The Power of Ukraine

On February 24^th, Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia expected to win the war in a matter of days since they are so much larger and better equipped than the Ukraine. What Russia did not expect was having Ukraine rally the world to help defend them.

Apart from the geopolitical importance of this invasion, one question is why are so many ordinary people gripped by the story of Ukraine? Because we are indeed gripped, watching the news constantly and protesting in the streets around the world. Something about this war has moved us all. It has moved countries to impose economic sanctions against Russia and send much needed military equipment to Ukraine.

One reason is that Ukraine’s plight is the universal story of the underdog fighting valiantly, like David fought Goliath, and humans are built to be moved by stories.

“The human mind is addicted to stories,” says Jonathan Gottschall, author of The Storytelling Animal (how stories make us human)

“As you cross cultures and move around in history, you find the same basic concerns and the same basic story structure. The technology of story changes—from oral tales, to clay tablets, to medieval codices, to printed books, to movie screens, iPads, and Kindles. But the stories themselves don’t ever change. They have the same old obsessions. And that won’t change until human nature changes.”

This story - the underdog fighting valiantly - has been articulated by many Ukrainians but first and foremost by President Zelensky.

When Russia invaded, President Zelensky turned down an offer to evacuated from Kyiv. Zelensky’s now famous response was, "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

This is truly the story of David entering battle with Goliath, because David did not have to fight but he felt it was his duty to defeat Goliath and, in doing so, save his people from becoming slaves. Certainly, if Russia defeats Ukraine in this war, Ukrainians become owned and subjugated by Russia.

Malcom Gladwell in his book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, dissects the battle in a unique way. Gladwell explains that Goliath is huge and frightening but David has the upper hand because he didn’t have the cumbersome armour of Goliath and could be nimble. Most importantly, David had a sling that can kill a target from two hundred yards away.

David wins the battle by doing the unexpected – he runs towards Goliath, who is immobilized by a hundred pounds of heavy armour, and kills him by hitting him in the head with a stone with a  velocity of thirty-four meters per second. (122kmph or 76mph)

Gladwell’s perspective is that underdogs win by fighting in unexpected ways that make their opponent’s strengths useless. Goliath’s size, armour and weapons were no match for David’s nimbleness with his lack of armour and heavy weapons, nor was his bare forehead a match for David’s lethal stone sent at high velocity by a sling.

Just like David, Zelensky fought Russia from the start in very unexpected ways. He didn’t flee. More importantly, despite the famed strength of Russia’s information warfare, Zelensky won the information war from the day he refused to flee. He did this by not speaking like a politician. He spoke with the emotion of a man who loves his country and his people. Rather than speaking of strategy, he appealed to the emotion we all feel towards our own countries, our homes and families. He used the most unusual and unexpected tactic of all when fighting a large military power: he asked the world to see themselves in the plight of Ukraine.

Ukraine is smaller, poorer and ill-equipped compared to Russia. To fight a behemoth like Russia seemed impossible but President Zelensky fought by making us all feel like every missile, every tank and every soldier in Ukraine was like a missile, tank and soldier in our country. This sent people into the street to protest the war and moved countries to sanction Russia. How do you fight a rich country? By making it poorer with economic sanctions. How do you fight a better equipped army? By moving the world to send you military equipment.

We are two weeks into a war that Russia expected to win in days and now some are suggesting that Russia might lose.

I know nothing about military strategy, but I do know the power of stories. From ancient times they have shaped our values and the way we act. The story of Ukraine is one of the reasons that the world values Ukraine and wants to act to protect it. They are the underdog, our modern day David, and we too are Ukraine, the underdog, the victim of Russia’s aggression. Every hospital that is bombed, every child that is killed, feels like ours and we all suffer with Ukraine. As we watch David running towards Goliath, fighting a battle in unexpected ways, we suffer and we hope because that’s the power of stories.

My Scarlet K

Early one morning (in the 1880s) a large pool of blood was found near Fifth and Congress Avenue giving the impression to passers-by that some dark and dreadful tragedy had been enacted there but nothing was ever learned concerning it. (Compiled from:Austin History Center Records.)

by Jan Grape

    I looked at myself in the women’s locker room mirror, surprised to see I didn’t look any different. Yes, my hair looked windblown and my eyes somewhat bloodshot and fatigue lines radiated from each corner, but that was all. Totally normal. I didn’t know what I expected. A gray streak, maybe, suddenly appearing in my hair? A scarlet K on my forehead? The mirror’s reflection didn’t show anything unusual, but I whispered, “I am a killer.”

    I’d never killed anyone before and I hope I never will again.

    The victim? A young male. In death, he looked no more than eighteen, but I now learned he was twenty-five. I remember how his black hair swept back from his thin face and how his black eye stared in that glassy way of the dead. That tragedy left one reality quite strong– that pool of blood is forever etched in my mind.

    Pure and simple self-defense? Yes, indeed. And in a way, you could say I have a license to kill. I’m a police officer for the Austin Police Department. The shoot was perfectly legal by anyone’s standards.

    I didn’t know who he was when I shot him. How could I? He was only a shadowy figure in the darkness. I saw him force a female officer he’d already wounded to walk ahead of him, her hand dripped her life force. He had used her for a shield. The guy had asked for it, hadn’t he?

    In the last few minutes of his life before I arrived on the scene and before taking this officer hostage, he had shot another policeman, a man named Lopez, one of the new young ones.

    When I confronted the suspect I had identified myself as a police officer. I’d asked him to give it up, but he shoved the policewoman to the floor and fired at me. That was when I shot him.

    Only afterwards when it was over did I find out he was Jesse Garcia– a felony suspect– wanted for eight long months because of an earlier shooting. Wanted for shooting yet another APD officer.

    For the past eight months, that other officer lay in a coma in a nursing home with little hope of recovery while his shooter, Jesse Garcia, was hiding in Mexico. I could picture Garcia drinking tequila and chasing girls.

    That other officer? Formerly a Special Missions officer. Formerly handsome, witty, intelligent, funny, gentle. Formerly a loving husband. Byron Barrow, my husband.

    Physical evidence proved without a doubt that Garcia, a known gang-banger, had fired the gun that wounded Byron, but Garcia took off the morning the arrest warrant had been issued. Ran to Mexico.

    “Zoe?” Lynda Haynes, a civilian working desk duty at headquarters, stuck her head inside the rest room door. “Are you okay, Zoey?”

    I hate being called Zoey because my name is pronounced Zoe like Joe. But Lynda’s tone was gentle, and I knew she only meant it in an endearing way. She wore a heavy perfume that wafted ahead, filling my nostrils and causing my stomach to churn in rebellion. I barely managed to keep it in control. She came inside, stood next to the sink, and stared at my reflection briefly before looking at me.

    Was she also searching for a scarlet K?

    “You been throwing up?” She asked.

    She wasn’t accusing in any way, her only concern was how I felt, how I was dealing with the aftermath– nothing more.

    “I don’t think there’s anything left down there.”

    “Yeah. I figured.”  She reached and patted my forearm. “Rob Morton wanted me to check on you.”

    “Tell him I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

    “If it makes you feel any better, Zoe. That puke got what he deserved.” Her lips stretched into a brief smile before she turned and walked out.

    Turning on the cold water faucet, I pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and wet them. I held the cool wadded towels against my eyes, then re-wet them and wiped my mouth. I found a comb in my shoulder bag, ran it through my hair, put a dab of color on my lips, and looked in the mirror once more. “That’s a little better, Zoe.”

    Do I have regrets? Yes– and no. I’ll never forget that bloody horror and the knowledge that I took the life of another human being, but I’ll also never forget that I got the scumbag who nearly destroyed my life eight long months ago.

---

Comments please… especially about the little historical note at the beginning.

See y’all next time.

Time to Accessorize

by Robert Lopresti

I am somewhat stunned to report that my morning granola was interrupted today (April Fool's Day) by the news that my "The Present" had won the Derringer Award for best short story.  Talk about a present!  I can't think of anything to say about the story that I didn't say here.  But thanks to the Derringer judges, the voters, and The Strand for publishing in the first place.  Now, on to more good news...

On the day my last blog entry went up I came home to a pleasant surprise: three copies of the June issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.  I knew they were publishing a story of mine but I had no idea when that happy event would occur.

"The Accessory" is my second appearance in EQMM in 38 years of trying.  Yes, you read that right.  It's a story about --

Well, let's pause for a moment.  This is a golden opportunity to rehash that favorite topic: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?  This time, by category!

1.  Personal experience.  At three in the morning one night a policewoman rang my doorbell to tell me my car had been "prowled."  The first two pages of my story "Shanks on the Prowl" are almost a literal description of that scene.

2.  Someone else's personal experience.  One day I watched an elderly, over-the-hill musician being disrespected by his accompaniest.  "Snake in the Sweetgrass" was conceived while they were still on the stage.

3.  News story.  Or other piece of nonfiction.  "Crow's Lesson" began with a New York Times article about a school system hiring private eyes to follow students and see if they really lived in the catchment district.

5.  Out of the clear blue sky  One day I had a vision of a short man attacking a much bigger man on the street for no obvious reason.  "Hammer and Dish" was my attempt to find out why and what happened.

And finally...

4.  Fiction.  To some extent ALL fiction comes from other fiction we have read.  For example, I read "My Life with the Butcher Girl," by Heath Lowrance, a very nice story about a man who becomes romantically obsessed with a woman who killed three men in sexual situations.  That got me thinking about people who correspond with convicted criminals.  The main character of my new story, "The Accessory" is a woman who does just that.  Now the man is out of prison and has apparently killed someone who testified against him.  The cops want to find out what she knows...

I hope you like it. 

A Good Day For Bad Days

After I wrote this piece the Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the finalists for this year's Derringer Awards.  I am delighted to say that one of them is my "The Present," which appeared in The Strand Magazine.  If you are interested I wrote about the story here.

I am pleased to report that the May issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, on newsstands now, features my twenty-third story for that august journal.  I am even happier to report that number twenty-four was purchased in February.  So I may have a three-Hitchcock year twice in a row.

(And  I am delighted to see that two fellow SleuthSayers are on the cover.  Congrats John and Janice!)

But let's talk about where the idea for lucky twenty-three came from. Typically a story idea for me comes like a bolt from the blue, or it accumulates a piece at a time.  In this case, oddly enough, it did both.

You see, I had an idea for quite some time, but I lacked a place to put it.  I needed a setting where a group of strangers would be in close proximity and I couldn't find the right one.  Then, one day, I happened to be waiting in line for an estate sale  - the very one I described here  -- and I realized that that was the perfect setting.   I grabbed my notebook and started scribbling down all the possible ways I could use an estate sale in my story.

Then I needed a character, specifically a police officer who would be attending the sale as a customer.  And for my story to work he needed to be a specific kind of policeman.  Not to put too fine a point on it, I needed a cop who was not very good at his job.

Then I realized that I already had one.  A long time ago I had written a story called "A Bad Day for Pink and Yellow Shirts."  It described three men getting involved in a disastrous mess and having only a few minutes to come up with an explanation that made all of them come out looking good.  One of the characters was Officer Kite, a patrolman who had spent almost as much of his career suspended for various screw-ups as he had on the beat.  

Just the man for the job.  I quickly enlisted him and realized that I had the title for my story: "A Bad Day For Bargain Hunters."  Like the first tale, this one is also told from multiple viewpoints.

And here is another odd relationship between the stories.  "Shirts" appeared in Hitchcock's in May 2004.  "Hunters" is showing up ten years later to the month.  Odder still is that my last publication  is a sequel to a different tale that appeared in Hitchcock's almost exactly ten years earlier.  I seem to have a new habit: a decadal series.  Decadent?  Decimated? 

I hope you enjoy the story, anyway.

Wishing you the best

by Robert Lopresti

Move aside, Oscar!  Fie on thee, Edgar!  Make room for the real awards. For the fifth year I am listing the best detective short stories of the year as determined by yours truly.

FIfteen stories made the list this time, one fewer than last year.  I am astonished to report that there was a three-way tie between Hitchcock, Queen, and The Strand, with four stories each.  The other three came from anthologies from three different publishers.  

Three of the stories are historical.  Three are humorous.  One is a first story.  By main character we have:

Detective 6
Criminal 5
Victim 1
Other 3

And here are the lucky winners.  They can pick up their gift bags in the green room.

"I Am Not Fluffy," by Liza Cody, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 2013.

I worked as a hostess and greeter at a bar-restaurant six nights a week for five years while Harvey qualified to be a tax lawyer.  And for two nights a week Harvey was going round to Alicia's flat to bounce her bones.  "You were never there," he complained.  "What was I supposed to do all by myself every night?"

What indeed.  Insult to injury: Alicia was an old friend of hers.  And now that Harvey is making a bundle he wants a no-fault divorce and a big white wedding to his new love.

Our narrator goes for textbook passive-aggressive tactics: refusing to sign the divorce papers.   And she begins writing her polite protests against the world around her in chalk on the sidewalk, signing them Fluffy.

Is this a story about a nervous breakdown?  A split personality?  Or is our heroine learning to not be Fluffy anymore, to be a person who can take care of herself?

"The Sequel," by Jeffrey Deaver, in The Strand Magazine, November-February 2012-2013.

Frederick Lowell is an elderly literary agent and one day he gets a letter that hints that one of his deceased clients wrote a sequel to his classic novel.  Lowell travels around the country in pursuit of it and - well, a lot of things happen.  In fact, it almost feels like Deaver made a list of every way this story could work out and then rang  the changes, covering every possibility.

In the first half of the story he gives us a classic quest structure but when that ends we get a mystery, one with several red herring solutions, clever reversals and unexpected twists.

"Margo and the Silver Cane," by Terence Faherty, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February  2013.

My fellow SleuthSayer, Terence Faherty, is the only author making a second appearance on my list this year.   

In the days before Pearl Harbor Margo Banning is an ambitious career woman, working as associate producer on a Sunday radio show.  One of the stars is Philip St,  Pierre, a self-proclaimed "radio detective."  And in this week's show he announces that next week he will be revealing the identity of a top German spy.  What follows is a lot of fun and amusingly written.  Take this conversation regarding one of the other performers on the radio show.

"You are not a radio detective?"
"That question takes us into the realm of philosophy.  Or do I mean psychology?  Are we who we decide to be or who the world tells us to be?  For example, I work with a woman who has forced her will upon the world.  She's become a former Broadway star despite the inconvenience of never having been a current one."
"Mamie Gallagher," Edelweiss said a little wistfully.  "She has a very attractive voice.  I imagine her blonde."
"So does she."

"Restraint" by Alison Gaylin, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2013.

When the woman who killed Kevin Murphy's daughter walked into Cumberland Farms to pay for her gas, the first thing Kevin noticed about her was the way she crumpled her money.

Got your attention?  I thought it would.  And the ending is no slouch either.  But in between you will slowly learn about what happened to Murphy's daughter -- none of the obvious things that might pop into your head  -- and about the revenge Murphy plans.  Again, that is a long way from obvious.  It is not bloody or particularly violent, but it will shock you.

"The Confidante," by Diana Dixon Healy, in Best New England Crime Stories 2014: Stone Cold, edited by Mark Ammons, Katherine Fast, Barbara Ross, and Leslie Wheeler, Level Best Books, 2013.


Peggy is a mousy young woman who works for a presidential campaign. She is flattered when the more vibrant worker Kim takes an interest in her.  They start meeting regularly and Kim begins to tell her secrets, secrets that could change political history...

Some lovely twists in this one.

"The Murderer At The Cabin," by Robert Holt, in All Hallow's Evil, edited by Sarah E. Glenn, Mystery and Horror, LLC.

 Lexington is a very bad fella.   He's a serial killer with a complicated system of picking his victims and a suitably insane motive.  As the story starts he is looking for a new person to focus his attention on.  And he finds one in a cabin in the woods where a dozen wealthy people are holding a meeting.  So he takes his hatchet and prepares to single out his first victim.

And here's the twist.  The people in the cabin have paid big money for a high-grade murder theatre experience, complete with elaborate props and make-up.  So when Lexington starts his work they think it's part of the show.  But Lexington doesn't know about the mystery theatre aspect and he is as baffled by his victims as they are by him...


"A People Person," by Michael Koryta, in The Strand Magazine, November-February

2012-2013.

Koryta has given us a lovely little character study about Thor, who has been the hit man for two decades for Belov, who is the head of organized crime in Cleveland.  These two have been through tough times on two continents and, in a business that doesn't  support long-lasting relationships, they seem inseparable.

 The English word for the way Thor felt about killing was "desensitized," but he did not know that it was a proper fit.  Maybe he was overly sensitized.  Maybe he understood it more than most.  Maybe the poeple who had not killed or could not imagine being killed were the desensitized breed.

What could come between Thor and his boss?  Could there, to his own amazement, be a line he could not cross?

"Not A Penny More," by Jon Land, in The Strand Magazine, February-May 2013.

Walter Schnitzel is a loser and a loner.  He is a middle-aged accountant, watching younger men get promoted over his head.

But his life makes a sudden lurch when he takes an old clunker of a used Buick for a week-long test drive.  All of a sudden Walter gets lucky - in more senses than one.  His whole self-image changes as well.

So, is the car magic?  Is it all coincidence?  And, oh yeah, why is this story in a magazine full of crime stories?

"The Queen of Yongju-gol," by Martin  Limón, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine,

November 2013.


Martin's fiction is always  set in South Korea.  In this tale  the hero is Roh Yonk-bok, one of the wealthiest men in the country.

But he didn't start out that way.  He was able to get an education only through  money sent back home from his big sister who was working as a bar girl in Yongju-gol, a community that served American G.I.'s, where Koreans were forbidden as customers.  One day his sister disappeared and now, years later, Roh is determined to find out what happened to her.

It is a dark tale, full of betrayal and hard-learned cynicism.

"Canyou trust these people, sir?"
Roh turned to look at his bodyguard.  He was a faithful man -- in fact chosen for that quality -- and competent at his job, but he had little imagination.
"They want money, don't they?" Roh replied.
"Yes, sir."
"Then I have trust.  Not for them but for their greed."

"Othello Revised," by Denise Middlebrooks, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 2013.

This is Middlebrooks' first story, a promising start.

The narrator has just written a mystery novel and his wife recommends he takes it to a professional editor.  The editor turns out to be an interesting person, a real estate agent who reinvented herself in the recession, and she has some fascinating suggestions about the book.  Or what she thinks is the book.

And there we have to stop.  Go read the story.  You deserve a treat.

"Dress Blues," by Chris Muessig, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October 2013.

Sergeant Nolan, a Marine sergeant, finds himself facing multiple crises.  His wife has left him.  He has to decide whether to re-enlist for another six-year hitch.  And his boss goes off on extended duty, leaving him as the only Corps member to look after a private who has been arrested for murder.  Worse, that private is a Black man and this story takes place in a time and place where that can be a dangerous place to be -- especially if you are accused of killing a white man.

A fascinating tale, and one that told me a lot I didn't know about its time period.

"Footprints in Water," by Twist Phelan, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2013.


Henri Karubje is a detective in the NYPD and he is called out to help investigate the missing daughter of  a Congolese family.  The relationships between the people, and with their medicine man, neighbors, and priest, are complicated to say the least.

Tangling the matter further is that Karubje is not their as investigator, but as translator.  The lead detective is a newly promoted woman he has worked with when she was on patrol.  The cliche here would be to have them in territorial conflict but Phelan chooses instead to have the new detective looking for more help while Karubje insists on making/letting her run the show. 

Karubje is haunted by his childhood in the genocidal conflict of Rwanda and he makes good use of his memories of that horror to sort out the motives and inconsistencies of the characters.

"A Game Played," by Jonathan Rabb, in The Strand Magazine, June-September 2013.

George Philby is a member of Britain's diplomatic core, stationed in Washington.  He is a quiet, self-effacing man, and his great burden is his name.  Kim Philby was the most famous British traitor in a century, so he is somewhat in the position of a man named Benedict Arnold joining the U.S. Army.  "It made them all think too much, a sudden hesitation in the voice."

And in D.C. it leads to an odd friendship with Jack Crane, an American oil man.  Crane brings Philby out of his shell a bit and the relationship leads to -- well, that would be telling.  But one question this story asks is: Does your name determine your destiny?

I liked this low-key tale better the day after I read it.  Then I read it a second time and liked it more.


"The Samsa File," by Jim Weikart, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September 2013.

Havel, a police detective in present-day Prague is assigned to investigate the apparent murder by poisoning of a young man named Gregor Samsa.  Except - surprise! - Gregor had somehow transformed into a giant cockroach.

This is sort of reverse steampunk, transforming a Victorian plot -- Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, of course -- into the modern era, and a modern genre, the police procedural.  Weikart even offers something that Kafka had no interest in, an explanation for Samsa's transformation. 

"The Hotel des Mutilées," by Jim Williams, in Knife Edge Anthology, Marble City Publishing, 2013.

It's Paris between the wars and our narrator says he is a guy who fixes situations, no details given.  In a bar he meets an American named Scotty, who says he is a writer.  Scotty asks him to talk about the most fascinating person he ever met.  So the fixer talks about a guy he met in World War I.

This is one of the stories where the joy comes in figuring out what's going on.  For me, the enlightment came in three distinct bursts, about three different characters.

A story about a story in a story

'Tis a time for great joy and merry-making, at least around my house, because the April issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine has arrived, bringing with it "Shanks' Ride."  This is my twentieth story in AHMM, and  the eighth published tale about Leopold Longshanks, a curmudgeonly mystery writer who occasionally finds himself reluctantly thrust into the position of crime-solver.

What makes this particular story special to me (although I love all the little darlings equally, of course) is that it belongs to a specific subgenre:  one character relates a story containing a puzzle and another character solves it.  It is the first Shanks story of that type I have gotten published, though not for lack of trying.

Here is the opening scene:

            “I don’t think my alcohol level is over the legal limit,” said Leopold Longshanks.  “I could probably drive home all right.  But I figure there’s no point in taking chances.”

            “I know,” said the taxi driver.    “You’ve told me that three times.”

            “Oh.”  Shanks considered.  “Then maybe I do need a ride.”

            “Hop in.”

You can probably guess that the taxi driver is the one with the story to tell.

The earliest example of this story type of which I am aware is "The Tuesday Night Club," (1927) by Agatha Christie.  It is also the first appearance of one of literature's great detectives, Miss Jane Marple.  In this story a group of friends gather and discuss a genuine crime.  To everyone's surprise the elderly spinster solves the crime.  Christie published a series of stories about this club, published as The Thirteen Problems and The Tuesday Club Murders.

Another great example is (are?) the Black Widower stories of Isaac Asimov.  He acknowledged Christie as his inspiration for them, by  the way.  These short tales featured a group of men whose meetings were enlivened each month by a guest who, inevitably, had a puzzle in need of solving.  After all the clever and sophisticated members had picked the problem to pieces Henry, the waiter, would provide the solution.

You'll notice that both of these series are not only stories-within-stories, but examples of the least-likely-detective syndrome, since Miss Marple and Henry would appear to be the least qualified members of their groups to solve a mystery.

My friend Shanks doesn't qualify for that, of course.  He is a reluctant, but highly logical choice for detective. He is so logical, in fact, that he complains the concept is ridiculous: no one could possibly get enough information from a tale-teller to figure out whodunit.  Alas, I am cooking the books so he has no choice but to succeed.

 And I think I will leave it there.  If you want to know more, you know where to find the rest of the tale.

Flash Fiction

I walked up to the counter in the public library. "Excuse me.  Did anyone turn in a thumb drive yesterday?"

"Several," said the clerk.  "What color was it?"

"White. Well, more of a cream."

She nodded and sorted through a box behind the counter.  "One of these?"  There were five, almost identical.

I gave them a careful look-see.  "That's the one!"

She handed it to me.  I said thanks and took it back to my seat.  I plugged the flash drive into my laptop and started scrolling through the files. Based on their titles the drive's previous owner had had a great interest in knitting and cake recipes.  Not much of a speller either.

Pretty boring.  But I would keep looking.

There had to be a story idea in there somewhere.

Time to get Brutal

by Robert Lopresti

I have said  before that I think the best part of writing – better than seeing your work in print, better than cashing a check, better than attending the opening of the film adapted from you book, surrounded by adoring fans in skimpy—

Sorry.  Where was I?    

Best part.  Right.  The best part is the moment of creation.  There is no idea and then suddenly, miraculously, there is.  Amazing.

Often I can tell you exactly when and where that moment happened.  I was driving down the road and a song came on the radio and – Hey!  That line is meant to be a book title – And I almost drove off the road.

But sometimes it isn’t that easy.  Take “Brutal,” my story currently gracing the September issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.  (On finer newsstands everywhere, and some lousy ones too.)

I can tell you that this story is a mash-up of a Jim Thompson novel and a Neil Simon movie, and that’s true.  But it doesn’t tell you where the idea came from.  I didn’t wake up one day and say: “Thompson and Simon!  Perfect together!”  No, something brought the two tales together in my head, and whatever that was Is lost in the swamps of memory.

So let’s talk about the story itself.  Coyle is a professional assassin, one of those guys, as he says, “who can kill you with one finger.”  He is in a big city going after a high-value target.  Things go well for a while and then, conflict being the heart of fiction, things go not so well. And that’s pretty much all you need to know about the plot.  Go read the thing.

But first, I wanted to tell you one more oddity.  A century ago Robert Benchley wrote an essay called “Mind’s Eye Trouble,” in which he lamented his lack of visual imagination.

I seem to have been endowed at birth by a Bad, Bad Fairy with a paucity of visual imagination which amounts practically to a squint...  This limitation of mine might not be so cramping in its effect if the few visual images which I have were not confined almost exclusively to street scenes in Worcester, Massachusetts, the fortunate city which gave me birth...  (I)t is not the ideal locale for the CHANSON de ROLAND or the adventures of Ivanhoe.

Benchley goes on to say that he pictures the entire history of the Roman Empire taking place in a driveway on the corner of May and Woodland Streets, while all the events in Dickens take place on the second floor of a house on Shepherd Street.

I suffered from that problem when I was a child, but as I saw more of the world I outgrew it.  But here’s the interesting bit…

I recently sold another story to Hitchcock’s, and, like “Brutal,” this one begins in a rundown office building.  I happen to know for a certainly that both stories are in the same building. 

How do I know?  Good question.  Neither the building nor the city are named.  The slim descriptions of the buildings don’t even overlap much.  But I am sure, largely because I based them on the same building I visited a few years ago.  

At this point some writers or writing teachers might try to draw a moral out of that.  Like: both stories sold because they were focused on a real place, real in my imagination and therefore vivid to the reader.

To me, that’s magical thinking.  But obviously I don’t know where my next story idea will come from or set itself (see the beginning of this piece).  So the fictional building manager should probably tighten security.

 Before I fold my tents I want to thank R.T. Lawton for reading "Brutal" in its earlier days and giving me the benefit of his advice.  The check is in the mail, R.T.  Not to you, of course, but you can't have everything.

Department of Lost Stories

by Robert Lopresti
 

illustration by sictransitdiesoccident

I am writing this piece for purely selfish reasons but, who knows?  Maybe we can perform a public service here if we get enough participation going.

Have you ever remembered a favorite short story, one you were crazy about, but you realize you can't pull up the author or title?  That drives me nuts.  So this is your chance to help me regain my sanity.  I will describe four stories (no spoilers).  If any of them sound familiar, let me know.  And if YOU are missing any great stories put that in the comments as well (again, no spoilers, please)

If Blogger rejects your comments please send them to me at lopresti AT nas DOT com

Here we go.  The titles below are just place holders; I don't know what the real titles were.

1. Tin Foil Hat.   A paranoid gentleman prepares for his day, wrapping his torso in plastic wrap to avoid germs, putting fresh tinfoil in his hat, etc.  He goes for a stroll and gets into an argument with a security guard in front of an office building, with tragic results.  Then we see the events from the viewpoint of the people in the building, which gives us a different perspective.

I thought this story was by  Lawrence Block.  It certainly feels like his kind of piece. But I recently wrote to him and he agreed that it was a good idea, but it was someone else's.

illustration by ddpool

2.  Soap Opera.  An actress is about to be written out of a soap opera.  She saves her job by committing -- well, I don't know a name for the crime she commits.  It is that unique.

I think this was in Ellery Queen in the 1980s.

 

illustration by nawtydawg

3.  Bird reincarnation.  A man wakes up and realizes he has been reincarnated as a bird and is literally coming out of his shell.  Yes, it's a crime story.

I think I read this in Alfred Hitchcock around 1970.

illustration by ResorTime.com

4.  Resort love triangle.  I have to be really vague to keep from giving spoilers.  It is a love triangle that ends in murder.  In the last paragraph you find out what sort of institution the people are living in and that changes your perspective.

Again, Hitchcock around 1970.

Any clues?  Any vague bells tinkling?  Any stories of your own to add?

Cover Boy

by Robert Lopresti

Well, who says history doesn't repeat itself?  For the second time since the universe was created  one of my stories has shown up on the cover of a magazine, specifically the May issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.  I am okay with that, if "okay" means thrilled to tiny bits.

So, let's talk a bit about "Shanks Commences."  It is the seventh published adventure of Leopold Longshanks, a mystery writer who finds himself reluctantly involved in true crime.  In this case, he is invited to his alma mater to give a commencement speech and gets involved in a murder in the campus library.

And speaking of true crime, there is a little bit more of reality in this story than in most of mine.  Not, thank heaven, that I have ever encountered death in the library, but...   You see, I am occasionally asked if I base my stuff on real people/things/events and I usually reply, no, it's easier to make stuff up.  Which is true, but in this case I did borrow a few details from the real world.
For instance, the Great Hall of the library in my story bears a certain resemblance to the Main Reading Room at the library where I work.   Some of the students call it the Harry Potter Room, seeing a resemblace to the Great Hall at Hogwarts School of Wizardry. 

The Special Collections Room where my crime takes place is not entirely unlike the Rare Book Room at the university where I used to work.  And the library director in my story, Calvin Floyd, shares some elements with the director of the library where I went to college, a heck of a nice guy who was both my boss and adviser.  I'm happy he got through the story without being killed or arrested.

You may have noticed that name: Floyd.   That's another way reality muddled with my story.  When I wrote it I was still blogging at Criminal Brief.  I had to think of a whole lot of names for characters and I thought, what the hell.  So most of them are named for my fellow CB bloggers.  I hope they don't mind making a guest appearance.

And as for you, I hope you enjoy the story.

Nothing but the best

by Robert Lopresti

Happy new year to you and yours and the bicycle you rode in on.  It is that time again.  For the third year running I am going to list the best mystery stories of the year, as defined by one simple rule: I liked them the most.

I regret to say 2011 was 8.5% worse than 2010, as proven by the fact that I only put 15 stories on the list this year, as opposed to 17 last.  When I started reviewing my favorite story of the week at Little Big Crimes I suspected it would make me pickier about which stories made the end-of-the year list, and it turns out I was right.

Go to the stats

But enough idle chatter.  What do the numbers tell us?

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine was the big winner this year, with one-third of the stories.  Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and the Akashic Press Noir City series were tied with three each.  Two more appeared in other anthologies, and for the first time I included stories on my list from e-zines.  That means that two of the best stories of the year were published for free and aren't elligible for most awards.  Amazing.  Oh, another interesting point: two of the winners are first stories by their authors.

In terms of (very loose) categories, we have:

criminal viewpoint 4
private eye 3
victim viewpoint 2
amateur detective 1
legal 1
police 1
other 3

Four of the stories were comic.  Two were historic.  Two were about people with brain damage (and some were about people whose brains don't work that well...)  All were terrific.

But before I launch into them, feel free to tell me in the comments what YOU thought were the best stories of the year.  Even if, God forbid, you disagree with me.

And here are the winners

Allington, Maynard.  "The Appointment."  Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.  June 2011.

As I write up my best-of-the-week favorite I keep a file of the ones that qualified for the best-of-the-year list.  This one wasn't on it.  But today when I went back through the whole year's file I went, "Oh yeah, that one..."  Which is a good sign, isn't it?

Since Afghanistan, I think a lot about death, as if I were being billed for a broken appointment.

If I wrote that nugget of a sentence I would have probably started the story with it. Allington puts it at the end of a long opening paragraph. But it sets the tone, doesn't it?

Danny Malone got back from the war with brain damage that effects his memory and temper. Now he is wandering through Death Valley because someone has been sending him photographs of the park and he thinks, vaguely, that he is supposed to meet someone there.

And meet someone he does. The man wears a hooded parka - in the desert heat - and appears to have suffered severe burn damage.

"Don't you remember me? We met once in Afghanistan. I got to know some of the men in your platoon. I knew your best friend, Robinson. He spoke highly of you."

"Robbie's dead."

"So I heard..."

So who is the mysterious hooded figure? What does he have in mind for Danny? And, more importantly, is the explanation of what happens criminal, psychological, or even supernatural?

The answers come at the end of this elegant, finely detailed story. Allington is a former military man and he writes well about the troubled veteran.

Armstrong, Jason. "Man Changes Mind," in Thrillers, Killers, 'n Chillers. January 4, 2011.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to be a serial killer.

I mean, I'll probably just finish up with school and get a good job in management but it just seems like I should be doing something bigger with my life. But I think every young man has this conversation with himself at some point. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be a superhero. I've had that dream since I was five but there's no such thing as superheroes.

That's the start of this wonderfully quirky tale by Jason Armstrong, which I understand is his first published story. The publisher, Thrillers, Killers, 'n Chillers, described it as flash fiction, and that astonished me because I thought it was longer than that. (When I say a story seemed longer than it was I don't usually intend it as a compliment, because I like short fiction, but in this case I mean the story packs a lot into a small space.)

Which is not to say a lot happens. As the title implies, it is just a meditation inside the character's brain. But the story manages to be authentically funny and creepy at the same time, a good trick, and leave you wondering: is this guy just a not-bright doofus thinking idle thoughts, or exactly the kind of person who goes off the deep end one day?  Definitely worth a read.

Brackmann, Lisa.  "Don't Feed The Bums," in San Diego Noir, Akashic Press, 2011.


Kari has a problem.  Her life is divided into Before and After and what came between those two was a car accident that changed her life, destroyed parts of her memory, and altered her personality.  She's adjusting to her new self, taking care of animals as wounded as she is, and sleeping with two men, one from each half of her life. But eventually Kari discovers that someone is plotting against her, and, as the narrator says "She wasn't what she used to be, but she wasn't stupid."

This is Brackmann's first published story, after one novel.  Once the twists start coming she  keeps them pounding up the beach at you, right to the last perfect sentence, which made me laugh out loud.

Catalona, Karen.  "The Sadowsky Manifesto."  in Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and the Dead.  Grand Central Publishing.  2011.

Max Bergen runs a not-too-successful literary agency. One day a pot of gold rolls in over the transom. More literally it is a manuscript from the serial-killer-du-jour, who had just killed himself. The FBI and publishers are clamoring for the book and Bergen stands to make a fortune on commissions.

Of course, there has to be a problem, right? Sadowsky's book is not an angry political rant. It's a science fiction novel, and it's so bad that after fifty pages readers will be rooting for the giant robots to kill the hero. The book is a disaster and there is no ethical way for an agent to make money off it.

But, hey, Bergen is a literary agent. Who said anything about ethics?  I have never heard of Karen Catalona before, but I hope to run into her again.

Crouch, Blake.  “The Pain of Others,” in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.  March 2011.

Letty Dobish, five weeks out of Fluvanna Correctional Center on a nine-month bit for felony theft, straightened the red wig over her short brown hair, adjusted the oversize Jimmy Choo sunglasses she’d lifted out of a locker two days ago at the Asheville Racquet and Fitness Club, and handed a twenty-spot to the cabbie.
 

 “Want change, miss?” he asked.
 

 “On a nine seventy-five fare?  What does your heart tell you?”
 

Great language, great concept.  Letty is a woman of convictions, more judicial than ethical, and during the commission of a crime she overhears a murder plot.  It turns out she does care about something besides money.  The results are surprising and darker than I would have guessed (see title).
 

Crowther, Brad.  “Politics Makes Dead Bedfellows,” in  Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.  July/August 2011.

This is the winner of the Black Orchid Novella Award, co-sponsored by AHMM and the Wolfe Pack.  The guidelines for this contest specifically say that "We're not looking for anything derivative of the Nero Wolfe character, milieu, etc," but a soft pastiche of Rex Stout is precisely what they got.  And a good one, too. 

Edna Dugué is a  wealthy private eye in Charleston, South Carolina.   She is also an attorney, and teaches at a college.  “I never pretended that my intentions are honorable,” she tells one visitor, but clearly they are.  Her assistant and the narrator of the story is Jerrelle Vesey, an African-American part-time college student.  When Edna was a public defender she had helped him when he was sent to prison for badly beating two white men who killed his brother.

As the story opens a city councilman arrives to tell Edna that his wife has threatened to kill him.  Not surprisingly he ends up dead and the widow becomes Edna’s client.  What follows is classic Stout territory with Archie – Sorry! Jerrelle – going out to interview half a dozen suspects and bringing the results back to Edna, who figures out whodunit.

Two things make the story a treat.  First is Jerrelle's dialog.  Here he is chatting with the councilman: "I don't hold any grudges.  As a matter of fact, I almost voted for you in the last election.  In the end though I threw my support behind  our neighbor's pet rat, Lester."  I like this guy.   Second, are the set of supporting characters.  For example, Edna's police nemesis is a woman, a friend of Jerrelle's family.  

She was the one who arrested him after his crime, and the one who drove him home after he was pardoned.  And we still haven't met Edna's grandfather who lives in the attic.  

These are interesting people in a world that feels fully developed and three dimensional.  Rex Stout would be proud.   

 Faherty, Terence.  "A Bullet From Yesterday,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. January 2011.

A veteran walks into a Hollywood detective agency in the 1950s and says the gun he brought home from World War II as a souvenir may have killed ten million people - it could be the gun that killed the Archduke and started the Great War.  This story has just about everything I want in a private eye tale - humor, action, plot, and compassion for the way people screw up their lives.  Plus historical detail.
 

Gates, David Edgerley.  "Slip Knot," by David Edgerley Gates, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.  November 2011.
 

Mickey Counihan is not a detective, but he is trying to solve a crime. Mickey is a fixer for the Hannah family, an Irish mob in New York in the 1950s. He usually seems less like a main character than the typical hero of a detective story. More like an observer or not-so-innocent bystander. Because his main job is to watch out for the Hannah family's interests, which may call for him to watch what's going on but not necessarily step in. As someone tells him in this story "You don't have a dog in this fight."  Before the tale is over, he very much does.

 

The story is about a pool match, or really about the betting that goes on before and during the match. No one, including Mickey, can figure out who is manipulating the odds, and to what end. Before it gets straightened out a bunch of people will be dead.
 

Gates writes convincingly of dangerous men who expect trouble and know how to greet it. But the main reason the story made this list is the sheer casualness of the last paragraph, that treats a stunning detail as less important than a pool shot.
 

Kaaberbøl, Lene and Agnete Friis   “When The Time Came,” in Copenhagen Noir. Edited by Bo Tao Michaelis.  Akashic Press. 
 

The building looked like every other place out here.  Glass and steel.  He’d never understood who would want to live in such a place…. The other brand-new glass palaces were lit up as if an energy crisis had never existed, but there was no life behind the windows.  Maybe nobody wanted to live this way after all…
 

 Chaltu is a very pregnant African woman, desperate to make it over the bridge to Sweden where she can seek asylum and be reunited with her lover.  Unfortunately contractions begin too soon and she is left in an unfinished building in Ørestad.  As it happens three Iranian men have chosen the same night to loot fixtures from the empty apartments.  On discovering 

Chaltu one of them calls the “okay secret doctor,” actually Red Cross nurse Nina Borg, the authors’ series character.
 

 By the time Nina arrives the situations has gotten worse , in the form of a murder.  (This deserted building seems busier than Tivoli Gardens.)  She has to do some fast thinking to get out of the mess.
 
This doesn’t feel like a crime story, in spite of the fact that just about everyone in it is at least technically a criminal.  They are breaking the law, but are they evil?
 

The fact of childbirth has a powerful sway over the characters actions and as long as Nina is managing the labor she can direct the men, but once the baby is born, “Nina’s reign had ended.”   Powerful stuff.

By the way, I took the photo above from our vacation apartment in Ørestad, which is just as grim a neighborhood as the authors describe it... 

Mallory, Michael.  "The Real Celebrities," in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.  July/August 2011.
 

Michael and I were buddies when we appeared in Margo Power's Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine back in the nineties.  I seem to recall him mostly writing Sherlock Homes pastiches and nonfiction about Hollywood.  Now he has done a mash-up of sorts: fiction about Hollywood.

Since Marilyn Monroe hardly ever gave me the time of day, her sidling up to me meant that she wanted something. As a rule, Marilyn remained within her own little world, acting as though the rest of us didn't exist...
 

Okay, he's got my attention.  Is this a historic tale about the real Marilyn?  A fantasy?  Is the narrator insane?

None of the above.  The characters are impersonators who pose for tips outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre.   The narrator dresses as Wolverine and is known as Hugh Jackman.

I love stories that open the doors and let us take a peek into one of the many worlds that float around us.  Listen to "Jackman" explaining the service he and his friends provide:
 

For tourists, those of us on the boulevard are the REAL celebrities, the ones you can speak to and pose for pictures with. Those other ones, the figures you see on movie and television screens, they're nothing but illusions.
 

When one of them is murdered our hero feels obliged to try to figure out what happened.  The plot probably won't puzzle you, but the writing contains just the bitter sarcasm you expect from a tale of glitter-land's underclass.
 

"I'm an asshole' [he] said, by way of greeting.
 

"You're in the right town for it."

Mosley, Walter.  "The Trial,"  in Freedom: Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by Amnesty International. 2011.

Interesting idea. Each story in this book is tied to one of the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Some articles inspired several stories.)  They aren't all about crime, of course, but Walter Mosley's piece is inspired by Article 7: Equality Before The Law. This is not something his characters feel they have been getting much of. They are African-Americans, residents in a housing complex where drug dealers can get an easy pass from the bribe-taking cops, but more "serious" crimes are punished without much consideration of the issues that caused them.

In this case a drug dealer has been murdered and various community members - his lover, his sometime assistant, the oldest resident, a successful businessman, etc. - have gathered to decide the fate of the confessed murderer.

As the story goes on it goes through fascinating shifts - Was Wilfred the killer justified? Does this group of neighbors have the right to rule on him? Do the courts?  Mosley writes with the easy conversational style of a great mystery writer, but he is discussing deep, deep issues here.   

Parker, Percy Spurlark.  “Sweet Thing Going,”  in  Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.  April 2011.

 The thing about Biter Bit stories is that you can usually see them coming.  Percy Spurlark Parker’s story is about a cop named Rycann who is as dirty as they come, squeezing the petty crooks on his beat for money and sex.  You know he’s going to get his comeuppance, so the question is: how will it happen?

This is where the question of story length comes in.  When I turned to the last page I could see that it was the last page and as I read down I was thinking : there’s no way he can pull off a surprising and satisfying ending in the space that’s left.  Obviously I was wrong or it wouldn't be on this list.

Powell, James.  “The Teapot Mountie Ball,” in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.  March/April 2011. 
 

I am a fan and friend of Jim Powell so I say this with respect and affection: The man is as loony as a Canadian dollar coin.  The average Powell story in a fully realized plot stuffed with wild free associations wrapped around a bizarre central idea that, if they had occurred to most writers, would cause them to swear off late-night enchiladas.

 This particular specimen is part of a series about Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  But the central concept is this: in order to avoid infiltrators Canadian organized crime has banned members who meet the height and weight qualifications for Mounties.  To foil this strategy the RCMP hires a special squad of undercover agents known as the Teapot Mounties (because they are short and stout, naturally).  The one time these diminutive lawmen can wear their red uniforms is the night of their annual ball.  This year, the regularly sized Sergeant Bullock is present, running the soda stand.  Naturally he stumbles into a fiendish plot…

 So that is the main story line.  Here are some random examples of the free associations that grow up around it:       

* There was a Mountie named “Gimpy” Flanagan who had “sworn never to pull his revolver without drawing blood, an oath that cost him several toes.”       

*Scandanavians underestimate Canadians seeing them as “a frivolous southern people much like the Italians…”       

* The Canadians have sworn to defend the U.S. from an overland attack by Russia, because they knew “that if Mexico ever tried to invade Canada by land, the United States would do the same.”

Mad as a March Hare and twice as fun.
 

Pluck, Thomas.  The Uncleared,   at A Twist of Noir, Friday September 16, 2011.

R. Thomas Brown pointed this one out.

I have a rule about flash fiction (usually defined as under 1000 words). I think it only works if the story needs to be that short. Either it is a simple anecdote (like a joke, a setup and a punchline) or something so unique that it only makes sense as a very short piece (see Jason Armstrong's above).

But Mr. Pluck has made me break my rule. I can easily see this story as the outline for one of those looong broody tales that EQMM loves so much. Instead he fit it on a postcard, and did it with no sense of cramming or shorthand. Quite remarkable.

Here, in brief, is the brief story. When the narrator is in college his parents decide to sell their house. His mother, a brand-new real estate agent, attempts to do so and is found murdered in it.

We learn what happened to the family afterwards, and then there is a twist that is staggering and yet neatly foreshadowed. It all works perfectly and even though it could be told at five times the length, it isn't missing a single necessary detail.  And my, the last sentence...

Santlofer, Jonathan.  "Lola,"  in New Jersey Noir.  Akashic Press, 2011

I didn't think this story was going to make my favorite list.  It felt like a pretty ordinary piece at first.  But stories, like people for that matter, can surprise you.

The narrator is a would-be portrait artist who makes his living preparing stretchers for more successful painters.  One day riding the PATH trains back to Hoboken he becomes attracted to a young woman.  Pretty soon he is obsessed with her, and this is obviously not the first time he has gone down this path.  I was pretty sure I knew where this journey was headed.

Well.  Can't say much more without giving away the store.  Let's just say Santlofer has some surprises in store for his characters, and for us.

A perfect ending is one that leaves the reader saying: "I never saw that coming, but it is the only way the story could have ended."  "Lola" has a perfect ending.