Murder and Mayhem, Canadian Style! The 13th Letter

with Lisa de Nikolits

Some readers here might know that we Canadians burned down The White House during the War of 1812.  Now, I'm pretty sure we won't do that again, but I mention this to support my premise that while sporting a somewhat quirky sense of humour, we Canucks can be rather fiendish. My friend and colleague Lisa de Nicolits is here to introduce proof to that.  

When I was asked to contribute to The 13th Letter, something spooky happened.  Gina Gallo and her wacky cousin Nico, who had been impatiently waiting for their next appearance in The Goddaughter series, decided to horn in and take over.  So in my case, this post title could also be "When Novel Characters Go Short Story."

Take it away, Lisa!

Thank you Mel!  

My printed copy of The 13th Letter
landed in my hot little hands just over a week ago at our fabulous launch at the Sleuth of Baker Street, and I can't wait to read the stories again in print.  One of my favourite treats is to snuggle up on the sofa with a lovely paperback.  The fragrance of ink and paper, the rustle of turning pages, and the feel of holding a book really makes stories come alive for me.  All the troubles of the world fall away as I get caught up in the magic of someone else's imagination.

Authors are magicians, movie directors, make-up artists, hustlers, wrestlers, casting directors,  comedians, satirists, historians, spies and sociologists. We dabble in horror, cozy, literary fiction and police procedurals. We follow the trails of fraud and fantasy with wry irony, hardboiled noir and side-splitting comedy.  We tap into jealousy, rage, fear, envy, obsession, lust and greed, but there's also true love, a dash of kindness, and a satisfying sense of justice.

And that's what make an anthology by the Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem so very special. Because our promise to you, Dear Reader, is to deliver all of the above, in each of our anthologies.

Founded by Donna Carrick and Madeleine Harris-Callway in 2013, our collective goes from strength to strength.  The 13th Letter is our sixth anthology.  "M" is the 13th letter of the alphabet (and also our lucky number!) We used "M" to stand for mayhem, maple syrup, mischief, mystery, Marilyn Monroe, murder, and of course, moolah, but we've also come up with all kinds of other creative ways to work with thirteen messages and letters.

Instead of giving you a synopsis of each story, we thought we'd give you a taste of the fun to come, with a few one-liners to showcase the variety and creativity.  Enjoy! 

The Midnight Boat to Palermo by Rosemary Aubert (to whom our anthology is dedicated.)

The unforgettable story about a sugar factory in Palermo where no one is permitted to taste the sweet wares, and how a deadly family secret finally comes to light.

The Lifted Letter by J.E. Barnard

An ancient, illuminated letter M goes missing from a bootlegger's library, and only Gloria Gamm, Girl Gumshoe, can get it back before there's a bloodshed.

M is for Memory by M.H. Callway

Memory is unreliable trickster, as the hero of The Boy in the Picture learns when she find a mysterious photograph.

M is for Moolah by Melodie Campbell

Someone has trashed great-uncle Tony's crappy house in The Hammer, and who but family could know he still worked as a bookie, stashing moolah in all the wrong places?

If You Should Fall by Donna Carrick

M is for maple syrup in this uniquely Canadian thriller, as sugarbush tapper Marlene MacDougal scrambles for her life, proving that justice can be both swift and sweet.

The Curse Scroll by Cheryl Freedman

Half-ogre/half-human private investigator Goslin and her partner Marlow, a bipedal, talking, fedora-wearing ferret, are tasked by Goslin's fairy godmother to find the hidden scroll cursing Goslin's cousin, the king of Carcassone, with impotence.

In a Cold Country by Lisa de Nikolits (a sonnet of sorts!)

There was a little girl
from a land far away
not a very nice little girl
she always got her way

and now that little girl
is so, so alone
in a cold country
like a dog without a bone

old dog, old dog
one day I’ll make you pay
you won’t see me coming
but you can't get out of the way

(The 13th line concludes with a location, date and time for the deadly meet-up.)

27 by Blair Keetch

The body of a prestigious entrepreneur is found in a warehouse in the middle of the night, leading to more suspects than there are letters in the alphabet. Can a clue scrawled in blood point to the killer?

One Helluva Lady by Rosemary McCracken

"When two Toronto police officers took chairs across from my desk, I wondered what trouble I was in." Pat Tierney returns in this riveting tale of murder.

Where are you, Marilyn? by Sylvia Multarsh Warsh

In 1962, plain teenager Sophie moves next door to glamorous Marsha and tried to help her find her mother, a Marilyn Monroe Lookalike, who abandoned her family years earlier, hoping to be discovers in Hollywood.

Scamming Granny by Lynne Murphy

This clever title can be interpreted two ways. Charlotte is almost the victim of a 'granny scammer' but her friend decide to rally round and try to defeat his nasty scheme.

A Hollywood Tale by Ed Piwowarczyk 

In Hollywood in the 1930s, a gossip columnist becomes entangled in the murders of a film producer and two young actresses.

On Moon Mountain by Lorna Poplak

On the mountain, in the moonlight, a vengeful bully prepares to push and unconscious enemy over a cliff. Can the unexpected appearance of an eyewitness prevent him from carrying out this dastardly crime?

Murder and Marilla by Madona Skaff

The Bell Tolls Once Again is the third installment of the continuing adventures of ex-conman, Lennie, who solves murders...with the help of the victim. This time it's murder on board the ghost ship, Marilla.

Cardiopulmonary Arrest by Melissa Yi

Do you want to know ho you're going to die? For Rainier Hetherington, M stands for a machine that will predict his manner of death, as an inheritance from his ghastly father.

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!  

Where to buy the book:  https://tinyurl.com/w9h7vhp2 and amazon.ca and amazon.com for print copies.

For more information about us: visit https://mesdamesofmayhem.com/

There's a documentary about us which reveals our deepest and darkest secrets: https://gem.cbc.ca/the-mesdames-of-mayhem/s01e01

Henry VanderSpek is the photographer of the group photo. He was also the official photographer of the documentary, The Mesdames of Mayhem, by director Cat Mills and producer, Felicity Justrabo.

Taboos

Back at the end of the 20th century, I received a rejection letter from a magazine that had started to publish my short stories. I was assured that it was a good piece (it later appeared in 1998's The Best American Mystery Stories) but they declined to publish it because their readers did not like this sort of thing.

"This sort of thing" was about a small girl and her mother, undocumented Irish immigrants. They are very much under the thumb of their "protector," their landlord and the proprietor of the restaurant where the mother works, who uses his power to extort sex from the mother. The events in the story are precipitated when he turns his attention to her small daughter. 

There was nothing graphic in "Secrets" but the sexual abuse of children was taboo in some publishing quarters. And, as we now know, such abuse had long been a forbidden topic elsewhere. The Me Too Movement was not so much the start, as the culmination, of a series of scandals involving schools for Native Americans, Junior Hockey players, elite female gymnasts, and religious institutions of nearly every persuasion.

Nowhere has the breaking of this taboo been more significant than in Ireland if recent Irish journalism, films, novels, and short stories are any indication. The title of Fiona McPhillips new novel, When We Were Silent, says it all. Secrecy, a culture of sexual shame, and the immense power and prestige of the Catholic Church conspired for centuries to hide the sins of the powerful and, instead, to punish their victims.

That's very much the deal in When We Were Silent which presents two story lines. Now- when Lou (Louise) Manson is a successful teacher living with her daughter, Katie, and her wife, Alex, and Then, when Lou was repeating her level six year at tony Highfield School, where as a poor girl she is definitely an outsider.

 Lou at 17 is tough and clever, a good student and a gifted athlete. Besides her poverty and her lack of a posh accent, she has two other distinguishing features, both well hidden from the powers that be. She is attracted to women and she has a secret agenda: getting the goods on the swimming coach whom she believes ruined her best friend's life.

McPhillips is very good on the inner lives of adolescent girls and on their passionate friendships and rivalries. In general, the girls' characterizations are superior to those of the Highfield adults who are vividly one dimensional and even to the adult Lou, who is perhaps necessarily less dynamic than her reckless early self.  

Also good is McPhillips account of Highfield School which is very nearly a character itself. Of course, exclusive private schools and colleges, the more isolated the better, have long been a favorite of mystery writers. Their inbred cultures, their sense of social and intellectual superiority, and their distasteful entitlement not only inspire thoughts of homicide but provide a good deal of satisfaction when institution and/or perpetrators are brought down to earth.

So is it with When We Were Silent – but not for a long time. McPhillips novel reflects the changes over the last 30 years that were essential before teachers, parents, authorities, church officials would listen to children and before same sex relationships ceased to be considered a damnable catastrophe. 

When the situation that ended in near disaster for Lou at 18 is replicated with another accusation of sexual misconduct and another coach, Lou and her friends find themselves with big decisions: to remain silent and become complicit or to speak out and reawaken old wounds and old dangers. The contemporary section both opens and closes the novel as McPhillips skillfully presents the costs of silence – in both the past and the present of her characters' lives.

This is a mystery writer to watch.

Janice Law's The Falling Men, a novel with strong mystery elements, has been issued as an ebook on Amazon Kindle. Also on kindle: The Complete Madame Selina Stories.

The Man Who Met the Elf Queen, with two other fanciful short stories and 4 illustrations, is available from Apple Books at:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-man-who-met-the-elf-queen/id1072859654?ls=1&mt=11

The Dictator's Double, 3 short mysteries and 4 illustrations is available at: 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-dictators-double/id1607321864?ls=1&mt=11

Opportunity Makes the Thief

 Ever been robbed?

 Yeah, me too.

At gunpoint?

For me, luckily, no. 

Seen the face/faces of the thief/thieves who robbed you?

 Not me.

 The first time I got robbed someone stole the stereo out of my car, along with a case full of cassettes (yes, I know, I'm dating myself.).

 The second time I got robbed someone stole the stereo out of my truck, along with a case full of CDs (yes, I know, still dating myself.).

 The third time I got robbed someone broke one of the windows on my Jeep, stole the stereo (I had the detachable face with me in my pocket, so I'm not sure what good the player by itself was going to do them, without the face and the controls to work it.), and this time they didn't bother with the CDs (Don't say it. It's not even funny anymore.).

 Of course, in this, the Age of Streaming, I currently run nearly zero risk of being parted from any one of a car stereo or CD/cassettes collections. I have an app for that (and it's TIDAL, not Demon Spotify).

And that tracks, because thieves today, they've gone digital, too.

I've taken all of the recommended steps (and then some!) for protecting myself, my identity, etc., online. That's not where the most recent incarnation of thieves to cross my digital path and darken my virtual doorway have struck.

Not at all.

Instead, when these cyberfootpads strike, they steal pieces of me, and can't even be bothered to sell them. Nope. They offer these chunks of Brian gratis on the web, and their profit mechanism to ask people who download these Brianparts to "buy them a coffee," if they like what they took.

 For FREE.

I'm speaking of course, of my own catalogue of books. These latterday pickpockets pirate the content, converting it to downloadable PDFs, and collect "tips," for "doing the world a favor."

You got that last part right. These cyberhousebreakers are posing as altruists.

But don't just take my word for it. Let's go to the site of the most recent gang of banditti to lift my shit and peddle it on the web.

The site is OceanOfPDFs. I'm not linking to it because I don't want these jackwagons to get the idea I support their "cause."

Get all that?

Pretty pious sounding, and yet it's NONSENSE.

A quick story from my more tender years: when I was a kid I loved the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, etc.). One of my prized possessions was a first edition of one of Tarzan's books, published in 1928 by Frank A Muncey & Company.

My work.

One of my grandmothers was living with my family at the time. and wound up taking this book and giving it to one of my cousins. One that I did not particularly like.

So when I saw this cousin reading my book, and asked where she had gotten said book, only to be told my grandmother had given it to her because she thought she might like the adventure element to it, I had to explain to my teenaged, very bright, but somewhat obtuse cousin, that the book wasn't my grandmother's to give. She didn't own it.

I did. 

So it wasn't hers to give.

Also my work.

It was mine to give, should I have chosen to do so.

My cousin and I cleared up what turned out to be the result of a number of misunderstandings.

The only misunderstanding between myself and every other author whose work is illegally featured on that site and the site owners, is their muddle-headed notion that they are somehow entitled to give away the works of the authors they feature on their page, including mine.

They aren't. I've already asserted my extant copywrite on these guys (and not for the first time. I've run afoul of them before). And if you are a published author as well, take a moment to peruse their site. If you need to register a complaint and get your illegally taken work removed from the site, look for me a link to the appropriate form for getting that done in the comments.

And since we had a serious wind-storm related power outage yesterday, and I and my family are some of the victims of said Act of God, that's gonna be it for me this go round. More when next we gather together here among the SleuthSayers!

See you in two weeks!

 

Double Event

I have had an unusual experience recently.  For one thing, I have a story, "Welcome to JFR!", in the November/December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. That's unusual all by itself since I have only sold them 4 stories in 48 years of trying.  But I also have a story, "Christmas Dinner," in the same issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.  Talk about serendipity.

"Welcome to JFR!"  barely qualifies as a story.  It is the editor's introduction to an issue of a rather unusual journal - my revenge on 35 years of being an academic librarian.

"Christmas Dinner," on the other hand, is a novella, the third about Delgardo, the beat poet detective, and set in 1958. My narrator, Thomas Gray, is experiencing homesickness because it is his first December away from home, so a friend takes him for a traditional Manhattan Christmas dinner - in a Chinese restaurant.  Naturally, murder happens.

Now here is the really weird thing.  Back in 2009 I had a story in the July/August issue of AHMM and another in the August issue of EQMM.  So, this is the second time I have doubled my pleasure, so to speak.

 But there is another coincidence (a double double event).  I recently learned that  Otto Penzler put one of my stories in his Other Distinguished list at the back of The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024. And now I discovered that Steph Cha put one of my tales in the Distinguished list in Best American Mystery and Suspense.   

The coolest part is they were two different stories.

Penzler, who is among other things, a historian of our field, chose "The Accessories Club," (AHMM March/April),  which plays with some of our subgenres.   Steph Cha, when she took on the editorship of her series said we might expect to see more stories by women and people of color.  I am neither but "Memorial" (Black Cat Weekly #95) does feature a strong female protagonist. 

You might say both editors were on-brand.  I'm just happy they liked my tales.

By the way, extra credit to anyone who recognizes the source of the title for today's blog.

  

Crime Scene Comix Case 2024-11-030, Bank Robbery

Once again we highlight our criminally favorite cartoonist, Future Thought channel of YouTube. We love the sausage-shaped Shifty, a Minion gone bad.

Yikes! In this Crime Time episode, only one outcome is possible.

 

 

 

 

© www.FutureThought.tv

 

That’s today’s crime cinema. Hope you enjoyed the show. Be sure to visit Future Thought YouTube channel.