James Hayman's Posts - CrimeSpace2024-03-28T16:31:14ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHaymanhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/60994879?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://crimespace.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=0stawu1u4saex&xn_auth=noGreat news to start the year.tag:crimespace.ning.com,2011-01-04:537324:BlogPost:2600562011-01-04T16:12:08.000ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHayman
<p>I'm definitely starting 2011 on an up note and I'm unashamedly celebrating.</p>
<p>The Cutting...same book, new cover...comes out in the UK this week. Penguin UK is introducing McCabe to British readers with lots of great display in some of the top stores and supermarket chains.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Pat Conroy. Tami Hoag, Alan Furst, C.J. Box and Me! Pretty good company! The Chill of Night will follow in July. </p>
<p>A Brit friend found the attached display in WH Smith in…</p>
<p>I'm definitely starting 2011 on an up note and I'm unashamedly celebrating.</p>
<p>The Cutting...same book, new cover...comes out in the UK this week. Penguin UK is introducing McCabe to British readers with lots of great
display in some of the top stores and supermarket chains.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Pat Conroy. Tami Hoag, Alan Furst, C.J. Box and Me! Pretty good company! The Chill of Night will follow in July. </p>
<p>A Brit friend found the attached display in WH Smith in London.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70754407?profile=original"><img width="250" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70754407?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a></p>
<p> </p>George Clooney in The American: Looks great. Goes nowhere.tag:crimespace.ning.com,2010-09-03:537324:BlogPost:2487702010-09-03T13:37:52.000ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHayman
<p class="MsoNormal">In the mood for a good thriller, my wife Jeanne and I went to see George Clooney’s latest star turn, <i>The American</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. All I can say is don’t bother. While I
don’t normally write movie reviews, I do write thrillers (</span><i>The<br />
Cutting, The Chill of Night</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) and, as a<br />
thriller-writer, I expect a thriller to have a plot. Not necessarily a great plot. Not even a good plot. <span style=""><br />
</span>But at…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the mood for a good thriller, my wife Jeanne and I went to see George Clooney’s latest star turn, <i>The American</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. All I
can say is don’t bother. While I<br />
don’t normally write movie reviews, I do write thrillers (</span><i>The<br />
Cutting, The Chill of Night</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) and, as a<br />
thriller-writer, I expect a thriller to have a plot. Not necessarily a great plot. Not even a good plot. <span style=""><br />
</span>But at least</span> <i>some</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">plot.</span></p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>The American</i><span style="font-style: normal;">doesn’t. The movie consists of
little more than two hours of mindless violence where people run around<br />
shooting each other for no discernible reason. The shootings are mostly<br />
interrupted by scenes of Clooney driving around Italy, sitting in cafes<br />
drinking coffee and removing his shirt and showing off his muscles by doing<br />
pushups and chin-ups. </span></p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">This movie is not without some redeeming qualities. The scenery in and around the mountainous region of Italy’s Abruzzo is stunning. The cinematography is first rate, maybe even good enough to
snag Director of Photography Martin Ruhe an Oscar nomination. But, as Gertrude Stein once said of her<br />
return to her childhood home in Oakland, California, when it comes to a story<br />
line, “there is no there there.”</p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">For me, your typical post-middle-aged heterosexual male, the single most enjoyable thing about <i>The American</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">was the frequency with which a gorgeous young Italian actress
named Violante Placido removes her<br />
clothing and runs around in the nude. If you feel that’s enough to justify<br />
spending twenty bucks or more on a pair of tickets, go for it. Otherwise, as I said before, don’t<br />
bother.</span></p>George Clooney in The American: Looks great. Goes nowhere.tag:crimespace.ning.com,2010-09-03:537324:BlogPost:2487622010-09-03T13:00:00.000ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHayman
<font size="4">In the mood for a good thriller, my wife Jeanne and I went<br></br>
to see George Clooney’s latest star turn, <i>The American</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. All I<br></br>
can say is don’t bother. While I don’t normally write movie reviews, I do write thrillers (</span><i>The Cutting, The Chill of Night</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) and, as a<br></br>
thriller-writer, I expect a thriller to have a plot. Not necessarily a great plot. Not even a good plot. But at least…</span></font>
<font size="4">In the mood for a good thriller, my wife Jeanne and I went<br/>
to see George Clooney’s latest star turn, <i>The American</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. All I<br/>
can say is don’t bother. While I don’t normally write movie reviews, I do write thrillers (</span><i>The Cutting, The Chill of Night</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) and, as a<br/>
thriller-writer, I expect a thriller to have a plot. Not necessarily a great plot. Not even a good plot. But at least</span> <i>some</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">plot.</span><br/></font>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<font size="4"><i>The American</i> doesn’t. The movie consists of<br/>
little more than two hours of mindless violence where people run around shooting each other for no discernible reason. The shootings are mostly</font> <font size="4">interrupted by scenes of Clooney driving around Italy, sitting in cafes</font> <font size="4"><span style="font-style: normal;">drinking coffee and removing his shirt and showing off his muscles by doing pushups and chin-ups.</span></font> <br/>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">This movie is not without some redeeming qualities. The scenery in and around the mountainous region of Italy’s Abruzzo is stunning. The cinematography is first rate, maybe even good enough to snag Director of Photography Martin Ruhe an Oscar nomination. But, as Gertrude Stein once said of her return to her childhood home in Oakland, California, when it comes to a story line, “there is no there there.”</font></p>
<br/>
<br/>
<font size="4">For me, your typical post-middle-aged heterosexual male, the<br />
single most enjoyable thing about <i>The American</i> was the frequency with which a gorgeous young Italian actress<br/></font><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><span style="font-style: normal;">named Violante Placido removes her<br/>
clothing and runs around in the nude. If you feel that’s enough to justify<br/>
spending twenty bucks or more on a pair of tickets, go for it. Otherwise, as I said before, don’t<br/>
bother.</span></font></p>
<br/>
<br/>Yes, a Thriller Has to Be Thrilling. But It Can Also be Literaturetag:crimespace.ning.com,2010-08-08:537324:BlogPost:2455202010-08-08T15:43:09.000ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHayman
<br></br>
<br></br>
<font size="4">A lot of people, but especially self-proclaimed book snobs,<br></br>
create a kind of false distinction between thrillers (and other forms of<br></br>
so-called “genre” fiction such as romance and sci-fi) and what they like to<br></br>
call “literary fiction.” <br></br><br></br></font>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Genre fiction, they say, is plot driven. Literary fiction is “character driven.”</font></p>
<font size="4"><br></br></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">That is a…</font></p>
<br/>
<br/>
<font size="4">A lot of people, but especially self-proclaimed book snobs,<br/>
create a kind of false distinction between thrillers (and other forms of<br/>
so-called “genre” fiction such as romance and sci-fi) and what they like to<br/>
call “literary fiction.” <br/><br/></font>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Genre fiction, they say, is plot driven. Literary fiction is “character driven.”</font></p>
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">That is a distinction that implies that in thrillers or in other kinds of genre fiction, the depth of the characters and the examination of their problems as human beings doesn’t matter.</font></p>
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I think that’s baloney.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><br/></font></p>
<br />
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Yes, a thriller has to be thrilling. A least a good one does. To qualify as a really good thriller a book has to have a plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It has to create a need in the reader to find out what happens next. A need that makes them unwilling to put the book<br/>
down until they’ve turned just one more page, and then one more after that, even if it means staying up way past their intended bedtimes.</font></p>
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">But is it only the unfolding of the plot that creates that kind of urgency and involvement in a story?<br/><br/></font>
<br />
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <font size="4">I don’t think so. I think it’s also the characters. The characters in really truly memorable thrillers have to be as interesting, as fully-developed and as multi-dimensional as they are in any so-called literary fiction.</font> <br/></p>
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<font size="4"><br />
I know in my own books, <i>The Cutting</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">and</span> <i>The Chill of Night</i>, McCabe’s problems with his own past and the development of his relationships with his daughter Casey, his girlfriend Kyra,</font> <font size="4">his partner Maggie and especially with his ex-wife Sandy are at least as</font> <font size="4">important to the story as the unfolding of the plot or the undoing of the</font> <font size="4"><span style="font-style: normal;">villains.</span></font><br />
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <font size="4"><br/></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">And it’s not just me. My bookcase is full of thrillers that, by any rational measure, qualify as first-rate literature.<br/></font><br/></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Take Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River for example. It’s certainly a thriller with a plot that unfolds with all the awful inevitability of a Shakespearian tragedy. But Lehane went beyond plot and explored the<br/>
character of his three protagonists, Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine, and Dave Boyle with subtlety, intelligence and great literary skill.</font></p>
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <font size="4">Or take John LeCarre’s classic The Spy Who Came in From the Cold or Richard Price’s 2008 best-seller, Lush Life. Are they thrillers or<br/></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">literature? I think they’re both.<br/></font>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><br/></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">And then there’s Cormac McCarthy. He’s the winner of both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and is considered one of the finest “literary novelists” of our time. Yet he has written widely-acclaimed books, such as <i>No Country For Old Men</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, that any fair-minded reader would call thrillers no matter how you cut it.</span></font></p>
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <font size="4">Yes, there are lots of thrillers populated with one-dimensional cardboard characters. And yes, there is much literary fiction that offers so little plot that its authors’ main intention seems to have been<br/>
to induce sleep rather than prevent it. But, to me, those are the books that don’t work and won’t be remembered. </font></p>
<font size="4"><br/></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <font size="4">I think the best novels offer both great characters and great plot and arbitrarily categorizing them as either genre writing or literary fiction is a false and often dishonest choice. And one that needn’t be made.</font></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<br/>When an Aging, Gray-Haired Mystery Writer Becomes a 25 year-old Female Schizophrenictag:crimespace.ning.com,2010-07-12:537324:BlogPost:2414812010-07-12T16:27:58.000ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHayman
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<br/>The Murderer Next Door: The Only Real Mystery is Why Nobody Stopped Her Sooner.tag:crimespace.ning.com,2010-02-25:537324:BlogPost:2281492010-02-25T14:39:49.000ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHayman
<p class="MsoNormal">Like a lot of people who write mystery and suspense novels for a living, I regularly comb the news for true crime stories that might someday form the basis of either a down-the-road Mike McCabe thriller or
possibly a stand-alone. When I find one, I cut and paste it into something I<br />
call my “What If?” file. When the news recently broke about the murders<br />
recently committed by Dr. Amy Bishop, I thought to myself this might be the basis<br />
of something interesting. Here was<br />
an…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like a lot of people who write mystery and suspense novels for a living, I regularly comb the news for true crime stories that might
someday form the basis of either a down-the-road Mike McCabe thriller or<br />
possibly a stand-alone. When I find one, I cut and paste it into something I<br />
call my “What If?” file. When the news recently broke about the murders<br />
recently committed by Dr. Amy Bishop, I thought to myself this might be the basis<br />
of something interesting. Here was<br />
an educated professor and scientist and a mother of four children who,<br />
supposedly without warning, gunned down six of her colleagues at a University<br />
of Alabama faculty meeting, killing three and wounding three others, two<br />
critically.</p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">The only problem with the story is that it wasn’t without warning. There <i>was</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">warning, lots of it, that Bishop was the kind of deranged
person who would do almost anything to retaliate against people she felt had<br />
wronged her. According to a report by <em><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Shaila<br />
Dewan</b></span></em><em><span style="font-style: normal;">, <b>Stephanie Saul</b></span></em> <em><span style="font-style: normal;">and <b>Katie Zezima</b></span>.</em> in the New York<br />
Times,</span> <i>“Dr. Bishop had shown evidence that the smallest of slights<br />
could set off a disproportionate and occasionally violent reaction, according<br />
to numerous interviews with colleagues and others who know her. Her life seemed<br />
to veer wildly between moments of cold fury and scientific brilliance, between<br />
rage at perceived slights and empathy for her students.”</i></p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1986, when Bishop was twenty-one, she shot and killed her eighteen year old brother with a shotgun in their home allegedly after a family
argument. It’s been chargesd that<br />
the incident was never adequately investigated by local police, possibly<br />
because Bishop came from a locally prominent family in Braintree, MA. Eight<br />
years later, in 1994, Bishop and her husband were suspected as the culprits in<br />
a mail bomb plot against a doctor she worked with at Harvard Medical School.<br />
The bomb failed to go off and no one was ever charged here either. In 2002 she<br />
finally was charged, this time with assault, after punching a woman in the face<br />
in an IHOP restaurant because the woman had taken the last child booster seat.<br />
She was never convicted.</p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">According to those who knew her, Bishop flew into frequent rages over perceived slights. And after the Huntsville shooting, some in the
University’s Biology Department feared that she might have booby-trapped the<br />
science building with some kind of “Herpes Bomb.” Apparently, she had threatened to do just that.</p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br />
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">The real mystery is why nobody chose to say or do anything about Bishop before she
finally exploded in a frenzy of gunfire. She’d been hired by the University of<br />
Alabama without anyone questioning or even being aware of her history of<br />
irrational behavior. Why? My guess is, as my fictional hero, Detective Sergeant<br />
Mike McCabe puts it In The Chill of Night, <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>“It’s<br />
a familiar scenario. Citizens not wanting to get involved. Too polite. Too<br />
fearful. Too lazy. It was a problem for police departments across the<br />
country. It bugged the hell out of<br />
McCabe but it was tough to figure out what to do about it.”</i></span></p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">The Amy Bishop killings were a preventable tragedy. Could they ever become the basis of a future novel? Some sort of female version of
American Psycho? Maybe.<br />
Well-educated female killers with a few screws loose often make interesting<br />
villains. Just look at Chelsea Cain’s Gretchen Lowell and Basic Instinct’s<br />
Catherine Tramell for proof. <span style=""><br />
</span>However, for now, the cut and paste on Ms. Bishop will remain in my “What<br />
If” pile. Her crimes are too<br />
recent and the pain they caused too raw for me to do anything with them anytime<br />
soon</p>Insomnia and The Fine Art of Writing Murder Mysteries.tag:crimespace.ning.com,2010-02-24:537324:BlogPost:2281172010-02-24T23:27:14.000ZJames Haymanhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JamesHayman
<h2><font size="3">Insomnia and The Fine Art of Writing Murder Mysteries.</font></h2>
<h2><font size="2">Did you ever wonder what it takes to write a successful murder mystery? Or a series of murder mysteries or suspense thrillers featuring the likes
of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, Tess Gerritsen’s Jane Rizzoli or<br />
Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski? One answer is not sleeping. Ms.<br />
Paretsky once noted the secret to her success as a writer (or at least<br />
one secret) was the inability to sleep. And…</font></h2>
<h2><font size="3">Insomnia and The Fine Art of Writing Murder Mysteries.</font></h2>
<h2><font size="2">Did you ever wonder what it takes to write a successful murder mystery? Or
a series of murder mysteries or suspense thrillers featuring the likes<br />
of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, Tess Gerritsen’s Jane Rizzoli or<br />
Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski? One answer is not sleeping. Ms.<br />
Paretsky once noted the secret to her success as a writer (or at least<br />
one secret) was the inability to sleep. And the longer I ply this<br />
particular trade, the more I think she’s right.</font></h2>
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-weight: bold;" class="entry"><p>Every time I come to a point in one of my books where I can’t figure out what’s going to happen next, I find the best way to come up with an
answer is by lying awake in the dark and obsessing about it. I do this<br />
a lot. And it always seems to lead to something that works better than<br />
anything I thought of during my normal waking or working hours. I know<br />
full well that if I just lie there and eventually fall sleep, I’ll<br />
forget what I thought of. So I get out of bed, be it two AM or three<br />
AM or four AM, and trundle into my writing room where I wake up my<br />
sleeping laptop and write out the idea in some detail. I hate it but it<br />
works.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>Right now. I’m trying to work out the basics of the plot for my third McCabe thriller (as yet untitled). In this book, McCabe’s
daughter, Casey, has grown into a drop-dead gorgeous sixteen-year-old<br />
boasting her mother’s good looks, her father’s stubborness and her own<br />
brand new driver’s license.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>In the book, Casey falls for a really hot nineteen-year-old who’s definitely the wrong kind of guy. And it gets her into trouble (No,
not that kind of trouble) and, for the past week or so, I’ve been<br />
unable to figure out how to get her out of it.</p>
<p>At three-eighteen in the morning an idea came to me. Thankful for the gift, I got up and went to work, beating most of the local farmers,
fishermen and lobstermen to the punch by a good forty minutes or so.</p>
</div>