Oprah Magazine, NYT, Booklist reviews for BOSTON NOIR!

Last weekend was action packed with Crime Bake, but the action started off early for me. On Thursday, Lynne Heitman, Russ Aborn, and Brendan DuBois and I did readings from Boston Noir at the wonderful Newtonville Books. There was a super crowd (meaning they were plentiful and had great, thoughtful questions!) and lots of books to sign. Thanks, Mary, for a terrific event!



O, The Oprah Magazine features the Akashic Noir series in the “Reading Room.” It’s on page 192 in the December issue, the one with Ellen DeGeneres on the cover. I’ll wait while you go get it. You can see Boston Noir in the stack, right there in the middle, the light blue cover. So my story would be just about in the middle of that. I apologize to everyone I greeted at the hotel by thrusting the magazine under her nose instead of a hug and “hello.” But OMG! In O, with Akashic, right below Vladimir Nabokov.


Besides its starred review in Publishers Weekly, Boston Noir debuted at number four on the Boston Globe paperback bestseller list. Woohoo! There also was a super review in Booklist: “The stories…are uniformly solid, with characters, plots, and atmosphere that evoke the classic noirs of Cain, Woolrich, and Thompson.”

BN was reviewed by Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Sunday Books section: “Dennis Lehane advises us not to judge the genre by its Hollywood images of sharp men in fedoras lighting cigarettes for femmes fatales standing in the dark alleys...[Lehane] writes persuasively of the gentrification that has...left people feeling crushed.”

And my story, “Femme Sole,” got a very nice notice in the review in PopMatters.com:

“Dana Cameron’s “Femme Sole” is another success, reaching back into the city’s colonial past to find a rich noir. Her protagonist, Anna Hoyt, is a North End tavern owner in the year 1795, struggling to maintain her independence while under siege from an abusive husband and local racketeers who do not recognize her rights on account of her gender. Cameron’s prose is well tailored and wastes no time bringing Anna to life. The strength and fullness of Anna’s character makes it easy to sympathize and identify with her, to feel invested in her fate.”

Finally, if you'd like to hear editor and contributor, Dennis Lehane and fellow contributors Russ Aborn, Brendan DuBois, Jim Fusilli, Lynne Heitman, and me reading from our short stories at the Boston Book Festival, you can get the podcast at the The Phoenix's blog.

I never thought I'd hear my work being described as "fucked-up dark-hearted shit" and be thrilled about it!

C is for Crime Bake!

This weekend was the 8th annual New England Crime Bake. Sue Grafton was the GoH, and I can tell you (as so many other people will), she’s just lovely. We sat next to each other at breakfast, we talked cooking and Thanksgiving, and her talk at lunch was all about her hints about writing. It gave everyone, readers and writers, plenty to ponder--and a lot of laughs. You can see her, albeit a bit blurrily, below, to the left of Hallie Ephron.


There were great panels on bestsellers and forensic evidence. Kate Flora, Ruth McCarty, David Zeltserman, Toni Kelner, and I discussed our strategies for hanging in there on the “P is for Persistence” panel. I hope everyone enjoyed it; I figured it went well because I left there charged up and ready to face the cold, hard world of writing again. My agent Janet Reid recaps a little of it here.


Then there were the people at our dinner table, Hillerman House (aka The House on Hillerman...in 3-D). Oh, dearie me. MWA’s Margery Flax, Toni Kelner, Steve Kelner, Jedediah Berry, Paul Tremblay, Maggie Barbieri, Peg Patten, Eileen Forster Keck, and Rachel Beyer Brady. When we didn’t win the prize with our house song we felt we could still hold our heads up. The Kelners crafted our anthem “We Want Bloodshed” to be sung to the words of “We Are the Champions.” Yes, heaven help me, I sang in public, as far from the mike as possible, but with great gusto. We rocked it down to a little nub.

Is it any wonder I’m hoarse now? All that laughing and singing and writerly enthusiasm in one weekend? Better sign up for next year, when Charlaine Harris will be the GoH, and see what I’m talking about.

AND! Friday started off right, when Toni Kelner gave me copies of Wolfsbane and Mistletoe in German. Yay, Toni! You can see a copy of the cover at her website. The cool thing is, even though I have about six words of restaurant German, I could follow my story a bit (but mostly because I’d written it). Did you know Fangborn translates as “Fangzahngeschöpf?” I bet you did.

Newtonville Books and N. E. Crime Bake this week!

In the midst of beach walking, book buying, basement cleaning, and other weekendery, DID I REALLY SEE WINTER HOLIDAY DECORATIONS UP, JUST MOMENTS AFTER HALLOWEEN? The start of holiday madness the day after Thanksgiving is bad enough, this is just...sputter.

Enough of that: I have a busy week ahead. On Thursday, November 12, I'll be at Newtonville Books, in Newton MA to promote Boston Noir with Lynne Heitman, Russ Aborn, and Brendan DuBois. Friday (yes, this week!) will be the start of the New England Crime Bake, featuring Sue Grafton. For details, check out the "Appearances" section of my website. Hope to see you there!

Say...perhaps it's not too early to be considering the holidays after all! Books make excellent gifts.

I'm just saying.

ATTENTION: EVENT AT BACK PAGES CANCELED

Unfortunately, the Boston Noir event scheduled for tomorrow night (Thursday, November 5) at Back Pages Books in Waltham has been canceled.

I don't know if it will be rescheduled, but I will keep you updated.

Halloween post script and WWBD?

On my Facebook page, I asked for replies I should've given to the Halloweenie, all of eight years of age, who looked at my candy offering and said, "Don't you have anything else?"

Many useful replies were suggested. I wanted to share a few more remarks made or overheard on Halloween:

1. "Your doorbell is too loud."
2. "I hate 'Take 5s.'"
3. "That place totally smells like chicken soup."
4. "Let's go back to that other house."

This was when the urchins were actually speaking. Fewer than last year said anything at all (and yes, I was counting), never mind "Trick or treat," "Happy Halloween," or "Thank you." A few were polite, mostly coached by their parents. And I recognized at least two big groups that weren't even from my town, much less my neighborhood. I spose this isn't really unfair, but it strikes me as uncool. Hint: if you're going to expand your range, don't talk about "hitting" another neighborhood before you get in the car to go home while I'm still at the doorway. And don't wear the other town's logo on your sweatshirt.

Is anyone else thinking this is getting to be less fun?

And a follow-up to my inspiration-of-the-moment costume, described in my last post. I woke up the next morning with the tattoo of the vampire bite still on my neck. I checked the directions, which said to use baby oil. Baby oil? Who has baby oil? I tried my usual makeup remover, which did nothing. Then I tried my high-test moisturizer, which only made the fake bite look even more real, but scabbier and more infected. After five minutes of scrubbing, I started to panic. I have an event to promote Boston Noir at Back Pages in Waltham on Thursday. There's no room in noir for vampire bites (or is there?). If this doesn't come off, what will I do?

What would Buffy do? What would Sookie do? What would Mina Harker do?

Before I went rummaging for an appropriately jaunty scarf, I tried one more thing, which worked. A word to the wise: before you mess with removing fake tatoos, make sure you have olive oil on hand.

The key to a good Halloween costume...

...is simplicity, I think. This year, I wasn't going to bother even putting on my Minnie Mouse ears to hand out candy to the kids, but then a thought struck me.

I put on a pair of jeans, a white shirt, a green apron, and a button that said "Merlotte's. Beer, Burgers, Blood."

Oh, yeah. I had a really good fake tattoo of a vampire bite to complete the look.

The good thing was that if any little kids showed up, there wasn't anything particularly scary (except me in an apron).

But no one in my neighborhood got it. Dang.

Apparently one of the other keys to a really good costume is NOT subtlety.