Five on Friday - Megan Abbott

Happy Friday, friends. I'm getting back on track after my trip to Wyoming and plan to get the blog back on track this weekend as well. Fingers crossed.

But what we've managed to keep flowing is the Five on Friday and I'm especially excited today to welcome an incredibly talented woman and a super nice person. Megan Abbott is one of those folks you wonder where all the dark comes from because her disposition is just so bright and kind. But the dark lurks somewhere. It's earned her amazing recognition, including an Edgar award. Her last book, Dare Me, is headed to the big screen and this month her new book, The Fever, came out. I'm very excited about reading it. Have you picked it up yet? Whether you have or not, I'm sure you're going to enjoy her Five on Friday today. And if you haven't, get out this weekend and find a copy!

Here's Megan!

This crew may look familiar to you! Megan is, of course to the far right.

1. When I was a kid, my favorite thing to get in my trick-or-treat bag was a Whatchamacallit bar, which may not even exist anymore. But it was the trifecta because it had chocolate, peanut butter-flavored crisp and caramel. And I don’t think it came in minis, so it meant you were getting a full candy bar.

2. My five favorite movies of all time are: It changes a lot, but these five are perennials, either because they changed the way I think about movies, or life, or because they give me such joy: Raging Bull, Manhattan, In a Lonely Place, Double Indemnity and Sweet Smell of Success.

3. If I could swap lives with anyone in the world for 24 hours, I would choose David Lynch’s closest friend. Seeing interviews with him, or watching him cook, I have a feeling, despite the darkness of his movies, I’d have a marvelous time.

4. The most beautiful place I’ve ever visited is  the kudzu-overrun corners of Rowan Oak, Faulkner’s stately and modest homestead in Oxford, Mississippi. Especially at the magic hour.

5. The #1 item on my bucket list right now is to go to Mexico. I’ve never been, haven’t had a vacation in a long time, and I’ve always wanted to go and have a real adventure.

I'm wondering if Megan's answer to #5 has anything to do with Gregg Hurwitz's upcoming novel, Don't Look Back. Megan blurbed it. And if she wants that kind of adventure, I think I just discovered the dark in her. ;-)

So many thanks to Megan for taking time out with us. And thanks to all of you for coming back even when I'm treading water to keep up. Next week look for some review catch-up as well as fun stuff about my trip to Wyoming and Longmire Days! Happy Reading!

Murder & Mayhem in Muskego - Part 2

Saturday is the main part of the Murder & Mayhem conference. This year's line-up of authors was another doozy so the entire day was filled with crime fiction goodness.

There was some kind of accident or something on the highway, so Judy Bobalik and I had to take the back roads route to the library and I was doing a slight panic on the way because this was the first year my duties were in the morning. Holy cow if I was late I'd have been mortified. But  no sweat, we made it in plenty of time for me to see a little bit of Bryan's first gig as panel moderator!

He led Marcus Sakey, Alex Segura, Sean Doolittle and Kieran Shea in a panel called "Flip the Switch." Bryan's last question to everyone was, "what would your last meal be?"

Pie!

And next came my interview with Gregg Hurwitz. What fun and how animated Gregg is. I've said many times, Gregg is simply a natural-born storyteller. He spoke about the beginning of his interest in writing, his research, his work on scriptwriting and of course his new book TELL NO LIES. By the way, I'm absolutely mortified to realize I never posted my review of the book here. I reviewed it for Shelf but wanted to add to the review...so I promise I will get that for you all. In the mean time, I have video of the interview if you care to watch. This year I managed to stay in the chair and Gregg even got me to blush at one point. It's the full interview, so give yourself some time and I hope you enjoy. Also a special shout out to my wonderful friend Larry who handled the activation of the video camera for this one. Thanks Larry!


Following our interview, Kate Malmon took the moderator's reigns to lead Duane Swierczynski, Howard Chaykin, Dana Cameron, Chris Holm and Harry Hunsicker in the "Riff Raff" panel. It started off in riff raff fashion with a phone interruption for Howard.

Sadly, Chris was not telling his bug story here.

Following lunch the noirish-types took the stage for the "Back in Black" panel led by Tim Hennessey and featuring Frank Wheeler, Megan Abbott, Reed Farrel Coleman, Frank Bill, Jedidiah Ayres, and Hilary Davidson. In the picture you'll notice Reed and Frank Bill in their matching hats. I would love to say those are for my Elyria alma mater, but in fact they were a "hat tip" to Rod Wiethop a prominent member of the crime fiction community who has had a stellar year with his sports teams at Effingham High School (hopefully I spelled that correctly).

Frank looks guilty and Megan looks livid - not sure how I managed the timing on this shot.

The rest of the panel is watching to see if a fight breaks out. Noir panels...whatdaya expect?

The rowdy group was up next. Katrina Holm moderated "Sink the Pink." Julie Hyzy dressed accordingly for this panel. Gregg, the Shakespeare "dilettante" and Dan O'Shea who has Shakespeare as his protagonist made for a interesting couple on this panel. Joelle Charbonneau talked about the differences in writing cozies and writing YA. And Tom Schreck, as usual, was the hit of the panel.

Tom's question was "Things that make you go hmmmm."

Even though the panel was "sink the pink" Julie stayed completely dry.

Gregg appears to be very confused. Could it be because of Dan's jacket?

The highlight of my day, second of course to interviewing Gregg, was watching Michael Koryta and Marcia Clark in conversation. They are funny, intelligent and great writers. The stories they shared were captivating. After almost 6 years now, I still haven't lost my interest and fascination in listening to great authors tell stories.

Who looks scary and prosecutorial? "Me. I do." Marcia intimidated Michael before he first met her.

Two wonderfully talented writers. An exceptional session at M&M.

I have to end with an apology because the final session of the day was William Kent Krueger's interview by Libby Fischer Hellmann. I didn't get any snaps of that session, but Kent started off the discussion with a grand praise of libraries and friends of libraries organizations.  A fitting way to cap the day held in a fantastic library.

I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to regularly attend this fabulous event for the last five years now. It's exceptional. If you have the chance to experience it, I encourage you to DO IT!!

Thanks for sticking through to the end of this post; hope you enjoyed it. Happy Reading friends!

Crime Fiction's Sexiest Authors of 2011 - Part 2

As I mentioned on Wednesday with Part 1 of this project, I started mulling over this idea when I read the post You Know You're an English Major If... and saw the identifier, "You consider authors to be sex symbols." And with People Magazine having their Sexiest Male issue and Salon.com weighing in on their Sexiest choices, I decided now would be a good time to bring my own choices to the blog.

However, I'm going to veer a bit from People and Salon because I'm also choosing the Sexiest Women of Crime Fiction. To make my choices here, I thought about those women I'd love to be. Who have characteristics I admire and yes, even envy...but not in a bad way, I promise.

So, mirroring the categories for the men, here are my choices for Crime Fiction's Sexiest Women. Note, I asked the ladies to send me a very unsexy picture to use with this project, and while I think they all still look quite sexy, many of them had fun with this. So here we go...enjoy!

SEXIEST WRITER-ATHLETE

Curlers are the new sexy, right?

I just can't imagine not choosing Christa Faust for this category. Some might argue the athlete part of the category since she's not running marathons or boxing or whatnot, but gosh darn it she keeps herself in shape and I'd much rather run into a marathon runner in a dark alley than a pissed off Christa Faust! Just kidding. Beyond those model good looks, she's a genuinely wonderful person. I admit to having been completely intimidated until I met her. And now I'm just thrilled to know her. She's wicked smart and self-confident and funny. And she's an amazing mama to Noir Dog, Butch.

Christa has a new book due out in February featuring a lesbian PI called BUTCH FATALE; DYKE DICK IN DOUBLE-D DOUBLE CROSS.  The much anticipated follow-up to her multiple-award nominee MONEY SHOT is CHOKE HOLD and now out from Hard Case Crime.

SEXIEST TRIPLE-SERIES WRITER

Sophie takes beauty tips from Junior

I don't know how Sophie Littlefield has time to do all that she does! She's raising kids and a dog, taking care of a home, mentoring other writers, and actively publishing THREE series - a crime series, a dystopian series and a YA series. Her writing reflects her wit and spirit, and you need only spend two minutes around her to experience the charm.

Sophie's drive and determination resulted in success in an extremely competitive field. Her talent with words and character netted her an Anthony Award. But it's Sophie's kindness and generosity that have won her the respect of her peers. It's also won her a spot on this list!

Sophie's new book in her dystopian series, HORIZON, is due out in January. And next June will bring the fourth book in her Stella Hardesty series, A BAD DAY FOR MERCY.

SEXIEST AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR

Hey! Really? Me? No way!

 I had to do an eenie, meanie, miney, moe for this category because all of these sexy writers are award winners. But Megan Abbott wins out for this one. The Edgar-award-winning author will never fade from my memory because the first time we met in person she said, "You read Bob Crais, right? Can we talk about his books today?" And I've adored her ever since! No, really, Megan is incredibly talented, original and funny. Her books have dark themes but I've never seen Megan when she wasn't bright and energized. I've also never seen Megan speak down to anyone or act as though she doesn't have time for them. Watching her with her fans, she exudes an authentic appreciation of their support and their conversation.

Megan's newest novel, THE END OF EVERYTHING, is garnering a tremendous amount of attention and well deserved accolades. I doubt this one will be overlooked for awards in the coming months.

SEXIEST WRITER UNDER 40

I'd like to thank the Academy for this sexy award....

None of the women on this list even come close to looking their ages and doesn't that just make you grumble? But how can you grumble at someone as charming and endearing and gracious as Hilary Davidson? Some people in the world you say a silent prayer of thanks to God (or whomever) for bequeathing them talent like Hilary's. You say thanks because they so richly deserve that talent and appreciate it and do wonderful things with it. Hilary is one of those people. And human characteristics don't get any sexier than that.

Hilary's debut novel, THE DAMAGE DONE, won the Anthony Award and Crimespree Award for best first novel. Her second novel, THE NEXT ONE TO FALL, is due out on Valentine's Day.

SEXIEST WRITER ON TV

Watch out! Hank will uncover your secrets!

Hank Phillippi Ryan just wins awards where ever she goes. She's won more Emmy's than she can count on fingers AND toes for her hard-hitting investigative reporting for NBC. And those awards all have to share space with the Anthony, the Macavity and the Agatha Awards for her equally amazing writing.

What really made me positive Hank belonged on my list was her astounding compassion and kindness. And if you ever hear her talk about her husband, now there's the fairy tale romance - true love.

I had communicated with Hank before the first time I met her in person...in Indianapolis...at Bouchercon. I showed her the scrapbook page with her memoir she submitted and she teared up. I had no intention of making her cry, but boy what a gift she gave me to appreciate it that much. Hank has a heart of gold, and I just think that's sexy beyond compare.

Hank is branching out from her wildly successful Charlotte McNally series next year to publish the first in a new suspense series, THE OTHER WOMAN.

O.k., the final spot on my list goes to....

JEN'S SEXIEST FEMALE WRITER ALIVE

The reigning queen!

Alafair Burke! It would be far easier for me to say what isn't sexy about Alafair because I couldn't give you anything. I admire her tremendously and consider her one of my heroes. She's smart, clever  and full of life. She's generous, kind and true. Her ability to laugh at herself is endearing and rare. There aren't many people who can do that with ease. And that allows others to be at ease around Alafair. She's human. And DAMN that's just sexy!

I, of course, adore Alafair's love of her French bulldog, Duffer. She takes him to day care, dresses him for Halloween, and collects the home videos of his life.

She doesn't dress her husband for Halloween, but she does treasure him and their life together. 

Years ago now I went to meet Alafair because I was enamored with her writing. I was rewarded with a woman I now admire as so much more than an author. And I don't want to make this sound like I admire her because she's perfect; I don't think that would be real. I do think she's stunning and beautiful inside and out, but I admire Alafair because she's challenged herself throughout her life. She's accomplished so much in a short time and still aspires to accomplish more; I can't wait to see where she is 40 years from now. I aspire to be that happy in my own skin, and I find it quite sexy.

Alafair released her first stand alone novel this year with LONG GONE. She also publishes a series with Assistant Prosecutor Samantha Kincaid and a series with NYC Police Detective Ellie Hatcher.

There you have it! My choices for the Sexiest Women of Crime Fiction in 2011. Now you can weigh in. Who do you think I left off the list? There are many, of course, so I can't wait to hear your choices.


As with Wednesday's group, this post is meant to be fun. I whole-heartedly mean what I've written about the authors, and I received their permission to include them in the post. I hope you've enjoyed it.

THE END OF EVERYTHING - Megan Abbott

First line: "She, light-streaky out of the corner of my eye."

The depth of talent that Megan Abbott possesses is indeed enviable. But given the fact that her readers are able to reap the benefits of her talents, I think we can forgo the envy and celebrate her works instead. The most recent work to celebrate is a bit of a change for Abbott. THE END OF EVERYTHING is a modern novel set in the Midwest told through the voice of thirteen-year-old Lizzie Hood. When Lizzie's best friend and next door neighbor Evie Verver disappears one afternoon, the entire community is sent into a state of panic and Lizzie finds her childhood stolen as swiftly as her best friend.

Abbott's novel is narrated on audio by Emily Bauer who brings not only Lizzie's teenage voice to life, but also the sights and sounds and rich flavors of Abbott's small Michigan town. The sensual nature of THE END OF EVERYTHING transports readers back to their own childhood:

"...I know Evie's cartwheels, the way she floated through them, like moving through molasses, smooth and dawdling and tongue-sweet, why, that's how it was."

Lizzie's experiences thankfully differ from most teen-agers in losing her best friend. But there are still strong similarities to the average teen in her fairy tale ideas of love, her hero-worship of Mr. Verver, and her unadulterated devotion to her friendship with Evie. Bauer articulates Lizzie's characteristics in such a way that we never question why a child would make such choices, instead we find them to be the natural choices. We're no longer logical, careful adults; we're the innocent naive child again.

Megan Abbott is forging new territory with every novel she pens. THE END OF EVERYTHING has taken her to new heights and it has taken the crime fiction genre to new heights. Not only does she examine the crime of kidnapping but she examines the crime of a stolen soul, ripped from its unsuspecting owner who struggles to make sense of her loss. This is a beautiful novel and a terrifying novel. A gentle, sensual novel and a dark, violent novel. It will lovingly haunt the reader who finds that the end comes far too soon.

Emily Bauer taps into Abbott's world seamlessly making this audiobook a chilling treat. I wouldn't recommend missing this one.

THE END OF EVERYTHING is available in hardcover (ISBN: 978-0-316-09779-6) from Reagan Arthur Books and on audio (ISBN: 978-1-441-78171-0) from Blackstone Audio.

Around the Web

The days seem to be flying by and I'm certainly not keeping up with their pace. How about you? If you're celebrating Christmas, are you ready? I'm not even close yet.

I also find myself saying, "doh!" far too often as I'm forgetting things on a regular basis. Too much to remember! So, since I'm forgetting things I thought I'd point out a few things around the Interwebs today in case you forgot about any of them, or didn't even know in the first place.

First off, I wanted to remind you about the Macmillan crime communities and encourage you to come join on Twitter or Facebook...or both. Hilary Davidson just joined the team to cover noir, so that's an added bonus as well. On Twitter you can find the procedurals and P.I.s at:

http://twitter.com/mysteryprecinct
http://twitter.com/agencymysteries

And the noir is:

http://twitter.com/noirmysteries

At Facebook we have:

The Precinct and The Agency and The Alley (if these links don't work, you can do a simple search by the name and we come up right away.)

Join up with us on Facebook and feel free to post to the wall about books you're reading, questions you have, or any crime fiction-related topics. You can also post pictures if you want to share your crime fiction escapades! You can also feel free to start discussion threads on the Discussions tabs. We have a few discussions going now, including a thread about which books you think should be read by every crime fiction fan before they die. I'd love for you to come contribute to that one because I'd like to do something else with it both on the Facebook pages and on blogs. So, come share your thoughts!

If you don't know already, Megan Abbott and Sara Gran have started a blog together. You can find that here.

Kelli Stanley has a snazzy new blog with a forum here. Lots of fun stuff to check out there.

Tantor Audio is holding a 12 Days of Christmas giveaway at the Audiobook Community for a chance to win a copy of THE LINEUP on audio. I have a print copy and have read a couple of the pieces, but not everything yet. I love the ones I've read so far.

I signed up here at FictFact to try to track the series that I read. I've been extremely remiss about keeping up my Goodreads account, but maybe I'll do a bit better with this one. If you're also a member, feel free to link up with me. I love to see what you're reading.

And if you missed it last weekend, I announced my first hosting of a reading challenge. It's called CRIMINAL PLOTS and you can find all the details here. I so hope you'll sign up and join us. I can't wait see what people read for the challenge. Also, if you know other crime fiction fans - or folks who you think should check out the genre, encourage them to check it out as well. You don't have to be a blogger to participate and participants only have to read 6 books to successfully complete it.

I also joined the What's in a Name 4 reading challenge. This is huge for me. Two challenges this year. I usually horrible at completing them, but it's going to be one of my reading/blogging goals for 2011. I will complete them this year! I'll also do periodic blog updates so you can help keep me on track.

Robert Crais announced his tour schedule for THE SENTRY. It's up on his website here. If he isn't coming to a bookstore near you, remember that he's going to be a Guest of Honor at Bouchercon in St. Louis this year. And the discount registrations for BCon are available until Jan. 1st. So, get your registration in before the end of the year and save yourself some bucks. It is THE must attend event of the year!

If you didn't see it, my very good friend and blogging buddy, Pop Culture Nerd did this fabulous video of Robert Crais while he was working on the video for The Sentry. It's a must to see, plus you can enter to win a chance at an ARC of THE SENTRY while you're there.

Wow! I think I need to do these posts more often and then they won't be quite so long, huh? I'd like to end with a hearty congratulations to the very talented Brad Parks who this month received the Nero Award for FACES OF THE GONE. Brad is the first author to ever win the Shamus and the Nero on the same book. And what a most deserving book for that honor.

I have so much more to share with you this month. I'm working on my goals for 2011, my favorites list from 2010, the remainder of the recommendation project. And I know it's a very busy time for everyone, but if you have time to stop by this month, I'll be keeping posts fresh. Thanks for every visit you make! Happy Holidays and Happy Reading!

You Have the Right to Six Words - The Penultimate Post

Well just because we're getting down to the final two weeks doesn't mean we can skimp on the quality of the posts! We have a whopper of a line-up today. Since it's so close to the holidays now, I am linking the authors' book titles to independent bookstores. As always, I don't receive anything for the links, I just wanted to help make finding the books as easy as possible for you.

But, hey, let's get to memoirs, shall we?

The first author on our list of memoirists this week has made a huge impact on the crime fiction genre. You simply can’t say crime fiction without including Sue Grafton in the list of influential greats. She, of course, writes the internationally best-selling Alphabet series that began in 1982 with A IS FOR ALIBI. Sue’s writing career started long before this novel, however. She spent fifteen years writing screenplays for television, including collaborating with her husband Steven Humphrey to adapt the Agatha Christie novels A Caribbean Mystery and Sparkling Cyanide for television. But ultimately Sue would return to her first love, fiction writing.

It was her fascination with related titles like John D. MacDonald’s color titles and Harry Kemelman’s days of the week that led Sue to the idea for the Alphabet series. And just yesterday she released U IS FOR UNDERTOW. I think she happened on a pretty swell idea, don’t you? As “Z” looms closer and closer, fans wonder what will come next because they certainly don’t want Z to be the end. The second and third books, B IS FOR BURGLAR and C IS FOR CORPSE, earned Sue the first and second EVER Anthony Awards. She’s since earned an additional Anthony, a Shamus award, the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, and this year Sue Grafton was given the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

Of course, people familiar with the Alphabet series know protagonist Kinsey Millhone lives in the fictional town of Santa Teresa, California, which is modeled after Sue’s own home of Montecito. And while Sue may claim that Kinsey is the “younger, smarter, thinner version” of herself, we know that Sue enjoys gardening, good cuisine and cats. She defines success as “doing what I want to do and answering to no one...except my cats, of course.”

So how does Sue sum this incredible lifetime of achievement?

Father wrote mysteries, now I do.

And I think I'm safe to say that her influence will now forever be felt in the genre. So excited to have Sue Grafton join us today.

Next up is another author releasing a book this week. Tom Schreck released his third Duffy Dombrowski novel, OUT COLD, this week. Tom spent 25 years working as an addictions counselor and now teaches at the collegiate level. He can also be seen occasionally on HBO judging world championship boxing. Somewhere amidst all those responsibilities he finds time to pen the Duffy series that started in 2007 with ON THE ROPES. Tom also does freelance writing for various publications.

Tom's love of basset hounds carries over into his Duffy Dombrowski novels in the form of Al, Duffy's trusty basset hound sidekick. An advocate for basset hound rescue programs, Tom donates many proceeds from the sale of his books to the rescue programs.

Another characteristic that Tom shares with his protagonist is a love of Elvis Presley. Duffy drives a Cadillac and listens to Elvis on 8-track tapes with Al riding shotgun and drooling.

Tom's books make me smile and his memoir is no different:

Woof, Arooo! Concentrate,Woof, Surrender, Treat.

Don't forget that you can enter to win all three Duffy Dombrowski novels here and Tom will be back on Friday for an outstanding interview. Check back!

Next up on our list of memoirists this week is an amazing woman. Megan Abbott is the Edgar Award-Winning author of four novels; this past July she released the fourth, BURY ME DEEP which was inspired by the true story of Winnie Ruth Judd, the "Trunk Murderess." Her shorter work has appeared in various anthologies and she is the editor of the Edgar-nominated A HELL OF A WOMAN: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FEMALE NOIR. In addition to her fiction work, Megan published a non-fiction work titled THE STREET WAS MINE: WHITE MASCULINITY IN HARDBOILED FICTION AND FILM NOIR.

In addition to her Edgar award for her novel QUEENPIN, Megan is a Barry award winner and a three-time Anthony Award nominee. Megan has a Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University and lives in Queens, New York City. She also occasionally contributes to the Rap Sheet blog.

When I asked Megan for her memoir she said it is:

Lived in her own head,mostly.

But her fans are oh so happy she's put it all down in print! And if you ever have the chance to meet Megan, you'll quickly discover that she's one of the most generous people you'll ever meet. So thrilled to have her join in today.

And according to Lee Child our final memoirist today "writes like Dostoevsky's hooligan great-grandson on speed." How about that? Brent Ghelfi is the author of the Alexei Volkovoy, a.k.a. Volk, thriller series about a Russian gun-for-hire. The first book in the series, VOLK'S GAME, was nominated in 2007 by the International Thriller Writers for the Best First Novel award; it was also nominated for a Barry Best Thriller award. This past August, Brent released the third book in the Volk series, THE VENONA CABLE, and he is hard at work on the fourth book in the series. The Volk novels have been translated into seven languages and optioned for film. That's a lot of success to wrap up into one life-time, but Brent is looking forward; he says,

Three careers. Wonderful family. What's next?

Let's hope a lot!

Oh, my most heart-felt thanks to Sue, Tom, Megan and Brent for making this week's post so spectacular. I'm completely humbled to be joined by these writers I so greatly admire. I hope that you have enjoyed their memoirs as much as I have, and I hope that you enjoy their books as well.
Next week will be the final week for this year's memoirs. I don't know if I'll be able to match this week. It's going to be tough, but I'll see what I can do. I'll hopefully see you all then!
Happy Reading!