Janet LaPierre: R.I.P.

Author Janet LaPierre passed away peacefully early this morning. She suffered a stroke two weeks ago, and although everyone hoped she would recover, it was not meant to be. She was my best friend. The sadness and shock is still with me, but Pierre asked that I make her passing public.

I first met Janet LaPierre almost 40 years ago when she responded to an ad in the local Berkeley paper about a mystery ‘class’ I was teaching at my home in the Berkeley flats. She joined the group and was a regular weekly attendee for over 10 years.

In spite of the age difference, we quickly became fast friends as we often enjoyed wine and chatted after “group”. She was writing a mystery, and I got to share in the joy and launch of the publication of her first book, Unquiet Grave (1987), and all the others that followed: Children’s Games (1989), The Cruel Mother (1990), Grandmother’s House (1991), Old Enemies (1993). These were the Early Port Silva Mysteries. Port Silva, a character in itself, was a fictitious town, modeled loosely on Ft Bragg on the Mendocino (CA) Coast…with the addition of a University. The later Port Silva mysteries include Baby Mine (1999), Keepers (2001), Death Duties (2004), and Family Business (2006). What is so unique in these books, besides the characters and setting—well, because of really, is that the Port Silva mysteries feature different residents taking center stage as detective, heroine, hero, or another role. Meg Halloran (school teacher sleuth), Vince Gutierrez (Chief of Police), Patience and Verity Mackellar (private investigative team) and other characters populate the books, making large or small appearances or none at all. Run a Crooked Mile (2009) introduced a new location and characters—the small town of Weaverville in Trinity County (CA). Janet spent a lot of time in both Ft Bragg and Weaverville doing research, as well as enjoying the landscape, reading, and walking with the dogs. There were also numerous short stories in different anthologies and magazines. Unquiet Grave was a Finalist for the Macavity Award for Best First Novel. Old Enemies was a finalist for the Macavity and Anthony Awards for Best Novel. Keepers was a Finalist for the Shamus Award for Best Paperback.

During our early friendship, we went to writers’ conferences and mystery conventions, frequently rooming together, often taking trips to conferences in other states or areas.

Over the years Janet LaPierre and I attended each other’s family affairs - weddings and funerals, dinners, and parties. We met for lunch frequently, and over wine, we shared stories about our families, dogs, writing, and books. Mostly books. We traded books and titles. I could always depend on her for recommendations, and she from me. We shared similar tastes in literature—mysteries and beyond the genre. Even now, I have a stack of books set aside for her.

As I mentioned, food played an important role in our 40-year relationship. Crab season in the Bay Area was toasted with champagne and her husband Pierre’s crab cakes—a yearly ritual. We also gathered in Bodega Bay with dogs and fish and chips and walks on the beach. We celebrated Fourth of July together for many years. I used to have a large Independence Day party with over 200 people—family, friends and mystery folks, and although we provided chicken and burgers, Pierre always brought ribs. Janet was never a lover of big crowds, but she always came, even if she didn’t stay for long. I discontinued the party about 10 years ago, but Janet and Pierre always joined us for a small Independence Day celebration since then. So even with only 4-6 people in attendance, Pierre brought ribs! Enough to feed an army. Thanks, Pierre. There was always good conversation about politics and books.

Over the past 13 years, Janet and I developed another ritual. Instead of going out for lunch, we had lunch in my garden. Roast beef sandwiches from Andronico’s, chardonnay, and chocolate. Living in California, this was an all year event. And, we discussed family and friends and books and, lately, health. The things that old and aging friends talk about.

We didn’t always agree and as in any 40-year relationship, there were ups and downs, but there was always a special bond. She was always there for me, and I for her. Without reservation. Janet La Pierre was my best friend. I will miss her and our times together. I plan to reread her novels over the holidays. She’s left a wonderful legacy and a hole in my heart.

Read a 2009 interview with Janet LaPierre HERE.

Man's-and Woman's-Best Friend: Guest Post by Janet LaPierre

Dulcie

Today I welcome back mystery author Janet LaPierre. This post originally appeared on Get It Write, The Perseverance Press Authors' Blog.

Janet LaPierre: Man's - and Woman's - Best Friend

In my family we’ve always had dogs. It began with Lady, a fabulous (to my father) German Shepherd, before I was born. Then came a short-lived male pit bull, followed by a sweet but not very bright female of that same species. Next was Tish, a female Gordon setter-fox terrier cross who was with us for many years.

And then I established what has become a family habit: I found a beautiful lost English setter, couldn’t keep her in my college dorm, and took her home to my parents. She was a success there, and was joined by, let’s see, a German shepherd puppy, followed by a Puli (named Icon for Iconoclast) who one day on a walk found a lost mostly-Basenji and brought her home. She stayed, and was named Bambi.

Meanwhile I finished college and taught school. Apart from one failed effort to keep a Gordon setter in my rented California apartment, I had to do without my necessary dog-companion until I was married, with two small children—who after all, surely needed a dog. So we found a wonderful standard poodle/Labrador retriever female, Griselda, who was followed in the natural course of things by a female registered standard poodle, and another.

And then one day my older daughter, now a college graduate, came to say that she’d decided to move to New York City and, in keeping with the family pattern, would need to leave Emmitt Smith, her nine-months-old male yellow Labrador, with us. Some six or seven years later, having decided that Labs were our destiny, we brought home a yellow female puppy, Dulcie, whom Emmitt adored and helped raise.

By now I’d been writing mystery novels for some time, and had included dogs in most of my novels. The main character in Children’s Games, Meg Halloran, has a Komondor, an enormous Hungarian sheep-dog; Grendel is serious protection for Meg her and her daughter, Katy. In Grandmother’s House, piano teacher Charlotte Birdsong and her son, Petey, have a good-tempered Labrador-poodle cross named George. In Keepers, private investigator Patience Mackellar has a small rescued terrier named Ralph; and in Family Business, a half-Akita, Zak, becomes the companion of Sylvie, the eight-year-old girl Patience, and her daughter, Verity, have rescued.

Each of these dogs has personality and character, and I think they all behave in recognizable dog fashion. But my most believable dog appears in Run A Crooked Mile, where the main character, Rosemary Mendes, finds herself living with a dog she didn’t ask for and doesn’t particularly want. Tank is a very forceful yellow Labrador and he plays an important and purposeful role in the story’s events. He really comes alive on the page, possibly because he’s largely based on a real dog, Emmitt. He does not, however, make decisions, or control events. Or perhaps he does, to some extent. But he does not talk. That possibility never occurred to me.

However, I have recently come across, with great pleasure, two writers whose fictional dogs do almost talk: the dogs are narrators of the novels. In Garth Stein’s remarkable, touching The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel, Enzo is a Labrador-something (he likes to think terrier) cross who lives with, and loves and understands Denny, a struggling race-car driver who supports his wife, Eve, and their child, Zoe, by working behind the counter in a fancy auto shop while angling for a seat in a race-car. With Denny and Eve at work, and Zoe in day-care, Enzo stays alone at home with the television Denny has left on for him, and enjoys watching movies.

Enzo believes that when he dies, he will turn into a human. He believes that man’s closest relative is not the chimpanzee, but the dog, and that if left on their own to evolve, dogs would develop thumbs and smaller tongues and be superior to men. Enzo loves Denny, and Eve, and Zoe, whom he vows to always protect. And he loves the idea of racing in the rain, and what he learns about it: “Your car goes where your eyes go.” He feels his life is complete when Denny takes him for a ride, on a race-track trial run, in the rain.

Enzo goes where Danny goes. He sees what Denny sees and to a large extent feels what Denny feels. And the reader goes where Enzo goes, and learns of happenings and feelings and results through Enzo’s observations. This should be an impossible way to tell a complicated, often sad story, but it works. I should add that there is a special adaptation of this book for young people, entitled Racing in the Rain: My Life As A Dog. I recently gave it to my granddaughter, but haven’t talked with her about it yet;I wanted to read the real thing myself first.

The second writer of dog-narrated stories I came upon recently is Spencer Quinn, whose first book in his series is Dog On It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery. Bernie Little is a West Point graduate, a former soldier, a former cop; now he makes a living, more or less, by running the Little Detective Agency, doing mostly divorce work. He himself is divorced, with a cash-flow problem as well as a son, Charlie, whom he sees on alternate weekends.

Bernie’s partner, and the narrator of this story, is Chet. Chet is a dog weighing over a hundred pounds and in very good shape who almost, he mentions, graduated from K-9 training. He is very much a dog, taking pleasure in extensive full-body stretches and long runs after whatever might be out there. He accompanies Bernie on investigations, riding in the back of an ancient Porsche; Chet always say “we,” or “me and Bernie” in describing their work. One of the “best perks in our line of work,” says Chet, is a car chase. “ . . . and I started salivating the way I always did when we were about to snap up the perp.”

The mystery story here involves a missing and possibly kidnapped teen-aged girl Bernie is hired to find, a father who is seriously in debt to dubious real estate developers with Russian connections, a near-death experience for Chet, and later a desert chase in search of the girl and the villains. It’s all rather wild-eyed and now and then stretches belief, but Bernie’s a good guy and a fairly believable character. Chet, however, is wonderful: smart and tough but all dog, given to distractions like a javalina chase, or an unattended hamburger, or the scent of a female dog up the hill–but when Bernie says “Go!” Chet does.

And there’s this. ‘‘Bernie laughed. I loved Bernie’s laugh.There’s this crazy run I do in the yard, zooming back and forth, that always works.”

So far Quinn has four Bernie and Chet mysteries in print: the one discussed above, Thereby Hangs a Tail, To Fetch a Thief, and The Dog Who Knew Too Much. I’m fairly sure there will be more to come. There is, of course, a web page for Quinn. And for Chet, there’s www.chetthedog.com. I actually read two more of the series, and did enjoy them; but it’s clear that the dog who won my heart and interest has done the same with other readers.

I should add that Spencer Quinn is in his other life Peter Abrahams, author of well-received mysteries and Young Adult for which he won an Edgar in 2010.

Maybe tonight, as I sit and watch the news with my one-year-old, fifty-plus pound Labrador puppy in my lap (briefly, anyway), I’ll think about putting her in a book. She clearly always knows what I’m about to do, and understands as much as she cares to of what I say. She isn’t big enough to pull down a bad guy, but she could outsmart him

A note: For anyone interested in dogs, I recommend “Beware of the Dog” in the February 27 edition of The New Yorker. Fascinating stuff.

Janet LaPierre: How Much Blood on the Page?

Today I welcome mystery author Janet LaPierre with a guest post on recent crime fiction. This post originally appeared on Get It Write, the Perseverance Press Authors' Blog, December 26, 2011. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Janet LaPierre was born in Iowa, educated in Arizona, and settled in Berkeley, CA, to marry, raise two daughters, and read novels, mostly mystery novels. She is the author of ten published mystery novels and nine short stories, and has been nominated for the Anthony, Macavity, and Shamus Awards. 
   LaPierre’s novels are set not in Berkeley but in northern California’s far-away, sparsely-populated places like the fog-bound Mendocino coast and the fictional town of Port Silva, based on the real Fort Bragg; or the forested mountains of Trinity County and the actual town of Weaverville.
   The LaPierre novels came to be called the Port Silva Mysteries. Crimes in these stories are not “organized,” but deeply personal, and maintaining the peace in the small towns and the surrounding areas is the work not just of police officers and sheriff’s deputies, but of watchful and sometimes organized citizens. 

Janet LaPierre: How Much Blood on the Page?

Mine was a family of readers, and my mother’s term for the books that made up quite a lot of our casual reading was “murder mysteries.” Today those novels are more often called simply mysteries, or detective novels or cozies or suspense or thrillers; but the fact is that virtually all involve a murder, or two, or six. Walk into a big library or bookstore and ask for the mystery section, and you will find shelf after shelf of books in which someone (or some group of someones) is killing (or planning to kill) someone else.

Clearly the U.S. reading public has had a longstanding interest in crime and crime fiction. From Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie to Ian Rankin and John Harvey and P. D. James, from Tony Hillerman, Scott Turow, Sue Grafton and Michael Connelly and on to straight writers like Kate Atkinson and John Banville who double in crime novels, the reader can expect suspense, and danger, and sometimes bloody murder. But she will also find also good, complex stories and characters and often fine writing. These books not only entertain us, they inspire the writers among us who are not yet household names to keep working.

But now we have also the Scandinavians. They arrived here quietly a number of years ago with the Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö series from Sweden, which was chilly but good, with some humor as well as suspense. The Laughing Policemen won an Edgar Best Novel award in 1971, and was made into a movie. Sjöwall and Wahlöö, a married couple, produced ten books in this Martin Beck series, which ended when Per Wahlöö died in 1975. I’d read all of them, with great pleasure.

The works of the writers who followed Sjöwall and Wahlöö much later, like Henning Mankell and Håkan Nesser–and probably Jo Nesbø, whom I have not yet read—are grim, and meant to be. The Washington Times says of Woman With a Birthmark, “Nesser has written a fascinating study in the psychology of personal suffering.” Oh, good. And in Mankell’s The Fifth Woman, Swedish Inspector Kurt Wallander is working on two murders, that of a man impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch and the other of a man strangled and tied to a tree. These deaths are linked somehow to the murder of four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman in an African convent.

Although I didn’t love these books, I can say that they were well-written and suspenseful. The current block-buster from Sweden, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is indeed suspenseful, in fact terrifying, but not well-written nor particularly well-constructed. It does, however, have a fascinating main character, the girl named Lisbeth Salander; reviews of both the Swedish and the new American movie of the story make that clear. Those reviews don’t say much about the truly awful multi-victim crimes, committed over a long period of years and still on-going, that Salander and the writer who employs her investigate. And I don’t intend to say anything about them, either; some of you may not have read the book and I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.

I have the second book in the series, but for some reason have not gotten around to reading it yet. In fact, I’m a bit troubled by a sense that the mind-set of these books could become more prevalent in the mystery field. A very good friend of mine, a constant reader of all kinds of mysteries, recently picked up a new novel by a writer whose three earlier books she had enjoyed, and set it quickly aside as too nasty. Subsequently I ran into serious trouble with two new mysteries, one by a Brit and the other by a pair of Finns. Both these books dealt with the new-to-me subject of baby-farming, which involves a midwife’s being well paid to deliver the baby of an unmarried woman who doesn’t want her baby, but is assured by the midwife that a good home will be found for the child. In the story set in early twentieth-century Britain, the baby was most often simply killed and the body disposed of. In the present-time story, the new baby was indeed adopted, but a later sibling born to the now-married woman is stolen in brutal fashion for reasons that become clear only much later. I couldn’t finish the first of the pair, but I did gingerly flip through the second to find out whether my uncomfortable suspicion was true. It was.

And here’s a cheerful postscript to this screed. Turns out that P.D. James has a new book out, a book based on her favorite Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice. I don’t know just what kind of story she’ll make with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, but I doubt that it will be grim or bloody. I can hardly wait to find out.

Janet LaPierre Interview

Janet LaPierre, longtime Mystery Readers International member and Mystery Author, was our guest at an At Home (Literary Salon) in Berkeley a few weeks ago, but for the extended community out there--people who couldn't attend--I thought you might want to read the answers to a few questions I asked her.

Betty Webb wrote a great review of Janet LaPierre's latest novel, Run a Crooked Mile, for Mystery Fanfare. Read here.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
The moment I discovered that the stories my mother was reading to me were made up by real people.

What are the attractions of writing series novels? The problems?
In writing a series, a writer has a chance to expand and better define her protagonist, and watch him/her grow. And readers like the familiarity of a series. The main problem for the writer here is the threat of boredom. I manage that in my Port Silva books by adding new characters to the town of Port Silva, mingling them with older ones, perhaps permitting a formerly minor character to become more important.

In your new book, Run a Crooked Mile, you’ve left Port Silva Behind behind, or have you?
Probably not. I have a new story in mind for each of those settings. Which will prove to be most workable—which one I’ll actually finish—is not yet clear. Perhaps both?

Do you ever plan on merging the two series?
I can imagine a bit of overlap, but not a full merger.

What do you enjoy most about writing?
A. Finally getting a character, or a scene, or a chapter, just right.
B. Spending long stretches of time in another world with people I’ve created.

The town of Port Silva is the central character in your mystery series. Did you set out to make the town the main character?
Port Silva is a very specific kind of place, based on an actual area: the Mendocino Coast; and I’d say the town has character, rather than being a character. It’s the kind of place that draws or holds on to the kinds of people I’m interested in writing about.

You often develop minor characters in your books. How important do you think they are to sustaining your books and the series?
I believe carefully-developed minor characters are important to any novel; and as I said above, sometimes it works out to let a minor character in one novel grow into a major one in the other; in fact, occasionally a character simply thrusts himself forward and refuses to stay minor.

Why did you choose a fictitious town for your series and a real town for this latest book?
I live in and love coastal northern California, and have done a lot of camping and vacationing north of my Berkeley home, particularly around Mendocino and Fort Bragg. But as a beginning writer, I decided I’d have more freedom and be less likely to give offense to locals if I turned, say, Fort Bragg, into a fictional place: thus, Port Silva.
For the new book, Run A Crooked Mile, I intended to do the same. But Trinity County and its main town, Weaverville, proved to be so distinctly themselves that I found I couldn’t come up with a fictional overlay. So I took a chance and went with reality only slightly modified.

Has writing for you become easier or more difficult as the years progress?
More difficult in the sense that I have become a more demanding judge of the craft, my own and that of others. Easier in that I now can begin a book with at least a modest expectation of finishing it, and enjoying the process.

What do you think has changed in your own work over the years?
The main characters are older; and I’d like to think the writing is smoother.

Do you have any wild and crazy hobbies or interests that would surprise your readers?
If I had, I wouldn’t talk about them.

Your house is on fire and you can save only two books: one by yourself, one by another author? Which would you choose? And why?
Right off the top of my head: My first book, Unquiet Grave, because I still like the story and the characters. And Anne Tyler’s Searching for Caleb because I remember how much I loved it. Its paper cover is all tattered.

Janet LaPierre's Run a Crooked Mile

Review of Janet LaPierre's Run a Crooked Mile
by Betty Webb (originally appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine #109)

The sun’s out, the snow’s melted away, and we can venture outside again without our parkas. But don’t spend too much time dancing in the spring breezes, because with the sunny season there comes a new batch of mysteries eager to tempt us back to our favorite reading chairs.

Among the best is Janet LaPierre’s Run a Crooked Mile (Perseverance Press, $14.95). The old show biz warning about never following a child or an animal on stage could have come true in this tale centered around the fate of Tank, a Labrador retriever found in the forest near the body of a local woman nicknamed “Mike” who appears to be the victim of a hunting accident. Fortunately, author LaPierre, the author of nine novels in the Port Silva series, is well-aware of the dangers adorable mutts can present and thus takes care to craft Rosemary Mendes, a just-as-fascinating human character who adopts the homeless pooch.

A widow hiding out from her lunatic former in-laws, Rosemary is leading an isolated life in California’s Trinity Alps, but aided by the selfless Tank, she begins to form an almost psychic bond with the dead woman. This bond almost gets Rosemary killed when she decides that the woman was murdered, not shot by accident. But by whom and why? Solving the puzzle is more difficult than in the usual mystery novel because no one even knows “Mike’s” real name or where she came from. The characters in Mile are a fascinating lot, and the northern California setting is so meticulously detailed we can almost smell the trees and dirt. And Rosemary, bless her loner heart, makes an independent protagonist we’ll want to see more of.

***********************************************************************************************************
Betty Webb: Author of Desert Cut, Desert Run, Desert Shadows, Desert Wives: Polygamy Can Be Murder, and Desert Noir. Coming Dec. 2009, Desert Lost, another polygamy-based mystery. Also, the humorous zoo mystery, The Anteater of Death. All by Poisoned Pen Press.

This review originally appeared in Betty Webb's "Small Press Reviews" column in Mystery Scene Magazine, Spring #109. Reproduced by permission.

Janet LaPierre/Nadia Gordon May 6

Join Mystery Readers International NorCal East Bay chapter for an At Home, an intimate afternoon event with Janet LaPierre and Nadia Gordon, in Berkeley, CA, Wednesday, May 6, 2:30. RSVP. for directions.

Janet LaPierre, author of the Port Silva mysteries, has a new stand-alone, Run a Crooked Mile (Perseverance Press). The new mystery set in the inland mountainous area of Trinity County and the real town of Weaverville, CA, has a strong amateur sleuth and a host of fully drawn characters including Tank, a yellow lab. The mystery is fast-paced with lots of plot twists. LaPierre is the author Family Business, Death Duties, Keepers, Baby Mine, Old Enemies, The Cruel Mother and Children's Games,Grandmother's House, and Unquiet Grave, as well as short stories. She lives in Berkeley, CA.

Nadia Gordon is the author of the Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley mystery series, including Sharpshooter, Death by the Glass, Murder Alfresco, and, new this month, Lethal Vintage, all published by Chronicle Books. Gordon's culinary mystery novels have been called "jolly, high-calorie pleasure" by the Chicago Tribune, "highly enjoyable" by the Washington Post, and "rapturous" by the Los Angeles Times. Writing under her real name, Julianne Balmain, she is the author of numerous books on sex, travel, and generally having a good time, including the Kama Sutra Deck: 50 Ways to Love Your Lover. Her web TV telenovela, Acts of Love & Sex, can be seen at Acts.tv. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.