Noir fiction for the modern reader.

Me with Max Allan Collins (R)

What can you say about Bouchercon that isn’t always said every year? It was great, the panels were great, the camaraderie was great, the organizers were great, the bar drinks were too expensive. This year in St Louis was no exception.

What appeared to be a slightly smaller crowd than in years past actually made for a better event, in my opinion. Far fewer throngs to plow through and you could always get a good seat at the panel discussions.

One thing that surprised me: I didn’t hear the word “ebook” uttered once until I attended a panel for which that was the topic. This is notable because, as faithful readers of this blog might remember, I attended Sleuthfest back in March and the digital revolution was all they could talk about, regardless of assigned topic. I found it curious that at last week’s Bouchercon ebook panel, the panelists were all from the traditional-publisher side of the fence. No self-published authors, no e-publishers, no formatters. So it’s not too hard to imagine how the discussion went.

There was a particularly informative panel on the status of the private eye subgenre. Max Allan Collins and Robert Randisi, two old pros who know their business, were standouts, waxing articulate on the changes the genre has endured over the years. Among these changes, they said, were the inclusion of women PIs by authors such as Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, a sharp change in locale from the New York-LA axis spreading out into just about every corner of the country, and changes in time period, stretching from the present to as far back as ancient times.

One note about the hotel (Renaissance St Louis Grand). Well, two notes, actually. It was very poorly laid out. The conference itself was in another building accessible through a tunnel, meaning that no matter where you were in the hotel, you were still about a mile away from where you wanted to be (I got a lot of exercise, I’ll say that much). Also, the layout of the conference area was extremely confusing and it took me about a day or two to find my way around. Naturally, helpful signs were at a premium.

The second note is the temperature. St Louis, a dreary city if ever there was one, was shivering in 40° temps and yet the hotel could not bring themselves to turn off the air conditioning. No matter where I went, I couldn’t get warm. My room was freezing under blowing AC when I arrived, so I turned the heat on. By the final day, I had turned it up to 87° (!!!) and that barely made it. The real temperature in the room was probably only about 74.

I signed up for next year’s Bouchercon on the spot. October 4-7 in Cleveland. See you there!

For all those of you who attended last year’s Bouchercon, or if you plan on going this year, you should’ve received your Anthony ballots by now. There’s a little category on there for “Best First Novel,” encompassing those first novels published in 2010. There’s space for you to write in five novels.

Now, I know most of us haven’t read five first novels that were published last year, so if you find yourself with an empty slot or two in that category, how about jotting down my little noir opus called The Take? I know this seems a little brazen, but hey, who’s gonna blow my horn if I don’t do it first?

Besides, you only get one chance at a best first novel.

Vicki Hendricks gave it a blurb (which you can read here), so I figure I must’ve done something right. Right?

Well, it’s Friday at Bouchercon in San Francisco. One full day of panels and schmoozing under the belt, with two to go.

It got off to a shaky start. Maya and I checked into our room at the Hyatt Regency downtown to discover that the connecting door to the next room was about as thin as a piece of rice paper. The conversation of our neighbors sounded as though it were on the TV in our room. They talked, albeit in normal tones, on and on into the night, preventing us from getting much sleep. On top of that, the cable car rolled by right outside our fourth floor window, sounding like the housekeeping cart rumbling down the concrete walkway of a Motel 6.

Thankfully, the front desk was sympathetic when I told them of our problem in the morning. Amid many apologies, they gave us a free upgrade to a 12th floor balcony room overlooking the bay, and with no connecting door.

Score one for the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.

The conference, like last year’s in Indianapolis, is very well-attended, and the panels are many and diverse. They’re spread out a little too far, though, and some of the rooms were not easy to find. Hyatt personnel were stationed at each escalator, ready to direct confused conference-goers to the proper room. A very nice little touch, I thought.

Score two for the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.

Last night’s reception included a cash bar, at which a glass of wine cost eleven dollars. I was about to subtract one point from the Hyatt’s score, until I realized I could go up to the lobby bar and indulge my wine jones for $5.50.

So the Hyatt stays two up.

A highlight yesterday was meeting Eddie Muller, one of the world’s leading authorities on film noir. He’s the kind of guy you could talk to all day and neither one of you would be tired at the end.

Seen some old acquaintances, met some new ones, it’s all shaping up pretty well. Except I don’t see anyone with flowers in their hair.

I’m currently sitting in the Phoenix airport waiting for my connection back to Las Vegas.  There are remnants of activity still going on at Bouchercon today, but all the serious stuff wrapped up last night.

Overall, I’d have to rate the conference with a “C” grade.  A big part of my negative feeling toward it stems from the fact that yesterday, I started coming down with a cold, so I left the Hyatt at around 1:30 to return to the Omni, where I was staying, and never returned to the conference. Colds really piss me off, so that becomes my problem.

And speaking of the Omni, I wasn’t crazy about it. Everything about it was way overpriced, including $10/day for wi-fi access, and I was told the building went up in 1913!  Granted, the Omni company spent a lot of money on renovations, but my room was tiny. It was also two blocks from the Hyatt, making it unbelievably inconvenient, especially in the terrible weather that blanketed Indianapolis.

As far as Indianapolis goes, this was my first time there, and if I never go there again (which is clearly possible), I don’t think I’ll be missing anything. There are some cities that just beg you to return, to see and experience that which you missed on your first visit. Cities like New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans fall into this category. Indianapolis falls way outside of it.

Another obstacle I couldn’t quite overcome was the fact that I didn’t know a soul there. All the published authors tended to stick together before they vanished, while everyone else seemed to know each other or seemed to be part of a group, and based on other early reports of conference attendees who were well-acquainted with large groups of people, I’m not too far wrong. At times, it felt like I was the lone Red Sox fan in Yankee Stadium. As with the cold, I suppose this is my problem.

But it wasn’t all bad. The conference itself was very well-run. I liked the idea of the “continuous conversations”. Even though there were no jaw-dropping moments at the ones I attended, they were a harmless, comfortable way to pass the down time. The panels, of which there was no shortage, generally started and ended on time, and they usually stayed on topic, with plenty of time allotted for Q and A from the audience.

The guests were well-chosen, for the most part, and most of them had something to say. Michael Connelly would be the major exception to this, as he appeared to be on automatic pilot. He does a lot of these events, though, so I’ll cut him slack.  Anyway, his presence alone seemed to satisfy the large crowd, which ran upwards of 1500 people.

By far, however, my biggest beef was with the panel moderators, who generally would not make the panelists speak directly into the microphone. Some of the panelists had a natural projection, and didn’t need to “eat” the microphone, but far too many tended to mumble, and when they were asked to speak into the microphone, they leaned forward about two inches. Then, before their sentence was completed, they had relaxed back into their original inaudible position. Michelle Gagnon was an exception to this. At her panel, she repeatedly asked the panelists to hold the microphone closer, and they all did.  Memo to Bouchercon organizers: it’s no fun to have to strain to hear someone. We shouldn’t have to do it, especially when they have a microphone that the conference paid for.

The bookstore area was sensational. A great selection of new titles mixed with older ones, as well as a few first editions and other collector’s items were displayed in a sensible, accessible manner.

I’ll be going to San Francisco next year, and I’m definitely booking a room in the host hotel.