Joseph Finder's Blog, page 3
December 28, 2011
Top Ten Reads of 2011
People often ask what I’m reading, and one of my resolutions for 2012 is to be better about posting recommendations to my Facebook and Twitter feeds. It’s a challenge, though, because like most serious readers, I’ve usually got more than one book going at once. I read a lot, and I read for many different reasons — not just for pleasure, but for research, to prepare for events, to give blurbs or write reviews, and so on.
Looking back on what I read in 2011, it’s hard to narrow things down to a “Ten Best” list — but here is a list of books that deserve your attention.
THE AFFAIR by Lee Child. If Lee Child weren’t such a good guy, I’d have to hate him. Thriller heroes don’t get any better than Jack Reacher. This book is a fascinating look at Reacher’s past, before he became the man without an address.
SWEET JUDY BLUE EYES: My Life in Music by Judy Collins. A fearless and graceful memoir by a woman I’m proud to call my friend — but even if I didn’t know her, I’d be fascinated by this amazing life. I had the chance to interview her a few weeks ago for The Daily Beast.
THE TRINITY SIX by Charles Cumming. Don’t let anyone tell you the golden age of the spy novel is over. This is a terrific old-school espionage thriller, in the tradition of John Le Carre and Charles McCarry.
LOVE YOU MORE by Lisa Gardner. A gripping thriller that focuses on two very different female protagonists: State Trooper Tessa Leoni, who claims to have shot her husband in self-defense, and Detective D.D. Warren, whose sympathy for Trooper Leoni won’t keep her from digging up the truth.
JUST MY TYPE: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield. Even if you don’t share my passion for fonts, you’ll find this history of print types both entertaining and educational.
LAST CALL: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent. The incredible true story of the passage, enforcement and eventual repeal of the 18th Amendment, with enough great stories to fuel several years of new cable TV series.
THE CUT by George Pelecanos. George Pelecanos is a crime writer’s crime writer. The Cut is the first book in what I hope will be a new series featuring Iraq war veteran Spero Lucas, who’s now working as a private investigator for a defense attorney. He specializes in recovering stolen property; “the cut” is the 40% he gets as a reward.
MAKING TOAST by Roger Rosenblatt. This book actually came out in 2010, but somehow I missed it until this year. It’s the saddest, happiest book I read all year, a memoir of how veteran journalist Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, join their son-in-law, Harris, to help raise their three grandchildren after the sudden death of Roger and Ginny’s daughter, Amy. After I finished this book, I wanted to give it to everyone I knew. You’ll want to, too.
BRINGING ADAM HOME: The Abduction that Changed America by Les Standiford and Joe Matthews. Six-year-old Adam Walsh disappeared from a Sears store in 1981. At some point after that, he was murdered. It took 25 years to find the man who did it. This is not only a true-crime police procedural but social history, and beautifully written.
SATORI by Don Winslow. Only a master would dare write a sequel to Trevanian’s Shibumi, but Don Winslow is more than up to the task. In the fall of 1951, the CIA turns to assassin Nicholai Hei, who has been its prisoner for three years, with an offer Hei can’t refuse: kill the Soviet commissioner to China in exchange for his freedom.
July 19, 2011
Off to Harrogate . . .
This evening I get on a plane that takes me across the Atlantic to one of my favorite events, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, known to veterans simply as “Harrogate.” This will be my third Harrogate, and if the last two are anything to go by, it’ll be a great time. Two weeks ago I was at Thrillerfest, the annual meeting of the International Thriller Writers. It’s been a good month for meetings.
Some writers I know don’t go to meetings. They don’t see the point. Writing is a solitary occupation, they say. They’d rather stay home and write than go somewhere to talk about it.
I understand that argument, but I disagree. In fact, it’s because writing is a solitary occupation that I find these meetings so productive. True, it would be easy to spend the year doing nothing but hopping from meeting to meeting, and never getting any writing done; but a good conference energizes me, inspires me and reminds me of why I do what I do.
The world of crime fiction is more collegial than its highbrow literary counterpart, I suspect. It’s certainly friendlier than academia. We compete with each other, of course – we thriller writers know how that’s done – but readers read, and crime writers are generous enough to know that our success doesn’t require anyone else’s failure. Good books help us all. I was lucky enough to get help from some established authors early in my career, and I’m happy to pay that forward. Conferences like Harrogate, Thrillerfest and Bouchercon (the World Mystery Convention, coming up in September) are one way to do that.
It’s useful to hear other writers talk about their process, and to explain my own. If I didn’t have to explain it, I might not think much about it; I’d just do it. But explaining my process makes me question it, and offers the opportunity to tweak it and adopt practices that have worked for other writers. (This can be a mixed blessing. After hearing Lee Child say he wrote without an outline, I tried to write POWER PLAY without one. It took twice as long as it otherwise would have. But this was a valuable lesson. By the way, I’m now convinced that Lee Child does outline in his head, even though he might not realize he’s doing it.)
I realize it’s been a while since I posted here, and I apologize; I’ve neglected this blog during the BURIED SECRETS tour, which included several guest posts and interviews with other blogs. As I’m rushing out to the airport, you might be interested in these:
The Artful Hatter -- I talk to George F. Snell III about mysteries v. thrillers, the business world as a setting for crime fiction, and the future of books in the electronic age.
The Palm Beach Post -- a conversation with Scott Eyman about why I write what I write, the effect of TV on thrillers, and truths stranger than fiction.
“How I Came to Write This Book”-- Nick Heller’s origins, a guest blog post for author Patti Abbott.
Thanks to everyone who came out during the BURIED SECRETS tour, and if you’re lucky enough to be at Harrogate, please take a minute to say hello. It’ll be great to see you.
June 22, 2011
BURIED SECRETS: We Have Liftoff!
The writing life has many rewards, but few are as sweet as a launch at your own hometown bookstore, surrounded by family and friends. My deepest thanks to Evan Perriello and everyone at Brookline Booksmith for making last night’s event so special, and for all the friends, family members and fans who turned out to hear me talk about BURIED SECRETS.
Of course, several of the folks in last night’s audience also have cameo roles in the book. Legendary Boston cable TV host Smoki Bacon appears in the book as the willowy, redhaired assistant to rogue financier Marshall Marcus, thanks to a generous charitable donation by her son-in-law. Jillian Alperin’s father made a contribution that resulted in the naming of Nick’s pierced, tattooed, vegan receptionist. And my friend David Schechter, hedge fund manager and philanthropist, became a much more sinister Boston insider. (David, I was especially touched to see, turned up in his very own Heller’s Angels t-shirt!)
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, so here are a few, courtesy of our office assistant, Whitney MacKenzie, who has nothing in common with Nick Heller’s receptionist Jillian. Thanks to my invaluable assistant, Claire Baldwin, for all her work setting this up!
Books to be signed.
The signing line – no pushing, no shoving. Look closely and you might spot authors Hallie Ephron, Gary Braver, and Daniel Palmer, among others . . .
My friend David Schechter, looking dapper in his
Heller’s Angels t-shirt.
Talking to Gary Braver, whose own book TUNNEL VISION
was also published on Tuesday!
The BURIED SECRETS tour continues tonight in New York, heads to Newburyport on Friday, then goes to Westbury, CT, Washington, DC and a very special fundraiser in Boston to wind things up on June 30. Details are online at http://www.josephfinder.com/news.
June 17, 2011
Lisa Gardner Reviews BURIED SECRETS
Good reviews are always welcome, but praise from a respected peer is sweetest of all. Thanks very much to Lisa Gardner, thriller writer extraordinaire, who was kind enough to read BURIED SECRETS and write this review. If you haven't already read Lisa's own latest novel, LOVE YOU MORE, you're missing out.
Just as Hollywood studios line up the crowd-pleasing summer blockbusters, so do New York publishers gear up for the annual launch of page-turning beach reads. Thanks to Joseph Finder, the season gets off to an adrenaline-fueled start with the release of his highly anticipated second Nick Heller novel, BURIED SECRETS.
I've been a huge fan of Finder's ever since I discovered KILLER INSTINCT, the 2007 winner of Best Thriller of the Year from the International Thriller Writers. Positioned as the thinking person’s suspense novelist, Finder is known for clever corporate intrigue combined with compelling real world characters. Or, to put it in terms any sand and surf lover can appreciate, his books are fast-paced fun, featuring characters you'll genuinely enjoy.
Nick Heller is such a hero. Having grown up the son of a wealthy financier, Nick spent most of his life with front row seats to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. He knows exactly what money can buy, but also exactly what it can cost, as his disgraced father is currently serving time in Club Fed.
Now a "private spy," Heller has opened up shop in Boston. A man just as comfortable navigating inner circles of wealth, as hanging with his Special Forces buddies, he’s that endearing combination of being the smartest guy in the room, but also the most self-deprecating. His intelligence and gamesmanship are about to be put to the test as he takes on a case that starts as a favor for a family friend, and quickly escalates to a race against the clock to save a young girl's life.
Hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus has a problem: his teenage daughter has been kidnapped for ransom. Last time this happened, she was released without incident. This time, however, the kidnapper has taken special precautions: namely burying her alive in a coffin, specially wired with a webcam. Marcus can either pay up, or watch his daughter die.
Unfortunately, Marcus's life is suffering from other complications, meaning he can't fork over the cash. Instead, he turns to Nick in the desperate hope that Nick can rescue Alexa in time. For clues, Nick has Alexa's discarded cell phone, security footage of her abduction, and an intermittent video feed. Fortunately, Nick has other assets, including a spirited digital forensics expert, a former spec op friend who specializes in technical surveillance countermeasures, and, most complicating, an old flame from the FBI who's still giving off sparks.
As Nick Heller quickly realizes, he’s not just trying to save poor buried Alexa, he’s trying to outwit an internationally renowned psychopath, who clearly relishes his job.
While Finder has built his writing reputation on clever plots and cutting-edge technology, it’s his characters who clearly steal the show. From Nick’s inner turmoil, as he realizes that the conspiracy of secrets may extend deeper, and closer than he ever imagined, to teenage Alexa’s desperate attempts to outlast her fiendish kidnapper and fight her own claustrophobia as she remains entombed beneath the earth. I personally love Nick Heller’s mom, a beautiful woman made stronger and fuller by her husband’s fall from grace.
As you race from chapter to chapter, breathless to know what will happen next, you’ll be happy to discover that classic reader’s dilemma—you just have to know how the story ends, and yet, you don’t want to part ways with these characters. It’s a good problem to have, and one easily remedied next summer, when Finder returns with the third book in the Nick Heller series.
In the meantime, BURIED SECRETS. Apply suntan lotion. Open novel. And let the summer begin.
Lisa Gardner is a bestselling crime novelist. Visit her website for more info: http://lisagardner.com .
June 14, 2011
Would Dickens Tweet?
This week, for the first time in a while, I updated my MySpace page. Yes, I still I have a MySpace page. I had almost forgotten about it. I do most of my online socializing through Twitter (@JoeFinder) and Facebook these days. I also have a Goodreads account and a page on Crimespace, and the Heller’s Angels have their own page on Ning.
It’s a lot to keep up with, and it takes a fair amount of time. But no matter what else might be going on, or how bad a writing day I might be having, it’s always a shot in the arm to check in on Facebook or Twitter or email and see messages from friends and readers. In fact, it would be easy to spend all day doing nothing but chatting online, which is one of the many Internet distractions I have to protect myself from — but I’ve discussed that before at some length.
I think some readers are surprised to get a personal response when they write to me. I’m more surprised when I hear about authors who don’t respond, or who choose not to interact with readers. After all, a reader who finishes one of my books has just given me several hours, if not days, of their time, and then has taken that extra time to look me up online and send me a note. Why wouldn’t I take a few minutes to answer? Even (or especially) if a reader is writing to tell me I’ve made a mistake, it’s an honor to get those messages.
Reader mail cheers me up, challenges me, offers me resources, and corrects me when I’m wrong. I’ve made friends and research contacts online. I’ve gotten new ideas, and had old ones changed. I’ve found communities of like-minded people, and learned things I might never have discovered on my own. Twitter and Facebook are handy because they speed up the process; I don’t always have time for a full-length letter, and neither do readers.
My perspective on this is shaped by my own experience as a child, when I wrote to one of my favorite authors – Ms. Eleanor Cameron, creator of the Mushroom Planet books — and got a gracious response, which started a correspondence that lasted for years. That correspondence was the beginning of my understanding that real people wrote books, and that I might be able to write them, too.
I’ve heard both readers and authors say that they’d rather keep the illusion, and not break that wall between reader and author. I’ve even heard authors say they see something undignified about putting themselves on Twitter, or putting up fan pages on Facebook. (To be fair, those authors tend not to be crime novelists. I’ve hand-sold my own books in airport bookstores. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about dignity.) Would the great novelists of history be on Twitter, they ask?
When Charles Dickens died in 1870 (at what now seems the shockingly youthful age of 58), he left behind enough letters to comprise 12 volumes of published books, even though he’d burned a great deal of personal correspondence ten years earlier. If Twitter had been around when Dickens was writing, he absolutely would have been Tweeting. So would Mark Twain, whose network was so extensive that he once received a letter addressed solely to “Mark Twain, God Knows Where.”
A week from today, BURIED SECRETS hits stores everywhere, in print and online (and while I’m thinking about it, you still have time to take advantage of the preorder offer. I hope you’ll read it. I hope you’ll write to tell me what you think. If you want to know where I’ll be, the full schedule of events is here. Come out to say hello if you can — but you can always find me @JoeFinder, on Facebook, and at joe@josephfinder.com.
Oh, and on MySpace. But I don’t check it often.
June 9, 2011
Podcasting: The Next Best Thing to Being There?
The BURIED SECRETS tour starts on Tuesday, June 21 with a launch event at Brookline Booksmith at 7:00 p.m. This will be followed by launch events in New York and the Washington, DC area as well as readings and talks in Newburyport, MA and Westport, CT. It’s a pretty short tour, and I’m sorry to say it leaves out most of the country. I’ll miss seeing friends in California, in Texas, in Georgia, in Florida, in Chicago . . . well, you get the idea.
I was trying to think of ways to reach readers I won’t see on book tour when Aanarav Sareen, who produces online audio content, suggested I do a series of podcasts. Podcasts, for those unfamiliar with the concept (as I was), are audio or video digital media files that are released episodically. I’ve since learned from my tech-savvier friends that they’re great ways to catch up with radio shows, in particular; the BBC and NPR both have a wide range of podcast selections.
I recorded five podcasts with Aanarav, to be released between now and June 21. The first two are already available through iTunes; you can download them and subscribe to coming episodes here. Taken together, the podcasts include a lot of material I’d discuss at a book tour appearance: my own background as a writer, the origins of Nick Heller and the concept of the “private spy,” the joys and perils of research, and more.
The one piece of the touring experience the podcasts can’t duplicate is the question-and-answer session that follows my talk. So I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcasts, but once you’ve listened, if you have questions, please post them to my Facebook fan page.
And if you do live in or near any of the cities I’ll be visiting, I hope you’ll still come to the events. I have many more stories to tell!
May 24, 2011
Celebrating the Book at BEA 2011
Greetings from New York City, where I’m attending BookExpo America, the annual convention and trade show of the American Booksellers Association.
I’m happy to report that rumors of the death of the book, traditional publishing, traditional bookselling, and just about anything book-related have all been wildly exaggerated. I see a great energy at this meeting, and a lot of optimism about the future of books and bookselling. As I told an interviewer with Publishers Weekly, I think the changes the industry’s going through right now – painful as they may be – offer great new opportunities for booksellers, especially the independent stores that offer so much extra value to their customers.
This is what the signing line looked like from my perspective, around 11:00 this morning:
I was delighted to see so many booksellers, librarians, and other evangelists of the printed word, old friends and new acquaintances. Quite a few of them had already gotten advance copies of BURIED SECRETS, or could have gotten them through other channels; they took the time to stand in line just to say hi, which I appreciate most of all. Writing books is a pretty solitary business, and BookExpo is a unique opportunity to interact with colleagues and the people who make my work possible.
Electronic publishing (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, etc.) has made texts available in many new ways to many people who might not have had access to those texts before. I love the convenience of my e-reader, but I’ll never give up the physical book. In fact, the other day I asked folks on my Facebook fan page what they thought about a news report that women readers preferred the Nook e-reader for its color capabilities. Rather than weigh in on the merits of one e-reader over another, the overwhelming majority of people who commented said they’d rather have a printed book.
What the rise of e-books says to me is that more people are reading, and that’s good for everyone. Readers read. People who discover the joys of reading in an electronic medium will want to share that with their friends and family, and the easiest way to do that is still a physical book. I look at the books on my shelves and remember where almost all of them came from: books I bought, books that were gifts, books I’ve written. Nothing will ever replace the pleasure of putting a book into someone’s hands and saying, “I think you’ll really like this.” And that, right there, is the secret power of all good booksellers.
I have a clipping from sometime last year that quotes an MIT expert’s prediction that the physical book will be a thing of the past by 2015. I’m guessing that prediction will be just as accurate as the predictions that the world would end last Saturday. Just in case, I’ve marked my Google calendar.
(Thanks to my publicist Meghan Walker for the photos!)
May 10, 2011
Plan B: Getting to Know Nick Heller
Did you know Nick Heller used to smoke?
Neither did I, until I wrote “Plan B,” the short story available for free download today for Kindle and Kobo readers.
I don’t write many short stories. “Neighbors,” included in Otto Penzler’s collection AGENTS OF TREACHERY, was my first published short story, though I’ve also written chapters for the audiobooks THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT and THE COPPER BRACELET.
But constructing a series character like Nick Heller offers a world of new writing possibilities. In almost any situation I see or read about, I can ask, “What would Nick do?” I’ve also spent a great deal of time thinking about Nick’s previous life, his likes and dislikes, and all the things we know about the people closest to us but never really think about. It’s important for me to know these things about Nick, but only a fraction of it will ever show up in the novels.
That’s why I’m so glad to be able to share “Plan B,” which drops Nick into a dangerous situation far from home. Hearing that Nick had recently saved a kidnapped girl in Boston, a wealthy Ukrainian hires him to rescue his 15-year-old daughter, who’s being held in a Spanish billionaire’s compound in Barcelona. It would be easier to break her out of a high-security prison — but all is not as it seems, which is why Nick always has a Plan B.
“Plan B” is a free download at both Amazon.com and Kobobooks.com. It comes with a bonus excerpt from BURIED SECRETS, which goes on sale June 21. I hope you enjoy the extra time with Nick as much as I did.
May 3, 2011
The Myth of “Write What You Know”
Almost every time I talk to a group of aspiring writers, I hear someone tell them how important it is to “write what you know.” It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m always tempted to stand up like a character in an old courtroom drama and say, “I OBJECT!”
Write what you know? Write what I know? If I wrote what I knew, I wouldn’t be writing thrillers. Believe it or not, I have never been a clairvoyant, a military lawyer (or any kind of lawyer), a manufacturing CEO or even a high-performing technology salesman. I’ve never been a Special Forces operative, a hired killer, or a teenaged girl.
Sure, I do research. I do a lot of research, which you can read more about here. I’ll go to great lengths to get the details right; did you see my post over at Criminal Element about being sealed in a coffin as part of the research for BURIED SECRETS? (More about that later; stay tuned in the weeks ahead.) But research is only part of the job, and excessive research does seem to support a belief in writing what you know.
The truth is, the novelist’s job is to write what we don’t know. Imagination is not only the author’s job, but the author’s privilege. It’s also the reason most of us got into this work to begin with.
If I had started out writing what I knew, I’d have written very short stories about a kid who lived in upstate New York and wanted to be a cartoonist. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not knocking those stories. I love Philip Roth’s novels, and John Cheever’s, and Sue Miller’s, and Tom Perrotta’s, and all those authors who make art out of everyday life. But the thing was, that wasn’t what I wanted my life to be.
I’m still not admitting that I daydreamed in class – okay, maybe a little. When I did, though, it wasn’t about the details of my own life. What would the point of that have been? No, I spent that time in my imagination traveling with Dave and Chuck to the Mushroom Planet, when I was younger, or playing baccarat with James Bond and catching trains with George Smiley, when I was older. I apologize to the teachers who suspected me of daydreaming, but my time was better spent than they realized. What is fiction writing, after all, but focused, purposeful daydreaming on paper?
Over the course of ten novels (11, if you count the one I’m finishing now), research has given me the practical details of so many lives very different from my own. More important, however, I’ve spent countless hours imagining what it was like to be them. I’ll never be a hedge fund manager, or a jet engineer, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I don’t need to be. I’ve already imagined those lives — and feel lucky to have this one, which has enough space for all of them.
To aspiring writers, then, I say, don’t write what you know. Write what you imagine. Write what inspires you. Write the story you want to tell, and fill in the details later. Research is fun, but it shouldn’t interfere with the momentum of your story, in either the reading or the writing. What you can’t find out, you can always make up. That’s why they call it “fiction.”
The Myth of "Write What You Know"
Almost every time I talk to a group of aspiring writers, I hear someone tell them how important it is to “write what you know.” It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m always tempted to stand up like a character in an old courtroom drama and say, “I OBJECT!”
Write what you know? Write what I know? If I wrote what I knew, I’d be wouldn’t be writing thrillers. Believe it or not, I have never been a clairvoyant, a military lawyer (or any kind of lawyer), a manufacturing CEO or even a high-performing technology salesman. I’ve never been a Special Forces operative, a hired killer, or a teenaged girl.
Sure, I do research. I do a lot of research, which you can read more about here. I’ll go to great lengths to get the details right; did you see my post over at Criminal Element about being sealed in a coffin as part of the research for BURIED SECRETS? (More about that later; stay tuned in the weeks ahead.) But research is only part of the job, and excessive research does seem to support a belief in writing what you know.
The truth is, the novelist’s job is to write what we don’t know. Imagination is not only the author’s job, but the author’s privilege. It’s also the reason most of us got into this work to begin with.
If I had started out writing what I knew, I’d have written very short stories about a kid who lived in upstate New York and wanted to be a cartoonist. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not knocking those stories. I love Philip Roth’s novels, and John Cheever’s, and Sue Miller’s, and Tom Perrotta’s, and all those authors who make art out of everyday life. But the thing was, that wasn’t what I wanted my life to be.
I’m still not admitting that I daydreamed in class – okay, maybe a little. When I did, though, it wasn’t about the details of my own life. What would the point of that have been? No, I spent that time in my imagination traveling with Dave and Chuck to the Mushroom Planet, when I was younger, or playing baccarat with James Bond and catching trains with George Smiley, when I was older. I apologize to the teachers who suspected me of daydreaming, but my time was better spent than they realized. What is fiction writing, after all, but focused, purposeful daydreaming on paper?
Over the course of ten novels (11, if you count the one I’m finishing now), research has given me the practical details of so many lives very different from my own. More important, however, I’ve spent countless hours imagining what it was like to be them. I’ll never be a hedge fund manager, or a jet engineer, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I don’t need to be. I’ve already imagined those lives — and feel lucky to have this one, which has enough space for all of them.
To aspiring writers, then, I say, don’t write what you know. Write what you imagine. Write what inspires you. Write the story you want to tell, and fill in the details later. Research is fun, but it shouldn’t interfere with the momentum of your story, in either the reading or the writing. What you can’t find out, you can always make up. That’s why they call it “fiction.”
