Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Noir at the Bar III plus a chance to win books!

What did I learn from Noir at the Bar III with Dave White? For one thing, that the Tritone is a noisier place on Tuesdays than it is on Sundays, when we'd staged the previous Noirs at the Bar. But above the sounds of clinking mugs and no doubt interesting conversations, I also learned how an author faces the challenge of keeping an established genre such as the P.I. story fresh.

I learned that Dave picks up ideas from listening to his students. (He teaches eighth grade when he's not writing fiction, and he related the tale of a young man who had been banned for life from Costco for stealing a video game and was at his wit's end because he liked their pizza so much.) And I learned that Sarah Weinman knows how to ask good questions. (That's Sarah quizzing Dave in the photo above.)

That's what I got out of the evening. What can you get? A free book or even two. I'll send a copy of Dave's Shamus Award-nominated debut When One Man Dies to the first reader who can tell me which English poet lent the novel its title and the protagonist his name. Tell me which other Shamus-nominated author also borrows a great English poet's name for his protagonist and his title, and you'll also get a copy of Dave's latest, The Evil That Men Do.

Send your answers along with a postal address to detectivesbeyondborders(at)earthlink(dot)net.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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6 Comments:

Blogger petra michelle; Whose role is it anyway? said...

Ah, pooh! Would love so much to begin reading crime novels again, and what an exciting way to have started. But I ocme up empty handed. Always fun to visit. Always interesting, Peter

August 20, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

The answer to this quiz has revived my interest in a poet I liked from the one poem of his I remember from my high school days -- John Donne.

August 20, 2008  
Blogger Christopher Robbins said...

I believe Philip Marlowe was influenced by the english poet Christopher Marlowe.

August 20, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

As was Robert B. Parker's Spenser by Edmund Spenser. Sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English literature have long held a fascination for writers of hard-boiled crime stories.

August 20, 2008  
Blogger Christopher Robbins said...

And how can we forget Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas(aka Charles Ardai) featuring John Blake clearly inspired by William Blake.

August 21, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Charles Ardai who himself, before he took the alias Richard Aleas, studied the Romantic poets, including Blake and whose novel Little Girl Lost also takes its title from Blake.

August 21, 2008  

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