Blog Hop

 

Off the top I want to say thanks to Dietrich Kalteis for tagging me in this Blog Hop.

Each week a writer answers four questions and posts them to his or her blog, then introduces two more writers to take part for the following week. And they in turn invite two new writers each to take part, and so on; As ER Brown says, ‘it’s kind of a chain letter for writers.’

At the end of this I’ll give you links to the two writers I’ve tagged, Dana King and Steve Weddle who will be posting answers to these questions on August 11^th.

So, here we go:

What am I working on?

A couple of weeks ago I handed in the manuscript of the second Eddie Dougherty novel, this one called A Little More Free, and set in Montreal in 1972 and then I started pretty much right away on the next one which will be set in 1976 and cover the Brinks truck robbery (at the time the biggest robbery in North America), the summer Olympics and the first election of the Parti Québécois.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My first four novels were multi-pov crime novels that aspired to fit into the Elmore Leonard school of writing and didn’t differ much from others in the same genre. They were set in and around Toronto and may have had a little more Canadian feel to them but otherwise they were character-driven and loosely plotted stories of cops and criminals going about their business.

My most recent novel, Black Rock, is more of a traditional whodunit, told from the pov of a young constable who is thrust into the middle of a homicide investigation. It’s set in 1970 in Montreal against a backdrop of real-life events.

Why do I write what I do?

I’m trying to find answers to questions I have. Francis Ford Coppola said, “The idea is the question and you make the movie to find the answer.” That’s how I feel about the novels I write, I start with a question – usually a pretty basic question – and then try to answer it. My first novel, Dirty Sweet, started with the question, Why Do People Move to Toronto? (no spoilers, but the answer is for the opportunities.)

For Black Rock the question was, Is One Life More Valuable Than Another? Of course, we will all say the answer is no, but the reality is different. In Montreal in 1970 two politicians were kidnapped and one was murdered and the whole country stopped what it was doing. Task forces were assembled, the army was called out, civil rights were suspended and new laws were passed. At the same time a man murdered three women and the police knew from the second victim that it was the same murderer. And it barely made the news. No task forces were assembled, no additional cops were assigned to the case and no laws were changed.

How does my writing process work?

For these historical novels the process starts with the research. I use a lot of real-life events so I start by making a timeline. Then I fit the fictional aspects of the story into it and start writing.

And now the two writers I’ve tagged:

I met Dana King online when he posted insights and funny comments to various blogs and discussion groups and then we met in person at Bouchercon in Baltimore. The first book of Dana’s I read was, Wild Bill, a terrific story of FBI agents and mafiosos in the era of terrorism taking up all the attention and resources. It was funny in a mature, not-laugh-out-loud way and had plenty of action and insight. Since then his private eye novel, Small Sacrifice has been nominated for a Shamus Award and that private eye, Nick Forte, shows up as a secondary character in the novel, Grind Joint, which takes place in the small town of Penns River, a place that got left behind when the steel mills closed. Check out Dana King here.

“Steve Weddle’s writing is downright dazzling.” – the New York Times. Not really much I can add to that. So go check out what he’s working on here.

Radio Interview

Last week I was interviewed by Richard Crouse on his Entertainment Extra show. He asked some very good questions about Black Rock and about the difference between writing for TV and writing novels.

It was fun. I was really nervous but Richard is a very good host and a very good interviewer.

This link should take you to the interview. It starts at about the 19:00 minute mark:

https://soundcloud.com/entertainment-extra/may-10th

Noir at the Bar

 

May 8th at PJ O’Brien Irish Pub I’m thrilled to be included with a fantastic lineup of writers for some reading, drinking and fun.

Looks like fun so if you’re in the neighborhood drop by and say hi.

Excerpt

Here is an excerpt from Black Rock.

Must Avoid Panic in the Face of Bomb Terrorism

 

On September 29th 1969 a bomb exploded at the house of Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau. No one was injured but, as the newspaper report said, “The pre-dawn explosion which shook the neighbourhood… forced the mayor’s wife and son into a cold drizzle. They didn’t even have time to put on their shoes.”

This was the 10th bomb of 1969 to explode. Dozens of other bombs were defused by Sgt. Robert Coté and the bomb squad.

The Premiere of Quebec at the time, Jean-Jacques Bertrand, said the people of Quebec must avoid panic in the face of bomb terrorism. “The police forces are doing their job and it is our hope and expectation that those responsible for such outrages will be brought before the courts and the law will take its course.” Then he repeated the claim made by pretty much every official at the time that the bombs were being planted by “foreign nationals” who received “training in Cuba.” Then he made a joke, apologizing for calling the terrorists “beardos,” and saying, “Some of best friends have beards.”

Four days later the body of 20 year old Shirley Audette was found behind the apartment building she lived in on Dorchester Boulevard (now Boulevard René Lévesque) near Guy. She had been strangled. In the investigation it was discovered that she had been treated at a psychiatric hospital (the Douglas in Verdun) and was five weeks pregnant. She was the first victim of the “Vampire Killer.”

Four days after that the Montreal police went on a strike which lasted 16 hours and resulted in one death and 108 arrests. The strike was motivated by difficult working conditions caused by disarming so many separatist-planted bombs and patrolling frequent protests. The Montreal police also wanted to be paid the same as police in Toronto.

During the melée, Sûreté (provincial police) corporal Robert Dumas was killed by shots fired by security guards.

As the riot was ongoing, the provincial government passed an emergency law and forced the police back to work. The army was also called in but by the time the 22nd Regiment (known as the “Vandoos”) arrived at dawn the riot was over.

The CBC archive has some very good news footage from the day.

A couple months before Shirley Audette was killed, the Manson Family murders had taken place in California and the idea of “drug-crazed hippie-murders” was being talked about a lot.

The Vampire Killer’s second murder took place a few weeks later on November 23rd, a few days before the Canadian football championship game, the Grey Cup, was played in Montreal. The entire police force had spent the weeks before the game preparing for the possibility of a terrorist attack.  

So, busy times.

The Real Stories

A lot of what happens in Black Rock is based on actual events. The first couple of events mentioned in the book are the riot at Sir George Williams University (in the Hall building, where I had a lot of classes in the 80s) and the bomb at the stock exchange.

 

Wikipedia describes the events at Sir George like this:

Beginning on January 29, over 400 students occupied the university's computer lab. The occupation was sparked by the university's mishandling of racism allegations against professor Perry Anderson at the school. Fed up with what they considered to be intransigence on the part of the administration, black and white students left a meeting and occupied the university computer lab on the ninth floor of the Henry F. Hall Building.

Most of the occupation was quite peaceful: the police were not involved, and negotiations continued. Some claim that the computer lab was not damaged, except for several million computer punched cards that were sent fluttering to the street below; but a Canadian Broadcast Corporation documentary shows smashed computer tape drives and extensive fire damage. The damage was listed in millions of dollars. It is unknown who caused the fire. The police accused the occupiers of the damages, while the occupiers accused the police of setting the fire as an easy way to get all the students out of the room without physically entering it. Other students also claim that they saw police locking doors and exits that were normally open and police confiscated fire axes from students the day before the fire was set.

The occupation continued until February 11 when negotiations broke down and riot police were called in. A fire broke out in the computer lab, forcing the occupiers out of the building. 97 of them were arrested. The computer lab was destroyed, resulting in over $2 million in damage. Windows were broken and computer tapes and punched cards tossed onto the street below. The charges against most of the rioters were eventually dismissed.

Among the occupiers arrested was Roosevelt Douglas, who later became Prime Minister of Dominica, and Anne Cools, now a Canadian Senator. Also deeply involved was student Cheddi "Joey" Jagan, Jr., son of Guyana's prime minister.

 

Two days later a bomb went off at the Montreal Stock Exchange in Place Victoria.

Some people described it as a “miracle” that no one was killed. 27 people were hospitalized.

The New York Exchange had closed early that day so quite a few people from the Montreal exchange were sent home, among them the “phone boys” whose work station – a row of desks along the wall – was destroyed in the blast.

What really surprised me about the stock exchange bombing was that although a huge hole was blown in the side of the building and there was an estimated two million dollars of damage to the trading floor and offices, the building was open again the next day.

Busy days for the police on the front lines, including Black Rock’s, Eddie Dougherty.

The "Bill" Article

Here is the newspaper article that started me on the road to Black Rock.

It was a small notice on page 3 of the January 2, 1970 edition of the Montreal Gazette.

Spring 2014

This will be the cover of my new novel which will be published by ECW Press in the spring of 2014.

The novel follows a young Montreal cop, Eddie Dougherty, in 1970. Dougherty has been on the force less than three years and already seen a lot of action - a bomb explodes at the Montreal Stock Exchange, five bombs explode at peoples' homes in Werstmount on the same night, bombs explode at McGill University and City Hall and federal government buildings, armed robberies, a one-day police strike and in October two men are kidnapped. One is murdered. All this really happened.

And at the same this was going on a man was murdering young women in Montreal. The police knew the same man had killed three women by October 1970 and they were expecting him to kill again. This also really happened.

It's Official

My new novel, Black Rock, will be published in Canada and the USA by ECW Press. No pub date yet, but likely early in 2014.

Black Rock - chapter one

This book won't be published until sometime next year (I hope the first half of the year) but here's the first chapter.


ONE

Constable Eddie Dougherty climbed up the iron work of the Victoria Bridge onto the railway tracks and said to his partner standing by the radio car, yeah, “C’est une bombe.”

            They were halfway between the island of Montreal and the south shore, cars slowing down but still managing to get past in the single lane and Gauthier said, “Vachon arrive,” as the unmarked black station wagon pulled up behind the radio car and Gilles Vachon and Robert Meloche got out.

            The bomb squad.

            Dougherty walked back onto the railway tracks in the middle of the bridge and showed Vachon the blue Expo 67 flight bag wedged between one of the the stone piers and an iron truss.

            Meloche said, “Tabernac,” and Vachon nodded and looked from the flight bag to Dougherty’s badge and name tag and then spoke english, saying, “Did you hear anything?”

            “Just the river.”

            Vachon said, “Of course.” Twenty feet below the bridge the St. Lawrence rushed by. “This bridge is over a hundred years old,” Vachon said. “It would be a shame to lose it.”

            Dougherty didn’t know what to say, he’d only been a cop a couple of years, practically still a rookie and Vachon was becoming a legend dismantling so many bombs, but he didn’t seem very serious.

            “It was the longest bridge in the world when it was built, almost two miles. Just for trains then, of course,” Vachon said. “These lanes were added later,” and he stomped on the metal grated surface the cars drove on.

            Meloche said, “Come on,” and started climbing down the iron work.

            Vachon nodded a little and looked down at the bag and then back to Dougherty and said, “You didn’t get too close, did you?”

            Dougherty said, no, but now he was feeling too close. A bag stuffed with dynamite and the bomb squad was two guys in overalls.

            Vachon reached down and took something out of a leather pouch on his belt and Dougherty figured it must be some kind of fancy bomb squad tool and then saw it was a pair of nail clippers.

            “To snip the wires,” Vachon said and he followed Meloche until they were standing on the concrete pier face to face with the blue bag.

            Dougherty followed them as far as he could, holding on to a truss and watching as the two man bomb squad who had dismantled almost a hundred of these dynamite bombs in the last year talked about what to do. The flight bag was zipper-down, of course, wedged in fairly tight.

            From up top Gauthier yelled, “What are you doing, come up here,” speaking english but Dougherty didn’t say anything. He watched Vachon and Meloche waving their hands and talking but couldn’t hear what they were saying over the rushing water below.

            After a few minutes Meloche shrugged and pushed one end of the bag until it came loose and fell into the river and disappeared in the fast moving current. And then the two bomb squad guys climbed back up the iron work to the railway tracks.

            Dougherty said, “What the hell,” and Vachon said, “It’s gone now.”

            “Yeah, but now there’s a bomb in the river.”

            “You don’t know that,” Meloche said, “it could be a bag of donuts,” and he climbed up past Dougherty.

            Vachon said, “The dynamite is ruined, it’s safe now.”

            “What are you going to say in your report?”

            “What report?” He walked over to unmarked station wagon, stood by the passenger door and said, “If we report it, it gets in the press, why give these bastards what they want?”

            Dougherty said, yeah, “I guess,” and Vachon smiled and got into the passenger seat of the unmarked station wagon and Meloche drove towards the south shore to turn around and head back onto the island of Montreal.

            Dougherty just stood there watching them go and then Gauthier, who’d been a cop longer than Dougherty’d been alive said, “Come on, that’s enough action for me, I need a drink,” and got into the squad car.

            The action was why Dougherty had joined the police.

The rest of Chapter One can be found here.

Swag by Elmore Leonard

While doing a little research I came across this ad for apartment rentals in Montreal in 1970:

The building (which is still there but doesn't look very swinging on Google view) is near the airport and now I've discovered stories of wild parties with stewardesses (no one used the words "flight attendant") and the rumour that Xaviera Hollander (the Happy Hooker) lived there for a while, or maybe partied there or maybe worked there.

But what the ad really made me think of was Frank and Stick in Elmore Leonard's Swag and the apartment they lived in while pulling armed robberies around Detroit.

Swag wasn't the first Elmore Leonard novel I read but it was the first one that had characters that acted exactly like people I knew.

QuebecCrime Festival

The line-up for the QuebecCrime Fest 2012 is starting to come in and I'm thrilled to be included.

The festival will be taking place in Quebec City from October 23rd to October 27th.

It's just like old times for me, included on a panel described as, "Anglophone Panel and Book Signing." I don't hear the word, "Anglophone" in Ontario very much ;).

There's more information at the fest's website here.

A Fun Reading and Back on Kindle

Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to be one of three writers reading from our books at Ben McNally Books, a terrific bookstore on Bay Street in downtown Toronto (in 1981 I started out at university in the economics department and dreamed about working on Bay Street so this was a long time coming ;).

For more info about the evening, check out Julia Madeleine's blog (and pick up her novel, The Truth About Scarlet Rose while you're there, it's good).

At the reading I heard a rumour from someone at ECW that IPG and Amazon were close to working out their disagreement and the my books would soon be available once again for the Kindle, and I see today that has happened. So far the bundle of the first three novels hasn't shown up on Kindle (it's available for Kobo) but it should soon.

ECW Crime Night

Wednesday, May 23rd at Ben McNally Books:

As the invitation says, there'll be short readings by Mike Knowles, Brent Pilkey, David Whellams, Marc Strange and me.

I haven't read the Marc Strange or David Whellams books yet, but my guess is they're up the usual high ECW standards (present company excepted and all that..) and I know for sure that Mike Knowles and Brent Pilkey are very, very good and also worth hearing live, so to speak.

So, Ben McNally Books, 366 Bay Street, Toronto. The Jays are out of town that day, anyway...

My Hobby

Years ago I had a photography hobby that I've recently started up again.

It's very simple. When I see a business called "Mr."-something, I take a picture.

Like this:

And now I'm going to post the pictures on a blog called Mr. Pictures.

Black Rock

For the past few months I've been working on a new novel which right now I'm calling Black Rock. It's set in Montreal in 1970, the year of the "October Crisis" and is about a young, almost-rookie cop who gets involved in the hunt for a serial killer.

I was planning to write a novel about the value of a single life (if that doesn't sound too pretentious, which I know it does) and set it against the backdrop of the kidnapping and murder of Quebec politician Pierre Laporte. One of the things I've heard a lot about the period of terrorism we lived through in Montreal in the late 60s and into 1970 was that "only eight" people were killed by terrorists and I started to wonder, well, isn't one too many?

When I started to look into this idea of the value of a life I thought about the memorial on the Montreal side of the Victoria Bridge commemorating the deaths of 6000 Irish immigrants to Canada during the famine. 6000, that’s a lot, surely no one would ever say, “only six thousand,” about that.

And yet, I’ve driven by that monument thousands of times in my life and never stopped to read the inscription and never really knew the story behind it. It’s official name is The Irish Commemorative Stone and Wikipedia says it’s sometimes called the “Ship Fever Monument” or the “Boulder Stone” but I’ve never heard it called anything but the “Black Rock.”

The story I’ve always heard about the Black Rock was that Irish workers digging out the piers for the Victoria Bridge sometime between 1854 and 1859 discovered a mass grave – the coffins of 6000 Irish immigrants who had died of typhoid on the ships crossing the Atlantic (or died under quarantine in the ‘fever sheds’) in 1847.

And it’s only now that I’m realizing between the typhus epidemic and the discovery of the mass grave less than ten years have passed. So, in less than a decade the deaths of 6000 people have been buried and forgotten. No marker, nothing.

The story goes that when the workers dug up the mass grave they also dug up the big rock and wanted to use it as a memorial. I have a feeling there was some discussion about not losing any work time to do it, but let’s call that a hunch.

The inscription on the rock reads:

"To Preserve from Desecration the Remains of 6000 Immigrants Who died of Ship Fever A.D. 1847-48 This Stone is erected by the Workmen of Messrs. Peto, Brassey and Betts Employed in the Construction of the Victoria Bridge A.D. 1859.”

So, the Black Rock fits with my ideas about the value of a single life, but I am a little wary about trying to attach myself to so much history. And the murders of the three women. When does exploitation start, exactly?

Well, one writer is using historical events and not exploiting them, but writing fantastic books, is my friend Adrian McKinty. His latest published novel, The Cold Cold Ground, takes place in Northern Ireland in 1981 and there’s really nothing I can add to the long, long list of great reviews the book has received. The weird thing is it’s easier to get the e-book or the audiobook in north America as no US publisher has picked it up.

I predict that will change with either the second or third book in the series.

Audiobooks

Dirty Sweet and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere are now available as audiobooks from Audible.com.

Swap and Tumblin' Dice should be available sometime this month and they'll all be available soon from iTunes.

All four are narrated by William Dufris and I think he does a fantastic job.

And there was a review of Tumblin' Dice in the National Post today by Sarah Weinman which said very nice things. My favourite part is: "Each of John McFetridge’s three previous novels have a rhythm to them, mixing taut dialogue, spare description and a dark sensibility with the cool calm of a master bass player."

It's funny she mentions the bass. I bought my first bass, a Hagstrom, in about 1978 but when I joined the band Smiley's People in 1985 I switched to guitar (strictly rhythm, as they say) and the bass was played by Michel Basilières, whose fantastic novel Black Bird won the Amazon/Books in Canada Best First Novel Award.

The real guitar player in Smiley's People was Clifford Schwartz and here's a clip of him playing with Cirque du Soliel:

The Bundle

ECW Press has issued my first three novels as a single ebook for less than ten bucks.

It's available for the Kobo here, and I hope for other formats soon.

The Moon and the Stars and the Sun

Well, the Star and the Sun, anyway. Tumblin’ Dice received a couple of very good reviews this weekend in the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun (and other Sun newspapers in Canada).

The Star said the book has, “just the right balance of grit, humour and rock’n’roll knowledge,” and that the, “story of the middle-aged guys in The High taking a deep dive into the world of shylocks, bikers, murder and much more entertaining stuff that seems to be just sleazy for its own sake.” Well, I think there are a few reasons for the sleaziness, but fair enough. Entertaining, that’s the part I like.

Full review here.


And the Sun said, “There's still plenty of sex, drugs and rock and roll in this post-middle-aged world -- the riffs alone on the groups and music of the day will appeal to a whole lot of readers -- and there's even some love and romance, albeit of hard-bitten sorts.” It also said, “McFetridge is -- or should be -- a star in the world of crime fiction.” And all I can say to that is, thank you.

Fulle review here.


When looking for a title for this blog post I realized that for all the rock’n’roll talk in Tumblin’ Dice there’s very little mention of The Beatles. Well, in the book the band The High are about my age so they were around twelve years old when The Beatles broke up and stopped putting out records. Like me, the first records they bought were by The Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper and Aerosmith (I think the guys in The High were too cool to start off with a K Tel record).

And now that I think about it, Instant Karma would make a really good title for a novel...

Reviews

Reviews are starting to come in for Tumblin' Dice and so far they're very good.


The Quill and Quire review is now online here.

There's also a good review in Publisher's Weekly that says:

Things start accelerating from the opening line, which sets the tone, engages interest perfectly, and could have come from Elmore Leonard. "The High had been back together and on the road for a couple of months playing mostly casinos when the lead singer, Cliff Moore, got the idea to start robbing them." And the avalanching pace keeps going as the band's efforts to supplement their income illegally leads to violent complications. The scheme takes a personal turn when the High decide to take revenge on a casino owner, Frank Kloss, who had ripped them off on their first contract, and continued to take advantage of them for a decade of representation. Like Leonard, McFetridge is able to convincingly portray flawed figures on both sides of the law.

And Spinetingler Magazine said, "Tumblin’ Dice is a razor sharp riveting story with a very cool vibe. Loved it. Highly recommended."

It can't be all good, of course, and this week Tumblin' Dice also got a couple of very negative reviews, but I'm not man enough to post links to those.

I also did a Q&A with OpenBook Toronto which is now online here. Some good questions including one about the challenges and pleasures of working with characters from previous books.