Authors: Les Edgerton
Tags: #Suspense, #Kindle bestseller, #ebook, #Noir, #New York Times bestseller, #bestselling author, #Thriller
The Perfect Crime (28 page)
Ann Godoff is over at Penguin now. She “might” view this as an opportunity to do right by a book and an author she once seduced with fantasies of a #1 New York Times best seller ** or she might want to slink away in embarrassment. Plus, who knows what portraits of you as a madman had to be painted by Scott or others in order for them to look less evil.
I’m actually surprised Ann would do such an amateur thing. She is a total pro and I think brilliant publisher. I love the way she works between the cracks. Who could have predicted the huge best selling audience for
Orchid Thief
or
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil before
they were published? All those previous best sellers about Savannah or orchids? What was the obvious category for these books? They are not typical true crime or travel or anything but extremely well written. I love Ann for that. But I would NEVER promise an author a best seller. The fates are too fickle. Why is
Marley & Me
a massive and ongoing seller, where Mark Doty’s version of the same book (only MUCH better) a quiet success and no one reads Willie Morris’ classic
My Dog Skip.
I’m not even sure the Morris is still in print.
There is a great essay by E.B. White called
Here is New York.
White wrote it in 1949 and it is absolutely relevant to this day. In writing about New York City, I think he nailed the right attitude for anyone aspiring to be a writer. He wrote (and I paraphrase badly, having not read the piece for ten years), “
If you come to New York, you having to be willing to be lucky.”
So yeah, dust off
Over Easy
and send it in. I am even more surprised than Ann’s promised best seller that your agent would say it’s a dead book and nor resubmit it to St. Martin’s. This happens all the time. After David Ulin had post-Harper Morrow back away from his book, he resold it to Viking. And heck, what’s gotten more press this last year than the passed around
If I Did It
by O.J. Simpson?
Best,
Mr. ________
Mr. ______ and I ended up not hooking up, as I have other forms of work he doesn’t represent, such as sports books, a YA, etc. He’s a great guy, though, and very generous in sharing his advice and wisdom with me as he did with the above. I just thought it’d be easier to show our correspondence about the PERFECT CRIME/OVER EASY book as it contains all the pertinent facts about what happened so you’d know the history.
I had some other worries about this novel. When I wrote it, the idea behind the crime was truly original. Such a crime had never been committed. My worry was that some outlaw would eventually come up with the same idea and even though I had thought of it first, his effort would trump mine in the public’s eye. Well, a couple of years ago that very thing happened. And then again. The good thing is that neither were really the “perfect crime.” They’d made some mistakes—which is why they were caught. Mistakes I’d foreseen and hadn’t had my character make. So, while yes, there have been a couple of instances where the basic idea has been used, they still haven’t reached the “perfect” level mine has.
And now, I have a publisher—thanks, Aaron Patterson!
I hope this little saga proves of interest to the writers out there. This isn’t stuff that’s reported on in English class or even your MFA workshops as a rule… The Cosa Nostra has very little on publishing…
Blue skies,
Les
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Les Edgerton
is a full-time writer and writing teacher. He formerly taught creative writing in the famed UCLA Extension Writers Program, was the writer-in-residence at the University of Toledo for three years and enjoyed the same position for a year at Trine University. He obtained a B.A. from Indiana Universy and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. Currently, he teaches creative writing classes online for Writer’s Digest and Phoenix College and is in demand nationally for writer’s workshops and conferences. Les lives in Ft. Wayne, Indiana with his wife Mary, a talented hairdresser, and their son Michael Bud. Les has two daughters, Britney and Sienna, from a former marriage.
He is an ex-con, having served over two years at Pendleton Reformatory on a 2-5 sentence for second-degree burglary back in the late sixties. He is completely reformed now and you can have him over for dinner at your house and won’t have to count the silverware when he leaves...
Edgerton has won 16 state hairstyling championships, co-hosted a Cox Cable TV show on fashion with Paul Cimino in New Orleans, and when he was the Artistic Director for the Snobs Salon in New Orleans, they were the hairstylists for the 1987 spring release fashion show for Liz Clairborne. He has held various jobs in not-so-ordinary lines of work, including working for an escort service (whose clients were older, wealthy women), a gambler, a drug user and dealer, and a singer in a rock band (very minor rock band... very minor singer...). He was also elected student body president for Indiana University at South Bend, was a sports reporter for the South Bend Tribune, performed in three stag movies and acted in an indie movie, drove a T-Bird at speeds over 120 mph down city streets in a police chase, and has been shot at more than once (and shot back) as well as being the victim of an attempted stabbing. All of these things (and others) happened at different times in his life if you thought he was just having a busy week.
He currently has nine books in print, including two writer’s how-tos, a novel, a collection of short stories, two baseball books, and three business books focused on the hair design business. He uses his criminal background to bring a verisimilitude to his novels that other writers sometimes lack.
Electronic Edition Copyright ©2011 by Les Edgerton
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.
StoneGate Ink 2011
StoneGate Ink
Boise ID 83713
http://www.stonegateink.com
First eBook Edition: 2011
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Fuji Aamabreorn
Published in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Table of Contents