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This page updated: 01-Oct-2007 8:39 PM

 

The Mankiller of Poojegai and other stories

Stories ranging from Stone Age Germany to 19th century Italy to currrent day Africa.

Crippen & Landru, August 2007

Read an online story or excerpts from recent books, buy a signed book, check out the Trailer Trash tour and the photo album, visit with Darlene and find out more about the International Lunch Whore.

October 2005

Hi, folks.  I’ve got a few announcements here.
            Harumph.
            First off, I’m in Los Angeles for the time being, and I’ll soon be starting some writers’ workshops in partnership with Kelly Lange.  People in L.A. will remember Kelly as the Emmy-winning anchor-person for KNBC, and people who read mysteries will know her from her fine Maxi Poole series, the latest book in which is Graveyard Shift.

Anyone in the Los Angeles area who’s interested in joining the workshops can contact me at my e-mail address, wsatterthwait@comcast.net You can get more information here: WORKSHOPS LINK.

Second, I’m very pleased to say that my musical comedy serial killer book, PERFECTION, has been sold to St. Martin’s, and that it’ll be released officially in February.  This is the one about the guy who picks out his victims by lurking in the supermarket and studying shopping carts.  A woman with too many Little Debbie Snack Cakes and not enough radicchio is liable to be stalked.  (And that’s not stalked in the sense of broccoli.)  For a look at the first couple of chapters, you can click here:  CHAPTERS LINK.

         Finally, I’d like to thank all the people who sent me nice letters and e-mail praising Cavalcade, my most recent book.  (Still available at better bookstores everywhere.)

PRegards,

Walter

 

August 2004 PERFECTION, the serial killer novel, is still looking for a home here in the States. It came out last year in Germany, published by Goldmanns as SCHERENSCHNITTE (SCISSOR CUT). CAVALCADE, the third Phil Beaumont/Jane Turner book, set in Berlin and Munich in 1924, will be coming out in February from St. Martin's, and will also be coming out, sometime in 2005, in both Germany and France. I've finished NEW YORK NOCTURNE, The Return of Miss Lizzie, and that book is currently making the rounds among American publishers. In Germany, it'll be published next year by dtv. Crippen and Landru will be publishing THE MANEATER OF POOJEEGAI AND OTHER STORIES, an anthology of my short stories, specifically those not dealing with Andrew Mbutu, the Kenyan constable who stars in the other anthology, THE GOLD OF MAYANI.

March 2001 Check out the astounding, amazing offer (three of them, actually) related to the return of MISS LIZZIE.

March 2000 Look for Walter this May at Malice. He will be appearing on Saturday on a panel called: A STUDY IN SIR ARTHUR - Four novelists discuss Ghost of Honor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the long shadow of Sherlock Holmes.
Peter Blau (MOD); Carole Nelson Douglas, Roberta Rogow, Walter Satterthwait, and Daniel Stashower.

April 1999
Hi, Folks. The Terrible Trailer Trash Tour, by the way, has more or less come to an end. Mechanical problems with the RV, and the rising price of gasoline (over $2.00 a gallon for premium), has forced me to modify the last leg of the trip. I won't be showing up at Bruce Taylor's San Francisco Mystery Bookstore on the 24th, as promised. But I will be at the Burbank Book Fair on the 1st and 2nd of May -- I'm flying out there -- and I'll be at M is For Murder in San Mateo on May 3rd, at 7:00 pm. Also at Murder in the Gallery in Orange on May 6th. So if you're in any of those neighborhoods when I am, I hope you'll stop by to say hello. Thanks to all the booksellers and bookreaders from Florida to California who made the trip so much fun. It was, on balance, a pretty cool adventure, and I had a great time with it. I haven't been keeping up with DL as much as I'd like lately -- Life has intervened -- but wasn't there some sort of controversy over Boston Teran 's GOD IS A BULLET? I just read this and I thought it was, for the most part, terrific. I had to set the book down once or twice, just to catch my breath. Two other books that I've read recently, and really enjoyed, were THE FENCING MASTER, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, and THE COLD HEART OF CAPRICORN, by Martha Lawrence. One is set in 18th century Madrid and features, well , a fencing master, and the other is set in 20th century San Diego and features a psychic detective, but both are beautifully plotted and elegantly written.

Regards,
Walter

November 25 Subject: Major BSP: Calling all book sellers Hi, folks. This message really will be almost entirely BSP, so those of you who are bothered by that should probably scroll on by. A couple of months ago, here on the digest, I mentioned that I'd soon be making a momentous announcement. Well, this is it. A German publisher Goldmanns, has purchased the rights to MASQUERADE, and with the money I've just purchased a 1980 Winnebago motor- home. I've hired a graphics guy to do some work on it. What he's going to do is make a duplicate of the MASQUERADE cover, three feet by four feet, and put that on the side of the motorhome. He's also going to make a separate copy of the book's title and put that over the Winnebago striping on the side, in letters that are 17 inches tall. And, naturally, he'll be making a copy of the bar code and ISBN number, and slapping that over the wheel cover, on the back. This'll look just the way it does on the back of the book, except it'll be three feet wide. What I'm shooting for here, obviously, is that subtle, tasteful look. The Masque-mobile and I will be at Dickens and Company, in Sarasota, Florida, on the 12th of December, and at Haslam's, in St. Petersburg, on the 13th. Next day, I'll take off across country, with the intention of arriving in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the 23rd. Any book seller whose store lies in the path of my destruction, and who'd like me to stop at his or her store, is welcome to drop me a line, off-digest. Doesn't have to be a book seller, either. I'll do birthday parties, Bar Mitzvah's, whatever. I'm not proud. After the 1st of the year, I'll be starting the official Terrible Trailer Trash Tour, in which I'll be travelling all over the U.S. Any book seller or librarian who'd like to be a part of this is also welcome to get in touch with me. Thanks.

Regards,
Walter

September 14
Masquerade is now in its second printing. Recorded Books has bought the rights to produce Escapade and Masquerade as audio books. Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998
Subject: Thanks/Highsmith
Thanks to Jan Blakely for her very kind comments on my books, and to Jane Cohen for hers, and for asking whether I'll be coming to the Mid-Atlantic. So long as we're talking here about the Mid-Atlantic states, and not the actual Mid-Atlantic, which is far too cold and wet for me, the answer is: probably, yes. I'm talking with St. Martin's now about a possible tour in July or August, after ClueFest. Janice Steinberg asks about Patricia Highsmith novels. I think that Highsmith is terrific, and probably my favorite of her books are those that revolve around Ripley, her amoral killer and art-collector. THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY is the first of these, and it was this book that was made into the film PURPLE NOON, with Alain Delon playing the character. I've forgotten the name of the one that was turned into AN AMERICAN FRIEND, but in that film Ripley was played by Dennis Hopper.

Regards,

Walter

Subject: Was Hemingway a Klutz?
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 A couple of people have pointed out, in private e-mail, that I haven't explained what MASQUERADE, the sequel to ESCAPADE, actually is. Sorry about that. I've been so close to the book for nearly 2 years that I sometimes forget I'm the only one who knows what happens in it. Okay. It's set in Paris in 1923. Phil Beaumont, the Pinkerton agent from ESCAPADE, is investigating the death of a decadent young American publisher. The Paris police believe that the man died in a suicide pact with his German mistress -- the bodies were found, after all, in a locked room. Jane Turner, another escapee from ESCAPADE, is a Pinkerton now herself, and (unknown to Phil) she's conducting a separate investigation into the same case. Phil gets to hobnob with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, as well as with the decadent young publisher's decadent young wife, and with an Englishwoman who writes mysteries (and whose past is fairly mysterious in its own right). Jane gets to hobnob with Ernie and Gertrude, too, and with a dashing French count, and with Erik Satie and Pablo Picasso. The book has got pretty much everything. Mont Saint- Michel, Chartres cathedral, sinister American gangsters, a shrewd French police inspector, a headlong chase through the sewers of Paris, an automobile race around the central market, cocktails at Le Dome, sausages at Brasserie Lipp, gunplay, swordplay, drugs, jazz singers, croissants, Nazis, lots of artists and writers (did I mention Pablo Picasso?), and some terrific gourmet recipes. All great stuff, I think. But then I may be biased. Some other folks have asked me whether Hemingway was actually as clumsy as I've portrayed him in the book. In case anyone else wants to know, I think that while he was certainly accident prone throughout all of his life, he may not have been _quite_ as klutzy as I've made him. Hemingway first makes his appearance in Chapter Four.

Regards,

Walter

Subject: The Return of the Native
Date: 3/4/98 Hi, Folks. That's right. I'm back, hale and Hardy. I've been off for a while, scribbling away, but I've got a few things coming up and I wanted to mention them. (Despite my natural, inbred modesty.) First, Worldwide has just published the paperback version of the last (meaning both most recent and final) Joshua Croft novel, Accustomed to the Dark. Joshua chases a pair of Bad Guys from Santa Fe to the Florida Everglades. My natural, inbred modesty forbids me from quoting the reviews the book received when it came out in hardcover. (But not from pointing out that some of the reviews, and the 1st chapter of the book, are available here at my Fabulous Web Site). Second, despite my belief when I wrote it that ATTD would be Croft's Last Case, it won't be. He'll be appearing in a short story in a Worldwide anthology, due in November, called THE SEASON FOR MURDER: CHRISTMAS CRIMES. The story will be in good company, rubbing shoulders with novels by Barbara Smith and Fred Hunter. Croft will also be showing up as a kind of guest star in E.C. Ayres's THE LAIR OF THE LIZARD, also due in November. Gene Ayres send his P.I., Tony Lowell, to Santa Fe, where he happens to run into Joshua. Fortunately, Tony isn't driving a car at the time. Third, I'm very pleased that my short story, "The Cassoulet", has been included in THE YEAR'S 25 FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES, edited by Joan Hess, Ed Gorman, and Martin H. Greenberg. I haven't seen the book myself, but Joan assures me that it's purple. Fourth, I'm also very pleased that another story of mine will be appearing in the second CRIMES THROUGH TIME, edited by Miriam Grace Monfredo and Sharan Newman, and due in August. The story concerns the world's very first homicide and is of course entitled "Murder One". I don't know whether the book will be purple. Fifth, as some of you may already know, I'll be showing up at Cluefest in Dallas, in June. I will almost certainly not be purple. Sixth, Masquerade, the sequel to Escapade, is finished, and, according to St. Martin's, will be available in time for ClueFest This one finds Phil Beaumont and Jane Turner in Paris in 1923, hobnobbing with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. I had intended to include in this a few mentions of the good stuff I've read since I was last on DorothyL, including great things by Bill Crider, Terence Faherty, and Polly Whitney; but I see that the message has already become a bit bulky, so I guess that all that will have to wait until next time.

Regards,

Walter

Subject: Great Stuff
Date: 3/7/98 Hi, Folks. I threatened in my first posting to mention some of the great stuff I've read since I was last on the list. One of these was Polly Whitney's short story, "The Etiquette Lesson." What can I say about Polly Whitney that hasn't been said, thousands of times, by thousands of other people, and said more effectively, probably, than I could ever say it? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. But "The Etiquette Lesson" is a sly, wonderfully crafted, wonderfully sneaky piece of work and I'm glad that I had an opportunity to read it. What can I say about Bill Crider that hasn't been said, thousands of times, by Bill Crider? Not a whole lot. But DEATH BY ACCIDENT, the most recent Sheriff Dan Rhodes novel, is really a dandy book. Dan is one of my all time favorite characters, and I think that this book is his best outing, and that is, in fact, saying something. A recent discovery has been Terence Faherty. My editor at Wordwide (which incidentally -- have I mentioned this? -- has just published ACCUSTOMED TO THE DARK, which has not only an artsy Emily Dickenson title, but some swell descriptions of Kansas and Texas) sent me a C.A.R.E. package full of books, three of which were Mr. Faherty's. I scarfed them all down in a matter of days, and then e-mailed my editor at SSt. Martin's (which incidentally -- surely I've mentioned this? -- will be publishing Masquerade, the sequel to Escapade, in July) and cadged from her a copy of another of his books, DEADSTICK. If you haven't read any of these Owen Keane mysteries, then you should zip right out and buy some. I very much admire them; I think that, like Jim Sallis, but in a different way, Mr. Faherty is doing something new and exciting with the American P.I. novel.

Regards, Walter