THIRD DAN SHARP TITLE CONTRACTED FOR 2015!

Many thanks to Dundurn Books for the vote of confidence in backing my application for a Writers' Reserve grant from the Ontario Arts Council, as well as for contracting my third Dan Sharp mystery, The Jade Butterfly, even before it's finished. I look forward to working with the folks at Dundurn again on this title, as well as on the second book in the series, Pumpkin Eater, currently scheduled for a spring 2014 release. Stay calm and read on!

Spooks--Death of a Series (13 May 2002--23 October 2011)

Every once in a while, a TV series grabs me by the throat. Mostly, I give in rather than resist. But I expect a lot in return. Fans of the show know that the BBC's Spooks can boast of some of the finest writing, acting, and directing on TV. For ten seasons, the story followed the professional and private lives of a group of MI5 operatives, with one man, Harry Pearce, the head of counter-terrorism, at its core. The show enjoyed a healthy following at home and abroad.

For seven years, the series got better with each season. Season eight remained strong, even while veering slightly off course to concentrate on CIA involvement in the UK. (The show was re-branded as MI-5 for American audiences, who seem to prefer things a bit more literal and a lot more obvious. I give you the disastrous Little Britain USA and the American Queer As Folk, if you need further proof.)

I was glad when series eight ended, though, hoping one lesser year would not turn into two, and praying the American flirtation would soon be over. In fact, far worse lay just ahead. One of the series' trademarks is the sudden and unexpected endings that befall some of its more popular characters. This, we are to believe, is what actually happens to spies. While it was maddening to see them go, the leavings were usually spectacular in dramatic terms.

The challenge, of course, was to fill those roles in a way that the previous agents would not be missed too much. For eight years, they hit the bulls-eye every time. Tom became Adam became Lucas; Zoe became Fiona became Ros. And you held your breath, because it just got better. With Peter Firth as Harry Pearce, the one holdout year after year, the series had casting magic.

Then disaster struck. Someone at Kudos, the show's producers, must have decided the show needed sprucing up. They hired a writing duo whose process is best described as schizophrenic. Asked to describe the process, the writers revealed their preference for a tag-team approach. Each takes turns writing five pages before passing the script along to the other. Even more revealing, at least to me, was their idolization of Joss Whedon, the new king of Hollywood blockbusters. From subtle and layered, the show suddenly became little more than an action cartoon.

The new writers seemed to think it great fun to take liberties with the characters in ways that appalled and dismayed anyone who had enjoyed the careful building of each agent's psychological profile and background. The adage seemed to be, when in need of tension turn one of your best characters into a villain. Preferably one who has not been set up in any way to show such traits previously. The inept desecration and dispatching of Lucas North's character as a terrorist infiltrator in season nine was not the first nail in the show's coffin, but it would prove its most unpopular with many.

In the show's final two seasons, cheap tricks and shock tactics abound: improbable plot turnarounds, an over-reliance on technology, and action spat out at machine-gun speed. Tellingly, characters are relegated to stating the obvious to one another to keep the story rolling: "Hey, Tariq, better answer that phone. It might be the bad guy calling." Because we might not be able to figure it out, otherwise, right?

Where previously plot resolutions came from character, suddenly they were the result of "new" technology that sounds sketchy at best and unbelievable at worst. Realistic threats are ditched in favour of dime store hobgoblins, like fake bio-toxins and imaginary ethno-genetic bombs. Even the erstwhile Peter Firth, as director Harry Pearce, the only actor to make it through all ten seasons, looks unconvinced by much of what he has to say.

Never before has such a great series gone so thoroughly and regrettably down in flames. It would be akin to putting the sequel to A Streetcar Named Desire in the hands of Sacha Baron Cohen. Who would do such a thing?

Kudos and BBC, you have a lot to answer for.

-----

Jeffrey Round is a writer of contemporary fiction, equally at home in different genres. His first two books, A Cage of Bones and The P-town Murders, were listed on AfterElton's Top 100 Gay Books. His most recent Dundurn title is Lake On The Mountain, a literary-thriller and first in the Dan Sharp Mystery series. He is author of the Bradford Fairfax comic mystery series, whose style he describes as "a cross between Oscar Wilde and Agatha Christie." He is also a film/stage director, television producer, and songwriter. Jeffrey’s Blog, A Writer's Half-Life, has been syndicated online. Visit his website: www.jeffreyround.com.

PUMPKIN EATER

This month I signed a contract with Dundurn to publish Pumpkin Eater, the sequel to Lake On The Mountain, my first Dan Sharp mystery. I love working with the folks at Dundurn. They're a great group of dedicated professionals.

I'm also currently a quarter of the way through a third book, The Jade Butterfly, which opens in Tiananmen Square the night of the massacre. Jump forward 20 years, when Dan is challenged to find a woman who disappeared in the fighting, landing him squarely on his own gritty Toronto turf. If you think you know Toronto, follow Dan around for a bit. You don't know Toronto! Even I'm a little shocked by some of the places he ends up.

Although I've been longing to get back to more traditional literary writing, I really enjoy writing in this breezy, jaded voice. Judging from the readers' notes I'm getting, I can tell others like it too. I think of these books as my "dark" mysteries, as opposed to the lighter Bradford Fairfax mysteries where mostly all's well that ends well. There's more to come in that series too, as I've got two more books just waiting to reach the starting gate.

When that happens, you'll be the first to hear about it. After me, of course.

BOOKENDS

Here is my Bookends interview with Justine Lewkowic, taped last month at Sleuth of Baker Street, Toronto's crime specialty bookstore. I felt right at home among the thousands of mystery titles and Sherlock Holmes memorabilia.

Justine was fun, insightful and probing in her questions, and the occasional curve ball she threw at me, as we discussed my newest book, a literary thriller entitled Lake On The Mountain  (Dundurn Press), which takes place jointly in Toronto and Ontario's Prince Edward County.

While it's not hard for me to talk about the writing process, I don't often get asked about my personal life in relation to where the work comes from. Like many writers, I tend to disappear behind my writing and my characters, so readers often assume they are one and the same. Not so. In this case, I welcomed the opportunity to be candid on topics that other interviewers might shy away from.

Among other things, Justine and I discussed sources of inspiration, anger management therapy, honesty, sex and sexuality, and growing up gay in Sudbury (my hometown.)

Have a look and leave a note to say what you think: http://bookendstv.com/.

When SONY Pictures Comes Calling...

Recently I got a bit of exciting news. One morning, early, I found a nondescript email sitting in my in-box. It was so nondescript that I almost overlooked it. It turned out to be from a producer's assistant at SONY Pictures. He was inquiring about the film rights to my new novel, Lake On The Mountain, published last month by Dundurn Press.

My first inclination was to think it a joke. It was too soon after publication for anyone even to have heard of it, I thought, but on re-reading the note it seemed genuine enough. Besides, it's a good book with a solid storyline. Why should it be so hard to believe that someone might want to turn it into a film?

At that point, unlike others who might have jumped up and down, then shouted from the rafters and quickly Facebooked all three-thousand of their closest friends, I did what any good WASP would do: I went into Shut Down Mode.

First things first, I told myself. I began to fold all the clothes lying scattered around my bedroom. (If you've seen my bedroom -- not that many of you have -- you'll know that entails a lot of work.) Then, once I'd obsessively folded and refolded everything, I went downstairs and washed my dishes till they squeaked. All that in order not to think about what I’d just read.

For me, Shut Down Mode occurs when emotions threaten to overwhelm. It "doesn’t do" to get too happy, too sad, too overjoyed, too…well, too anything. Think of the Queen of England. Have you ever heard her let out a really good belly laugh? Not bloody likely, though I’m sure she's dying to. It's not that I don't feel things. Or that Liz doesn't either, but we both find it necessary not to be seen to be Out of Control. Disaster could strike. And besides, we might look ridiculous.

I have a friend who once told me I needed to learn to celebrate my victories, small and large. "Because frankly," said he, with a tone that was all gloom and doom, "as a writer you probably won’t see too many of them." A good pessimist, he knew whereof he spoke.

I just shrugged. I didn't understand this "celebrate" mentality.

"You just go right on to the next thing as though nothing happened," he said. "Why not stop and enjoy it?"

"But what's the point of celebrating something that's already over?" said I, a good realist.

Of course, the truth is that stopping to celebrate would mean admitting I had an emotional attachment to the outcome, something both Sherlock Holmes and I won't easily admit to, if we admit to it at all. "Cry at the birth, Rejoice at the death," A.J.M. Smith advises with poetic whimsy in The Wisdom of Old Jellyroll. When it's over, it's over; let it go.

It would also be an admission that maybe nothing will come of this email inquiry from SONY. And I would have no control over that, either. Somewhere in my subconscious, I must have decided it's better not to get excited, lest that excitement later prove to have been misguided, like a beauty queen stripped of her crown for louche behaviour. If you don't care about the potential outcome, you can't be robbed of it when it turns out to be nothing.

I admit it's a pretty grim outlook, but it feels safe. And, as a result, my laundry gets done really well, when I bother to do it. Just in case, however, I've made one small concession, one celebratory gesture to acknowledge this episode. I have allowed myself, if only in my mind, to start casting the film. "Build it and they will come," right? Or in this case, the film corollary: "Cast it and they will shoot."

In the meantime, now that my clothes are folded into a reasonable semblance of order, I can get back to my writing -- the one place where I really am in control.

Jeffrey Round is a Toronto novelist and filmmaker. His most recent book, Lake On The Mountain, was published by Dundurn Books in January. Visit: www.jeffreyround.com.

On The Runway

Dec 13, 2011

This week my newest book, Lake On The Mountain, is going to press. For a writer, that's the equivalent of being in a plane and taxiing down the runway. You're not quite airborne, but your seatbelt is snug and all the expectation is there.

The timing was propitious. Last month LOTM received a positive pre-review in Publisher's Weekly, the bible of the American publishing industry. A single glowing sentence from that review will now end up on the book's cover along with a blurb by Gail Bowen, one of Canada's most delightfully audacious writers and author of the highly successful Joanne Kilbourn mysteries. Both of these are great coups and the sort of thing writers and publishers dream of.

As with any journey, there's an anticipated place of arrival down the road. For me, as for most writers, that hoped-for destination is one of undying fame, financial success beyond my wildest dreams, and outrageous adulation from my readers. It's called "Dreamland." Few, if any, writers reach it in their lifetime, however, so in the meantime I've learned to enjoy the journey. Duty Free shopping, here I come.

Lake On The Mountain, the tale of a gay missing persons investigator and father of a teenage son, is a bit of a departure for me in one way, yet in another it's precisely where I've been heading for years. I intended it to be that rare, some would even say "apocryphal" animal, the literary-thriller.

Like most university-educated Canadians of my generation, I was raised to be a bit precious in my reading. Genre? Not for me. Nicht, nein, never. It was verboten! I sniffed my way through the romance section in bookstores. I didn't deign to crack open a mystery or a sci-fi book, what with all the wonderful CanLit novels to be read.

So how ironic to find myself the subject of genre discrimination. My first novel, A Cage of Bones, was refused by just about every publisher in Canada. Not because it wasn't well written or literary, but because it was in a genre barely acknowledged at the time: GayLit. In fact, I had to find a publisher outside the country to take it on. For all our literary affectations, Canadians were decidedly behind the times on that one. Not that I minded having a UK publisher first time out of the gate, however. They turned it into an international bestseller, something many Canadian publishers could not have done for me.

Learning I'd inadvertently become a genre writer made me see things differently. One day I picked up a copy of John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, wondering if it would be even half as good as the film. In fact, it was terrific. But I was suspicious. Should I admit I'd read it? Should I worry it might influence my writing?

Since then I've come across a considerable number of genre books and writers I feel can hold their heads up to anything being written today. Not to mention the success they achieve. In fact, you're far less likely to die the death of a starving artist if you can write outside the literary arena than in.

Ironically, the snobbery I've faced over genre writing has been a double-edged sword. Some of the most blatant discrimination has come from genre-philes who refuse to accept that a literary writer could or should make the cross-over. Our territory—keep out, is how they seem to think of it.

One of my most telling experiences came when I participated in a mystery writers' seminar in New Orleans, not long after the publication of my satirical thriller, The P-Town Murders. I talked about the difference between writing mysteries and literary fiction. At the time, I was set to publish my literary novel, The Honey Locust. Set in the Bosnian War, THL had taken me more than a decade to finish. I'd struggled with it greatly and certainly didn't want to have to repeat the effort. "The formula for writing mysteries is easier," I confided to my genre-loving audience, who gasped.

Apparently the F-word is about the worst thing you can say to a genre writer. "Where is this formula? Can I buy it somewhere?" snarled one curmudgeonly old fellow, who turned out to be a seasoned American mystery author. "Try Walgreen's," I suggested. "Second shelf on the right."

In fact, all good writing is based on a formula. Agatha Christie used one and so did Shakespeare. If you want to argue with them, grab a Ouija board and do your best. I can't help you there.

In the meantime, here I sit on the runway, waiting for my fifth title to be released. I no longer worry whether my books are considered genre or literary or something as yet uncategorized. It's a book. And I believe it's the best one I've written. Years from now, I may still believe it. I know that because of how proud I am of it and how right it seems when I re-read it.

I can feel the plane lifting.

Nov 16, 2011

With a new book coming out, there’s always anticipation to see how it’s going to be received. I’m happy to say Lake On The Mountain, my literary-thriller from Dundurn, had a great start this month with a very positive review in Publishers Weekly. Publication is slated for end of January 2012. For those of you disappointed with the delayed publication of Vanished In Vallarta, third in the Bradford Fairfax mystery series, I hope this will more than make up for the wait.