This and That: A Criminal Cornucopia
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Hats off and balloons aloft for Robert Crais!
The Santa Barbara Book Council has just awarded him the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, named, of course, for the distinguished creator of Lew Archer, who made the lovely California coastal city his home for so many years. The award is given each year to a California writer whose work “raises the standard of literary excellence.”
Previous recipients of this singular honor include Ray Bradbury, Sue Grafton, and Dean Koontz.
There’s more for the creator of Elvis Cole and one of today’s most consistently outstanding writers. He will also be the Guest of Honor at next year’s Murder in the Grove (Boise, Idaho, June 8– 9), where he will receive the Bloody Pen, an award presented by the Popular Fiction Association of Idaho in recognition of “excellence in writing and contribution to the field of mystery.”
Previous winners of this honor have been Michael Connelly, Martha Grimes, and Sara Paretsky.
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Have you ever wondered how many copies of books sell? Without getting specific, you might like to know that in 2004 (the last year for which full figures are available), 10 titles sold more than a million copies; 67,000 titles sold between 1,000 and 4,999 copies; 203,000 titles sold between 100 and 999 copies; and 948,000 titles sold 99 copies or fewer.
My advice to new writers: Don’t give up your day job.
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Fair warning: James Ellroy, the powerful genius who wrote “The Black Dahlia,” reissued by the Mysterious Press, read the screenplay for the recently released film based on the book and proclaimed it “brilliant, maybe better than ‘L.A. Confidential.'” Evidently, it ran to three hours so it had to go to the cutting room. Having rushed out to see it, I can report that it is an incomprehensible mish-mash.
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If, for some reason, you plan to be in the Midwest later this year, you might like to consider attending “The Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave” held November 3–5 in the other Manhattan, the one in Kansas.
Alas, Manhattan’s greatest literary figure will not be able to attend in person. Damon Runyon, born there in 1880, will be present only in spirit. In addition to the featured speakers, J.M. Hayes and Nancy Pickard, there will be guys (Rob Walker and Joe Konrath) and dolls (Susan McBride, Harley Jane Kozak, and Laura Durham).
For more information, visit the Website: www.manhattanmysteries.com.
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If you would like a recommendation of a terrific read, try Stephen J. Cannell’s “White Sister” (St. Martin’s, 352 pages, $24.95). What it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in action and suspense. It’s the fifth in the Shane Scully series about an L.A. cop who, in this adventure even more than in the earlier ones, eschews all departmental rules to get the job done. While the novel is clearly of the hard-boiled school, Scully is often so sensitive and gentle that you’d like to smack him if you weren’t afraid he’d beat the living sausage out of you.
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The prolific Max Allan Collins has created numerous series characters, the most popular being Nate Heller, whose cases are based on real-life crimes and actual historic figures, and a series of paperback originals about Eliot Ness, the iconic FBI agent. He likes to write about criminals, too, with a series of novels featuring Nolan, a professional thief, and another about Quarry, a professional killer.
The most famous career criminal to come from his pen, however, is Michael Sullivan, who kills for money given to him by a Mafia boss, in his graphic novel “The Road to Perdition.” It was made into one of the best films of 2002 with Tom Hanks playing the hit man and Paul Newman as his boss in an atmospheric Depression-era masterpiece.
Quarry, the violent killer whose first adventure, “The Broker,” was published three decades ago, seemed to be finished when Mr. Collins wrote the fifth in 1987. He also produced a muchanthologized short story, “A Matter of Principal,” which later was made into a short film that has won several awards at film festivals. Letting nothing go to waste, the story has now been expanded into a novel, “The Last Quarry” (Hard Case Crime, 201 pages, $6.95), and it’s a good one.
Lured out of retirement with a highly lucrative contract to kill a beautiful but seemingly quiet librarian, Quarry makes the terrible mistake of falling in love with her. He’s already done his Boy-Scout deed of saving a young woman’s life and, incidentally, profiting handsomely from it when he forces her father to pay a ransom for her. But the rescued girl’s dad is so impressed with Quarry that he offers him $250,000 to finish off the sexy bibliophile.
As seems to be the case with literary hit men, Quarry is taciturn, ironic, and fearless. As he is locking a tough bodyguard into the trunk of a car, the hapless guy looks up at Quarry and says, “Thanks.” The hit man asks, “What for?””Not … not killing me.” Slamming the trunk shut, he says, “It’s early yet.”
Let’s hope the title has it wrong. Let’s hope it’s not the last Quarry.
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The last thought of the day will be left in the capable hands of Raymond Chandler. When he defended mystery fiction against those who failed to appreciate its finer qualities, he wrote: “Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I’ll show you a fool, a clever fool — perhaps — but a fool just the same.”
Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com