Archive for the ‘Message from M.A.C.’ Category

Fruitcake and the Bobby Darin Musical

Tuesday, May 6th, 2025
Death by Fruitcake Banner

For those of you within traveling distance, this is a reminder that Death By Fruitcake will have its Quad Cities premiere at the Last Picture House in Davenport, Iowa, this coming Friday, May 9, at 7 p.m. Stars Paula Sands, a superstar broadcaster in this part of the world, and Rob Merritt, one of the most popular Iowa-based actors, will be on hand. So will I and Barb and producer/d.p./editor Chad Bishop.

As I’ve mentioned here previously, the Last Picture House is a terrific boutique venue (two screens) with a bar out front and classic framed movie posters hanging everywhere. It’s the brainchild of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the Quad Cities filmmakers who have achieved fantastic success with A Quiet Place, 65 and The Heretic, among others.

We are in discussion with several possible distributors and hope to have Death By Fruitcake (based on the “Barbara Allan” Trash ‘n’ Treasures/Antiques novels) on a streaming service for holiday season. (Our Blue Christmas is on Tubi right now.)

* * *

Something has been on my mind, nagging at me, which means I should probably risk boring you by discussing it here.

As anyone who knows me at all well – from those who went to school with me to audience members of my two rock bands to co-workers and readers of my work – know of the three obsessions that have followed me through much of my life. First came Dick Tracy, which I somehow managed to become the second writer of. Finally came Mickey Spillane, who I incredibly got to know personally and became his collaborator, both during and after his lifetime.

In between came Bobby Darin.

Music – popular music, chiefly rock ‘n’ roll and show tunes – was always a major part of my life. My father, for the first ten years of his professional life, was a high school music teacher of surprising renown and the director of a male chorus that won national honors. Our living room was often filled with students and local citizens rehearsing for my father’s various productions. As I’ve said here before, he directed the first high school performances of Oklahoma and Carousel (at least according to family legend and the Des Moines Register).

I saw Elvis debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. The first 45 record I owned, at probably nine or ten, was “Don’t Be Cruel.” Pat Boone led me to Little Richard. Throughout my adolescence and teen years, I spent my allowance on crime fiction paperbacks (Spillane, Hammett, Chandler, McBain) and 45 and LP records – soundtracks, Broadway shows, rock ‘n’ roll. I saw the Beatles in their first appearance (all of their appearances, actually) on Ed Sullivan. On Ed Sullivan I later saw Vanilla Fudge doing “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and have never been quite the same since.

Anyway, Bobby Darin.

As a pre-adolescent, I had liked “Splish Splash” and “Dream Lover” on the radio, but can’t say Darin hooked me any more than other pop/rock performers. This is likely because I hadn’t caught him on a TV show in live performance. Not until I saw him do “Mack the Knife” on Ed Sullivan. And that really changed my life.

This convergence of crime fiction and pop music sent me flying from the house on my Schwinn bike to go the record shop and buy the “Mack” 45.

I became a devoted collector of Darin’s records, tracking down his early, unsuccessful Decca singles (which didn’t sound much like him, frankly). For Christmas, shortly after my enthusiasm for Darin began, my parents gave me his album That’s All, which remains his definitive album, with both “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea” on it. He would have been 23 years old.

What appealed about Darin to a kid in Iowa? Robert Walden Cassato (Barb and I named our chief-of-police character, Tony Cassato, in the Antiques books after him) had been a sickly but cocky Bronx kid. All I had in common with him was music and a certain cockiness grown out of insecurity. Only years later did I learn Darin had been born with the same heart valve issue I had, and that he’d overheard a doctor telling his mother (well, she was his grandmother, really, but never mind) that he’d be lucky to make it to eighteen.

That explains a lot about him. It’s why he told Life magazine he wanted to be a legend by 25. It’s why he jumped from rock ‘n’ roll to big-band swing with stops along the way to the end of his 37 years of living at country-rock, r & b, traditional folk, folk-rock, British Invasion rock, and Dylanesque protest music.

He died on the operating table having the same operation I survived.

So I feel a closeness with this great artist – this single performer who mastered every form of popular music he touched to where if he were the only 20th Century recording artist whose work remained, you’d still have a good picture of what popular music in that century had been. Did I mention he was a first-rate actor, who was Academy Award-nominated, and who co-starred in some terrific movies, including Hell Is For Heroes and Pressure Point? And some Doris Day/Rock Hudson type fluff with his then-wife Sandra Dee?

When he died, little was written about him in the press. The much more minor Jim Croce died around the same time and was lionized. As Kurt Vonnegut said, so it goes. But every now and then something pops up in the culture to give Darin at least a mini-renaissance. A song of his will wind up on TV or in a movie – “Splish Splash” on Sesame Street, “Mack the Knife” appropriated by McDonald’s, “If I Were a Carpenter” (among others) on The Sopranos, “Work Song” on Severance.

The now-cancelled Kevin Spacey’s bio pic, Beyond the Sea, underrated but doomed because of the disparity between lead actor and age of the subject, nonetheless sparked renewed Darin interest. Spacey also did concerts in tribute to Darin – I saw one and it was very good. But anything Spacey touched seems tarnished now. People can’t separate art from artist, but that’s another discussion.

Anyway, Darin’s immense talent and his catalogue of songs (many of which he wrote himself) have kept him popping up in the public eye. Now there’s a Broadway show, Just in Time, with the gifted Jonathan Groff playing Darin.

Travel is less appealing to me, these days (I think that’s true for a lot of people, particularly older ones); but when I heard about this production, I immediately started looking in to making an NYC trip to see what promised to be a terrific production.

From what I’ve seen in excerpts on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and on YouTube, it looks to be very entertaining. The Circle in the Square theater has been transformed into a nightclub – the kind of venue that Darin owned as few performers every have (or ever will). The seating is bistro tables. Man, did I want to see that show.

I’ve changed my mind, at least somewhat. As skilled and talented a performer as Groff clearly is, he is – again, based on excerpts from the show – a performer with nothing much in common with Darin but talent and a big ego. And the show – I stress I’ve only been able to see the Colbert performance and perhaps half a dozen YouTube videos – appears to unintentionally patronize its subject.

When Groff appeared on Colbert, he entered through the audience — something Darin himself did from time to time, particularly on Dick Clark’s nighttime show – and began by saying that he wondered what Bobby Darin might say about the young artist playing him appearing in the same Ed Sullivan theater where Darin had performed “Beyond the Sea.” Then he delivers a punchline, imagining Darin saying, “Who’s the gay guy?”

That sums up what I find off-putting about Groff’s undeniably energetic performance: it’s about Groff, not Darin. That flip (but calculated) remark is so at odds with Darin, who was a progressive who wept in the rain at RFK’s graveside and did not have a prejudiced bone in his body, that I knew Just in Time would be about Groff, not BD.

To a large degree, that’s okay. But I’m uneasy when Groff goes into the audience, singing “Dream Lover” to a man and changing the lyric to, “Someday, I don’t know how, I hope he’ll hear my plea.” He is playing Jonathan Groff, not Bobby Darin.

When I heard people saying Groff is channeling Darin, I can only say, “Really, though? Is he?” I don’t expect him to channel Darin, and I don’t even think trying to do that is appropriate. It’s not meant to be an impression, after all. But there’s nothing in Groff’s approach that is reminiscent of Darin. At all. Darin managed to combine the brashness and swing of Sinatra with the casualness of Crosby or Dino. He exuded energy even as he seemed to toss off one song after another. Few artists have ever combined intensity with nonchalance in such a winning way.

The dancing, from Groff and the three back-up dancers, is aggressive and, yes, impressive…but robotic. All calisthenic, calculated, no grace. Bobby had respect for the show business legends that preceded him – he could soft-shoe with George Burns, he could pay tribute to George M. Cohen, he could trade quips with Bob Hope. And he could then go on the Midnight Special and sit at the piano and tear through a medley including “Splish Splash” that would impress Jerry Lee Lewis.

Again – I have only seem excerpts. Maybe Groff does all this. But I am troubled by a video clip of Groff doing “My First Real Love,” the ballad Darin wrote for one of the several loves of his life, Connie Francis, as performed by fellow Just in Time cast member, Gracie Lawrence. Both are very good, but the performance is an over-the-top spoof – not just of the song, but of ‘50s rock in general. The band is solid. But they know jack shit about rock ‘n’ roll of the era they’re dabbling in, and patronizing.

Look, both Gracie Lawrence and Jonathan Groff just got Tony nominations. They no doubt deserve them. But when I said to Barb, “I don’t think we’re going to try to make it to New York for the Darin thing.” She said, “Good call. It would make you furious.”

Here’s Groff and Lawrence, and you may love it. I don’t, quite.

Here’s Bobby and Connie Francis.

And here is the real thing.

M.A.C.

Death by Fruitcake – A Quad Cities Premiere Showing!

Tuesday, April 29th, 2025

For those of you within driving distance, I wanted to let you know about several showings of our film, Death By Fruitcake, based upon the Antiques mystery series by “Barbara Allan” (my wife Barb and I). I directed and wrote (with Barb looking over my shoulder).

On May 9 we will have a Quad Cities premiere in Davenport, Iowa, at the Last Picture House with Paula Sands (Vivian Borne) and Rob Merritt (Chief Tony Cassato) in attendance and participating in a Q and A session after the screening. I will be there as well, as will co-producers Chad T. Bishop and Barbara Collins. So will other cast and crew members.

Here is how/where you can get tickets.

The Last Picture House is a terrific boutique theater masterminded by the Quiet Place team, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. This part of the world is very lucky to have this venue to enjoy film (including, from time to time, mine). And the generosity of these successful hometown filmmakers is much appreciated. (In my opinion, Heretic is their best yet.)


M.A.C., Bryan Woods, Scott Beck and Phil Dingeldein

Last November, we had two hometown screenings at the Palms Theater in Muscatine. These were very well-attended, but we had some audio problems that should not be an issue at the Last Picture House event. That said, Iowa’s Fridley movie chain has been most supportive, not just of our efforts but Iowa filmmakers in general. They are in particular supportive of the Iowa Motion Picture Association’s awards (I am a three-time past president of that association).

Producer Chad Bishop and I have selected clips for the five categories we’ve been nominated in for the Iowa Motion Picture Awards — Best Actress (Paula Sands), Best Actor (Rob Merritt), Best Supporting Actress (Alisabeth Von Presley), Best Direction (M.A.C.) and best Live Action Feature (Death by Fruitcake, of course).

These nominations each represent a shot at an award (there are two levels, Excellence and Achievement). The clips Chad and I selected will be shown with the other nominees at the Iowa Motion Picture Awards on Saturday May 31 at the Palms in Waukee (near Des Moines).

Also, as nominees, we’ve been selected by the IMPA to have Death by Fruitcake screened twice at the Fleur Theater in Des Moines — Friday 23 at 4:30 pm, and again on Wednesday 28 at 8 pm. Barb and I will be there for the Wed. 8 pm screening, and I’ll intro it and have a Q and A after — a few other cast and crew members will likely participate in the Q and A. Tickets are available here (for both performances).

In the meantime, we’re talking with several distributors in hopes of getting our film on one or more streaming service for the holiday season. This means the Davenport and Des Moines screenings may be the last opportunity to see Death By Fruitcake in a theatrical setting.

If you’d like to get a very early start on seasonal entertainment, our previous picture, Blue Christmas, is available now on Tubi, right here (free!)

Here’s a teaser trailer for Death By Fruitcake that our producer/editor/director of photography Chad Bishop put together.

And in case you missed it, the full-length trailer (and photos and more) can be seen at our IMDB page.

* * *

A gentle reminder that the complete True Noir: The Assassination of Mayor Cermak is available at Truenoir.co. Rob Burnett and Mike Bawden (and their Imagination Connoisseurs) have done right by Heller (and they started with my script for the ten-episode audio play).

M.A.C.

A McGinnis Cover! A Dream Come True…Plus True Noir!

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025

Robert E. McGinnis died recently at 99, and that was still way too damn soon.

Bob McGinnis I spoke to only once, though he paid me a great, generous kindness, which I have talked about here previously but will touch on again, below.

McGinnis was the prime illustrator of mystery/crime paperback covers of the 20th into the 21st Century, and also a major contributor to movie-poster art. There are other contenders to that throne – James Avati, Robert Maguire, Barye Phillips and half a dozen others – but McGinnis was the king. As J. Kingston Pierce said at Crime Reads a few years ago, “McGinnis has turned out well over 1,000 covers, including many for books by John D. MacDonald, Carter Brown, Edward S. Aarons, Erle Stanley Gardner, Brett Halliday, Ed McBain, and Max Allan Collins….(H)e’s also illustrated dozens of movie posters…from the James Bond films to Dean Martin’s Matt Helm flicks.”

I do not take lightly being on a list of noir mystery writers that includes the luminaries on the J. Kingston Pierce list. Nor do I exaggerate when I say I had hoped, as an adolescent wanting to be a mystery writer, that one day I might be lucky enough to have a book of mine with a McGinnis cover.

McGinnis only did a few covers for Mickey Spillane novels. Mickey had just about every top illustrator in the game adorn his books from time to time – Avati, Phillips, Lu Kimmel, James Meese among them. During the heyday of the paperback original, McGinnis was noted for his stunning covers for the Brett Halliday “Mike Shayne” reprints at Dell. Several foreign markets used Shayne covers for various Spillane titles.

Meanwhile, at the movies, McGinnis was doing one stunning poster after another for the James Bond series, particularly the early Sean Connery entries, which were the best of the Bond bunch (McGinnis did other Bond movies, too, including most of Roger Moore’s). But Bond wasn’t McGinnis’ only movie poster work – among other famous films, he did the poster art for Barbarella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (in addition to many others).

Poster Art for You Only Live Twice

I will repeat myself – I spoke of this not long ago here – but after Charles Ardai published the first two Nolan novels (Bait Money and Blood Money under one cover as Two for the Money), I said I preferred writing new novels for Hard Case Crime. Charles said the advances would have to be the same as the reprint rate, and I said, fine – just put a McGinnis cover on my novel. That was half-joking, because Two for the Money had a weak cover among the usually stellar covers of HCC novels. But Charles called my bluff and got McGinnis to do the cover for The Last Quarry, which initiated the return of that character to a whole new series of novels, a short film, a feature film and a TV series (one season, but that counts).

As I’ve also mentioned here previously, when I called Bob McGinnis (Charles put me in touch) to tell him how thrilled I was with the cover for The Last Quarry – that after a career filled with mostly serviceable covers at best, having a McGinnis cover was a dream come true. He repaid that compliment by gifting me the original art, which hangs on my office wall, just up to my right as I write this.

When the aforementioned Quarry TV show sparked renewed interest in the character, Charles wanted to get the five early novels out as a group; but Hard Case Crime is noted for its strong pulp-flavored covers, which you might reduce to “guns and girls,” a certain cheeky politically incorrectness attached to their retro cover art. Only Charles didn’t have time to assign five artists to get five cover paintings, done all at once, and cover paintings were key. And he preferred to have the same artist do all five for some continuity.

I suggested to Charles that he call Bob McGinnis and see if any paintings might be available – perhaps things he had done for other publishers years ago, the rights to which might have come back to him. Charles did this, and discovered that McGinnis had five appropriate unused paintings in his inventory, all with the flavor of the old Mike Shayne covers. These apparently were the only such unsold paintings that still existed.

Quarry Hard Case Crim cover

Charles snapped them up, and those Quarry novels all sport McGinnis covers as well as an inset image of Quarry plucked from Bob’s cover to The Last Quarry. In addition, three more of my novels (one of them a Spillane collaboration, The Consummata) have been blessed with McGinnis covers. I may have a record for mystery writers of my generation – ten Robert McGinnis covers on Max Allan Collins novels.

Astonishing.

One of the peculiarities of my association with Hard Case Crime is that Charles (and the folks at Titan, the parent company) will say “yes” to just a general idea of the book I have in mind to write. This means cover art gets assigned before the book is written. This happened twice with McGinnis covers – Quarry’s Choice and Quarry’s Climax – which had artwork come in before I’d written a page, and allowed me to write the women and the scenes McGinnis had imagined into the novels themselves.

That was an old pulp tradition that both Charles and I relished – a writer being handed a piece of art and asked to write a story around it. In his later years, McGinnis had a tendency to offer up slender, leggy beauties and that led to me including some women in my novels that varied from my standard blonde, Coke-bottle-waist bombshells (blame my beautiful blonde wife for that). The result was I had to work a little harder and be more creative, both good things.

I was blessed with one last McGinnis cover, when he painted a rather magnificent one for the Mike Hammer graphic novel The Night I Died, based on material written by Spillane and expanded and re-imagined by me. Mike Hammer: The Night I Died not only has two, count ‘em, two long-limbed McGinnis beauties, but a very credible rendition of Hammer himself, who has rarely appeared on book covers. (This graphic novel was also serialized in four issues, also with lovely covers but none by McGinnis).

What can I say about this incredible artist and genuinely nice man, who has entertained me for years and who provided some truly memorable covers to eleven works of mine?

How about – thank you.

* * *

Barb and I listened to the complete True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak this past weekend. It’s four and a half hours long, so we divided it into two evenings.

Okay, I’m biased. But I think it’s terrific, thanks to director Robert Meyer Burnett, composer Alexander Bornstein, a stellar cast led by a fine Nate Heller in Michael Rosenbaum, casting director/producer Christine Sheaks, producer Mike Bawden, co-producer Phil Dingeldein, and a raft of talented professionals skilled in audio production.

If you are even a casual fan of my work – and in particular if, like me, Nate Heller seems to you to be my signature character (no offense, Quarry) – you will want to hear this production. The toughest critic I know – Barbara Collins – said, “I thought it would be good. But it blew me away. Wow!”

I mentioned Alexander Bornstein above, and he has provided True Noir with a full, memorable score. So memorable is it that not only will there be a soundtrack album, but it will be a 2-CD set. Our Blu-ray of the production, which will include the ten episodes of The History Behind the Mystery and a lot more, will likely include the soundtrack CD’s.

This is not a talking book or a radio show – it’s a movie for the ears and the mind.

Go to truenoir.co and hear for yourself.

M.A.C.

Not Writing the Screenplay & Re-Reading the Proofs

Tuesday, April 15th, 2025

All ten episodes of True Noir: The Assassination of Mayor Cermak should be available by a week from now (if not sooner) in various formats, including 5.1 stereo.

True Noir Episode 10 Banner

Director Robert Meyer Burnett has done a masterful job directing an incredible cast; he was also the editor and supervised the elaborate mix of sound effects and music.

A Blu-ray of the production will follow, including all ten episodes of my “History Behind the Mystery,” in which I talk about the real history behind each episode and a lot more. There’s also a lengthy interview Rob did with me before the production began (I had literally finished the Blue Christmas shoot the night before!). It will include a version of the entire production assembled into one “listen.”

This is no standard audio production. The budget was half a million dollars. If you support it, a second one will go into production and we’ll be on our way to a Nate Heller movie and possibly TV series. With the talented group that has come together for this unique production, great things are in the offing.

* * *

I’m going to discuss something that requires me to be a little circumspect – not generally my best quality. It has to do with a movie script (not written by me) for a production relating to one of my properties.

Despite the fact that I have written and directed seven features, written three more produced features (I’m in the WGA), and scripted an episode of the Quarry TV series on Cinemax, a show based on my own book series), I have rarely been invited to a have a crack at the script by the Hollywood folks who have optioned/bought my material. The reasons for this are many and varied. For one thing, most of my self-produced movies have been indies, some with micro-budgets.

Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, Eliot Ness: an Untouchable Life and Blue Christmas were each at around a $10,000 budget with a lot of professional talent volunteering their participation in let’s-put-on-a-show fashion. In a world where twenty million is considered a low-budget, this makes the reluctance to use me on the screenplay at least understandable. My suggestion, for example, that I’d like to have a pass at Road to Perdition myself was met with shocked (and perhaps amused) surprise. That was the most naive thing the producers had ever heard.

Though few filmgoers even know the name of a screenwriter, much less have a favorite one, a big-time feature is essentially required to have a screenwriter who’s already had at least one major production made. (How those writers got their first assignment is a mystery none of my detective characters could solve.) This comes in part from the need to have a list of talent in all major slots (including screenwriter) that look good in a package. Money has to be raised. Studio execs need convincing. I get that. What I don’t get is why “We can get the person who created Road to Perdition to write the movie version” was such a laughable proposition.

It’s true that a good novelist, even somebody who’s written a critically acclaimed bestseller, isn’t necessarily an accomplished screenwriter. In fact some novelists downright stink at scripting. This largely comes from the two different skill sets of a novelist and screenwriter. Novelists write the interior of a story and screenwriters the exterior. So it’s not entirely a mystery why a producer might avoid using the source creator to write the script.

In my case, however, I have a track record of screenwriting that includes primetime movies on HBO and Lifetime, and a Cinemax series. My little regional movies have all won awards and their share of good reviews (and some bad ones – that comes with it).

This is not to say, “Boo hoo.” You can’t have a fifty-plus year writing career and come away thinking life is fair, even if you’re Stephen King. I often say to Barb, when I’ve written a book or had one optioned for the movies or television, “Well, I’ve got another ticket in the lottery.” Luck does seem to play as major a role as hard work and talent. I get that.

Why is this on my mind?

Well, I recently sat down with a script based on one of my properties, a script written by a guy who probably got half a million bucks at least to do so (my option was barely five figures). And I’m told the producers really like the script. As a courtesy more than anything, I was shown the script and encouraged to offer my notes.

The script had merit. But it also had a lot wrong with it. It did all kinds of things that even a smalltime screenwriter like me would know are wrong. Beginner shit. For example, using two lines of dialogue when one carries it. For example, following the action climax with fifteen minutes of tying up loose ends in dialogue. That kind of thing. What strikes me as remedial stuff.

After nineteen pages of handwritten notes, I typed them up as thirteen double-spaced pages. And then I had to sit and think about it. As a practical matter, since I make a big payday if the movie gets made, I should not bother. Let Hollywood be Hollywood. In a very real way, the last person they want to hear from is the source writer. I am trying to help, trying to make sure my property has been turned into a script that is not only relatively faithful to my work, but has a shot at pleasing audiences and being a success. But the result of my well-intended criticism might be (a) that I am viewed as just a troublemaker, or (b) (and this is worse) that the producers will realize the script needs work and the project slides into Development Hell.

Understand something: I could fix this script in a day. Maybe an afternoon. But I have as much chance of being granted that opportunity as I would to become the lead actor in the picture. And the smart thing to do would be not to send in my notes, but just say to them, “Wow, what a terrific script.”

This kind of frustration, this kind of reality, has accompanied me throughout my long career…and probably through most of the careers of the vast majority of your favorite fiction writers. It is why, despite a love for movies and moviemaking at least equal to my love for reading and writing books, I did not go West, Young Man (well I was young once). I chose books over movies because I could get a book written and published, and getting a movie made is really, really tough. Tough to get producers to give you a shot, tough to get a story told the way you want it. Tough not to get your heart broken.

After my run writing the Dick Tracy comic strip came to an end after fifteen fortunate years, I allowed myself to get pulled into indie moviemaking. And I loved it. About a dozen years of my career were devoted to that, and after a twenty-plus year break, I’ve returned to it in my waning days just to have the experience again – to bask in the collaborative nature of filmmaking. As a writer, I’ve often sought out collaborators – great people like Terry Beatty, Matthew Clemens, Dave Thomas and of course Barbara Collins – because synergy only happens when more than one factor comes into play. Fiction writing is a lonely trade whereas movie-making is lively affair, in my fortunate case always involving some pretty wonderful artisans.

I have no regrets being mostly a writer of books, short stories and comics. And no regrets, either, despite some bumps, about writing and sometimes directing movies in the world of indies.

But when I read something based on my work that I was not chosen to adapt myself, something that seems sub-par, I am nonetheless frustrated.

* * *

Recently I did a slight revision on my afterword to the forthcoming Return of the Maltese Falcon. Where normally an advance look at the first chapter might have been used as a promotional teaser, something had to substitute, because the public-domain nature of the original novel won’t kick in until my sequel is published next year. So advance promo couldn’t use any of my novel itself – we’d be in violation of the original copyright.

My editor at Hard Case Crime, Charles Ardai, is something of a wonder. Normally when you turn a manuscript in, it takes an editor months or at least weeks to get you the line-edited manuscript to go over. Charles gets back to you the next day, or if he takes two or three days, he apologizes for the delay. Then he has the book typeset in another day (he does this himself) and provides galley proofs, and to say this is unusual is an understatement.

It’s very cool to have the process go this quickly. Writers like the feeling when a book has “gone to bed.”

But when I worked on transforming the afterword of the Falcon novel into a promotional piece, I found a few tweaks I wanted to make. I did so, then asked Charles if I could read the galley proofs of the entire novel again. I had made corrections previously, so this seemed an exercise in fussiness. But I really want this novel to represent me at the top of my game. And following in the footsteps of a genius writer as precise as Dashiell Hammett is a sort of suicide note.

Charles allowed me to go through the book again, and I went into the process figuring I’d find a few pages – one or two or three – spotting a typo here, an ungainly repetition of words there, or just sentences that could use a minor tweak.

I had thirty pages of pages with corrections by the end of the process.

What did I learn? I didn’t exactly learn anything I didn’t already know, but it confirmed my belief that a writer needs to do the galley proofs several months at least after turning the book in. You need distance, and a quick turnaround doesn’t give you that.

Routinely, in going over galley proofs, I run into an instance or two where I have no idea what I was trying to say, no idea what I meant with something or other. When I was caught up in the state of writing, those things were crystal clear to me. A few months later, whaaaa???

So my new policy with Hard Case Crime is to do the galley proofs as quickly as my editor would like…and if time allows, have another hard look at them.

M.A.C.