Laurie R. King

Award-winning, bestselling, thought-provoking mysteries

LAURIE'S NEWSLETTER

When Intellectuals Read Crime

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Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent.

A writer tosses books out into the world without much clue about where they will wash up or whose hands they will end up in. Naturally, this is especially true with a first book. What, people who don’t know me will read it? Wow.

(Personal note from the publisher. Common Knowledge was a new journal then, from Duke University, whose articles still “challenge the ways we think about scholarship and its relevance to humanity”.)

With A Grave Talent, one of those who picked up the book was a gentleman named Richard Rorty. A philosopher who taught at Princeton, Wellesley, and Stanford, won a MacArthur fellowship, wrote books with titles like Consequences of Pragmatism, Essays on Heidegger, and What’s the Use of Truth?, and developed the ideas of antirepresentationalism, Ironism, and Epistemological behaviorism (and no, I have no idea what any of those are)—this gent took time out of his Big Important Philosophical Ideas writing to send in a little review to Common Knowledge about my little book:

(Click on the image to read it.)

I particularly love the way he hedges his bets so thoroughly. Granted, there were other fictional Californian lesbian cops out there, but as fields go, that one is fairly small.

Still, thanks, RR!

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Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Fans

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Part of the month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started my writing career.

In addition to actual, print reviews, my first book brought letters from people from all over who liked A Grave Talent enough to go to the trouble of writing me about it, buying a stamp, and finding an address that might reach me. Who knew?

They came in from all over, and not just the USofA.


They were written on embossed cards, postcards, scratch pads, or—high tech in 1993—faxes.

Most of them got the title right.

As for where to find me, well, that could be anywhere (though the publisher was a pretty sure bet.)

I got letters–FAN letters!– from actual booksellers!

Some letters were from people who seemed awfully…committed?

Nowadays, the vast majority of messages from readers comes electronically, in blog comments, social media posts, or just through the web site. But some still drop into my PO Box…and if you’ve written me there in the past couple of years, and I didn’t answer, I will, some day, I promise.

Especially if you get my titles right.

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Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis, or

order a signed copy.

A Writer to Watch!

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Part of the month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started my writing career.

One of the surprises I found as a new author was that people not only read the book, but talked about it as if it mattered. Take reviews: who knew they were actually a thing that happened to…well, me? (You can click on these images to read them.)

Library Journal

A necessary purchase? A writer to watch–me?

Or from Booklist–comparing me to Ruth Rendell and P. D. James?

Booklist

Dame Phyllis also appears in a review from one of the reviewing gods in the ’90s crime field, Robin Winks–I kept him reading deep into the night! He found my story cause for rejoicing!–

Boston Globe

Of course, some were puzzling. Me, hard boiled?

San Francisco Chronicle

But I find this list truly fascinating, the other writers of my generation. Who knew I would first meet friends through a list in American Bookseller?

American Bookseller

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Read about A Grave Talent (with excerpt, reading guide, and order links),

see the other Martinellis, or

order a signed copy.

Writing Kate

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(Celebrating the 30th anniversary of A Grave Talent, here’s part of a 2017 post on Kate Martinelli.)

Grave Talent began with two ideas: What would Rembrandt look like if he were a woman? And, Can I write a novel in which the protagonist does nothing?

The question of women in what are generally assumed to be men’s roles was one I had been poking around for years, although for the most part in the world of theology rather than crime fiction—I wrote my Masters thesis on the feminine aspects of the God of the Old Testament, and as a graduate student had co-led a seminar in Women in the New Testament.  First-century women rabbis, the influence Moses’ wife had on the future of Judaism, God as Mother: all topics I had explored.  (To say nothing of the practical applications of The Feminine, since I also had small children at the time.)

So, the seed: Artists are possessed by their vision of the world and their need to give it expression.  And the greater the artist, the more complete the possession—and, the more impossible they are as human beings: egomaniacal, manipulative, and willing to devour every scrap of energy in their vicinity…and mostly male.

Whether by nature or by upbringing, fewer women are so thoroughly possessed by this near-pathological self-importance. But if we did have a woman like this, and if she did possess the inborn talent that goes far to justifying the artist’s egomania, what would she look like, and how would it shape the world around her? Yes, the question is usually, Why have there been no great woman artists? In A Grave Talent we ask rather, If confronted by a truly great woman artist, how would the world react?

Vaun Adams is less a character in the book than she is a force of nature.  Her raw and uncontrollable talent, her utter fixation on the canvas at hand and the resultant blindness to those around her, changes everything she comes near: Like a black hole, the intensity of her presence tugs everyone else out of their given orbits.

As such, Vaun is both the book’s central character and a character totally apart from the action.  She—her talent—forms the central axis of the story, and all the other characters—neighbors, lovers, the police, the murderer—spin madly around the solidity of her presence.  Yet she does act, at the very end: She abandons her aloofness, comes out of her extreme retreat, and plays a role.

And when she does, the shock of her motion throws those spinning around her to the four winds.

* * *

Excerpt, discussion guide, and order information are here.

Mom’s Christmas Cookies

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If Dad produced odd German spicy treats every year (as my recent post talked about), my mother could be depended on for the kinds of cookies you could give to the postman without imagining his puzzled look. Mostly sweet, best eaten fresh, and decorative.

Some were super-sweet, like her “Matrimonials.” She produced decorated butter cookies, of course (usually with margarine—butter was a rare visitor to my childhood table) that were rolled out, iced with background white buttercream frosting (margarine-cream?) and decorated with a frosting gun to emphasize the outlines of the boot, the Santa, or the star cookie cutters. And Spritz cookies, a recipe that probably came from Betty Crocker, that were pushed through a cookie press to make trees or wreaths, then sprinkled with colored sugar.

She liked to make “candy  cane” cookies, using a basic sugar cookie dough, half of it dyed red (or rather, pink, since she’d never seen the proper, intense dye used by professional bakers) and shaped on the board into rolls the thickness of crayons, then twisted round a roll of the white dough and finished with the top curled over.

Later she discovered a lovely Finnish almond-cookie recipe whose name she relished pronouncing (or more likely, mispronouncing)—Suomalaiset Puikot—that became a great hit with postman and family alike.

And later yet, a bar cookie that combined the best qualities of pumpkin and pecan pies. One of the few Christmas cookies my grown kids still like, and even ask for. In fact, I’m making a batch of those tomorrow. Assuming I can still decipher her handwriting….

So, what do you give your postman this time of year?

Dad the Baker

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It’s no accident that the cold, dark time of year finds us thinking of warmth and family—either enjoying it, or missing it. And nothing represents family quite so much as holiday foods. Which generally means cooking.

Growing up, my mother was the cook, but certain things my father claimed as his. Preparing Sunday brunch gave him a noble reason not to accompany us to church: if we wanted to eat when we got back, he was going to be just too busy stirring up crepe batter or making (Bisquick-based) cinnamon rolls or baking a breakfast cake. Or, in his later, more experimental years, trying his hand at Danish  pastries (which, to be honest, were only occasionally  a success, since his impatience and lack of attention to detail often rendered them nearly raw except for the edges.)

But he came into his own with Christmas baking. For some reason, he loved to produce the kind of cookies that are aged for weeks with a slice of apple, regularly changed. Little cupcake-sized fruitcakes—all those cheerful artificial dyes!—that very occasionally were permitted a dribble of nice cheap brandy, kept on hand to flame the Christmas steamed pudding.

 

(Come to think of it, the  brandy-soused ones might have been deemed adults-only.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His other specialties tended to be dull in appearance but rich in flavor. He always made Pfeffernusse, little brownish-grey balls that were nice if he’d made the dough sticky, though they could be kind of hard if he’d put in enough flour to easily shape them.  And hard or soft, they were much better if he didn’t decide to dip them into a glaze.

Springerle are the one thing I actually miss having, particularly because I’ve never come across a commercial variety. These are pale, barely-sweet, anise-flavored little squares, so good dipped in sweet wine or hot coffee. Though again, some of Dad’s were hard and others soft, so you new that if you could see the imprinted pattern from the roller clearly enough, you were going to need a hot drink for the dipping.

So what about your family? Who was the cook, and what goodies evoke the season to you?

Bees Abroad

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I had a perfectly charming Zoom meet on Friday with members of Bees Abroad, an organization in the UK that trains & supports African women & those with disabilities to become Beekeepers for Life.

But these lovely people not only teach beekeeping skills, they also help people figure out how to sell honey and beeswax products, and along the way support local woodworkers (who build the hives) and tailors (who make the beekeepers’ outfits) and boost the entire community of artisans and entrepreneurs and families.

Improving livelihoods across Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Ghana, and Rwanda, through the medium of the humble honeybee.

Our chat, which brings together books and bees, is half me and half poet/novelist Siya Turabi, and available on their YouTube channel.

The event was a part of their December fundraising efforts—and since

your donation WILL BE DOUBLED until midday, Tuesday,

I’d greatly appreciate anything you can send their way: HERE. (And maybe also help spread the word…)

Thank you, from the world’s bee friends!

Starting Anew

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[Note, please, that in one week, Back to the Garden will be on the shelves–in the USA, at any rate. You can find a long excerpt here. ]

I turn 70 this year. The world is literally burning around us, I’ve had some energy-draining health issues, and there are books more than one series that I really really want to write before I become too decrepit to figure out what’s going on with those characters I love but have left on the shelf, bemoaning their abandonment.

So isn’t it…irresponsible of me to turn my back on Kate Martinelli and Harris Stuyvesant and Rae Newborn and the rest?  Certainly the fans of those characters are justified in grumbling.

Still, I’ve flitted between fictional worlds from the beginning.  My first fiction was a stab at SciFi, left half-finished to spend a couple books with Russell & Holmes, before moving from 20s England to the modern world of Kate Martinelli (which became the first one in print.)  For most of my career, I have alternated—a Russell or two, a Martinelli or a standalone, two Stuyvesant & Grey books—because I hated living with one set of characters for too many years in a row.

(It’s no accident that Garment of Shadows, in which our heroine Mary Russell wakes with injuries so severe she has amnesia, comes after an unbroken string of three other Russell & Holmes novels plus a novella. When I realized the pattern, I pointed out to my editor that while it was nice to have a popular series, if I didn’t take a break from those two, one of them was going to wake up dead…)

But readers love the others—at pretty much every event I do, someone asks when Kate Martinelli is coming back.  And I love them too, so I did write and self-pub a novella three years ago (“Beginnings.”)  However, when I talked to my editor about a new Martinelli novel, she didn’t say no, but she did gently point out that while loyalty was nice, a series that tries to start up after a nearly 20-year gap does make for a marketing challenge.

But “Beginnings” did remind me that I liked writing about my own time and place. And with Covid shutting things down, it would be a while before I could travel for research. Plus, there were some other things about “Beginnings” that I enjoyed, such as the dual time line of Kate’s own personal cold case.  And I’d always wanted to do a book set in the 60s or 70s.

So…

Back to the Garden by Laurie R. KingEnter Raquel Laing.  Of Kate Martinelli’s world, but only connected to her through their mutual partner, Al Hawkin.

Still, it’s going to be a series. You never know what other SFPD Inspector is going to wander through in future days.

 

 

 

Find my upcoming events here.

You can order a signed copy from Poisoned Pen or Bookshop Santa Cruz, or unsigned from your local bookshop, Barnes & Noble/Nook, or Amazon/Kindle.

When Surf City was the Murder Capital

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Santa Cruz, California, is a quiet town even now. In the 1970s, it was a community of retirees, Italian fishermen, and people associated with the brand-new University of California. It was (and is) a beach town that attracts year-round surfers and summer visitors to the beach and Boardwalk.

John Linley Frazier

In October, 1970, in the hills south of town, a resident named John Linley Frazier bound and murdered an eye surgeon, his wife and secretary, and the couple’s two children, in an attempt to usher in World War III.

Herbert Mullin

Two years later, in four short months between October 1972 and February 1973, another local resident, Herbert Mullin, brutally murdered 13 people: a girl hitchhiking, a priest in his confessional, a man outside his home, a couple he knew. A woman and her two young sons. Four teenagers camping in Henry Cowell state park. (I’d camped there myself, the previous summer. Alone.) He was caught and arrested when a neighbor of his last victim spotted his license plate.

And yet the deaths continued. Not because the police had the wrong man, but because in May, 1972, Edmund Kemper—a wannabee cop who’d been turned down because he was 6’ 9”—had turned from giving girl hitchhikers rides to abducting, raping, and dismembering them. One pair of girls, then a 15 year old who had missed her bus to dance class, an 18 year old student, another pair of girls—ending with his mother and her friend in the spring of 1973.

Edmund Kemper

Kemper phoned the police to turn himself in—although when they recognized his familiar voice, at first they didn’t believe him.

Both men went undetected, primarily because there seemed to be no pattern in the victims, who were all over the place in age, sex, profession. And yet, pattern there was.

Under the impetus of these and other multiple killers of the time, the FBI started up a Behavioral Analysis Unit, interviewing convicted serial killers in search of patterns and setting up lines of communication between local jurisdictions. Those developments, in addition to profiling, DNA, crime scene analysis, nation-wide databases, and other investigation techniques, mean that instead of the more than 180 US serial killers estimated to be operating in the 1980s, there are now probably fewer than 20.

One of the men mentioned in Back to the Garden is Joseph DeAngelo. A cop and investigator during the early 1970s, he turned from investigating burglaries to committing them. Soon he escalated to rape, then murder, tormenting his surviving victims with mocking letters and phone calls. His last murder was in 1986, although the cruel phone calls continued until 2001. Slowly, the FBI and far-flung Californian jurisdictions put information together, narrowed suspects, and finally identified his DNA—in 2018.

DeAngelo remains in prison. Frazier committed suicide in 2009. Herbert Mullin died last week, on August 18. Edmund Kemper is still alive, at a prison medical facility in Vacaville, where he records books for the blind.

And Santa Cruz, “Surf City,” tries to remain as quiet a town as possible.

Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King

In Back to the Garden, published September 6, SFPD Inspector Raquel Laing hunts for traces of a serial killer of the 1970s.  Excerpt here. Order signed copies from Poisoned Pen or Bookshop Santa Cruz, or unsigned from your local bookshop, Barnes & Noble/Nook, or Amazon/Kindle.

(Photos thanks to Wikipedia.)

Writing the Past: Free Love, Thumbing Rides, and Other Incomprehensible Habits

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People think of Laurie King as a writer of historical mysteries, especially the 1920s, a time of short skirts, fast cars, and that exciting new tech, radio.

Back to the Garden is set more recently than the 20s. It has two timelines: one now, the other flashing back to the 1970s.  In 1972, a main character, Rob Gardener, comes home from Vietnam; in 1975, another character goes up to Rob’s Oregon commune to tell him of his grandfather’s death; and in 1979, the commune Rob started up in his inherited California home hosts a rock festival.

And while it’s hard to think of times that many of us actually remember as being “historical,” in fact, four decades ago make for a foreign country indeed.

It should be a simple task, for an author to describe a life she has lived through. Communes and long skirts, folk rock and organic gardens, VW vans and cannabis growing in hidden corners.

But even to someone who was there—and as the joke goes, does actually remember it—parts of the time are hard to believe.

Take “free love.”  I was too busy (and yes, naïve) for a complicated social life, but I thought nothing of people who slept with anyone around. After all, the Pill was a thing, and herpes and AIDS didn’t hit the headlines until the 80s, so sharing bodily fluids was just natural, right?

But talk about naïve: during this era, in a time and place that two different serial murderers were at work, solitary women would walk up to a freeway on-ramp and put out their thumb.

I often did, hitching rides from the Greyhound bus stop after a weekend with my boyfriend, heading to the community college where I had classes and a job. Amazingly, I only had one problem, when a guy in a pickup drove off with my backpack in the back—and he later dropped it off at the bank whose checkbook he found in the pockets.

Now, the Internet would scream out the dangers, but then, I was blissfully unaware. I had no television, my radio was mostly tuned to classical, and I can’t remember anyone talking about the murders going on around us.

“The past is a foreign country,” as the writer says. I’ve been known to argue that the past can be more mirror than foreign land. But sometimes?

Sometimes the habits of the past can be utterly incomprehensible.

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