D.R. Martin's Blog, page 9

The Big Lift

Geopolitics is not a normal subject for this blog, but the situation in eastern Europe led me to an old Montgomery Clift film that addressed the aftermath of that last great European breakdown. It’s a 1950 Hollywood film about the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. In it Clift plays an airman flying a C-54 (aka the Douglas DC-4) into and out of Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport. The main plot involves Clift’s romance with the widow of a German officer. (The Lithuanian actress who played her, Cornell Borchers, just died this past spring. She also starred with Rock Hudson and Errol Flynn, but retired from acting in 1959.) Their relationship ends with a twist. Here they are together.

But that isn’t the point of interest. What makes The Big Lift a minor gem are its many views of street life in post-war Berlin amidst the rubble and poverty. Most of the U.S. air force men are played by real airmen. It is more docu-drama than drama. What writer-director George Seton shows is the real deal, and it’s fascinating to view. It’s not a great movie by any means, but it is definitely worth a look. The DVD is available on Netflix. It’s also out there in  a cheapie Mill Creek war film box–Mission Victory.

Mary MacDougall Now Out in Paperback

Up until now my two Mary MacDougall mystery novellas were only available as e-books, leaving out folks who are not fond of e-book readers. (Sue and I were at a party recently and just about everyone we encountered had nothing good to say about Kindles and Nooks.) Well, now readers who prefer their books not on an LCD screen can read the two historical mysteries on good old-fashioned paper. At the moment, the nearly 300-page paperback is only available on Amazon. Click here for a look. But in coming weeks it will become available at Barnes & Noble and any other book retailer who sells print-on-demand books.

 

Johnny Graphic on Indie Children’s Authors Connection

This is just a heads up that Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb has been selected to be one of the featured titles in the Indie Children’s Authors Connection Back To School Blog Tour. Johnny will be featured on Sept. 4, and that will include a Q&A with yours truly and a giveaway of paperback copies of the first two Johnny Graphic adventures. To check it out, just visit Indie Children’s Author’s Connection. The tour lasts from Sept. 1 through 5 and features other terrific indie kids writers, as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New in Paperback: A Mary MacDougall Mystery Duet

A couple of months ago I published the second Mary MacDougall historical mystery, The Stolen Star. But because it and its antecedent were both novellas, it wasn’t practicable to publish them as POD paperbacks. Well, now that there are two novellas, I can finally turn them into a paperback. A Mary MacDougall Mystery Duet will be out in the next few weeks. And for those of you who are Goodreads members, I’m having a five-copy giveaway.

To go to the Goodreads giveaway, beginning August 14, simply click here.

 

The Return of Midnight Louie

Just a heads up for folks who enjoy a lively, funny animal mystery–like The Karma of King Harald.

My good friend Carole Nelson Douglas is one of the major novelists in the genre, with her nonpareil, Damon Runyanesque feline sleuth, Midnight Louie. Trust me, there’s no critter in crime fiction quite so funny and irresistable as Louie. Even Harald is jealous of him. Here’s what Louie’s new adventure is all about:

“In Cat in a Yellow Spotlight, Louie’s roommate, petite powerhouse PR freelancer Temple Barr, oversees the volatile Las Vegas Strip reunion of a groundbreaking, multi-ethnic rock band, Black & White. Thirty years earlier, tabloids went wild over the shocking disappearance of its two singing divas and flamboyant manager. The women made comebacks, but manager Cale Watson was never seen again. Now, drug trips and murder stalk the rehearsing band members. Temple moves into the celebrity suites to uncover the sabotage, while Louie and the Vegas Cat Pack sniff out clues like mere dogs. Elsewhere, vengeful former IRA terrorist Kathleen O’Connor forces Temple’s ex, magician Max Kinsella, into a shocking decision. Deadly encounters and unexpected reunions bring all the main characters unforeseen loss and disclosure, the suspense leavened by Douglas’s characteristic wit and heart.”

Louie’s 26th adventure is out as e-book and paperback on August 26th. Don’t miss it!

Pre-Yelp Review for Duluth, 1876

As part of the research for my ongoing Mary MacDougall historical mystery series, I came across a memoir by Mary FitzGibbon called A Trip to Manitoba. It was published in 1880, and can be downloaded as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg. It’s the young woman’s account of her arduous journey to Manitoba in the mid-1870s, to work as a governess for a contractor on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Along the way from Toronto to Manitoba, she stopped in Duluth–the hometown of Mary MacDougall and yours truly. Here’s her Pre-Yelp review of Duluth, c. 1876:

“Duluth, situated on the rocky north, or Minnesota, shore of the extreme western end of Lake Superior—otherwise St. Louis Bay—was apparently planned in expectation of its one day becoming the principal centre of commerce between America and Canada—in short, the great capital of the lakes. Everything is on a large scale. The streets are broad; the wharves and warehouses extensive; the hotels immense; the custom-house and other public buildings massive and capacious enough to accommodate any number of extra clerks when the rush of business shall come—a rush which is still in the future. During the day and a half we spent there, the hotel omnibus and one other team were the only locomotives, and a lame man and a water-carrier with a patch over his eye the only dwellers in Duluth we saw; while the people from our boat seemed to be the only visitors who woke the echoes in the sleepy place. It was like a city in a fairy tale, over which a spell had been cast; its very cleanliness was depressing, and so suggestive of disuse, that I think a mass of mud scrapped off the road might have given some appearance of traffic and life to the scene.

“There are people in Duluth, however, though it is difficult to say where they hide themselves; for some of our party went to service in a little church on a hill, and came back charmed with the eloquence of the clergyman and the sweetness of the voices in the quartette choir, to say nothing of several pretty girls they noticed amongst the congregation. Still, Duluth will always seem to me like a city in a dream. On the opposite, or Wisconsin shore of the lake, is Superior City, a pretty, half-built town, rising slowly into commercial importance. Unfortunately we were unable to cross to it.

“I cannot leave Duluth without speaking of the ‘girls’ in the hotel, as they were called, in order not to wound the sensitive democracy of the Yankee nature, which abhors the name of servant. There were three in the great dining-saloon, whose superabundance of empty chairs and tables gave even greater dreariness to the house than its long, empty corridors. Pretty fair girls they were, neat in dress, but so tightly laced that it was painful to look at them. Their slow, stiff, automatic movements were suggestive of machinery, and in keeping with the sleepy spell cast over the town. All the lithe, living gracefulness of their figures was destroyed for the sake of drawing in an inch or two of belt. Watching them, I attacked my breakfast with greater energy, to prove to myself that there was something substantial about the premises.”

Miss FitzGibbon is a surprisingly sharp, good-natured, and witty observer, and catches Duluth’s proclivity for self-importance rather well. Jay Cooke, Lincoln’s financier, aimed to turn the town into the new Chicago. Though that never happened, at the time of the Mary MacDougall stories (c. 1900), there were more millionaires per capita in the Zenith City than in any other town in America.

George Lazenby

I’ve collected media ever since I was a kid. Comic books. Books. LPs. Cassettes. Beta and VHS. CDs. DVDs. Blu Rays. Except for watching a few things on my Mac on Hulu and YouTube, I’ve never streamed a thing. My Mac does not talk with my TV. I must admit, I like having the physical media in hand. Unless the electricity goes out, no one can stop me from watching the films and TV shows I own. The content I own does not live on some distant server. The price of my DVDs and Blu Rays cannot be jacked up. I do not need to rely on the kindness of Comcast and Netflix and all those other sweet, gentle mega media corporations.

Which is a rather long-winded way of saying that I was at a Best Buy last week, picking up Blu Rays of my favorite James Bond films. I hadn’t intended to buy On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), but finally the mystery of George Lazenby drew me in. He was the Aussie actor who came on board after Sean Connery’s fifth Bond movie, You Only Live Twice. Lazenby appeared just in the one Bond film.

Cubby Broccoli, the producer of the Bond films, had spotted Lazenby in a barber shop, and thought he looked the role of the world’s most famous secret agent. He had already acted in commercials. After a series of auditions, he got the part. But he apparently had a bad time on set, not getting on with the director and resenting the way he was treated. Of course, he was a neophyte, but he thought he deserved more input in the process. He quit Bond after OHMSS came out, even though he had received a seven-film contract!

His co-star Diana Rigg said: “The role made Sean Connery a millionaire … I truly don’t know what’s happening in George’s mind so I can only speak of my reaction. I think it’s a pretty foolish move. I think if he can bear to do an apprenticeship, which everybody in this business has to do – has to do – then he should do it quietly and with humility. Everybody has to do it. There are few instant successes in the film business. And the instant successes one usually associates with somebody who is willing to learn anyway.”

And though Lazenby went on to have a solid career acting in lesser roles in the decades since OHMSS, apparently he came to regret his early bravado: “Without any doubt I should have gone back to do at least one more, just to dispel any rumours that they fired me. Anybody that knows me and has been around me knows that I walked away from it, which wasn’t a smart thing to do from a career stand-point.”

Oh, yah think?

But don’t feel too sorry for the guy. He is still acting today and apparently was a very smart businessman, besides. According to IMDb, he is the wealthiest actor to have played Bond. (Take that, Sean Connery.) And even if he can’t hold a candle to Connery in the being-Bond department–who can?–his performance, if a little stiff, was solid and full of potential. If he had done his six additional Bond films, who knows how beloved George Lazenby might be?

And IMO, preempting a Roger Moore Bond would not have been a bad thing.

Johnny Graphic E-book for only 99 cents!

Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb is being featured on Thursday June 19th 2014 at eBookSoda, a new readers’ site where they’ll send you e-book recommendations tailored to your taste. Check it out at www.ebooksoda.com.

Second Mary MacDougall Cover

My new Mary MacDougall mystery, The Stolen Star, is fast approaching the finish line. And I just wanted to show off the novella’s cover. Steve Thomas did a great job on the design again, using public-domain art that Sue and I found. The painting is “Girl in White” by Alfred Maurer. Interestingly, the painting itself resides in the collection of the Weisman Art Museum, just a couple of miles up the Mississippi from where we live.

We’re still a month or two out from publishing The Stolen Star as an e-book. For those who prefer paper books, we’ll be doing a print-on-demand edition pairing Star with its precursor, A Pretty Little Plot.

 

 

 

Great New Review for Johnny Graphic

My middle-grade ghost adventure, Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb, has been out a while now. But it’s still collecting great reviews. Just this week, Jessica Kosinski of A Book a Day Reviews posted her impressions of my 1930s pulp-style yarn, awarding it five stars! Here’s some of what she had to say:

There are a few things that I like about this book. One of them is the idea of ghosts co-existing with, and even being able to interact with, human beings. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, you have to admit that the idea is intriguing. I also enjoyed the fact that the author went out of his way to give each ghost in the story his or her own unique personality…

Another thing I enjoyed about the book is that it takes place in an alternate 1935. The locations all have different names than you might expect. There was a Civil War of sorts that ended differently from the Civil War we all know, causing a different division of countries, and a different governmental system. Granted, that also meant that I, as the reader, had to just accept certain things as fact and didn’t have a lot of familiar reference points, but I liked the imagination behind the concept.

I give Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb 5 out of 5 stars. It was well-written, entertaining, and featured well-rounded characters. I felt like the writing was appropriate for the intended age group as well. Most importantly, it left me wanting more, as book one in a series always should.

To read Jessica’s full review, and check out the rest of A Book a Day Reviews, just click here.

FYI, the e-book version of my first Johnny Graphic book is on sale in June for only 99 cents.