I have completed Too Many Bullets, the next Nate Heller novel, with the exception of my final read-through doing corrections and tweaks. That will take much of the week, particularly since Thanksgiving is in there.
And I am certainly thankful to have finished it. My health was sketchy throughout much of the process, but I seem to be back to normal now, thanks to my general practitioner being on top of things, adjusting meds and such.
I began the writing of the book around the start of September. I’m actually surprised it went that quickly – it will be about three months when I wrap up the corrections, which for a 400-page (double-spaced) manuscript is a decent pace. I thought my health issues – the A-fib stuff, which included two cardioversions – would have slowed me down. But in retrospect I can see that I felt my best and the most myself when the work was distracting me.
On the other hand, I seem to have spent the previous three months researching the book. I didn’t have George Hagenauer helping me this time, so the process where he and I would divide up the reading and then discuss it as we go was not in the mix. I have never worked harder on research. The books were gathered, but the number of biographies of RFK and the stack of books about the assassination were daunting. I was determined to be really well-organized this time, so when I’d finished enough of the research to write a working synopsis – broken into chapters, about a half a page to a page per chapter – I went through my filled notebook of the research and annotated each chapter break-down with the page number in the research book, so I’d know where to find what I need writing that chapter.
In addition to that, I wound up filling three notebooks – this is more than any previous Heller – and I had a lot of on-the-fly Internet research, too, particularly on locations, everything from defunct restaurants to Griffith park to Caesars Palace and the Classic Cat strip joint in LA.
I feel good about each chapter but have my usual fear that when I read the book as a whole, they may not cohere. This has never happened but I always I’m afraid it might.
As I’ve mentioned here before, my original plan for this novel was far different from what it became. It was going to focus on the 1950s Heller/Hoffa story (often referred to in other Heller entries) with the RFK assassination an envelope that would take up around 100 pages, 150 at most. But as I researched the Sirhan Sirhan case, I realized I had a tiger by the tail and this new version has the Hoffa story jettisoned, perhaps to be handled next time, but this time with Hoffa barely mentioned at all.
The other factor was that my synopsis for the novel, the chapter breakdown I mentioned, included a B-plot and a return of mad doc Dr. Gottlieb from Better Dead, who in fact turned up in the history. But the B-plot would have weighed things down, and – coming along in the final third – be a distraction; and Gottlieb’s presence just over-complicated matters.
In fact, I did more composite characters than usual, too, in an effort to keep things moving and doing so smoothly. If this book is good – and I think there’s a chance it will be among the best Heller novels – it will mean I’ve mastered this difficult process of my own creation. It’s only taken three and a half decades.
I am sharing the cover with you, even though you haven’t even been able to lay hands on the previous Heller, The Big Bundle – the new Heller in terms of publishing.
The Big Bundle is a book I am very proud of, and I am frankly pleased that it is so different from the novel I just completed. It’s a point of pride to me that no two Heller novels are alike. The Big Bundle was designed to be “right” for Hard Case Crime – to have traditional noir elements that would introduce Hard Case Crime readers unfamiliar with the Heller books to what I’m up to in a way that would be user friendly. In a sense, I wanted The Big Bundle to be a strong example of a traditional private eye novel while hitting the notes that are unique to Heller. It is a change of pace, of sorts, as the crime itself is not a familiar one to most (though it was incredibly famous at the time).
My hope is that following up with the very different Too Many Bullets – with an extremely famous crime at its center – will demonstrate to new readers, and remind longtime readers, exactly what it is I’m up to.
The needle I’m trying to thread is keeping the Hard Case Crime readers interested when they have entered my domain by way of Quarry, mostly. I love doing Quarry and the novels are much more fun to do than Heller, which is a brutal damn process. But I know that my best work, my most important work (if any of it is important), is the Heller memoirs.
I have had to struggle to keep doing them. It’s unusual that I’ve been able to keep Heller alive at various publishing houses – in my time in this field, it’s become obvious that nothing is harder than moving a series to a new house. And if you manage it, you manage it once. I’ve managed it five times.
No question about it. I am a stubborn mofo. It is my hope, even my dream, for the Heller novels to be recognized in the upper echelon of private eye fiction, alongside Hammett, Chandler and Spillane. That hasn’t happened yet and it may not happen in my lifetime, but I am gambling my time and energy – and to some degree my income-earning ability – on these novels.
Possibly I’m a fool. (Possibly?!?!) I always think of Conan Doyle, who felt Sherlock Holmes was a trifle and that his historical novels would be his enduring legacy. He was wrong and I may be wrong, but neither of us would have done it any differently.
This is the Thanksgiving edition of my weekly update/blog. I am thankful for a lot of things – my health, my family, but also my readers. I am thankful for you.
It’s a tragedy for the mystery field to lose Mystery Scene, a truly great magazine founded by my late friend (and much missed) Ed Gorman, and continued with flair by Kate Stine.
Read my thoughts on the subject and those of others right here.
Digital Audiobook:
You can pre-order the audio of The Big Bundle here. It seems to be read by the great Dan John Miller, though I haven’t had that confirmed (Audible thinks it is, anyway).
Here is another strong review of the I, the Jury Blu-ray/4K/3d release.
M.A.C.
