News

Check out Seattle Times’ “14 Best Crime Novels of 2010.” I’m in some fine company here!

I’m very excited to announce that ROCK PAPER TIGER made Amazon’s Top 100 Books of 2010 (that’s fiction and non-fiction) and is one of Amazon’s Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers. I’m in some heady company on these lists, and I am really honored to be placed among them.

Before RPT’s publication, I hadn’t realized that Amazon has a team of book editors who read and actively promote titles. And they don’t just make safe or obvious choices — they choose a lot of edgy, interesting and important work. Take a look at the lists, and also, their book blog, Omnivoracious, and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m at Bouchercon By the Bay from Oct. 14 – 17, with a Soho Press kickoff party at the fabulous M is for Mystery — wine! cheese! mayhem! — on Oct. 13, with a bunch of other awesome Soho authors. You’re all invited.

I’ll be on a panel on Oct. 15 at 10:00 AM (I’d better set an alarm) with aforementioned Soho authors James R. Benn, Cara Black, Henry Chang, Jassy MacKenzie and Stuart Neville, moderated by Peter Rozovsky, and no, I’m not sure exactly what we’ll be talking about, but it ought to be fun, and I promise to be fully caffeinated. Grand Ballroom B!

There are so many great authors and wonderful events scheduled for the Bouchercon, and heck, it’s in San Francisco! If you have an interest in crime fiction, cable cars, and lots of parties, I highly recommend it. Tweet me if you’re around @otherlisa !

It’s been quite a week.

Andrew Tepper of Vanity Fair reviews ROCK PAPER TIGER in the New York Times Sunday Book Review.

Amazon chose ROCK PAPER TIGER as one of their “Best Books of 2010…So Far…”

I picked a bad time to stop snorting glue…

(“Airplane!” reference! Sheesh.)

James Fallows is one of the best reporters out there on contemporary China—and he’s reviewed Rock Paper Tiger. To say I’m excited is an understatement:

To add to the list of “good fiction set in modern China,” check out Rock Paper Tiger, by Lisa Brackmann. It’s a mystery/action novel that pretty much pulls off something I would have thought improbable: combining an account of Iraq-war drama (the emphasis is on Abu Ghraib-type themes), with a portrayal of the urban China of these past few years, complete with overhyped art scene, dissident bloggers, lots of young expats, and constant uncertainty about what the government will permit or crack down on. Along the way, lots about the online gaming world that often seems the main passion of youthful Chinese, especially males.

There’s more at the link!

Then, a really nice review in the Seattle Times:

In “Rock Paper Tiger” (Soho, 345 pp., $25) — a remarkable debut by Lisa Brackmann — Ellie, a wounded medic and Iraq War vet, is scraping by in a low-rent corner of Beijing. Her friends, scrappy artists with dissident connections, attract the attention of Chinese and American authorities, forcing blunt-speaking Ellie and others into hiding.

Check out the rest at the link!

And finally, one of my very favorite publishing industry bloggers, the Rejectionist, writes a really thoughtful (and funny) review, picking up on aspects of the book that I am so gratified to have recognized:

Possibly it is not a total secret that the Rejectionist has, like, a soft spot for the tough-but-fucked-up lady-heroine! IT IS DEFINITELY NOT BECAUSE WE SEE ELEMENTS OF OURSELF IN THESE FICTIVE REPRESENTATIONS NO IT IS NOT THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Oh, SHUT UP. Anyway! Also very dear to us is the thriller-as-a-vehicle-for-insightful-social-commentary! So you can IMAGINE how much we like insightful thrillers starring tough but fucked-up lady characters! A LOT. That’s how much we like them. And GUESS WHAT? They’re kind of hard to find (the operative adjective being “insightful,” folks)! All of which is to say, we tore through the fantabulous Rock Paper Tiger with RECKLESS ABANDON AND DELIGHT.

Lots more at the link!

It’s ROCK PAPER TIGER launch day, and I forgot to post. D’OH!

And now that it’s here, I got nuthin’. I’m just incredibly gratified by the response the book is getting.

Some of the stuff that’s going on…

The book has been getting some great reviews, which I’ve been linking to on my Facebook page (it’s a “fan” page, so you don’t have to have a FB account to view it).

My awesome agent, Nathan Bransford, has the official ROCK PAPER TIGER Chase/Action Writing Contest Extravaganza! up on his blog. You have until Thursday at 4 PM PST to enter your best 500 word chase/action writing sample. The prizes, as usual, are fabulous, so get on over there and check it out!

(and watch his blog for a guest appearance by yours truly)

Finally, I have my very first book signing at the wonderful Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles (Westwood). Details available here!

Oh, and for upcoming events, check the calendar over there to your right — updated regularly!

Thanks to everyone who has supported me along the way. It’s been quite a ride!

Check out the Publisher’s Weekly starred review. A sample:

“The China scenes are fast paced and strikingly atmospheric, and Ellie’s backstory—her and Trey’s return from combat is tough, sad, and endearing—is given in doses that perfectly complement the central action.”

There’s also an interview with me in the same issue. You can read that here.

Pardon the double-duty post, but I had to put this in “News” as well as the blog…

I just received the most awesome blurb from author Nicole Mones. This was especially exciting for me because I loved her book, “Lost in Translation,” which when it came out, I thought was one of the very few books by a Western writer that presented contemporary China in a way that I believed (“The Last Chinese Chef” is on the top of my To Read list).

I have to put up the blurb here, because it’s too awesome not to share:

“Finally a Western writer has taken China’s domestically bestselling genre of wild, louche-life youth and re-imagined it as a highly original expat thriller. It’s a wild ride—but don’t turn the pages too fast. Brackmann’s evocation of China, funny, frustrating, frightening, sometimes tender, and always real, is worth savoring.”
– -Nicole Mones, Lost in Translation & The Last Chinese Chef

I can’t tell you how truly gratifying it is to have authors whose work I have enjoyed and whose books are on my bookshelves respond to mine with such generosity and understanding.

Jeff Abbott, T. Jefferson Parker, Eliot Pattison, Qiu Xiaolong, and now Nicole Mones, thank you so very much.

This is not the post with which I wanted to return to blogging, but so far this young year seems to be marked by loss.

Laura Hruska, publisher and editor-in-chief of Soho Press, passed away this weekend. She was a cofounder of the press, profoundly shaping its strong and idiosyncratic vision.

I never got to meet Laura. I was hoping to do so this summer. What I know about her is that she helped create a publishing company with real vision and guts and integrity. That she took chances. She took a chance on me and my book, and I will always be profoundly grateful for that.

Another thing I know about her: not long before her death, she did an interview with the Houston Chronicle about Stuart Neville’s wonderful GHOSTS OF BELFAST, in which she managed to not only promote the subject of the interview but get in plugs for a whole range of upcoming Soho titles, including mine.

Now that’s a publisher.

She will be missed.

Here are some links to articles about her…

Idiosyncratic Mind

Stuart Neville’s blog

Shelf Awareness

Houston Chronicle article