On Air Time

“Sassy, fast-paced and appealing. First-class entertainment.”
**Sue Grafton

“I love this series!”
*Suzanne Brockmann

“AIR TIME is a fun, fast read with a heroine who's sexy, stylish, and smart. I loved it."
**Nancy Pickard

Smart and savvy Boston TV reporter Charlotte McNally is back. This time she’s taking on the fashion industry, where she learns “When purses are fake – the danger is real.” I chased down Hank – Hank Phillippi Ryan –Emmy-winning Boston television reporter and our own, Agatha-award winning mystery writer to tell us more about Charlie’s latest adventure. Air Time is in bookstores now!

JAN: Tell us more about the glamorous world of high fashion Charlie enters and the fun I know you must have had in putting her there.

HANK: Imagine the research I had to do into the world of designer purses! It was tough, but someone had to dive in…

Actually, Charlie’s investigation into the world of counterfeit couture came straight from been there-done that. In my day job as a TV reporter, my producer (not Franklin!) and I have done several in-depth investigations into the world of knock-offs—not only purses and scarves, but blue jeans and watches and DVDs and videos.

We went undercover and with a hidden camera—like Charlie does—into various back-alley stores where counterfeit merchandise was being sold, and also into some suburban purse parties where women—certainly knowing they were fake and thinking was fine—were scooping up piles of counterfeit Burberrys and Chanels.

You should know— law enforcement tells us, it’s not illegal to buy the purses—unless you’re buying large amounts that are obviously for resale. The illegality is in the copying and manufacture and sale of what’s clearly a trademarked and proprietary item. (As the elegant fashion exec Zuzu Mazny-Latos tells Charlie in AIR TIME—it’s like taking Gone with the Wind—and putting your name on the cover.)

JAN: Something I've always wanted to do, by the way. So much easier than all that darn writing!

HANK: Anyway—lots of AIR TIME is based on research and reality—besides the undercover work, and the research, I’ve done may interviews with the federal agencies in charge of battling counterfeiting, the attorneys who help big companies protest their products, and even the private investigators the designers hire to scout out counterfeits.

JAN: Charlie is smart, savvy, compassionate, witty and hip. Is she an effortless creation or are does she ever give you trouble some days?

HANK: Oh, yeah, effortless is exactly the word. (Pausing to laugh.) Well, thank you. Yes, I like Charlie. But some days she does fight me. And actually, I love that. I have put her in situations…where she just won’t do what I say. There was one day when she was in a room with some others—in a draft of PRIME TIME—and she put her hands on her hips and said—“Hank. There are too many of us in this room!”

I remember it well—I burst out laughing, and rewrote he scene with fewer people. She was right. In this case, at least. And in AIR TIME, there’s a scene (which, spoiler-wise, I can’t tell you about now) where she absolutely would not do what I planned. Would NOT. And in her head she said exactly the sentence she now says in the book. I loved it—she was right--and we can talk about that later.

JAN: It sounds like Charlie faces more direct danger in this book than in PrimeTime and FaceTime. Did that present new writing challenges?

HANK: Face more direct danger. Well, yes she does. And that’s an interesting question, because I didn’t plan it that way. Or even think about that.

I had what I think is a pretty great idea for a counterfeiting scheme—and when I talked to law enforcement types about it, they had to admit it would work! So I just took my criminal enterprise and played it out to the logical conclusion.

In writing, I always ask myself: what would really happen? And then that’s what happens. So Charlie’s in more direct danger, yes, she is. Because the people she’s dealing with are more desperate and more malevolent and the stakes are higher.

JAN: What does Charlie learn in this particular adventure?

HANK: I always knew my years of being devoted to Vogue would be valuable! And now I can probably deduct my subscription, right? But I must admit—lots of the inside scoop on the fashion industry in AIR TIME is, um, made up. The company Delleton-Marachelle, and it’s history, and its atelier and methods—all fictional.

Oh, Charlie learns a lot in AIR TIME, and it’s not all about fashion.

The theme of AIR TIME is authenticity—how do you tell the real thing?

Of course, that’s what counterfeiting is about—trying to fool someone into accepting a fake.

But also of course, in a 40-something woman’s search for true love, there are going to be exactly the same kinds of questions. In love: How do you know it’s the real thing?

In AIR TIME Charlie has a split second to decide who’s the real thing. Her life depends on it.

JAN: Finally, how do you an Emmy-award winning reporter who delves into investigations and still jumps on a breaking news story --- like Charlie – balance it all? An exhausting news career while writing and promoting three novels and pitching in to help the Boston mystery writing community the way you do.

HANK: Ah, thanks Jan. When I was writing PRIME TIME, I was about 40,000 words in, about halfway through, and I realized I had NO idea what I was doing. I called my mother, and said—Yikes, (or something like that.) I love my book, but I have no idea if I can finish it.

Mom paused and then said: You will if you want to.

And I think of that every day.

JAN: You know, you told me that once a while ago and I STILL THINK of it all the time, too.

HANK:Plus, Jonathan does the laundry and we get a LOT of take out food.

And although some days are SO BUSY I can barely think straight…all in all it’s so wonderful it brings tears to my eyes.

JAN: Come back tomorrow when debut thriller writer James Hayman , author of The Cutting, will be talking the strategies of reclusive writing.



!

Do you want to know a secret?

Okay...it's not really a secret.

We were planning to post something else today..an interview that will happen, we promise, sometime next month, but we can't let another day go by without a big shout out here to Hank. Her Agatha Award-winning debut novel, Prime Time is finally FINALLY available again - and everywhere - from Mira Books.

PRIME TIME introduces forty-something investigative reporter Charlotte (Charlie) McNally. Charlie's smart, savvy and successful—but she's worried her news director is about to replace her with a younger model. Now—she's on the hunt for the story that will save her job. Is it hiding in her email? Charlie begins to suspect some of that annoying Spam clogging her computer is more than cyber junk. She discovers it actually carries big-money secret messages to the big-shot insiders who know how to decode it. Problem is, the last outsider who deciphered the system now resides in the local morgue. It's either the biggest story of Charlie's career—or the one that may end her life. Charlie's also facing another dilemma: what happens when a top-notch TV reporter is married to her job—but the camera doesn't love her anymore?

It's an action-filled page-turner, with humor, romance and a scheme so timely and innovative you'll wonder why someone hasn't tried it. A twist of an ending will have readers going back to the beginning to check for all the clues they missed.

I was lucky enough to have read it when it was first available (that's the old cover below but check out the slick new look on the right)and I'll join the chorus of raves.

New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark's kudos: "Current, clever, and chock full of cliffhangers. Readers are in for a treat."

Award winning author Harley Jane Kozak says it's "a great read" written with "quick wit, crackling pace and been-there-done-that credentials."

Page Traynor of RT Book Reviews gave Prime Time the highest possible rating—four and a half stars, awarding it the coveted TOP PICK. She says: "This book has humor, snappy language, danger and a wonderful mystery that will keep you guessing. Prime Time has the perfect combination of mystery and romance."

Way to go, Hank!!

ON WHAT WE CARRY

Boy, youre going to carry that weight,

Carry that weight a long time

**Paul McCartney

HANK: I was looking for my little black notebook, the one I use to collect all the fabulous words and observations that are certainly going to make my next book into a blockbuster, and I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it because it was lost in the black hole of my purse, buried among two black pouches (for bandaids, earrings, advil, library cards, unused gift cards, stamps, a safety pin and a lipstick in case I lose my other lipstick), a black makeup bag, a black checkbook, a black calendar, a couple of black glasses cases, and well, you get the picture. So I was going to ask you all, and I still will, about what you carry. And why.

And then, as so often happens, the world provided something else along those lines . The incredibly talented Jonathan Soroff, who does the interviews for the Improper Bostonian(a Boston alternative magazine), did a story on what the teenaged debs at the Boston coming out cotillion, the "WINTER BALL" carried in their tiny dressy handbags.

And wow. The book ideas came spilling out. Here, from Jonathan's article:

Deb #1: a cell phone, a fake ID, lip gloss, an extra set of false eyelashes and a bit of cash.

Deb #2: cash, a fake ID, a real ID, a cell phone, lip gloss, a diamond bracelet and a pearl necklace

Deb #3: a pack of Parliaments, a pink lighter, a cell phone, cash.

Deb#4: a camera, phone, hotel, fake ID, and Adderall

Deb #5: wouldn't say.

What's in your purse? (An *extra* set of false eyelashes?)What's in your main character's purse? How important is what they carry?

ROBERTA: Well now I really want to know what's in Deb #5's little bag!

Funny thing, I just wrote a scene in which Rebecca Butterman's purse is snatched. She very foolishly chases the perpetrator down an alley, when the strap on her purse breaks and all her stuff scatters at the foot of a dumpster. So I can tell you exactly what's in there: Sunglasses, Palm pilot, pens, lip gloss, wallet, tampons, comb, cell phone...not a diamond bracelet or pearl necklace to be found! You can see she's a practical sort of woman.

A friend asked me this week whether I'd ever gotten into buying fancy bags to match my outfits. Not a chance--just one big clunky back-saver that doesn't really go with anything. But that's certainly another kind of detail that could reveal character, right?

JAN: My protagonist, Hallie Ahern, is definitely too unstylish to carry a designer bag, real purse or laptop tote. She drags around an unsightly backpack which is an important part of her journalistic life.Inside? Notebooks, pens, wallet, Chronicle ID and cardkey, her cell phone, breathmints, files, sometimes saltines, and a digital recorder to capture "ambient sound" for the website. But it all spills out, and whatever she needs is rarely there when she needs it.

My own purse is somewhat smaller, although still in the large category. I carry sunglases, breathmints, wallet, checkbook, keys, Advil, small notebook, cell phone,an IPOD, and a PDA I almost never remember to use. I have dreams of being organized and prepared. Pipe dreams.

RO: When I saw the title for this blog I was reminded of a really great book called The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Vietnam story, very powerful. No debs as far as I can remember.

HANK: I thought of it too, Ro. And my Dad told me he carried a little book of poetry with him all though World War Two. (Which included the Battle of the Bulge and a prison camp.) He says it was to remind him there was still beauty in the world. And that's kind of why I thought of it all...it could certainly reveal character. Even if character is pack rat. Or paranoid.

ROSEMARY: Paula Holliday, my heroine, is a backpack kind of gal. She, like me, carries a cell phone, but, kind of, under protest. (Ask anyone who's ever called my cell...it's rarely turned on.)But she's also likely to be hauling around ziplock baggies, Felco nippers, two pairs of garden gloves, and a magnifying glass to look at bugs.

Like Hank, I have a collection of squarish black things, none of which is ever the one I'm aiming for when I fish around in my black hole of a handbag. Apart from the usual suspects - phone, wallet, card case, camera, Ipod, and makeup case (black, of course)I carry two Tibetan protection mandalas that my sister gave me when I climbed Kili. They worked, so I carry them everywhere.

HANK: That's very hip, Ro. I have a good luck coin that came from...well, another story. But my purse weighs, I bet, 15 pounds. I cannot leave it behind. So I wondered, wht's making it so heavy? Besides my wallet and a little black pouch of stuff, I just counted 10 pencils, 6 pens, a stack of bookmarks for Face Time, a 2007 calendar, a 2008 calendar, my notebook, a stack of gift cards just in case I run out of money, a checkbook, business card case, a little bag of almonds, gum, those listerine breath strips, car keys, house keys, a makeup bag that you don't even wanna know what's in, a little flashlight..should I go on?

Is there a way to ditch all this? I try to think of it as a kind of weightlifting exercise.

Oh and PS--oops. We didn't mean "anything can happen Friday" to include nothing happening. Our bad. But watch this space--in fact, check the comments on Wednesday for what's going to happen Friday. Newly published or soon to be published mystery authors? Better visit JR!

Taste

HALLIE: Eyeliner reveals character. It's all in the details. Put a character on the page wearing frayed cutoffs and flip-flops, her hair pulled back in a red plaid scrunchy, and you've got a very different vibe going from a character in pencil thin pants, gold stiletto sandals, her hair cut short and spikey. Pick the telling detail and you don't have to "tell" the reader a thing.

Food can do the same thing. One character gets depressed, she polishes off a half-dozen Godiva truffles, another character fights the blues with a box of Ritz crackers slathered in Peter Pan peanut butter.

So what do the foods you have them eat say about your characters...and you?

ROBERTA: Cassie Burdette, the protagonist in my golf mysteries, never did learn to eat well. Or to cook. Tons of readers commented on the junk food, the fried food, the hamburgers, the beer. The only recipe she was ever quoted as cooking had canned beans and sliced hot dogs as its main ingredients. Her eating style definitely reflected her youth and a self-destructive tendency.

My advice columnist character, Dr. Rebecca Butterman, is a gourmet cook who uses food and cooking to calm herself down, help herself think, and overcome any incoming bad news. My husband is pleased that she's brought my standard of cooking up quite a bit too! I have to try out new recipes in order to write about them, right?

JAN:I love to cook and am always trying out new recipes, but I never eat when I'm nervous. My protaganist Hallie Ahern is usually under a lot of pressure as the story closes in around her, so rarely does she eat. In fact, in a version of an early book, one of my editor/readers commented that Hallie almost seemed anorexic, so I had to go back and give her a meal or two. Now that she's got her life together a bit more, she eats better. But since her character is still single-minded and career driven, usually her boyfriend Matt cooks. Left on her own, she often eats a buttered Pop Tart for dinner.

I chose Pop-Tarts both because I love them(brown sugar cinnamon) and because as a main course, they show a certain recklessness.

HANK: Oh, I love brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts, but I don't eat them anymore. Sigh. Neither does Charlie McNally. Co, um, incidentally, Charlie is kind of calmly obsessed about her eating. And it's built in to her TV reporter job, because TV does indeed add ten pounds. So there are scenes where she extracts croutons from a salad, and eats a hamburger without the bun. And of course she lives on coffee.

Once, though, I had written myself into a corner. There needed to be some tension, but low-level, you know? Personal. So I made Charlie really really really hungry. Then as I went back into the chapter, I realized I had already tucked in several times when she ALMOST got to have a turkey sandwich without the bread, ALMOST got to have an apple, ALMOST got to have low-carb lasagne. And she wound up eating a fistful of almonds in the car. And that was a fun way of introducing her eating habits and her work habits at the same time. I deliberately had her producer, Franklin, be able to eat anything. And what's more, he eats it very neatly. Franklin eats onion rings with a fork. And his fried clam roll doesn't leak. Charlie is more prone to drip balsamic vinaigrette on her blouse. She eats in a hurry. So even how food behaves can be illustrative. And how and when someone *doesn't* eat.

Okay, now I'm hungry.

HALLIE: Food is also a great stand-in for sex. But that's another column...

Based on a True Story

RO: Some years ago I read a book called An Inconvenient Woman by Dominick Dunne. I thought it was pretty good and was surprised to learn after the fact that it was based on the true story of Alfred Bloomingdale (as in "would you like a sample of Daisy by Marc Jacobs?"...that Bloomingdale)and his longtime mistress Vicki Morgan.

I wasn't so naive as to think all fiction sprung full-blown from the author's head - even Shakespeare ripped things from the headlines - but I was a little surprised that there weren't legal ramifications in creating a story so close to an actual event.How close do you tread to that line? And does the line move as you get more involved in a story?

JAN: I once wrote three quarters of a fictional book based largely on a true story. I worried that even though I had the protagonist's okay on the book, that I might get sued by one of the more minor characters. It also started to make me feel a little queasy about what I was doing with a real person's tragedy.(The victims, not the perpetrators), but I don't think there's anything wrong, ethically or creatively, with it.I don't know how Dominick Dunne, who I believe has based more than one novel on a true crime event, avoids a legal suit. Especially since he is a bestseller and thus, a potentially profitable target. But I'd guess that he knows what he has to change, character-wise, to avoid liability. And he's an awesome writer, so ripping that closely from real life creates some great books.

HALLIE: The legal issue for the writer is 1) are the characters recognizable and 2) if they are, is what you tell about them the truth. As I undertand it, if you create a character recognizably based on a real person and defame them in your characterization, you can be (successfully) sued. So, if you write a character based on an ex-friend and disguise that person's identity by making her horrendously ugly, only people still recognize her, she could sue you and win.

My first book was based on a true case. I decided not to pursue publishing it for the same reason Jan said so perfectly above -- because I got queasy about what I'd be doing to the survivors. Everything I've written since is 150% made up, though news stories do inspire. Anyone see that story last week about a wealthy relator who was bludgeoned to death with a yoga stick (whatever that is) by her assistant who said she was provoked because "she wouldn't stop yelling at me." Truth is often stranger than fiction.

Ro: Do any of you Beantown babes know if Gone, Baby, Gone was based on a true story?

HANK: Hmm.. Don't know. And a quick Google search did not produce any clues. Google aside, though, I did hear that the movie's release was delayed because the plot was too close to the story of Madeleine McCann, the little girl who vanished from her parents' hotel room in Portugal.

As for real vs fiction. Well. I must say my closest brush with disaster in that realm is how angry my mother was (briefly, but unpleasantly) about the portrayal of Charlie McNally's mother in Face Time. Seriously. And the more I insisted it was fiction, the more she insisted I was being absurd. Now THAT was just about as close as I want to get to the line. Now that's she's read it of course, she's delighted. Although she still thinks she's Mrs. McNally. Even though she isn't.
The more I write fiction, the more careful I am not to get anywhere near reality. Everyone always thinks it's them.

Plus, I had someone say to me--oh, you're so lucky to have a husband who's a lawyer. It makes it so easy for you. You don't need to make up plots, you can just get them all from him.
Snort. Thanks lady. Straight to the moon.

RO: I just had a friend tell me that she couldn't recognize anyone in my book...as if I was going to describe all my pals in excruciating detail. Cheesh.
OTOH, Hank, I'm very disappointed to learn that your own mom is nothing like Charlie's. I think she's a riot! Haven't finished the book yet, but hope we haven't heard the last of her.