Begat, Began, Begun - the genesis of Steel Trapp
JB wants me to explain the genesis of my new YA thriller, Steel Trapp, so here goes: I originally wrote a sequel to Cut and Run, my thriller featuring a Justice Department agent, Roland Larson. The sequel was a pursuit thriller involving a young boy with a photographic memory, who discovers a briefcase on an overnight train -- a discovery that led him in a mountain of trouble. After finishing a 700 page manuscript, I moved from Hyperion to Putnam and my new publisher, whom I was thrilled to be with, did not want to continue "older" series characters, but start a new series. That resulted in Killer Weekend (2007) and the upcoming Killer View (July 2008) but left "the train book" on a shelf. My assistant at the time, Louise Marsh, read the train book and promptly told me it would make a good YA thriller, because she loved the character of the young boy with the photographic memory. I didn't want to hear this, of course, because I'd already written that book as an adult book. But the thought had been spoken and it wouldn't go away. About six months later I approached my agent, Amy Berkhower, and later my editor at Disney, Wendy Lefkon, with the notion of recrafting the train novel as a YA novel. The next three edits brought the young boy to the front and cut 300 pages out of the original, and Steel Trapp was the result. I see it as a PG version of my typically R thriller novels. But it is certainly not dumbed-down; no punches were held. It is a very fast, tightly plotted thriller that I hope adults will enjoy as much as younger readers. But that's the story... and now you know. Ridley
Steel Trapp Tour
The book tour for my new Young Adult crime thriller, Steel Trapp is now on-line. Some of the dates may change. Hope to see you at one of these stores. Ridley
Host by Stephenie Meyer (Hardcover: May publication)
Stephenie Meyer HOST The author of the best selling Twilight series, Meyer, turns her pen to science fiction in what turns out to be a work that will haunt the reader well beyond the final page. I say “turns out to be” because the first fifty pages had my head spinning. The reader is expected to know much more about the story than is possible, and is left filling in blanks that take many pages to finally be explained. The premise is that there are creatures--souls--being attached to humans, and taking them over. Lock, stock, and barrel: emotions, actions, life. The human body is nothing but a host, hence the title. It turns out to be more complicated than that. Surprise. Most hosts readily give in to the implant surgery (a slice in the back of the neck), but not everyone. The earth is now populated by the transplanted souls, yet a few brave rebel humans remain (hiding in caves in Arizona). There are some silly missteps: the names of other planets, the flowery dialogue between existing souls. The conceit of the book can be difficult to understand, especially early on. But Host is rich, vivid, intricate, and yet simple. On many levels it’s a master work. It is Stephenie Meyer, after all. But you may wish your arm chair or mattress came with a seatbelt. It’s a jarring, dark world we are led into -- quite literally. One where it’s often difficult to know whom to root for, and ultimately whom to love or hate. But love and hate are the focus of the story--it is ultimately about emotions and what makes up the human experience. That’s life--and after all, life is what Meyer evokes so well.
It Take a Village... or SOMETHING...
No Country For This Guy
No Country For Old Men In a stone-faced, yet somehow nuanced performance, Javier Bardem, delivers the goods both to the viewer and anyone unlucky enough to get in his way. No Country For Old Men follows Anton Chigurh (Bardem) as he attempts to reconnect himself with two million dollars in cash, gone missing when a drug deal goes south. South, as in West Texas, which may explain how Tommy Lee Jones was called upon to play the sheriff. This might be Jones’ best performance--it certainly beats Men In Black. The film is unsettling and often hard to watch because of the extreme violence perpetrated in nearly every scene. The body count is high, and only worthwhile tolerating if you have a morbid fascination with a murderous psychopath on an endless blood spree. Some have called this brilliant film making--and if you ignore the repetitive plot and questionable character motivations, judging it solely on its razor-sharp dialogue and brilliant performances, then perhaps it is. But a date movie, it ain’t. No Country For Old Men is better left for film school.
Everyone needs one
 We've decided to do battle with St. Louis water. UPS just delivered it, and it's about six feet tall.
Old?
My 93 year old aunt broke her hip yesterday, which will briefly keep her from her weekly horseback riding... This, while a friend prepared for a colonoscopy, and I headed to the lawyer's office to update my will. When did I become this old?
Writers Strike
With the writers' strike ending, hopefully we'll see more film action on some of my adult titles. There are several books that have been awaiting submission. What are your favorite movies lately? Ridley
PBS, BBC and Jane Austen
Masterpiece: (PBS) The Complete Jane Austen It was hard for me to imagine a production company tackling the Jane Austen opus again. Hasn’t every one of her stories been shot several times over the past few decades? And aren’t they all rather magnificent? Kira Knightley sealed it by turning in a winning performance in the quite recent Pride and Prejudice. So what was BBC thinking trying to redo the redux? The answer may be high-def. All the new films are shot in high definition, meaning they will find a home on television for years and years to come. Older TV films do not, and will not look good in high def. But that’s hardly a reason to take on such a project. After all, millions of dollars were at stake, and most if not all of these these stories has been screen multiple times. The answer seems to be continuity of excellence. Starting with brilliant writers who have adapted Poirot and Sherlock Holmes and dozens of other master works, these new productions stand on the shoulders of the old and reach new heights. The direction and performances, the production values and cinematography are dazzling. The scripts are concise (90 minutes) and the abbreviation has not hindered but helped the story telling. In Persuasion I found myself holding my breath and reeling from the tension--only to realize every ounce of that tension was wrung from a love story. Not one frame of action ever reached the screen. Me, a thriller guy, riveted. And all by careful characterization. Now that’s good writing. Switch over to PBS next Sunday. You won’t be disappointed.
The Bucket List
I slept through many of the scenes in The Bucket List, a new film starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, which I hope owed more to a bad case of jet lag than editorial comment. The problem with the film is three-fold: sadly, the three dramatic acts. Act 1 is the set-up, and in this case it’s mostly medical. We see who these men were, and who they are now that they’re diagnosed with cancer. There are a couple good lines, but the producers chose to put them in the trailer, so you’ve heard them approximately six hundred times prior to their delivery in the film, and so they fall flat. And that pretty much sums up the film: it falls flat. The second act is a travelogue. The third act is the predictable physical decline of one of the characters and how lives change when we die. No tears from me. Though my wife managed a few. (But she cries at Kodak ads.) What saves the film, or did for me, are the two performances. Because I will go to any Morgan Freeman or Jack Nicholson film, and I’m not alone: the box office on this film is good. Jack is Jack, and his facial expressions never get old. He’s a master. He makes some pretty standard lines shine. And Morgan Freeman is the answer to that line: Of those still living, with whom would you most like to have dinner? For me, it’s not some Victoria Secret model, or Tom Brady. Maybe I’m getting old. But instead, it might be Steve Jobs or yes, Morgan Freeman. Okay... Nicole Kidman and Scarlet Johansson would make the list. There. Some honesty. The Bucket List is not great film making, nor is it even fairly good writing. But it’s Jack and Morgan, and so, easily worth the ninety minutes, as long as you leave time for a few naps.
FILM - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
I tried to picture the Hollywood “pitch” for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (not that there was one, this being a foreign film). “I want to make a movie about a book that’s a memoir of a guy who had a stroke and could only move his left eyelid. Think ‘My Left Foot,’ but it’s ‘My Left Eye.’” How this film (yes: film, not movie) got funded is anybody’s guess, but we’re all the better for it. In some of the most haunting, surreal, and life-changing camera work and direction ever to hit the big screen, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly takes the viewer inside the thought of a stroke victim. It is tragically amusing. The viewer is almost ashamed to watch, the voyeurism is so profoundly upsetting. The performances are quiet and subdued; it’s really the writer and director who are performing, but the result is a powerful, sometimes magical, often whimsical, tragedy that has Oscar(R) winner written all over it. 27 Jan 2008
HARD TO BELIEVE
Cops: Pair wheels corpse to store to cash check Pair wheels dead man to store to cash his Social Security check, police say The Associated Press NEW YORK - Two men wheeled a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store Tuesday and tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested on fraud charges, police said. David J. Dalaia and James O'Hare pushed Virgilio Cintron's body from the Manhattan apartment that O'Hare and Cintron shared to Pay-O-Matic, about a block away, spokesman Paul Browne said witnesses told police. "The witnesses saw the two pushing the chair with Cintron flopping from side to side and the two individuals propping him up and keeping him from flopping from side to side," Browne said. The men left Cintron's body outside the store, went inside and tried to cash his $355 check, Browne said. The store's clerk, who knew Cintron, asked the men where he was, and O'Hare told the clerk they would go and get him, Browne said. A police detective who was having lunch at a restaurant next to the check-cashing store noticed a crowd forming around Cintron's body, and "it's immediately apparent to him that Cintron is dead," Browne said. The detective called uniformed New York Police Department officers at a nearby precinct. Emergency medical technicians arrived as O'Hare and Dalaia were preparing to wheel Cintron's body into the check-cashing store, Browne said. Police arrested Dalaia and O'Hare there, he said. Cintron's body was taken to a hospital morgue. The medical examiner's office told police it appeared Cintron, 66, had died of natural causes within the previous 24 hours, Browne said. "He was deceased in the apartment when he was removed by these two," Browne said. Dalaia and O'Hare, both 65, were being held by police and faced check fraud charges, Browne said. A call to a telephone number listed for Cintron at the apartment he shared with O'Hare went unanswered Tuesday evening. Police said they didn't have an address for Dalaia or attorney information for him or O'Hare.
St Louis Post Dispatch
Sunday, Dec 2, the St Louis Post Dispatch will run a piece in its A&E section that I wrote about reading as I was growing up. Keep an eye out for it. I'll post a link when it's available. Here's the LINK. Ridley
Tour Houston / Miami / Monte Montgomery
 Houston was a blast. We did an event at the Regis school. (see picture left!) The Miami Book Fair International was incredible. Special thanks to phenom, Monte Montgomery, for playing with the band. Monte may be the best guitarist in the world -- and it was a special two nights to be on stage with him.
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