Maine Crime Writers

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Today we celebrate workers and honor the sweat, sacrifice, and energy it takes to make this country great. As writers, I think we deserve to pat ourselves on the back, too, for all the countless hours we put into our craft.

Work is one of the things that defines us. In many ways, we identify ourselves by what we do—and that’s especially true for writers.

I grew up working poor. There were six boys in my family, which meant a lot of mouths to feed. My father sometimes worked two or three jobs just to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. And every once in a while, he made me his accomplice.

As the oldest of six boys, I was often recruited to help him make ends meet. He did it in some pretty unconventional ways.

For a while, my father decided to start a little side business. He’d get me up around four in the morning, and together we’d make a huge batch of meatballs and sauce in a giant steel pot. When they were finished, I’d wrap the meatball sandwiches in tinfoil and pack them into a cooler. Then Dad would head to a construction site and sell them to the workers for cash.

He never got a license. He never got a permit. He just went out and worked.

And worked me, too.

A few years later, Dad became a life insurance agent, cold-calling people and traveling all over trying to sell policies. He had lost his job as a barber after The Beatles made long hair fashionable. (He eventually returned to barbering and opened another shop.)

Because he was traveling so much, he taught me how to do his bookkeeping. I was about twelve years old and not exactly thrilled about sitting in a room crunching numbers for hours. But that’s what I did.

And if I was off by a few pennies, Dad made me do it again until the books balanced.

I mention all this because I think hard work comes naturally to writers.

We labor at our craft because we love it.

I’ve made some pretty good money during my career as a writer, but I’ve also experienced plenty of ups and downs. If you averaged out all the hours we writers put into our craft against the money we’ve made, I suspect many of us would be earning considerably less than minimum wage.

And yet we keep doing it.

We spend hours alone at our desks, typing, rewriting, deleting, starting over, and wondering if anyone will ever read what we’ve written. We do it because we love the work.

We’re independent. We’re small businesses. We’re entrepreneurs. And in our own little way, we’re part of the backbone of this country.

Our labor is born out of love.

They say, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” But in our case—especially those of us who write crime—busy typing hands might be the devil’s workshop.

Think about all the readers we’ve entertained, frightened, moved, and made happy. Think about the stories we’ve created and the books that have become part of people’s lives. Think about the enormous canon of American literature that has made countless lives richer and more meaningful.

So, Labor Day is for writers, too.

Dear readers, when you raise a toast today, think of the writers who spent months or years at their desks creating the books you love.

And to all you writers out there: pat yourselves on the back. You’ve put in the hours. You’ve sacrificed. You’ve sweated over every word. You’ve probably questioned your sanity more than once.

But you kept going.

And that’s what labor—and writing—is all about.

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Joe

It is frequently said that if you want to be an author, you need to be a reader. That’s certainly true for the MCW Team. And of course, summer is supposed to be a time for lots of reading. If you’ve seen our postings, you know many of us are doing a lot of driving and promoting, but we’re still reading. For this month’s group post, we’re each sharing one really good book we’ve recently read.

Kate Flora: I confess that I didn’t read my book. I listened to the audio book while I was doing some of that driving to libraries. The Maine Turnpike is a lot more bearable when someone is reading to me. My choice for one great book is Ann Patchett’s Whistler. For a writer like me, whose books are usually linear, it was interesting to “read” a book that has flashbacks and time shifts, as this one does. But from the moment that the narrator, Daphne, encounters her first stepfather, Eddie, in a museum, I was hooked. Probably in part because from the moment she starts telling the story of their car accident on a winter’s night when she was nine, and how she and Eddie handle it, I was hooked. It was so interesting to find a work of fiction not in the crime genre that made me lean in because I had to know what would happen. So, when you’re not reading one of our books, I urge you to give it a try.

Matt Cost: I just finished You’ll Be Sorry by Lisa Gardner. Read it. You won’t be sorry. The book weaves a tale that goes back 300 years and then 30 years and then to the present day, around and around again as the ties between these time periods tighten. The tension ratchets up higher and higher in this small New Hampshire town as it is discovered that the past cannot be buried, even in an old, covered-up well. It will seep out and taint the present, and sometimes what is needed is a dog to set things right, if it’s not too late. The characters are wonderful, and the mystery is better. Give it a shot. You won’t be sorry.

Gabriela Stiteler: I’ve read a number of great books this summer, but the standout for me is SMALL MERCIES by Denis Lehane. Set in Boston in the summer of 1974 against the backdrop of bussing and school integration, the story mostly follows Mary Pat, a tough Southie mother in search of her missing daughter. While plot and setting are important, it’s the characters that drive the story. Mary Pat’s arc, which is at times painful, is rendered with real care and compassion. While gritty and dealing with relevant issues (racism, brokenness, community-sanctioned violence), Lehane somehow manages to communicate a real faith in the capacity of people to learn, grow, and change. I read the book and then immediately listened to the audiobook and would recommend both. Lehane has indicated that this may be his last novel, and if that is true, it’s a heck of a way to go out.

Allison Keeton: I always have a few books going at once, mainly because I read one in my hand, and I listen to another in the car or when I walk. In paperback, I’m finishing up Massachusetts author Dennis Pierce’s Swinging for Power, a well-written, fast-paced story of a newspaper journalist–turned-investigator (out of necessity, given the changing media landscape). I recommend it! I just picked up Body in the Blueberry Barrens by Maine author Claire Ackroyd on Saturday at a book fair. I’m excited to start that. Audio-wise, I just finished, when driving to and from the book fair, An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, short stories about a misbehaving almost ninety-year-old woman, by Swedish author Helene Tursten. It’s a quick but enjoyable listen. I’m just glad that Maud, the octogenarian, doesn’t know me. On Sunday, I started The Queens of Poisons by Robert Thorogood on my afternoon walk. It’s book three in the Marlow series. I hate to say I was lukewarm about book two, but I’m hopeful I will like book three as much as book one. And yes, I use the Kindle app, but mainly for cookbooks. Milk Street’s Shorts is up on it now.

John Clark:I’m offering a trio, all set in Maine. I discovered Everyone Knows But You last summer at the Peavey Memorial Library book sale. This summer, I bought the second one  We Can’t Help You and read it in one evening. I got via interlibrary loan,  Big Money, Small Town yesterday and read it last night. All are written by Thomas Ricks and have Ryan Tapia as the protagonist. I will tell you that it took the second book to appreciate the author’s style, but after I started that one, I was hooked.

Book 3

What stands out are the following: The author knows Maine well, even though he sometimes plays fast and loose with geography (notably how he describes several towns’ proximity to Moody’s Diner), his plots are multilayered, the action fast, and he leaves the reader with no illusions about his opinion regarding the current political climate as well as how deep in you know what we are thanks to greedy oligarchs.

Book 2

Book one deals with Ryan, at that point an FBI agent who is grieving the loss of his wife and children killed by a drunk driver. His new assignment in Bangor starts with a murky homicide that involves Native Americans and the closed society of a Maine fishing village.

Book two expands his involvement with Native Americans in Maine, a lover who runs for governor and some supernatural elements

Book one

Book three is grimmer than the first two, involves an out-of-state mining company bullying poor Mainers in three small towns. It’s bloody as all get out and has a dreary, but fully understandable conclusion. All three are fast and highly engrossing reads.