The Brilliant Gabriel Valjan

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Like gravity, or quantum physics, Gabriel Valjan is a force of nature. If you know him, you are cheering right now to see him here on Jungle Red. He's the most generous, most thoughtful, most outrageously supportive author in our writing-reading world. With no reason other than his true and honest passion, he constantly promotes and shares and publicists other authors' events and books and successes.

Most authors secretly whine a bit about how much promotion is necessary and expected for their books--but Gabriel, the amazing Gabriel, not only does it without being asked, but does it spectacularly!

Follow him here on Twitter, and be amazed. And awed.

So now,  Reds and readers, the person whose face in in the dictionary when you look up "generous"--has a new book of his own.    

"Wrung their bread from stocks and stones"
    by Gabriel Valjan

The line above is from one of Robert Lowell’s lesser known poems, “Children of Light.” Ephesians 5:8 inspired his poem. I plucked the phrase for two reasons. 

One, Lowell confronted the violence that is the history of New England. Two, I admire the metaphor of finding sustenance from common but difficult materials. Boston is a city haunted by history, most of it unpleasant, but rich for an author of crime fiction, such as myself.

I write about Boston in the 1970s, a time of systemic corruption and institutional racism. A murder in Boston’s Red Light District inspired my third Shane Cleary novel, HUSH HUSH, but I take the details in a different direction.  (If you’re interested in both historical context and the crime, consult Jan Brogan’s Combat Zone.)

Like the poet, the mundane fed my imagination. Located on Columbus Ave. in Shane Cleary’s South End, Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe has been serving customers since 1927. The young Sammy Davis, Jr. used to dance for change outside its doors. For decades, Charlie’s was the only place in Boston where black and white diners could sit and eat together.

To give you a sense of how bad race relations were in Boston, a riot broke out at Carson Beach in 1975 when black protestors tried to use the beach, and the desegregation of Boston schools and public housing was not completed until 1988.

Shane’s South End was a hotspot for traveling African-American and Latino performers who worked the club circuit in town and the burlesque houses in Scollay Square. Charlie’s was a safe space according to The Negro Motorist Green Book. If you know Charlie’s location, then you’re aware that Back Bay Station is nearby.

On the second floor, above Charlie’s, was the office of the first black union in the nation, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This union, under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, organized strikes and campaigned for labor laws and racial equity, despite threats of violence. It is from Randolph that his protégé, a theology student at Boston University named Martin Luther King, Jr., had the dream of a March on Washington.

In HUSH HUSH, this history is folded into exposition without becoming didactic. The scene in Chapter 2 that unfolds becomes tense and relevant for readers. You can read it online in the Look Inside feature at Amazon for HUSH HUSH. A man double-parks his Cadillac in front of Charlie’s, two police officers stop, and the Q &A that ensues sounds procedural but it’s all subtext. Shane witnesses it and feels compelled to examine the facts of a case.

Bread wrung from stocks and stones.

History is all around us if we look for it. We should examine both the heights and depths, the dark and the light.

It doesn’t have to be as monumental as the Boston Massacre. It’s often forgotten history that fuels the imagination of writers, like how the Boston Common is the resting place of the colonial American and British dead, or that there’s a small plaque honoring an elm tree in the middle of the Common.

The tree is gone, and a memorial states that the Sons of Liberty assembled there, but it omits one sinister detail. The tree was where criminals, Quakers, and Native Americans were executed.

Has a page from forgotten history or an important public place inspired your writing?

HANK:  That is such a thought-provoking question. And every time I walk on the Common, or in the Public Garden, I think about the people in history who have walked in the same place. It's either inspirational--or chilling.  In The Murder List, the Boston Common bandstand provides  a pivotal moment...for the very reason you suggest, dear Gabriel! 

How about you, Reds and readers?  Or is there a place you think about in a different way because of a book? Or a place you wish you could visit because of a book?

Gabriel Valjan is the author of the Roma Series, The Company Files, and the Shane Cleary Mysteries. He has been nominated for the Agatha, Anthony, and Silver Falchion Awards, and received the 2021 Macavity Award for Best Short Story. He lives in Boston.

You Can't Get There From Here: Reds Nominate the Worst Places to Drive

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As I mentioned earlier this week, I took Youngest to the Boston area on a one day college tour. (Her high school gave the day off to juniors and provided their own tours, but they were to schools Youngest has no interest in, ie, they were in Maine.) We saw Wellesley, which we both liked very much, and then attempted to make the noon tour and info session at Boston College. Attempted being the operative word. Despite its name, BC is located in Newton, which shall henceforth be known as Frikkin' Newton. I've tangled with Frikkin' Newton before. On a past college trip with the Smithie and friends, we visited Mount Ida College, getting lost in both a park and a cemetery before stumbling onto the campus.

This time, Youngest and I managed to find Boston College after backing and forthing several times on Route 16. We just couldn't get ONTO the campus. Despite having GPS and printed directions from the Admissions Office, we couldn't find Admissions, or the parking garage they suggested for us. We went this way and that, through suburban streets, always and ever finding ourselves returning to Beacon Street, like some sort of Twilight Zone episode. Finally we bushwacked our way back to the interstate and headed for Providence and the end-of-the-afternoon tour of Brown. Sorry, BC.

Our own Hank lives in Frikkin' Newton, on a street with no discernible name at an address that doesn't appear on GPS and befuddles taxi drivers. This is not unusual - the villages of Newton have any number of streets with no visible names, opening onto commercial avenues that take the hapless driver right back out into the tangled residential areas. The area was the early settlers' New Town, dating from 1630, and the streets were apparently laid out in the 17th century over cow paths and in the 19th century by developers with inner ear balance disorders.

I'm not even going to talk about the time Hank had to drive in front of me to get me from the charming New England Mobile Book Fair (which in the best Newton tradition is neither mobile, nor a fair) to the highway home. If it weren't for her and Jonathan, I'd be trapped there still. It's a wonder Youngest and I made it out.

For this and so much more, I vote Newton, Mass as the Worst Place to Drive in the United States.

Reds, where are your nominees?

HALLIE EPHRON: So little time, so many confusing places. I vote for the entire Boston area, where cross streets usually aren't labeled. And my GPS runs off its little rails whenever I drive through downtown through what we fondly remember as The Big Dig. The message: if you don't know where you are, you don't belong here. If I had to pick one place it's coming onto Storrow Drive and trying to get to Mass General.

Further afield, there's also a bridge you have to navigate through coming in or out of Pittsburgh with signage to too many connecting roads that is so confusing and comes too late. Ring a bell, anyone??

This is why I love GPS. When it says "Turn left, then turn left, then turn left..." it sounds so calm.

RHYS BOWEN: Oh yes, we had a fun time driving in Boston, taking almost an hour to get to an event with Hank that should have been fifteen minutes away. But things are just as bad on the West Coast. I pity people driving through LA for the first time because the freeways have names and don't actually say where they are going, and the off ramp is sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, across four or five lines of really fast traffic.
GPS makes things easier but I have learned the hard way to check their directions first... as when I was heading north from New Jersey and the GPS took me on a "short-cut" across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan during morning rush-hour.

Italian roads outside of cities are perfectly signed, however I once navigated John onto a street in Florence that was for taxis and emergency vehicles only. And once on this network of streets we couldn't escape because everything was one way. Luckily we didn't get caught. I think India probably takes the cake for the worst roads in the universe ( cows, camels, donkeys, overloaded trucks etc and only one strip of sealed road they compete for, but we've always had a driver so can just shut our eyes and pray)



HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Well, see, here's the thing. In Massachusetts, there's I-128. If you want to go south on 128 from our house, you have to take 128 North, because it goes north first. It's sometimes called I-95. It's kind of the same thing. The North End of Boston is east of Downtown, and South Boston is kind of east. And there's a neighborhood called the West End, but I'm not sure what it's west of.  93 South is called the Southeast Expressway, but you can't go any farther east, really, because you'd be in the ocean. I mean the harbor.  Routes 1 and 3 are also called the Southeast Expressway. And I live in West Newton, which is North of Newton center.

So, yeah. Italy is worse.   And our house is SO easy to find. You just have to know where it is.

JULIA: And they say Maine is where "you can't get the-ah from he-ah."

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh this is a really hard choice. I've ridden in the Boston area while intrepid Hallie drove. I couldn't get over the maniacs rushing past us in the right hand BREAKDOWN LANE! But LA is hideous as Rhys notes, and driving down the length of New Jersey is an exercise in taking your life in your hands, and around Miami is dreadful too, because of ridiculous drivers. I'm becoming one of those people who is constantly looking for back country road "shortcuts!"

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'd have to say anywhere in UK traffic (I will be driving for a few days later on this trip, but not in city traffic!) but my worst ever driving award goes to the city of dreaming spires and Inspector Morse--Oxford. Even my English friends agree that Oxford is even worse than driving in London!

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What are your navigational horror stories?

Pamela Wechsler on the Boston Public Garden and MISSION HILL

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL:  Today I'm delighted to introduce debut novelist and Bostonian Pamela Wechsler. Her novel, MISSION HILL, set in Boston and featuring homicide chief Abby Endicott, has been getting rave reviews. Publishers Weekly says, "Though the swiftly moving plot offers plenty of surprises, it’s the realism with which the author, a seasoned Boston criminal prosecutor who’s now a legal consultant for TV shows, depicts varied worlds from Brahmin glitzy to Roxbury gritty that will make readers eager for Abby’s next adventure." 

 

And Associated Press says: "Screenwriter, TV consultant and former prosecutor Pamela Wechsler skillfully eases into "Mission Hill," her debut legal thriller featuring the intriguing Abby Endicott, chief of the Boston district attorney's homicide unit. Wechsler's multilayered plot realistically touches on legal ethics, political intrigue and construction double-dealings with aplomb with plenty of twists." 

 

I was lucky enough to get to read an advanced copy of MISSION HILL and loved it, especially tough yet vulnerable protagonist Abby. Here's a little about the book:

 

Abby Endicott is chief of the District Attorney's homicide unit in Boston, where she investigates and prosecutes the city's most dangerous killers. She attended the elite Winsor School, graduated from Harvard Law School, and has been known to change into an evening gown amidst bodies in the morgue. She loves her job, and is committed to it, but among Abby's many secrets is her longtime affair with fellow prosecutor Tim Mooney, a married father of one.

One night, Abby is awakened very late by a phone call from her favorite detective, who reports that there has been a horrific murder but is vague about the specifics. When she arrives at the crime scene and discovers the identity of the victim, she knows the terror and tragedy are only beginning.

Debut novelist Pamela Wechsler delivers a gripping and very human portrayal of a woman who will stop at nothing to find out the truth, even if it challenges everything she believes about justice.

SUSAN: Welcome, Pam!

PAMELA WECHSLER: I’m a fan of any book that uses Boston, not as a setting, but as a character. That’s why Robert Parker and his Spenser series are among my all time favorites. I’ve always enjoyed Parker’s sharp dialogue and minimalist style, but it’s the way he wrote about Boston that kept me coming back for more. I loved reading about my home city, and all of its familiar landmarks, through Spenser’s eyes.

When I was growing up, my father had an office in the Back Bay, not far from where the fictional Spenser lived and worked. Sometimes, I’d visit my dad at work, and when I was waiting for him to finish a phone call or wrap up a meeting, I’d peer out his conference room window and look across Berkley Street. If I concentrated hard enough, I could picture Spenser and Hawk, guns drawn, running up the Commonwealth Ave mall, chasing after a bad guy.

Recently, I found myself passing through Spenser’s turf. I took a walk up the center of the Commonwealth Ave. mall, past my father’s old office, and into the Public Garden. Usually, I use the park as a short-cut; it’s the quickest route when I have to get between Beacon Hill and Back Bay. Yesterday, it was a destination.

The Public Garden represents so much of what Boston has to offer; it has history, charm, quirkiness, and natural beauty. The scale is more manageable than its neighbor, the Boston Common, and it doesn’t host any commercial ventures, except an occasional film crew. There are no hot dog vendors or concerts, and so far, no Hemp Fest.

I used to come to the park when I was a child, and very little appears to have changed. The Make Way for Ducklings statues weren’t there yet, but for me, they might as well have been—the image of that line of ducks was etched in my mind long before 1987, when the sculptures were installed. Like all Boston children, my mother used to read the Robert McCloskey book to me and my brothers night after night, at bedtime.

The swan boats are exactly as I remember; in fact, it looks like they haven’t been renovated since they were first launched in the lagoon in 1877. Well, maybe the price is a little steeper, and the railings have a fresh coat of red paint, but the worn wooden seats look pretty much the same.

A couple of live swans even made an appearance on the lawn, along the perimeter of the lagoon.

The park is the oldest botanical garden in the country and May is the perfect time to take a stroll here, even when the weather is raw and wet, and the sky is foggy. Yesterday, the petals on the pansies and tulips were wilting from the change in temperatures, but the colors still held vibrant and bold.

Most of the trees in the park are adorned with plaques, identifying each species. My favorites are the Crabapples, especially the light pink and white Tea Crabapple.

There are scores of Belgian Elms, with gnarled roots and knobby trunks, and droopy Weeping Willows. A  European Beech is marked with carvings—names, initials, and what looks like hieroglyphs.

Wendell Phillips, Champion of the Slave, stands tall on a pedestal, facing the Four Seasons Hotel. He’s standing at a podium, facing Boylston Street, as though he’s delivering an oration to the diners in the Bristol restaurant.

Many of the benches in the park have memorial plaques. It felt almost disrespectful to sit on the wooden bench that Janet dedicated to her beloved husband, in recognition of his ‘quiet strength and easy ways’.

I settled into the bench for a few minutes, and watched a couple of toddlers offer scraps of bread to the ducks. Joggers, dog walkers, tourists, and locals swirled around me, but all I could hear were quacking ducks and chirping birds.

As much as I love the area, I knew I’d overstayed my welcome when my allergies kicked in, and I started to sneeze. On my way out of the park, a bride and groom posed for their wedding photos in front of the imposing statue of George Washington on his horse. As far as I can remember, Spenser never married his longtime girlfriend Susan Silverman, but if he did, this would have been the perfect spot.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: As someone who once lived in Boston, I loved your tour of the Public Garden (which I also preferred to the Common). Reds and lovely readers, how important is setting to you? Does it seem like another of the novel's characters in the hands of some authors? What makes a setting come alive for you? Please tell us in the comments!

PAMELA WECHSLER spent over fifteen years working as a criminal prosecutor at the local, state and federal levels. She has served as an assistant district attorney and assistant attorney general in Boston, and she was a trial attorney for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. She has investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of crimes, including: murder, witness intimidation, sexual assault, drug trafficking, stock market manipulation, and political corruption. 

About ten years ago, Pam moved to Los Angeles to work as a legal consultant and writer for network television shows. Her credits include: Law and Order; Law and Order: Criminal Intent; Law and Order: Trial by Jury; Conviction; and Canterbury's Law. 

Pam grew up in the Boston area and is a graduate of Tufts and Boston area and is a graduate of Tufts and Boston University School of Law. Currently, she is consulting on television shows, and working on the second Abby Endicott novel. 

What we're writing? Hank says: WHAT YOU SEE

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So, Reds, this is what happens at least seven times a year on this wonderful blog…we all get to share the unimaginable incomparable craziness that is the week before  publication day.

And, now, we have arrived at that astonishing point for my dear WHAT YOU SEE. What I am actually writing at this point seems to be an endless series of lists of things to do.

Some are actually doable! Others utter fantasy, and others doomed.

The other thing that begins to happen this week is the reviews! You see an email subject that says review and you click open, knowing your life may change. I burst into tears when I saw Oline Cogdill’s!

She calls the book superb, and highly entertaining! I sat in my study hollering superb!  Superb!  Superb! (Can you imagine?) Luckily I was by myself.

Library Journal awarded a star, and the other three trades were fabulously positive.  Next week you I will be able to tell you of some other big big big reviews—the ones that use words like “flawless,” and “perfection,” and  “one of the best and most resonant thrillers of the year.”

I will probably tell you about those that a couple more times.

You have been on this journey with me from the beginning, and I am grateful. But just a reminder, here are two looks into WHAT YOU SEE. 

This is Franklin Alley, just within a surveillance camera shot :-) of Boston City Hall.  The book begins with a high noon stabbing in Curley Park, and Jake and Deluca get a tip that the bad guy has gone down this twisty cobblestone path. But it is a dead-end! Would a murderer run away in this direction? And then they hear something.

Another scene:

This is Jane Ryland, who, due to a series of events – – very surprising – – is now at Boston City Hall. She's on the trail of this noon-time standing. And then she gets that  phone call.

Two more quick things:

Watch the space! Tuesday I'll tell you more about WHAT YOU SEE. But right now if you are intrigued, do preorder!

And then let me know via my website,  because I am sending prizes to all who pre-order. And for you darling Reds readers a special prize. Just put Jungle Red on the form (you can click to it from my website) in the inscription space, and I will send you a special treasure.

Crossing fingers and love you madly! 

And anyone have pals in Atlanta, Phoenix, Madison, Oakmont, Indianapolis or Orange county? Tell me in the comments if you anywhere near there! And check my events calendar--love to see you all. 

And oh--LAUNCH PARTY! Thursday, October 22, 7pm at Brookline Booksmith. Will I see you there?

Ah. SO NERVOUS! How can I relax?

What We're Writing? Hank's Say No More! And WHAT YOU SEE!

At the Hopkinton MA library

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Scroll down to win WHAT YOU SEE!
But first: I am SO confused! It’s the best kind of confusion, of course, and I completely embrace it. But I am in the midst of writing my new book (YAY! 50,000 words done. BOO! 50,000 words to go.) and I am even loving it. Sometimes.  So on this “What We’re Writing” week, it would seem logical to reveal a little of that book, titled SAY NO MORE.

But too soon. Toooo soooon! I am still tweaking and changing and getting the story gelled (jelled? gel is for hair, right? But it does hold things in place…) in my head. Every day before I go forward, I go back and move words around. See if I can think of stronger ones.  I ask myself: what did I mean by this? Why do I care about this?  What is this story, SAY NO MORE, really about?

Already Daniel Tarrant’s name has changed to Edward Tarrant, Madeleine Ruggerio’s name has changed to Caroline. (And that’s still not quite right.) One name that won’t change: Willow Galt.

And motivation, motivation. I am consumed with motivation. I am adoring the ever-surprising way the story unfolds, and I’m always thrilled if I can get one good idea a day. I mean, wow. One good idea a day! That would be 365 good ideas a year. Which seems like a lot, right?

I cannot write without this. 

And as Hallie brought up yesterday, the complicated braiding of timelines. My time-charts are less fancy than Hallie’s. Here’s one. Scene by scene, what day, what day in the book, what time, who is in it, how many pages it takes.

To keep track of what happened when and how old characters were, I scrawled this. I can make sense of it, so hey.

Yes, I can read it. PERFECTLY.

And then, this very high-tech timeline at the top, so I can see where I am in the story arc, from page 0 to 400. Works for me!

See? I am on page 180, so near the middle.

But the other part of my life, and why it’s confusing, is that the new and finished book, WHAT YOU SEE, is coming soon. (SO EXCITING! And amazing reviews to come, shhhhh.) 

So what I am also writing is all the other stuff that goes with the publication of a new book. For example, I have to figure out my book-talk talk (Launching October 20 in Vero Beach, Oct 21 in Atlanta, Oct 22 in Boston, for starters—please please come to the parties!)   When someone asks “What is it ABOUT?” I have to come up with a fascinating and succinct answer.

WHAT YOU SEE. You know those surveillance cameras that are everywhere? On TV, we see the results—the videos of football players punching their “girlfriends,” of actors trashing their hotel rooms, of bad guys and bank robbers and convenience store fights.  And often, the police catch their suspects as a result of all that conflict caught on camera.

But what about all that other video? The kind that never makes the news—the video of me, and you and you and you? It’s all there, somewhere. It all exists. And someone has access to it.  What if….

In WHAT YOU SEE:

 JANE RYLAND suddenly has a new job! And she’s covering a murder that’s taken place in broad daylight.  Thing is, her bride-to-be sister Melissa is in town, and in the midst of Jane’s reporting, Melissa, frantic, calls her cell. “We can’t find Gracie,” she says.  Where’s the nine-year old flower girl?

Detective JAKE BROGAN has a doozy of a case. A guy’s been stabbed to death in Curley Park, next to the tourist-magnet Quincy Market—in front of dozens of camera-toting witnesses and surveillance cameras.  Easy solve, right?

BOBBY RIAZ knows his future as a paparazzo is so bright, he oughta—change his name.   He does—and after what he sees, his future changes as well.     

TENLEY SISKEL  is only trying to envision a future at all. After her sister's death--murder?--she’s consumed with guilt. Could she have prevented it? Now her hot-shot mom’s finagled her a stupid summer job. At least it’s easy; all she has to do is monitor video feeds. But soon, what she sees will change her life forever.

CATHERINE SISKEL, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff and Tenley’s mom. Her life is all about damage control. Until today--when the damage she sees is too terrible to face.

Will readers love it? Will they write glowing reviews, and buzz about WHAT YOU SEE to their friends? No pressure, I reassure myself. It’s just my career.  (You can pre-order here!)

But if you’d like to win an advance copy?  Just say “I want WHAT YOU SEE!” in the comments. And tell me…do you notice the surveillance cameras?