Rogue Taino

THE DARKER MASK

2008-01-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I got to see the cover for the short story anthology The Darker Mask. It was designed by Jamie Stafford-Hill and the art was done by Tomer Hanuka.

I thought it was a wonderful, eye catching cover design and loved Tomer's illustration.

Then I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that they put my name on the cover as one of the contributors. There was my name with Walter Mosley, Lorenzo Carcaterra, L.A. Banks, Tananarive Due...bestselling and critically acclaimed authors.

Wow. The Newbie gets a major break. I am truly honored.

Been a long time

2008-01-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

Haven't done a post in way too long. I know I'm supposed to keep up with this blog more frequently but I was seriously ill and just didn't have the energy. Besides, I always looked at this as an author's diary, anyway. Meaning that I expect people to go back and read it after discovering my work, not real time readers who check it out every day.

I just finished going over my "page proofs" for Revenge Tango. This the last time anybody gets to proof and review the novel before it goes on to production. My sister Sylvia was a great help and did the first read through. Between us we found plenty of typos which would've ended up in the final book. Thanks hermana!

I also did the copyedit for my story Dred, which will appear in the short story collection The Darker Mask. All of this was during the holidays. I guess new authors don't get time off.

I'm halfway through the third Nicholas Esperanza novel. It's tentatively titled Rumba for the Dead. It was originally supposed be a big thriller, influenced by my favorite show 24. Didn't end up that way. During the illness I was in a pretty dark place, so it's going to end up being pure noir. I guess when I suffer, Esperanza has to suffer even more.

Since it's the final novel I wanted to go out with a bang, so it's going to be a pretty shocking read.

REVENGE TANGO

2007-06-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the final draft of Revenge Tango, the sequel to The Devil's Mambo. It's been going extremely well and I should be finished by the end of July. The title was recently approved by my pusblisher and the back cover copy has been finished.

What I've been nervously waiting for is the cover. The cover The Devil's Mambo is great and I was worried as to whether Kris Noble would come up with an equally compelling design. I had no idea what to expect. There was a lot of back and forth on the first cover, which my original editor, Sulay Hernandez fought tooth and nail for. I received an email this morning from my editor Kate Duffy with the jpeg of the Revenge Tango cover. Needless to say, I was blown out of my desk chair. Kris Noble rocks!

BEA and all that jazz

2007-06-02T16:22:00.001-07:00

Attended the Book Expo of America at Jacob Javitz and it was certainly a unique experience.

First, I went to the Hardcase Crime booth to see Jason Starr and got a signed copy of Slide, the sequel to he and Ken Bruen's masterful pulp collaboration Bust. I wasn't just excited 'cause I loved Bust but I was also honored that Ken and Jason named a character after me in the book. After ogling the hot Hardcase models for a couple of minutes, I headed over to the Kensington booth.

I was expecting to sign some books for Kensington but they had given of them all out. Saw mystery author Twist Phelan, which was completely unexpected. She's rushing off to do a signing. I hung around for awhile and eventually had a chance to sit down with Kesington's publisher Laurie Parkin. She was very enthusiastic at how the novel was doing and was also very happy about the Publisher's Weekly review.

Also spoke to Walter Zacharius, the 90 year old founder of Kensington. He really loved the Devil's Mambo and said a lot of nice things. When I told him the sequel Revenge Tango was set in Brooklyn, he got really excited, since he's originally from Brooklyn. He asked if I'd handed the manuscript in, I said yes, and he said he'd read it right away.

Finally, I had lunch with Jason and writer James Winter. We ran into author Jim Fusili, who I'm doing a panel with at Thrillerfest (Jason is moderating and it also features Michele Martinez, Con Lehane and Peter Blauner. I'm in really good company and the only first time author on the panel). Then we saw Duan Swierczynski, author of The Blonde. He was gracious and congratulated me on The Devil's Mambo. I recently signed with David Hale Smith, DHS Literary, who also reps Duane and some of the hottest young authors in crime fiction .

Finally, completely exhausted, I went home, climbed into bed and proceeded to read Slide.

REVIEWS

2007-05-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Devil' s Mambo finally got a couple of reviews. Though they are mixed, I'm happy because getting any kind of review is nearly impossible these days. Over 150,000 books are published annually and there are less and outlets to get your novel reviews. So here they are:

From Publishers Weekly
Ex-homicide detective and Navy SEAL Nick Esperanza dives deep into New York's sexual underworld in this graphic, gritty first novel. Esperanza has everything: he's a $30 million Lotto winner, retired at 40, madly in love with his gorgeous girlfriend, Legs, and singing the occasional song in his thriving salsa club. When Legs's niece disappears, he reluctantly agrees to take a break from the good life to scout around. Playwright and filmmaker Rodriguez gives his Puerto Rican Spenser a standard supporting cast-an FBI agent brother, a fellow former SEAL running club security-and starts out mostly painting by the numbers. Then the trail leads to kiddie porn ring the Candyland Club and its sadomasochistic enforcers, and Esperanza's taste for kinky sex meets its match in the vicious Mistress Devona Love, who reduces the once cocksure investigator to a quivering heap in the book's best and raunchiest scene. The squeamish may wince as Esperanza does his desperate and dark dance down the wild side.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
When NYPD homicide cop Nicholas Esperanza wins 30 million bucks in the lottery, he does what any right-thinking fella would do: chucks his job, buys a nightclub, and spends his days relaxing, and his nights . . . well, let's just say the man likes his fun. But when his girlfriend, Legs (really), asks him to find her missing niece, our hero soon finds that you can take the man out of the cop shop, but you can't take the cop out of the man. A very uneven mix of private-eye yarn and erotic thriller, the novel will please some readers while it turns off others. The language in the novel is frank and may strike some readers as over the top, but the story is well plotted and the characters, especially Esperanza, are well drawn. This may lack the depth one associates with top-level hard-boiled fiction, but it packs the punch and entertaining edge of the pulps. Just be sure to keep it away from cozy fans. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Next Phase

2007-04-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

The Devil's Mambo is in bookstores, I'm having my launch party in a couple days and several readings coming up. Now it's time to get in a different head and promote. When you're writing, you get to be anti-social and spend most of your time alone, in your head. Promoting is a whole different ball game; you have to put yourself out there, do readings, meet and greet strangers, and push your novel to everyone you meet. Ultimately, it's not up to the publisher how well your novel does, it's up to the author.

2007-03-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

I finally completed my "booktrailer" for The Devil's Mambo. Here's a low resolution You Tube version. I'll be adding a high resolution version to my website very soon. This booktrailer is a whole new experiment, since I didn't want to do the standard, often boring 30 second commercial. Most importantly, I'm hoping that it will eventually go viral.

Oscar Hernandez Rocks

2007-03-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

Oscar Hernandez recently finished his original score for my short film/book trailer The Devil's Mambo: Poisoned Kiss. The band leader of two time Grammy-award winners The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Oscar has been a major force in the Latin Music scene since the 1960's. He did an incredible job with the score. It's a lush, jazzy sound that gives Poisoned Kiss a whole different feel. I was quite fortunate that Oscar did this for me and I'm looking forward to SHO's latest cd, which comes out in May. Check it out. I'm sure another Grammy's on the way.

Creative Procrastination

2007-02-10T17:25:00.000-08:00

So I was a couple of chapters away from finishing Revenge Tango, I knew where it was going but found myself stuck, suddenly couldn't write a damned word. Writer's block. Nah, I don't really believe in that. I forced myself to write a couple of scenes, and it was a tedious, tiring experience. Finally, I decided to let it go. It was time for a little creative procrastination.

One of the things I learned over the years is how much of an important ally is the subconscious is. By letting go, I let my imagination stew for a while, let dreams take over, let random thoughts do there thing.

Answers started to come to me. New ideas and new scenes started to develop. It was no longer simply about filling plot points, It was about deeper ideas, subtle emotional changes, it was about the characters transforming. Endings can make or break a novel, and I knew that I had to leave the reader not only emotional satisfied, but emotionally moved by the characters journey and that they'd be willing to follow Esperanza on his next adventure.

I don't consider the Ezperanza novels a mysteries series. I consider them noir novels. While mysteries are more concerned with the whodunit, noirs are about a characters journey into darkness. Subconsciously, I understood that all the action the climax of the novel contained wouldn't matter if Esperanza wasn't as emotionally impacted by the entire experience as he was in the first novel. That's why my mind put on the breaks, and gave me the time to think deeper, to find the emotional truth of the climax and hopefully make it a much stronger novel.

A few weeks later, I finally finished the first draft, and though not perfect, I found it to be pretty solid and that it would give me a really solid foundation to work from. Now I plan to test it on some "first readers". These are people who read The Devil's Mambo (I'm talking about editors or writers, I'm talking about the folks who'd go buy the book). Also gave it to a couple of people who didn't read the first novel to see how well it works as a stand alone.

ARCs

2007-02-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I received a box of Advanced Reading Copies (or galleys) of The Devil's Mambo. I've seen plenty of ARCs before and they usually have a plain, grey-colored, card stock cover with the title, author name and the words Uncorrected Proof. ARCs cost the publisher something like eight bucks each (while the final version is around $2.00). Though my editor told me that my publisher was printing ARCs with full color, glossy covers, I was still stunned when I pulled out a copy. A thing of beauty. Looked like the final product. The fact that Kensington spent serious money on the ARC, was a huge vote of confidence in me and my novel. Usually, that kind of treatment is reserved for bestselling authors, so I was both proud and flattered.

Holding the book in my hand was an emotionally overwhelming experience. After all these years, all the drafts, the rejections, here was the novel. Finally. Seemed utterly surreal and brought tears to my eyes. And to think, it's still not the finished novel. Makes me wonder what it'll be like to walk into a bookstore and see it on a shelf. Can't wait.

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

2007-01-20T18:47:00.000-08:00

Last week I got a call from my editor Sulay Hernandez. "There's something I gotta tell you." I could tell by the serious tone of her voice it wasn't something I was going to be happy about. Reminded me of when a girlfriend says, "We gotta talk." Usually bad news. I took a deep breath. "I'm leaving Kensington and going to the Touchstone Fireside imprint at Simon & Schuster." Okay. Felt like I got a punched in the gut. I haven't been stunned like that in a long time (probably the last time I heard, "We gotta talk...). Guess I still got abandomenet issues.

I knew there'd most likely be a time when Sulay would leave for another house, it's common in publishing. But I thought she'd be around for the Devil's Mambo actually hitting the bookstores, which is only four months away. But next week she's gone. After I got over the initial shock and disappointment, I told her how happy and proud I was. It's great opportunity for Sulay, and a Latina sister making those kind of waves is always a wonderful thing. I adore Sulay and she deserves all the best. Still, I'll miss working with her in a big way.

"Do you want to work with Kate or somebody else?" She meant Editorial Director Kate Duffy, her boss . Kate had championed my novel from day one and got every major player in the house to read it. Besides, I like her a lot. Tough. Smart. Doesn't censor herself. My kind of broad, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. "Kate, of course," I said.

So in a couple weeks I'm handing in my second novel to my new editor, and Sulay will be at a different house dealing with new authors and new colleagues.

Funny how life often has more twists and turns than fiction does. So from this point on, I guess I shouldn't let anything involving my journey as an author surprise me. Like the saying goes, "Roll with the punches, black boy."

I HATE KEN BRUEN

2007-01-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

Why do I hate Ken Bruen? Because of his novels. The first Bruen novel I read a few years ago was actually his first crime novel: Rilke In Black. Never heard of him, but I liked the title and the premise, and decided to give it try. Thought it was a good read and he had a strong, clear voice, but I wasn’t bowled over or anything.

About a year ago, my friend Michael kept on raving about The Guards like he was Bruen’s personal publicist. Michael consumes novels of every kind as if his life depends on it, and I hadn’t heard him that excited about a novelist in a very long time. Ironically I ended up reading Bust first (co- written with Jason Starr). Loved it. Old school, over the top pulp fiction. Fun, funny and violent.

I finally read the Guards and was blown away by Bruen’s minimalist, poetic style. I loved the character of Jack Taylor, but was most impressed by how Bruen, like a master music composer, can make a single note evoke a wide range of emotions.

I met Bruen at the Bouchercon mystery conference a few months ago and we hit off like we were long lost brothers. With all the critical acclaim he’s received, I was expecting some smarmy “I’m a hot shit author, so piss off,” attitude. Instead he was warm, generous and very charming.

Then I read Killing of the Tinkers, the second Jack Taylor novel, and I liked it as much as The Guards. I saw Bruen in New York for the launch of his latest novel, American Skin. Brutal, funny and deeply moving, I thought it was an instant classic. Ken recently sent two of his other books: Hackman Blues and London Boulevard. Blues really struck me because the main protagonist is gay and tough as nails. He goes from bashing somebodies brains in, to seducing a young man, and it’s totally believable. It may have one of the most disturbing endings of any novel I ever read. London Boulevard is a wonderfully gritty re-imagining of the classic movie Sunset Boulevard.

Bruen’s one of the few contemporary noirists who can create such dark, violent stories, yet they have an incredible sense of pathos, and longing, for love, for friendship, for companionship. I can see why critics refer to his work as Irish blues.

So the reason I hate Ken Bruen is because he’s one of the best crime fiction authors around, and a brilliant author, period. To top it off, he’s also very prolific, and I’ve loved every one of his novels.

I hate Ken Bruen because I wish I could be that damn good.

"The Devil's Mambo: Poisoned Kiss"

2006-12-28T18:28:00.000-08:00

I put this initial teaser of the The Devil's Mambo: Poisoned Kiss book trailer/short film on my myspace page and recently found out it has gotten over 1,400 views. This is without me doing any kind of promotion, so maybe the booktrailer will be an effective marketing tool for the novel.

I'm planning to launch it around late February and then seriously promote it on such websites as youtube, ifilm and myspace.

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

The Proof is in the Pages

2006-12-25T14:34:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day. Finished the “proof pages” for my novel The Devil’s Mambo and my short story Marine Tiger. I’d been warned that going over proof pages was like watching paint dry. Proof pages are the pages from the actual novel printed on 8-1/2 by 11 paper. It’s the author’s last chance to find any typos, errors or inconsistencies. Previously, I’d worked on the copy-edited manuscript. Manuscript with hundreds of corrections and post-it notes. The Copy Editor will not only tell you if your grammar and punctuation are wrong, they’ll also let you know if the model of a car is the wrong year, if a bottle of wine is the wrong vintage, if you said your character had brown eyes in one chapter and then blue in another. Even make sure your time-lines are correct. My copy editor did an excellent job. And though my double-checking all her comments and corrections was also a bit tedious, there was still some room for new paragraphs, or even new chapters, if I needed to write them. You still get to be creative during the copy editing stage.

The proof pages? Excruciating. You find something major you want to change, but you can’t unless you’re gonna pay for it out of your own pocket. So it’s really about finding tiny typos or inconsistent dates and names. You have to carefully scrutinize every single word and it makes you want to bang your head against the wall it’s so boring. But I’m done.

Now I’m off to finish Revenge Tango, the sequel to The Devil’s Mambo. Time to be creative and deal with all sorts of other headaches, like figuring out where the damn story is going...

The Darker Mask

2006-12-12T17:09:00.000-08:00

I just finished my short story Dred for The Darker Mask mask anthology, edited by Gary Phillips and Chris Chambers. The anthology is being published by Tor Books. It's the first time I had to write as part of a theme (supeheroes with a dash of pulp) and it was a strange experience. I was trying to figure out the story and got busy beating myself up and was having a difficult time getting the words down. Then I started thinking about the pulp writers from the 40's who wrote for such magazines as The Black Mask. Back then, they knocked out a story in a few days and made a living at it those stories still hold up decades later. So I decided to roll up my sleeves and go for it. I think Dred turned out pretty good. Now I have to wait and see what Mr. Phillips has to say.

Amazon already?

2006-11-18T15:34:00.002-08:00

Much to my surprise, I got an email from my editor Sulay telling me that my novel, The Devil's Mambo is already available for pre-sale on Amazon.com. Six months before it's scheduled to hit bookstores.

Strange. Very exciting. And a little scary. A major reminder that the book goes out to the world real soon.

Be careful what you ask for...

BOOK REVIEW: LIGHTS OUT

2006-11-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

When I returned from the mystery conference Bouchercon, I came home with a shitload of books to read. So I decided that I'd review some of them. Of course, it's kind of strange because many of the authors I've gotten to know really well, but I was a fan in the first place.

I recently finished Jason Starr's latest novel Lights Out. Starr has been known as the "white collar noir" writer. I've read his previous novels Twisted City and Cold Caller and I understand why. He's got a knack for portraying the regular guy, in a dead end job, who is eventually pushed to edge, ends up committing a nasty crime and then things spiral out of control.

With Lights Out, he takes a completely different direction. Set in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn (instead of his usual haunt: Manhattan), the novel tells the story of Ryan Rosetti, a once hot shot High School baseball player who now works as a house painter. Ryan's old rival, Jake Thomas, one of the most promising players in the Major Leagues, is returning to Brooklyn to see his fiancee Christina, who Ryan is having an affair with. Once Jake, the ultimate narcissist arrives, a lot of really bad things start to happen...

The novel takes several point of views through the eyes of multiple characters. Violent, wickedly funny, suspenseful and extremely self assured, Lights Out is full of breath taking twists and turns.

What impressed me the most about the writing was Starr's portrait of his African American character Saiquan (as well as others) and life in the ghetto. Starr pulls it off brilliantly. Reading the sequences involving Saiquain and his "baby's mama" often made me laugh out loud because they were so authentic. Starr's ear for interior monologue is flawless. Starr also uses hip hop songs, creating a pulsating soundtrack for the narrative.

I think Starr has really hit his stride as a writer with Lights Out. Painting a much broader, multi-ethnic canvas, he delivers one of the best noir novels of the year.

BRUEN BLURB

2006-10-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

I asked Ken Bruen to read my novel, and I was a bit nervous to say the least. I just finished Ken's latest, American Skin, his first novel set in the states and thought it was a classic. I got the blurb from him recently and couldn't be happier:

"What an amazing book! The Devil's Mambo blew me away. Wonderful, dark, dark stuff...scared the hell out of me. Noir has a new name...Rodriguez."
--Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of The Guards

Bouchercon 2006

2006-10-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

I recently attended Bouchercon, the mystery writer's conference, which was held in Madison, Wisconsin. I didn't really know what to expect but I was advised that it was the place to be to start promoting my novel.

I first met Gary Phillips. I had talked to Gary a couple times on the phone and exchanged several emails. One of the only other men of color at the conference, standing something like 6'4, and the size of a small building, with a deep booming laugh, he was easy to spot. We hit it off right away and I soon found out you have a lot more fun at the conference hangin' at the bar than at any of the dozens of panels.

I met plenty of other authors including, Robert Ward, Lee Goldeberg, JA Konrath, Michele Martinez, Stephen Torres, Twist Phelan, Lee Child, and the list goes on. What impressed me the most was the fact that everyone made me feel so welcome. I was a member of the club. A crime fiction writer.

I particularly hit off with Twist, a tall, sexy and very sarcastic blonde. Bob Ward was quite a trip and made me laugh a lot. Two authors I was seriously interested in meeting were Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, whose work I'm a big fan of. I met Ken first and we clicked big time. I ended up spending a large part of the next couple of days hanging with Ken and Jason, doing a bit of drinking, and laughing more than I have in years. Rolling with those two was worth the whole trip Madison.

It's funny that all these authors who write about murder and torture and killing and all sorts of nasty crimes, were incredibly warm and very friendly. Though I was there mainly to promote my novel, I ended up making friends with really talented people who I respect and admire. It doesn't get any better than that.

FIRST LOOK

2006-09-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

The cover...finally. A whole other battle. I can't really get into the details. But I'm happy. Got the kind of cover I wanted, one that truly represents my novel.

Props to Kris Noble, the Art Director at Kensington. And my editor Sulay, who sure knows how to put up a fight and doesn't give in. Strange to see the cover and title and watching a dream come to fruition.

TITLE HELL

2006-07-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

As soon as I got the deal with Kensington Books, the first thing they told me was, they planned to change the title of my novel. I had lived with the title Hunting The Innocent for many years and thought it was perfect. But like most publishing contracts, the publisher has the right to change the title whether the writer likes it or not. I was promised that I wouldn't be given a title I didn't feel comfortable uttering at a bookstore reading...

During the past few months, I've emailed a bunch of titles to Kensington, but they were all turned down. Last week they callled me to say they found the perfect title: Bitch City. I told them I'd consider it, though didn't like it from the moment I heard it. It was the wrong title for my novel. Friends who read my book hated the title. I obviously waited a bit too long to voice my disatisfaction, because when I called to say that I couldn't live with the title, I was told that everybody loved it and they were on a deadline and they couldn't wait a whole weekend for more suggestions. They gave me four hours to come up with something, if not I was gonna have to live with Bitch City.

As I walked around trying to come up with titles, the knot in my stomach grew tighter, and I suddenly felt like it was all crashing down on me, because there was no way I was gonna feel comfortable promoting my book with that title, so my writing career was gonna be over before it even started.

I called Kensington four hours later. I came up with eight titles and nervously read them over the phone. One by one they were rejected and my heart sank lower with each rejection. When I reached title number seven, the voice on the line was suddenly ecstatic, and thought it was perfect. She checked with Amazon. No book with that title. She called the publisher, who absolutely loved it, and I breathed the biggest sigh of relief of my life.

My novel is now called The Devil's Mambo. That's a title I can live with, indeed.

Writing Sequels

2006-04-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't written any new posts for a while, since I've been working on book II in the Nicholas Esperanza thriller series. It's been up and down and I've hit the creative wall once or twice. This is the first time I'm writing a sequel and It's taking me a minute to get reaquainted with characters I created a long time ago. I've had my moments of panic in the past couple of months but it seems to happen to every writer, no matter how many books they've published. This is an entry from mystery writers P.J.Parrish, who have seven books in print:

The new book is almost done. First draft, that is. I haven't read it through since we started the thing months ago. I am afraid to. I have this really bad feeling that it is a heaping, stinking, fetid, rancid pile of crap. I dream about it now, this pile of crap, almost every night, like Richard Dreyfus in "Close Encounters." I wake up in a sweat over it. My only consolation is knowing that I feel this way with every book. And that I am not alone.

I have found on many established author's blogs, no matter how succesful they are, each new book not only offers a new set of challenges, but also brings up all kinds of fears and insecurities.

Ah, the joy of being a published author...

But the truth is, no matter how much writers complain, this what we love doing and wouldn't have it any other way.

Under A Puerto Rican Sky

2006-03-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

My new short story Under a Puerto Rican Sky is featured in the March issue of the online literary magazine natcreole.com and also showcases some of my photography. Nat Creole was launched a few months ago, and when I read it, I was really impressed with the content, as well as the visual design. Brook Stephenson, the literary editor, asked me to contribute a story when I met him at a birthday party in a September.

I was going to submit an older story, but my friend Michael suggested I write something new in which I'd be able to use my photographs. I decided to look at some photographs I'd taken in Puerto Rico two years ago and let them inspire the story. It was a different approach, but I think it turned out really well. Check it out for yourself.

The Long Road

2006-02-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

While I was attending Long Island University in Brooklyn during the big, bad 80's, I took a screenwriting course. I decided to write a thriller titled Neon Boulevard, set in Times Square, back when it was still the road through hell. I had a morbid fascination with the world of hookers and pimps, peepshow girls, drug dealers, con men and runaways. A kinky, dark world, where anything could be bought, sold, or taken. The story was about a white Vietnam vet and ex-con trying to find out who killed his sister, a young prostitute working the Deuce. It would be my Taxi Driver. I was no Paul Schrader, but I knew I could write a good script. My professor was a stickler for predictable structure and plot points, while I wasn't. I thought the script was solid, because it didn't play by the rules. I failed the class. I put the script away in a draw.

A decade later, I decided to completely revamp the script. Made the character Puerto Rican. Nicholas Esperanza, was now an ex Navy SEAL and retired homicide detective searching for his missing teenage niece. I also didn’t want the typical cliché of the hardboiled detective who is a down and out loner and recovering alky, so I added a twist: Esperanza retired from police work because he’d won $30,000,000 playing Lotto. He was in a solid relationship, ran a successful business, and was generally happy with his life. I re-christened it Hunting The Innocent. In this version of the story, I played it safe: since it was journey into such a grim world, I made Esperanza a straight-laced, moral do-gooder. Boring. I tried to get it made into a feature film over a period of a couple years, came close to getting a deal, then...nothing. Project died. I went on to other things. Some time later, I decided to turn the script into a novel. I figured, if I sold the book, getting a film deal would be easier. Wrote a couple of drafts. Tried to get an agent. No luck. Put it away again. Another three years went by and I decided to re-write it again.

This time I wanted to make Esperanza darker and much more emotionally complex. A morally ambiguous hero, who broke all the rules. Ironically, Times Square had transformed into a family friendly vacation spot, so I either had to set the story during the early 90’s or make it about a modern day sexual underground. I went with the latter idea and it turned out to be a much better novel. I eventually got signed to the William Morris Agency. My literary agent tried to sell H.T.I. It was rejected. Again. And again. One editor wrote an email that said, "I think Rodriguez has a lot of talent but while reading the book, I felt like I was blinded by sin."

In other words...pass.

Two more years went buy, my agent left William Morris, and I was back to square one. In the meantime, I got a gig writing a screenplay for a big time music producer named Ric Wake, who was coming off of a huge success with the Oscar winning film Chicago. It was a crime thriller set in a sex club in Miami. Got the job thanks to Hunting The Innocent. I titled the new screenplay Blinded By Sin.

Fast forward to 2005.

My roommate, writer and man about town, Michael A. Gonzales, sent me an email entitled "Kensington Publishing seeks Hispanic Writers." They were looking for mysteries/thrillers, erotica and general commercial fiction. It was dated August 4th, 2005, five days before my birthday. Didn't need an agent. Send it to an editor named Sulay Hernandez.

I figured, what did have to lose? Wrote Sulay a cover letter, printed my bio, put it all together in a box, and left it on the shelf under my desk. When I got a chance, I'd buy a big manila envelope and mail it. Then I forgot about it. A few weeks later, I ended up getting major surgery. I was supposed to be out of commission for about a month. Then I got an infection. Ended up back in the hospital for a couple of weeks. Another surgery. Antibiotics central. It turned into a painful three-month ordeal. After being locked in my apartment for weeks, I decided to make a list of things I needed to do career-wise. One of them was sending the book to Sulay. Mike said he'd mail for me. We both forgot about it.

In late October 2005, I was finally back on my feet and back on the street. I finally mailed H.T.I. Now it was time to forget about it. Shit, when I was represented William Morris, it would take a couple of months for my agent to get a response from an editor, so I figured I'd hear from Ms. Hernandez by late summer '06. Life goes on...

The next day, while I was at the pharmacy getting a prescription for a lovely painkiller called Dilaudid, my cell rang.

"Hi, it's Sulay Hernandez from Kensington Books. I read the first couple of chapters of your novel and I loved it!"

I hadn't taken a pain killer yet, so I knew I wasn't hallucinating. Sulay and I talked for a while. I remained the cool customer and told her why I thought the book would make a great crime series, told her about my background in theater and film. Sulay was quite pleasant and very enthusiastic. She was also warm and down to earth. I warned her that the book was very dark and she might not feel the same way once she finished it. She promised she'd read it over the weekend. Yeah, sure, I thought.

The weekend passed. Phone rang on Monday morning. Sulay wanted the book. Thought it would make a wonderful thriller series and Nicholas Esperanza had the potential to become a popular character. Had to talk to her boss first. It was all happening very fast. As promised, she called back and offered a three-book deal. I was ecstatic (stayed cool, though). The advance was low. I told her I'd love to do the book with Kensington, but I had to reject the offer. I thought they could give me a better advance. Sulay had to talk to her bosses again and see what she could do. She'd get back to me. I called my entertainment lawyer, discussed some ideas on how to make this deal work. He told me to keep him abreast of the situation.

The next day, Sulay called, said she wanted to take me to lunch on Wednesday. Sure, I said. Sulay called me Wednesday and said, "Kate Duffy, the editorial director will be taking us to lunch instead." Hhhmn. I knew that an editorial director wouldn't be taking me to lunch if she hadn't read the book and loved it.

I waited in front of Kensington Publishing on Lexington Avenue, wondering what Sulay looked like. For some reason, I envisioned a woman in her forties, short, wearing glasses and light-skinned. Boy, was I off the mark. She was tall. In her twenties. Mocha-skinned. Extremely attractive. A Dominicana from Washington Heights. We hugged like we were familia. She introduced me to Kate, who warmly shook my hand. Kate seemed to be in her mid forties. She had an ingratiating smile and was a fireball of energy. I was immediately charmed by her.

At the restaurant, Kate told me that after Sulay read H.T.I. she gave her "the look" and Kate knew she had to read it. She absolutely loved the book and said that Kensington didn't have anything like it. Kate had that smart, sassy, no bullshit thing going, which I found quite appealing. To the point. Quick wit. As sweet as Kate was, I knew I wouldn't wanna get on her bad side. Ironically, she was known as one of the "queens" of romance novels. Ran her own imprint called Brava. Published mystery authors, too. Told me she wanted to give H.T.I. to the Publisher and VP, Laurie Parkin. Kate also spoke glowingly about Sulay, who had barely said a word. "She's gonna be my boss one day." I could see that Kate was Sulay's mentor and they truly admired and respected each other. A smart move on Sulay's part getting Kate to back H.T.I. It's always the quiet ones you gotta watch out for.

After a long talk about H.T.I. and a lovely meal, Kate paid the check and told Sulay and I to have coffee and chat. Sulay used to work for an agent and had been at Kensington for only a few months. She was smart and ambitious. Most intriguing of all, she was an incredibly sweet person. Nothing pretentious about her. None of the snobbish, jaded attitude I’d experienced with other editors I’d met over the years. I knew I was extremely lucky to have her and Kate in my corner.

I got home that night and felt incredibly happy. A dream I worked so hard for, for so many years was finally coming to fruition. It was totally surreal. Now I had to wait to see what Ms. Parkin had to say…

Esperanza is coming...

2006-01-10T18:10:00.000-08:00

As I was walking down Washington Avenue in Brooklyn, on my way to buy a cup of coffee, my cell rang. It was Kate Duffy from Kensington Books. She told me that everyone at Kensington loved Hunting The Innocent and she made me a final offer and I accepted. They felt that they didn't have anything like it and planned to push it big time. A three-book deal. In a flash I went, from struggling fiction writer to published author, and it was surreal.

Editor Sulay Hernandez had believed in me and my book, and worked her butt off to make it all happen. Now I was to begin a new chapter in my career. If everything went well, and readers embraced Hunting The Innocent the same way Kensington had, my series character Nicholas Esperanza, would hopefully have a very long, literary life...

HARDCASES

2006-01-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

My pops loved tough guys: Muni, Bogart, Mitchum, Bronson, Caan, Eastwood, McQueen, and Connery, just to name a few. Men whose faces were history maps of hard living and hard lovin'. Stoic men who could say it all with a searing glare and a smooth swagger. Actors you believed kicked ass on screen, and off (many did) as well. Hard cases who could pimp slap a thug and say, "You're gonna take it and your gonna like it." Stars who appeared as comfortable brandishing a gun as bedding a broad. They were larger than life. Just like the characters they played. McQueen did his own dangerous stunts. Mitchum was known for plenty of public brawls after becoming a movie star. Caan counted among his friends many a made guy.

I was raised on these iconic movie tough guys, and easily understood why Pop found them to be kindred spirits. If you saw Francisco "Paco" Rodriguez, you'd think so what? He's a short guy with a pot belly. But he was as tough as the hardboiled heroes he so admired. He feared nothing. When a thug waved a loaded gun in my father's face, he didn't even flinch when he snatched it away from him. I heard my grandpa was no joke either. A bit of a gangster and a ruthless disciplinarian. My uncle carried a gun. My skinny brother Gil was so tough, he'd be playing stickball in the street, get hit by a car, dust himself off and get back to the game. So I understood what tough guys were all about. In the movies and real life. Didn't matter if they were short or tall, slim or fat: it was about presence. Confidence. Fearlessness. They commanded respect. Had lived, fought and loved, and regretted nothing. Said what was on their mind and didn't take shit from nobody. Minds as quick as their fists. These actor's my father loved embodied the hard cases they portrayed on screen.

Let's see...Now...It's '06...And we have Tom Cruise! Matt Damon! Ben Aflleck! Orlando Bloom! Dudes, who if you put them in a dress, could easily pass for a chick and wouldn't need any make- up. I believed Matt Damon as the world's deadliest secret agent, as much as I believe President Bush actually reads intelligence reports and understands them. The toughest thing Tom Cruise ever did was berate Brooke Shields and scowl at Matt Laurer.

Too much androgeny goin' in Hollywood. Actresses and actors are virtually physically interchangeable. In the movies, like the rest of America, bland is the word. Wallmart rules. Times Square is a shopping mall. Hollywood stars are as exotic as a vanilla milkshake. I have nightmares that Ben Affleck will soon star in the remake of The Big Sleep. I hope that this trend will change one day. That filmmakers and casting directors and studios will stop passing off marshmallow soft pretty boys as hard cases. In the meantime, I'll fire up the DVD player and lose myself in movies like Thief, in which James Caan, says, "I am the last guy in the world you wanna fuck with."

And when Jimmy says a line like that, you believe it.

Hardboiled City

2006-01-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

I love crime fiction. Or hardboiled fiction. Or noir. Whatever you choose to call it. People often ask me why I like to tell grim tales steeped in blood and shadows? Why do I have such a morbid fascination with seedy characters, vicious acts of violence and edgy sex? Of course, like many crime fiction writers, I was influenced by the work of Chandler, Hammet, Goodis, Woolrich and others. Movies from The Asphalt Jungle to The Godfather to Taxi Driver shaped me as a screenwriter and filmmaker.

The day I decided to become a writer, was the day I saw David Mamet's American Buffalo starring Al Pacino. The story of three petty criminals planning a robbery was filled with the kind of stylistic language I'd never heard in a play before. Staccato street rhythms and profanity that Mamet turned into pure theatrical poetry. I wanted to write about those kinds of characters and in that kind of language.

Truth is, my biggest influence as a crime fiction writer is real life. I'm a product of the 70's and the 80's, back when the streets of New York where not only mean, they were sometimes deadly. Before Sheriff Giuliani. Before Starbucks and Applebees. When it was hardboiled city. A time when youd walk up the stairs of a Time Square subway station and youd often step over fresh puddles of blood. A time when youd be riding the "A" train and would most likely encounter a gang of thugs, who would beat, rob and terrorize passengers. Just for the fun of it. It was a time when Hell's Kitchen crackled with danger during humid summer nights and the sounds of gunshots was a common city soundtrack. When the real Mayor was John Gotti. Back in those days, you always had to look over your shoulder and be ready; 'cause violence erupted at any time. For a crime fiction writer, it was both scary and exhilarating.

As a writer, I love research. Not just on the Internet or going to the library, but the real thing. Of course, since I was in my twenties back then, tough and a little crazy, I eagerly spent plenty a night hanging out with and interviewing gang members, dope dealers, stick-up kids, hookers, peepshow girls and pimps. The criminal minded love to talk, to boast, to school you on the rules of the street. Who's the toughest thug, the craziest pimp, and what was the best way to increase profits on crack sales? The language, the rhythm of the street is different from the norm. More honest, coarser, and in many ways, it was like Mamet so succinctly portrayed it: urban poetry. Crime fiction writers, good writers of every generation who manage to truly capture the street vernacular of their time, know that it will make their prose sing.

Im not saying every crime writer needs to hang out with criminals and soak up seedy environments, but it personally helps me find the authenticity I want to capture, explore and express. For me, one of the most exciting parts of crime fiction writing is the research. Whenever I manage to talk to and hang out with the kind of shady characters I love to portray, theres an excitement that overtakes me and eventually inspires me to sit down in front of the computer screen and lose myself in the dark dreams of hardboiled city.

GHOSTS

2006-01-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

New Year. Makes me think of ghosts. Ghosts of the dead. Ghosts of relationships. Some haunt you, others guide you. While the general focus of the New Year is the celebrations, the resolutions, the future, I see it more as a time of reflection. Of ghosts of the past. Who and what affected me, transformed me, inspired me? Decisions I regret. Things I wish I could've done better. Difficult circumstances I had no power to change but managed to emerge stronger, maybe even a little wiser. So the clock strikes twelve and I listen to the ghosts whispering in my ear, reminding me of where and who I've been. Yesterday suddenly makes tommorow seem a lot clearer.