Gary in Greece, on Tripod Road

Book research has its advantages when you're the author of The Athenian Mysteries.  I and my family have been in Greece, and it's been a fun and very hectic time.  Here's the view from our hotel room. That's the Acropolis.  It was dusk when we arrived and the first thing we did was take a picture.

So now in the posts to come I will deliver some photos, descriptions, and random thoughts.  Let me begin with Tripod Road.

When I told my literary agent that we were in Athens she replied, "Walking in the steps of Nico and Diotima!"

I replied, "It's funny you should say that, because the hotel we're staying at is on Tripod Road."

In the books, my hero Nicolaos and the lovely Diotima have to walk up and down Tripod Road almost every day.  It's the main road from their house to the agora.

Tripod Road was lined with victory tripods, put up by the winners of the choral contests at the arts festival called the Great Dionysia.  Pericles himself had a victory tripod on Tripod Road, because he funded a winning play.

These days Tripod Road is called Nikodimou Street, but we know it was the original Tripod Road, because there's a single surviving tripod.  It's called the Lysikrates Monument, erected by a very happy fellow named Lysikrates to celebrate a victory at the Great Dionysia some time around 334BC, and it's known to have been built on the west side of Tripod Road.  Here it is, and it's about 100 meters down the road from where we're staying. 

Yes, I know it doesn't look remarkably like a tripod.  The victory monuments became very ornate over time.

So this means every time we walk down the road for the inevitable evening dessert of waffle and chocolate sauce, we are in fact walking in the footsteps of Nico and Diotima.

Death ex Machina Happy Release Day to me!

If murder mysteries set in the ancient world are your thing, then the good news is Death Ex Machina went on the shelves today.

I'm very pleased with this one.  It's the first adventure for Nico and Diotima as a married couple.  For a running series that's a big transition!  How will they cope with the marital state?

The murder is decidedly theatrical, as you can tell from the cover.  Since our heroes are living right at the birth of theatre, there are plenty of big names to make an appearance.

Plus I'm always fond of a good pun, and Death ex Machina was too good to pass up.

I hope you enjoy it.

A quiz about Sacred Games

Someone on GoodReads created a quiz about my book Sacred Games.  Incredibly, I managed to get a question wrong about my own book.

I scored 9/10!  See if you can beat me.

Here's the quiz.

Death Ex Machina, and a giveaway!

A theatrical murder sends classical Athens into uproar!

This is the fifth adventure for Nico and Diotima.  I'm afraid life isn't getting any easier for the only private agent in ancient Athens, but at least he has a chance to get into show biz.

In bookstores on May 19, 2015

___________________

My astoundingly excellent publisher Soho Press is doing a giveaway on GoodReads.  Click here to enter the giveaway!

Gary interviewed for Sisters In Crime, St Louis.

A few days ago I was interviewed for the St Louis chapter of Sisters In Crime, and here is the result.  (I'll just add in passing that skype is a wonderful thing.)

If you haven't comes across the Sisters In Crime before, they're an organization of crime writers who, when it began, were all of a female persuasion.  Since then they've added some brothers, or honorary sisters...I'm not quite sure how that works.  But in any case they are a lovely group of people with a terrific name.

Writers Read, and Campaign for the American Reader

Marshal Zeringue is an indefatigable promoter of books and reading across a number of web sites.  I think by now he must have interviewed or recommended hundreds of authors.  Many hundreds!

He asked me what I'd been reading recently.  My replies are at Writers Read and Campaign for the American Reader.

Thanks Marshal!

Gary interviewed by Sheri Cobb South

I recently did an interview with reader (and writer) Sheri Cobb South, and, here it is.

I particularly liked Sheri's question about where to visit in Greece, Turkey or the Aegean, if you want to see the locations from the books.  I hadn't quite thought of it before as a tour map.

Gary on Facebook

I now have an author page on Facebook.

 The web site / blog you're reading now remains my loved home on the net.  The new venture is so people who love facebook can see the same articles and news as appears on this web site. It seems there are lots of people who prefer to see stuff on FB.

 If you're a facebook person and so inclined, do please hop over there to like it. The location is https://www.facebook.com/GaryCorby

Gary in Washington DC and New York

I'll be in Washington DC and then New York, first week of May 2014.  If you're in either place, and would like to say hello, then I would love to meet you.

Here's the schedule:

I'll be attending the Malice Domestic fan con in Washington DC.  It's on at the Hyatt, and here's the program info.

If you're attending Malice, then on Friday at 2.30 pm there'll be a coffee hour which I'll be hosting.  Do come and say hi!

I'll be part of a panel on the Saturday morning at 9am, on the subject of (what else but...) historical mysteries.

If you're not attending Malice but you're a reader and just want to meet for a chat, then please let me know and we'll work something out.  I'll be in Washington the entire day of Thursday before the con starts, and I should in theory have spare time in and around the con schedule.

On Monday May 5 through Wednesday May 7 I'll be in New York.

I'll be signing books at Mysterious Bookshop on the Tuesday afternoon at 2pm.  I'd love to see you there.

Otherwise, if you're in New York and would like to say hi, email me and we'll see if we can work out times.

Gary talks to Sydney Jones

Sydney Jones writes an intriguing mystery series set in Vienna of the early 1900s, starring lawyer and PI Karl Werthen.  Historic Vienna is a terrific locale for this sort of thing.

Like me -- in fact, like pretty much every historical mystery author -- Sydney is interested in not only his time and place, but every time and place.  To which end he interviews other historical authors on his blog, among whom are a few friends of mine.  I have now joined their number.

Sydney interviewed me for his blog.  You can see the conversation here!

The Marathon Conspiracy: cover reveal!

The Marathon Conspiracy is number 4 of the Athenian Mysteries, and here's the cover!

It's another beautiful artwork from professional artist Stefano Vitale.  During the course of the series Stefano has moved to Venice from the US.  So we have an Australian author, a US publisher and an Italian artist.

You might have noticed the bear.  The bear and the skull that Nico holds are part of the story, needless to say.  The stoa in the background is the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron.  It is famous, amongst other things, for being one of the world's first school for girls.

Incredibly, we're actually organized for this book.  The release details are already up on the major stores.  Release date is early May 2014.

Gary is interviewed at Kittling Books

The very nice Cathy Cole interviewed me a few weeks ago for Kittling Books, and the result is now up for the interested reader, wherein I discuss, amongst other things, the dreadful crimes of Horace the Bear.

Cathy discovered my existence in an odd way.  She had a review copy of Sacred Games.  Decided not to read it because she was over ancient Greece.  Then decided for no obvious reason to read it anyway.  Then she contacted me, and I very happily have yet another online friend.

So thanks Cathy for deciding to read the book!

Writers Read

The second of Marshal Zeringue's book blogs is Writers Read, where he asks various writers what they're currently reading.  I confess I have fun reading the answers of other writers, since it amounts to recommendations from people who should, in theory, know something about books.

I've answered this question for him three times now, and looking back on my past answers, I'm struck by how totally inconsistent I am.  But I do appear to move in themes.

Right now, I seem to be having a retro period.

Gary speaks at Holroyd Library

If you happen to be in Sydney, Australia, I'll be speaking at Holroyd Library at 10.30am on Friday 7th June.

Here's the link to the event page:  http://holroydlibrary0706.eventbrite.com/

If you're coming, please press the register button so they know how many to expect.  There'll be a book club there for sure, and they'd love to see you too; I promise it's one of the happiest, most welcoming libraries in the land.

Thanks very much to Librarian Extraordinaire Charina for the invite.  I spoke there last year and it was lots of fun, due almost entirely to the lively audience and their terrific comments.  So if you can make it, I'd love to see you!

Reading Order

I had an email from a wonderful reader named Sandra, who very sensibly asked what's the right order to read the books of the series?

That was when I realized that silly Gary has never written it down, so here for the record is the book sequence:

The Pericles Commission

The Ionia Sanction

Sacred Games

The next book in line has working title The Marathon Conspiracy.  Working titles don't always stick, so stay tuned on that.

Each book is written to stand on its own, so technically it doesn't really matter in what order you pick them up.  I know for sure some readers have come to the series starting with book 2 or 3, and then gone to Pericles Commission.

Of course if a character appears in a later book, then you know they survived any earlier books!  Beyond that unavoidable information, I'm careful to omit spoilers on who did it from earlier adventures.

Sacred Games: the cover!

The third book of the Athenian Mysteries is...

This one's a race against time.  Here's the jacket copy:

It's the Olympics of 460 BC. Nico's best friend, Timodemus, is a competitor in the pankration, the deadly martial art of ancient Greece. Timo is hot favorite to win. His only serious rival is Arakos from Sparta. When Arakos is found beaten to death, it's obvious Timodemus must be the killer. Who else could have killed the second-best fighter in all Hellas but the very best? The Judges of the Games sentence Timodemus to be executed in four days' time, as soon as the Sacred Games have finished.

Complicating everything is the fact that Athens and Sparta are already at each other's throats, in the opening stages of a power struggle for control of Hellas. If an Athenian is found to have cheated at the Games by murdering a Spartan, it will be everything the hawks in Sparta need to declare open war the moment the Sacred Truce is over. And that's a war Athens cannot hope to win.

Nico and his partner in sleuthing, the annoyingly clever priestess Diotima, have four days to save their friend and avert a war that would tear their world apart.

How to sign a contract when you're in Australia and your publisher is in New York

Australia, like any civilized country, uses metric paper sizes.  The US still uses mediaeval letter-sized paper measured in inches.  All they need is the last page printed and signed.  All I need is one letter-sized page.  Here's how you do it:

1. Go insane trying to find letter-sized paper in Australia.
2. Send wife out to find letter-sized paper.
3. Give up.
4. Buy some A3 sketching paper.
5. Get the last contract, which is printed on letter-size.
6. Trace around the old contract onto the A3.
7. Cut out the tracing with scissors.
8. Place custom-built page into home printer paper tray that's designed for A4.
9. Print and send.
10. Resolve to buy sheaf of letter paper next time I'm in the US.

That contract takes me out to Book 4, with an option on Book 5, so the tale of Nico and Diotima continues.

Book 4's working title is The Marathon Conspiracy.  Working titles almost never survive, so it might appear next year under a different name.  I don't yet have a stable working title for Book 5.  I normally cycle through a few before I find something that feels right.  

But the next book of course is Book 3, and that's on sale in May.  It's called Sacred Games.

Blog tours and book review policy

This isn't a blog post so much as a public service announcement, so if you're a regular reader, you can safely move on to the next one.

I've been getting a lot of requests recently to either host blog tours for people I don't know, or else write reviews for books.  To save people who are considering this the trouble of emailing, here is my policy on this stuff:

I don't host blog tours.  In fact I don't do blog tours myself either.  I do from time to time write guest posts, and I enjoy doing it.  I'd love to do more, the only difficulty being that I have a few deadlines to keep.

I don't do book reviews.

While I do frequently mention books that I've read, it helps if you've been dead for 2,000 years or more.  Slightly less deceased authors who get mentioned tend to be either long-time readers whose success I love to celebrate, writer friends whom I know from fan conferences, writer friends whom I know from across the internet, or books whose awesomeness is so directly relevant to what I typically write about that it's a no-brainer to talk about them.

The blog began as my place for book research overflow .  It's expanded slightly since then, but that remains its primary purpose.  I know my own books are plastered all over the page, but that's because this is also my place of business, sort of.  I used to run two separate web sites: one my author site for the books, and one my blog, then realized that made no sense and merged the two.

I suspect the single most useful piece of author information on this site is my email address down the right hand side.  Any number of fans have used it to email me, and I love to hear from readers, so don't be shy!

For what it's worth to people interested in book marketing, I'd say overwhelmingly the two most effective things are word-of mouth recommendation from people who've enjoyed your books; and the public libraries.  Libraries are grossly underrated.  It's amazing how much of my fan email is from people who discovered me at their local library.

A merry time at Merrylands

Poppy the Possum and friends

Reading is alive and well in Merrylands.  I know this because they invited me to speak there, last Friday, on the occasion of their library's 21st birthday.  It's a week-long celebration and I was privileged to be first off the rank.

The staff at Merrylands are loads of fun.  The picture on the left is me with Poppy the Possum, who encourages kids to read, ably assisted by Kirsty in the middle.  Kirsty's husband is a very clever man because (a) he married Kirsty; (b) he's an expert on ancient history; and (c) he asked tough and fun questions during my talk.

The next two pictures are me pontificating, which I'm rather good at.  I went over time by about 20 minutes and never even noticed.  Frankly, I was having too much fun.

I was also seriously well-matched by the audience.  Early on I was talking about Ephesus, which if you've read The Ionia Sanction you'll know is a city that figures prominently.

It turned out a lady in the audience had walked the place and knew exactly each spot I described.  Then when someone asked me how you get there, I explained the closest location was a Turkish town called Izmir.  Another lady in the middle rows puts up her hand.  She says, "I'm from Izmir."

Piles of brilliant questions from the audience, and they entertained me as much as I, them!

Gary pontificates some more

Gary pontificates

Gary eventually stops talking and signs books

Gary at Merrylands Library

Yours truly will be giving a talk at Merrylands Library, in Sydney, on Friday evening next week.  It's the library's 21st birthday!  

I have far too many things I'd like to talk about, so I'd like to ask your opinion.  Out of all the stuff you've seen on this blog, what do you think might make the most interesting talk for a library audience?  Keep in mind that some of the audience, but not all, will be mystery fans.  Some, but not all, will be historical fans, and of course everyone is a reader.  What do you think for a subject?

If you happen to be within reach of Merrylands, I'd love to see you there.