The Unwashed

 

I got a call from the laundromat where I drop off my stuff for wash, dry, and fold, and they’d been broken into.  Whoever it was had rifled the laundry bags, and mine was light a couple of pounds.  I was a little nonplussed.  Maybe a junkie, or maybe just kids, random mischief.  Maybe they thought they’d get lucky, and find rolls of quarters, who knows?  But suppose somebody so desperate, they were looking through people’s dirty clothes hoping to find a pair of jeans that fit, or a sweatshirt.  It’s like stealing from the Goodwill drop box, or diving the dumpster behind a supermarket for bruised fruit.  There are people in this country who can’t imagine such a thing, just as there are people living hand-to-mouth, who can’t imagine it any other way. 

The next thing that crossed my radar was in The New Yorker archive, a profile of David Simon while he was shooting the last season of The Wire.  He remarks at one point that they’d taken the ideas of Greek tragedy, of fated, doomed people, and used them in the context of a contemporary urban environment.  “Instead of these Olympian gods,” he says, “indifferent, venal, selfish, hurling lightning bolts, … postmodern institutions are the indifferent gods.”  The social contract, in other words, has failed.

What this reminds me of is the postwar world of the 1940’s, noir and its discontents.  The subtext of noir has always been the collapse of moral order, and the foreground has always been a rat in a maze.  The indifferent gods are the forces of brute capital, in one reading, or simply the exercise of power.  The noir hero is reduced to bare essentials, and pitted against Fate.  He maneuvers across a hostile landscape, and internalizes the darkness. 

Another point, here, is that noir is often about people on the margins.  But this goes back to the 20’s and 30’s.  Warners, for example, was more class-conscious – or more socially self-conscious – than, say, Fox.  It’s the difference between Ida Lupino and Greer Garson (and meaning no disrespect to Greer Garson, either), and there’s an enormous contrast in social content between a movie like My Man Godfrey and Wild Boys of the Road.  Jack Warner got wise to Hitler early on, too, and wasn’t shy about speaking his mind, although it cost the studio money: Germany was a big market, and the price of doing business there was to keep your voice down.  Warners had always been big in gangster pictures, too, and there’s a certain subversive glamor there.  I think, though, that it took the war, and the exhaustion that followed, with the Red Scare, to create the necessary conditions.

It isn’t simply cynicism; that’s a misreading.  It’s weariness, and mistrust, and the deeper paranoia that the Cold War brought.  Look, for instance, at Shack Out on 101, or Pickup on South Street, or the almost definitive Kiss Me, Deadly.  At the end, when Gaby Rodgers opens the case, and the white-hot Furies spill out, what is it that’s lured her to this Doom?  The moth to the flame, it would seem.

Are we seeing something similar, in this uncertain and mistrustful present?  Is the Zombie Apocalypse a metaphor for the dispossessed, or should it be taken literally?  We internalize the darkness, and we seem to have fallen into a place that’s dangerously familiar.  The noir world is narrow.  It’s persecuted and conspiratorial.  Nothing is what it seems.  Authority is suspect.  The only constant is treachery, each of us isolated in our fear.

We’re trapped in generic conventions, and we know the story ends badly.  We’ve seen it before.

For Everything There is a Season

I spent the last weekend of October at a VRBO in Comanche, Texas, with James A. Hearn and our spouses. The getaway was organized by Temple and Dawn, and the intent was to get us all away from daily stresses.

I’m one of those people who must keep occupied at all times, so I had a difficult time relaxing. Instead of enjoying the quiet and the company, I kept thinking about all the writing and editing projects I’d left behind.

Despite not being fully engaged in the art of relaxation, I came home with a new attitude toward the trajectory of my life. During the past few years, I’ve been writing less and editing more, and I had been wrestling with what that meant.

A week after we returned, Temple and I had a long discussion in which I decided to embrace editing as a priority over writing rather than as something in competition with writing. By the end of our conversation, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

In one of those events that would be too coincidental for belief if I’d included it in a short story, the next day I was offered—and I accepted—an editing situation in which I’ll be acquiring fifty-two stories a year. A week after that, a different publisher greenlit three anthology proposals, and all of this is in addition to existing editing commitments.

As King Solomon might have written in Ecclesiastes, if he’d worked in publishing: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to write, and a time to edit.” My time to edit has come.

So, keeping busy won’t be a problem for the foreseeable future, and the next time Temple and I get away—with or without the Hearns—I might better appreciate the downtime.

 

My story “Crush” appears in the Winter 2021 issue of Vautrin.

Lights! Action! Murder...

 by Steve Liskow

A week ago, I did something I haven't done since 2004.

Proof, that last audition, 2005

I auditioned for a play at a local community theater. From the early 1980s until 2009, I acted, directed, produced or designed for over 100 productions in central Connecticut, but I pretty much left theater in 2010. It was a combination of burnout and signing my first contract for a novel, and it seemed like time to turn from stage to page. Since then, I've acted in one show where the director invited me to take the role, and directed a couple of one-act plays where friends I'd worked with before asked me to step in.  

Me as the cop in Miller's "The Price," my last role in 2013

I seldom read plays anymore. At my age, I don't see a lot of interesting roles I could do, anyway. But this particular play needed a sixty-five-year-old male who is a former literature professor, and it's a substantial role, the only male with four women. 

When I arrived at the theater, I met four other men; I'd worked with three of them before--often--and knew the fourth. All of us were over 60. Coincidence?

I didn't get cast, but Barbara, my wife, will play the matriarch lead. She still performs in three or four productions a year. In fact, she closed in a production Saturday night, and her first read-thru for this new show will be tonight.

I don't mind not getting cast (I can stay home watching the UConn Women basketball games), but it started me thinking about my overlapping interests/careers.

One novel and fifteen of my short stories use music as an important component of the story. Two of my novels involve teachers, my day job for three decades. I've only used theater in one story, and it didn't involve the actual play at all. Upon further reflection, I couldn't remember a single story involving theater by ANYBODY that strikes me as better than mediocre. I haven't read everything out there, of course, and Linda Barnes, a former teacher and actor herself (and also from Michigan), used an actor/amateur sleuth for several novels before creating Carlotta Carlyle. She left the actor behind because she decided his propensity for showing up where people died might affect his chances of getting cast again. 

I've never read any of Barnes's theater stories, but most of the others--and I can't think of many--betray the writer's lack of knowledge or experience in theater. The performance spaces, characters, and technical aspects of the show all sound like they're out of the 1950s, and the actors and other theater people are little more than comedic stereotypes. The last light board with those immense levers like Frankenstein's laboratory disappeared by 1990. For the last show I directed at Hole in the Wall in 2008, my lighting designer sat in the auditorium and programmed 104 light cues involving about 70 instruments on her laptop. For all I know, today she might use an app on her phone. 

The lessons I learned in theater carry over to writing, though. Both my acting and directing mentors quoted Sanford Meisner's dictum about monologues: nobody has to watch the person speaking a monologue unless the actor MAKES him pay attention. That doesn't mean over-the-top histrionics (which are hard to do on paper). It means being real and showing what is at stake. High stakes is what story-telling is all about. 

And that got me thinking again, always a dangerous thing. I haven't written a new story in a few weeks because I've been trolling for ideas.

Maybe it's time to go back to that other part of my life and try a mystery based on theater.

(...Fade to Black...)

Character References

The Netflix miniseries Queen’s Gambit led me to check out the novel from my local library. I was charmed. Walter Tevis chronicles the professional life of chess prodigy Beth Harmon, an orphan who rises above her expectations.

Her journey reminds me of the vicissitudes of Bobby Fischer, America’s erratic genius. When Fischer faced off against his friend and relentless Russian competitor Boris Spassky in Reykjavík, for the first time the US saw Fischer and Spassky’s battle televised move for move. Those of us with an interest in chess enjoyed the showdown.

When Queen’s Gambit appeared on Netflix, those days came back to me. I was immediately captivated. I’m going to preach heresy– I liked the series slightly better than the novel.

Film has advantages over words on a page and one here was the portrayal of chess on the ceiling. (You have to see it to get what I mean.) Beyond that, the miniseries offered a few subtle enhancements. For example, Beth learns Russian and happens to overhear an opinion about her… a critical opinion that gives her a chance to assess the destructive path she’s taking.

Top chess players often suffer a touch of madness, Fischer among them. The great Paul Morphy committed suicide. Few women play. It might be sexism or women may be too smart to pursue chess. The actress, Anya Taylor-Joy, perfectly portrays that touch of something not-quite-right and does it in an endearing way.

In both book and on screen, the players (her competitors), her mentors, and especially her step-mother are well drawn. Unfortunately, the novel’s sketch of her primary Soviet opponent reminds one of a boar-like Leonid Brezhnev. The movie version opted for a sophisticated, elegantly dressed family man, which carries much better.

The series outlines that male habit of being cautious of interlopers until they prove themselves. Beth’s biggest fans become those she defeats. She earns their respect, unstinting admiration and, in one case even love.

The ending of the miniseries is well done, a fitting ending to a poignant story.

But…

In both book and film, I level a criticism about a small but important lost opportunity. The story opens with Beth’s mother crashing her car into a steel bridge. Later, her childhood friend Jolene asks, “What’s the last thing your mother said to you?”

Beth answers, “Close your eyes.”

Absolutely chilling, or it would have been except both the book and the film felt they had to add background, diluting that simple answer down to nothing. Therein, I thought, lay a lesson.

Oh, the cover, Queen’s Gambit… sheer genius.

Who Chose the Prose for Those Anthos?

  

I think I've mentioned, here at SleuthSayers, the fact that I've been submitting almost as many short stories to anthologies as I have to magazines these past couple of years. (Reminder: a collection is a group of stories written by the same author; an anthology is a group of stories written be different authors.) And the more stories I've sent to anthologies, the more I have come to appreciate the knowledge and professionalism of the folks who edit those books. I've done it myself only once, fifteen years ago. I had a great time with it, met some fine writers, made long-lasting friends in the process, and--I hope--produced a good anthology. But I haven't done it since. It's hard work, a lot harder than writing. 

As sort of a nod and vote of thanks to those editors, here's a list I put together of some of the recent anthologies I've been published in and the people who steered those ships.

NOTE 1: All these are within the past couple of years, except for those edited by folks with whom I've worked several times--in those cases I've listed multiple projects from the past.

NOTE 2: I've shortened some of the anthology titles, when possible (apologies to those editors). But the list is long enough as it is.

Editor                                                          Anthology

Josh Pachter          Only the Good Die Young (Untreed Reads, 2021)

                               The Great Filling Station Holdup (Down & Out Books, 2021)

                               The Beat of Black Wings (Untreed Reads, 2020)

Cameron Trost        The Black Beacon Book of Mystery (Black Beacon Books, 2020)

Abigail Linhardt       Winter's Vindication (SummerStorm Press, 2021)

Eric Guignard          Professor Charlatan Bardot's Travel Anthology (Dark Moon Books, 2021)

                                Pop the Clutch (Dark Moon Books, 2019)

                                Horror Library, Vol. 6 (Farolight Publishing, 2017)

                                After Death (Dark Moon Books, 2013)

Donna Carrick         A Grave Diagnosis (Carrick Publishing, 2020)

Lyn Worthen            Cozy Villages of Death (Independently published, 2020)

Michael Bracken      Jukes and Tonks (with Gary Phillips, Down & Out Books, 2020)

                                 The Eyes of Texas (Down & Out Books, 2019)

Otto Penzler             Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 (with Lee Child, Mysterious Press, 2021)

                                 Best American Mystery Stories 2020 (with C. J. Box, HMH, 2020)

                                 Best American Mystery Stories 2018 (with Louise Penny, HMH, 2018)

                                 Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (with James Patterson, HMH, 2015) 

Verena Rose/Harriette Sackler/Shawn Reilly Simmons              Masthead (Level Best Books, 2020)

                                                                                                     Landfall (Level Best Books, 2018)

Greg Herren            Florida Happens (Bouchercon anthology, Three Rooms Press, 2018)

                                Blood on the Bayou (Boucheron anthology, Down & Out Books, 2016)

Rick Ollerman         Denim, Diamonds, and Death (Bouchercon anthology, Down & Out Books, 2019)

J. K. Larkin             Pets on the Prowl (Red Penguin Books, 2021)

                               Stand Out II: Best of the Red Penguin Collection (Red Penguin Books, 2021)

                               Behind Closed Doors (Red Penguin Books, 2021)

                               Heart Full of Love (Red Penguin Books, 2021)

                               What Lies Beyond (Red Penguin Books, 2020)

                               'Tis the Season (Red Penguin Books, 2020)

                               A Trip for the Books (Red Penguin Books, 2020)

Judy Tucker/Lottie Boggan        Mad Dogs and Moonshine (Queen's Hill Press, 2008)

                                                   Fireflies in Fruit Jars (Queen's Hill Press, 2007)

Sandra Murphy          Peace, Love, & Crime (Untreed Reads, 2020)

                                   A Murder of Crows (Darkhouse Books, 2019)

Philip Levin               Rocking Chairs and Afternoon Tales (Doctor's Dream Publishing, 2012)

                                  Magnolia Blossoms and Afternoon Tales (AWOC Publishing, 2010)

                                  Sweet Tea and Afternoon Tales (AWOC Publishing, 2009)

Barb Goffman           Crime Travel (Wildside Press, 2019)

Andrew MacRae       Mid-Century Murder (Darkhouse Books, 2020)

                                  Sancuary (Darkhouse Books, 2018)

                                  We've Been Trumped (Darkhouse Books, 2016)

Johnny Lowe            What Would Elvis Think? (Clinton Ink-Slingers, 2019)

Theresa Halverson/Sarah Faxon             Released (No Bad Books Press, 2021)

Judy Penz Sheluk       Moonlight & Misadventure (Superior Shores Press, 2021)

                                    Heartbreaks & Half-Truths (Superior Shores Press, 2020)

Jake Devlin                 BOULD Awards Anthology (Independently published, 2021)

                                    BOULD Awards Anthology (Independently published, 2020)

Patricia Gaddis/Alexandra Pollock        Mini-Mysteries Digest (Heinrich-Bauer, 2021)

John Connor                Crimeucopia: The Cosy Nostra (Murderous Ink Press, 2021)

                                     Crimeucopia: Dead Man's Hand (Murderous Ink Press, 2021)

                                     Crimeucopia: As in Funny Ha-Ha (Murderous Ink Press, 2021)

                                     Crimeucopia: The I's Have It (Murderous Ink Press, 2021)

Tony Burton                Ten for Ten (Wolfmont Publishing, 2008)

                                    Crime and Suspense I (Wolfmont Publishing, 2007)

                                    The Seven Deadly Sins (Wolfmont Publishing, 2007)

Owen Litwin                The Odds Are Against Us (Liberty Island Media, 2019)

Sarah E. Glen             Mardi Gras Mysteries (Mystery and Horror LLC, 2021)

Some of the above editors (Barb, Michael, Rick, Lyn, Judy Tucker, etc.) have also edited magazines and other projects that contained my creations, and I've found these folks to be just as able and helpful at that as they were with the anthologies. A good editor is a godsend in this crazy business, and I thank them all sincerely.

Questions: Have any of you worked with the editors I've mentioned? Do you have stories in any of their upcoming anthologies? How about other editors, and if so, what were your experiences? Have you edited anthologies yourself? Also, what are some of the more "different" anthologies, themewise, to have featured your work? Please let me know in the comments section below. (If you're interested, here's an earlier SleuthSayers post that discusses themed anthos.)

Meanwhile, keep writing those stories--for anthologies, magazines, collections, and whatever other markets you might find. Good luck with them all!

 

From the Christmas Shelf

Every year I flip through the books on our Christmas shelf to see if I want to read or re-read any titles I’ve acquired and tucked there over the year.

But wait—

Yes, I know it’s not even Thanksgiving, and you’re probably appalled at the thought of me raising the specter of Christmas. But due to supply-chain issues, the words I wanted to use to talk about Christmas books are in short supply worldwide, so I’ve been advised to order those words early, get them shipped to the house, and them sprinkle abundantly in my prose throughout November instead.

Word of caution: The words very and just are quite plentiful in the market right now, so when in doubt, just use very. Just use it very very much. In short supply this season: decency, compassion, and common sense. On the other hand, unfortunately the U.S. is overstocked with stupidity, demagoguery, and mendacity, so feel free to use those words until we have eradicated the surplus.

But seriously, I thought it might be fun to share with you some books I have enjoyed in recent holiday seasons.

 

The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday, by Stephen Nissenbaum (Knopf, 1996, 381 pages).

This is a brilliant nonfiction history of the American Christmas tradition, even if it is woefully mistitled. I like the book because it demonstrates convincingly that Christmas in America in the early 19th century was a distinctly low-key affair. Using the diaries of New England women, Nissenbaum reveals that the most these diarists did to celebrate the holiday was attend church, and lay in unusual pantry ingredients so they could bake a special cake for their families and visitors. Only later, mid-19th century, do we see Christmas celebrations necessitating the purchase of gifts, first for children, and then of course for every freaking person in one’s social circle. The creation and development of the American Santa Claus plays a major role in crassly forcing the holiday to swing toward commercialism. The book also blows your mind with a discussion of the selfish roots of philanthropy. You watch as wealthy New Yorkers donate money to feed the poor, then assemble in coliseum-like settings to watch as starving children stuff their faces. The last chapter, on the African-American Christmas traditions that grew out of slavery, is also fascinating.

Christmas: A Biography, by Judith Flanders (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s, 2017, 256 pages).

Flanders is best known in the mystery community for her novels and a book she did on how the Victorian obsession with crime arguably engendered mystery and true crime literary traditions. She also did a wonderful book on Dickensian-era London. This book, about the origins of Christmas as an international holiday, is rich and head-spinning, chiefly because, as she says, the way people celebrate Christmas in other nations will always seem alien to outsiders. Americans think they have a cultural lock on Santa Claus, but they have no freaking clue about how the gift-bringer tradition plays out in other cultures. Yule lads in Iceland, la Befana in Italy, to name two easy examples. I like this book quite a bit, but I’ll never understand why her publisher did not include the footnotes so you can easily flip to a historic source in the back if you’re intrigued by something she says. (Full footnotes are available on Flanders’ website.) You will enjoy knowing that as long as Christmas has been around, people have been complaining about it. Whether it was too raucous, too commercial, too gluttonous, too heretical, the poor holiday never seemed to please anyone.

A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, & The Thanksgiving Visitor, by Truman Capote (Modern Library, 1996, 107 pages).

I grew up regarding Capote as a comical fixture on the talk shows my parents watched. In high school an English teacher had us read In Cold Blood (why do we do that to kids?) It was only in college that I came to his other writing, which I always found remarkable for its precision. This little classic of three stories is charming because it reminds you how little you truly need to make a holiday special. The best-known story, "A Christmas Memory," boils down to a loved one, a recipe, and some outdoor activity. Extra points if you can figure out Miss Sook’s fruitcake recipe on the basis of Capote’s prose alone. The actual recipe is never given in the book. The author apparently had no use for that conceit, which is now so common to food memoirs.

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories, illustrated by Seth (Biblioasis, 2016).

By now most of us know that A Christmas Carol by Dickens grew out of a British holiday tradition which dictated that ghost stories be told this time of year. This delightful little series of books, curated and illustrated by the surname-less New Yorker cartoonist Seth, takes that to a logical extreme. Each volume is a single ghost story by name-brand writers—Edith Wharton, Dickens, etc.—that are suitable for gift-giving and reading in front of the fire. The Wharton book, which I received from a friend, is a mere 37 pages. The complete series currently runs to 11 titles, about $7 in paperback or $0.99 each in ebook form. And when I describe the books as little, I mean that literally. They’re about 4-by-6-inches in size. I wonder if some clever editor (or Seth himself) had visions of Christmas stockings in their head when they conceived the series.

The Snow Queen, illustrated by Vladyslav Yerko
I’m not a fan of this particular tale by Hans Christian Andersen, but the adaptations I’m recommending here are something entirely different. As far as I know, these books were pubbed by two separate houses, one as a 32-page version (top) with prose by an unnamed translator, and another as a more luxurious, slipcased 96-page retelling by Nicky Raven (bottom). Both versions showcase glorious illustrations by the Ukrainian illustrator, Vladyslav Yerko, who in his fanciful bio tells us that as an infant in Kiev he slept in a large suitcase in his grandmother’s home. Yerko’s Snow Queen books were pubbed in multiple languages, but are now out of print. (Still, new and used copies turn up on Biblio and Bookfinder, but always confirm that you are buying an English-language version before checkout.) When I was a lowly intern starting out in publishing, one of my editors at a New York arts magazine subjected me to a lecture in which she insisted that illustrations (which I grew up loving) could never approach the realm of fine art. I flip through the longer of Yerko’s two Snow Queen books every Christmas just to mentally bash that notion to pieces. Behold, folks, I give you Yerko, fine artist and illustrator!

I suppose I could prattle on with other books, but I think that’s quite enough from me. I’ll be back in December with a different sort of holiday selection. If you have any favorite books that you reach for this time of year, please let me know. I never get tired of adding to my shelf.

See you in three weeks.

Joe
josephdagnese.com

Things Fall Apart

[Sherlock Holmes said,] “It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“You horrify me!”

“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser."

— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Living in South Dakota, and most of that time in a small town, I agree with Holmes' assessment 100%.  

I've related in many a blog the ins and outs of various government corruption and malfeasance, from EB-5 to Gear Up! to the death of Joe Boever, and more.

I've also sat in a courtroom and watched as a grandfather, convicted of molesting all four of his grandchildren, was given a slap on the wrist from a judge because the man "had an unblemished record."  

And then there's the petty stuff: small towns where "everyone takes care of each other", so they don't have to enforce the rules.  With predictable results:  people don't shovel their sidewalks unless they feel like it, a noted person (with money) was allowed to turn numerous private properties into private junkyards, and the memorable time when one man threatened to shoot anyone that set foot on his property.  And then complained because the volunteer fire department watched his house burn down. 

BTW, there's no feud like a small town feud, unless it's a small town church feud.

Back on January 13, 2019, in my post "What We're Best at Being Bad At", I said that South Dakota was really good at embezzlement. And we are. To quote myself:

"Besides grifting on the state level, there's also one heck of a lot of small potatoes embezzlement here in South Dakota, much of it fueled by gambling addiction and/or medical bills. $500 from the local VFW; $1,500 from a doctor's office; $2,500 from a nursing home. Interestingly, other than the public humiliation, the punishment is usually a slap on the wrist: the main penalty is to pay the money back and do community service. Rarely is there any jail time. Perhaps that's why it's so common…
But sometimes it's bigger: Just recently, up in Kingsbury County a family-run grain elevator has gone bankrupt because the family was hedging commodities and lost as much as $15 million of other people's money." (HERE)

At the time I didn't go into details, because so much of it was "gossip".  Well, it's now two years later, and "Jared Steffensen of the Arlington, S.D., area, pleaded guilty to theft by deception in his H&I Grain Inc. business, at a June 29, 2021, hearing at the Beadle County, S.D, courthouse at Huron. He speculated on grain trades, and then failed to pay millions to farmers. He and his wife, Tami, could face five years in the state penitentiary. His mother, JoAnn also pleaded guilty to a felony of failing to inform state regulators that her company was failing financially." (AG Week)

Former H&I Grain Inc. site at Hetland, S.D, original location for a family business that ran into legal trouble when Jared Steffensen of Arlington, S.D, accelerated speculation in grain trades, costing ~32 farmers and companies millions of dollars.
Photo taken May 6, 2019, Hetland, S.D. Mikkel Pates © Agweek

Citing“criminal mentality” (for one thing, the scam went on for months) and “lack of remorse,” Circuit Judge Kent A. Shelton sentenced Jared and Tami Steffensen each to terms of five years in state prisons and made them liable for restitution of $4,966,491.80 to farmers, as well as other costs. And had them marched out of the courtroom, in handcuffs, back to jail. (Ag Week)

But the neighbors know, in the words of Greg Albrecht, whose family lost more than a million dollars, "We're never going to see nothing out of it." And they probably won't.

And that's not the worst scam:

On November 4, 2021, Robert "Bob" Blom, a feedlot operator in Corsica, South Dakota (pop. 592) was sentenced to 91 months in prison after pleading guilty to a Ponzi scheme. Basically, he ran a custom cattle feeding operation in which he resold cattle he didn't have in inventory to investors, falsified invoices and used the money to pay back old investors.

He owes $24,282,865.94 to people he conned – life-long neighbors, who definitely feel that he's getting way too little for his crimes. "Was there any plea bargaining for me?" asked Rod Myer, a cattle feeder that worked with Blom for 14 years and was a victim in the case. "I hear a lot in the courtroom today on how Bob felt. Well, how do you think I felt?… There goes my life savings." (Argus)

That's TWO multi-million dollar peculations occurring in TWO rural counties in South Dakota.

Now here's the deal: if you live in Corsica, SD (pop. 592), in Douglas County (pop. 2,835), or if you live in Hetland, SD (pop. 46) in Kingsbury County (pop. 5,187), you know just about everyone in the entire county.  You went to school with them, to church with them, etc. You've known them all your lives.  You trust them. "A man's word is his bond" is a common saying.  A handshake could seal major contracts.  And suddenly, one family in each of these counties, in absolute cold-blood, screwed everyone - life-long friends and neighbors – out of their life savings. 

It's not even the money, as much as that hurts. As Jeff Hampton, a friend of Blom’s for over 50 years, said, "Bob should never see the light of freedom again — those are hard words coming from a friend.” Then he turned to Blom. “You’ve destroyed the trustworthiness of a man’s word.” (Ag Week)  And he only got 7.5 years in prison.  

Let's put it in perspective:

In South Dakota, you get drunk and kill someone in a bar-brawl, you can - and many do - get life without parole for 1st Degree Manslaughter.  If you hit and kill someone while driving drunk, at least 10 years.  (Does not apply to state officials driving late at night on rural roads who run into deer with glasses. They get misdemeanors. And complain about that.)  One recent case involved 4 young men who were all charged in the shooting death of a man named Jordan LeBeau. The actual shooter got 40 years, but Kevin Rice got 60 years - not for shooting the victim - but for not stopping the shooting.  (Argus)  

Meanwhile, financial crimes get a slap on the wrist. 5 years. 7.5 years.  You have to be Bernie Madoff to get a life sentence.  Otherwise...  Well, all those people shouldn't have trusted them, right?  We'll set up a payment plan.  And - sort of related - Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls recently finally admitted to not doing enough to stop Covid back in the beginning, when 1,294 workers got Covid and 4 died - and paid a fine of $13,000.  This is around $10 a survivor OR $3,250 per death, which tells you how much a meat-packing plant worker's life is worth.  

Watch your backs, folks. There is no Eden, and even in Eden there was a snake.  Why not in South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry, and act like Goodfellas?  God, I wish I was joking.

John Lennon's Sherlock Holmes Pastiche

featuring William Burton McCormick

Sherlock Holmes pastiches are a cottage industry. New adventures or parodies of the world’s most famous literary detective by authors other than his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have existed since the nineteenth century and include such well-known scribes as Mark Twain, Stephen King, John Dickson Carr, Jeffrey Deaver, Loren D. Estlemen, Anne Perry, Michael Kurland, Nicholas Meyer, Edward D. Hoch, Dorothy L. Sayers, Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, Conan Doyle’s son Adrian and several SleuthSayers members among the thousands of other writers worldwide. One name that may not immediately come to mind is John Lennon.

Yes, that John Lennon.

A little background. From his boyhood to his time at the Liverpool College of Art to the early days of the Beatles, Lennon kept a scrapbook where he’d scribble poetry, cartoons, and nonsensical stories in the Lewis Carroll “Jabberwocky” tradition. The best of these were collected for the book In His Own Write, published in March,1964.

With the advent of Beatlemania, In His Own Write was assured commercial success selling 300,000 copies in England alone. More surprising, given the hostility towards the Beatles as a “teenage fad” at the time, was the effusive praise it received from establishment critics. Many compared the best passages to Carroll and James Joyce. 

In the wake of its critical and commercial success, other musical artists began to write and publish their own poetry, most notably rival Bob Dylan. (Inspired by In His Own Write, Dylan began working on poems in 1965 that would be collected in Tarantula (1971).) But Lennon did not have the option to wait as long as Dylan. A follow up was demanded to In His Own Write. One to be published the next year.

This was no easy task for Lennon. The Beatles were in the midst of a world tour, required to record two albums and numerous singles in ‘64, film A Hard Day’s Night and heavily promote everything. What’s more, Lennon had used up his backlog of poems and stories for In His Own Write. Everything for the next volume would have to be from scratch.

He carved out time do some (non-song) writing, when vacationing in Tahiti with his wife Cynthia, bandmate George Harrison, and Harrison’s then girlfriend Pattie Boyd in May,1964. Their private boat was stocked with a few English-language books including a Sherlock Holmes omnibus.  After reading the collection, Lennon reasoned that all Holmes stories were essentially the same and decided to include a parody in his next book. That book was A Spaniard in the Works (June,1965) and the parody was "The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield” written by Lennon with the aid of Cynthia, George and Pattie over several bottles of Johnnie Walker while at sea.

As can be guessed from the title "The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield” is a nonsense-language story. At just under two thousand words, it is the longest piece of prose Lennon ever published. (He jokingly called it his novel). If you’re looking for the vivid imagery found in such Lennon songs as “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or “Across the Universe” you won’t find it here. Instead, this is a tongue-in-cheek Liverpudiian pun-fest that owes more to The Goon Show and the gobbledygook language “Unwinese” created by British comic Stanley Unwin than any nineteenth century Lewis Carroll “Jabberwocky."

The opening lines are:

I find it recornered in my nosebook that it was a dokey and winnie cave towart the end of Marge in the ear of our Loaf 1892 in Much Bladder, a city off the North Wold. Shamrock Womlbs had receeded a telephart whilst we sat at our lunch eating.

This can be loosely translated in a more Arthur Conan Doyle way as:

I find it recorded in my notebook it was a dark and winter day towards the end of March in the year of our Lord 1892 in Manchester, a city of the north world. Sherlock Holmes had received a telegram while we sat at our lunch eating.

The fun is in deciphering the heaps of puns piled atop each other and the way Lennon apes Holmes story conventions. If you enjoy word play, 1960’s British in-jokes and groan-inducing puns, then this may be the Holmes pastiche for you. If not, or you find it “all a bit silly” (as Harrison’s friend Eric Idle might say) you may prefer to encounter Lennon’s wit on Abbey Road rather than Baker Street.

The plot (as much as there is one) sets Shamrock Womlb and his friend Doctored Whopper against a Jack the Ripper doppelganger Jack the Nipple who is “a sex meany of the lowest orgy.” (Did he invade Pepperland later?) When challenged Jack admits “‘I'm demented’ he said checking his dictionary, ‘I should bean at home on a knife like these.’”

Groan you might, but Lennon is the one writer to reveal the true source of the great detective’s amazing deductive powers in a dash of metafiction. Wolmbs, it turns out, knows all because he’s “seen the film” while Doctored Whopper remains at a disadvantage having “only read the comic.” So now we know.

There are titular jokes afoot too. While the story is filled with many characters including a prostitute Mary Atkins, her pimp boyfriend Sydnees, an escaped prisoner Oxo Whitney (who terrifies Whopper’s imagination) and the Lestrade stand in Inspectre Basil, there is no appearance or mention of a character named Miss Anne Duffield despite being in the title. This mirthful twist is the penultimate red herring (Yes, penultimate… wait and see). You thought this was about Anne Duffield? Well, think again.

A recurring gag throughout the piece is Lennon’s lampooning of the famous refrain “Elementary my dear Watson.”  (Holmes aficionados well know that this phrase is not found in any of Conan Doyle’s stories but appears to have been first recorded by P.G. Wodehouse in 1909 and became familiar with the greater public as a result of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films of the 1930’s and 1940’s).

In Lennon’s work, the phrase becomes:

“Ellifitzgerrald my dear Whopper,”

and “Eliphantitus my deaf Whopper,”

and “Alibabba my dead Whopper,” 

and “Alecguiness my deep Whopper,” etc., etc.

“Elementary, my dear Watson” never appears in canonical Conan Doyle. It never appears in noncanonical Lennon either. Some purity in that.

I must now talk about the ending. The vast majority of the original Holmes stories are told from the point-of-view of Dr. John Watson, supposedly recalling cases from years earlier with startling detail. Every clue, every movement and emotion are remembered by Watson’s vault of a mind in his chronicling of Holmes’s adventures for posterity. Some have commented on Watson’s amazing clarity.

Additionally, in many stories, Holmes leaves Watson’s presence, only to return with new information and miraculously solve the case. Well, in Lennon’s pastiche these tropes appear as well.  Shamrock Womlb leaves without explanation, causing Doctored Whopper to curse his friend: “‘Blast the wicker basket yer grannie sleeps in.’ I thought ‘Only kidding Shamrock’ I said remembering his habit of hiding in the cupboard.” When Shamrock returns [SPOILERS] he apparently reveals the solution to Whopper but then Whopper says… “I poked the fire and warmed his kippers, when he had minicoopered he told me a story which to this day I can't remember.”

Yes, whole story is a red herring. The good Doctored didn’t record the ending…

The joke is on us. The solution is lost to Whopper’s fading memory.

Or Johnnie Walker.

On a boat off Tahiti.

Maybe that’s where Miss Anne Duffield went.

---

William Burton McCormick is a Shamus, Derringer and Claymore awards finalist. His two latest releases are the historical thriller novella A STRANGER FROM THE STORM and the modern espionage thriller KGB BANKER (the latter co-written with whistleblower John Christmas).

Making characters come alive

I was once asked to explain voice, and I thought it was kind of like the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity: You know it when you see it. Voice is attitude. Voice is how characters come alive off the page. Voice is making characters' feelings so real that readers feel like they know them and understand them.

Knowing who characters are deep down and being able to show it through their voice is important to writers because when you throw your characters into whatever you've cooked up for them, you want readers to believe the characters do what they do, even if they disapprove of the characters' actions. It's even better if you can get readers to feel like they're wearing the characters' shoes, to essentially become them. One way to accomplish this, to make a character feel that real, is to use detail to pull readers in.

I attempted this in my newest short story, "Out of a Fog," published last week in issue ten of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. The story opens with a college senior who is blindsided by her boyfriend of three years when he breaks up with her. I wanted the reader to feel her pain and dismay, how she's shocked to her core when the relationship she'd built her world around is ended with such suddenness, like an unexpected death. Here's how the story opens:

My boyfriend dumped me a week before Thanksgiving. It felt like a Mack truck slammed into me, and after I skidded across the pavement, leaving behind torn flesh and what remained of my heart, it kept on coming, rolling right over me. First the front tires, huge and heavy, their treads filled with razor-sharp pebbles. Then the back ones, too, ensuring I was good and flattened.

I then take you right into the breakup, showing it happening, how the boyfriend tries to make things better but every word is a twist of the knife. And the main character is left at the end of the scene emotionally destroyed and capable of doing ... well, who knows what? Pushed to her limit, she now can do things that the reader would condemn but also understand at the same time. 

That was my goal at least, to make the character's anguish so real that readers get why she does what she does as the story progresses, despite knowing it's wrong. Did I succeed? That's for readers to decide. 

If you'd like to read the story (as well as ten other new stories, including ones from fellow SleuthSayers Janice Law, Steve Liskow, and Elizabeth Zelvin) you'll need to pick up issue ten of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. Click here to download it directly from the publisher in epub and Kindle formats. You can pick it up in paper and Kindle formats from Amazon by clicking here. The issue should also show up soon in other online bookshops. 

Thanks to editor Michael Bracken for publishing the story. And, authors, if you have other voice tips, feel free to mention them in the chat.

Making An Impact

It may take me a while to respond to comments on today's blog for the best of reasons: I'll be hanging out with readers. The readers are students in Professor Ken Wishnia's Intro to Lit class at SUNY Suffolk, and we'll be talking about my story, "Never Again," in Me Too Short Stories, an anthology I edited. Ken is himself an accomplished crime fiction author, whose anthology, Jewish Noir II, including my story, "The Cost of Something Priceless," will appear early next year. The students are a truly diverse group in age and socioeconomic status as well as ethnicity, race, and gender. Some come from troubled families; many must struggle to achieve a community college education.

"Never Again" is a challenging story. We learn on the first page that Valerie's father abuses her sexually from the age of four. For ten years, her attempts to speak out and get help fail. We also meet Frances, abused by the preacher's son at age nine in her close-knit churchgoing community. She hides her pain in compulsive overeating and obesity and marries an alcoholic who abuses her physically, verbally, and emotionally. Two intolerable situations, one girl, one woman who say, "Never again!" and embark on a collision course. What will happen when they collide?

I've visited Ken's classes, whose students have not only read the story but written a one-page paper on it, several times, both virtually and in person. Ken has said, "These stories [in the Me Too anthology] are the first pieces of fiction to truly come alive on the page for some students." He and I have discussed how academic assignments had changed since our own youth, when Shakespeare and Victorian novels were the norm, and how the first wave of "relevant" reading material, beginning in the Sixties, ran to books like Catcher in the Rye, whose protagonist these students would see as a bored rich white kid with no problems worth mentioning.

Last year, to illustrate the students' visceral response, he shared with me some comments from their papers.

Not a lot of literature has really brought me to tears, but her story had me close to fully crying.
This story had me genuinely tearing up and putting the book down after the first few sentences, which is something that has never happened before.

Sometimes the writing in a story is so good that you physically react and that’s what happened.

Never Again demonstrates the lack of voice that women have when speaking up about sexual abuse. People question why victims exposed to any abuse cannot speak up. These victims want to tell someone that they are suffering, but it is hard for them to confide themselves to someone who will listen to their story.

Do I write in the hope of moving readers this powerfully? You bet I do. Did I write "Never Again" to make an impact? Absolutely. I'm awed and grateful that these young readers were so receptive.

One more comment, from a young man whose opinion I'd rather have than a New York Times reviewer's:

I cant even compare this short story to the others because this one is by far my favorite. By the end of the first page i was instantly hooked, the darkness of this story is absolutely wild. The way how the author describes so specifically the dark twisted things that go on in Valerie's household puts me on the edge of my futon that i was reading this on. The fact that i wanted to rip the father out of the pages and beat him up for touching and treating his daughter like that was a feeling Ive never felt before reading a story.

I can hardly wait to find out what this year's crop of students have to say.

Fear and Silence

A little while ago, I was asked by a reporter to speak about the escalating threats against doctors on Twitter. Since then, that conversation has been meandering, and at times galloping, through my mind. It’s kept me awake at night.

I have written previously about attacks against others and myself on Twitter while advocating for simple things like wearing masks and getting vaccines. However, attacks and threats are very different things. It’s far more worrisome when people tell me they will find me and ‘make me pay’ because that makes me look at our wall of windows overlooking our backyard and wonder who is in the woods looking in. What I said to the reporter is just that: ordinary people have no security so threats are worrisome. There are escalating threats against doctors but the real problem is far worse. Nurses, professors, psychologists and journalists have all had threats made against them, including death threats for speaking factually about COVID-19 and measures to help save lives.

From what I’ve observed, it’s often journalists who get the largest number of threats. Writing factual information on the pandemic isn’t the only thing that engenders threats, but it certainly begins large pile ons from the anti-science groups. Imagine having death threats or threats of violence against you but also having your face well-known, because it’s published with your articles or seen in TV appearances. Then imagine taking said face downtown, into stores, out walking with your dog or, worse, walking with your children.

While people are asking why people are becoming more violent, one very important piece of information needs to be brought to the table. Canada’s intelligence service, CSIS, has warned that foreign actors are using COVID-19 to sow discord in Canada:

“It is important to note that disinformation, originating from anywhere in the world, can have serious consequences including threats to the safety and security of Canadians, erosion of trust in our democratic institutions, and confusion about government policies and notices including information on the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Anything that sows discord in a democratic country weakens that democracy. The free press, as a cornerstone of our democracy and threatened in authoritarian countries, would certainly be a target. As would doctors, nurses and scientists who can speak in our country unlike in others, and stand as a testament to the freedoms we enjoy in a democratic nation. This is not to suggest that foreign bots are the only ones attacking journalists or others, but we must remember that their purpose is to inspire domestic threats with the volume and character of their attacks.

Regardless of who begins or escalates these threats, the consequence remains the same: fear, possible physical harm and silencing.

The avenues of help when you’re threatened are somewhat convoluted. A successful report to Twitter results in a thank you. Not sure what that means.

Wandering through the internet looking for help led me to Cybercrime that helpfully suggests “To report abusive behaviour, such as harassment, cyberbullying, threats, and impersonation, or other incidents that occur on social media, contact the social media provider directly through their help centre.”

Tried that.

Then there’s the labyrinth that take you to a report to your local police - but can they do anything from threats coming outside your local region?

One of my late night thoughts: could there be an avenue to create new methods of reporting threats made on social media, that allow quick reporting and maximum impact, like immediate and permanent bans from Twitter and quick attempts to find and prosecute these people?

The reason I’m bringing this up as a solution is that those who threaten are emboldened because they rarely pay a price for their actions. Some are actually dangerous, some are not, however, their threats have an impact of silencing or frightening people. What if they knew that people are quickly banned, quickly found and prosecuted? That would send a chilling message to them.

It would also reduce the sense of helplessness we all feel in the face of these threats.

Mind you, these are the late night thoughts of someone who never studied law and law enforcement. They are also the simple thoughts of someone who sees a new and large problem emerging that urgently needs new solutions.

Certainly, what we have now is not sufficient, because those threatened are increasingly frightened and those who threaten are increasingly emboldened. Why not do something to turn that pattern around?

If we don’t find innovative solutions to nip this growing problem in the bud, we’ll have a larger problem. If scientists, doctors, journalists, nurses and others fear speaking out factually on this pandemic, their increasing silence will just make our society much more dangerous by yielding the information space to those who will not keep us safe in a pandemic.

It is unequivocally a public safety issue.

The Writer As Necromancer

The Fever Throes of NaNoWriMo

2011. The one-month sprint is way on. In my thing, this European crime lord wants his painting back. Main character Clio doesn't want him to have it. I have like 25K words of that already. Thieves, hidden agendas, switcheroos, the whole shebang. I suppose--such as one supposes anything sleep-deprived and deep into the Diet Coke--the reader might need some history, the bigger why that set this caper in motion. Time for the backstory chapter.

I pound it out, a chapter where Clio learns how her boss Natalia out-swindled the crime lord guy for a newly-confirmed Goya. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game, with super-rich socialite Natalia coming out on top--or at least with temporary possession. The backstory clocked in at a thousand-ish words, and when my daily word budget is a caffeine-enriched 3,000, I go with what comes. I'll make it work later.

Later

It doesn't work. Can't, the whole novel. Too slapped together. My right brain coroner locks the manuscript in the creative morgue.

Later Than That

And yet.

Some days, I scan that hard drive and wonder. One thing the dearly departed had going for it was a groovy cast of characters, if too over-the-top. The deeper problem was a seat-of-my-pants overdrive plot. 

What's eating me is that critiques didn't like any main character the best. Take resourceful Clio, a grad student pulled into Natalia's influence orbit. Clio is smart and attractive, sure, but not as smart and attractive as her self-image. Wounded pride and hijinks ensue. Or Natalia, as close to a Moriarty-style intellect as I'm likely to try. A challenge to do a mastermind, and she's droll fun on the page. If I'm going Dr. Frankenstein, shouldn't I resurrect the headliner?

No, the standout feedback was for a bit-part skeevy lawyer readers weren't supposed to like. Went by Vernon Stagg. I'm writing short stories now, so why not dig out old Vernon, let him loose on the world. I do, in "The Cumberland Package," and in 2015 the story lands in AHMM. Readers like him. A series is launched. Thanks, NaNoRiMo Fever Throes.

Meanwhile, I'm still cruising past the head stones from 2011. The characters aren't feeling dead yet. For proof, here's Clio wormed a mention in a literary humor piece ("Whorling," The Oddville Press, 2014). 

Maybe that backstory could make, you know, its own story.

Later Still

Autumn, the cold part. I'm still wondering if Clio and Natalia's graves are worth robbing. Hey, it worked for Vernon.

I grab that chapter and a Diet Coke and summon the characters back. Clio, Natalia, and the crime lord guy. No, this isn't done with candles and sage, etc. It involves staring at walls and out windows, and the chants are your curses that this idea doesn't stay dead. Because this isn't working as a story, either. It lacks a heart, a sense of place, a completed arc. I've created a zombie. 

Again, I say my goodbyes.

Reasonably Current Now

2018. Bordeaux, France. Sun, wine, tout le tralala. Seriously, a writer could set a story here. 

And I have just the one. Goya lived out his last years here. 

Life Intervenes

Cue intermission music and go for snacks. Not much writing happening here.

Because 2020

Weaverville, North Carolina. My summer writing retreat, as rescheduled and in a rented house turned social distance fortress. Things start grim, with an Egyptian dust cloud nicknamed Godzilla and a flash piece warm-up that must never be grave-robbed. I sit. I stare. Finally, words come. A head of steam builds, and I get through top priorities with a few days to spare. 

Maybe it's my remembering sunnier times. Maybe it's my sinuses clogged with Saharan grit. Whatever it is, I spend those bonus days resurrecting Clio and Natalia after their Goya. It's better. A quasi-caper plot and four-part arc give it structure. I work in an abandoned submarine base, because Bordeaux has those and it's awesome. Clio gets added depth from a fleshed-out parallel character, and her struggles as ad hoc amateur sleuth bring her down to earth better than zingers ever did. There are hijinks, of course. 

The draft has a distinct zombie whiff.

Like Almost Now, People

April 2021. Tybee Island, Georgia. Morning beach walks, evening drinks, and in between it's hard drive necromancy. A crime humor anthology call beckons. Clio, it's now or never.

I sit. I stare. Because problems surface at once. I have the wrong famous historical artist. Goya was much too dark in tone and topic for my romp story, even his Bordeaux period. Changing artist means changing painting subject. And setting. I mourn my doomed submarine base. I slam a Diet Coke and change things top to bottom. 

Wait. There's a word count situation now, what with this new layering and switching. It isn't pretty for darlings that week, is what I mean. In that wake, something is stirring now.

I polish and submit the thing.

Okay, Now Now

"Pandora, Haunted (Or, In Which Natalia Hartlowe Bids on a Delacroix)," as excised from its slab, is happily included in Mystery Magazine's Die Laughing, published this summer. I've read each story but one, and the collection is incredible fun. 

The but one? "Pandora." Give me a minute. Having stirred a story so long, I'm stirred myself. Lost sub bases and surrendered exotic locales and no end of Godzillas? Necromancy is a long, strange trip.