AIR TIME and TWO fabulous giveaways!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It's "What We're Writing" week--as you could see from Susan's wonderful post about Paris yesterday. And we'll be talking about, well, what we're writing, and what we're thinking, and what's happening in writing world.  First, four things.

One: Hurray! WHAT YOU SEE is nominated for the Anthony for Best Novel! I am so thrilled!

Two:  Tell us--if you're writing--what YOU're writing! Published, not published, we'd love to hear.

Three: at the bottom of this post is a wonderful giveaway from my dear and talented pal Andrew Gross. This is--amazing.  Readers, you MUST enter--all you have to do is click.

And four--my dear AIR TIME is coming out on June 14. The level with which I love AIR TIME beyond description  Here's the beginning of the book. (Is this completely fiction? What do you think?)  

Do you have to read the TIME books in order? Nope. As Sue Grafton says: "Sassy, fast-paced and appealing! This is first-class entertainment!}

 (And make sure you scroll down to the big giveaway!)

And--have you had any travel trouble recently? Are you traveling this summer?  A copy of AIR TIME to one lucky commenter!


AIR TIME

 Chapter 1

It’s never a good thing when the flight attendant is crying. Franklin, strapped into the seat beside me, his seat back and tray table in the full upright position, headphones on and deep into Columbia Journalism Review, doesn’t notice her tears. But I do.

She’s wearing a nametag that says Tracy, a navy blue pencil skirt, a bow-tied striped scarf, flat-heeled pumps and dripping mascara. We’re sitting on the Baltimore airport tarmac, still attached to the jetway, a full fifteen minutes past our scheduled takeoff for Boston and home. And Tracy’s crying.

I nudge Franklin with my elbow and tilt my head toward her. “Franko, check it out.”

Only Franklin’s eyes move as, with a sigh, he glances up from under his new wire-rimmed glasses. Then, without a word, he slowly closes his CJR and finally looks at me. I can see he’s as unnerved as I am. His eyes question, and I have the only answer a television reporter can give. 

“Get your cell,” I whisper. “Turn it on.”

“But, Charlotte—” he begins.

He’s undoubtedly going to tell me some Federal Aviation Administration rule about not using cell phones in flight. Like any successful television producer, Franklin always knows all the rules. Like any successful television reporter, I’m more often about breaking them. If it could mean a good story.

“We’re not in flight,” I whisper. “We haven’t budged on this runway. But one of us—you—is going to get video of what ever it is that’s going on here. The other—me—is going to call the assignment desk back at Channel 3 and see if they know what the heck is happening at this airport.”

I look out my window. Nothing. I look back up at Tracy, who’s now huddling with her colleagues in the galley a few rows in front of us. Their coiffed heads are bent close together and one has a comforting arm around another’s shoulders. The faces I can see look concerned. One looks up and catches me staring. She swipes a tapestry curtain across the aisle, blocking my view.

Part of me is, absurdly, relieved that our takeoff is delayed. I hate takeoffs. I hate landings. I hate flying. And if something terrible has happened, all I can say is, I’m not surprised.

But I have to find out if there’s a story here. Maybe Tracy just has some sort of a personal problem and I’m making breaking news out of a broken heart. I yank my bag from under the seat in front of me and slide out my own cell phone. Bending double so my phone is buried in my lap, I pretend to sneeze to cover the tim-tee-tum sound of it powering up, then sneeze again to make it more convincing. As I’m contemplating sneeze three, I hear my call to the assignment desk connect.

“It’s me. Charlie,” I whisper. I pause, closing my eyes in annoyance at the response. “Charlie McNally. The reporter? Is this an intern?” I pause again, picturing a newbie twenty-something in over her head. Me, twenty-two years ago. Twenty-three, maybe. I start again, calm. Taking the snark out of my voice. “It’s Charlotte McNally, the investigative reporter? Give me Roger, please.” I glance at the curtain to the galley. Still closed. “Right now.”

Franklin’s up and in the aisle, holding his cell phone as if it’s off as he pretends to take a casual stroll toward the galley curtains. I know he’s got video rolling. I know his phone has a ten-minute photo capacity, and he’s done this so many times he can click it off and on without looking. Talk about a hidden camera. Our fellow passengers will only see an attractive thirty-something black guy in a preppy pink oxford shirt checking out the flight attendants. I see Franklin Brooks Parrish, my faithful producer, getting the shots we need. Whatever is happening—all caught on camera. Exclusive.

“Roger Zelinsky.” The night assignment editor’s Boston accent makes it Rah- jah. “What’s up, C?”

“We’re in Baltimore, on the way home from the National Journalism Convention,” I say, still doubled over into my lap and whispering. Luckily Franklin and I had an empty seat between us. A hidden camera is one thing— a hidden forbidden conversation on a cell phone is another. “We’re at the airport. In a plane. On the tarmac.”

“So?” Roger replies.

“Exactly,” I say. “That’s what I’m trying to fi nd out.” I give him the short-version scoop on the tears, the delay, the closed curtain. 

Franklin’s now made it to the galley, his phone camera nonchalantly pointed at the spot where the curtain would open. But it hasn’t opened. Maybe Tracy broke up with the pilot. Maybe they don’t have enough packages of peanuts. Maybe someone decided to smoke in the bathroom.

Then, even through the fuzzy phone connection, I hear all hell break loose at Channel 3. Strapped in and surrounded by passengers and pillows and carry-on bags, on Flight 632 there’s only the muted sounds of passengers muttering, speculating. But about five hundred miles away, in a Boston television newsroom, bells are ringing and alarms are going off . I know it’s the breaking news signal. The Associated Press is banging out a hot story. I bet it’s centered right here. And any second, I’m gonna know the scoop in Baltimore.

 “Runway collision. Two planes. A 737 and some commuter jet. Cessna. I’m reading from the wires, hang on.” Roger’s voice is now urgent.

 I can picture him, eyes narrowed, racing through the information coming through on his computer. Bulletins appear one or two sentences at a time and with every new addition more alert bells ping. “No casualty count yet. One plane taxiing toward takeoff, one on the ground.”

“The little plane,” I begin. “How many— was it— which—”

“Don’t know,” Roger replies. Terse. The bell pings again and our connection breaks up a bit. “Fire engines,” he says.

I’ve got to get off this plane. I’ve got to get into the terminal. This story is big, it’s breaking, and I’m ready to handle it.

“Call you asap,” I whisper, interrupting. “I’m getting out of here.”

HANK: So--tell us what you're writing. Tell us about your travel troubles--and I'll pick a winner.

And don't forget--here's Andrew Gross's giveaway! (Click on Andrew's name) Can you believe how great it is?

Where Joy and Tragedy Meet

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You may have noticed I haven't been here much over the past couple of days--my work as a reporter was blasted into fast forward by the horrible hideous unbelievable events in Boston. I announced it live, as it was happening...before we even knew anything for sure. I have no idea what I said..although I seem to think it began--"Breaking news now, we're getting word there was some kind of explosion at the finish line of the Marathon...."

 I've seen swat teams and armed guards stalking the empty streets, carrying assault weapons with their fingers hovering at the trigger. I've  interviewed everyone from vicitms' families to departing runners to law enforcement to the Governor. I said to him--"Someone is out there who bombed the Marathon. How do you tell the public everything will be okay...when you don't know that?"

My husband was inside the federal courthouse when it was evacuated for whatever happened. (And  what's actually pretty funny, he was live on the phone on Channel 7 reporting what was happening! )

Boston is--on edge, careful,  suspicious, and everyone is trying to pretend they're not terrified.
Normal is such a wonderful thought. We're all wishing things could go back to the way they were. But they won't.

And that's one reason I am so thrilled to have Andrew Gross here today. He's the nicest, most comforting, most normal guy you can imagine. Yes, a terrific writer. And also thoughtful, and compassionate and funny and loving. Exactly the perfect person to come to Jungle Reds today.



WHERE JOY AND TRAGEDY MEET

                         by Andrew Gross

Writing this, a day after the heartbreak in Boston, it feels a bit petty and mercantile to put together something charming and witty that every writer knows is basically a veiled promotion of my new book. It somehow seems fitting that Hank asked me to prepare something for this particular week, she being a TV reporter from Boston, me from New York, and that it happened to converge with the horrible events up there.

 In a similar way to how the extremes of joy and tragedy came together up there too. Colliding at that finish line. Joy. Tragedy. I’ve written of those things many times; it’s basically what I do. Take a likeable, everyday person, someone you’ve met a thousand times, a doctor on his way to a conference or a yoga mom, and through one fallible or ill-fated moment, rip apart their happy lives. I wrote on Facebook that the image of that eight year old boy, who at first was said to be reaching out to cheer on his dad crossing the finish line, will stay with me a long time. Maybe a bit shamefully perhaps-- at least for a while-- because I’ve drawn up such similar images in my books so many times.

But every writer will tell you its hard for fiction to keep up with reality in recent times.

When I’m asked, “Why thrillers...?” I always answer that in my view thrillers are absolutely the most relevant form of fiction being written today, as they best reflect the real issues and crises that mirror our world. Thriller writers are rarely MFA candidates; they’re journalists, and ex-CIA agents; and doctors and lawyers and cops whose broad experiences inform their craft—and then I say that I understudied for a career writing about crime by spending twenty years in the women’s apparel business.

That’s my only yuk, but I do feel I probably got the better education.

How I made that transition s a story in itself, but my point here is that thrillers matter. And they matter by not just taking stories off the front pages, but also in how those stories grab the heart. It’s my goal to invest the reader in the plight of my hero within the first ten pages—something I learned from writing with Patterson, who understood early the intersection between joy and tragedy. Likeable, everyday people who on a hundred other days would just go on with their lives, but today will be different. And I choose to write about families, because family is the universal back story, isn’t it?

 And I always go for an emotional affirmation at the end. After the bullets stop flying and the chase cars screech to a stop, what I want you to take away from one of my books is a dad who had to save his family, not such himself; or a suburban mom who slipped in a moment of weakness and now, when accused of two murders she didn’t commit, doesn’t just have to just prove her innocence, but has to regain the trust of her kids as well. What I always go for, I realized, as I watched the newsclip from Boston over and over, is that eight year old boy.

Which brings me again to yesterday’s events one more time.

There is a moment in NO WAY BACK (just out this past week by the way—couldn’t resist!), where Wendy Gould is at a hotel bar waiting for a friend where an attractive stranger starts up a conversation, thinking she’s got her eye on an overhead baseball game.

“Yanks or Red Sox?” he asks.

“Yanks, of course,” she says. “Born and bred. South shore.”

“Sox,” he replies. “South Boston. Okay, Brookline, if you beat it out of me.” That random start leads to a one-in-a-million series of events in which Wendy’s happy, suburban life will never be the same.

As a New Yorker who grew up hating the Red Sox, Celtics and the Bruins, I guess we share a common bond with Bostonians right now.

Thanks for inviting me to share these thoughts.

HANK: Thank you, Andrew. And thank you all. And I can tell you--everything will be okay. 

 

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Andrew Gross is an incredibly successful New York Times best-selling author. (You know this, right? And before he started writing on his own,  he wrote six books (at least) with James Patterson. Whoa.) Of his new book, NO WAY BACK, Publisher's Weekly says" "A fevered stand-alone. Tense, false clues, narrow escapes. The action spins to an exciting ending."  And if you've read this far, thank you. And lucky you.  Leave a comment.and you'll be in the running for a free copy from Jungle Red!

EYES WIDE OPEN

Do you know Andrew Gross? We won't even talk about his cool and exciting past (you know about it, right?) because his future is so exciting. This week there was a full color ad in the New York Times about his newest book. EYES WIDE OPEN. How cool is that? He's a terrific and generous guy, and wonderful writer, and life with Andy is never a dull moment.

But in his latest novel, he explores new and sensitve territory. personal territory, that some authors would not be brave enough to tackle. And now on Jungle Red, describes meeting someone most of us will only encounter in nighmares.

On Jungle Red's Writer Wednesday, a chat with Andrew Gross.

EYES WIDE OPEN is a totally different kind of tale for me, and one that has been inside me a long time. More like a family memoir chocked with chills, it goes back to two real-life occurrences from my own past: the suicide of my twenty-one year old nephew last year; who was found at the bottom of a famous cliff in Morro Bay, California; and a chance encounter forty-two years ago with none other than Charles Manson. My nephew Alex was a severely troubled kid, who suffered from bipolarity and bouts of s chizophrenia, as did his dad, my old brother, Michael.

Like Charlie in the book, Mike was a wayward child of the Sixties, who bounced around the country, living in communes and on the street, wherever there was drugs and music, trying to live out his rock star fantasies. More than once he found himself tossed in jail for possession or vagrancy, or into the mental wing of various hospitals.

By the late Sixties he’d found his way out to Southern California, and ended up at a hippie commune under the sway of a dark, but charismatic figure who was trying to push his music himself. That commune was the Spahn Ranch outside of LA, and the person leading Michael was, of course, was Charlie Manson.

I met him when he came with up with my brother to our father’s house atop Benedict Canyon. Mike and my father had about the most tempestuous relationship a father and son could possibly have. My father was absentee, divorced several times, and Michael blamed him for much of what was wrong in his own life. And there was always a lot of accusations, finger pointing, profanity, competing for the same women, even physical fights.

I was fifteen that day, and visiting from New York. No one knew who the gaunt, scruffy, dark-eyed caftan-clothed hippie who came in with Michael was, along with a loquatious, over-selling sidekick who called himself a rock producer and may well have been Terry Melcher. Only that within minutes they were totally rejected and humiliated by my dad and a friend he had up there with him— and then left shouting, finger-pointing, my brother spitting out four-letter words and vows of revenge.

The scene is described in the book, and in real life, I remember Manson restrained, almost eerily-polite, holding Michael back, going on about “how you have to respect your fathers,” and thanking us all for our time “to let them talk for a while.” So polite, they almost seemed laced with a threat.

A year later, Sharon Tate and four others were brutally murdered on Ciello Drive, and my father, who never backed away from a tale he could tell over a few Rob Roys. claimed the group had somehow gotten lost in the hills above LA, and had been actually heading for him! My brother, in truth, was long gone by then, having left the ranch shortly after that, and was in Boulder at the time of the murders.

While you have to remember, Manson wasn’t Manson when I met him, and no one knew at that time who he was or what he would become; he was just another long-haired drifter Michael had connected with.

But I never forgot the look, nor did my sister who was there too—the kind of intense, spine-tingling aura that came from him, magnified by his later deeds. And those smiling, slate-colored eyes. I never had to conjure very hard to draw the creepy image to mind while writing the book.

In the end, Mike went back to California after his music career never blossomed. He met a gal in AA; married; settled in a sleepy Central Coast town, and lived out a secluded and highly medicated life, on welfare, as a ward of the state. And he had a son, and though Alex seemed spectacularly gifted in many ways—precociously smart and enough of a basketball whiz to attract college scouts- he inherited much of what made my brother’s life a failed one— the shifting bouts of charm and violence, anger and euphoria; a deep sense of blame amid the depressions and delusions of grandeur.

After he went out and purchased a firearm, which scared Michael and his wife Suzanne to death, they called the police to their home—one of many such times—and Alex was taken away in restraints, thrown in a hospital in San Luis Obispo, medically subdued, examined, assessed, but because he was over twenty-one, and, somehow deemed to be no danger to himself or others, he was released into the care of an unrestrictive halfway house in Morro Bay, a place completely unsuited for Alex and his state of mind.

On the second day, he said he was going out for a walk and never returned, and the next morning, was found on the jagged sea rocks at the bottom of the Morro Bay Rock, a breathtaking 600 foot mound of granite that rises above the harbor there, and ruled a suicide.


It was a poignant and sad end to a troubled, abbreviated life; in fact, it took many sad lives, as my brother’s and sister-in-law lives pretty much ended that day as well.

As writers, what do we have except to build a story out of life, and while EYES WIDE OPEN is not exactly Alex’s story, or Mike’s, or even the creepy, malevolent figure controlling things from jail on a thirty year vendetta, this book is my testament to him and I hope in the end bestows him, the way I told it, with a sheen of dignity and honor. EYES WIDE OPEN mixes in the themes of sons who collide with their fathers; mental illness; the LA music scene in the Sixties; a bit of lore from the garment business, and ultimately, a ruthless, jailed cult killer, whose evil runs as freely now, and as chillingly, as it did back then.

HANK: Thanks, Andy. That's--incredible. And we'll give away a signed copy of your book to a lucky commenter.

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Find more out about EYES WIDE OPEN on andrewgrossbooks.com, and be sure follow me on facebook (Andrew Gross author) and twitter (The__ Andrew Gross.)