Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

I will be revisiting my history every now and then, courtesy of the Internet Archive, AKA the Wayback Machine. This is a post from February 12, 2001. Enjoy!

What’s New: Survived my first holiday season as a manager.  It was exhilarating, frustrating (at times), hectic, fun and over in a mad minute…or so it seemed.  No post holiday blues for this bitch though.  Not with fabulous new books out like La Cucina by Lily Prior!  I am enamored of this book and determined to make sure everyone I come in contact with hears about it.

I was very excited to receive an email from Time Warner books.  They are providing me with some additional content, including this fascinating article by Michael Connelly on my new Author Author page.  We are talking about possibly running some sort of contest, giving readers of this site the opportunity to win free books!

Looking into the Abyss
by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly, 2001, Circle Books, Sarasota FL

A Darkness More Than Night is a title I have wanted to use for many years but waited until I had the right story. The title comes from Raymond Chandler, writer of several classic detective novels set in Los Angeles. Once while writing about what made his early hardboiled stories so popular he stated that among other things it was because in these stories the “streets were alive with a darkness that was more than night.” I read that a long time ago and it always stuck with me. It occurred to me while writing my tenth book that this was the story for which that title was made.

In this book my plan was to make the story an exploration of Harry Bosch’s character and the cost of his going into the darkness. By darkness, I mean the underworld of crime and moral corruption where he toils as a cop. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that when you look into the darkness of the abyss that the abyss looks into you. Probably no other line or thought more inspires or informs my work. By virtue of his job as a police detective Harry Bosch has spent most of his life looking into the abyss, into the darkness of the human soul. What has this cost him? What did going into the darkness do to him? These questions became the basis of this book. To me this book is a study of the price that is paid by those in our society who must go into the darkness to right wrongs and solve the crimes of the morally corrupt.

At one point a character in the book takes a basic law of physics-for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction-and adopts it to human or spiritual physics, concluding that you can’t go into the darkness without changing it and yourself. If that conclusion is correct, then Harry Bosch’s years of carrying a badge have had an unseen cost attached. Exactly what that is forms the exploration of A Darkness More Than Night.

Because all of the prior books about Harry Bosch have been constructed so that the world is seen through his eyes, my goal with this book was to change that a bit. There are many sections of the book where this is still the case. But the majority of the book is seen through another character’s eyes-Terry McCaleb, who I brought back from the novel Blood Work. In Darkness we get a view of Bosch and his world through McCaleb’s eyes. This allowed me to reveal things about him that would have been awkward or even impossible in the prior Bosch books. I think it allows the reader a different view of Harry. My hope is that the reader will be surprised by what they see from this new angle.

The other key part of the book, for me, at least, was the use of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Harry’s real name is Hieronymus Bosch. He is named for the 15th Century painter whose work is replete with depictions of the wages of sin. When I first created Harry Bosch and gave him the painter’s name, I did it with the idea that the name was metaphor. Bosch the painter created strange landscapes where good and bad actions are played out in chaotic scenes. Five centuries later Bosch the detective moves across a chaotic city where good and bad actions are played out before his-and therefore, the readers’-eyes. I wanted with this book to explore this correlation and therefore I made the paintings a pivotal part of the story.

A strange coincidence occurred to me while I was researching this part of the book. I was very familiar with the works of the painter Hieronymus Bosch. I had a collection of books featuring his works and writings about him. I had written several of my Harry Bosch novels in an office where prints of the paintings hung as well. But I was unfamiliar with the workings of an art museum, which would be important to describe in the novel. A friend set me up with a curator at the newly built Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Sitting atop a mountain like a foreboding post-modern castle, the museum itself was a perfect location to use in a crime novel. I told the curator my plan for the book was to have my character McCaleb come to the museum seeking an expert on the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. He would then be shown a Bosch painting and the fictional art expert would comment that the night sky in the painting showed “a darkness more than night,” thereby giving the title of the book life and metaphor all at once.

The catch was I knew that the Getty did not have a Bosch painting in its collection and that I would be creating fiction about a real Los Angeles place. Not to worry, the curator told me. He escorted me to the Getty’s restoration laboratory where coincidentally a Bosch expert was restoring a Bosch painting sent to the Getty from a museum in Brazil. I watched the restoration process for a long time and in the night sky of the painting I saw a darkness that was certainly more than night. It was a strange coincidence, a case of art imitating life imitating art. Or vice versa.

I think that what is also explored in the book is the difference in styles between Bosch and McCaleb. I wanted to show how clearly different these two men are. Both are very good investigators and both are bonded by an earlier case that is referenced in the book. But they operate on different levels of motivation. They are not fueled by the same pump.

Bosch has deep emotional conflicts from which he draws his fire. In a way, he is making up for wrongs done to him when he rights wrongs as a homicide detective. In a way, he is an avenging angel, as McCaleb himself notes in the book.

But McCaleb is different. He is less instinctual and more intellectual about putting the puzzles of crimes together. He is not an avenger. I think he is some one who is motivated by common decency and a desire to see that no bad deed go unpunished. He carries inside a transplanted heart, and with it the knowledge that someone had to die in order for him to live. It has given him a view of the world, and his place in it, unique from Bosch.

I think putting these two different men and different views of the world and different styles together makes for interesting conflict and story. This was not to be a “Butch and Sundance” story. I felt certain as I wrote this book that these two men could not share the same pages easily, that when Terry McCaleb looked into the darkness of Harry Bosch’s eyes that he would see something that haunted him. Perhaps, the cost of looking so long into the abyss.

–Michael Connelly, Los Angeles, January 2, 2001.  Printed with permission of www.twbookmark.com

When I was a kid, the year always felt like forever. I remember my mother telling me that the older you get, the faster the years fly by. I didn’t understand it then, but I sure do now.

Happy New Year! I wish you a year filled with good health, with joy, with love, and lots of good books.

Thank you all for reading, for sharing my reviews with your friends and family, and for letting me know how much you’ve enjoyed (or hated!) a book I’ve recommended.

Thanks to those of you who click through the links I provide when you want to buy a book online that I recommend. I didn’t make enough money this year to break even on website fees, but I’m always hopeful.

Since a few of you asked, here is my Thanksgiving menu this year, which we are calling, “The year Daniel comes home!” I make everything from scratch, which is why I take the week off from work, but it’s a labor of love. If you want any of the recipes, just ask, I’m happy to share.

Melody Scalera’s Hot Clam Dip with Trader Joe’s Brioche Toasts
Friendsgiving Cocktail

The Main Event:
Turkey, Stuffing, Gravy
Cranberry Sauce Two Ways
Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes
Marsha Gilarmo’s Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Bobby Flay’s Parker House Rolls

White Wine: Conundrum
Red Wine: not sure yet, either a Barolo or Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Apple Pie 
with Jeni Britton Bauer’s Milk Chocolate and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Pumpkin Pie with Bourbon Whipped Cream

 I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving,

filled with love, good food, and gratitude!

Mystery Writers of America Announces 2016 Grand Master Walter Mosley

2016 Raven and Ellery Queen Award Winners

November 23, 2015 – New York, NY – Walter Mosley has been chosen as the 2016 Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America (MWA). MWA’s Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality. Mr. Mosley will receive his award at the 70th Annual Edgar Awards Banquet, which will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Thursday, April 28, 2016.

When told of being named a Grand Master, Mosley said, “Receiving the Grand Master Award is the apex of my career as a crime writer; as a writer. It is, joyfully, one of the seminal events of my life.”

Walter Mosley is one of the most acclaimed and prolific crime writers of our time. He started writing when he was thirty-four, and since then has published over forty novels. He is also the most successful and well-known crime writer of color.

He is perhaps best known for his Easy Rawlins series, beginning with Devil in a Blue Dress, which was made into a film starring Denzel Washington. He has also written three other series, featuring Fearless Jones, Leonid McGill, and Socrates Fortlaw. In addition, he has written science fiction, non-fiction, social criticism, young adult fiction, plays, graphic novels, and numerous short stories.

Previous Grand Masters include Lois Duncan, James Ellroy, Robert Crais, Carolyn Hart, Ken Follett, Margaret Maron, Martha Grimes, Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke, Sue Grafton, Bill Pronzini, Stephen King, Marcia Muller, Dick Francis, Mary Higgins Clark, Lawrence Block, P.D. James, Ellery Queen, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and Agatha Christie.

The Raven Award recognizes outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing. Two Raven Awards will be awarded in 2016: one to Margaret Kinsman and the other to Sisters in Crime.

As a mentor, teacher, scholar, and editor, Margaret Kinsman has supported and promoted both the mystery genre as a whole and many individual writers. As senior lecturer in popular culture at Southbank University in London from 1991 – 2012, she played a leading role in making crime fiction an important and legitimate field of study. She has worked hard both to expand readership of our genre in the general public and to expand understanding of the genre as a powerful form of social commentary.

From 2004 to 2011, Kinsman served as Executive Editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection, the only American scholarly journal dedicated to the mystery. She continues to serve Clues as a consulting editor. She is an international authority on Margery Allingham and has published extensively on other American crime writers. She is a U.S. citizen who divides her time between London and Iowa City, Iowa, where she is conducting research in the Nancy Drew archives at the University of Iowa.

When told that she would receive the Raven Award, Kinsman said “”I am thrilled to know the MWA is giving me the Raven award this year – such recognition is indeed an unexpected, and very exciting, honour!”

At the 1986 Bouchercon in Baltimore, Sara Paretsky convened an initial meeting of woman writers who were concerned about both the rising tide of graphic violence against women in mysteries and the lack of equity in review, award nominations, advances, and other measures of a writer’s success. The following year during the Edgars Week, a group of woman writers met in Sandra Scoppettone’s SoHo loft for breakfast and formed Sisters in Crime. Initial steering committee members were a who’s who of woman mystery writers, including Charlotte MacLeod, Kate Mattes, Betty Francis, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Sara Paretsky, Nancy Pickard and Susan Dunlap.

The mission of Sisters in Crime is to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers. Membership is open to all persons worldwide who have a special interest in mystery writing and in furthering the purposes of SinC. The organization has approximately 3,600 members in some fifty regional chapters in the United States and Canada.

When informed that the organization would receive the Raven Award, current SinC President Leslie Budewitz said, “Sisters in Crime is thrilled with this award, honoring nearly thirty years of work in the trenches, promoting the advancement, recognition, and professional development of women crime writers. That it comes from one of our partners in crime and advocacy makes the honor doubly sweet.”Previous Raven winners include Kathryn Kennison, Jon and Ruth Jordan, Aunt Agatha’s Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Oline Cogdill, Molly Weston, The Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore in Chicago, Once Upon a Crime Bookstore in Minneapolis, Mystery Lovers Bookstore in Oakmont, PA, Kate’s Mystery Books in Cambridge, MA, and The Poe House in Baltimore, MD.

The Ellery Queen Award was established in 1983 to honor “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry”. This year the Board chose to honor Janet A. Rudolph.

Rudolph is the director of the fan-based Mystery Readers International, editor of the Mystery Readers Journal, a teacher of mystery fiction, and has been a columnist for most of the mystery periodicals. A native of Philadelphia, she now lives in Berkeley California, where she completed a master’s degree in art history, a credential in secondary education, and a Ph.D. in religion and literature specializing in mystery fiction. She has received two Fulbright grants—one to India and another to Brazil.

Mystery Readers Journal, her brainchild, is the official publication of Mystery Readers International. Originally started as a newsletter to update the local mystery community on fun events, it is now one of the most important periodicals in the field. A quarterly, each issue focuses on a specific theme with major articles, author essays, special columns and a calendar of events. Members of MRI award the coveted Macavity for excellence in mystery writing.

On learning she would receive the Ellery Queen Award, Rudolph said, “I am astonished, delighted, and humbled to be included in the company of such illustrious past recipients of the Ellery Queen Award. I feel so privileged that over the past 31 years of publishing the Mystery Readers Journal, I was able to create and curate a forum in which over 1500 mystery authors contributed with essays offering different angles on shared themes in their writing, thus extending and increasing mystery reader awareness and enjoyment.”

Previous Ellery Queen Award winners include Charles Ardai, Joe Meyers, Barbara Peters and Robert Rosenwald, Brian Skupin and Kate Stine, Carolyn Marino, Ed Gorman, Janet Hutchings, Cathleen Jordan, Douglas G. Greene, Susanne Kirk, Sara Ann Freed, Hiroshi Hayakawa, Jacques Barzun, Martin Greenburg, Otto Penzler, Richard Levinson, William Link, Ruth Cavin, and Emma Lathen.

The Edgar Awards, or “Edgars,” as they are commonly known, are named after MWA’s patron saint Edgar Allan Poe and are presented to authors of distinguished work in various categories. MWA is the premier organization for mystery writers, professionals allied to the crime-writing field, aspiring crime writers, and those who are devoted to the genre. The organization encompasses some 3,000 members including authors of fiction and non-fiction books, screen and television writers, as well as publishers, editors, and literary agents. For more information on Mystery Writers of America, please visit the website: http://www.mysterywriters.org

# # #

The EDGAR (and logo) are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

I am reposting an occasional older post that still seems relevant. This is an especially poignant look back, coming as it did right after 9/11.

The horror of September 11, 2001 has struck me deeply.  My heart is breaking for all those families and friends who lost loved ones.

The attack on the World Trade Center forced change into all our lives.  Some personal change is reflected here, in the look of this website that is visited by people from all over the globe.  This is, after all, the World Wide Web.  Wrapping myself in the flag gives me comfort, as it does to a lot of Americans right now.

I’ve posted a couple of poems that have been circulating around the Internet.  Some say “September 1, 1939” by W. H. Auden was prescient.  I don’t know about that, but it certainly is meaningful right now, as is “The House on the Hill” by Edwin Arlington Robinson. [Scroll down to read]

Some websites that may be of interest:

An Open Letter To He Who Hides Behind the Casket of Innocents from Randy Wayne White

Beautiful editorial from the Miami Herald:  “Bloodied but unbowed” [no longer available for free]

Dave Barry’s very touching column on this tragedy: Just for being Americans…

A point of view from a slightly different perspective:  An Afghan-American speaks

Nostradamus wrote some ambiguous, not especially good poetry in the 16th century, but he never predicted this catastrophe.  Read how and why that particular Internet rumor got started here:  False Prophecy

The NY Times, among other news organizations, is posting pictures and info about those still missing and is updated daily:  Among the Missing [thankfully no longer needed]

CNN has the official Lists of Victims

Donations: NY Firefighters Fund  American Red Cross  Salvation Army

For additional links on where to give and how to help, Yahoo has a pretty extensive list at:  Emergency Information

My escape is into books.

The House on the Hill
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

They are all gone away,
The house is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill;
They are all gone away. 

Nor is there one today
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say. 

Why is it then we stray
Around that shrunken sill?
They are all gone away. 

And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say. 

There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,

There is nothing more to say.

September 1, 1939
by Wystan Hugh Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden.

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending the American Library Association Annual Conference in San Francisco, California. As I was flying out there last Friday on Virgin America, the little TV on the seat back in front of me had a breaking news event – the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. I plugged in my headphones and listened to the news, tears steaming down my face.

I was so overcome with emotion because that decision meant that my daughter could marry whomever she loves, and that she would be accorded protection of marital rights under the law. As would my gay friends, and it just so happened that I was meeting a great friend at the conference, who happens to be gay. I knew the news would be especially meaningful to him and I was so happy that I would get to celebrate with him.

Saturday morning was another emotional morning for me. I got up at the crack of dawn and headed out to the convention center. I arrived at 7:15, more than an hour early for the keynote speaker – Gloria Steinem. A dear friend of the family, Arthur Tarlow, was the only man that worked at Ms. Magazine. I was 13 years old when that first issue came out, and I became a huge fan of the magazine, and Ms. Steinem. I wasn’t old enough to vote for it, but I was old enough to march for the Equal Rights Amendment, despite my parents’ objections. It didn’t pass, but my faith in feminism never wavered.  Several years ago, Arthur got me a signed book from Ms. Steinem. I have a lot of signed books, but that is one of my most prized possessions.

I got a seat front row, center for Ms. Steinem. She walked out on that stage an hour later and I teared up again. Afterwards, I approached her before her publicist could whisk her away and told her about our mutual friend, who had passed away a few years earlier. She stopped to chat and Erica, her publicist, was kind enough to take a picture for me. She has a new book coming out in October, a memoir about her life on the road.

Sunday was the Pride Parade down Market Street, a couple of blocks from the convention center. I watched for a while, crying yet again. The parade was supposed to be over by 3:00 but due to the size of the contingents marching, it was still going strong at 5:00 PM.

It was a very emotional weekend for me, and one I will never forget. It seemed fitting to share my memories this 4th of July, as LGBTQ Americans are one step closer to independence.

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce the winners of the 2015 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2014. The Edgar® Awards were presented to the winners at our 69^th Gala Banquet, April 29, 2015 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

The EDGAR (and logo) are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

This year was the 7th annual Writers LIVE! series of author events at the Palm Beach County Library System. A few years ago, I incorporated a new program called “Palm Beach Peril,” a panel discussion hosted by a bestselling thriller writer along with several debut authors. This was done in conjunction with the International Thriller Writers organization and their Debut Authors program, and it has become my favorite event!

Our host this year was the amazing Lisa Scottoline, who has to be one of the most generous authors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. She is on tour for her new book, Every Fifteen Minutes, (which is fantastic, read my review here) and frankly, she really had to go out of her way to get here. She flew in Friday morning, and flew out Friday afternoon. She came to the library an hour early to do a little meet & greet with the debut authors before the main event. After the event, she bought all the debut authors’ books, and had them all signed and shipped them home. She truly is an extraordinary woman and I feel honored to know her.

My favorite “Lisa” story took place back in 2004. I was asked to review Killer Smile that year for Library Journal, and I loved it. It was a very personal book for her, about the little known Italian internment camps during World War II, and the book was amazing. I gave it a starred review and shortly after the review was published, I had a very startled and every excited manager hunting me down as I was emptying the book return. Lisa was on the phone for me. She tracked me down (Library Journal publishes the reviewer’s name & their library affiliation) and she called to thank me for my review. I’d been reviewing for several years by then, and no one had ever done that before (or since, for that matter!)

Oline Cogdill, Lisa Scottoline, Douglass Seaver, John Connell, Alison McMahan, Sandra Block, Stu Strumwasser

The nationally syndicated, Raven Award winning reviewer Oline Cogdill moderated the event, and she is such a pro. It is always a pleasure to watch any panel she’s in charge of. She asked great questions, kept all the authors talking and it was a completely fascinating discussion. Please follow her on Twitter or Facebook to keep up with all her terrific reviews.

Special thanks goes to author Amy Christine Parker, who was my liaison to the ITW and who arranged for all these wonderful authors to appear. This year we had quite a variety.

Sandra Block is a neurologist from Buffalo, NY and the author of the terrific debut, Little Black Lies, about madness and memory – and the dangerous, little lies we tell ourselves just to survive. You can read my review here.  John A. Connell is a former camera operator for films and TV shows who is now living in France and writing full time. His first Mason Collins thriller is Ruins of War, a chilling novel of murder and madness in post-World War II Germany.

Alison McMahon is a documentary maker who wrote her first YA thriller, a historical called The Saffron Crocus, set in the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, 1643. Douglass Seaver is enjoying retirement by writing, and his first thriller is The Fourth Rule, which tells the story of one secret born when a Green Beret returns from Vietnam and disappears.

Finally, Stu Strumwasser, a New York musician who wrote The Organ Broker, the thrilling story of an underground black market organ dealer known as “New York Jack.” It will be available May 5.

Alison McMahan, Stacy Alesi, John A. Connell, Douglass Seaver, Stu Strumwasser, Sandra Block (seated,) Lisa Scottoline

.