC.'”

That's some canny updating by King, a forceful case that gangster stories are still relevant, and another of the pleasures of this impressive book. Now I'll ask you once again: How do your favorite crime writers keep well-established sub-genres fresh, relevant, and contemporary?

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Dana King will be part of my "Goodnight, My Angel: Hard-Boiled, Noir, and the Reader's Love Affair With Both" panel at Bouchercon 2013 in Albany on Friday, Sept. 20, at 10:20 a.m. 

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Long as I can see the leitmotif: Recurring themes that lend texture to crime novels

Some time ago discussion here at Detectives Beyond Borders turned to those recurring snippets of dialogue or description that do so much to create a novel's feeling or texture.  I enjoyed the conversation, and not just because I got to use the word leitmotif.

Among my recent reading, Dana King's fine mob novel Wild Bill made great play of its FBI agents' worry that their specialty — organized crime — got short shrift in the bureau in favor of counterterrorism, the menace of the moment. More recently, Adrian McKinty's I Hear the Sirens in the Street is shot through with references to emigration from Northern Ireland in the early 1980s, the time and place of the novel's setting, invoked even when a suitcase turns up with body parts in it. (The suitcase's vendor can't remember having sold that particular item because so many people are buying luggage to pack for their permanent trips away.)

Leitmotifs in fiction are more than quirks, less than plot elements. A leitmotif should, according to a definition of leitmotifs' use in music, be "clearly identified so as to retain its identity if modified on subsequent appearances." Used well, it indicates an author in control of his or her material, with a firm idea of what kind of story he or she wants to tell. Leitmotifs might not come to mind right away if someone asks you what happens in a given novel, but they are part of what a novel is about, part of the world it creates.

What are your favorite leitmotifs, or recurring themes, in crime novels? What do they add? And are leitmotifs a necessary part of a good story? Why? Why not?

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Dana King and I

Dana King has long been a friend of Detectives Beyond Borders, a loyal reader and occasional commenter I've known since he was still in short pants at his first Bouchercon in 2008. Back in 2009, he even interviewed me on his blog, One Bite at a Time.

These days he's a two-time novelist, and I'm happy to report that his Wild Bill is the most fun I've had with a mob story since I last read Charlie Stella.  The link is apt; Stella has nice things to say about King's work, and King thanks Stella in the acknowledgments to his other book, Worst Enemies.

If you like Stella's writing, as I do, you'll likely like King's. Each writes books that follow parallel groups of characters, mob and police/FBI. Each uses multiple viewpoints, creating sympathy for characters good and bad. King's fiction is slightly more violent than Stella's; Stella's offers slightly more humor. But really, each is great fun, and I can picture the two writers as older and younger brothers, each slapping the other in the head as he tries to negotiate a forkful of steaming pasta.

Here's a brief example from Wild Bill, beguiling in its straightforward simplicity:

"You can't call someone who might put an ice pick in your ear a friend."

Can't argue with that. Now, goodnight. I have some reading to do.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012