All About Endings--True Crime Tuesday

HANK: Darlene Ryan is so happy for Sofie Kelly! Because they are the same person. And Sofie just made the New York Times Bestseller list.

Let's give her a Jungle Red whoo hoo!

::listening::

Okay!

I asked Sofie/Darlene about the moment she got "the call" saying she'd made the list--she said "I'd been working on a new painting technique when my agent called, so there I was splattered with three colors of paint, gel medium and specks of newsprint. I looked about as far from a New York Times best-selling author as someone can get!"
Whatever that looks like. (Some of you? Look in the mirror.)

But Darlene is always on the lookout for mystery fodder--which makes her perfect for
True Crime Tuesday

Hit and Run
by Darlene Ryan

I doubt you’ve ever heard of Alan McLean. In fact, most people here in the city where he lived, wouldn’t recognize the name.

Alan McLean was a university professor and father to five children. In the early hours of January 8, 1994 he was walking home from a party. He was wearing dark clothing, walking with the traffic, and it had been snowing.

Alan McLean died on the side of the road that runs along the river to the downtown. Witnesses who arrived shortly after the accident said they saw a white truck stopped a short distance ahead. As they stopped, it drove away.

Police looked for evidence, interviewed witnesses, contacted local body shops. In the days after Alan McLean’s death, they were on every local newscast urging the hit and run driver to come forward. He or she didn’t.

Fairly quickly the hit and run death of the university professor wasn’t news anymore. I didn’t know Alan McLean, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the accident. Maybe it was because I’d walked that same stretch of road several times and driven it many more. There was speculation that the driver had been drinking and that’s why he (or she) had bolted. Maybe that was why the story burrowed into my brain. One of my favorite people died because of a drunk driver.

Whatever the reason, the case stayed in the back of my mind. I wondered what it was like for the driver that hit Alan Mclean. Did he put the accident out of his head or was there always a frisson of fear that someone, somewhere would put all the pieces together? Did the accident change the driver? Did it turn him into a better human being? Or were the changes darker, more destructive?

A few months ago, an idea for a book began turning in my mind, a book that’s darker than the series of books I’m currently writing. And yes, there’s an unsolved hit and run in the story. No, the victim isn’t a professor, it’s not a snowy night in January, there isn’t even a white truck. But I can see the influence of the hit and run case from all those years ago on my story. I’d always wanted the real story to have an ending, and in a way that’s what I was doing, even though all it was a fictional one.

And then—because sometimes, real life is weirder than fiction—a friend of mine who’s a reporter wrote in an email, “Do you remember that hit and run accident years ago where the professor was killed?”

Yes, I remembered, and at last, I got an ending of sorts. Police had worked that case for several years, I learned. They’d had evidence. They’d had a suspect. The problem was, that suspect was dead.

It wasn’t the kind of ending I was looking for. The story I’m writing has a very different one. And in truth, that’s one of the reasons why I write books, because I get to control the ending and supply all the answers. Real life isn’t nearly as simple.

HANK: So fascinating, Darlene/Sofie. "Real life isn't nearly as simple." That actually stopped me for a second. I guess because I'm trying to write an ending--and right now it seems like the most difficult thing of the planet.

**So, Reds, do you have trouble with endings? What drives you crazy in an ending?

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Bio: Darlene Ryan is the author of four award-winning teen novels, a memoir and a children's picture book. Her alter ego, Sofie Kelly, is the author of the new Magical Cats mysteries from Obsidian. The first book, Curiosity Thrilled the Cat is out now.

www.sofiekelly.com

ABOUT CURIOSITY: When librarian Kathleen Paulson moved to Mayville Heights, Minnesota, she had no idea that two strays would nuzzle their way into her life. Owen is a tabby with a catn

ip addiction and Hercules is a stocky tuxedo cat who shares Kathleen’s fondness for Barry Manilow.

When murder interrupts Mayville’s summer music festival, Kathleen finds herself the prime suspect. More stunning is her realization that Owen and Hercules are magical—and she needs their skills to catch a killer.

On Fantasy

"But I never let a fantasy get away, because I always stop to analyze it." Shelley Duvall

Charlie Bakst reading Yesterday's Fatal on a beach in Italy.

Jan: I'm not talking about sexual fantasy (sorry guys), but writer fantasy. It goes like this: You are walking through a crowded airport, or through a crowded beach, and all of a sudden you come across someone reading YOUR book.

The perfect fantasy, of course, is when you have no idea who the reader is. He/she is just one of the many fans you never knew existed. In this photo, the reader, who sent me the pic, is a friend of mine, Charlie Bakst, but he was reading my book on a beach in Italy -- so I figure that makes up for him not being a complete stranger.

Once, my daughter, who has experienced the highs and lows of my writing career, called me up from college screaming excitedly. It turned out that as she was leaving the cafeteria, she saw the clerk at the register reading my book, A Confidential Source. So although I didn't actually come across the reader myself, I get fantasy points, right?

A couple of years ago, I was speaking at a mystery brunch in on Martha's Vineyard (hosted by Edgartown Books) and Robin Cook -- yes, the best selling medical thriller writer -- made a joke of hoping to stumble across someone on South Beach reading his book. You'd figure for Robin Cook this would be an everyday reality.

So I'm curious about how widespread this fantasy thing is. Is it just Robin Cook and me (I doubt it) or do we all have a verson of this, not just writers, but artists, musicians, teachers and even lawyers??

RO: It's a rush, no doubt about it. I haven't had the book version yet, but some years ago I produced a video called Say it By Signing, for friends and family of hearing-impaired people who sign; also acquired a book on the same subject. Not a huge market, but if my book does as well, it will be champagne all around. I saw the book in the window of a small bookstore in Bar Harbor, and the video was picked up by a nationwide chain (anyone remember the dear departed Nature Company?) I was ecstatic. it didn't even matter that I didn't make a lot of dough on it...I was thrilled. I think it's the Sally Field, "you like me..you really like me" thing.

HALLIE: My fantasy was to find my books for sale at an airport or train station newsstand. One day, my daughter phoned me from the Los Angeles airport to say that she was looking at a copy of OBSESSED right there at the newsstand! Then I found out they change the book displays every 24 hours.

In a related be-careful-which-fantasy-you-wish-for scenario--I was chatting with a woman author I'd met at a conference a few years ago. I told her my book-at-the-aiport fantasy, she she told me this story. Her husband worked for Hudson News (they're the franchise that owns all the newsstands in airports, Grand Central...) and he was able to use his muscle to get HN to order up 300,000 copies of her first paperback novel. She was ECSTATIC. The publisher was ecstatic, too. 100,000 copies were sold. Pretty great, right? BUT (and this is a very big "but") 200,000 copies were returned. This was very bad news for the publisher because they lost a huge chunk of change, and it was the last novel she did with them.

HANK: Here's a fantasy come true: look at this photo of my Prime Time as one of the staff favorites at the wonderful Willow Books in Acton MA. (Whoo hoo. See it? Right in the middle, top shelf?) Now, as for my next big fantasy: please all of you take a moment to send good karma that I make the deadline for Air Time. I'm not even going to tell you when it is...it's all too scary. Back to to reality.

JAN: So aside from the obvious ones -- book gets made into Oscar-winning movie -or making the NYT bestsellers list - I'm curious to hear about other writer fantasies. Also, the comparable career fantasy in other fields! There must be a chef fantasy, salesman-of-the-year-fantasy, and dermatologist fantasy, right?