MYSTERY REVIEW

DEATH PLAYS POKER
by Robin Spano
ECW Press

Robin Spano's second Clare Vengel Undercover novel takes the intrepid undercover cop from Niagara Falls to Vancouver on a poker tour where the highest stake is murder!

Straight from a successful undercover assignment which netted the police the killer in some political murders at the University of Toronto campus, Vengel has been seconded to the RCMP. She's filling in for an undercover cop whose cover was blown, and he's now dead. Vengel knows poker but it's her cover as the spoiled Tiffany, whose trust fund is her bank role that gets her into the action at the table and on the trail of the Poker Choker.

Her job's on the line though as she pits her smarts up against a quirky array of players. There's Mickey, the long-time pro who takes her under his wing; Joe, consistently in the money and always on the look-out for an easy conquest; Elizabeth is his girlfriend and she hates Tiffany from the get-go; Fiona, the TV commentator who's more involved than she should be; George the crime writer; Noah, the new guy on the tour; Nate, the one who's hiding something...but then again, aren't they all?

The plot works its way through all their stories, following the trail of a cheating scam, as one by one, the players are killed. Vengel is a bit out of her depth. She doesn't know who to trust. Her handler saves her butt on several occasions, keeping her in the game when the RCMP want to pull her out. Because she could lose her job...and, she could lose her life.

Robin Spano obviously is a player. And I'm not. She sits the reader at the table and plays out each hand and even though the terms mean zilch to me, I'm there routing Tiffany/Clare on. Spano has also captured the buzz and excitement that surrounds the poker tour, where money is just a commodity and there's a lot of hard living going on, too. She's got the dialogue down pat and the tension builds throughout the book until it's Tiffany vs killer.

Death Plays Poker will appeal to anyone who's ever sat through a poker game...and those of us who love sitting through a fast-moving crime novel.

CRIME ON MY MIND

Thoughts from a disordered mind.

I know several people who suffer from SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder. For them, the lack of natural light can lead to a depressing time. I know it's serious and I'm not about to treat it lightly.

But for me, it’s Seasonal Writing Disorder (SWD), loosely described as a difficulty with attaining and retaining the necessary feeling of the season, in order to effectively write a novel. Let me explain. My or rather Erika’s first book, A Killer Read, was set in early fall. That’s fine because I’d been working on it from spring, which isn’t that much different from fall except for heat and colours, through fall and into winter. Plus, it was my first real novel, so what did I know.

The challenge started with the next book, Read and Buried, which isn’t due out until next November. It’s set during December and leads into Christmas, but it was written mainly in spring and summer. You see where I’m going with this?

The third book, which I’m working on now and is due to the publisher on June 1st but won’t be out at the bookstores until next year sometime (thinking autumn here), is set during summer and…well, look out the window! Snow. Windchill. A smattering of freezing rain. Sure, we have sun most days but I’m not about to go out in my shorts!

I suppose one could set the mood with a heat lamp, the smell of suntan lotion, summer-themed songs playing on the CD, maybe even a smattering of sand on the floor. Not going to happen in this house.

I think this is the true test of a writer. If you can conquer Seasonal Writing Disorder and make the reader really feel the time of year you’re writing about, then you’ve done your job. Of course, the writing has to be excellent, the plot believable and even outstanding, memorable characters, dynamite dialogue, and a mystery to die for. No problem…right?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

Elastics

When I helped my mother downsize and move from a house to an apartment I discovered her passion for elastics and bits of string. She had hundreds of elastics, some so old they crumbled to dust when touched. When my husband died he left more than 30 pairs of glasses behind. Now that I’m preparing to move I’ve found at least a dozen pairs of scissors. Why do we do this? Why do we choose to collect particular objects?

Perhaps my mother, a survivor of the depression and of my father’s prolonged absence during WWII, felt elastics and string would hold her life together in the event of another cataclysmic event. My husband liked to be in charge, to know what was going on and to do that he needed glasses. As for me I hesitate to speculate why I have this fixation with scissors. Certainly my first three books, Cut Off His Tale, Cut to the Quick and Cut to the Chase as well as my upcoming book, Cut to the Bone, all include cutting in its various forms. It’s clear that cutting is important and I have no idea why although it’s likely that the reason lurks deep in my subconscious.

Our subconscious collects and nurtures prejudices that we don’t always identify or examine. Prejudice of course is a loaded word. No one wants to be accused of harbouring prejudice yet it is impossible not to do so. Reading books written in the twenties or thirties we see that Virginia Woolf and many others exhibited a virulent anti-semitism that would be unacceptable today but is understandable although not admirable given that they were products of their time.

Bias could be seen as the opposite of prejudice, a benign attitude that also colours our writing whether it be a political or social bias.

What we do with prejudice and bias is another question. First, we need to acknowledge their existence and then decide if one of our characters will exhibit prejudice and deal with it?

How do we identify our own prejudice and bias - that is the question?




A member of the Ladies Killing Circle, Joan Boswell co-edited four of their short story anthologies: Fit to Die, Bone Dance, Boomers Go Bad and Going Out With a Bang. Her three mysteries, Cut Off His Tale, Cut to the Quick and, Cut and Run were published in 2005, 2007 and 2007. In 2000 she won the $10,000 Toronto Star’s short story contest. Joan lives in Toronto with three flat-coated retrievers.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

On tour with Brad Smith!

Today is day one/stop one on the Brad Smith blog tour...and Mystery Maven Canada has the pleasure of putting him on the hot seat.

If you read the review of Red Means Run posted here on Dec.10, 2011, you'll know that I think Smith is a terrific writer and I've enjoyed all his novels. If you're not yet on the bandwagon, I trust this will get you there! Enjoy the questions and answers.


1)Do plots come to you in a mysterious ways?

I wouldn’t say mysterious…but it’s true that they come out of the blue and are sometimes fully formed, and others not. For instance, I had a very vague idea for Busted Flush (my novel about contemporary Gettysburg, and our obsession with owning things of historical or social significance) but it took me a long time to flesh it out. In fact, I wrote All Hat while thinking about how to write Busted Flush. On the other hand, All Hat came to me pretty much complete.



2) Your protagonist in RED MEANS RUN is from Quebec. Are the references to Canada meant to enhance the story or as a wink/nudge to your homeland, or both?


Both.
Definitely to enhance the story. First of all, it establishes Virgil as a man “out of place” and secondly it introduces the whole concept of him heading for the border after his escape, which he uses as a red herring, one that the dim-witted Joe Brady swallows hook, line and sinker. But the savyy Claire Marchand does not.

3) You’ve been quoted as saying your characters are, “willing to do something wrong to make something right”. Is this at the basis of all your novels?


I would say there’s an element of that in much of my work. My protagonists tend to be middle class rather than wealthy, and usually stubborn to a fault, often to their own detriment. Underdogs, I guess. And yes – they might play fast and loose with the law, when they consider the law to be wrong. Technically, of course, the law is never wrong, but on a moral level, it sometimes is on pretty shaky grounds. And let’s face it - a guy tilting at a windmill is much more entertaining than a guy toeing the line.


4) Your work has been described as being, “countrified detective fiction minus the detective” – how do you react to that?


I’m definitely okay with it. There are certainly a lot of detectives out there nowadays and it seemed to me that the room was getting a little crowded. Virgil Cain is an everyman – former ballplayer, now a farmer – who falls into situations beyond his control. He doesn’t go looking for trouble, but he certainly has a knack for finding it. Or maybe it finds him. It really doesn’t matter which of the two is true. All that matters when you’re in trouble…is getting out.


5)Do you think in grand themes when you start plotting?


Not really. I usually start with a basic through line, and then fill it in with secondary plots as the various characters introduce themselves. Often a character will surprise me, which is one of the great pleasures of writing. For that reason I don’t use a detailed outline. I’m always afraid that it would take away from the spontaneity of the process. For instance, the character of Klaus Gabor in Busted Flush probably would not exist if I had invented him before sitting down to write. I actually stumbled across the idea of him when in Gettysburg, doing research.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster for this opportunity! For more about Red Means Run, click on this trailer: http://pages.simonandschuster.ca/redmeansrun

TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

Writing to be read!

Here’s a thought…in today’s busy world, in order to capture the reader’s attention you need to persuade the reader to spend his or her time with you. I’m reducing Andrew Coyne’s column in today’s Ottawa Citizen to a one-liner when in fact, he goes on for many print inches about this topic. He was talking about journalists and how, when there are so many other distractions out there (and even within the newspaper), each writer needs to do something, write something, in some manner that will be an attention-grabber and keep that reader hooked to the end.

Now, blogs are similar to columns. So I read this with great interest. Besides, I like his writing style. Two points in favour of my reading the column. But more to the point, I was hoping to gain some useful tips.

Another thing he points out is that in order to persuade the reader to spend time with the writer, the least said writer can do is “make himself agreeable company. People choose a writer, that is, rather in the same way they choose a friend.” Hmmm. So, treat them with respect, don’t shout at them, and give them something, “a paradox, a laugh, a fact they didn’t know.” Okay, I get it. What’s good for a column is good for a blog.

But let’s take it a step further. What’s good for a column and a blog is good for a short story and a novel.

We’re all in the same business here. We’re competing for those precious few minutes, hopefully hours, that the reader is able to allocate to reading…the column, the blog, the book. We compete with the myriad of electronics, the crunch of real life, and the crush of time. So it makes sense we give the reader something of value in exchange for that time.

We spend all those hours, days, weeks, months and years creating all those mystery and crime novels that will be read in a mere matter of hours, days and weeks perhaps. But if we do our job well enough, that reader will be back for more. Because we’re now friends and you want to spend time with a friend, and hear/read his or her story. And that writer wants to hear from the reader and hopefully, keep writing the kind of books that will make this a long-time relationship.

Sure, writers write what they want or need to say. But writers also write to be read. Did this blog persuade you? To read Coyne's column go to:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/could+have+moment+your+time+please/5937762/story.html

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

Starting off a New Year!

Are you a maker of resolutions? Do you faithfully resolve a whole list or maybe just an item or two, of changes to make in the coming year? Or new things to try? Whatever?

I would but I know I’d break them after a bout a week or so of sincere trying. I think that’s a fairly common reaction. So instead, this year, I’m making a list of ‘determinations’.

I’m determined to:
· ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY write each day (blogs don’t count)
· Limit excursions into the outside world to one morning per week (appointments don’t count)
· Avoid getting bogged down in housework (am already making headway)
· Teach the cats to stay off my keyboard when I’m typing (never going to happen but it’s worth a try)
· Avoid snacks (unless green or orange – anyone know of chocolate that fits this requirement?)

That should do it.

What about you? Any resolutions….or are they already broken?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wishing all Mystery Maven Canada followers a Mysteriously wonderful New Year!

Stay healthy, stay safe...and enjoy lots of Canadian mysteries!