The latest in high tech weaponry: the chili grenade

The heroines of my novels generally don’t carry weapons. Evan Delaney is a lawyer turned journalist. Jo Beckett is a forensic psychiatrist. Their jobs don’t call for them to carry firearms. But this means that faced with mortal danger, they must be creative. Evan defends herself with a can of housepaint, a Ford F-150 pickup, and a ferret. Jo fights off bad guys with a refrigerator and a capuchin monkey. And, okay, a Samurai sword, but she’d rather use it to cut a birthday cake.

So today’s news presents my heroines with exciting new possibilities in self-defense. And it’s my headline of the week: “Indian military to weaponize world’s hottest chili.”

“Ghost chili” will be used in hand grenades.

One more reason never to photocopy your rear end

High-tech copy machines a gold mine for data thieves.

“Modern, large, office-type photocopiers are computers. The whole system is controlled by a computer, it has a hard disk. It scans images and they are stored on the disc,” said Hirst. “They are also networked computers, and they have all the same security issues that a computer does, so all the same security issues arise,” he said.

Such as being targeted by hackers, said Beitner. Any web-savvy, techno-whiz kid could easily access the hard drive, or send all scans to email or, if they have the password, retrieve copies of confidential documents by simply hooking their laptop up to the copier.

And you’d hate having to admit that some thieving geek had hacked your ass.

Kitsap County crime: now featuring the school PTA

Elementary school PTA treasurer charged with embezzling more than $18,000.

How not to title a novel

In the Guardian, Darragh McManus bemoans “samey title” virus:

By rights there should be a moratorium put on certain words being used in the name of a novel: “Notes from”, “Letters from”, “Confessions of”, anyone’s ” … Daughter” or ” … Son”, anything involving quirky-but-annoying juxtapositions (“Searching for Tractors in Alaska During Ramadan”).

His suggestions for “tremendous genre-specific monikers for your next book” are dead-on:

Chick Lit: Is He as Much of a Bastard as He Seems?
Sci-fi: //_MultiVerse UnderTime Chronicles Vol. 1_//
Crime: Joey Jones’ Downbeat Goddamn Downtown Blues
Serial killer thriller type yoke: Blood on the Edge
Action-espionage: The Armageddon Code
“Serious” historical novel, i.e. something set in an immigrant community during the 1970s: Claggy Alley
Popular historical novel, i.e. something jolly and unpretentious written by Bernard Cornwell: Pirate Lords of Old Bristol
Fantasy: Mandala: Empress of the Golden Plains
Whimsical comic novel: The Spectabulicious Adventures of Lord Pettlesnook and his Patchwork Dirigible
Edgy fiction for hip twentysomethings: Fuckepedia
Booker winner: The Persimmon Gatherers
Bitterly disappointed Booker runner-up: Notes from the Spice-monger’s Daughter

But what about my upcoming zombie-espionage-cooking crossover novel?

Thanks, Portland

The Public Library Association national conference was amazing. My right hand is still throbbing after I signed books for three hours yesterday. Three hours. I didn’t even have time to text my sister, who was supposed to pick me up after my panel, to tell her I was going to be late. Those librarians, they just kept coming at me, carrying books, smiling, talking… it was amazing. Thanks to everyone from Penguin, who shlepped boxes of books around. And thanks to Sue Grafton, who graciously shared the signing line with me.

And many thanks to everybody who stopped by, especially regular commenter ChrisS. It was great to finally meet you!

Time to catch a plane. Talk to you later.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Portland…

While I was at the Public Library Association national conference today, more exciting things were happening around town.

Ninjas kidnap jewelry store owner, pull off heist.

(AP) — WEST LINN, Ore. – Police say three robbers dressed as Ninjas tied up a woman and ransacked her West Linn home, and later forced her husband to take them to his jewelry store and robbed it.

Police spokesman Sgt. Neil Hennelly says that after robbing the house, the thieves waited there for several hours Thursday until Rick Rogoway got home.

Hennelly says Rogoway was forced to drive the robbers to his jewelry story in Clackamas where they made off with a still undetermined amount of jewels.

Oregon: It’s not just rain and lattes.

Portland: Powell’s

I’m in Portland for the Public Library Association national conference, where tomorrow I’m speaking on a mystery authors panel. It’s been years since I’ve been to the Pacific Northwest, but after 24 hours in town I can confirm: (1) it still rains, (2) the hills are still forested with Douglas fir, (3) Hood, St. Helens, and Rainier are still big damned impressive mountains, and (4) when you turn on the radio, you hear Nirvana.

And: (5) nothing beats an afternoon at Powell’s. Even better, the newest generation already knows it.

Road trip: Portland

I’m heading to Portland for the Public Library Association national conference. Back later.

Book research cont… more San Francisco

When you’re planning to write a book set in a city, it’s a good idea to visit famous landmarks you’ve somehow never managed to see before. Here’s Coit Tower.

And here’s the view from the top: the Bay Bridge, with the Ferry Building visible along the waterfront.

Alcatraz. A thriller writer really does need to get a hard look at the Rock.

Book research: San Francisco

Yes, I call it research: spending a day wandering around San Francisco.

The waterfront, with the restored Ferry Building and the Embarcadero, seen from Pier 14.

The Ferry Building.

The building may now be filled with restaurants, but ferries still do depart next door. And the original cleats remain.

I reiterate: this is research, not lunch.

For my boys, who didn’t believe that Boccalone Italian deli boasts about its “tasty salted pig parts.”

For the record: I didn’t stroll the waterfront munching on a tasty salted pig leg. I ate at a sushi bar around the corner.

Coming in May: The Memory Collector paperback

Here’s the cover of the upcoming U.S. paperback edition of The Memory Collector. Below is a next-to-final version of the cover.

And here’s what the final version will look like — front and back:

And here’s the British edition — real live copies of which arrived at my house over the weekend. But because I’m in California, for the moment I’ll have to make do with posting a screen grab of the cover. Thanks to the Husband for waving the book in front of the webcam for me.

Road trip: California

Today I’m continuing my road trip north through California. Last weekend in L.A. I was in Raymond Chandler territory. Today I’m leaving Sue Grafton and Ross MacDonald country (and Evan Delaneyville) to head north through Steinbeck’s back yard, and on to Hammett’s home ground. Photos to follow.

Miserable books. Miserable, prize-eligible books.

The longlist for Britain’s Orange prize for fiction has just been announced, and judge Daisy Goodwin has decried the “grimness” of many submissions. “There’s not been much wit and not much joy, there’s a lot of grimness out there,” she told the Guardian. “There are a lot of books that start with a rape. Pleasure seems to have become a rather neglected element in publishing.”

I’ve been mulling whether to comment, because I agree with Goodwin’s judgment. But over at Petrona, Maxine has beaten me to it, with her usual punch:

[F]or about 10 years I dutifully read the Booker shortlist each year, but got so dispirited and fed up with it all. All those miniature accounts of depressed, languid women, etc. In those days, I also consistently read new “good” literature, particularly American, as defined by the reviews. Talk about male self-indulgent rubbish! (Philip Roth, Richard Ford, Martin Amis etc) . Such horrific navel gazing self-importance that they would think readers would be fascinated by all the tiny details of their (often paralysed) existence.

So, ultimately I gave up and now I read mainly crime fiction – which is ghettoised by many opinion-formers as “crime fiction” but I always experience, and see, it as “traditional story telling” which has its roots in Greek drama, other classical drama to and including Shakespeare and beyond.

Read the whole thing.

Torture — the game show

Or: the Milgram Experiment comes to TV.

French game show contestants made to inflict “torture.”

A French TV documentary features people in a spoof game show administering what they are told are near lethal electric shocks to rival contestants.

Those taking part are told to pull levers to inflict shocks – increasing in voltage – upon their opponents.

Although unaware that the contestants were actors and there was no electrical current, 82% of participants in the Game of Death agreed to pull the lever.

Jo Beckett could have told you that was going to happen. What’s the song by Incubus? “Sick Sad Little World…”