Guest Post: Harley Mazuk, author of White with Fish, Red with Murder

By Art Taylor

It's my great pleasure to welcome to SleuthSayers today Harley Mazuk, a good friend and fine short story writer who's making his debut as a novelist at the end of February with White with Fish, Red with Murder. I've been a big fan of Harley's work since his first appearance in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine back in January 2011—his first publication period—with the story "The Tall Blonde with the Hot Boiler," featuring PI Frank Swiver. Swiver became a series character with other EQMM stories and is the protagonist of the new novel as well—a great character springing from Harley's own love for and keen attention to the history of detective fiction.

I asked Harley to give us a glimpse at the genesis for his debut novel and at the origins of the character himself. I'll turn it over to him here—along with a recommendation to check out the book itself, due February 28.

Writing the Book I'd Like to Read

 

By Harley Mazuk

“Write what you like” is common advice to beginning writers. When I realized that I had read all of Raymond Chandler’s novels, and most of his short stories, that I’d finished the Dashiell Hammett canon too, I was at a loss for what to read next. I decided to write the next private eye tale that I’d like to read.

I’m not deluded enough to think I could keep up with Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade. I didn’t want to write fan fiction either, but rather, something new, hopefully original, in the mode of Chandler, in the style of Hammett, a continuation of the work of these masters. I created a new private eye, Frank Swiver, a wino and a womanizer, and I set out to write stories inspired by pulp fiction, the Black Mask tradition.

I never intended to mimic Chandler’s style, with his wonderful over-the-top similes. To do so would be a sucker’s game, or a bad parody. I wanted to think like Chandler, but write like Harley. (This required copious applications of alcohol.) I wanted to create something of my own yet something that would curl into the reader’s subconscious and feel vaguely familiar.

I read The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler, a dandy little book with “Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story,” not to mention the addenda of 13 more including the pearl of wisdom: “The most effective way to conceal a simple mystery is behind another mystery. Make the reader solve the wrong problem.”

I bought a volume of Chandler’s letters, and learned he was rather an opinionated gent. And I read in “The Simple Art of Murder” of his admiration for Dashiell Hammett.

That took me to Hammett’s Moral Vision by Rhino Thompson. I added Hammett’s “24 Commandments” to Chandler’s “Twelve Notes,” (plus addenda). And I learned from an essay by Steven Marcus in The Continental Op that the P.I.’s job, when called out on a case, is to investigate the “reality” that anyone involved in the case will swear to, to deconstruct that account and construct a “reality” of his own, (a true fiction) of what really happened.

Harley Mazuk

What does the writer learn from Hammett? First, keep the prose simple. Use straightforward declarative sentences, like Hemingway might. Second, write in a voice like a private dick typing up his reports for the boss—give meticulous, objective descriptions of suspects, clothing, settings. Third, there’s value in setting your stories in situations where social institutions have broken down. And I added Hammett-like elements to my stories, such as troubled or unconventional romantic relationships, humor—preferably dry, understated wit—and a working class protagonist.

I learned to incorporate the tropes of pulp fiction I enjoy. What’s a novel without a curvy femme fatale with gorgeous gams and straight seams on her stockings? Throw in tough guys, a double cross, gunplay, murder, colorful slang, a sap to the back of the head, a crushed fedora, nefarious schemes, and . . . another double cross.

Where do I stray from the boundaries laid out by Chandler and Hammett? Well, Frank’s not a white knight like Marlowe. He’s a bit more noir-ish in that he’s lost and lonely, driven by lust as much as anything. But Frank Swiver has a moral code; it’s just not Marlowe’s moral code. Frank is non-violent, an observant (though straying) Roman Catholic, and a conscientious objector during times of military conscription. Can a pacifist make the grade as a P.I? After all, being a private dick can be a rough trade. Well, it has been a bit constraining in the types of cases Frank can take and the situations I can put him in—for instance, I don’t want to depend on a deus ex machina with a gun to burst in and save Frank. But so far (after two novels and seven or eight shorter works) putting Frank in jams and extricating him non-violently has been challenging and fun.

The other influence on Frank Swiver has been Ian Fleming’s James Bond. I chose Bond because of his totally inappropriate over-the-top drinking—a 2013 study of Fleming’s novels revealed that Bond averaged 92 drinks per week—and his ability to go into action thoroughly toasted. I also like Bond’s eye for the women, and his zest for sex, an angle I want in my stories, even if Marlowe was a bit puritanical in such matters.

P.I. Frank Swiver, of the Old Vine Detective Agency on Post Street in mid-20th century San Francisco, has turned into my “series” character. I’ve had a lot of luck with him. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine bought my first professional effort—“The Tall Blonde with the Hot Boiler”—in 2010 and put it in their “Black Mask” section. See? If they put it in Black Mask, I must be doing something right, attaining that pulp feel I want. And though it was a long slog, through agents and finally non-agented submissions, Driven Press bought my first novel—White with Fish, Red with Murder. After a long incubation process, my book is finally coming out this month. So if you’ve been waiting for the next installment in the glorious tradition of classic P.I. novels, Frank Swiver may be the shamus for you.

They're baaaack.... or, Further Updates from South Dakota

Here in South Dakota, we never quite do things the easy way.  As you may or may not remember, last November, we South Dakota voters passed four voter initiatives:

• Amendment R, which transfers control of tech schools from local school boards to a new... something
• Initiated Measure 21, which caps payday loans at 36%
• Amendment S, "Marsy's Law", "creating constitutionally protected rights for crime victims"
• Initiated Measure 22, on campaign finance reform.

So far Amendment R and Amendment S have been left relatively untouched.  Except that crime victims have to opt-in for their rights under Marsy's Law (something nobody mentioned in the high-profile ads that were running non-stop before the vote), and names, addresses, etc., may continue to be given to news media, insurance companies, etc.

But IM 21 is under challenge, thanks to a House Bill 1090, which - while keeping 36% as the maximum interest a lender can charge, adds all sorts of new fees that a lender can charge, including "fees for optional maintenance agreements and extended service contracts, official fees and taxes, sales tax, title fees, lien registration fees, and dealer documentary fees. Late fees, return check fees, and attorneys' fees incurred upon a consumer default." No wiggle room there, eh?  (Why do I get the feeling that someone in the legislature was trying to text Chuck Brennan - "come back!  all is forgiven!")

Governor Daugaard, chastising the voters

And IM 22 - well, we've made the national news with that one. Governor Daugaard, who offered to veto it as soon as it passed, is still in a snit. “They were hoodwinked by scam artists who grossly misrepresented these proposed measures." To be fair, he has some reason to be upset and in a hurry to veto it:  "Gov. Dennis Daugaard has more than a million dollars in his campaign account which, if this law is killed by his legislators, he will be able to put into his own bank account. If IM 22 is able to stand, he will not be able to touch the money." (Argus Leader)

Meanwhile, our legislature is shocked, appalled, and offended that we think so little of them to have passed IM 22.  Some of those ads depicted lobbyists handing out cash!  As if they'd ever do that! After all, there is no corruption in this state.  EB-5, Gear-Up!, and that little sex scandal have all been taken care of.

NOTE:  Under the "you can't make this stuff up" column, our legislature rejected a bill to ban legislators from having sex or sexual contact with interns.  (My favorite defending quote, not to mention defender:  "I'm hesitant to pass something when we get into itemizing every potential wrongdoing that a legislator could commit, lest this become a criminal code rather than a code of ethics," Rep. David Lust, R-Rapid City.)  Seven days later, SD Representative Matt Wollman admitted to sexual contact with two interns and a few days later, resigned. But that doesn't mean we need any laws against that kind of thing...  

Anyway, the SD Legislature would like you to know that there is no corruption, no problems, IM 22 is unconstitutional, that's all (but they won't wait for a ruling from the SD Supreme Court), we voters were hoodwinked by out of town money (not that that's a problem when it's our legislators going to ALEC conferences on ALEC's dime, or when ads starring Kelsey Grammer and paid for by California billionaire Henry Nicholas are pushing Marsy's Law), and so they are pushing their anti-IM 22 legislation "emergency legislation". What's the emergency?  Well, under our constitution, emergency legislation is exempt from any referendum of, by and for the people (Article 3, Section 1).  So...  our SD Legislature's message seems to be pretty much, "sit down, shut up, you had your vote, you were wrong, and we say to hell with you."

In a strikingly tone-deaf picture, four of our legislators -
who'd just voted to kill a commission to enforce
campaign finance regulations - posing with
make-believe “gold” watches that contained candy.
You really can't make this stuff up.

I understand that attitude has become a trend.  As this GOVERNING  headline says, "Don't Like the Ballot Measure Voters Approved? Just Ignore It, Some Lawmakers Say."  And the article says that we South Dakotans are not alone...

Anyway, on February 1st, our legislature struck down IM 22, taking time to lash back at the IM-22 campaign that painted them as corrupt, self-dealing politicians.  "I've not known anybody to accept a bribe, I've not known anybody to offer a bribe. In South Dakota, while we're not infallible, that has never been a concern," said Sen. Brock Greenfield, R-Clark. "There are no gold watches, there are no bags of cash."  (ARGUS LEADER)

Really?  First of all take a look at the picture to the right, my friends.  Real classy, huh?

And, for Valentine's Day, South Dakota Senate killed a bill which would have set up a commission to enforce campaign finance law.

And then there are the idiots out there:  Rookie SD Rep. Neal Tapio (R-5/Watertown responded to a question about getting rid of Medicaid by saying (timestamp 54:35), “I want to kill it altogether.”
Three minutes and fifteen seconds later, in response to a follow-up question about how we proposes to take care of elderly, children, disabled, and other folks currently on Medicaid, Rep. Tapio said, “I’m not saying that we get rid of it.”

NOTE:  Rep. Neal Tapio was Presidential candidate Donald Trump's state campaign chairman...

Meanwhile, other times, other scandals...

Allow me to re-introduce you to Joop Bollen (a Dutch foreign national), who somehow was allowed by our own then-Governor Mike Rounds (currently our US Senator) and our current Attorney General Marty Jackley, to privatize EB-5 (cash for green cards, largely used by Chinese investors) and turn it over to himself via his own corporation (SDRC, Inc.).  Last April, AG Jackley finally indicted Bollen, for "misappropriating" funds - at the time counted at $1.2 million.  Yesterday, Mr. Bollen pleaded guilty to one felony count and got... 2 years probation.  ("Authorities" say he paid back most of the money, except for $167,000.)

This might not bother me so much if there still weren't $120 million missing from the EB-5 program, which had to have gone somewhere.

It also might not bother me if a woman in Sioux Falls wasn't facing 10 years for embezzling $57,000.00.  My bet is, she'll do time in prison, not probation.

Well, that's it for now.  More later, from South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry, act like Goodfellas, and the crazy just keeps on coming.

 

Right Way to Do the Wrong Thing

by Robert Lopresti

I'm not sure this title fits the subject matter, but it's a pretty song.

As you are probably sick of being told, I review a short story every week.  I try to be a fair judge, treating every candidate equally but I admit that sometimes I will find myself rooting for a story to succeed because of a wonderful opening line, beautiful writing, or a great concept.  It's yours to lose.  Don't blow it!

And sometimes they succeed. But sometimes they blow it.

Recently I read a story with a great premise, one I loved so much I read a few key lines out loud to my wife.  I kept rolling along, having a great time, for the first three quarters of the narrative.  Then all four tires slowly deflated.

I'm not going to get specific because I don't say bad things about individual stories.  (There's a reason I review the best story each week.)  But vaguely, here's the plot:

The author establishes the great premise and deals with it, apparently resolving it.  Then a character is murdered.  The hero, call him Sam Sleuth, starts to investigate.  The character closest to him, call him X, is the Most Likely Suspect.

All of which is great.  Still rolling merrily.  But we are at the three-quarter point.

Sleuth begins to suspect that X really is  the killer.  He digs more, and finds evidence pointing in that direction.  He confronts X who more or less admits his guilt, but not in a way that would hold up in court.  And Sleuth vows to find a way to prove it.  The end.

That's no ending, says me.  Not a good  ending, anyway.  Our hero has been treading water for the last quarter.

So here are some suggestions as to how the author might have created a better conclusion, one which might have made my Best of the Week, if I liked the writing, and was in the right mood, and Saturn was on the cusp of Capricorn.

Good for the Soul.  Sleuth could have tricked/guilted X into a confession that would have held up in court.

In the Pudding.  Sleuth discovers proof that X did the killing.

Had it coming. X reveals (this requires a ton of foreshadowing) that the victim was such a horrible person that he deserved what he got.  Sleuth is convinced and tells him to go and sin no more.

Surprise Party.  It wasn't X at all!  Turns out it was Y, that dirty devil!

Reverse Surprise.  If our author really wants to end with Sleuth vowing to catch X, then Sleuth needs to think it is Y until - Boom - the Big Reveal.

Immune to Murder.  Sleuth is sure that X is guilty but he can never be convicted because he is the nephew of the President/Mafia Chief/Billionaire, or is the Ambassador from Barataria.  Much noirish brooding in bourbon follows.

Any of those had a chance to be better than what I got. But on the bright side, I got a blog out of it didn't I?  Now, back to a hunt for the Best.

Do You Do Artist Dates?

“The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore

something that interests you.” Julia Cameron

An artist date is permission to play. Every week, you are supposed to explore something that makes you smile.

When I first heard about them, I was excited, but I circled around the idea cautiously, like an animal scenting something new. What is this thing called play? Am I allowed to indulge in it, or do I have to spend every waking moment working as a doctor, a writer, and a mother?

For me, because I live in the country, one of the barriers is physically getting to something that interests me. It takes me an hour to drive to Montreal, 1.5 hours to drive to Ottawa, and more if there’s snow or traffic.

And yet, it’s almost always worth it.

I think this is why writers love conferences. You go from isolation to a collective army of smart, funny people who love the same things you do (reading, writing, and Riesling). You can get some of the same vibe online, but it’s not as fun as in person.

Steve Steinbock & Melissa Yi at Bloody Words 2014

“It’s Brigadoon!” said Steve Steinbock, of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, who suggested I come to Bloody Words, the former Canadian crime conference.

“Huh? What’s Brigadoon?”

He explained that it’s a town that materializes out of nowhere, and then it’s gone. “Brigadoon!”

“Brigadoon,” I repeated, still a bit confused, but enjoying his enthusiasm.

Another barrier for me is that I hate spending money. I went to Left Coast Crime last year, felt guilty about spending money, and quizzed other authors in attendance if they felt guilty, too. The answer: no, with the unspoken corollary of "Why are you wasting your time here worrying about it?" Stacy Allen was kind enough to answer in detail. She said something to the effect of, “You have a gift. Everyone here has a gift. It’s a crime not to use it.”

With thanks to Lisa de Nikolits for the photo!

I just spent a long, long weekend in Toronto. The main goal was speaking at OLA, the Ontario Library Association superconference, through Crime Writers of Canada, on the Friday. I spent my two minutes explaining the genesis of Stockholm Syndrome (chasing after an escaped prisoner, as I explained in my interview with CBC Radio's Robyn Bresnahan here), connected with new readers, learned of literary conferences in Renfrew and Kingston, met James Wigmore, an author who’s a retired forensic toxicologist, and Judy Penz Sheluk invited me to post on her blog.

I stayed extra-long so that I could sing in a mass choir with MILCK, my favourite new singer--a brave, talented, risk-taker whom I'd like to emulate in many ways.

How about you? Do you do artist dates? Do you spend money on your art, and on your writing career?

Great Short Stories Revisited

by Jan Grape

I've been reading short stories in anthologies published in 1990s and 2000s. I blushingly admit I have stories in them and it started as a project of rereading my stories. Some I had forgotten like "Whatever Had To Be Done" published in Deadly Allies by Doubleday in 1992 and Bantam paperback in 1993. This was the first collaborative anthology by the Private Eye Writers of America and Sisters In Crime. It was edited by Robert J. Randisi and Marilyn Wallace. This story was probably my second story ever published where I actually received money. I had published two or three stories for small indie magazines that were subscription only and I was paid in copies.

The very first short story I had published happened in 1981 or so and I got $100 for it. It was not a mystery but a Christmas story published in the Wichita Falls City Magazine. I don't even have a copy of it anymore because Elmer, our kids and I moved a few times I remember. I think still had copies  on the last move to Austin. When Elmer and I moved out of our house and into our RV full time we ran out of time and I have no idea where my copies of that magazine wound up.

I do remember the story pretty well. My main character was myself and it was about returning to a small town and in every store I entered, people were friendly and full of the Christmas spirit. If I made a purchase the store gift-wrapped my purchase for free. I compared that joyful attitude to major city stores in Houston where I lived at the time. I'm not sure how the story ended and I don't remember the editor's name, gosh it was  35 or 36 years ago. However, I'll never forget her phone call to me. "Jan, I'm calling to tell you we're publishing your short story." I remember gushing a bit and then she said, "Actually, the story has already been published in this month's issue and along with a check for $100 I'm sending four or five copies of the magazine."

I was beside myself as was my family. I had been trying to be published for a couple of years, had a private-eye novel almost finished and this was my big dream. Good thing I didn't quit my day job because I didn't publish anything else for FIVE years and then only a couple of small articles, which I was paid real money for but nothing over the hundred I had first received.

The first, second and third stories I sold happened all about the same time. In Invitation to Murder published first in hardcover by Dark Harvest in 1990, paperback by Diamond in 1993, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg, featured my story, "A Bunch of Mumbo Jumbo." In  Mary Higgins Presents Malice Domestic, from Pocket Books in 1993, featured "Arsenic and Old Ideas."
I received verbal acceptance, contracts and money all around the same time although Mumbo Jumbo was actually published first.

After than I was in many theme anthologies, in about 10-12 Cat Crime, Partners In Crime, Deadly Allies 11, Lethal Ladies 1 & ll, Santa Clues, Midnight Louie Pet Detectives, Murder For Mother and White House Pet Detective. I was lucky in that I found editors, including Bob Randisi, Ed Gorman and Marty Greenberg who liked what I did and kept buying my stories.

My 1998 Anthony Award winning story, "A Front Row Seat," was in Vengeance Is Hers anthology, edited by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins published by Penguin/Signet in 1997, featuring all hard-boiled women writers.

Shortly after that I finally sold my first Zoe Barrow, Austin policewoman novel and have only written a few short stories since. I enjoy the short form and have been able to feature my female private-eye characters, Jenny Gordon and C.J. Gunn in around ten stories. They were characters from my very first novel which never sold.

I am so proud that many of my fellow SleuthSayers are short story writers and are being nominated and winning awards. I think the short story will continue to thrive although at times we think the heydays are over. I do appreciate Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine & Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine who keep publishing wonderful short stories every month. Maybe one day soon I'll crack that market.

The Aging of Information

What degree of separation lies between the legendary Lord Byron and the developer of the first computer? The answer is one. In writing an article describing the connection, I fell into another story.

Wikipedia appears at the top of on-line searches. I often do quick look-ups because I know exactly where to glance to find a birth date, an affiliation, or a geographic location. As for opinion-free articles, it’s a bit less useful, but it provides links to launch research projects.

Supposedly anyone can edit Wikipedia but, for someone not familiar with the mountain of rules and the complexity of cliques and cadres with their own agendas, adding or modifying an article can drop one into a minefield. So I’m reading the article on Charles Babbage and I see a note questioning a salient point in the article. I knew I’d seen that before and found it in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11^th edition. No harm opening Wikipedia and documenting that, right?

Except it was immediately reverted. What? Why?

“The reference is too old,” I’m told. That made the second time that’s happened to me.

Modern teenagers abhor anything ‘old’… old music, old movies, old technology, even if a song, film, or cell phone is a two-week-old antiquity, and God forbid if a recording or movie happens to be years old. But I had committed the unpardonable… I’d used a reference a century old, because the latest edition resides behind a paywall.

It never pays to argue with rabid Wiki bureaucrats, but I did. I pointed out Wikipedia was founded on the public domain 11^th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. (Trivia: The Britannica was subsequently purchased by Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1920.)

Wikipedia’s administrator replied, “We don’t use it because it’s unreliable, sexist, racist, elitist, ethno-centrist, …” (and a passel of other -ists). In fact, no less than mystery author S. S. Van Dine (Willard Huntington Wright) claimed Britannica was “characterized by misstatement, inexcusable omissions, rabid and patriotic prejudices, personal animosities, blatant errors of fact, scholastic ignorance, gross neglect of non-British culture, an astounding egotism, and an undisguised contempt for American progress.”

Funny, that seems ironically close to the same accusations leveled at Wikipedia. But they try.

For three-quarters of a century, the massive encyclopedia has been lauded “the finest edition of the Britannica ever issued, and ranks with the Enciclopedia Italiana and the Espasa as one of the three greatest encyclopædias.” It was the edition when T. S. Eliot wrote Animula:

Curl up the small soul in the window seat
Behind the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Sir Kenneth Clark referred to Eliot’s poem when he wrote, “It must be the last encyclopædia in the tradition of Diderot (writer and editor of the famous French Encyclopédie) which assumes that information can be made memorable only when it is slightly coloured by prejudice.”

Therein lies the rub. The 1911 edition is prejudiced. Americans were struggling with racism, but Britain lagged far behind and it shows in the articles. Our physical sciences have pushed unimaginably ahead and mathematics was never Britannica’s strong suit.

My own Marshall McLuhan-like rule runs something like “Data is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom.” Data ages. Knowledge can be updated and kept current. But does wisdom age?

Should Socrates be ignored because he’s too ancient to know anything? Should the music of Bach, as I was told, stop being published because it’s ‘old’ and its attention shifted to young, new, upcoming songwriters? Should an entire century-old reference be discarded because some few articles are now out of date, racist or sexist?

What do you think?

Lord Byron and the Analytical Difference Engines

The irascible Lord Byron not only became the focus of modern romantic literature, he was also an example of the picaresque anti-hero found throughout English literature. He bore only one legitimate daughter, Augusta ‘Ada’ Byron, Countess of Lovelace, whom he called ‘Ada’.

Men of science and mathematics respected Ada for her brilliant mind and interest in ‘poetic science’. Starting as a teen, she became acquainted with Sir David Brewster, Andrew Crosse, Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday, Charles Wheatstone, and Charles Babbage, this last introduced by her tutor, science writer and polymath Mary Fairfax Somerville.

Babbage designed what many consider the first mechanical computer. We software people fondly refer to Ada Lovelace as our first programmer. We even named a programming language after her. That she’s not mentioned in the 11^th edition might be less a case of sexism (Lord Byron isn’t listed either) and more a lack of prognostication– computers wouldn’t be invented for another half century. But to be sure, Lady Lovelace was well regarded in her own time and remains highly respected today.

Both Ada and her father died at the young age of 36.

---

Bonus material for picaresque/romance fans: Lord Byron as a Boy

Remakes, Reinterpretations, and Replies

by B.K. Stevens

When I read that Kenneth Branagh is directing and starring in a new movie version of Murder on the Orient Express, I had mixed feelings. I love just about everything Branagh has done--his Dead Again is probably my favorite mystery movie of all time--and seeing him play Poirot is bound to be fun. But the 1974 movie version of Murder on the Orient Express is so delightful that making another one seems unnecessary. It also seems dangerous: Any new version is sure to be compared to the 1974 one, almost sure to suffer by comparison.

That got me thinking about movie remakes, wondering if it's possible to draw any tentative generalizations about why some work and some don't. I'm no expert on movies, but it seems to me that some of the best movie remakes are more than remakes: They're independent movies in their own right, genuine reinterpretations of an original text, a character, or a central premise. Other movies (or, in at least one case, television series) aren't remakes but seem shaped by an earlier movie in a fundamental way. They may extend some element of the original movie, or they may challenge it. For lack of a better term, I'll call them replies.

And that's my ulterior motive for writing this post. For fear of burying my lede, I'll tell you right now: If you haven't seen a quiet 2012 movie called Liberal Arts, I think you should. Better yet, re-watch Woody Allen's Manhattan, and then watch Josh Radnor's Liberal Arts. I think Liberal Arts is wonderful, and I think it may represent a truly creative way of responding to a classic movie. More about that later.

For now, back to remakes. We often regard them skeptically, partly because there are so many of them: Apparently, 2017 will bring us remakes of everything from The Mummy to Disney's Beauty and the Beast (live action this time) to Death Wish. "Why," we ask, "can't Hollywood come up with something new, instead of recycling the same old plots?" Writers have special reasons for feeling that way. If Kenneth Branagh wants to make a mystery movie, why crank out yet another version of Murder on the Orient Express, when he's more than welcome to the screen rights for our stories and novels?

And we've all seen remakes that disappointed us, irritated us, perhaps left us sputtering with disbelief and indignation. (Obviously, the opinions I'm about to express are my own opinions and nothing more. I apologize if they disappoint you, irritate you, or leave you sputtering.) For example, I was looking forward to the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven. I enjoyed the 1960 movie and didn't see any reason not to remake it--after all, it's a remake itself, of 1954's Seven Samurai. Plus, like just about everyone else, I love Denzel Washington. But the remake left me cold. The cast is more diverse than the 1960 one, the acting is fine, the action scenes are well choreographed (and very long), and some details are educational--who knew pioneer women showed so much decolletage? Aside from that, though, not much about the 2016 version is new. And, at least to me, characterization seems weak. In the 1960 movie, each of the seven becomes a distinct, memorable character, often after only a few minutes of screen time. In the remake, as one after another of the seven fell during the final shootout, I had to keep asking my husband, "Which one was that?" And I found myself wondering why the director decided to remake the movie in the first place, since he didn't seem to have anything new to say.

I wondered the same thing when I saw the 2010 remake of 1984's The Karate Kid. (My husband is a fifth-degree black belt, so I have seen every martial arts movie ever made.) The remake takes place in Beijing rather than Los Angeles, and the protagonist is five or six years younger. Other than that, it's almost the same movie. (The director even kept the romantic subplot, so we're treated to the slightly creepy experience of watching two twelve-year-olds kiss. Some additional tweaking of the old script might have been nice.) I'll admit I skipped the remakes of Arthur and The Pink Panther. In each case, I think, the original movie's appeal rests primarily on one actor's remarkable performance, and I doubted the replacement actor could equal it; reviews I've read and comments I've heard confirmed my doubts. I did see the remakes of The Wicker Man and The Haunting, and I wish I hadn't. Remakes that awful feel like insults to the original movies. In general, I think remakes are unlikely to succeed if they feel like no more than attempts to reach a younger audience, promote a promising actor, amp up the special effects, or cash in on a popular movie's name.

But we've probably all seen remakes we enjoyed, too. I liked the 1995 remake of Sabrina and the 1978 Heaven Can Wait (a remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan). With both, it may have helped that I hadn't seen the original movies first and wasn't tempted to make comparisons--I could simply enjoy the new versions as clever, well-acted movies. After watching the remakes, I made a point of watching the original movies and enjoyed those, too. So maybe that's one thing to be said for remakes: The good ones may attract some new viewers for classic movies.

And a pretty good remake my help us more fully appreciate the qualities that make the original movie excellent. For example, I think 1998's A Perfect Murder is a respectable remake of 1954's Dial M for Murder. It borrows key elements (yes, that's a pun) from the original movie but doesn't follow it slavishly. For one thing, the newer movie tries to make the wife a stronger, more independent character--she's highly educated, she has an important job, and she investigates the murder on her own and figures out part of the mystery for herself. She can also be unbelievably gullible, though, and she takes foolish risks that seem inconsistent with her character. And when we compare A Perfect Murder with Dial M for Murder, we see how much has been lost. The humor and the irony are gone. The relationships are less complex, and the characters aren't as subtle and fascinating. (A special note to writers: While preparing to write this post, I re-watched both movies, and it struck me that the characters and relationships in Dial M for Murder are more complex, subtle, and fascinating partly because Hitchcock allows himself two long stretches of dialogue we would today disdain as "info dumps." Yes, it's back story. Yes, the characters are telling and not showing. But it's done well, the back story is engrossing, and telling is probably the only concise way of giving the action a depth it would otherwise lack. Maybe we should reconsider some of the current truisms we all repeat with such confidence.) My guess is that fifty years from now--a safe prediction, since I won't be around to have to admit it if I'm wrong--people will still be watching and enjoying Dial M for Murder, and A Perfect Murder will be, at most, a footnote in books on screen history. It's not a bad movie, though, and if you've got a couple of hours to spare, you might give it a try.

Once in a while,  a remake may be even better than the original, or at least so good that it's debatable. I'd put the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate in that category. It follows the general outline of the 1962 movie but makes fundamental changes in plot, characters, and theme. It's an interesting movie in its own right, we can see a legitimate reason for returning to the story and reworking it to comment on contemporary situations, and some viewers (including me) think the overall production rises above the impressive original. This time, Denzel Washington found a remake worthy of his talents.

People can also debate the relative merits of the 1956 and 1978 versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and some will stick up for a 2007 remake called The Invasion. The two remakes aren't simply glitzier versions of the original: Each makes major changes in plot and characters, and each develops its own themes. People can debate about the themes, too. Does the 1956 original comment on Cold War tensions, with the pod people representing either soulless Communist infiltrators or followers of Joseph McCarthy bent on suppressing nonconformity? (Each theory has its advocates.) Does the 1978 remake reflect a post-Watergate view of government as riddled with conspiracies? What do we make of all the references to the Iraq war in the 2007 version? The two remakes also offer different ways of resolving a logistical problem the original movie ignores: Once a pod person takes over a human's mind, what happens to the human's body?

All three of these movies, as you may know, are adaptations of Jack Finney's 1954 science fiction novel, The Body Snatchers. So should the two later versions be seen as remakes of the original movie, or as reinterpretations of Finney's novel? I can't answer that question--I don't know if the people who made the later movies even read the novel--but I do think some movies often called remakes might more aptly be called reinterpretations. For example, there's the 2010 True Grit. Like its 1969 predecessor, the 2010 movie is based on a 1968 Charles Portis novel of the same name. I haven't read True Grit, but all the reviews and articles I've seen agree the second movie follows the novel more closely than the first one with regard to plot, characters, tone, and other elements. And Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote, directed, and produced the 2010 movie, have said they decided to make it because they were intrigued by the book and particularly by the voice of its narrator, Mattie. In this case, then, "reinterpretation" may be more accurate than "remake."

That may also be the term to use when talking about the many movie versions of the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories, of other novels and stories, of plays by Shakespeare and others, of legends such as the story of Robin Hood, and so on. It's probably helpful to see most of these as reinterpretations of the original source, more than as remakes of earlier movies. That's what I hope Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express will be--a fresh interpretation of Agatha Christie's novel, not just an attempt to duplicate the success of the 1974 movie. After all, there have been several film versions of Ten Little Indians / And Then There Were None. When a story's so gripping, it's no wonder many moviemakers want to take a turn at telling it.

Branagh still faces a daunting challenge, since the 1974 movie was so good. It's almost like attempting another movie version of The Godfather or To Kill a Mockingbird--probably not a smart move. (People are welcome to keep making movie versions of Pride and Prejudice, though, until somebody finally gets it right. In my opinion--and again, it's merely an opinion--the only movie that does Jane Austen justice is Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility. It still breaks my heart that Thompson and Branagh got divorced.) Anyway, I wish Kenneth Branagh well with his reinterpretation. I can't think of anyone more likely to succeed at the task he's taken on.

And then there are some movies and television series that can't really be called either remakes or reinterpretations but still seem linked to earlier movies, either explicitly or implicitly. I don't know if there's an official term for them, so I'll just call them replies. For example, the television series Fargo isn't a remake, but the movie version clearly supplies its inspiration. The movie and the series share a Minnesota setting and similar characters and plots: People who don't think of themselves as criminals blunder into crime and end up destroying many lives, including their own; ruthless criminals help spread the misery; and ordinary, hard-working police officers restore order, both by bringing the guilty to justice and by providing a redemptive model of decency and simple family joys. The pattern is the same, but each season of the series has introduced new characters and stories. To me, the television series Fargo provides an interesting alternative to remakes and sequels. (It doesn't hurt, of course, that the writing and acting are so consistently excellent.)

Then there's Liberal Arts. I don't have proof--I've spent several hours looking around online but could never find confirmation--but I think Josh Radnor's 2012 Liberal Arts is a reply to Woody Allen's 1979 Manhattan. This has been a pet theory of mine for some time, and I'd love to know what you think. (I'd also love it if you'd give Liberal Arts a try--and I'm not saying that only because writer, director, and star Josh Radnor and I are both Kenyon College alumni, and most of the movie is filmed on Kenyon's exquisite campus. I've never met Mr. Radnor, and I don't own stock in the movie. Wish I did.)

Liberal Arts centers on the attraction between thirty-five-year-old Jesse and nineteen-year-old Zibby. (Sound familiar?) Jesse's a bookish, discontented admissions counselor at a New York City college. He goes back to Kenyon for a favorite professor's retirement dinner and meets Zibby, a sophomore. They strike up a friendship. The next day, they take a long walk around campus, talking about books, music, life. After he returns to New York, they write to each other, and the friendship deepens. She invites him to come back to campus to visit her. When he does, she says she wants to have a sexual relationship with him.

I'll stop the plot summary there, both for fear of spoiling the movie for you and in hopes of enticing you to see it. Instead, I'll mention a few similarities and differences between Liberal Arts and Manhattan--I assume you've all seen Manhattan, so I won't worry about spoiling that. Manhattan is set entirely in--well, Manhattan; Liberal Arts balances New York scenes against scenes set in the nearly pastoral village of Gambier, Ohio. In both movies, the age difference between the man and the woman is considerable, but Manhattan's Isaac is forty-two, and Tracy is seventeen--a significantly larger difference, especially since Tracy's still in high school and below the legal age of consent. Isaac's fiercely solipsistic, almost exclusively focused on his own problems and needs. He cites concern for Tracy's welfare as his reason for breaking up with her, but is his attraction to another woman his real motive? When his relationship with the other woman ends, and a depressed Isaac realizes "Tracy's face" is one of the things that makes his life worth living, he tries to persuade her to come back to him, even though she's about to embark on a journey that could enrich her life.

Jesse, like Isaac, spends time fretting about his needs and disappointments. But he clearly cares about other people, too, including Dean, a brilliant but troubled student Jesse meets during his first trip back to Kenyon. When Dean's life comes to a crisis, Jesse rushes to the college again to help him through. And when eminently desirable Zibby invites Jesse into her bed, he responds with sentiments seldom expressed in movies these days. "I believe in consequences," he says. "No, you believe in guilt," she counters. "Maybe," he admits. "But guilt before we act is called morality."

Well, that's probably a spoiler. But it's one of my primary reasons for thinking Liberal Arts is a reply to Manhattan. Both movies are well-written, well-acted, visually stunning, deliciously witty. Both center on similar situations. But the protagonist in Manhattan is ruled by his desires, and the protagonist in Liberal Arts can put his desires aside and make careful moral choices--again, something we seldom encounter in movies these days. Does Josh Radnor see Liberal Arts as a reply to Manhattan? Did he ever even see Woody Allen's movie? I don't know. If he didn't, it's a remarkable coincidence--the kind of coincidence any good mystery writer rejects as unbelievable.

When I was a freshman at Kenyon College, taking a year-long survey course in the history of British literature, I was often struck by the way the writers we studied seemed to be carrying on a dialogue with each other, a dialogue stretching across centuries. Writers alluded to their predecessors, imitated them, rebelled against them, borrowed from them, reshaped what they borrowed. It's natural for writers to influence each other and try to outdo each other. Moviemakers seem to be engaged in a dialogue with their predecessors, too. At this point, the dialogue often takes the form of remakes. As time goes on, the dialogue may become more varied, as writers and directors discover new ways to respond to movies that inspire or provoke them. In the meantime, we viewers wade through many remakes, avoiding or enduring the mediocre ones, surprised by joy when an old favorite gets transformed into a new delight.

Are there movie remakes or reinterpretations you especially like or dislike? Are there movies you see as replies to earlier ones? If I've maligned a movie you love or praised one you despise, please don't hesitate to say so. People get passionate about movies--that's one thing that makes talking about them so much fun. And I'm sure we'll all be nice to each other.

As others have already noted, three SleuthSayers have been nominated for the Best Short Story Agatha this year--Barb Goffman, Art Taylor, and me. Gretchen Archer and Edith Maxwell have been nominated, too. I'm thrilled and honored to be named along with these fine writers. You can read all the nominated stories here.

Censorship and the Indie Writer

by
O'Neil De Noux

One of the freedoms of being an Indie writer is choosing the cover of your book. A writer is no longer at the mercy of a publisher who has no clue about your cover. One of my publishers let it slip how they planned to put a 'police shield' on the cover of one of my books. I asked what shield and found out it was a Philadelphia PD shield. I went crazy, asked if they read the book where I describe the unique NOPD star-and-crescent badge. I sent them a picture of the badge and prayed they'd listen. They said it was too late but did change the cover. I anguished for a couple months.

Since becoming an Indie writer in 2009, I've enjoyed commissioning art and taking photos for the covers of my books. Only recently, however, I ran into censorship. Amazon's Kindle Scout program blocked the original version of the cover of my WWII novel DEATH ANGELS because it had the flag of Nazi Germany along with the US flag and the flag of Free France with the cross of Lorraine on the cover. Apparently the swastika is taboo with the Kindle Scout Program. The Nazis were the villains ... never mind. Later, when I tried to PAY for an Amazon ad for my book HOLD ME, BABE, the book was rejected because there's a gun on the cover. It's a Private Eye novel. Private Eyes carry guns. So do cops so there's no advertising JOHN RAVEN BEAU.

At least Amazon and CreateSpace have allowed me to publish the books with my original covers, just not advertise or enter into certain probrams like Kindle Scout. Frustrating.

More disturbingly was the decision by Smashwords to refuse to carry my books THE BLUE NUDE and NUDE IN RED because of nudity on the covers. Uh ... we're talking about oil paintings of a woman's torso. I didn't invent the naked female body. Blame God for that. And the women in the paintings are simply posing. No sex act. Nothing but a woman standing.

The cover paintings are more than attention grabbers, the paintings appear in  each book and are important in the development of the characters and their relationships.

So what's next? Censorship of content? Will some tight-ass start counting how many times my characters use the word fuck in a book? Cops curse. We do so to let off steam, otherwise we'll explode.

So I guess I don't get to pay for an ad for my caper novel SLICK TIME because you can see a slice of the fully-clothed model's white panties. We'll see what happens with my next LaStanza novel. There's a young woman in a black bikini. Lotta skin there.

I just hate censorship.

www.oneildenoux.net

If Not Now, When? If Not Me, Who?

by Brian Thornton

Okay on the last day of January, I needed to pick up some things at Costco.

You know. Like you do.

I had the day to myself (grading day–wife at work and son at school), so I headed for Costco early in the day, wanting to get my trip in before the crowds descended on the place like the proverbial locusts.

As I was getting out of my car I saw him out of the corner of my eye. A stocky guy, blond hair, medium height, coatless, no hat (It was cold) walking through the parking lot carrying something black and vaguely resembling a cross between a hoola hoop and a piece of rope, talking to people. I saw him peer in the direction of my car, and then, as I locked up and turned in the direction of Costco's front entrance, I heard, "Good morning."

I turned. There he was: standing not ten feet from me.

As soon as I turned he started talking: he was here on a trip from Yakima with his three kids. His car had broken down: the fan-belt. He held it aloft for me to see.

Like this.

And he was exactly nineteen bucks short of what he needed to get a replacement.

I told him the truth: I was sorry, but I didn't have any cash on me.

I rarely carry cash.

I wished him luck and turned once more in the direction of Costco's entrance. 

As I was turning away from him, the image of his hands struck me and stayed with me as I started across the parking lot.

They were the hands of a laborer. Large. Powerful. Covered in the kind of black you get on them when you've been working on an engine, no matter how clean.

A couple of contradictory thoughts ran through my mind: "What if he's really got three kids waiting in a car in need of a fanbelt?"

"He first approached from behind my car. I bought the car in Yakima, and the license plate holder would give him that piece of information. Is that why he mentioned coming from Yakima?"

And then I thought of those times in my twenties, after I got out of the Navy and went to college and was b-r-o-k-e most of the time, and *always* fixing something on my old, cheap cars.

Always.

And I couldn't get the image of his hands out of my head, and then the image of my own hands and how they had looked after a morning spent freezing in January in Spokane, just trying to get my piece of crap 1974 Dodge Dart to turn over just ONCE so I could get it to limp home. (It was mostly the electrical system that was shot on that car, in retrospect. Pain in the neck!).

And then I thought, "Jesus, Brian, who cares if the guy's lying about where he's from? Who cares if he's playing you at some level and to what extent he is? It's twenty bucks, not a kidney. How many times did you get lucky and have strangers take pity on you and help you out?"

And I thought about one of the times there were no generous strangers to give a hand. About the Chevy S-10 with what I later learned was a bad valve cover gasket leak, and how, on my way from Spokane to take my first full-time teaching job in Las Vegas, that truck seized up on me right by the side of the I-15 freeway on an August afternoon, five miles north of Cedar City, Utah.

I remembered slinging my laptop over my shoulder, and slogging every step of the five miles in to town to get it towed and looked at and eventually jerry-rigged so it would run and so that I could get it into Vegas, still hours away to the south.

I recalled how I'd stuck my thumb out every time I heard a car behind me, and how every single time that car passed without even slowing down. Every one of those cars had plates bearing the distinctive Utah beehive on them. And I recalled the four separate times some wise-ass in the passenger seat stuck their own thumb out in my direction as some sort of weird, mocking salute.

The truck stop in Cedar City where I got a tow truck after a nice, five-mile long hike through a rain storm.

Couldn't they see my broken down truck a mile, then two miles, then three, then four miles back? Couldn't they put two and two together that I was walking down the highway for a reason?

And then, with about two miles to go, it started to rain.

"Family-friendly Utah."

Sure. 

And like that, I snapped back to the present, turned on my heel and got the guy's attention. He was standing there where I'd left him, looking around and looking like he hadn't a friend in the world. I told him to come with me.

Costco has a cash machine. As we walked across the lot toward it, he thanked me several times, and then asked how I was doing that day.

You know, like you do.

I looked up at the sky. It looked like rain.

"Doing great today," I said.

Mike Hammer: Through a Glass, Darkly

David Edgerley Gates


The start point here is that Ralph Meeker wandered into my mind's eye, I'm not sure why, but I remembered a play called Something About a Soldier. It went maybe a dozen performances when it opened in New York, but I'd seen it in a try-out run. Shows used to open in Toronto, and then travel to Boston or Philadelphia, working out the kinks on the road before they got to Broadway. This one starred Sal Mineo, along with Kevin McCarthy and, yup, Ralph Meeker.

My first Mike Hammer was Darren McGavin, on TV. The series lasted two seasons in syndication, half-hour episodes, black and white. (I'd prefer to draw a veil across the later version - meaning no disrespect to Stacy Keach - but seriously, a show that manages to make both the character and the star appear brain-dead, and then wastes Don Stroud, into the bargain? Please.)

Now. Mickey Spillane. I, the Jury sold more than six million copies, domestic. An interviewer asked Mickey how it felt to be a best-selling author. He told the guy, "I'm not an author, I'm a writer." The story goes that he cranked out the first book in nineteen days. What you have to realize about Spillane, and Mike Hammer, is that the books are very like fever-dreams. They come out of a collective unconscious. Spillane just gives voice to it. He doesn't second-guess himself, and Hammer isn't the kind of character who's plagued by doubts. I, the Jury still has a shocker of an ending, even these days. A lot of people thought it was snuff pulp, utter trash. Spillane, again. "People eat more salted peanuts than caviar." He was tapping into something, no question. A generalized postwar unease, an appetite for the sensational, vicarious thrills. Hammer smacked punks around and dished out vigilante justice with relish. He was brute force. He was the raw, elemental, unreconstructed Id.

Ralph Meeker never made it big. He had some good parts over the years, The Naked Spur, Jeopardy, Run of the Arrow, Paths of Glory. Did a fair amount of television. Got a lot of attention for Picnic, on stage, in 1954, but he turned down a chance to do the picture, and it went to Bill Holden. He's probably best known for his Mike Hammer in Kiss Me, Deadly. Thing is, though, the Mike Hammer of Kiss Me, Deadly is not only odd, he's for sure not Spillane's.

The received wisdom seems to be that Robert Aldrich was hostile to the material. He certainly reshaped the story and the character. Aldrich wasn't at this point the marquee-name director he later became, but he'd had a solid hit the year before with Vera Cruz, and he was able to write his own ticket with his next movie. He and Meeker make Hammer pretty repellent. His saving grace is that there ain't no quit to him, he just keeps coming. In the context of the story, though, this comes across less as grit and determination than as psychopathology. Hammer's a bully, a thuggish bottom-feeder.

Then there's the MacGuffin. Sam Fuller's Pickup on South Street had come out in 1953, two years before. Fuller has a little more of the Commie menace in his picture than Aldrich does, but I don't think either one of them really cares much about the politics, it's a handy dramatic device that heightens the paranoia. And stuffing the H-bomb in a suitcase? Not all that farfetched in this day and age, but back then it was pure science fiction. Story elements you wouldn't associate with Mickey Spillane, in other words. His brand of hysteria is more likely to be sexual, or maybe gun porn, but he was always red meat, never a Red-baiter.

Last but not least, the visual style. Kiss Me, Deadly is relentlessly claustrophobic, with a lot of tight close-ups, which are all the scarier when the face is Jack Elam's. (The cinematographer was Ernest Laszlo, who did seven pictures with Aldrich.) You don't think of Aldrich as a guy who uses shock effects - or at least, not like Fuller - but he's got his arresting moments. And the design of the movie, the set dressing and decor, is 1950's garish contemporary. Hammer's apartment, for one. You couldn't live with that furniture, let alone the artwork he's got on the walls. It's oppressive.

So, what have we got? More than an artifact. Kiss Me, Deadly is disturbing. It throws you off-balance from the beginning, the darkened highway, and the woman running into the headlights. The less than certain POV, an unreliable narrator. The sudden stops and starts, the false flags. Hammer manipulated by sinister forces, utterly indifferent to him, and taking his frustrations out on people who can't help themselves. This is beyond noir, it's nihilism, the lowest common denominator. Everything's a transaction, and everybody's for sale. It's all about negotiating a price. You have to wonder whether Aldrich really means to leave us with nothing but the taste of ashes in our mouths,

A Good Mystery Writer is like a Magician

Kids have long known that if you want a specific toy for your birthday or Christmas, you need to start dropping hints early. Picture Ralphie, the star of the movie A Christmas Story, telling everyone who'll listen that he wants a Red Ryder carbine-action two-hundred-shot range-model air rifle. (He needed to start dropping hints early just to get the whole name out.)

You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

Kids who grow up and become writers still love dropping hints. They're just more subtle about it. Think about the movie The Sixth Sense. (Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen this movie, dear Lord, stop reading and go watch it right now before returning here. You're welcome.) Haley Joel Osment gave the film's big secret away when he looked right at Bruce Willis and told the audience, "I see dead people." But the film was written so well that the viewer likely (hopefully) didn't get the hint until the big reveal at the end.

As a writer, it can be a lot of fun to drop in hints designed to fly right past the reader, knowing that when the story's secret is revealed at the end, the reader will say, "Ohhh, I should have known," because the clues were all there if only the poor reader had noticed them.

And that's really such an important part of writing mysteries--acting like a good magician, distracting readers from the clues that are right there on the page so the readers can be surprised at the end.

I was reminded of this point last week while watching a rerun of Modern Family. The TV show isn't about crime or mystery, but the writers must read them. In the episode titled "The Alliance" (season eight, episode eight), the story starts with members of the large extended family casually talking about where they all could go on a big family vacation. The vacation discussion is portrayed as background music. Something mentioned and then forgotten as the real meat of the episode begins. But when you get to the end, you realize there's been a long con going on, and the clues were buried right before the viewers eyes in multiple scenes. It was so much fun to realize I'd been tricked. And then the writers took it a step further and showed how they fooled you with each clue. Excellent writing!

Of course there are a lot of good examples of writers who hide clues right before your eyes. If you're a movie fan, you might want to check out Screenrant.com. They have a page where they discuss The Ten Best Movie Clues You Totally Missed.

And, last but not least, are books and stories with well-hidden clues. One story in which I successfully hid the clues (at least I think I did) is called "Ulterior Motives," which came out a few years ago in an anthology named Ride 2. All the stories involved cycling. Mine was the only mystery--and actually the story had two mysteries. The central plot revolved around a teenage girl who volunteers for a political campaign and is threatened. Who's behind the

threats is the main mystery (as well as whether the campaign is successful), and I hid some clues along the way addressing those questions. But there's a second mystery in the tale, one buried so well--again, I hope--that the reader doesn't even realize the mystery is at work until the end. Early in the story it's mentioned that a quirky burglar is at work in town, going into people's homes and taking small items, then leaving them in the homeowners' mailboxes. Who is the burglar, and why does he/she act so oddly? I had fun burying those clues. Although it was a bit disconcerting when I read one review that showed the reviewer hadn't recognized some of the clues, even at the end. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Can you hide a clue too well? Maybe.

In a more recent story, "The Best-Laid Plans," I drop some details along the way foreshadowing what's to come. The main character, Eloise, writes cozies. Her antagonist, Kim, writes edgier mysteries. The characters' personalities match the mysteries they write. So when Kim insults Eloise publicly just weeks before they are both to appear as honored guests at a mystery convention, it makes sense that Eloise responds with a plan of revenge--a cozy plan. How does it turn out? I don't want to ruin it for you. But bear in mind that the characters' personalities affect their habits and how they deal with stress, so if you read carefully enough, you might be able to see where the story is going. But the ending should still take you by surprise. The story was published in Malice Domestic 11: Murder Most Conventional. You can read it at my website. I'm honored that this story is currently a finalist for the Agatha Award, up against tough competition, including from two of my fellow SleuthSayers, B.K. Stevens and Art Taylor, as well as from writers Gretchen Archer and Edith Maxwell. You can read all the stories online. Head on over to the Malice Domestic website, where the story titles are links either to the stories themselves or a way to buy them.

So, what's your favorite movie, TV show, or book with hidden clues and why? Let's all add to each others' to-be-read/watched list.