Recently book publisher Little, Brown recalled 6,500 copies of “Assassins of Secrets,” a spy novel by Q.R. Markham, after discovering that the author had plagiarized material from several well-known novelists, including Robert Ludlum and John Gardner.  Little, Brown didn’t go into detail when this was announced, but online sources cited at least 13 extended passages that were lifted verbatim.  This author (or copier might be a more appropriate job title) deserves the mass pulping for being such a putz.  He/she is an amateur.  Everybody knows you don’t steal the queen’s tiara, then try to sell it as is.  You take out the stones, melt down the gold, and sell the pieces.  Jeez, doesn’t anyone watch those old heist movies anymore?

Pablo Picasso supposedly said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”  But the great ones don’t steal the whole building, they steal the blueprints. Take the recipe, not the cake.  The gift that keeps on giving.  Duh!

I’m a thief, too.  I admit it.  I even tell people I’m a thief.  All writers are thieves.  Some are just better at it than others.

I once met a blow-hard lawyer who bragged that he had loads of great stories and suggested that we write a book together.  The way he saw it, he’d dictate and I’d write it all down.  (I just love it when wannabe co-authors characterize the writer’s craft as stenography and spell-checking.)  He started to tell me about an accused drug dealer he once represented who he had performed a voodoo ceremony in his office.  As he started giving me graphic details, I held up my hand like a traffic cop to stop him.  “If you tell me, it’s mine,” I said.

He was flummoxed.  “What do you mean?”

“If you tell me the story, I will take it.”

That shut him up.  I was blunt, but at least I was honest.

So now I think it’s time to come clean and ‘fess up to my long list of literary thefts.  I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I have never purloined anything word-for-word from another writer.  But I have “borrowed” their techniques.

Top of the list has to be master crime novelist Elmore Leonard (“Get Shorty,” “Kill Shot,” “Out of Sight”).   I’ve burgled his literary house more than a few times, mainly taking his gift for spare prose, which gives readers just the facts, or as he puts it, leaves out the parts readers will skip.  I also lifted his knack for injecting humor into a story without turning it into farce by putting real people in crazy situations rather than creating clownish characters in wacky plots.  While I was at it, I grabbed a bit of his magic with dialogue.  How a character talks will tell a reader so much more than paragraph after paragraph of description.

Same deal with George V. Higgins (“The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” “The Digger’s Game”).  He could tell an entire story in dead-on authentic dialogue.  Yeah, I’ve been to his house, too.

Julia Markus (“American Rose”) is another one of my favorites.   Spare prose, no excess, no curlicues, highly effective.  Her house is well-worth breaking into.

In terms of character I have to admit crime novelist Chester Himes (“Cotton Comes to Harlem,” “The Real Cool Killers”) is my principal target.  I am a repeat offender when it comes to him.  It’s no coincidence that my two fiction series have pairs of protagonists (FBI agents Gibbons and Tozzi in the “Bad” books and parole officers Loretta Kovacs and Frank Marvelli in the series that starts with “Devil’s Food”).  These duos were modeled after Himes’s NYC detectives, the inimitable Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones.

Richard Price (“Clockers,” “Lush Life”) has a mansion I’ve been trying to break into for years.  This guy has so much worth stealing it isn’t funny—his ability to create a whole world that his characters inhabit, his keen eye for the telling details, his understanding of how people think and act and lie and lie to themselves.  I am so envious.  One of these days I just might write one of those big sprawling books, but not before I get my hands on Price’s stuff.

There’s a lot to steal from Michael Chabon (“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay,” “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union”), but the gem that always catches my eye is his use of simile and metaphor.  When he compares someone or something to something else, it’s always an image that adds to the reader’s understanding in a subversive, understated way, infusing meaning through association.

When it come to nailing tart, wise-ass private-eye tone, most mystery writers genuflect at the altar of Raymond Chandler (“The Long Goodbye,” “Farewell, My Lovely”), and I’m no exception, but the writer who raised the ante for me is John D. MacDonald in his “Travis McGee” books (“Cinnamon Skin,” “The Green Ripper”).  Sure, McGee is sexist and a throwback to a cruder standard of manhood, but that’s part of his retro charm.  From time to time I sneak on board the Busted Flush and rifle through the drawers and cabinets to remind me how a good character not only drives the plot, he owns it.

To pry open a character’s head to show what makes him tick, I always go back to the domiciles of Ruth Rendell in her psychological thrillers (“A Demon in My View,” “The Tree of Hands”) and Phillip Roth (“The Ghost Writer,” “Portnoy’s Complaint”).  These two, each in their own way, paint wonderful psychological portraits of their characters, masterpieces I hang on my wall for inspiration.

Nobody uses odors and aromas to evoke a place and time like Gore Vidal (“Lincoln,” “Burr”).  I snatched that trick from him.

Since I also write crime non-fiction, I have to steal for two.  Lots of true-crime writers cite Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” as the big score, but I lick my chops for Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s Song.”  Crime reporting doesn’t get any better than that.   If you’re gonna steal, steal from the best.

I learned a lot from my old college writing teacher Donald Barthelme (“City Life,” “Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts”).  One thing I pocketed from his desk at the English Department was his deft use of the absurd.  He typically builds his short stories on an off-kilter premise, then follows the illogical to its logical conclusion, daring the reader to deal with it.  I should use more of that.

A long time ago I tiptoed in striped rainbow-colored socks into the den of Dr. Seuss (“The Cat in the Hat,” “Yertle the Turtle”) and ogled at his ability to play with the sounds of words and spin a tale like writing a song.  It’s pure genius.  Someday I might write a book about a detective whose hat is old, his teeth are gold, he has a gun he likes to hold.

My literary warehouse is crammed with more stuff than I could ever use, and if you read my books, you might say, dude, you haven’t used half of the crap you covet.  True.  Guilty as charged.  But I’ve got a few more books in me, and I’ll use whatever I can ‘cause it’s there for the taking.  Just keep your hands off my stuff—unless you credit me. 😉

www.anthony-bruno.com

If your favorite book was going to be turned into a movie, who would you pick to play the main characters?  Emma Stone?  Denzel Washington?  Reese Witherspoon?  Zach Galifianakis?

Readers and authors play the casting game all the time.  How can you not?  We’re all curious to see flesh-and-blood incarnations of the characters we’ve been following.  If the book is well written, many readers will imagine the characters as real people and very often they have the faces of famous actors.

But for writers it works the other way.  We sometimes use actors as models for our characters.  I almost always base my characters on real people, including people I know, and I’m sure I’m not the only writer who does that.  It helps to have a physical image in mind.  Most of us keep our inspirations to ourselves, especially if the model is a friend you’d like to keep or a person you know will threaten to sue if he or she ever knew.  Those are the secrets I will take to the grave.

I must mention that my dear departed father was absolutely convinced that every character I ever created—including the pets—was based on him. I assured him that wasn’t the case, but I don’t think he ever believed me.  So here it is, Dad.  I’m going to come clean and reveal who inspired, at least in some way, the creation of my favorite characters.

My “Bad” series (Bad Guys, Bad Blood, Bad Luck, Bad Business, Bad Moon, and Bad Apple) features odd-couple FBI agents “Mike Tozzi” and “Cuthbert Gibbons.” Initially I imagined them as the actors Treat Williams as the renegade “Tozzi,” the younger of the two, and Robert Duvall as the crusty, grumpy, near-retirement “Gibbons.”  The first book was published in 1988, and, alas, these fine actors have outlived their appropriateness for these parts.  But in 2004 a made-for-TV version of Bad Apple was made for TNT, starring Chris Noth (Sex and the City’s “Mr. Big,” Law & Order, The Good Wife) as “Tozzi” and Colm Meaney (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Intermission) as “Gibbons.”  Though not exactly the physical manifestations I had in mind, they were great, and I loved the finished product.

Also outstanding in that film were Robert Patrick (Terminator 2, Walk the Line) as the mob villain, “Tony ‘Bells’ Bellavita.”  In the book I compare “Bells” to Christopher Walken, and Patrick to a cue from my description and gelled his hair straight up Walken-style.  He was absolutely convincing as my Italian-American goombah killing machine.

Actor James Villemaire was a hoot as “Freshy DeFresco,” the putz who causes all the trouble in Bad Apple.  I had modeled that character on several ne’er-do-well mob wannabes I’d met or heard about, but I have to admit Villemaire’s performance outdid my creation.  I wish I had known him before I’d written “Freshy;” I’m sure the character would have been that much better on the page.  Here’s a clip from the film with Villemaire, Noth, and Meaney.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEOpUkqzVq8.

Freshy’s sister “Gina” came to me in a flash when I spotted a young woman in a yellow blouse and black slacks on the Newark, New Jersey, train platform as my train was pulling out.  I saw her for all of about 20 seconds, but she was perfect.  A young attractive professional woman whose blue-collar roots were evident in her don’t-screw-with-me expression.  I’d initially thought of the character as sort of like Annabella Sciorra, but actress Dagmara Dominczyk knocked me for a loop.  When I saw a rough cut of the film, I couldn’t believe how close she was to the “Gina” in my head.  Catch her in the recently released Higher Ground; she’s excellent.

My other mystery series features plump New Jersey parole officer “Loretta Kovacs” and her loveable Guido partner “Frank Marvelli” (Devil’s Food, Double Espresso, Hot Fudge).  Several years ago a Hollywood agent pitched film rights to this series to a famously overweight star who shall remain nameless.  I was told that she was highly offended that anyone would consider her right for a “fat girl” role.  The series was then offered to Whoopi Goldberg, which baffled me.  In the flexible calculus of Hollywood, does kooky black woman equal overweight white woman?  I don’t know.  Whoopi’s people passed on the project.

The obvious choice today for “Loretta” is Melissa McCarthy (Mike & Molly, Gilmore Girls).  She’s heavy and also very talented, hands down the best reason to see Bridesmaids.  My pick for “Marvelli” is a tie between Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island, The Kids Are All Right) and Bobby Cannavale (The Station Agent, Win Win).

One of my non-fiction books, The Iceman, is about to become a feature film.  It’s the story of mass murderer and lethal scam artist Richard Kuklinski, and since I actually met the man in person, I didn’t need a model to help me imagine what he was like.  Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Boardwalk Empire) is playing Kuklinski.  Benicio Del Toro (The Usual Suspects, The Wolfman) co-stars as mobster Roy DeMeo, and James Franco (127 Hours, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes) will play “Mr. Softee,” a hit man who drove an ice-cream truck through residential neighborhoods, selling treats to kids, when he wasn’t devising exotic methods of killing.  I have no doubt Del Toro will nail the violent, erratic DeMeo, and Franco is the perfect choice for an off-kilter killer.  And Shannon is pretty scary in the lead.  Check out this test scene.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDPtT1NYWYM.

Bleeders is a cat-and-mouse thriller that pits FBI profiler “Trisha McCleery” against “Gene Lassiter,” the sophisticated serial killer who murdered her mother.  My mental image for Trisha has always been Zooey Deschanel (500 Days Of Summer, Our Idiot Brother) in a dramatic turn.  When I was writing the book, I thought of man-about-town “Lassiter” as George Clooney or perhaps Hugh Grant.  But now I’m thinking Justin Timberlake (The Social Network) or Johnny Depp (Pirates Of The Caribbean, Donnie Brasco) might be good choices to capture the deadly contradictions of this character.

“Frank Grimaldi” is the hero of my Catholic school coming-of-age novel, The Temptations of St. Frank.  I drew heavily on my own high school experiences for this one, and whenever the author is the template for the hero, it’s hard for him to envision the character as anyone else.  But my daughter came up with a good choice for 17-year-old “Frank,” Emile Hirsch (Milk, Into The Wild).  Of course, there are currently no plans to turn this novel into a film, at least not yet, and pretty soon Hirsch might be a bit too old to play a teen convincingly.  But there’s always Justin Bieber.  Or the guy who played “McLovin.”  If any of you know their agents, give them a heads up. 😉

www.anthony-bruno.com

http://www.anthony-bruno.com

A friend asked me the other day, “So how do you decide what criminal you’re gonna write about next?”

Good question.  There are plenty of crime stories in the news—literally dozens every day.  I regularly check crime websites, looking for stories I might like to cover.  In an average month maybe one shows promise.  The rest are sad and, more often than not, tragic, but there’s a certain predictability in most true crimes that keeps me from pursuing them.  A man kills somebody, gets caught, goes to prison.  Unless there’s something unique about the criminal’s motives, I can see the ending coming a mile away.  A newspaper article pretty much tells it all.

Some stories are more complex and catch my interest, but I’m fussy.  Certain kinds of criminal repulse me right off the bat, like people who hurt children.  I’ve written about more than a few, and they’re not fun to live with.  Their deeds are reprehensible, but some of these creeps are just pathetic defective personalities who happened to cross paths with an innocent child and couldn’t fight off their worst urges.  John Couey, who murdered nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford in Florida in 2005, comes to mind.  Jose Antonio Ramos, the prime suspect in the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz, is another.  These stories needed to be told, but it’s hard to be unbiased about child molesters.

Some crimes that are depressingly sad because they should never have happened in the first place.  Twenty-five-year-old Teresa Halbach was raped and murdered, her body incinerated in a fire pit, all because she happened to be sent to Stephen Avery’s junkyard in Wisconsin to photograph a minivan for an Auto Trader ad.  If a male photographer had gotten the assignment, Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, probably wouldn’t have been tempted to give in to their evil impulses.  At least not that day and not with Teresa.  That story still haunts me.

Rapists are hard to stomach, too.  Whatever the psychological reasons for a rapist’s sick behavior, I prefer not to get inside his head and look for shreds of humanity.  If there are any, it’ll amount to a teaspoon’s worth.  I recently completed a piece about the Japanese serial rapist, Joji Obara.  He’s a triple-A psychopath, but what attracted me to his story was the Byzantine nature of the Japanese criminal justice system, which perplexed and frustrated the families of his Western victims.

I don’t find drug dealers all that interesting.  They’re only about money and making lots of it.  From what I’ve seen, they’re rarely as interesting as Breaking Bad‘s “Walter White.”  And I’m sure that if meth kingpin, “Gus Fring,” was the hero of that show, it wouldn’t be the hit that it is.  Unless the writers created a villain even more despicable to make him look better by comparison.

I tend to like female criminals because their actions aren’t testosterone driven.  Phoolan Devi, India’s bandit queen, was a genuine Robin Hood figure who overcame a crappy life and took a very circuitous route to respectability.  American Nancy Kissel, who murdered her abusive husband in Hong Kong with a poisoned milk shake, was pushed to the brink, but unlike the clever murderesses in mystery novels, she botched her crime in every way possible.  Which brings me to another thing I’ve noticed covering true crime: in real life there’s no such thing as a criminal mastermind.  Even the smart ones trip themselves up somewhere along the way, usually in the most petty, bone-headed ways.

I have to admit I like organized crime stories.  Gangsters are usually just bums with violent tempers, but when they band together, the organization transcends the individuals’ shortcomings.  I find group dynamics fascinating whether it’s the Mafia, the ‘Ndrangeta, the Yakuza, big corporations, or the government.  I’m particularly interested in the smart bosses who stay out of the limelight and rule from the shadows—guys like Carlo Gambino, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky.  Boston gangster Stevie Flemmi falls into that category.  He’s often erroneously identified as the infamous Whitey Bulger’s sidekick, but in fact they were partners, and though Bulger was more colorful, Flemmi was more valuable.  He let Bulger get the headlines while he went about his dirty business.  Flemmi is definitely worthy of a book, and someday I’d like to write it.

Celebrity crime stories are irresistible, whether the celeb is the victim (Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, Brian Jones) or the alleged perpetrator (O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake).  But unknowns can have equally compelling narratives.  Danielle Imbo and Richard Petrone left a Philadelphia bar in 2005 and disappeared without a trace.  Ashley Burg, a high school student during the week and an escort on weekends, was murdered by one of her macho johns.  Her story is as gut-wrenching as any I’ve covered.

I think the most interesting bad guys are the ones who throw crazy personality and hubris into the mix.  Rock’n’roll producer/convicted murderer Phil Spector is a crime writer’s dream come true.  Eccentric, talented, arrogant, violent, misogynistic.  And that hair!  Wow!

Hitman and lethal scam artist Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski is another criminal gem.  He made himself a celebrity thanks to three HBO documentaries about him, admitting in his soulless, low-key way to hundreds of murders.  A man who could calmly describe gruesome killings, then cry for his family in the same hour was definitely worth exploring, and I did—twice.

Finding a good bad guy isn’t easy, and no one is ever completely good or evil.  There are infinite shades of gray and extenuating circumstances that prevent the pleasing Act-Three resolutions we all want.  That’s why I write crime fiction, too.  The villains in my novels all get their just deserts in the end.  But as delectably evil as they are, they’re not real, and that’s why I write true crime as well.  Following a trial is like watching a baseball game and rooting for your team, knowing that they could very well lose.  In fiction the bad guys go up the river, but sometimes the real bad guys walk.  Like Casey Anthony.  Satisfying endings aren’t guaranteed in true crime.

http://www.anthony-bruno.com

One website that I visit almost every day is CNN Justice.  It’s a comprehensive rundown of the current top crime stories  in the US.  In one section stories are broken down by what part of the country they happened in: East, Central, or West.  I’ve been reading this site for a couple of years now, and more often than not, the weirdest and sickest crimes take place in the East and specifically northern Florida.  If I knew nothing about the Casey Anthony case, and you told me the details without giving me the location, I would  guess it had probably happened in Florida.

The trial is over, and the jury has spoken, acquitting her of the most serious crimes leveled against her.  She walked on murder one and will spend just one additional week in jail to satisfy her sentence on the lesser charges of lying to the police.  Many people are bat-guano outraged, and they’re lashing out at everyone–the jury, the defense team, the prosecution, and anyone who correctly points out that this is how the American legal system works and the prosecution simply did not prove their case.  As much as the jury might have wanted to convict Casey Anthony, they couldn’t because the evidence just wasn’t there.

Fingers of blame are pointing everywhere except in the direction where culpability rests, the Squawking Heads.  No sooner was little Caylee’s body found than the Squawking Heads took to the airwaves and loudly proclaimed Casey Anthony guilty of being  the ultimate bad mother, deciding she should fry for her sins.  Caylee and Casey became the grist for their vitriol mills for years.

It was a case made to order for over-the-top ratings. Heinous crimes are committed against children every day of the week, but Caylee was white and cute, and Casey was easily portrayed as a white-trash slut.  If they had been black or Hispanic, this case would have gotten a week’s worth of media attention, tops. Instead it became a national obsession.  Natalee Holloway’s disappearance had had it’s run, and interest in Amanda Knox’s trial in Italy was petering out.  The Squawking Heads needed another white girl, and the Anthonys were tailor-made for prime time.  Can a victim be any more innocent than a two-year-old?  Can a villain be any easier to despise than a young hard-partying, pants-on-fire mother?  And talk about a dysfunctional family.  This case had everything.  It was a ratings bonanza for the Squawking Heads, and they didn’t even have to work that hard.  Every micro-development in the case–what Casey said or didn’t say, how she looked in court, what she wore–triggered a fresh avalanche of fire-and-brimstone condemnation.

The Orange County District Attorney is an elected office.  I have to wonder if the prosecution’s decision to charge Casey with everything but the kitchen sink was prompted by the legions of squawking fans inflamed by the Squawking Heads.  These people–all potential voters–wanted Casey’s head on a pike, but the DA’s Office just didn’t have the forensic evidence to prove premeditated murder.  But that didn’t matter.  Better to throw the book at her and have the jury “fail” to convict than to win a case on lesser charges that wouldn’t warrant the death penalty or put her away for life.  Thanks to the media frenzy, the fans couldn’t tolerate the thought of “evil” Casey seeing freedom at some time in the far future when she was in late middle age.  Voters would have seen that as a failure and voted their displeasure.

The facts surrounding Caylee’s death will probably never come to light, and Casey will never be tried for murder again.  But the jury did its job and did it admirably.  If anyone should take the blame for this debacle, it should be the Squawking Heads.  They screeched from the rooftops, provoked a mob mentality, and encouraged deliberate ignorance of fact and law.  They turned this case into a circus from Day One.  But this time the tent burned to the ground and no one enjoyed the spectacle.

An article in last week’s New Yorker presented fantasy writer George R.R. Martin’s fan problem.  He writes long, intricate novels in the Tolkien tradition, but apparently he doesn’t write them fast enough to satisfy his die-hard fans.  They complain.  Some get nasty.  They accuse him of slacking off now that HBO has turned his Game of Thrones into a mini-series, making the assumption that he doesn’t need the money anymore.  (Writers always need money.  Except for a few, we never get paid what we’re worth.)

To be honest I wish I had his fan base, but I don’t envy his fan problem.  I do see their point.  They’ve spent a lot of time with his fiction.  They feel invested.  How dare he shut  off  the spigot when they want more?  I know what they’re thinking: Stop hanging out with movie stars, George, and freakin’ get to work!

But I also sympathize with him.  The kind of books he writes can’t be tossed off in a couple of months.  They take time.  An every new book is always a boulder to be pushed up a mountain.  It takes time to gather the mental and creative strength just to get the project rolling.

I’ve had demanding fans of a different sort over the years, and now that it’s spring time, I know they’re coming.  Students writing end-of-year term papers, usually about Richard “the Iceman” Kuklinski.  For some reason most of them come from European countries.  They want the inside scoop on things I’ve written about as if I was holding back the good stuff.  They also want information about me, not satisfied with the bio on my website.  They want e-mail interviews.  They want to get As and see me as the key.  They’ve read my books and now feel entitled to direct access to the author.  I don’t mind these young readers (except for the few who get really pushy), and I help them as much as I can.

But I sometimes have the other kind of fan problem, the readers who want to give me info.  The gun enthusiast who tells me at great length in childish  pencil scrawl how to customize a pistol and bullets for maximum killing effectiveness.  (This guy seemed a little too knowledgeable so I passed the letter on to a friend at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.) The self-confessed killer (usually serving time) who wants to tell me about all the dirty deeds he’s committed.  Despite their vaunted self-image, they never stack up to the Iceman.  Then there are the school chums of known criminals who think their memories of recess shakedowns merit book-length treatment.  And once or twice a year I get tips on where Jimmy Hoffa is “really” buried.

So while I sympathize with Mr. Martin who has to contend with his legion of fans, I’ve got my own problems.  Of course if I had as many fans as he does, I wouldn’t call it a problem.  I’d call it a dream come true.

Starting today, I’m giving away free copies of my new ebook thriller, BLEEDERS, to the first 50 people who contact me.  Just send me your email address and I’ll send you a PDF file that you can load onto your Kindle or read on your computer.

Click here for a description of the book, http://www.amazon.com/Bleeders-Trisha-McCleery-book-ebook/dp/B004BA5EUQ/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_3

And if you like it, would you consider writing a review or recommending it wherever you hang out online?   I’d appreciate it.

You can contact me at bruno505@comcast.net

I couldn’t be happier.  My true-crime book THE ICEMAN is going to be a movie.  Actor Michael Shannon (“Boardwalk Empire”) will play Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski.  Also on board are James Franco as the Iceman’s mentor “Mr. Softee” and Benicio Del Toro as mobster Roy DeMeo.  You can read more about it here.  http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/iceman-draws-killer-cast/#more-98662

Now authors are notorious for carping about Hollywood wrecking their good work.  Sure, it happens, but filmmakers for the most part aren’t stupid.  There are usually good reasons for making changes.  When my novel BAD APPLE was made for TV a few years ago, the final chase scene had to be rewritten.  In the book it took place on the night before the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade when the floats are moved from NJ to Manhattan and filming that would have been a budget-buster.  Still, I was happy with the result, and it was a real kick to see my odd-couple FBI agents Tozzi and Gibbons come to life through Chris Noth (who also produced) and Colm Meaney.  Not to mention terrific performances from Mercedes Ruehl, Elliot Gould, Robert Patrick, Dagmara Dominczyk, Jim Gaffigan, and James Villemaire.

No doubt ICEMAN the film will not be a chapter-and-verse replica of the book, but if it captures the spirit of the book, I will be absolutely delighted.  And with that cast, how can it not succeed?

Stay tuned for further updates.

I’ve finally gotten around to making a book trailer.  This one is for my new thriller BLEEDERS.  Take a look and let me know what you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pklpcp1okCw

Much has been written about the politically correct version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which will be published next month by NewSouth Books.  Among other changes, it deletes the “n-word” and replaces it with “slave.”  The publisher believes that the word is so upsetting and insulting, many people avoid the classic.  They believe the book will gain a wider readership by offering this new version.

Some scholars have argued that by sanitizing the book, Twain’s message will be diluted.  Both sides have valid points, and I’m not going to get into the potency of the n-word here.  What concerns me are the rights of the author.  Should a work of art be revised years later without the author’s consent?  Apparently Samuel Clemens was pretty clear about how he wanted his works preserved after his death.  But do an author’s wishes become moot after death?  Should they?

Dr. Albert C. Barnes assembled a world class art collection that includes a number of Impressionist masterpieces.  He established the Barnes Foundation, where the collection is displayed, and specified that it would remain in its original building on a suburban street in Lower Merion, PA, just outside of Philadelphia, and that the artworks would forever be displayed the way he wanted.  Years after his death, financial troubles spurred a legal battle to move the collection into Center City Philadelphia, where it would be more accessible to the public.  It was ultimately decided that the collection would relocate to a new building near Philadelphia’s other major museums. Dr. Barnes would not have approved.

Undoubtedly more people will now be able to see the Barnes collection, just as more teachers will be comfortable assigning Huckleberry Finn to their students.  But neither Dr. Barnes nor Samuel Clemens wanted it that way.  When a person stipulates something in his will, can individuals later disregard those directives for what is perceived to be a greater good? Dr. Barnes and Mr. Clemens might be commiserating in the hereafter.

Funny how characters evolve from their original conception.  When I started my new novel BLEEDERS, the serial-killer villain, Gene Lassiter, was modeled on real-life Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.  Lassiter was originally an older man, and running a sham wealth management firm was just an elaborate cover for his blood lust.  Well, the cover business survived in all the drafts, but the particulars of financial malfeasance took a backseat to the details of psycho-sexual murder.

The early drafts reflected my revulsion for Madoff, but soapbox pontificating detracted from the story.  It wasn’t until I made Lassiter an eligible bachelor whose life goal is to kill the heroine, FBI agent Trisha McCleery, the same way he’d killed her mother 20 years earlier that the story started to come together.  Some may say BLEEDERS is derivative of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and I don’t disagree.  But my take on the Beauty-and-the-Beast archetype goes deeper into the forbidden sexual desires of my characters.  After all, Clarice Starling never went out on a date with Hannibal Lecter.  (And that brainy dinner party doesn’t count.)