MURDER MOST GROTESQUE Has Been Nominated for an Agatha Award!

MURDER MOST GROTESQUE Has Been Nominated for an Agatha Award!

I am grateful to share that my book MURDER MOST GROTESQUE: THE COMEDIC CRIME FICTION OF JOYCE PORTER has been nominated for an Agatha Award from Malice Domestic in the best Nonfiction category! I'd like to thank everybody who nominated me, and I also want to congratulate all of the other nominees, especially the other Level Best authors and the other Nonfiction nominees: Jan Brogan, Julie Kavanaugh, Lee Child, and Laurie R. King! Further gratitude must be extended to my publishers at Level Best Books, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Verena Rose, and Harriette Sackler! Thank you all so much!

 

Here is the list of this year’s nominees!

 

​The 2021 Agatha Award Nominees

Best Contemporary Novel
Cajun Kiss of Death by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
Watch Her by Edwin Hill (Kensington)
The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
Her Perfect Life by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)
Symphony Road by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best Books)

Best Historical Novel
Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge (Kensington)
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara (Soho Crime)
The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day (HarperCollins)
The Devil's Music by Gabriel Valjan (Winter Goose Publishing)

Best First Novel
The Turncoat's Widow by Mally Becker (Level Best Books)
A Dead Man's Eyes by Lori Duffy Foster (Level Best Books)
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala (Berkley)
Murder in the Master by Judy L. Murray (Level Best Books)
Mango, Mambo, and Murder by Raquel V. Reyes (Crooked Lane Books)

Best Short Story
"A Family Matter" by Barb Goffman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine Jan/Feb 2021)
"A Tale of Two Sisters" by Barb Goffman in Murder on the Beach (Destination Murders)
"Doc's at Midnight" by Richie Narvaez in Midnight Hour (Crooked Lane Books)
"The Locked Room Library" by Gigi Pandian (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine July/Aug 2021)
"Bay of Reckoning" by Shawn Reilly Simmons in Murder on the Beach (Destination Murders)

Best Non-Fiction
The Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston's Struggle for Justice by Jan Brogan (Bright Leaf Press)
Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter by Chris Chan (Level Best Books)
The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge, and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England by Julie Kavanaugh (Atlantic Monthly Press)
How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America by MWA with editors Lee Child and Laurie R. King (Simon & Schuster)

Best Children's/YA Mystery
​Cold-Blooded Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers)
The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur (Fiewel and Friends/Macmillan)
I Play One on TV by Alan Orloff (Down & Out Books)
Leisha's Song by Lynn Slaughter (Fire and Ice/Melange Books)
Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer (Wednesday Books)

 

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle  edition.

Sherlock Holmes: Adventures Through The Multiverse

Sherlock Holmes: Adventures Through The Multiverse

 

Over the last few years, I’ve published several stories in anthologies by Belanger Books, and their upcoming project is a bit different.  It’s called Sherlock Holmes: Adventures Through The Multiverse, and it features a world that’s not the same as the one readers generally know.

 

Belanger Books describes the two-volume set, saying:

 

Imagine Sherlock Holmes, sitting in his chair at 221B Baker Street, his pipe in hand, pontificating to Watson about the facts of a case. Now imagine that same Holmes but different. That traditional Sherlock Holmes is now spread across the multiverse and while he is still the same brilliant man, he is:

·        in the American Wild West, 

·       a Native American in prehistoric Earth

·       a masked vigilante fighting crime at night in the streets of London

·        an ingenious villain fighting against Moriarty, the hero

·       a woman

·       a robot 

·       in a version of the Twilight Zone

 All of these Sherlock Holmes and more are featured in a two volume set: Sherlock Holmes: Adventures through The Multiverse! The authors have done a phenomenal job creating an alternative version of Sherlock Holmes but keeping the spirit of Holmes alive.

To find out more and to back their Kickstarter campaign, please go here.  My story, "The Prisoners of Cawdor College," takes a look at what might have happened in Moriarty had triumphed over Holmes at Reichenbach Falls.

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

What Makes A Story “Stick” With You?

What Makes A Story “Stick” With You?

 

I read a lot, and I have an excellent memory.  The books I tend to remember best are the ones I enjoy.  Yet there are a lot of mediocre books out there, and in some ways, there are some books that fail in a different way from the truly awful.  The worst books haunt my memory with how terrible they are.  The truly forgettable books are utter nonentities in my mind.

 

How bland does a book have to be to fade from your mind moments after reading it?  Some books are so vapid I have to keep doubling back and rereading the last five pages because even though I read closely, I can’t recall what happened.  It’s like some authors have an amnesia curse placed upon their prose– they’re so forgettable.

 

There are a bunch of reasons for this.  Cookie-cutter plots.  Generic characters.  One cliché after another.  Meandering plots.  Often, a major problem is the prose style– some writers are utterly flat, others are trying to be artistic and have merely puréed their words into pap.  No humor.  No suspense.  Nobody who’s likeable or hateable.  Dialogue that neither resonates nor entertains.  In any event, these books aren’t really bad, just… zeroes.

 

It’s frustrating to finish a book and realize it had no impact on me whatsoever.  And it happens way more often than I’d like when I try a book from an author with whom I’m not previously familiar.  Has this happened to you?

 

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

 

The Perils of Bingewatching

The Perils of Bingewatching

 

In my last post, I talked about the difference between watching TV and movies alone vs. with watching with other people.  Truly, community plays a role in how we respond to entertainment.  Now, I want to move on to another issue: bingewatching.  Bingewatching is the practice of watching seasons of television series extremely quickly, essentially watching one episode after another and completing a season in a very short time, sometimes in a single day or at least a weekend.

 

I cast no judgment upon people who bingewatch.  Goodness knows I’ve done my share of it.  And I think the practice works well for action and thriller series, which end on cliffhangers.  Instead of waiting a full week for a new episode, one can find out immediately what happens next.  The problem is diminishing returns.  You can only sit and watch for so long before one’s wits and memory are dulled.  Often, the later at night (or the earlier in the morning) it gets, fatigue may set in and affect one’s enjoyment of the series.  Sometimes you just have to sleep and come back fresh.

 

But while action and thrillers may be made for bingewatching, I have more reservations about comedy.  The problem with comedy is that you can get overloaded, and many comedy shows need to be savored to be enjoyed.  Sometimes being overexposed to a certain style of humor inoculates you against it, so after three or four episodes, one doesn’t laugh as much as one might otherwise.  I have a much higher opinion of the fourth and fifth seasons of Arrested Development than some outspoken critics and fans, and I think by bingewatching these seasons of the series alone, rather than one episode at a time weekly, often in a group, the humor was unfortunately dulled. 

 

Think of the series Seinfeld.  During the 1990’s, my friends and I always looked forward to watching the show on Thursday nights, often with family members.  We always had a topic of conversation of Fridays, discussing the show, and I’m sure that if entire seasons of Seinfeld were released all at once and devoured over a weekend, not only would responses to the humor be blunted, but many of the Seinfeld trademark lines and imagery, from “Yada, Yada, Yada,” to Festivus would never have made their way into the public mindset because it would have been too much, too quickly.  With no time to be absorbed and disseminated, Seinfeld’s mark on popular culture would have been far smaller than it was.

 

So what do you think?  Are there any other problems arising from bingewatching?  I mean, aside from lack of exercise and reading fewer books.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle  edition.

The Viewing Experience

The Viewing Experience

 

Happy New Year, everybody!

 

Today I want to bring up an issue that I’ve been pondering for a while now: do we respond to watching television shows and movies differently when we watch them alone, as opposed to when we watch them with others?

 

I first started thinking about this phenomenon when talking with friends, and they discussed how they didn’t find The Simpsons as funny as they used to in the past.  Then we watched a couple of recent episodes together, and they laughed a lot.  They didn’t understand it.  I had actually seen the episodes myself earlier, and I didn’t laugh when I first saw them, but I did watching them with my friends.  After a bit of questioning, my friends noted that through middle school through college, they watched the show with family or friends, but as they entered adulthood, they generally watched it alone, and enjoyed the experience less.

 

With The Current Situation going on, a lot of people have been avoiding movie theaters.  There’s a line from Sunset Boulevard where the former star Norma Desmond declares “I’m still big.  It’s the pictures that got small.”  I’ve heard some people finding the movies less enjoyable at home, and wishing they could go back to the theaters.  Others prefer being at home in comfortable chairs, avoiding sticky floors, and being pause the movie whenever they like and use a private restroom.

 

Still, it makes me wonder, how does watching a show by oneself affect the experience compared to watching with friends, or being in a theater with others people reacting to the film?  I’d be interested to hear what people think on this subject.

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas to everybody!  If anybody has any suggestions for content they’d like to see on this blog in the future, please let me know in the comments.  Thanks!

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

A Theory on Ellery Queen

A Theory on Ellery Queen

 

Ellery Queen is one of the most prominent and influential figures in 20^th-century American crime fiction.  The creation of a pair of cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, who decided it would be a clever bit of publicity to give their detective their own pen name, Ellery Queen emerged on the scene in 1929’s The Roman Hat Mystery.  In the early books, he’s a rather snobbish young man, who stresses logic and acts as if he is of a different social class than his widowed father, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD.  Later in the series, he’s more laid-back, down-to-earth, and amiable, and he also makes a lot more mistakes, coming up with a clever but wrong solution before (usually) identifying the true criminal.

 

Notably, in the early books, the authors gave Queen a backstory– he and his father retired from crime fighting long before the publication of the book.  Ellery married and had a son, and they all moved to Italy, along with Djuna, the young man who performed household tasks for them.  The first books are supposedly fictionalized versions of the Queens’ adventures, polished and prepared for publication by a friend.  But soon, this retirement narrative is forgotten, and never mentioned again.  Ellery solves crimes in New York, works for a while as a Hollywood screenwriter, discovers a small American Everytown called Wrightsville and solves murders that only seem to happen when he visits, and addresses a few other bizarre crimes in various locales.  At times, Ellery seems substantially changed from his earlier appearances.  Djuna disappears midway through the series, and sometimes the Queen father and son live together, and sometimes they do not.

 

Dannay and Lee produced many books (and radio shows and other works) starring Ellery Queen over the decades, only producing a couple of fiction novels that did not include either Ellery or his father.  But in the 1950’s, when the cousins were battling health problems and writer’s block, the duo decided to hire a few ghostwriters to do some of the literary legwork for them, though they came up with the initial plots and clues, and they revised the ghostwritten books substantially.  This era produced some of their most critically acclaimed novels.  In the 1960’s however, a slew of ghostwriters were hired to write books under the name Ellery Queen, though none of these novels would feature Ellery.  Over the last few months, I’ve read all but a handful of the original Ellery Queens, and all of the 1960’s ghostwritten Queens.  The 1960’s ghostwritten Queens are, with a few exceptions, much weaker than the originals.

 

For years, readers have wondered about how to explain the changes in Ellery’s character.  Julian Symons proposed that there were two men who were Ellery Queen: the original, and a cousin who took over the writing and detecting once the first EQ retired.  I would take that idea a couple of steps further.  We never see an elderly Ellery, as we would if over forty years had passed from the earliest to the latest case.  In the early books, Ellery appears to only write about his own cases, in later novels he writes original novels, though there are no clues as to the detective he created or the plots of most of his books, only that they are a long, hard slog to write and he’d much rather be doing almost anything else, preferable detecting.  Additionally, Inspector Queen marries again late in the series, but a couple of books later his new bride is nowhere to be found and is never mentioned in the last adventures.  There are other discrepancies in Ellery’s height, attitude towards religion, and mental state.  It seems to me that perhaps it was more than just the real-life Ellery Queen that became a “house name.”  What if, in the fictional world of the books, Ellery Queen was a house name, and over the course of the saga, three, four, perhaps even more men took up the typewriter and published mysteries under the EQ name?

 

It would explain a lot.  The original EQ retired to Italy.  Another man wrote in NYC for a while.  The Hollywood EQ, usually not working with his father, might be a different man altogether.  The darker, brooding EQ of the 1950’s could be another man.  Finally, the last two books feature a more blundering EQ, who gets the case totally wrong in The Fourth Side of the Triangle and it’s up to Inspector Queen to find the truth, the one time he shows up Ellery.  In A Fine and Private Place, Ellery makes a terrible and humiliating false accusation, one that could have been avoided with a little simple research.  Perhaps this weaker detective is yet another EQ.  It would also explain the different relationships between Ellery and his “father.”  Sometimes the two are quite close.  In other books, the previously affable Richard Queen snaps and growls and there is no real affectionate bond between the two.  Perhaps the different Ellerys– at least five, maybe more, were really ghostwriters, some being the sons or nephews of police officers, young men who wanted to have a go as mystery writers, so they signed a contract, wrote under the “house” pen name, and they tried their hands at mysteries.  Of course, all the names were changed when they wrote about their adventures, and in some of the later books, the man writing and investigating under the name EQ had no police inspector relative, and instead paired up with a homicide detective with minimal liking or respect for “Ellery.”

 

It seems to me that this would account for a lot of the discrepancies and differences.  Ellery doesn’t really age over more than four decades.  Lots of character points don’t match up convincingly.  Ellery Queen was not one man, but at least five men, possibly more, and these men were of radically different investigative skill and literary prowess.  Also, I wonder if we ought to consider the 1960’s “ghostwritten” novels to be the books written by the various men writing under the EQ name.  These books are of varying quality, reflecting the differing skills of the men who were Ellery Queen.  This is my take on the mystery that was Ellery Queen– I wonder what other people might think about this?

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle  edition.