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Fictionista, Foodie, Feline-lover

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Q is for Quick, Amanda

Amanda Quick is one of several pseudonyms used by best-selling author Jayne Ann Krentz, who writes several kinds of fiction under her various names.  I like the idea of using different names to distinguish different genres of books and am always interested in why people choose certain names. Every once in awhile, I'll stumble across a name that really seems made for a pseudonym. Like actor Paul Blackthorne's last name. Blackthorne is a cool last name. "Katherine Blackthorne" sounds like someone who writes Gothic novels, doesn't it? Much more memorable a last name than "Tomlinson."

Before she turned to writing full-time, Krentz was a librarian and it's possible our paths crossed when I was in college because she worked in the Duke University library system. I hope I did. I was in and out of practically every library on campus at one time or another. (the Med School library was a great place to study because it was quiet and also you could meet a lot of cute med students. Not that I was that shallow.)

I love that Krentz genre-hops and also writes mashups. (Some of her books are described as "paranormal futuristic novels of romantic suspense." Sign me up!  I've read a lot of Krentz' stand-alone novels and really enjoyed them. A bunch more are on the TBR bookcase.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Q is for Ellery Queen

My mother subscribed to both Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM) and Alfred Hitchock's Mystery Magazine and EQMM was the first market I started pitching when I began writing mystery fiction. I badly wanted to be selected for their "first mystery" story but I never made the cut.

Of the two magazines, I preferred EQMM and I eventually went on to read the Ellery Queen mystery series. Ellery Queen started appearing in movies, and eventually in a television series starring Jim Hutton, which I remember enjoying. Full episodes of the series are posted at imdb. In a way, the Ellery Queen series was a precursor of Castle. Queen was a mystery writer. His father (played by David Wayne) was a police inspector and he helped him solve mysteries. I'm surprised no one has rebooted the series yet. Ellery Queen has been around for a long time since being created by two writers who were cousins. It's one of the most successful mystery franchises/brands ever, spannign 42 years.

P is for Philip Seymour Hoffman

Philip Seymour Hoffman died in February and the movie with his last starring role, A Most Wanted Man, will be out this summer. The movie was adapted from a novel by John LeCarre, who pretty much wrote the book on Cold War and post-Cold War spy stories, and the trailer llooks pretty exciting.  It's got an incredible cast that includes Ellen Page and Robin Wright, Willem Dafoe, and Rachel McAdams. And watching Hoffman, who gets the last line in the trailer, it's just heart-breakign knowing that this talented man is gone.

And meanwhile, here's the trailer for the book, which features John LeCarre himself.



Thursday, April 17, 2014

P is for Mrs. Pollifax

Another of the mystery series I really liked were the "Mrs. Pollifax" books by Dorothy Gilman.  They weren't really mysteries so much as they were "cozy" spy novels. Emily Pollifax was a widow in her 60s who ended up recruited as a CIA agent. the series includes a delightful cast of recurring characters and there's a nice freindship that grows between Mrs. Pollifax and a young agent she works with.

Gilman was named a "Grand Master" by the Mystery Writers of America in 2010, two years before she died.  She also wrote a slew of other mysteries. I've read some but none of them engaged me as much as the Pollifax series. Rosalind Russell starred in a movie version of The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, and Angela Lansbury starred in a TV-movie version. I think the series would make a dandy television series, kind of a Scarecrow and Mrs. King for an older audience.  (Or put it another way, Murder, She Wrote with an international setting.)  The books might be a little old-fashioned and cozy for today's readers but I loved them.

O is for Ophelia

Painting by John William Waterhouse
I am a Shakespeare geek. One of my friends once horrified me by saying he thought Aaron Sorkin was a better writer than Shakespeare and asking me to explain "why everybody thinks Shakespeare is so great." (Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed his scripts for The Social Network and Charlie Wilson's War. (To be honest though, I was bored to tears by Moneyball. I think Draft Day was the movie Moneyball wanted to be. It's disappointing that not more people are oging to see Draft Day.) But I digress.

The point is that because I love words and never quite outgrew my delight in ornate words (I blame Dr. Seuss with his silly, made-up words), I don't find Shakespeare's language a problem or a barrier to my enjoyment of his plays. I think most high school students learn to loathe the plays because they're forced to read Julius Caesar first.  that play is not the best gateway play into Shakespeare. (I think Macbeth is.  It's got a little bit of everything--a ghost. Murder. A strong female lead.

But wait, you say, Hamlet has a ghost. Hamlet has a murder. Hamlet has a strong female. To which I replay--if you're talking about Gertrude, I disagree. She marries the man who murdered her husband and then leaves her son to take revenge. (Wouldn't it have been kind of interesting if it had been Gertrude whoorchestrated the play that pricked the usurper's conscience?)  And don't even get me started on Ophelia.

I hate Ophelia.  I really do. Manipulated by her father. Mistreated by Hamlet. A suicide at the end. I always wanted her to have more gumption. (A word my grandparents used that has fallen out of favor despite being a great word.) Give me Lady Macbeth any time.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

O is for O. Henry

I love stories with twist endings. Saki, O. Henry. Guy de Maupassant, Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. They were all major influences on the kind of short stories I write. O. Henry (real name William Sydney Porter) was born on September 11, which I choose to remember instead of other events that happened on that date. His most famous stories are probably "The Gift of the Magi" and "the Ransom of Red Chief" but I am fond of "A Retrieved Reformation." You can read a number of O. Henry's short stories here, including many that you've probably never heard of.

N is also for Film Noir

Speaking of Noir, as we were earlier today, Tuesday marked the 70th anniversary release of Double Indemnity, still my favorite Film Noir. Fred McMurray, Barbara Stanwyck.  And the always awesome Edward G. Robinson.  Directed by Billy Wilder from a script by Wilder and Raymond Chandler. It just does not get better than this.