Contemporary Nomad
S T E I N H A U E R

August Newspaper Action

Though my personal life–moving, dealing with the varied annoyances of first-time home ownership, trying to find minutes here and there for writing–hasn’t reflected it, over the past weeks I’ve been appearing one way or another in some newspapers–always a pleasure when your book has passed that month-and-a-half post-publication window, after which it usually disappears.

Toward the beginning of the August, I ran across a “review” of The Nearest Exit in The Washington Times. In it, Joseph C. Goulden observes that the novel is “a truly odious piece of political pornography,” and refers to me as an “author” (in quotes). That’s not why I put “review” in quotes, though–I did that because, by his own admission, he didn’t read past page 35. Nonetheless, I’m sure his assessment is right on target.

by Joe Ciardiello

A few days later my mood sweetened considerably when the New York Times Book Review printed my take on Martin Cruz Smith’s latest Arkady Renko story, Three Stations. As you can probably tell from the review, I enjoyed the novel considerably, and those who are familiar with the series know that any time spent with Renko is a good time. I was even more pleased because they decided to make it their cover review that week, which meant that not only did it fill the Review’s cover, but I was also featured in their Up Front section and given a caricature (see right). Wonderful, particularly considering that this was my first professional review ever.

Then, just this last Sunday, I was surprised to find yet another review of The Nearest Exit, this time in the LA Times. The estimable Paula L. Woods–author of, most recently, Strange Bedfellows–has once again done me very good, saying that with this book I make “another bid to be the espionage writer for our times” and going on to say some very nice things. The review is great to receive for obvious reasons, but I largely feel a sense of great luck that I have a few critics who seem to get what I’m up to, and regularly bring attention to my books. Thank you, Paula.

31 August 2010 ≡ Ourselves, Publishing Business ≡

S T E I N H A U E R

“Agents” is Out

Actually, it was yesterday that the Otto Penzler anthology, Agents of Treachery, was released in the US, and I’d advise everyone interested in espionage fiction to give it a good hard look. The prepub reviews have been uniformly terrific (all starred reviews), and The Boston Globe has just chimed in very favorably. And how could they not love it? Here, again, is the roster of contributors:

James Grady, Charles McCarry, Lee Child, Joseph Finder, John Lawton, John Weisman, Stephen Hunter, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, Andrew Klavan, Robert Wilson, Dan Fesperman, Stella Rimington, Olen Steinhauer

Other than that last one, it’s a who’s-who of excellent spy-fiction writers all in one place.

My own story, “You Know What’s Going On,” jumps from Rome to Kenya, dealing with something I’ve never really focused on before: Islamic terrorism. Though reviewers haven’t mentioned the story at all (can’t take it too personally when I’m surrounded by these names), I’m pretty pleased with how it came out.

For those of you in the UK, you’ll be seeing it in October, along with the UK edition of The Nearest Exit–both (coincidentally) released by Corvus.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the genre should find something to love in this anthology–go check it out.

2 June 2010 ≡ Literature, Ourselves ≡

S T E I N H A U E R

Reviews & an Interview

The New York Times does me good

Over the last week or so, The Nearest Exit has gotten some great attention from the NYT. Back on Sunday the 23rd, Joshua Hammer’s “Milo’s People” looked at the book saying that it “reprises the themes of The Tourist, with even more success”–nice words, and it only gets better after that.

Also, I was featured on the Book Review Podcast–direct mp3 link here. Chatting with Sam Tanenhaus was a real pleasure once I’d gotten over my awe of walking the Book Review’s corridors.

Last Friday, Janet Maslin gave her take in a round-up review of new fiction peculiarly titled “Fangs and Other Fluff, Completely Guilt-Free,” where I’m keeping great company with Grisham, Dave Barry, Carl Hiassen, among others. The Nearest Exit, she says, is “terrific.”

As if that weren’t enough, I’m even down as an Editor’s Choice.

The book has also received attention from Margaret Cannon at the Globe and Mail–thank you, Canada!

We’re hoping for some more reviews in the next week, but one really never knows what and when until the reviews are published, so I won’t make any predictions here.

Spy Fiction

Also, through this blog I met with Johnny B, who runs the new Spy Fiction site (spyfiction.org), and he was kind enough to interview me for it. You can read the interview here, and take some time to poke around the site. They’re still assembling the pieces, but it looks like it’ll become something special for fans of spy-fi before long.

…UPDATE:

This just in from USA Today: “Like a good spy thriller? Head for Steinhauer’s ‘Nearest Exit‘”. The whole review’s here, and it’s a really nice one.

31 May 2010 ≡ Literature ≡

S T E I N H A U E R

Some updates

Tourism Touring

As usual, I’m behind the curve on posting what’s going on around here. I’ve spent the last week in Serbia, where network connections are not always as they might be, and the last couple days have been spent trying to leave Europe, despite a certain Icelandic volcano’s best efforts to thwart my plans.

At the moment – and, finally – I’m in New York, where today I’ll be happily signing copies of The Nearest Exit at Partners & Crime as well as The Mysterious Bookshop. Tonight I’ll be doing a reading/signing over at the Barnes & Noble at 2289 Broadway. Tomorrow I’ll be doing a NY Times Book Review audio interview (!) before flying to DC to do my thing at the Borders at 1801 K Street. Friday, I fly to Houston to visit with the fine folks at Murder by the Book and share the limelight with Andrew Grant, author of Die Twice and Even. THEN, it’s off to my old stomping grounds of Austin to see my family (who I haven’t seen in, like, forever) and have a sit-down with the Book People in that great town…

Why all this? Because yesterday The Nearest Exit was released! And its release was greeted by a great AP review that’s being reprinted absolutely everywhere.

The Case of the Overlooked Books

Another thing I forgot to mention before was that Keir Graff, the man behind the curtain at Booklist, asked me and some other authors to recommend books that might have gotten less attention than – or lost the attention — they deserve. My entry can be found over at Likely Stories, his ever-sharp blog, and I suggest heading over there to check out all the Overlooked Books on tap.

12 May 2010 ≡ Literature, Ourselves, Places, Publishing Business ≡

S T E I N H A U E R

A Turista

There’s been that noticeable Nomad silence lately, and for my part I can pin it on a variety of things: reading papers emailed in by my diligent Leipzig students, traveling to London to meet with the wonderful crew at Corvus (my new UK publisher), dealing with the dirty details of buying and starting renovation on a Budapest apartment, and trying to squeeze in a minute or two of writing time. However, I suddenly realized (it’s 2 in the morning here) that today had been a momentous, bloggable day.

First, you have to know that I’ve lived here in Hungary since 2002. It’s been good, and part of the pleasure–part of my personal experience of expat life–has been the anonymity of living where I’m not published, and thus not “known.” However, today, as I was shopping with the family, preoccupied by a hundred little disturbances, I happened to spot this in a bookstore window:

I poked at my wife. “Hey…look at that.” She did a double-take. We entered, our daughter trying to drag us to the children’s section, but we held her back until we’d gotten a bookseller to show us the stack (there were 3 in the store). We played with the covers, and my wife complained to the staff that the dedication (“For Margo”) wasn’t in it. They didn’t seem to care. Yet somehow, for both my wife and me, the weight of our daily life lightened momentarily. My wife pointed out that I was no longer anonymous in Hungary, and, gesturing at the booksellers backing away, I told her I suspected I still was.

But before we left, one of them came up to us holding Stieg Larsson’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. She proceeded to tell me that my book was as good as that one.

“Oh,” I said. “Köszönöm.” (Thank you.)

No, nothing really has changed yet, but it’s weird to think that for the first time in my life (and now seven novels in), I’m actually living in a country where I’m published.

Weird, and kind of nice.

14 April 2010 ≡ Life, Ourselves, Places, Writing ≡

S T E I N H A U E R

Some Cultcha

A little while ago, Kate Horsley over at the relaunched Crimeculture asked me and Kevin to do a two-way interview for the site. Because of our schedules, it took a while, but proved to be a fun and interesting experience, delving into the writing process, themes, receiving fan letters from hit men, not receiving them from John Wayne or James Bond…and many, many more subjects. It’s now been posted over here, and the issue even contains a joint review of Who is Conrad Hirst and The Tourist–a really in-depth piece that’s more essay than review. See what I mean.

To be honest, before hearing about this relaunch some months ago from Kevin, I didn’t know anything about Crimeculture and its previous incarnation–my loss. Since then I’ve had the pleasure of learning about Crimeculture by reading its numerous articles–both reviews an examinations of the genre as a whole–really terrific stuff. It’s worth a bookmark for anyone interested in the culture of crime fiction.

21 March 2010 ≡ Culture, Literature, Ourselves, Writing ≡

S T E I N H A U E R

Numbers

Just a quick post for some good news–the paperback of The Tourist is selling quite nicely in the US, thank you.

For the week ending January 21, it reached #30 on the IndieBound list of bestselling trade paperbacks at independent bookstores across the US. The next week, ending January 28, it moved up to #24. That’s the kind of movement I like!

And for the week ending January 27, The Tourist reached #31 on the New York Times list…niiiice.

Very pleased.

4 March 2010 ≡ Ourselves, Publishing Business ≡

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