J. Mark Bertrand's Blog, page 9

My Review of The Glass Rainbow at Books & Culture

Books & Culture has published my review of James Lee Burke's The Glass Rainbow. Here's a taste:

"Louisiana is a poem," detective Dave Robicheaux reflects in The Glass Rainbow, his eighteenth outing since 1987's The Neon Rain, "but as with the Homeric epic, it's not good to examine its heroes too closely." The epic heroes in question are slave-smugglers Jim Bowie and Jean Lafitte, but over the past two decades author James Lee Burke has made of Robicheaux a hero, too. Elegiac in tone, quixotic in character, Robicheaux narrates with a poet's eye for beauty and a theologian's sense of sin.

For the rest, follow the link: The Glass Rainbow | Books & Culture

Decompose Interview: Writing in Present Tense

Mike Duran has been reading Back on Murder, and he happened to notice the book is written in first person, present tense. Mike, whose novel The Resurrection comes out next year, once had a bad experience with first person present when his critique partners told him it was not an "acceptable point of view" for commercial fiction. That being the case, he had a question for me: Am I crazy? 

I thought we'd established that already when I posted my Self Portrait with Ice Spike.

Seriously, he had several questions, and the interview is now online at Decompose. Mike writes, "Not only is it a compelling police procedural that pulls you right in, Mark's craft is exceptional." To which I say, thank you very much.

Booklist Reviews Back on Murder

Now Booklist has posted a favorable review of Back on Murder:

Roland March, on the verge of being cut loose from the Houston Police Department after suffering a personal tragedy that has affected his job performance, is given one last chance after he notices evidence of a missing female victim at a gang-related multiple-murder scene. March tries to connect the female victim with Hannah Mayhew, a teenager who performed outreach work for her church and who recently disappeared from a local mall; his superiors are unconvinced, but they agree to transfer March to the Hannah Mayhew task force. He continues to investigate the connection, working under the radar, with the help of a youth pastor, to prove his suspicions. In his personal life, March tries to reconnect with his wife, who is also suffering. Carefully drawn details of police work, well-delineated characters, multiple interesting cases, and a vivid Houston setting add to the strong mystery. -- Sue O'Brien

Thanks, Booklist!

 

How to Spot Lies Like the FBI

Former FBI agent Mark Bouton chaired a panel I was on at Mayhem in the Midlands, and while we were chatting he mentioned his forthcoming book How to Spot Lies Like the FBI. In real life, I'm no good at spotting lies. Inspired by TV shows like Lie to Me, I've read up a little on the subject, enough to realize why I'm no good: I don't pay enough attention to physiology. Like many a man too in love with the sound of his own voice, I'm always plotting my next reply.

So when Mark's book arrived from Amazon, I jumped right in. The technique is all there, spiced up with anecdotes from his career in the FBI. Great stuff. And for slow learners like me, there's a bit of a cheat sheet in back to bring you up to speed. So be forewarned! The next person who tries to pull the wool over my eyes might just be caught in the act.

For the Truly Motivated

Pattern of Wounds is scheduled to release July 1, 2011, but it's available to pre-order from Amazon right now. I just snagged mine. You're welcome to do the same:

It's so early the cover isn't up, and there isn't even a description of the book. But if you're truly motivated, none of that matters, right?

Houston-area paper reviews Back on Murder

Sense of place is important to any crime series, mine included, which is why I got a kick out of seeing Back on Murder reviewed in the Conroe newspaper, which is just north of Houston (where the series is set). Here's an excerpt:

The writing contains great descriptive detail; the author carefully notes the characters' emotional states, giving the reader an opportunity to better understand the psychological motivation for their behaviors. The crime sites are not pictured as pretty or stimulating; they're just dirty, bloody, realistic and sad.

With the story based in Houston, author Bertrand was generous with his use of real-life places and things in the city. It was fun reading and easy to imagine the action in familiar settings.

The full review is online here: "Well-constructed 'Back on Murder' based in a Houston setting."

What We Talk About When We Talk About Noir

Back in August, Otto Penzler wrote a piece for The Huffington Post about the definition of noir, arguing that despite their common ancestry crime noir and the private eye story are diametrically opposed in terms of philosophy:

One [the private eye story] is dependent on its hero maintaining the ethical high ground while most everyone with whom he interacts lies, cheats, steals and kills. The other features people who wallow in the sty that is their world. The machinations of their lust, whether for money or love (which, in noir fiction, is a four-letter word for sex), will cause them to be blinded to rudimentary decency as they become entangled in the web of their own doom.

He went on to describe the protagonists of noir fiction in practically theological terms: "The lost and corrupt souls who populate these tales were doomed before we met them because of their hollow hearts and depraved sensibilities." Ray Banks picks up the theory in a post at the Mulholland Books blog, tracing the roots of noir all the way back to the fatally-flawed heroes of Greek tragedy. (And offering a helpful corrective.)

While I think this talk of flaws and depravity makes sense, it's not as if noir fiction has a stranglehold on the concepts. If I had to put my finger on the element I find distinctly -- if not exclusively -- noirish, it would be the sense of systemic as opposed to individual corruption. 

The point really isn't that people are flawed or doomed; it's that this doom extends into the structures and institutions they create. The mean streets are themselves mean, and not just because mean people happen to walk them. The rot goes deeper. Corrupt cops aren't just bad apples, they drop from a bad tree. Everybody is bent, and that's just another way of saying everybody is human. 

I'm not interested in arguing what is and isn't noir. I'm not even sure it's helpful to try and pigeonhole a genre based on thematic elements, since I tend to see theme as the province of the individual artist, not the label. No, to me noir is kind of like salt. You might use it in a variety of different dishes. Some people will like it on everything, some on nothing. Some will consider more than a dash overuse, while others aren't satisfied until they can taste nothing else. With influences, keeping it "pure" is almost never the point. 

The point is keeping it interesting.

As a sub-genre, though, I do think the noir mode lends itself to certain ways of seeing life, and those of us who identify with noir (whether we write it or not) probably are more deterministic, more nihilistic, and more attuned to corruption -- both personal and systemic -- than everybody else. The noir aesthetic jettisons the moral melodramas. Noir tunes into reality's underbelly rather than its white-washed surface. 

More Praise for Back on Murder

Over the summer, Back on Murder garnered praise from some highly respected sources. I'd like to share just a couple of examples. First, here's Richard Doster writing for Comment:

Back on Murder is a well-woven story. The reader, step-by-step with Roland March, searches for clues, deciphers meaning, sees connections—drawing ever closer to the surprising, yet believable, conclusion. Read it, and savour the fun of a good detective story.

Bertrand's got a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue. The...

The Things You Lose

How do you know you're behind? When you're doing your spring clean in mid-September. That was me earlier in the week, and this time I purged the filing cabinet along with everything else. In the process, I discovered all sorts of things ... old academic papers, unopened mail, and even a longish manuscript. That's right. Buried in the vault was a 120 page manuscript, the opening of a novel. 

The funny thing is, I couldn't remember having written it. Flipping through the pages, I'd read a...

Anthony Rainone's "Tomb Guardian"

I met Anthony Rainone back in May at the Mayhem in the Midlands conference, where we sat on a panel about writing heroes and villains. Anthony lives in Brooklyn, but he's writing about a Nebraska-based State Patrol investigator named Alex Rothko. When he mentioned that the September issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine would include a Rothko story, I made a mental note to check it out. 

 

Good thing I did! The story, "Tomb Guardian,"  was rich and full of angst, just the way I like...