Appreciations
“Appreciations?” This isn’t going to be some boring thing where you thank everyone who’s been important to you?
Ha ha, no, ew gross.
Thank God.
Since my last newsletter was all about ME, I wanted to devote this next newsletter to a new idea I’ve had. And turn the focus on someone else.
I’m listening…
As much as I love talking about myself, I also want Crime Fiction Works to be a handy resource of crime fiction goodness. So, while I do have sections devoted to writers I enjoy or books I want to read, I haven’t always read those books (hence, “want to read”). I’m usually basing my interest on the author’s past work, or recent reviews, or how funny they are on Instagram, or because they said I have nice arms. Maybe the book has a chapter devoted to punching kittens in the face? I don’t know! I’ve been burned before.
But don’t you read and recommend books for the Washington Post?
I do! And that does scratch that itch. But I don’t review anyone I know or I’m friends with for the Post, as a matter of ethics.
I often tell myself this is why it’s so hard to make friends.
So what are we doing here, Big Ed?
What we’re doing here is a new, VERY-OCCASIONAL feature in this opening space, called “I Appreciate.” And I’m going to write about a writer whose work I freakin’ adore, and tell you all the reasons you should read them.
Do the writers you’re spotlighting know you’re spotlighting them?
Nah, I like to be full of surprises when I lavish praise on people. Makes it more uncomfortable!
When do your new very-occasional features start? In a month or two or…
Okay, wow. That’s an aggressive graphic.
Good God, but Halley Sutton can write.
I first came across her work when The Lady Upstairs came out in 2020. I’d read the glowing reviews, and was further impressed that she was the PitchWars protoge of Layne Fargo, another powerful writer who has been busily establishing herself as one of the more provocative writers in crime fiction.
Tell me about The Lady Upstairs. It’s fine if you want to cut and paste the summary from the publisher’s description, no one will know:
A modern-day noir featuring a twisty cat-and-mouse chase, this dark debut thriller tells the story of a woman who makes a living taking down terrible men...then finds herself in over her head and with blood on her hands. The only way out? Pull off one final con.
I sometimes get classified as a noir writer, which is a mistake, and probably happens (a little) because I borrow elements from noir for my work, but also (a lot) because I run the Noir at the Bar reading series for DC. Read The Lady Upstairs and you’ll come across real noir, with morally adrift characters, schemes destined to fail, and sentences beautifully steeped in evocative language and heartbreak and despair:
“I studied her face again. Beneath the tears and the emotions, she was clear, coherent. She wasn’t that drunk. There was something else bothering her. I tried to think of what Lou would do, or say, in the moment. A million years ago, Lou had been kind to me in a diner. I tried to remember how to be kind.”
But this isn’t noir with femme fatales reduced to simply playing a role, or merely acting as agents of fear (while lacking any other agency). Sutton’s work is feminist AF:
“There are women who can spend time with men and manage to keep smiles on their faces no matter what. She wasn’t one of them and I liked her for it.”
In interviews, Sutton makes sure to mention the writers who inspired her, and there’s little surprise that she turns to the hallmarks of American noir (particularly those with an LA focus), Chandler and Cain and Hammett and Leonard and Abbott and Hughes, but also old movies, the black and whites where a cigarette glow is the only light you have to dispel shadows.
Which leads us to her follow-up, the USA Today-bestsellin’ The Hurricane Blonde.
Are you going to copy from the publisher’s description again? I mean, once was fine, but…
Salma Lowe, progeny of Hollywood royalty and a once-promising child actor, spends her days as a guide for the Stars Six Feet Under tour, leading tourists through Los Angeles’s star-studded avenues to sites where actresses of the past met untimely ends. Salma knows better than anyone that a tragic death is the surest path to stardom. Her sister, Tawney, viciously dubbed the “Hurricane Blonde,” was murdered in the nineties, the case never solved and, to Salma’s ire, indefinitely closed . . . until Salma stumbles upon a dead body mid-tour, on the property where her sister once lived, at the precise scene of her sister’s demise. Even more uncanny: the deceased woman also looks like Tawney.
The police are convinced this woman’s death was an accident—but Salma is haunted by the investigation’s echoes of her own past. What if this woman’s murder points to Tawney’s killer? Launching her own investigation, Salma plunges back into the salacious but seductive world of Hollywood. And what she’ll find is that old secrets may just be worth killing for.
I’m not sure if it’s possible to write books based in Los Angeles, regardless of genre, without eventually focusing on that city’s parasitic relationship with Hollywood. There’s so much material there, and it’s very human and American and lends itself to crime and romance and ambition.
Is The Hurricane Blonde also heavy on the noir?
Not as heavy, but it doesn’t suffer for it. It’s a different book. While Sutton’s two books are both centered on characters who ache because of a love just beyond their grasp, The Hurricane Blonde tends to revolve more on family, and the open wounds Salma still has from her sister’s murder.
There are other differences, but none detrimental. The Hurricane Blonde offers a detailed insider’s view of Hollywood’s machinations, the perilous journey of young actors, the frustrating necessity and limitations of the #MeToo movement, even meditations on the seduction and selfishness of genius.
That this is all tied into a tense, moody thriller, without sacrificing the pacing or the emotion, makes for a startling achievement for just a second novel.
No pressure on the third, Sutton.
Sold! Where do I find out more?
Click on the titles here to find out more about The Lady Upstairs or The Hurricane Blonde. And I’d also recommend Sutton’s DELIGHTFUL newsletter, Too Many Tabs, which offers a pleasant, humorous, mildly worrisome glimpse into the author’s mind.
5/5, would recommend.
EA
That was so hard - not talking about myself just now. Felt weird. I DON’T LIKE IT.
I mentioned this in my last newsletter but, if you’re a reader in Australia or the United Kingdom, you can order a copy of my thriller, No Home for Killers, at a discounted price! Check it out HERE in the UK and HERE in Australia.
And, if you’re in the United States and upset that people from other countries are getting s sale and you’re not, then you can defiantly order your own copy HERE. USA! USA!
Did you think I was only going to highlight one awesome writer in this newsletter? Ha ha, you’re stupid. Because it’s time for another episode of…KISS! MARRY! KILL! Featuring one of my favorite people in crime fiction, the award-winning, hard-working, kind-being…
This is a story for another newsletter, but my very very first book (out-of-print, not a bad thing) came out with a micro-press, which is a very small publisher. No shade to them - they were nice to work with, and I knew nothing about publishing at the time, other than a vague notion that I needed to know more things. As a way to know more things, I joined the International Thriller Writers, and was intimidated to find myself in a debut class of writers far more accomplished than me. I’d worked so hard to finally have a book out, only to find that I felt like a fraud (none of those other debut writers, incidentally, ever contributed to that feeling, and I would eventually learn that, to some degree, you always feel that way).
Jenny Milchman was the head of the debut program for ITW at the time, and she was one of the first people to welcome me into the world of Published Writers with open arms. She made me feel like I belonged, helped me realize that the work I’d done merited the same respect as everyone else.
Some writers who work on behalf of the writing community become best known as facilitators and, occasionally, their own careers suffer. But if you have the effort and the goods, you can be both a good literary citizen and a successful writer. Jenny has it all. Her work won the prestigious Mary Higgins Clark award and hit the USA Today bestseller lists, among a slew of other honors. She just launched a new series, the Arles Shepherd thrillers, and the first book, The Usual Silence, is currently a #1 bestseller on Amazon charts AND is available for FREE this month on First Reads!
Want to hear more about it?
Psychologist Arles Shepherd treats troubled children, struggling with each case to recover from her own traumatic past, much of which she’s lost to the shadows of memory. Having just set up a new kind of treatment center in the remote Adirondack wilderness, Arles longs to heal one patient in particular: a ten-year-old boy who has never spoken a word—or so his mother, Louise, believes.
Hundreds of miles away, Cass Monroe is living a parent’s worst nightmare. His twelve-year-old daughter has vanished on her way home from school. With no clues, no witnesses, and no trail, the police are at a dead end. Fighting a heart that was already ailing, and struggling to keep both his marriage and himself alive, Cass turns to a pair of true-crime podcasters for help.
Arles, Louise, and Cass will soon find their lives entangled in ways none of them could have anticipated. And when the collision occurs, a quarter-century-old secret will be forced out of hiding. Because nothing screams louder than silence.
All right, Jenny? Who are you kissin’ and killin’ from The Usual Silence?
Kiss: Depends on if it’s a romantic or motherly kiss. The romantic kiss definitely goes to Dan. He’s hot. I think I describe his hair in the book as “threads of night”. (Please believe this works better there than when I just now typed it out in all its purple glory). Anyway, Dan is my main character’s love interest, the first one she’s had in her thirty-seven years on this planet. A motherly kiss goes to Geary, who’s ten years old and autistic. I love that kid.
Marry: I’d marry my main character, Arles Shepherd. I mean, in real life I’ve been married to the love of my life for thirty years, so maybe I’m not totally drilling down into this thought experiment. But Arles is a fierce protector of anyone who needs help, especially children, while also being vulnerable enough to realize she’s in many ways wounded herself, and I think both components make for a pretty good spouse.
Kill: The bad guy. Of course. Early reviews say readers do not see him coming, don’t guess his identity before the end, but as they ultimately find, he’s the incarnation of evil and he needs to go.
Thanks, Jenny! To learn more about Jenny Milchman and her work, click here. And to subscribe to her long-running, lovely newsletter, clickity-click here.
It's giveaway time! The winner of any of Jenny Milchman’s books (your pick) is:
lo**@f*********ves.com
Congrats, and I'll send you an email soon!
Recently some readers have asked if I plan to monetize this newsletter in the future. As stated below in a generic note, I do not, and there a variety of reasons I enjoy keeping it free.
If you do want to support me and my writing, the best way is to buy one of my books. And maybe tell me I have nice arms.
But really that first thing:
Thank you, I love you very much.
Nicely done, Ed, as always. YOU-YOU-YOU are awesome. chrisbauerauthor.net.