Polly Iyer's Blog - Posts Tagged "hooked"
Does Crime Pay?
Former forensic accountant, now crime novelist, Colleen Cross, asked me to post on her blog, Crime Writer Spotlight, about the crimes in my books. I jumped at the chance. This was originally written in July of 2012. I've updated a couple of things, corrected a couple too. Here's the original link: http://tiny.cc/y8485w
I love cons. Not the guys in prison, although one of my book’s heroes is an ex-con, but the kind of cons in books and movies where there’s a very fine line dividing the good guys from the bad. Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block, and Donald Westlake come to mind as authors who test the ethics of the main characters.
“The Sting” is one of the best movies ever made about crooks ripping off crooks. Who can forget Paul Newman’s Henry Gorndorff as he and Johnny Hooker, Robert Redford, put one past crooked businessman Doyle Lonnegan, played by Robert Shaw? Then there’s The Grifters, a much darker movie about a con man. There are so many more where the theme is greed, as it is in all the books and movies where a con or fraud takes place.
I’ve written six books―nine, if you count three under my pen name―and most have some kind of fraudulent dealings.
In Hooked, my heroine is an ex-call girl whose illegal offshore account is discovered when the feds dig into the affairs of an old client, a Brooklyn mob boss whose accountant buried her money, unfortunately not deep enough. The New York Sex Crimes Division, in collaboration with the IRS, offer her a deal―work undercover at a high-class brothel to find out who’s murdering prostitutes, and they’ll give her a pass for failing to pay Uncle Sam his share of illegally-earned money—after she pays back taxes and penalties. That’s right. She was skimming off the top to save for an early retirement. The cops basically blackmail her until she does what they want. Damned if she does; damned if she doesn’t.
In the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, Mind Games (and Goddess of the Moon, unpublished at the time of this blog post), Diana has been a con artist most of her adult life. She’s a psychic entertainer who’s been called every name in the book ever since she was six-years old, but fraud is the one that sticks. Is she? Hmm, yes. Sometimes. Arranged seating at her performances paid for with credit cards allows her computer hacker employee to glean information she can use in her act. Then there are telephone records, email accounts―well, you get the picture. There are reasons why she pretends to be a charlatan, of course, but she’s still a cheat even though she really is psychic. Sound complicated? It is.
The unethical careers of my female characters are explained up front, but the other two books written under my name, InSight and Murder Déjà Vu, have business scams that, if explained here, would give away too much of the story. I will say one of them has to do with pharmaceutical fraud and the other with a Ponzi scheme, and both require the expertise of a forensic accountant to expose the fraud, as does Hooked. These schemes result in the deaths of innocent people, none of which are perpetrated by my main characters.
Save for crimes of passion, most mystery/suspense/thriller books have some sort of greed-generated crime that entails cooking the books. In the real world, one doesn’t have to look far to see the behind-the-scene chicanery perpetrated by the rich and crooked who will unlikely spend one day in prison for their fraudulent ways. The crooks in my books always get caught (well, one sort of unethical person did get away). In real life, not so much. Makes you wonder if crime really doesn’t pay.
I love cons. Not the guys in prison, although one of my book’s heroes is an ex-con, but the kind of cons in books and movies where there’s a very fine line dividing the good guys from the bad. Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block, and Donald Westlake come to mind as authors who test the ethics of the main characters.
“The Sting” is one of the best movies ever made about crooks ripping off crooks. Who can forget Paul Newman’s Henry Gorndorff as he and Johnny Hooker, Robert Redford, put one past crooked businessman Doyle Lonnegan, played by Robert Shaw? Then there’s The Grifters, a much darker movie about a con man. There are so many more where the theme is greed, as it is in all the books and movies where a con or fraud takes place.
I’ve written six books―nine, if you count three under my pen name―and most have some kind of fraudulent dealings.
In Hooked, my heroine is an ex-call girl whose illegal offshore account is discovered when the feds dig into the affairs of an old client, a Brooklyn mob boss whose accountant buried her money, unfortunately not deep enough. The New York Sex Crimes Division, in collaboration with the IRS, offer her a deal―work undercover at a high-class brothel to find out who’s murdering prostitutes, and they’ll give her a pass for failing to pay Uncle Sam his share of illegally-earned money—after she pays back taxes and penalties. That’s right. She was skimming off the top to save for an early retirement. The cops basically blackmail her until she does what they want. Damned if she does; damned if she doesn’t.
In the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, Mind Games (and Goddess of the Moon, unpublished at the time of this blog post), Diana has been a con artist most of her adult life. She’s a psychic entertainer who’s been called every name in the book ever since she was six-years old, but fraud is the one that sticks. Is she? Hmm, yes. Sometimes. Arranged seating at her performances paid for with credit cards allows her computer hacker employee to glean information she can use in her act. Then there are telephone records, email accounts―well, you get the picture. There are reasons why she pretends to be a charlatan, of course, but she’s still a cheat even though she really is psychic. Sound complicated? It is.
The unethical careers of my female characters are explained up front, but the other two books written under my name, InSight and Murder Déjà Vu, have business scams that, if explained here, would give away too much of the story. I will say one of them has to do with pharmaceutical fraud and the other with a Ponzi scheme, and both require the expertise of a forensic accountant to expose the fraud, as does Hooked. These schemes result in the deaths of innocent people, none of which are perpetrated by my main characters.
Save for crimes of passion, most mystery/suspense/thriller books have some sort of greed-generated crime that entails cooking the books. In the real world, one doesn’t have to look far to see the behind-the-scene chicanery perpetrated by the rich and crooked who will unlikely spend one day in prison for their fraudulent ways. The crooks in my books always get caught (well, one sort of unethical person did get away). In real life, not so much. Makes you wonder if crime really doesn’t pay.
Do You Expect Certain Things to Happen in Genre Fiction?
Though things are changing, there have always been certain “requirements” of a particular genre of fiction. In romances, the hero and heroine ride off together into the sunset, otherwise called the HEA or Happy Ever After. If the book doesn’t meet that criterion, it is no longer considered a romance. Now, Romance Writers of America has a mystery sub-genre in their contests called Romantic Elements that releases the author from the hard and fast HEA. Sometimes a couple needs time to develop their relationship because relationships can be complicated. (See my book Hooked.)
Many readers don’t like graphic romance scenes mixed in with their mystery and suspense novels, even if they’re classified as romantic suspense. I always have at least one romantic scene in my books and some language that fits with the characters and the situations, so after a bunch of negative comments, I now have a disclaimer attached to all my book blurbs clarifying a reader will find both. Enough with lowering my book rankings because I have a cuss word or two. Readers, you know who you are.
Mysteries have a crime, usually a murder, and the sleuth, who’s either an amateur or a professional, must find the killer by the end of the book. Exceptions take place in a series—think Sherlock Holmes’s ongoing nemesis, Professor Moriarty, or Kyle Craig/The Mastermind, in a bunch of James Patterson’s Alex Cross books. Jeff Lindsay and Chelsea Cain have popular books with main characters who are serial killers who get away with their crimes. Cozy mysteries have nothing to offend anyone. Murders aren't gory, romance is behind closed doors. Sometimes the heroine (usually) has a craft or profession or culinary skill. There's an animal or two. Or three.
The plots of thrillers are usually a race against time, and the hero or heroine has to thwart the evildoer’s plan to destroy or control the world or to kill a bunch of people. Ian Fleming’s books, Goldfinger and Doctor No are two examples. Frederick Forsyth, and just about any book by Robert Ludlum are others.
So what if these things that classify a particular genre don’t happen? What if the evildoer’s plan isn’t thwarted at the end of a thriller and there’s semi-destruction? What if the villain succeeds in crashing the economy? What if a murderer gets away? What if the hero of a series isn’t a hero this time?
Backlash While writing Backlash, the third book in my Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, I decided I didn’t want to do what the reader expected: put Diana in mortal danger so that the hero could swoop down and rescue her. Don’t get me wrong, she is put in danger, twice—sorry, predictable—but that’s not the crux of the story. This time the hero is in danger. Very serious danger that could affect his career―he’s a New Orleans police lieutenant―his relationship with Diana, his life. Though he’s a big part of the book, he’s effectively taken out of her part of the story, unable to help her, unable to help himself.
I gave great thought about deviating from the expected, but there’s nothing more irritating than reading the same book by different authors over and over again because they adhere to formula.
Diana’s life is put in danger, and she doesn’t do anything “to stupid to live” to wind up under the villain’s control. (I’ve been guilty of writing one scene like that in another book. Once is enough.) She is neither Wonder Woman nor Lara Croft. She’s five-two and weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet, and the bad guy is a tough cop (that’s not a spoiler, by the way). There is no hero to help extricate her from the bad guy’s clutches. Brute force won’t work, so whatever happens has to be realistic, believable, and, hopefully, clever.
Writers need to take chances with their storylines, need to do the unexpected. It may not always work, readers might be disappointed, but I think it’s worth a try.
Next time: Major surgery
Many readers don’t like graphic romance scenes mixed in with their mystery and suspense novels, even if they’re classified as romantic suspense. I always have at least one romantic scene in my books and some language that fits with the characters and the situations, so after a bunch of negative comments, I now have a disclaimer attached to all my book blurbs clarifying a reader will find both. Enough with lowering my book rankings because I have a cuss word or two. Readers, you know who you are.
Mysteries have a crime, usually a murder, and the sleuth, who’s either an amateur or a professional, must find the killer by the end of the book. Exceptions take place in a series—think Sherlock Holmes’s ongoing nemesis, Professor Moriarty, or Kyle Craig/The Mastermind, in a bunch of James Patterson’s Alex Cross books. Jeff Lindsay and Chelsea Cain have popular books with main characters who are serial killers who get away with their crimes. Cozy mysteries have nothing to offend anyone. Murders aren't gory, romance is behind closed doors. Sometimes the heroine (usually) has a craft or profession or culinary skill. There's an animal or two. Or three.
The plots of thrillers are usually a race against time, and the hero or heroine has to thwart the evildoer’s plan to destroy or control the world or to kill a bunch of people. Ian Fleming’s books, Goldfinger and Doctor No are two examples. Frederick Forsyth, and just about any book by Robert Ludlum are others.
So what if these things that classify a particular genre don’t happen? What if the evildoer’s plan isn’t thwarted at the end of a thriller and there’s semi-destruction? What if the villain succeeds in crashing the economy? What if a murderer gets away? What if the hero of a series isn’t a hero this time?
Backlash While writing Backlash, the third book in my Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, I decided I didn’t want to do what the reader expected: put Diana in mortal danger so that the hero could swoop down and rescue her. Don’t get me wrong, she is put in danger, twice—sorry, predictable—but that’s not the crux of the story. This time the hero is in danger. Very serious danger that could affect his career―he’s a New Orleans police lieutenant―his relationship with Diana, his life. Though he’s a big part of the book, he’s effectively taken out of her part of the story, unable to help her, unable to help himself. I gave great thought about deviating from the expected, but there’s nothing more irritating than reading the same book by different authors over and over again because they adhere to formula.
Diana’s life is put in danger, and she doesn’t do anything “to stupid to live” to wind up under the villain’s control. (I’ve been guilty of writing one scene like that in another book. Once is enough.) She is neither Wonder Woman nor Lara Croft. She’s five-two and weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet, and the bad guy is a tough cop (that’s not a spoiler, by the way). There is no hero to help extricate her from the bad guy’s clutches. Brute force won’t work, so whatever happens has to be realistic, believable, and, hopefully, clever.
Writers need to take chances with their storylines, need to do the unexpected. It may not always work, readers might be disappointed, but I think it’s worth a try.
Next time: Major surgery
Polly Iyer Interviews Polly Iyer on Genres
Q. What genre do you write?
A. I write cross-genre fiction.
Q. What’s that?
A. That’s the genre that agents and editors tell you they can’t place on the bookshelf when they reject you. Bookstores can’t find a place for your book either.
Q. So, do you write either mystery, suspense, or thrillers?
A. Yes, all three, sometimes in one book, but there’s also romance.
Q. Then it’s romantic suspense?
A. Not really.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I don’t follow the romantic-suspense formula. Sometimes the romances in my books don’t have a HEA, Happy Ever After. Romance Writers of America classifies Romantic Suspense this way: The love story is the main focus of the novel, a suspense/mystery/thriller plot is blended with the love story, and the resolution of the romance is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. Though my books have a romance, crime is the focus of the story. RWA has tempered their former explanation of a definite HEA to an ending that is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. That leaves some room for H/h (Hero/heroine—notice the female H is in small letters. I take umbrage.) to maybe get together, maybe not, but probably. My book Hooked has that kind of ending.
I leave it up to the reader to decide. I have one more book with the same kind of ending.
Q. So, Hooked is a romance with a satisfying and optimistic ending?
A. I thought so, but some reviewers did not find the ending at all satisfying. They wanted to know what happened after the last page. Oh, and there’s humor in this one too.
Q. So it’s a Romantic Comedy?
A. Oh, no. There’s humor but there are a few murders, so it really isn’t funny. Just humorous in parts.
Q. So how do you characterize your work?
A. Broadly? Suspense with a hint of romance.
Q. And humor.
A. Sometimes. My last book, Backlash, is very serious. Even though the two main characters are a couple, there’s no hot romance in this one. But there are romantic elements.
Q. Sigh. I’m thoroughly confused. Maybe you should create a new genre to satisfy everyone.
A. Oh, that’s impossible. A writer will never satisfy everyone. I’ve had readers think I tell the best stories ever and others who think I should learn how to write. Agents, on the other hand, are only satisfied if the book meets the current genre in vogue, and writers better be fast because that changes as often as women change shoes. Agents can’t pitch a novel and call it Crime Fiction with Romance and Humor, now, can they? Editors of large publishing houses already have the books filtered first by agents, so they don’t see all of what’s out there, but they want to be on the cutting edge as well. Publishers want to be able to pitch the book to the bookstores, and bookstores have to know where to put the book in the store. What it comes down to is some writers have to put up with an unimaginative bunch in order to get published.
Think back to J.K. Rowling, who had a hell of a time getting any publisher to read Harry Potter. Then, when it became a huge success, agents, editors, and publishers all wanted wizard books. Then it changed again to vampires, and that changed to--you get the picture. Exhausting, isn’t it?
Q. How do you do it then?
A. I self-publish.
Q. What does that mean?
A. I can do anything I damn well please and hope readers find me and like what I write.
A. I write cross-genre fiction.
Q. What’s that?
A. That’s the genre that agents and editors tell you they can’t place on the bookshelf when they reject you. Bookstores can’t find a place for your book either.
Q. So, do you write either mystery, suspense, or thrillers?
A. Yes, all three, sometimes in one book, but there’s also romance.
Q. Then it’s romantic suspense?
A. Not really.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I don’t follow the romantic-suspense formula. Sometimes the romances in my books don’t have a HEA, Happy Ever After. Romance Writers of America classifies Romantic Suspense this way: The love story is the main focus of the novel, a suspense/mystery/thriller plot is blended with the love story, and the resolution of the romance is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. Though my books have a romance, crime is the focus of the story. RWA has tempered their former explanation of a definite HEA to an ending that is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. That leaves some room for H/h (Hero/heroine—notice the female H is in small letters. I take umbrage.) to maybe get together, maybe not, but probably. My book Hooked has that kind of ending.
I leave it up to the reader to decide. I have one more book with the same kind of ending.
Q. So, Hooked is a romance with a satisfying and optimistic ending?
A. I thought so, but some reviewers did not find the ending at all satisfying. They wanted to know what happened after the last page. Oh, and there’s humor in this one too.
Q. So it’s a Romantic Comedy?
A. Oh, no. There’s humor but there are a few murders, so it really isn’t funny. Just humorous in parts.
Q. So how do you characterize your work?
A. Broadly? Suspense with a hint of romance.
Q. And humor.
A. Sometimes. My last book, Backlash, is very serious. Even though the two main characters are a couple, there’s no hot romance in this one. But there are romantic elements.
Q. Sigh. I’m thoroughly confused. Maybe you should create a new genre to satisfy everyone.
A. Oh, that’s impossible. A writer will never satisfy everyone. I’ve had readers think I tell the best stories ever and others who think I should learn how to write. Agents, on the other hand, are only satisfied if the book meets the current genre in vogue, and writers better be fast because that changes as often as women change shoes. Agents can’t pitch a novel and call it Crime Fiction with Romance and Humor, now, can they? Editors of large publishing houses already have the books filtered first by agents, so they don’t see all of what’s out there, but they want to be on the cutting edge as well. Publishers want to be able to pitch the book to the bookstores, and bookstores have to know where to put the book in the store. What it comes down to is some writers have to put up with an unimaginative bunch in order to get published.
Think back to J.K. Rowling, who had a hell of a time getting any publisher to read Harry Potter. Then, when it became a huge success, agents, editors, and publishers all wanted wizard books. Then it changed again to vampires, and that changed to--you get the picture. Exhausting, isn’t it?
Q. How do you do it then?
A. I self-publish.
Q. What does that mean?
A. I can do anything I damn well please and hope readers find me and like what I write.
