lying for a living

Last night at the Gore Hotel in London, Sue Grafton received the Cartier Diamond Dagger, awarded by the Crime Writers’ Association for sustained excellence in crime writing. I’m a member of the CWA’s committee, and it was a huge kick to see my fellow Santa Barbaran pick up this award. BookTrade has the official press release, but here are a few photos from the event.

Ms. Grafton, speaking to the crowd:

Me with Ayo Onatade, who writes for Shots and Mystery Women, judges the CWA’s short story Dagger, manages the office of the high court at the House of Lords, and still finds time to attend literary events.

With David Headley of the wonderful Goldsboro Books.

With Sue Grafton, her charming husband Steven Humphrey, and my own charming husband, the Husband (also known as Paul Shreve, on the right).

Sharon Kendrick, a regular commenter on this blog, continues her run as Britain’s most articulate — and funniest — advocate for romance writing. Last night, BBC TV’s The One Show had a feature on the 100th anniversary of her publisher, Mills and Boon. With her usual panache, Sharon described the key ingredients in a successful romance novel, beginning with “A powerful, passionate, autocratic, and filthy rich hero.”

Of course the feature included the usual “Who admits to reading these books?” bit, along with some unsurprising cultural commentary. Romance novels are… unrealistic. (No kidding.) Escapist. (That’s the point of romance novels.) Slight. (Duh — by definition, frothy entertainment shouldn’t be heavy.)

Are they my thing? No. But whenever a feature on romance writing develops a sneer, or quotes a woman (as the BBC did) who says, “We don’t believe in romantic fantasy. We’re liberal feminists,” I roll my eyes. Stop sounding so stale. What is this, 1971? Quit acting like a Ms. magazine cliche and come up with a fresh critique of the genre. (It harms sheikhs and Greek tycoons, who face pressure to live up to unrealistic expectations about their romantic prowess. Or it monopolizes the world’s supply of adverbs.) Besides: frowning, ideological condescension makes me want to take to the barricades in defense of frothy entertainment. Romance novels aren’t going to undermine women’s rights, any more than Barbie is going to destroy the revolution in Iran.

But the Mills and Boon segment was merely the prelude to a glorious display of idiocy. Another guest on the show was Geri Halliwell, alias Ginger Spice. She looked great, with her red curls and frothy miniskirt, and was obviously delighted to be in the studio, judging from the manic, hedgehog-in-the-headlights gleam in her eyes. After the feature she was asked whether she read romance novels. The next minute went like this.

• Geri admits that she loves romance novels. (When she was eleven, she discovered Jackie Collins.) At this point, she crosses her legs and her filmy skirt whisks into the air, wriggling higher and higher up her thighs, until the host finally asks her to pull it down. And tack it to her knees.
• She explains that her mom has the novels in Spanish. And so she “nicked” a title and used it “when she was writing” one of her songs: “Donde esta el hombre con fuego en la sangre?” ( “Where is the man with fire in the blood?”)
• After watching a montage of (hilarious) Mills and Boon covers, she gets an intense look in her eyes and says, “Are they still going, then?” Keeping their faces heroically straight, the hosts tell her, yes — it’s Mills and Boon’s 100th anniversary. Unsaid: Yes, you twit — that’s why we’ve been talking about them here on national TV for the PAST FIVE MINUTES.

Flashing, a confession to plagiarism, and a display of ignorance that would shame a moldy head of cauliflower, all in the space of 45 seconds. You can’t beat live television.

(If you’re in the UK, you can watch the episode until May 8 here.)

On the Events page, I’ve posted some confirmed dates for my U.S. tour.

Between June 11 and June 29 I’ll be doing readings and signings in Houston (at the terrific, and terrifically supportive, bookstore Murder by the Book), San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara (Yeah! Chaucer’s! And all of you — everybody I’m related to or went to school with or sat in traffic with on State Street — are going to be there. Yes, you are!), Phoenix, New York, Dayton, and Pittsburgh.

I’ll update the listings as I know more. I wish I could stop everywhere and sign every copy of The Dirty Secrets Club, but it’s a big country. Thanks to Dutton’s huge support, I’m hitting as many places as I possibly can.

Graffiti artist Banksy makes his point about Britain’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras… under the gaze of one.

Banksy pulled off an audacious stunt to produce what is believed to be his biggest work yet in central London.

The secretive graffiti artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence despite being watched by a CCTV camera.

Then, during darkness and hidden behind a sheet of polythene, he painted this comment on ‘Big Brother’ society.

Of course, his ability to get away with it might also indicate that CCTV cameras don’t actually prevent crime, vandalism, or art.

(Via Clive Davis.)

Yes, I know that when this photo was taken, you were the Boyfriend. But it was clear where things were headed. (Even though we’d taken a wrong turn and were completely lost in the Sierras. On foot.)  (Okay, on cross country skis, which was even worse, because (a) to get back to the highway we had to go uphill, and (b) we didn’t know how to ski. Good thing we had provisions. And a sense of humor.)

Dear husband, thanks for asking me to make it legal. Happy anniversary. I’m still game to go for 50 if you are.

Library Journal does a Q&A with me, asking about action scenes, Stephen King, and Jeopardy. Click the link and scroll down.

A former Lonely Planet writer has claimed he made up sections in its guides. Thomas Kohnstamm says he sold drugs, had casual sex on tables in the restaurants he reviewed, and never bothered to visit Colombia. Instead, he got information on the country from “a chick” he was dating.

Let’s just hope he didn’t write any books based on The Onion’s atlas, Our Dumb World:

EGYPT: Free Admission on Sundays. “Located in the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the National Gallery in London, and countless other museums throughout the western world, Egypt lies behind thick glass displays in climate-controlled rooms.”

UKRAINE: The bridebasket of Europe. “Ukraine leads the world in the harvesting, processing, and exporting of wivestock, boasting mail-order shipments of over half a million tons of fresh brides annually.”

Doublecheck your sources before booking that Ukrainian vacation, folks. And yes, Kohnstamm’s admission to being a big fat liar comes in his new tell-all memoir. Which I’m sure — oh, so completely sure — is one-hundred percent truthful itself.

Consider this an update to my unofficial blog FAQ. This time I think I can skip the questions and go straight to the answers.

If I haven’t met you:

I won’t read your unpublished novel. Especially not if you send it to me as an unsolicited 2 meg attachment in an e-mail. Sorry. Ain’t gonna happen. If you want to understand why most authors won’t read manuscripts sent to them by strangers, John Scalzi explains it better than anybody.

I won’t click on the link you’ve sent me so I can read the short stories you’ve posted online — not even “just to get a sense of your writing style.” See above. See also: Spam, phishing, Nigerian scam letters. I’m sure you’re probably an A-Number One human being, but again: sorry. Ain’t gonna happen.

I won’t sign up to a social networking site to become your online friend, even though the e-mail says that your feelings will be hurt if I don’t. When I join a social network, feel free to befriend me. Until then: Ain’t gonna happen.

I won’t send you my unpublished work so you can turn it into a stage play. I’m not trying to deny you “your chance.” I know you want a break. Telling me you deserve to adapt my novel-in-progress is not the way you’re going to get it.

I won’t call you. I’m flattered that you want to talk to an author, but I’m not going to make an international phone call to shoot the breeze with a stranger. Ain’t gonna happen.

I won’t send you money. Ain’t never gonna happen.

I will: answer e-mails you send me (as long as they’re civil, and don’t clog my inbox); join the comments on the blog; say hello, shake your hand, and talk with you at book events. I’d be glad to meet you. We can have a conversation. But I can’t be your mentor, agent, or sugar mama.

Shortly after climbing on my high, galloping horse for a rant about Justice Department chicanery, I read this story, which made me even more furious: Airliners plot: the allegations.

Eight men arrested in the UK last summer for conspiring to blow up transatlantic jetliners with bombs disguised as soft drinks — yes, these are the guys we can thank for the fact that all our bottled water and contact lens solution is confiscated at airport security — have just gone on trial. Notes the BBC: “The alleged plan was to target a series of planes leaving from Heathrow Airport for North America. Police say they found a list of flights on a memory stick belonging to Mr Ali following his arrest.”

Here’s the list of flights.

• 1415 UA931 LHR-SAN FRANCISCO (United Airlines)
• 1500 AC849 LHR-TORONTO (Air Canada)
• 1515 AC865 LHR-MONTREAL (Air Canada)
• 1540 UA959 LHR-CHICAGO (United)
• 1620 UA925 LHR-WASHINGTON
• 1635 AA131 LHR-NEW YORK (American Airlines)
• 1650 AA91 LHR-CHICAGO (American)

At which point my skull began to implode, and I swore out loud again, using words I can’t print here because they’d make your computers shoot sparks and cartwheel off the desk in a cloud of black smoke. UA 931 to San Francisco is the flight my children, my mom, my husband, and I have taken so often that the United ground staff greets us by name at the airport. UA 959 to Chicago — I’ve taken that on my way to Oklahoma. And UA 925 to Washington — well, that one generally pulls into gate C17 at Dulles. The gate’s twenty yards from Borders, where I always count on grabbing a new book before I catch my connection. My husband could navigate that concourse blindfolded.

But that San Francisco flight is the one that got me. Assholes. Plan to blow up a jet that my kids, or my mom, might be aboard? Just thinking about it made me want to go all Kid Rock “American Badass” on these guys. Maybe even all Toby Keith “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” on them.

And as I sat fuming, deep in my head a little voice whispered, So, you still think the U.S. military should play nice and abide by the Fourth Amendment while terrorists are on the loose?

And I fumed some more, and I thought: Yeah.

Because it’s not either-or. It’s not a choice between protecting the constitution and stopping terrorists. The law got these guys. Now if they’re guilty, let’s put them away. Then they’ll feel “like the whole wide world is raining down on you.” That’d be a great way to bring justice courtesy of the red, white and (in this case, Union Jack) blue.

Administration Asserted a Terror Exception on Search and Seizure.

The Justice Department concluded in October 2001 that military operations combating terrorism inside the United States are not limited by Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, in one of several secret memos containing new and controversial assertions of presidential power.

I can’t repeat what I said upon reading this, and in fact don’t remember the exact words I shouted, because my head felt so hot and my vision was swimming.

You know that I don’t generally blog about politics. But I do sometimes blog about people trying to mess with the U.S. Constitution. And this Justice Department memo was a nasty attempt to mess with the Bill of Rights. As the Post notes:

No court has ever ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the military, said Jameel Jaffer, national security director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “In general, the government can’t send an FBI agent to search your home or listen to your phone calls without a warrant, and it can’t send a soldier to do it, either,” Jaffer said. “The applicability of the Fourth Amendment doesn’t turn on what kind of uniform the government agent is wearing.”

No kidding. Here’s the text of the Fourth Amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Listen. The courts have long interpreted the Fourth Amendment to allow warrantless arrests and searches in emergencies or dire circumstances. What circumstances? When the cops witness somebody committing a crime. When they’re in hot pursuit. When there’s an imminent risk of evidence being destroyed. When contraband is in plain sight — say, in a car.

So when the Justice Department says the military isn’t bound by the Fourth Amendment when operating in the United States (and think long and hard about that), it’s not because the cops and the army are handcuffed by legal technicalities that force them go to court for a warrant before they can stop a suicide bomber. If a guy’s about to self-detonate, the authorities already have the power to stop him. The Justice Department memo asserts something very different: that if the Commander in Chief calls something an anti-terror operation, or declares that we’re in “a time of war,” then guys in army camo can break down your door, tear up your house, and arrest you, your family and your dog — without any legal checks on their behavior. It’s saying: law? What law?

Al Qaeda can’t destroy the United States. This smug, slimy misinterpretation of constitutional law can corrode the country from the inside out.

The Fourth Amendment assertion was disclosed via a 2003 Justice Department memo that authorized harsh military interrogations. “In its footnotes, asides and central text, that 81-page memo asserted nearly unlimited presidential powers during a time of war, although the Justice Department later said the military should not rely on its reasoning.”

John Yoo, who wrote the memo, “has defended his work as a ‘near boilerplate’ defense of presidential prerogatives and said subsequent criticism has been motivated by politics.”

No. This is beyond politics. It doesn’t matter whether the president is a Republican, a Democrat, or a living saint. He could be Mahatma Gandhi and we should object to this. “Unlimited presidential power” has a synonym. It’s tyranny.