Mark Pryor Talks Rubbish--Literally

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It is always a treat to have my friend Mark Pryor as a guest here on JRW, and he's here today to talk about (at least partly!) his new Hugo Marston novel, THE FRENCH WIDOW. I have been a huge fan of this series from the very first book, THE BOOKSELLER. Mark is an Englishman who lives in Texas, where he's a prosecutor, and his protagonist, Hugo Marston, a former FBI profiler, is a Texan who lives in Paris and works for the U.S. Embassy as head of security. It's a great international combination!

MARK PRYOR: I would like to begin with a nugget of wisdom that I’ve been sharing as widely as I can these past few months. It comes from a wise young woman aged just fifteen, and arose from our nightly chat about life, the world, and whatever else. We were talking about talking. About who we feel able to talk to, share our problems with. It was a winding, random chat that I couldn’t possibly recreate but I do know we agreed that there’s really only one person we both felt we could tell our trouble to, tell him absolutely anything, whatever was in our heart or our mind.

Now, Natalie, my daughter, isn’t just a philosopher she’s a budding artist, so for my birthday a few weeks after that chat she depicted our shared conclusion on a square of canvas, and I’m delighted to share it with you today. Feel free to use it, no charge whatsoever.

Can you argue with that? No, I didn’t think so….

Now, I should say something about writing, and I’m delighted to be able to do so on this wonderful blog. I thought I might write about Covid-19 and how I’ve been coping, but then I thought, No, we all need a break from that darned virus. So, other than the previous sentence, Covid-19 will not be mentioned. Oh, that sentence too… anyway, onward.

I know, let’s talk rubbish. Literally.

As a criminal prosecutor and a crime writer, one of the questions I get asked the most is: Do you take cases from your day job and use them in your fiction?

It’s a good question, because having prosecuted multiple murderers, robbers, thieves, rapists, and burglars, you’d think my bucket of ideas would be regularly topped up. But here’s the thing about real crime—it’s usually one of two things, either grotesquely mundane or too ridiculous to be believable. And yes, I have an example.

Imagine this: you’re working at a recycling center, a large warehouse of a space, and you’re at the far end of the conveyor belt, which is lined with people in heavy gloves sorting through the recycled items moving slowly toward you. You’re pulling off glass and cardboard, plastic and metal, throwing each piece in the right bin. Suddenly, the person next to you raises his voice over the hum of the belt and the clatter of goods hitting their respective containers, and he says, “Who the heck would recycle a mannequin?”

You look down the line to see what he’s talking about, and you see people pointing in horror. Someone hits the red button to stop the conveyor belt and everyone steps back, because it’s not a mannequin at all. It’s the crumpled body of a man in his fifties, broken and bloodied and partly covered with whatever else had traveled in the recycling can with him.

This happened, right here in Austin, and it was a murder case I prosecuted. Now, I will grant you, so far it sounds like a great start to a novel, right? And it gets better (for a while)….

The homicide detective responded to the scene and was smart. Brilliant even. Once the Crime Scene Unit had taken photos the CSU tech wanted to move the debris off the body to see if they could determine a cause of death. The detective told them not to.

Instead, she started looking closely at the papers on and around the body. Why? She wanted to find pieces of mail in the hopes they’d have an address on them. After all, if they were on the body they’d likely have been in the same can, and that could pinpoint the murder location.

Genius, because it did. Mail on top of the body led them to a barely-used little church, where they found a recycling can with blood on it. That blood was a match for the victim. Nearby video cameras caught several people, including the victim, hanging out there the previous day—a man and a woman. They were identified, and the man confessed to the murder.

Great story, yes? But here’s the thing, the nugget of reality that explodes this wee tale into too many pieces, the kernel of fact that would render this apparently clever tale into a disaster of crime fiction. Remember, they cleverly found the recycling can, right? Now can you guess what they found right next to the recycling can?

Yep. A trash can. You see, it’s very common knowledge here that if you put something (or someone!) in a trash can, it gets picked up by the automated arm on the trash truck, compacted inside it, and then dumped into a giant pit in the middle of nowhere. You put something of value in the trash can by mistake, that’s tough luck because you’ll never see it again. Gone for good.

So imagine the story I’m telling, with a murderer standing there in the night. He has a dead body over his shoulder, and he’s looking back and forth between a trash can and a recycling can. Why in heaven’s name would he choose the recycling can? Any half-skeptical reader would throw the book across the room if he did that in fiction. Quite rightly.

But this gentleman, in real life, did exactly that. I don’t know why, he just did.

Thereby both creating, and ruining, a jolly good crime story.

  

Mark Pryor is a former newspaper reporter from England, and now a prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, in Austin, Texas. He is the author of the Hugo Marston mystery series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelona. The first in the series, THE BOOKSELLER, was a Library Journal Debut of the Month, and called "unputdownable" by Oprah.com, and the series has been featured in the New York Times and was recently optioned for film/TV. Mark is also the author of the psychological thrillers, HOLLOW MAN, and its sequel, DOMINIC.  As a prosecutor, he has appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Here's Mark in Monmartre. Does that look like the perfect place to write???

More about THE FRENCH WIDOW
A young American woman is attacked at a historic Paris chateau and four paintings are stolen the same night, drawing Hugo Marston into a case where everyone seems like a suspect. To solve this mystery Hugo must crack the secrets of the icy and arrogant Lambourd family, who seem more interested in protecting their good name than future victims. Just as Hugo thinks he’s close, some of the paintings mysteriously reappear, at the very same time that one of his suspects goes missing.

DEBS: I can't wait to dive into this one! REDS and readers, just how much reality do you want in your fictional crimes? As Mark points out, most murders in real life are not very clever--but would we want to read about them?

Mark Pryor--The Book Artist Official Cover Reveal

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  We have so much fun on Jungle Red--there's always something new and entertaining. Today we have a first ever (I think) for us--an official COVER REVEAL from one of our favorite authors, Mark Pryor. Mark is giving JUNGLE RED the first look anywhere at the cover of his upcoming Hugo Marston novel, THE BOOK ARTIST! I am a huge fan of this series so cannot wait to get my hands on this absolutely gorgeous book! Without further ado, here's Mark to tell us about it!

MARK PRYOR: There are many exciting moments in an author's life, and with a book release on the horizon there's much to look forward to. Top of the list is release day itself, and close behind is getting that big box of books from the publisher.

On a par with that, in my opinion, but months earlier, we first see the cover art for the next book. It's a little bit like Christmas except, with my publisher at least, I get to choose which present I want! (While my publisher has final say-so on which cover we use, they always consult me, and sometimes even listen!)

Oh, before I get ahead of myself, and since this is the topic of this post, please allow me the honor of sharing the cover for my upcoming mystery novel with you, the next in the Hugo Marston series, and say a big thank you to my friends at JRW for letting me do this exclusive reveal on their wonderful blog!

Here it is:

The fantastic artist at Seventh Street Books actually sent me three options, but this one was my immediate favorite. For one thing, all that color just makes it pop off the page. And I think the pinks and yellows tie in well with the title, and the subject matter of an artist.

The eternal question, of course, is how much difference does a good cover make? We all know the adage about how we shouldn't judge a book by one. But the reality is, we do. I know I do, absolutely. And I think it's OK, because a good cover can tell you something about what's beneath it, on the page. It can convey mood, and tone, tell you who one or more of the characters might be. But the most important role of a good cover, of course, is to make the browsing shopper pick it up from the shelf, or click on it while perusing online books. After that, it's up to the author to snag the reader's attention...

Now, I know many readers of this blog enjoy mystery series, like Debs's Duncan Kincaid / Gemma James novels, and those present publishers with their own challenges. Most notably: how do you keep the covers of a series consistent, but also fresh?

Take my first three books, all of which were basically black and white.

 

 

I loved them all but, as the number of books in the series grew, it became increasingly obvious to me and the good people at Seventh Street that we couldn't stick to black and white forever. So, while staying with the "obviously Paris" theme, we moved into richer colors with THE PARIS LIBRARIAN and THE SORBONNE AFFAIR. 

One of the mock-ups for the January release of THE BOOK ARTIST was quite similar to these but, once again, SSB and I went for something slightly different, the more colorful (dare I say braver?!) option. And as I said, I love it.

So I'm curious, JRW writers, how important are covers to you, and how much input do you try and give.

Likewise for JRW readers, how much attention do you pay to book covers? Are covers more important for stand-alone books than for series books (that you'd likely buy anyway)?

About THE BOOK ARTIST:

Hugo Marston attends the opening night of an art exhibition in Montmartre, Paris, and is less than happy about going until he finds out that the sculptures on display are made from his favorite medium: books. But soon after the champagne starts to flow and the canapes are served, the night takes a deadly turn when one of the attendees is found murdered.

Hugo lingers at the scene and offers his profiling expertise to help solve the crime, but the detective in charge quickly jumps to his own conclusions. He makes an arrest, but it's someone close to Hugo, and someone he's positive is innocent. Meanwhile, his best friend Tom Green has disappeared to Amsterdam, hunting an enemy from their past, an enemy who gets the upper hand on Tom, and who then sets his sights on Hugo.

With an innocent behind bars, a murder to solve, and his own life in danger, Hugo knows he has no time to waste as one killer tries to slip away, and another gets closer and closer.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

BookPeople (where you can request a signed copy)

DEB: Mark, I can't imagine that you didn't make the right choice. I've liked your covers from the very beginning but this one is absolutely stunning! I would pull this off the rack--or off the Internet--in a heartbeat even if I'd never heard of Hugo, and that's what we all want.

READERS, Mark will be stopping in to chat today and I'm sure we have a lot to say about covers. 

And here's more about Mark--

Mark Pryor is a former newspaper reporter from England, and now a prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, in Austin, Texas.
He is the author of the Hugo Marston mystery series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelona.

The most recent is THE SORBONNE AFFAIR, a "flawlessly constructed whodunit," according to Booklist. His previous novel in the series was THE PARIS LIBRARIAN, which the Toronto Globe & Mail says “has it all… a finely structured plot that’s one of Pryor’s best books yet.” The first Hugo Marston novel, THE BOOKSELLER, was a Library Journal Debut of the Month, and called "unputdownable" by Oprah.com, and the series has been featured in the New York Times.

Mark is also the author of the psychological thriller, HOLLOW MAN, and its sequel, DOMINIC, published in January of 2018. He also created the nationally-recognized true-crime blog 'D.A. Confidential.' As a prosecutor, he has appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood.

Mark Pryor--The Sorbonne Affair

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What fun to have MARK PRYOR, our Jungle Red friend who is English, lives in Austin, and writes books set (mostly) in Paris. I'd call that a real cosmopolitan guy, and I love his character, Hugo Marston. Lucky for me I got to grill Mark about his new Hugo novel, THE SORBONNE AFFAIR. This series is one of my very favorites of the last few years, and I can't believe this is the seventh book already!

Before we start, let me get you up to speed with a little a snippet about THE SORBONNE AFFAIR:

Someone is spying on American author Helen Hancock. While in Paris to conduct research and teach a small class of writers, she discovers a spy camera hidden in her room at the Sorbonne Hotel. She notifies the US Embassy, and former FBI profiler Hugo Marston is dispatched to investigate.

Almost immediately, the stakes are raised from surveillance to murder when the hotel employee who appears to be responsible for bugging Hancock’s suite is found dead. The next day, a salacious video clip explodes across the Internet, showing the author in the embrace of one of her writing students—both are naked, and nothing is left to the imagination.

As more bodies pile up, the list of suspects narrows; but everyone at the Sorbonne Hotel has something to hide, and no one is being fully honest with Hugo. He teams up with Lieutenant Camille Lerens to solve the case, but a close call on the streets of Paris proves that he could be the killer’s next target.

DEBS: In some ways this book seems an homage, both to the classic mystery and to the espionage novels of the mid-twentieth century. Even the title, The Sorbonne Affair, made me think of books like Helen MacInnes's The Venetian Affair. Were you inspired by that era, and if so do you have favorite authors or novels?

MARK: That’s the era I grew up in, reading books that were both espionage and crime thrillers. Living in the English countryside, it was an exciting way for me to see other parts of the world, and to learn more about the Second World War, which has always fascinated me. I was reading a lot of domestic mysteries, too, though, like Agatha Christie and the Sherlock Holmes, so I suppose it’s inevitable that my own novels reflect streaks of all of that.

As far as favorites, the authors themselves are different these days but the genres and topics are not. Right now, Philip Kerr is an author I admire and enjoy, as is Alan Furst. And what do they write? Mysteries and spy stories set during the Second World War...!

DEBS: Not to downplay the suspense--there is plenty--but this book seemed to me like a love letter to Paris. It made me want to walk the Paris streets, sit in cafes drinking coffee, and eat pastries! Tell us about your very difficult research:-)

MARK: Thank you, Debs, and it’s a struggle for sure. Every year I have to make the trek to Paris to ensure I’m not missing out on anything, slogging my way through pastries and patio gardens, dragging my weary carcass along boulevards and into parks... but who else is going to do it for me? I’d never ask that of someone else. My wife is kind enough to brave these trials and tribulations with me, so there’s that, but I try to remain cheery as I sip café and wander through Paris’s idyllic cemeteries (idyllic, I suppose, if you’re not a permanent resident).

You know, a couple of years ago a friend of mine gave his wife one of my books, and as a result she insisted they visit Paris. He was actually a little put out, as it wasn’t his first choice. But he’s a kind man and a good husband so he relented and they went. On his return he sought me out and gushed about how they were now doing everything in their power to move to Paris! I was delighted, of course, and every time someone feels, sees, or tastes a little bit of that beautiful city in one of my books it makes me so happy. So thank you!

DEBS: You had a lot of fun with the business of writing. Was there anything, or anyone-- that inspired the Helen Hancock story line (that you can tell us!)

MARK: Not especially but it’s interesting to me that one of the themes of the book arose entirely organically. Hugo, the broad-minded and non-judgmental fellow that he is, repeatedly finds himself being called a snob, something he would rail against. But it’s true, because despite himself he’s surprised to find so many of his friends and colleagues enjoy a good romance novel.

I think this has sprung from a pet peeve of mine, which is people drawing lines around genres and then looking down their noses—we’ve seen it several times in the past year when certain writers have been snotty about crime fiction. I won’t name any names, but the idea that because a book contains a crime, and maybe its solving, the story automatically becomes less worthy is laughable. But the same is true of other genres, like sci-fi or romance. I suppose The Sorbonne Affair is a chance for Hugo to be challenged on this point, and it was rather fun for me to prick him with his own prejudice.

DEBS: Your transgender French police officer Camille Lerens is a major character in the book. We learn a little, along with Hugo, about her transition process. Was Camille inspired by a particular person?

MARK: Camille has become more and more real and important to me, for quite a few reasons, and while she was not inspired by any one individual I think it’s desperately important that (especially white, male, privileged) authors create novels that reflect the world around them, not just the bubbles they’ve lived in. My early books are quite white and vanilla, which is okay to a degree but it’s not where we live. The world is full of people with different skin colors, sexual orientations, gender identities, and while some people may not like or understand these differences, it remains true that they exist. And books should include all these experiences.

To be clear, I didn’t create Camille as some sort of political statement, not at all. She’s there to reflect the real world because there are thousands and thousands of Camilles out there, and just as many Hugos wanting to better understand her, just as there are thousands of people who don’t care to.

So, after the first books I realized I was depriving myself and my characters of the full richness of the world, keeping Hugo from experiencing all of its orientations, so to speak. In The Button Man I gave him Merlyn, who is sweet and kind and thoughtful and kinky (writer Jillian Keenan has argued, and persuasively I think, that kink is itself an orientation). Hugo had to deal with her and face his preconceived notions, and now he has Camille who doesn’t so much challenge the way he thinks (he embraces her for who she is) but he’s not sure how to talk to her about it. So it’s fun for me to work through that with him, and help him grow as a character. And, on the lighter side, force him into a pair of leather assless chaps…

The bottom line is that when authors include likeable, relatable characters who are perhaps in a different demographic, we can confront what we don’t know in a safe way, maybe think a little and learn a little. I don’t know, but I feel like right now the world needs a little more kindness and understanding. Heck, a lot more kindness and understanding, and if one character in one book can be a drop in the bucket towards that, I’ll be thrilled.

DEBS: Who else loved those mid-century espionage thrillers? I read that one of Helen MacInnes's books was used as a manual for training British spies during WWII!

  
And would you want to give Hugo a good talking to for being a genre snob???



Mark Pryor is a former newspaper reporter from England, and now a prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, in Austin, Texas.
He is the author of the Hugo Marston mystery series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelo

​​

na. The most recent is ​ THE SORBONNE AFFAIR, a "flawlessly constructed whodunit," according to Booklist. His previous novel in the series was THE PARIS LIBRARIAN, which the Toronto Globe & Mail says “has it all… a finely structured plot that’s one of Pryor’s best books yet.”  The first Hugo Marston novel, called THE BOOKSELLER, was a Library Journal Debut of the Month, and called "unputdownable" by Oprah.com, and the series was recently featured in the New York Times.

Mark is also the author of the psychological thriller, HOLLOW MAN, and its sequel, DOMINIC, which will be published in January of 2018. He also created the nationally-recognized true-crime blog 'D.A. Confidential.' As a prosecutor, he has appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood.

Mark Pryor--The Paris Librarian

DEBORAH CROMBIE: You have to love Jungle Red. We get to go to Paris two days in a row! Yesterday it was Paris in WWI, today it's Paris in the present. Ever wonder about the story behind the story? Here's a great one from another of my favorite writers, the terrific MARK PRYOR. 

First, a little background on his newest Hugo Marston book, THE PARIS LIBRARIAN:

Hugo Marston’s friend Paul Rogers dies unexpectedly in a locked room at the American Library in Paris. The police conclude that Rogers died of natural causes, but Hugo is certain mischief is afoot.

As he pokes around the library, Hugo discovers that rumors are swirling around some recently donated letters from American actress Isabelle Severin. The reason: they may indicate that the actress had aided the Resistance in frequent trips to France toward the end of World War II. Even more dramatic is the legend that the Severin collection also contains a dagger, one she used to kill an SS officer in 1944.

Hugo delves deeper into the stacks at the American library and finally realizes that the history of this case isn’t what anyone suspected. But to prove he’s right, Hugo must return to the scene of a decades-old crime.

Here's Mark to tell us how it all came about.

 

There are two stories that lie between the pages of THE PARIS LIBRARIAN. One makes me cry, the other makes me laugh.

Shall we start with the tears? Good, so let me present a nice photo of a gentleman called Michael Harmuth. He’s with his daughter Sarah, who happens to be a book seller in Wisconsin, and her daughter, Scout.

Well, early last year Sarah wrote to me and said that her dad, Michael, was a fan of the Hugo series. But she said Michael had cancer and was unlikely to live until the next book in the series was released (THE RELUCTANT MATADOR) in June.

Was there any way I could get an advanced copy to him? she wondered.

Now, my own father was taken by the pestilence that is cancer so, obviously, my answer was heck yes. I asked my publisher to send me an ARC, and I wrote a wee note in it, signed it, and sent it to Michael.

That started a wee conversation between the two of us, and he kept me informed as to his progress with the book. He said he was reading it slowly, so as not to get to the end too fast. As you might imagine, that email had me reaching for the tissues.

Turns out Michael enjoyed the book, which I’d been hoping for desperately. And I didn’t want the last page to be the end of Michael’s association with Hugo so I wrote to him and asked, “How would you like to be a character in the next book?”

He loved the idea and, even though I’ve put the names of other people I know in books, he’s the only one I’ve let choose his role. Good guy, bad, guy, red herring, eye-witness… whatever he so desired.

And now, of course, I must remain tight-lipped for fear of giving anything away. Suffice to say, even though Michael is no longer with us, he lives on in Hugo’s world, and in Paris no less!

Now for the laugh, which comes in the form of a “truth is stranger than fiction” guffaw. As you might be able to tell from the title, Hugo’s latest adventure takes place in and around the American Library in Paris.

Now, back in 2015, once I formulate the idea for the story, I email the good people there and ask rather boldly: “Hello, do you mind if I kill someone in your library?”

Not even hours later I receive a resounding “Yes!!” and an invitation to tour the place. Now, I’m not one to turn down a visit to Paris, so my wife and I hop on a plane to spend a week in our favorite city. And this is where the story gets somewhat amusing.

When we show up to the library, librarians Audrey and Abigail are there to show us around. They start with the front, the circulation area, then lead us through the stacks. At the back of the building, they both stop and when I look past them I see a set of stairs leading down, roped off.

“What’s down there?” I ask.

“Err, the basement. We store books down there.”

“Can I see?”

Nervous glances between them, and a hesitant response. “Well, I guess that’d be OK.”

“Oh, is there a problem?”

“Umm, no real problem. It’s just... a little creepy down there.”

Which, as you know, is precisely what a mystery author wants to hear.

So we head down and it is creepy, slightly dim and musty. I tell them about the book in progress, and explain that I’ll have a character who dies early in a locked room. Audrey says, “Oh, that’s funny, we have a small room down here. We call it the atelier, you can see it.”

Sure enough, there’s the tiny little room for my poor, unsuspecting victim to die in. 

We poke around downstairs a little more and I disappear down a short hallway near the foot of the stairs. To my right is a small boiler room, but to my left is a door. In the wall. It blends in and you could walk right by it.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Oh.” That hesitation again. “It’s our secret door.”

Are you kidding me?? I thought that, didn’t say it. Not like that, anyway. Instead I ask mildly, “Oh, do tell.”

Turns out it’s their door into the American University, which takes up the majority of that block. A door they’re not allowed to use because, well, it’s kind of their secret.

“Do you happen to have a key?” I ask.

They side-eye each other. “We do but we’re not allowed to....”

My raised eyebrow stops them, and one of the women heads upstairs for the key.

Now, you know what I’m thinking. It’s a possible escape avenue for my killer, right? But that requires lots of people to have access to the key, and what are the odds of that given that it’s to a secret door? But I ask anyway.

“Only the library staff and volunteers can access the key,” they assure me.

“And how many...?”

“Maybe ten staff and, in the course of a year,” Abigail thinks for a second, “maybe a hundred volunteers.”

I grin like a chimpanzee. “Perfect.”

Later, as I wrapped the book up, it struck me that these coincidences might appear too good to be true, too contrived. So I actually put an author’s note in the front of the book pointing out that the library does have a secret door!

And this made me wonder if my fellow writers ever came across situations like this, when their research came up with something almost too perfect... or if readers ever stumbled over something in a novel, not believing it at first but then finding out it was true?

Oh, and you’re probably wondering if I went through the secret door that afternoon. I will tell you that had I done so and admitted it in writing, my librarian friends might have got in trouble.

So here I am, admitting nothing in writing...

DEBS: That is heartbreaking but wonderful. I'm so glad Michael Harmuth got to be in your book, and I love the locked room mystery. And the American Library is now on my must-see list next time I go to Paris.   

REDS and readers, Mark will check in to chat, and is giving a copy of THE PARIS LIBRARIAN to one of our commenters. (Last time Mark was a guest, his kids got to choose the winner.)

Mark grew up in Hertfordshire, England, and now lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three young children. He is currently an Assistant District Attorney with the Travis County DA's office.

PS: The winner of Charles Todd's THE SHATTERED TREE is Bev Fontaine! Bev, email me at deb at deborahcrombie dot com and we'll get the book out to you!