Thursday, October 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Mystery writers mine elusive fame at annual convention

Mystery writer Lee Child, center, chats with attendees of the recent Bouchercon convention here. Photo by KEN WHITE / REVIEW-JOURNAL.

James Lee Burke has reached the top of the crime writing game.

So much so that at Bouchercon 34, the annual convention for mystery fans and writers that took place last week at the Riviera, Burke spent five days hanging out, telling his life story as a guest of honor and signing books.

"I've found a job I can do," jokes the New York Times best-selling author of the Dave Robicheaux and Billy Bob Holland series of crime novels.

The joke isn't without its sting, though. For about 13 years, Burke couldn't get arrested as a mainstream author. He'd had plenty of success early in his career, but went through a record-setting drought. "The Lost Get-Back Boogie" was rejected -- with vitriol in many cases -- an astounding 111 times over nine years, then went on to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize when it finally was published by Louisiana State University Press in 1986.

In those days, Burke was like many of the people who attend Bouchercon -- a wannabe author wondering what it would take to get published (again).

What it took was a fishing trip on Montana's Yellow Root River with fellow writer Rick DeMarinis, who suggested Burke try a crime novel because "I'd tried everything else," says Burke, whose latest book is "Last Car to Elysian Fields."

The switch to a genre that has only lately earned critical praise was a good move. And an easy one, according to Burke.

"I took the same theme I had used before, the abuse of power," Burke says. "I just made the main character a policeman. I didn't change anything."

His creation of Robicheaux in 1987 put Burke back on the map. He can now write anything he wants, including last year's nonseries book, "White Doves at Morning," set during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

"When it turned around, it turned around fast," Burke recalls.

Many writers who have achieved his level of success would be hard-pressed to stay humble, but Burke is philosophical about his status as a best-selling, highly respected author. Even critics concede that Burke's work, marked by poetic descriptions of nature, dead-on dialogue and a brooding sense of history, are well above the norm, in any genre.

"It's just your time, it comes around but you have to stay in the game," he says. "But it'll go away, too. It did before. You reach a point where if you write for success you're writing for the wrong reasons."

While holding down several jobs during the lean years, watching the rejection letters pile up, Burke kept writing. "All I ever wanted to do was write," he says. "Every artist believes he has a gift given to him arbitrarily."

This trip to Bouchercon, an event named after the late crime writer and New York Times critic Anthony Boucher, was Burke's first.

Robert Ferrigno, author of "The Horse Latitudes" and "Scavenger Hunt," was attending only his second Bouchercon and was pressed into service on a panel discussion of violence in crime fiction.

"I'm in that quasi-zone between literature and genre, so I never really thought about going to Bouchercon," Ferrigno says. "When I was on tour one time a person who came to one of my readings said I should go to Bouchercon. `People love your stuff but you're never there.' So I went to last year's convention in Texas. It was great. I had a lot of fun. People are fun and you get to see writers you know and like, and I learned a lot."

Meeting with the fans is one of the perks.

"One of the best parts of the convention is they want to tell you which characters meant something to them," Ferrigno says. "You realize that some of the characters you liked and the scene that really moved you and affected you had the same effect on other people. I learned from that."

For some writers, the convention has helped get their careers off the ground.

Such as Lee Child, author of the best-selling Jack Reacher novels, who was tapped as toastmaster for this year's Bouchercon.

This was his sixth convention but first trip to Las Vegas.

"From the writer's point of view it's a kind of work opportunity," Child says. "We're out there promoting ourselves. It's feast or famine. The rest of the year you're sitting alone with a computer, then for these five days at a time you get social overload."

British-born Child credits his first convention, in Philadelphia, with kicking off his career.

"It illustrates the strength of this conference," he says. "It hits like a tidal wave. Each year, most are ground into the sand, but one or two are picked up and borne off in triumph. That's what happened to me. The fans live for this kind of book, and their own networking abilities spreads the word out like ripples. I was lucky enough this community liked my book and they created this career for me."

Greg Gold, a writer from Southern California who makes his living in the music video business, is one of those guys hoping to grab that tidal wave one day. Bouchercon, which also had such luminaries in attendance as Ruth Rendell, Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley, Ian Rankin and Harlan Coben, was an eye-opening experience for him.

"I'm impressed by how articulate and intelligent the writers here are," he says. "And how nice and helpful they are. But it's a tough business. There's a lot of competition."