My Five Favourite Comedies of All Time – A Christmas Week List!

Many people know I got my start writing stand-up, which morphed into a syndicated humour column, which morphed into the kind of fiction I write now (generally off-the-wall capers, progressing to slightly more respectable loopy mysteries.)

John Floyd's column on sequels in movies had me thinking and rethinking my 'desert isle' list.  That is, if I could only take 5 movies with me to a desert isle, what would they be?

And of course, they would be comedies.  Christmas week is always the time I re-watch my favourite comedies.

(Aside:  I have 'desert isle' lists for almost everything - crime books, literary books, classical music, rock music, cocktails, beer, desserts - yes, of course you need desserts on a desert isle, darling. This is my desert isle, and I can design it the way I want.) 

But back to comedy movies.  I'm looking here for movies with sustained comedy, as opposed to popular rom-coms that have a scene or two that are memorable.  

Here is my list of the best of the best, from someone who has made their career in comedy.  Note that many of these are British.  I am not (I'm Canadian) but my dad was.  This possibly explains my own style of writing (which seems perfectly normal to me, but apparently others consider wacky.)

With that in mind, I hope some of these are new to you. I envy you if you haven't seen these before!  You are in for a treat.

1.  The Wrong Box

How can you go wrong with a cast like this?  Dudley Moore, John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Peter Cook, Peter Sellers...  Add in the best hearse chase scene ever imagined (with horse-drawn hearses).  I don't want to give it away, but when a box containing money gets mixed up with a box containing a statue, which gets mixed up with a box containing the dead body of the Bournemouth strangler... The Salvation Army women are just a scream.  I could quote lines, but you'd have to see it to appreciate it.  Let me just say... "This is Julia Finsbury...soon to become...Julia Finsbury!"  (final scene - an absolute hoot.)

This is my favourite movie of all time.

 

2. The Pink Panther

This was the first adult comedy I saw as a kid, and I love it even today.  It may have inspired my own reverse-robberies in The Goddaughter's Revenge.  How can you not giggle at the fancy dress ball, the apes, the crazy car chase, the marvelous thwarted seduction scene with the champagne exploding under the covers...

And Peter Sellers with Capucine. Sellers at his very best, and with her serene classiness, Capucine was made for the part. 

 

3.  A Shot in the Dark

The sequel to The Pink Panther, and many (like my friend John) would say the better movie.  I adore both.

Mike (husband) says I am unusual in that I like guy humour.  Well, if this is guy humour, he's dead on, because the scene of Peter Sellers holding the 'strategic' guitar at the nudist camp always has me giggling. 

 

4.  The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming

Can you tell this movie had a Canadian in the pilot seat?  I can't imagine how subversive this movie must have seemed at the time, in the midst of the cold war.  Alan Arkin is magic as the Russian submarine lieutenant charged with leading a small group of Russian sailors on a rescue mission through hick town USA. Again, I point to the dialogue.  Pure gold.

Tommy (accusing his dad):  "Yer a trader!"

Mom:  "That's traitor, Tommy, traitor."

 

5.   Here we have a dilemma.

I lean towards giving the no. 5 spot to Some Like It Hot, with strong honorable mentions to The Producers, We're No Angels, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Support your local Gunfighter, and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Okay, I may need a bigger island.

What are your favourites?  I'd like to hear.  Are any of these new to you?  Let me know if you watch them and appreciate them (or like me, love them to death.)

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Melodie Campbell is the author of 18 novels, 60 short stories and over 200 humour columns. She spent a lot of time in the corner at school, as a kid.  Soon to come...

Nursery Crimes and Grim Fairie Tales

Last week, we brought you the surprise discovery of Zelphpubb Blish’s L’Histoire Romantique et les Aventures Malheureuses de Jacques Horner Hubbard Ripper Beanstalker Candlesticken Spratt,^† also titled Grim Faerie Tayles, a crime story believed lost to the ages.

Thanks to an arrangement with the British Museum non-Egyptian archives at the University of Brisbane in Glasgow, we are pleased to bring you this legendary poem, a work considered to rival William McGonagall’s Scottish translation of Poetic Edda.

The Curiously Murderously Nursery Mysteriosity Atrocity

A Grim Faerie Tale by Zelphpubb Blish (1419-1456)

	Jack Spratt of nursery rhyme fact:     With merry men his wife was seen. He had no clue Jill wasn’t true,     How could she be so mean?
“Render him dead,” her lover said.     Why did they act so cruel? With nightshade fruit and mandrake root,     She played Jack for a fool.
	Under low heat she sautéed meat,     Badger brains and ferret feet. She hated waste and tried a taste,     And found it savory sweet.
She stirred in newt and poisoned fruit.     The odor made her faint. She added mouse found round the house,     And now the mouse– it ain’t.
	She shirred a dish of poison fish,     She dosed it sight unseen. She sniffed it twice, she added spice,     But still Jack stayed the scene.
She stirred the vat. She sprinkled gnat,     Sliced in a long dead rat. That killed a bat, it killed her cat,     Yet Jack remained intact.
	Soon Jack fell ill, he sensed ill will,     Finally dawned a notion. How à propos, he had to know     About her deadly potion.
Jack felt quite old, flushed hot and cold,     Consumed by prickly fever. With some alarm, he grasped the harm,     When she snatched up a cleaver.
	Fearing his wife, he ran for life.     Jill appeared ready to kill. Rather than dead, poor Jackie fled     And tottered up the hill.
Heart a’flicker, he felt sicker.     He'd drunk a dram of liquor. He glanced aghast. She ran so fast.     She hastened much, much quicker.
	Cresting the hill. Jack took a spill.     Cobblestones made him stumble. The resulting wreck fractured his neck,     Jill’s push caused him to tumble.
Twas no avail, Jack kicked the pail,     Shuffled off this mortal coil, Gave up the ghost, demised utmost     Because she’d been disloyal.
	Though she’d contrived, coppers arrived.     They inspected how Jack died. The sergeant said, “We’ve got one dead.”     He wrote murder, homicide.
Plods sniffed the vat. They smelled a rat.     They seized Jill’s deadly bucket. They eyed the stew, the deadly brew.     Twas then Jill muttered, “chuck it.”
	• This was thought to be the end of the epic poem until the team's archivist, Rob Lopresti, discovered their Teutonic landlady making shelf liners and patching broken plaster with 600-year-old folios. Much of Zelphpubb Blish’s work has been lost behind mouse-run laths of the German inn, but the team found a scrap deemed to be the true ending of the poem:
With pen in hand, Sergeant LeGrand     Jotted her infamous last words. “I lost my nerve and forgot to serve     Four and twenty sickly blackbirds.”
	Under arrest, Jack’s wife confessed     In the church’s saintly hallows. Disdaining hood, froward she stood,     Defiantly faced the gallows.
She lost her head, poor Jill lay dead     Over a man, the village said. Committing vice, she paid the price     When she took a lover to bed.

— end —

Happy Easter and April Fool’s Eve.

---

^† Spratt was known to ingest no polyunsaturated fat substitutes rendering poisoning difficult.

^‡ Last year, we shared a nursery rhyme about a greedy sister by Australian poet David Lewis Paget.

Bonfires of the Vanity Press

Three convenient locations • Strasbourg

Last October prior to publication of Murder, Neat, a SleuthSayers research team investigated a gasthaus tavern in Mainz, Deutschland. In the beautifully appointed lounge of their ancient hotel, they uncovered a remarkable revelation.

Like many discoveries, theirs was a happy accident. The team’s philologist, having imbibed 2.75ℓ of Köstritzer-WeihenstePaulaner-Bräu Hefe Edelweißbier double bock (7.9% on the Richter scale), slid under the table out of sight, where he spent the night, his snores disturbing remaining patrons.

When he awoke, he cracked his aching head on an antique étagère, popping loose a secret panel. The proprietress scolded him for potentially damaging a six-hundred-year-old antique, but quieted as academics explored contents of the hidden cache.

Scholars found a folio, a quire of fragile paper with crisp lettering and woodcuts. They gasped at the name and date– the legendary Baron Zelphpubb Blish and a notation believed to predate Gutenberg’s Bible. Literary academics were surprised to discover pages contained forerunners of nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

Three convenient locations • Heidelberg

Revised History of the Press

Thanks to this historically significant discovery in Germany, we now know on Thursday, 31^st March 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which started the printing revolution. The following Friday, 1^st of April 1440, Baron Zelphpubb Blish invented the vanity press, which started a printing counterrevolution.

Blish, a close friend of famed Scottish poet William McGonagall, breached the fortress of the professional publishing cabal and berated the fledgling printing industry. He cited a scribe conspiracy by the ‘trad press’ to prevent the best ‘Indy authors’ – especially him – filling bookstore shelves.

He set numerous precedents such as decrying Georgia selection fraud by Tbilisi monks, deriding competition committees for not recognizing excellent writing, and deeming ‘legacy’ editors an unnecessary affliction upon up-and-coming literary talent.

Three convenient locations • Mainz

Blish is noted for many contributions to the art and craft of self-publishing. History credits him for innovative spelling in Tayles of Derring-Doo, random punctuation and the Oxnard comma, still in use today. He is thought to be the first to embed emoticons in essays and biographies.

Blish is revered for outstanding modernizations such as combining 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd person in simultaneous past and future perfect present tense. His rich, trend-setting covers included all six primary colours [ CMYRGBK ] and his famous semi-autobiographical volume Picaresque Çelfpubbè still holds the record for an astonishing fifty-four fonts on its crowded vellum jacket.

Upcoming

Next week, we bring you Blish’s epic poem, L’Histoire Romantique et les Aventures Malheureuses de Jacques Horner Hubbard Ripper Beanstalker Candlesticken Spratt, otherwise known as Grim Fairie Tales. See you then.

Toby or not Toby...

If you thought we were finished with weird English, I'm back with an even more… erm… entertaining take. You can blame the usual suspects, ABA and Sharon, who pass on interesting articles.

Aaron Alon is a musicologist, composer, song writer, script writer, director, filmmaker, professor, and humorist. Shortly before the coronavirus pandemic, he assembled a video about making English consistent, a huge task. This is the result.

 

 

 

 

© respective copyright holder

 

I particularly like the Hamlet reading, don't you? But wait, there's more.  Alon wasn't done.

Following comments and critiques, he came up with a supplemental video in which he, well, sings a classic. Here you go.

 

 

 

 

© respective copyright holder

 

What did you think? Aaron said he might consider a video about making constants consistent. I'm still figure out, "I tot I taw a puddy-tat."

Okay, I promise no more weird English slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. For at least a week.

My husband died.

I can’t write flash fiction without thinking of Fran Rizer. She ‘complained’ those ultra-short stories upset her Sunday routine of preparing coffee and then breakfast, whereupon she’d spend a few minutes enjoying SleuthSayers.

On flash fiction days, that’s when (a) she’d find those few minutes were reduced to a few seconds, and (b) it caused her to snort coffee up her nose. Damn, I miss Fran.

Here’s a flash fiction with her in mind.

---

 

 

 

My Husband Died by Leigh Lundin After he died, I couldn’t even look at another man for almost twenty years. But now that I’m out of prison, I can honestly say it was worth it.

Behind a Screen, You Say? Writing Comedy as an Older Woman

Today, I'm writing a serious blog.  ('NO!  Don't do it!  Don't-' [ sound of body being dragged offstage...])

 I write comedy.  I wrote stand-up and had a regular column gig for several years.  I opened conferences on the speaker circuit  Nowadays, most of my crime short stories and novels are (hopefully) humorous.  My blog...well, that sometimes goes off the wall.

But I'm noticing that as I get older, if I do comedy in person, it seems to be more shocking.  Or rather, I am shocking people more.  They don't know how to take it.  I see them gasp and act confused.  Did I really mean what I said just then?  Was it meant to be funny?

I don't believe it's because I'm writing a different level of material.

So why?  Why does my comedy seem to shock people more than it did thirty years ago?

It's not the material.  It's my age.

Writing comedy when you are 30 is 'cute.'  I can't tell you how many people told me that I 'looked cute on stage' as I innocently said some outrageous things that made people laugh.

Now I know this is a controversial statement to put forth.  So let me say that this has been my experience, and perhaps it isn't everyone's.  But I have found that saying outrageous things on stage when you are 60 is not cute.  Women over 60, in my experience, are rarely described as 'cute' (unless they are silly and feeble and very old.)  Women over 60 cannot carry off 'innocent' (unless portraying someone very dumb.)  Women over 60 are expected to be dignified. I've found that women my age are not well received by crowds (especially liquored-up crowds.)

Phyllis Diller was a wonderful comic.  She did outrageous things on stage, and we laughed with her.  But she dressed like a crazy-woman and had us laughing AT her.  Some women I know dislike the fact that Diller made herself ridiculous in front of an audience.  I don't, because I know why she did it.

Here's the thing:  comedy is by nature dangerous.  It often makes fun of things that other people take seriously.  In fact, it's almost impossible to write or perform comedy and not offend someone, somewhere.

Women who are young and pretty can get away with murder.  Even better, they can get away with comedy.

But a woman over 60 who makes of fun of younger women is (often) seen as jealous, not funny.  A woman over 60 who makes fun of men is (often) viewed as bitter, not funny.  A woman over 60 who makes fun of other women over 60 can get away with it, but the big audience isn't there.

There are simply far fewer things an older woman can get away with poking fun at.

So what's a poor old gal to do?

I've been supremely lucky.  I've been able to transfer my somewhat madcap comedic style to writing books.  I can still make my living in comedy, but it's from behind a screen now.  The written page is a delightful medium that leaves much to the reader's imagination.

Which is probably a good thing, because right now I'm doing the Covid braless shlep-dress thing at this computer.  You don't want to see it.

Melodie Campbell gets paid to write silly stuff for unsuspecting publishers.  Her 17th book, The Merry Widow Murders, from Cormorant Books, is now available for preorder.  www.melodiecampbell.com

 The Author in her comedy days...

 The Author today...

Fun with Fugitives and Pharmaceuticals

I’m keeping it short today because I’m including links you’ll want to follow. They’re too funny for words.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Next year marks the 30^th anniversary of Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. (No, I can’t believe 30 years either.)

Much of the story centered around Chicago but North Carolina made out damn well in the filming. The most iconic scenes took place there– the train/bus wreck and the leap from the damn spillway.

The bus and train are still there outside of Sylva / Dillsboro / Bryson City. The director’s mother didn’t tell him to clean up after himself, so they’re rusting in an accidental one-man’s-trash-is-another’s-roadside attraction. And yes, they crashed a real train into a real bus on the Great Smoky Railroad rather than in Illinois.

The scene turned out slightly more spectacular than they’d planned. Tests and calculations showed an ideal speed of 36mph (60kmph), but Tammy the Train, excited by her film debut, dashed off at 45mph (72kmph).

But it was worth it, wasn’t it? Compare the real thing with the improbable train versus helicopter CGI physics of Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible 3 flick.

The dam scene took place at Cheoah Dam. One of the hospital scenes was shot in Jackson County as well.

Me, I’m not going to visit. Bad things happen every time I step foot in North Carolina. (No, don’t write. You have no idea.)

It’s the Drugs, Man.

I didn’t come there to discuss dams and damages. Remember, the plot set out to learn why a one-armed man murdered Richard Kimble’s wife. Gradually we learn it has something to do with marketing a drug, Provasic, developed and manufactured by Devlin-Macgregor Pharmaceuticals.

As I was researching a project, I stumbled upon Devlin-Macgregor’s web site. To my surprise, they offer a very different conspiracy scenario from the film, possibly on the advice of Elizabeth Holmes. Be sure to check out their other fine products, Narcogesic and Solarresti, the only prescription mRNA inhibitor that provides fortified protection against all single and two-shot COVID-19 “vaccines” (1/3 the way down their home page) and their employment page.

Just don’t die laughing.

How to Write a True Italian Character (and not get taken out by the Family...)

Apparently, I have been too serious on here lately. There have been complaints.  So in an effort to lighten things up, I'm settling into a literary pet peeve.

Too often in popular fiction, I find Italian characters who don't make the grade. They seem a little cartoonish, as their creators probably aren't Italian, and don't have a true insight into the Italian nature.  So I'm here as a public service, to rectify that.  (Okay, because my Uncle Vince told me to.)

Yes, I'm Italian.  Yes, I've been a Goddaughter, like the heroine of THE GODDAUGHTER.  Okay, maybe not exactly like.  But close enough that I can easily imagine what it would be like to be a mob goddaughter.  The Christmas presents would be pretty decent, for one thing. Not to mention, I can get my salami and mortadella wholesale in any deli in the Hammer (Hamilton.)

So as I turn in my 17th novel which may or may not feature the Italian mob, I offer this help to all authors everywhere.

Melodia's rules on how to write an Italian Character:

1. She absolutely cannot talk with her hands held down.  Okay, not entirely true.  She can scream if they try to hold down her hands.  And kick.
2. He has at least 2 cousins named Tony.  And one uncle.
3. She considers Pasta a vegetable.  (It's good for you!  Really.  Ask any Italian grandmother.)
4. He can listen to five conversations at once, in at least two languages, and answer back.
5. She has four first names (Melodie Lynn Theresa Anne…)

For the Pros. Your Italian character should:

6. Cry when Pavorotti sings the FIFA soccer anthem.
7. Ask for Brio and Orangina in restaurants. Gasp loudly if they don't have it.
8. Kiss everybody all the time.  Left cheek, right cheek (THEIR left cheek, right cheek.)
9. Always wear designer shoes.  Especially when shopping for shoes.  If you don't have a special wardrobe just for shopping, you are not Italian.

And finally:

10. Long hair only, ladies.  At least until sixty.
11. Wine is a major food group.  Like cannoli.

Okay, it gets a little tougher now, but weaving in background is important.  So to really give your character some punch, add the following:

12. She regularly faked a long penance after confession just so the boys would think she was way hot.  (I hardly ever did this.)
13. His family does not consider a 'heater' something you turn on in winter.

I hate to end a list at 13.  We Sicilians are suspicious.  So here's one last way you can tell if a character is really Italian:

Bling.  Lots of it.  Last trip back from Rome, the plane nearly came down with the weight of newly purchased gold my aunts were wearing.  Heard in all lines at Customs:  "What, this old thing?"

Melodie Campbell writes mob comedies and other loopy books while avoiding family somewhere south of Toronto.  THE GODDAUGHTER DOES VEGAS, finalist for the Canadian Crime Writing Awards of Excellence, is the latest in the series.  Standard warning:  Pee before you read it.

https://www.amazon.com/Goddaughter-Does-Vegas-Melodie-Campbell-ebook/dp/B07N8FBLJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+goddaughter+does+vegas&qid=1610989262&sr=8-1

Comedy Is Hard

I've often been accused of being funny, except by my former students. I've directed comedy in theater, too, both contemporary (Christopher Durang) and classical (Several Shakespeare including The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night), and my stories and novels always include some humor.

A few years ago, someone suggested I add another workshop to my repertoire: writing humor. I hedged. Then I visited libraries, bookstores and the Internet to find books on writing comedy. I found only a few, and none of them helped me.

Drama is easy. Melodrama is easy. Comedy is eff-ing hard.

Comedy comes from two sources. One is the situation, the basis of slapstick humor. Shakespeare's drunks and fools usually followed this tradition, which goes back to the Greek and Roman playwrights (Remember, Will lifted The Comedy of Errors wholesale from Plautus). This often becomes farce, where the characters become puppets in service to the plot.

The other source is more intellectual or verbal. Puns, wordplay and irony replace the pratfalls, and some people appreciate this more than others. If you tell the same joke to ten people, a few will roar, some will chuck, a couple will smile, and at least one will say, "Oh, that's it?"

Like American English, comedy relies on rhythm. Years ago, I attended a one-day workshop on directing comedy, and the instructor stressed "The Machine," the progression and rhythm that make a scene or play "funny." He said if you change the order or any component, you'll kill the joke. I agree. Years ago, my wife played the fussy roommate in the female version of The Odd Couple, and the other actress insisted on adding "uh-huh, oh really" and other ad libs to the famous exchange about "It's not spaghetti, it's linguini." She never got a laugh. Ever. Not one single night.

The only other specific hint I remember about directing comedy came from my directing mentor in grad school: Gorgeous is not funny...unless she slips on a banana peel. 

My first drafts aren't funny. Humor grows out of revision, usually from a character's reaction to the situation, more ironic than slapstick. If it doesn't feel like part of the character and the whole milieu, it doesn't work for me. I try not to reach for it because if it emerges, it's a pleasant surprise for me, too, and that's how punchlines work. They deliver what the audience expects, but not the way they expect it. 

My favorite authors write humor better than I do. Maybe that's one reason I like them. Louise Penny uses twisted literary allusions and puns, usually as responses from the residents of Three Pines, whom we've grown to know and love over the course of her Armand Gamache series. 

Dennis Lehane's irony--karma comes to town--often involves character, too. Don Winslow can use irony, but he can also go slapstick. His recent novella "The San Diego Zoo" builds on an outrageous situation seen through the eyes of a cop who becomes a laughingstock on social media. The opening line is "Nobody knows how the chimp got the revolver," and the story races to the logically absurd conclusion from that premise. Elvis Cole, the PI of many Robert Crais novels, loves self-deprecating throw-aways. 

Several romance authors write great comedy, too. Look at Jennifer Crusie's dialogue, especially late in a book where her characters paraphrase earlier speeches and turn them on their heads.

None of these writers could steal another's joke and make it work in their own stories. Comedy is personal, and that's what makes it so hard.

You really do reveal yourself on the page. 

Santa Noir

Everybody has too many Christmas parties and get-togethers in December, so the Connecticut MWA members threw a procrastinator's bash on January 11 in Middletown. Middletown is, of course, in the middle of the State, home of Wesleyan University and several fine restaurants, so we gathered at Esca, three blocks from the college and on a main intersection.

Chris Knopf addresses the motley crew. He mostly obscures Mark Dressler.
Bill Curatolo and Mike Beil are at the upper right.

Chris Knopf and Jill Fletcher, who organized the event, suggested that in addition to the usual gift grab bag, drinks and meals and catching up on everyone's accomplishments for the year, people write a 200-word story on the theme of Santa Noir to share with their accomplices. Alas, loud hungry patrons mobbed the eatery on a Saturday evening, so we abandoned the readings. Some of our recent predictions on this blog have made the upcoming year look a little bleak, and I agree, so the stories seemed like a definite counterbalance.

Here are four of them.

Santa Claus and Me by Mark L. Dressler

Jill posted this graphic, which inspired Mark's tale

I stared at that red Santa Claus outfit for several minutes. The lifeless man inside sent an eerie feeling through me matching the bitter night chill. I knew I'd never see that costume again.

Year after year, it was a never-ending journey, make-believe to many, but I knew differently. This was the night it would finally end. No more toys, no more nagging kids, no more workshops with elves, no more agonizing trips to the ends of each continent...and no more reindeer slaves.

I took another glance at that red uniform before walking away. I had no idea who that homeless man inside it was, but his clothes fit me perfectly. It was time for me to find a new home because I couldn't go back to the North Pole. I'd cleanse myself of this long white beard in the morning and become a free man. My name would no longer be Kris Kringle.

(Mark Dressler has published two novels featuring Hartford cop Dan Shields.)

At Burke's Tavern in Woodside, Queens, December 24, 1969 by William O'Neill Curatolo

Recently discharged marine Luis Martinez, high bar champion of the 43rd Street playground, sits alone on the broad windowsill across from the end of the bar nursing his fourth beer. He looks in need of cheering up. It's possible, no, it's certain, that the only advantage of having left his right leg back in Vietnam is that he now never has to pay for a drink, ever, in any of the watering holes up and down the length of Greenpoint Avenue.

Burly cop Georgie Corrigan bursts through the barroom door, dressed as Santa Claus. "Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!" Santa Georgie moves along the bar clapping people hard on the back, and turns over to a couple of friends the bags of pot he took from a kid on his beat in Brooklyn a few hours ago. As he makes his way along the bar, he notices his old friend Luis, glassy eyed, staring off into space. Georgie sits down next to him and uses a burly arm to clamp him in a headlock. "Semper Fi, Jarhead!" and then, "Get up off your ass and onto those crutches. We're going outside to smoke a joint. Santa wants to see you smile."

(Bill Curatolo has published two novels.)

Santa By a Nose by Michael D. Beil

Christmas Eve at the Subway Inn, a dive bar that's a dead possum's throw from Bloomingdale's. Beside me is a bag with Isotoner gloves and a faux-cashmere scarf for the old lady. Three stools down is a schmoe in a Santa suit. The line of dead soldiers on the bar tells me the poor bastard is trying to forget how many brats had pissed their pants on his lap. For about a second, I consider sending a drink his way. But when he lifts his head, I realize he's the SOB I've been chasing for a week about a B&E in a bike shop on Second Avenue. No doubt about it. Eight million people in New York, but there's only one nose like that one. Fill it full of nickels and he could buy everybody in the place a drink.

I'm reaching into my coat pocket for my shield when a blast of frigid air blows in a tired dame in a coat that probably looked good during the Clinton administration, with three kiddies in tow.

"Daddy!"

I throw a twenty on the bar and nod to the bartender on the way out.

(Michael Beil was an Edgar finalist for Best Children's Novel for the first of five books in the Red Blazer Girls series.)

I Saw Mommy Killing Santa Claus by Steve Liskow

Detective Angel Noelle looked at the body, a fat man with a white beard and a red suit, underneath the mistletoe. Wrapped presents, grungy with fingerprint powder, lay under the tree.

"Your first, Noelle?" That was Detective Shepherd.

"Violent night," Angel said. "Got an ID yet?"

"We're waiting on fingerprints, but we've got a suspect and a witness."

Noelle turned to the woman in the green robe, the slit revealing black fishnets--previously hung by the chimney with care--and four-inch stilettos.

"I'm a dancer," she said. "All my son wanted for Christmas was his two front teeth..."

The small boy peeking from the stairs nodded.

"But instead, he brought..." The prancing vixen buried her face in her hands. "He deserved it..."

Noelle turned to the tech filling out the evidence label.  "What was the weapon?"

"Well, right now it looks like a fruitcake."

"Fruitcake?"

"Yeah, been re-gifted so many times it's hard as a Jersey barrier. The label on the can says, 'Do not sell after 2004.'"

Noelle looked at the body, deep in dreamless sleep.

"The contusions fit?" The open fire crackled in the fireplace.

"Yeah. Really roasted his chestnuts."

Outside, the black and whites rolled by.

(Steve Liskow practices piano about fifteen minutes a week.)

Dr. Frank Warsh: Coroner to Crime Writer

Dr. Frank Warsh is a coroner and the author of The Flame Broiled Doctor from Boyhood to Burnout in Medicine and Hippocrates:The Art and The Oath

Death is his job - literally - so how does his job inform his new foray into crime fiction? Many doctors will grumble at the unrealistic depictions of doctors in film and books. Doctors will grumble even more loudly at the depictions of patients and families - because that is the important part of medicine. So, does a coroner write crime fiction differently than a lay person?

• What is the actual job of a coroner?

“The core of the job is determination of cause and certifying the death.

“The cause of death is what killed you. The manner is part of the set of conventions we use to describe a death. The manner is what’s being referred to when a character on a cop show says, “the death was ruled a homicide”. That statement is screenplay silliness for two reasons. First, rulings come from judges, not Coroners or Forensic Pathologists. Second, the manner of death follows from the cause, rather than being determined independently.

“Unlike the myriad causes, there are only four manners by which a person can die: natural, accident, suicide, or homicide.

“Again, the manner follows from the cause. If somebody dies from a heart attack, that’s a natural death. If it’s a hanging, barring some very, very compelling evidence of foul play it’s a death by suicide. The old Coroner’s joke is calling a gunshot wound to the chest a natural death, because if you’re shot through the heart and lungs, naturally it will kill you.”

• Why would people want to read Coroners’ stories?

“Clearly there’s overlap between Coroner work and crime investigation. My job is quite literally the intersection between police procedural and medical procedural work.

“It’s hard to overstate how important the job of Coroner is and can be, speaking for the dead as the motto goes. Most untimely deaths are not the result of a crime, but rather workplace accidents, substance abuse, an individual’s traumatic upbringing, systemic problems in institutions, or failures by society as a whole. Obviously these stories matter to people in positions of authority and policymakers. But fictionalized, they can teach us a lot of truths about human nature and how far we still have to go. It’s a job that allows for genuine sober reflection, rather than just reacting to the daily noise of the news cycle.

“A former patient, who’s become a cherished friend since I left practice, had a daughter that died from an overdose after a long struggle with drug use. Happens every day, no question. But the young woman had been a repeat victim of sexual violence from a very early age. Worse still, she suffered years of trauma at the hands of a broken mental health care system the family desperately needed to work. We take it for granted that our institutions are the “good guys”, working only in the best interests of the sick and the vulnerable. That’s far from a guarantee, no matter what we’d like to think. Fiction is a perhaps a safer way to face these truths, because there are no real-life stakes to the story being told.

“Now that covers the interesting and important reasons to read Coroner stories, but I’d be remiss if I left out how entertaining, even funny, Coroner work can be.

“Setting aside gratuitous cartoon deaths you might find in a Quentin Tarantino film, death in and of itself isn’t entertaining. It’s death *investigation* I find entertaining. Some of the fun comes from the characters you meet – police, undertakers – that have personality quirks or morbid senses of humor you don’t find in health care settings. Sometimes it’s the loved ones of the dead who can throw you for a loop.

“And sometimes the investigation itself is full of absurdities, completely at odds with what we expect from all the highbrow detective stories we might read or see on TV. Closets full of Costco-size jars of weed. Bongs on display like sports trophies. Porn playing on a loop while you scour an apartment for medical records. You can’t make this stuff up.

“Earlier this year, I happened to attend six deaths in a row where the person had died on the toilet. To the individual families, those are tragedies. To the poor schlub Coroner – me – it’s a Saturday Night Live sketch, the absolute antithesis of the glamorous, high-tech investigations portrayed on CSI.

“Real life – or real death, I suppose – is stranger than fiction, and quite often funny as hell. These are the kinds of stories I’m now looking to tell, in short story form for the time being.”

• Thoughts on commercial success?

“You need your finger on the pulse of the audience to find fortune as a writer, and the only pulses I feel these days have stopped.”

Being a Goddess Sucks When your Characters Won’t Behave… (warning: more silly stuff from Bad Girl)

(Dave, are you smiling down on me? My comedy is back)

Recently, my characters have become more mouthy.

I like to think of myself as their creator. Goddess material. Without me, they wouldn’t have a life on the page, or anywhere, for that matter. This should buy me a certain amount of respect, I figure. Sort of like you might give a minor deity. After all, I have created five series for them to live in.

Unfortunately, my characters haven’t bought into that. Worse, they seem to have cast me into the role of mother. That’s me: a necessary embarrassment for the perpetuation of their lives. And like all kids, they squabble. They fight with each other for attention. I liken it to sibling jealousy.

To wit: “You haven’t written about me lately,” says Rowena, star of Rowena Through the Wall.

I try to ignore the petulance in her voice.

“Been busy,” I mumble. “Gina (The Goddaughter) had to get married in Vegas. And Del, a relative of hers, started a vigilante group.”

“I don’t care if she started a rock group. You’re supposed to be writing MY story.”

I turn away from the keyboard and frown at her. “Listen, toots. You wouldn’t have any stories at ALL if it weren’t for me. You’ve had three books of adventures with men. A normal gal would be exhausted. So please be patient and wait your turn. Jennie had to suck it up for Worst Date Ever. Del and The B-Team were next in line. You can be after that, maybe.”

Maybe. I wasn’t going to tell her about the 6^th Goddaughter book currently in the works.

“It’s not fair. I came first! Before all those silly mob comedies,” Row whines. “Don’t forget! I was the one who got you bestseller status.” She points at her ample chest.

“Hey!” says Gina, fresh from cannoli central. “And which book won the Derringer and the Arthur Ellis? Not some trashy old fantasy novel.”

“Who are YOU calling trashy?” says Rowena, balling her hands into fists. “Just because my bodice rips in every scene…”

“Like THAT isn’t a plot device,” chides Gina.

“Oh, PLEASE don’t fight,” says Jennie, the plucky romance heroine of Worst Date Ever. “I just want everyone to have a Happy Ever After. Can’t you do that for us all, Mom? Er…Melodie?”

I look at Del, from The B-Team. “What do you think?”

Del shrugs. “Sounds sucky. What kind of crap story would that be? Bugger, is that the time? I got a second story job that needs doing. Cover for me, will you? And this time, let me know if the cops start sniffing around.”

“Cops?” says Gina. “Crap! I’m outta here.”

“Cops?” says Rowena. “There’s that little matter of a dead body in book 2…” She vanishes.

“Cops?” says Jennie, hopefully. “OH! Is one of them single?”

---

Book 15 is now out! THE GODDAUGHTER DOES VEGAS

(Don't tell Rowena…)