Dot Dead Diary

A Lazy Sunday

Dropped off daughter #2 for her matinee performance in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  (Saw it last night.  The show was enjoyable and Helena was great!) Then stopped by Bob & Bob in downtown Palo Alto and signed their stock.  (I dropped off a Dot Dead there last week and Ellen Bob liked it enough to put an order in and stack the copies on the front table.)  Then off to M Is for Mystery in downtown San Mateo for a reading and signing.  What Carnegie Hall is to the proverbial violinist, M Is for Mystery is to me.  I've gone there to see and hear favorites like Walter Mosley, Peter Abrahams, Robert Eversz, and others.  Now it was my turn.  The crowd was friendly -- no surprise since I knew a lot of those present.  The presence of Mandy MacCalla, whom I had not seen since senior year at Palo Alto High, proved that old school ties don't break; she dragged along her two sisters and mom.  Jill Soley, a work colleague, rolled in with six-week old Ryan and Cameron of unstated age.  Maisy brought Tony who's a programmer here in the Valley and who laughed at all my jokes.  Ben, the talented novelist and screenwriter whom I know from writing classes, was showing up at a read-and-sign for a second time to pick up copies for his mom and dad.  S.F. State business professor Sally Baack was gracious enough to come for support and perhaps in hopes to glean some insights into Silicon Valley life.  My family minus the thespian showed up just 15 minutes late.  And I met people, too.  Ed Kaufman, the redoubtable proprietor of the bookstore, let me ramble on for a while.  The crowd applauded politely.  Ed figures he's sold 80+ copies of Dot Dead already.  I essentially spent any royalties on the spot; the five Raffels who were there rang up north of a C-note on the cash register.  Surrounded by friends, old and new, and books, old and new -- what a pleasant way to while away a Sunday afternoon.

The Heat Is On

How does the air conditioning situation chez nous remind me of one of Dr. Johnson's most famous quotes?  We live in the Bay Area in no small part because, as the arch gracing downtown Redwood City reminds us, "Climate is best by government test."  Temperatures during a Palo Alto summer usually sit in the low 80's thanks to a cooling blanket of morning fog.  Maybe Al Gore has it right, though.  Summers are growing increasingly hot around here so we decided to install air conditioning upstairs.  The AC was scheduled to be working by July 1.  After the thermometer hit 111 degrees on Saturday and Sunday, our air conditioning was ready to go Tuesday just as the blankets of fog returned.  Dr. Johnson asked, "Is not a patron my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?"  Once it cooled down, our new air conditioning system was ready to encumber the Raffel family with help.

Weather aside, things are still heating up.  Last weekend I flew down south and took my 17-year old daughter along for company and navigation.   We managed to fit in a breakfast at Harold's in Thousand Oaks where I had the best omelet of my life and then went down the street to Mysteries to Die For where we were greeted by a good-sized contingent of store regulars.  Later in the afternoon, we stopped in for a signing at The Mystery Bookstore in Westwood Village and had time to schmooze with Bobby and Linda and the team; my daughter left with four books under her arm.  Last night my sister had a party for her friends at her house.  Lots of fun.  We'll see if book sales skyrocket in Orinda.  This morning a photographer is stopping by to snap my likeness for an upcoming story in Silicon Valley Business Journal.  Sunday I'll be at M Is for Mystery in downtown San Mateo.  Tuesday back down to LA for interviews with KOCE, KNX, and Connie Martinson.  Wednesday night to Seattle for two days of interviews and bookstore visits.  And then there's the day job and book number two.  The heat is on.

How soon can nostalgia hit?  I attended the ConMisterio Mystery conference only two weeks ago.  (See July 18 posting below.)  But it is no more.  Didn't make enough money.  The authors there had a blast, but fans at the conference were sparse.  Too bad.  Karen Meschke ran a great show.  Sigh.  Remember the good old days of ConMisterio the weekend before last?

P.S.  If you live in the Bay Area and haven't been to M Is for Mystery, you should stop by on Sunday.  It's a great store with a knowledgeable staff.  Warning: visits can become addictive and cause wallet shrinkage.  BTW, they have a great kids section, too.

Conundrum

Why is it that those who write murder and mayhem are so warm and friendly?  I've met scores of mystery authors who are ready to extend a helping hand to a newbie like me.  This past February I went to a writers' conference called Sleuthfest.  I knew no one, but a bunch of fellow attendees invited me to come along with them to dinner.  One of them was Jeff Shelby, whose Wicked Break, a mystery set in the surfing subculture of Southern California, is reputed to be #3 on the Denver area's bestseller list.  Jeff is one of the four proprietors of the First Offenders blog.  (Two of the others were at that dinner, Lori Armstrong and Karen Olson; Lori's Blood Ties was nominated for a Shamus, Karen's Sacred Cows for a Gumshoe.  Yes, those are both mystery writing awards.)  Anyway, Jeff threatened to do an interview with me on the blog and now he's gone and done it.  The interview is posted at http://www.firstoffenders.typepad.com/.  The man himself will be at M Is for Mystery in San Mateo on August 3.  I'll be up in Seattle flogging my own Dot Dead on the 3rd, but my copy of Wicked Break is awaiting his autograph.  If you're in the Bay Area, stop by the bookstore and say hi to Jeff for me -- he's a great guy and wonderful writer. 

A Practical Joke?

Just returned from seeing "To Catch a Thief" at Palo Alto's Stanford Theatre.  I've seen it at least five times before, but it seemed as fresh and wonderful today as the first time.  However, this viewing will not inspire the same daydreams about Grace Kelly as that first time (which was before I met my wife.)

Before retiring for the evening, I was checking email, posting to this blog, etc.  I Googled Dot Dead and found an entry at the Books Inc. website, proclaimed there to be "the West's oldest bookseller" with 10 stores in California.  I had stopped by their Mountain View store a few weeks ago which did not have Dot Dead in stock.  The clerk asked me if I wanted to special order the book.  Well, either some of the other stores were really cooking or Books Inc. is playing a terrific practical joke on me.  The Books Inc. website lists Dot Dead as their #1 bestselling book of the week July 10-16.  Ahead of the latest Junie B. Jones, The Devil Wears Prada, and The Kite Runner.  Yeah right.

Fact or Fiction?

A month or two ago, when we were a bit naive about the date of completion of our renovation project, I invited two of my best friends, Ian and Lexa, who hail from NYC, over for Shabbat dinner. At the agreed upon time this past Friday evening, Lexa swept into the house and proclaimed, "I am in Dot Dead."  Nonplussed, I asked how so.  "Of course, I am the red-haired psychologist."  She had me.  I gave her my only possible reply:  "What red-haired psychologist?"  I could recall police officers, professors, rabbis, and venture capitalists, but no psychologist.  Our discussion reached a stalemate in seconds.  Lexa stalked off to show me the offending passage, but had trouble finding it.  I powered up my trusty laptop and searched on "red-haired psychologist."  Nada.  Then I tried plain old "psychologist" and hit gold.  On page 194 Ian is reflecting on his somewhat lackluster love life and recalls that "one amateur red-headed psychologist" diagnosed him as having "fear of commitment."  Now, Lexa may have red hair, but she is anything but an amateur psychologist.  In her past she has garnered a Ph.D. in psychology, written several psychology texts, and earned tenure at several different universities as well as a couple of deanships and a stint as a provost.  In the end I could only smile sweetly and, I hope, enigmatically.  Interestingly, her husband Ian, who shares the first name of Dot Dead's protagonist, made no claims to see himself in any character. 

Lexa's not the only one who sees herself or other people reflected in the characters in Dot Dead.  I keep pointing to the disclaimer in the front of the book -- the one that proclaims it to be a work of fiction.  Do other authors have the same problem:  no character can be fictitious, each has to be based on someone the author knew?

A Fan

Last night I signed books at the Barnes and Noble at Eastridge Mall in San Jose.  The mall is being redone and is only partly re-opened.  The link from the shopping center's website to Yahoo Maps places the mall a couple miles from its true location.  (A frantic cellphone call to my wife put me back on the right track.)  It did my heart good to see the mound of Dot Deads ready for signing at the store.  Mike, the affable and energetic community relations manager, told me the book had been selling well.   Still, no surprise that only a few people showed up for the talk-read-and-sign.  What made the evening special was Peter, a Vietnamese-Canadian engineer working at a Silicon Valley start-up.  He asked an arcane question about Dot Dead.  "Have you read the book?" I inquired.  Peter had indeed already read the book and come back to get me to autograph it!   Hallelujah!  A fan.  Working for a start-up himself, he loved reading about the travails of Dot Dead's protagonist at the fictional Accelenet.  Peter even picked up another copy for his brother Binh who's still back in Canada.  A wonderful evening! 

A Man and A Myth

What is the most famous opening line in detective fiction?  Who knows?  But it might be from James Crumley's The Last Good Kiss:  "When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside Sonora, California, drinking the heart out of a fine spring afternoon."  Well, here is how I whiled away this past Saturday night:  swapping stories with Jim Crumley in a ramshackle Doubletree Hotel a few miles from downtown Austin, Texas.  No dogs were imbibing nearby, but there were a good number of Edgar aspirants.

I've met noirish writers who make Woody Allen look like Mr. Universe and cozy writers who are chic and glamorous.  Jim Crumley, however, fit expections to a tee -- gruff voice, solid build, a face that's seen life.  I'm no idiot:  when I say we swapped stories that means I mostly listened.  Jim's been married five times and had six times the adventures of a normal mortal.  We sat with his wife, the poet Martha Elizabeth, whose elegance and modulation provided a counterpoint to Jim's persona.  I heard about Jim's brief stint in the navy, longer career in the army, his brief attempt at a normal college education at Georgia Tech, and how he'd left Missoula, Montana six times and always returned.  The toughest thing for a writer, Jim told me, is to convince his wife he's working when he's staring out the window.  Between the two of us, we kept drinks flowing.  (Shiner Bock's not a bad brew.)  What a night!

All this happened at the ConMisterio Mystery Conference in Austin.  Hanging out with writers is the reason to go to mystery conferences.  Drinking with Jim, Martha, and me at various points Saturday night were Jane Cleland, author of  Consigned to Death, and Mark Troy, the author of the Hawaiian mystery Pilikia Is My Business, and his wife Mary.  Friday night I was invited out to dinner with a bunch of folks by McKenna Jordan, manager of Houston's mystery headquarters, Murder by The Book, and David Thompson, founder of the new Busted Flush Press.  Among the others doing the BBQ thing with us were Jan Grape, Harry Hinsicker, Sean Doolittle, Megan Abbot, Reed Farrel Coleman, and Wallace Stroby.  Eating beef is an activity I undertake only a couple of times a year.  After a rack of beef ribs that would have made Fred Flintstone proud, I'll probably wait till 2008 for my next bite of cow meat. 

The two panels I was on seemed to go well, but the highlight was meeting my fellow panelists:  Robert Greer, Jeff Abbott, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Margaret Maron, Pari Noskin Taichert, and J.F. Margos.  Sunday afternoon I finally got to meet Karen McInerney, a fellow Midnight Ink author, whose enthusiasm and friendliness make her instantly likable.  Pari and I shared a cab back to the airport; I'm a longtime fan of the Murderati blog she and some colleagues do together.  McKenna let me run a tab at her book table; I bought copies of mysteries written by just about every writer listed above.  I smuggled them back into my house Sunday night in my luggage.  But my wife knew without my saying anything that I was adding to the surfeit of books chez nous.  Got plenty to read for the next couple of months now.

I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonora, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonora, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”

From Seat 23A

Am winging to Austin for a weekend at the ConMisterio Mystery Conference.  I forgot to check in online for my flight last night so I am tucked into a window seat with my knees pressed against the seat in front of me.  My computer doesn't open all the way, and to type I have it set diagonally across the tray table.  I plan on doing some last minute cramming for the panels I'm on at the conference -- one on the difference between mysteries and thriller, the other on the effect of settings in mysteries.  The mystery writing fraternity (or perhaps it's a sorority -- I'm a member of Sisters in Crime) is warm, generous, and friendly.  Should be a fun weekend.

This past Wednesday night was a never-to-forget occasion.  My long-time friends Bob and Susan Finocchio opened up their house for a launch party.  About 75 of us collected in their backyard on an evening where Mother Nature set her thermostat just right.  My agent, Randi Murray, spoke about signing up her first client after leaving the Amy Rennert Agency.  (That would be me.)  I reflected a little on the long process of getting Dot Dead into print, read a few passages, and answered a couple of softball questions.  I suspect a certain number of the guests came out of incredulity -- they could not believe that I had a published book.  My 17-year old daughter did not stop talking to her friends at the party to listen to my remarks; if no man is a hero to his valet, how much lower must dads be in the esteem of their teenagers.  Ed Kaufman, proprietor of M Is for Mystery (where I'll be speaking on July 30), and Andrea, a one-time Silicon Valley engineer and now mother and bookseller, sold a book to just about everyone (and 10 to Ken and Marilyn Lavezzo!).  My only regret is that I spent most of the party signing the books and not enjoying the splendid food and company.  (Okay, okay, signing the books wasn't that painful.)  Bob had told me years ago that he wanted to host a book launch party if Dot Dead were ever completed and published.  He and Susan delivered in spades.  It's hard to believe that it really happned and now it's over.

Rarely has a store hewed closer to truth in advertising than Montclair Village's A Great Good Place for Books.  Walking up the store last night, I saw my own likeness plastered across the front window like a wanted poster in a post office.  Turning and running was an option only briefly considered.  The crowd of 20 (excluding the half dozen nieces and nephews) was a mixture of those recruited by sisters-in-law and those enticed by the store's publicity.  With the exception of one-year old Charlotte, the audience at least pretended to be interested.  During my reading, the store phone rang at the precise moment the phone rang in the passage of the book I was narrating.  Got a big laugh.  Another delightful evening with 30 books signed and sold.  The store has a charming tradition of allowing speakers to pick any book on the shelf as a lagniappe.  I took Ian McEwen's Saturday which I'll start before touching down in Austin                                                                        

Doom Looms

Disaster cannot be far away.  Three new, nice (more like terrific) blurbs for Dot Dead.

Peter Abrahams writes suspense stories with the craftsmanship and elegance of Faberge eggs.  His Revolution #9 is as wise and incisive a reflection of the 1960's as one can find.  Worthy company joins me in my high opinion of Peter.  Stephen King called him "my favorite American suspense novelist."  Peter says:

"Dot Dead is a fast-paced twisty ride.  I never knew Silicon Valley was such a scary place."

Sarah Weinman is the queen of mystery bloggers.  She became royalty, not through bloodlines, but instead because of her hard work, thoughtful opinions, and well-honed prose.  She made Dot Dead one of her picks of the week saying:

"...Raffel's debut mystery is an entertaining look at the underbelly of Silicon Valley, one with enough twists and turns and likeable characters to hope for more.  I especially appreciated the look at the Bay Area's Jewish community, handled with a light touch for color instead of detracting from the story."

The DEMO Conferences are known as the premier launching pads for new companies and technologies.  (I spoke at four of them in my days at UpShot.)  Reigning over those conferences as well as the must-read tech newsletter, DEMOletter, was and is Chris Shipley.  She included Dot Dead on her summer reading list:

"In Dot Dead Raffel (the founder of UpShot Corporation) spins the story of Ian Michaels, a high-flying SIlicon Valley exec who stands accused of murder.  I've known Keith for years as a smart technology guy, and now I've discovered him as a convincing, talented writer.  Pick up Dot Dead if you're looking for a delightful vacation from the rigors of your Silicon Valley life."

I'll cast away my sense of doom, my anhedonia, at least for a few minutes, and thank Peter, Sarah, and Chris, as well as my lucky stars.

Celebration

     I try to keep up with this blog and ruminate at least every other day. The past few days have been so hectic that I just have not made it. Let’s make up for lost time.

     Last Friday at 4 PM the City of Palo Alto told us that we could move back into our now renovated abode. Hallelujah.  We had till Monday at 7 AM to get out of our temporary digs; at that time, the bulldozers were coming in to raze the place. The movers filled three trucks – mainly with my books according to my wife – and finished up Friday night after 11. I spent much of the weekend shlepping art and miscellany.  I snuck back into the temporary digs at 6 AM Monday morning – there was no hot water at our renovated house. There has been some improvement on that front; this morning I took a shower in my daughters’ bathroom.  Still just cold water in the parental bathroom, kitchen, and laundry area. 

     Amidst the chaos, Teri and I slipped away for a Saturday night book launch party thrown by the generous, hospitable, and convivial Lisa Gordon and Steve Zelinger. Fabulous.  Over 80 people, most of them neighbors and longtime friends, queued up to get books signed.  They were a tolerant bunch and listened while I spoke about how I got started writing and what I thought of Silicon Valley and such. The first few chapters of Dot Dead were written for a class taught at UC Berkeley Extension by crime novelist Peggy Lucke. She and her husband Charlie drove over 50 miles to come to the party. Local bookseller Kepler's supplied copies of Dot Dead to the throng.  And they ran out!  Teri said it was one of her favorite parties ever – she knew practically everyone there and had to do no work herself. A tremendous high for me and a real celebration. 

    

People seem to be paying attention.  Except for Brian Rosenthal, at the bottom on the right, who appears to be engrossed in Dot Dead.  (Photo by Charlie Lucke)