KJERICKSON.ORG
Autumn 2004 Newsletter
MARS BAHR IS BACK IN 2004’s  ALONE AT NIGHT
“A case that’s ice cold when Detective Marshall Bahr takes it on suddenly turns murderously hot….An excellent police procedural and more.  In his fourth outing, Mars becomes the central figure in a tense, suspenseful, even poignant human drama.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

 

“Erickson scores another winner….Among several things that make this series work is Erickson’s ability to infuse a well-plotted police procedural with believable, emotionally charged characters….A superb entry in an outstanding series.”—Booklist, Starred Review

 

“Erickson is in command all the way in this taut, suspenseful and cleverly conceived twister.”—Publisher’s Weekly

 

St. Martin’s Minotaur

ISBN  0-312-31471-X

Hardcover/$24.95

 

 

READER QUESTIONS ABOUT ALONE AT NIGHT

 

Minnesota readers will associate the crime that takes place in Redstone Township with the real-life abduction and murder of Katie Poirer in 1999.  Was that case something you thought about when you wrote Alone at Night?

Inadequate security for employees in many convenience stores/gas stations has always troubled me, and the Katie Poirer abduction was a dramatic and tragic example of the cost of inadequate security (as well as inadequate information sharing among law enforcement and judicial agencies). However, the circumstances of Katie’s abduction and the abduction of my character, are the only thing the two cases have in common.  The motivation behind the two abductions (real-life and fictional) are completely different. 

 

There’s a major change in the Mars Bahr series in Alone at Night.  Why did you feel the change was necessary?

This is a difficult question to answer without revealing too much of the plot for readers who’ve not yet read  Alone at Night.  Let me say that keeping a series fresh (for both the writer and the reader) often requires shaking things up.  By making changes in A @ N, I’ve given myself and my characters a whole new set of challenges.  I can only add that friends have suggested that the death of my beloved Labrador retriever, Puck, just before I started writing A @ N had left me in what the Brits would describe as a bloody state of mind.

 

 

READERS ALWAYS ASK:  WHAT DO YOU READ?

 

Where to start?  Like most writers, I read a lot.  Mysteries, of course. Julia Spencer-Fleming and Steve Hamilton are new favorites. George Pelecanos, Lawrence Block, and Elmore Leonard are in a class by themselves. Most recently I’ve liked Ken Bruen’s The Guards and Blitz. As a writer who  aspires to telling a good story, I’ve read, re-read, and will continue to re-read  Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle, and Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent.  And it’s hard to find more variety than in our rich lode of Twin Cities writers—Ellen Hart, William Kent Krueger, Erin Hart, Deborah Woodworth, Mary Logue, Pete Hautman, Chuck Logan, Carl Brookins, John Sandford, PJ Tracey, Pat Dennis, Mary Monica Pulver—the list is long and gets longer every year.**** I read biography, memoirs, history, popular science. I’m not above a trashy autobiography :  just finished screenwriter Joe Eszterhas’s Hollywood Animal.  For more insight and less ego, Augusten Burrough’s Dry (as well as his earlier Running With Scissors) were exceptional personal histories. And following Alec Guinness’s death—last year?—I re-read all  his diaries/memoirs. Note:  if you missed the BBC’s production of John LeCarre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and  Smiley’s People starring Guiness as George Smiley, hie thee to your nearest supplier of DVDs. And speaking of LeCarre—he’s become a bit didactic for me in recent books, but in his intelligence, elegant writing, and ability to draw character in a handful of words, he’s without peer.  He wrote a piece in The New Yorker  (“The Mask of Sanity,” February 18, 2002)  about his sociopath father that left me hoping it was the forerunner to a book. A great line describing his father :  “Only his powers of invention were real.” **** In recent literary fiction, I loved The Strange Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and The Jane Austen Book Club. **** And I go through phases:  my current phase is histories of the American intelligence community.  Washington Post reporter Steve Coll has written a terrific book—Ghost Wars— on the CIA’s role in Afghanistan. If that sounds dull, let me assure you it isn’t.  You need proof?  Coll relates a hilarious anecdote (one of hundreds in Ghost Wars) about a Texas congressman who takes beauty queens on field trips to Afghanistan to impress them with his power. He succeeds with a former Miss Northern Hemisphere (aka Snowflake) who comments following a trip to Peshawar that it was “…just very, very exciting to be in that room with those men with their huge white teeth…”

 

READERS ALWAYS ASK:  WHAT’S YOUR WRITING PROCESS/WHERE DO YOU WRITE/DO YOU WRITE EVERY DAY?

 

Since I learned to print, I’ve written something every day. E.g., fifteen minutes ago, these words came to mind, and I scribbled them down in a notebook labeled ‘fragments’:  “All he ever wanted from life was to die quickly.”  Hmmmm. There may be a whole book in that sentence.  **** When I have a particular story idea in mind I spend several hours every day for weeks, maybe months, reading related topics that will support the development of the story and that will supply detail and factual information necessary to the plot.  I make notes and sketch out scenes and characters. At some point, the weight of all these efforts will bring me to a tipping point, and I’ll sit down and write, “Chapter 1.”  For the first time since I’ve been published, I don’t have a publication deadline ahead of me, so, when my next “Chapter 1” gets written is a mystery. **** Where I write has become a problem as I always wrote in a room with my Labrador retriever under my feet. When his arthritis prevented his making it up the stairs to the writing room, I started writing on a laptop at the dining room table. After his death, I found it emotionally impossible to write in either place.  Then I hung two new paintings in the dining room and I’ve been able to do some writing there again. **** Music is an essential part  of my writing process.  Several years ago my daughter ‘burned’ a CD collection of music I often listened to while writing.  To be included the song had to have a link to something criminal.  The songs ranged from Elvis Presley's “Suspicious Minds,” to Etta James’ “It Ain’t Always What You Do, It’s Who You Let See You Do It.”  Also on the CD is the Ronette’s “Be My Baby.”  What’s the criminal link in “Be My Baby” ?  It’s on the soundtrack of one of my favorite movies that has a very strong criminal connection. The first newsletter reader to identify the movie will have a character in Mars Bahr #5 named after them. Send an e-mail through my website to submit your answer.  An additional clue:  the movie has not as yet been mentioned in any of the Mars Bahr books, but as soon as Chris is old enough to see the movie, it will be.

 

READERS ASK:  WHEN’S THE NEXT MARS BAHR COMING OUT?  DO YOU HAVE PLANS TO WRITE SOMETHING OTHER THAN A MARS BAHR MYSTERY?

 

I’m reading now on topics related to the next Mars Bahr.  But I’m taking a year off, so no new Mars Bahr in 2005.  ****  And I’ve always got ideas for other books—including one set in England involving an academic writing a dissertation on Leonard and Virginia Woolf .  I’ve been working on that project (tentative title:  The Hooded Eye ) for almost ten years.  Friends have suggested that I’m having too much fun doing the research to actually finish the book.  Beware of friends who know you too well.

 

Blue Alert

Due to problems with the firm with whom my original domain name (kjerickson.com) was registered, I changed my website address to kjerickson.org.  Unfortunately, kjerickson.com is now a porn site. Apologies.

 

Snail Mail Newsletters

If you have trouble opening /receiving the newsletter via e-mail or would prefer to receive it at your postal address, send an e-mail with your postal address via the “contact the author” link at kjerickson.org.

 

 

 

 

 

Reader Questions for the Next Newsletter

 

Do you have a question you’d like me to answer in the next newsletter?  Hit “contact the author” at kjerickson.org and send me an e-mail.  I’ll try to answer a couple questions each issue.

                    

 

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK

 

Anthony & Barry Finalist

For Best First Mystery in 2001

Third Person Singular

0-312-98213-5

$6.99

 

Recipient of a Friends of American Writers Prize

For Best Adult Fiction published in 2002

The Dead Survivors

0-312-98324-7

$6.99

 

Finalist for Minnesota Book Award 2003

The Last Witness

0-312-98985-7

$6.99