The next Willie Black mystery, Belle Isle, comes out this month. It was supposed to launch in May, but the publisher wanted to wait until the pandemic had passed. Well, that didn't happen, but Belle Isle is out anyhow. Promoting a book these days is a little different. I'm doing a couple of virtual book talks and one live one, socially distanced. And, it's on Kindle and as an audio book and on Audible, and somebody's doing the Willie Black books in Italian. The next one, Jordan's Branch, will come out in 2021, which has got to be a better year than this.

The AP likes Willie

The Associated Press review of Evergreen, the eighth novel in the Willie Black series and my 18th novel overall, came out yesterday, and it was very pleasing. With any series, there is the fear that the latest installment will be met with something less than enthusiasm. It is my hope that each of the Willie Black mysteries will be a good read on its own, even if the reader has no previous knowledge of Willie. There is the fear that reviewers will not pay it much attention, being, in this case, the eighth book with the same protagonist.

That is why Bruce DeSilva's review for the Associated Press (which has a pretty big audience) is so encouraging. Bruce is a great mystery writer, much respected in the journalism and mystery writing communities.

Here it is:

By BRUCE DESILVA

The Associated Press

This cover image released by Permanent Press shows "Evergreen," a release by Howard Owen. (Permanent Press via AP)

“Evergreen,” by Howard Owen (Permanent Press)

When Willie Black was 15 months old, his father, Artie Lee, was killed in an apparent automobile accident. That’s all Willie — police reporter for a Richmond, Virgina, newspaper — knows about his dad. He’s never been curious about the man.

That changes when Willie’s aunt on his father’s side summons him to her deathbed. She’s been tending Artie’s grave in Evergreen, an abandoned cemetery, and now it’s up to Willie to inherit the chore.

Readers of Howard Owen’s underappreciated Willie Black novels already know that Willie’s father was black, that his mother was white, and that they weren’t allowed to marry in 1960s Virginia. But in “Evergreen,” the eighth book in the series, they’ll grow as curious as Willie about what really put Artie in his grave.

Finding out is no easy task.

Willie’s mother won’t say and urges Willie to drop it.

Artie’s old pals reminisce about his saxophone playing but clam up about his death.

The police chief says there were rumors that the car crash was no accident but has no details.

Old newspaper files are no help. The death of a black man didn’t merit a news story in 1961 Virginia.

Patiently, Willie squeezes a few minor details from townsfolk old enough to remember Artie. Each time he gets a scrap of information, he circles back, telling the witnesses what he knows and teasing out a bit more. He does this so skillfully that it is a pleasure to watch him work.

Eventually, he learns that Artie’s death was connected to a Ku Klux Klan rally, a car bombing and a series of betrayals by friends and relatives who were threatened by racist police officers unless they talked. The result is a conclusion that is both wrenching and satisfying.

Readers seeking the thrills of most popular crime fiction won’t find it here. Instead, they will find a textured, emotionally charged tale about coming to terms with growing up biracial in America told in the precise language of a writer who honed his craft during 44 years in the newspaper business.

___

Bruce DeSilva , winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including “The Dread Line.”

More Willie Black

My eighth Willie Black mystery, and 18th novel overall, "Evergreen," comes out in late July. In this one, Willie is asked to take over the maintenance of his late father's grave, in an abandoned cemetery on Richmond's East End. Willie didn't even know where his father was buried, but when he starts digging, so to speak, he finds out that there was a lot more he didn't know about Artie Lee.

I've been doing the Willie Black series for about a decade now. A ninth installment is coming; I'm finishing up the first draft. I find that there is no dearth of settings around Richmond for Willie's adventures and misadventures and hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I've enjoyed writing them. I'm sure that I will occasionally step back and write something non-Willie, like the well-received "Annie's Bones." However, I can't stay away from Willie and his large population of friends, family, enemies and frenemies for very long. It occurred to me early on, as I was writing the short story, "The Thirteenth Floor," that gave birth to Willie Black, that a hard-ridden night cops reporter in the waning days of print newspapers was a gold mine for anyone trying to write noir.

Evergreen Cemetery is on the far east end of Richmond. It is an African-American cemetery that was abandoned after it was built out and is now a ghost land of tombstones overtaken by kudzu and greenbriers, overshadowed by full-grown trees and only recently the focus of a major reclamation project. All in all, not a bad place to set a mystery.

Review of Annie's Bones

My latest novel, Annie's Bones, just got a very good review from PW. Willie Black has only a cameo in this one. Willie will be back in Scuffletown, which is set to come out in January of 2019.
Here's the review:

Publishers Weekly March 16, 2018
Annie’s Bones by Howard Owen. Permanent, $29.95 (264p) ISBN 978-1- 57962-522- 1

In 1968, Grayson Melvin, the protagonist of this moving, well-crafted standalone from Owen
(The Reckoning), meets the love of his life, Annie Lineberger, when they’re both college
students in North Carolina. When Annie breaks up with him, he tells her to get out of his car. She
scrambles out and is never seen again. Grayson is the primary suspect in her disappearance, but
without any evidence he moves on—always followed by a cloud. In 2016, Annie’s bones are
found in Portman, Va., and Grayson’s nightmare begins again. He gets support from only a few
people, including Richmond, Va., reporter Willie Black (the lead of Owen’s The Devil’s
Triangle and five other mysteries). Arrayed against him are public opinion, seemingly every
lawman in the area, and Annie’s unforgiving brother, Hayden. The discovery of Grayson’s high
school senior class ring, which he last saw when he refused to take it back from Annie at the time
she left him, puts Grayson on a tortuous path that eventually leads to answers that may or may
not explain what happened. This tale of loss and redemption will resonate with many readers.
(Apr.)

More Willie on the way

My next novel, Annie's Bones, only employs Willie Black as a walk-on character. The protagonist is a man, an acquaintance of Willie's, who has lived under a cloud for almost half a century, suspected of murdering his girlfriend the night she dumped him in 1968. Now, with Annie's bones dug up by a backhoe operator in a small town on the Virginia-North Carolina border, Gray Melvin must deal with the past at last, taking a trip down a memory lane he'd just as soon have bypassed.
The next Willie Black mystery, Scuffletown, should come out sometime in the next year or so. Like the other Willie books, it takes its title from a real Richmond setting, in this case Scuffletown Park in the Fan. It's all fiction after that, of course, but I guarantee you it will entertain you, whether you know where the Strawberry Street Cafe is or not.
The series keeps getting praise and picking up readers. Grace was a finalist for Killer Nashville's Silver Falchion award. The Devil's Triangle got a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
I'm working on something else Willie-ish. Probably will start writing, as is often the case, on New Year's Day.

20, 40, 60 …

Here's something I submitted for the Permanent Press blog run by Martin Shepard. A few insights into turning into a mystery writer.

My professional/public life has tended to run in 20-year cycles.

In my early 20s, I became a sports writer because the idea of getting paid to go to ballgames and write about them seemed to me to be a pleasant way to spend my adult life. Maybe I wouldn’t change the world, but, like a diligent physician, I would do no harm.

Then, just before I turned 40, I started my first novel, because I had managed to get promoted away from using the main talent I thought I brought to journalism: writing.  I needed to write. That first novel, Littlejohn, was bought by The Permanent Press after a dozen large publishers had turned it down. Martin and Judith Shepard’s judgment was rewarded when the book got great reviews and word-of-mouth support from independent booksellers, and Random House purchased it from them/me and republished it the next year.

That made writing novels in my free time (I was still working as a newspaper editor) easier, because I was fairly confident someone would publish my work. Over the next 20 years, I wrote nine literary novels, some for The Permanent Press, some for Harper Collins and Random House.

Then about the time I turned 60, still working as a newspaper editor, another fork in the road appeared, and, like Yogi Berra advised, I took it.

A friend, Tom De Haven, an outstanding novelist who teaches creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University, asked me to write a detective noir short story for a collection that would become Richmond Noir, one of a series of noir collections published by Akashic Books.

I had never written a mystery anything. I didn’t even read that many mysteries, but I’m always game to write something that people might read, so I gave it a try. That short story, “The Thirteenth Floor,” was the birth of Willie Black, a night police reporter for the Richmond daily newspaper who drinks too much, smokes too much and marries too much, a man with a good heart and bad habits.

I knew right away that Willie’s first-person voice was something I could use in a novel or two. Even before Richmond Noir came out, I was working on the first Willie Black mystery. That first one, Oregon Hill, won the Dashiell Hammett Prize for best crime literature in the U.S. and Canada. The fifth one, Grace, is a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for Best Fiction Adult Mystery. The sixth one, The Devil’s Triangle, with a starred Publishers Weekly review, came out in July. I’m polishing the seventh one now. The first six have all been published by The Permanent Press as will, I’m hoping, the seventh.

What have I learned? Basically, writing is writing. I found that the things that carried me in literary fiction—a good plot, intriguing characters, quality writing—worked just as well in mysteries. And when I needed professional advice (What kind of gun should the bad guy use? What’s it like at an execution? What’s the procedure between the arrest and the trial?), there was always an expert, either in person or online, who could tell me what I needed to know.

The important thing is simply to have a good story and write it well. Genre doesn’t matter. The bonus, with mysteries, is that you have a protagonist and a setting already. If you have a likeable, compelling protagonist, you can use him or her over and over. And the setting doesn’t usually change. All you need is another story, and the world is full of stories.

With literary fiction, I had to invent a new world every time out. With the mysteries, I always have Willie (he’s 10 years younger than me, so I can ride him for years to come), and I always have Richmond, a city with a history, with a wealth of nooks and crannies that you don’t find in most cities.

The down side, if there is one, is that the characters have to stay real and fresh. Willie can’t be fully redeemed, although he tries to be good. There’s not much of a market for Detective Blanc.

So, I’m seven novels into that third phase right now.

Twenty. Forty. Sixty. Can’t wait to see what 80 brings.

Devil's Triangle comes out this month

The pre-pub reviews for The Devil's Triangle, which will come out this month, have all been in the good-to-excellent range. The starred review in Publishers Weekly was especially gratifying. I'm doing a couple of events in Richmond so far, one at Chop Suey on July 12, 6 p.m. and one at Fountain Books on Aug. 3 at 6:30. I'm also going to be at the Killer Nashville mystery writers event in Nashville Aug. 25-27.
Meanwhile, I'm about two-thirds of the way through the first draft of the next Willie Black mystery, and Annie's Bones, a completed novel that only peripherally involves Willie, will come out in 2018.