Brian Freeman's Blog, page 33
May 6, 2014
Scout and Morgan Books
More to Come
Marcia and I did 18 events in April in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Illinois to launch THE COLD NOWHERE and the bonus Stride novella TURN TO STONE. Many thanks to all the readers and booksellers who were there to support the new books!
We're taking a break in May, but we're back with many more upcoming events in June and July. Look for us at bookstores and libraries in North Dakota, Minnesota (including the Twin Cities and northland events in Park Rapids and Brainerd), Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. You can find the complete schedule here.
If we're in your area...come join us! And if you've got friends in those areas, I hope you'll spread the word.
In the meantime, thanks for all your e-mails and posts about the new books. Keep them coming! I love hearing from you! I'd also be grateful if you could keep posting your reviews online at places like Amazon and Goodreads...that really does make a difference.
April 29, 2014
Signed Copies
Do you want a signed copy of THE COLD NOWHERE?
Remember, Mother's Day and Father's Day are coming up fast (graduations, too!), and thrillers make great gifts. Or you may just want a signed copy for yourself to add to your collection.
We've been to many wonderful bookstores in the past month, and we always leave behind signed copies of THE COLD NOWHERE for readers who come into the store later -- or who want to order a copy from the store by mail.
So if you want signed copies, contact any of the bookstores below. You can get their contact details by clicking over to their web sites. If you're in their area, stop by and browse the shelves! Otherwise, the store owners will be happy to ship copies to you.
The Bookstore at Fitgers (Duluth, MN)
Once Upon a Crime (Minneapolis, MN)
Common Good Books (St. Paul, MN)
Dragonfly Books (Decorah, IA)
Cornerstone Cottage (Hampton, IA)
The Bookworm (Omaha, NE)
Mystery One (Milwaukee, WI)
Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, WI)
Books & Company (Oconomowoc, WI)
Lake Forest Book Store (Lake Forest, IL)
Chapter 2 Books (Hudson, WI)
Vero Beach Book Center (Vero Beach, FL)
Poisoned Pen (Scottsdale, AZ)
VJ Books (Tualatin, OR)
Barnes & Noble (Apple Valley, MN)
Barnes & Noble (Duluth, MN)
If you missed me and Marcia on our April events, don't worry! We're taking a break in May, but we'll back in June and July with more events around the Midwest, including North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. The details are on my Events page.
April 17, 2014
You Are There
I like to give readers a "you are there" sensation when they're reading my books. I want you to feel as if you've been dropped down in the middle of the action, and you can taste, touch, smell, and hear everything happening around you.
That's why I pick real places for most of my scenes. I scout locations like a film director, and I match the place to what's happening in the book. While I'm there, I capture what it feels like to be there -- all of the senses -- so I can pour it into the novel. I take pictures and video, and I record my impressions on a voice recorder.
This creepy road sign that Stride finds in THE COLD NOWHERE? It's a real sign in Duluth. (And no, I didn't bring any paint with me!)
The graffiti graveyard where much of the climax takes place? Yes, it's a real place, too. This is true of nearly all of my books. I make up the action, but usually, you can actually visit where the action takes place.
So readers will often ask: Where does this scene or that scene really take place? They like to "visit" my novels, either via Google Earth or by actually going to the areas where the books take place.
There's a very cool web site now called www.placingliterature.com. You can "map" scenes from novels, so visitors know exactly where different chapters take place. I'm the featured author this month, so I've been mapping out scenes from my novels. Go ahead and check it out -- and see where THE COLD NOWHERE and other books are set.
That road sign? The graffiti graveyard? You can click to see where they're really located.
April 3, 2014
The Six Senses of Place
"Where are you from?"
Isn't that what we ask strangers? The answer says a lot about who we are. Our place defines us. It tells those around us how we are different from everyone else and yet how we are also the same. Place sorts us into communities; it gives us our values and prejudices; it brings us home.
Maybe that's why place is such a fundamental part of crime fiction and why we often cannot disassociate our heroes from the places where they live. Chicago? Warshawski. Edinburgh? Rebus. Baltimore? Monaghan. Venice? Brunetti. And on and on.
The sense of place has been on my mind lately, because my hero Jonathan Stride is back after a three-year absence in THE COLD NOWHERE - and that means I've returned to the bitter remoteness of Duluth, Minnesota.
[image error]Stride and Duluth are inseparable. The hero reflects the city, and the city reflects the hero. The one time that Stride left Duluth - for a brief stint in Las Vegas in my second novel STRIPPED - he found himself a fish out of water. He needed to come home to the ice and wilderness of the northland.
I chose Duluth a decade ago because it resonated with the stories I wanted to write. I knew I didn't want to write urban fiction with urban themes. Instead, I wanted books that were more rural, more outdoors, where the city itself was closer to a small town. That's Duluth, which is like a frontier outpost on the fringe of the north woods, with the vastness of Lake Superior pressing into its belly like a knife point. It's a harsh place that tests the endurance of those who live there. This is definitely not L.A.
There is a sense of faded glory about Duluth. It was once a wealthy, glamorous town, where fortunes were made in mining and shipping, but most of that money has bled away, leaving nothing but old Victorian homes as a reminder of the past. People in northern Minnesota - people like Stride - hear those sorrowful echoes, but they simply tuck their chins against the cold wind and move on.
When I write about Stride and Duluth, I'm always conscious of what I call the "six senses of place." The first five are practical: I want the reader to feel in every chapter as if they have been dropped down in the middle of the action, and they can hear, feel, taste, touch, and smell everything that is happening around them. Part of how I achieve that effect is to scout locations the way a film director would and use my voice recorder to track exactly how each setting feels. Hopefully, that gives the place a sense of reality and immediacy for the reader, as if you were really there - out in the middle of a winter storm, for example, with ice balls hanging from your eyelids.
But place carries more meaning than its physical senses. The sixth sense of place derives not from what a place IS, but what it means to us and how it defines us. It is our emotional connections, our memories, our analogies. It's not the details themselves - rust on a ship's hull, missing shingles on a roof, the feel of steam walking over a sewer grate, or the thump-thump of lake water trapped under the ice. Instead, the sixth sense of place reflects the sensations and emotions that those images elicit: loneliness, loss, fear, innocence, smallness, solitude, spirituality, and peace. Those emotions are vivid for me every time I return to northern Minnesota.
So when you venture back to Duluth with me in THE COLD NOWHERE, I hope you feel the drama and romance of this extreme place - and that you understand why, as harsh as it is, Jonathan Stride couldn't live anywhere else.
