Don’t Blame the Author by E.J. Copperman, or his designee

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If you're a mystery reader, sooner or later you're going to know this pain: three or five or eight books into a series you love, with characters you look forward to spending time with, and twisty plots that come to a satisfying end, suddenly... there's no more.

Sometimes, it's because the author has passed away. We are human, after all, and though I personally wish the ghost of Edith Pargeter was still toiling away at the Brother Cadfael mysteries, she's more than earned a peaceful rest. Some retire: Lee Child has placed the Reacher series in his brother, Andrew Grant's hands, and back in the late 90s, the historical romance author LaVyrle Spencer retired at the height of her career. Some writers get tired of the characters, or run out of stories to tell for them - famously Dennis Lehane with his Gennaro/Kanzie series. And occasionally, an author makes so much moolah he can sit on his vast horde like a dragon, puffing out hints of more books but never producing (I'm looking at you, George R.R. Martin.)

But the most common reason for the death of a series, and the one our well-loved EJ Copperman is here to tell us about, are the cold equations of the publishing biz.

 

 

It’s not my fault.

Readers like to ask authors questions, and authors love to answer them. But when I tell you that Good Lieutenant, the sixth Jersey Girl Legal Mystery, will be the last in that series, please don’t ask me why I decided to stop writing about Sandy Moss and her undisciplined friends.

I didn’t.

The reality of the publishing business is that it’s… a business. Publishers buy manuscripts they think will appeal to readers enough that they (the readers) will purchase copies, either physical or digital, or check one out from a library that has, in turn, purchased that book. If enough money is made – by the publisher – to justify trying this whole thing again, the publisher will request another manuscript in the series and the author, if they haven’t anticipated this development, will get to work on the next book.

That’s the theory. Now sometimes, not enough people purchase copies, and not enough money is made, and the publisher gently (most of the time) informs the author that the upcoming novel will be the last in the series, and thanks for your time and effort. If you get a new idea, ask your agent to let us know.

(Just as an aside: There are no new ideas. There are twists on old ideas and if it’s a novel – you should pardon the expression – enough idea, it seems new. But it’s not.)

So as Good Lieutenant was in process – that is, when I had submitted the draft but before all the editing and revising had been done – the publisher let me know, yes, gently, that this was the end of the line for Sandy et al. That was considerate, as I still had time to revise the manuscript and wrap up some storylines that otherwise would have been left dangling with no resolution.

It's six books and out for the Jersey Girl, and while I’m sorry to let her go, she had a good run. I’m proud of the books and glad that some readers have let me know they enjoyed the experience.

When I’m writing a series, I usually make each installment just a little more personal for the main character, and since I had started (Inherit the Shoes) with Sandy defending a client she didn’t know, but who ended up being her longstanding boyfriend a couple of books later (Spoiler! Sorry!) it made sense that she should finish by defending the character she most respects and from whom she craves the same kind of respect, Lt. K.C. Trench.

In Good Lieutenant, Trench calls Sandy at home to tell her he’s in custody, accused of fatally shooting another LAPD detective, one who Trench admits to having despised. There are good reasons for despising him, but Trench insists he didn’t kill the other cop. Problem: The bullet found in the victim matches Trench’s gun, which he keeps locked in a safe at home when he’s not on duty.

Trench, who plays his cards very close to the vest, cooperates with his defense team (mostly Sandy) but not that much. He doesn’t like to discuss emotion of personal business, and for Trench, this case if extremely personal. But he can’t investigate it, and that’s making him crazy.

But I’m not here to give you the whole plot of Good Lieutenant. Suffice it to say that Sandy’s life is threatened, her office vandalized, and her stuffed teddy bear destroyed. But that just makes her mad.

No, I’m here today (and thank you for inviting me, Reds!) to explain how I did not choose to end the Jersey Girl series. I don’t blame the publisher, a company that’s been very good to me and with whom I will publish again (two books in 2025). It is a business, and they are trying to turn a profit.

So what I’m saying is, do not ask for whom the series ends. Not enough readers heard about, were interested in, or bought the books, and that doesn’t look good on Severn House’s bottom line.

It ends for thee.

(I’m not really blaming you or any other reader for this; seriously. But how could I pass up a closing line like that one?)

 

E.J. Copperman exists in someone’s twisted imagination. E.J. authors the Jersey Girl Legal Mystery series, currently represented by Good Lieutenant, and the Fran and Ken Stein series (get it?), which will continue next year with Switcheroo. A new series will start around this time next year, but that gives me time to tell you about it later. There are a bunch of other series, too, but you know, not enough of those sold so…

Don’t blame me for being passive aggressive. I have a Jewish mother.

What's Different? a guest blog by E.J. Copperman

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: One of fiction's great gifts is its ability to explore deep questions about human nature, history, society, and ethics - all while making the reader think they're having fun. DUNE is a thrilling adventure set in the unimaginably distant future - and it's about the horrors of colonialism. HUCKLEBERRY FINN is a picaresque, comic adventure on the Mississippi - and it's about the evils of racism. 

So you're thinking, yeah, Julia, but those are GREAT BOOKS and the moral lessons are super obvious. Well, yes. But. When those novels were first published, they didn't arrive with decades of academic papers pointing out the deeper messages (although, like the book we're discussing today, UKULELE OF DEATH, they got excellent reviews.) 

Also, not every author understands what the story is "about" until later. Yes, Ray Bradbury sat down and wrote FAHRENHEIT 450 specifically about the threat of book burnings and intellectual repression (although interestingly, decades later he said he'd written it against "political correctness!") But for many of the rest of us - especially those of us drawn to genre fiction - the underlying theme doesn't reveal itself until we're well along in the manuscript. (Or later, even! I once had a journalist point out a major undercurrent in my first book I had been utterly unaware of.)

So even fun books have a point. Don't believe me? We're making it easy for you see for yourself: our well-loved author friend, E.J. Copperman, is giving away a copy of UKULELE OF DEATH.  

All it takes is the author's desire to make a difference...

 

 

 

Do you know anyone who’s “the same?”

I’ve been giving this some thought lately. My new book, UKULELE OF DEATH, introduces Fran and Ken Stein (I’ll give you a second) who are painfully aware that they are seen as “different.” They have good reason to think so: They have to plug themselves into a wall socket every few days to keep their life energy at a sufficient level. So they’re not exactly off-the-rack kind of people.

But that led me to wonder: Do you know anyone who is not different in some way? Isn’t everybody? Isn’t that another way to say that everyone is a unique individual?

I have a son who is considered to be on the autism spectrum. Is he different? I have friends who do not belong to any organized religion. Are they? People I know have come out as gay, as transgender, as gender queer. Some speak about their struggles with mental illness. Is that different?

If so, what is normal? Who gets to decide?

This series of books is going to be about being different. It’s going to look at what it means to be different and how we each (because we’re all different) cope with it. Fran and Ken will never be able to pass for “normal,” because they’re very large and very strong. One reviewer referred to them as “junior superheroes.”

They will stand out in a crowd, especially Fran, who talks about how much easier it is for Ken to be accepted with his oversize body than it is for a woman well over six feet tall. That’s different, at least statistically.

But there’s more to it than that. Fran and Ken are siblings, but they don’t know how they were created, whether they share DNA and if so, whose. So the series is about the family you create. Most people think about “family” in a specific way; they can’t. They work for people who probably weren’t raised by their biological parents. Does that make them different?

Are you sick of the word different yet?

Everybody, I think, feels like they don’t belong sometimes. Everyone who went through high school believes they were an outsider. Writers believe there’s something a little off about them because they don’t have a “regular” job. When I had the idea for Fran and Ken (which was quite a while ago), I hadn’t considered the repercussions of feeling (brace yourself) different. But as UKULELE OF DEATH took shape, it became clear that’s what the Stein siblings were all about.

Maybe you’ll find something just a little like you in them, too.

Are you different enough?

 

JULIA: Answer that question, dear readers, and you can be the lucky one who wins a copy of UKULELE OF DEATH!

 

E.J. Copperman is very different, in that it’s a name I use to write under. You can find that name on books in the Jersey Girl Legal Mysteries, Haunted Guesthouse, Agent to the Paws, Mysterious Detective and Asperger’s Mystery series. Each one of those books is… let’s say unique.

 

Copperman's Travels by E.J. Copperman (No. It's not about traveling.)

 One lucky commentor will win a copy of WITNESS FOR THE PERSECUTION by E.J. Copperman!

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Our friend E.J. Copperman (aka Jeff Cohen) is a fan favorite here, in part because his books always leave you laughing. And honestly we can all use more laughter these days, right? Today, he's celebrating the publication of his third Jersey Girl Legal Mystery, WITNESS FOR THE PERSECUTION, about which Publishers Weekly said, "Vibrant characters, a suitably complicated plot, sparkling dialogue, plenty of laughs, and some shrewd observations on L.A. and the film industry make for a rollicking good time. Copperman knows how to entertain." (That's a starred review, btw.) 

Along with his books, what else is guaranteed to give you a laugh? Jeff's going to tell us.

In the 1941 Preston Sturges classic Sullivan’s Travels, a director of film comedies wants to break into the serious side and make a Statement with his next film, O Brother Where Art Thou, a title the Coen Brothers borrowed some 59 years later. He thinks that an artist shouldn’t be demeaning himself with silly antics and should be improving the world with his Art.

Suffice it so say he goes through some things to reach the conclusion that maybe laughter isn’t such a bad calling after all. (If you haven’t seen the movie, stop reading right now and go watch it.)

I’ve been going through something a little like that lately, on a much smaller scale. Comical mystery novels are, let’s say, not the most respected branch of the library, and after 20 years (give or take a month) in the biz it tends to get to a writer. So I thought maybe I should be thinking about the bigger picture. Make a statement. Not forgo the jokes necessarily, but have more of a point.

 

Luckily I got over that particular neurosis fast enough and so the third Jersey Girl Legal Mystery, Witness For the Persecution, was published… let me check here… Tuesday. And it has little on its mind other than to get you hooked and hopefully make you laugh while you’re guessing whodunnit. Or even if anyone dunnit.

But that did make me think about the past two years and how difficult they’ve been for virtually every human on the planet. Has comedy been enough to get us through it? I can only speak for myself, and my experience has not been nearly as horrific as others’, but I have a much lower tolerance for Serious than I did before, and I didn’t have that much before.

If I don’t see something funny at least once a day, I start to get the bends. It’s not a pretty picture.

So here are some works of art (small “a”) that have helped get me to today. Maybe you’d like to take a look yourself, or suggest something else that might lighten our mental loads. I’ll be watching the comments.

The Marx Brothers. They’re pretty much my religion. I don’t put on a Marx movie as often as I want to, but that’s only because I live with other people who are, in the eyes of society, more normal than I am. If you’re only watching one I’d recommend any of the last three Paramount features: Monkey Business, Horse Feathers or Duck Soup. The laughs never stop. Except when Harpo sits down to play that stupid harp. (If you have no tolerance for the harp, go with Duck Soup.)

Ted Lasso. Yes. The feel-good show of the pandemic. But it’s also hilarious. The characters of Roy Kent and Coach Beard alone are good for at least five out-loud laughs per half hour. The fact that the show has uplift and characters who are legitimately trying to do the right thing is icing on the cake. And I love icing. Although I’ve been told recently that icing and frosting are not the same thing.

Mel Brooks movies. Start with Young Frankenstein. It’s as close to perfect as a comedy film has ever been (even with a couple of scenes that are… um… less woke than they might be. But always in a good cause. The cast is actually perfect; no one else could have done any of the roles as well. Then move on to The Producers – the original, not the musical, which was great onstage and not fabulous on film – and if you aren’t easily offended, Blazing Saddles. There are plenty more but that’s enough to start.

30 Rock. If you’re not averse to seeing Alec Baldwin these days, check it out. The comedy is so off-kilter that there’s really not much else like it, and all the characters have a heart. It’s just that sometimes you need to look a little harder for it. That Tina Fey has a future in comedy, I think.

Schitt’s Creek. The Ted Lasso of 2020. The first season, I’ll grant you, takes a while to find its voice and its heart, but once you hit the episode where Eugene Levy actually defends Chris Elliott, it’s all pure pleasure from there. Funny and touching.

Galaxy Quest. It’s not just for Star Trek fans, but it treats them with respect. The wonderful ensemble cast is playing, well, an ensemble cast of a TV space opera that went off the air quite some time ago, but is picked up by actual ETs who have seen their show and think it’s a documentary. They need help with an intergalactic bad guy. What could go wrong? The characters aren’t just types and the pacing is excellent. You’ll forget your troubles for a while.

His Girl Friday. I don’t know who it was, but someone at RKO took a look at the classic stage and film satire The Front Page and realized exactly what was wrong with it. They changed the reporter leaving to get married into Rosalind Russell, then hired Cary Grant to be her unreasonable editor trying to keep her from bolting, and in a stroke of genius decided they were a divorced couple who really wanted to get back together. The dialogue comes at lightning speed and don’t for a second sleep on silent-film stalwart Billy Gilbert, who shows up in two scenes and steals the movie, proving he can be hilarious talking, too.

My Favorite Year. Co-written by psychologist and mystery author Dennis Palumbo, this could fall under the category of Mel Brooks-adjacent movies. Brooks’ company produced this hilarious fictionalized memoir of his time on Your Show of Shows shepherding somewhat troublesome guest Errol Flynn, here in the guise of “Alan Swann,” played with great relish by Peter O’Toole, one of the many Oscars he should have won. With a stellar comedy supporting cast including Selma Diamond, who actually wrote on Your Show of Shows.

I could go on. But I’d like to hear your suggestions for the next time life is overwhelming me. Where should I turn for a badly-needed laugh? 

You can find out more about EJ Copperman/ Jeff Cohen and WITNESS FOR THE PERSECUTION at his website. You can also friend him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter as @ejcop.

"It's the Best Thing You've Ever Written," a guest blog by E.J. Copperman

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I don't really need to introduce friend-of-the-Reds and everyone's fave, E.J. Copperman, do I? His mysteries have been making us laugh and think and root for his often benighted New Jersey residents (living and un-) for years.  He's no novice. He has a track record. He has many, many bibliographic entries in libraries around the country!

So what does a long-term, career author think about on the publication of his 26th book  - the first in a new series, and not set in the Garden State? Well, he's looking at some other dynamite authors. And wondering, how do you know when you've written your best?

 

Just recently I watched Mank, the movie that is supposedly about the writing of the Citizen Kane screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who you probably know as the grandfather of the nice guy on Turner Classic Movies but who I know as the guy who produced the best three Marx Brothers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers and Duck Soup. But that, as people who say nonsensical things say, is neither here nor there (it’s someplace but nobody ever seems to look for it). 

 

Anyway, I’m not offering a movie review here, but one moment (actually, two moments) in the movie struck me in an unexpected way. At one point, Herman’s brother Joe (who would go on to write and direct All About Eve, among other things), in trying to dissuade Mank from going ahead with the Kane script (here called American), says, “It’s the best thing you’ve ever written,” which is fairly poor salesmanship if you’re sincerely trying to get a guy not to submit his screenplay.

 

Later, when Orson Welles shows up and Mank starts arguing with him over screen credit for the screenplay, our “hero” says to Welles, “It’s the best thing I’ve ever written.” And that’s when my solar plexus felt a little punched.

I’ve been writing a long time, and writing mystery novels for a decent portion of that long time. I’d never considered the question before: What’s the best thing I ever wrote?

 

How would I know?

 

I mean, my 26^th novel, Inherit the Shoes, was just published, and people seem to like it well. (Very few people other than reviewers will tell an author they hate the book to the author’s face, a societal convention I applaud wholeheartedly.) It starts a new series that I hope will last for a long time, dealing with a New Jersey criminal prosecutor who tires of the whole putting-people-in-jail thing and decides to move to Los Angeles when she’s offered a job as a family attorney, which is a polite way of saying a divorce lawyer. And that’s all I’ll tell you for now because we’re trying to decide what the best thing I’ve ever written might be. Or had you forgotten?

 

It might be Inherit the Shoes. It might not. Could be it’s a book you haven’t had the chance to see yet. Maybe it’s one of the many (many) screenplays I wrote before turning to the long form, none of which was ever produced. It’s entirely possible it was a newspaper article I wrote back in the day, a journal entry from my college days or a blog post on the late, somewhat lamented Hey, There’s A Dead Guy in the Living Room. For all I know it’s a grocery list I wrote back when we used to go to grocery stores. 

 

To be fair, it’s also a distinct possibility that I’ll write something better my next time out. That’s what keeps this writer going, the prospect of writing something amazing. Hey, it’s possible. Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote Citizen Kane, after all. 

 

But as of now? The best thing? I honestly can’t say. I know I have favorites for sentimental reasons but I can’t say objectively that one is better than all the others. There are readers who love my Haunted Guesthouse series and have no time for any of the rest. That’s fair; you’re entitled to like what you like. Others believe that the stuff I wrote back when I had another name was the best material I’ve produced. Sure, it could be. 

 

The writer is too close to the work to know. It’s why Mank has to hear it from his brother before he believes it of the Kane screenplay. We were there the whole time we were writing it and we know we compromised in places for lack of a killer idea in that small passage or that chapter or that plot point. So that can’t be best, can it?

 

Maybe it can. Maybe everybody gets to decide for themselves. 

 

As for me, I’m hoping nobody ever asks me what the best thing I’ve ever written might be because I honestly couldn’t give a definitive honest answer. On the other hand, if you want to tell me what the best thing I’ve ever written has been for you, I’ll never not want to hear it. Because that means that something I wrote got to you, and what’s not to like about that?

 

Wow. This might not be the best thing I’ve ever written, but it certainly the most self-obsessed.

 

JULIA: Okay, dear readers, can you name "the best thing" any of your favorite authors have written? Can you point to a moment when you can say, "This was my best?"

 

E.J.Copperman is the author of 26 published mystery novels including INHERIT THE SHOES, the first Jersey Girl Legal Mystery, which as it turns out is available now. The other 25 books are also still available. As far as Copperman knows. On the other hand, Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote Citizen Kane, ostensibly with Orson Welles, and that was, in everybody’s opinion, the best thing he ever wrote.

Bugs Bunny's Critique of Pure Reason; a guest blog by Jeff Cohen and EJ Copperman

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Usually, when we have a guest who writes as part of a team, we like to explore how the dynamic works. Since Jeff Cohen is collaborating with E.J. Copperman, who is... Jeff Cohen... I'm not going to ask. I don't want to disturb the delicate balance.

We have several prolific writers here at Jungle Reds who produce two to three books a year, including Jenn McKinlay, Rhys Bowen, and Edith Maxwell. I can, however, honestly state none of them has ever released books in two different series on the same day. Thank heavens, we always say writers aren't competing against one another. I hope your monthly book budget runs to more than one purchase, because you're going to want to get both BIRD, BATH AND BEYOND and THE QUESTION OF THE DEAD MISTRESS from two of the funniest cozy mystery writers around.

At a conference recently I was asked (as authors occasionally are) to name my influences. And I always cringe at the question because the artists who actually have influenced me had virtually nothing to do with the kind of thing I have ended up writing. My influences are not Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett or Tony Hillerman. I admire the work of each of those masters, but they didn’t set me on any path other than to want to read more of their books.

When I was writing a Capstone project for my master’s degree about six years ago (a non-mystery novel that was never published, possibly for good reason) I was required to list in the bibliography works that had influenced my thinking for the project and my style in writing it. Mostly I lied. I brought up Cicero and Kierkegaard and Kant, for goodness’ sake, all of whom I had read strictly for courses in the master’s program and have completely forgotten about since.

The conference panel at which I was asked the question was about writing books in the mystery genre that are also (hopefully) funny. So I finally felt comfortable uttering the one name that really has had an influence on my writing since I picked up a crayon in second grade. The one artist whose style I might not have directly emulated, but who definitely has had an impact on every work I’ve ever written.

That’s right. Bugs Bunny.

Bugs is a demon, a wiseguy, the kind of comic nuisance you’d never want to face as an adversary. But he never punches down. That is, he doesn’t use his lethal wit on anyone who hasn’t directly come after him. He doesn’t attack the defenseless or the weak—he only makes fun of those who deserve it.

I’ve always tried to create characters who follow the same code. They’re smart and funny, but they don’t ridicule anyone who isn’t flat-out asking for it. I have two books that were published on October 9 (it’s a long story, and it gives me headaches, so don’t ask), and their main characters are very different, but they hold to the code.

Kay Powell, the main character in BIRD, BATH AND BEYOND, is a theatrical agent whose clients are all animals. The non-human kind. In this, the second book in the series, she’s representing a parrot who might be the only witness to a murder. And Kay, a showbiz kid who left the act to get a law degree and become an agent, runs into a lot of people who think the bird should just speak up and name the killer.

She hears that from police detectives and reporters. To the cops she explains what is and is not possible with parrots. To the reporters, whom she sees as crass leeches trying to destroy her privacy, she’s slightly less patient.

So she tries to defuse the situation:

“Is this going live to any of your affiliates?”

“Yes!” a couple of the reporters yelled out.

It was a pity. Because I didn’t want to get in trouble with the FCC, my planned two-word statement was not going to be usable.

Samuel Hoenig, on the other hand, is not trying to be a rapier wit. Samuel, who is the narrator of THE QUESTION OF THE DEAD MISTRESS (also published October 9, and it’s still a good policy not to ask me why), has an autism-spectrum disorder and answers questions for a living. When a woman asks whether her husband is having an affair with his college sweetheart, who happens to be dead, Samuel does not try to ridicule her motives. But he doesn’t understand them.

“I do not expect any payment from you, Ms. Fontaine,” I said. “And you may rest assured that any client who walks through that door will get my full attention and an accurate answer to his or her question. In your case the answer was so obvious that it seemed foolish to continue with the interview. No. Your husband is not having an affair with his dead girlfriend.”

“I’m going to ask you again,” Virginia said. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because it is physically impossible for a living man to have a mutual relationship with a dead person,” I said, marveling at the idea that I even had to point out such an obvious fact.

They approach things differently. Samuel isn’t trying to make you laugh; it wouldn’t occur to him to do that. Kay uses humor to deflect and get the upper hand. But neither one of them will take advantage of someone weak or unfortunate.

It’s Bugs Bunny as a philosophy. You can keep your Kierkegaard.

E.J.Copperman writes a bunch of mystery series, but the two coming out on the SAME DAY in October are BIRD, BATH AND BEYOND in the Agent to thePaws series and THE QUESTION OF THE DEAD MISTRESS in the Asperger’sMystery series.

By the way, one of the most moving, affecting things I’ve read recently was a column by @MaineMillenial. https://www.pressherald.com/2018/09/16/the-maine-millennial-im-sharing-my-dad-with-the-world/

JULIA: Thank you for the shout out for the Smithie, Jeff! Readers, you can learn more about Jeff Cohen at his web site, and also friend him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter as @JeffCohenWriter. E.J. Copperman, who is on Twitter as @ejcop, also has a web site and a blog, SLICED BREAD.