Courting the B Muse

Last month I took a deep dive into linguistics.  I'm back in the same waters today.

Back in 2013 I wrote a novella about a beat poet detective named Delgardo.  After it appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine I put up an e-version on Amazon, courtesy of James Lincoln Warren who was kind enough to prepare the text for me, and create the cover.

Last year AHMM published the sequel and I have been thinking about creating a similar e-text.  I was reading it over and I came across this sentence:

The poet shook his head, looking bemused.  

And it occurred to me to ask: what exactly does bemused mean? 

I wasn't sure and that bugged me.  Here I quote a different story I wrote, about mystery writer Shanks:

Discovering he was using a word he couldn’t define annoyed him, like a carpenter opening his tool box and finding a gadget he didn’t recognize.  

And I had not only used the word, but had it published.  

I thought it meant: mildly amused and surprised.  But what did the dictionary say?  Glad you asked.  

Merriam-Webster gives three meanings: 

1. marked by confusion or bewilderment

2. lost in thought or reverie

3. having or showing feelings of wry amusement especially from something that is surprising or perplexing

(Ahem... Is from the word they want in definition 3?  I would have used because of.) 

Clearly, #3 is what was in my head. I checked my 1961 copy of Webster's Third International Dictionary (the one Nero Wolfe so despised he burned it in his fireplace). #3 is completely missing, so apparently the lexicographers only acknowledged it in the last half century.

Jumping back to the Merriam-Webster website I found something interesting by looking up bemuse (without the d).    It provided this helpful note:

Many people link bemused with amused, believing that the former word carries the meaning “amused, with a touch of something else.” While this was not its original sense, bemused has been used in such a fashion for long enough, and by enough people, that the meaning “having feelings of wry amusement especially from something that is surprising or perplexing" has become established. You may use bemuse in this fashion if you wish, but bear in mind that some people find it objectionable, insisting that bemused and amused are entirely distinct and that bemused properly means “marked by confusion or bewilderment.”

I went to the Oxford English Dictionary and discovered that they only list two meanings (under bemuse):

1. To make utterly confused or muddled, as with intoxicating liquor; to put into a stupid stare, to stupefy.

2.  Humorously, To devote entirely to the Muses.

So the OED doesn't even recognize "lost in thought." 

 Intrigued, I went to Facebook and asked people to define bemused without checking any sources.  I promptly received 30  responses. Their definitions fell into three main categories:

CONFUSED: confused, puzzled, bewildered, quizzical.

AMUSED: Amused, entertained by an odd event, gently amusingly surprised.

BOTH: Confused and slightly intrigued, pleasantly puzzled, taken aback and amused by it.

My friend Peter Rozovsky, who is a copy editor (and excellent photographer... that picture of me above is his work) is firmly in the "confused" camp and he wrote: 

That so many people get this wrong is an interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon. An error repeated often and widely enough becomes correct, with the intermediate step of usage notes in dictionaries that the word in question "is regarded by many as substandard, but..." The elimination of copy editing by newspapers (and, from what I hear, its downgrading by book publishers) only accelerates "language change." And if you find this troubling, go have a lie- down on your chaise longue.

I would suggest that Peter was surprised and mildly amused by the comments.  Too bad we don't have a word for that.

 

Narc Types?

    The current novel on my bedside table involves a cop who possesses superhuman thinking abilities. He never forgets anything. He has a sidekick who stands in awe of his mental agility. The protagonist is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes minus the cocaine and violin. 

    Although I've met many genuinely gifted police officers in my career, I've never met anyone like this. 

    Other books present the cops as corrupt or grossly inept. Some novels portray an officer so weighed down by personal baggage and the burdens she bears that she transforms into a drug-abusing alcoholic, barely a step above the criminals she pursues. 

    Each trope has some basis in fact. For the most part, however, these big issues don't reflect the officers I've seen and dealt with during my time in the courthouse. Their humanity is revealed, not in a single character bombshell, but rather because they sometimes run late, spill coffee, let an f-bomb drop in church, or drop the occasional typo into a report. 

    Anyway, that's my stated reason for the following compilation of typos gleaned from recent police reports. I hope they help you think about subtle ways to reveal character in your writing, better equip you to properly view the humans working as law enforcement professionals, or perhaps bring a smile to your day.

    "He angeled his head away."

    I assume that the arrestee bent his neck and moved his head to one side. But in the spirit of the yuletide season, he might have been adjusting his halo or emphasizing his pure white wings. The alleged offense, however, was not creating peace on earth.

    "The cocaine seized from the arrestee was gold ball sized."

    My assumption was that the packaged drugs collected by the officer were roughly the size of a Titleist. But given the fluctuating nature of narcotic prices, the baggie might have been worth its weight in precious metal.

    "She was found intoxicated in public lace."

    This one might unintentionally be accurate. Alcohol may sometimes lead to bad fashion choices. At least, that's what I've been told.

    "It was seized after passing the Heroine Test." 

    What are the elements of a good heroine test? Mental toughness. An unwillingness to allow her social status to defend who she becomes. A protagonist who is prepared to put her life on hold until the presenting problem resolves. Or perhaps a desire to sleep after consuming jerry-built pharmaceuticals.

    "The arrestee reviled to Officer Jones his name." 

    Another example of a sentence that might unintentionally be true. Not every citizen goes quietly into custody. Sometimes, hard feelings and genuine dislike develop between the opposing parties.

    Finally, in police work, as in fiction writing, the words matter. Consider the following typographical example. 

    During the argument, the arrestee hit his girlfriend.
    During the argument, the arrestee bit his girlfriend.

    The remainder of the report did not make clear whether "bit" was a typo or whether that was the actual physical conduct in which he engaged. It didn't matter for my purposes; the charged offense was the same regardless of the manner and means. However, I drew a very different mental picture of the two defendants. I found myself reacting much more strongly to the carnivore. What's your reaction? Was your image shaped dramatically by the single substitution of a consonant? 

    May all your holiday feasting be non-arrestable. 

    Until necks time. 

Books, books, books. And more books.

        I guess I was a pretty privileged kid growing up, though it often didn’t feel that way.  There were plenty of challenges, that I won’t go into here, though it’s safe to say we had financial security and little danger of physical harm, despite our devotion to risky behavior and thwarting our parents’ best laid plans to keep us safe.

         One unalloyed benefit to my upbringing was we were a family of readers.  My mother, older brother, aunts and grandmothers all read like crazy.  Books were all over the houses, and easily accessible.  Many were popular fictions – detective novels and door-stop bestsellers, but there was plenty of more erudite fare, and all I had to do was reach out my hand and grab anything open on a coffee table or nightstand.

        When we were young children, we were read to every night.  I will go out on a limb and declare there’s no better way to instill a love of the written word on tender young minds.  We did it with our own son, and I think it helped form his life in the best possible way. 

         I wasn’t a very good student.  I never liked just sitting there listening to someone in the front of a room talk at me.  But because I read so much, I could make up for it in odd ways that bailed me out.  And I could always write well enough, since I’d been trained at home on the subtleties, ebb and flow, the nuances of language. 

          

         I read virtually everything my older brother read, since he’d pass the books and articles to me when he was finished.  Because I did everything he did, this was standard practice.  He was an omnivorous, if idiosyncratic, reader, so this also served me well.  My mother and I discussed these books, so there was instruction along the way. I developed some friendships with older kids who would also pass along their favorite books, which I would introduce into the family literary ecosystem. 

          

         One particularly precocious kid I knew turned me on to physics, which totally befuddled my family members, though he gifted me with a lifelong interest in the subject, little of which I’ve ever understood.  I still like reading about it, even if the comprehension is fleetingly transitory.

        

         In the same way, I love archeology, paleontology, geography (maps!), architecture, auto mechanics, Buddhism, European history and military strategy, by knowing just enough to keep reading, even if only a tiny bit sticks. 

         

        I owe it all to our mother and grandmothers reading us A. A Milne and Dr. Seuss, while I followed along, deciphering the words as she spoke.  It was magical, this transformation of thought into symbols that you could then retain, and reproduce yourself.  What a marvel, what a gift. 

          

        If this be privilege, then I’m among the most blessed who ever lived.  I didn’t know to seek it out, it was just delivered to me, tucked into bed and hanging on every word. 

         

       Not all readers write, but all writers read.  It’s essential.  The first thing a writing coach will say is, “Read.”   You need to swim in that ocean of words to be facile in conjuring them yourself.  However, just to heighten the challenge of writing, you also have to find your own voice.  I stopped reading fiction for several years so I could clean all the chattering voices out of my head, and with luck, find my own.  Though I didn’t stop reading nonfiction, focusing on the best writers I could find (Winston Churchill, Freud, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas, Machiavelli, Kant, Malcom Goldstein, Bill Bryson, etc.)  And along the way, I learned a few things. 

          

        So I’ll repeat what I’ve already written.  If you want to write, read.  And then write all the time.  Write anything, just don’t stop.  After a few million words, you’ll begin to know what you sound like, and that’s the beginning.  You can take it from there.    

The Spy Who Shunned Me

I was glancing at a not-so-recent Stacker.com ‘Best 100 Spy Movies of All Time’, thinking it was right up the dark alley of our spymaster, David Edgerley Gates. If you did something extremely stupid, he could make you disappear.

And then I noticed something stupid.

Where was Ipcress File? And Day of the Jackal? Manchurian Candidate? Riddle of the Sands? Casablanca? And where the hell was 39 Steps? And why the Hail Freedonia was Duck Soup in the list? Hey, I love the Marx Brothers but it bears as much resemblance to a spy movie as Margaret Dumont does to John le Carré.

I had to stop because so many possibilities flooded my mind. The article should be retitled ‘100 Pretty Good kinda-Spy Movies of Small Time, Give or Take.’ I bet David could name many more.

So here is the core of Stacker’s list followed by a few unranked suggestions of my own.

100	Body of Lies	2008	Ridley Scott		50	Clear and Present Danger	1994	Phillip Noyce
99	Salt	2010	Phillip Noyce		49	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	Gareth Edwards
98	Moonraker	1979	Lewis Gilbert		48	Breach	2007	Billy Ray
97	Never Say Never Again	1983	Irvin Kershner		47	Spy	2015	Paul Feig
96	Shadow Dancer	2012	James Marsh		46	Eye in the Sky	2015	Gavin Hood
95	Octopussy	1983	John Glen		45	Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol	2011	Brad Bird
94	The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	2015	Guy Ritchie		44	The Bourne Identity	2002	Doug Liman
93	The Informant!	2009	Steven Soderbergh		43	Red Cliff	2008	John Woo
92	The Eagle Has Landed	1976	John Sturges		42	Emperor and the Assassin	1998	Kaige Chen
91	Atomic Blonde	2017	David Leitch		41	Flame & Citron	2008	Ole Christian Madsen
90	Until the End of the World	1991	Wim Wenders		40	Inherent Vice	2014	Paul Thomas Anderson
89	You Only Live Twice	1967	Lewis Gilbert		39	No Way Out	1987	Roger Donaldson
88	Cloak & Dagger	1984	Richard Franklin		38	Black Book	2006	Paul Verhoeven
87	The Fourth Protocol	1987	John Mackenzie		37	The Age of Shadows	2016	Kim Jee-woon
86	RED	2010	Robert Schwentke		36	Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation	2015	Christopher McQuarrie
85	Mission: Impossible	1996	Brian De Palma		35	The Bourne Supremacy	2004	Paul Greengrass
84	Snowden	2016	Oliver Stone		34	Europa Europa	1990	Agnieszka Holland
83	Allied	2016	Robert Zemeckis		33	Lady Vengeance	2005	Park Chan-wook
82	The Matador	2005	Richard Shepard		32	Dr No	1962	Terence Young
81	Michael Collins	1996	Neil Jordan		31	Inglourious Basterds	2009	Quentin Tarantino
80	Eye of the Needle	1981	Richard Marquand		30	The Imitation Game	2014	Morten Tyldum
79	Horror Express	1972	Eugenio Martín		29	The Man Who Knew Too Much	1956	Alfred Hitchcock
78	Patriot Games	1992	Phillip Noyce		28	The Quiet American	2002	Phillip Noyce
77	OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies	2006	Michel Hazanavicius		27	A Beautiful Mind	2001	Ron Howard
76	The Front Line	2011	Jang Hoon		26	Infernal Affairs	2002	Andrew Lau, Alan Mak
75	Thunderball	1965	Terence Young		25	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	2011	Tomas Alfredson
74	The Hunt for Red October	1990	John McTiernan		24	Ghost in the Shell	1995	Mamoru Oshii
73	Spy Game	2001	Tony Scott		23	The Constant Gardener	2005	Fernando Meirelles
72	Mission: Impossible III	2006	J.J.		22	Bridge of Spies	2015	Steven Spielberg
71	Despicable Me 2	2013	Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud		21	Skyfall	2012	Sam Mendes
70	True Lies	1994	James Cameron		20	From Russia with Love	1963	Terence Young
69	Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid	1982	Carl Reiner		19	Casino Royale	2006	Martin Campbell
68	The Falcon and the Snowman	1985	John Schlesinger		18	Enter the Dragon	1973	Robert Clouse
67	The East	2013	Zal Batmanglij		17	The English Patient	1996	Anthony Minghella
66	Official Secrets	2019	Gavin Hood		16	Mission: Impossible: Fallout	2018	Christopher McQuarrie
65	Lust, Caution	2007	Ang Lee		15	The Conversation	1974	Francis Ford Coppola
64	Sneakers	1992	Phil Alden Robinson		14	House of Flying Daggers	2004	Yimou Zhang
63	Fair Game	2010	Doug Liman		13	Stalag 17	1953	Billy Wilder
62	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind	2002	George Clooney		12	Goldfinger	1964	Guy Hamilton
61	Charlie Wilson's War	2007	Mike Nichols		11	The Bourne Ultimatum	2007	Paul Greengrass
60	Kingsman: The Secret Service	2014	Matthew Vaughn		10	Letters from Iwo Jima	2006	Clint Eastwood
59	Three Days of the Condor	1975	Sydney Pollack		9	Zero Dark Thirty	2012	Kathryn Bigelow
58	GoldenEye	1995	Martin Campbell		8	Le Petit Soldat	1963	Jean-Luc Godard
57	Walk on Water	2004	Eytan Fox		7	Barry Lyndon	1975	Stanley Kubrick
56	Marcel Proust's Time Regained	1999	Raoul Ruiz		6	The Departed	2006	Martin Scorsese
55	Where Eagles Dare	1968	Brian G.		5	Duck Soup	1933	Leo McCarey
54	Top Secret!	1984	Jim Abrahams, Zucker Bros.		4	The Lives of Others	2006	Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
53	A Most Wanted Man	2014	Anton Corbijn		3	Notorious	1946	Alfred Hitchcock
52	The Spy Gone North	2018	Yoon Jong-bin		2	Pan's Labyrinth	2006	Guillermo del Toro
51	X-Men: First Class	2011	Matthew Vaughn		1	North by Northwest	1959	Alfred Hitchcock
	The 39 Steps	1935	Alfred Hitchcock			Topaz	1969	Alfred Hitchcock
	Day of the Jackal	1973	Fred Zinnemann			Riddle of the Sands	1979	ony Maylam
	The Ipcress File	1965	Sidney J Furie			Casablanca	1842	Michael Curtiz
	The Manchurian Candidate	1962	John Frankenheimer			Dark of the Sun	1968	Jack Cardiff

For worst movie, I seem to recall Our Man Flint (1966), directed by Daniel Mann, was embarrassingly awful.

What is your take? Enquiring spies want to know.

---

Check out Prohibition Peepers, a Michael Bracken anthology.

Rocks in My Socks

  

This post comes to you today from the Pet Peeves Department here at the SleuthSayers Building. Many of us who work at SS have occasionally posted about annoying words or phrases, usually those encountered in fiction but sometimes those we run into every day in the wild. This is one of those posts, so if you'd rather not hear someone grumble this soon after a day of thanksgiving, feel free to skip it and do something that's more fun. If you do read it, feel free to disagree with its contents. I'll probably look at this next week and disagree with it myself.

As of this moment, though, these are the current burrs under my saddle--or, as Dr. Suess might say, the rocks in my socks:

- Business terms and buzzwords like paradigm, deliverables, added value, takeaways, productivity, etc., when used in everyday speech. "Can you tell me the takeaways from To Kill a Mockingbird?" 

- Modern language in historical fiction. Words/phrases/slang like hairstyle, shenanigans, scrapbook, mommy, daddy, mesmerize, sadist, hello, hit the road, okay, rat him out, etc., have been around awhile, but they still probably aren't as old as you might think. Same thing for most fantasy fiction. "Yo, Gandalf. Whassup?"

- Data/dayta/datta. This is a pronunciation thing. I like dayta. I don't like datta. Can't help it. I also don't like asterix, nuke-ular, and expresso, but those are truly incorrect. Dayta's a personal preference.

- Alright. I like all right. I don't think alright is all right.

- A coffee, as in "I need a coffee." I prefer "I need coffee" or "I need some coffee" or "I need a cup of coffee." To me, saying you want a coffee or an iced tea is like saying you want a bread or a soup. Yes, I realize it's common usage, but it still bothers me. (Irritable Vowel Syndrome?)

- Everyday. I think everyday is an adjective, and only an adjective. "I'm wearing my everyday shoes" is right. "I wear these shoes every day" is right. "I wear my every day shoes everyday" is wrong. Same thing with words like backyard and backseat. "My backseat driver sits in the back seat" is right. So is "My backyard swing is located in my back yard." Switch those up and they're wrong.

- Setup. This one probably hurts my foot more than any of the other rocks. "The operation we set up was a setup" is right. "I setup the rooms without any help" is wrong.

- Impact used as a verb. Yes, I know that's allowed, but I think it works best as a noun. I've noticed that most news anchors and weather forecasters these days are using it as a verb because I guess they think it makes their statements stronger and more powerful. ("Garbage pickup problems impact city residents!" "Cold snap impacts the homeless!") I think affect works just as well. Maybe it's because I have medical people in my immediate family, but I always think of someone who's impacted as someone who's agonizingly constipated.

- Other nouns like dialogue and journal and fellowship used as verbs. "We need to dialogue," or "I've been journaling" or "Come to the church tonight and we'll fellowship" sounds wrong to me. I probably need to Google it (which, for some reason, sounds correct).

- The overuse of as and ing constructions in writing. Since it's not grammatically incorrect, this mistake is sometimes hard to catch in our own writing--but it's silly and amateurish. "Turning, I saw her leave. Running after her, I shouted to her as she climbed into the car. As I reached the sidewalk, she smiled as she waved goodbye. Sobbing, I walked back inside." Talk about instant rejection--that'll do it.

- Phrases like for you and I. It should be for you and me, as in for you and for me. The sad thing is, you see and hear this blunder ALL THE TIME, and from people who should know better.

- I could care less. I know this phrase has been around for years, but I still haven't gotten used to it--maybe because it makes absolutely no sense. One word I have finally agreed to use is done instead of finished, but even that one took me a while to accept.

- The reason why this happened is because . . . Enough said, about that. A discussion of redundancy would keep us here all day. In fact, it would keep us here all day.

- The use of then without a preceding comma. An article I saw some time ago, and I can't remember where, said that a lot of writers nowadays are doing that. Here's an example: "I waved to my neighbor then started mowing my grass." I think that's incorrect. And sure enough, I noticed last night that this has been done three times already in the new Jack Reacher novel, and I'm only forty pages in. What's up with that? I think it's correct to say either "I waved to my neighbor, then started mowing my grass" or "I waved to my neighbor and started mowing my grass." But if you do use then, I don't like leaving out that comma.

- Like. I'm like, don't even get me started on this one.

- Media and data. Those words, like family or group or herd, are collective nouns that I think work best with singular verbs. I like the data is correct. I don't like the data are correct. And I dern sure don't like the datta are correct. And yes, I know that's nitpicking.

- Utilize. I think utilize is a needless word that people say to try to sound more intelligent. Use use instead. Writers often know this, so it's mostly something you hear on TV--and hearing it impacts me!

- Writers saying a character crosses to the bar, the bed, the door, the kitchen sink, etc. Example: "John crossed and answered the phone." I realize we should try to use as few words as possible. but if it's necessary to say someone walks across a room I think maybe he should "walk across the room." This is a small thing--most of these are--but I see it so often I thought I'd mention it.

- You guys. Old-school or not, I don't much like referring to a mixed-gender group as you guys. A local TV reporter at a crime scene said "you guys" four times in less than a minute the other might when addressing the news team in the studio. (Full disclosure: I use the phrase occasionally myself. But I don't like myself when I do.)

- The use of Ms. with a woman's first name only. Using Miss with a first name--usually when addressing older ladies--is a sign of familiarity, especially in the south. "Hi, Miss Ellie." Married or not, politically correct or not, it's never, ever Ms. Ellie. If you want to use Ms. (or Mrs.), say Ms. Ewing.

More words/phrases I've grown achingly weary of hearing and seeing: "It is what it is," "no problem" (when did this replace "thank you"?), "stunning video," "iconic," "functionality," "let's do this!" "outside the box," "my amazing husband/wife/etc.," "give it up for," "reach out to," "got your back," "begs the question," "feeling nauseous," "at this point in time," "my journey," "it's problematic," "a sense of closure," "know what I'm sayin'?" "low-hanging fruit," yada yada. For that matter, I don't even like "yada yada." (And sportscasters are a whole 'nother story. I could possibly understand saying "w" in place of "win" if there was any reason at all to do it. Actually it takes longer to pronounce the letter "w" than it does to say the word "win.")

Other things I don't like are air-quotes, chains on eyeglasses, Botoxed lips, flat-billed baseball caps, The Bachelorette, mullets, cold weather, downer endings, present-tense writing, submission fees, head-tosses, loud cellphone conversations in public, and TV commercials urging you to "tell your health-care professional about such-and-such medication." For God's sake, if your doctor needs to be told how to treat your ailments, you need a new doctor.

The good thing about saying I dislike all these things is that the older I get, the more people will forgive me, or just disregard my opinions. ("Hey, he's old, what does he know." Usually spoken with a toss of the head.)

What are some of the annoying things in your life, and especially in the spoken or written words you hear or read? (Not necessarily wrong, but just irritating?) And yes, you can include opinion-column blog posts. The longer this one gets, it's becoming irritating to me too. If you by chance like this kind of thing, here are two of my SS posts from several years ago that talk more about irksome words/phrases, and are a little less opinionated: "Do's and Don'ts, Wills and Wont's, Part 1" and "Do's and Don'ts, Wills and Won'ts, Part 2." 

Having pointed out all these thorns in my side, I should mention that there are thankfully many things I do like, and not just my family, my house, and my friends. I like seafood, warm weather, Apple computers, lemon-icebox pie, homemade chili, Netflix, straight pool, reclining theater seats, Word Hunt, Joe Lansdale, Harry Nilsson, Cass Elliot, beaches, burritos, mystery magazines, the guitar, the piano, Yellowstone, Jeopardy, and The Sopranos. Not necessarily in that order.

And SleuthSayers. I like SleuthSayers. I hope you do, too.

On that note, next time I promise I'll be more upbeat. Until then, I can't help remembering something a colleague said to me several years ago. "I'm done with all this positive-thinking stuff," he said. "I knew it wouldn't work, and sure enough, it didn't."

Hard to argue with that.

Why Marlowe?

Open Road Films

Last year, Liam Neeson appeared in Marlowe, the first Philip Marlowe movie in years. Marlowe's been scarce on the big and small screen until recently, but there seems to be a need to continue his story beyond Raymond Chandler's death. Most notably, Robert B. Parker finished the last Marlowe novel by Chandler, Poodle Springs. One blurb stated emphatically one couldn't tell where Parker picked up from Chandler. Spoiler alert: Not only is it glaringly obvious, the dialog changes mid-scene with Marlowe suddenly talking like Spenser. Still, Parker would have been my first choice to finish the last Marlowe novel.

There are other characters who have been as timeless as Philip Marlowe. James Bond is always a product of his times, with Connery and Lazenby's versions aficionados of Playboy while Daniel Craig's iteration had more of a conscience. Sherlock Holmes has also proved enduring, but with the exception of some films during World War II, Holmes remained rooted in the Victorian Era until the twenty-first century, with versions set in present-day London and New York, each using aspects of Doyle's work to justify the updates. (Then there's the Margaret Colin movie where she wakes up Holmes from suspended animation in the 1980s. Let us never speak of that one again.)

Like Holmes, Marlowe has usually been stuck with his original period on the big screen. But subsequent post-Chandler novels have been all over the map. This year's novel, The Second Murderer, takes place in the 1940s while others move the knight errant forward in time to the 1970s or 1980s. Unlike, say, James Bond, Marlowe is a product of his time.

On the big screen, filmmakers were able to do present-day Marlowe as long as the present day was within 30-40 years of his debut. Robert Altman's controversial The Long Goodbye was a product of the 1970s, complete with Altman's off-beat shooting and writing style and then-baseball celeb Jim Bouton as a supporting character. The 1975 remake of The Big Sleep, a TV movie from the same people who brought you UFO and Space: 1999, aged Marlowe, put him in London, and cast an aging Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. It was an uneven turn from the same actor who played Marlow in Farewell, My Lovely a few years earlier. There, his presence gave Marlowe realistic aging by setting the story in the 1940s.

For some reason, Marlowe also has yielded experimentation. After his conventional debut in Murder, My Sweet, 1944, Robert Montgomery directed and starred in The Lady in the Lake, in which we literally see the story through Marlowe's eyes. The entire movie is shot with the camera as Marlowe, taking the first-person narrative as literally as possible. And of course, Altman took the novel The Long Goodbye as a polite suggestion and sent Elliot Gould muttering about 1970s LA. But perhaps the best-known, best-loved iteration of Marlowe on the big screen is Humphrey Bogart's 1946 turn in the original The Big Sleep. Bogart plays a warmer PI than his almost sociopathic turn as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. The movie is one of the most faithful adaptations of a Chandler novel. Yet it sizzles with the obvious heat between Bogart and costar/future wife Lauren Bacall (22 and already one of the classiest presences on screen.)

For the post-Chandler books, Marlowe receives uneven treatment. Parker, of course, kept him aged in the 1950s as that was where Chandler left him when he died. The next novel, Perchance to Dream, gets meta and has Marlowe in the 1940s work with a writer named Raymond Chandler on a case. The last Marlowe book I read, however, was set in the late 1980s, with Marlowe trying to stay retired in Mexico and running into drug cartels. Denise Mina, however, takes him back to his roots, placing him in the 1940s. 

The trouble with Marlowe is that authors either try to imitate Chandler's trademark similes, expected from Parker, or they ignore it altogether. The result is either a pastiche or a story about a guy named Phillip Marlowe. 

Neeson's Marlowe, based on Benjamin Black's The Black-Eyed Blonde, probably comes closest to the original Marlowe. Neeson, probably needing a break from threatening people with "I will find you!", is the perfect choice to bring Marlowe's world-weariness to life.

But why new Marlowe novels? And why does he endure? Like Bond, some of his original stories inspire cringe in the present day. Holmes is infinitely adaptable, and as someone likely on the spectrum, has a renewed sense of chic. His mind doesn't work like most people's and keeps him eternally interesting. Bond, however, is cinematically a present-day creature. Connery and Lazenby's versions would not have worked in the 1990s or even today, whereas Brosnan's Bond is a halfway point. But why Marlowe?

Marlowe is a product of the Depression, with the world in a post-Victorian hangover, not to mention bracing for another World War. Nevertheless, he's persisted, showing up in the 1970s, a brief revival in-period in the 1980s, and several authors keeping him alive from the 1990s forward. But why? In an era where the PI is either a relic or off fighting right-wing extremists hiding in the shadows, Marlowe is still going down these mean streets.

It's probably because Marlowe's foes are still with us. Gangsters might have changed, but they never really went away. Drugs remain a scourge, even if pot is either legal or decriminalized, depending on where you live. And the crimes have gotten worse: human trafficking, child porn. All these are in Philip Marlowe's wheelhouse. And Marlowe makes no pretense of being virtuous, something his spiritual descendants insist on with their Hawks and Bubbas doing all the dirty work. (Even Robert Crais's Joe Pike, but he's a special case.) 

Many question the need to reboot James Bond after Daniel Craig's version died in No Time to Die. The enemies seem to be within. Holmes inhabits a realm that never really goes away. There will always be theft. There will always be murder. And there will always be a fascination with an unconventional mind that disdains the rules.

Marlowe, however, seems to be finding a new niche. It's a cold and confusing world. Who better to fight the good fight than a world-weary man who faces the nastiness with a wisecrack?

Things I've Learned From the Media

There is, somewhere (according to soap operas and some mysteries), a store or service which will make available, at any hour of the day or night, a dead body that you can use to fake your own / someone else's death.  I am assuming they deliver, because no one ever has to go get it themselves. Still trying to figure out how they get it into the hospital / crime scene without being spotted.  Aliens?  

I'm also still trying to figure out what plastic surgeon can not only make you look EXACTLY like someone else but change your voice, body movements, and speech patterns to match.  For that matter, who the hell replaced Silva's mouth / throat / esophagus, etc., with a removable implant in Skyfall?  I think a lot of people with esophageal and other oral cancers would love to know that that was possible.  

BTW, if you want it, you can own the world's largest pheasant for $180,000.  Or make them an offer.  (HERE)  Includes retail space, and a bathroom in the basement.

Speaking of giants, the family of the South Dakota couple who earned millions from the sale of Sue the T-Rex is suing each other. In 1997, Maurice and Darlene Williams made $7.6 million from the auction of Sue, who is still on display at Chicago’s Field Museum. (At 47 feet long, Sue is among the largest and best-preserved T-Rex skeletons ever discovered.) Apparently, there are two wills, one made in 2017, dividing the estate equally, and another made two weeks before Darlene's death, when she was in hospice, leaving everything to only one of the daughters. And that, my dears, will always launch a lawsuit... (LINK)  

The Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese sent out a retweet from a Nashville priest and exorcist that Taylor Swift is summoning demons at her concerts.  (LINK)  I think they're just jealous that she gets into football games for free.  Meanwhile, I think I can hear the beginning of a story in all of this...

Janice Law wrote a great piece a couple of days ago (We Keep The Dead Close) about closed systems, like Harvard or small towns, and how difficult it can be to find out who did something when a chosen culprit has been decided on.  Or when it's been decided (silently but collectively) to just ignore something.  I know from living in a small town for three decades that that is absolutely true.  Think about "To Kill A Mockingbird" - there's morphine addict Mrs. Dubose, whose addiction is politely ignored by everyone in town, thanks to her status. There's Boo Radley, whose father is considered "one of the meanest men that ever drew breath" - but no one ever rescues Boo from him. Nor, for that matter, do they rescue Mayella Ewell from her father, who not only beats the crap out of her but (it is strongly hinted) sexually abuses her as well. 

It's amazing how many people who have NOT heard the story about Peter Antonacci, the DeSantis-appointed head of Governor DeSantis's Federal Election Fraud Office.  He died. Suddenly:

He collapsed and died in a hallway in the governor’s office moments after “abruptly” leaving a contentious meeting on Sept. 23, 2022. That Antonacci, 74, was stricken in the governor’s office was kept secret at the time. Instead, authorities only said he died while at work in the Capitol building, of which the governor’s office is a part. Florida Department of Law Enforcement records released to Florida Bulldog also say Antonacci lay dead or dying on the hallway floor of the governor’s office for more than 20 minutes before anyone apparently noticed and came to his aid. More precisely, 24 minutes, in a hallway under real time video-only surveillance.

The reports provided by the FDLE to the Florida Bulldog were heavily redacted, and no security camera footage was provided at all.

While the FDLE reports include such mundane observations as how Antonacci was dressed – “a sky blue shirt, dark blue dress coat, and gray dress pants” – they stand out for what’s missing: the identities of everyone attending the meeting and any inquiry as to why Antonacci lay undiscovered on the hallway floor for so long.  (LINK)

Also, the medical examiner wasn't called; no autopsy was carried out; and the Chief of Staff at the meeting "retired" abruptly. Oh, and "no comment" on all of this from the Governor and staff.  So why isn't there more reporting on this nationally?  

Finally, linking back to my last SleuthSayers blog post, "What's the Problem With Young Men?", Lyz at "Men Yell at Me" has pointed out yet another column saying that women are too damn picky about who they marry, and the latest twist – from WaPo of all places – is not only that they should marry "down", i.e., to men who make less money or are less successful than they, but (since more young women are liberal than young men) they should marry conservative men who are otherwise going to have to live off porn and Skittles, and that's not just fair. (HERE).

Really?  From Axios, the tender tale of the "Students for Trump" founder who assaulted his girlfriend, "grabbing her right arm and striking her in the forehead" with a handgun. Thankfully, he was charged with domestic assault on a female and assault with a deadly weapon.  (Axios)

Mind the Gap

Pottery shard, Ramat Rachel, Israel.

Today I find myself in a situation I have not experienced since, at least, July 5, 2021. Specifically, I don't have a short story to be working on.

I know the date, because I just finished a novella, and I started it on July 6, two years ago.  You may be surprised that it takes me two years to write a novella.  Well, here's the thing.  When I get an idea for a new story I generally drop everything and start to work on it.  My reasoning is that I'm a very slow writer and I want to strike while the iron is hot, to use a cliche.  Write the story as close to the moment of inspiration as possible.

So, I have probably written a dozen stories since starting this novella. But I have nothing on hand to write next.

This is not a panicky moment.  I know exactly  what I will be doing tomorrow, writing-wise.

For one thing, I will edit some of the seven stories I have finished a draft of but don't have ready to submit.  My stories average  ten drafts.  I work on one most days after doing my first-draft writing for the day.  And when I finish a first draft completely I usually take a week off from writing new stuff, and just edit.  

Secondly, it is not quite accurate to say I have no idea what to write next.  You see, the novella I have been working on is the fourth in my series about Delgardo, a beat poet.  Hitchcock's has published two and purchased the third.

The first story in the series was set in October 1958 and each story moves ahead by one month.  A real event occurred in February 1959 which fits perfectly into the lives of my characters, so my next job is to research that event and figure out how to turn  it into a plot.

So don't worry about me.  I'll fill the hours somehow.  How about you?

ADDENDUM: Two days after I wrote the above an editor asked me to write a story for an anthology.  I immediately had an idea for a sequel to a different tale.  So Delgardo will have to wait. I'm off to the races... 

Reading for Gems

Some of the many
reasons Michael doesn’t
have much time for
pleasure reading.

Last year, 120 short stories appeared in projects I edited or co-edited. I’m on track to edit or co-edit projects containing a similar number of stories this year, and I have projects in the works that should have me working with a similar number of stories each year for several subsequent years.

For every short-story manuscript I read that ultimately sees publication in one of my projects, I read at least two that don’t. So, reading for entertainment and pleasure has almost disappeared because I now read a significant amount of unpublished fiction.

And I’m becoming jaded. A few years ago, when I wasn’t doing as much editing, I had time to work with stories that showed potential, and I could work with writers who showed potential but hadn’t made the leap to regular publication. These days, I’m looking for stories that are as close to publication-ready as possible.

That means I’m doing fewer open-call projects (as a percentage of total projects). (The Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir anthology series remains open call and Black Cat Mystery Magazine, when it reopens to submissions at some indefinable date in the future, will also be open call.) Instead, I’m mostly working with writers who have proven they can deliver on-time and on theme, and who have proven themselves easy to work with through the revision and/or editing process.

EDITORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

I’ve been involved in several discussions recently where it has been clear that writers don’t understand all that editors do. They see “editors” as people who fix spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors and maybe point out plot holes and faulty story structure.

That’s part of what they do. In fact, if it’s an editor hired by the writer, that may be all they do.

But an anthology or magazine editor does much more than that. When working on an anthology, editors develop the concept and pitch the idea to a publisher (or work with an organization or publisher who presents the concept to the editor), determine how to obtain content, work with writers to ensure that content fits within the concept, prepare manuscripts for publication, and proofread galley proofs and/or page proofs. (FYI: No one produces galley proofs these days.) A magazine editor—especially the editor of a small-press magazine—does much the same.

In short, an anthology or magazine editor—especially those working with smaller presses—is often a concept generator, acquisitions editor, development editor, fact-checking editor, line editor, copy editor, and proofreader all rolled into one.

While doing all of this, editors maintain records, ensuring they know what stage each manuscript is at; maintain contact with writers to ensure all deadlines are met; and maintain contact with the publisher’s staff to ensure all deliverables are on time and in the correct format.

Editors’ responsibilities continue after publication. They may be involved with marketing and promotion, and a good editor ensures the work they publish is considered for all appropriate awards and best-of-year reprint opportunities.

DISCOVERING GEMS

What compensates for a decreasing amount of time for entertainment and pleasure reading is finding story gems in the submission queue, regardless of whether the stories were solicited via an invitation call or unsolicited via an open call, and then shepherding those stories into the world where readers can find them.

Knowing I played a small part in entertaining readers when these stories appear more than compensates for all the reading pleasure time I’ve given up.

“Got Milk?”—a blog post about how Temple’s great uncle was indicted for his involvement in the Louisiana Milk Strike of 1947 and how my father-in-law’s research led me to write “Spilt Milk” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November/December 2023)—was published at Trace Evidence.

We Keep the Dead Close

Although I share many of our colleague Brian Thorton's (Doolin Dalton) reservations about true crime writing, I am going to make an exception for Becky Cooper's We Keep the Dead Close, subtitled, A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence, a very long, sober, and ambitious book. Part memoir, part true crime, the book takes on sex discrimination at Harvard, examines gossip as power, and speculates on the sometimes deceptive power of narrative. Cooper wasn't a Radcliffe student for nothing.

She first heard Jane Britton's story in 2009, forty years after the graduate student in the Harvard Anthropology Department had been found bludgeoned to death in her Cambridge apartment. Athletic and artistic, Britton was a complex character, a forceful, confident personality, susceptible to depression but independent and memorable. Her killer was never identified, but decades on students still relayed the chosen campus story: she had an affair with one of her professors who murdered her and scattered red ochre, famous from prehistoric burials, over her corpse. Kicker: the professor, charismatic and tenured, was still employed at Harvard!

Well, there was a hook for any crime writer, but what seems to have caught Cooper's attention was the implied power of Harvard. She was not to the institution born and while delighted with much of Radcliffe, she often felt like an outsider in a seductive and powerful institution. Powerful enough to conceal a murder? Cooper began to think so, and the gallery of eccentrics in the insular Department of Anthropology, which included archeology, Jane Britton's field, gave plenty of room for speculation.

Nor was she the only one. By the end of We Keep the Dead Close, we have been introduced to a range of amateur detectives, some nursing their own painful losses, who offer a variety of suspects, including the original professor highlighted by student gossip. He was a riveting teacher, if a bit of a poseur, inspiring, temperamental, hot-tempered, and a believer in the power and utility of narrative. Explanation, not raw facts, was the key to archeology in his mind. 

Another candidate, in what was a homophobic environment, was an alcoholic and closeted gay man who had made late night visits to knock (unsuccessfully) on Jane's door. And then there was the archeologist whose female colleague had gone missing on a trip to Labrador. Ironically for a department that feared weakening its status by hiring women, Anthropology seems to have had more than its share of dodgy characters.

It is curious to an outsider that the assumption always was that Britton's killer was a Harvard man and, in particular, someone in Britton's department. Closed corporations often prefer the outsider hypothesis, and perhaps the Harvard powers that be leaned that way. But the undergrads and the graduate students were firm in their focus on one of the University's own. This leads Cooper to interesting asides about gossip and the way that salacious speculation helps even out power imbalances and serves up cautionary tales.

In any case, the university and even Britton's well-connected family seem to have wanted the whole thing to go away. What seems like carelessness and incompetence by the Cambridge police – they failed to secure the crime scene for days while trying to bully a confession out of her neighbors – sealed the failure. Jane Britton's murder was a cold case for forty years before Cooper and a number of other interested parties started pushing FOI requests.

We Keep the Dead Close is a record of Cooper's pursuit of every possible lead, interview and document for ten years. There is a fine line between persistence and obsession, but to do Cooper justice, she frequently reminds herself that she is not the central figure. By the end of the book, she has spoken, often productively, with Britton friends, relatives, suspects, professors, administrators, and cops. Still she hasn't solved the case.

What finally brings resolution turns out to be something as simple as stored samples and improved DNA testing. The results lead Cooper to a more modest ambition for her book but to interesting reflections about narratives, whether about the long-distant past or a cold case murder.

"I know even less about whether telling a responsible story of the past is possible," she writes, "having learned all too well how the act of interpretation molds the facts in the service of the story teller...There are no true stories; there are only facts, and the stories we tell ourselves about those facts."

A comment pertinent at this troubling political moment for the general public as well as for writers.

****

The Falling Men, a novel with strong mystery elements, has been issued as an ebook on Amazon Kindle. Also on kindle: The Complete Madame Selina Stories.

The Man Who Met the Elf Queen with two other fanciful short stories and 4 illustrations and The Dictator's Double 3 short mysteries and 4 illustrations are available from Apple Books

---

50th

In January 2006, I attended my first MWA Board of Directors meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. At the start of the meeting, the vice-president had each attendee sitting around the conference table introduce themselves and tell what they wrote.

Sitting there among several best-selling novelists, I told them I wrote only short stories, and concluded with I doubted I'd live long enough to get as many published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine as the famous short story author Ed Hoch had. At the time, I had only eight stories published in AHMM, whereas Ed went on to have 450 in EQMM, plus I don't know how many in AHMM before he passed two years later.

My first story ("Once, Twice, Dead") published in AHMM's November 2001 issue, was set in the Golden Triangle. Kathleen Jordan was the editor and her web page said she wanted mystery stories in exotic locations. To me, Southeast Asia was exotic, I'd seen it for myself in '67, so I submitted the story and she bought it.

Elation soon turned into panic when I realized I had no second story to submit. The next story had to be high quality, else I could be considered as a one-trick pony. After much brainstorming, the Twin Brothers Bail Bond series was born. Kathleen bought the first three in the series before she passed.

Shortly after Linda Landrigan took over as editor, she sent me an e-mail requesting some changes in that third story which had already been accepted, bought and paid for, though not yet published. I figured this was probably the end of my short career in AHMM. Since the editor is the boss, I made the requested changes and went on to sell her seven more stories in that series.

I soon branched out to The Armenian series set in 1850s Chechnya; the 1660s Paris Underworld series, involving a young, inept pickpocket trying to survive in a criminal enclave; the Holiday Burglars series;  and The Golden Triangle series, involving two feuding half-brothers vying to take over their warlord father's opium empire in the mountain jungles of Southeast Asia.

In my Prohibition Era series, "Whiskey Curb" is set in a Manhattan location where actual gangsters used to sell and trade liquor. It is my 49th sale to AHMM and is published in their Nov/Dec 2023 issue. The third story in this series was rejected with the dreaded doesn't fit our needs at the moment type comment. The fourth story in the series is currently resting in the editor's e-slush pile, waiting for a verdict.

Naturally, there are some standalone stories not necessarily conducive to acquiring series status. And, there are some potential series stories which died aborning because I had already written and submitted the second story in the series before the first one was rejected.

And now, we come to my first ever P.I. series. An earlier post talks about the genesis of my first ever P.I. story, "Leonardo." Unfortunately, it will have to find a different home, since it was rejected by AHMM. Seems that the upper brass does not want any stories mentioning teens and sex. My P.I. broke up a ring of pornographers. Nothing graphic, mind you, just the rescue scene and the mention seemed to nix the story. So, put that on your list of No-Nos and save yourself the trouble.

Here's the interesting part to go with the paragraph above. On 09/24/23, I received an e-mail from AHMM accepting the second story in my intended P.I. series. Same protagonist and sidekick, different crime. In which case, "Recidivism" becomes my 50th story sold to AHMM. Thank you, thank you.

Returning to the beginning of this blog, it appears I'm a long way from Ed Hoch's 450 stories in EQMM and I don't know how many in AHMM. Furthermore, with my fading eyesight, body parts which are showing the wear of a life well lived, and a brain like that cheese made in an European country where the natives yodel at each other in their mountains, I seriously doubt my sold/accepted numbers in AHMM will make it to as high as 100, or even to the number of years in my age.

God, I wish I were 50 again.

To dream the impossible dream, to reach the unreachable star...

Today, I'm pleased to welcome my friend and colleague Lisa de Nikolits to Sleuthsayers.  I smiled after reading her post, because it pertains to me so well.

To wit:  In 1993, I had a humorous - okay, loopy - play performed in Toronto.  In the audience were some industry people, and in particular, a television producer.  He came up to me, and said, "You are completely nuts, and I'd like you to come write pilots for me."  Of course, this meant moving to LA.  I hesitated and let the opportunity go, because it seemed too much to move my husband and two preschoolers to a different country.  And of course, this wouldn't be the only time I'd be asked, right?

The producer was from a company called HBO.  Who had ever heard of HBO in 1993?  Needless to say, this is probably one of the worst mistakes ever made by someone not legally insane.

So read Lisa's post below, and see if you agree!

To dream the impossible dream, to reach the unreachable star…

by Lisa de Nikolits

For many writers, books and publishing are exactly that; unreachable stars and impossible dreams. To scale the heights we want to can seem like a hopeless quest – nay, merely staying afloat is sometimes heroic enough!

And this year has, no doubt about it, been a tough one on the writing front.

I've been pondering the magical ingredients that help us float our authorly boats, and enjoy the journey as we travel towards the sparkly lights that we know are there, even if they are shrouded by mist and clouds.

In my opinion, it comes down to three things:

Obsession

Opportunity

Support

Let's start with obsession.  You have to want something to the exclusion of all else.  Yes, family dinner parties and events may see you at the dining room table but your mind will be plotting and planning your next writerly move.  What will your characters do next? Each place you visit, to shop or dine or travel, all go into the melting pot of your next story.  You cannot escape the writerly perspective. Never mind rose-coloured glasses, we wear author lenses which, much like James Bond spy glasses, distill the whole into a single funnel - The Story.

And, once you have written The Story, then it must be published.  Because until it is published, it's no more than a silent invisible spectre, existing to no one but you.

Next, is opportunity.  Without the right opportunity, your story will never morph from that spectre into the flesh and bone of books: ink and paper.

And, never be so unwise as to think that opportunities are limitless.  I never understand it when people are cavalier about an opportunity, saying, "oh well, if I miss this one, something else will come along."

It might not!  There are no guarantees.  So, when an opportunity pops up, you have to seize it with both hands and you have to do whatever it takes to make the most of it, no matter how tired you are, no matter how weary.

So, be vigilant, look out for opportunities.  Sometimes they're like buried treasure, and you have to unearth them.

The final ingredient is support.  From loved ones, from friends, from the community, from one's publisher.  You don't only need support while you're trudging that long road, you need support to celebrate, so when you throw a party, you can share the joy when things do work out!

Obsession, opportunity and support.

And one more thing.  Karma.  Be nice to people.  Camaraderie is the oil that keeps the wheels of our industry turning.

And dream the impossible dream!

ABOUT LISA....Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits is the award-winning author of eleven published novels (Inanna Publications). She has appeared on recommended reading lists for Open Book Toronto, 49^th Shelf, All Lit Up, The Miramachi Reader, Chatelaine, Canadian Living, Hello! Canada, the Quill & Quire, the CBC and the Toronto Star. Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon (2024) will be her twelfth book. 

About the book...Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon is a noir, darkly comedic caper set in current time, written as a 1950’s hard-boiled suspense thriller with a series of age-old cons playing out in real time. You don’t want to mess with mob boss antagonist, gangster Serafino D’Angelo, whose love for the murder photographer, Weegee finds its way into his business dealings and private obsessions. Greed drives the stakes higher and higher, complicated by sibling rivalry, doomed love affairs and terrifying familial cruelty.