Femme fatales. Tawdry neon lights. The desperate sweaty air of hopes vanishing
between one drag on a cigarette and the next. And that was just the first
day of the World Mystery Convention.
Bouchercon
is the annual gathering of everybody who's anybody in the mystery world.
This year, over 1,600 writers, readers, publishers, editors and agents met
in Las Vegas to talk shop, appear on panels (sample title: Just How Sick
and Twisted Are We?) and, for a lucky few, pick up an award or two. I was
one of them. My name is Friday.
No, sorry,
it's not. But I challenge anyone to spend four days in smoky bars listening
to people discussing murder methods and not start talking like Spillane and
Chandler. I started a day earlier than most, arriving on Wednesday to appear
in a local bookstore. After a well-received talk on writing techniques, I
got quite an education myself in a driving tour of the city by night. Remember
family-friendly Las Vegas? Come and bring the kids? Well, forget about it.
The city's new motto is, "What happens here, stays here."
The experience
I wanted to leave behind was watching the Red Sox lose the seventh game of
the American League pennant race. The pain of defeat was only mitigated by
the convention's opening ceremony, where I was unexpectedly awarded the Barry
Award for Best First Mystery. It was so unexpected, I didn't have a thank-you
prepared; I blurted out something about St. Martin's buying everybody a drink
(there were 800 people in the room, but after all, the Red Sox were still
winning) and then had to spend the next three days ducking the associate
publisher.
I spent
much of Friday at the poolside cafe, exposing my white New England skin to
as much sun as it could stand and chatting with an endless parade of fascinating
crime fiction authors. Writing. It's a brutal job, but someone has to do
it. I reminded everyone how much I missed my three kids at home. Really!
I did!
That
evening I got another award, the Macavity, for Best First Mystery. It was
beginning to feel like an embarrassment of riches, a sensation that only
increased in the whirl of parties and receptions that followed; my publishers',
my friends' publishers, the Mystery Writers of America, the Dorothy-L Society,
Sisters-in-Crime...I ask you, how many free drinks and finger-sized spring
rolls was a woman supposed to stand? As I said above, it's a brutal job.
The next
day, in true Red Sox fashion, the universe sent me a come-uppance for my
spring-roll-induced hubris. I was stung in the rear sitting down at the lunch
buffet. By an unknown insect. And had to show the security guard, who drew
up an Official Incident Report, the bug-guts-stained seat of my pants. At
my table. In front of the rest of the buffet's patrons. As the ancient Greeks
said, let no man count himself happy until he has reached the ninth inning.
I'm almost
embarrassed to describe the Anthony Awards brunch. Not because there were
any unexpected visitors in my chair, but because when toastmaster Lee Child
announced In the Bleak Midwinter had won for Best First Mystery, I started
to cry. The other novels up for the award were so strong, so well-written,
I was temporarily reduced to incoherence. I gathered my wits enough to say
thank-you, and then spent the rest of the day in a daze. Eddie Muller, a
wonderful writer who himself had won the Shamus Award for Best First Private
Eye novel, asked me, "Are you taking an airplane home, or are you just going
to fly?" Well, I went back on my scheduled flight, but I think I was hovering
a few inches above my seat.
Las Vegas.
Maybe what happens there, stays there. But not for me. The awards, the laughs,
the conversations--I'll be cherishing them for a long, long time.
Plus,
there's that sore spot on my rear...
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