Is Accuracy Overrated?

Filling in for me today is Mark Bergin, a retired police lieutenant, talented writer, and dear friend. Mark generously helped me with research for my short story, "Zebras." I am not the only writer who has benefited from his wisdom and experience. Mark has helped countless others with their stories. He truly embodies what it means to be a good literary citizen, supporting and encouraging us all. He is a remarkable human being, and I'm delighted he's joining us today.

— Stacy Woodson

Is Accuracy Overrated? 

by Mark Bergin

    I am the luckiest man in America. I have been saying that since 2013 after I survived two heart attacks that actually killed me, made me retire from the police force after twenty-eight years—a twist of fate that pushed me to write my first book, published in 2019. Now, I have a four-book contract. And one of the luckiest things about this new writer gig is, I get to talk with people about being a cop all the time.

      I am a big mouth, always have been. When I was a police officer, and a reporter before that, I was communicating with the public about safety and crime and baby seats and all kinds of stuff. Now, I am on panels at conferences, meet new friends, and give out dozens of business cards to writers who want to talk about police procedure—to get it right.

       And I wonder if that is important.

       After all, we are fiction writers. We lie and make up stuff for a living. There is no such person as my detective hero John Kelly (though he sounds a little like me) nor his foil, public defender girlfriend Rachel Cohen (though I married my public defender girlfriend Ruth, who hates the Rachel character).

    I strove hard to make my first book, APPREHENSION, accurate enough that a cop would read it and not find fault, that officers could give it to their families and say, “This is what it’s like out there.” It is about stress and suicide as much as police investigation and trial preparation. Maybe, too much. Maybe, I lost some readers’ interest by so densely packing police factoids— radio codes and case numbers and evidence procedures. I was a first-time author. Four years as a newspaper reporter means nothing in prose.

        But I was proud of my book’s accuracy until about two years after I wrote it, when I drove across a bridge from my Virginia home into Washington, DC. I remembered my description of a fictional pursuit and discovered I had misplaced the Jefferson Memorial, describing it at the end of the I-395 bridge, and not the real spot, a different bridge at Fourteenth Street. The Jefferson Memorial—it’s not little. And nobody ever caught it. Maybe because I had so few readers. 

          Despite that error, I remain committed to working with authors for the sake of their own authenticity. I talk with Sisters in Crime chapters and my local writers group (Royal Writers Secret Society, if you must know). A typical conversation might begin, “Would a police chief be involved in the interview of a murder suspect?” And my answer will start with, “Do you want him to be?” Because in the real world, no. Police chiefs approve budgets and hirings and firings and talk to politicians and kiss babies. They don’t do day-to-day police work. But you, clever writer you are, have a chief who is a main character in your book (instead of a distant loud sound bellowing from a high floor in the police station). So, let’s get him or her into that interrogation room. Is this in a small department where everyone does everything? Is there a blizzard, and she is the only brass available? Is the victim his sister-in-law (which presents its own conflict-of-interest-unlikeliness). But remember, IT’S FICTION. We’re making it up. Do it well enough, no one will question it. 

        Well, okay, maybe some will. 

    I just read a novel with an airplane mistake. (Note from Ed: Don’t make mistakes with airplanes, guns, or cars.) In the novel, a C-130 takes off to the sound of jet engines. No, it doesn’t, the C-130 is a turboprop, not a jet. Do I care?  I love this author, and I forgave him this one, but other times, a mistake like this can take me out of the story and weaken my faith in the storyteller. 

    We read to visit and inhabit new worlds or see ours from new angles with new facts. Mistakes make us doubt information in the story. I gave up on a spy novel recently in which agents playing husband and wife on a train are stopped at a border. “Wife” is taken away, “husband,” placidly, goes on to his destination and later, his headquarters where he reports, “Oh, they took her. I don’t know who.” NO! You’re a spy playing her husband. You fume and fight and make a scene because if you don’t, you’re suspect. Even I know what a real spy would do. So, the rest of this writer’s work became suspect. (Could we make this real? What if the train is in a violently repressive county where the agents are trained not to make waves. There. Done.)

        Would a detective investigate her sister’s murder? Do police encrypt their radios, or switch to cell phones for sensitive communications? Would they drive their own cars on the job? Do cops marry defense attorneys? I’ll answer anything, and very often, the answer becomes the start of a long, exciting back and forth on story and plot and character. I have made so many good friends this way, keeping contact after Left Coast Crime or Bouchercon or Creatures, Crime and Creativity. That’s the best. That’s why I am so lucky. (BTW, the answers to these questions are: no, yes, never, big-time yes.)

Unless that’s not what you want.

      There are some big, common mistakes in fictional police work: 

• Nobody does paperwork (unless you’re in a novel by Michael McGarrity, an ex-cop who gets it right). 

• Everybody loads their gun at the last minute, racking the slide to put a bullet in the chamber as they get out of the car or go through the door. NO. That gun was loaded the moment the cop woke up, maybe even loaded for weeks and locked in a personal safe at night. 

• Cops shoot somebody and go right back out. NO. NO. There is always an investigation during which the cop is on administrative leave, to give her a cooling off period and cover the department’s a—administration against claims of improper supervision. 

• Cops, well everybody, can tuck guns in their belt at the small of the back. NO. NO. NO. Try it. Come to my house. I’ll hand you an unloaded gun. You tuck it under your waistline. In five minutes, the gun is in your buttcrack. In ten, it has already slid down your pants and out your ankle. An easy fix? “Detective Callahan tucked the gun into the holster at the small of his back. There. Done. 

• A cop’s death makes your heroes mad, and they go out and solve things, and  then all is well. NO. NO. NO. NO. It’s so much more than that. It makes them furious, and they go out and rough people up. The death of an officer is a major blow to a department that lasts days and weeks and maybe forever. He or she was a friend and a coworker and a neighbor and a godparent and a boss, and their death reminds you, and your own family, how dangerous and capricious police work can be. Don’t get me wrong. It’s fun, too. Driving fast with lights and sirens, pointing guns at bad guys, making arrests, saving people. But it’s serious business, even if we don’t talk to the public or our kids about it. We should. 

      Writers research, ask questions, observe. Police departments let you go on ride-alongs and have public information officers. And you can always write to me (mbergin01@aol.com). Don’t let research be your enemy. Remember you are a fiction writer.  

      In APPREHENSION, a major scene keyed on the burial of an indigent jail prisoner. I needed that scene to go the way I envisioned—a small crane, a wet and muddy hole, gravediggers who left, cops who stood by. I didn’t know how the city or the sheriff’s office, who runs the jail, handled that, so I never asked. I made it up along reasonable lines of what I knew of city and law enforcement bureaucracies. Did I get it wrong? In six years, I still don’t know.

       Just write. Write it how you want. If your fans nitpick, do it better next time. At least now you know they’re reading you.

***

Mark Bergin spent four years as a newspaper reporter, winning the Virginia Press Association Award for news reporting, before joining the Alexandria, Virginia, Police Department. Twice named Police Officer of the Year for narcotics and robbery investigations, he served in most of the posts described in APPREHENSION, his debut novel. APPREHENSION is being reprinted by Level Best Books as the first in a four-book series called The John Kelly Cases. Book two in the series, SAINT MICHAEL’S DAY will be published this year and was a finalist for the Killer Nashville Claymore Award. His short stories appear in three Anthony Award-nominated anthologies: PARANOIA BLUES, LAND OF 10,000 THRILLS, and SCATTERED, SMOTHERED, COVERED AND CHUNKED. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Ptolemy VIII Eurgetes: What Your Subjects Call You Behind Your Back Is a Lot More Important Than What They Call You to Your Face (CA. 182–116 B.C.)

The Alexandrians owe me one thing; they have seen their king walk!

—Scipio Aemilianus, Roman politician and general 

That’s right, another Ptolemy. But where the first of our Ptolemaic bastards (Ptolemy I Soter [“Savior”]) was ruthless and shrewd, and the second (Ptolemy Keraunos [“Thunderbolt”]) was brave, intemperate, and violent, our third was a gluttonous monster who celebrated one of his marriages by having his new stepson assassinated in the middle of the wedding feast, and later murdered his own son by this same woman (his sister!) in a brutal and sadistic fashion. 

When he took the throne of Egypt in 145 B.C., our Ptolemy took the reign name “Eurgetes” (Greek for “Benefactor”). In truth he was anything but. Quickly tiring of his lying, his murderous rages, and his rampant gluttony, his subjects began to refer to him as “Physcon” (“Potbelly”) because he was so fat. The quote that leads off this chapter references that physical characteristic as well as his laziness. Beholden to the Roman Republic for its support, Ptolemy VIII was forced to actually walk through the city of Alexandria (as opposed to being carted about in a litter) while playing tour guide to a visiting collection of Roman V.I.P.s, including Scipio Aemilianus, the author of the quote.

Ptolemy "happily" giving Scipio Aemilianus the aforementioned guided tour

A younger son of Ptolemy V who didn’t do the Ptolemaic dynasty any favors, this Ptolemy bounced around from Egypt to Cyprus to Cyrenaica (Libya) until his older brother (also a Ptolemy) died in 145 B.C. The dead Ptolemy’s young son was crowned shortly after his father’s death (taking the regnal name of Ptolemy VII) with his mother, Cleopatra II—no, not that Cleopatra—as co-ruler. In short order, our Ptolemy manipulated the common people into supporting him as king in place of his nephew, and managed to work out a compromise with his sister-also-his-brother’s-widow wherein he married her and the three of them became co-rulers of Egypt. 

Alexandria in the first century B.C.

Not only did Ptolemy then promptly have his nephew (and now stepson) killed at the aforementioned wedding feast, he seduced and married as his second wife the boy’s sister, who also happened to be his own niece, and his wife’s daughter (confused yet?), also named Cleopatra. (No, still not that Cleopatra.) This after knocking up the sister/wife/widow of his dead predecessor herself, siring a son named Ptolemy (again) Memphitis. 

When the people of Alexandria eventually rebelled and sent Ptolemy VIII, the younger Cleopatra, and their children packing to Cyprus, Cleopatra II (the sister/widow/first wife) set up their son Ptolemy Memphitis as co-ruler and herself (once more) as regent. Within a year, our Ptolemy (Ptolemy VIII, if you’re trying to keep track) had the boy, his own son, murdered. Pretty awful, right? Unspeakable? 

No, that’s what came next. Once he’d had the child (no older than twelve) killed, Ptolemy VIII had him dismembered and (according to such ancient sources as Diodorus Siculus and Justin, but treated by modern historians with a healthy dose of skepticism) sent to his mother as a birthday present! As if this wasn’t enough, Ptolemy went on to retake his throne and share power with his first wife (yes, the sister/wife/widow whose sons he’d killed) until he died of natural causes after a long life in 116 B.C. 

At least, as she had done with their elder brother Ptolemy VI, Cleopatra II managed to outlive Physcon, place another of her sons (Ptolemy IX) on the throne as co-ruler, and serve as regent to yet another underage princeling.

Unspeakable bastard. 

One Battle After Another

I haven’t seen every contender, but One Battle After Another is a strong candidate for best mainstream American picture of 2025. Released theatrically late in the year, it’s now available streaming on HBO Max, which is where I caught it.

Basic lineaments are these. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, from the novel Vineland by – get this – Thomas Pynchon. (You might think, reasonably, that Pynchon was impossible to adapt, but no; Anderson already took a shot at it with Inherent Vice, ten or so years ago, and there was apparently a stage production of V., in Berlin, running a little under four hours, and which seems to me a hugely quixotic undertaking.) The proof, however, is in the pudding, and One Battle After Another, quirky though it may be, is a very satisfying thriller. I feel it has a couple of blind spots, and I’ll get to that, but it sets up fast, and doesn’t slow down, and pays off big.

Leo DiCaprio, for those of you who still think he’s too cute for school – even after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – shows off some terrific chops, very understated. Sean Penn, anything but understated, goes even more batshit than you could possibly imagine, as the heavy, and yet manages to convince you the guy isn’t a cartoon. Benicio Del Toro brings some lucid and calming energy to the scene, as a sensei. And the two female leads don’t play it safe, Teyana Taylor, as the radical mom, and Regina Hall, as her bred-to-revolution daughter – both heart-breakers, in their own way, and not always sympathetic.

The plot takes some sudden turns, and I won’t spoil it, but the story is pretty straightforward. A left-wing domestic resistance group, working to spring illegals from custody and move them through an Underground Railroad to safety, is compromised. They break up and go off the radar. ICE, in the person of the aforementioned Sean Penn, tracks them down, over the years, going for kill or capture. Leo, in a state of hallucinatory bliss, imagines he and his daughter are safe, but the devil comes to their door. Much grievous mayhem ensues.

You’ll have to take my word for it, it’s nowhere near as formulaic as this may make it sound. It hits a lot of the tropes you’d expect, but pulls some real surprises. It’s consistently entertaining, and still remains thoughtful.

Here’s the thing I’m not quite sure about.

There are, historically, left-wing groups that have turned to terror, just as there are similar right-wing organizations. The people in the movie might remind you of Edward Abbey’s Monkey-Wrench Gang, in that their intentions are good, but they’ve embraced violence, and like so many others, Left or Right, they think their cause excuses that. There is, of course, no organized AntiFa, not even an umbrella. We might remember, though, that in those damned and debated 1960’s and 1970’s, some of the more radical terror groups did in fact make common cause, the IRA Provos and the Japanese Red Army, the Weather Underground and the Panthers. Not a fever dream of J. Edgar Hoover’s, an actual alliance. Maybe it came to nothing, in the end, out of mistrust, but it was in the collective unconscious.

Their opposite number is the Great Right-Wing Conspiracy.

It features in a lot of over-heated paranoia movies, but is it a real thing? We know they’ve always had a fear of the anarchist Left, going back to the Haymarket, or Sacco and Vanzetti, but in those cases, the power of the state was mobilized. We’re talking about private money, working in the shadows. Sure, they meet behind closed doors, and wield enormous influence, but do they use secret Masonic recognition signals and practice barbaric rituals? Well, the Ku Klux Klan did, but I don’t think these guys have to. The big-money tech oligarchs are right out in the open. They’re not shy about swinging their weight around. That’s the only convention One Battle After Another uses that I’m not convinced of. I don’t think the right wing has to work in secret, or show each other their Capt. Midnight decoder rings. They recognize each other on sight, known predators stalking in the tall grass.

So, a reservation.

I guess you could say it was dramatic convenience. For sure, Thomas Pynchon has long trafficked in weird, all-powerful secret societies – and they seem, unhappily, all too authentic. I think, too, they’ve always been around: think the Jesuits. In other words, it’s an understandable temptation, and neo-Nazis and Aryan Nation supremacists are very definitely crawling around, not even in the underbrush. I wouldn’t argue that these people aren’t wicked, and capable of terrible cruelties, and they probably sit around their clubs with brandy and cigars, and gloat. They just don’t hide it.

2025 Year in Review: Writing and Other Things

In my previous SleuthSayers post, I discussed my year as an editor; in the following I discuss my year as a writer, and I discuss some of the other things with which I was involved.

WRITING

Productivity was up from last year, but still nowhere near my best year (75 stories in 2009) with 18 original stories completed, including a novella I co-authored with a fellow SleuthSayer. This is my most productive year since 2020, when I completed 26 stories.

The shortest story was 700 words and the longest (excluding the novella) was 6,700 words, for a total of 52,950. The average length (excluding the novella) was 3,100 words, and the novella was 19,000 words. One story was horror; the rest were crime fiction of one sub-genre or another.

ACCEPTED

Although I wrote only 18 new stories, I received—exclusive of the collections mentioned in the next paragraph—23 acceptances, all for original stories.

Also accepted were a collection of 22 of my stories and a collection of 6 stories I coauthored with Sandra Murphy that also includes one individually written story from each of us. I’ll provide more details closer to publication dates.

PUBLISHED

In 2025, 21 original stories, including a collaboration with Sandra Murphy, were published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Chop Shop, Dark Yonder, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Gag Me With a Spoon, Guilty Crime Stories Magazine, In Too Deep, Kelp Journal, KissMet Quarterly, Lunatic Fringe, Micromance, The Vigilante Crime Pulp Fiction Anthology, Tough, and Von Stray’s Crimestalker Casebook.

Also in 2025, two quasi-reprints were published: one appeared in an anthology that was rereleased by a new publisher, and a collaboration with James A. Hearn first published in AHMM was released as a podcast.

I also wrote three articles for the Mystery Writers of America’s The Third Degree.

Five publications/publishers are represented multiple times: Black Cat Weekly with four stories, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine with two stories, KissMet Quarterly with two stories, Micromance with two stories, and White City Press with stories in two anthologies.

REJECTED

I received nine rejections, which is fewer rejections than acceptances, and any year in which acceptances outnumber rejections is a good year.

RECOGNIZED

While two anthologies I co-edited won or were short-listed for awards, and while several stories I edited won or were short-listed for awards or included in best-of-year anthologies, my own writing flew under the radar in 2025.

FORTHCOMING

Including those accepted in 2025 and in previous years, I have stories forthcoming in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Chop Shop, Cold Caller, Cryin’ Shame, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Get Your Kicks, Kings River Life, KissMet Quarterly, Mickey Finn, Micromance, Sex & Synthesizers, Skinning the Poke, The Perp Wore Pumpkin, Time After Time, and Wish Upon a Crime.

LOOKING AHEAD

So many publishers (book, periodical, and web-based) closed in 2025, are struggling with publication schedules, or have announced their impending end that it is impossible to predict what the market for short mystery fiction will look like this year. Rather than fret about it, I choose to keep writing and keep my eyes open for whatever new opportunities present themselves. That might mean—as it was this year with the discovery of new romance publications—working in other genres.

SHORTCON

After the successful launch of ShortCon, the Premier Conference for Writers of Short Crime Fiction, in 2024, we presented the second ShortCon in 2025. The third ShortCon will be presented Saturday, June 6, 2026, in Alexandria, Virginia, and we plan to continue this as an annual event. (Learn more at https://www.eastcoastcrime.com/#/.)

MYSTERY IN THE MIDLANDS

As I did in 2024, I helped Paula Benson organize the 2025 Mystery in the Midlands, an online conference that emphasized writing and publishing short crime fiction. Paula has invited me to join her again in organizing the 2026 Mystery in the Midlands, again focusing on short crime fiction.

OTHER EVENTS

I participated—as a panelist, moderator, or presenter—in several live and online conferences, conventions, and presentations in 2025 and am already scheduled to attend or present at several events (live or online) in 2026.

MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA

I’m halfway through my second two-year term as an at-large board member of the Mystery Writers of America. I will rotate off the board in January 2027.

NEWBERRY CRIME WRITING WORKSHOP

The most exciting event on the horizon is the inaugural Newberry Crime Writing Workshop, an “intensive four-week writers’ workshop for developing crime and mystery authors, taught by major figures in the field,” which takes place July 6–31, 2026, on the campus of Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina.

Teaching one week each are Joe R. Lansdale, Cheryl Head, Warren S. Moore, and me. Writers-in-residence will live nearby and share meals with the students, providing students with an immersive experience.

Mornings are devoted to critiquing manuscripts in a workshop setting. Afternoons, evenings, and weekends are devoted to individual writing, conferences with the current writer-in-residence, social activities, and the completion of class assignments.

The registration fee includes housing and all meals throughout the four-week workshop. There is at least one small scholarship available, and we’re working on adding more, so don’t let the $4,000 tuition stop you from applying.

Add your name to the mailing list here to be notified when applications are open.

AND THAT’S ALL FOLKS

This past year was quite a wild ride, and 2026 looks to be more of the same. I can’t predict the future, so the best I can do is buckle up and prepare for whatever comes.

I hope y’all were productive last year and that this year brings you even greater success.

* * *

To kickstart the new year, my story “Glass Beach” appears in the January/February 2026 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

Wham bam, thank you ma’am.

            The other day I spell checked the word “pfft”.  It passed with flying colors.  This made me very happy.  As with exclamation points, semi-colons and references to intimate body parts, onomatopoeia can be very effective, if used sparingly.  Tom Wolfe never thought to resist any onomatopoeic impulse, but he’s the only author I know who got away with it.  (Batman comics notwithstanding.)

            It’s not only effective, it’s loads of fun.  It’s like splashing around in the mud.  Whacking a barn with a baseball bat.  Popping bubble gum.  Swooshing down the side of a mountain on a pair of skis.

            A lot of words don’t precisely mimic their subject, but sound pretty close to what they describe.  Bullet.  Grotesque.  Punch.  Slime.  Squeeze.  Jet.  Fart.  Kiss.  Others sound like they’re off by about 180 degrees.  My favorite is Pulchritude.  How did sublime beauty take up residence on the same block as Poultice or Putrid?  How could a lovely word like Sanguine, meaning optimistic, have such bloody roots?   Other words sound worse than they are.  Phlegmatic.  Dyspeptic.  Zaftig also doesn’t sound all that great, though Yiddish speakers likely meant it to reassure the rotund.  On the other hand, I would have thought Jejune was a rather pleasant state of affairs if I hadn’t looked it up.  It’s why I’m sticking with Vapid, for its unmistakably vaporous disposition. 

        Yiddish may seem the invention of a clever stand up, but English can often feel like a practical joke.  If there’s a specific thing you should be doing that’s good for you, it’s Prescribed.  If you shouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, the thing gets Proscribed.  If you’re bathed in admiration, you’re experiencing Approbation.  If the pitch forks are out for you, it’s Opprobrium.  It’s good to know if you’re researching something’s Etymological roots, and not its Entomological, unless you want bugs floating around in your word soup.  The same crew can raze a barn or raise it, though you need to know their intentions before deciding on the spelling.  Since we have Flammable, it seems profligate to have Inflammable as well, since it means the same thing, and sounds like you mean the opposite. 

Worse is Cleave.  It means to split apart, but also to tightly adhere.  Contranyms are not only confusing, they’re simply unfair. 

A Gimlet eye is reputed to be sharp and penetrating, though I once knew a chap who had an affectionate relationship with the vodka variety, and I’d say glazed was a more apt description. 

 Pleasing notions produce soothing words to the ear.  One can easily imagine people of various origins serenely flowing together, as tributaries join a river, when they Assimilate.  Words with well-placed esses are often like this.  I never had to look up Verisimilitude.  And no other word than Sibilance could accurately express the lispy phenomenon (though disliked by recording engineers).  Only a word with a soft touch could adequately conjure a Caress, usually an act requiring some Finesse. 

            On the other hand, a few hard consonants were smartly recruited to identify a Block.  (No one stubbed their toe on a word overflowing with vowels, unless they happen to be French.)  There are probably a hundred slang terms for penis, but nothing is so instructional, or adaptable to describing a thoughtless, sadistic jerk, as a Prick.  Here, the concluding consonant is essential to the effect.  If you find yourself in a Funk, you can blame the same consonant, appropriately placed, for ruining the word Fun.   When others try to foist off obvious falsehoods as truth, it’s no wonder we call it Bunk, proving consonants’ suitability for delivering ridicule.

Some words are so perfectly contrived, that looking for synonyms feels ungrateful.  Blasphemy is custom crafted to be spoken by a crusading inquisitioner, a word you can bellow from the pulpit or whisper in dim candlelight.  The first person to pull a sticky mass off the bottom of their schoolhouse desk surely called it a Wad.  In that same schoolhouse, the anonymous word coiner likely came up with Zit, a far more evocative identification than any of its peers.

  This all may seem the preoccupation of a Logophile, and I’ll gladly cop to it, though there’s a drawback to this.  Logo also means a symbol or design used to express the brand identity of a product or service.  I’m fine with this as an ordinary practice, but when marketers think it’s wise to wallpaper the entire world with their self-serving promotion, it’s just obnoxious. 

How about, logophile declares himself an antilogoist? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The United Nations: When The Call Comes From Inside The House

This is a classic horror scenario: a vulnerable young woman is home alone, often babysitting even more vulnerable children, gets phone calls with increasing threats and the worst part is that the calls are coming from inside the house. What happens to her and the children? 

What does this have to do with the United Nations? A heck of a lot at the moment, unfortunately. 

After his actions in Venezuela, President Trump continued to threaten to invade and take over Greenland, Canada and other countries, violating international law. Trump stated, “I don’t need international law,” and the only limits to his power is, "My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, made it clear that U.S. foreign policy is now firmly in the corner of might-makes-right, saying, “We live in a world, in the real world...that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” 

These increasing threats are coming from inside the house; the U.S. is a member of the UN, the organization that upholds international law. Some may think international law and international crimes are a total yawn but they are deeply mistaken and will be yawning their way into World War III, because international law was born, in large part, to prevent world wars.

After World War I and 16 million military and civilians deaths, the deeply traumatized citizens of war torn countries demanded an organization that would prevent a future world war. From this demand, the League of Nations 1920 – 1946) was born, composed of sixty-three countries, created to provide collective security: aggression against any member would be considered aggression against all. The League of Nations ultimately failed in preventing World War II because most members claimed neutrality and many were nervous about entering the war. In short: they failed to live up to the collective security agreement.

After World War II and up to 60M military and civilian deaths, countries took another kick at the can of preventing world war; this time even more earnestly. After four years of talks and debates, delegates from 50 nations, representing over 80% of the world’s population,  established the United Nations on 24 October 1945 to preserve peace. One big sticking point in the negotiations was permanent members (China, the USSR, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) demanded and finally got the right to veto any resolution passed by the UN Security Council. Many view this as the achilles heel of the UN, giving the most powerful nations carte blanche to override international law when it applies to them; putting this on a personal level, imagine that people who are most powerful and likely to harm you are given carte blanche to ignore laws that restrict them from harming you, so your murder by them is on the table of crimes that cannot be punished.

The United Nations, now comprised of 193 sovereign states and 2 observer states, is the world's largest intergovernmental organization and, given almost every state of the world is a member, it has legitimacy as the organization responsible for developing and enforcing international law.

Fast forward to the present;  President Trump has clearly broken international law and is threatening to break it in the future. “These actions represent a grave, manifest and deliberate violation of the most fundamental principles of international law, set a dangerous precedent, and risk destabilizing the entire region and the world,” a panel of United Nations experts said in a statement Jan. 7."

The crucial law presently being discussed is Article 2 that binds all members. It's posted below but, put simply, it states all member states are equal, no member should use threats or force against the political independence of members and, if they do, all members will assist the UN in enforcing international law. Trump broke international law and that pesky veto means that no actions can be taken against him or the United States - this makes the most fundamental part of this section inaccurate since all members are not equal.

Article 2:

One of Trump's excuses is that Venezuela’s President Maduro is a dictator and needed to be removed, but he is adamant that he will take Greenland, even by military force, as well as Canada, both countries with robust democracies.

In summary: Trump broke international law because he doesn't 'need it' and is constrained by nothing but his 'own mind' and because of the U.S. veto, the UN cannot act; the call is coming from inside the house of international law. 

International law, like local laws, exists to protect us and if those administering the laws aren't able to do that, is there someone else? Both Denmark and Canada are members and NATO, along with nuclear armed UK and France. NATO has a collective defence agreement; an attack against one is an attack against all but again, the call is coming from inside the house because the U.S. is a member of NATO. In January 2025, I wrote about the dilemma of one NATO nation attacking another, 

What a difference a year makes; NATO nations have now made it clear that an invasion of Denmark will change NATO and the nations have made statements that range from diplomatic to threatening:

"While NATO's leaders have focused their diplomacy on trying to convince Trump that anything he wants can be accomplished without actually taking over the island, other European politicians have been urging a more aggressive approach.

"If you take it, we will take every single base of the Americans, from Aviano from Ramstein, from Romania to all the other military bases — [they] will be confiscated, you will lose it — if you take Greenland," Gunther Fehlinger, chairman of the Austrian Committee for NATO Enlargement, said in a podcast."

It makes sense that Austrians, one of the first casualties of Hitler's territorial expansion, have little tolerance for Trump's ambitions. 

Many have commented that an attack on Greenland by the U.S. will effectively end NATO. Trump likely sees this as an incentive to attack Greenland; since 2024, he has been frustrated by his legal inability to leave NATO stating, "The US doesn’t need Nato." Attacking Greenland, and the subsequent dissolution of NATO, may give Trump the way out NATO he has been wanting. 

The reason for Trump's disdain for the UN and NATO is simple; both organizations are built to thwart territorial expansion by preventing invasion and annexation of sovereign countries and Trump has made it abundantly clear that he plans to invade and annex whatever countries he wants. This won't, as Trump hopes, lead to the dissolution of international law that holds countries in check. This is not based on a pollyannaish view of the world but a very realistic and practical one; people have no tolerance for mass war deaths and historically have demanded organizations that prevent the invasion of sovereign countries.

How this will play out is anyone's guess. The UN may restructure to finally get rid of vetos. NATO may change into an organization sans the U.S., much like the "Coalition of the Willing" that presently defends Ukraine. Ultimately, these organizations exist only to protect us and if, like the League of Nations, they don't protect us, they will be replaced. We'll build a world order educated by the fiasco of Trump, where calls coming from inside the house don't endanger us. Why? Because the people of the world will demand just that. 

Studying Great Sentences: Hammett's Red Harvest

I came to face a hard truth when I first tried writing fiction. I mean, people always told me they liked my stuff, and I enjoyed writing that stuff. But actually writing well is a whole other proposition. I failed--a lot--before spinning around in my writing chair and seeking deeper knowledge. 

As part of that, I re-read favorite authors and acknowledged masters, studying how they strung together plot, chapters, moments, and even sentences. I flagged any passage that wowed me in some way, even if I didn't know why. After finishing a book, I went to my computer and typed out each flagged section. Each one, as if I let their shape and function roll around in my brain. 

One novel I self-studied was Dashiell Hammett's The Red Harvest (1929). No pressure, just pulling at one of the finest novels in the English language. You know, a literal prototype of the hardboiled genre. I wanted to understand Hammett's dead-on prose. 

Here are five passages I flagged that have a lot to teach.

#1: Clinical Description

She had a broad-shouldered, full-breasted, round-hipped body and big muscular legs.  The hand she gave me was soft, warm, strong.  Her face was the face of a girl of twenty-five already showing signs of wear.  Little lines crossed the corners of her big ripe mouth.  Fainter lines were beginning to make nests around her thick-lashed eyes.  They were large eyes, blue and a bit blood-shot.   Her coarse hair- brown- needed trimming and was parted crookedly.  One side of her upper lip had been rouged higher than the other.  Her dress was of a particularly unbecoming wine color, and it gaped here and there down one side, where she had neglected to snap the fasteners or they had popped open.   There was a run down the front of her left stocking. 

In 2025, many an editor would reach for the delete key if someone handed them a 130-word character description. Not so back in Hammett's day. He had more wiggle room and laced extended descriptions through the novel, all for intended effect. 

This is an epic description, and for good reason. This broad-shouldered woman is Dinah Brand, Poisonville's scuffed-up version of a femme fatale. Hammett takes his time to show Dinah--and show how the Op sees her. He assesses her methodically, directly, a parade of subject-plus-verb sentences, nothing inverted or introductory, nothing vague. He adds discerning grace notes after his eye lingers. Once he takes Dinah in as a whole, he moves downward from eye contact and lands on the run in her stockings. Nobody's perfect in Poisonville. In the spaces between his descriptors, we come to see her as a physical presence, a young woman neither beautiful nor plain but wearing down fast. 

#1a: Dinah Again

Her big ripe mouth was rouged evenly this evening, but her brown hair still needed trimming, was parted haphazardly, and there were spots down the front of her orange silk dress.

This is later on. Dinah and the Op have become acquainted, as they say, so no further epic portrait is required. The Op needs to see what is different tonight. In this case, maybe Dinah is putting more effort into her appearance. In context of the novel, this is an important shift and set-up for what is to come. Poisonville doesn't do happy endings.

The construction here geeks out a sentence nerd. Gone is the clinical march of sentences. This is a continuous and considered observation of Dinah as a whole. The sentence nerd fulcrum is the classic "but." The first conjunction pair allows her the lipstick...but. Returning to the hair regrounds her, and the spots on her dress are pure Dinah. But maybe this is Dinah really trying, or maybe she only tries so hard.

#2: Marvelous Understatement

One of the blond boys drove.  He knew what speed was.

This one is glorious, even funny if you want to read it that way. Hammett's occasional hardboiled understatement--and sometimes overstatement--spices up the narrative voice without making the Op verbose.

#3: Action Sequence

The chief's car got away first, off with a jump that hammered our teeth together.  We missed the garage door by half an inch, chased a couple of pedestrians diagonally across the sidewalk, bounced off the curb into the roadway, missed a truck as narrowly as we had missed the door, and dashed out King Street with our siren wide open.

Chaos. Hardboiled chaos. And again, the secret is that long second sentence, a 46-word marathon. The standard advice for action is to go choppy. Choppy, though, would kill the effect. They're in one hell of a hurry, such a hurry that they're veering all over the place. This mayhem is one single action ending in, finally, a beat of control.

#4: Drinkin'

When I came back she was mixing gin, vermouth and orange bitters in a quart shaker, not leaving a lot of space for them to move around in.

I'll leave the exercise in the perfect noir way. Drinkin'. The Op is back at Dinah's place, and in no uncertain terms and clever voice, we know what comes next. 

Bottoms up, y'all. And write strong in the new year!