Crimes Against Nature: Round Robin

As I said two weeks ago, I edited Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy, which Down and Out Books recently published.   I asked some of the contribu5tors to answer a few questions related to the book.  And here you go...

Give me five words about your story.

R.T. Lawton: Clandestine labs poison the environment.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Dead Bodies in Lake Mead

Janice Law: pollution, family, development, loss & revenge

Michael Bracken: Water is life. And death.

Mark Stevens: Exploiters of nature; delusional avenger.

Susan Breen: Over-tourism, volcanos, mother/daughter issues, Costa Rica and selfies

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Wind energy on Native reservations.

Robert Lopresti: Recycling obsessions can be dangerous.

Josh Pachter: “bad neighbor,” revenge, poison, semi-autobiographical

Karen Harrington: Illegal dumping. A fight for life.

Sarah M. Chen: Influencers, beaches, responsibility, privilege, overtourism 

Barb Goffman: Comedy, neighbors, kitty-cat, marijuana, gardening

Gary Phillips: Influenced by the 1970s era, the Bronze Age of Comics. Specifically, the mystically charged Swamp Thing created by Len Wein (writer), and Bernie Wrightson (artist).

Crimes Against Nature uses mystery fiction to look at social (and scientific issues).  What is your favorite (or first-encountered) mystery novel or story that deals with social issues?

Sarah M. Chen: Because I recently read it and Wanda M. Morris is one of my favorite writers, the book that comes to mind is her latest, an atmospheric, taut thriller called What You Leave Behind. It’s set in the Gullah-Geechee community on the Georgia coast and deals with illegal land grabbing and the heirs property system that disproportionally affects Black and brown communities.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: First? Wow. Probably P.D. James, but which one, I have no idea.

Jon McGoran: Hard to remember what my first was, but when I was young, I went through an intense Carl Hiaasen phase, voraciously reading everything he wrote. I loved how he addressed environmental issues, while at the same time crafting these great crime stories, and never coming across as a scold, instead having great fun doing it.

S.J. Rozan: John Gregory Dunne, True Confessions.

Susan Breen: Walter Moseley’s novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the first time I understood racism in a visceral way. I wasn’t watching it from afar, but was there, with Easy Rawlins.

Robert Lopresti:  Some of Rex Stout's novels discussed social issues (A Right to Die, The Doorbell Rang, etc.) but when I first read them I was too young to absorb that.  In college I loved James McClure's The Steam Pig, which was about policing in South Africa under apartheid.

Janice Law: I can only mention some recent books, all of which dealt with child abuse in official custody of one sort or another: Fiona McPhillips's When We Were Silent, Rene Denfeld's Sleeping Giants and James McBride's, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Even though she likely doesn’t think of it as a mystery novel, The Round House by Louise Erdrich is an amazing book that deals with criminal justice issues on Native lands. It’s a great read that also educates and illuminates. I highly recommend it, although she has so many other tremendous novels, so it’s hard to pick a favorite.

Gary Phillips: One of the first novels I recall dealing with a social issue, an environmental one at that and its implications was Ross Macdonald’s Sleeping Beauty. His fictional take on the real-life Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 as the backdrop to a Lew Archer, private eye tale.

Mark Stevens: The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo is one of my favorites.  

Name an author who has had the biggest impact on your short stories.

 Barb Goffman: Art Taylor. I learn something that helps my craft every time I read one of his stories.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   Stephen King

Jon McGoran:  I’ve always straddled mystery and scifi, but I think Elmore Leonard is the author whose style has most impacted me as a writer.

Susan Breen: My love of Agatha Christie inspired me to write mysteries, but Sue Grafton had a huge effect on how I think about the women who are usually my protagonists. She taught me that they could be bold, flawed and funny.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: I’ll always return to the stories of Flannery O’Connor, although my own work bears no resemblance to her amazing tales. For dialogue, I was heavily influenced by Raymond Carver, although I once had a well-known writer scream at me when I mentioned that I admired Carver’s stories. I still believe that Carver’s dialogue is some of the best out there—consistently expressive and surprising.

Gary Phillips: No one writer had the biggest impact but certainly short stories by Poe and Rod Serling – those Twilight Zone teleplays turned into short stories. And it’s only fair to note Walter Gibson, the pulp writer who essentially created the Shadow, turned those into prose.

Robert Lopresti: Can't stop at one: Stanley Ellin, John Collier, Jack Ritchie, Avram Davidson.

Sarah M. Chen: Patricia Abbott. One of my favorites of hers is from Betty Fedora, Issue One, a dark little gem called “Ten Things I Hate About My Wife."

Janice Law: This is difficult, because unlike most writers, I began with novels and only began writing and publishing short fiction after I had launched the Anna Peters series and a couple of history books. So, influences were the mystery writers I enjoyed: Dorothy L. Sayers, because she had Harriet Vane who was so much better than the usual female characters of the time; Eric Ambler, who was the god of suspense in my estimation, and Raymond Chandler for his irresistible style and mastery of atmosphere.

Karen Harrington: John Floyd, Stephen King, Barb Goffman and Ray Bradbury.

Mark Stevens: Patricia Highsmith

Which environmental issue is having the most direct effect on you now?

Karen Harrington: I don't know if it's a direct effect, but when I did research on illegal dumping of car oil and other car liquids, I discovered that it is alarmingly prolific. That's disturbing. There are companies that are weighing the cost of getting caught versus the damage to the environment and taking the gamble. This is from large companies to the small auto parts stores we see across the country. (And interestingly, in my research I found the attached photo describing the 1963 Popular Science method of disposing of used engine oil. What?! This practice was commonly accepted and thought to have no impact on the soil. Really shows that science is rarely settled and must continually learn and reevaluate what we think we know.)

Gary Phillips: Given I live in a seemingly now continuous wildfire state, no particular season for them as in the past, global warming is pretty dang real to me.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: The wildfires in Colorado seem to be getting worse every year, which is really distressing. I’m now living in New York for the first time since 2013, and I still have strong memories of Hurricane Sandy and the misery caused by that storm.

Mark Stevens: Everything climate change -- dwindling water supplies, threat of forest fires, impact on agriculture.

S.J. Rozan: Global warming, which encompasses all others

Susan Breen: Climate change is the environmental issue having the most direct effect on me because it is influencing where and how I live.

August 2023

Robert Lopresti: Most summers now we have days when the air is so full of wildfire smoke that it is considered dangerous to be outside.

Jon McGoran: I think climate change is having the greatest impact on most of us, both the direct effects of it that we’re already feeling, the (inadequate) measures we’re taking to combat it, and the fear and anxiety of what is to come, but I also wonder if nanoplastics and microplastics will end up being even more damaging to us.

Janice Law:  I very much hope to be gone myself before the warbler migration fails. Living in the Northeast, we have escaped some of the most immediate effects of climate change but it is becoming clear that every civilization, including ours, is dependent on the natural world and on favorable climate conditions. We have been slow to learn this as well as careless about our pollution and exploitation of the natural world.

Sarah M. Chen: I live close to the beach so am aware of the alarming rise in sickened and abandoned marine mammals, like whales and sea lion pups. This is due to a number of things like rising ocean temperatures which increases toxin levels and pups being forced to dive deeper and further for food.     

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The warming of the planet, since I live in Las Vegas.

Themed mystery anthologies seem to be growing in popularity. Any thoughts on that trend?

Gary Phillips: Having edited or co-edited a number of themed anthologies, South Central Noir, The Cocaine Chronicles to name two, I think if you can hook the potential reader on the subject matter, they like diving in and out of a given short story. They’re not getting exhausted if you’ve tried to turn the idea into a novel, maybe having to pad the story.

Sarah M. Chen:  They're fun and I'm all for it!

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:  I think the more mystery stories the better.

Susan Breen: Anthologies force writers to get out of their regular routines. It’s a challenge to try something new and my suspicion is that because of that, the stories will have a jolt of energy to them.

Mark Stevens: I think once the whole idea of building short story collections on rock bands took off, well, there's no shortage of material.  Waiting for the first collection based on  songs by The Velvet Underground.

Karen Harrington: I think readers and writers enjoy seeing how different minds approach the same topic. I know I do.

 S.J. Rozan: Themed anthologies make total sense -- they allow readers to watch a wide variety of writers exploring topics they're interested in.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Yes, I love the trend, and I’ll note that I’m editing one of these myself:  Native Noir, due out sometime in 2025 from Akashic Books. In that volume, some of the greatest Indigenous authors currently writing agreed to try their hand at a noir story, broadly defined. I hope to see more of the music-based anthologies, and I’m still salty that I didn’t know about the two Steely Dan books. Their songs are perfect, of course, for crime tales, and I’m hoping someone will put together another one (and please contact me if you do!)

Robert Lopresti: I love the fact that you can give twenty authors the same assignment and get twenty wildly different, but all fascinating responses.

Janice Law: I think it is a sensible attempt to create a new home for short fiction, which has been evicted from the newspapers and magazines that used to pay well for short stories.

 None of the authors in this book chose to write historical stories. Are there any environmental issues/events in history you think are particularly intriguing?

Gary Phillips: Interesting question. I suppose if I were to give it some thought, how the growth of the Industrial Revolution polluting the skies in England, damaging peoples’ lungs irreparably, comes to mind.

Robert Lopresti: The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted it caught fire 14 times. Publicity from the 1969 blaze lit a fuse (sorry) that started the modern environmental movement.

Sarah M. Chen: I watched a documentary on the Chernobyl disaster and found it horrifying and fascinating. I knew very little about it despite being a kid when it happened.

Susan Breen: I’m a great fan of Charles Dickens and have always been fascinated and appalled by what living conditions were like in London during Victorian times, even for the wealthy. Joseph Bazalgette’s construction of the sewer system has got to be one of the greatest environmental triumphs ever. Now that I think about it, I can come up with various murderous scenarios. Maybe I should have…

Barb Goffman: All of these historical events could be put to good use in a crime story...
        Oil spills - Exxon-Valdez, BP, etc.
        Toxic chemical dumping - Love Canal
        Water contamination - Woburn, MA, and Flint, MI
        Nuclear plant meltdown - Three Mile Island, though given recent news, Three Mile Island could also factor into a contemporary story.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   I've been fascinated for a long time by the Little Ice Age, as well as the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, causing more than 90,000 people to die, and inspiring one of the coldest (and darkest) summers on record in 1816, which led to lots of literary mayhem (like Frankenstein, Dracula, and some Lord Byron poetry).

S.J. Rozan:  1. The Great Flood of 1927 along the Mississippi.  2. Boston's 1919 Molasses Flood

Mark Stevens: Like, a zillion. My mind goes to all the ways mankind has plumbed nature or depended on nature for resources.  Early days of mining.  Or drilling for oil.  I'm fascinated by the idea that gigantic supertankers are ferrying oil around the globe. When was the first? Who dreamed that up? Seventy-seven million barrels of oil are moving around the globe every day.  At what cost? At what risk?  

Janice Law: We have a couple of big ones just in our own national history: the near extermination of the buffalo, the loss of the passenger pigeons, and what is proving to be the very foolish attempt to create "fur deserts" in the west. The loss of the beaver had impacted water storage in these dry areas just as the huge reduction in buffalo has had an impact on soil conservation etc on the prairies.

The trouble with these events, and with many environmental issues, is that they don't necessarily fit well with the demands of short mystery fiction, which are surprising like the old classical unities: one time, one place, one action, and that additional requirement that also goes back to the ancient Greeks: a beginning  in the middle of the action.

Crimes Against Nature: The Anthology

I don't know if you noticed that the world changed on Monday, October 7, but I did. Down and Out Books published Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy. It is the first anthology I have edited.  

As I hope the title makes clear, each story relates crime to some ecological issue: climate change, wildfire, environmental justice, invasive species, recycling, overtourism, etc.  The types of stories cover the (polluted) waterfront: noir, police, caper, comic, psychological, even one inspired by comic books!

This book  has been a long time coming.  I remember telling my buddy S.J. Rozan about the idea at the Bouchercon in Raleigh and that was, heaven help us, 2015.  

Why did it take ten years? Because I'm not the most efficient go-getter in the writing trade and because it took a while to find the right publisher.  

Once Down and Out said yes my first move was to go back to S.J. and remind her of her enthusiasm for the project a decade ago.

She replied approximately that she had no time and couldn't possibly do it,so of course she would.  As I have said before, S.J. is a mensch.  She even provided what I had hoped for but did not dare to request: a story about Chin Yong-Yun, the wonderful mother of Lydia Chin, who stars in many of Rozan's novels.  Like all the shorts about Mrs. Chin, this one is a treat.

As for the other authors, some will be very familiar to the SleuthSayers readers: Michael Bracken, Barb Goffman, R.T. Lawton, Janice Law, and (ahem) Robert Lopresti.

Then there is a category of some of the best names in the short mystery field: Josh Pachter, Gary Phillips, and  Kristine Kathryn Rusch,

Some authors I consider newcomers, although that may only be because I suspect I was first published before they were born: Sosan Breen, Sarah M.Chen, Karen Harrington, and David Heska Hanbli Weiden.

Finally we have Jon McGoran and Mark Stevens, whom I chose because their excellent writing has centered on the environment.

It's a stellar cast and I can't wait for you to discover what dirt they have dug up.

How Do You Count?

Some of Michael’s many publications.

How do short-story writers tally their literary output? By the number of acceptances? By the number of publications? Or by some other metric?

It’s easy, in the beginning:

Imma Writer is the author of three stories published or forthcoming in Anthology A and Magazines A and B.

Imma Writer is the author of more than ten stories, including stories published or forthcoming in Anthology A, Anthology B, and Magazines A, B, and C.

But, when the numbers creep into the dozens, the hundreds, and especially when they top a thousand; when acceptances and publications include reprints; and when publishers fail to send contributor copies, how does one determine one’s actual accomplishments?

Lately my bios have included some variation of “Michael Bracken is the author of several books and almost 1,300 short stories.” But what does that actually mean?

Damned if I knew. So, I took a deep dive into my short-story publication records, which immediately made me wish I had a database rather than a 111-page Word document listing all my acceptances and publications.

ACCEPTED AND PUBLISHED

As I write this on September 15, 2024, I have received 1,466 short-story acceptances.

These include 1,263 original stories and 203 reprints.

I have 1,172 confirmed short-story publications—997 original stories and 175 reprints.

FORTHCOMING AND MISSING-IN-ACTION

While I have several dozen stories—original and reprint—forthcoming in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Crimes Against Nature, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Tough, Wish Upon a Crime, and many other anthologies and periodicals, I am uncertain of the status of a few hundred stories.

Early in my career I wrote for several publications that never provided contributor copies and regularly changed story titles, and I wrote under pseudonyms the editors sometimes changed. Finding copies of these publications and confirming actual publication is damned-near impossible. I wrote ’em, I was paid for ’em, but I have no idea if the stories were ever published and, if so, under what titles and what bylines.

(Side note: I have no idea how many stories I’ve actually written. I lost much of my early unsold work in a flood, and I didn’t try to track complete-but-unsold work until a few years ago.)

WHAT NOW?

My records would be better if every publisher automatically sent contributor copies and if, years ago, I had done a better job tracking down copies when they didn’t. While most of the missing-in-action stories would remain buried in my files even if I had copies of them, a few have reprint potential that I might be able to exploit if I could confirm their original publication.

But I can’t.

What I can do, however, is ensure that I keep good records and contributor copies of every sale going forward.

And you should, too.

* * *

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

“Black Mack” was reprinted in Crimeucopia: Let Me Tell You About….

“Beat the Clock” was reprinted in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS

Along with John Connor and fellow SleuthSayer Barb Goffman, I will participate in “Truths, Lies, and Myths Debunked: Editors Tell All,” a panel at this Saturday’s virtual conference WriteNOW! Jay Hartman will moderate.

September 26-29, I’ll be at SleuthFest in St. Petersburg, FL, where I will lead “The Business of Writing Short: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques to Build a Sustainable Career,” a 75-minute presentation covering some of the same information I presented at ShortCon earlier this year. If you missed ShortCon, you won’t want to miss my presentation at SleuthFest.

Compiling a Multi-Author Collection

I am glad to welcome guest author Judy Penz Sheluk today, who is talking about anthologies. Take it away, Judy!

— Barb Goffman

Compiling a Multi-Author Collection

by Judy Penz Sheluk 

Mega thanks to Barb Goffman, who was kind enough to relinquish her regular spot here so that I could celebrate the Release Day of Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense. As Barb will tell you, putting together an anthology is a lot more complicated than randomly arranging a few stories together, though there is a bit of that. And while I can’t speak for Barb or other anthology editors, I thought you might enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at how this editor compiles a multi-author collection. Ready?  

Step 1: Send out the Call for Submissions. I always allow 90 days. This time around, I also capped entries at 80 in the hope that authors would be less inclined to wait until the eleventh hour of the 90th day to submit.  

Step 2: Using a spreadsheet, I log every submission as it’s received with the author’s name, pen name, email address, story title, word count, and state/province/country. I ask for state/province/country merely out of curiosity. In the case of Larceny & Last Chances, there were submissions representing 29 states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada. At this point, I also notify the author that their submission has been received. 

Step 3: I read the stories in batches of two or three, usually in the same week they are received. On my spreadsheet, I’ll include a brief comment to remind me what the story is about. I also keep a column of No or Long List—these are the “maybes”—I can’t really make a final selection until all the stories are received and read. 

Step 4: Authors on the No list are notified by email, with a short note explaining why their story is not a fit, e.g., didn’t adequately fit the theme of larceny AND last chances (that, by the way, is the #1 reason a story is rejected). I do this at the time the decision is made so the author can find another home for their story. Authors on the Long List are also notified by email, just letting them know they’re still in the running. In addition to being an editor, I’m also an author. I know what waiting for word feels like. 

Step 5: After all submissions have been read, it’s time to reread the Maybes and start culling down the list. For Larceny & Last Chances, there were 38 on the long list. At this stage, I sent the stories to Andrea Adair-Tippins, a librarian at the Whitby Public Library, for a much-appreciated second opinion. Compare notes. 

Step 6: Send out final rejections or acceptances. Prepare contracts and get them signed. Spread the word. At the same time, I’m working with Hunter Martin, the graphic artist I commission for all my cover art.  

Step 7: Sort the story order. Back to the spreadsheet, alternating by narrator (male/female/young/old) and story length. 

Step 8: Format the book for digital and print (I use Vellum, which I love). Send out ARCs for blurbs/advance reviews (arranged well in advance). 

Step 9: Get the book up on pre-order and schedule promotional opportunities (like this post). 

Step 10: Celebrate Release Day. Whew! Who knew 230 days could fly by so quickly?   

About Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense 

Sometimes it’s about doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s about getting even. Sometimes it’s about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, it’s your last, best, chance. Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk and featuring stories by Christina Boufis, John Bukowski, Brenda Chapman, Susan Daly, Wil A. Emerson, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, Molly Wills Fraser, Gina X. Grant, Karen Grose, Wendy Harrison, Julie Hastrup, Larry M. Keeton, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Gregory Meece, Cate Moyle, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Kevin R. Tipple, and Robert Weibezahl. Find it at: www.books2read.com/larceny 

About the editor: Judy Penz Sheluk is a former journalist and magazine editor and the bestselling author of two mystery series, several short stories, and two books on publishing. She is also the publisher and editor of four Superior Shores Anthologies. Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she served as Chair. Find out more at www.judypenzsheluk.com.

Writerhood of the Traveling Pants

Which pants shall I pack?

This is shaping up to be a busy year, with multiple projects due before year-end. It’ll be even busier than usual because I’m attending several conferences and conventions.

A busy travel schedule is unusual for me. Until the past few years, circumstances prevented me from attending most conferences, conventions, and related writing events, only putting Bouchercon and Malice Domestic on my regular schedule after Temple and I married.

Last year, I increased my travel schedule. In addition to Bouchercon and Malice, I attended Between The Pages Writers Conference, Crime Bake, and the Edgar Awards banquet. This year, I’m already scheduled to attend Bouchercon, the Edgar Awards banquet, Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, ShortCon, SleuthFest, ThrillerFest, and the Texas Institute of Letters Conference. I will also Zoom in for Mystery in the Midlands, and next week will do an online presentation for Sisters in Crime Northeast. (Unfortunately, Temple still works a day job and is only able to join me for a few of these events.)

While the online presentations and conferences don’t require travel, they do require putting on pants. In addition to remembering to pack my pants for the live events, the other conferences and conventions require additional planning—from determining which airlines, which flights, and which airports to fly from to determining if I can fit everything I need into a carry-on bag or if I’ll need to pack so much that a checked bag (or two) will be required.

And all the traveling cuts into writing and editing time. So, do I take my laptop computer—which is one more thing to tote around—and attempt to work? That hasn’t generally worked out well for me.

For those of you who travel extensively in support of your writing career, what tips do you have? Do you take a laptop computer with you, and do you actually manage to get work done?

2024 TRAVEL SCHEDULE

If you’re also attending any of these live events, please stop me and say howdy.

Left Coast Crime https://leftcoastcrime.org/2024/

Malice Domestic https://www.malicedomestic.net/

Edgar Awards Banquet https://mysterywriters.org/product/2024-edgar-award-banquet-tickets/

Texas Institute of Letters Conference https://texasinstituteofletters.org/

ThrillerFest https://thrillerfest.com/

ShortCon

Bouchercon https://www.bouchercon2024.com/

Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology (Level Short, 2024) contains 24 stories by some of your favorite short-story writers. So, belly up to the bar, order your favorite libation, crack the spine, and wet your literary whistle.

Your attention is most kindly requested.

            I often read in the newspaper that there’s been a general erosion in common civility.  That may be true, since why argue with sociological studies and the finely tuned antennas of our media watch dogs, ever alert for any diminishment in our quality of life.  

            But I just don’t see it.  That is, I rarely suffer this during my day-to-day undertakings.  In fact, I think people are mostly more congenial and sociable than they used to be.  It could be that since I now have white hair they take pity on me and my declining faculties, and express greater kindness than I experienced as a young man.  Maybe I’m now more convivial myself, and get rewarded by a response in kind.  I’m willing to accept these variables as suggesting I’m all wrong.

            Though still not be convinced. 

            It might be that social media interactions are larded with terribly disrespectful and aggressive behaviors, and that has warped our perception of the overall state of public comportment.  Since I participate in social media only glancingly, and then only with friendly people I know, I never confront such conduct.  If I did I’d tell the offenders, in the nicest way possible, to stick it in their ears and never communicate with them again.

              It helps to have a dog.  Only the hardest heart can resist our terrier’s charms.  He elicits good feelings from every version of human being, irrespective of socio-economic standing, race, creed, orientation or nationality.  We once had a motorcycle gang cooing over our pups, comparing notes on healthy diets and grooming strategies.  I think foreigners first learn our language by saying “Hello.”, “How much?”, “Where’s the bathroom?” and “Cute dog!”  We’re the fortunate beneficiaries of this canine charisma, since much of it seems to rub off. 

           

            I’ve been to Ireland and Australia, countries that have set the English-speaking gold standard for full-throated cheerfulness and good will toward any and all.  By contrast, I live in New York and New England, who many contend occupy the other end of the spectrum.  But this isn’t really fair.  New Yorkers are actually quite friendly and garrulous, it just feels like they’re shouting at you.  You have to tune your ears to the right pitch.  

            New Englanders are taciturn and reserved, it’s true, though get them started on a favorite subject, like the Patriots’ defensive line or the best route from Cambridge to Logan Airport, and they’ll talk your head off.   You do have to make more of an effort to engage a New Englander, unlike a person from almost anywhere else in the country.  If all you say at the check out line is “thank you” as they bag the groceries, don’t expect much.  If they ask, “How are you today?” give them a broadside of jolly commentary on your current state of being.  Even include a complaint or two, delivered with the sort of rueful irony that invites commiseration.

          

            “Could be sunnier.”

          

            “Yeah, but we need the rain.  My Roma tomatoes just lap that stuff up.  And the zucchinis?” 

“Don’t I know it.”

            

             I used to drive the Massachusetts Turnpike all the time, and before they did away with the toll gates, there was one guy so irredeemably buoyant and busting with bon homme that a line would form at his booth. 

            

            “There’s your change, sir.  One dollar and thirty-five cents.  Buy yourself something fun!”

    

              

            Mindful of our brief here at Sleuth Sayers, I do have a way to link this happy state of affairs to writing fiction.  If you only follow the observations of our gloomy journalists and academics, you’ll not only feel enduringly depressed, you’ll deviate from your lived experience.  You’ll break the law of authenticity.  The world isn’t a disagreeable place, most of the time.  Genuine assholes are notable simply because they’re so rare. 

                Writing hardboiled crime novels is no excuse.  Even Humphrey Bogart (channeling Marlowe) said, "I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners.  I don't like ‘em myself.”

 

What the Hell, Let's Make Wine: On "Noble Rot" in Murder, Neat

I'm told this entry winds up our collective series going behind Murder, Neat. I've enjoyed these backgrounders as much as I've enjoyed reading the anthology. Pick up a copy, and you'll see what I mean. Murder, Neat is also perfect for birthdays, spring solstices, allergy season, or any occasion you've got going on.

* * *

Given my name, you won't be surprised to hear I'm of French heritage. As best we know the history, the Mangeots did okay over there--until the Revolution. Ah, well. C'est la guerre. 

Having old France in my blood, you also wouldn't be surprised to hear I enjoy wine. I'll go so far as to claim I've accumulated minor wine knowledge. I said minor, so don't quiz me. One nugget explained to me on a vineyard tour way back was a winemaking technique with a particularly catchy name: noble rot.

What a word combination. Noble plus rot catches the eye, dances on the tongue, sparks the imagination. It's that juxtaposition, noble to rot, a lofty start and steep descent as if inevitable. Poetry? Depends on your tastes. In real life, the term is more like good marketing. 

What's known today as noble rot started out in Hungary or Germany, depending on the account. To oversimplify, the vintner inoculates their ripening grapes with a fungus. Happy little fungi from the same family as makes penicillin, bleu cheese, and athlete's foot. Then, the vintner walks away. It's not until a late harvest and a chill in the air that picking time arrives. By then, the fungi turns the grapes into super-intense raisins. Those raisins are the secret behind some of the finest sweet wines on this planet. Tokay, Sauternes, Riesling. 

That's the high-gloss version, but let's be honest. The method surely sprung from desperation. Rewind however many centuries, and surely a German or Hungarian vintner schlub dilly-dallied at harvest time. It got to be October, and the wind bode a frost, and wolves howled from the foothills, and the vintner's family shoved him outside to get the grapes picked. The vintner sidled to the vines and discovered that a nasty fungal situation had spread something fierce, and the vintner said, "What the hell, let's make wine."

Rot done well. For art. I'd wanted to write about all that. For a while, actually.

Opportunity came when Sleuthsayers decided on an anthology. The call was for stories with a bar somehow a core element. My fellow Sleuthsayers' submissions would include amazing stories using saloons and dives and well-drawn noir tones. So I went another direction. I played with other types of bars and landed on a wine bar. I might've been sitting at my basement wine bar at the time. 

Anyway, a submission. I kept brainstorming wine things and soon landed back on that brewing noble rot concept. All I needed next was a story. About a state of rotting. Nobly. And for that, folks, let me welcome you to Nashville.

We Mangeots aren't alone in moving along when fortunes take a turn. Middle Tennessee boasts a near-inexhaustible supply of ex-rockers settled here after their chart-topping runs ended. That isn't a critique. The ex-rocker colony makes large and welcome civic contributions, and they invest in stuff. Stuff like wineries. And rich winery owners have tasting rooms.  

Rockers moving here makes sense from their lens. Nashville has long had country chart-only stars, and the city culture protects their privacy. A faded rocker can run to the grocery with no hassles. Nashville has a cheaper cost of living (or used to), no state income tax, a bevy of top studios and historic venues, and a chance to plug into a peer group with similar life experiences and creative bents. 

These rockers haven't lost their talent. The voice might be going, the hand a beat slow sometimes, but the creativity and musicianship are still there. It's excellent that they hang around the music scene. One might say noble, in its way. Noble, but also fair game. After all, these headliners used to embody sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Now, they're on YouTube cooking their favorite recipes and aging with their audiences. Not always comfortably, which is the core idea behind my story "Noble Rot."

To smash-summarize the premise, a 90s grunge guitarist moved to Nashville after both his fame and edge waned. He's in that nostalgia-act phase, a short set at festivals guy. He doesn't care that his career is on life support. He only wants to make wine. His agent, though, isn't done with music yet. To grasp for relevance, it's time to embrace a Great American Songbook cover album. The plot centers around the agent's pitch, with the inevitable complications and moral choices. Plus a hit of gonzo, if I did it right.

You might've also been wondering about Tennessee wine-making beyond huckleberry. Few grape varietals thrive consistently in the mid-South. Too humid, the climate too ideal for--hang on for it--fungal diseases. 

Grapes do grow, over thirty varietals, and many more tons get shipped in. Noble rot wine can happen here, given the right winemaker and the right microclimate. That's what Nashville is for those aging rockers, a microclimate where some of them put out the best music of their lives. And that's what "Noble Rot" is about, microclimates and life choices, the inevitable fade of great things and the fight against it, that eternal hope for beauty in life's next act. 

* * *

Irish Neat

by David Dean

“The Atonement of Michael Darcy” in MURDER NEAT is the last—I think—in a sporadic series concerning an Irish American crime gang. When I wrote the first story concerning this crew it was meant to be a stand-alone tale. But as sometimes happens to writers, I found that “The Assumption of Seamus Tyrrell” needed a follow-up. This became “The Salvation of Seamus Tyrrell.” Of course, this story demanded a sibling and so it went for four more tales in the less-than-epic recounting of a fictional crime mob operating out of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Every time I would think I was out of it; these small-time hoodlums and killers pulled me back in for another heist or hit. Somebody’s got to feed the baby they’d say. So, I’d fire up the old laptop.
 

Michael Darcy, the protagonist of my entry in  this anthology, got out long ago. Not voluntarily, but through the intervention of the legal system. When we meet up with him, he’s well past his sell-by date and knows it. All he wants after a long stint in prison is a decent whiskey in the old neighborhood bar. He gets more than that, of course, as the title of the story suggests.
 

A tavern in Elizabeth

When Michael Bracken revealed that the theme of this anthology was to be crime fiction and bars, I was already there. The gang and I practically live in one. It’s where Seamus, Michael, Jimmy Blake, Thaddeus Burke, and all the rest of our crew plot our best work. Our motto has always been, ‘Why work sober, if you have a choice?’ Crime can be thirsty work, and don’t these fellas know it.  
 

 Stop in for a short one with Michael Darcy and you’ll see what I mean.
 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot—some of the best crime writers working in short fiction today also have stories in this book. You can’t go wrong, unless, like Michael Darcy, you do. He didn’t read this book.
    
   

Ale You Need is Love

Confession time.

I’m not a beer drinker. Never have been. In my early days of enjoying spiked beverages, I reached for wine coolers (shoutout to my two college friends, Bartles and James). Then Scotch whiskey, both single malt and blends, took over as my libation of choice. These days, I favor crisp Italian white wines.

Which is a long way of saying, I was in store for some fun new-to-me research to help craft my short story of suspense, “Not Yo’ Mama’s IPA” in Murder, Neat, the SleuthSayers Anthology. I took Happy Hour fieldtrips to a few of Richmond, Virginia’s finest brew pubs. Tasted flights of beers. Studied the origins of IPAs, as well as the proper way to pour and serve. Did you know India Pale Ales (a.k.a. IPAs) have their own dedicated glassware? I didn’t when I started plotting my story idea.

Well, then if not beer, what inspired my story, you might wonder?  An insurance statement delivered by snail mail not so long ago. Sexy? Maybe not, but I found it pretty compelling.

Kristin Kisska ©
Lindsey Pantele Photgraphy

As the beneficiary of my husband’s life insurance, I received what would be the final premium invoice for his term policy. That auspicious morning, I’d ripped open the envelope, looked up from the paystub to him, and joked that for one final year, he’d be worth more dead than alive—crime authors can be sensitive and thoughtful that way. It’s a good thing my husband shares my humor!

But my muse took my dark quip, noodled it for a while, and ultimately ran with it. What would it take for someone to cash in on a loved one’s expiring policy? How deep and dark would an injustice need be to give them motive?

Let me introduce you to Lynn and Jack, the unlucky-in-love, beer-drinking couple at the heart of my short story of suspense, “Not Yo’ Mama’s IPA”. Lynn finds out that ignorance can indeed be bliss…until the truth hits you like a sledgehammer.

Happy reading!

For the true crime enthusiast with an interest in insurance as motive for murder, I recommend reading the creative nonfiction, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, which dramatizes the chilling story of serial killer on the loose in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century. The murderer, H.H. Holmes, mastered the art of convincing his many victims to take out insurance policies with him as the beneficiary. Spoiler alert ~ his prey had a very short life expectancy after signing on the dotted line.

Insurance fraud can be deadly.

At the end of the day, you may or may not find me savoring a fine IPA at happy hour. But one thing I’ll forever be preaching from my soapbox is, don’t let your life insurance policy be used as a weapon against you.

Note ~ No real-life husbands were harmed in the plotting of this short story. On the contrary, mine enjoyed being my plus one as I conducted my IPA and brewery research. I’m happy to report that we both survived the expiration of his insurance policy.

Cheers, y’all!

---

KRISTIN KISSKA used to be a finance geek, complete with MBA and Wall Street pedigree, but now she is a self-proclaimed #SuspenseGirl. Kristin has contributed short suspense stories to a dozen anthologies, including Malice Domestic’s Agatha Award-winning anthology, Mystery Most Edible.  Her debut novel, The Hint of Light, is an Agatha Award finalist for Best First Mystery Novel. Kristin is a member of International Thriller Writers, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Sisters in Crime-Central Virginia. Kristin lives in Richmond, Virginia with her family and their moody tabby cat, Boom. She loves hearing from friends, readers, and book clubs at www.KristinKisska.com

MURDER, NEAT, or The Twenty-four Bar Blues

    

    Murder, Neat came out on February 13, and I'm thrilled to be included with so many of my talented friends, twenty-three of them, to be exact. All twenty-four stories involve a person in a bar, and I've been invited to tell you a little about mine. 

    I didn't start playing guitar at open mics until my mid-sixties, but before the pandemic shut things down, I played at five venues regularly, two of them monthly and the others either weekly or bi-weekly. Obviously, my playing improved considerably. So did my understanding of audience dynamics.

    One monthly venue was kid-friendly church with a large and appreciative audience. I saw several teens get their first taste, and some of them were already terrific. The other monthly venue was a Kinghts of Columbus, a small building with a bar, but only six stools and as many tables. It wasn't a large enough crowd to get rowdy, and the manager liked having the musicians play, so we didn't have to deal with hecklers.

    My favorite weekly gig is a pizza joint that serves only wine and beer and has regained its pre-Covid vibe. It features some killer musicians, including a sax player and a woman who plays both keyboards and cello. We even have a banjo player and a dulcimer player occasionally, and the place hosts Connecticut Blues Society jams.

    Both other weekly gigs were in bars, my least favorites, but the most conducive to a crime or mystery story. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and restraint, so there's more potential for someone to make a bad choice. Because the space tends to be louder, so is the music. If you go in to play acoustic folk or blues, people may not listen to you. Or, they may not be able to hear over the general voice (and TV sports?) level. Bar bands lean toward country or classic rock, like Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, or Elvis. The instruments include solid-body guitars and maybe a bass and drums. By its very nature, the music is more aggressive, maybe because of the volume, or maybe the songs themselves. The Doors and AC/DC have a subtext that's different from, say, Peter, Paul, and Mary.

    That's where my story comes from. A local band covering rock songs in a bar with bargain beer on tap is a cauldron for bad impulses and worse choices. And if a pretty woman shows up dressed in a whole lot of not much, the good ol' boys will turn into bad ol' boys. If that pretty woman knows what she's doing, things can go to hell in a hurry. And there you are. Or there I was. Rob and Leigh announced the theme of the Murder, Neat collection--someone walks into a bar--and it could lead into either noir or a bad joke. I thought both at once, so we start with a woman snappin' her fingers and a-shufflin' her feet, dressed to thrill, and with jokes and puns about drinking or music.

    My opening line popped into my head almost immediately. That seldom happens, so I thought it was a good omen. Many of my story titles are also song titles, and when the opening scene materialized, I heard the Searches singing my title, too. The song even mentions guitars, so I just let the beat carry me on to the big finish.

    I hope you like it, from the orange slice on top to the cherry at the bottom. Do you remember that 12-string guitar riff that kicks it off?

    "When You Walk in the Room." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAvvsxu-JJ8

"The Colonel"

When Sleuthsayers settled on Murder Neat, with stories set around watering holes of all kinds, I had a problem: I don't drink. I find beer, which smells so interesting, disappointing, while hard spirits bring up reminders of childhood illness.

I was susceptible to colds as a kid – possibly our drafty one room schoolhouse had some part in that – and my Scots immigrant parents were convinced of the medicinal powers of their national beverage. Rightly so, perhaps, because my mother brought Punch, our beloved parakeet, back from paralysis and near death by administering whisky and water.

In any case, the hot toddy of my childhood, whisky, hot water, lemon, and honey, served to inoculate me against a taste for alcohol save for the occasional glass of wine or cider. Glass, singular, as any more and I fall sleep.  Participation in Murder Neat, therefore, called for imagination.

Fortunately, my childhood, which clearly hampered a career as a writer of the hard drinking tough guy school, provided alternative sources of inspiration, including a couple of road houses. Yes, the same sort of isolated drinking establishments that Raymond Chandler found so inspiring in California.

These were in rural Dutchess County, N.Y., and we regularly passed the roadhouse that appears in "The Colonel" on the way to music lessons. The tavern was on a bare open stretch of state highway, fields and pastures on every side.

The dark brown, one story bungalow sat alone on top of a hill at the juncture of a county road. A lonely place, a lonely building, on the unlit roads with its lighted sign, it became The Huntsman in my story, a little nod to the fox hunting that so many of the rich estate owners loved.

The Huntsman was an odd place for a man of wealth and culture like the Colonel, who came to drink inferior spirits when he undoubtedly had better at home. But who knows what people need? I surely did not as a child in the late 40's and early 50's, though I was aware of troubled people who could not find happiness, despite possessing everything that should have made their lives good. 

But after Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, we all have a better grip on post war costs. There are wounds that nothing can heal, and in the late 40's and early 50's there were a lot of veterans for whom time had not done even the smallest work. The Colonel was one of them. I recognize that now.

The tavern, that from its architecture began as an ordinary dwelling, may have been established with just such folks in mind. It was quiet and out of town and out of sight with its parking lot tucked in the back.

What ideas might come in such a place to some wounded soul? The title, Murder Neat, says it all.

So an alcoholism treatment therapist walks into a bar...

I'm a lifelong writer who started talking about it at the age of seven and dreamed of becoming a bestselling novelist in my twenties. That didn't happen. So in my late thirties, when my sole published output consisted of two poems (payment in copies), I started looking around for something else meaningful to do.

I emerged from Columbia University in 1985 with a master's degree in social work and a desire to work with recovering alcoholics and their families and partners as well as the usual clinical social worker's ambition to practice as a psychotherapist, or as I prefer to call myself, a shrink. I've just come across a blog post I wrote in 2007, right before my first mystery, Death Will Get You Sober, came out. Titled "Recovery and Transformation," it's still spot on about why I wanted to do what many considered an oddball kind of work.

It’s simple: recovery is transformational.

I once knew a nursery school teacher who had her class do a butterfly project every year. They’d watch the caterpillar form its chrysalis and wait for the brightly colored butterfly with its glorious wings to emerge. At the end of the term, she’d take them to the park so they could release the butterflies and see them fly free. Sometimes it’s kind of like that when an alcoholic finds recovery.

Before two drunks started Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, alcoholism was truly a hopeless illness, whose outcomes were inevitably “madness” (depression, delirium tremens, irreversible dementia) and death. AA offered another choice: stop drinking for just one day, admit you need help, find some kind of spiritual path, get rigorously honest about your own shortcomings, make amends for the harm you’ve done others, and help another alcoholic. In other words, all you have to do is stop drinking and change your whole life.

While I was running alcohol treatment programs—the one up in East Harlem, the one down on the Bowery, the one for women at Coney Island Hospital—I would occasionally find myself bellying up to the proverbial bar on a social evening out. I would twirl around on the bar stool, grin at the bartender, and say, "Ask me what I do for a living!"

So my reaction may not have been quite the same as that of the rest of the SleuthSayers gang when I heard that we were doing an anthology whose theme was bars. My Bruce Kohler mysteries, both the novels and the short stories, are a lot of fun. But once Bruce gets sober in the first book, they're not about bars and drinking. The challenge was to join in the fun of Murder, Neat without being unfaithful to my expert knowledge that out of control drinking is not ho ho ho hilarious, but a recurring disaster that leaves shattered lives in its wake.

To write "A Friendly Glass," I turned back to a time when I myself was young and ignorant, knew nothing about alcoholism, and did think wild drinking could be hilarious. I set my story in a fictional village in the South of France. It was loosely based on a village where I'd spent a week in 1962 and a month in 1966. I drank numerous cups of café filtre on the picturesque terrasse. I sang and played the guitar in a boîte I can't remember anything about. I made two treasured women friends who, sadly, are no longer with us, and two artist friends, a Frenchman and an Englishman, who are still my friends today, sixty years later.

The village was St Paul de Vence, then completely unspoiled, a maze of narrow cobbled streets that wound up stairs and through stone arches, surrounded by a medieval wall. Alas, it's now a tourist destination with luxury hotels and high-priced shops with plate-glass windows. It's still considered artsy, but it's more of an artfully packaged artsiness. I'm glad I didn't miss the real thing.

Oh, and the fictional murderee is based on someone I thought deserved it back in the 1960s.