The outside of Once Upon a Crime (Where the event was held) appeared deserted and a little forlorn; the inside hosted a bedlam of authors, readers, agents, and publishers trying to strike up new connections and maintain old affiliations. Fifty-six local mystery writers offered their books for personalization and sale. So many authors attended that Pat and Gary, co-owners of Once Upon a Crime and hosts of the event, divided the group into four one-hour segments of approximately 14 authors apiece.

Having another commitment earlier that day, I joined the last group that stood behind the table and hawked its wares. Wedged between Terry Persons and C.C. Canby, I didn’t get a chance to converse with the other authors in the 3 o’clock group until after the earlier arrivals had purchased all they were going to and the crowd started to thin. This afforded me the chance to meet Rick Shefchik, author of Amen Corner (SinC’s assigned novel for January), whose next project is titled, Green Monster, and centers around a murder in Fenway Park. Sujata Massey and Erin Hart were other members of the phalanx behind the authors table. Mr. Canby provided tips about the local publishing scene with special praise for Bang Mailing Service,  a printing company located in Brainerd that he uses to publish his firm’s books.

It wasn’t a particularly successful event so far as selling copies of Metadata Murders was concerned, but the information, new acquaintances, and networking opportunities it afforded more than made up for any financial shortfall. Here’s hoping Pat and Gary feel the same.      

About a week ago, one of the members in our Twin Cities chapter of Sisters in Crime gave a stimulating presentation on Minneapolis’ Intelligence Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC). His discussion on the emerging technologies now and soon to be available to police departments proved particularly provocative. Star Chaser, Shot Spotter, and Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) all use global positioning and tracking software to locate and identify crimes and criminals as they occur in real time.

The problem with the use of such software is twofold: it lures citizens into a false sense of security regarding the commitment of crimes while it compromises civil and privacy rights of the people it is designed to protect. Two ladies voiced such objections, and the official remarked that the ISAC staff was too busy (fighting crooks, I assume) to violate individuals’ civil liberties. Much as I have come to admire law enforcement officers’ commitment, dedication, and honesty, the potential for abuse by them and other parties remains.

Nor do these technologies do much to deter determined criminals. While software such as Shot Spotter does alleviate neighborhood violence, these packages by themselves seem to have little deterrent effect. Our overcrowded jails and prisons serve as information clearinghouses and network centers for criminals to learn how to circumvent the latest detection technologies. Like terrorists, the avoidance techniques learned are simple, inexpensive, and effective. For every gangbanger removed from the streets by Shotspotter, ten more criminals run successful wire fraud, pornography, and pyramid schemes via email or over the Internet without getting caught. Given the comparative risks and cost-benefits ratios between dishonest activity going straight, crime remains the more lucrative option.   

Everyone wants their neighborhoods free of violence, but citizens also need to feel free to use email or view the Internet without having their identities stolen or their credit cards maxed out. In addition, peoples’ rights and liberties should not be sacrificed to feel secure. More than electronic countervalence devices (though they help), law enforcement agencies need additional staff, from beat cops to computer forensic experts, to win the war on crime.         

This year’s event occurs on Saturday, March 22nd from noon to 3 P. M. Here is this year’s lineup of authors:

12:00

Mark Combes, Philip Donlay, E. Kelly Keady, Lois Greiman, Robert Gust, Pete Hautman, Dean Hovey, Mary Logue, Jessica Lourey, Peter Rennebohm, Roger Stelljis, Steve Thayer, Deb Woodworth, R.D. Zimmerman

1:00

Carl Brookins, Gary Bush, Laura Childs, Monica Ferris, Ellen Hart, Sharon Hendry, David Housewright, Camille Hyytinen, Jenifer LeClair, Linda Morgenstein, Bruce Rubenstein, Christopher Valen, Lance Zarimba

2:00

Barbara DaCosta, K.J. Erickson, Barbara Fister, Jeff Foster, Steve Horwitz, Julie Kramer, Wm. Kent Krueger, Michael Mallory, Scott Pearson, Julie Schaper, Quinton Skinner, Anthony Neil Smith, Richard Thompson, Marilyn Victor

3:00

Gerald Anderson, Judy Borger, C.C. Canby, Chris Everheart, William Fietzer, Erin Hart, Judith Koll Healey, Priscilla Herbison, Lori L. Lake, Sujata Massey, Larry Millett, Terri Persons, Rick Shefchick, William Swanson

Some of your favorite local writers are bound to be among this group. Join us at Once Upon a Crime (626 W. 26th St., Minneapolis) for fun, friends, refreshments, and surprises.

After a quick drive down I-90, dropping my bags off in my room at the nearby Howard Johnsons, and several misdirected steps that included entering the wrong Marriott O’Hare Hotel (Only the corporate wizards of Marriott know why they put two major hotels less than a mile from each other), I arrived at the right Marriott fraught with apprehension. Would I learn anything that would help me to write my current mystery? Was video gaming an appropriate setting for either for libraries or for my novel? Would my rusty gaming skills translate to the games now being played?

The first day’s format followed standard conference procedure: a keynote speaker succeeded by several others whose combined mission is to reassure those waffling attendees that the topic has relevance and gravitas and your being there is not some elaborate excuse to goof off. Keynoter Henry Jenkins’ speech concerned things of which I knew next to nothing: fan fiction, youth culture, and the digital divide. He seemed most concerned that the information presented on the Web and in video games might be accepted at face value. Though I had no idea why, he seemed most heartened by the notion that video games made it OK to fail. Then he went on to list a dozen reasons why gaming is OK, even better than OK for children and young adults with examples of growth and rebirth that ranged from inner-city kids reworking Moby Dick into a street-gang version entitled Great Big White to the Urban Games Academy where these same kinds of kids learn to facilitate learning by learning to design games.

While I mulled over Jenkins’ observations, Syracuse professor, Scott Nicholson, elaborated upon the theme by discussing the benefits of gaming for libraries. He offered the first of many acronyms I was to encounter during the course of this symposium: LARP or Live Action Role Playing. Study of such events even has a name: ludology. Research in the field reveals the surprising fact that the greatest number of people playing these games are women over 40. Their teachers are children and young adults. And the prizes awarded at the library events they participate in are books. Colleges, too, have climbed aboard the gaming bandwagon. Everyone in attendance received a free copy of Prof. Nicholson’s new board game, Wits and Wagers.

The excitement level ramped up a notch with Eli Neiberger’s testimonial about conducting the gaming events at Ann Arbor Public Library. Part anecdote and part side-show spiel, Neiberger’s ESPN-style presentation showed how gaming provides social benefits by attracting children and teens, prompting them to interact with adults and other authority figures, even stimulating them to read. Just as important, gaming events result in economic and institutional fallout that benefit librarians trying to bolster declining attendance and falling usage statistics. Most important, games are fun as Eli offered to demonstrate by inviting everyone to participate in that evening’s entertainment, concurrent video and board games running in Ballrooms 1-6.

I, for one, declined. My head spinning from a welter of facts, the blare of slide-show soundtracks, my three-hour drive through the by-ways that surround O’Hare airport, and a dangerous lack of nourishment, I retreated to my Howard Johnson’s Express, downed a McDinner, and passed out between the laundered sheets of my tiny motel room a little past 6 p.m.

When Renee Waclaw, store manager for the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Apple Valley, invited me to be one of the readers at her “Deathly Hallows” publication event, it came totally out of the blue. But “as a nationally renowned MN author” (her words), how could I say No? Of course, I didn’t tell her that I had never read any of the Harry Potter books nor had I seen all of the movies that the books inspired. Such honesty would not have been gentlemanly in light of her gracious offer. Nor would it make good business sense to decline the publicity.

To get in the proper spirit of the evening I needed to do two things: devise a costume and come up with a suitable passage from one of the Potter books. The latter was easy. After consulting my two adult sons, avid H. P. readers both, I decided upon the second in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, because both boys felt it contained the most mystery elements of any of Rowlings’ books.  Devising up with a costume proved harder; I have few resources and no sewing skills. But as I started reading my selected text, I developed an affinity for the flamboyant and ersatz wizard, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart. With Lockhart as my purple-robed inspiration, it became suddenly easy to find the proper accoutrements for the event.  I plundered my old wardrobe for a purple shirt and gold tie; my wife came up with the idea of using my oldest son’s high school graduation gown for my robe (we keep such things), and a trip out to Northwestern Costume produced a gloriously spangled wizard’s hat.

Properly attired and suitably prepared (I finished reading the book the afternoon of the event), my wife and I drove out to Apple Valley consumed by our respective apprehensions. She would have to handle my Canon 710 Supershot which she had never operated before to produce the photos that highlight this narrative. I would have to face dozens of anxious and bored pre-teens who had been waiting hours for the chance to purchase the last in the Potter series. Was I up to the task of holding their attention for even a half hour? Other questions plagued me too: How well had my author colleagues performed? Was I the only author who had accepted Ms. Waclaw’s invitation? Was I suitably dressed or too outlandishly attired for such an occasion?

I was scheduled to read at nine p.m. At five minutes before the hour, Ms. Waclaw informed me that they were running late and I needed to wait at least half an hour before my reading would begin. My wife scoured the book store for the copies of my books that had been promised as part of the inducement to perform.  I sulked meanwhile in the corner of the coffee shop nursing my decaffeinated latte. Forty-five minutes later Ms. Waclaw’s assistant beckoned, and, after a quick wiring for sound, I sat down in an easy chair before approximately three dozen children, teenagers, and supportive adults.

After a brief introduction where I provided a some information about myself and the reasons behind my choice for the evening, I started reading from chapter 12 where Harry and Ron drink a magic potion that disquises them as Eric Malfoy’s henchmen to enable them to learn more about who has been attacking students in the hallways of Hogwarts castle and the identity of the Slytherin heir. Those of you who have read the book or seen the movie know that detective work often can have unexpected outcomes and consequences, results put to telling and hilarious effect by Rowling in this passage.

Once I got over my apprehension and slowed the pace of my reading, the children in the audience seemed to get into it. The applause I received at the end along with the repeated expressions of gratitude from the store manager made the occasion a satisfying one for me. Perhaps it was the conviction with which I read the text or the fact that I was the only reader who appeared in costume or that my contribution finally had ended, but the proceedings proved enjoyable for everyone who attended. I think J.K. Rowling would have been pleased.     

I was preparing for my next book signing, scheduled for Saturday, April 21st, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Book World at the Kandi Mall in Willmar (See my Events calendar), when I uncovered an unusual fact. To publicize this event, I contacted the West Central Tribune and several of the local radio stations whose call letters I learned consulting the city’s entry in Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.  Over a dozen AM and FM stations serve the Willmar area and feature every type of format you can imagine, from country to adult contemporary to talk radio to smooth jazz.

Such variety prompted me to compare it to the stations that serve the Twin Cities area. I discovered that the largest metropolitan area in Minnesota, which you’d think would have the greatest diversity of radio outlets, in fact has the least. The primary radio format appears to be some variant of the oldies channel whether it calls itself classic rock, 80s, 90s and today, soft rock, or some other fogie rock hybrid. I found two adult contemporary stations and one station devoted to jazz. My particular favorite, smooth jazz, disappeared when 100.3 changed over to a talk radio format early last year.

This observation seems particularly trenchant in light of my having to travel to a medium-sized venue like Willmar to promote my most recent novel, Metadata Murders. The Book World chain, a mid-sized chain of bookstores serving the reading public in medium-sized cities throughout Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, has been very supportive of my efforts as an independent writer of fiction and non-fiction articles. They are an established, growing company willing to mine the niche market of media and book retail to these smaller cities. They also are willing to accept thinner profit margins and a smaller bottom line as a result.

Another result is their willingess to promote small-name and local authors such as myself. Because of Book World’s limited sales potential, J.K. Rowling or David Morrell may never appear at one of their stores, but many lesser-known authors writing in a variety of genres and formats will. While Borders and Barnes & Noble or Westwood One and Clear Channel try to cut into each other’s market share, small chains like Book World and independent book stores like Once Upon a Crime will feature the John Connollys along with the Robert Alexanders and Sujata Masseys of the writing world. They will even take a chance with an unknown like me. That is true commitment to literary diversity.      

Whenever I participate in an unsolicited event, it usually results in unwanted spam and renewed vows never to do it again. Despite my initial reservations, Steve Harrison’s “The Three Big Secrets of Getting Free Publicity on Top National TV Shows” did provide some thought-provoking ideas, though not necessarily from the main content of the program. For example, benefitting from free publiciity is a no-brainer; celebrities do it all the time. Nor is the idea that celebrityhood can be a good thing any sort of revelation; to be a nonentity in our status-factory society is worse than death (perhaps that explains our horrified fascination with zombies: the living dead really are non-celebrities, but that’s fodder for another blog)

However, the nuts and bolts to obtain bookings on local and national TV shows provided tips a writer could use in any dialog or pitch-session with potential publishers, agents, or book-store managers. Among the points raised and discussed:

1. Everything begins with your hook; it must raise the question of personal benefit to the viewer.
2. Always ask for a referral; an idea that doesn’t work for one producer may for another. They keep in touch with each other, so should you with them.
3. Timeliness is everything; two types exist: a hook’s tie-in with the news, or its tie-in with the time of year.

Most important of all: your hook and its presentation should be funny and exciting, not serious. With over 200,000 books published every year, the competition for exposure among authors resembles luncheon with piranhas. As with your readers, remember why people are tuning in to watch and to keep watching–for an enjoyable experience.  Your future producers will, and so should you.  

The presentations from the Minneapolis Police Department this week concerned the Criminal Court Process and the Canine Squad. Each in their different way presents challenges when writing stories that use a police protagonist or involve police procedure.

City Attorney Tim Richards took us through an overview of the criminal court process as it is practiced in the city of Minneapolis. His presentation provided renewed insight to the welter of rules, regulations, and procedures that govern law enforcement practice. His description of each step in the process resembled a grid or matrix that each law enforcement official must understand and act within for justice to be enforced. Just in charging a suspect with a crime a police officer must decide to employ one of three methods: arrest,  ticket, or formal complaint. Each has its own procedure with a set of checks and balances that trips certain levers in the justice system. Add to this the distinctions between felony and misdemeanor activity with their attendant qualifications, and you begin to understand why it takes 12 weeks of police academy training along with several years of on-the-job training for an officer to perform his job adequately and with confidence. 

The canine squad involves complexity of a different sort–the bonding between a dog and his or her master that permits criminal activity to be detected and/or apprehended. Not all police officers are suited to work on the Canine Squad, and only a few breeds of dog, German Shepherds, primarily, but also Dutch Shepherds and Belgian Maliwas, make suitable police dogs. Ferocity or viciousness is not so desirable a trait as is an ability or disposition to be trained and to respond without letup when a command is given. Police dogs learn to respond to hand signals and one-word commands given only by their master. That is why most of them live with their master and travel to crime sites in one-person cars designed specially for their canine partners.

The implications for writers are many: arrests can’t be made willy-nilly by an officer without due cause and without following due process. In many cases they might not be made at all without a sober evaluation of the facts as they present themselves at the time of the incident. A citizen’s arrest may occur, but only under limited circumstances with several legal caveats. Police dogs and their handlers operate under a similar set of restrictions that mitigate unnecessary risk and protect handler and canine alike.

This year’s conference in honor of the mystery writer and critic, Anthony Boucher, was held in Madison, Wisconsin at the Congress Hotel. Having graduated from the University of Wisconsin and lived in Madison at various times for 25 years, the experience proved nostalgic and beneficial.

The nostalgia derived from such simple events as enjoying a lunch time Plaza Burger at the Plaza Bar which has changed hardly at all in 25 years. The pool tables remain in the same place, the booths have the same vinyl coverings, and the burgers are topped with the same secret sauce.  Also much the same as 25 years ago is the side street off the Square that served as the location for the opening scene in my first novel, Penal Fires. Though the brick planter at the head of the street has disappeared as has the Rennebohm’s Drug store on the corner, the apartment doorway where my first fictional victim was knifed to death remains.   

Vivid as these memories were, Bouchercon provided new career opportunities. Whether at the ant hill of activity at the book stores or in the downstairs bar or at the publisher receptions or in the hallways between author panels, I met a host of new interesting people and reestablished a number of acquaintances. John Reisinger, my co-host at our ”Cold Cases and Cold Facts” salon and author of Master Detective: the Life and Crimes of Ellis Parker, America’s Real-Life Sherlock Holmes, heads the list. Carl Brookins, a Minneapolis SinC member and mystery writer, discussed with me the Minnesota Crime Wave’s latest anthology, Resort to Murder, for which I’m contributing on a story. I shared coffee with Mike Manno, an Iowa lawyer who published his first mystery novel, Murder Most Holy, and tipped wine glasses with Hallie Ephron at the Minotaur writers reception. Marshall Cook, a Madison mystery writer and journalism professor, moderated a provocative panel on realism while David Morrell discussed the social implications of thrillers with his panel members.

All in all, Bouchercon provided vital momentum to for my writing career.  More about it with my next post.   

More wisdom gleaned from the book signing roller coaster:

1. Don’t break anything, particularly on your person, before an event. I learned that the hard way after crushing my left great toe under a 100 pound, portable loading ramp.  Though I tried gamely to mingle with the customers at the Bemidji and Detroit Lakes Book World stores, my hobbling gait gave my aspirations away. Potential buyers often beat me to the exit before I could approach them with my spiel.

2. Never schedule anything during the Minnesota State Fair.  Though I suspected that the Fair might cut into attendance at my signing last weekend, I never realized its impact until I saw all the cars headed south on I-94 all the way from Minneapolis to Detroit Lakes.

3. Never prejudge who might purchase your book(s). Marketing guides and my own experience say that my typical reader is female, college-educated, and middle- to upper-middle class in background and income. One customer who entered the store in Bemidji was a dissheveled, unshaven, white male wearing a weather-beaten farm implement cap and a flannel shirt in 90 degree heat. I barely had finished my throw-away rendition of the plot for Metadata Murders when he responded with “Sounds good. Can I buy a copy?”  

Thanks to all of you who took the time during the brilliant, sunny afternoons of late August and decided to browse the book store rather than drowse in a hammock alongside Lakes Detroit or Bermidji.  And thanks to those who listened to my spiel and decided to purchase a copy of one of my books. My particular thanks goes to those folks who decided to buy copies of both.

Salut!