Gamble Pays Off

Auld Lang Syne

As New Year's Eve rapidly closes upon us, I am reminded of this Scots phrase from Robert Burns. Auld Lang Syne: literally translating into English as “old long since” — or, more colloquially, perhaps: “Long, long ago . . .” A time to look back, to take stock, perhaps to dissect or deconstruct our past actions or thoughts . . .

Dissection can be messy.
I’m no book reviewer. I’ve never been paid to write a book review, nor have I ever written one before. This is not to knock book reviewers. Many do a wonderful job. I read book reviews just like anyone else – hoping to find clues to my next good read.

It’s a job I view with great trepidation however. Because:
(A) I worry about hurting people’s feelings.
(B) To me, reviewing books is just too much like dissecting them.

Whether the type of dissection under discussion is physical, mental or literary, my fear is that after you perform a dissection, you still end up with the guts of a once-living thing cut out, catalogued and stored separately (at least temporarily). Or — if I were handling the job — probably strewn all across creation.

I suspect Lucy Ricardo would make a better M.E. than I would; by the time I completed an autopsy, there’d probably be entrails hanging from the overhead lights. Not intentionally, of course; it’s just the way I do things—you should see what our kitchen looks like after I cook a meal. (Comparing autopsies to cooking . . . can’t tell I recently watched Sweeney Todd on DVD again, can you?)

As for literary dissection . . .

Dismembering story elements for study
Well, it still seems pretty messy to me. And, just as chilling. Even deconstructing a sentence seems to rob it of the life and character it once had. Clauses, sub clauses, words – each forever ripped from the bosom of its family, stored separately, catalogued, labeled.

And, quite dead.

Concerning Self-dissection — well that’s even more tricky.

I suppose dissecting your own writing is easier than dissecting your own body, but only just easier in my opinion. I sometimes have a terrible time trying to tell what’s wrong with a story I’ve written, even when I can clearly feel the “wrongness” within some certain part of it. And that problem increases exponentially when I get involved in novel editing. If you’ve been a faithful reader, then you know that I often turn to a critique group, for help, at times like these.

But one of the stranger tricks I’ve also learned (one which has helped me quite a bit) is to read works by now-best-selling authors, written back when they were in their early years — still “learning the ropes” as it were. The ease of recognizing errors committed in their earlier days is probably comparable to the relative ease of performing an autopsy on someone else, versus pulling one on my own cadaver. (I mean you have that whole “Dead people usually find it difficult to make voluntary movements,” thing to overcome.)

Comparing what went wrong in these early writings, against the way these authors surmounted their “writing problems” in later work, gives me the chance to recognize problem-patterns, then look for them in my own writing. Sort of like a med student learning to diagnose damaged organs contained within live bodies, by examining fatally flawed organs in cadavers. Such study provides the opportunity to seek out and diagnose flawed areas in my own work. It’s not quite as hands-on as an autopsy might be, or as I personally might prefer. But, I’ve learned to try and Go With the Flow! when it comes to the touchy-feely side of writing.

Oddly, perhaps, this is also one of the reasons Felix Francis’s writing appealed to me over the past few years. The son of mystery great Dick Francis, Felix has been finding his way from teaching physics to (and through) the writing thicket.

Not an easy trek.
His writing is much like his father’s in many ways. It’s as if there are similar family features on the faces of both their prose. But, especially in the beginning, there was a certain, unfortunate “flatness” to Felix’s writing — particularly compared to his father’s.

I don’t mean Felix’s stories suffered from flat characters; most were well-rounded and well-drawn. Nor do I mean that he's a bad writer; he's not. He's a good writer. It's just that, where Dick Francis' stories stood up and danced, Felix's seemed to fall flat on my tongue. His writing was flat in the same way that soda left in an open bottle becomes flat. Reading Felix’s work, I felt as if I were reading his father’s work, but it had lost its fizz — and a lot of the flavor along with it.

Now this is a problem I can recognize and sympathize with. I sometimes struggle with “flat writing” in my own work — and I find it one of the most perplexing problems to correct. So I was overjoyed to encounter Felix’s flat writing, because I knew it was so similar to his father’s, that I just might be able to diagnose the cause by comparing the two. In turn, this might open a door to healing my own writing ailments. “Let’s see if we can’t just find out,” I thought to myself, “what the reason for this loss of fizz is.”

Thankfully, I’ve got a pretty full library of Dick Francis paperbacks lying around my office (Yes: “lying around” – all part of that “entrails hanging from the light fixtures” thing!), so I got cracking. And those differences, I discovered, were primarily very small. Tiny even.

Perhaps the truest insight I gained was that the root of the problem (and the reason it’s such a tough nut to crack) lies in the tiny size of the transgressions, multiplied by the number of times they occur.

In retrospect, I decided the nature of the difficulty shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, while lack of carbonation (because it’s all escaped into the atmosphere) lies at the root of flat soda’s problem, it manifests itself through the absence of millions of tiny bursting bubbles. One overall problem -- but, lots of missing bubbles causing it.

One tiny bubble failing to rise to the surface of the soda, and burst there, would hardly be noticeable; a million missing bubbles and the soda is flat, lifeless. It’s no longer effervescent.

In other words: I discovered that (to me, at any rate) flat writing doesn’t seem to be a single problem; it’s a number of tiny problems that snowball, finally combining to rob the piece of flavor.

For example:

One difference I discovered was that Felix Francis’ characters often made outright philosophical statements. Either the reader agreed with those statements, or that reader didn’t agree with the character. I suspect that a little of this goes a long way toward erecting a barrier that keeps a reader, who didn't agree with the expressed opinions, from fully identifying with (and thus caring about) a protagonist, if that protagonist is the character making those statements. And that can be a big problem.

Dick Francis’ characters, on the other hand, seldom made philosophical statements as absolutes. Particularly when working in first person, his POV characters tended to couch such statements in gentle, very subtle ways, nearly always incorporating words such as nearly, almost, sometimes, or some to soften the blow.

It seems to me that using these "wiggle-room" words permits a reader to disagree with the sentiment expressed, but still agree and connect with the character, because the character’s own description has left room for that disagreement. It’s a subtle difference, but over the length of a novel I believe it can have a great impact.

One way to view this recurring difficulty is to think of these little problems as grains of sand at the beach. A beach is composed of millions of tiny grains of sand; if a few grains are misshapen — rough, or sharp edged — it makes little difference to your feet. The beach texture is still inviting. But, keep substituting misshapen grains in place of smooth ones, and eventually the sand texture becomes a little too rough on the toes. The beach becomes uncomfortable to walk on, barefoot. A person finds it hard to settle-in and relax on that beach. Next time they want to spend some time by the ocean, they’ll probably go somewhere else. Though they might have a hard time explaining why.

If I were the kick-ass analyst I wish I were, I would have been able to isolate some sort of Seldon’s Laws (to borrow a term from Asimov's Foundation series) concerning what constitutes the equivalent of “carbonation” in writing. In the real world, however, I’m just not that bright. Consequently, to me, it seems pretty difficult to fix a beach (or manuscript), once it’s filled with a bunch of misshapen sand grains. Because, you can’t just correct one problem to fix the overall flaw. Instead, you’ve got to first find then polish a lot of misshapen little pebbles. Not a quick and easy task — whether we’re talking about beaches, or manuscripts.

For a beach, you might be better off just scraping it clean, then bringing in all new sand. For a manuscript? Well, it might be a good idea to take a tip from the great Asimov and “run it through the typewriter again” completely rewriting that section.

For Felix Francis, however, there seems to have been another solution.
Gamble, Felix’s first book to be published since the death of his father, came out over the summer. Circumstances conspired to keep me from getting my hands on it until last week, however. And, I have to tell you: in my opinion his writing has improved by leaps and bounds. And, it is no longer flat.

In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot about it over the past week. (The kids have been home 24/7 with Winter Break, so it’s not like I was going to get much writing done.)

I’ve never met Felix Francis, haven’t even seen him at a book signing. So I did some online searching and this, coupled with my knowledge that his father died in 2010, has got me contemplating a possible reason for the change.

You see, part of what I think I noticed is that his prose has lost a few of those “family trait” characteristics. Don’t get me wrong; you can still clearly see the resemblance between the writing of father and son.

But, sometimes as a person grows, s/he loses some of the striking similarity in features that were so clearly prevalent in earlier years. It’s just part of the physical metamorphosis of growing up. Other times, a man’s son may do something that would be so uncharacteristic for his father (not necessarily a bad or evil thing—just different from what the father would do) that people are forced to realize the son isn’t just a carbon copy; he’s “his own man” so to speak.

This sort of subtle (on one level), but striking (on another) change, is what I believe I saw in Felix Francis’ writing. You could chalk it up to the idea that his writing is simply maturing, and no one could prove you wrong. But, I suspect another factor is also at play.

This is the first novel he’s written, in which his father has played no role. According to an interview in the British racing magazine Eclipse, Felix said that during the previous novels: “I would write the prose and he (Dick Francis) would then make suggestions or correct me if I had some of the racing not quite right. We never argued much – he seemed to like what I did.”

I’m not saying the earlier problems were being caused by Dick Francis. I’m sure that wasn’t the case. Instead, I’m left wondering if maybe Felix was stretching into a zone, when writing Gamble, which he couldn’t comfortably operate in when his father was alive.

The pressures on a son, writing under his father’s byline — particularly with the knowledge that his father is going to look over what he’s written before it gets sent to a publisher — are sure to be much different than if the son writes under his own byline. Gamble is billed on the cover as: “Dick Francis’s Gamble by Felix Francis.” This is subtly, but powerfully different from the billing Felix received on the previous novels he (evidently) largely wrote. Those were billed as being written by: “Dick Francis with Felix Francis.”

Later in the Eclipse interview, when Felix was asked if his father had left lots of book idea notes, Felix replied: “Sadly there are no notes. It’s all down to me now. It is a bit strange that he is no longer around to read the manuscript and criticise my grammar, but I am confident that he would be happy with the result.”

I believe he’s right; Dick Francis would be happy. Because, what I’m convinced I read in Gamble was a fresh new thing called Felix Francis’ voice. I don’t think he’s got it completely locked in yet. But, I do think he’s got at least one foot in the groove and is closing on target. When he gets there — who knows? Maybe his body of work will even eclipse his father’s.

One thing I’m sure of, however: choosing to write with his new voice took guts. Felix took the risk that long-time Dick Francis fans might slip away. It was a gutsy gamble to use his own voice in the novel. For Felix Francis, however, it looks as if his Gamble will probably pay off.

In Closing:

The great Dick Francis died in 2010, but I didn’t blog back then. So, during this time of Auld Lang Syne when we often look back in remembrance, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge Dick Francis’ legacy through a series of photos borrowed from Felix Francis’ website.




Dick Francis as racing fans must have thought of him.




Dick Francis as I (for some reason) always think of him.

I love the pose here. His stance is so reminiscent of the jockeys he wrote about. And . . . gee, who are those two women he's talking to?

Dick Francis with his wife, Mary.

(L to R) Felix Francis, Dick Francis, and Felix's older brother, Merrick

(That photo at the top of today's blog, incidentally, is Dick Francis finishing a ride he may not have cared to remember too often.)

Happy New Year!


See you in two weeks,
Dix

A rose is a rose is a rose...

A friend who knows I'm a lover of great mysteries discovered a new-to-me novel and sent it for a non-holiday gift. The copy of David Morrell's THE SPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS is a delight as only the Rambo creator could write, but also interesting is the tidbit attributed to the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Espionage. It seems the explanation of the rose representing the spy profession links back to Greek mythology when the god of love offered a bribe of a rose to the god of silence in promise of keeping confidential overheard sins of other gods.

When a rose hangs from a ceiling, perhaps someone isn't simply drying flowers for romantic sentiments, but the conspirators dealing in a pact. When a discussion is held beneath a suspended rose, sub rose, the information is agreed by those involved to be kept secret. Perhaps it is as clandestine as two lovers meeting in seclusion. The ideas suggested to me intrigues the imagination.

That is, it did, until I noticed two long-stemmed roses hanging in the teenage bedroom of our home. Since most teenagers are by nature, secretive to "older" relatives, I may have stumbled upon a clue to those "meetings with the Bro's" that accompany the turn of the lock after they file inside the lair I am not often welcomed.

It's okay. I am old enough not to be slighted and feel young enough to remember when I though the same way about some of the older folks in my own life.

Thinking of the James Bond books where the spies led glamorous lives with clever inventions that saved the day, but were to be kept underwraps to the public, I understand.

While other girls were asking Santa for a Barbie dream house, I secretly coveted a spy camera. I still want one.

Spy characters are fun to read about and to write about, too. I like the idea of meetings held undercover with secret handshakes and traditional passwords. What fun we have as readers to live such adventures through a character's viewpoint without having to put ourselves on the line.

Roses hanging by a cord from a ceiling fan probably are dried remains of a lovely memory of prom date and nothing more. That doesn't keep my mind from creating scenarios where something much more interesting is happening behind locked doors with a roomful of bro's.

The Ranger and the Sheriff's Wife

So, what does the title above make you think of?
a.  a romance novel

b. a naughty movie

c.  one of Leigh's reports on bizarre crimes in Florida

The answer should be none of the above, because what I want to write about today are two excellent nonfiction books I read recently.  They are certainly prime material for some mystery writer but it doesn't seem to be me, so I thought I would spread the wealth.

Nature Noir, by Jordan Fisher Smith 

Twenty-some years ago Jordan Fisher Smith was a top seasonal park ranger.  That meant that every summer he had his pick of jobs in many of the most beautiful parks in the country. But when he wanted the security of a permanent job he had to take what he could get and that turned out to be Auburn State Recreation Area in northern California.  And that turned out to be a pretty weird place.

You see, Auburn wasn't a park exactly.  It was land that had been condemned in order to build a damsite, but the dam was never built (and still hasn't been).  As Smith noted it was a "grand social science experiment....which answered the question: How do people behave in a condemned landscape?"

The answer turns out be: not great.  The American River runs through Auburn and there is enough gold there to make it worthwhile for certain people to drag in dredging equipment to go mining.  Of course, mining in parks is illegal, but it was hard to convince judges and prosecutors - not to mention the miners - why it should be a punishable offense to mine in a place that would eventually be underwater anyway.

Some of the people who visited Auburn or lived there (legally or not) were scary.  Think meth labs, frinstance.  The book begins with a ranger seeing an angry man throwing something through the open window of his girlfriend's car as she drives by.  It was a baby.  Fortunately, the child wasn't hurt, but holy cow.

Smith is as interested in the nature as the noir, so, for example, the chapter that describes the geological flaws that have held up the dam also includes the hunt for a police officer's wife, missing and presumed dead.

And the writing is good, very good.  Here is Smith responding to an emergency call from another ranger.

If the world exists in a perpetual state of uncertainty, if things are half-assed and watered-down and most things fall into a gray area, when you respond to a call like that you are bathed for a few minutes in superhuman certainty.  You put away whatever squabbles you and your partners have had, ready to wade into the fray, to sacrifice yourself for any one of them.  You hit the lights and siren and drive better than you normally do, think sharper than you normally do.  The people in other cars look at you as you pass them on a mountain road and at intersections the cars part for you like the Red Sea for Moses.  It is an ascceptable substitute for reality; it's fleeting but it keeps yo believing in what you do.

Nonfiction books don't usually have surprise endings, but there are twists here for both Auburn and Smith.  A real page-turner.

The Secret Life of the Lawman's Wife, by BJ Alderman

When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 Hillary told a reporter that the country would be getting a two-for-one deal: two great leaders for the election of one.  Americans didn't enthuse over the idea of an unelected female co-president, so she dropped that campaign approach.

But for hundreds of years there has been an assumption in certain occupations that when you hired a man you got his wife's services for free.  I think the only places where this is still assumed may be with clergymen and college presidents.

However, up until the seventies, especially in small towns, governments seemed to believe that the wives of sheriffs, police chiefs, and jailkeepers came as a package deal.  BJ Alderman found dozens of memoirs and news articles dating back as far as the seventeenth century, and interviewed wives and family members as well.  The result is a fascinating look at the lives of these unsung heroines of law enforcement.

I think the most common complaint can be summed up as an assumption by the town authorities that the wife ought to be able to feed all the prisoners who happened to be in the jail with the family table scraps, and not coming pestering them for provisions. Picture a couple of dozen hungry prisoners and you can see the problem.

Alderman points out that in TV and the movies there was usually a lawman sitting around the jail with nothing to do. but in the true reports it seems like when the action happens the lawman is always on patrol, and guess who's left dealing with the chaos?  Another problem for the sheriffing family was the insane; when someone became dangerous to themselves or others they might wind up in the jail for weeks or months until an opening appeared in an asylum.

Now  picture a teenage boy in Iowa who, one afternoon in 1956, got a phone call from his mother at the grocery store where he was working.  "Dolores asked him if there was anything in particular he wished to save from his room.  Upon inquiry, Larry learned that a juvenile prisoner had set fire to the cell between Larry's room and the bathroom in an attempt to get free.  Yes, Dolores was sure the entire bulding would go up soon so he'd better decide quick."

Or consider this adventure of Molly E. Lattie, whose husband was the sheriff of Des Moines county (also in Iowa, of course) in the 1870s.

A prisoner, intent on escape, fashioned a straw dummy and tucked it into his bunk.  He then hid "elsewhere to wait for an opportunity to get through the jail door.  Mrs. Latty, on duty alone that night thought something looked peculiar and went into the cell to investigate.  When she discovered the dummy, instead of calling for help, she began searching all of the cells, looking for the prisoner.  She discovered him under a bunk...  She reached in and pulled him out, and ordered him to quit 'fooling around; and return to his cell before she became angry.'"  He did just as he was told.

Many of these criminals seem less dangerous than the ones we are used to (like the ones who baby-sat for their jailors' infants!).  But consider Sophie Alberding, sheriff's wife in Lincoln County, New Mexico.  "there was one feature of the new home which I did not enjoy.  The back stairway, up and down which I had to travel many times during the day, was still stained with blood, a grim reminder of the day two years before when Billy the Kid had shot and killed his guard..."

A remarkable book about a remarkable collection of women.

New Jersey Confidential

I've always liked titles that included 'Confidential' in them.  You know what I mean, titles like "Hollywood Confidential", "Park Avenue Confidential", "Palm Springs Confidential"...well, you get the point.  There's the promise of forbidden knowledge contained within the pairing of almost anything with the word 'Confidential'.  Probably some adult content too, if you know what I mean. 
However, the knowledge that I am about to impart doesn't have any of that.  Okay, so it's not forbidden, so how about not particularly well-known...unless you happen to an insider in the small world of Jersey law enforcement?  "What's that to me?" you might ask.  Maybe nothing; maybe a lot, if you happen to set a crime story in the Garden State or have a character that is a Jersey cop.  So wise up and  follow me, if you dare, and remember, no matter what happens, you didn't get this from me.

We do things just a little differently in Turnpike country.  When you're sandwiched between New York City and Philadelphia you've got to do things differently.  It's not easy playing David to two Goliaths, you know.  So here's what we cooked up on the law enforcement front just to keep 'em guessing: In your part of the world I bet they call a major crime a felony, right?  Cross the big line here, sweetheart, and you get slapped with an 'indictable'.  That's shorthand for indictable crime.  That's what they're called here; it's how it's written in the law books.  And you can keep your misdemeanors to yourself, too, while we're on the subject; try one of those on and we'll write you up for a 'disorderly persons offense'.  That's got more words but is easier to spell.  Makes it better, I think.  And this doesn't just stop with legal violations: We have county prosecutors in Jersey instead of district attorneys.  Okay, so maybe it doesn't roll off the tongue as trippingly as, "Hey Chief, you've got the D.A. on line one," but it is different; kinda homey, and that's they way we like it.

But all that is just words; let's go over a few details on how we get things done.  Here in the "Cockpit of the Revolution" the police are prohibited from going through the garbage you just put out at the curb for pick-up.  In order to accomplish that which your refuse collector, or any other passer-by, may do with impunity, we must obtain a search warrant.  We are not completely unique in this restriction, believe it or not, as our sister state of Hawaii has a similar, cutting edge, law on the books.

Let's say that you just got arrested for driving while under the influence (DWI, we call it; not DUI...yeah, you heard me...DWI).  Let's further posit that you are newly arrived from Kyrgyzstan and are therefore ignorant of the English language.  This will not save you from being read your rights.  The Great State of NJ has thoughtfully provided a website that provides a reading of said rights in any of fifty foreign tongues.  This is the wonder and majesty of Trenton.  Of course, if you happen to be from Kyrgyzstan this may be the first time you've ever had any rights given to you in the first place.

In order to protect the innocent, or at least the not-guilty, NJ further insists that all interrogations for indictable crimes be videotaped.  The cozy chats that we once enjoyed with our clientele are sadly a thing of the past.  Oh for the days before all this invasion of privacy.

Let me give you a scenario: We'll say that you're a uniformed officer on patrol.  You roll up to a stop at an intersection and look to your left.  "What lo?" says you, as Tommy Sunshine comes strolling along; fixes his wee beadies upon your stalwart visage; then turns on his heel and boogies for all he's worth in the opposite direction.  'This cannot bode well for the safety of our citizens,' you thinks.  'Pursuit?' you asks yourself. 

Finish that vente latte, brother...you got nothing.  Not here in the Garden State.  Case law has established that our citizens can decide to hot-foot it anywhere and at any time of their choosing, and Five-0 is not to read anything into it.  People get impulses.

Now, if you can tie little Tommy's sudden urge for distance betwixt himself and his protector-in-blue to something more, such as he's in a known drug trafficking area; there's a warrant for his arrest; or maybe he's just coming out from behind a store that has an alarm clanging away and it's four in the morning, well then, maybe you'll get some exercise after all. 

New Jersey has the death penalty...did you know that?  Neither do we apparently, as there's not been an execution in this state for well over a quarter century and probably much longer.  Courts have sentenced a number of murderers to death during that time but no one ever quite gets around to the dirty deed.  So, let's just say that we have a 'life until death' penalty, shall we?

Lest you think we're soft on crime, let me throw you this curve ball--we don't need no stinkin' probable cause to search someone for stolen library materials!  That's right, Lopresti, all you've got to do is point a finger and we're taking 'em down.  We like our libraries here; make no mistake about it.

So there you have it, gentle reader, a litany of the strange and the zany quirks of Jersey law and its enforcement.  It's not a comprehensive list, but it does give you some of the highlights, as well as a flavor for how we do business in the 'big' little state when it comes to policing.  I hope you enjoyed the tour.  Now if you'll follow me we'll finish our little chat about those 'rights' of yours...Oops...that was a lot of stairs, wasn't it?  Sure, I'll have rescue here in a jiff, but while we're waiting, how about that confession you've been dying to make?  And look, the silly camera is working again...how about that?  

To Sing a Story

by Fran Rizer

Here I am with two fine, good-looking, talented men I'd love to have known personally. I wouldn't mind having been able to drink a little bourbon or Jack Daniels with each of them. To my left, Mr. William Faulkner. To my right, O Henry. In my youth, I spent a lot of time reading short stories. My favorites include everything O Henry ever wrote and "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner.

My published writing so far has been four novels, two children's books, some scientific reports for Clemson University, numerous magazine features, and a few short stories. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about trying more short stories, and short stories make me think of songs. When I taught writing, I used songs to help the students identify some of the writing elements--setting, characters, plot, as well as beginning, middle, and ending.

I grew up on a mix of country music, R&B, classical, and jazz. Two of the finest story songs from my youth are "Stagger Lee" and "Long Black Veil." Both of them involve murder.

On Christmas Eve, 1895, "Stag" Lee Shelton, a Black pimp, shot William "Billy" Lyons in a St. Louis saloon after Billy snatched Stag's Stetson hat. That was immediately cast into a song that swept through the South with several little changes each time it was sung. A myth evolved, described by Julius Lester in "Black Folktales" as, "Stagolee was so bad that the flies wouldn't even fly around his head in the summertime, and snow wouldn't fall on his house in the winter."

Over four hundred artists have released the song about "Stag" Lee Shelton since the first recording in 1923, and the song has been refashioned as Ragtime, Broadway showtune, Blues, Jazz, Honky Tonk, Country, '50's Rock 'n Roll, Hawaiian and Gangsta Rap. The story lives on as a musical, two novels, a short story, an award-winning graphic novel, Ph. D. dissertations, and a pornographic feature film.

Recordings include those by James Brown, Nick Cave, Neil Diamond, The Clash, Pat Boone, Fats Domino, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, The Grateful Dead, Woody Guthrie, The Ventures, Ike and Tina Turner, Ma Rainey, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tom Jones, The Black Keyes and Elvis Presley. My favorite is the extremely popular 1959 version by Lloyd Price. (shown below left) These are the lyrics as Price recorded it.

STAGGER LEE

The night was clear, and the moon was yellow

And the leaves came tumbling down. . .

I was standin' on the corner

When I heard my bulldog bark.

He was barkin' at the two men

Who were gamblin' in the dark.

It was Stagger Lee and Billy,

Two men who gambled late.

Stagger Lee threw a seven

Billy swore that he threw eight.

Stagger Lee told Billy

"I can't let you go with that.

"You have won all my money,

"And my brand new Stetson hat."

Stagger Lee went home

And he got his .44.

He said, "I'm going to the bar room

Just to pay that debt I owe."

(bridge)

Go, Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee went to the bar room

And he stood across the bar room door.

He said, "Now nobody move,"

And he pulled his .44.

"Stagger Lee," cried Billy,

"Oh, please don't take my life!

"I've got three hungry children

And a very sickly wife."

Stagger Lee shot Billy.

Oh, he shot that poor boy so bad

'Til the bullet went through Billy

And broke the bartender's glass.

Go, Stagger Lee, go, Stagger Lee

Go, Stagger Lee, go, Stagger Lee

On an occasional Friday or Saturday night, when

I go to a bluegrass jam, I inevitably get irritated when

one of the pickers does my other favorite story song.

The reason is that they don't sing the words as written.

When confronted, the reply is, "Oh, that's an old

public domain folk song. I sing it the way I heard it

at another jam."

"Long Black Veil" isn't an old, uncopyrighted folk song. It was written by Marijohn Wilkin and Danny Dill, and originally recorded by Lefty Frizzell on March 3, 1959, as a country ballad

that became a smash hit.

Wilkin and Dill claimed their inspiration for the song was three-fold: Red Foley's recording of "God Walks These Hills With Me," a contemporary newspaper report about the unsolved murder of a priest, and the legend of a mysterious veiled woman who regularly visited Rudolph Valentino's grave.

"The Long Black Veil" has been covered by artists in country, folk, and rock styles. Sammi Smith had a hit with it in 1974 and other recordings include those by Johnny Cash, Dave Matthews Band, Joan Baez, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Harry Manx, Mike Ness, Nancy Owen with Mama Said, and Rosanne Cash.

THE LONG BLACK VEIL

Ten years ago, on a cold dark night

There was someone killed 'neath the town hall light

There were few at the scene, but they all agree

That the slayer who ran looked a lot like me

The judge said, "Son, what is your alibi?

If you were somewhere else, then you won't have to die."

I spoke not a word, though it meant my life,

For I had been in the arms of my best friend's wife

Chorus

She walks these hills

In a long black veil

She visits my grave

When the night winds wail

Nobody knows, nobody sees

Nobody knows but me

The scaffold's high and eternity near

She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear

But sometimes at night, when the cold wind blows

In a long black veil, she cries o'er my bones

Repeat Chorus

Tag Nobody knows but me

Nobody knows but me

Talk about flash fiction! What a great story in a few words!!

Randall Hylton, songwriter and performer extraordinaire who had more than two hundred original songs cut by major artists, told me, "Fran, story songs are easiest to sell," so I wrote a bluegrass story song. I'm tempted to put it here, but I'll save it for next time. I know that at least two other SleuthSayers are song writers as well. What about you? Do you have an original story song? If so, email it to me at franrizer at gmail dot com and I'll include it two weeks from now.

Wanna win a prize? Answer this question of the day in Sleuthsayers Comments Section. First person with correct answer wins. Instructions how to claim the prize will be given tonight when the winner is announced tonight.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What did Edgar Allan Poe and Abraham Lincoln have in common other than the century during which they lived?

Until we meet again...take care of YOU.

My Thoughts On The Big Lie— Santa Claus

downtown Knoxville

Santa is crying because he thinks I missed out on the joy of believing in Santa Claus. He is mistaken. Although I knew from the first day I heard somebody mention Santa Claus didn’t exist, I still enjoyed Christmas. My mother told– no, warned– my father, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, and anybody else who dared to mention Santa Claus to me, not to be telling her son that Santa Claus lie.

You’re thinking I must’ve grown up really disappointed during Christmas when all the kids wrote letters to Santa Claus. Nope. I never told my friends he didn’t exist, either because my mother told me not to or I instinctively knew not to. I prefer to believe the instinctive thing. I didn’t write letters to Santa Claus because my mother said she was Santa Claus, and so, I told her what I wanted. Although we weren’t poor, still I wasn’t always sure she would have the money to get what I asked for, so you see, I was as surprised on Christmas morning as the kids who believed Santa Claus, with his fat belly and bag full of toys, came down the chimney.

I liked the idea of Santa Claus. I liked it so much that I didn’t tell my two cousins, the daughters of my uncle the bootlegger, that Santa Claus wasn’t real. I became Santa Claus to them, helping my aunt or grandmother shop for toys, hiding them, and placing them under the tree on Christmas Eve after they had gone to sleep. Santa Claus may not have been real to me but he was to them. I always wondered, however, why they never asked how he could come down our chimney. He certainly was too fat to squeeze through the stove pipe after he got down the chimney and then into the stove, which had hot coals burning all night.

Christmas is the holiday I enjoy most. I try to forget the fact that the criminals, pickpockets, shoplifters, purse snatchers, carjackers, etc., are out in force during the holidays. What I enjoy most on Christmas morning is seeing the faces of my grandkids, as they open their presents.

But a TV commercial has me worried about the life of Santa Claus. The women in the commercial buy gifts at a store, and when Santa enters their homes, they confront him with smirks on their faces that say they don’t need him anymore. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, you understand, but I can’t help but think that, as Christmas has become more and more commercialized, some merchants may be trying to get rid of Santa Claus. Okay, I’ve seen some positive commercials showing Santa using a smartphone, so all is not lost. He’s fighting back with the help of digital technology.

To keep negative feelings from messing with my mind during the holidays, I listen to soulful Christmas music: Nat King Cole singing the traditional Christmas songs, The Temptations’s interpretation of “Silent Night”; my oldest grandson’s favorite,  gravelly voiced Louis Armstrong singing “’Zat You Santa Claus”; Booker T and The Mg’s instrumental “Jingle Bells”; and Otis Redding singing the all time favorite “White Christmas.” On Christmas morning when my grandkids come for their presents, they hear Nat’s melodious voice coming from the CD player, and I watch with a smile as they open their presents.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Quirks in Progress

Every year at Christmas our family--my wife and I, our daughter, our sons, and all their spouses and children--get together for a week or so, at our house. The headcount is up to thirteen now, and shows signs of growing even more in coming years. It's a lot of fun, and since the five grandchildren are all under the age of seven, it can be a little chaotic as well. Sort of a mix between a Waltons Christmas special and the studio food-fight scene in Blazing Saddles.

What's different about this year is that some of our clan arrived here later than usual--the day before Christmas Eve--and are staying until after New Year's Day, instead of coming a week earlier and leaving just after Christmas. Therefore, instead of my usual practice of avoiding booksignings the week before Christmas because the family's here, this time I told my publisher I'd be available, and wound up signing at several Booklands and Books-A-Millions over the past few days.

Gift rapping

I had a good time at each store, met some interesting folks, and was pleased to see firsthand that a lot of shoppers still choose to give books as Christmas presents. I'm sure some of them were last-minute gifts--I still remember the way I used to frantically grab presents for the kids at the airport after a business trip--but the fact remains that the items under the tree on Christmas morning sometimes still turn out to be books. That warms my heart: I love to give them and receive them.

(By the way, I don't mean to be ignoring e-readers or magazines or subscriptions to magazines. To me, any kind of reading material--or instrument for that purpose--makes a good gift.)

Take me to your reader

Which brings up another subject. Several of my writer friends have told me they don't read other people's fiction while they're in the process of writing their own fiction. They say that if they do, it dilutes their focus, and keeps them from concentrating fully on their own styles and storylines.

That's fine with me. I've always believed a writer should do whatever it takes to make him or her productive, which of course includes avoiding whatever would make him or her unproductive. If it hurts when you laugh, don't laugh.

But I must tell you, the "don't-read-others'-fiction-while-you're-writing-your-own-fiction" policy is--for me--a quirk that wouldn't work. If I stopped reading other authors' fiction while I was in the process of writing my own, I would never get a chance to read other authors' fiction. I'm always writing something, it seems, and if I'm not actually putting words on paper I'm dreaming up those words to later put on paper.

Concurrent sessions

Here's a related point, which I'll put in the form of three questions. Do you ever read more than one novel at the same time? (I don't.) Do you ever read a novel and a nonfiction book at the same time? (I do.) If you're a writer, do you ever find yourself plotting (in your head) more than one novel or short story at the same time? (I do.)

One thing I don't usually do, and I'm not sure why, is read two installations of a series without reading some other kind of book in between them. Novels I've read over the past couple months are (in order): Lee Child's Without Fail, Kinky Friedman's Blast From the Past, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, John Grisham's The Litigators, Child's Worth Dying For, Friedman's Ten Little New Yorkers, Stephen King's 11/22/63, Collins's Catching Fire, Michael Crichton's Micro, and Collins's Mockingjay--and splitting up the two Child and Friedman "series" novels and the Hunger Games trilogy was intentional. I think I just enjoyed them more that way. (During that same period I also wrote seven short stories and I've almost finished plotting two more.) How about you?--Do any of you prefer to read books in a series back-to-back, or do you (like me) prefer to sandwich other books between them?

Speaking of gifts and sandwiches . . . that's a wrap

In closing, I sincerely hope all of you read plenty of books and stories in 2012, that you buy plenty of books for others, and that you receive even more.

Happy holidays to everyone! See you next year.

Fairy Tales Live On

Once upon a time....as the old fairy tale goes....a beautiful princess kissed a frog and POOF, he magically turned into a handsome prince. But then, there's a lot of fairy tales out there to be heard, if one is a believer in that sort of thing.

In more modern times on the dating scene, there have been incidents of young women, who under the distorting influence of alcohol just before last call in a singles bar, have lost the ability to distinguish some of the various reptilian species lurking in the nearby vicinity. Thus, mistakenly they have kissed a toad, hoping he would magically turn out to be their charming prince. Unfortunately for them, their delusion did not transform into reality.

It seems that in the real world, you had better pay attention. All may not be as it seems. As a sidenote however, in my realm of expertise there is a certain family of toads, and no I won't provide their names, which have hallucinogenic properties. For those poor souls desperate to take a mental trip, all they have to do is lick the toad's back and POOF, they're off to magic land. Naturally, you had best know your toads, because like some mushrooms, the wrong ones can be detrimental to your health.


So anyway, here we all are making our way through life in a world of part fairy tale, part hope and a whole lot of reality. Most people figure out real quick that reality is the part that reaches out and tags you. For those who don't comprehend the difference, well they're still out there pinning their hopes on toads, wondering why reality keeps getting their attention the hard way.
In continuing the fairy tale thread, I don't want to say that law enforcement, especially undercover ones, started this next particular fairy tale for the streets, but here's how I ran into it.

Me and my lowlife Cooperating Individual (CI) were sitting in the back seat of a criminal's car in a city we won't bother to name. The CI had just duked me in and everything was going fine. Conversation was easy, no visible tension, we're merely negotiating some finer points of the deal we're about to do. Then out of nowhere, the bad guy's partner sitting in the front passenger seat turns and says to me, "Are you a cop?"
I was stunned. Did this guy suddenly know something I'd overlooked?
"No," I replied, and then since a good defense is a good offense, or vice versa, I followed up by asking the question back to him. "Why, are you a cop?"
"No, no," they were both quick to respond.
"Then why did you ask?"
"Because," said the Lower IQ of the two, "we heard that if we asked you if you were a cop, you had to tell the truth, otherwise you were a liar and the case wouldn't stand up in court."
"Damn," says I in amazement. "I'm glad you gave me that information. I will definitely use it to protect myself in the future."
I then paid them the federal government bills of which the serieal numbers had been previously recorded, and they in turn provided the contraband goods. Our deal was done, my case was pretty well made, and I was ready to get out of their vehicle. But wait, we weren't through yet.
"Be careful," says the bad guy in the front passenger seat.
"Why's that?" I inquire, wondering what could possibly be next.
"Because," says Low IQ, "we heard there's an undercover fed just come into town."
That part was true, no fairy tales there. I had been in town for the last three days, but was only just now getting around to working on them. They didn't know it at the time, but they had to wait their turn.
"Uh-oh," says I, "you guys had better tell me what this fed looks like so I can stay away from him."
They then proceeded to describe me to me, and quite accurately I might add. I thanked them profusely for their valuable street intelligence, opened the rear door, and POOF, the guy they thought they knew in their car was gone.


Now we come to the end of our little tale. For the two criminals in the front seat of their car, I guess you could say those two were believers in fairy tales, even if it was of the modern day street variety. Some phantom from the Office of Disinformation (also known as "They") had obviously spun a fantasy those two desperately wanted to believe. And, I'm sure those guys were also hoping they'd found their prince with a lot of magic money in his hand. But, it soon appeared that they'd pinned their hopes on a fairy tale for sure, because the expected transformation didn't come out the way they had anticipated. POOF! They were in handcuffs.

A quick word to the wise. Don't put a lot of stock in everything you hear on the street. It may just be a fairy tale.

But then, what do you believe in?

The Old Man in the Corner

Janice Law

Some time ago, I wrote about Baroness Emma Orczy's pioneering female detective, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard for the now closed Criminal Brief website. That led me to Orczy's more famous Old Man in the Corner who debuted in 1908. He was part of a group of highly rational, puzzle solving detectives inspired by Sherlock Holmes, and possibly the earliest of the 'armchair' detectives and ancestor of American favorite Nero Wolfe.

Like Sherlock Holmes with Watson, he has an amanuensis, Miss Burton of the Evening Observer, the young "female reporter" who was herself something of a novelty. She meets the Old Man at her favorite coffee shop, the Norfolk branch of the Aerated Bread Company, where he dines on milk and cheesecake and plays endlessly making knots in a length of string.

His casual remark that, "There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear on the investigation," begins their on-going conversation about the sensational crimes of the day. Miss Burton is skeptical about the Old Man's claims, but again and again he produces ingenious solutions to baffling mysteries.

His narratives of the crimes are extremely clear and provocative, and, despite her reservations, Miss Burton is fascinated. Unlike Watson, her only function is to be a sounding board and recorder. The Old Man leaves the coffee shop for excursions to courthouses and to assemble the dossiers of photos and documents he needs, but all such adventures are kept off stage.

In the Old Man in the Corner stories, Orczy keeps as strictly to the "unities" as Aristotle could want. Everything is confined to the ABC shop and a single conversation with Miss Burton. So far so good in a conventional vein; the puzzles are complex, the casts of characters interesting, the crimes varied.

The Old Man is, however, far odder and more distinctive than that brief summary would suggest. Unlike any other detective I can think of, the Old Man is not on the side of justice. Yes, we've had favorite characters who were criminals, Donald Westlake's bumbling robbers, for example. Lawrence Block has run a series about a professional hit man and Dexter, blood spatter expert and serial killer, is in print and on the tube.

But both of the latter are ultimately on the side of the angels, dispatching justice, if of a peculiar and personal sort. They may be immoral, but it would be unfair to dub them amoral. Not so the Old Man.

Several times, Miss Burton asks him why he doesn't place his superior intellect and clever solutions at the disposal of the police. The Old Man is perfectly clear about his motivation: He admires the murderers. Of the Fenchurch Street killer, he exclaims, "Ah! it was cleverly, artistically conceived! Kershaw is a genius." And he concludes on a note of mock horror at the thought of hanging such a man.

The Old Man's superior intellect is reserved for his own enjoyment and for the edification and amazement of Miss Burton, who occasionally, as in The York Mystery, agrees that publishing the solution would be unwise.

The Old Man's cases run the gamut of Edwardian crime, with an emphasis on inheritance squabbles, stolen jewelry, crimes of passion, and crimes to protect reputation and status. They often rely on disguises, and it must be said that the Old Man, who has some childish traits, has an almost childlike faith in the powers of wigs and costumes to confuse even those nearest and dearest.

If this is a weakness, the Old Man has a counterbalancing strength. Like Lady Molly, and unlike police officialdom, the Old Man never rules out female criminals and never sells the opposite sex short. "French detectives, who are acknowledged masters in their craft," he tells Miss Burton in The Theft at the English Provident Bank, "never proceed till after they have discovered the feminine element in a crime..."

The Old Man solves one case because of the modus operandi - a stab in the back. An English gentleman would strike an opponent, he says. A woman, conscious of her physical weakness but resolved to prevail, would choose a knife in the back.

The most unsettling of his cases, however, is The Mysterious Death in Percy Street, which unfortunately is placed midway through Dover Book's good collection. It belongs at the end, and clearly represented a point where Orczy was considering dropping her curious detective.

In this case, an elderly woman who had been preyed on financially by an improvident nephew is found dead along with her pet canary. The plot is as intricate as ever, but one of the details is the presence of a particularly intricate knot. At the end of the story, it strikes Miss Burton that the crucial knot is just such a one as her companion habitually makes. "If I were you," she said, without daring to look into that corner where he sat, "I would break myself of the habit of perpetually making knots in a piece of string."

When she looks up, he is gone and is never seen again - until the next series of Old Man in the Corner stories began.

This will be my last regularly scheduled SleuthSayers piece, although I hope to contribute the occasional column. It's been fun and I've appreciated the kind comments.

Happy Holidays

by Robert Lopresti

That title is not yet another blow in the war against Christmas (which seems, oddly enough, to be doing just fine in spite of all the worriers).  Instead I want to think about tying books or stories to specific holidays.  I believe I tried it exactly once, with a story tied to the British custom of telling ghost stories around Christmas Eve.  Alas, that story remains in my ever-increasing pile of stories waiting for a good home.

Is a holiday story more or less marketable than any other kind?  Beats me.  On the one hand, you may be reducing your odds to, say, one issue out of twelve for the year.  On the other hand, the editor might really want something thematic for that issue.  Certainly Christmas is the obvious one, since we as a nation seem to obsess about Noel for a longer period every year.  (In a short story called "The Black Whatever" James Powell suggested this was part of a conspiracy by Santa Claus... that was yet another Christmas story, of course.)

I suppose the person who should be writing about this subject is our own R.T. Lawton, since he write a series of stories about a couple of very dumb criminals who specialize in holiday burglaries (the latest was titled "Labor Day.")

Maybe my problem with all this is that the holidays that mean the most to me tend to fail to show up on the pre-printed calendars.  For example, I always enthusiastically celebrate Bike To Work And School Day, which you may not have heard of, but it's a big deal among my friends, and my wife .helped start it.

Which brings me to the actual subject of this piece (and about time).  You see, we are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary this week.  You won't find that on anyone's calendar but ours, and I am pleased to report there are no crime stories associated with it.

So that's what I will be celebrating.  Oh, and Chanukah, too; we're multi-tasking.  As for the rest of you, I hope your days are merry, happy, bright, and joyful.