Saturday, 02 June 2012
Longmire Debuts on A&E

longmire_roberttaylorCraig Johnson's seven novels about Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire are among the most visual in the mystery genre.

Big, sweeping vistas of Big Sky country, from the wide-open plains to the ranches, coupled with complex characters made it tailor-made for TV.

And the new crime series Longmire does not disappoint. Longmire debuts at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific time and 9 pm Central time June 3, on the A&E Network.

Longmire's action is set just before Johnson's first novel, The Cold Dish, began, though future episodes will feature plots from some of the novels.

The series is very much in keeping with the spirit of the novels, although the printed version has more humor than the screen version, at least in the first episodes. Johnson is the series' creative consultant. The author also watched the auditions and gives final approval to scripts.

A series set in the West might seem old-fashioned because, after all, the classic westerns that used to dominate the TV are long gone. The Rifleman, Big Valley, Maverick, etc., are only on cable networks that feature old shows.

While Walt is a frontier sheriff, Longmire is a contemporary western in every sense of the word. (How many cowboys used a French press to make their coffee while sitting around the campfire?)

longmire_Katee_SackhoffThe Longmire novels have always shown parallels between rural Wyoming and urban cities such as New York. Both regions have their good points, says Longmire in the trailer voiceover, and both have troubles with race, corruption, violence and greed.

Johnson's novels have excelled at showing this universality, and the TV series gracefully picks up this theme.

This is not a Wyoming sheriff version of Walker, Texas Ranger, but rather a more nuanced series that looks into the heart of darkness with complex characters whose motives are often found in various shades of gray.

Longmire is perfectly cast with Australian actor Robert Taylor longmire_Lou_Diamond_Phillips2(The Matrix) as Walt Longmire, exuding the same charisma and calmness that the sheriff exudes. He wears his hat like a shield.

Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck of Battlestar Galactica) also is a good choice for Vic Moretti, Longmire's insightful deputy.

While Lou Diamond Phillips doesn't physically resemble the Standing Bear of the novels, this veteran actor—and a personal favorite—captures the essence of the character.

Longmire is beautifully shot with New Mexico standing in for Absaroka County, Wyoming.

In the first episode, Walt investigates the murder of a high school teacher, the disappearance of a Native American teenager and a mobile brothel.

But the real plot centers on how Walt rebuilds his life and deals with the grief of losing his wife a year ago. He's let himself slip and, as one of his deputies says, "the sheriff hasn't done much in a while."

With the help of his daughter Cady (Cassidy Freeman of Smallville), Vic, Standing Bear and the job, Walt has to pick himself up by his bootstraps.

He feels both betrayed but also invigorated when his ambitious deputy Branch Connally (Bailey Chase of Damages) decides to run against him for sheriff.

I hope the TV series Longmire will bring a whole new set of readers to the Longmire novels.

Longmire's debut at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific time and 9 pm Central time June 3, on A&E Network, immediately follows the third season of the crime drama The Glades, which begins at 9 pm.

Photos/A&E Network: Top, Robert Taylor; center, Katee Sackhoff; bottom, Lou Diamond Phillips of Longmire.

Longmire Debuts on A&E
Oline Cogdill
longmire-debuts-on-aae

longmire_roberttaylorCraig Johnson's seven novels about Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire are among the most visual in the mystery genre.

Big, sweeping vistas of Big Sky country, from the wide-open plains to the ranches, coupled with complex characters made it tailor-made for TV.

And the new crime series Longmire does not disappoint. Longmire debuts at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific time and 9 pm Central time June 3, on the A&E Network.

Longmire's action is set just before Johnson's first novel, The Cold Dish, began, though future episodes will feature plots from some of the novels.

The series is very much in keeping with the spirit of the novels, although the printed version has more humor than the screen version, at least in the first episodes. Johnson is the series' creative consultant. The author also watched the auditions and gives final approval to scripts.

A series set in the West might seem old-fashioned because, after all, the classic westerns that used to dominate the TV are long gone. The Rifleman, Big Valley, Maverick, etc., are only on cable networks that feature old shows.

While Walt is a frontier sheriff, Longmire is a contemporary western in every sense of the word. (How many cowboys used a French press to make their coffee while sitting around the campfire?)

longmire_Katee_SackhoffThe Longmire novels have always shown parallels between rural Wyoming and urban cities such as New York. Both regions have their good points, says Longmire in the trailer voiceover, and both have troubles with race, corruption, violence and greed.

Johnson's novels have excelled at showing this universality, and the TV series gracefully picks up this theme.

This is not a Wyoming sheriff version of Walker, Texas Ranger, but rather a more nuanced series that looks into the heart of darkness with complex characters whose motives are often found in various shades of gray.

Longmire is perfectly cast with Australian actor Robert Taylor longmire_Lou_Diamond_Phillips2(The Matrix) as Walt Longmire, exuding the same charisma and calmness that the sheriff exudes. He wears his hat like a shield.

Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck of Battlestar Galactica) also is a good choice for Vic Moretti, Longmire's insightful deputy.

While Lou Diamond Phillips doesn't physically resemble the Standing Bear of the novels, this veteran actor—and a personal favorite—captures the essence of the character.

Longmire is beautifully shot with New Mexico standing in for Absaroka County, Wyoming.

In the first episode, Walt investigates the murder of a high school teacher, the disappearance of a Native American teenager and a mobile brothel.

But the real plot centers on how Walt rebuilds his life and deals with the grief of losing his wife a year ago. He's let himself slip and, as one of his deputies says, "the sheriff hasn't done much in a while."

With the help of his daughter Cady (Cassidy Freeman of Smallville), Vic, Standing Bear and the job, Walt has to pick himself up by his bootstraps.

He feels both betrayed but also invigorated when his ambitious deputy Branch Connally (Bailey Chase of Damages) decides to run against him for sheriff.

I hope the TV series Longmire will bring a whole new set of readers to the Longmire novels.

Longmire's debut at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific time and 9 pm Central time June 3, on A&E Network, immediately follows the third season of the crime drama The Glades, which begins at 9 pm.

Photos/A&E Network: Top, Robert Taylor; center, Katee Sackhoff; bottom, Lou Diamond Phillips of Longmire.

Wednesday, 30 May 2012
James Bond Will Return

boydwilliam_author

James Bond continues to live.

Long after his creator Ian Fleming's death, through Sean Connery, Roger Moore, et al, up to Daniel Craig, James Bond is still with us. No villain who wants to rule the world has been able to get rid of super spy 007. Even Q's gadgets haven't killed him.

And he continues to live on the page as well as on the screen.

William Boyd, the author of Restless, A Good Man in Africa, and Any Human Heart, is the third author who has been tapped by the Ian Fleming estate to continue the James Bond adventures.

Sebastian Faulks and Jeffrey Deaver were the first two authors to bring their vision of James Bond to the novels.

Boyd said he was a lifelong fan of the man with the license to kill, having been introduced to James Bond by his father. His
favorite in the series is From Russia with Love, he said.

According to newspaper and website reports, Boyd said he plans to set the novel in 1969, returning to ""classic Bond."" Boyd's 007 novel is slated to be published in the fall of 2013, which will be 60 years after the publication of the first Bond novel, Casino Royale.

Fleming died in 1964 shortly after the early Bond films brought his character to worldwide fame. He wrote 14 Bond novels and short story collections and penned the children's classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Boyd's novel is slated to be published in Britain by Jonathan Cape, which is Ian Fleming's original publisher and an imprint of Vintage Publishing, and simultaneously by HarperCollins Publishers in the US and Canada.

James Bond Will Return
Oline Cogdill
james-bond-will-return

boydwilliam_author

James Bond continues to live.

Long after his creator Ian Fleming's death, through Sean Connery, Roger Moore, et al, up to Daniel Craig, James Bond is still with us. No villain who wants to rule the world has been able to get rid of super spy 007. Even Q's gadgets haven't killed him.

And he continues to live on the page as well as on the screen.

William Boyd, the author of Restless, A Good Man in Africa, and Any Human Heart, is the third author who has been tapped by the Ian Fleming estate to continue the James Bond adventures.

Sebastian Faulks and Jeffrey Deaver were the first two authors to bring their vision of James Bond to the novels.

Boyd said he was a lifelong fan of the man with the license to kill, having been introduced to James Bond by his father. His
favorite in the series is From Russia with Love, he said.

According to newspaper and website reports, Boyd said he plans to set the novel in 1969, returning to ""classic Bond."" Boyd's 007 novel is slated to be published in the fall of 2013, which will be 60 years after the publication of the first Bond novel, Casino Royale.

Fleming died in 1964 shortly after the early Bond films brought his character to worldwide fame. He wrote 14 Bond novels and short story collections and penned the children's classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Boyd's novel is slated to be published in Britain by Jonathan Cape, which is Ian Fleming's original publisher and an imprint of Vintage Publishing, and simultaneously by HarperCollins Publishers in the US and Canada.

Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Best Paid Authors, Grisham's Mistake

grisham_john4

John Grisham is one of those authors who is indeed a household name. Beginning with The Firm, Grisham gave the legal thriller a much needed vitamin shot. And while not all of his novels have kept those high standards, he is indeed a most readable author.

Grisham's first baseball novel Calico Jack is now No. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

Grisham also is high on another list—he's No. 8 on Forbes’s annual ranking of the world’s top-earning authors. His estimated earnings are $18 million. The list comes out each April.

But Grisham's $18 million pales next to the No. 1 author, James Patterson at $84 million. No. 2 is Danielle Steel at $35 million. No. 3: Stephen King, $28 million. No. 4: Janet Evanovich, $25 million. No. 5: Stephanie Meyer, $21 million. No. 6: Rick Riordan, $21 million. No. 7: Dean Koontz, $19 million. No. 8: Grisham. No. 9: Jeff Kinney, $17 million. No. 10: Nicholas Sparks, $16 million. No. 11: Ken Follett, $14 million. No. 12: Suzanne Collins, $10 million. No. 13: JK Rowling, $5 million.

I find it interesting that mystery/thriller writers dominate the list. Patterson, Grisham, Evanovich, King, Koontz and Follett are mainstays in the genre. We can even count Rick Riordan in the mix because he started out writing superb private detective novels before switching to the most lucrative Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles novels for young adults.

Grisham and Patterson also write novels for both adults and young adults.

Naturally, each of these authors spent years taking small advances and, during those years, the closest they would come to a bestsellers list is reading one in the newspaper.

That certainly happened to John Grisham, which he discussed in a recent Newsweek interview titled "My Favorite Mistake."

Back in the 1980s, Grisham was trying to sell his first novel, A Time to Kill. Only 5,000 first-editon copies of the novel had been printed and Grisham had 1,500 copies that he stored in his small law office in Southaven, Mississippi.

That's a lot of books. So why does Grisham call this his "favorite mistake?"

Here's why:

“We stacked them in the reception area, around my secretary’s desk, in the hallways, in my office. We couldn’t move but for all the copies of A Time to Kill,” Grisham said in the Newsweek interview.

“The boxes were everywhere, and I would just give them away. If one of my clients wanted a book, I’d try to sell it. If not, I’d give it away. I’d sell them for 10 bucks, 5 bucks. I used them for doorstops. I couldn’t get rid of these books.”

Today, on the used-book website AbeBooks.com, a signed first edition of A Time to Kill might fetch as much as $4,000, according to Newsweek.

“That’s about $6 million, the way I do the math,” Grisham told Newsweek. “We had no way of knowing then, but I sure wish I had some of those books back. I blew it.”

Best Paid Authors, Grisham's Mistake
Oline Cogdill
best-paid-authors-grishams-mistake

grisham_john4

John Grisham is one of those authors who is indeed a household name. Beginning with The Firm, Grisham gave the legal thriller a much needed vitamin shot. And while not all of his novels have kept those high standards, he is indeed a most readable author.

Grisham's first baseball novel Calico Jack is now No. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

Grisham also is high on another list—he's No. 8 on Forbes’s annual ranking of the world’s top-earning authors. His estimated earnings are $18 million. The list comes out each April.

But Grisham's $18 million pales next to the No. 1 author, James Patterson at $84 million. No. 2 is Danielle Steel at $35 million. No. 3: Stephen King, $28 million. No. 4: Janet Evanovich, $25 million. No. 5: Stephanie Meyer, $21 million. No. 6: Rick Riordan, $21 million. No. 7: Dean Koontz, $19 million. No. 8: Grisham. No. 9: Jeff Kinney, $17 million. No. 10: Nicholas Sparks, $16 million. No. 11: Ken Follett, $14 million. No. 12: Suzanne Collins, $10 million. No. 13: JK Rowling, $5 million.

I find it interesting that mystery/thriller writers dominate the list. Patterson, Grisham, Evanovich, King, Koontz and Follett are mainstays in the genre. We can even count Rick Riordan in the mix because he started out writing superb private detective novels before switching to the most lucrative Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles novels for young adults.

Grisham and Patterson also write novels for both adults and young adults.

Naturally, each of these authors spent years taking small advances and, during those years, the closest they would come to a bestsellers list is reading one in the newspaper.

That certainly happened to John Grisham, which he discussed in a recent Newsweek interview titled "My Favorite Mistake."

Back in the 1980s, Grisham was trying to sell his first novel, A Time to Kill. Only 5,000 first-editon copies of the novel had been printed and Grisham had 1,500 copies that he stored in his small law office in Southaven, Mississippi.

That's a lot of books. So why does Grisham call this his "favorite mistake?"

Here's why:

“We stacked them in the reception area, around my secretary’s desk, in the hallways, in my office. We couldn’t move but for all the copies of A Time to Kill,” Grisham said in the Newsweek interview.

“The boxes were everywhere, and I would just give them away. If one of my clients wanted a book, I’d try to sell it. If not, I’d give it away. I’d sell them for 10 bucks, 5 bucks. I used them for doorstops. I couldn’t get rid of these books.”

Today, on the used-book website AbeBooks.com, a signed first edition of A Time to Kill might fetch as much as $4,000, according to Newsweek.

“That’s about $6 million, the way I do the math,” Grisham told Newsweek. “We had no way of knowing then, but I sure wish I had some of those books back. I blew it.”