Book Notes — Trace Conger And Mr. Finn, Number 3

Not a lot of moss can grow on Trace Conger’s keyboard. His third Mr. Finn book is out.  I’ve commented here before on the first two – The Shadow Broker and Scar Tissue. I have a feeling we’ll be dealing with Mr. Finn’s fourth sooner rather than later.  The Prison Guard’s Son, just out, continues the adventures of the shadowy former private eye, whose lack of license seems to give him license to do what he deems necessary — legal or not and with moral judgment that is, at best, dicey.

Trace Conger

One of the interesting qualities that comes out of the notion of a series is not only getting to know the main character, a worthwhile endeavor in this case, but also those regular characters that surround him or her. I’m especially fond of Finn’s father, and his ex-love, who may or my not be so ex.  

This tale, full of clever twists, introduces us to a man who suffered the loss of a son in a brutal murder many years ago.  The two nine-year-old boys who were convicted of the crime served their sentences and were released into a federal protection program ostensibly because of how young they were when they committed the crime. The father of the victim has not forgotten nor forgiven, and he hires Finn to find the two so carefully hidden so many years ago.

 

Questions arise, of course.  How does one find people professionally hidden, given completely new and officially sanctioned identities?  Where does one begin?  More important, what happens if they are found? As it was with his previous books, Conger seems to approach his stories from unexpected angles and forces his readers to contend with the complex moral dilemmas that arise when law, justice and pure vigilantism intersect.

Trace Conger’s The Shadow Broker was awarded The Shamus by the Private Eye Writers of America for “Best First Novel.”

Blatant Self Promotion – Reviews For Killing Frost

All Eleven Shanahans

There are times when we – writers – must be shameless. Just as we have learned to fill our own gas tanks, squeegee the window and check the oil at the  gas station; deposit and withdraw money from the bank without a teller, buss our table after lunch; and even check out our own groceries, and bag them in our own bags; if you are a writer you know you must promote your own book. With that in mind, I pass along recent reviews of Killing Frost the last book in my Shanahan series 25 years after the first book was published.

“The real prize here is the tone, which Tierney keeps expertly hovering between compassionate valediction and civic outrage.” — Kirkus Reviews

“…the book’s real appeal is Shanahan’s gruff, dogged devotion to his much younger girlfriend, Maureen. Maureen keeps this old, broken-down detective going with a mixture of tough love, canny professional assistance, and gritty determination. This entry is a tribute to human decency and one man’s refusal to give up in the face of age and inevitable physical deterioration.” — Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

“I’ve read and greatly enjoyed every entry to feature this brave, cantankerous and often brilliant private eye and highly recommend not only this book, but all those that have preceded it.”   — George Easter, Deadly Pleasures

For a complete list of Shanahan books and information about each, please click here.

News — Bring On the P.I. Novels & Libraries Celebrate in San Francisco

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the dearth of Private eye depiction in todays‘ movies. But the private eye novel has been declared dead or dying from time to time. J Kingston Pierce, editor of the “rap sheet,” “the go-to source for crime fiction news), also picked up the theme for a Kirkus Magazine article.  Pierce is also senior editor of January Magazine and reviewer for Kirkus. If that weren’t enough for one human he has a special blog on “Killer Covers,” a great place to look at vintage crime book covers. Pierce is convinced P.I. novels are holding their own.  In his story, I found my recent book featuring P.I. Deets Shanahan on his list of new P.I. novels that assured him that the P.I. genre is alive and well.

Here are the five new private eye books the busy Pierce picked:

And Sometimes I Worry About You, by Walter Mosley

Robert Parker’s Kickback by Ace Atkins

Vixen, by Bill Pronzini

Shadow of a Hangman by Edward Marston

Killing Frost by Ronald Tierney

This morning a million folks are gathering on San Francisco’s Market Street to celebrate Pride. Given the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage, there should be a little extra energy this year. 

Two blocks away, mostly underground, at the vast Moscone Center, 10,000 or more people gathered for the American Library Association’s big national conference being held over this weekend.  Two huge exhibit halls are filled with booths for publishers, distributors, periodicals and others in the book business. I was invited by Orca Publishing to sign ARCs for my soon-to-be-released novella for them.  Yesterday, I signed and signed and signed. I found the visitors to be especially happy to have a book that takes place in San Francisco while they were here for a mix of business and pleasure. Due out the end of summer, The Blue Dragon is part of Orca’s Rapid Read series. I am thrilled with the concept – easy to read short books perfect for that flight from L.A. to New York. Some are for younger readers. However some are mysteries for the rest of us by authors you may know and love — Reed Farrel Coleman and Rick Blechta as examples.

Blatant Self Promotion And Slightly Subtle Celebration — 25 Years With Deets Shanahan

Last Shanahan, May 1 Release

My new book, Killing Frost won’t be released until May 1.  The good news is that Amazon and B&N are offering pre-release discounts on advance orders.  Some bookstores might do so as well if you place an advance order through them. This is good for collectors, I suspect.  So too is the fact that this is the last Shanahan novel and also celebrates the veteran detective’s 25th anniversary in print.

It’s a fairly big deal for me. The first book, Stone Veil made a good impression back in 1990 when it launched, and the reviews of all 10 published so far — Killing Frost being the 11th  — have encouraged me and its publisher, the UK’s Severn House, to keep the Shanahan books coming. Some writers say they don’t read reviews. That’s probably true in some cases.   I won’t pretend I don’t care about reviews. I do care.  I eagerly and anxiously await them for this new book as well, understanding that just because I believe it is one of my best doesn’t make it so. But I do believe it is.

Why is this the last in the series?

The First Ten Shanahans

There have been discussions about how many books are reasonable for any given series. The authors of the excellent Martin Beck novels said that ten was enough. Writers disagree.  So do readers. Agatha Christie wrote 33 Hercule Poirot mysteries and 12 featuring Miss Marple.  There were 75 novels in Georges Simenon’s Maigret series. Robert B. Parker wrote 40 Spenser novels. His series, like Mickey Spillane’s legendary Mike Hammer, continues beyond the creator’s death.  Other writers stepped in (good ones, thankfully), pushing for an endless series of each – immortality of sorts. 

But Shanahan was 69 when he first appeared (don’t try to do the math) and I was very interested in the aging process as part of his character and perspective on the times.  I knew there weren’t that many stories. I can’t be sure what I would have done if Shanahan had achieved the status of some of the other fictional private eyes.  Even so, there is a kind of emotional satisfaction having come full circle, having finished what I started, being able to wrap it up myself.

First Shanahan, 1990

When I heard about the authors pulling Beck after ten, I was ready to do the same.  I did some tidying up at the end of Bullet Beach, my tenth novel about Shanahan and his love, Maureen.  However, I had spent a couple of decades writing about the elderly detective, when at his fictional departure, I began to personally experience what age really does to our ability to function. After all, I began writing about the 70ish private eye when I was in my forties. I’ve now caught up with my aging protagonist.  I wrote a novella to incorporate this new perspective. But the unexpected continued to intrude and there was a separate, more substantial novel brewing even as I finished the novella. The novel became Killing Frost.

As the Shanahan years end, I continue to write. In May Killing Frost will appear. This fall, the novella, Blue Dragon, will be released by Raven Books, an imprint of Canadian publisher, Orca. This marks a focus on different people and different places as well as different approaches to the mystery genre. And all this brings with it a kind of excitement that my aging gray matter could use.

Opinion — Released Today And The Blatant, Very Blatant Book Promotion

They are being called “digital originals” now.  These are books published in e-book format only, or published first in that format and later on paper. 

Released Today

My first digital original, published by the Penguin Group’s imprint, Dutton’s Guilt Edged Mysteries, is Death in the Haight.  It may be regarded as a stand-alone story, but it is related to the San Francisco mysteries that feature Carly Paladino and Noah Lang.  This one is Noah’s story — with, I hope, a tilt toward the early P.I. novels — in keeping with the new imprint.

Death in the Haight is also a novella, which means it is longer than a short story, even a long short story, but shorter than a novel.  The novella is my favorite form — probably closer in size to the pulp P.I. books of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Noah Lang and his gender-bending friend work for a family trying to find a runaway son.  When the son is accused of murdering a prostitute Lang continues the search at the family’s bequest, but becomes a target of a homicide inspector who has long believed that Lang is dirty. Lang’s “interference” in the case revives the cop’s desire to bring him down.

And because it is short and because it is an ebook and no trees were killed or ink spilled, Death in the Haight is available for a mere $2.99 (high promo mode here). The only hitch is that you have to have a Kindle, Nook or iPad, etc.

And a further note for my friends, the usual disclaimer: I will never know whether you bought this book or not. And I won’t ask.  And if you do and don’t like it, you won’t have to make up some carefully worded note that pits your need to be honest against a desire to spare my feelings.  I’ll never ask.  I promise. However, if you do check it out and you do like it, a multi-star review on Amazon or B&N (or anywhere else) isn’t out of order.

DEATH IN THE HAIGHT by Ronald Tierney

A Dutton Guilt Edged Mystery

On-sale: August 21, 2012 / $2.99 / 9781101610046

Also available from Dutton Guilt Edged Mysteries:

SKIN: A Mike Hammer Story by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

$2.99 / 9781101595381

and

MURDER IN MUMBAI by K.D. Calamur

$3.99 / 9781101587485

Dutton Guilt Edged Mysteries are available wherever eBooks are sold.

ABOUT DUTTON GUILT EDGED MYSTERIES

From 1947 to 1956, Dutton Guilt Edged Mysteries was a pulp noir publisher that specialized in hard-boiled detective fiction. The imprint published eighty-two novels in ten years, including noir icon Mickey Spillane, whose first seven Mike Hammer novels were published under the Guilt Edged logo. Relaunched in 2012 as a Penguin eSpecial imprint, the program is dedicated to publishing original crime short stories and novellas as eBooks.