HANK PHILLIPI RYAN: California. Our hearts got out to those in the horrible fires—seeing that video, and hearing the horrifying tales from friends is absolutely devastating. But California is always dramatic, even in calmer times. Hollywood, and the redwood forests, the gorgeous surf. The Pacific Surfliner train, with its breathtaking views. The vineyards, and the migrant workers, the gold rush, and artichokes and Rodeo Drive and Haight/Ashbury and almonds and the water shortage. The incredible chefs and the amazing food. The Beach Boys. On and on. And all the authors you’ll read about below.
Art Taylor—short-story writer extraordinaire—delved deep into the state for the essence of the new Bouchercon short story anthology he was asked to edit. Brave man! He took it on, and now, well, like getting to test each chocolate before you decided to consume it, here’s a little taste of what’s inside the anthology.
Putting the California in California Schemin’
By Art Taylor, with contributors to the 2020 Bouchercon Anthology
When I was first asked to edit the anthology for this year’s Bouchercon in Sacramento (and now online everywhere!), my only hesitation was geographical. I previously edited Murder Under the Oaks for the 2015 Bouchercon in Raleigh, North Carolina—my home state and a city I’d lived in for more than a decade—but what did I know about California?
Well, as I said in my introduction to the new collection—available now from Wildside Press—I knew quite a bit, as do most of us who love crime fiction, since California has dominated so much of the genre from Hammett, Chandler, and Cain through Sue Grafton, James Ellroy, Walter Mosley, Michael Connolly, and Laurie R. King, and to today’s writers charting still more of the state’s terrain, like Steph Cha and Rachel Howzell Hall and Joe Ide and so many others.
I was also fortunate to rely on the expertise of contributors who knew California too. Walter Mosley himself was one of the guests of honor who offered a story to the collection—“Fearless,” a terrific tale set in post-WWII Los Angeles—and the writers chosen from our blind submission process were required to keep a California angle in their stories.
To celebrate the new anthology—and Bouchercon itself next week—I invited several of those contributors to answer this question: “How did California (or some aspect of the state and its history) inform or influence your story?”
And I’m thrilled to pass the microphone to them now for their answers!
Joyce Krieg on “Last Call at the Zanzibar”
The instant I heard about the 2020 Bouchercon anthology, I knew exactly what I wanted to write.
In the 1950s and 60s, Sacramento’s West End underwent one of the biggest urban renewal projects in the nation—and it all happened just a few blocks from our convention venue. This so-called slum clearance project wiped out Japantown and displaced hundreds of Black residents and businesses like the Zanzibar jazz club. This, I thought, could work as a crime story, as well as a tale that simply deserved to be told.
I worked in Sacramento print and broadcast news for around 20 years but arrived well after redevelopment. Two History Press books by William Burg proved to be invaluable resources in the writing of “Last Call at the Zanzibar,” as was a post by Chris Longo on the Urban History Association’s blog.
For the longest time, I figured I was the only person on the planet who was fascinated—and dismayed—by the urban renewal mania that swept the nation in the middle decades of the 20th century. It’s gratifying to find out I was wrong.
Ellen Clair Lamb on “The Assistant”
I moved to California from Washington, DC, for the same reasons everybody does. I had just turned 34, and I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d gone as far as I could at my job unless I wanted to be CEO, which I definitely did not (even if that was an option, which it wasn’t). I was in a relationship that absolutely, positively, once-and-for-all needed to end. Dear friends and family members had already made the leap to LA, and I thought: Maybe all I need is a change of scenery.
Credentials are the biggest difference between DC and LA. Washington cares where you went to college and where you’ve worked, but Los Angeles isn’t interested. LA wants to know what you want and what you think you can do. That difference is so dramatic that it’s easy to miss the truth at the core of both cities: they run on the energy and ingenuity of extremely underpaid low-level staff, most of them women. In a society that measures success in dollars, these women know that invisibility is its own superpower.
That’s the germ of “The Assistant.”
Christopher Ryan on “Hellhounds: Hollywood Demons”
California has such a history as a place where some dreamers fly to dizzying heights while others crash and burn. This state encapsulates both the promise and the peril of America. I hoped to juxtapose those extremes in “Hellhounds: Hollywood Demons.” The celebrity element plays with the ludicrous heights that stardom can reach, while the military aspect represents the depths to which we as a nation can plunge when we forget to care for each other. Our tarnished heroes (like ourselves) exist somewhere in the middle and have to navigate the rollercoaster that is America in all its beauty and heartbreak.
From that perspective, California seemed a safe setting for this story. The real risk for me was utilizing as protagonists three characters from my first novel—formerly City of Woe, now extensively rewritten under the guidance of a pro editor, renamed Everyone Pays, and looking for representation. (How’s that for California Schemin’?) I had so much fun writing them in this context I may spin off a “Hellhounds” series.
Gabriel Valjan on “Elysian Fields”
I attended USC and when you walked down the university’s main boulevard, you couldn’t see the San Gabriel Mountains until noon because it took that long for the sun to burn the smog off. It’s the perfect metaphor to understanding California, because it takes time to see things, and not all that you see is pretty and glamorous. Time is essential to revelation and wisdom.
California is unique, a young state; the oldest building dates to only 1818. My story “Elysian Fields,” set after the Japanese internment but before the Zoot Suit Riots, is about privilege and intolerance, about how wealth and power are above the law. There is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and learning that knowledge or discovery are forms of justice, if you choose to remember and not forget, or forgive.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, I am enthralled. This sounds amazing. And how about you, Reds and readers? If you had to create a story based on something California, what would you write about? And hooray, you don’t have to write all about it—just tell us a snippet of your favorite California thing!
Bios:
Joyce Krieg spent 20-plus years in print and broadcast journalism in Sacramento, giving her the background to write “Last Call at the Zanzibar.” Most of the people and places are real and the events recounted really did happen (well, almost ¼). Joyce is the author of three mysteries published by St. Martin’s Press and is a past president of California Writers Club. She lives in Pacific Grove, California. www.joycek.com.
Ellen Clair Lamb (Clair, to friends) is a writer, editor, and researcher who worked for the much-missed Mystery Bookstore during her years in Los Angeles. She has been a lobbyist for bank regulators, an association executive, a community theater director, stage manager for a show in the New York Musical Festival, and winner of Ben Stein’s money. She lives in Arlington, Virginia and roots for the world champion Washington Nationals.
Christopher Ryan is currently transitioning from independent to traditionally published work, with six stories up for publication in 2020/2021. “Hellhounds: Hollywood Demons,” appearing here, features three characters from his first novel, City of Woe. He has been a reporter, teacher, co-founder of a comedy troupe, actor, independent film producer, and podcaster. He has written action tales featuring Alex Simmons’ Blackjack and has four independently published novels. www.chrisryanwrites.com.
Art Taylor is the author of The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense and On the Road with Del & Louise, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. His short fiction has won an Edgar Award, an Anthony Award, and multiple Agatha, Derringer, and Macavity Awards. He edited Murder Under the Oaks, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University. www.arttaylorwriter.com.
Gabriel Valjan is the author of the Roma and Company Files series with Winter Goose Publishing. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. Gabriel has been shortlisted for an Agatha and Anthony for The Naming Game, the Bridport and Fish prizes, and received an honorable mention for the Black Orchid Novella Award. Level Best Books publishes his Shane Cleary series. Gabriel lives in Boston’s South End and he’s an ailurophile. www.gabrielvaljan.com.
