Vincent Zandri's Blog - Posts Tagged "mystery-series"
The "Romeo Killer" Murder(s) by Moonlight...
The following blog is now appearing in slightly different form at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
I don't always make stuff up.
Sometimes, I borrow from what's happened, or happening all around me. When I sat down to write Murder by Moonlight a year and a half ago, I already knew that I wanted to base the newest in the Dick Moonlight detective series on a tragic axe murder, and attempted murder, that had occurred fairly recently in a sleepy little white-bread suburb outside of Albany, New York called...get this...Bethlehem.
The axe murderer in question, an attractive, well educated young man by the name of Chris Porco, had already been tried and imprisoned. Despite repeated appeals he remains incarcerated, and it's more than likely that a max security prison will be his home long after his good looks abandon him and his prison Bic pen tattoos have faded to faint blue.
Basing a fictional story on a real event is just that. You borrow from what's already been reported (in this case, some great work by local Albany journalists Steve Ferrance of YNN News Network and Brendon Lyons of The Times Union), and then you add your imagination to it. The real stuff...the stuff that is already out there readily available in the public domain...provides the base or seed of the story. You, as a novelist, provide the soil, the sun, and the water. You grow it into something that it already is, but also into something much more than it is--a fictional work that is greater than the sum of its true parts.
You following me here?
This weekend the Lifetime Channel (I know, gag!) will present a Docu-Drama (I use capital letters because the word looks so much more...well...dramatic), called, "Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story." Like I did with Murder by Moonlight, the writers of this television motion picture borrowed from documented reportage and then added a little artistic license to the equation. A lot of artistic license from what I'm told.
But the problem now is that Mr. Porco has gotten wind of the film and is trying to have it canned, claiming it "is an unlawful use of his name for trade purposes because he said it's a largely fictional and unauthorized account of his story. (You can read the whole Times Union story here)."
Hey Chris, aren't you like, an axe murderer? Aren't your God given rights not exactly what they used to be?
This isn't the first time I've been made aware of the convicted killer's, let's call them, media complaints. Just yesterday, Murder by Moonlight, came up in an NPR roundtable program in which the topic of discussion went something like this: Does a convicted murderer and all around psychopath like Porco bear the constitutional right to stop a movie or book based upon his crimes in a court of law?
Well, that court has spoken and so far its Porco 0 - Writers/Media 1.
And that's a good thing.
I can't think of many fiction writers who don't borrow from reality one way or another, My novels The Innocent (As Catch Can), The Concrete Pearl, and even The Remains all borrow from some actual events that have occurred at one time or another. Michael Connelly (a former newspaper reporter), often hangs out with the cops in order to steal a story or two from the real world. Hemingway used to risk his life in battle in order to harpoon a good and clean and true story. Dan Brown messed with Jesus for God's sakes. Martha Gellhorn reported and, on occasion, turned the reportage into short stories and novels that would never sell. Even Albany's William Kennedy has derived a nice livelihood and achieved the pinnacle of literary greatness writing about scumbags like Legs Diamond. Somehow, I doubt that old Legs' extended family has, ummmm, a leg to stand on should they consider suing Mr. Kennedy.
I think I'll watch "Romeo Killer" this weekend. It looks like a sappy adaptation of a true life event, and no doubt the writers will tug at the heartstrings of its predominately female audience while scaring their panties off (imagine being attacked with an axe while sleeping in your bed at night?). If nothing else, it will be interesting to see what it is real and what is fabricated.
Tugging at viewers heartstrings while scaring their panties off...Come to think of it, that's precisely what I've tried to do in Murder by Moonlight.
_ _ _
To grab a copy of the Amazon No. 1 Bestselling Hard-Boiled Crime novel,
MURDER BY MOONLIGHT, go to...
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
http//:www.vincentzandri.com
I don't always make stuff up.
Sometimes, I borrow from what's happened, or happening all around me. When I sat down to write Murder by Moonlight a year and a half ago, I already knew that I wanted to base the newest in the Dick Moonlight detective series on a tragic axe murder, and attempted murder, that had occurred fairly recently in a sleepy little white-bread suburb outside of Albany, New York called...get this...Bethlehem.
The axe murderer in question, an attractive, well educated young man by the name of Chris Porco, had already been tried and imprisoned. Despite repeated appeals he remains incarcerated, and it's more than likely that a max security prison will be his home long after his good looks abandon him and his prison Bic pen tattoos have faded to faint blue.
Basing a fictional story on a real event is just that. You borrow from what's already been reported (in this case, some great work by local Albany journalists Steve Ferrance of YNN News Network and Brendon Lyons of The Times Union), and then you add your imagination to it. The real stuff...the stuff that is already out there readily available in the public domain...provides the base or seed of the story. You, as a novelist, provide the soil, the sun, and the water. You grow it into something that it already is, but also into something much more than it is--a fictional work that is greater than the sum of its true parts.
You following me here?
This weekend the Lifetime Channel (I know, gag!) will present a Docu-Drama (I use capital letters because the word looks so much more...well...dramatic), called, "Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story." Like I did with Murder by Moonlight, the writers of this television motion picture borrowed from documented reportage and then added a little artistic license to the equation. A lot of artistic license from what I'm told.
But the problem now is that Mr. Porco has gotten wind of the film and is trying to have it canned, claiming it "is an unlawful use of his name for trade purposes because he said it's a largely fictional and unauthorized account of his story. (You can read the whole Times Union story here)."
Hey Chris, aren't you like, an axe murderer? Aren't your God given rights not exactly what they used to be?
This isn't the first time I've been made aware of the convicted killer's, let's call them, media complaints. Just yesterday, Murder by Moonlight, came up in an NPR roundtable program in which the topic of discussion went something like this: Does a convicted murderer and all around psychopath like Porco bear the constitutional right to stop a movie or book based upon his crimes in a court of law?
Well, that court has spoken and so far its Porco 0 - Writers/Media 1.
And that's a good thing.
I can't think of many fiction writers who don't borrow from reality one way or another, My novels The Innocent (As Catch Can), The Concrete Pearl, and even The Remains all borrow from some actual events that have occurred at one time or another. Michael Connelly (a former newspaper reporter), often hangs out with the cops in order to steal a story or two from the real world. Hemingway used to risk his life in battle in order to harpoon a good and clean and true story. Dan Brown messed with Jesus for God's sakes. Martha Gellhorn reported and, on occasion, turned the reportage into short stories and novels that would never sell. Even Albany's William Kennedy has derived a nice livelihood and achieved the pinnacle of literary greatness writing about scumbags like Legs Diamond. Somehow, I doubt that old Legs' extended family has, ummmm, a leg to stand on should they consider suing Mr. Kennedy.
I think I'll watch "Romeo Killer" this weekend. It looks like a sappy adaptation of a true life event, and no doubt the writers will tug at the heartstrings of its predominately female audience while scaring their panties off (imagine being attacked with an axe while sleeping in your bed at night?). If nothing else, it will be interesting to see what it is real and what is fabricated.
Tugging at viewers heartstrings while scaring their panties off...Come to think of it, that's precisely what I've tried to do in Murder by Moonlight.
_ _ _
To grab a copy of the Amazon No. 1 Bestselling Hard-Boiled Crime novel,
MURDER BY MOONLIGHT, go to...
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
http//:www.vincentzandri.com
Don't Read Your Reviews
The following blog is now appearing in slightly different form at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
There's a great scene in the recently broadcast HBO movie, Hemingway and Gellhorn in which a drunk Papa spots a book reviewer from across a crowded bar, and taunts the man into a fist fight.
"Hey you...Critic!" Hemingway belligerently shouts at the smartly dressed man. "Critic, come here!"
The critic in question is supposed to be Max Eastman who, in the early 1930s accused the macho Hemingway of being a sissy with no real hair on his chest. Whether Eastman was trying to be literal or just tooling with Hemingway is still up for conjecture eighty years after the fact. But I can bet that if the great Papa were still alive today, the nasty review would still be fresh in his mind and just as hurtful. So it went in make-believe-movie land that, when confronted face to face with his less than favorable reviewer, Papa not only tore his shirt open to reveal real chest hair, but he attempted to knock Eastman's teeth down his throat (In real life this altercation occurred in NYC in Max Perkin's Scribner's office. Eastman and Hemingway wrestled around a bit with the critic supposedly gaining the upper hand in the fight, prompting Papa to start laughing and suggesting they share a drink.).
The point here is not critics or macho stances or even boys being boys. The point is that, man or woman, we all loath reviews. Rather, we loath the bad ones. But as writers in the digital age, we not only have to sweat out the professional reviews, we now are forced to put up with the amateur reviewers. I recall a lecture given once by John Irving when I attended the Breadloaf Writer's Conference back in 1991 in which he explicitly stated that he would not review a single book by an author without having read his entire library first. That's the kind of care a professional reviewer puts into his reviews.
Today however, we place a whole lot of importance on reviews that come from amateurs who know as much about writing a proper review as they might flying a 747. That said however, their reviews are not taken lightly. They are considered a crucial component in the sales, or lack their of, of any given author's books. In other words, the more bad reviews an author receives the better the likelihood that his sales will stink up the joint. The converse is also true.
As authors, we don't have a whole lot of power when it comes to who reviews our work, be it other jealous authors cowardly hiding behind a clock of anonymity, or a spiteful ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, or simply someone who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. But then, in many ways, it's a Godsend that so many non-professionals will take the time to lend their opinion about our novels and therefore help spread the good word.
Thank you!
But all too often, these same reviewers will go out of their way to say nasty things about a book, and this mean-spiritedness translates into one star reviews that inevitably hurt authors who are trying to make a living.
Imagine if you a will a world in which the reviewer must state his or her occupation and we, the writer, in turn, get to observe their performance for the day and write our own review.
1 Star ... "This Lawyer Really Sucks"
"When I sat down in court to observe this lawyer in action today, I expected great things. After all, everyone is talking about how great he is. But his opening argument bored the hell out of me. It was full of cliches and the whole thing was slow moving. I won't be attending anymore opening arguments by this lawyer."
Ok, you get the point.
So, what to do then in a world in which the amateur rules?
Don't read the reviews. Good or bad, just don't read them. Instead spend your time writing the best books you can. Then, in the end, you will know that no matter what anyone says, your book is as good as your could make it. A book that will stand the test of time. A book that will put hair on your chest.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By MoonlightVincent Zandri
There's a great scene in the recently broadcast HBO movie, Hemingway and Gellhorn in which a drunk Papa spots a book reviewer from across a crowded bar, and taunts the man into a fist fight.
"Hey you...Critic!" Hemingway belligerently shouts at the smartly dressed man. "Critic, come here!"
The critic in question is supposed to be Max Eastman who, in the early 1930s accused the macho Hemingway of being a sissy with no real hair on his chest. Whether Eastman was trying to be literal or just tooling with Hemingway is still up for conjecture eighty years after the fact. But I can bet that if the great Papa were still alive today, the nasty review would still be fresh in his mind and just as hurtful. So it went in make-believe-movie land that, when confronted face to face with his less than favorable reviewer, Papa not only tore his shirt open to reveal real chest hair, but he attempted to knock Eastman's teeth down his throat (In real life this altercation occurred in NYC in Max Perkin's Scribner's office. Eastman and Hemingway wrestled around a bit with the critic supposedly gaining the upper hand in the fight, prompting Papa to start laughing and suggesting they share a drink.).
The point here is not critics or macho stances or even boys being boys. The point is that, man or woman, we all loath reviews. Rather, we loath the bad ones. But as writers in the digital age, we not only have to sweat out the professional reviews, we now are forced to put up with the amateur reviewers. I recall a lecture given once by John Irving when I attended the Breadloaf Writer's Conference back in 1991 in which he explicitly stated that he would not review a single book by an author without having read his entire library first. That's the kind of care a professional reviewer puts into his reviews.
Today however, we place a whole lot of importance on reviews that come from amateurs who know as much about writing a proper review as they might flying a 747. That said however, their reviews are not taken lightly. They are considered a crucial component in the sales, or lack their of, of any given author's books. In other words, the more bad reviews an author receives the better the likelihood that his sales will stink up the joint. The converse is also true.
As authors, we don't have a whole lot of power when it comes to who reviews our work, be it other jealous authors cowardly hiding behind a clock of anonymity, or a spiteful ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, or simply someone who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. But then, in many ways, it's a Godsend that so many non-professionals will take the time to lend their opinion about our novels and therefore help spread the good word.
Thank you!
But all too often, these same reviewers will go out of their way to say nasty things about a book, and this mean-spiritedness translates into one star reviews that inevitably hurt authors who are trying to make a living.
Imagine if you a will a world in which the reviewer must state his or her occupation and we, the writer, in turn, get to observe their performance for the day and write our own review.
1 Star ... "This Lawyer Really Sucks"
"When I sat down in court to observe this lawyer in action today, I expected great things. After all, everyone is talking about how great he is. But his opening argument bored the hell out of me. It was full of cliches and the whole thing was slow moving. I won't be attending anymore opening arguments by this lawyer."
Ok, you get the point.
So, what to do then in a world in which the amateur rules?
Don't read the reviews. Good or bad, just don't read them. Instead spend your time writing the best books you can. Then, in the end, you will know that no matter what anyone says, your book is as good as your could make it. A book that will stand the test of time. A book that will put hair on your chest.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder By MoonlightVincent Zandri
Scary "Full Moonlight" Halloween Sale!
Scary "Full Moonlight" Halloween Sale!
FULL MOONLIGHT
I sometimes like to think that if Stephen King were to write about a detective with a piece of .22 caliber bullet lodged in his brain making his sudden and unexpected death from stroke not only a real possibility but a distinct reality, he'd have come up with the Dick Moonlight series. The Moonlights have gained in popularity over the years and maintain a quasi-cult following.
Years ago I was (and still am) a big X-Files fan, and I even wrote an X-Files novel for Amazon Publishing this past April (I wrote it in three brain bursting weeks!!). Although I've been paid handsomely for the project, Fox Studios is blocking the publication of the novel for now due to some licensing issues. However, in the X-Files, anything-can-happen vein, I also wrote Full Moonlight, a novella that could easily pass as one of those creepy stand-alone episodes that Fox Mulder and Dana Scully would often find themselves enveloped in, thanks to the inventive mind of series creator/producer, Chris Carter, and series lead actor/writer/director, David Duchovony.
So, in the spirit of Halloween (which is my son Jack's birthday by the way), I give you Full Moonlight for just a buck. You can read it under a full moon, or you can read it in bed, under the covers on your Kindle. But just remember that it's make believe, or else you might have a difficult time falling asleep.
Happy Halloween all!!!
Buy Full Moonlight:http://www.amazon.com/Full-Moonlight-...
Get real freakin' scared!!!
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Moonlight Falls
FULL MOONLIGHT
I sometimes like to think that if Stephen King were to write about a detective with a piece of .22 caliber bullet lodged in his brain making his sudden and unexpected death from stroke not only a real possibility but a distinct reality, he'd have come up with the Dick Moonlight series. The Moonlights have gained in popularity over the years and maintain a quasi-cult following.
Years ago I was (and still am) a big X-Files fan, and I even wrote an X-Files novel for Amazon Publishing this past April (I wrote it in three brain bursting weeks!!). Although I've been paid handsomely for the project, Fox Studios is blocking the publication of the novel for now due to some licensing issues. However, in the X-Files, anything-can-happen vein, I also wrote Full Moonlight, a novella that could easily pass as one of those creepy stand-alone episodes that Fox Mulder and Dana Scully would often find themselves enveloped in, thanks to the inventive mind of series creator/producer, Chris Carter, and series lead actor/writer/director, David Duchovony.
So, in the spirit of Halloween (which is my son Jack's birthday by the way), I give you Full Moonlight for just a buck. You can read it under a full moon, or you can read it in bed, under the covers on your Kindle. But just remember that it's make believe, or else you might have a difficult time falling asleep.
Happy Halloween all!!!
Buy Full Moonlight:http://www.amazon.com/Full-Moonlight-...
Get real freakin' scared!!!
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Moonlight Falls
Moonlight Weeps is Coming!
The following Press Release has been issues by Down & Out Books: http://downandoutbooks.com/2014/09/01...
Down & Out Books is publishing New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Vincent Zandri’s latest fast-paced, grizzly thriller in the Dick Moonlight series, offering readers plenty of wry humor, bullets, car chases, and Scarface references.
Dick Moonlight can’t help himself. Moonlight, the private detective known as the head case with a bullet lodged in his brain, should be grateful for his current job. But when it becomes clear the cash-starved brain surgeon he’s been hired to drive around is protecting his son from a rape conviction, Moonlight is disgusted.
Worse, when the charges turn into a case of “reckless murder,” Moonlight’s the only one trying to keep the kid from the electric chair though the girl—a state senator’s daughter—clearly committed suicide.
Then Moonlight and his unwilling assistant, a fat Elvis impersonator owing him money, stumble into a much bigger plot and are soon dodging Hollywood obsessed drug-running Russian thugs, corrupt government officials, and the specter of Moonlight’s recently diseased girlfriend.
Praise for Zandri’s previous Moonlight books
has been overwhelming positive.
“Sensational…Masterful…Brilliant.”—New York Post
“Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting.”—Harlan Coben, bestselling author of Six Years
“Tough, stylish, heartbreaking.”—Don Winslow, bestselling author of Savages
“Vincent Zandri nails reader’s attention.”—Boston Herald
“Well worth every minute…”—Suspense Magazine
Moonlight Weeps is available in trade paperback and ebook formats.
Kindle | Nook
Amazon TP | BN TP | IndieBound TP
Moonlight Weeps
Down & Out Books is publishing New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Vincent Zandri’s latest fast-paced, grizzly thriller in the Dick Moonlight series, offering readers plenty of wry humor, bullets, car chases, and Scarface references.
Dick Moonlight can’t help himself. Moonlight, the private detective known as the head case with a bullet lodged in his brain, should be grateful for his current job. But when it becomes clear the cash-starved brain surgeon he’s been hired to drive around is protecting his son from a rape conviction, Moonlight is disgusted.
Worse, when the charges turn into a case of “reckless murder,” Moonlight’s the only one trying to keep the kid from the electric chair though the girl—a state senator’s daughter—clearly committed suicide.
Then Moonlight and his unwilling assistant, a fat Elvis impersonator owing him money, stumble into a much bigger plot and are soon dodging Hollywood obsessed drug-running Russian thugs, corrupt government officials, and the specter of Moonlight’s recently diseased girlfriend.
Praise for Zandri’s previous Moonlight books
has been overwhelming positive.
“Sensational…Masterful…Brilliant.”—New York Post
“Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting.”—Harlan Coben, bestselling author of Six Years
“Tough, stylish, heartbreaking.”—Don Winslow, bestselling author of Savages
“Vincent Zandri nails reader’s attention.”—Boston Herald
“Well worth every minute…”—Suspense Magazine
Moonlight Weeps is available in trade paperback and ebook formats.
Kindle | Nook
Amazon TP | BN TP | IndieBound TP
Moonlight Weeps
West African Aid Worker Killings No Surprise
The following essay is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox:
It's being reported that eight or more aid workers and journalists have been brutally killed inside what's described as a remote village in Guinea, West Africa. The deaths are apparently the result of a toxic distrust amongst locals for the foreign presence in their land. The distrust seems to be spreading as fast if not faster than the Ebola virus itself. However tragic and disturbing, this comes as no surprise.
A few years ago I traveled to West Africa to report for RT on the work of a Christian hospital ship that was docked in the Port of Cotonou in Benin beside civil-war torn Nigeria. What struck me as strange was the way the indigenous people refused and even ran from the methods by which the ship's medical crew attempted to educate them in the ways of western hygiene. Fliers were distributed with simple illustrations showing a human being defecating into a toilet. The next illustration would show a pair of hands being washed with soap and water. Said drawings would then be circled in bold green as if to indicate, "Good."
Below those drawings might be the same drawing of the person defecating, only this time he or she would be doing it in a field. A red circle would surround that drawing as if to indicate bad. But to a native living in West Africa, crapping on a toilet that other people use is the most disgusting and unsanitary concept ever thought up. Better to go find your own "clean" spot of grass and do your business there. Never mind that the waste then filters into the water system. Such are the challenges of culture and geography.
One such challenge is distrust. The coast of West Africa used to be known as the Slave Coast. It's where most of the slaves who were shipped to the Americas and to points south came from. Out of this practice grew the belief in Voodoo which is still extremely prevalent in West African nations like Guinea and Liberia where Ebola is spreading fast. Many natives will practice Christianity or Islam during the daytime hours, but at night, revert back to voodoo beliefs. If something terrible like a bad debt or lack of food, or a sickness like Ebola strikes these people, chances are the effected person will believe that he has not become the victim of bad luck or a deadly virus, he will believe instead that he has become the target of bad voodoo. When foreign aid workers come to help, many natives are so frightened of them they feel they have no choice but to lash out, and even destroy the very people who are trying to cure their disease. To some locals, the foreign aid workers are doing the work of bad voodoo.
It's difficult to change what amounts to an ancient culture in just a few days in the interest of stopping the spread of what is now a serious epidemic. But if you ever have the chance to drive a 4x4 through the bush country of West Africa, do not be surprised when you come upon an old abandoned town that might have been constructed by the French many decades ago. Or don't be surprised when you see the shell of a modern skyscraper that might have been under construction two or three years ago, but that's been abandoned while the money for the project is now lining some corrupt official's pockets. Don't be surprised if you see the natives giving you a strange look because you're stepping inside a porta-potty to relieve yourself. To them, nothing is more disgusting and distrustful.
The Remains
Vincent Zandri
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
It's being reported that eight or more aid workers and journalists have been brutally killed inside what's described as a remote village in Guinea, West Africa. The deaths are apparently the result of a toxic distrust amongst locals for the foreign presence in their land. The distrust seems to be spreading as fast if not faster than the Ebola virus itself. However tragic and disturbing, this comes as no surprise.
A few years ago I traveled to West Africa to report for RT on the work of a Christian hospital ship that was docked in the Port of Cotonou in Benin beside civil-war torn Nigeria. What struck me as strange was the way the indigenous people refused and even ran from the methods by which the ship's medical crew attempted to educate them in the ways of western hygiene. Fliers were distributed with simple illustrations showing a human being defecating into a toilet. The next illustration would show a pair of hands being washed with soap and water. Said drawings would then be circled in bold green as if to indicate, "Good."
Below those drawings might be the same drawing of the person defecating, only this time he or she would be doing it in a field. A red circle would surround that drawing as if to indicate bad. But to a native living in West Africa, crapping on a toilet that other people use is the most disgusting and unsanitary concept ever thought up. Better to go find your own "clean" spot of grass and do your business there. Never mind that the waste then filters into the water system. Such are the challenges of culture and geography.
One such challenge is distrust. The coast of West Africa used to be known as the Slave Coast. It's where most of the slaves who were shipped to the Americas and to points south came from. Out of this practice grew the belief in Voodoo which is still extremely prevalent in West African nations like Guinea and Liberia where Ebola is spreading fast. Many natives will practice Christianity or Islam during the daytime hours, but at night, revert back to voodoo beliefs. If something terrible like a bad debt or lack of food, or a sickness like Ebola strikes these people, chances are the effected person will believe that he has not become the victim of bad luck or a deadly virus, he will believe instead that he has become the target of bad voodoo. When foreign aid workers come to help, many natives are so frightened of them they feel they have no choice but to lash out, and even destroy the very people who are trying to cure their disease. To some locals, the foreign aid workers are doing the work of bad voodoo.
It's difficult to change what amounts to an ancient culture in just a few days in the interest of stopping the spread of what is now a serious epidemic. But if you ever have the chance to drive a 4x4 through the bush country of West Africa, do not be surprised when you come upon an old abandoned town that might have been constructed by the French many decades ago. Or don't be surprised when you see the shell of a modern skyscraper that might have been under construction two or three years ago, but that's been abandoned while the money for the project is now lining some corrupt official's pockets. Don't be surprised if you see the natives giving you a strange look because you're stepping inside a porta-potty to relieve yourself. To them, nothing is more disgusting and distrustful.
The Remains
Vincent Zandri
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
