James W. Hall's Blog

Dribbling

2012-01-07T14:43:00.010-05:00

More reviews come dribbling in. Good, good, and good.

Interesting how so much of everything, including book reviewing, has shifted to cyberspace. I suppose the upside of that is longevity. If a review is good, that is. It'll stick around forever, or as long as electrons still have a say in it. Of course, the bad reviews stick around forever too.

I've been struck on this book (literally) by how many nasty comments have been made by reader/reviewers on Amazon and elsewhere. Sometimes I've taken a moment or two to read some of the other reviews written by particularly mean-spirited readers of my book. (At least they say they've read it.) Often it turns out that this reviewer either: a)has never reviewed a book before (which is a bit strange and slightly suspicious) or b) has never given anything above 1 star to 90 percent of the books reviewed, except for books featuring Navy SEALS or Zombies or cat detectives.

But the professional reviewers, by and large, have been very kind and thoughtful with DEAD LAST, as these reviews show.

Crime Book Beat rates the books with a complicated numerical value system. Weird, but I must say I'm happy to land in the 80's.

Then there's BookReporter which has been around for a while and is a solid and reliable source of book reviews.

And finally I found Nights and Weekends, a site I've not come across before, but one which obviously has sterling good taste in books.

Though it's tempting to sit at my computer all day and Google my name to see what new reviews have come in, I've actually taken good long breaks away from my Mac. For instance, this week I went shooting at the gun range with my very reliable .357 Smith and Wesson. Last time I shot at a Bin Laden target and filled him with holes, but that target has mercifully been retired. This time I shot Zombies. The target was ten yards away, and as you can see, I never hit the lovely but endangered young lady once.

At the Gun Range

2012-01-05T11:57:00.002-05:00

Spent a relaxing hour at the gun range this morning. Tuning up my aim on a silly target. But it does give me some confidence I can defend my loved ones if the time came. This is with my .357 Smith and Wesson from 7-10 yards. Didn't hit the innocent lady once.

Books and Books: Twenty-five Years and It Never Gets Old

2011-11-29T05:27:00.025-05:00

Mitch Kaplan gave me a wonderful introduction last night. There is, as Mitch discovered, another James W. Hall, a former military guy who turned spy against the US, and is now serving time in prison. Apparently some websites on the Internet have conflated the spy and me. Pretty funny.

Mitch reminded the audience that he's been in the independent book business for 30 plus years and he and I have been doing this song and dance for most of those. Thank god for that.

The photos of the event were taken by my friend Michael Stern. Sternphotos.com. Check out his amazing website. He's a great nature photographer, specializing in Florida. But occasionally he'll come indoors and snap the wildlife running around in the stacks.

This is Mitch Kaplan and me sharing the podium.

And here I am promoting my short story collection. Available for your Kindle or Nook.

Here are some interesting readers getting their books signed. I've got great fans. So smart, so funny. They don't let me get away with much.

Here's some of the audience. This shot taken by Evelyn, my lovely wife, who had one of the funniest lines of the night.

Another shot by Evelyn. Taken on the iPhone, so it's kind of blurry. So many friends, and neighbors came out on a Monday night to share a couple of hours with us. It was a great party.

Couldn't Have Written A Better Review Myself

2011-11-24T12:07:00.004-05:00

FLORIDA WRITERS
James W. Hall is dead-on with Thorn’s latest case

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 24-30, 2011 www.FloridaWeekly.com FLORIDA WEEKLY

■ “Dead Last,” by James W. Hall.

Minotaur Books. 304 pages. $25.99.
A new book by James W. Hall is something to put away for a special treat: something to look forward to. But inevitably, I push other things aside so that I can dig into what will no doubt be a most pleasurable experience. I’m addicted to following the exploits of Thorn, a character at once unique and everyman-ish, spontaneous and guarded, outrageous and surprisingly disciplined.

The Thorn we meet in “Dead Last” is processing grief. Cancer has taken the woman he loves. Mr. Hall’s description of Thorn’s ritualized mourning, which includes burning many of his personal possessions, is dead-on accurate. Thorn is a man who carries little material baggage. Watching him strip even further down to essentials, a kind of excessive and half-mad cleansing, reveals his nature with dramatic economy.

As ever, Thorn’s fate presents him with a case to solve and a wrong to right. Uh, better change those nouns to plural.

How’s this for a plot premise? A Miami-based television cast and crew staffs a low-rated cable series named “Miami Ops.” A running plot line involves a serial killer who, outfitted in zentai suit (a skin-tight garment that covers the entire body) selects victims from hints picked up in newspaper obituaries. The killer deduces locations, weapons and other details from the obituaries as well.

The spandex-clad perpetrator is cunning and ruthless, but the series is about to be dropped by the network. The scriptwriter, Sawyer Moss, knows a lot about obituary writing because his mother, April, is the obituary writer for the Miami Herald. Sawyer’s twin brother, Flynn, is one of the show’s stars. The other is Dee Dee Dollimore, a gorgeous actress hungry for fame who is Sawyer’s girlfriend. Dee Dee’s father (and former abuser), Gus, runs the show.

Now the series seems to have inspired a copycat — a real serial killer who imitates the methodology of “Miami Ops.”

One of April’s obituaries is about Rusty Stabler, Thorn’s deceased wife. Details in the obit lead the real-life killer to murder Rusty’s aunt, who lives in a small town in Oklahoma. Since Thorn is mentioned in the obituary, it doesn’t take long for the Starkville, Okla., sheriff, a very young woman named Buddha Hilton, to visit Miami, tear Thorn away from his beloved Key Largo and involve him in her investigation.

Buddha is a fascinating minor character. Only 19, she is a self-made professional with skill, courage and shrewd perceptions. Like Dee Dee a victim of parental abuse as a young girl, Buddha would seem to have a bright future. She accomplishes much in a short period of time to further her investigation into crimes that become part of an FBI case worked by Thorn’s sometimes buddy Frank Sheffield.

However, Buddha’s future is cut short by the zentai killer. Thorn now has one more death to avenge, and his own life is in jeopardy. There is an unsettling glee among some of the “Miami Ops” gang that the copycat news might just spike the ratings and save the series. Is one of them behind these killings?

“Dead Last” is gorgeously complicated by the network of relationships the author designs. Perhaps the most important is that Thorn and April have to sort out the meaning of their youthful one night fling so many years ago. Awkwardly reacquainted by their involvement in this investigation, they cautiously try to make sense of it and of each other. That old and brief attraction haunts them and eventually provides the reader with an astonishing revelation.

“Dead Last” provides an abundance of violent action, excruciating suspense, brilliant characterization (check out April’s mother, Garvey) and precise and evocative delineations of Miami neighborhoods. It also offers a vivid exploration of the psychotic elements let loose in contemporary society as reflected in, perhaps nourished by, today’s morally hazardous popular culture. Thorn is by now a monument: solid and substantial, a bit tarnished and a convenient target for low-flying birds.

And Mr. Hall is in the vanguard of those who have erased the line between literary fiction and genre fiction.

Want more James W. Hall? “Over Exposure,” a new collection of his fine short fiction, is available as a Kindle
eBook for a mere $3.99. ■

philJASON pkjason@comcast.net

Murder on the Beach

2011-11-24T05:42:00.006-05:00

The book tour kicked off officially with a stop at Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach, Florida. A wonderful mystery store just off the main thoroughfare in Delray. The town itself has been booming in the past few years. A wonderful array of restaurants, boutiques, art shops and cool sidewalk ambiance. Like South Beach for baby boomers. A little more restrained, but hip.

Had a good turnout, including James O. Born and Wallace Stroby, two fine writers and friends who took the time from very busy schedules to show their support. Nice guys.

And the book goddesses at the store were wonderful, serving wine and snacks. Signed a lot of books for their online orders and then did my talk and answered questions. Some good questions from the audience. One in particular: who were my influences?

Here's what I said:

I was influenced in the beginning by a set of writers, all inspiring me in different ways.

John D. MacDonald
His love of Florida and his defense of the state against the assault of developers and scam artists. Though oddly for one who loved Florida so deeply, his ability to capture the feel of the place itself was pretty limited.

James Lee Burke
Burke's poetic and lyrical creation of Louisiana, the climate, the flora and fauna, and the landscape in general was at the beginning and is now a major influence.

Ross MacDonald
Lew Archer, his series sleuth, almost always solved crimes that were rooted in the past. Frequently 20 years is the time frame. Something bad happened twenty years ago and it's still reverberating into a current crime. That format was the basis for my first novel and remains one of the elements I use a lot.

Elmore Leonard
His books sound like talk, not writing. They are so natural, so seemingly effortless in the their movement forward, and so "cool" in their tone that they challenge me to write with less ornament, less artificiality in the prose. Finding the balance between Leonard and Burke stylistically is a real challenge.

Robert Parker
Early and late Parker is full of snappy, great dialog that drives much of the experience. I love the way Spenser talks, and though Leonard's dialog is also powerful, it is Parker's I ty to emulate.

So it was a good evening. And there was also cake! Brought by Ken Van Durand who drove all the way down from Orlando to deliver it. Here is Ken standing next to me with the cake in hand.

If you weren't able to attend and want a signed copy of DEAD LAST, I'm sure Joanne and the book goddesses of Murder on the Beach will be happy to send you one.

Here's their home on the web.

And here's Ken Van Durand's site, with his own view of the evening.

Thankful

2011-11-23T11:19:00.008-05:00

I'm thankful for my teachers. Most of all I'm thankful for Peter Meinke who was such a great inspiration to me (and many many others over the years), and such a great model for a hardworking and uncompromising writer. Poet, fiction writer, essayist and man for all seasons, and one who can always hold his liquor better than anyone I ever knew, growing funnier as the night went on. His poems are funny too. They became the models that I imitated early on. Funny and rich with emotion and complex while always being accessible. A marvelous blend of talents.

He taught me how to write, and showed by example how to live an academic life, one that is steeped in language and books and the arts.

And he's still kicking serious ass, as you can see here.

Or check out this interview.

Here's his website.

Advice to My Son by J. Peter Meinke
(b.1932)

The trick is, to live your days
as if each one may be your last
(for they go fast, and young men lose their lives
in strange and unimaginable ways)
but at the same time, plan long range
(for they go slow; if you survive
the shattered windshield and the bursting shell
you will arrive
at our approximation here below
of heaven or hell).

To be specific, between the peony and the rose
plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;
beauty is nectar
and nectar, in a desert, saves–
but the stomach craves stronger sustaenance
than the honied vine.
Therefore, marry a pretty girl
after seeing her mother;
Show your soul to one man,
work with another;
and always serve bread with your wine.
But son, always serve wine.

2011-11-23T05:21:00.004-05:00

There's a new anthology of short stories that includes one of mine, a story called "Good Forever." Quite a weird story in a collection that features noirish or oddball stories about Christmas. Title is BLUE CHRISTMAS and you can find the link here.

It's Books and Books' new publishing venture. Mitch Kaplan, the great bookseller here in Coral Gables is now a publisher.

2011-11-21T04:53:00.005-05:00

As frequent visitors to my blog might notice, I've added advertisements lately. It's just an experiment to see how annoying they are. And to find out if they make me rich.

So far they haven't done the latter. But I'm curious if anyone has a reaction to them. Do they feel out of place? Do you just skim past them? What's your reaction?

I can remove them at any time, but it seemed like something I should at least know about.

And you might also notice that my Webmaster is redoing the site. I think it looks pretty cool so far. She's made some interesting changes to invigorate the pages and make things more active.

Soon my Facebook posts and Twitter feed will go live. You can join me in the meantime by going to my Facebook page or Twitter account: jameswhall for Twitter

Staying active in those social media places, plus adding to the Blog regularly does take a little time away from my writing. It's also very unThorn-like, but I'm trying to be a Modern Guy. Plus it's kind of fun interacting with readers and others that way.

Your thoughts on that?

2011-11-20T14:03:00.002-05:00

Only two more weeks to get a super deal on the ebook of Under Cover of Daylight for Kindle. You can find it HERE.

2011-11-19T05:24:00.002-05:00

The beauty of newspaper book reviewers is that they have the space and usually the passion and intelligence, as Oline Cogdill does, to dig into the substance of a novel they're reviewing rather than just recount the plot.

I doubt I'll get a better review than this one from Oline in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Murder gets personal for Hall's Thorn

By Oline Cogdill, Correspondent

November 20, 2011

'Dead Last' By James W. Hall. Minotaur, 304 pages, $25.99

The newspaper obituary isn't just the announcement of a person's death and service schedule. Obits often are homages to a life well lived, an insightful look at a person and the impact he or she had on their world.

But in the intriguing "Dead Last," the obit becomes a sinister weapon that takes aim at Thorn, James W. Hall's perennial Key Largo beach bum.

Thorn has never been the most sociable of characters -- content to eke out a living tying fishing flies, enjoying "the wayward scent of wilderness" and becoming involved with one nefarious crime after another.

But the death of Rusty Stabler, his wife of one month, throws Thorn into grief-fueled rage over which he has little control. "Some crucial atom inside him had cracked apart and all the wild-eyed craziness . . . stabilized by her presence went into a state of fission." Nearly suicidal, Thorn starts burning everything he owns -- clothes, furniture, mementoes. The bonfire "cleansing" is in full force when Buddha Hilton, the 19-year-old sheriff of Starkville, Okla., shows up at Thorn's Key Largo house. Michaela Stabler, a high-profile lawyer who was Buddha's adoptive mother and Rusty's aunt, was murdered in her bed in Starkville. Rusty's newspaper obituary was placed next to the body.

The murder scene is eerily similar to "Miami Ops," a failing TV crime show being filmed in South Florida that is written by Sawyer Moss and stars his twin brother, Flynn. Adding to the coincidence, the Moss brothers are the only sons of April Moss, the newspaper obit writer and an old acquaintance of Thorn.

Buddha has little use for Thorn, and both are out of their comfort zones in the urban jungle of Miami. But they make a credible detective team as they investigate whether the growing pattern of murders is a ploy for better TV ratings.

Hall always has made it easy to want to get lost with Thorn as he wanders Florida, and this 12th outing continues those high standards. "Dead Last" works as an exciting detective novel but also provides an insightful look at grief and rising above pain, and proves the adage that when one door shuts, another opens. The usually laconic Thorn is a fury-filled machine whose grief makes him ready to slash out at anyone in his way. The calm Buddha, who bears the physical marks of horrendous abuse as a child, sees through Thorn and forces him to deal with his grief. The scene where Buddha passes on her observations to Thorn about his personality is an inspiring moment full of humor and truth. A surprising plot twist signals a change for Thorn that he may not be equipped to handle.

"Dead Last's" solid story and characters who continue to grow show why Hall, who retired in 2009 as a literature professor at Florida International University, ranks at the top echelon of Florida mystery writers.

Oline Cogdill can be reached at olinecog@aol.com.

2011-11-18T11:25:00.001-05:00

A nice early review from Shelf Awareness

Book Review
Dead Last

Dead Last by James W Hall (Minotaur Books, $25.99 hardcover, 9780312607326 , December 6, 2011)

James W. Hall (Magic City; Silencer), South Florida resident, Edgar Award winner and creator of Thorn, that Key Largo loner whose renegade style always gets results, has written another page-turner, this time with a surprising twist.

April Moss, obituary writer for the Miami Herald, has been on the job for some time, without incident. Sawyer, one of her twin sons, writes scripts for a cable TV series called Miami Ops and has been using the obits as part of his storyline. The other twin, Flynn, is the lead actor on the series.

In the show, a serial killer is using obits to select his victims. Suddenly, a copycat appears: a real-life serial killer using April's obits.

Thorn's wife, Rusty, has just died as the story begins. April writes an obit about Rusty, and a copy is found at the bedside of her Aunt Michaela, murdered by an unknown intruder. A young sheriff from Oklahoma is investigating the murder and travels to Key Largo to ask Thorn for help. Thorn is in the process of losing it--burning all his possessions, moving rocks around, spending days and nights in his hammock, refusing help offered by his P.I. friend, Sugarman. The sheriff, Buddha Hilton, arrives and talks him into helping her because, somehow, this murder is tied up with Rusty. Together, they go to Miami to begin tracking clues. Other murders take place, also with April's obituary notices left at the crime scene. Buddha sees a pattern in how the killer decides on the victim, the place and the weapon.

Meanwhile, the crime show gets a great boost in ratings from all the publicity. There are paparazzi everywhere--asking Thorn for information, knowing that he is always around when there is bad news; wondering what Buddha's doing there from Oklahoma; and asking April if she feels like an accomplice in the murders.

There are plenty of suspects to go around: Gus, the show's producer, had a career making porn films with his daughter, Dee Dee, the female lead in the show. This is his last shot; if the show tanks, he'll never work again. Dee Dee has a screw loose and is absolutely delighted that the show has a new life, even if people are dying. Sawyer wants his show to be renewed and Flynn enjoys being a leading man, even though he is too dyslexic to memorize lines. For good measure, a guy named Jeff, who is a critter exterminator extraordinaire, has his reasons to do a number on Sawyer.

Which, if any, of these leading suspects, is the right one? As if that weren't enough of a puzzle, Thorn gets the surprise of his life in the course of the investigation. --Valerie Ryan

Shelf Talker: Florida Keys loner Thorn joins an Oklahoma sheriff to try to sort out the motivation behind a series of copycat killings based on a TV show.

2011-11-11T06:00:00.002-05:00

Google already has posted a few sample chapters of Dead Last which you can find here.

Those devils.

2011-11-10T12:02:00.008-05:00

Three changes to see me at the Miami Book Fair.

Go here for the book fair website.

I'll be doing a panel with Jeff Lindsay (Dexter), John Connolly (a wonderful writer and funny guy) and Jeff Abbott (who I'll be meeting for the first time.) That's in the auditorium at 2 PM on Saturday.

Then John Durfresne and Ann Hood and Ana Menendez at 4:30 to discuss the short story collection Blue Christmas--kind of noirish holiday stories.

Then I'll also be singing a walk-on with the Rock Bottom Remainders. Here's the info on that.

The Book Tour for Dead Last

2011-10-31T15:35:00.004-04:00

DEAD LAST

Here's the book tour for Dead Last. A quick drive around Florida. With one side trip to NYC. I'll be making a slightly longer tour in April to some of these same locations and a few more, including a bunch of libraries, for the publication of HIT LIT.

Tuesday, November 22

7:00 PM to 8:00 PM EST
Reading and signing
MURDER ON THE BEACH
273 Pineapple Grove Way
(NE 2nd Ave)
Delray Beach, FL 33444
Contact: Joanne Sinchuk
561-279-7790
murdermb@gate.net
www.murderonthebeach.com

Monday, November 28

8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EST
Reading & signing
BOOKS & BOOKS
265 Aragon Ave.
Coral Gables, FL 33134
Contact: Cristina Nosti
305-442-4408
cristina@booksandbooks.com

Tuesday, November 29

1:00 PM to 2:30 PM EST
Reading and signing
HOOKED ON BOOKS
81909 Overseas Highway
Islamorada, FL 33036
Contact: Cathy Keller
(305) 517.2602
hookedonbooks@bellsouth.net
http://www.hookedonbooksfloridakeys.com/

December 30th

Drop in Signing
Mysterious Bookshop
New York City, NY

Monday, December 5

7:00 PM to 8:30 PM EST
Reading and signing
VERO BEACH BOOK CENTER
2145 Indian River Blvd.
Vero Beach, FL 32960
Contact: Cynthia Grabenbauer
772-569-2050

7:00 PM to 8:30 PM EST
reading & signing
BOOKMARK
220 First Street
Jacksonville, FL 32233-5273
Contact: Rona Brinlee
904-241-9026

Thursday, December 8

7:00 PM to 8:30 PM EST
Reading and signing, along with Lisa Unger
INKWOOD BOOKS
216 South Armenia Ave.
Tampa, FL 33609
Contact: Leslie
813-253-2638

Saturday, December 10

1:00 PM to 2:30 PM EST
Reading and signing
CIRCLE BOOKS
St. Armands Circle
Sarasota, FL 34236
Contact: Eric Lamboley
941-388-2850
circlebooks@verizon.net

Saturday, December 10

4:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST
reading & signing
HASLAM'S
2025 Central Avenue
St. Petersburg, FL 33713
Contact: Ray
(727) 822-8616

FT. MYERS
Tuesday, December 13

7:00 PM to 8:30 PM EST
reading & signing
BARNES & NOBLE
13751 Tamiami Trail
Ft. Myers, FL 33912
Contact: Mercedes Lawler
239-437-0654

2011-10-17T10:08:00.003-04:00

The first review for Dead Last is in and it's excellent. Publisher's Weekly:

In Edgar-winner Hall’s compelling 12th novel featuring Florida PI Daniel Thorn (after 2010’s Silencer), Thorn mourns the sudden death of his new wife, Rusty Stabler, in typically idiosyncratic fashion—by burning his possessions. Then Buddha Hilton, the 19-year-old sheriff of Starkville, Okla., arrives in Key Largo to ask for Thorn’s help. Rusty’s aunt, Michaela Stabler, who was Buddha’s adoptive mother, has been stabbed to death in Starkville; Rusty’s Miami Herald obituary was placed beside Michaela’s body. The juxtaposition of clipping and corpse mimics a TV drama, Miami Ops, which employs the twin sons of the obituary’s writer, April Moss, whom Thorn knew briefly years before. Is Michaela’s killing a stunt designed to save a failing show or an act with a murkier purpose? As Thorn attempts to untangle fact from fiction, a revelation about his past changes his life. As always, Hall combines crisp prose, solid psychology, sardonic humor, and glimpses of an edgy, fast-changing Florida into a suspenseful and satisfying whole. (Dec.)

Hit Lit

2011-07-26T16:08:00.002-04:00

There'll be more on this later, but I wanted to put up the cool cover that Random House is using for Hit Lit, my book on bestsellers. Coming April 11, 2012.

2011-06-25T16:16:00.003-04:00

It took a while to get these four books of poetry together in the same volume. But it's finally done.

The Lady from the Dark Green Hills, Carnegie Mellon University Press
The Mating Reflex, Carnegie Mellon University Press
False Statements, Carnegie Mellon University Press
Ham Operator, Ampersand Press

I started writing poetry at the age of 18, published my first poem (in Antioch Review) at nineteen, and I was 26 when Lady from the Hills was published. I stopped writing poetry at the age of 40 when my first novel was published.

The novels really tapped the same creative wellspring and didn't leave a lot left for poetry. But I learned a lot about writing, about the music of language, about finding the right word for the right place, about imagery and metaphor and nuance from all those years of writing poetry.

Now you can get the whole collected works for a mere 3 bucks.

Climate Change

2011-06-09T04:17:00.006-04:00

What is it about climate change that stirs such passion?

Why would scientists all over the planet enter into a conspiracy to pull a hoax on the public?

My guy Thorn who lives a pretty low-impact green life, is about to get drawn into all this in a very big way.

The new novel (titled Swelter at the moment) is underway. Planning finished, research done, first scene written. Off to the races.

Dogs With Manners

2011-03-23T17:22:00.001-04:00

Dogs with table manners are very rare.

2011-03-23T12:14:00.006-04:00

Over Exposure and Six Other Stories (including the Edgar Award winning “The Catch”

I’ve been writing short stories for over forty years. My early stories were collected in a book that W.W. Norton published in 1990 titled “Paper Products.” Those stories were written mostly when I was in my twenties and thirties and were heavily influenced by the metafictionists back then, people like Vonnegut, Brautigan, Coover and Barth. They were fanciful and strange and surreal, written in a style that was self-consciously poetic.

The stories I began to write in my later years were more influenced by Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard and John D. MacDonald, though they retained some of the same fanciful and strange and slightly surreal qualities I’d employed decades earlier.

The short stories in Over Exposure include two stories that were nominated for the Edgar Award in short fiction, one of which actually won in 2005. The others were all written for a variety of anthologies of crime fiction over the last few years, one about tennis, one about a geriatric hitmen, and another about a scary fishing trip, and one about a man’s obsession with a nude photograph.

Why an ebook? As the publishing marketplace has radically changed in recent years, publishers have found it less and less profitable to publish collections of short fiction, so I’ve turned to this new format to give these stories a home.

I’m passionate about these tight, dark, twisted yarns. I think they contain some of the best writing I’ve ever done. It was a labor of love to put them together in this package and to make them available under one electronic cover.

It’s a new exciting era we’re living in. Songs from iTunes, books from e-publishers. Though I’ll always love to turn the pages of my hardback books, and always enjoy their heft in my hands, I must say I see many advantages to this new form of reading. For one thing, a book can stay alive in cyberspace in a way that it never could in the old world of publishing where paperbacks were shredded and hardbacks remaindered and eventually ended up in the landfill.

Over Exposure contains stories of lust gone out of control, and obsession and murderous envy and other dark passions. There are surprises and twists and moments of danger and violence. I believe there are also moments of redemption and grace in these works of fiction. Moments that lifted me up when I wrote them, and I hope will lift you up as you turn the electronic pages.

You can buy the collection of stories at several online retailers, all for $2.99:

Like Kindle

Or the Nook

Or everything else.

Jeez

2011-03-21T19:17:00.001-04:00

Well, which way is the publishing world turning? Old or new?

Tennis Day

2011-03-21T14:21:00.003-04:00

Spent a few nice hours today at the Sony Ericsson. I always like to go on Monday and watch the qualies. You can stand right next to the court and watch matches, or watch the big names practicing, or sometimes like today you can see a world class player sitting in the stands right in front of you eating chocolate and joking with her friends.

Ebook Publishing

2011-03-21T04:55:00.011-04:00

Got to pass on this post on ebook publishing. Full of hard facts and a great place to start in educating yourself about the process.

You can go here to watch an intersting video on one wildly successful epub author.

Going to work on putting a few more books up on Amazon and B&N.

When I was a college student back in the 60's I made a connection with a sandal maker down from St. Pete in Sarasota. He made this cool hippie sandals that everyone liked. But not everyone had a car, or knew where to find this guy. So I'd peddle his sandals. I'd go around to interested buyers and draw an outline of their foot on a sheet of paper and take it to my cobbler friend.

He'd charge me 10 bucks and I'd sell them for 12, still a bargain at the time. It felt good to have a side business, sort of like my paper route, or working for my dad in construction as I'd done before college.

In fact, from the age of 8, I'd never not had a job. I wouldn't call myself a hustler, but I was always looking for a way to get a few extra nickels and dimes flowing in.

This ebook thing seems to be rooted in the same sensibility. I love my publisher and respect the old school methods. They've been incredibly loyal and supportive and creative in shaping my career. But if I can put some books out there on my own that my publisher has not expressed interest in, or are years/decades out of date, I owe it to the books themselves to give them a longer life.

And the nickels and dimes aren't bad either.

And here's the King of Epub information, Joe Konrath, being funny. You want to know more about ebook publication stuff, check out Joe's blog.

Twitter

2011-03-19T06:09:00.001-04:00

Follow me on Twitter: @jameswhall

Dead Last--the new Thorn novel--the Cover

2011-03-19T05:18:00.005-04:00

Got a version of the new cover of the next Thorn novel that'll appear in November, around Thanksgiving. Thorn gets involved with an obituary writer for the Miami Herald, (she's an old flame) and through her Thorn becomes way too involved with a TV crime show being shot in Miami. TV stars, writers and directors can be very dark and twisted.

The cover is an early draft and will probably change a bit, but I'm guessing it'll stay close to this. I like it. A little less dark and noirish than recent covers.

Got opinions? I can still pass on feedback to the publishers before all this gets set in stone.

New Book--OVER EXPOSURE

2011-03-18T14:19:00.005-04:00

Okay, here we go. My adventures in ebook publishing begin.

I've been writing and publishing noirish short stories for years. I'm not a prolific short story writer, but I do enjoy the process very much. I decided to test the ebook publishing waters with a collection of seven stories, including "The Catch" which won an Edgar Award for short stories a few years ago.

So maybe for some of my hungry fans, this book will hold you over till November when DEAD LAST comes out.

More on DEAD LAST later. (It's a Thorn novel.)

But I wanted to start with a quick blog post about OVER EXPOSURE which I'm selling through Amazon for 2.99. I might be raising that price soon, but for the time being, I wanted to set the price as low as possible to see what kind of response I can get.

I'm also planning on putting my four books of poetry up soon.

It struck me lately that ebook publishing actually insures that these books which are out of print and very hard to find will have a longer life than they would have had in the old print format. Strange to think that cyberspace is better at preserving literary work than the ink and paper format we've always know.

I'm also the proud owner of an iPad 2 and will be reviewing my experiences with it as the weeks go on.

Another piece of news! I'm going to be with St. Martin's Press for at least another two books. I'll be getting to work on the new Thorn as soon as I finish copy-editing the manuscript for DEAD LAST.

Pretty exciting time.

Publishing, Perishing and Flourishing

2011-02-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

Now that I've finally finished new Thorn novel, Dead Last, and also finished the book on bestsellers I've been working on for years, I'm going to be spending a bit more time updating the blog...between working and researching on the new book proposal (a secret project).

Here are some fairly gloomy numbers about publishing in general and the impact of ebooks.

But as my friend Otto Penzler likes to say, book people are like farmers. If they aren't complaining about too little rain, they're complaining about too much rain.

Maybe so, but this feels like a hundred year flood to me.

The upheaval in the music business which from my point of view started with Napster and evolved into the very successful business model of iTunes, might be a good predictor for what's happening with the book business. I'm not sure what the fall out has been for musicians with the migration from CDs to digital formats. Probably it's a mixed bag. Some musicians benefit, some don't.

The same already seems to be happening in the book business with certain writers capitalizing on the radical changes, and other writers being left behind. The whole world of ebook publishing has a Wild West feel to it these days. No one's exactly sure what the rules are and how to game this brand new system.

The writer as hustler, the writer as entrepreneur. Not exactly a new concept. Most writers have to keep one eye on the marketplace. Even Franzenesque writers who lock themselves away from the world do so at their own peril.

One of the things I like most about my Kindle is that I can read a free sample of a novel, two or three chapters. Like listening to a few bars of a song on iTunes. Actually, I find that three chapters gives me a lot more to go on than the ten or fifteen seconds of music on iTunes. I make fewer mistakes in choosing novels from the three chapter samples than I do with songs. There's lots of stuff on my iPod that I wind up deleting.

Here's a little bit on the Bestseller List and its importance to the book industry.

And here's a very interesting blog post on the new ebook bestseller list in the NYTimes.

21st Wedding Anniversary Dinner

2010-12-31T20:45:00.013-05:00

Got married 21 very happy years ago tonight.

Had one very tasty sandal to celebrate. It's what those Tarahumara Indians wear when they run a few hundred miles in the Copper Canyons. Seems very appropriate to eat my huarache in honor of our long enduring romance.

Here's a guy who put the ache in huaraches:

Just finished a wonderful book on running and the Tarahumaras, called Born to Run.

I'm not ready to start barefoot running quite yet, but I learned a lot about a lot of things aside from running in this book. Great characters, great stories, great information about human evolution and the role that running played in shaping our physiological and cultural destiny.

Crumley

2010-12-30T14:41:00.003-05:00

"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."

Good old Crumley. The line, of course, is from The Last Good Kiss.

I'm not sure why I was thinking of Jim today, but I couldn't get him out of my head. I'm reaching the end of my 17th novel. A tough one, a different one, one that's stretched me way beyond my comfort zone. And then Jim popped into my mind. The easy way he had with writing. Not that it was easy for him. It wasn't any easier for him than anybody else. He set himself a high bar and kept jumping over it and over it and over it. But he never complained about it, about how hard it was, what a pain it could be. He didn't complain about much of anything, except ex-wives.

I spent a year hanging around him when we worked together in El Paso. We had some uproarious times. Some evening in Juarez that are etched in my brain forever. Even the evenings I can't remember a damn thing about except me and Jim pissing in a trough that ran under the bar at the Kentucky Club. The trough ran out to the street, and into the gutter. It was a very useful trough. Kept the drinkers drinking, and saved the owners from having to furnish a real bathroom.

Jim and I carried a mattress on top of my car one night. It was to be Jim's mattress for the year he was teaching at the U. We'd roped it down to the roof and we drove from one side of El Paso to the other and when we arrived (not completely sober or straight) we realized the mattress had blown off somewhere along our route. No sweat. We retraced our steps and found it halfway along the way. Tire tracks, lots of them, marked that mattress and dented it permanently. No sweat. Jim used that mattress all year.

He had some trouble with his back that year. But every time he complained about it, we started laughing again. That damn mattress. It must've been run over a hundred times before we found it. Pain that turns to pleasure. Pleasure that turns to pain. Good old Jim. Man, I forgot for a while how much I loved that guy.

Noir

2010-10-06T09:24:00.002-04:00

Here's a new collection of noir stories from Otto Penzler. I have a story in it. Read a review of the book here.

Funny Video Book Review

2010-08-31T13:21:00.014-04:00

I read Corrections when it came out and it irritated me, bowled me over, kept me fascinated, bored the hell out of me, made me itch and twitch and bitch for weeks. I suspect Freedom will do the same. Haven't yet decided if I want to read it. I'm just getting over a serious itch as it is.

There are lots of people just as irritated about Franzen's special treatment by (especially) the New York Times. But somehow it seems a little disingenuous to bitch (can I use that word in this context? aw, what the hell) about the hot literary novel of the season for being given special treatment because the novelist is a white male when the one(s) doing the complaining are white female bestselling writers. They want the cash AND the prizes, AND the cover of TIME, AND multiple profiles in the Times?? Oh, come on.

Lots of folks are adding their 2 cents. And 2 cents. And 2 cents.

I've written about this phenomenon in my book about bestsellers which will be out next summer from Random House.(an excerpt below) It's pretty much always been this way. The high road literary establishment versus the low road scribblers who make a pretty damn good living. Each wanting what the other one has.

Kind of silly really. And borderline unseemly. Tranquilo hombres y mujeres.

Let the guy have his moment in the literary sun. It'll be brief, then the rest of us can get back to our book a year schedule, while this guy goes back to work for another seven years.

An excerpt from Cracking the Code, my book on a dozen major bestsellers of the 20th century:

Dollars vs. Respectability

Leslie Fiedler, one of America’s celebrated literary critics, noted a classic remark by Melville on this point. “Dollars damn me…all my books are botches.” Fiedler goes on to say that “implicit in (Melville’s) melancholy cry from the heart is a belief, as strong and pertinacious as any myth by which we live, that the authentic writer is neither drawn to nor confirmed in his vocation by the hope of marketplace success, the dream of becoming rich and famous, but can only be seduced by lucre, led to betray or prostitute his talent.”

A little later in the same essay, Fiedler neatly summarizes the playing field of modern literary warfare. “For a century and a half, those writers who aspired to critical acclaim and an eternal place in libraries have therefore felt compelled to struggle not just for their livelihood but for their very existence against the authors of ‘bestsellers’ who they secretly envy and publicly despise.”

Speaking of envy, a few years back when Stephen King was honored with the National Book Foundation’s lifetime achievement award for fiction, more than one defender of the literary canon roared in protest. No less than that high-culture lion Harold Bloom called King’s award “another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life.” Book editors around the country weighed in, almost all on the side of the high culture values it is their sworn duty to uphold. In the Washington Post, Linton Weeks posed the argument this way: “The issue: what to make of the gap in our culture between bestselling and well-written literature. The popular and the proper. The slew and the few.”

King tossed gasoline onto this bonfire in his remarks at the award ceremony. “For far too long the so-called popular writers of this country and the so-called literary writers have stared at each other with animosity and a willful lack of understanding. This is the way it has always been. But giving an award like this to a guy like me suggests that in the future, things don’t have to be the way they’ve always been. Bridges can be built between the so-called popular fiction and the so-called literary fiction.”

Well, I hope this book will serve as some small attempt at the construction of that bridge, but I predict that passing freely back and forth between the land of good taste and the province of low brow will always expose one to such cultural snipers as Vidal, Lane and Bloom and literature professors like my own younger self.

It’s clear enough that Stephen King is not alone among popular writers in yearning for a literary prize or two to set atop their mountains of cash, or at the very least a front page NY Times Book Review as some validation of their worth. And while their highbrow cousins might never admit it publicly, I suspect their hankering is just as strong, only the prize they dream of is something closer to a hefty movie deal.

The math of publishing, like that of the music and film businesses, gives us an insight into the dependence of the American entertainment industry on the blockbuster. Roughly ten percent of the books on any publisher’s list pay for the other ninety percent which either break even or lose money. Given this calculus, Stephen King and his trash-writing colleagues deserve more than a few silver chalices. It’s books like theirs that keep the industry afloat. Stephen King and his kind are the lifeblood of publishing. Simple as that.

Much of what we take as the given state of affairs in the book world, including the very existence of the Sunday New York Times Book Review and the well-stocked superstores and Amazon.com and the lofty jobs of book reviewers and publishing giants would be shockingly altered, if they managed to survive at all, without those ten percent of the books which flood the marketplace with tidal waves of cash.

It’s more than a little odd for an industry that depends so much on its most popular producers, to treat them with such disdain. In Linton Weeks’ Washington Post piece on the Stephen King affair, he claims that great novels “…change lives. They challenge our notions and afflict our comfort at the time they were written and for untellable time to come. They cut through time and space, to the hearts and souls of readers.” In other words great books challenge us and are immortal.

To declare that anyone could possibly know a book to be immortal rather than simply of faddish interest is to claim a prescience no mortal can possess. Yes, as Robert Frost observed, on a strictly personal level we can often sense when we read a work of literature that we’ve taken “a mortal wound” and that book or poem will linger with us as long as we live.

But who can say that Peyton Place, or Gone with the Wind don’t meet both those criteria for a great many people? Did Grace Metalious’s shocking expose of the sexual underbelly and hypocrisy of a small New England town not challenge its readers? You bet it did. And it damn well placed itself squarely at center stage for at least a good long time in our cultural history. As did Gone with the Wind and a host of other popular books. Though it might fly in the faces of the high priests of literary culture, my money is on Gone With the Wind over Humboldt’s Gift in the race to last another century or two, because of its hold on so many readers’ imaginations.

Two Versions

2010-08-20T04:34:00.003-04:00

Here are two versions of the same poem by Billy Collins. Both wonderful. One is more wonderful than the other.

Political Discourse

2010-08-09T16:23:00.008-04:00

Maybe it's always been this bad.

But I kind of doubt it.

Bestsellers

2010-08-02T10:01:00.004-04:00

An interesting problem with the rise of ebooks is that there's no official (meaning New York Times) bestseller list for them. Not yet anyway.

Like it or not, this ain't going anywhere but up.

Today's Harvest

2010-08-01T15:24:00.005-04:00

August begins nicely:

Life with Bats

2010-07-28T08:09:00.005-04:00

This cute little bugger is one of 5 (Five) bats that appeared inside our house in the woods this week. I caught four of them with towels. Like a matador.

Had to have rabies shots, five on the first go-round, and one every few days afterwards.

Making things a little more complicated about solving our bat problems, I found that bats are federally protected (like bankers and hedge fund managers), so you can't just go up in their roosting area and nuke them.

I know, I know. They do a million wonderful things for the environment. All those insects they scoop up and all that.

This is apparently bat season, when the young bats are flailing around, making the bat roost a chaotic place and causing them to make bad decisions about where to go hunting. Like our living room.

You have to plug the places they enter the house and put a one way flap on their entry points into the house. A flap door so they can exit but not return. All this is very complicated and expensive, and the bat people who do the work are in big demand, so there's a wait before anything final can be done.

Meanwhile, no bats have reappeared in the last few days after we plugged a few suspicious spots around the fireplace. But we still duck and cover when a moth flutters nearby.

Naturally, it's all good material, and it just so happens I've got a dandy way to use all my new bat knowledge in the Thorn novel I'm working on at the moment.

That's one of the great things about writing these books. No matter how bad things might get in the real world, I find myself almost immediately grateful to have such good new material for fiction.

Go Ahead, It's Healthy

2010-07-27T04:25:00.017-04:00

Just as many of us have been saying for years, don't knock ogling.

I don't think they meant man boobs.

So purely in the interests of good health, here's your fifteen minute workout, a few boobs.

And another fifteen for good measure.

P.S. If only it were true.

Hot

2010-07-21T06:40:00.035-04:00

Glad to know there's a Good Republican Idea. Even if they disavow it now.

I keep hearing that this is just a natural cycle. It's happened before.

Don't worry about it. Our grandkids can solve it.

Don't worry, be happy. There are plenty of people who can refudiate all these dire forecasts. Including one who believes she's Shakespeare's equal.

Unfortunately almost all of them are basing their opinions on financial impact of regulations, not science. It costs too much to save the planet.

Oh, yeah, and there's that great anti-global warming argument that a few of you have commented on here: Al Gore lives in an energy wasting house.

So, in a few years we'll be buying our windmills and solar panels from China.

At least they'll be cheap.

In case you want to do something there's always a call to your friendly congress person.

Oh, hell, maybe I'm just being an alarmist.

I think I'll go pick some blackberries in our secret spot. They're a month early this year. I wonder why.

David Foster Wallace

2010-07-18T17:43:00.004-04:00

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

So I plugged the first two paragraphs of the new Thorn novel into the website I Write Like, expecting Stephen King's name to pop up, but no... It's David Foster Wallace. A blessing or a curse?

This is Me Sort of Smiling

2010-06-03T14:44:00.009-04:00

Here's a photo of me I lifted from Big Al's website. Check him out for your Florida author needs.

He took it while I was on my Silencer book tour, visiting Haslam's Bookstore in St. Pete. A great bookstore, by the way.

French Open

2010-05-24T20:07:00.009-04:00

They don't call it the French open for nothing.

Venus is offended that anyone would want to discuss her skin-colored underwear. Okay, we won't discuss it.

And then there's this real obscenity making its debut at the French Open, Rafa Nadal's new watch. Cost, a mere, 425 thousand dollars. Oh, Rafa.

Back to Blogging

2010-05-21T08:01:00.029-04:00

The photo was taken at the Floridita bar, one of Hemingway's hangouts in Havana. It was taken by Dink Bruce (son of Toby Bruce, Hemingway's right hand man). Photography is only one of Dink's many skills.

CLICK ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE

Dink and Les Standiford and I were in Havana recently. It's an extraordinarily beautiful city, but very sad as well. The architecture is amazing, as richly detailed and varied as Florence or Madrid or Sevilla. But inside those beautiful buildings are tenements. People living in extreme poverty.

As you may have noticed, I've been taking a break, a long break from blogging lately. Lots of things have distracted me. I was finishing up a new non-fiction book on Bestsellers, for one thing. The book grows out of a course I taught at FIU for many years.

I've also been working on the new Thorn novel. More trauma for the guy. More loss, more adventure. This time he'll go a few places he's never been before. He gets involved with a woman who writes for the Miami Herald. He also discovers a couple of things about his past that he didn't know.

I've also been working on another non-fiction book proposal that has something to do with Hemingway. Just got back from Havana where I did a little research. This is a short video along the Malecon in a 57 Chevy on the way back from lunch at the Hotel Nacional.

Also been reading books on my Kindle and other books the Here's a very informative article on the state of Barnes and Noble and the book biz in general as it faces the rising tide of e-books.

Seems inevitable that a great majority of us will be reading on some electronic device in the next ten years or so. I like my Kindle, and lust for an iPad. But just as we couldn't see the iPad coming five years ago, it's unlikely that these will be the forms our ebooks will be taking five years from now.

All this matters to me as a reader, but it matters even more as a writer and friend of booksellers. The downward pressure on price has already started to effect the book biz, shaving away margins and depressing author "salaries." And as the article above makes clear, bookstores are going to have to do even more radical re-inventions if they're going to survive the next wave of change.

Here's a shot of me waiting for my lunch companions to go back downtown.

The car might look cool, but it was certainly showing its age. Noisy gears, rattling engine block, body held together with duct tape and a prayer. It's a credit to Cuban ingenuity and resourcefulness that the old girl was still running.

Here, in no particular order, are some images from the streets of Havana.

A fruit market with two fruits

Art, old and new.

A hotel as ornate as a cathedral.

Woman in red.

Key West Swarming with Tourists

2010-02-09T17:25:00.002-05:00

Watch an old video of the road to Key West being built. And the prophecy that's come all too true.

2010-02-08T13:14:00.004-05:00

Here's a truly wonderful video of JK Rowling giving a commencement address at Harvard. An incredibly moving speech.

Early Jim

2010-02-02T05:50:00.001-05:00

Somebody sent me this to make me feel bad I suppose.

Tim Tebow

2010-02-02T04:38:00.003-05:00

Love him or hate him.

I've had seriously mixed feelings about this guy, mainly because of the pushy way he promotes his religious views. Do we really want college athletes to wear Bible verses or passages from the Koran on their faces during games?

But still, this writer in the Washington Post makes some excellent arguments, and I'm almost convinced.

The Dallas Morning News

2010-01-29T15:24:00.003-05:00

Yet another wonderful review in the Dallas Morning News:

James W. Hall should be adopted as a Florida state treasure.
But he won't be.

The Florida he has depicted over the course of nearly 20 terrific thrillers is, at its heart, as dark as a northern Siberian night in midwinter. He does a fine job, though, of making the Sunshine State a complex and intriguing location, in which avarice, violence, delusion, great heroism and sometimes even serious (if complicated) love play out.

Silencer, his latest entry featuring his ingenious hero Thorn, keeps his flag flying high. Although the premise – Thorn inherits a vast fortune – seems a bit tenuous, once we accept it, which we do after a chapter or so, the drama begins to build.

To use his money for the highest good, Thorn makes a deal with an important central Florida landowner to take vast acres out of commercial use and keep them natural for posterity. Unfortunately, one of the landowner's sons has another idea, which quickly leads to chicanery, murder and the near demise of Thorn (along with his longtime girlfriend, the talented sister of a former biker gang leader, and the landowner's other son, a Miami mounted police officer).

Fortunately, Thorn knows how to employ various artifacts, such as a family wedding ring and a powerful pistol, to keep himself and others alive.
To reveal more of the plot would spoil it.

Let's just say that this suspenseful novel also features a retiring central character who assumes a forceful role, two strong women and some excellent lore about hunting African beasts in central Florida. We also learn about old Floridian ruling-class conclaves and contemporary Floridian morals, or lack thereof, in a way that makes the Sunshine State look darker and darker as the story unfolds.

Providence Journal

2010-01-29T15:18:00.002-05:00

Here's a nice review of Silencer from the Providence Journal:

James Hall’s enigmatic hero Thorn is back in “Silencer” (Minotaur, 276 pages, $24.99), albeit no longer the same simple rapscallion. Indeed, his last adventure, “Hell’s Bay,” ended with him inheriting a 10-figure fortune from a grandmother he hadn’t known he had.

With money, though, come problems and Thorn faces a host of them this time out, not the least of which is getting kidnapped by a pair of murderously deviant brothers right out of the Carl Hiaasen school of Florida lowlifes. They’re actually hired to kill Thorn, but opt to snatch him instead in order to see if there’s more they can get from the job than their bargain basement fee.

Ernest Hemingway explored similar territory in his brilliant short story “The Killers,” and the comparison holds further since Hall ranks with James Lee Burke as a brilliant stylist, lyricist and novelist as well as storyteller. And, make no mistake about it, there’s plenty of story in “Silencer,” including an animal preserve for rich folk who like to shoot geriatric big game and a sinister plot involving, as always, the tortured state of Florida’s land and environment.

Hall never disappoints and “Silencer” is no exception. Like Burke, to read Hall is to savor every sentence and description, and Thorn remains crime’s most unusual, if phlegmatic, protagonist.

Book Tour

2010-01-26T04:45:00.001-05:00

Home from Phase 1 of book tour. Will give a full account later, but here's a nice review I collected along the way.

In the Dallas Morning News.

Library Journal

2010-01-17T07:36:00.001-05:00

Library Journal likes it too.

Hall, James W. Silencer. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2010. c.304p. ISBN 978-0-312-35959-1. $24.99. M

Thorn shows no sign of changing his laid-back, loner ways in Hall’s (Hell’s Bay; Magic City) fine 11th novel featuring his laconic hero. When Thorn’s girlfriend, Rusty, finds a deal that will help him spend some of his vast fortune while saving a large tract of land in central Florida from development, he jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately for Thorn, his willingness to be a good guy soon puts him in a sinkhole, literally—he’s tossed in by thugs working for developers anxious to prevent the land from going to Thorn. As Rusty and old friend Sugarman try to help Thorn and save the deal, they endanger themselves.

Verdict Thorn is among the most likable heroes in crime fiction. There is a fair amount of action that fans expect, but the story really revolves around Hall’s outstanding characterization of Thorn, Rusty, and Sugarman. Sure to please fans of the series, this is another winner. [Library marketing campaign; see Prepub Mystery, LJ 9/1/09.]—Craig Shufelt, Fort McMurray P.L., A.B.

Mississippi Votes for Thorn

2010-01-17T05:04:00.001-05:00

Aw, shucks, even Mississippi has something nice to say. Right here.

Another Review

2010-01-17T04:46:00.000-05:00

The Jacksonville Times-Union gives Thorn some ink. Read it here.

Reviews

2010-01-17T04:19:00.001-05:00

Silencer gets a very smart and thorough and well-written review (which also happens to be positive).

Read it here.

Golf Properties?!

2010-01-16T06:25:00.001-05:00

HUH?

Where did this come from? Thorn as Tiger Woods?

Slush Piles

2010-01-15T10:22:00.001-05:00

Fascinating stuff on slush piles, and what's replaced them in publishing.

Silencer Review from Associated Press

2010-01-15T01:10:00.007-05:00

Bruce DeSilva, long time reviewer for the AP, and soon to be thriller novelist himself (I read Rogue Island in galleys and thought it was terrific), gave me a thoughtful, intriguing and positive review right here

Nice start to the day. Bruce can play rough(but fair) sometimes. Glad to have him on my side this go round.

2010-01-10T11:26:00.002-05:00

Follow me on Twitter.

First Newspaper Review of Silencer--A doozy

2010-01-09T04:35:00.004-05:00

You can read here the first newspaper review of Silencer.

Oline Cogdill spotted a feature of the storyline that I knew was a big storytelling risk. I kept Thorn in a very static situation for a long section of the novel. He's being held captive, trying to escape, but he only manages an inch by inch movement out of his predicament. And it takes several chapters before the problem is resolved.

The writing challenge was to keep all that engaging by using a lot of small details while slowly ratcheting the suspense, then throwing in some surprising setbacks along the way. Thorn makes some progress toward escape, then has to pause and consider the next hurdle and find some creative solution to the next issue. It was fun to write that section, but I did worry that some readers might grow weary of the incremental movement.

So many writers have their heroes zip from one scene to the next, solving every new crisis with superheroic ease, (and I've done that a lot too), that I just wanted to try something a little different. Glad to see a reviewer noticed and approved.

Robo Cat vs. Defenseless Dog

2009-12-26T11:03:00.003-05:00

In case you somehow missed this:

Blue Heaven

2009-12-20T08:38:00.002-05:00

A lot of ambiance, Keys style, and the food's great too.

From Our Quick Trip to the City

2009-12-13T06:18:00.002-05:00

Lost in Translation

2009-12-11T19:21:00.006-05:00

Adult Only Thorn

2009-12-06T12:13:00.002-05:00

Somebody sent me this to keep me abreast of Thorn.

Cloud Redux

2009-12-05T05:11:00.001-05:00

Since some of you asked about that cloud I posted earlier:

Undulatus asperatus (or alternately, asperatus) is a rare, newly recognized cloud formation, that was proposed in 2009 as the first cloud formation added since cirrus intortus in 1951 to the International Cloud Atlas of the World Meteorological Organization.[1] The name translates approximately as roughened or agitated waves.[2]

From Wikipedia

The Silencer Tour

2009-12-01T11:53:00.001-05:00

As it stands right now I'll be doing the rounds in Florida with one stop in Texas.

TOUR

Tuesday 1/19 – Vero Beach (FL) Center @ 7 PM

Wednesday 1/20 – Murder on the Beach (Delray Beach, FL) @ 7:30 PM

Thursday 1/21 – B&N in Orlando @7 PM

Friday 1/22 – Bookmark in Jacksonville, FL @ 7 PM

Saturday 1/23 – Circle Books in Sarasota @ 1 PM, then Haslam’s in St. Petersburg @ 4:30 PM

(WGCU-FM, the Ft. Myers NPR station, will air a review)

Sunday 1/24 – Inkwood in Tampa @ 2 PM

Saturday 1/30 – Murder by the Book in Houston, TX @ 5 PM

Wednesday 2/3 – Books & Books in Coral Gables, FL @ 8 PM

Saturday 2/6 – Moore Books in Key Largo @ 3 PM

The Competition for Silencer

2009-11-28T09:08:00.001-05:00

The end of this video clip is hilarious.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Excitement Over Sarah Palin's Book Release

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

A little poetry

2009-11-25T16:34:00.001-05:00

This is Sharon Olds, one of my favorite poets.

Hiking This Summer

2009-11-25T08:29:00.001-05:00

On a hike, Evelyn smiles.

Creepy Cloud

2009-11-24T15:37:00.005-05:00

Looks Photo shopped, but they say it's real. Newly named. Buckle your seatbelts. That rain cloud looks like it's going to get nasty.

And here's another Asperatus:

I've shut my mouth and I'm not going to say the obvious thing about Global Warming or Climate Change. But hey, look at that freaking cloud.

Another Star

2009-11-24T14:53:00.005-05:00

Well, Booklist (which is published by the American Library Association) gave Silencer a wonderful review--with a star and everything. I'm thrilled.

When Hall’s hermit hero Thorn, the Key Largo beach bum who used to earn his meager living tying flies, inherited millions of dollars from a long-lost relative (Hell’s Bay, 2008), readers couldn’t help but wonder where the series could possibly go next. Thorn a multimillionaire, even one determined to use his money to preserve uncivilized Florida? Well, yes, we’re happy for him, but won’t he cease to be the quintessential off-the-grid loner living on the fringes of civilization? Hall answers that question in this superb thriller, which finds Thorn still on the outside, still inadvertently bringing disaster to those he loves. Nothing like money to make a mess out of life. It starts with what should have been a sweet deal. Thorn’s lover, Rusty Stabler, now also his business manager, has negotiated a three-cornered transaction with the state of Florida and ranching mogul Earl Hammond to save Hammond’s massive holdings in central Florida from developers. All seems to go awry, however, when Hammond is murdered and Thorn is kidnapped. With his hero out of the action for a chunk of the novel, Hall luxuriates in character development, creating rich, multidimensional portraits of the Hammond clan and of two wacko contract killers. But there’s still room in the story for Thorn to face down his demons, the mild-mannered hermit once again giving vent to his lizard brain and unleashing “a crazed surge that wasn’t hate or fear or rage but some poisonous cocktail of all three.” Can anyone match Hall’s ability to combine thoughtful, character-driven drama with blood-thumpingly in-the-moment existential thrills? No, no one can.
— Bill Ott

Stella, One of the Cavaliers

2009-11-24T08:23:00.004-05:00

Here she is, Stella the magnificent, rolling in something odiferous in North Carolina. It's probably a slug, but it could be a dead earthworm, or perhaps a rotten egg. Normally I yell at her and make her stop, but this time I wanted to record the event. Ah, the smell of old fish in the morning.

And that lovely white noise in the background is our bold stream bubbling past.

Early Review

2009-11-23T13:13:00.005-05:00

Okay, so here we go. The new book will be published two months from now (the 19th of January), and the early reviews start coming in right now. The Publisher's Weekly review came today and I was happy to see it was starred.

* Silencer James W. Hall. Minotaur, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-35959-1

Shamus-winner Hall's superlative 11th thriller to feature Thorn (after Hell's Bay) finds his iconoclastic Key Largo, Fla., PI with a newly acquired fortune. Thorn is excited when his girlfriend, Rusty Stabler, presents a deal to protect 300 square miles of Florida from development and also put Earl Hammond's Coquina Ranch game-hunting operation out of business. Then Hammond is shot to death, Thorn is kidnapped—but Hall is just getting warmed up. While Thorn tries to figure a way out of the literal hole he's in, Rusty and Thorn's longtime friend Sugarman try to track him. Warped contract killers Jonah and Moses Faust, who deal in serial killer memorabilia, and Hammond's very different sons, ex-football star Browning and Miami cop Frisco, play large roles. Hall steadily ratchets the suspense while seamlessly combining elements of Florida's natural history with elements of the state's early development and overdevelopment. (Jan.)

I should be blase about this stuff after getting reviews for twenty plus years. But I'm not. I was happy for this one, not because it sells books (because I'm not sure a starred review sells many), but because it's a nice validation of the work I did over the last year and a half. My editor and agent and publisher liked the book. My wife liked it (which is truly important), but it's always good to hear from a reviewer who is supposed to be somewhat objective.

So now I'm going to get back to work on the bestseller book revisions. They're almost done. It's a funnier book than I'd thought it would be when I started it a long while back. Sort of like my classes used to be, somewhat serious, but mostly not.

My wonderful web person is working on some updates on the site. If anyone has any suggestions, it would be interesting to hear.

Another Spiderman

2009-11-05T12:24:00.003-05:00

Evin, a tenth grade teacher, sent me this wonderful video of him reciting my poem to his class. I think he does a bang up job.

Evin reminds me what a powerful impact teachers have on the world. When you see his energy and passion and the way he's getting his class to react to him, you can't help feeling inspired and hopeful. That there are folks like Evin out there doing such cool stuff with the next generation should thrill us all.

Working

2009-09-10T06:29:00.006-04:00

I've been hunkered down this summer, working on two projects. Well, three. Two book projects and an athletic one. I've been learning the modern topspin forehand to try to energize my tennis game. Here it is on youtube,a video taken by a friend while I'm hitting forehands with another friend.

It still needs some refinements. I'm hitting on the back foot and falling away from the court too much on the follow through. In a few of the strokes, I do go forward and generate a lot more pace.

It's kind of like driving a brand new car. I can't wait to go out and hit those balls. I've been playing tennis since I was ten or eleven, starting back in the dark ages when no one I knew played the sport. I was looking for a game to play in the spring because I didn't much care for baseball. I got addicted, and though there were only two courts in the town I grew up on, I managed to learn the fundamentals of the game from hours and hours out in the Kentucky sun.

My hitting partner and I used to sweep the snow off the court in the winter so we could play. We were nuts. I still am.

Thorn's Backyard

2009-08-04T15:25:00.006-04:00

Thorn's backyard.

And look what's going to wash ashore.

2009-07-25T18:05:00.002-04:00

# Hardcover: 304 pages
# Publisher: Minotaur Books (January 19, 2010)

Python v. Alligator

2009-05-31T09:05:00.002-04:00

We were having an argument at a dinner party last night about this situation, so I decided to go search out the clip. Here it is in case anyone missed it. Just another day in South Florida. (And oh, by the way, the narrator here is local CBS anchor, and our next door neighbor, Elliott Rodriquez.)

Whoppers

2009-05-31T07:11:00.003-04:00

Cheney is caught in a sad, bitter loop of his own devising. You would think he'd just clean his shotgun and go hunt some caged up 'wildlife.' And leave us alone for a while. But no. It's just one more whopper after another.

The Politics of Torture

2009-05-16T05:37:00.003-04:00

The Fuss Over Pelosi-- E.J. Dionne from the Washington Post

There is something very strange about seeing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the middle of a controversy over the Bush Administration’s policies on torture. Pelosi had nothing to do with the policy, yet she is facing all of the what-did-she-know-when questions. Republicans who opposed disclosure of the memos on the torture policy now want Pelosi to tell all about herself. My hunch is that the pressure on Pelosi will backfire on the G.O.P. by forcing a truth commission, or at least lots of hearings, and much more disclosure. Pelosi has been, shall we say, less than artful in her handling of this. Dana Milbank, in his typically pungent way, captured the take-away from her news conference Thursday when he wrote that Pelosi “performed the delicate art of backtracking while walking sideways.” Nonetheless, her claim that the CIA did not brief her in 2002 about the use of waterboarding is -- contrary to what my friend Ramesh Ponnuru suggests elsewhere – entirely plausible. Pelosi received at least indirect support from former Sen. Bob Graham who told MSNBC that “when I was briefed, which was about three weeks after the Speaker, the subject of waterboarding did not come up.” It actually matters whether Congress was fully briefed or not, and we need to know. I have been more sympathetic to normal Congressional hearings on all this than a truth commission, but given all the claims and counter-claims, maybe a truth commission is the only way to establish what happened and why so we can avoid a mess like this in the future.

_______________________

If you can't trust Bob Graham, you can't trust anybody.

For a clear-eyed view of what was done in our name in Iraq, check this out.

Boone

2009-05-08T15:26:00.001-04:00

Back in our mountain home.

A different view out my office window. Gone are the lizards and palm fronds and the humidity and the flat flat flat land.

Naples Press Club

2009-05-07T16:03:00.007-04:00

Had a fine time in Naples last month at the Naples Press Club writers conference. Met some fine writers and some good folks in the audience. A very professionally run conference. Check it out.

But what's that orangutan doing in the same photo with me? Hmmm.

2009-05-07T12:34:00.004-04:00

How do you like the cover for Silencer? It could change, but this is the concept at the moment. Comments?

Some Great Photos

2009-04-19T07:01:00.004-04:00

You need to check out Mike Stern's wonderful photos of Florida wildlife. Birds and more.

He's a poet of the photographic image. And a good friend.

Spiderman Speaks

2009-04-18T05:21:00.003-04:00

This is a video made by Vince Gotera, a fine poet himself. I'm honored he did such a great job with this poem. He actually performs it better than I do.

You can find out more about Vince here.

Last Class

2009-04-17T16:48:00.002-04:00

After 36 years, I'm done. Florida International University was great to me. Letting me hide away and work. I started out as a 25 year old kid, trying to figure out what it meant to be a college professor. These are some of my students at the very end of that arc. They were some of the best, in a long line.

Paperback, Hell's Bay

2009-04-11T07:35:00.001-04:00

Here are the March 2009 Bestsellers from the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association

Softcover
1 - Hannah Dennison, Scoop!, Signet
2 - Emily Brightwell, Mrs. Brightwell in the Nick of Time, Berkley
3 - tie
James W. Hall, Hell's Bay, St. Martin's
Deanna Raybourn, Silent on the Moor, Mira
5 - Rhys Bowen, Tell Me, Pretty Maiden, St. Martin's
6 - Bryan Gruley, Starvation Lake, Touchstone
7 - Andrea Camilleri, August Heat, Penguin
8 - Victoria Laurie, Ghouls Just Want to Have Fun, Obsidian
9 - Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors, Anchor
10 - Laura Childs, The Silver Needle Murder, Berkley

Another Blog

2009-04-10T13:45:00.002-04:00

Here's a wonderful Blog by my friend Peter Meinke

Head Down

2009-03-31T13:22:00.002-04:00

I've got my head down for a few weeks now, finishing up the long-promised, long-delayed book on the biggest bestsellers of all time and what they have in common.
An irreverant, and possibly irrelevant, look at popular culture and the short happy history of the novel.

Separated at Birth

2009-03-28T06:50:00.015-04:00

George and Bernie

Rod and Paul

Brad and Paul

IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

Florida Reasoning

2009-03-21T05:57:00.002-04:00

Okay, so here's another reason not to move to Pinellas County--Clearwater, St. Pete.

The Emergency vehicles arrive too quickly to the scenes, and as a consequence of their efficiency are now in danger of having serious cutbacks.

Your goverment at work.

Illegal Hair

2009-03-19T15:53:00.005-04:00

Paul Levine, aka the best head of hair in America has just released a new hardback novel that I highly recommend.

Paul is funny. Smart and funny. Smart and funny and a damn good writer.

Rickshaw

2009-03-18T09:02:00.005-04:00

A weekend in Key West. Mainly we walked, but we couldn't resist taking the rickshaw at the end of a long day.

Then there was our time in butterfly world. Hadn't been there before. Been going to Key West for over forty years, and this is the first time I've bonded with an insect. If I look a little tired, it's because I was.

Barbara Parker RIP

2009-03-08T06:52:00.007-04:00

Here she is with Chris Kling and Les Standiford. Barbara was part of a class of FIU students that inluded Chris, Dennis Lehane, Vicki Hendricks and others. Barbara was right up there at the top of the class. Always merry and bright.

She was a wonderful lady and a fine writer. Always a pleasure to be around. You can read her obit here.

Keystone Cops, Florida Style

2009-03-04T11:53:00.004-05:00

Is Tampa the new Miami?

Sure seems that way.

Kids Do the Darndest Things

2009-03-04T11:32:00.001-05:00

As dumb as a box of chocolates.

A Double Hit of Watermelons

2009-02-27T10:25:00.005-05:00

And then there's this watermellon classic from my youth. I remember loving it at the time. Now it seems...well, I guess I'm getting very old.

Guts

2009-02-26T05:50:00.004-05:00

Here's the guts of the Kindle.

In case you're interested. See all those little tiny books hiding in there. Paper pages and leather binding.

Relocate This

2009-02-26T04:30:00.000-05:00

Magnetic attraction.

First Amendment

2009-02-26T01:39:00.000-05:00

Clearwater Gets Murky

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I'm no lawyer, but I don't think the city has a leg to stand on.
But then I'm partial to the rights of bait shops everywhere.

Aw, Sheryl

2009-02-25T12:33:00.003-05:00

Good grief

Hit it!
This ain't no disco
It ain't no country club either
This is LA!

"All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die,"
Says the man next to me out of nowhere
It's apropos
Of nothing