Editing An Anthology Electronically: Stronger Stories, Deeper Relationships

When I agreed to serve as editor of Where Crime Never Sleeps, the fourth volume of the Murder New York Style anthology series from the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime, I knew the process had to take place online. I had been a professional editor myself for many years. I had used Track Changes, the editing feature of MS Word, with editors of my own fiction. Furthermore, in my “other hat,” I am an online therapist, a pro at text-based communication and relationships in cyberspace. Yet the alchemy of the online editorial process produced benefits that came as a complete surprise. One was stronger stories than I believe could have been achieved by the passing back and forth of marginal scribbles and a couple of rounds of sticky notes. Another was a dialogue between editor and individual authors that took on depth and complexity throughout the process and created bonds that would not have existed otherwise.

Essential to the process was Track Changes. Compared to paper sticky notes (and before that, marginal slips you had to lick—remember those?), Track Changes balloons are infinitely expandable. It wasn’t just a matter of my offering a suggestion, making a correction, or asking for clarification; of the author complying, explaining, or offering an alternative. We could engage in an ongoing dialogue. In a sense, the margins became a mini-chat room. If we needed to converse at greater length, we could move on to emails at any time. The intensive electronic editing process—three rounds of edits—lasted from early April to mid-May. Then came a final trickle of queries through mid to late June, as I noticed unresolved issues, some quite important, while preparing to send the manuscript to the publisher, Level Best Books. In one case, when I got no answer to my email, I phoned the author, thinking the number I had, with a New York area code, must be her land line. Oops. It was her cell phone, and she was at a funeral in Montana—but she answered my question.

Our dialogue touched on many important elements of storytelling: voice, attribution, pace, when to start a scene, when to use backstory, how to introduce a character, what doesn’t need saying, what kinds of details readers skip over. For example, as an aspect of voice, a character mentioning the Brooklyn Bridge would not describe it in terms that might appear in a guidebook. In introducing a character, it’s awkward at best to inject a description of the new character’s appearance into the attribution:
"Stop, or I'll shoot!" the six-foot, blue-eyed, blonde police officer said.
Physical characteristics are better integrated into the narrative or left out altogether.

Certain small flaws cropped up in story after story, including my own. These were stage directions that failed to offer fresh language or to advance the plot.

He nodded.
She looked up.
He turned.
She stood up.
He sat back.
She shook her head.

I kept highlighting these brief sentences, noting: “Delete. Adds nothing, slows the pace.” I was an offender like everybody else. On the final pass, I found the following passage in my own story.

Jimmy and I looked at each other.
“She’s got a point, Mr. Jones,” he said.
“She is good at asking questions, Mr. Bones,” I said.

Out came “Jimmy and I looked at each other.” It wasn’t needed. Why hadn’t I seen that before? I hadn’t edited sixteen other stories before.

Since the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime is responsible for the Murder New York Style anthologies, the contributors come from quite a small pool. Those of us who have been around for a while know each other. On the other hand, many of those who submit stories are relative newcomers. I couldn’t have put names to the faces of some of the authors whose stories I edited, though I might have met them at one or two of our monthly meetings. But after working intensively with them online, I did know them, and they knew me. We had developed a relationship.

As a psychotherapist with long-term online clients, I can assure you that genuine emotion, relationship, and personal growth are possible in text and in cyberspace. People who have greeted online writer friends with a hug the first time they met them face to face at Bouchercon or Malice know what I’m talking about. Did you ever hug an editor with whom you’d only exchanged query letters and paper manuscripts? Our SinC chapter ends the season with a party in June at a delightful venue, the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Greenwich Village, before breaking for the summer. This year, every anthology author present whom I hadn’t known before had the same impulse I did: we peered at each other’s name tags, laughed, and flung our arms around each other.

Besides editing Where Crime Never Sleeps: Murder New York Style 4 (Level Best Books), which includes her story, "Death Will Finish Your Marathon," Elizabeth Zelvin is the author of the Bruce Kohler Mysteries, set in New York City, and the Mendoza Family Saga, historical fiction about a Jewish brother and sister who sail with Columbus and later find refuge in the Ottoman Empire. Liz's short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. They have been nominated twice for the Derringer and three times for the Agatha Award for Best Short Story.

New York, New York

by Paul D. Marks

First up, let me congratulate O’Neil De Noux on his Shamus nom. Good luck!

***

New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. Or is it the other way around? Amy (the wife) and I recently spent a week in New York City and I’m still not sure.  (Well, I am, but it plays better the other way.) And now the legally required disclaimer: I wrote about this trip for another blog a few weeks ago as my last slot for SleuthSayers was the family blog post that Amy did. So I didn’t have a chance to talk about our trip here. But it was writing-related and so great and so much fun I wanted to share a slightly revised version with SleuthSayers too.

Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building

The trip came up very unexpectedly when I got an e-mail from Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, telling me that my story Ghosts of Bunker Hill had won the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll and inviting us to come to the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards ceremony, as well as to be their guests at the Edgar Awards. I think I was in disbelief for several days, so we made no plans to head to New York…until the wonderful reality actually sunk in and we headed off to The Big Apple from The Big Sour, I mean, Big Orange.

We booked out on Jet Blue because we heard about their great on-time record. We got lucky—they were late both coming and going. I guess someone has to be the exception to the rule.

The week was a whirlwind of adventures and some sightseeing, much of it filled up with literary events. We arrived Monday night and since the hotel is next door to Grand Central Terminal we decided to check it out and have dinner at the famous Oyster Bar. Talk about a cool place. Then we walked around the neighborhood near the hotel late into the night.

On Tuesday we went to the Ellery Queen offices for tea with Janet and Linda Landrigan of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Jackie Sherbow, senior assistant editor for both EQMM and AHMM. Also there were Doug Allyn and his wife, Eve. Doug’s stories came in #2 and 3 in this year’s poll. But he’s been #1 11 times. I think it will be a long time before anyone can top that!

From L to R: Jackie Sherbow, Doug Allyn, Linda Landrigan,
Janet Hutchings, Me

Everyone was very gracious. And it was good to talk with Janet again and Linda, who I’d met briefly before. And to meet Jackie for the first time in person, but who I’ve had a lot of correspondence with.

Me and Jackie Sherbow.

After the afternoon tea, Jackie very graciously offered to be our guide on the subway, something I really wanted to do. So we subwayed to Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop for a gathering of Edgar nominees, authors, publishers and more (I think we fell into the “more” category, though now that I think about it I guess I’m an author too). It was crowded, it was fun. It was great to see the famous bookstore. And to meet Otto Penzler himself. And to see some people I know, including Edgar nominee Jim Ziskin and many others. And Doug Allyn was kind enough to introduce me to several people.

In the subway: L to R: me, Eve Allyn,
Doug Allyn and Amy

After the party at the Mysterious Bookshop, Jackie was once again our subway guide, taking us to a real New York pizza place that she likes. So she, Doug and Eve, and Amy and I, braved the rain to get to the subway and then the pizza place. And in a scene that could have been out of a Woody Allen movie, we stepped just inside a local market to get out of the rain for a few minutes. I was waiting for the “nasty” New Yorkers to kick us out, but nobody was nasty and nobody kicked us out. Eve grabbed some plastic bags from the produce section to cover our heads and we ventured back out into the rain. We still got soaked by the time we made it to the pizza place. But the pizza was good and it was all worth it. After dinner, Jackie headed home. Doug and Eve, Amy and I took a cab back to the hotel. And this was the one loquacious cabby we had the whole time we were in New York and he was a riot. When we were just about at the hotel he nudged through a crosswalk and some guy in the walk started yelling at him, challenging him to a fight. Now we felt like we were in New York.

Jackie guiding us through the subway.

Wednesday we had a free day, so we played tourists (which we were). Lots of other tourists all around us. We did a tour of Grand Central Terminal, which was right next to the Grand Hyatt Hotel where we were staying and where the Edgars would be held the following evening. (On the other side of the hotel was the Chrysler Building, which we had a view of from our window. Now that’s pretty cool to be sandwiched between the Chrysler Building and Grand Central. During our tour we had another “New York” experience when some jerk called the tour guide a “dirty scumbag” and neither she nor any of us on the tour could figure out why or what she’d done. But despite that, most everyone was really friendly and nice and we had no problems with anyone.

Grand Central Terminal

After our tour of Grand Central we followed Clint Eastwood’s “Speed Zoo” example from the movie True Crime, where he jams his kid through the zoo at the speed of sound, and did “Speed New York.” We bought tickets for the hop on-hop off buses—buses where you can get on at one location and off at the next, hang out, then get back on and go to the next location. This way we saw a lot of the city in one day. Everything from the Empire State Building to the Flat Iron and various neighborhoods. We also hopped onto the Staten Island Ferry. From there we could see the Statue of Liberty. We ended the day in Rockefeller Center and then Times Square and dinner in a pretty good Italian restaurant off Times Square. Our meal was served family style—and being only 2 people we ended up with enough left over to feed everyone in Times Square.

The next day was the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards, held at a specialized library not too far from the hotel. And it was a truly terrific experience. But the best part (besides picking up the award of course 😉) was being able to meet people in person that I know online but hadn’t met for one reason or another. Fellow SleuthSayer David Dean. Tom Savage. Dave Zeltserman, who published some of my stories early on in his HardLuck Stories magazine, and whose Small Crimes was just made into a movie on Netflix that released recently, so check it out. Besides hanging with Janet, Linda and Jackie, we also got to hang with Doug and Eve Allyn again, both of whom were great to hang with.

Me and Doug Allyn at the Ellery Queen Cocktail Party

And, of course, it was more than a thrill to win the award!

Me receiving the Award

And then it was off to the Edgars that evening. Very exciting. And all was going well, I even liked the food (and who likes the food at these things?), until the Master of Ceremonies, Jeffrey Deaver, stumbled and then fainted on the stage while doing some introductions. That was scary. Luckily he was okay, though whisked off to the hospital to make sure it was nothing serious. I believe tests showed that it wasn’t—hope so.

That’s the litany, now for the real deal: While we loved New York and all of the events, the best part of anything like this, Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, etc., is the people. The community of mystery writers is a very warm, very supportive group. And, as I’ve mentioned, it was great to see old friends and also meet new people. We saw Jim Ziskin and Catriona McPherson, and had a nice chat with both of them. Met Otto Penzler. And it was good to meet Sam Reaves, Dave Zeltserman and too many others to name here. And great to spend time with Janet, Linda and Jackie.

Amy and Jackie at the Edgars.

New York has a bad rep in some ways and people who know me thought I’d hate it (as I haven’t been there in years…decades). I loved it. I loved the crowds. I loved the energy. I loved the writing community. I loved this whole unexpected trip. And I’m more than appreciative to Janet Hutchings for publishing Ghosts of Bunker Hill and taking a chance on my first story for Ellery Queen, Howling at the Moon (which, by the way, made it to #7 in the Ellery Queen Readers Poll). And to Linda Landrigan for publishing my story Twelve Angry Days in the current (May/June 2017) issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. And to Jackie for everything she does to keep the wheels turning. And last but certainly not least to the people who voted for Ghosts of Bunker Hill and made it #1.

***

Something else that hit me while in NYC was the use of location.  Setting plays a major role in most of what I write. Author S.W. Lauden has said about my work, “I just read your next novel Vortex. I loved how the action bounced around Southern California, almost as if the region was one of the main characters.”

To me, location can sometimes be a driving force for the characters. Of course, they have inner motivations, but where they live, the zeitgeist, ambience and flavor of the city or desert or whatever locations the stories take place in adds to their motivations. And being in New York really made me notice the different energies and vibe of different cities. They really do have personalities of their own and those personalities influence and affect the characters. There are some stories that could only take place in New York and some that could only take place in LA, and not just by mentioning a street name or a location, it’s more than that. It’s the spirit of the place that comes through.  For me that location is often, though not always (see my story Deserted Cities of the Heart in Akashic’s St. Louis Noir and set there, of course) Los Angeles. And even though LA’s been done to death you might say…you haven’t seen my LA.

For more on my relationship with the City of Angels, please check out this link to my very first SleuthSayers post:
http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2015/02/adventures-in-la-la-land.html 

***

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Twelve Angry Days is in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, on sale at newsstands. Or click here to buy online. If you like food and you like mysteries, I think you might like this story.

***

I'll be at the California Crime Writers Conference in Culver City, June 10th and 11th. I'm on a panel called "The Long and Short of It: Short Stories and Novellas vs. Novels" with William Kent Krueger, Kate Thornton and Travis Richardson, moderated by S.W. Lauden. Hope to see you there!
http://www.ccwconference.org/

www.PaulDMarks.com

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The Spy Who Bagged Me

by Leigh Lundin

Zoya Voskresenskaya

Anna Chapman

Anyone who’s watched a James Bond or a tacky Derek Flint film knows the Russians have licentious taste in spies… well, perhaps not Rosa Klebb, more like famed Zoya Voskresenskaya (Zoya Rybkina, Зоя Рыбкина, née Воскресенская). Deported Anna Chapman wasn’t a very good spy, but her incompetence and stunning looks inspired the New York Post to ask “But can we keep her?”

Such a wistful propensity may have prompted other New York-based spies to opt for Hooters as a clandestine meeting spot. Hooters?

Code name Green Kryptonite

Meet Naveed Jamali. His parents owned a specialty store, Books & Research, in Dobbs Ferry, Westchester, New York. In the latter 1980s, a known Russian agent strolled into the bookshop and asked for arcane but legally obtainable reports available from a proprietary government database run by the Defense Technical Information Center. The FBI asked the family to fulfill those requests and notify the FBI as to Russian interests.

This continued for twenty years until young Naveed took over the store. Motivated by a desire to join Naval Intelligence, he leveraged his relationship with the FBI into becoming an amateur– but authentic– spy, complete with an audio recording watch Q himself might have designed.

Double-O-Nought

The FBI targeted the latest of a series of Russian agents, a trade mission attaché and seasoned operative, Oleg Kulikov. Diplomatic immunity meant the FBI couldn’t arrest Kulikov, but they could bring his career to a close. Considering occasional spy swaps, it was a smart move by the Feds.

The plan called for Jamali’s arrest at Pizzeria Uno in the presence of Kulikov, but at the last moment, the Russian opted to return to Hooters, putting the operation at risk. Nonetheless, federal agents swooped in and handcuffed Jamali in a fake apprehension, thus ending Kulikov’s espionage and usefulness as a clandestine operative.

Look for Naveed Jamali's book about his experience, How to Catch a Russian Spy. Fox Entertainment has negotiated film rights for the story.

Spies Through the Pages

Last year saw the release of a wonderful film about Alan Turing, The Imitation Game. For another great read and a chance to meet Turing’s competition in wartime British Intelligence, read Leo Marks’ autobiographical Between Silk and Cyanide.

Mystery And History--A Story

by David Dean

A number of my fellow SleuthSayers regularly contribute pieces based on history, and I usually find them intensely interesting.  Eve Fisher has done some wonderful pieces, as have David Edgerly Gates, R.T. Lawton, and others.  I've taken a stab at a few myself.  I like history, especially American, English, Native American, and when it's not too turgid, Catholic history.

A few years ago my wife, Robin, gave me a very slim book entitled, "A Journey Into Mohawk And Oneida Country 1634-1635."  It was not so much a history (at least it was not intended to be so) as a journal of a Dutch surgeon/barber sent with two merchants to renegotiate a trade agreement with the Iroquois.  All three were employee/colonists for the Dutch West India Company and living at an outpost known as Fort Orange near present day Albany, New York.  It appeared that the impetus for this dangerous task was French interference in the lucrative beaver pelt trade.  They threatened to undercut their Dutch rivals with their Algonquian alliances, so an adjustment was needed from the Iroquois in order for the guild to continue to prosper.  All pretty cut and dry, and to be honest, the author, while diligent, was not putting together a future best-seller here.  Nonetheless, I was very excited to have, and anxious to read, the little volume simply because it was a rare, and very early, first-hand account of life among the Mohawk and Oneida.

Battle Between Iroquois and Algonquian Tribes

But where's the mystery, you may be asking yourself?  To begin with the author was the mystery.  The man attributed to writing this brief record never identifies himself within its pages.  It was a journal, after all, which he was keeping for the company records.  He probably just assumed that the audience he was writing for would know who had written it.  After all there were only three of them, and they had been commissioned by the Company.  His two companions are identified within its pages.  However, for the historians, it would take over two hundred years for the author's identity to be revealed.

This began with the fortunate discovery of the document itself in 1895; stored in a forgotten archive in Holland.  It was one of the very few Dutch West India Company records to have escaped the great purge that was accomplished when that institution was dissolved hundreds of years before.  Its discoverer was an American, who recognized its worth, bought it, and brought it back to the States.  It would take additional minds and decades before a list of possible authors was made up based on colonial census records and passenger lists from Holland.  In the end, it was narrowed down to a young man in his early twenties who recorded his profession as surgeon/barber when he boarded a vessel for the colonies.  His name was Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert and bound for New Amsterdam.  He was the right age, at the right time, practicing the right profession, and headed for the right place.  There were no others that fit that bill so exactly.  Once identified, his name was found numerous times throughout the colony's transactions and history during the 1600's.  He was to prosper in the New World and grow into a much respected figure.  He would not die that way.

Bogaert's selection for this dangerous, but important, assignment gives us some indication that he was well thought of and trusted after only a few years in the colony.  His being a surgeon (read blood-letter, and first aid practitioner) was, no doubt, a part in their decision-making process.  There must have been a feeling of great urgency in this matter, as well, as the intrepid three were being sent forth just days from Christmas during an intensely cold winter.  Wearing clothing and footwear totally unsuitable for the journey ahead, they followed their Indian guide out of the village and onto barely discernible trails knee-deep in snow with drifts sometimes chest-high.  Their all-day treks were measured in mere miles; often traveling no more that two or three in a day.  During all this Bogaert makes entries in his journal that are both brief and laconic.  In their first encounter with the natives, they chance upon and surprise a group who throw down their packs and flee into the trees upon seeing the white men.  The Dutchmen and their guide then proceed to help themselves to any food that they can find among the Indians' discarded goods, while the owners watch them from the shadows.  The natives make no move to stop, or molest them, and the trade party moves on.  Bogaert makes no further comment on this episode. 

When they reach the first village of a chain they must visit, they are greeted warmly.  It is never expressed in Bogaert's diary, but one gets the impression that the Mohawk chiefs had been apprised in advance of their arrival and were expecting them; knew their purpose.  Brought into longhouses containing as many as forty occupants, the exhausted travelers are given a place by one of the many fires.  Bogaert and his men are wet and frozen.  They are fed bear and beaver meat.  Bogaert never offers his opinion of this fare, but it is apparent that he eats it readily.  They do some trading, sleep, and move on the next day with a new guide to the next village.  These actions are repeated throughout their adventure, with only chance observations of how their hosts lived; their customs.  He writes once of a chief showing him the tribe's "god," a stuffed marten with protruding teeth, decorated with beads and feathers.  In another example he records, with chilling understatement, that one of the braves they are bedding down with for the night wishes to cut him.  They arise the following day and move on with no further mention of the threat, or how they spent their night.  The writer in me couldn't help but wonder--did they sleep?  Did they ask for the chief's intervention and protection?  Was there any trouble that night, or did the threat turn out to be completely baseless?  And what was the warrior's motivation in this instance?  Had he been offended, or was he just curious to see if the Dutch bled the same color as the Iroquois?  Maddening little details.

On another occasion they are treated to a curing ceremony conducted by two of the tribe's shaman.  Inside a small bark-covered longhouse filled with smoke from a roaring fire, the two sweating elders put sticks down their throats and projectile vomit onto the hapless patient, a young man laid low with fever.  Again, our hero offers little enlightenment.  Being a surgeon, had he asked to witness one of their healing ceremonies?  Was the patient cured?  What were his, and his companions, reactions to this extraordinary display?  Silence.

As to his own doctoring abilities we are given only a glimpse.  When one of his companion's legs begins to swell, he records cutting it three times with his knife and dressing it with bear grease.  We can only assume that the result was salutary, as they all continue their travels shortly thereafter.

We are left to infer that the Mohawk and Oneida are lacking firearms at this date, as Bogaert makes no mention of them, but records their fascination with the European's guns.  Though on two occasions the trio is entreated by entire villages to discharge the weapons into the air, they steadfastly refuse to do so.  Bogaert writes of their disappointment, as the Indians are well aware of the fire and thunder the guns produce and are excited to witness it, but again frustrates the reader as to the reason for the refusals.  One can only guess that the Dutchmen were loathe to empty their one-shot weapons and become helpless to defend themselves.  Perhaps this was the Iroquois' secret intent, or our pilgrims feared it might be.  After all, there had been that troubling earlier instance with the warrior and his knife. 

Yet, at the end of Bogaert's brief journal the adventurer-merchants return unharmed to their colony.  Perhaps due to the success of their efforts, Bogaert himself becomes a respected trading merchant in the coming years, and prosperous enough to buy part ownership of the privateer vessel, La Garce, and uses it to prey on Spanish shipping in the West Indies.  At twenty-nine, he marries a woman living in the colony and they have four children over the next several years.  He continues to gain both wealth and stature within the hard-working community.  Then, at age thirty-six, he is charged with sodomy and flees the colony for the relative safety of the Mohawks he had visited years before.  Just like that, everything changes.

Van den Bogaert stood accused of having sexual relations with a black male servant in his employ named Tobias.  The servant was captured while Bogaert remained at large amongst the Native Americans.  Undaunted, it seems, the colony appointed a man-catcher to go after him and bring Bogaert out of Indian country.  Whether this was a difficult undertaking, or not, is never explained, only that his capture results.  On the return trek, Bogaert manages to escape once more, and in his desperation, attempts to flee across a frozen river.  Unable to support his weight, the ice gives way and he plunges into the frigid waters and perishes.  It is not recorded if his body was ever recovered, or if an attempt was made to do so.

Likewise, we never learn of Bogaert's own feelings about the events he participated in during his extraordinary travels among the Iroquois.  He never once expresses his own feelings and impressions in his terse, business-like journal.  The historians responsible for researching his time among the Iroquoian peoples wisely refrain from interpreting his writings to conform with modern opinions and prejudices.  The scant, and ultimately startling, events comprising the biographic introduction to the piece are, likewise, left to tell their own tale without interpretation or embellishment.  We know what happened, but not why.  There are so many unanswered questions that I find it tempting to fill in the blanks.  Clearly, this was a capable and complex man.  Ultimately, we know what he did, but not who he really was, and it is difficult not to assign him modern motives and thinking.  But that wouldn't actually be the truth, would it?  We so seldom know what our own contemporaries really think and feel; even when they do express themselves freely and often.  So, in the end, Herr Bogaert forms the juncture of both history and mystery, revealed in his actions and writing, but still shrouded in the mystery of human behavior--an intriguing, but frustrating, cipher.

Fresh Slices

One of the best blogs is Women of Mystery and my favorite word artist there is Terrie Moran, who may or may not be the great-great-great grandchild of Colonel Sebastian Moran. The WoM are smart, sassy, and damn fine writers. Many are members of the New York chapter of Sisters in Crime (SinC), which have a new book out with the creepy title Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices.

Read Terrie's article about the anthology and then read this book, cooked up by seasoned authors and peppered with excellent examples of the many ways to die in New York.

Terrie Farley Moran

by Terrie Farley Moran

Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices is the second anthology written by the New York / Tri-State chapter of Sisters in Crime. The heart of the twenty-two stories in Fresh Slices is the diversity of people and neighborhoods within the five boroughs of New York City—all very different, yet all very New York. Our goal was to introduce readers to places far off the tourist track. We are delighted that Derringer winner Anita Page kicks off the anthology in Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, where we see the effects of a decades old murder in “Tear Down.” The anthology’s final story pulls readers east through Queens and into the lives of day laborers struggling to get through a particularly gruesome job. Written by Edgar and Anthony nominee K.j.a. Wishnia, “North of Clinton” is sure to leave an impression. Kindle readers might like to know that “Tear Down” is the free “first chapter” in the Kindle bookstore copy of Fresh Slices. I’m sure it will leave you wanting more New York attitude. 

East-side, west-side— In Manhattan there once was a meat packing district on each side of town. “A Countdown to Death,” by Deirdre Verne is set in a gorgeous building in Tudor City which was built on  the east-side meat packing site, while in “Taking the Highline,” Fran Bannigan Cox brings us inside the pulse pounding clubs and the lush elevated park that have taken over the meat packing district on the west-side.

In “A Vampire in Brooklyn” Leigh Neely not only helps us imagine life with vampires working as officers in the NYPD, she also share secrets about the Brooklyn Bridge that few people know.

It’s 9/11. You are standing on a rise in MacNeil Park in the Borough of Queens with the locals gathered to pray as they watch events unfold across the East River in “The Sneaker Tree,” my contribution to the anthology.

For a splendid taste of the kinds of odd locations and diverse stories you can expect to find here, click over for a free read of Clare Toohey’s story, “A Morbid Case of Identity Theft.” Clare starts her story in The Morbid Anatomy Library, “a private research library and collection of curiosities” and ends it in the streets of Brooklyn beside the Gowanus Canal.

On behalf of the anthology authors and all of the members of the Sisters in Crime New York/Tri-State chapter, many thanks to Leigh Lundin and the other SleuthSayers for inviting us to introduce Fresh Slices to your many friends and readers.

Information about the stories, the authors, and book availability is available at Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices. Be sure to click on the “small bites” tab to read the first one hundred fifty words or so of each story. And on the home page, please don’t forget to scroll down to see THE THONG.

See you in New York!