Murder’s a Beach Newsletter: June 2019
2019 Fun and 2020 Anticipation
We had a great time meeting so many of you at LCC 2019 in Vancouver, BC. We had our table up with info about next year and met so many wonderful people.
There were panels and events to attend and we even had the honor of announcing the Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel.
Now that we’ve had time to recover, we’ve been hard at work on next year’s plans. Future newsletters will have more details on 2020’s events, but for now just know that it's Left Coast Crime’s 30th year and we plan to make it a special one.
We will have all the traditional events and activities you love, but we are adding an interactive murder game for you to play, and other fun.
San Diego is a tourist’s paradise so definitely plan on booking some days before or after the conference. We are arranging some deals with a local agency to get an Old Town tour and other local activities together for discounted rates.
We’re looking forward to seeing you in 2020.
Team 2020
Lisa Brackmann
Kim Keeline
Maryelizabeth Yturralde
San Diego’s Top 4 Destinations
Balboa Park: Did you know we are home to the largest urban park in the U.S.? That's right — even bigger than Central Park. And it’s home to the World Famous San Diego Zoo, over 16 museums, and a number of beautiful gardens. It’s a must see for anyone visiting America's Finest City.
Old Town: San Diego is lucky enough to have preserved some of the oldest buildings from its history. Even better, it’s become a place filled with good restaurants and shops. It’s easily reachable from the trolley which stops right in the back of the conference hotel. It also contains a building which has been called the most haunted place in America and is right next to the city’s old graveyard.
Maritime Museum: In addition to the Star of India, the world’s oldest active sailing ship (1863), they have ten other vessels on display, including a submarine. Exhibits inside the ships show nautical history.
Midway Museum: With more than 30 restored aircraft, and nearly 10 acres of exhibits and displays, the Midway brings you the most complete cross-section of carrier aviation in the world.
Guests of Honor & Toastmaster
San Diego 2020 is going to be an exciting event and part of that excitement is in the great group of people we are honoring. The Co-Chairs would like to introduce you to our Guests of Honor and Toastmaster!
Rachel Howzell Hall
Hall was born in Los Angeles, where she continues to live—and the city has influenced her writing. As a child, she kept a pen in her hand, writing everywhere—in notebooks, on loose-leaf paper, in her big brother’s prep-school yearbook and on the back of church bulletins. But, she says, “never on walls, buildings or freeway overpasses. That is graffiti.”
In 2002 her debut novel
A Quiet Storm whipped up quite a storm of notice, including making it to the “must-read book list” for fictional TV character Rory Gilmore of
The Gilmore Girls. The Detective Elouise Norton series started in 2014 with
Land of Shadows. The fourth book in the series,
City of Saviors, came out in 2017. The main character, Lou, was included in The Guardian’s Top 10 Female Detectives.
In addition to her well-known series, she has written several other books including co-writing
The Family Lawyer with James Patterson. Her most recent book,
They All Fall Down, is a suspenseful tale of seven strangers lured to a tropical island under false pretenses. Then suspicious accidents occur and ... they all fall down. For Agatha Christie fans, you can tell this pays homage to Agatha Christie’s
And Then There Were None.
T. Jefferson Parker
Parker is a Southern California native who started out as a cub reporter for a small weekly paper. After covering police, politics, and culture for that paper, he moved on to a bigger paper where he won three Orange County Press Club awards. His first novel, which he began while working as a journalist, was
Laguna Heat, soon made into a HBO movie starring Harry Hamlin, Jason Robards, and Rip Torn.
Southern California has been a major part of his books, almost as much as winning awards for his writing has been a part of his career. He’s won three Edgars, two for novels (
Silent Joe and
California Girl) and one for best short story.
His last six crime novels feature Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Charlie Hood and deal with issues along the U.S./Mexico border. Lionsgate has bought the option to bring these novels to the big screen.
Parker’s most recent series started in 2017 and is based on private investigator Roland Ford in north San Diego County (
Crazy Blood and
Swift Vengeance). With 24 novels and many short stories under his belt, one can wonder how he has time for his hobbies of fishing, rock hounding, and cycling.
Matt Coyle
Our Toastmaster will be familiar to anyone who has attended a recent LCC convention. He was active at the 2019 event where his most recent book was nominated for a Lefty. W
rong Light, the fifth book in the Rich Cahill series, was released in 2019.
Coyle knew he wanted to be a crime writer when he was fourteen and his father gave him
The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler. However, he delayed writing for thirty years as he managed a restaurant, sold got clubs and worked in sales for a sports licensing company. After working on his first novel for other a decade,
Yesterday’s Echo was met with acclaim when it was published in 2013. It won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the San Diego Book Award for Best Mystery, and the Ben Franklin Award for Best New Voice in Fiction.
Coyle is already hard at work on the sixth appearance of Rick Cahill, but can be seen in San Diego from time to time with his yellow lab, Angus.
Mysterious Galaxy
Our Fan Guest of Honor has been an active participant in the mystery field in Southern California. As an Indie bookstore specializing in mystery, scifi/fantasy, and horror, they are the go-to place in San Diego for a new read.
They are more than that, however. They have also been building a community, with book clubs, signings and events, and active support of Sisters in Crime and other organizations. They have support for local authors, not only with a special display, but a monthly event, and have an active review newsletter.
Mysterious Galaxy was founded in 1992 by Terry Gilman, Maryelizabeth Yturralde, and Jeff Mariotte when they recognized a need for a genre store in San Diego and saw it as a way to share their passion for books, bookselling, and a love of reading with their community. Mysterious Galaxy opened on May 8, 1993 and among the authors who celebrated the opening of the store with hundreds of fans were Ray Bradbury, David Brin, and Robert Crais.
Raymond Chandler
Our Ghost of Honor probably needs no introduction. While he only published seven novels during his lifetime (the eighth was completed after his death by Robert B. Parker), he wrote numerous short stories and all but one of the novels has been made into film. He is often cited as the founder of the hard-boiled genre of detective fiction and his character of Philip Marlowe is enjoyed by many.
While the city of Los Angeles is most famous as the setting for his stories, he did live the end of his life in San Diego — writing
The Long Goodbye and
Playback in our city. Chandler set
Playback here in the community of La Jolla, naming it Esmerelda. He and his wife Cissy are buried in La Jolla.
In his honor, we will dedicate our Noir at the Bar in his name. Our logo features the name Esmerelda, CA at the bottom of the sand bucket (which is also decorated by interlocking guns). We are in the midst of arranging a Chandler tour of La Jolla as an optional event before the convention, so stay tuned for more info there.
Note: LCC 2020 San Diego Newsletters are also sent to LCC 2019 Vancouver registrants through the Lefty nomination period ending in January 2020. Not sure if you are registered for LCC 202o San Diego? Check the San Diego
Attendee page! Questions about registration?
Email Registrar Kathy Krevat.
