You Have the Right to Six Words - The 11th Edition

Glad you made it back; I'm posting the memoirs today because I'm hosting a stop on Kwei Quartey's blog tour for his debut novel WIFE OF THE GODS tomorrow. I hope you'll stop back tomorrow to check out my review of his novel and then on Friday he'll be sitting down for a Q & A with us.

But today we are here for Week 11 of "You Have the Right to Six Words: Six-Word Memoirs From Crime Fiction's Greatest Writers," and boy oh boy am I excited about our line-up today. We're going to be all over geographically and in time, so let's see what today's writers have to tell us.

First up is our interview recap, and that honor goes to debut author Paul Harris. Paul has spent the better part of his career covering conflicts and trouble spots around the world as a reporter. He is now living in New York serving as the U.S. Correspondent for the British weekly newspaper The Observer. Paul's first book, THE SECRET KEEPER, evolved as a result of his own experiences in Sierra Leone, and now he's working on a book that will be set against the 2004 and 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections. In his free time, Paul is an avid traveler. Boy, between a career as a news correspondent and a passion for traveling, it's a good thing his memoir is:

Fears flying; got on planes anyway.

Over across the pond, those Irish folks manage to produce some incredible crime fiction writers. Is it something in the water? We have another of those great writers joining us today, the man Ken Bruen describes as "the future of Irish crime fiction." Declan Burke is the author of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE and THE BIG O. In addition to those published works he also has a few more irons in the fire, namely THE BIG EMPTY and BAD FOR GOOD, which we all hope to see in print here in the very near future. On the non-fiction side, Declan has been working as one of the editors on DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME NARRATIVES IN THE 21ST CENTURY. He's held jobs both in writing and out: laborer, barman, factory hand...writer, editor, reviewer. And of course we can't leave off blogger because he maintains one of crime fiction's best blogs, Crime Always Pays. I'm sure if we asked Declan about his greatest accomplishment, though, it would come in the form of one precious little girl named Lily, Declan's daughter. And why do I think that? Because she plays a prominent role in his memoir:

Born. Played. Read. Wrote. Daddy'd. Died.

Yep, I think that sums things up pretty gosh darned well.

Kelli Stanley takes us through time in her historical fiction mysteries. With her unique combination of classical Rome and hardboiled noir, Kelli produced "Roman noir" when she wrote her first novel, NOX DORMIENDA (A Long Night for Sleeping). And for this she was awarded the 2009 Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award as well as a Certificate of Honor from the city of San Francisco. NOX DORMIENDA is also shortlisted for a 2009 Macavity award. In her second book, due out in February of 2010, Kelli moves a little closer to the present with the book Lee Child says is "beautifully imagined and beautifully written." CITY OF DRAGONS follows a female private investigator in 1940s San Francisco. Even though she's changed time periods, Kelli still holds true to her hardboiled roots. "Children's Day" is a short story prequel to CITY OF DRAGONS that takes place during the 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco and will be published in the anthology FIRST THRILLS, due out in the summer of 2010. She is just a busy, busy lady, and writing isn't even her day job! Whew! She loves Golden Age comic books, jazz and big band swing music (a woman after my own heart), as well as classic films and "battered fedoras." What probably endears this amazing woman to me the most is either her love of a Springer Spaniel named Bertie who walks Kelli every day or her modesty:

Tried my best. Got lucky. Thanks!

I think there's a whole lot more than luck behind that success. I see an awful lot of hard work, and I'm on the outside looking in! Thank YOU, Kelli!

And to wrap up Week 11, we have New York Times best selling author David Baldacci. It's hard to know where to start with an author who's published 17 novels, all of which have been best sellers, many of which have won awards, and two of which are young adult novels. His first novel, ABSOLUTE POWER, blasted into the crime fiction scene and was of course made into a major motion picture starring Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. David's novel WISH YOU WELL was the first book selected for the All America Reads program. Even President Clinton recognized David's work when he selected THE SIMPLE TRUTH as his favorite novel of 1999. Most recently David published FIRST FAMILY, which was his fourth book in the King and Maxwell series.

Before he entered the world of best selling novels, David received a law degree from the University of Virginia and practiced as both a corporate and a trial lawyer. Now he's an acclaimed novelist with his works translated into at least 45 different languages. Next up on the publishing scene for David is his 18th novel, TRUE BLUE, due out in October of this year.


In addition to being a prolific writer, David Baldacci is also a devoted philanthropist. His greatest efforts are directed toward his family's Wish You Well Foundation, which supports family literacy in the United States by fostering and promoting the development and expansion of new and existing literacy and educational programs. He is also active in the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the National Childhood Cancer Foundation, and the Virginia Literacy Foundation.

I have to say that I think this is a person who really "walks the walk." I am honored to include him today and to share his memoir:

Family, friends, books...in that order.

Wow! Thank you everyone for sharing your memoirs with us today. This has been a great week, and I have to tell you that even though we've been doing this now for eleven weeks, I still prep these posts and think, "oh my God! Can you believe they took time out to make memoirs for me and my blog?" This is just still so cool; I'm like a kid in a candy store. Join me back here on our regular day next week...Wednesday...and we'll partake in some more sweets from the candy store!

Happy Reading everyone!

Long-time Jornalist, First-time Novelist Paul Harris

Earlier this week I reviewed Paul Harris' debut novel, THE SECRET KEEPER as part of blog book tour with TLC Book Tours. Paul is presently the U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper, THE OBSERVER, living in New York City. I enjoyed THE SECRET KEEPER so much I asked Paul to come back today and answer some questions for us. He graciously agreed, so let me refrain from chit chat and introduce you to Mr. Paul Harris:



Q. Paul, you’ve been a writer for quite some time, but THE SECRET KEEPER is your first novel. And you used your experiences covering the conflict in Sierra Leone as the basis for THE SECRET KEEPER, but why make the decision to write fiction?

Paul: I always wanted to try my hand at a novel. Fiction was something I have written since I was a child, simply for the pleasure of it. After I left Africa in 2000 and came back to the UK, I just decided that I would really try and make a proper go of it. It was fun but also a way, I think, of processing some of my own experiences.

Q. Along those same lines, you’ve covered quite a lot in your career as a journalist, why choose Sierra Leone as the subject for your first novel?

Paul: Firstly, I just think Sierra Leone makes a great setting for a dramatic story. It has excitement and horror and sets people against an extraordinary backdrop, both during the war and afterwards. Secondly, on a personal level, covering the end of the war there was a very intense personal experience. More so than any other story I have covered in many ways. I was young, on my own to a large degree and in the middle of this frightening chaos. It was far more intense than, for example, being embedded during the invasion of Iraq which felt a lot safer and where journalists where kept a step removed from what was going on (a controversial topic in itself).

Q. Since you covered the conflict in Sierra Leone, were you able to sit down and just start pounding out the book or did you have additional, special research you still had to collect to be able to write? If you did, how did you go about that research? Obviously, your journalism coverage of the conflict was more hands-on; was that the case with any additional research you were doing or was it more “book work” so to speak?

Paul: It was pretty much the first option. I just pounded it out, in fits and starts. It took a long time, as writing a first book I think always does. There is always the nagging thought that what you are producing is unlikely to ever see the light of day. So I worked on it around my job as a reporter in London for The Observer and now US Correspondent. That generally involved taking holidays and locking myself away in an isolated spot with my laptop and nothing to distract me and then you just journey back through your own experiences and imagination to craft the story.

Q. Like you, Danny Kellerman is a journalist. Do the likenesses stop at that point or do you and Danny share any other characteristics?

Paul: I think both Danny and I shared a certain amount of confusion in the face of landing for the first time in such an extreme environment. In that way our emotional reaction was the same. I think Danny also has a hard time adjusting to life back in London after covering the war. He tends to see his previous experiences there as more ‘real’ despite they were traumatic. That certainly was inspired by my own emotional reactions to leaving Africa after four years there. I guess in some degree in writing Danny I was writing “what I know” and so similarities are inevitable.

Q: The characters and their relationships to each other are a vital component of THE SECRET KEEPER. Did you find them taking on a life of their own as you wrote or did they pretty much follow the plan you had mapped out?

Paul: It’s weird but to some extent they do take on some sort of life of their own. I plan ahead my writing and plotting. I don’t just plunge in and see what happens. But even with that, I would look back and find characters relating in ways or doing things that I had never consciously thought of. I sort of think of it in terms of that trick will pull a handkerchief out of his nose, attached to another one, and another one.. they just keep coming. My writing feels like that sometimes. I pull a thread and then keep pulling and it all seems to come out. I hope that comparison is not too gross!

Q: One of the elements of THE SECRET KEEPER that I really appreciated was your dialogue. Often I’ve found authors’ first books to be rather rough around the edges on dialogue, so what would you attribute your strength in this area to? Were you just born with the talent or is there a significant element of journalism that has helped you develop that ability or did you hone that skill somewhere else altogether?

Paul: That’s very kind of you to say so and you raise an interesting point about the potential role of journalism in helping one get the hang of dialogue. Certainly journalism makes sure that you are used to reporting and writing with quotes. That you are always on the look out for a good quote or pithy comment that really makes a point. I think that must help a lot when crafting dialogue. After all, most of my professional life is spent interviewing people.

Q: What would you say was the hardest change you had to make to shift from writing journalism to writing fiction?

Paul: I would not say I found anything too hard. They are, in the end, such different mediums. I would say the biggest change was simply that writing fiction felt very liberating. I felt that it allowed me to explore what I really thought about a situation in ways that are limited by the rules that govern how journalism is reported and written. In that way, strangely, I think the truth might sometimes be easier to get at with fiction than it is with journalism.

Q: There’s definitely an element of entertainment in THE SECRET KEEPER and you take the reader on a bit of a thrill ride, but at the same time, there’s a very serious look at a corruption that is almost a catch-22? What would you really like your readers to take away from that?

Paul: I think the key point I would like people to take away from the book is that very few things in life are black and white. There is a moral complexity to everything. Sometimes a bad thing has to be done to have a good effect. Sometimes good actions will lead to bad events. How does one measure justice when, say, letting one bad man get rich might prevent a return to war that would kill thousands. What is the “right” thing to do in that situation? I hope that readers of the book will realize that the world is full of shades of grey.

Q: Where will you go from here? Are there other fiction books in the works? New characters or will Danny find himself in a new adventure?

Paul: I am just starting out on a second book. It’s set against the backdrop of a US presidential campaign. I covered the 2004 and 2008 US elections and will use some of that experience to inform the writing. It’s very early days but I am excited by it. I think this time around the main character won’t be a journalist, but a so-called ‘opposition researcher”: someone employed by a campaign to dig around in the pasts of opponents but also his own candidate.

Q: O.k., so what about Paul Harris as a person? What kinds of things do you like to do for fun? As hobbies? Etc.

Paul: My main passion in life is travel. I guess I was just born under a wandering star. I have been lucky that my job has allowed me to travel widely all over the world (and many parts of the US) and live in different countries. Even now I still get a strange thrill from checking into a hotel as if it is some sort of treat. There’s nothing that beats the feeling of arriving in a new town, city or country for the first time. Whether it is in Kansas or China. When not on the road, though, I just love living in New York. It is a fantastic city, full of theatre and great restaurants and all of it crammed into such a small space that is easy to walk around. I also love playing poker. I have a Friday night home game that I always try and make. It’s a fantastic sport, full of psychology and depth and rarely actually about the cards. Sadly, I am not exactly a poker genius though.

Q: Are there any writers that you feel have influenced your writing style or helped to shape your approach?

Paul: I actually tried to avoid a lot of fiction while writing. I have a terrible fear of unwittingly absorbing a style or an incident or a turn of phrase. So I just closed my mind and tried to make sure as much of the book came from me as possible. I don’t know if that was the best way to do it, as I might have been missing valuable pointers and guides. But I just wanted to ensure that the voice in the book was mine. For better or for worse (and readers will be the judge of that!).

Q: How about what you like to read for fun. When you have NO obligation at all, you can read whatever you want, what or who do you choose to read?

Paul: I actually like reading popular science books. Wonderful examples of beautifully written books by science writers would include The Ancestors Tale, by Richard Dawkins, and Life by Richard Fortey. I can read and reread those books endlessly. On the fiction side of things I have started reading Annie Proulx. She is amazing.

Q: And my final question is one I ask of all my interviewees. There is a book out called NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS PLANNING; SIX-WORD MEMOIRS BY WRITERS FAMOUS AND OBSCURE. What would be YOUR six-word memoir?

Paul: Fears flying; got on planes anyway.

Many thanks to Paul for taking the time to chat with us today. You can learn more about Paul Harris and his debut novel, THE SECRET KEEPER at his website. For an additional review of THE SECRET KEEPER from his blog tour, check out Savvy Verse and Wit today. You can also wish Serena a happy two-year blogiversary while you are there!

Happy Reading!

Thursday's This and That

Wow! It's been a bit of a whirlwind week. I'm not even exactly sure how it got to be Thursday already. I guess time is distorted when one is up on Cloud 9!

Monday's author event with Craig Johnson was absolutely amazing! So, it definitely warrants it own post. That will be Saturday, so I hope you'll check back to hear about my visit to Mystery Lovers Bookshop hosting Craig. In the meantime, I would like to leave you with a few links that you can enjoy about Craig. I turned a colleague on to Craig's work and we've been talking about him a lot at work, so I shared the NY Times article with my colleague and he dug up this site that shows the original "kit" Craig bought to start his house - he built his home in Wyoming if you did not already know.

Someone asked Craig Monday if Walt Longmire looks like him. I said I wasn't sure if Walt looked like Craig but "he definitely sounds like George Guidall." George Guidall is to Walt Longmire what Mark Hammer is/was to Dave Robicheaux. In my humble opinion of course. But you can check out what Craig things about his books on audio here at this site.

And I would totally LOVE it if Penguin would make one of these for me with a Walt Longmire title! Actually, could I get a set? If anyone's looking for a gift for me...;)

So tonight I'll be thinking about my other favorite bookstore in the entire world, the Mystery Bookstore in LA. The super, wonderful folks on the Pacific Coast will be hosting Craig tonight. Lucky folks!

We had a pretty hefty line-up this week for the six-word memoirs. I don't know...maybe I shouldn't have stacked so many great authors in the first three weeks. Keepin' up this pace is gonna be a challenge. But, I'm up for it. Hope you'll keep checking back.

However, I do need to get caught up on reviews. Hopefully you'll get one or six of those in the very near future. June is just crazy on this blog! Isn't it? Well, crazy doesn't even begin to describe this blog post from the L.A. Times. They have a list of 60 new books to read this summer - have you seen this? THIS SUMMER? Now that's a lot of reading. Michael Connelly's SCARECROW made the list, and so did THE SILENT HOUR. THE ANGEL'S GAME is one I have and am hoping to get to. Donald Westlake's final Dortmunder made their list, as did Pat Conroy's SOUTH OF BROAD. If I was making the list these would all be there but so would THE DARK HORSE (Craig Johnson), THE SECOND DEATH OF GOODLUCK TINUBU (Michael Stanley), TRUST NO ONE (Gregg Hurwitz), MIND SCRAMBLER (Chris Grabenstein), and BREATHING WATER (Timothy Hallinan). But the most blatantly missing title? RAIN GODS? Really? It didn't make their list? Guess that's why no one asks ME to make those lists, huh?

O.k., so I don't want to forget to congratulate Lori from Kansas who won the signed copy of Lisa Unger's DIE FOR YOU. I will be getting that in the mail to Lori this week. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. And stay tuned. I have some more contests planned for this month!

I don't think I've mentioned here yet that I've been reading the May/June 2009 CRIMESPREE Magazine. Do you have a copy of this? There are some fabulous articles in this magazine! If you don't have a copy; you need to get one!

I still have to wrap up the read-a-thon. There was a final meme that I was supposed to answer and just simply didn't get to it because of my trip to PA on Monday. I had a wonderful time on Sunday reading, though. As you know if you followed my posts then I finished up BREATHING WATER, which I will be reviewing for you later this summer. I also finished THE WAY HOME, George Pelecanos' most recent novel. That review will be forthcoming. It was a beautiful day and I spent most of it on my front porch swing or the lawn chair in the back yard - so the dogs could be outside, too. It was a great time, but if I do something like that again, I need to make sure I don't have a day trip planned the NEXT day, too. Too crazy!

I hope you will check back tomorrow. As I mentioned on Tuesday, I'll be hosting an interview with the author of THE SECRET KEEPER, Paul Harris. I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more from Mr. Harris down the road!

Until then...Happy Reading!

***Update 6:36 EST - I have fixed my major, major botch, but if you happen to be coming back to this post, Gregg Hurwitz's book is called TRUST NO ONE. It's due out later this month. TELL NO ONE is the first stand alone that Harlan Coben wrote and that I recently finished listening to on audio book. My sincerest apologies to both authors. Too bad spell check can't catch idiot mistakes!

THE SECRET KEEPER - Paul Harris

When Danny Kellerman first receives a letter requesting help from Maria Tirado, his former lover from Sierra Leone, he's inclined to blow it off. After all Maria is the one who chose Sierra Leone over Danny. He hadn't heard a word from her in four years and now he was happily ensconced in a new relationship with a wonderful woman. But when his curiosity about the letter he received three weeks after it was dated gets the better of him, he begins to investigate it. It is only natural; as a journalist, his job is to investigate. What he uncovers devastates him and changes him forever: Maria was murdered.

Danny returns to Sierra Leone in an effort to uncover the trouble Maria was in, find out why she needed his help and what exactly the truth is about her murder. His conscience simply won't allow him to do nothing. But will he survive the corruption and evil to tell Maria's story?

THE SECRET KEEPER is journalist Paul Harris's first foray into fiction and he sure knows how to do it in grand style. The Prologue ignites the reader's emotional candle, and Harris doesn't allow it to be extinguished until long after the last page is turned.

The depiction of a Sierra Leone, both as a war-ravaged country and then as a peaceful but corrupt nation is so meticulously developed you can't help but feel as though you are there, walking alongside Danny, a first-time war correspondent, in a land being ravished by its own people:

As Sankoh swaggered around the ruins of Freetown, his boy soldiers inched closer atrocity by atrocity and the power of the government shrank like a puddle drying in the African sun. Freetown was helpless, like a rape victim lying bloodied in a gutter, purse stolen, skirt torn, waiting for the final blow.

The intensity of this novel is augmented by the extreme devastation present in Sierra Leone and facing the cast of characters. This is not simply a plot of the white hats against the black hats. And it is not sufficient to say the plot is merely "intense." The blurring lines of good and evil inch the reader closer to the edge of his/her seat, they propel the reader forward through the plot, desperately seeking the seed of all this evil and hoping retribution for all the innocent who are devastated by it lies ahead. Harris's SECRET KEEPER is not one that leaves the reader when he/she reads the final page and closes the book. It echos long after page 318.

In all fairness, I feel I also need to mention what is missing from THE SECRET KEEPER. As a first novel, I could not find any of the awkward dialogue that plagues so many first-time authors. I also could not find a lack of character development or the use of stereotype. The realism of the characters populating THE SECRET KEEPER is incredible. Most of what covers the pages of this novel is content we'd probably like to pretend on a day-to-day basis doesn't exist; like small children who squeeze their eyes shut - we don't see it, so surely it must not exist. But as Harris jars you from the comfort of a highly developed country and drops you smack dab in the middle of chaos, you know, without a doubt that there are many Kams in the world, Major Gbamanja's not an exaggeration, and Rose is a symbol of far, far, far too many mothers.

Read THE SECRET KEEPER with a word of caution. This is a book that will increase your heart rate; it isn't one you will be able to put down; and it certainly isn't one that you will easily be able to forget.

THE SECRET KEEPER (ISBN: 978-0-525-95102-5) was released by Dutton (part of the Penguin Group) in April this year. And Paul Harris is presently conducting a tour with TLC Book Tours. You can see other stops on his blog tour here. And I encourage you to stop back here at Jen's Book Thoughts this Friday to meet Paul Harris in an interview.