The Not-So-Noble Bachelor

by Leigh Lundin

For a brief, shining moment in time, PBS Mystery brought us gems of classic mysteries, perfect, definitive portrayals of Miss Marple by Joan Hickson, Hercule Poirot by David Suchet, and Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Brett.

Usually the bad guys were well-cast, too. In ‘The Greek Interpreter’  from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (season 2, episode 2, 01 Sep 1985), actor George Costigan channels a chilling Peter Lorre as Wilson Kemp, the mad mastermind behind terrible crimes. This version's ending deviates from the original, which I usually frown upon, but this interpretation disposes of the other bad guy, Harold Latimer, with a satisfying demise in a train car.



But it’s seldom wise to stray too far from the Master’s Canon.

A Little Less Cocaine, Please

I hadn’t seen ‘The Eligible Bachelor’ on PBS Mystery from The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (season 3, episode 2, 10 Feb 1994), when I stumbled upon this ponderous piece, an adaptation of Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor’. Although Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke again star, this one-hour 44-minute made-for-TV-movie doesn’t carry the usual introduction other than the words ‘A Granada film’.

I deduce a little too-much cocaine was involved and not merely Sherlock’s. The director could have lopped off 20% from the running time. Those flash-forwards and flashbacks and flash-sideways dragged the pace into the mud. Here, Sherlock seemed bloated and, if not exactly dissipated and dissolute, disgusted with the whole matter. Still, it’s worth watching if only for Edward Hardwicke’s portrayal.

[Note: I wrote this article some months back and just discovered this episode now blocks North American viewers from watching it, perhaps anticipating my review and doing readers a favor. In lieu thereof, I include this brief clip of a few of its lowlights.]



One commenter, ‘OrchestrationOnline’, writes:

A regrettable adaptation of what was originally a simple story about a nobleman marrying a rich American heiress for her money and getting left at the altar. The producers have abandoned any pretense of faithfulness to the author by the wayside- which missed the original point of this series. When you lose faithfulness, then these stories just become penny-dreadfuls, which is certainly true here.

Odd as it seems, sometimes Sherlock Holmes needs defending.

Comedy Writer Falls Right Over Cliff - Worst Typos EVER

Ever make a really bad typo?  I mean really bad.

My worst ever professional mistake was in an Annual Report for a one-hundred-million dollar corporation, when I was the director of marketing and communications.  Unfortunately, an innocent little ‘t’ went missing from the word ‘assets.’  The board was not amused by “This year, we experienced an increase in corporate asses.”

Recently, I found out what one little vowel can do to Rowena and the Dark Lord, book 2 in the Land’s End series.

Okay, REALLY uncool when you misspell the name of your own book on a guest blog.

Rowena and the Dark LARD is probably not the best way to get sales for a ‘Game of Thrones Lite’ fantasy series.

However, as I do write comedy, I'm thinking about a parody.
Is it okay to write a parody of your own book?

Draft one: Rowena and the Dark Lard

Synopsis 1: Rowena moves back to Land’s End and opens up a bakery.

Synopsis 2: Cedric’s use of dark magic goes totally out of control, and so does his appetite.

Synopsis 3: Thane and Rowena return to Land’s End and become pig farmers.

Synopsis 4: Rowena messes up another spell that causes all who look at her to turn into donuts.

Synopsis 5: Rowena kills off Nigella Lawson in a battle with pastry rollers, and assumes the role
of Prime Time Network Food Goddess <sic>.

Synopsis 6: Someone takes a totally justified whack at the author. End of series.

Postscript: Recently was quoted by someone as the author of ROWENA AND THE DORK LORD.  Trial for murder is pending.

Post postscript (where is a Latin scholar when you need one?):  Another contract out for the professional book tour company hired by my publisher last month, who, in all their advertising, inadvertently switched book 3 Rowena and the Viking Warlord to…wait for it…Viking Landlord.  Yup.  Obviously there will be hell to pay if you forget the rent. 

Have you some spectacular typos in your past?  Share them here!  I'll feel better.

Frankenstein and Guildenstern Are Dead: Some post-Halloween musings that may prove humorous

By Dixon Hill

Well, Halloween has come and gone, which means the heat has broken here in the Valley of the Sun. The snow birds are flocking in to crowd the restaurants and jam the roads; lawns burned brown by the summer are now greening up nicely; and my apartment balcony/patio has become much more habitable during daylight hours.

This means I can drag my laptop computer outside and write much more often, without worrying that the heat might fry its innards.  True, I'll shortly need to begin wearing a sweatshirt -- and, not much later, a hat and coat -- in order to join my laptop outside.

But I can handle that better than my laptop can handle the summer heat here in the desert.  And, as I write this, shorts, flip-flops and a thin cotton shirt are fine.

So is my cigar.

With Halloween behind, Thanksgiving looming up fast, and Christmas just around the December corner, this is a time I often find myself asking deep, introspective questions such as:

What's the best way to fit everybody into our new apartment (much smaller than our house) for Thanksgiving, and how shall I address turkey and or ham burning . . . er, uh . . . COOKING, in this slightly smaller, yet hotter oven?

Where are we going to put the Christmas tree?  (Thankfully, my wife's degree is in Interior Design, so that's her department -- which doesn't keep me from wondering.)

Should I splurge on 50%-off items at the local Spirit Halloween store, before they close, so we'll have plenty of liquid latex lying around when my son changes his mind and decides to enter the CosPlay contest at next year's Comicon?

And:  How and why, DEAR GOD!, do we have four cats?  My daughter recently moved out: why didn't she take one?  At least one!

I suspect I'm not the only one with important and lingering questions, this time of year.  Here's a question my wife asked me while I was driving her to work, this morning:

Why did Tattoo always have to tell Mr. Roarke, "Ze plane, boss!  Ze plane!" on the TV show Fantasy Island?  Couldn't Mr. Roarke see the plane?  I mean, did being short give Tattoo a better vantage point for seeing a plane up in the sky?  What -- was Mr. Roarke like: "Sorry, I'm so tall, I had my head in the clouds and they obscured my vision of the aircraft.  Thank you, Tattoo,"?

How could I answer her?  I had no idea.  For all I know, the FAA recruits no one taller than 4-foot-7 as Air Traffic Controllers because shorter people see planes sooner than taller folks.  And, with this blog being posted on the internet, undoubtedly we'll soon see a television news program reporting my suggestion as factual data -- in a 15-second human interest story, used to segue into upcoming advertisements.

My wife also said I should tell you more about Heli-casting, in which folks jump out the back of perfectly good helicopters flying about 20 feet above the water and moving forward at up to 20 or 25 knots air speed.

This is a pretty good picture of a heli-casting op, but I have no idea why that fellow is wearing a helmet. We never wore helmets when heli-casting; just kept boonie hats in our pockets (jumping bareheaded because otherwise the wind and water would have knocked our hats off and we would have lost them.

In this person's right hand, s/he is holding his/her rucksack (which looks a bit too small to be useful, frankly), while that collection of elements in his/her left hand are fins and mask (and possibly snorkel).  Which leads me to another important question:   Where is this person going to put that helmet, once s/he has that mask on?

The rucksack in the heli-caster's right hand should be attached to the jumper with a tow line about 20 to 25 feet long, and made of lightweight rope or 1-inch nylon tubing with snap links at either end, so it can be snapped on and off of the ruck and the caster's equipment harness.  As s/he jumps, s/he should throw the ruck to his/her right, while trying to throw his/her body left.  This, hopefully, keeps the heli-caster from landing on the ruck, which might be painful.

Meanwhile, those folks in the water who seem either to be waving, or to be in the final throes of drowning, are actually doing neither.  They are signalling the helicopter's loadmaster that they have arrived in the water without killing themselves in the fall, and are well enough to be left behind to continue the mission.

And, speaking of Fantasy Island (honest, I really did mention it before; if you don't believe me just scroll up several lines), I remember reading what may be an apocryphal tale, about the show's origins.
Supposedly, Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg were trying to sell some TV series ideas to an ABC executive, who shot down every suggestion they made.  Finally, in frustration, Spelling blurted out: "What the heck do you want?  An island that people can go to, to have all their sexual fantasies realized?"  (or words to that effect)  The executive (I know you'll be shocked by this -- SHOCKED!) loved the idea and gave them the green light to develop the project.  (And we thought we had it rough, as writers...)

And now, having been awake working all night prior to writing this, I'll post it and go to bed.  So that I might arise refreshed and head back to the salt mines.

Ricardo Montalban:

"I seldom dance.  But, when I do dance: I dance ballet . . . in cowboy musicals."

This false quote posted in tribute to anon's comment.

See you in two weeks!
--Dixon

What Were They Thinking?

by Eve Fisher

As you all know, I do some volunteer work in the local penitentiary with the Alternatives to Violence Project (I promote that wherever I can!). Anyway, over the course of the last few years, I have learned that there are very few Moriaritys, Zecks, Penguins, or Lex Luthors in the criminal world. (There ARE lots of jokers, just not with a capital "J".) But of course, you will argue, they are the ones that got caught. True. And how did they get caught? So often, sheer stupidity.

The convicted felon on parole who posted a picture of himself on Facebook holding a gun and a beer: apparently it never occurred to him that his parole officer might keep track of social media.

University of Pittsburgh Professor Robert Ferrante is currently under arrest for poisoning his wife by giving her creatine (supposedly in hopes of stimulating egg production) that was either laced with or was really cyanide. Okay, clever, in a creepy sort of way: but he ordered the cyanide on-line, asking for overnight delivery, using his own credit card. I can hardly wait for the first Apple wallet poisoner… Hint to future poisoners - cash only.

Speaking of things you should never do - never try to sell drugs over the phone to total strangers. A Florida teenager tried this in 2007, when he got a wrong number and still offered to sell the person drugs: trouble was, he'd called the home number of a Florida cop. You can guess the rest.

I've always loved the Loomis Fargo Brinks robbers - David Scott Ghantt, Kelly Campbell and Steve Chambers - who from the get-go were out to get each other. Chambers always intended for Ghantt to take the fall, and, using Campbell as the intermediary, Chambers assumed that the FBI would never connect him to Ghantt or to the robbery. Ghantt was, indeed, the obvious suspect from the beginning. But what gave Chambers away was a massive spending spree that began with moving from his mobile home to a luxury house, and went on to include a BMW and a velvet Elvis painting. (As Jeff Foxworthy says, "You can't give red-necks money.") Campbell was also brilliant, going to the local bank and asking, "How much can I deposit before you have to report it to the feds? Don't worry, it isn't drug money." Hint: don't ever ask this at a bank. Look it up on-line. On someone else's computer.

Also, keep track of your stuff. In 2011 a man named Trevor Jones decided to rob a house in Atlanta. Let us make a list of the things he did wrong:

1. He parked his car in the driveway.
2. He left the front door wide open.
3. He left his keys and wallet in his car.

So when the homeowner returned and saw all that, she took the wallet and keys and called the cops. But Trevor Jones continued to do stupid stuff. When he realized that his keys and wallet were gone, he went running into a nearby pond. (No, I have no idea why.) On the other side of the pond, he broke into another house where he used their computer (bad password, I'm assuming) to log into Facebook and post various stuff. He also left behind puddles wherever he went… And, when he left that house, he forgot to log out of Facebook…

And so, full circle, I leave you, pondering on velvet Elvis, credit cards, and Facebook.

Sinking in the Amazon

by Robert Lopresti

About a bad habit (one of many) new authors can get into.  For a tune: think sea chantey.

I'm so proud I can hardly speak
My new novel came out last week
At the web I took a peek
To see how the sales went on
    They were low but began to rise
    I thought I was in for a sweet surprise
    All of a sudden, right before my eyes
    I was sinking in the Amazon
  
Sinking in the Amazon!
Sinking in the Amazon!
Where have all my readers gone?
I was sinking in the Amazon

My friends swore they would buy my book
Critics said it was worth a look
These sales figures have got me shook
This duckling should be a swan
    Some bad novels are doing well
    But my little masterpiece does not sell
    And while it drops toward the pits of hell
    I am sinking in the Amazon

Sinking in the Amazon!
Sinking in the Amazon!
Fiction should outsell non-
I am sinking in the Amazon

I stared so hard I began to squint
I wished these numbers would take a hint
I act like the sales race is a sprint
When I know it's a marathon
    Buy my book and the numbers lift
    Pass me by and the patterns drift
    Maybe my Uncle Ed needs a gift!
    I'm sinking in the Amazon

Sinking in the Amazon!
Sinking in the Amazon!
Is my career a con?
I am sinking in the Amazon

I know that I should be writing more
But now I really can't tell what for
If my books just squat in the big e-store
When they ought to fly hither and yon
    How can I make  my brain gears mesh?
    The spirit's weak and so's the flesh
    I slip to that site and I hit refresh
    And I'm sinking in the Amazon

Sinking in the Amazon!
Sinking in the Amazon!
Deader than Babylon
Sinking in the Amazon

From The Case Files Of Chief David Dean: The Affair of the Threatened Summer

Occasionally, a case so strange, so baffling, so unusual that it defies easy description, arrives on the police blotter.  The following is such a case:

I found myself one early August morning in 2008 standing on a north-end beach of Avalon, NJ with the mayor.  He was not a happy man, and as a result of this, and the sorry mess I was there to witness, I found my own spirits drooping beneath the mercilessly revealing rays of the rising sun.  We were looking at several acres of medical waste festooning our once pristine beaches...and there were weeks yet remaining of the tourist season--the Labor Day weekend looming as its climax. 

This was a scene we had both witnessed a number of times in the past, being something of a Jersey Shore epidemic in the late eighties.  We both also believed that the source of this plague had been successfully squelched years before.  It had been two decades since we had seen the likes of this.  It didn't bode well for the town.  If you know anything about the economics of beach resorts in the northeast, you know that the season is short.  There are but a few months for the townspeople and its shopkeepers to make a year's worth of money.  Every day counts.  And if you know anything about medical waste dumping at sea, you know it takes several days for everything to wash up; sometimes longer, with the media gleefully documenting every syringe-laden tide.  If it helps, call to mind the scene from the movie "Jaws" where the mayor and Chief are standing in front of the billboard.  Remember the bikini-clad gal splashing along on her raft, while the vandal has added a crude depiction of a huge dorsal fin cutting through the waves toward her.  This was such a moment for us--we had just met our shark and he was eating our beach. 

Unlike the fictional mayor of Amity, however, our mayor had wasted no time in attacking the situation, having gathered volunteer firemen, lifeguards, and borough workers to begin the clean-up.  This was being accomplished under the guidance of our equally able Emergency Management Director and investigators from the NJ Attorney General's Environmental Crimes Bureau.  One of my detectives was documenting the scene.  We were treating it as a crime...which it most certainly was.  But it wasn't the detective, or yours truly, that first noticed that something was different about this particular wash-up--it was the mayor.  "Why's it only in this area?" he asked.  Or words to that effect. 

It took me a moment to grasp what he was getting at--we were looking at a fairly concentrated area covering what would be a few city blocks.  In the past, such spills were sometimes spread over miles.  A beach vehicle was dispatched to drive south along the shore to search for more wash-up.  His report was negative.  Then a boat was sent out to try and determine how far out the slick reached.  It was a few hundred yards at most.




In case you're wondering at the significance of these observations, let me explain.  Our previous dealings with illegal dumping had taught us that mostly it was accomplished far out in the shipping channels, and nowhere near shore.  Usually the deed was done from barges being used in the illegal trade of unauthorized medical waste disposal by companies that were lucrative fronts for organized crime families and organizations.  Generally, the material could be traced to medical facilities in New York City and its environs.  When investigators showed up, such fronts, and their employees, vanished like chlorine gas, invisible and toxic.  The practical result of their dumping efforts, however, would spread over many miles as the tide and currents moved them inexorably shoreward.  This was not what we were seeing.  This mess had started within sight of the beach.  This was local, and the joyous scent of prey was suddenly very near.

The waste material itself proved equally unusual.  When one of the investigators from the ECB showed us some of the gathered items, we were all baffled.  They were unquestionably of a medical nature, but nothing that we had come to associate with these events.  There were syringes, but of a type we'd never seen, lots of small cottony swabs, but no bandages, hundreds of small capsules containing some kind of unidentifiable material.  Even the ECB boys (who had been to sites all over the state) were flummoxed.  My detective took some of the evidence back to the station to begin researching it over the internet.  It didn't take long.  This wasn't material from a hospital or clinic--this was waste from a dental practice.  Someone who not only was familiar with the area, but who must have piloted a boat to accomplish this incomprehensible crime.  In my view, as well as others, someone who was close.  During the following two days less and less material washed ashore.  By the fourth day it had ceased altogether.  Only the very north end had been affected by the beach closings, though the publicity hadn't done the town any favors.  Still, it could have been worse.

As the buckets of material were sifted through, object by object, painstakingly photographed and recorded, the first really significant clue was discovered--a dental drill bit with its wrapper miraculously intact.  We had a lot number and a manufacturer. 

Then, like a dank, chill wind issuing forth from the cavern of the troll king, a summons was received from the county prosecutor to attend a strategy meeting at his offices.  As the head law enforcement officer for the county this was his prerogative.  While understanding it, I was also a little curious as to why.  From where I was sitting, our unfortunate situation had no ramifications beyond my own jurisdiction.  There had been no other instances at any other shore towns in the county.  Normally, as chief, I would have remained behind, leaving such meetings to my detectives.  But my antennae had detected a disturbance in the Force, and I decided to attend, as well.  It was good that I did.

Seated around a huge oval table in the prosecutor's conference room were myself, my detective, the two ECB investigators, the prosecutor and his chief detective, and two investigators that worked for him.  My detective laid out our findings.  The ECB boys nodded in agreement.  The prosecutor's crew...scoffed.  A couple of hypodermic needles had washed ashore in a town north of us. They had seen this all before.  This was just your usual off-shore dumping, and its effects would show up on other beaches in other towns sooner, rather than later.  A local event, indeed! 

It was clear that the publicity attendant to our unfortunate situation had gained the prosecutor's attention.  Seeing how my department was working with the state AG's environmental investigators (and she was the prosecutor's boss), he wanted in.   

It was also obvious that the syringes in Ocean City were a few insulin needles and did not remotely resemble ours.  I took umbrage.  Not with the prosecutor's rights, or even his motives, but with their sneering condescension.  Umbrage is something I've taken a few times both before, during, and after being a chief of police.  Umbrage means that I clench my teeth, hear bells ringing too loudly, and think dark and bloody thoughts.  Entering the fray, I politely, but forcefully, disagreed, outlining my own extensive experience with these very things; carefully explaining so that even those challenged by their own overblown, and totally unrealistic, high opinions of themselves could understand; making sure to prick the swollen balloons of their egos with the sharp needle of reason and objectivity.  After the long silence that followed, the prosecutor agreed that we should be allowed to continue our futile line of investigation.  He even agreed that a reward should be offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.  I felt this would bring heat on our perpetrator, wherever he was, as well as the promise that we now had, courtesy of the drill bit maker, a very manageable list of dentist offices that had purchased the lot number recovered from our beach.  I could see no reason not to put this out there for him to hear and sweat.  We promised to stay in touch and left that dark, unhappy, place.

My plan did not take long to bear fruit.  On September 2, even as my detectives were making their way through the list of dental practices that ran from Jersey to the Philadelphia Main Line, a stranger presented himself in the lobby.  He wished to speak with an officer.  Before the day was over, a 59 year old dentist from Pa. had confessed to the illegal dumping of approximately 300 "Accuject" dental-type needles, 180 cotton swabs, and a number of plastic capsules containing filling material, as well as other items.  A search warrant executed at his home and practice revealed evidence that corroborated his confession and he was subsequently charged.

A few days later, the county prosecutor hosted a press conference lauding the arrest and the excellent cooperation between agencies that led to it.  His boss, the Attorney General, was in attendance for his big moment.  I was allowed a few words.  When asked by a reporter how I felt about the arrest, I smiled and said, "I could not be happier.  I feel like Chief Brody when he got the shark."

The strange dentist never offered a motive for what he did, and to this day, I sometimes find myself wondering why.  Medical waste disposal for the average dental office at that time cost about 700 dollars a year.  It couldn't have been the money. 

It had been twenty years since anyone had been arrested for illegally dumping medical waste in New Jersey ocean waters.





         

 





   

Who Me? Moderate a Panel?

If you haven't already, then one day soon, you will be asked to moderate a panel at a mystery con, writer's event or even locally at a group signing. Personally, I enjoy it, but I'm a bit of a ham. If you are registered to attend a con and you want to be asked to be on a panel or to moderate one and you're worried that you won't be asked, then make your own panel.  Let's face it, you can pick up a few new readers if you're on a panel. You might even do better by moderating one.
To make up your own panel, find out the writers you know personally. Or ones you don't know, but you enjoy their work and want to get to know them better. Come up with an idea for a panel, "Writing Killer Characters?" "Walking the Mean Streets...Research or Not?"  "Can There Be Humor In Murder?" Contact you might want to be on a panel with, Jane Bestseller (you know a little), John Unknown (Just published but funny and you know him from your critique group), Tom, Dick or Harry Whodunit (you've never met, but you love his work.)

So you've chosen a topic, Writing Killer Characters and before you contact other writers you think about your idea on the topic. Most writers have their main characters in mind but you'd like to delve into the mind of your BAD GUY, your Killer. That's a bit of a change than just creating your main and secondary characters and that idea might be more interesting.

You write to your future panelist, Jane Bestseller, John Unknown and Harry Whodunit, telling them you'd like to work up a panel with them to present at Malice, or B'Con, or Magna or whatever con you're all attending.  You mention that you'd like to explore their minds on "How Do They Come Up With a Killer" in their story.

You add that you've never been worth a darn until after lunch time so would something around 1, 2, or 3pm work and why don't we try for Friday afternoon.? Tell them to please let you know if they'd be interested as soon as possible so can write to the program chair and get this panel on schedule.

In the meantime, you also write to Judy Program Director and say that you've published three books in your series with a private-eye. That you'd be delighted to send her a copy of your latest, in case she's not familiar. That you'd really enjoy an opportunity to moderate a panel on "Writing Killer Characters" to be scheduled on Friday afternoon at 1:00 pm. That you think talking about how a writer comes up with a character who kills. Are they evil and devious? Are they just an ordinary person who allows greed, or anger to take hold and they strike out? Or they someone who had been abused and actually only killing in self defense? You mention that you think there can be a number of ways this discussion can be explored and developed. Say that you have contacted, Jane Bestseller, Johnny Unknown and Harry Whodunit to be on the panel with you. That you are sure that Jane and Johnny are on board but you haven't heard from Harry yet. But that if he declines for whatever reason, you'll be happy to invite Tom or Dick Whodunit.

You immediately hear back from the program director and Judy Programmer says she is thrilled that you've done the hard work already. Thanks for the book offer but she's already bought and read all three of your books and thoroughly enjoyed them. She also says she'll be happy to set you up on Friday at 1:30pm. That she's hoping to stagger the times so people can attend more that one session if they want.

In the meantime, you hear from Harry Whodunit who says he'll be delighted to be on a panel with you, that he knows Jane Bestseller quite well and he's read your recent work and likes your writing style and voice.

Now begins the hard part. What can I do to highlight these writer and give them the best light in which to shine? Start by reading their book/s. Read their Facebook pages. Think about your own bad guy character and his or her motives. Is this killer a dark side of you?

This all came to mind the other day when I was asked to moderate a panel at the Jewish Book Festival this coming Thursday, November 6th with Best Selling Authors, Faye and Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman. I didn't have to set up a panel, it was already determined who would be on the panel. I was just asked if I'd be willing to moderate. I was delighted to answer yes.  Faye Kellerman's latest Decker/Lazarus novel, Murder 101 is just out. Jonathan and son, Jesse Kellerman have collaborated on their first novel also just published, A Golem in Hollywood. Jonathan is a Best Selling Author with around 40+ novels under his belt and Jesse is a Best Seller in his own right with five novels published.

Next time we'll talk about how it all went and my take on how to promote your panelists and not promote your own work as much.

Florida News, Crime and Politics Edition

by Leigh Lundin


The Murder that Wasn’t

Orlando, FL   After rescuers pulled the body of Miss Hien Tran from her car, police investigators believed she’d been stabbed and her throat cut. It would turn out not to be a murder case at all. When the mail arrived a week later, the homicide investigation turned into a different case altogether.

The mail came from Honda, the manufacturer of her car and it announced the Japanese maker of the airbags, Takata, was making a recall because of bodily injuries. That may come as some small comfort to her family.

Oddly, the recall isn’t universal, but based on geography. The hypothesis is that the airbags may be affected by heat and humidity. That’s a relief because Northerners, aka snowbirds, never drive their Toyotas and Hondas to Florida.

Old Flame

Clearwater, FL   In the heat of alcohol-fueled passion, the light of his life set Carlos Ortiz on fire… literally. Using nail polish remover and a lighter, the saucy but incensed woman lit a fire under her smokin’ hot man in a case of spaghetti scorned.

Too Hunky to Resist

Deltona, FL   The fat hit the fire when a very naked quarter-tonner fan of quarter-pounders found himself under arrest after his girlfriend called police to report he was drunk and abusive. The 500-pound man was too big to fit into a police car. Instead, he sat on the ground and refused to move. Police are no dummies. They somehow wrestled him into a transport van. No word if a forklift was required.

Pam Bondi, Attorney General

The Irony Maiden

Tallahassee, FL   No matter which side of the same-sex marriage debate you’re on, you’ve got to find this headline head-spinningly paradoxical:

“Florida’s attorney general moves to stop lesbian couple divorcing.”

See, our governor, legislature, and pin-up Attorney General Pam Bondi strongly oppose gay marriage. But… they even more vociferously oppose gay divorce. Not good for family values, see.

I get it, but it makes my head hurt. Oh, by the way, Pam Bondi is the politician who postponed a scheduled execution so she could hit the campaign trail, putting duty second or third or fourth. This could seriously jeopardize Florida's claim as The Execution State.

The Largest Medicare/Medicaid Fraud in History

Tallahassee, FL   Typically when people claim this politician or that is a crook, they mean it more or less figuratively. In the case of our Florida governor Rick Scott, it’s literally fact, as noted by the FBI and attested to by Rudy Giuliani and reported by (gasp!) Fox News. Why this election is neck and neck or that Scott won election the first time beggars belief, but after the $1.7-billion fine for Medicare and Medicaid fraud (he's only opposed to heath care if he can't profit from it), Rick Scott needed a job and had personal millions left over to buy himself a governorship with Tea Party support that steamrolled over Florida's GOP. And he may do it again.

If at first you don’t secede…

Eve Fisher or David Edgerly Gates might provide pithy insights (no, I’m not lisping), but I find it amazing those who brag the loudest about their fulminating love of America are the same folks who want to break up the Union when they don't get their way. (See Eve’s recent articles on revolutions.) Here in Florida, we have two proposals.

Pensacola, FL   The first proposal is to annex Georgia and South Carolina, the heart of the Old South, and break away into a confederate nation called Reagan, as if the great communicator himself wouldn’t be horrified. Longitudinally, at least, they couldn’t get much farther to the right.

Miami, FL   The other proposal is to split Florida into two states, diagonally (sort of). The impetus comes from the inattentiveness and failure of Tallahassee (read: governor and legislature) to take global warming seriously. The City of South Miami has set forth a resolution that before Miami and the Keys sink beneath the waves, they take their own measures and let Tallahassee do what it will– or won’t. I live a few hundred metres from the new state line, which could make things interesting.

---

As usual, suspects and accused are deemed innocent until proven guilty.

Name That Crook

by John M. Floyd

I like books about writing. I buy a lot of them, and I always seem to learn more from them than I expect to. These "how-to-create-good-fiction" authors sometimes differ on their views of what's good and what isn't, and what works and what doesn't--but now and then, like a family driving away from the Honda dealership, they are all in one Accord. (Sorry--I couldn't resist.)

One piece of writing advice that they all seem to agree on is that we talespinners should spend at least as much time on our villains as we do on our heroes. The point, there, is that the character who actually propels the action forward in a story or novel is the antagonist, not the protagonist. A wimpy bad guy just won't do. As I heard someplace, Jack the Giant Killer needs a giant to kill.

Another good move is to come up with suitable names for our villains. I once said, in a previous column, that I couldn't imagine 007 introducing himself as "Dinkins. Wilbur Dinkins." Well, the same goes for Bond's adversaries. Arnold Goldpinkie probably wouldn't have presented much of a threat to the world, or Doctor Yessiree.

Along these lines, here are a few fictional baddies whose names I especially like. (I can almost picture the sudden smiles on the writers' faces when these popped into their heads.)

Seriously evil dudes:

Hans Gruber, Die Hard

Noah Cross, Chinatown

Percy Wetmore, The Green Mile

Vince Stone, The Big Heat (Lee Marvin played baddies and goodies equally well)

Amon Goeth, Schindler's List

Morgan Sloate, The Talisman

Roy Batty, Blade Runner

Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men 

Voldemort, Harry Potter series

Stuntman Mike, Death Proof

Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

Randall Flagg, The Stand

Little Bill Daggett, Unforgiven

Sauron, Lord of the Rings

Max Cady, Cape Fear

Oddjob, Goldfinger

Freddy Kreuger, A Nightmare on Elm Street

Dr. Szell, Marathon Man

Bill Cutting, Gangs of New York

Dean Wormer, Animal House

Emilio Largo, Thunderball

Cicero Grimes, Hombre (Richard Boone was always a convincing villain)

Tommy Udo, Kiss of Death 

Commodus, Gladiator (what could be worse? Toiletus?)

Miles Quaritch, Avatar

Leatherface, Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Francis Dolarhyde, Red Dragon

Lex Luthor, Superman

Seriously evil dudettes:

Irma Bunt, On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Cersei Baratheon, Game of Thrones

Miranda Priestly, The Devil Wears Prada

The Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard of Oz

Phyllis Dietrichson, Double Indemnity

Cruella de Vil (cruel devil?), 101 Dalmations

Mallory Knox, Natural Born Killers

Santanico Pandemonium, From Dusk Till Dawn

Maleficent, Sleeping Beauty

Elle Driver, Kill Bill (Daryl Hannah, of all people)

Miss Havisham, Great Expectations

Mama Fratelli, The Goonies

Alex Forrest, Fatal Attraction (Play Misty for Me, Part 2?)

Aileen Wuornos, Monster

Nurse Ratched (wretched?), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Bellatrix Lestrange, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Catherine Tramell, Basic Instinct

The White Witch, The Chronicles of Narnia (who better than Tilda Swinton, for this?)

Rosa Klebb, From Russia With Love

Asides and exceptions

I should pause here to admit that some of the best literary and cinematic villains had normal, plain, believable names: Michael Myers (Halloween), Annie Wilkes (Misery), Frank Booth (Blue Velvet), Norman Bates (Psycho), Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca), Ben Wade (3:10 to Yuma), Tom (The Talented Mr.) Ripley, George Harvey (The Lovely Bones), Reverend Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter), Jack Wilson (Shane), and so on. But who's to say that they wouldn't have been even more ominous if their names had been ominous as well?

By the way, all baddies are not truly evil. Some--Mrs. Robinson (The Graduate), Lt. Gerard (The Fugitive), Major Henry Terrill (The Big Country), Ed Rooney (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Headmaster Nolan (Dead Poet's Society), etc.--are just unpleasant people who get in the way of the protagonists' needs and goals. I'll always like the name of Milo Minderbinder, the sneaky opportunist and profiteer from Catch-22--and even though his actions unknowingly caused death and disaster, he was more of an antagonist than a villain.

And some villains are so terrifying they have no names at all. In The Village, the creatures in the surrounding woods were whisperingly called Those We Don't Speak Of.

In closing, here are my Top 10 favorite names for bad guys:

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Ernst Stavro Blofeld, You Only Live Twice

Lars Thorwald, Rear Window

Liberty Vallance, as in The Man Who Shot

Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter series
Hannibal Lecter, The Silence of the Lambs

Apollo Creed, Rocky

Darth Vader, Star Wars

Hugo Drax, Moonraker
Uriah Heep, David Copperfield

Sigh. I wish I were the one who came up with those . . .

They Hung Lame Johnny

Not all the outlaws in the Old West became as famous as Butch Cassidy with his Hole in the Wall Gang or Jesse James with his bank robberies. Some were just lesser criminals who never rose to national fame. Here's one of those outlaws in the making.

Cornelius Donohue was born in Philadelphia some time about 1850. An injury from falling off a horse in his youth gave him the nickname of Lame Johnny. As an adult, Johnny wandered down to Texas to become a cowboy on a ranch. He showed up just as the cowboys were making plans to raid the Apaches who had stolen the ranch's horse herd. Johnny went along to help steal the horses back. In the subsequent exchange of raids between the cowboys and the Apaches, young Johnny soon acquired the skills needed to become an experienced horse thief.

A few years later, a man named John Francis Murphy was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, getting his bull teams and wagons ready to freight goods north to Deadwood, South Dakota, when he met a well-dressed fellow walking with a limp. The fellow said he was John Hurley from Philadelphia and he wanted to work his way up to Deadwood with Murphy's freight wagons. Murphy gave "Hurley" a job herding the cavyard at the rear of the wagons and loaned him a horse.

Upon arriving in the Black Hills, Johnny started prospecting for gold along Castle Creek. That summer, a band of Sioux stole his horses, so Johnny borrowed a horse from a friend and rode over to the Red Cloud Agency. There, he killed the man guarding the corral and then stole about 300 Indian horses. He spent the rest of the summer playing his old Texas game of being raided by Indians and then conducting his own raids against their herds. At the end of summer, he sold the horses he had left and gave up prospecting.

Next, he tried his hand as a bookkeeper for Homestake Gold Mine in Lead. This legal employment continued until he was recognized by a man from Texas who claimed "Hurley" was actually a horse thief named Lame Johnny. Seems that Johnny may have stolen horses from more than just Indians while he was in Texas.

Johnny promptly quit the mine and returned to his old ways of acquiring horse flesh., but it wasn't long before he embarked on a new occupation. On the west side of the Black Hills was a trail that ran from Deadwood south to Custer and then over to Cheyenne. Every month, the Homestake Mine sent a bullion coach down that trail with a shipment of gold. Johnny soon got accused of several stage holdups. Unfortunately for him, one of his victims recognized him and spread the word after Johnny stopped a Buffalo Gap to Rapid City stage on the east side of the Hills.

Thinking it might be best to revert to his horse stealing business for a while, Johnny headed down to Pine Ridge to acquire some Indian horses. His luck went against him when a lawman got word of his whereabouts and arrested him for horse stealing. Soon finding out that Johnny was also wanted for robbing and stealing a mail pouch from a stage coach, the lawman took him down to Chadron, Nebraska, and put him on the Sydney to Deadwood coach to go to court. To ensure his safe arrival, Johnny was shackled and handcuffed. Then a blacksmith attached an anklet made out of iron. A chain ran from the anklet on one end and on the other end it was riveted to a metal plate fixed to the floor of the coach.

As further measure, Boone May and Frank Smith rode on the coach as prisoner escorts, while Jesse Brown trailed at a distance on horseback. About eight miles north of Buffalo Gap where Highway 79 now crosses Lame Johnny Creek, a bunch of masked vigilantes, as the story was later told, rode up from the south, stopped the coach and pried the metal plate off the coach floor. They then shot Johnny and hung him from a nearby elm tree. Ironically, this spot was not far from where he'd robbed another stagecoach earlier in his career.

Allegedly, neither Boone nor Smith were able to protect their prisoner. And when Brown tried to ride up to the coach, he was supposedly warned off by a voice in the bushes along the creek.

When Pete Osland's bull train came up the trail the next morning, Johnny was still swinging from the elm tree. They cut his body down, buried it and placed a marker.

Rumors soon spread that a cowboy had cut off Lame Johnny's head and sold it to a museum back east. To find out for sure, Ephrien Dean, W.H. Sewright and others went to the site and dug up the grave. Johnny's body was still in the shackles and chains, but his head was missing. They removed the shackles and boots, then reburied the body. The boots, one of which had a raised heel to accommodate Johnny's injured foot, were later displayed in Wood's store in Buffalo Gap. A subsequent fire destroyed both Johnny's boots and the building. One of the shackles is at the State Historical Museum in Pierre (the state capitol) and the other is on display at the Frontier Museum in Custer where I saw it.

Johnny was gone, but no one knew how he and his gang could disappear so easily into the Hills after a robbery. Their trail always seemed to disappear in the area of King's Ridge.

Then in 1919, according to Mrs. Halstead, she and her husband filed a homestead claim on King's Ridge. Their land lay between Custer and Buffalo Gap near Lame Johnny Creek. On the western portion of the land set a high rim rock and a box canyon with no visible way down. While searching for a missing steer one fall, her husband followed tracks in the snow to the rim rock. From there, he could see the steer moving around on the canyon floor. Where the steer's tracks disappeared up top, her husband found three large rocks forming a gateway to a hidden trail going down.

On the canyon floor were two large caves that couldn't be seen from the top. The larger cave looked to have been a corral large enough for about 25-30 horses. The smaller cave contained rotted ropes, rusty cans, whiskey bottles and rotted bedding. Black soot from an old fireplace covered the walls of this cave. All was undisturbed as if the owners had left, but somehow hadn't made it back.

Not long after, Orval Halstead and her family moved away. They never told anyone about the caves until she told her story to the Eastern Custer County Historical Society in the late 1960's

                                                                   #

Historical facts taken from Our Yesterdays, published by the Eastern Custer County Historical Society which collected written copies of oral stories from many of the early pioneers in that area and compiled them into a book. Other information was acquired from displays at the Frontier Museum in Custer.

Still More Fun With Music and Writing!

Taking a break from discussing the intersection of history and mystery to swoop back in one big elliptical arc to another of the tropes I mine for content for this site. Another intersection. This one the place where auditory input stimulates manuscriptive creativity.

Which is to say, "Word-count springing from music."

As I've written here, I struggle with tinnitus, even more so since my son (he's 2 1/2) found a
particular frequency of shriek guaranteed to instantaneously ratchet up my tinnitus like being plucked suddenly from the serenity of a peaceful mountain meadow and unceremoniously dropped into the middle of a Who concert circa 1978 (for an idea of what that sounds like, click here). Before my son was born I could go for long periods ignoring my tinnitus. Not so much anymore.

Come on, you just KNOW this shit is loud.

Don't get me wrong. I yield to no one in my admiration for the particular brand of aural havoc Townshend, Moon, Entwistle and Daltrey could wreak.

It's just not an easy soundtrack for me to work to.

And while this link to ambient engine noise in a 24 hour loop from Star Trek the Next Generation definitely masks my tinnitus and allows me to concentrate while writing, I find I sometimes want to have music in the background, "ambient," if you will.

And that's what today's post here at Sleuthsayers is about: an update on what i'm listening to while working, and additionally, trying to poke a hole in the unfair characterization of ambient music as somehow "boring."

My most frequent "ambient" listens these days are:

"Moonwater" by Rudy Adrian, a New Zealander who does wonderful stuff. Give it a listen here.

And then there's the epic stuff of Patrick O'Hearn. A Portland, Oregon native, this guy was something of a musical prodigy, playing bass for such jazz guys as Joe Henderson before he was out of his teens, matriculating to playing for Frank Zappa in the late '70s and early '80s, going from there to a gig playing synthesizers with Terry Bozio in a band that could have only found an audience during the 1980s, Missing Persons, and on to a prolific solo career doing mostly, you guessed it: ambient music. I've included the album cover from his masterpiece, "So Flows the Current" (2001), but I find all of his canon incredibly listenable, especially while I'm writing.

Dear GOD, why???

Lastly, there's musical polymath Brian Eno, who pioneered the notion of "ambient music" after leaving Roxy Music back in the 1970s. In so doing Eno was simply applying an electronic component to composer Erik Satie's earlier idea of background music played live by musicians, which Satie called "furniture music."

I've listened to a fair amount of Eno's stuff, and one of his earliest, "Music for Airports" (1978). is one of my favorites. And his latest, "Lux" (2014), is really great. In fact, his stuff is always interesting, whether or not you actually like it.

And that brings me to my second point: writing is an art form. So is music.  These sorts of things in the best of times, feed off of each other. This is how musical pieces such as Mussorgsky's terrific "Pictures at an Exhibition", can be inspired by another form of art (in this case, the work of Mussorgsky's recently deceased friend, the artist Viktor Hartmann).

And so for my next trick, I'll continue this train of thought next time with the work of several artists whose new stuff in 2014 has helped inform my writing.

See you in two weeks!

That's better, Brian! Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Eno, circa 2014, (apparently) all grown up!