DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

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Deadly Pleasures
sex itself, when a man’s describing it from the woman’s
viewpoint, is generally devoid of humour or tenderness.
Emotions of that sort are instantly zapped by the white-hot
heat of carnal passion. A man’s women characters tend
to admire the sexual organs of their male partners to such
an extent that at the moment of penetration an instantaneous
orgasm is almost inevitable.
But, as my wife observed when we were talking
about how men so often write about women, “But women
just don’t think that way.” That’s the key, perhaps: you
have to try to find out how the other sex thinks. It’s partly
a question of empathy, partly one of research. And of
liking. It can be very hard to write well about people you
dislike or despise or are scared of. One day I’d like to write
two stories, the same one: a set of events seen by a woman
who was involved in them, and seen by a man. Finally, in
From From the the Editor
Editor
Mysteries in Far-Away Places. In this issue we
visit two areas of the world that I’ve never been to, but hope
to visit someday: Scandinavia and South Africa. I’m always
on the lookout for something new and different in crime
fiction and one of the ways I satisfy this yearning is to
sample books either written by unknown-to-me foreign
writers or books set in far-away places I may never have a
chance to experience. The cover article of this issue will
serve as a simple reader’s guide to most of what is available
in English from some exceptionally good practitioners of
the craft who live and work in the Northlands of Europe.
And then Jeff Popple has alerted us to the recent
popularity of books set in South Africa and its environs as
well as a burgeoning group of South African crime/thriller
writers. The next issue of DP will feature a cover article
on Australian Crime Fiction and then we will be done with
the geography lessons for awhile.
We, in the English-speaking world, have so much
to be grateful for in terms of the plethora of good writing
that is at our fingertips for our reading pleasure. It is
wonderful to witness the Unites States getting out of its selfabsorbed
insularity and reaching out to other lands for the
good things they have to offer. We’ve long been able to
cherry-pick the best from the U.K. Now we are replicating
that pattern in lesser-known locales.
Rex Stout in Reprint. There are a few classic
series that seem to never go out of print and Rex Stout’s
works are one of those few – and deservedly so. With the
trend towards trade paperback and away from mass
market paperback, Bantam is releasing Nero Wolfe
Mysteries in two-for-one jumbo trade paperbacks. The
first volume, which contains FER-DE-LANCE and THE
LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN, the first two novels
in the Nero Wolfe series, will sell for $15.00 (or $7.50 per
fairness I must say that some of my colleagues approach
this whole vexed question from another angle. For sake of
completeness and objectivity, I include a useful tip which
allegedly comes from another male crime writer. I’m
informed that when he wishes to write from a woman’s
viewpoint he sits down at his computer wearing women’s
underwear, and it puts him in the right frame of mind. I’ve
not tried this myself – and it may be one of those things that
it’s best not to try at home – but who knows, a man reading
these notes may find this simple technique opens the door
to a whole new world. I suppose it’s a bit like acupuncture:
a bit of pressure here has a miraculous result elsewhere.
Andrew Taylor’s latest novel is BLEEDING
HEART SQUARE (MichaelJoseph, £16.99). This will
be published in the U.S. by Hyperion in January,
2009. www.andrew-taylor.co.uk
book), which is not too far away from mass market prices
nowadays. A big plus is large, very readable type, much
larger than would be found in a mass market paperback.
I applaud this development.
The Book of the Decade of the 1990s. As a
rash, “young” editor, I proclaimed TRIAL OF PASSION
by William Deverell (1997, winner of the Hammett Prize
and the Arthur Ellis Award) as the best crime novel of the
1990s. It is a phenomenal novel by an author not known
for his series fiction. But he relented after years of
pleading by his fans and published a sequel, APRIL
FOOL, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Canadian
Crime Novel in 2006. A third in the series was just
published in Canada – KILL ALL THE JUDGES (I guess
they’ve killed all the lawyers, so now they are moving on
to the judges). I got my copy from that excellent Toronto
bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street. Unfortunately, these
books haven’t gotten wide circulation in the U.S. and some
may consider them “cult” favorites, but I assure you that
they are worth seeking out.
The Book of the Decade of the 2000s. For
purposes of deciding what decade we are in, I’m going to
say it is from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009.
Some may say it goes from 2001 through 2010, but it
doesn’t seem right to put the year 2000 in the 20 th
Century. So we have about 1-1/2 years left in this decade,
by my count. My plan is to give out a Barry Award in 2010
for the Best Crime Novel of the Decade (I haven’t run this
by Lynn and Chris at Mystery News, my co-sponsors of
the Barry Awards, but I think they will go along with it.). So,
I want you to start thinking about what books would be on
your short list for such an award. Here is my list – off the
top of my head – I may come up with more, upon
reflection. DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD by Reginald
Hill, MYSTIC RIVER by Dennis Lehane, THE GIRL
WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson, and
THE LINCOLN LAWYER by Michael Connelly. Hmm.
Going to have to come up with some female authors (Laura
Lippman?). My favorite female writer, Mary Willis Walker,
hasn’t written anything for ten years! I’ll be asking for your