A Tragedy

In two trials in 2023 and 2024, Lucy Letby, a 33-year-old nurse in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in England, was found guilty of the murder or attempted murder of 14 babies in her care between June 2015 and June 2016 and sentenced to life in prison. 

Her murder trial lasted more than ten months and captivated the United Kingdom. The press called Lucy, "UK's most prolific child serial killer in modern times". The judge highlighted, "the cruelty and calculation" of her actions and a mother of an infant girl stated, "I don't think we will ever get over the fact that our daughter was tortured till she had no fight left in her, and everything she went through over her short life was deliberately done by someone who was supposed to protect her and help her come home, where she belonged."

Prologue: 

All tragedy invokes the question of what could have been done to stop it, but the prologue is Lucy's life before this tragedy and it's remarkably normal, with no indication that she was a danger to the tiny, premature babies she looked after. She appeared to have been a psychologically healthy and happy, with many close friends and a dedication to nursing. She wanted to be a nurse since she was a teenager, 

“She’d had a difficult birth herself, and she was very grateful for being alive to the nurses that would have helped save her life,” her friend Dawn Howe told the BBC. An only child, Letby grew up in Hereford, a city north of Bristol. In high school, she had a group of close friends who called themselves the “miss-match family”: they were dorky and liked to play games such as Cranium and Twister. Howe described Letby as the “most kind, gentle, soft friend.” Another friend said that she was “joyful and peaceful. Letby, who lived in staff housing on the hospital grounds, was twenty-five years old and had just finished a six-month course to become qualified in neonatal intensive care. She was one of only two junior nurses on the unit with that training. “We had massive staffing issues, where people were coming in and doing extra shifts,” a senior nurse on the unit said. “It was mainly Lucy that did a lot.” She was young, single, and saving to buy a house. That year, when a friend suggested that she take some time off, Letby texted her, “Work is always my priority.”

Act I: The Trial

The prosecutors, in seven of the murder or attempted murder charges, relied on an academic paper written in 1989 by Dr. Shoo Lee, one of Canada’s most renowned neonatologists, on a rare complication in newborns — pulmonary vascular air embolism — to argue that Ms. Letby had intentionally injected air into their veins.

At her trial, Lucy suffered from PTSD, was barely coherent and, despite denying that she murdered anyone, she was found guilty of the murder or attempted murder of 14 babies.

Act II: 

Dr. Lee had retired to a farm in Alberta in 2021 and only heard of the case when Lucy's lawyer emailed him in 2023. Dr. Lee agreed to help with Ms. Letby’s request for an appeal because the expert witness had misinterpreted his work, but the court ultimately denied her request, saying Dr. Lee’s testimony should have been introduced at trial.

Dr. Lee assembled a team of neonatal specialists to look into the case with the caveat that the panel’s review would be released even if they found Lucy guilty.

Fourteen specialists from around the world assessed the clinical evidence and found: In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care.

“There was no medical evidence to support malfeasance causing death or injury” in any of the babies that Ms. Letby was charged with harming.

“If there’s no malfeasance, there’s no murder. If there’s no murder, there’s no murderer,” Dr. Lee said, adding, “And if there’s no murderer, what is she doing in prison?”

Some of the hospital staff, the panel concluded, were caring for the most critically ill or premature babies in a unit that was only meant to treat babies with lesser needs. 

Act III: The Hospital

The neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, run by the National Health Service in the west of England, was found by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to have inadequate nursing- and medical-staffing levels and the increased mortality rate in 2015 was not restricted to the neonatal unit.

Burkhard Schafer, a law professor at the University of Edinburgh who studies the intersection of law and science, said,

 “Looking for a responsible human—this is what the police are good at. What is not in the police’s remit is finding a systemic problem in an organization like the National Health Service, after decades of underfunding, where you have overworked people cutting little corners with very vulnerable babies who are already in a risk category. It is much more satisfying to say there was a bad person, there was a criminal, than to deal with the outcome of government policy.”

That last sentence warrants repeating: It is much more satisfying to say there was a bad person, there was a criminal, than to deal with the outcome of government policy. It was precisely the need to find a culprit that led to the failure to understand the real reasons that babies died. 

Act IV: Yet to be written

We have a nurse in jail for life for murders she didn't commit and a hospital woefully underfunded, that put babies lives at risk. There is no way to rectify things. Lucy, even if released, will be irrevocably damaged. The families who lost their babies will never get them back. The underfunding of hospitals remains unchanged.

It's all a damn tragedy.

Give Me A Reliable Narrator, Please.

Sometimes one has to write a potentially very unpopular article and today is my day. I hope you'll give me a break on this one, because I purchased a book and read it till the end and, given my investment, I have an opinion. You can call it a whine and offer me some cheese, but here it is.

Just read a mystery novel. The narrator appeared nice, sympathetic with the victim and then, bam, it turned out that the narrator lied the whole novel.

The writing was exquisite, the characters finely drawn and yet, at the end, I was not impressed. Dashiell Hammett famously said (referring to people not narrators) that liars are bores. In this case, I was not bored, I was annoyed. There are different types of unreliable narrators: ones who fool themselves and ones fool the reader. The former, narrators who fool themselves are utterly human - I expect and enjoy them in novels. The latter, the liars who fool the reader, are different. Some enjoy the twist of the narrator as liar in a novel. I do not. Give me an honest narrator. Make them limp with naiveté, hobble with some impairment in insight, and I'm still on board. Make them a liar and I feel like I've wasted my time.

Now that, in two paragraphs, I've probably annoyed many, let me spend the rest of the paragraphs explaining.

Like many people, I'm a two-fisted reader. In one hand, I always hold a mystery novel and in the other hand, I've  always held science books. I expect the narrators in both hands to tell the truth.

Can you imagine reading one of Louis Leaky's books - where he presents careful fossil evidence showing that the birthplace of humans was Africa and not Europe or Asia as previously thought - only to reach the end of the book where he tells you that he'd been digging in Scotland? Or imagine a doctor meticulously going through your results, telling you that you have incurable lung cancer and, after helping you tell those who love you, hearing their anguish and sharing yours, the doctor explains you don't have cancer but was enjoying the reactions you and yours had to the false diagnosis. I suspect that you would never read Leaky's books or go to that doctor again.

Even science and mystery books with reliable narrators have intrigue - the narrator is limited by their knowledge, the times they live in, their own foibles and shortsightedness. I'm fine with all that. I just don't like being told, at the end of investing my time, that I've been lied to.

How is any of this a walk-back of my initial criticism? That was the explanation, here's a part of the walk-back: I strongly suspect that when any of us reads mystery novels, our criteria for judging them is impacted by what else we read. If you're a two-fisted reader of mystery and impressionist art or, mystery and Shakespeare, for example, what you expect from a book may be different. A book that annoys one person, delights another.

Here's the other part of the walk-back: the books we read push us towards certain professions, then our profession in turn pushes us to certain books and these books push back into our professions - this is an endless loop, a constant dialogue - a dialectic - where one changes the other. Many have discussed the natural relationship between medicine and writing mystery novels - many of my colleagues also read mystery novels - but I recently read this very clear explanation of the relationship:

"Almost all mystery novels open with something unpleasant happening to the victim (read, patient). The perpetrator (disease) causes harm, but does so in such a sly and covert fashion that the protagonist (doctor) is left in the dark. Through diligence and careful observation, new clues (symptoms, signs, laboratory tests) are discovered and the villain (disease process) begins to take shape and structure. If it is a good novel with a happy ending, the perpetrator is uncovered by the protagonist and is punished or eliminated (treated successfully). As you see, there is not a whole lot of difference between mystery novels and complex discharge summaries. Thus, in a sense, doctors are trained to be writers and storytellers."

One can see how a profession, in my case medicine, influences how one feels a story should progress. In other words, I was not built - by my two-fisted reading and my work - for a unreliable narrator who lies as a technique to tell their story. I apologize to the excellent author who triggered this article but I will not be buying their books. Luckily, many other readers will because they're an excellent writer.

As the final part of my walk-back, this as an ode to the reliable narrator - please write that book. Give the reliable narrator warts or shortsightedness, give them anguish or arrogance, but make their attempt to tell an honest story an earnest one - no matter how much they fail at it - and many of us will truly appreciate this book.

2025: Reshaping the literature of our time.

Does anyone else wonder if 2025 will change the nature of mystery and crime novels, as well as literature as a whole? 

Where to stand during an earthquake is one question, how to write during and after one is an entirely different question. Readers gravitate to the genre of mystery and crime novels for many reasons and, though the novels vary from the slow unraveling of puzzles, to the fast paced action to save the innocent or capture the dangerous, at the core of all of them is a world where there is right and there is wrong, where justice is served or, if it's not served, then it still exists as a beacon to light the way and where Orwellian newspeak is called out in the plain language of truth.

Rather than dwell on specifics, because goodness knows we've been inundated with them, I'd rather focus on principles that are often lost in the noise. If someone is convicted in a court of law, then serving their time in jail is something we expect, we rely on. If they are released for no legal reason but, rather, on a wish and whim, is there still a rule of law? If the free press, a pillar of democracy, faces retaliation for printing facts in a democracy, then is it still a democracy when this pillar falls? If the most sacred role of democratic governments - to keep their citizens safe - is eschewed by defunding and inserting an anti-science control over the health science that keeps citizens safe - what other roles no longer matter? If a democracy embraces the Latin term imperium, which originally indicated unrestricted authority of a single person, is it still a democracy?

If all this is changing - how do you write that? Literature must be reflective of the times. Will post-2025 mystery and crime writing, as well as literature in general, change by incorporating - by the osmosis that writers are famous for - the new world we find ourselves in? If settings and characters remain impervious to change, then the literature becomes irrelevant to readers who live in the setting of the day and are, indeed, the characters who live there. If literature ignores the changes in society, it inadvertently becomes historical fiction.

It is not merely the United States that has changed. The world is changing. As the U.S. withdraws from crucial health organizations like the World Health Organization and threatens – for the first time – to take over the countries of allies, the world is realigning. Long time alliances are being questioned. Many thrillers involve international settings and international law enforcements and one must ask, how will those change?

We've seen many authors of mysteries and thrillers become political – some of the biggest names in the business, from James Patterson, Don Winslow, Stephen King to Celeste Ng, have spoken out. Authors speaking out politically in such large numbers is something that we haven't seen since the 1930s. Given the rise of book bans, it takes courage to speak up and the muzzling of authors will also be something all genres will have to contend with. To become irrelevant or be silenced is the question that authors will have to grapple with and, many will speak out knowing that book bans are temporary but valuable literature lasts for generations. Further, history has shown us that, in times when there is much harm being done, those who are silent are judged harshly. 

All these changes feel new and we'll have to see how they play out - it's only February for goodness sake! – but I truly don't believe that the genre will be the same after this. It doesn't feel like a blip in time but, rather, a fundamental change – an earthquake beneath our feet that is reshaping the literature of our time.

2025: The Year of The Bizarre Legal Questions

 

With 2025 in it's infancy, it can already be dubbed The Year of The Bizarre Legal Questions. One of the weirdest of the lot, and one none of us have ever heard before is: if Canada is attacked by the United States, what protections does Canada have? 

This is a rather breathtaking question, given the longstanding friendship between our two countries, but here we are. How we got here and where we go from here are the crucial questions. 

The GOP began threatening Canada around the convoy protests, when in February, 2022, Republican congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, claimed that the United States has, "neighbors to the north who need freedom and who need to be liberated.”

Then entered Tucker Carlson, with comments and a film, proclaiming, "the US should invade our neighbors in the north."

Many Canadians thought this was an extremely odd way to object to how Canada handled a domestic issue, but most of us shrugged and continued on with our lives. Then, in November, 2024 when Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, met with the incoming U.S. president-elect, Trump talked about the potential annexation of Canada to make Canada the 51st state.

Since then, this conversation has become one where the issues are a moving target. 

After threatening 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports if Canada didn't improve border security, Trump responded to Canada's proposed border investment of $1.2-billion with a new spin that the United States pays to protect Canada. Since Canada has never required protection from attacks, this must mean NATO investments, but Canada's ramping up their investments in NATO also doesn't seem to satisfy Trump. He responded by saying, "Canada and the United States, that would really be something," Trump said. "You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security." 

After meandering around this issue, trying out many narratives, Trump seems to have settled into the idea that he will use, ''economic force to acquire Canada." 

Others in the GOP are lining up on this with Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican from Texas saying, "I think that the people of Canada, for that matter, should be honored that President Trump wants to bring these territories under the American fold." 

The moving of goal posts is breathtaking, but worse is the misuse of language. 

"In his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946) Orwell observed that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” In other words, certain political language (propaganda) uses words and phrases to hide ugly truths. He foresaw how politicians would misstate and mislead in order to stay in power, using words to distort more than to inform, not to convey meaning but to undermine it." 

The deliberate misuse of of language is hiding a potential march to war.  

Clearly, Canada is an independent and sovereign country and is not a 'state' or 'territory' but by refusing to call Canada a country, Trump et al suggests that 'annexation' of Canada is easy. 

But we all know that any attempt to 'annex' another country is a declaration of war and we only need to look at Russia's attempt to 'annex' the Ukraine to know the dire consequences of such actions. 

So, as we meander along the path of Trump and his sycophants, it's understandable why Canadians - who are generally a calm people -  are asking about international laws. 

I really hope that someone with true expertise answers the questions that are arising from all this. Certainly, Canada has many multilateral defence agreements, but the most significant and most talked about these days is NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Canada was one of twelve founding members of NATO in 1949, and now there are 32 members. Of these, three of NATO's members have nuclear weapons: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

Since the United States and Canada are both founding members of NATO, perhaps this article analyzing this question in the context of the 2020 tensions between NATO allies Turkey and Greece, helps clarify the issue: 

"what if this altercation between two NATO allies did escalate, leading to the beginning of a new armed war? Considering there are no such precedents, what would this mean for the fighting allies and in what way will NATO interfere?

"The goal of collective defence is codified in Article 5 NAT. It states that an attack against one member of NATO should be considered an attack against all. In this case, all other NATO allies will assist the said attacked member...it is important to note that this article does not make a distinction between NATO members and external attacking parties. This could imply that the article could even be triggered when the attacking party is a NATO ally. Since an event like this never occurred, there are no precedents to look into.

"Another Treaty article that could give us more insights into the consequences of such conflict between allies, is Article 8 NAT. The specific article states that ‘Each Party undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty’. Knowing that the main purpose of the Treaty is peacekeeping and preventing attacks against NATO members, this could imply that fighting allied nations means disobeying the article and therefore breaching the Treaty." 

The last point is crucial. The main purpose of NATO is to prevent attacks against members. So, will NATO act as a form of deterrence? Will the United States, if it attacks Canada, be expelled from NATO? Given that the United States is a major contributor to NATO, this will give everyone pause. However, the United States attacking a peaceful country like Canada, with a stellar reputation around the world, will worry all NATO nations that their country could be next on the list and joining Canada in this fight would be a form of self-defence much like the Ukraine is seen as the frontline of Russia's aggression and, if it falls, other countries will be that frontline. 

Underlying all this Orwellian language is the key deception by Trump et al: that mild and meek Canada can easily be invaded by the mighty United States. I leave it to experts to analyze the real numbers in terms of military might of the United States verses the military might of the other thirty one NATO nations combined, as well as other nations Canada has military and cooperative agreements with, such as Canada's defence relations in the Asia Pacific . However, if I can be forgiven for spitballing in lieu of expertise, the United States has touted its large military contribution to NATO of 1.3 million troops. Let's put this in context. Canada contributed  1.159M  troops to World War II, when Canada's population was a mere 12M. Today, Canada has a population of 40M. And we are just one country in NATO.  Also, despite Trump's claims that the United States contributes two-thirds of the NATO overall budget, that number is actually only 15.8% of the total NATO budget as of 2024. Add to this the other two NATO nations besides the United States that have nuclear arms and we have the makings of a real mess. This is why an actual expert is needed to gauge the military might of the United States verses all other NATO countries because if NATO is to function as a deterrent to war - and it should - the might of NATO should be stated as a counterweight to the spin emanating from Trump et al. 

After walking down this road, one can't help wondering how the road ahead will look. First, it could go like all the other trade and tariff wars Canada and the United States have had over the years and end up at a negotiating table with a deal hammered out. We will then have proof - lacking at this time - that all this talk of war was just a negotiating strategy, however, the moving goal posts of how to resolve this makes this narrative a tad questionable. Second, Trump et al could be forced to back down by Americans - citizens and members of the government - calling out the Orwellian language and demanding a stop to calls for war. These first two options are the preferred choice for all those who want peace and a continuation of the long, fruitful friendship between our two nations, so we can go back to walking our dogs, sipping lattes and pondering real problems such as what to make for dinner.* Third, it could end up as a war where the United States attempts to take Canada by force with NATO and other allies of each country being involved. As Canadian citizens from coast to coast and Canadian governments at all levels have clearly stated:  Canada, an independent country, will not become a part of the United States without a fight. Avoiding that war is a crucial issue for 2025. 

*Update: while I was writing this article, my husband made dinner so, that problem is solved. 

Crime Fiction has a new role: Preventing Patients from getting Healthcare.

Has anyone else noticed it's becoming a thing to write crime fiction about healthcare and present it as fact? People are drawn to crime fiction. It gets their hearts racing. But this crime fiction writing has real victims - patients denied healthcare because of fictitious crime. One recent story that made me ponder this whole strange issue once again is the story of the safe drug consumption sites and the healthcare of addicts.

There has been a push by politicians to shut down supervised drug consumption site by claiming they increase crime in the neighbourhood. One can see this is an effective strategy for closing all supervised drug consumption sites because people worry they could come into their neighbourhood, bringing in a wave of crime. No one wants a crime wave in their neighbourhood, where their children play and grandma and grandpa come to visit. Stories have power and stories of threats to those we love are perhaps the most compelling – they make us act, vote, do anything to protect our loved ones. However, this is fiction, presented as fact.

We have years of data showing that crime doesn't increase around these sites but the latest data from Toronto caught people's attention:

"Toronto police data shows they may have the opposite effect.

Crime types including robberies, bike thefts, break and enters, thefts from motor vehicles, shootings and homicides dropped among neighbourhoods with supervised drug consumption sites between 2018 and 2023, often more than they did in the rest of the city, the data shows....One exception was the crime of assault, which rose by 22 per cent among neighbourhoods with sites, though neighbourhoods without sites saw a rise of 24 per cent“

So, even if these safe consumption sites don't increase crime, why have them in the first place? The answer simple: they are a crucial form of healthcare for addicts and the facts about addiction are concerning.

"More than one in four deaths among young Canadians (in their 20s-30s) between 2019 and 2021 were opioid-related..They found that in three years (between 2019 and 2021) the annual number of opioid-related deaths rose from 3,007 to 6,222. And the number of years of life lost due to opioids increased from 126,115 to 256,336."

This is the other story, a true one, about the young people we know, in the very neighbourhoods many wanted to protect from a fictitious crime wave in the wake of safe drug consumption sites, who are dying in increasing numbers.

Some argue that those young people who die from overdoses were going to die anyway. There is no saving an addict, so why bother?

We should bother because addicts can be saved. The first safe consumption site in North America opened in British Columbia, Canada, in September 2003. With over 4 million visits by users, over 11,000 overdoses reversed, they have had 0 drug overdose deaths. Instead they have many stories, true ones, of success, like Felicella, who spent two decades using drugs and "was one of the first through the door when Insite opened, and he credits it with saving his life. Now married with three kids, he works as a Peer Clinical Advisor for both Vancouver Coastal Health and the BC Centre on Substance Use, and is an in-demand harm reduction public speaker."

These safe consumption sites are healthcare, providing a safe place to do drugs and also the resources to get off drugs and build a life. To have a job, to have children and to help build the community your live in.

This continuing controversy over safe consumption sites is another of the sad tales of healthcare fighting crime fiction. The real victims are patients who can be denied healthcare if these fictional stories are believed and people vote to make them policy. Whether it is safe consumption sites, vaccine safety or a myriad of other issues, healthcare is butting heads with crime fiction. Medicine is faced with constant stories of vaccines that cause death and threats of doctors being jailed or killed in response. One of the latest and weirdest is the crime fiction of babies being murdered by doctors after birth under the name of 'abortion'. These crime stories are made up to make people's blood boil and they create real victims: patients who fail to get the healthcare they need to keep them safe.

As someone who is passionate about healthcare and mystery novels, never did I think the two would meet in such a dangerous way.

Punishment For the Rich and Powerful: How Do we Stop Them?

As a society we think - or at least hope - that punishment for a crime serves as a deterrent for others but will also deter offenders from re-offending.

A recent high profile case that’s all over the news suggests that convictions may serve to embolden, anger and worsen behaviour, making the person more dangerous. 

A Canadian case illustrates how the powerful are hard to stop: Peter Demeter, who was rich and vengeful, became more dangerous after his conviction.

In 1973, Canadian real estate developer, Peter Demeter, hired a hitman to kill his wife and mother of his three-year-old child, but this horrifically violent murder was just the start of Demeter’s spree of hiring people to commit crimes for him. 

Demeter had a rocky marriage, a mistress and had just taken out a one million dollar life insurance policy on his wife. However, he also had an airtight alibi. Once it was discovered that he hired a hitman to kill his wife, Demeter was sentenced to life in prison on Dec. 6, 1974. 

Prison only increased his anger and need for vengeance. In 1983, Peter was paroled and that same year hired and paid another former inmate, Tony Preston, $8,000 to burn down his house. And he was sentenced for plotting to murder his cousin’s teenage son (the cousin had taken custody of Demeter’s daughter after he murdered her mother.). Peter plotted to have his nephew kidnapped in order to collect the ransom and then have the nephew killed. He was handed two new life sentences.

This was not the end of Demeter’s vengeance. In 1985, while in prison, he was tried for yet another murder-for-hire scheme, this time for conspiring to kidnap and kill the daughter of his lawyer. 

As the judge noted, Peter has shown he has a capacity for some truly dangerous behaviour, regardless of his status as an inmate or a free man.

He was eventually clinically labelled as a psychopath, diagnosed with narcissistic and antisocial features and deemed an indefinite risk to the public.

In 2019, at the age of 85, Demeter attempted to get parole and parole was denied:

“Your history of counselling others to seek revenge for you makes you more of a risk of recidivism than your age and physical ability to harm others would suggest.

It is the Board’s opinion that you will present an undue risk to society if released.”

Despite a heart attack, stroke and several bouts with cancer, all while behind bars, he continues to live and is now in his 90s. 

The Demeter story illustrates how anger, mixed with a need for vengeance, served on a bed of immorality, is a dangerous combination. It also shows how the rich and powerful can bypass prison bars and hire people to do their dirty work. Or, if they have political power, they can attempt to inspire people to hurt or kill others. 

So, punishment for a crime may inadvertently end up hurting or killing innocent people and I wonder how one stops the rich, powerful and immoral among us. 

If someone writes a novel - or even a true story - about how to stop crimes by the powerful with punishment, that’s the story we need today. At this point, I’m at a loss. 

Kinsey Millhone: a fantasy character with fantasies.

Recently my six-month-old Bouvier puppy mistook one of my Sue Grafton books for a chew toy. I apologize to anyone who is squeamish about crime scene photos, but this is what I had to deal with.

During her life and since her death, I cannot count the number of conversations I’ve had about Sue Grafton and her character, Kinsey Millhone.

Women detectives in novels get me every time. My bookshelf and bank account concur. Like any love affair - I’m committed, invested and have opinions.

After I taped the cover of the book, I looked at Sue Grafton’s site and found a quote from N Is for Noose about Kinsey, that reveals why she is so compelling as a character:

“Get close to someone and the next thing you know, you've given them the power to wound, betray, irritate, abandon you, or bore you senseless. My general policy is to keep my distance, thus avoiding a lot of unruly emotion. In psychiatric circles, there are names for people like me.”

It is followed by this explanation: 

“Those are sentiments that hit home for Grafton's readers. And she has said that Kinsey is herself, only younger, smarter, and thinner. But are they an apt description of Kinsey's creator? Well, she's been married to Steve Humphrey for more than thirty-five years and has three children, four granddaughters, and one great grandson.  She loves cats, gardens, and good cuisine—not quite the nature-hating, fast-food loving Millhone. So: readers and reviewers beware. Never assume the author is the character in the book. Sue…is only in her imagination Kinsey Millhone—but what a splendid imagination it is.”

There’s an old adage that writers should write what they know because readers have a nose for  inauthentic writing and there’s nothing inauthentic about Kinsey. Every woman can agree that people can wound, betray and bore you senseless. It reads as authentic and passes the sniff test. So, I argue that Sue Grafton knew Kinsey well enough to write about her. Kinsey’s rant about people didn’t even fit with the way her character lived because one of the staples of the series is her close relationship with Henry, her elderly neighbour and landlord. She even likes Rosie, who runs the local restaurant and bar, despite her serving odd and often repulsive food. If Kinsey Millhone is Sue Grafton’s alter ego, then Kinsey Millhone has her own alter ego and this is why readers felt her to be such a credible character. 

Just as writers write what they know, I suspect readers read what they know as well. I simply cannot read certain books. If a female detective (again, big fan) shows herself to be incapable of forming relationships and lacking in empathy on any page in the book, that’s the page I stop reading. This isn’t a judgement thing. It’s about reality. I have known many women as friends, as patients, heck, I even raised a woman, and I have never met one who doesn't form relationships and has no empathy. Not one. So when I read about tough women detectives (again big fan of tough women) who have no empathy, I can’t relate. Can’t read. They don’t seem real. 

Yes, there are people with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) commonly known as psychopaths or sociopaths, but they account for 0.2% to 3.3% of the population. People overestimate their numbers in part because so many crime novels feature them and also because it has become in vogue to diagnose those one dislikes as a one of these. Kinsey has many dimensions but she does not fulfil the criteria of antisocial personality disorder. As I said, I have opinions and this is one of them.

Why Kinsey is so loved as a character is that she, like many of us, has fantasies. Sue Grafton’s readers understand this. I’m fiercely protective of my husband of over 30 years and have also, when annoyed, politely asked him to find me my book of poisons so I can make him dinner. If the former weren’t true, the latter wouldn’t be funny.

Kinsey as a character is so authentic that she, like all of us, has fantasies of being something worse than she is and then, she comes to her senses and hangs out with Henry or eats Rosie’s vile food without complaint. I can relate. No matter how annoyed I have been, I have never actually added poison to my husband's food and he eats the meal I prepare with gusto because he knows this. He does occasionally feign a near death experience while eating and it's hilarious, because it's all fantasy. 

Why Backstories Matter Today More Than Ever.

In mystery books, many of us consider backstories of perpetrators and the victims of crimes the meat of the book. Apropos of exactly that, lately I’ve written about the rise of hate speech against many vulnerable groups because this is the backstory to hate crimes. Doctors like me always tout preventive medicine and, as a person, it’s my core belief that crime prevention is better than crime investigations.

This month brought to light the terrible consequence of a fetid backstory that’s been gaining ground. I’ll reference events in Canada because that’s what I know best, but this has been a problem in the United States and other countries around the world. So, although the backstory is Canadian, the crime occurred in America.

Backstory:

In June, 2023, a professor and two students were stabbed at a gender studies lecture at the University of Waterloo and the police cited the motivation as “hate related to gender expression and gender identity.”

By August, 2023, many universities removed class locations and instructor names from the public domain to protect those teaching gender studies. The president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, which represents 17,000 university faculty and academic librarians, said “racist, anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ and other hate-motivated online extremism is being seen on university campuses and classes that explore social and gender issues.”

Despite the proof that anti-LGBTQ hate speech results in violence, in September we saw Marches against LGBTQ Canadians. I wrote about this in On our Streets and referenced these marches with the Orwellian name “Leave our kids alone” that actually targeted LGBTQ children. These marchers claimed that children were too young to hear about our LGBTQ community but what they really didn’t want is teaching our children the facts: some people are gay, trans or binary and that’s OK because Canadian laws protect them. One video of these marches showed a child claiming that LGBTQ Canadians are“disgusting” so, apparently, they weren’t too young to hear about the LGBTQ community, talk about them or insult them. They were just too young to hear that being LGBTQ is OK.

Crime:

In February, 2024, Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old Oklahoma high school sophomore, who identified as transgender and non-binary, had her head smashed repeatedly against the bathroom floor by fellow students and she died from her injuries.

Many people I’ve spoken with justify their silence on attacks against LGBTQ by saying they don’t really understand the issue. Surely, killing a child by bashing their head against a bathroom floor because they claim to be transgender and non-binary requires no complex understanding of sexual development to know this is wrong and a grotesque crime.

Our collective backstory:

Hate speech is a crime in Canada. Less so in the United States. Regardless of the legal status, hate speech is the backstory to an increasing number of vicious attacks against innocent people. Another crucial backstory is silence.

When I post on social media about many types of hate speech, more recently about antisemitic hate speech, I get some very ugly pushback. This is why many people are increasingly silent on hate speech related issues. It’s difficult to speak up.

Martin Luther King’s haunting line applies to this silence: “The ultimate tragedy, is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

So, if we are writing a fulsome backstory of bigoted physical attacks on people whether they be Asian, Jewish, LGBTQ or any other group - the silence of the many would be part of that.

How do we speak up?

Here on SleuthSayers, I’ve been so fortunate that Leigh Lundin and Robert Lopresti have been kind enough to allow me to indulge my penchant for writing crime backstories. On social media, I have followers who are incredibly decent and decry hate speech and hate crimes – and this makes it easier to handle the rude pushback.

Ultimately, it is the fact – and it is a fact – that we write the backstories for others daily and this should make us eschew silence. These are dangerous days for the rise of hate. In my decades of living, I’ve never felt so worried as I am now. If you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention.

This rise of hate against so many groups worldwide isn't just organic. Many reports from intelligence agencies show it's funded by foreign countries to sow dissent within our democracies, as well as by Neo-nazi movements, funded by ardent believers, some of whom have a great deal of money. It often feels like those of us speaking out are playing checkers with chess players who have moves, money and motives that we don't understand. It's all so infuriating. And depressing. I hope that writing backstories will help people connect the dots and maybe that will matter. 

UPDATE: Do new autopsy results clarify what happened to Nex? I give you the summary by a child paediatrician - because, of course, there are many who do not want this to be murder, but Dr. O'Brien clarifies the cause.

"Hate is as old as man and doubtless as durable."

It is with great regret that I’m writing a follow-up article to last month’s Peace and Order, where I looked at the hate laws in Canada and stated: “This dramatic rise in hate motivated crime is testing our laws, our police response, legal system and things may have to change to meet the challenge.

Well, things have certainly changed over the last month but in a most unwelcome way. We have increasing attacks on Jewish Canadian schools, businesses and homes, so much so that it’s making international news. 

To this international audience, our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said, “We’re seeing right now a rise in antisemitism that is terrifying.” 

On the same news video, Rabbi Saul Emanuel adds, “It has become accepted that you can go after any Jewish target” 

Why has it become acceptable to some people to go after Jewish Canadians? If you watch the video it is clear that the business set on fire has “Free Palestine” written on their window. There is no doubt that a segment of the protesters are using the tragedy of mounting deaths in Palestine to mount attacks against Jewish Canadians. 

That said, many reasonable non-antisemitic Canadians are also decrying the deaths of innocents in Palestine. It’s a complicated situation but what is a clear, uncontested fact is that some of these protesters are using the situation to engage in antisemitic hate crimes. Rather than argue this point, a picture is worth a thousand words and here is one of targeted arson at a Jewish-owned deli in Toronto.  The owner is a Jewish Canadian and no one who is sensible can argue firebombing his business will change anything in Palestine. It is pure antisemitic hate. 

On social media, a photo of a poster put up in a Jewish neighbourhood depicts the scale of the problem and where it can lead, so let’s break it down. 

The poster graphic looks old-school, like something you would find in a history book on the rise of antisemitism before WWII. The words harken to something more modern and warrant an analysis. 

“Imagine being so vile, sneaky and disgusting that laws have to be created to keep normal people from hating or condemning you.”

Certainly the cliche trope of the ‘vile, sneaky and disgusting’ Jew is old and a way that bigots have long justified their bigotry by suggesting it is the victim not the aggressor that is responsible. It is as absurd as robbing a store at gunpoint and claiming the store deserved to be robbed. 

The part referencing “the laws created to keep people from hating or condemning you” refers to hate laws in Canada, referenced in my previous article. They are laws that keep all Canadians safe. They also keep our democracy safe because a democracy is, by definition, a society where all can vote and participate - any attempt to sideline groups from full rights and safety is, by its nature, antidemocratic. We know that historically and in the present day, authoritarian governments attack certain groups, sideline them or murder them, on their way into power and continue to do so in power to underline that only a select few get to make decisions about that country. Targeting any group is a blatant attack on the democratic rights of all Canadians. 

Canadian hate laws, born from a 1965 Special Committee on Hate Propaganda chaired by Judge Maxwell Cohen, have been expanded to recently include online hate speech. Hate laws were created to protect all Canadians, including Jewish Canadians.

In words that are as applicable today as they were then, Cohen said, "On the one hand, there was a new emphasis on individual freedom. On the other side, there was a growing recognition that these very liberties could be dangerously abused.”

“The preface to the 1965 report warns, "Hate is as old as man and doubtless as durable." It also contains a warning that could as easily refer to the current spread of anti-Asian slurs through social media as to the anti-Semitic pamphlets and slogans that emerged in Cohen's day.

Ours is "a world aware of the perils of falsehood disguised as fact and of conspirators eroding the community's integrity through pretending that conspiracies from elsewhere now justify verbal assaults," Cohen wrote. He called them "the non-facts and the non-truths of prejudice and slander.” 

By attacking Jewish Canadians and the laws of Canada, this poster highlights the dangers we face as a nation. 

Someone with a better mind than I will have to sift through many of these issues. How do we ensure the right to protest - a crucial democratic right - while protecting Canadians who are targeted by some of the protesters? It’s complicated. What is not complicated is this: Jewish Canadians are protected by the same laws that protect us all and there is no justification for any attacks on them. None.  

Peace and Order

At a dinner party I was once told by an American, that while Americans strive for 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’, Canadians get the very unsexy ‘Peace, Order and Good Government’.

At the risk of sounding dull as dishwater, I’m a big fan of peace, order and good government. It’s reassuring. Although peace and order in the Constitution Act of 1867 refers to large issues, most of us understand it as it’s exemplified in everyday life. The quiet way we line up to take our turn or stop our cars at a crosswalk to let children cross. The peace of quiet walks and stopping at a favourite store and getting some food. The way all my neighbours wave and chat.

Since the October 7^th Hamas attack against Israel, we are hearing more and more about Canadians being shouted at on the subway by mobs, shootings at schools and defaced places of worship. The places we shop owned by Jews and Muslims are being targeted by mobs and vandalized. Many Canadians are frightened by how the peace and order of everyday life has been shattered by violence and disorder.

People are saying that they simply aren’t safe anymore and where is the legal punishment for this? 

There are three separate hatred-related offences in Canada: advocating genocide, publicly inciting hatred, and willfully promoting hatred.

For all three offences, there is no minimum punishment. Imprisonment, probation, or fines are possible. 

However, a provision in the Criminal Code addresses crimes motivated by hatred and allows increased penalties when an offender is sentenced for any criminal offence “if there is evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.” So theoretically, these crimes should carry harsher punishments. 

Interestingly, and applicable to today’s crises, “In 2009, the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism was established by major federal political parties to investigate and combat antisemitism - particularly what is referred to as the new antisemitism. It is argued that this form of hate targets Israel, consisting of and fed by allegations of Israeli "war crimes" and similar claims. Anti-Israel actions that led to the formation of a Parliamentary Coalition included boycott campaigns on university campuses and in some churches, spilling over into attacks on synagogues, Jewish institutions and individuals.”

So, how is this playing out? Police forces are asking people to come forward and report, and many are increasing the officers dedicated to hate crimes. In Toronto, Chief Myron Demkiw said there has been a "staggering" increase in hate crimes since the Hamas October seventh attack,  most of the hate crimes - 40% of them - are antisemitic hate crimes and “the force's hate crime unit has been expanded from a team of six to 32. And that since Oct. 7^th, the unit has made 22 arrests and laid 58 charges.” This type of communication with the public, encouraging reporting as well as communicating that arrests and charges have occurred, goes a long way to making people feel safer and it needs to be communicated more. 

Perhaps part of the problem is that many hate crimes are shared on social media but without follow-up, so there appears to be no accountability. A widely shared video showed an Indigo store with posters and red paint, the posters depicting an image of the company’s Jewish CEO Heather Reisman and accusing her of “Funding Genocide.” There were, however, consequences for those involved. So far, eleven people have been arrested, charged and the investigation remains open. We have yet to hear what their punishment will be and if there will be jail time.

This dramatic rise in hate motivated crime is testing our laws, our police response, legal system and things may have to change to meet the challenge. We haven’t seen this level of hate crimes before and just like police forces are adding officers trained to deal with hate crimes, perhaps we need to finally ask if our legal system can properly charge those involved? Will the punishment serve as a deterrent to others who might want to embark on similar hate crimes? Will the police response to arrest people be swift enough to make people feel safe or are more tools needed?  Do we need strict minimum sentences to serve as a future deterrent? 

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions – just a fan of peace, order and good government who is very worried.

October 7th

I listened to an interview with Rachel Maddow, host of the MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show on her research on the rise of antisemitism and she explained this:

When people tell you that a minority group are evil and they’re the reason things are bad, they are saying that some people among us are dangerous and these people shouldn’t be part of our democracy with rights to vote. We need someone to protect us from these people. So, its not just about telling us who to hate, it’s about undoing democracy and Maddow says we shouldn’t stand for it. It’s a powerful video.

This certainly fits with what we’ve seen with Anti-Asian hate and LGBTQ-hate – there are many narratives explaining why they’re ‘dangerous’ and shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone. Essentially, they shouldn’t be part of our democracy.

Now we’re seeing the rise of antisemitism and the same narrative holds. This topic is large, the events unfolding in the Middle East complicated and well beyond the scope of my small article. Further, I lack the expertise to talk about the history and lack the military expertise to talk about the war. I will write about only one thing: the October 7^th slaughter in Israel.

Over three thousand young people gathered to dance at the Supernova Sukkot in the desert, approximately 5 km from the Gaza Strip and near Kibbutz Re’im with a population of around 430.

The rave was billed as a celebration of "friends, love and infinite freedom” and attendees were prohibited from bringing weapons including guns and sharp objects. Sound like the kind of thing many young people we know, including our own children, would attend.

In the morning, Hamas came at the attendees from all directions, killing at least 260 people and abducting dozens as hostages. The massacre and hostage taking continued at nearby Kibbutz Re’im and in the end, over one thousand were slaughtered and hundreds taken hostage.

Hamas insurgents recorded their own deeds with GoPro cameras and that, combined with surveillance footage, has been aired to many including seasoned journalists who found the footage so gruesome that many had to leave.

"The worst part was the glee," Sabrina Maddeaux, a political columnist for the National Post, wrote in a piece published Monday, describing the apparent joy Hamas fighters took in their rampage across communities and at a music festival in southern Israel last month. Reporters described seeing images of burned babies and children, along with other indescribably graphic scenes.

There are still over 200 hostages in the hands of Hamas. We have seen a woman hostage naked and beaten on a truck paraded through Gaza. The terrorists have a baby who is 10 months old.

We have seen videos of people denying that these events happened and we’ve seen photos of the kidnapped torn down as ‘propaganda’. For those who wonder how people can deny the Holocaust, we’re seeing the denial in real time today.

There will also be people who may not deny these events but only want to talk about the ‘lead up’ to them and the war that followed them. There is no ‘lead up’ to justify this brutality, nor can you justify brutality by referring to any actions that followed it that were unknown at the time.

As Maddow said, this is identifying some minority as bad, dangerous and unfit to have democratic rights – human rights – whether it’s citizens of Israel or Jewish citizens of other countries.

On this Memorial Day 2023, when we honour those who fought for and preserved our democracy, I wanted to write a small article about the big events of October 7^th, 2023. In a democracy, all of us are equal, can vote and participate in the shaping our society and our world. If we exclude certain groups from these universal human rights whether it be those far away in Israel or Jewish citizens at home, we demolish the foundation of our democracy.

On Our Streets

We have a rise in hate crimes in Ottawa which, while being the capital city of Canada, has always felt like a quiet place.

With a 23.5 per cent increase in hate incidents in 2023, Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs said, “Across North America and really the world, we’ve seen this trend of hate crimes on the rise.” One of the targeted groups was the LGBTQ community.

This gave me pause because many of us have been talking amongst ourselves about the shocking changes we are seeing. Canada has had a history of supporting LGBTQ rights by decriminalizing being gay as early as 1969, legalizing same sex adoption in 1995, legalizing same sex marriage in 2005 and making LGBTQ discrimination illegal in 2017.

Recently, however, in Canada we’ve had marches called, “Leave our kids alone”. Under the guise of protecting children against learning too much about sex, they actually want them to learn nothing good about the LGBTQ community. So, in reality, we had anti-LGBTQ marches on our streets. Some of the hateful things said left many of us reeling. 

What is also worrisome was the fact that they went to great lengths to look like a bunch of concerned parents, organizing organically at the local level. However, in reality they were supported by a big tent of far-right groups aligned with groups holding these “Leave our kids alone” marches in the United States.

In typical Canadian fashion, many people came to show strong support for the LGBTQ community as well. What was heartwarming about the support was most of it was from neighbours, friends and family of people who happen to be LGBTQ simply saying to them: we know you, respect you, care for you and will stand up for you. 

But make no mistake, this has shaken us. Canada has always been a tolerant country, largely insulated from the far right hateful shouting elsewhere. To have these same slogans – at times screamed out by children – was horrifyingly unCanadian. Many I spoke with were tearful at the thought of LGBTQ children hearing this vileness in a country where many had worked so hard to make them feel respected. For LGBTQ adults who had seen grimmer days of intolerance recede and lived in hope one day it would be gone, this rise of hate is disheartening. 

Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs talked about the hate seeping in from our southern neighbours, but some is homegrown or brought in from people who now call Canada home, but were raised in a hateful environment elsewhere.  It was a warning to us that we are not immune. It is literally on the street where we live. 

What is uniquely Canadian is a history of calm and civility. Americans sometimes make fun of the ‘nice’ Canadian, suggesting we are prone to naiveté and cluelessness. They misunderstand. It’s actually a steely determination not to get caught up in anger and drama but to choose, instead, to chat with people as we meet them. It’s not soft. Nothing is stronger, more adult, than refusing to engage in childish shouting, drama and anger -  this is the fodder for extremism and hate. These are the things we have tried to have a steely resolve to avoid. That’s the backbone of who we are and I hope, the civility will once again win. We have always had intolerance within our borders and knocking on the doors of our borders. We conquered it with civility.

My parents came to Canada when brown-skinned people were few and far between, particularly in small town Waterloo. Many, who had never met anyone who looked like my parents, chose to chat as they met in the neighbourhood and, more often than not, extend an invitation for coffee. At school, children hung out on the playground, invited me to their homes and some became lifelong friends. This is why civility is highly underrated. It allows everyone to meet and talk.

What we saw on these marches was the antithesis of civility. 

The far right extremism may seem big, well-funded and so loud that they will drown us. We must fight them in big ways - online, through enforcing hate laws, increasing rules in workplaces - but one way to drown them out is to chat. Quietly. In a friendly way. Being the quintessential nice Canadian, with a spine of steel, who is civil to anyone we meet on our streets. 

Those of you who have read some of my previous articles know that I strongly champion empathy in all its forms.  To the shouty and the angry, to the political and crass, I may seem like a naive fluffy person. In response to that caricature, I would like to tout my credentials - after much more than a quarter of a century of studying and clinically practicing in the area of mental health as a physican -  what allows for normalcy, decreases violence and prevents mental illness is my lane. I can say with utter certainty that empathy is crucial for a highly functioning person and a highly functional society. 

We need to get back to empathy and civility. On our streets. 

Grift, Misinformation and the Long Arm of the Law

We often hear about the long arm of the law, suggesting that the justice system has far-reaching power. There is one place that the justice system doesn’t appear to be reaching: grifters who put people’s lives at risk.

These ‘influencers’ spread misinformation about snake oil cures for everything from diabetes to cancer. People die. No one pays the price. 


So, we’re learning that lying and killing people with lies isn’t a punishable crime. 

Mystery readers like myself have an innate need for justice to done. We want the arm of the law to be long enough to reach those who harm people, particularly if they kill them.

We’ve seen the rise of anti-vaccine misinformation reach so far into people’s psyche that not only are they eschewing COVID vaccines but also all vaccines - children are now dying of vaccine preventable disease like measles. For goodness sake, the news recently cited pet owners who are refusing vaccines, including rabies, for their pets because of autism fears.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has focused on the educational aspects and points out that, using various methods, 850,000 YouTube videos with harmful or misleading COVID-19 misinformation videos have been removed. However, this is a drop in an ever filling bucket. 

The WHO has joined various organizations asking for legal polices to stop misinformation but stop at outlining these policies - because it’s complicated. 

Legislators in various countries have made many attempts to rein in dangerous misinformation through regulation of tech giants. There have been suggestions of legal interventions that, “criminalize the dissemination of medical fake news”  The latter is so fraught with definitional problems that it’s not a good option, but certainly speaks to the increasing concern about putting people’s lives at risk.

So indulge me while I spitball some legal ideas with no legal training at all but with a strong sense of ‘what the heck can we do’? 

What if we start very small? What if there were some cases where people were harmed and they then sue? A few of those might make a dent in the growing rise of grifters. Nothing like fear and case law to stop wrong doing. 

Here’s a sample grift and my fantasy. The grift is real, you can find it here.

Now, this may seem like a small problem compared to many other forms of misinformation and certainly, the reach of this is much smaller. But starting small makes it easier.

This woman claims to cure eyesight, so what if someone was ‘cured’ and then got into an accident driving? What if they sued her for damages? 

One small victory against grift might start a snowball effect. It’s a simple grift - eyesight cure - and a simple test - either eyesight is better or it’s not. I’m a fan of starting simple. 

It also is the extension of existing laws protecting people. If a doctor gives medical advice or therapy in the form of pills etc. and a patent is harmed, that doctor not only risks the loss of their medical license, but also jail time. So why not extend this to all medical therapies? 

While I’m spitballing and fantasizing, here’s another one: drugs for every disease need to follow rigorous testing guidelines. What is stopping legislators from demanding this from all ‘cures’ for all diseases? Then the grifters could be held legally liable for damages or even sued for putting their ‘cures’ in the public domain. This simple levelling of the playing field for all cures is fair, understandable by the public and simply extends existing laws around medical interventions. legal and regulatory measures.

I know this seems simple – nay, simplistic – but there may be a place for simple, clear solutions that start small, alongside looking at large scale changes to social media content. There is less support for stopping misinformation when it is an abstract concept and just the word ‘information’ gives an opening for demands for freedom of speech. To be clear, medical intervention is not covered under free speech protection, nor are drug manufactures able to claim free speech regarding the claims they make for their drugs. This also fits a justice model we are familiar with: if someone causes harm or death to another by any means, they are criminally responsible. This is one small way that the long arm of the law can extend its reach. 

Fodder for Great Crime Stories: Amateur scuba divers

Recently, stories have appeared in the news about amateur scuba divers helping solve missing persons cold cases. 

In Florida, the team of Ken Fleming and Doug Bishop found 60 submerged cars statewide. Also, the controversial Youtube sensation, Jared Leisek, an Oregon entrepreneur who heads Adventures with Purpose, works with volunteer salvage divers to help families find their loved ones. 

Amateur scuba divers solving cold cases has all the makings of a new series of crime novels. I wish someone would write these because they’ve been bouncing around in my fantasies for decades.

About thirty years ago my husband talked me into learning scuba diving. He was trained by an army scuba diver, so he’s extremely competent and also has a great deal of talent. I got trained at a resort, and that, along with my lack of natural talent, made me a competent but not even close to excellent diver. When the children came along, they got the scuba diving fever and certified at eleven and twelve. They have their father’s talent and scuba diving became our family sport.

Over the years, we’ve had wonderful dive adventures and often, as I putter behind my elegant family of divers, I’ve fantasied about helping solve cold cases by discovering guns and bodies by diving expertly to places other divers haven’t gone. This is exactly what I do when watching gymnasts, where I picture elegant tumbling moves while trudging to the kitchen to get more popcorn.

A childhood friend and English teacher recently bemoaned her lack of writing skills by saying, “Those who can do, those who can’t, teach.”. This quote by Bernard Bernard Shaw from his 1905 stage play Man and Superman is often taken out of context and wasn’t meant to demean teachers per se. In fact, as a daughter of scientists - even though I loved Shaw in my teenage years - I also knew this quote is inaccurately used when applied to teachers, because the best scientists, the most competent researchers, taught.

I do think that, for me and maybe me alone, a riff on this quote would be accurate: Those who can do, those who can’t, write about it.

With the pandemic, we haven’t been diving in years, but one of our last dive trips set off a fantasy of a perfect crime, fostered by my fury. We were diving in the Bahamas where, I learned afterwards, they were also feeding sharks. So, when we all innocently did a back roll water entry, an entry where you sit at the edge of the boat with your back against the water, with your regulator in your mouth, held in place with your left hand while your right hand holds the back of your head to prevent your skull from smacking into the first stage regulator when you hit the water. Then, point your chin toward your chest and gently fall backwards. You do a little somersault, pop right back up but it is a tad disorienting.

We headed down into the water and when we were about 30 feet down, I turned to check with my designated ‘buddy’, my son, and saw a shark between us. I looked up, and there were sharks, I looked below and there were sharks. It was simply awful.

We have seen sharks previously, but they keep their distance and leave quickly. Never have we had sharks surround us for a dive. When I got back on the dive boat, I was not just frightened, I was perplexed by the unusual behaviour of the sharks. When I asked about it, our dive master – who looked about twelve years old - explained cheerfully that they feed the sharks to teach divers how friendly they are and, by making friends with sharks, it helps with their conservation.

I was raised by a biologist father who took me on many field trips and he and his colleagues spoke often about conservation. It made me not just an animal lover but also a conservationist. To truly protect animals, you need to also listen to the experts studying them and not anthropomorphize them. Sharks deserve to be protected and can be best protected by not misunderstanding them. A shark is not your friend when they are swimming beside you in hopes of food. It takes one woman on her period or one inadvertent coral cut to put blood int the water and turn you into prey. I’m not a biologist, so I’ll use a term I hope is also used by experts to describe this behaviour: it’s nuts.

As we headed back to shore on the dive boat, my fury gave rise to a plot: chum the waters near a cheerful, far too young dive master (who might be an heiress to millions), and you have a perfect crime.

As I said, those who do, do, those who can’t write – or in my case – fantasize.

On our next dive trip I ensured that the country we went scuba diving banned shark feedings – many of them have – and we had lovely dives where sharks kept their distance.

So, from solving cold cases to creating a perfect murder scenes, amateur scuba diving provides a wealth of story ideas. I’m sure I’ll think of more stories the next time I putter behind my elegant family, pretending I am them.

Synopsis and Poisons

No conversation about submissions to literary agents is complete without a discussion about writing a synopsis. There are many professional and calm articles about this topic but this article is neither for one very important reason: I’m married and have children.

The many excellent articles explain how to write a synopsis in simple terms. Summarize the novel’s plot (status quo, inciting incident, rising action, crisis and resolution) main subplots, characters and none of this should read like a dry summary. It should include characters’ emotions and reactions to what’s happening. All of this should be done in 500 - 800 words (preferably 500).

Most of these articles are written in a way that encourages writers to tackle this task with confidence. They explain how this is a doable task and would even help identify any plot holes. I appreciated all this help and encouragement.

So, armed with the criteria, I started writing a synopsis. I ended up with a synopsis of a couple thousand words that barely touched the surface of my over 80K word book. So, I needed to cut the word count and make it more thorough at the same time.

No problem, I thought. I can do this. So, working hard I got rid of about 1,000 words and still had too many words and now also had a very dry synopsis.

I went from being delighted with all the advice, to resenting the encouragement about a task that’s clearly impossible. Increasingly, my mood became foul and my language became fouler. This is where my marital status and family enters the story.

My husband, trying to be helpful, told me that I’m a good writer, he’s sure I can do this and would do a great job. He sounded like the encouraging articles. There are moments in a marriage where your partner says all the wrong things. This was that moment. Sometimes I can shrug it off, mostly because the children are very fond of my husband and would miss him if anything happened to him. However, determined to fulfil his role as my support, my husband went on. And on. When he stopped to catch his breath, before he launched into more encouraging statements, I asked him if he could please help. He was delighted to be asked. I requested that he find my book of poisons - I hadn’t seen it in years - while I get a shovel. He said he’d look later because he needed to take the dogs for a walk first.

I went back to work with no more encouraging interruptions.

The upshot is that my synopsis is now down to 500 words. It needs work but it’s mostly there. Better than that, writing it did help me identify a plot hole and helped me be much more focused on plot when editing my manuscript for the trillionth time. I do think writing a synopsis is actually useful.

At this point, you probably don’t care about the synopsis at all and are asking different questions. Did my husband ever locate the book of poisons? Is that really gardening I’m doing in the backyard? When was my husband last seen? How are the children?

I actually did buy a book for writers on poisons many years ago. I cheerfully showed it to my husband who was uncharacteristically quiet. Oddly, I must have misplaced it because I have not seen it since. I didn’t even get to read it. My husband has looked for it diligently and cannot find it.

My husband is walking the dogs right now. All the neighbours can see him. The children are fine. My garden remains woefully untended but I have some herbs, thanks for asking.

I highly recommend writing a synopsis. Don’t be fooled by the encouraging articles. I doubt I’m the only one who was frustrated with the task and baffled why I was the only one incapable of doing it. It’s not an easy task. It’s very hard. It’s also worth it if you get someone wise to hide the book of poisons before you begin. Think about the children.

The Last 300 words: A Query Letter

I wrote a 80,000 word book that got shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award for unpublished novels and then, decided it needed work so, I did what any sane person would do and wrote a whole new 80,000 word book. 

I’ve done my final edits and my editor will do her grim reaper work on it and then it’ll be done. 


Writing the book is the best part - it’s full of long mornings getting up before the sun and quietly writing. Even when I’m not writing and, perhaps sitting for lunch with my family, a part of the book comes up that I need to add to or edit, I replay it in a few different ways and often slip away to write it. Sometimes things are maligned by saying they’re child’s play but writing is child’s play in all the best ways - it is the total immersion into a world of your creation that’s so real that the real world can sometime pale in comparison.

Now I’ve hit the next step: the query letter.

The purpose of query letter is to seduce an agent into reading your book. An agent can’t read every book sent to them so a short letter is how they choose what to invest time into and what to reject. However, the whole process of writing a query letter has my heart racing, my mouth dry and in this state I couldn’t seduce my own husband let alone a complete stranger. But sure, let’s be seductive.

Did I explain that there are sections? Yes, sections. In 300 words.

I can barely say hello to an old friend in less that 300 words and that’s with no sections. 

First, there is a warm greeting to the agent and an explanation of why you want to work with them. For the agents I want to work with, I would need the whole 300 words to explain why they’re amazing, it would be an honour to work with them and why a future of having tea and chatting about books is both of us living our best lives.

Ok, maybe just me living my best life. 

Then I need a hook to get them interested in my book. A hook is a sentence or two to make them want - nay need - to dive into my book even if it means neglecting their children, pets or dinner in the process. This is the ultimate seduction and I’m not sure I’m up for that.

Can I beg off with a headache? 

Then I need to summarize my book. Summarizing a 80,000 word novel would take me (checks notes) 80,000 words.

That’s why I wrote the darn thing in the first place. 

Then there’s a little bit about me. I am down with that part and can do it in a few words. It’s the rest of it that’s driving me around the bend.

I have always loved reading. I can’t remember even a day in my life where I wasn’t immersed in a book and, whenever I finish all the books by an author I love its almost as bad as a death in the family. These constant companions of mine, writers, have always been my heroes who create worlds from nothing but ink. I have a new found respect for authors because they also they managed to wrangle this dreadful beast called a query letter. It is no small feat and may well be a bigger feat than writing their books in the first place.

This leads me to my next problem: should I write the query letter or just write another book instead? As an escape from the anxiety of the query letter, I’ve already mapped out another book and it’ll take less time and be less stressful than writing a query.

A summary of my writing experience is this: the first 80,000 words are a delight to write but the last 300 words are hell.