It depends on where you’re sitting
June 30, 2009
NEWS: Busy week for A TRACE OF SMOKE. SMOKE is Thriller Book Club selection at dearreader.com:
http://www.supportlibrary.com/fm/shelf_main.cfm?win1=LLIST&id1=81&CFID=21947286&CFTOKEN=97892259
SMOKE also got a good review in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper on Sunday:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009906280314
Finally, SMOKE and I got a write up in the Hawaii Tribune:
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2009/06/26/features/features05.txt
POST: Do I think like the hero or the villain?
I’d like to say I think like the hero, and mostly I do. I tend to follow the rules, try to help people out, and just in general be an annoying goody-goody. I’m so bad at lying that I have to call my sister when I need a whopper. I won’t tell you which sister, and I have three. But one of them is a genius at lying. Simple lies, complicated lies. She’s got the gift. She doesn’t lie all the time, but it’s there when she needs it, and it’s also there when I do.
So, I think I’m mostly a hero.
But recently I borrowed a friend’s car. A non-writing civilian with a real job. He was having problems with his boss and told me not to put anything in the trunk so it would be empty when I picked him up from work. Without missing a beat, I said, “So you can put in a body?” He looked at me in total astonishment and said, “So I can put in the boxes if I have to clear out my desk.” And that was when I realized that maybe I think a bit like the villain after all.
I’m trying to pass that off as a good thing, so pay attention here (and, no, I didn’t call my sister before coming up with this explanation). Every hero has some bit of villainy he needs to vanquish in himself and conversely every villain has noble reasons for her actions (yup, I’m messing with the pronouns just for fun). 
Hero? My main character in A TRACE OF SMOKE thinks long and hard about taking in an adorable five year old orphan who appears on her doorstep one night. She doesn’t send him out into the darkness alone in the middle of the night.
But she thinks about it.
Villain? My main villain is based on a historical figure, top Nazi Ernst Roehm, who was sure that he was the hero who was going to restore Germany to greatness. He did terrible, reprehensible things. He also had a warrior code that he lived by, he suffered horribly in World War I, and he was a highly decorated soldier.
Like all villains since the dawn of time, he was human.
For better and for worse.
Life is a cabaret!
May 7, 2009
Only 6 more days until A TRACE OF SMOKE hits the shelves. So far A TRACE OF SMOKE has been put on Deadly Pleasures “Best First Novel of 2009″ list, was a Writer’s Digest Notable Debut, an Elaine’s Pick at Book Passage, a First Pick from Barbara Peters at Poisoned Pen, a Top Pick from Romantic Times, a Fresh Pick from freshfiction.com, plus it received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly. For someone who had such a rough life, Hannah Vogel is having a great debut!
A Trace of Smoke, Excerpt 24
March 23, 2009
NEWS: ”A Trace of Smoke” receives starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.
EXCERPT:
“You seem intent on hurling yourself down the stairs.” He caught me easily and pushed his beautiful lips into a slow smile. “Surely things cannot be so bad, young lady.”
No one had called me a young lady since before the war. “Easy to say from inside such an expensive suit.” I smiled back.
He retrieved my tattered sketchbook, open to the picture I’d drawn of him glaring at the rapist. “A masterful likeness,” he said. “Yet I am at a loss as to why you would sketch me.”
“I do courtroom sketches,” I said to allay his suspicions. “For the newspaper.”
“Do I look so…” He paused, staring at the sketch. “So hateful?”
“I draw what I see,” I said. “But it’s understandable…”
He raised his eyebrows, and my voice trailed off.
“Why would it be understandable?” His voice was cool and controlled.
“Most people hate a man who commits those crimes.”
“Not all?” He closed the sketchbook. “There are those who would not hate someone who takes a child and defiles her, hurts her, damages her on a whim?”
His daughter climbed down the steps to us. “Is everything in order, Vati?”
He smiled and gently touched her arm. “Of course.”
He turned to me. “Fraulein…” He paused expectantly.
A Trace of Smoke, Excerpt 23
February 16, 2009
NEWS: “A Trace of Smoke” is on page 25 of the March/April Writer’s Digest, on newsstands now. Wow!
EXCERPT:
“You seem intent on hurling yourself down the stairs.” He caught me easily and pushed his beautiful lips into a slow smile. “Surely things cannot be so bad, young lady.”
No one had called me a young lady since before the war. “Easy to say from inside such an expensive suit.” I smiled back.
He retrieved my tattered sketchbook, open to the picture I’d drawn of him glaring at the rapist. “A masterful likeness,” he said. “Yet I am at a loss as to why you would sketch me.”
“I do courtroom sketches,” I said to allay his suspicions. “For the newspaper.”
“Do I look so…” He paused, staring at the sketch. “So hateful?”
“I draw what I see,” I said. “But it’s understandable…”
He raised his eyebrows, and my voice trailed off.
“Why would it be understandable?” His voice was cool and controlled.
“Most people hate a man who commits those crimes.”
“Not all?” He closed the sketchbook. “There are those who would not hate someone who takes a child and defiles her, hurts her, damages her on a whim?”
His daughter climbed down the steps to us. “Is everything in order, Vati?”
He smiled and gently touched her arm. “Of course.”
He turned to me. “Fraulein…” He paused expectantly.
“Vogel. Hannah Vogel.” I was grateful that I wrote under a pseudonym, and he did not know I was also a reporter. He might be a good source, and if not, he was a very attractive man. Most men did not desire a woman who did my job: interviewing criminals, fostering connections in the criminal world, investigating crimes, and using all that to write up stories as a man. No need for him to know that I was a reporter just yet.
“Fraulein Vogel was just standing here when I almost knocked her off her feet. She’s quite a talented artist.” He handed me the sketchbook. “Come along,” he said to his daughter, and they started down the stairs.
I turned to go, but my journalistic impulses triumphed over my good manners. Perhaps they knew more about the case. The best stories required the most digging. Or perhaps I fooled myself and wanted more contact with a handsome man who did not wear a wedding ring. Whatever the reason, I called to the girl. “I have a lovely drawing of you, Fraulein.”
When she turned I leafed through my sketchbook and pulled out the drawing I’d done of her. She looked young and lost and beautiful, sitting in the courtroom next to her father. She faced the windows behind the judge, and light suffused her face. I’d drawn her large, widely spaced eyes and the luxurious long hair that she would probably cut soon. I guessed her to be fourteen, almost old enough to demand a bob.
“I look so beautiful,” she said, in a surprised tone.
A Trace of Smoke, Excerpt 22
January 27, 2009
CHAPTER 3
On Friday, before I met him, I had sketched Boris in the courtroom. At first he had looked tender as he’d bent to talk to Trudi. His look had been so touching that I had turned to a blank page. I sketched broad strokes with my charcoal pencil, trying to capture the protective arc of his arm as it went around her shoulders, the tilt of his head toward her. His tailored navy blue suit sat on him like a second skin. I guessed he worked as a banker or a lawyer. Someone used to money. Someone who expected the system to pay attention to his problems.
I remembered how, when the suspect marched in, Boris had glared at him with such loathing I turned again to a fresh page and sketched his fury. I wondered what he would do if the suspect were acquitted. He’d looked ready to hunt him down and mete out his own justice.
At the end of the day I had hurried out of the courthouse, anxious to get to the paper and make my deadline. I’d slipped on the wet stairs and pitched forward. A strong hand shot out and caught my elbow. My sketchbook flew out of my hands.
“Careful,” said a concerned voice.
“Thank you,” I said, steadying myself on an arm clad in navy blue. I gazed into Boris’s eyes for the first time. They were brown, flecked with gold. Up close he was even more handsome. I jumped back and tripped again.