The Lady Killers

Giving Thanks

With Thanksgiving Day approaching at the end of an up and down year, I'm thinking of what I have to be thankful for. Sometimes I complain about the stress of writing two books a year and all the promotion that goes with it. But today I am really thankful that I've had a chance to see my work published, that I get letters from fans and what I have created is appreciated by other people. I do realize that it is not always the best that succeed, that there is always an element of luck involved. I'm sure that there are brilliant actors working in regional theater who would outshine any movie star, but they never got that lucky break.

So I'm saying thank you for the chance to pursue what I love to do all my life. I am also thankful that I have a chance to live in the perfect place for me. I love the hills and coast of Northern California, I love being outdoors, I love the sunshine. I also love the closeness to San Francisco and all the culture and restaurants and ethnic celebrations. And I look forward to the winter months in my condo in Arizona and the desert and wonderful sunsets.

But none of this would mean a thing without friends and family. Most of all I am thankful that I am surrounded by people I love and who love me. When a grandchild climbs onto my knee and says, "Nana, I do love you," that is the most wonderful feeling in the world. When I sit with the family at a holiday table and the room resounds to laughter and banter, I feel competely content. And when I'm sitting with my friends, sharing laughing--well there's nothing better than that either.

And having lost a dear friend to cancer this year, I am thankful for my health. I'm thankful that we live near good hospitals, that my husband's recurrance of cancer was caught quickly and is being treated agressively. Having had a patch of bad health at the beginning of the year I realize more than ever that if you don't feel well,then nothing else matters.

Lastly I am thankful that I live in a country where women don't have to cover themselves head to toe before they can leave the house, and are at the mercy of their menfolk. I'm thankful that we can choose our own leaders fairly, that there is no secret police watching or soldiers standing with AK 47s at the end of my street.

So I wish all of you a blessed, happy thanksgiving. Be grateful for what you have. Hug those you love. Oh--and keep on reading good books!

Welcome Guest Blogger, LJ Sellers

Do Protags Have to Be Likable?

Before I launch into this blog, I’ll introduce myself: L.J. Sellers, mystery/suspense novelist, as well as friend and neighbor of Carola Dunn. I say “neighbor” because we both live in Eugene, OR, where my stories are set … and tie-dye is considered “dressy.” The series features homicide detective Wade Jackson, who struggles like the rest of us to balance work and family. The first two books, THE SEX CLUB and SECRETS TO DIE FOR are available now, and two more are in the works.

When I wrote the first story, I didn’t know I was starting a series. Still, I made the detective character likable and moral, so I could bring him back if I wanted to. Jackson had to be someone I could live with for months at time.

But not everyone needs the protagonist to be upstanding.

I started a crime story recently with a fast-moving plot and terrific writing. But I’m probably not going to finish it. The character, although resourceful and good-hearted in her own way, is not someone I relate to or respect. I wanted to like her anyway, but the world she inhabits is sleazy, and everyone she encountered, including friends, gave me the creeps. Despite curiosity about how the story turned out, I had to put it down because spending too much time in her world was a little revolting.

There’s seems to be a trend now in crime fiction to create main characters who are seriously flawed or blatantly criminal. In another story I read recently for a discussion group, the protagonist — supposedly a reformed criminal, living a good life — participated in a heinous crime to keep himself from going to jail. If I had not been reading the book for discussion, I would have put it down immediately. I skimmed through the rest, uncaring. What’s the point in reading about a protagonist who you want to see caught and punished? Especially when you know that won’t happen.

This experience happens for me with movies too. If there is not a single character I find decent enough to root for, then I lose interest and shut the movie off. I’m typically not someone who sees the world in black and white, but with crime stories, I want good guys and bad guys who are clearly discernable. Characters flaws are fine, but if the protagonist belongs in jail, then the story loses credibility for me. I make an exception for Elmore Leonard’s novels, and everyone can cheer for a likable thief, especially if he’s played by Brad Pitt or George Clooney.

I was surprised when other readers in the discussion said they didn’t have to like the protagonist to find a story compelling. For me, good characterization with a protagonist means creating someone readers will care about, like, and/or respect, at least in some way. That definition is obviously narrower than the rest of the reading/writing world sees it.

How do you feel about protagonists who are unlikable or deeply flawed? Does it spoil the story for you? Can you name a novel that you thoroughly enjoyed even though you didn’t like the protagonist?

A song that made me laugh

Jane here, and having just posted off a short story into the wide blue yonder, I feel like being frivolous for the rest of today.

So I'll share something I heard this week which made me laugh. It was in a 1960s radio comedy show called "Stop Messing About" which is being repeated on the BBC just now; it was the successor to "Round the Horne" after Kenneth Horne sadly died. The series had many of the same stars in it, and though I think it's a bit like Hamlet without the Prince, it has some excellent bits - including this spoof folksong. I can't send you the music, but just add any suitable folksy tune; and like many folksongs, it makes a pretty good verse without any accompaniment.

I took my love to Primrose Hill,
Upon St. Swithin's Day;
I pointed out the woody woods
We passed along the way...
But he wouldn't.

I took my love to Turnpike Lane,
When Michaelmas was nigh;
I thought I'd caught a twinkle
In my roguish lover's eye...
But I hadn't.

I took my love to Potters Bar
When Halloween was near;
And though he seemed quite willing
I'd gone off the whole idea...
So we didn't.

I love witty song lyrics...from Gilbert to Flanders, from Coward to Lehrer, and many, may more. I've written comic songs myself, including some with fellow Lady Killer Rhys in our student days. They were brilliant...that is, quite a few of them made people laugh.

Later, when we lived in the Yorkshire Dales I used to sing and play with a concert-party raising money for charity, and I really enjoyed it; and as we kept being asked back to places, the audiences must have done too.

I don't get to perform in public much now, but when I do, there's nothing like the feeling of singing to an audience and hearing their amusement; sometimes they try to keep the laughter down so they don't miss the next line, and sometimes there's a wild burst of a laugh, and you have to wait, to "vamp till ready," as the old pianists used to say, to let everyone quieten down. Magic.

When I heard that old radio show this week and that little gem of a spoof, I laughed aloud. I've been singing the song around the house, and thinking: I wish I'd written that.

The telephone or le telephone?

Cara here on Friday,
Telephones in Paris are on my mind. I land in Paris on Tuesday and
meet my friend Sarah who'll give me my French cell phone. She's my cell phone guardian and keeps the Sim card updated, the phone charged and ready. These days
it's impossible to arrange a meeting, an interview, or call a resto without one.
But I remember the days when few people had land lines and made their calls from
a cafe like the one above. You'd get a jeton=token from the bar man, slot it megalithic phone on the counter or the one on the wall downstairs near the WC and
talk. Of course, everyone heard your conversation! But this was your cafe, your community, they took messages for you and everyone knew each other's business. Maybe I'm the only one nostalgic for this time but it made the cafe more intimate, time mattered and people kept their appointments.
I took my son to France when he was five years old. Despite loving the frites, he missed his Dad, of course, and wanted to call him all the time. Like he did back home. I remember taking my son to the public phone cabin - hard to find those any more - lifting him up and showing him all the number's we'd have to dial, how we'd have to remember the time was backwards, going into a big explanation etc. He just looked at me and said 'but how do I dial 911 if you're hurt?' It tugged my heart. In preschool he'd learned to dial 911 and insisted he needed to know how he could do it here. So we tried to figure it out in this phone cabin and realized he couldn't even reach the numbers. His big eyes widened and he said 'what do I do then?'
I took his hand and outside pointed to a policeman 'nothing's going to happen to me but that's the person you go to.' Nothing happened to me and our trip improved after we went to the parks every day and he built sand castles with all the other five year old Parisians... but I still can't forget that.
I'll try to post next day Friday from Paris!
Cara

Birth of a Book

Rhys here on Wednesday, feeling under the weather with a cold/cough. It's lucky email can't carry that sort of virus, isn't it?

Anyway, I know I had something brilliant to write about today, but my brain is like cotton, so instead I'll write about what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks, and that is planning for my next Molly book. For me these books always start with place--a particular segment of society in old New York. I've set books in the garment industry, the stage, among the Four Hundred, on Coney Island. Often I don't know what wlil happen to Molly when she goes to one of these places--she is hired to do some kind of detective work and the crime evolves from that.

But this time I have a basis of structure for the book. She's getting married. She's promised Daniel she'll give up her dangerous career, but she's not really sure she wants to be just a wife. So I thought it would be interesting to contrast her expectations as a bride with a bride in a different society. So I'm taking her to Chinatown, where rich men could buy brides and have them shipped from China.

That was my starting point so I have been reading every book I can lay my hands on about early Chinatowns and the history of the Chinese in America. I am familiar with Chinatowns, of course, living a few miles from San Francisco where I have enjoyed wandering on many occasions through the backstreets of Chinatown, observing ducks hanging in a row in butcher's window, live fish in a tank, Chinese medicine shops with little square drawers full of herbs and powders (ground stag horn anyone?

I had always known that the Chinese had a tough time and were driven out of many towns. About five miles from me there is a place called China Camp on the San Francisco Bay, where the Chinese went after they were driven out by San Francisco Fishermen. The little houses still stand and it has been made into a nice museum. There is also Angel Island where new arrivals were detained and processed. So Chinese American history is all around me. But I had no idea how badly they were treated and how discriminatory the exclusion act was. In 1882 an act was passed saying that all Chinese laborers should be deported back to China, no Chinese allowed to enter from now on and no Chinese living in the States could become a citizen. This was at a time when immigrants were pouring in from Europe and being welcomed with open arms.

So why this Sino-phobia? One would have thought that any society would have welcomed Chinese. They were hard working, didn't drink, were quiet, kept to themselves and prospered. Ah, so maybe that was a big factor. They were thrifty, ingenious and they made money. They took over the laundry trade. They became expert market gardeners. Maybe they were resented. Maybe they just looked different--foreign and scary with their almond eyes and their long pigtails hanging down their backs. But all sorts of rumors circulated--they stole white girls for prostitution, they ate puppies, they all smoked opium.

In New York there were hardly any Chinese women because of the exclusion act. It was a town of bachelors, trying not to get into trouble with their Italian neighbors. Some of them--the early arrivals, had married Irish girls who perfered a polite and thrifty Chinese husband who could provide for them well to a drunken Irish lout. Of course they were forever outcast from white society after this. It's not actually known how many Chinese women there actually were--they would have had bound feet and not be allowed out, so they would have been invisible, hearing about life only from their children whow went to American school.

So I've plenty of juicy stuff to start my story--Tong wars, opium joints, gambling parlors, women hidden in upstairs rooms, half Irish children.... and Molly, as usual getting in over her head! I can't wait.

Signings reminder, and the turn of the seasons

A quick reminder to Southern California readers that I'll be signing at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego on Friday 20th at 7, and the Mystery Bookstore in LA on Saturday 21st at noon.

http://mysteriousgalaxy.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp

http://www.mystery-bookstore.com/blog/archives/author_events_nov2009.html

And please note my new website: http://CarolaDunn.weebly.com

Yesterday was a gorgeous autumn day, mild and blustery, leaves flying all over the place. I managed to walk to the duck pond by the river bike path, the first time since my back went out. One of the great things about living in Eugene is that I'm constantly reminded of the English seasons, English weather. When you're living in Southern California, as I did for 20 years, it's sometimes difficult to remember what it was really like, but this part of Oregon is very similar.

Weather is ever-present in my books, sometimes playing an important role. In Manna from Hades, for instance, set on the stormy NW coast of Cornwall, an Atlantic gale and associated rain and flooding are essential to the plot. Likewise the London pea-souper fog in Rattle His Bones,  and the river fog in The Bloody Tower.

 In the night, a high wind banged the hazel branches outside my bedroom window against the gutter so loudly that I thought a raccoon was tearing off the roof shingles. Today it's raining again. Constant change is the only constant.

Carola

Evil

Ann Parker here, Monday's child on the Lady Killers, apologizing for the short (and to the point) post title. You see, I'm finishing up a course on the nature of evil (when I saw it being offered, I jumped at the chance to sign up). We've been reading parts of Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. It's been a loooooong time since I've read any philosophy, and I found myself crawling through the book at a snail's pace, highlighter in hand, feeling very much like I was back in college again.

 I've much to mull over, as a result of the class. It's interesting how the definition of evil has morphed over the ages... something I've not considered before. The Great Earthquake of Lisbon in 1755 was a watershed event for defining evil, apparently. Here's a couple of quotes from the book:  "The sharp distinction between natural and moral evil that now seems self-evident was born around the Lisbon earthquake..." and "Before Lisbon, evils were divided into matters of nature, metaphysics, or morality. After Lisbon, the word evil was restricted to what was once called moral evil..."

Learning more about how evil was defined and interpreted through (modern) history has made me realize: In writing fiction, I've been working from a modern concept of evil. It's interesting to me, because I strive to be accurate in depicting a certain era in history (1880s in the American West), but I've not spent much time examining the views/definition of evil in that time frame. Guess that's something I'll have to rectify...

Going to the Dogs

Jane here, being somewhat self-indulgent today. I’ve spent a pleasant few hours browsing through the photos my husband Richard has taken of our two cocker spaniels, Copper and Rosie.

I’ve been invited to guest-post on Marshal Zeringue’s lovely blog-series, “Coffee with a Canine”, and I was choosing the pix to go with my post.  I don’t know what date I and my photos will appear – I’ll let you know – but meantime, do go and have a look at the blog; it has lovely dogs, entertaining stories about how they and their humans came together, ranging from comic to moving…and a few weird and wonderful examples of coffee and tea as well.

I found far more photos than Marshal could use, and here’s one of our two scamps in the garden. They are good friends, and share the spaniel tendency to be constantly on the go, so they have trouble staying still for long enough to have their pictures taken!

 I love having dogs around in real life, so I include them in my mysteries too. Not spaniels in Roman Britain, of course; but the Romans certainly had dogs, for work and as pets, and so did the ancient Britons. The geographer Strabo mentions hunting-dogs among the items exported from Britain even before the Romans got there.

I like reading mysteries with animals in them, as long as the animals fit naturally into the texture of life, and anything they do in plot terms has to fit in properly too. I get annoyed with some stories I’ve read, where a dog or cat appears to have almost super-human powers of crime-solving…or, even worse, is credited with such, but in fact is just an ornament, tacked onto a perfectly good mystery to give it (hopefully) extra appeal. Aurelia’s dogs behave…well, like dogs. They take a hand, I mean paw, in the plot very occasionally, when that seems right. There’s nothing like an alert canine to lead an unsuspecting human to a hidden body, is there?

Don't tell my spaniels I've said that. It'll give them ideas, and they're already mischievous enough.

Paris at night

Cara here on Friday,

Ok so you're walking down this staircase late at night in Montmartre,

a cat slinks by, there's shouting in a nearby passage and then who do you want to

see but...?

Speaking in Contra Costa

I'm one of those who loves cold, wet, weather, as long as I'm inside most of the time.  But I think that Rhys is in the majority.  Australia never had any allure for me, except perhaps the wine country.

That's a sort of segue for telling everyone that I'm going to be speaking at the Contra Costa Jewish Book and Art Festival on Sunday at 11:00 am, in Walnut Creek.  They asked me to talk about the Da Vinci Code again and I'll probably start with that and move on to the mysteries with the underlying theme being mythology -- why most of us are more likely to believe myth than facts.  Since I've been dealing with this most of my working life, I've quite a few opinions on the subject.  Part of my reason for writing the medieval mysteries was clearing up some of the myths about the period.  But an awful lot of reviewers seemed to ignore that part.

Now I'm telling people that there was never a Priory of Sion, the Templars weren't secret pagans and Nostradamus didn't think the world would end in 2012.   But the myths are just so darn much more interesting to most people.  I sometimes feel that I'm sweeping sand off the beach at low tide.

Still, here I go again, the Dona Quixote of history.  If you want to know more about the festival, here is the link.

http://63.151.43.13/bookfest2009/home.html

(you may have to cut and paste)

Sharan