Happy anniversary, Kate!

Today, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Kate's Mystery Books. Owned and operated by Kate Mattes, one of the first directors of Sisters in Crime and the recent winner of a Raven from the Mystery Writers of America, this tiny shop has been instrumental in launching a thousand careers. Others at the party tonight (6:30-8:30 if you're in the neighborhood) will tell the more famous tales. This is mine.

I've told this story a dozen times or more, and it's all true. Kate Mattes got me started writing mysteries.

You see, I used to write serious nonfiction. I was a journalist who wrote books. Which meant I wrote serious, researched books on serious, heavy topics. But what I read for fun, obsessively and happily, were mysteries. Which meant that I got to know Kate Mattes, because her store, Kate's Mystery Books here in Cambridge, is sort of ground zero for mystery lovers – a place where authors sign, writers meet, and the recommendations are always good.

So when my last, maybe not so heavy book came out, I ended up talking to Kate about it. That book, The Feline Mystique, came out in 2002. That December, as Kate was planning her usual holiday bash, she said I should come sign at the party. I said, "But Kate, Feline Mystique is not a mystery."

She responded, "Believe it or not, Clea, there's a big crossover between women who love cats and mystery readers." (Those of you know Kate's store, by the way, will know that in addition to books, the first floor is packed with black cat memorabilia.)

And so I did. I happily joined the ranks of Linda Barnes and Robert Parker, Kate Flora and Dana Cameron, BarbaraNeely, and more than a dozen others in signing and greeting and laughing and eating. And drinking. There was drinking. And so, at the end of the evening, when Kate turned to me and said, "Clea, you should write a mystery," it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

I started the next day. Happy anniversary, Kate.

(Pictured: Kate and her Raven at the 2008 Edgar Awards.)

The readers brigade

I'm beginning to get comments back from my first line of defense: the friends and colleagues who read my first draft. They're an invaluable help, catch all the things I haven't, and might not, before I send the ms. off to my editor.

So far I've heard the following:

Shouldn't the killer show a little temper early on?
What month is it anyway, would the lilacs really be blooming?
Is Theda a bit "breath obsessed," first Musetta's, then Bill's?
If he proposes, shouldn't she at least respond?
And, yes, dear friends, it seems I am incapable of correctly spelling "weird"!

Naomi, Lisa, Jon, Chris, Vicki, Brett, Karen – thank you all!

Where do our characters spring from?

All cats are not created equal. While Cyrus was a quiet cat, the dignified, strong and silent type, Musetta is a little loudmouth. In fact, since we were just away for a week, she's been quite chatty. Some would say demanding. And last night, I realized something. More than the barristas at the local 1369 and Peet's coffeehouses, Musetta is the model for my spunky punk rocker Violet. ("Thank God she can't dye her hair purple," says my husband.) After all, my heroine, Theda, is often prompted into action by those early morning calls... sound familiar?

Speaking of cats; this is just too weird. The following, however, makes sense.

Where's my beignet?

Wow, it's hard to get back to work. Just enjoyed a week of music, food, dancing, and, yes, mud, at and around the 39th annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest. (Yes, it continues this weekend. You can tune in at WWOZ, the great local public station. (I'm listening now.) Check out this slide show.

Despite a baggage handler ramming (and thus disabling) our plane, we got to the Crescent City in time to enjoy dinner at Herbsaint, one of our two favorite Donald Link restaurants (I think he started this one with Susan Spicer). Duck confit w/ dirty rice and an amazing appetizer of spaghetti with house-cured guanciale and a fried, poached egg, along with a kickass burgundy eased the stress of traveling. (The pre-dinner Haitian daiquiri helped, too.)

Friday, the weather was Fest perfect and Jon and I started out in our traditional way, with Mardi Gras indians at the Heritage stage. Semolian Warriors led to the Real Untouchables Brass Band and then into the marvelous Creole Wild West Mardi Gras Indians. Creole Wild West is one of the oldest "gangs," and to my mind, Big Chief Walter Cook looks sort of like Jon. I'll see if I can dig up a picture. Didn't see Tom Morgan - the WWOZ disc jockey who has been our source for all things Indian - at first, which was worrisome (he has had his share of Katrina woes). But he showed and told us he was busy gathering material for the WWOZ Jazz Fest Blog.

After that, wandered a bit - caught some Robert Plant and Alison Kraus, which was fun. (I usually avoid the big stages, but I've loved Kraus since she was a fiddle-playing whiz kid. And Robert Plant, come on!) They did "The Battle of Evermore" as down lonesome country blues. Heard some gospel, some trad jazz in the Economy Hall tent. Ate softshells and gumbo...

Saturday started fine. More Indians (the Black Seminoles) and Bourbon Street survivor Carol Fran (old enough to have Ben Sandmel playing drums), and the kickass Mahogany Brass Band working a groove and telling us, "That's just love raining down." The incomparable Eddie Bo was in fine form, singing and dancing and making us boogie to such indescribable loose funk as "Check Your Bucket" even as the rain got heavier.
Ducked into the grandstand to avoid what we thought would be the heaviest part of the downpour, ended up chatting with Chief Darryl Montana, who was explaining some of his Indian suits (that's him on the left), which were on display. (He's Big Chief "Tootie" Montana's son: check this out.) But the rain continued to fall, so we ditched some of our plans (Warren Storm, NewBirth Brass Band) and sheltered at the blues tent for the Ponderosa Stomp Revue. Lasted until we got to hear Archie Bell "Do the Tighten Up," and dashed for the buses, soaked to the bone.
(Eddie Bo photo/Chris Ryan)

Sunday brought more rain, but fewer footware options. I went for the flipflops as the path of least resistance, but you know what? New Orleans mud is STICKY. Nearly lost a flipflop several times. Nearly got stuck myself and had a moment of wondering just how embarrasing it would be to have to ask a stranger to help me and my boudin get back to the paved path. (That's not a double entendre, I really had ventured into a particularly muddy spot to get a link of boudin.) But hey, we were wet already, right? So we got to hear the trad but grooving Paulin Brothers Brass Band, the Golden Star Hunters (yup, more Indians), some local gospel from Jo "Cool" Davis (with Joe Krown on organ, that man was everywhere), Jambalaya Cajun Band, and Shamarr Allen (a rising star trumpeter who had popped up in a dozen sets earlier). One BIG regret – on a whim, we'd gone to check out the Throw Back Jamm and it was, as I'd hoped, a revue of some of the great originators of New Orleans' "Bounce" style hip hop (think hiphop with that Caribbean syncopation). Wow, we were dancing! But then the skies opened up for real and we took shelter. When the downpour lessened, we caught some Pete Fountain (looking a little shakey but slim and happy on his Fest return after open heart surgery), Hot 8 Brass Band, Al Green, Beausoleil...

Well, that was it for the Fest for us. But Monday night brought us uptown to Tip's, to Instruments a Comin', one of the Tipitina's Foundation's benefits. Little Feat, Radiators, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, and a smoking set by the incomparable Rebirth Brass Band. (Have I used "incomparable" yet in this blog? Let me just say that any band that can have me bouncing up and down and screaming "REBIRTH GOT FIYA!" in the wee hours of the morning, long after I'd thought I'd hit the wall, is pretty good.) You can hear clips here.

Tuesday, the wierd, wild, and woolly Ponderosa Stomp, a now annual showcase of R&B, rock, rockabilly, and blues antiques, one-hit wonders, and other oddities. Yeah, the revue sucked us in for more. Hey, did anyone else know Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las was performing again? Granted, her voice isn't what it used to be, but yes, she did sing "Leader of the Pack." Honestly, though, I thought Barbara Lynn and Betty Harris kind of showed her up, with showmanship making up for some of the notes lost over the years.

Oh, what else? Jon Cleary at the Louisiana Music Factory turning "Tipitina's" into a Caribbean jam. Finding a 1924 edition of two John Galsworthy short stories at the wonderful Beckham's Bookstore. Marcia sitting in with Irma Thomas. Dinner at Cochon, Donald Link's more country-style outlet (house-made boucherie sampler!). Did cruise through the Lower 9th again. It's shameful. Except for a few houses built by church groups, there's nothing. Just empty space going back to nature. Living in one of those six or eight houses must be like living on the prairie in the 1800s. Nothing from the government. Nothing. On a happier note, the Habitat for Humanity Musicians' Village that Jon and I volunteered on is now a real neighborhood! Lots of houses, at least one new street. Gardens. Bikes on the porches. Wind chimes. And, yeah, the rest of the Upper Ninth Ward seems to be on its way. Every third house still looks empty, the rescue markings still spray-painted on the front. But others are coming back - construction everywhere. Again, all private charities, churches, and personal initiative. Nothing from the government.

Not to end on a sad note, we did sneak in a brunch at the Court of Two Sisters before we took off. And, yes, took a muffaletta on the plane for a late dinner back home.


PS. The trade paperback of Cries and Whiskers came out. Sweet!

Ankle deep mud notwithstanding...

Just back from Jazz Fest. More in a bit, but first, "The World That Made New Orleans," Ned Sublette's wonderful new book.

Yikes! I am TAGGED!

Yikes! Linda L. Richards has tagged me!

The deal, she says, is that those tagged must:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged YOU.

So... here goes:

Lucky for me, Elizabeth George's "Careless in Red" just arrived and was to the right of my desk. The sixth through eighth sentences are part of a dialogue:

"You and I both know she's lying through those pretty white teeth of hers. Your job is to find out why."
"You can't possibly require me–"

Wow, ok, I'm hooked!

And I tag Caroline Leavitt, Wendy R, Karen E. Olson, Victoria Zackheim, and Deb Grabien. You're it, gals! And if anyone else feels like grabbing a book and chiming in, please do!

Reprise....

Because I just can't watch this too often. Dance, kitties, dance!




Have a great week, everyone!

Art and the muse

One of the wonderful things that happens when the writing has gone well is that on re-reading you discover you were writing more than you knew. To explain, as I'm re-reading "Probable Claws," which is simply intended as a fun mystery, I'm realizing that the theme of commitment and its opposite, letting go, runs through it. I don't know what that means, but I've written it on a sticky and so now I see it every morning as I sit down to work.

And because we cannot control when, or whom, the muse will inspire: A kitten playing the theremin. Watch to the end for an unforgettable reaction shot. As my friend Brett notes, "Everybody's a critic!"

Maybe there's a statement about art to be made here.

Kitten Plays Theremin

How big is too big?

I've finished – at least I think I've finished – the first draft of Probable Claws. It's a little over 85,000 words. Is that too big?

Tomorrow I start reading it through to see if it makes sense.

The Gossip

The band, not the dirt, that is. But for any reader out there who wonders what Violet Hayes's band sounds like, well, if this guitarist were a short woman with purple hair, this would be it:

Slightly overstuffed, but fun

"A Carrion Death," Michael Stanley's debut, resembles its protagonist, Detective Kubu. Sensory overload, but in a good way.

Speaking of... I just had one of those marvelous moments that you writers will recognize. Partly, it's that I was coming back from the gym and the blood was flowing. Partly it's the combination of listening to vintage disco/'80s rock/New Orleans funk on my iPod (Poison to the Hot 8 to Chic) and reading Ned Sublette's wonderful "The World That Made New Orleans" at the same time, a heady combination. Partly it's because I have been wondering for some time, just why does my heroine suddenly see the killer for who (s)he is? And it hit me: another character, who has gone missing, calls her and casually mentions a discarded shirt and, well, it all falls into place. I've now made notes to work on the conversation tomorrow. To me it makes sense. I hope it will to you all, too. Time to shower.

Can we make Musetta a saint?

OK, it's sort of old news, but according to Galleycat, the "I Can Haz Cheezburger" guy, Martin Grodin, has a book deal. What is new is that he's created an open source site for people who want to create a LOLCats Bible and publish it. For all those scholarly LOL kitties out there.


see more crazy cat pics

No, the above is not a record of Musetta's misspent youth.

Amphibimania, part 2!

Another cool frog story! You know I love my frogs and toads!

So, if this dude (Barbourula kalimantanensis) had a fight with the giant toad (Beelzebufo), who would win? What if the fight was in the water, so Beelzebufo couldn't come up for air?

David Simon on the birth of "The Wire"

From the same Boston Phoenix blog, or "phlog," this tidbit from Kafka's letters, about housebreaking his cat:


“How hard it is to arrive at an understanding with an animal on this question. There seem to be only misunderstandings, for the cat knows, through blows and other explanation, that there is something undesirable about taking care of her needs of nature, and that the place for it has to be carefully chosen. So what does she do? Well, for example she chooses a spot that is dark, that will in addition show me her affection...But from the human side this spot happens to be inside my bedroom slipper.”

Kitty hypnosis

Why do I suddenly find myself craving Greenies?

O tempore, o mores

I love the New York Times. This story, for one example, almost makes up for the front page, above- the- fold headline, "When Foreigners by the Factory." (This has already been corrected on the electronic version, so I can't show it, but it ran.)

oh yeah, and it's opening day at Fenway. Go Sawx!
(Photo by Dan Juaire, see full caption.)

Process, process, process

How do you write?

I don't outline, really, but I do have a synopsis (partly because my editor demands one) and I usually start a book with a broad overview of how the story will go in my head. Despite these, I usually just sort of write, letting my characters sort things out between themselves, the plot resolution just a goal on the horizon, all subject to change. I do all of this on the computer. I type faster than I write and I love the clarity of type. I can read what I've typed easier than what I've written by hand, and the translation from mind to written word has long seemed easier this way, ever since I got my first Kaypro computer back 20 years ago.

But recently I've found myself writing long-hand notes, too. Lists, mainly, of plot points that I want to bring up in a given scene, and some lines of dialogue. Often by the time to write comes my notes are completely illegible, even to me. But the writing of them seems to serve a purpose.

Are you a list maker? An outliner? Do you write by hand or on the computer?

Fenway hawk update

When a redtailed hawk attacked a 13-year-old at Fenway Park last night, it made a big splash in the local news. (The young woman is ok, the talons scratched her scalp and she was treated but it doesn't sound like there was any serious damage.) Turns out, the hawk was nesting nearby and most stories end with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and Boston's Animal Rescue League removing the nest, which contained an egg. This seemed unfair to me - why blame the hawk? Why not just cordon off the area until nesting is over? But Christopher Smalley at ARL has explained. The egg, which was deemed nonviable, was removed from a steel beam near the nest. (It had fallen out; this new story has details.) The nest was not. Smalley writes in an email:

By state law, the ARL of Boston is only able to remove injured or deceased wildlife. The non-viable egg was transported to the DFW. The ARL of Boston did not remove the nest. It's our understanding that the Hawk is still in the vicinity of Fenway Park.

Good to know.

The real cost of pets

Hmm... I understand the point of this New York Times article on the costs of having a pet. The writer is trying to alert folks on a budget about the often overlooked expenses of living with an animal. Or she just got a copy of the 2008 APPMA pet products trend report and pitched it at her editor as something fun. (Hey, we journalists do that.)

But talk about missing the boat. First, she mentions not buying a dog from a pet store in a kind of obligatory way. BUY a pet? Reputable pet supply stores no longer sell pets. They pair with shelters to do adoptions, but they do not sell puppies or kitttens, and those sad, grimy little corner stores that do ought to give any half sensible person fair warning. Yes, you might be the last chance for the poor animals there, but odds are you won't get a healthy animal. Then, she talks about adopting from a shelter but seems surprised that "you cannot just walk in and pick up a dog or a cat." She mentions that the usual fee may include shots and/or neutering, but not why shelters ask questions. It's not just to screen out the crazies (that, too), but it's also often part of a national effort to better pair people with pets. People who know what they're getting in terms of temperment, health, needs, and lifespan, are better able to make the lifelong commitment. The shelter asks questions because they don't want that cute kitten coming back in six months, when she's no longer quite so adorable. Or that frisky puppy returning in a year, untrained, because his once-playful antics no longer amuse the clueless owner.

Yes, regular vet visits are expensive. As is proper food, bedding, litter, etc. But if someone is going to write about who pays the real cost in improvident pet adoption, that writer should at least note that too often it's the animals who pay – and they pay with their lives.

(Thanks to Scott Delucchi of the Penninsula Humane Society for explaining how shelters are making sure more animals have healthy "forever" homes. Look for more in Probable Claws.)

Why cozies? A guest blog by Diana Vickery

Diana Vickery runs the great Cozy Library and she and I have been talking about the merits of the so-called cozy, or traditional, mystery. I posted my own Defense of the Cozy a few months back. Here is her take.

Why do I read cozy? A more fundamental question is “Why do I read at all?”

Mom wrote in my baby book that, at age two, I could entertain myself for a long time with a book. I theorize I enjoyed books because, being a very nearsighted little girl, a book within reading distance was the only clear image in my otherwise watercolor world. By age eight, when I got eyeglasses, the reading habit was ingrained.

I wasn’t a precocious child who taught myself to read. No, I was happy to look at pictures and learn reading from Sister Eugene Marie. My early reading is mostly a blur, but I do remember The Boxcar Children, The Bobbsey Twins and The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.

Later favorites included Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen, The Source by James Michener and, in college, Too Far to Walk by John Hersey. It wasn’t until after graduate school, while working as a college administrator (I had lots of time on my hands) that I ceased going down someone else’s reading path started going where I wanted.

About that time, my friend Laurel introduced me to Agatha Christie. Since I tend to be obsessive about reading all of an author’s books, it was about a year later I emerged from a cozy cloud with some new best friends: Jane Marple, Hercule Poirot, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, and Parker Pyne.

What I most enjoyed about Dame Agatha’s stories was that they weren’t overly taxing. After all, I had done enough heavy reading and was looking for light entertainment. I also liked that she didn’t rely on graphic sex, explicit violence or coarse language to keep me engaged. (I was known in my 20s to cuss with the best of them. Later, I came to believe that casual profanity is the refuge of people who don’t know how to express themselves very well.)

Next, I read my way through two more hardboiled series: Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct stories and John D. MacDonald’s rainbow-hued Travis McGees. That took about a year. By the late 1970s, I was longing for something “cozier,” although I didn’t use that word to describe my reading habits.

I discovered Dorothy Gilman’s Miss Pollifax books; Charlotte MacLeod’s mysteries featuring Sarah Kelling and Peter Shandy (I thought Ms. MacLeod, may she rest in peace, went off the deep end with Curse of the Giant Hogweed); police procedurals by Lillian O'Donnell; Marcia Muller’s private eye Sharon McCone …

When Dorothy Cannell’s Thin Woman came out in 1984, she became my new favorite author. I loved that story, which was as cozy as they come. After that, I sought out books that read like Dorothy Cannell. My list grew: Susan Wittig Albert, Nancy Atherton, Jill Churchill, Diane Mott Davidson, Jack Finney (Fantasy), Lee Harris, Carolyn Hart, Harry Kemelman, Margaret Maron, Katherine Hall Page, Connie Willis (Fantasy/Sci-Fi) and Valerie Wolzien. To this day, I’m adding new favorites but now I’m putting them on my website to share with like-minded readers. We are very lucky that good, new authors (like Clea) are cropping up all the time.

My taste for sweet, cozy stories hasn’t abated. I will stop everything I’m doing when a new book by a favorite author shows up. When I see Ms. Cannell’s latest (thank goodness she continues to write), I count on it to give me what I want: a friendly locale, characters I want to have coffee and chat with, a tidy plot with all threads tied up when we arrive at a very happy ending. I guess you could say my real life is “cozy” and that’s also what I crave in my reading.

Dinner and a motivation

So, we had our buddy Chris over last night for lamb stew and "John Adams" on HBO, but of course we were all talking about our latest projects. Jon, my husband, is learning violin and has now been playing one year. Chris couldn't make his recital, so Jon reprised his three tunes, which sounded great. Chris told us about some issues with her work in progress – I don't want to reveal what it is until she gives me the okay, but take my word for it, it's going to be great. And we all agreed that at some point you just have to muddle through. The next phase will reveal itself in time. And I started thinking about my current WIP, "Probable Claws" (aka, Theda #4). I'd planned on a scene and I no longer remembered why that scene was in there. Jon pointed out that it would be fun to see the characters interacting, but I'm trying to work on my plotting skills, so I was thinking, "How will this scene advance the plot? What will readers learn in this scene that I need them to know, or what misdirection will be applied?"

Well, I came up with a list and now I have to do it. I don't know if it was the company of creative people or the wine, but I'm inspired! So, what are you working on? How's it going?

(Oh yeah, and me on the new Benjamin Black, "Silver Swan.")

Take two kittens and call me in the morning

A new study from the University of Minnesota has found that people who cohabit with cats have a 40 percent lower risk of fatal heart attacks. Of course, the cats may be the result of a lower stress lifestyle, rather than vice versa. But still a nice bit of news.
(P.S. Dog owners are at lower risk, too.)

Criticism (WTF)

So I'm talking to my buddy Lisa about criticism, about rejection, about how at some point you just have to (as poet Bill Corbett once told me) write your own damn book. And she started telling me about when she sang in a band and got some of the wierder critiques I've ever heard. Now, if you listen to the tracks on the linked MySpace page, you'll hear she has a lovely voice, truly, but some critic (male) heard the band and said she "sang like she had an angry vagina." WTF?!?

To which, I can only respond with the words of the immortal and wonderful Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas:

Put a hump in your back
and jam right on.
Let the people know
you got it going on...

(Oh yeah, the entire song is also available on Rhapsody)

Hot panda sex!

Seriously! Check it out! And, yeah, I promise a real blog entry soon.

They have to debate this?

It's about time!
Oh, yeah! "The Wire" haiku!

I offer:

Omar and Avon,
Kima, Lester, all are gone.
Sunday night's a blank

Hoarding in the headlines

If you've read my Mew is for Murder, you know something about animal hoarding, aka the "crazy cat lady" syndrome. Well, now Today on MSNBC is on it, too. This story has lots of good information, and there's also a video clip that includes a visit to a home where one misguided hoarder housed more than 100 cats. Check it out. (For more on hoarding: read this.)

And on another level entirely: "Our water bill is going to be outrageous."

A woman must have a code

Love food. Didn't love this book. And, to file under "I refuse to let 'The Wire' die," loved this. Are we in denial yet?

A kitty with movie star moxie (guest blog)

In September 2007, Anthology Film Archives, downtown Manhattan's prestigious avant-garde repertory cinema, mourned the passing of its beloved mascot, a cat named Max.

The tortie girl, who enjoyed a good game of ping pong, showed up at Anthology's door seventeen years ago. By adopting her, Anthology enabled Max to live the dream of many hardcore cinephiles: being surrounded by celluloid art 24/7.

To mark Max's passing, tonight at 8 p.m. Anthology will screen a selection of cat-centric avant-garde films by Brakhage, Hollis Frampton, Joyce Wieland, Martha Colburn, and Pola Chapelle, including Frampton's "Maxwell's Demon," the film that gave Max her name.

According to Anthology's Stephanie Gray, Max's cinematic tastes were surprising. She was mesmerized by Stan Brakhage's "Dog Star Man," and showed a special interest in any movie with subtitles.

Gray notes that, by the end of her life, "Max had clocked more years at Anthology than any but our two stalwarts, founder and artistic directo Jonas Mekas and librarian and director of collections Robert Haller (and even they tended to go home at night)."

"Come help us give Max the classiest memorial of any cat in the repertory film world," reads Anthology's irresistible invitation. Cats are welcome to come pay their respects, admission free.
See you there >^..^< – Julia Szabo
Julia Szabo manages the Cinematic Dog blog on Fetchdog.com

crime and R&B

I write about radio for The Boston Globe, and so over the last few days I've witnessed a lot of schaudenfraude in the industry (along with jokes about "pay for play") that Eliott Spitzer was going to clean up. But now that I hear that the woman at the center of the Governor-felling scandal, Ashley Alexandra Dupre aka "Kristen," is an aspiring singer, I can't help but wonder... could this have been set up by a station?

Nah, probably not, but how long before we start hearing her "What We Want" on hot hit radio?

***Oh! On this week's Animal Connection, Vicki Croke talks animal forensics and the return of the Eastern gray wolf! More reason to keep your kitties inside. (Click on the wolf to hear.)

"How Do I Get Reviewed?" a guest blog by David J. Montgomery

I review as well as write, and so I am occasionally queried by authors who are desperate for coverage. I’ve been in the same boat myself, way too often. But most of my reviews, as I tell these authors, are assigned by my editors. Therefore, I turned to reviewer and Crime Fiction Dossier blogger David Montgomery to answer the question: How do I get reviewed?

The perennial question, the thing critics always hear, but never have a very good answer for: "How do I get my book reviewed?"

When I'm being flippant, I say, "You don't." With review space drying up like the Gobi Desert, the number of books being reviewed in the major newspapers is probably smaller than it's every been before. So realistically, your chance of getting reviewed in those outlets is pretty damn small.

That doesn't mean you have to give up. But it does mean that you might need to change your expectations and start looking in different places. You shouldn't discount the big papers, but you shouldn't count on them too much either.

On the other hand, local newspapers often have potential for review coverage. (Most newspapers like to write about local authors.) Even if the paper doesn't ordinarily review books, that doesn't mean they won't do it. Contact the Features Editor and make your pitch to him/her. Even there, though, the amount of space is small and the number of books is large.

You should consider popular websites and blogs. Online reviews don't have the readership of the major newspapers, nor do they carry the same cachet. There are, however, a lot of them and they review many more books. The important thing is to target the right sites -- you want those that have a lot of traffic, that review books (or will consider reviewing them), that appeal to the kind of people who would buy your book, etc.

The various niche magazines (like mystery magazines or whatever is applicable to your type of book and its subject; for example, if you've written a thriller about a fisherman, considering pitching fishing magazines) are also worth pursuing. Just keep in mind that they require a significant amount of lead time, so you'll need to make sure they get the book early.

Your publicist should be doing this stuff for you... But we all know that often doesn't happen. So what do you do? I advise authors to (cautiously) contact reviewers themselves. If it's done in the right way, I don't think anyone would be offended. It might be a waste of time, but on the other hand it doesn't require much of an investment. You don't need to sell yourself or the book. Just a simple email with the pertinent details is sufficient:

"Dear So-and-So:
My new mystery novel is being published June 15 in hardcover by Poisoned Pen Press. It's about a one-eyed private detective from Mars who's trying to solve a nasty ring of catnappings taking place at bed and breakfasts in the wine country.
May I have my publicist send you a copy for review consideration?"

Once you do that, leave it alone. If you don't hear back, move on. If you do hear back, make sure your publicist (or you) sends a copy of the book. After that, leave it alone. Don't follow up. I would recommend you not attempt any further contact with the reviewer. It's unlikely to help your cause.

If the reviewers are aware of your book, you've done all you can. You need to be realistic about your chances for much review coverage. There are hundreds of mysteries published each month, but only space to review a handful of them. Even if you've written a good book, the math is against you. But if you persist -- and if you write a great book -- people will eventually notice. Good luck!

David J. Montgomery writes about authors and books for several of the country's largest newspapers. He blogs at the Crime Fiction Dossier.

Behind the scenes of "Cries and Whiskers"

Stacy Hackett of the CatChannel.com interviewed me about the backstory to Cries and Whiskers.

"Remember that day, summer past?"

Last night, the incomparable crime drama "The Wire came to an end. Some people got lost in the flood, some people got out all right. But one in particular breaks my heart. If you saw it, you know what I mean. Thoughts? (The New York Times' take.)

On another note, is the new Benjamin Black as good as "Christine Falls"? I weigh in at the Boston Globe.

Question of the day: Whose "The Wire" story did you expect to end differently – and why?

Georgia on my mind

The wonderful David C. Tucker interviewed me for the DeKalb County Public Library blog today. How nice! Also up today, my review of "Mozart's Ghost" for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Soundtrack for today: The HorrorPops' "Heading for the Disco."

Shout out for the day to Eric Ruben, former lawyer-turned-actor. He takes my phone calls – "Okay, I'm caught holding a dead body, with the murder weapon in my hand" – and walks me through the legalities without even blinking.

Getting back to work...

Or trying to, anyway. Seeing this makes me think others have the same problems with procrastination. (With thanks to Karen.)

"You look good, girl"

Say goodbye to the gangbanger girls. This week, we've lost Snoop as well as Margaret B. Jones. Both were fictional, but only one was a work of art.

Sleuthfest highlights...

Way overtired and too much to catch up with, but a few highlights:

Blaize Clement noting that we need pets to love, that we all talk to our pets, and that having characters talk to their pets can be very revealing about their characters. (I am absolutely loving her "Curiosity Killed the Cat-Sitter.")

Sun-Sentinel reviewer Oline Cogdill describing the mystery as the contemporary social novel. Whatever issue you care about, you'll find it discussed, dissected, turned this way and that in a mystery.

Ace Edwards creatorRandy Rawls (author of "Jasmin's Fate") reciting a passage from a J.A. Konrath mystery ("Bloody Mary") by the pool as an example of beautiful and on point writing (and then going on into very funny stories about being in the armed forces).

oh, and seeing pelicans, getting out of the cold, and more....