The Reckoning

I don’t want to jump feet-first into the savage quicksand of Israel and her adversaries, but I have some observations about the Hamas attack, absent politics. 

First, the intelligence failure.  It’s astonishing that the Israeli security services missed the signals; Hamas may have kept planning for the offensive under wraps, but the best you can say is that the Israeli intelligence community was asleep at the wheel, complacent if not derelict.  They pride themselves on active countermeasures – and the U.S. shares satellite coverage and electronic intercept – so how did Hamas hit them so hard, and so suddenly?

The word “surprise” is being over-used, in this context.  Netanyahu’s current governing coalition includes some rabid right-wing fundamentalists, who not only reject the two-state solution, but reject basic human rights for the Palestinians in general.  (It should be pointed out that Fatah, the political wing of the PLO, accepts in principle Israel’s right to exist; Hamas is dedicated to Israel’s destruction, and Jewish genocide.)  If you listen to the inflammatory rhetoric of the present administrator of the West Bank, once investigated by Shin Bet for suspected sedition, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking he represents an existential threat to Palestinians as a people.  This isn’t to make excuses, or to suggest any kind of moral equivalency with Hamas, only to say that the terror attacks shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Another thing is that Israel is obliged to respond – has already responded – with brute force.  Civilian casualties are only going to mount.  This is a cruel consequence of the years of war.  You can argue the rights and wrongs of occupation, of resistance and intifada, but the intractable reality is unyielding grievance, and more innocents die. 

Then there’s the presence of other actors, in the wings.  The confrontation states have never given a rat’s ass about the Palestinians; the cause is just a stick to beat Israel over the head with.  Syria has been meddling in Lebanon for fifty years, and hope is lost.  Hezbollah and Hamas, once Syrian clients, are now supported by Iran.  The mullahs have of course disavowed the Hamas terror strike, saying they support Hamas in their struggle, but had nothing to do with this specific attack.  I call horse feathers.  Hamas stockpiled tens of thousands of missiles in preparation for this.  The obvious suspicion falls on Tehran.  Talk on the street says officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard met with Hamas in Beirut to plan the ground game. 

Israel won’t sit on its hands if the Iranians are even remotely implicated.  A strand of DNA, a single nose hair recovered from the crime scene, and Iran’s balls will go on the block.  It will not be pretty. 

---

On a more political front, the disarray in Congress can only sidetrack an effective American response.  The lack of a Speaker means the House can’t take up military aid to Israel, or Ukraine, or Taiwan.  (Has everybody forgotten about the Chinese and their Pacific ambitions?)  We’ve just sent a carrier battle group to the eastern Mediterranean.  But as it happens, the Navy doesn’t currently have a Chief of Naval Operations, because Tommy Tuberville, Republican senator from Bumwad, has put a hold on flag rank promotions - in response to a Defense Department policy on abortion. 

This is insane. 

Stop throwing shade on "write what you know"

If there's writerly advice that's ever received a bad rap, it is "write what you know."

Yep, as predicted—I see 'em—the pitchforks are coming out. Mention "write what you know" and many people will roll their eyes at such a stupid suggestion, wishing you and your bad advice would crawl back under a rock. But I'm here today to make a spirited defense of this misunderstood advice. 

Let's think about why this advice is often given. There could be other reasons, but I imagine these two are foremost in the minds of WWYK (let's use the acronym or we could be here all day) advocates:

Reason 1: Newer writers may feel intimidated, wanting to write but not sure what to write about, so teachers try to make them feel comfortable and encourage them to write about something they know about, something they've experienced. Ask me to write a short story involving a rocket engineer who's going about his workday, and I certainly wouldn't begin typing eagerly, because I don't know anything about how rocket engineers spend their day. But ask me to write a story about a newspaper reporter working in the 1990s and I could put my fingers to my keyboard immediately. That's what I did for a living back then.

Reason 2: Readers like to be able to sink into a story when they're reading, to lose themselves, not even realizing they're turning the pages. One thing that will interfere with this—that will throw readers out of a story, if not make them want to throw the book out of a window—is if the story has incorrect details. How many times have you, dear reader, stopped reading to mutter, "That's not right. That's not how it works!"? Things like that take the enjoyment out of reading. When you write about things you don't know about, you're likely to get details wrong. But if you WWYK, this is less likely.

I can hear some of you grumbling that fiction involves making things up, so WWYK shouldn't apply. I disagree. Your story should come from your imagination, but your details should be true to life unless you've made clear that you are writing about an alternate reality. Want to write a historical novel set in 1800 that refers back to our first president, John Adams? Even if you have the most rocking story, readers likely will skewer you for not knowing the first US president was George Washington—unless you've made clear that your story involves alternate history. Like it or not, details matter.

But—and here comes the important part—this doesn't mean that you should only write about things you've experienced. It doesn't mean you can't write stories set before you were born or involving things you haven't done. It means if you want to write about such things, you should do enough research so you get your details right (see Reason 2). (I don't doubt that some people have said writers should only write about things they've experienced firsthand, but I think such advice is misguided and hopefully a rarity.)

So, want to write about a character who's a rocket engineer but you're not? Then do your research so you'll get the details about her workday correct. Want to write about a big-city environmental attorney but you're not sure what such a person does or even what the inside of a large law firm looks like? Once again: do your research. 

Once you've done your research, you'll know the ins and outs of whatever it is you want to write about. You'll be more comfortable starting to type, and your readers will be in better hands when you finish.

That's the real beauty of WWYK. Once you've done your research, you'll be able to get your details right because you'll KNOW them. Then you can write about anything.

From paw to page.

After twenty plus years of thwarted efforts to publish a novel, I scaled back my ambitions to conform to the somewhat circumscribed audience still available to me: 

Me.

When my agent, the late Mary Jack Wald (a paragon of hope, persistence and faith in lost causes) encouraged me to rewrite one of my many failed forays, the first thing I did was add a key character to the action.

A dog.

The sole reason for this was my wife and I had finally, after many years of longing on her part, acquired a dog. My habit was to write on the front porch of our house on Long Island, and since the new dog was a constant companion in this setting – and as all writers know we seek stimulation from our immediate surroundings – it was nearly impossible to concoct a scene in which no dog was present.

A published book followed.  You do the math.   

I was immensely fortunate that our dog, Samuel Beckett (a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier named after a lesser-known Irish existentialist), who passed away about fourteen years ago, was in possession of an outsized personality.  Dog owners know that some dogs are dogs, other dogs are strange people who live with you.  So it was with our dog Sam (coincidentally the name of my protagonist – I can’t explain it) who was a thoroughly reliable source of literary subsistence in both form and content.

His fictional counterpart is an eccentric named Eddie Van Halen.  While Eddie’s received his share of fan mail, most of the recognition has come from reviewers, who write things like, “...and his lovable mutt, Eddie”, and “…the anti-Marley, Eddie Van Halen”. 

One of the best reasons to include dogs in your fiction is they give your protagonist someone to talk to, and hang around with.  The dogs don’t have to talk back, they just have to be themselves, which is enough in my case, since most of my dogs are bottomless fonts of reliable inspiration.

Our dog Sam shared with his alter ego Eddie Van Halen a characteristic dominant in all exceptional canines – unpredictability.  Experts on animal behavior will tell you that dogs are highly programmable routine freaks.  Nothing makes them happier than the noon walk, the six o’clock meal, the seven thirty am tummy rub. 

Sam liked his routines, Lord knows. But he also loved to mix things up, in a way far more reminiscent of a practical joker than a habituated, monotony-loving house pet.  I heard him howl exactly twice, both times on a corner in Southampton as a fire truck passed by. He stuck his head out the window of a moving car exactly once, for reasons neither of us ever figured out.  A dog who showed nothing but disdain for conventional chew toys would suddenly become enamored with a polyester squirrel and spend the greater part of Christmas morning eviscerating the poor thing. 

 Sometimes, very infrequently, he’d walk up to me, look me in the eye, and issue one loud, imperious bark.  I’d say, “What.”  He’d bark again, and then walk away, disgusted.  I know these exchanges meant something to him, but I’ll be damned if I know what it was. 

Since Sam, I’ve had other, equally productive characters living in my home.  The most recent, as mercurial and unpredictable as their predecessor. 

However, I’m way ahead on the deal.  I get to have characters I can write into my books whenever my imaginative powers flag, with little need for invention.  All I give in return is a concentrated ear scratching, a walk around the block (or whatever direction their moods dictate) and an occasional cigar. 

 Cuban.

   

On Our Streets

We have a rise in hate crimes in Ottawa which, while being the capital city of Canada, has always felt like a quiet place.

With a 23.5 per cent increase in hate incidents in 2023, Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs said, “Across North America and really the world, we’ve seen this trend of hate crimes on the rise.” One of the targeted groups was the LGBTQ community.

This gave me pause because many of us have been talking amongst ourselves about the shocking changes we are seeing. Canada has had a history of supporting LGBTQ rights by decriminalizing being gay as early as 1969, legalizing same sex adoption in 1995, legalizing same sex marriage in 2005 and making LGBTQ discrimination illegal in 2017.

Recently, however, in Canada we’ve had marches called, “Leave our kids alone”. Under the guise of protecting children against learning too much about sex, they actually want them to learn nothing good about the LGBTQ community. So, in reality, we had anti-LGBTQ marches on our streets. Some of the hateful things said left many of us reeling. 

What is also worrisome was the fact that they went to great lengths to look like a bunch of concerned parents, organizing organically at the local level. However, in reality they were supported by a big tent of far-right groups aligned with groups holding these “Leave our kids alone” marches in the United States.

In typical Canadian fashion, many people came to show strong support for the LGBTQ community as well. What was heartwarming about the support was most of it was from neighbours, friends and family of people who happen to be LGBTQ simply saying to them: we know you, respect you, care for you and will stand up for you. 

But make no mistake, this has shaken us. Canada has always been a tolerant country, largely insulated from the far right hateful shouting elsewhere. To have these same slogans – at times screamed out by children – was horrifyingly unCanadian. Many I spoke with were tearful at the thought of LGBTQ children hearing this vileness in a country where many had worked so hard to make them feel respected. For LGBTQ adults who had seen grimmer days of intolerance recede and lived in hope one day it would be gone, this rise of hate is disheartening. 

Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs talked about the hate seeping in from our southern neighbours, but some is homegrown or brought in from people who now call Canada home, but were raised in a hateful environment elsewhere.  It was a warning to us that we are not immune. It is literally on the street where we live. 

What is uniquely Canadian is a history of calm and civility. Americans sometimes make fun of the ‘nice’ Canadian, suggesting we are prone to naiveté and cluelessness. They misunderstand. It’s actually a steely determination not to get caught up in anger and drama but to choose, instead, to chat with people as we meet them. It’s not soft. Nothing is stronger, more adult, than refusing to engage in childish shouting, drama and anger -  this is the fodder for extremism and hate. These are the things we have tried to have a steely resolve to avoid. That’s the backbone of who we are and I hope, the civility will once again win. We have always had intolerance within our borders and knocking on the doors of our borders. We conquered it with civility.

My parents came to Canada when brown-skinned people were few and far between, particularly in small town Waterloo. Many, who had never met anyone who looked like my parents, chose to chat as they met in the neighbourhood and, more often than not, extend an invitation for coffee. At school, children hung out on the playground, invited me to their homes and some became lifelong friends. This is why civility is highly underrated. It allows everyone to meet and talk.

What we saw on these marches was the antithesis of civility. 

The far right extremism may seem big, well-funded and so loud that they will drown us. We must fight them in big ways - online, through enforcing hate laws, increasing rules in workplaces - but one way to drown them out is to chat. Quietly. In a friendly way. Being the quintessential nice Canadian, with a spine of steel, who is civil to anyone we meet on our streets. 

Those of you who have read some of my previous articles know that I strongly champion empathy in all its forms.  To the shouty and the angry, to the political and crass, I may seem like a naive fluffy person. In response to that caricature, I would like to tout my credentials - after much more than a quarter of a century of studying and clinically practicing in the area of mental health as a physican -  what allows for normalcy, decreases violence and prevents mental illness is my lane. I can say with utter certainty that empathy is crucial for a highly functioning person and a highly functional society. 

We need to get back to empathy and civility. On our streets. 

September Stories

  

Here in the south, autumn is finally in the air--well, almost--and I have a few fall stories to report on, at least those from the month of September. Some are seasonally-themed stories; the rest just happened to be published at this time of year. And every one of them is far different from the others. (That's part of the fun of all this, isn't it?)

Anyway, here are six of my recent efforts--two in magazines and four in anthologies:

"Plymouth West," Killin' Time in San Diego (Down & Out Books). Editor: Holly West. (I'm actually cheating a bit by calling this a September publication, but only by a few hours--it's the Bouchercon 2023 anthology, officially "launched" at a signing on the evening of August 31 at the annual conference.) My story is a modern-day revenge tale about a restaurant owner, her budding romance with a mysterious chef, and a traditional but deadly Thanksgiving dinner. It was originally written with a pandemic setting and then changed at the last minute to a regular story--whether that was a smart move I'm not sure, but I was thankful the editor liked it. It's a "framed story" of about 2700 words and takes the form of a narrative by the protagonist to a close friend, shortly after everything happened. It's my sixth appearance in a Bouchercon anthology and its setting is of course the city that hosted the conference.

"Della's Cellar," Ordinary Miracles, September 6, 2023. Editor: Dorothy Day. When I was asked to supply a teaser/logline for this story, here's what I sent the editor: "After a dare goes wrong, young Billy Kendrix finds himself battling with his own conscience." That of course isn't all he battles with, but you find that out later. The story runs about 2300 words, it's set in the rural south (which is where I was raised), and was told from the viewpoint of a twelve-year-old who's involved in a prank that goes terribly off the rails but ends up changing three lives for the better. The only breaking of the law in this story is an incident of trespassing, so it's not a crime tale, but it does include mortal danger, so I suppose it'd be called suspense instead of mystery.

"Silverlake," Monster Fight at the O.K. Corral, Vol. 2 (Tule Fog Press), September 10, 2023. Editor: Lyn Perry. This is about as far from the previous story as it could possibly be. It's certainly the weirdest story I've written in a long time, and for an anthology with the weirdest title. The genre is Western but it's horror/fantasy also (how could I resist that?), and the plot features a weary cowpoke on his way home from a trail drive who stops for the night at a little town called Silverlake and finds a lot more there than he was looking for (think Cowboys & Aliens). This was one of those stories that I wrote to match a theme, which is something I've found myself doing more and more often lately, and I managed to work in a few old frontier legends as well as some scary otherworldly elements. Its wordcount is about 3200, and it's told through the eyes of the traveling cowhand.

"Free as a Bird," Woman's World, September 18, 2023, issue. Editor: Alexandra Pollock. For anyone who's interested in this kind of thing, the story was submitted on 7/10/23, accepted on 7/15/23, and published on 9/7/23 (little-known fact: the on-sale date for WW is always eleven days before the issue date). This story's yet another installment in a series I've written for them for years now, featuring a pleasant but dimwitted southern sheriff and a grouchy retired lady who is (1) his former fifth-grade teacher and (2) a constant pain in his ass. But she's smart--really smart--and consistently helps him solve difficult cases, which works out well for both the sheriff and me. The mystery here involves a prison break and sort of a word-game puzzle that leads to the solution. As usual, the story is only a little over 500 words, and this one's told from the POV of the schoolteacher.

"Liz and Drew and Betty Lou," Strand Magazine, Issue #70, September 2023. Editor: Andrew Gulli. This story isn't exactly a sequel, but it's a followup to an idea I used in a story I wrote for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine several years ago. It involves two high-school students, one of whom's father owns a fancy self-driving sports car. The two teenagers decide one day to play hooky from school, "borrow" the car, and spend a few hours chasing their financial dreams at a local casino--a venture that predictably goes astray. In this case the mishap is that they meet a crook looking for some quick cash. It's a half-serious, half-funny story of about 5900 words, and was--like the EQMM story that preceded it--a ton of fun to write. Strangely enough, the dates on which this story was submitted, accepted, and published were almost exactly the same as the submit/accept/pub dates for the earlier-mentioned Woman's World story (neither the Strand nor WW wait very long to get accepted stories into print). Not that it matters, but I received my author copy of the issue in the mail last week and read it last night.

"River Road," Prohibition Peepers: Private Eyes During the Noble Experiment (Down & Out Books), September 25, 2023. Editor: Michael Bracken. I love private-eye anthologies, and this one's set in one of the most interesting periods in American history. My story--it's around 6000 words--features a PI who's hired by a wealthy landowner to locate his missing wife, and who then finds that it's not an easy task. Much of the action takes place in the woods and swamps of southwest Mississippi, whose historical settings are familiar to me, but the plot also required a good deal of research into the making and selling and transporting of moonshine, so I wound up learning a lot. As for submission details, this story was accepted fairly quickly but was published more than a year and a half afterward--and well worth the wait. NOTE: One place that has a significant role in the story is an actual site about an hour away from my home, and was featured in the old movie Raintree County, with Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Here's a clip from YouTube. 

NOTE: My story "The POD Squad" is in the Sep/Oct 2023 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, but it came out in mid-August, so I didn't list it here. If you like reading "behind-the-scenes" accounts of stories, I covered that one (and another story, published the last week of August) in a SleuthSayers post last month.

What are some of your recent publications? Were they in anthologies or magazines, or both? Which do you most enjoy writing for? Any successes in new markets? Any publications that were different from the kinds of stories you usually write? Do you find that you need that kind of variety now and then, to keep from getting bored?

Anyhow, that's that. I wish everyone a great autumn. Keep writing--and reading--and I'll see you again on the 21st.

A Great Gift and a Great Loss

Couple months ago, I stumbled across a spy novel on my local library's website and checked out Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. I love good spy novels good spy movies and this one grabbed me from the beginning and didn't let go.

It's the story of a premier Russian ballerina Dominika Egorova whose career is sabotaged by a jealous rival. Dominika sustains a career-ending injury to her leg and is forced into espionage training by her insidious uncle. She is sent to Sparrow School where she is trained to use her power of seduction to entrap targets. She has other talents, including the ability to see colors (halos) around people, revealing their true natures. She also becomes a lethal killer. She is unhappy with the work and unhappy with her life and is recruited by the CIA to spy for the Americans.

The details of spycraft is extraordinary and this is the best spy novel of the 21st Century I have read. The library had a sequel Palace of Treason and a third in the trilogy, The Kremlin's Candidate. Each is better than the one before and I raced through them and will have to go back and read them slowly to relish the scenes playing out before me.

Dominika rises through the ranks of the Russian espionage network – all the way up. Her interactions with her CIA handlers is fascinating and gripping. The end of the third novel packs a helluva punch, left my heart beating fast.

When a writer writes this well, it is such a gift to us readers. After finishing the third book, I searched for other books by Jason Matthews and found none and went online to learn these were the only books he wrote. He died at age 69 from a rare neurodegenerative disease of the brain.

His books are a great gift and his death a great loss.

Red Sparrow won the MWA Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author and the ITW Thriller Award for Best First Novel.

If you like spy novels or just good fiction, check out this trilogy. The detailed descriptions of contemporary spy work is fascinating. Jason Matthews was a CIA officer.

I'm so slow. Two days ago, I found the film Red Sparrow starring Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton. Pretty good adaptation but like most movies, not as good as the novel.

As my hero F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his final line of The Great Gatsby – "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past."

Thanks all for now.

  www.oneildenoux.com 

You Get What You Pay For

by Eve Fisher

A couple of weeks ago was, God help us, the anniversary of the 45th anniversary of the hit "reality" TV show, Survivor.  I've watched one episode of it, and it quickly became clear that it was about watching people in the minimum of clothing (sometimes not even that) compete for the right to stay on the island all the time making alliances and deals which they promptly broke without shame or qualms, because winning was all that counted.  I never watched another.  

But it was and still is a hit, and since then there have been so many "reality" TV shows like The Apprentice, starring a currently indicted former President as not himself, the Kardashians (never watched a single episode of that one) watching the rich and becoming famous marry the very rich and famous and have an never-ending series of 1% Problems, Duck Dynasty, watching the rich and becoming famous pretend to be "just us folks" and literally selling their religious beliefs along with more duck calls to millions while making even more millions from the show and spin-off books, Big Brother, with its titillating promise of watching pneumatic people have pneumatic sex or at least hearing it, Jersey Shore, ditto, etc., etc., etc.  

Granted, there are also shows like American Idol, which at least give the masses hope that they can become the next superstar if they please the masses and the judges, and one per season does.  Slim odds, but better than none.

NOTE:  I always put "reality" in quotes when it comes to TV shows because folks, they are heavily scripted, edited, and even rehearsed, just like professional wrestling, and if you want to have a fit about it, please call the Tooth Fairy and let her know.  

Now we are what we eat, and that doesn't just apply to our bodies.  What our minds feed on transforms our minds, too.  And our social culture.  All these shows are HITS.  And the result is that fictional TV is also wrapped up in nothing but competition, celebrity, looks, wealth, and the occasional loser from hell.

And what lessons do we learn from these shows? 

• That life is all about competition, and whatever it takes to win, do it and don't have any regrets.
• Wealth, power, celebrity, and looks are the only things that matter - what else would we want to see on TV but people who are seriously above us socially, economically, and physically?  After all, as John Steinbeck said, every American sees themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires."  That could be us, next!  (Grow up, folks.)
• The only exception to the above is when we have a show that concentrates on schadenfreude or "there but for the grace of God".  Biggest Loser, Cops, and Hoarders all leap to mind.  

House of Cards.  Succession.  Yellowstone.  White Lotus.  Hell, even soap operas now are all set in the world of multi-millionaires who just swap CEO / COO jobs and companies around like they're chips and dip.  

Meanwhile, the Young Adult market is heavily into how to rebel (successfully, eventually) against dystopian societies in which all the resources are with the 1% and they use us for the Hunger Games, until they're finally overthrown.  (See also The Maze Runner, Divergent, Station Eleven, etc.) This could / should get very interesting...  

Anyway, we've been swimming in the ocean of mass media for a long time now - radio dramas began in the 1920s, television in the 1940s, although it wasn't until the 1955 that half the population had a TV set (black and white of course).  And now we have streaming services in every room, on every television, computer, and smart phone and almost nobody just "listens to the radio" anymore.  

What interests me is the trends in stories over history.  After all, what we watch is crafted for us by others, and it either becomes popular or not. So what's popular when?  

Well, in Greek and Roman times, it could be summed up (to paraphrase Hamlet) "the play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience - or at least attention - of the crowd."  

Greek theater was all about comedies (often obscene by modern standards - big stuffed phalluses everywhere, including on the gods) making fun of men and gods and current events.  Aristophanes' The Clouds mocked Socrates, which proved, if nothing else, that Socrates had become a notable figure in ancient Athens.  It was also all about tragedies, ranging from Sophocles' relatively formal take on myth and legend (The Oedipus trilogy) to Euripides' more naturalistic approach, where gods appear seeming very human indeed (Dionysus in The Bacchae - one of my favorites) until they pull the god card out of their cloak and then anything can happen.  And there's always war.  

• What the Greek plays teach is that the gods rule all; AND
• "Lord of all gods is fate!"  (tag line from one of the Greek tragedies) A man (or woman) can't avoid his/her fate, no matter how grim it is, no matter how moral they are; all they can do is deal with it.
• Suicide is a noble statement of moral righteousness and a way of expiation; 
• and that family comes above all else, and you must avenge the dead.  

Oh, and Euripides hints, for the first time, in The Trojan Women and Medea, that women have an innate humanity, no matter that the men think of them as nothing but booty and slaves.

Rome came, stole most of the plays of ancient Greece, and added a few twists:  pantomime was hugely popular.  But the best fun of all was live violence and death.  From the gladiator contests to the killing of beasts in the arena, to tragedies where the deaths were live (The Death of Hercules, where a condemned criminal was burned alive at the end of the play), the Romans barely spent a day in which they didn't watch someone being killed live in front of them for entertainment.

Roman philosophers justified this for five major reasons:

• It taught that the bad would be punished:  the criminals were already condemned to death for serious crimes (murder, robbery, arson, sacrilege, mutiny) so sending them into the arena actually gave them a chance to live they didn't deserve, and 
• if they died horribly, their deaths were a deterrent to future crime and an example of what Romans should NOT do, and
• if they died well, their courage would be inspiring.
• It was good for the people to see blood and guts to accustom them to the needs of war. 
• Last but not least, it kept the poor occupied.  The emperor Trajan said that gladiator contests were necessary for the “contentment of the masses.”

In other words, competition was training for war, which was one of the major means of growing rich in Rome.  Conquer something, and plunder it.  

Think about all those westerns in the 1950s and 60s.

Think about all the detective, lawyer, and police shows that have been on for decades, getting more and more graphic about crime and punishment every year.  

The huge popularity of TV, movies, and books about serial killers.  Serial killer chic.  

And now...  rich people doing wicked things in high places, for money, for power, for celebrity, and because they can.  

And Squid Game, let's not forget that.  

Could it be that any of this has anything to do with our current social / political / media climate?  After all, you get what you pay for.

Quotes at the Marina

Two weeks ago I reported on my adventures at Bouchercon in beautiful San Diego.  As usual I had my trusty notebook with me and was jotting down words of wisdom, and other words as well.  Here are the results...

 "If the book begins with three dead girls on the floor of an Irish bar you know where you are.  It's not a sweet little romance.  So stop giving me those one-star reviews." - Linda Sands

"This novel started as a 700-word piece of flash fiction." - Hugh Lessig.

"My first novel is Dead Lawyers, which was therapeutic." - Judith Ayn

"When my book was published it was like I sent a child out into the world.  Go make friends.  Some people are going to hate you.  I'm going on to do something else." - Sadie Hartmann

 

"Writing a book is cheaper than therapy." - S. A. Cosby

"People like to talk to writers and they tell me things they wouldn't if they were sober." - Jeffrey Seger

"My bio on Amazon indicates I'm 25 years old and all I ever did was go to college." - G.M. Malliot

"I spent nine months in New Zealand and everywhere I looked there was a murder that needed writing." - Sara E. Johnson

"All the members of my family think the people in my books are based on other members." - S.A. Cosby 

"My protagonist is Japanese-American like me but I don't think that gives me any kind of advantage, like there's some kind of ancestral memory." - Scott Kikkawa

"The murder people are the nicest people." - Erin Flanagan

"This is a first person book so all the swearing is his fault." - Jo Perry

"How did I deal with a bad review?  I stopped reading reviews." - Cara Black

"There is a small subgenre of stoner noir." - J.D. O'Brien

"I've already written a draft.  It's currently a big pile of garbage on my editor's desk." - Lina Chern

"How many times have you come up with the perfect comeback at three in the morning?  There's still time to put it in the book." - Donna Anders

"English teachers don't kill themselves without leaving a note." - Lori Robbins

"No one has a baby and gets a one-star review." - Lee Matthew Goldberg

"The funniest thing is really death.  It's the big banana peel we all slip on." - Jo Perry

"My work is pretty dark and I look like a middle school teacher so  get asked a lot if I'm okay." - Meagen Lucas

"The talk in small towns: I love the poetry of profanity." - Bobby Mathews

"Lips may lie but teeth never do." - Sara E. Johnson

"I love reading a book where I disappear.  For me that's a book that starts with small decisions." - Mark Stevens

"Pantsers terrify me." - Keir Graff

"It took me about forty years to figure out that people were laughing with me, not at me. - Greg Herren

"Eat. Pray. Barf." - Wendall Thomas

"My first goal is to entertain.  No, that's not true.  My first goal is to break your heart and make you cry."   - Meagen Lucas

"Wanna lose sixty pounds in a hurry? Die." - Jo Perry

"We don't call it a sensitivity reader.  We call it someone who knows things." - Donna Anders

"One-star reviews also sell books." - Sadie Hartmann

"My husband said you better have an agent look at that contract.  I said why? I'm going to sign it anyway." - Cara Black

"A friend said 'your book is so good I forgot you wrote it.'" - Heather Chavez

"Jewish grandmothers, Black grandmothers, Italian grandmothers, all sing the same song." - Cheryl M. Head

 

"I was stinking it up with sincerity." - Jamie Mason

"Historical fiction is allegorical, like science fiction." Scott Kikkawa

"I don't remember agreeing to [edit the anthology]. I drink a lot at these things." - Greg Herren

"Our children own history and we owe them accuracy." - Vanessa Riley

"Ellery Queen doesn't want your robot erotica.  At least they didn't want mine." - E.A. Aymar

"'Write about what you know' gets a bad rap.  If you don't know do the research and then you know." - Barb Goffman

"I don't personally poison people." - Heather Chavez

"If I was historically accurate I would write in three languages and four dialects, and that would be hard on the publisher, much less the reader." - Ovidia Yu

"I don't think anything I have ever written has matched the bright and shining vision I have in my head." - Eleanor Kuhns

"The 1990 Pride and Prejudice is the best version.  If you bring up that 2000 thing I will meet you outside." - Vanessa Riley

"My secret belief is that writers like short stories more than readers." - E. A. Aymar

"Families: you can't really kill them.  Usually." - S. A. Cosby

"There's nothing better than my next book because the one I am writing now is always crap." - Mike McCrary

"What's superstition? Everyone knows if you take pork over the Pali your car's gonna stall." - Scott Kikkawa  

"I think I still don't know what I didn't know then." - Scott Von Doviak

Collateral Damage

 Think of some standard advice about writing villains. Often, the hints center on not making the bad
guy the living embodiment of evil. Make them relatable. Give them a sympathetic motivation for their anger and their actions. These men and women do bad things, but for reasons we, the readers, understand and perhaps even empathize with. An engaging villain might make us hold up a mirror to our own lives and ask if, similarly situated, our actions would be different? 

    The other day, for business reasons, I found myself thinking about the collateral consequences of crime. We easily imagine the ramifications of crime on victims. Assaults might cause social withdrawal. Murder or robbery often economically harms the victim's family. But what about the collateral fallout for defendants convicted of a criminal episode? These consequences, many seemingly coming from nowhere, punish a defendant after he or she has paid their debt to society. They're potentially a source of anger or resentment that may frequently be overlooked by people writing crime fiction. I'd like to look at a few.  

    (I'm focusing primarily on Texas law. The specifics in your jurisdiction may vary.)

1. Moral Turpitude--In many cases, before a conviction deprives a defendant of a particular right or privilege, the crime must be a felony or an offense involving moral turpitude. "Moral turpitude" is defined as base, vile, or depraved conduct. It labels inherently dishonest behavior. It is hard to argue with so far. Still, the list of crimes involving moral turpitude includes prostitution, any class of theft, failure to appear for court (bail jumping), and assault by a man against a woman. Crimes that may involve moral turpitude include bigamy, failure to stop and render aid at a crash scene, and issuing of a bad check. 

    Moral turpitude is often a critical factor in denying a job opportunity, professional license, or a loan or housing application. The label may long outlive the end of the case. 

2. Loss of Education Funding--Students convicted of any federal or state law involving possessing or selling a controlled substance may be temporarily or permanently ineligible for federal education loans or grants. 

3. Other Federal Programs--Narcotics or other convictions may result in temporary or permanent loss of food stamps, health care benefits, and housing assistance. Social Security may also be disrupted, at least temporarily. 

4. Asset Forfeiture--Seizing a defendant's assets believed to be used in the commission of certain offenses or purchased with criminal gains from those crimes is possible in federal and state court, particularly narcotics cases.  Cash, automobiles, houses, and businesses might be the targets. In one case, a drug dealer lost lottery winnings because he couldn't prove that he didn't buy the lottery tickets with legitimately earned dollars. 

5. Child Support--The Texas legislature recently passed a law obligating people convicted of the
intoxication manslaughter of a parent to provide support for the deceased's children. The obligation extends until the child reaches 18. (Although it may be hard to enforce if the defendant goes to the penitentiary.) 

6. Immigration--This could be an entire blog. The law is complex and evolves with shifting foreign policy priorities. The consequences to a defendant, however, are draconian enough that defendants must acknowledge they understand that there will be immigration ramifications before a judge will accept a guilty plea in Texas. 

7. Firearms Restrictions--State and federal law limit a convicted defendant's ability to possess firearms following felony and some misdemeanor convictions. 

8. Driver's License Restrictions--Various suspensions follow a final conviction for many offenses. These include graffiti, theft of motor fuel, tampering with a governmental record, intoxication offenses, some drug offenses, and failure to register as a sex offender. 

9. Registration as a Sex Offender--A plea requires the offender to have a public record made of name, residential address, mug shot, and shoe size, among other things. The public posting might serve as a drag upon a defendant's future social status. 

10. Travel--Travel documents of a convicted offender may be revoked. An issued passport may be withdrawn, or a pending application may be denied. Visas to a foreign country may not be granted based on a criminal conviction. 

A specific example of this is Canada. Canadian border authorities have immediate access to the federal crime information system, and can screen travelers carefully. Canada may
deny entry to someone convicted of driving while intoxicated, including first-timers. There are workarounds, but they involve advance planning and expense. 

11. Public Service--A conviction may affect a defendant's ability to vote, hold appointed, or elected public office or serve on a jury. 

    In a future blog, I'd like to return to reviewing collateral consequences and look at some specific occupations where a conviction might bite a defendant. My point in publishing this partial list is not to argue in favor of the restoration of the above-listed rights. That's a political decision for each reader to weigh. Instead, I hope readers understand the range of collateral effects that may follow a criminal conviction. These consequences have indirect legal ramifications, financial penalties, social costs, and the loss of rights and privileges. 

    As a criminal practitioner, I can tell you that most of these consequences are never discussed as part of a plea negotiation. A defendant may plead to a credit-for-time-served sentence. The deal seems in his best interest as he stands before the judge. Then, the unconsidered consequences arise as he seeks to move on from his criminal decision. A defendant may grow resentful as economic doors close and opportunities never appear. He may feel trapped because of the collateral effects he never imagined. You may have a defendant who feels like a victim. 

    And as a writer, you can work with that. 

    I'll be traveling the day this posts. I apologize in advance if you comment and I don't respond. 

    Until next time. 

Detection at the Opera

Given that crime plays such a big part in opera, it is surprising how few detectives show up on the stage. Surely this is in part historical, most operas being composed before the golden age of detective fiction. The many murders, assassinations and betrayals of the genre tend to be handled by private revenge, royal or judicial fiat, or even, as in Lohengrin, by trial by combat.

Though Oedipus of Igor Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, and Hamlet of Ambroise Thomas's opera of the same name, are exceptions, both based on ancient, even mythic sources. In operas dealing with what were contemporary settings or events, the investigator is hard to find.

So it was with great interest that I noticed a revival of Umberto Giordano's 1898

Fedora, an opera, not about the hat, itself beloved in detective fiction, but a Russian Countess, who tries her hand at detection. The libretto was based on an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou– a drama that opened just four years after the birth of Sherlock Holmes.

Rich, beautiful, fascinating, and impulsive, Fedora is splendidly embodied by Sonya Yoncheva in the Metropolitan Opera's recent production. A fine singer, an excellent actor, and a great beauty, Yoncheva is as close to an ideal Fedora as one is likely to get.

This is important, as Countess Fedora holds central stage in each of the three acts, and without a virtuoso voice and a charismatic presence, the wild melodrama of the opera would be impossible to sustain. The Met's promotions promised romantic passion wrapped around a mystery and proved to be a rare instance of genuine truth in advertising.

Both the romantic passion and the mystery are propelled by the countess. She is much in love with her fiance, one Count Vladimiro, and the opera opens on her first visit to his home. She has barely arrived when the Count, badly wounded, is rushed inside by his coachman and servants. He's been fatally shot. Police are summoned, servants questioned, and a neighbor, Loris Ipanoff, becomes the prime suspect. Motive, unknown, but Nihilist terror is one theory.

When the police fail to apprehend Ipanoff, the grief-stricken and impatient Fedora swears vengeance. Dismissing the efforts of the crime squad, she sets out to find him and gain proof of his guilt. This will be a plot line familiar to many contemporary readers, but I suspect was something of a novelty at the time of the opera's debut performance.

In the second act, Fedora is in Paris along with the suspect, a susceptible romantic who has fallen in love with her, a sentiment Fedora welcomes in two ways. She hopes to use his affection to secure his confession, but she is not entirely immune to Loris Ipanoff's charm, especially when embodied in as handsome a tenor as Piotr Beczala.

At a lavish party in her Parisian residence, Ipanoff at last admits to the shooting, but claims that it was not murder and that he has proof of his real innocence. Fedora demands the evidence, and he promises to present it after the party.

So far, I think Miss Marple, if not Sherlock Holmes, would approve. Fedora has pursued the case with ruthless devotion and a fair bit of dexterity. However, she makes a grievious amateur mistake: she jumps to conclusions and informs the Russian authorities of Ipanoff's confession before seeing his exculpatory evidence.

When he arrives, Ipanoff presents a dramatically different version of the fatal event, and he has a letter from the philandering Count to prove his case. Admitting she was wrong, the Countess confesses her real feelings for Ipanoff, but it is already too late. A tragic ending is ensured and appears promptly in the final act of the opera.

The libretto of Fedora makes a clean sweep of the unfortunate Ipanoff's relatives and dispatches the remorseful Countess for good measure. Modern taste, of course, is kinder to investigating amateurs of both sexes. Think of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, where the female lead switches allegiance and winds up with Cary Grant, a completely understandable move.

Nineteenth century opera audiences were less forgiving, as well as passionately fond of deathbed scenes of beautiful women. The wilful and independent Fedora dies - admittedly most elegantly - restoring the 'natural' order and providing a cautionary tale for any later sopranos with a taste of sleuthing.

---

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

The Man Who Met the Elf Queen, with two other fanciful short stories and 4 illustrations, is available from Apple Books

The Dictator's Double, 3 short mysteries and 4 illustrations is available.

Banned in Florida

Gorgeous cover!

A new Michael Bracken anthology has just launched, Prohibition Peepers. In coming weeks, I intend to blab incessantly about it.

My story, ‘Dime Detective’, features a slightly atypical private detective in the final days of 1932. After civilization had been drawn into WW-I (1914-1918), North Americans were hit with the Spanish Flu pandemic (1918-1920). Morals activists turned the temperance movement into a national-forced abstinence mandate, resulting in the Volstead Act and 18^th Amendment, banning drinkable alcohol.

God wasn’t finished with America. The Great Depression set in (1929-1939), overlapping Prohibition (1920-1933), the Dustbowl (1931-1940), and the build-up to WW-II (1939-1945). Those twenty-five years (1914-1939) leading up to the Second World War were rough, but in some ways, the 1930s remains one of my favorite eras.

Sparked in the 1920s, musical creativity exploded in the following decade with the swing era, the landscape of the big bands. That music sticks with us today, works such as Louis Prima’s ‘Sing! Sing! Sing!’ (1936), famously covered by Benny Goodman (1937) with Gene Krupa and Harry James. Japanese love that piece. Few people today know Glenn Miller’s famous ‘In the Mood’ (1939) originally began life as ‘Tar Paper Stomp’ (1930) by Wingy Manone, which spawned numerous spin-offs. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, the Dorsey brothers, and Cab Calloway, not to mention wah-wah specialist Clyde McCoy. What an era!

Mechanical beauty: The late 1920s and 1930s saw some of the most beautiful motorcars ever built. Packard, Bugatti, Mercedes SSK, Bentley, and the ACD group– Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg, combined sweeping form with function.

And of course it was an era hard-boiled noire and mystery lovers revere.

Booth Tarkington

Most Famous Novelist Unknown Today

Generations X, Y, Z can’t be criticized when the most famous author of the 1920-30s, Booth Tarkington (1869-1946), descended into oblivion after his death. He is one of only four novelists to win multiple Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction (along with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead). His best known work, The Magnificent Ambersons, (1918) won the 1919 Pulitzer, and was made into movies at least three times, one directed by Orson Welles.

Considered the most important author of his time with a number of works turned into films, Tarkington, along with James Whitcomb Riley, Meredith Nicholson, and George Ade, formed what has been described as an Indiana Golden Age of literature, only to fade into obscurity with the advent of WW-II.

The author created an inverse image of the infamous George Amberson Minafer in a 11-year-old boy named Penrod. His friends group is multiracial, certain to get Penrod books banned and burned in Florida schools. The choice of names was fraught: Sam, Herman, and Verman, a nickname to arouse the ire. Tarkington couldn't foresee his vision of an expanded racial universe could be tarnished by a careless, offhand choice of nicknames.

Penrod is a cross between Tom Sawyer and Dennis the Menace, who, along with his pals, might have influenced the Little Rascals / Our Gang franchise. As a book-devouring child chomping through our thin school library, I discovered the series: Penrod, Penrod and Sam, and Penrod Jashber. The first two books were mostly short stories, the third more of a novel. The latter featured him playing private detective.

Is there any wonder I thought of Penrod when Michael asked us to write a private eye story in the prohibition time frame?

In my story, Penrod Jasper (the surname comes from my grandfather) is twelve as is Sam… actually Samantha. She has a touch of my niece and I fell in love with her. She’s outspoken, trusting, fearless, and won’t back down for any reason. I’m also fond of one of my gangsters, a hulking, not-so-bright muscle named Ferd. And there’s Queenie… Discover them for yourself.

Enscribed in Black and White

I had the opportunity to read a few stories prior to publication and one unintended factor struck me– this book will be banned in Florida. Each story I read, mine included, dealt with not merely race relations, but race and relations.

I interpret it as our small way of telling rising racial supremacists that we reject their world. Most of us want to live and love in peace and prosperity, kindness and consideration.

In future articles, I’ll be talking about the following:

 

 

 

 

© 2023 Prohibition Peepers

 

Crime Scene Comix Case 2023-09-024, Statue

Once again we highlight our criminally favorite cartoonist, Future Thought channel of YouTube. We love the sausage-shaped Shifty, a Minion gone bad.

Yikes! In this Crime Time episode, only one outcome is possible.

 

 

 

 

© www.FutureThought.tv

 

That’s today’s crime cinema. Hope you enjoyed the show. Be sure to visit Future Thought YouTube channel.

The Bachman Books - Or, Not Stephen King

Photo by Shane Leonard

Once upon a time, an underpaid, overworked schoolteacher from Maine wrote some books. A lot of books. He loved horror, but he also knew that might limit him. So, on horror he put one name, using another for decidedly not-horror books, with one exception. As his first published novel was a story about a teenage outcast with telekinetic powers, you can tell which type of story he liked to write.

The novel was Carrie by Stephen King. But the other books, three dystopian thrillers and a noir story about a guy who ain't givin' up his house, didn't really fit the King mold. Not when he had a major streak of successes with his first four novels: Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Stand, and The Shining. All these are not just horror classics but, in the case of The Stand and The Shining, literary masterpieces the snooty MFA-prof-having-dirty-thoughts-about-student set cannot bring themselves to acknowledge. Maybe King will have to die first for them to accept him. Except he's already rejected him, so it'd be like inducting the Sex Pistols into the Rock Hall.

But what of those other books? King originally took his mother's maiden name and the name of someone he knew and combined them into "Gus Pilsbury." Now, I have a hard enough time selling books as "Jim Winter" (a Star Trek reference only one person in 30 years ever figured out. Captains April and Pike would be so disappointed.) Stephen King is an easy-to-remember name. Gus Pilsbury makes me think of biscuits or cinnamon rolls or... Oh, look. Laura Lippman (another market-friendly name and one, like King, gracing her birth certificate) has a new one out!

King picked up on this. After Carrie and Salem's Lot, he wanted to see if he could do it again. So out went "Gus Pilsbury" and in came "Richard Bachman," complete with a fake bio and a picture of one of his editors as the author photo. King even listed a religion for Bachman. (Rooster worship, for the curious.) As Bachman, King had four books in the trunk. Actually, he had five, but he wasn't happy with one until he took it out in the 2010s. What were they?

Rage - Inside the mind of a mass shooter. When King wrote this, he was a schoolteacher and one not that far removed from the high school angst and anger that power this story. Also, mass shootings were rare. Then came Columbine. The shooters admitted in their journals they took inspiration from this story. So King decided to kill his own novel. But how is it as a novel? Meh. There are little King flourishes in it. His catch phrase, "friends and neighbors," shows up. But it's a lurid trip into the mind of a teenager who loses it with fatal consequences. You can still get it in older copies of The Bachman Books, but otherwise, no recent reprintings. It will probably stay that way for decades to come.

The Long Walk - King embraces his inner Ray Bradbury, then gets dark. Really dark. Every year, a select group of teenage boys participate in the Long Walk, starting at the US-Canadian border and following US 1. In theory, they could make it all the way to Key West, but no one can stay awake that long. Why do they do it? The Prize. In a gambit King will repeat in The Running Man, the boys risk getting shot in order to get the Prize, implied to be more money than God has and never having to worry about food, housing, health care. It's a sham run by a militaristic figure called "the Major." The America depicted in it could be taken straight from The Handmaid's Tale. As a non-horror novelist, King is finally finding his groove.

Road Work - Probably my least favorite of the Bachman books, but I understand where it comes from. King wrote this as his mother was dying. A single mom who had to keep as much of her struggle from her kids as possible, she was the center of his universe, at least until he met Tabitha Spruce, aka Tabitha King these days. The novel is a bitter, angry story about a man who resent eminent domain long before it was abused to put in shopping malls and overpriced housing. In this case, a fictional Midwestern city is adding a bypass which will go through where his job and his house both sit. Rather than move and take the money, he sits on his hands and ignores the warnings. He loses his job and his wife, and it doesn't end well when the construction crews finally show up. 

The Running Man - Probably the best known Bachman book. Soon after King was unmasked as Bachman, he sold the film rights. It became an Arnold Schwarzenegger action romp. King wasn't happy with the movie, but both are fun dystopian stories. In the book, Killian is a black man who is a grinning, sleazy figure arranging for the poor to participate in fatal gameshows to keep the masses entertained. Had they followed the book, one might picture Laurence Fishburne channeling his inner Marvel villain in the part. In the movie, Killian is the host, played by Richard Dawson of Family Feud fame. In both, Ben Richards kills him off, only more directly in the movie. While it has the dark dystopian themes of the earlier Bachman books, it's probably the most fun to read.

Thinner - Really, a thinly disguised Stephen King book, and the one that unmasked him. Billy Halleck runs over an old Romani woman and is cursed by her son to grow ever thinner. At first, this is great for the overweight Halleck, but soon, he starts resembling a concentration camp survivor. This hasn't aged well, but is the novel which blew his cover. While the references to Gypsies and their culture have not aged well, there's no mistaking Portsmouth, NH is really Derry. It reads and looks like a King book. Yet sales of the book suggest the next Bachman book scheduled, Misery, would have broken through and put "Bachman" on the bestseller list. Instead, King got an inspiration for The Dark Half.

The Regulators - King's not even trying to hide it now, especially since the four-volume Bachman Books collection had been out for years. It's a sequel to Desperation, which is not my favorite King novel. There's a meta-story here where Bachman, whose bio now says he died of cancer in 1987, wrote the sequel without meeting King or reading Desperation. It doesn't really work, and King puts Bachman to bed for close to two decades.

Blaze - King calls this a trunk novel. It isn't even dystopian, nor is it a thinly disguised King novel. When Stephen King did not know what kind of writer he wanted to be, he penned this noir novel about a slow-witted, brutal man nicknamed Blaze. Blaze does some horrible, evil things, yet he isn't evil. He is a victim of circumstances. Ironically, King had even less faith in this story than he did Carrie, but once he dug it out, he rewrote it in American Typewriter font to recreate the vibe he had when he wrote the original. It's probably the best of the six books, but maybe because he wrote it with an innocence one eventually loses writing over time.