Editing by Elizabeth

June 21, 2011

Book Country: A Genre Fiction Community

Book Country: A Genre Fiction Community Writing is a solitary practice, but revision requires feedback. Most aspiring authors send their manuscript to friends and family, others meet with a critique group, and some enroll in an MFA program.

In April, Penguin Group (USA) launched Book Country, a website dedicated to genre fiction readers and writers. Focused on romance, fantasy, science fiction, mystery and thriller, Book Country helps new authors hone their craft as part of a genre fiction community.

Users upload their novels (or a portion of their novels) for peer review. Book Country’s unique genre map helps writers categorize their novels, and lets readers find books similar to ones they love, which they then read and provide detailed critiques. Book Country brings the peer feedback and community feel of a critique group, online.

Another key feature is discoverability. If you’re working on a novel, publishing professionals won’t see it until you begin sending out query letters. Book Country gives agents and editors a place to discover new talent; for this reason, many publishing professionals have already signed up. Book Country also allows avid readers and bloggers to discover budding talent and use their reading experience to offer helpful feedback.

As the world continues to shift online, Book Country creates a community that was once only available in metropolitan areas. Now, genre fiction authors all over the world can come together online to exchange feedback, engage in discussions, and have their work discovered.

Join us at www.BookCountry.com and follow us on Twitter @Book_Country

– Book Country: A Genre Fiction Community –

June 20, 2011

Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg

It’s a hell of a thing to meet your heroes, let alone find yourself working with them. – Simon Pegg

So why’s an ardent reader of crime fiction and noir reviewing the autobiography of a comedic actor? Because I absolutely adore Simon Pegg, that’s why.

There are very few television shows or films these days that I actually find amusing, most straying too far into lowbrow high jinks centered around arrested adolescence. Everything of Pegg’s I’ve seen, however, manages to strike just the right balance between intelligent and irreverent, clever and crass.

In Nerd Do Well Pegg gives readers a look at the upbringing and influences that shaped the sense of humor and talent we’ve all come to know and love through his work in films such as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul, and the rebooted Star Trek.

Early on Pegg notes that he doesn’t find it easy to talk about himself and his family, yet he does so in such a candid, disarming way that the book reads much more intimately than I think Pegg believed he was capable of writing. Far from coming across like a stuffy memoir, Nerd Do Well has the feel of a casual conversation held while downing a couple of pints discussing shared experiences and influences. →

June 18, 2011

The Girl Who Disappeared Twice by Andrea Kane

The last thing Casey Woods wanted right then was another gut-wrenching case. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what she got.

What could be more tragic than having your twin sister kidnapped out of your shared bedroom when you were six years old? Having your own five-year old daughter kidnapped thirty-two years later. That’s the situation facing Judge Hope Willis, who goes to pick up her daughter from school one day only to be informed by those at the school that “she” already picked her up.

Given her high profile position as a judge, and her husband Edward’s as a controversial defense attorney with a prestigious firm, the local police and FBI descend on the case in record time. Not content with that, however, Hope calls in Forensic Instincts, a privately run organization that specializes in high profile and hard to handle cases.

Headed up by Casey Woods, a behavioral analysis specialist, the team also includes former Navy SEAL and FBI agent Marc Deveraux, and tech wizard Ryan McKay. Add to that mix intuitive – please don’t call her psychic – Claire Hedgleigh and retired FBI agents Patrick Lynch, who headed the investigation into Hope’s sister’s kidnapping thirty-two years ago, and Hero, an FBI certified human scent evidence bloodhound, and there is quite a full compliment of law enforcement on the case… but will it be enough to locate the missing girl before it’s too late? →

June 17, 2011

When The Weird Turn Pro by Duane Swierczynski

As advertised, I’m thrilled to welcome Duane for a guest post to wrap up Swierczynski Week.

Duane Swierczynski This month marks a strange little milestone for me: Exactly 20 years ago, I started writing shit for cash.

Which means, in a manner of speaking, I’ve been a professional writer for two freakin’ decades. My definition of “professional” anything is simple: whenever you do something for money, you’ve gone pro. The amount of money doesn’t really matter; it’s that people are willing to part with some of their money to have you do something. Could be anything. Plumbing. Brain surgery. Sex. Whatever.

They cross your palm with silver, you’ve gone pro.

I went pro with a 250-word item called “Philly to New Jersey: Send Us a Bill!” which appeared in the July 1991 issue of Philadelphia Magazine, where I was interning that summer. A very kind editor named Lou Harry gifted me the story idea, complete with sources to call and suggestions on how to frame the piece. The paycheck was modest, but to a 19-year-old aspiring writer interning without pay, it was a psychic windfall.

People would actually pay me for writing shit.

The secret to going pro of course, is that first you need to spend a lot of time doing it for free.

Up until that point, from eighth grade until sophomore year of college, I’d written hundreds of pages—goofy horror stories and grisly satires (usually starring my friends, who would die in spectacularly gruesome ways). I did it because it was fun, and offered an escape from the many not-fun things in like. Such as Algebra II.

As I nearest high school graduation, however, I started to wonder: Could I do this for real? Like, as a job? Would anyone ever pay me to write violent stories where my friends met untimely ends? →

June 16, 2011

Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski

Hardie sometimes marveled at how quickly things could spin out of control. – Charlie Hardie

Once a special consultant to the Philadelphia Police Department entrusted with critical, off the radar jobs, Charlie Hardie’s life went off the rails when a job went spectacularly wrong resulting in several deaths. Now Charlie spends his time moving from one house-sitting job to another. His clients are wealthy people with cushy houses in desirable locations, the latest of which belongs to a movie composer who lives in the Hollywood Hills.

He gets more than expected this time out, however, when doing a walk-thru upon arrival he finds a wild-eyed young woman hiding in the house. Apparently strung out on drugs, she keeps babbling about how “they” are trying to kill her, accusing Charlie of being one of “them.” Though he finds it a little too coincidental that the power goes out shortly after he arrives and neither of their phones can get a signal, he’s not quite ready to believe there’s a group of assassins outside on a mission to kill some junkie…though she looks sorta familiar.

Turns out there’s a reason for that. Charlie finally realizes the woman is Lane Madden, a well-known young Hollywood actress. She explains that she broke into the house after getting away from some people who ran her car off the road then injected her with drugs to try and make it look like she crashed after OD’ing. Ok, Charlie thinks, so she’s not some random junkie. She’s a cokehead, paranoid, B-List actress. And he’s still not buying that there are people outside waiting to kill her. Wanting to prove that to her, Charlie decides to go outside despite Lane’s frantic pleas that he not open the door. You know, he really should have listened to her. →

June 15, 2011

Severance Package by Duane Swierczynski

In that moment, Amy knew she had lost her mind, lost it to the point of imagining that someone would actually throw her out an open window, thirty-six stories up. Because who would do that? – Amy Felton

In this book that’s quite a list, actually. You see, things aren’t well at Murphy, Knox & Associates. In fact, the seven employees who are called in to a special Saturday morning “managers meeting” are informed things are going so poorly the financial services company is being shut down.

This would be shocking enough news under normal circumstances, but it becomes downright horrifying when CEO David Murphy informs those gathered that the company is actually a front for a covert intelligence agency. Oh, and part of the shutting down process includes killing all present.

Taking into account their loyal service, Murphy has considerately arranged a special blend of champagne and OJ to ease them on their way painlessly, a murderous mimosa if you will. There is an alternative severance package, however, for anyone who doesn’t want to take the easy way out: a bullet to the head.

No use trying to escape, the floor has been sealed – elevator locked down, stairwells rigged with sarin bombs – landlines disconnected, corporate cell phones they all carry deactivated, and there’s no one else working in the building. So, who’s first? Confident Murphy has merely set up an elaborate, if demented, corporate loyalty test, one of those gathered downs the cocktail in hopes of impressing the boss. When he promptly keels over and it finally sinks in that this is not a game, Murphy’s previously demure assistant pulls a gun and shoots him in the head. And then things really go to hell. →

June 14, 2011

The Wheelman, Expiration Date, Level 26: Dark Origins by Duane Swierczynski

Welcome to the continuing celebration of Swierczynski Week. Today I’ll be whetting your appetite with mini-reviews of The Wheelman, Expiration Date, and Level 26: Dark Origins.

The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski

– The Wheelman –

Though not his first book, that would be Secret Dead Men, The Wheelman was the first book of Duane Swierczynski’s that I read. Set in Swierczynski’s hometown of Philadelphia, The Wheelman tells the bloody tale of what happens when the bank job title character Lennon is serving as the getaway driver for goes wrong. Seriously wrong. Like betrayed, beaten, and left for dead kind of wrong.

But as his former partners and enemies will all come to regret, Lennon wasn’t killed. Pissed off and seriously motivated, he cuts a deadly path through dirty cops, multinational mobsters, and assorted thugs who have the misfortune to cross him on his quest to find out who set him up. Oh, did I mention Lennon is a mute? Yeah, our narrator can’t talk, but that’s ok because his actions speak volumes.

Swierczynski keeps both Lennon and the reader off balance with double-crosses and misdirection galore, and the violence is intense and rather indiscriminate (don’t get too attached to anyone). The Wheelman is the dictionary definition of fast-paced action. Besides being thoroughly entertained, I came away with the impression that this Swierczynski fellow wrote like the love child of Ken Bruen and Charlie Huston… so, yeah, I was hooked.

The Wheelman is available from Minotaur Books (ISBN: 978-0312343781) →

June 13, 2011

Duane Swierczynski doesn’t want to go around killing people, but…

…sometimes a man’s just gotta do what comes naturally. And make no mistake about it, Philadelphia native and author Duane Swierczynski knows his way around killing. Fictionally, of course. (At least that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.)

From the time he announced his presence on the crime fiction scene with the amazingly original, mind-bending Secret Dead Men to the first book in his new Charlie Hardie series, Fun and Games (June 20th from Mulholland Books), Swierczynski has written his way to cult status with his fast-paced, darkly humorous, violent stories.

Not content to kill with words alone, however, Swierczynski decided to branch out, first into comics (Punisher, Cable, The Immortal Iron Fist, the forthcoming Birds of Prey from DC), then by teaming up with CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker to create the publishing world’s first digi-novel, Level 26: Dark Origins and its sequel, Dark Prophecy.

Along the way Swierczynski has garnered Edgar and Anthony Award nominations, both for his novel Expiration Date, had his book Severance Package optioned by Lion’s Gate Entertainment (Brett Simon is on board to direct and co-write the script with Swierczynski), and earned the undying respect of his peers and readers alike. What he hasn’t quite done – yet – is make that final push to the next level of becoming a household name, and quite frankly that pisses me off. More people should know the name Duane Swierczynski, even if they can’t pronounce it. (For the record, it’s “sweer-ZIN-ski”) →

June 13, 2011

To Speak for the Dead by Paul Levine

Great minds think alike. But maybe slightly addled ones, too. – Jake Lassiter

There’s a lot of great thinking going on in To Speak for the Dead, the novel that first introduced former Miami Dolphins linebacker turned lawyer Jake Lassiter to the world. Unfortunately for Lassiter, there’s a fair bit of questionable thinking going on as well.

The book opens with Lassiter defending Dr. Roger Salisbury in a civil malpractice suit brought by Melanie Corrigan, widow of wealthy developer Philip Corrigan. It’s the widow’s contention that Salisbury’s negligence caused a ruptured aorta resulting in her husband’s death. With the help of testimony from his friend and expert witness Dr. Charlie Riggs, retired after 20+ years as Miami-Dade’s Chief Medical Examiner, Lassiter secures a verdict in favor of Salisbury. Case closed, book over. Right?

Wrong. Author Paul Levine is just getting started, and you ain’t read nothing yet. Salisbury has barely cleared the courtroom before Corrigan’s daughter, Susan, informs Lassiter that Salisbury and Melanie have actually known each other for ages, and it’s Susan’s contention they conspired together to kill her father. The lawsuit is just a smokescreen.

Not willing to sit back and let Susan stir up trouble unopposed, Melanie goes on the offensive with accusations of her own, and before Lassiter knows it he and Riggs are performing an illegal exhumation of Philip’s body in effort to get to the bottom of things…that’d be some of the addled, questionable thinking. →

– Book Country: A Genre Fiction Community –

– The Wheelman –

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