Posts Tagged ‘What Doesn’t Kill Her’

Two Girls For Two Dollars!

Tuesday, July 5th, 2022

The Kindle editions of the two books in my Krista and Keith Larson series, Girl Most Likely and Girl Can’t Help It, are on sale this month – right now through July 31. You can buy them as a pair for $1.98, or 99-cents each.

While these two novels have done fairly well, their sales don’t compare to the bestseller status of the three previous books I did for Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer line, the Reeder and Rogers Trilogy (Supreme Justice, Fate of the Union and Executive Order), which sold in the hundreds of thousands.

I had hoped to do a third Krista and Keith novel, but so far the numbers haven’t justified that. Maybe this Kindle sale will change that. At any rate, if you like my work, I hope you’ll give them a try.

Full disclosure. Not all of my regular readers have loved them, including some mainstream critics who would have preferred new Nate Heller books; and of course my hitman Quarry has his own dark appeal. But one of the ways I’ve stayed fresh and enthusiastic over the years has been to try different things. That – in addition to creating income – was why I wrote so many tie-in novels in the ‘90s and early oughts: the chance to do different things.

In the two Girl books I was taking a conscious swing at writing an American take on Nordic noir. Matt Clemens and I (the Reeder and Rogers team) had already done What Doesn’t Kill Her for Thomas & Mercer (also a strong seller), which was intended as an American “answer” to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. With the Krista/Keith books I was working another shade of noir, again an American variation on the Wallander novels, and such Nordic TV mini-series as The Bridge, The Killing, and (again) Wallander.

As I prepared to write Girl Most Likely, I used my brilliant in-house sounding board, Barbara Collins, to try to come up with a setting that had some Nordic flavor while being resolutely American. We discussed Pella, Iowa, home of the Tulip Festival (and boyhood home of Wyatt Earp), in part because I liked the small town with tourist appeal aspect of the place. Meanwhile, Barb and I had taken to going to Galena, Illinois, for short post-project getaways, and it seemed an interesting, even ideal setting for what I had in mind.

Galena – as many in the Midwest know – is scenic little hamlet on a bluff with a downtown right out of Norman Rockwell, a tourist destination all year-round (winter sports a draw, though not for me). It’s a town of 3000 that is home to a million or more visitors a year, with sixty-some restaurants and various comfy hotels and bed-and-breakfasts and a quaint Americana vibe.

I got interested in how a police department in a city that size dealt with those million-a-year visitors. I’d been noodling with the idea of a very young female chief of police in a small town whose recently retired father was a former homicide detective. This concept slipped in perfectly with the Galena setting, and when I began my research I was pleased, even a little astounded, to learn that Galena’s police chief was in fact a young woman.

Chief Lori Huntington proved to be not only cooperative but generous with her time and information, and the books would have been lesser things without her.

M.A.C. with Lori Huntington

I was pleased with the first novel, which dealt with a series of killings that accompanied a ten-year high school reunion (Krista’s class). Part of my self-mandate was to get away from the larger-than-life lead characters I usually write about in my mystery/suspense fiction – Quarry, Nolan, Nate Heller, Mike Hammer, even the CSI crew – and use more “regular” people for my protagonists. Folks next door who, in this case, happened to be a tourist-town police chief and her retired homicide cop father (from nearby Dubuque, just across the river), who had recently lost his wife to cancer and was flirting with suicide (a very Nordic notion).

As is the case with many thrillers, these regular people would be thrust into a situation ruled by larger-than-life crime and jeopardy. It’s a mix that has worked for everybody from Alfred Hitchcock to Mary Higgins Clark.

To me, my third-person, one point-of-view at a time approach – which included as much or more violence than I ever serve up – was business as usual. Only the subject matter, and the more normal protagonists, differed. But some self-professed “big fans” of my work – not many, but a few vocal ones – bitched about what they perceived as a radical change of pace.

A particular complaint of reviews (and, frankly, of my editor) was my somewhat detailed descriptions of clothing. I have always (and I’ve discussed this here) used clothing, grooming and the living quarters of my players to help characterize them. And anyone who’s attended a class reunion knows that how people dress at that event is very revealing of who they are (or who they’ve become, and who they want us to think they’ve become).

Did I overstep in this regard? Maybe. But my editor was so disturbed by this recurring criticism that she asked me to cut every clothing description in the second book – including that Chief Krista Larson wore a uniform. I resisted this request, as I don’t care to have my characters running naked through a book (in certain scenes, yes; but not an entire book).

Amazon is usually terrific at marketing, but I feel they slipped up with Girl Most Likely, which they debuted in the UK. That’s where the reviews got off to a bad start – the very American high school reunion theme was wrong for that audience, and some readers resented an old guy like me writing about a young female protagonist. And it may hurt the feelings of this Anglophile, but not everybody on the other side of the pond has a love for Americans.

The second novel, Girl Can’t Help It, represents only one of two times I’ve really addressed my rock ‘n’ roll years in a book (the other time was Scratch Fever, which is half of the current Hard Case Crime Nolan omnibus, Tough Tender). Again, while Krista and her father Keith are just folks, the killer is a dangerous, deadly force leaving a horrific trail behind her.

Yes, her. That’s another aspect of the novels that sometimes throws readers. In their point-of-view chapters, I don’t identify the killer (the first book’s homicidal point of view chapters are “he” and “him,” the second book’s are “she” and “her”), which limits the number of suspects. The mystery element is minor in both novels and it’s not terribly hard to figure out who is responsible in either one.

This seems to bother some readers, who brag about figuring out whodunit and then complain that they did.

If you have even casually followed my updates, you know that I from time to time offer book giveaways to prime the pump on Amazon (and other online) reviews of new titles. The review aspect of Amazon (primarily, but Barnes & Noble and various review blogs, too) is something relatively new. It used to be the newspaper and magazine reviewers were all an author had to worry about. The professional reviewers weren’t always nice, but they tended to be fair and accurate (they still do) (there are exceptions) (pretends to cough as he says “Kirkus”). I have mixed emotions about Amazon reviews. It’s an undeniably democratic method, but it also opens the door to readers with various agendas – everything from personal animosity to being the author’s mom.

But that’s the world fiction writers live in now. Girl Most Likely has a four-star ratings (averaged over 852 reviews) and Girl Can’t Help It a four-and-a-half star rating (averaged over 196 reviews). And yet here I am warning you (rather pathetically) that there are some Amazon reviewers who don’t like the books. It doesn’t help that the “top reviews” of both books begin with some of the worst ones. Why Amazon wants to discourage readers is beyond me.

Anyway, I like these novels, but I almost always like my own work, with reservations. When I listen to an audio book of my own stuff I am alternately smiling and wincing. I surprise myself when something strikes me as really good, and disappoint myself when something strikes me as not so good. I think that’s natural.

All I can tell you is these two novels came out exactly the way I wanted them to. And if you haven’t given them a try, I hope you’ll invest $1.98 (or at least 99-cents) and see what you think.

If enough of you do that, maybe I’ll get to do a third Krista-and-Keith. I promise not to over-describe the clothing.

* * *
Crusin' at Proof Social

On Saturday July 2, my band Crusin’ appeared in Muscatine at Proof Social on the patio in the late afternoon and early evening. It was a nice crowd, very responsive, applauding after each number.

Three-hour gigs wear me out. I admit freely to that, and the other two gigs this summer are two-hour ones, for which I’m grateful. I am very comfortable in front of an audience, generally, cases of nerves rare – the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction concert in 2018 gave me a brief butterfly flurry, but frankly that’s the exception not the rule.

(Girl Can’t Help It opens with an induction concert at the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Also a murder.)

But in the second of three sets Saturday evening, my amplifier started acting up – distorting badly. I am told nobody but me noticed it, but brother I did. And it threw me. Suddenly I wished I were anywhere else in the world doing just about anything else. That’s one of the oddities of performing – when it goes well, or even just okay, it’s a pleasure; when it goes wrong, it’s the worst.

On the following day, Sunday, I – as usual – felt like a bus had hit me. That’s not old age (entirely), as that’s always been the case the day after a gig. Nonetheless, I set up my keyboards and amp and tried to figure out what had gone wrong, second set. It appears to have been a problem with my volume pedal. I ordered a new one for about two-hundred bucks.

I made $100 for the gig.

Why do I do this?

Because I love it.

* * *

Author Brandon Barrows (cool name) writes about his list of the best mob novels…and my prose novel Road to Perdition is one of them!

Some people think the Batman strip by Marshal Rogers should be reprinted. Gee, I wonder who wrote it?

This piece looks at Paul Newman’s last screen appearance…in Road to Perdition.

And, finally, yet another write-up about the gangster film you didn’t know came from a graphic novel (but you did, didn’t you?).

M.A.C.

Books on Sale at Amazon & The Last Word on Reviews

Tuesday, April 16th, 2019

Perhaps to celebrate the release of Girl Most Likely – which is still on sale as a Kindle title and as a “real” book – Amazon is having a sale till the end of the month on my other thrillers for their Thomas & Mercer line. This includes What Doesn’t Kill Her and the Reeder and Rogers Trilogy, Supreme Justice, Fate of the Union and Executive Order.

For all the talk about Girl Most Likely being my take on Nordic Noir, the first attempt was What Doesn’t Kill Her, which was meant to be an American twist on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, minus the social comment.

Matt Clemens co-wrote all four of those, though he only got cover and title page credit on Fate and Order. I had to push for that, but you should know that he was fully the co-author of the other two.

A very astute reader of mine told me he thought some of the pushback against Girl Most Likely (more on that later) had to do with my describing it in terms of an American version of Nordic Noir. For what it’s worth, that was never the intention or the plan. It just came up in the first interview I did about the book and it kind of took hold.

Not that it wasn’t an aspect of how the book came to be. I really liked such Scandinavian TV series as The Bridge, Wallander, Varg Veum, and The Killing, and wanted to do something in that vein. No thought of tying my wagon to somebody else’s star was in the mix, although obviously the “Girl” in the title followed that particular trend. Attracting some female readers makes only sense in a marketplace where the fairer sex outnumbers us loutish male readers something like ten to one. That kind of math I can do.

So, reviews. I’ve talked about them here quite a bit, more than anybody wants me to, but I am going to take one last (hooray) swing at it. Let’s start with professional reviews.

Understand that I have been writing fiction a long time, and am rather set in my ways, and arrogantly feel that I know what I’m doing. But to be honest I never did pay much attention to the advice I was given in professional reviews. Almost from the beginning, I had enough faith in my work to believe in it, and me, more than the opinions of others. I mean, once you’ve been schooled by Donald E. Westlake, Mickey Spillane, Walter Tevis and Richard Yates, who cares what anybody else thinks?

No, to me the professional reviewers are all about marketing – about libraries and booksellers seeing good comments from Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist and the irascible Kirkus, and then ordering books. Editors and publishers like to have good reviews from those sources to blurb on covers, fore and aft, and on the first page or two of reprint editions. This is not to say I don’t enjoy reading a positive review from one of those sources. But for me, it’s strictly business. A marketing tool or, if a review is bad, a marketing obstacle.

Now and then, particularly in a newspaper or a really good blog (like The Rap Sheet), I get a glowing review that is really, really smart. Where the reviewer understands what I was up to. Now and then a positive criticism actually does take hold with me, too. Mostly, though, I love it when somebody gets it.

This is often true of the magazine reviews in Mystery Scene, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Crimespree, and Deadly Pleasures, among others. These tend to be written by smart, knowledgeable people, and they are a great source for quotes, and often are positive and give me a nice little ego boost. When I do get criticism worth listening to, it’s frequently here. EQMM’s Jon Breen practically discovered me.

What’s interesting to me is how seldom reviewers notice the weaknesses in a book of mine that I knew were there. This may be because I know how to hide such things, through sleight of hand or sneaky execution. Let’s take Girl Most Likely. A major flaw about it drives me crazy – I did my best to figure out how to fix it or avoid it, and instead I merely had to finesse it largely through pace.

But the two things that the reviewers – mostly amateur ones – have complained about were done by me with full knowledge of the risks. It was absolutely intentional that I did a lot of clothing description, and the occasional brand names were on purpose, too (I’ve already said why in previous updates). The abrupt ending was a choice as well, very much in the Spillane tradition – story’s over, time to get out, let the credits roll. A good number of people hate that. I’m sorry – not really – but I felt it was called for. My book. My way.

Let’s get to the amateur reviewers, who specifically rule at Amazon, where a good deal of misbehavior is tolerated by Amazon itself, which ironically is the publisher of Girl Most Likely.

First, let me get this out of the way – the amateur reviews, overall, have been great. We are sitting at four-stars. The Associated Press review was, again overall, a fine one, and appeared all over God’s green earth. Of the pro publications, some of whom didn’t love it, Booklist was a near rave. So my difficulty with the reviews on Girl Most Likely has almost exclusively to do with the Amazon ones.

Now, if you follow this blog, you know that I encourage Amazon non-pro reviews – I give out books to readers specifically to increase the number of such reviews, and since people reading this weekly update tend to be longtime readers of mine, I can pretty much count on mostly decent reviews being generated by the book giveaways.

The negative reviews of Girl, among the many nice ones, fall into two camps. One appears to be young and female, and an unbiased reader named Barbara Collins thinks I am being punished for writing about a woman when I am apparently a man. (Lots of nice notices from the young women with book review blogs, though.) But I also see an occasional nastiness that reflects a certain breed of progressive that sees something sinister in a daughter who is a professional woman having respect for a father who is a longtime professional in that field himself. The worst of these criticized me for being “a white man.”

Now Amazon is supposed to reject reviews that are hate speech. Yet even the “white man” thing is okay with me. End of the day, it doesn’t bother me much because it’s the kind of review that reveals itself and its maker. Matt Clemens and I got a lot of those ugly reviews from alt-right nincompoops in regard to the Reeder and Rogers Trilogy. Certain early reviews of Supreme Justice were clearly written by people who had not read much if any of the book. Our sin? Of our two leads, one was a liberal, the other a conservative – and they got along!

The other negative reviews, and this reflects an almost surprisingly small number, are those from longtime readers of mine who don’t like the change of pace. For example, the book is billed as “a thriller,” although I have personally characterized it as a hybrid of thriller and mystery. And some have said that this novel – which includes three vicious butcher-knife murders, a street brawl, and the protagonists getting chased through the woods by a maniac – isn’t “thriller” enough. Perhaps this reaction comes from the world of Girl Most Likely not being the criminal one of Quarry, Nolan, Mike Hammer and Nate Heller. A new, more everyday milieu apparently jars some readers.

One particular review is a rather vicious attack on me by a self-professed longtime fan who claims to have read almost all of my stuff, some novels several times. But he is appalled by Girl Most Likely for all kinds of reasons. And you know what? That’s just fine. Everybody has a right to an opinion and to express it.

Of course, when he suggests I am selling out for “the sake of building a nest-egg to retire upon,” I have to wonder – does anybody who really follows my work think I look like I’m planning retirement soon?

Authors these days live and die on Amazon. Please support not just me, but all of your favorite authors – write positive reviews (again, even a line or two is fine), click on “helpful” on the more detailed reviews when you agree with whatever insights they provide.

Amazon is the biggest bookstore in the world. Go in there and support your favorite authors. If you read a book, particularly one you buy there, that you really like, tell the world about it, in a brief (or an extended) review. It’s a way to pay your favorites a favor, and to keep them in business.

Authors are real people, trying to make a living out of entertaining you. Any time you can express your satisfaction with a positive review at Amazon and other sites, you are helping the writers whose work you enjoy stay in business. If they disappoint you, you have every right to say so in a review.

Just don’t be a dick.

* * *

Check out this very smart review of Girl Most Likely.

This reviewer has an interesting take or two on the novel.

Finally, here’s a very nice look at the Nathan Heller series.

M.A.C.

Cover Story

Tuesday, March 25th, 2014
Supreme Justice

Over the last two weeks, Matt Clemens and I have been going over potential covers for the upcoming SUPREME JUSTICE, coming out June 1.

Thomas & Mercer, Amazon Publishing’s mystery/suspense line, has been very good about making me – and Matt, because he contributed so mightily to both novels – part of the book cover process for both WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER and SUPREME JUSTICE. This is hardly common in publishing – in fact, it’s the opposite of common.

What often happens is that I’m asked for my opinion – in the context of how important that opinion might be, given my background in visual arts like comics and film – but rarely has my input been given much if any consideration.

That’s been improving in recent years. Our editor at Kensington always asks Barb and me for ideas for the covers of the ANTIQUES books, and those ideas have been used for the most part.

Titan is careful to run covers past me, and I had considerable input on the Mike Hammer mass market editions, where initially the depiction of Hammer was wrong. The publisher of Titan himself, Nick Landau, enthusiastically presented the hardcover Hammer dust-jacket art over drinks at San Diego Con a few years ago.

At Hard Case Crime, Charles Ardai often discusses what artists might be available for my next book – obviously the first thing out of my mouth is, “How about McGinnis?” But I essentially chose the cover artists for THE WRONG QUARRY (Tyler Jacobsen) out of three or four Charles showed me examples by. And THE WRONG QUARRY seems to be universally regarded as one of (if not the) strongest of my Hard Case covers.

As I may have mentioned here before, those covers are usually done before I’ve written the novel, with just a paragraph precise of the unwritten book for the artist to go by. That means I often have to work to get the cover image into the book.

On the other hand, I provided Forge with lots of input into BYE BYE, BABY’s hardcover jacket that was eventually ignored, due to worries that the Monroe estate would sue. I hate that cover (though the mass market paperback is much better). Where both TARGET LANCER and ASK NOT were concerned, however, I was given the opportunity to give my two cents, and was listened to. Often I write the cover copy, even the front “reading lines” (blurbs), when what is submitted to me seems weak.

So it has improved a lot. I’ve come a long way from when I received BAIT MONEY and BLOOD MONEY in the mail in December 1972 and found fairly terrible photo covers and my name changed from Allan Collins to Max Collins, and my character Nolan given an unwanted first name (“Frank”) which to this day dogs both Nolan and me. Then there’s the day I opened a package and saw that my novel QUARRY and its sequel HIT LIST were now THE BROKER and THE BROKER’S WIFE, the latter title a spoiler for a major plot turn…again, with photo covers, though slightly better ones.

But now Thomas & Mercer has given me a chance not only to suggest cover images, but provides me with half a dozen to choose from, and does tweaks on the art that I’ve suggested. I wish I could include the SUPREME JUSTICE rejects here, because they were strong, too. But I don’t know the legality of that.

Maybe next time I do a book for them, I can put the proposed covers up here and seek your input.

For now, I am delighted with the cover for SUPREME JUSTICE.

* * *

Brief movie report.

We liked MR. PEABODY AND SHERMAN, me more than Barb. It captured the Jay Ward cartoons well and was very smart in its storytelling – a little long, though. See it in 3-D.

NON-STOP was a good thriller, somewhat stupid in the motivation of the villains, but a ride worth taking.

300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE is better than the original, and is a rousing battle picture with an eye-popping sex scene (see that in 3-D, too). But it’s fairly numbing in its more-and-more-of-the-same gory action, and at heart is a very brain-dead right-wing screed. Still, I dug it. I am, as should be evident by now, a sucker for anything in 3-D that doesn’t outright suck.

Speaking of sucking, we walked out of DIVERGENT about half an hour in. I’d read some promising reviews, but this is a really poorly thought-out imitation of HUNGER GAMES (which is a poorly thought-out imitation of BATTLE ROYALE). Really, really dumb, and also dreary and dull. We bailed when some recruits in the Dauntless faction (don’t ask) said, “Let’s do something fun! Let’s get tattoos!”

* * *

Let’s wind up this update with a link to a very nice WRONG QUARRY review from Blog Critics.

ASK NOT Appearances

Tuesday, November 12th, 2013

I’m not doing a tour for ASK NOT, which I admit surprises me a little – I had figured the nature of the novel, its publication date exactly a month from the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, would attract a lot of attention, possibly from the publisher. But I didn’t count on the avalanche of other JFK books that ASK NOT would have to fight its way through. Round-ups in magazines and newspapers about JFK assassination books seem to focus largely on non-fiction works – understandably – although J. Kingston Pierce did right by the novel at his Kirkus blog column, and I was interviewed recently for Publisher’s Weekly about the book (nothing’s appeared yet – when it does, I’ll report).

And I admit Barb and I are weary of book signings. That’s not to imply at all that we don’t enjoy, in fact relish, contact with readers (and bookstore owners/employees). Getting to talk to fans of the books is incredibly gratifying. But the time and expense involved are considerable, and the last time my publisher and I collaborated on putting a tour together, several disastrous appearances marred an otherwise good experience. At the St. Louis stop, for example, exactly one person showed up, not counting my son and daughter-in-law. That one person did not buy a book, by the way.

I have come to feel that attending Bouchercon and San Diego Con puts me in touch with the greatest number of readers, in the most efficient way, and Barb and I are considering adding another con or two to the mix.

Ed Gorman, M.A.C., Barb Collins signing at Mystery Cat Bookstore, Cedar Rapids
Ed Gorman, M.A.C., Barb Collins signing at Mystery Cat Bookstore, Cedar Rapids

For ASK NOT, we arranged only three signings, two of which have already taken place. Both events were a lot of fun and very successful. At Mystery Cat (a hidden treasure in Cedar Rapids), my friend Ed Gorman made a rare signing appearance, and Barb and Matt Clemens joined in as well. The only downside was the unexpectedly large crowd – 75 in a small bookstore, with seating available for maybe thirty. Having four authors, talking up their current books and then taking questions, made the presentation go a little long, and some of those attending fled for the door ASAP, without buying a book. It’s always tough to know how long to speak at these things – you don’t want to bore anybody, but you also don’t want to shortchange people who make the effort of attending.

Augie introduces Max & Barbara Collins to their fans
Augie introduces Max & Barbara Collins to their fans at Centuries and Sleuths

Barb & Max Collins sharing a story with their fans
Barb & Max Collins sharing a story with their fans

We’ve done many signings at Forest Park’s wonderful Centuries and Sleuths bookstore. A nice group met with us on this Sunday afternoon past as Barb spoke about ANTIQUES CHOP and I talked about ASK NOT. Mostly we took questions, and one great fan brought doughnuts for everybody. Everybody bought books, everybody had a question. Augie and Tracy, the owners, were as always gracious hosts. We’ll keep doing signings there as long as they want us.

The final of the three signings is coming up. Here’s the info:

Nov 23, 2013 1:00 PM

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
North Park Mall
320 W. Kimberly Road
Davenport, IA 52806 (map)
563-445-8760

Come see us if you’re in the area. These big chain bookstore signings are always the biggest risk.

* * *

The excellent ASK NOT reviews continue, I’m pleased to report. Check out this very nice one at Jerry’s House of Everything.

And here’s another strong one at Scene of the Crime.

The first review of THE WRONG QUARRY has appeared (at Dangerous Dan’s Bookblog). He likes it.

Here’s a decent review of WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER, not a rave but appreciated nonetheless.

A nice appreciation of Mickey Spillane is here.

Finally, here’s a review of the multiple author thriller, INHERIT THE DEAD.

M.A.C.