Test the Best

This is my sixteenth review of the best short mysteries of the year. I am sure  the judges of Edgars, Derringers, etc. can relax since they can simply look here for all the greats (well, except for these and those.)  

If you mention this list, and I hope you do, please refer to it as something like "Robert Lopresti's best short mysteries of the year list at SleuthSayers," NOT as the "SleuthSayers' best of..." because my fellow bloggers are ruggedly independent and may well have opinions of my own.

There are 14 winners this year, down two from 2023. Ten are by men, 4 by women. The big winner is Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, with three stories. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Down and Out Books, and White City Press each scored 2. One author has two stories in my list, which has only happened three times before. Five stories are by my fellow SleuthSayers.

Okay. Let's get down in the dirt.

Binney, Robert J. "Restoration Software,"  in The Killing Rain, edited by Jim Thomsen, Down and Out Books, 2024.

 

This is the story of a Seattle private eye, not exactly a  native to the city, but one who has been kicking (ahem) around the northwest for a long time.  "He might be an eight-foot-tall mythological savage covered in mottled, tangled fur, but he was no dummy."   Yup. Sasquatch, P.I.

 Chase, Joslyn. "Mall Cop Christmas Parade,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February  2024.

'Tis the merry season in California and Bradford Hines has a ticket to get back to his family in Maryland.  But he's in a busy mall and before he can grab that plane he wants to grab a wallet out of a man's jacket.  That part's easy, but Brad is not as  smooth a pickpocket as he thinks and a female security guard catches him in the act.  Or is that what happens? 

 Cody, Liza, "Don't Push Me,"  in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024.

This is Cody' fourth appearance in my best of the year list. Debby "Basher" Belker is a squaddy - a British soldier.  She has seen a lot of combat overseas but this story takes place in England and the trouble starts when she sees a man beating a small boy. True to her reputation,  she hits first and asks questions after.  Turns out the boy  is a thief, but the man is selling counterfeit goods.  The police have no interest in prosecuting him but Belker takes advantage of a possibility that does not exist in the United  States: She organizes a private prosecution. The crook's bosses object...

D'Agnese, Joseph S. "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bled,"  in Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman, Level Short, 2024.

I have a story in this book. Joe is a fellow SleuthSayer.

It's Greenwich Village in 1859 and eccentric people flock to Pfaff's a German-owned tavern.  When a theatre critic is murdered there  poet and regular Walt Whitman decides to solve the crime before the police find out what goes on there and shuts the joint down.

Floyd, John M.  "Hole in my Soul,"  in Janie's Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith, edited by Michael Bracken, White City Press, 2024.

Hard to believe this is SleuthSayer Floyd's first mention on this list. 

The narrator  saves a child from dying in a horrible accident. Then he walks off down the street with something on his mind.  The fun part is finding out what.

Hannah, James D.F. "Do You See the Light?"  in Lost and Loaded: A Gun's Tale, edited by Colin Conway, Original Ink Press, 2024.

I have a story in this book. 

John owns a record shop, selling vintage discs to fanatical collectors.  His friend Danny makes his living as a clown at children's parties, which doesn't really match his personality: "You oughta be able hunt five-year-olds for sport." They suspect a very valuable album (five figures!) might be in a wealthy home in town, and decide to try a short career as burglars. It doesn't go well.

Mallory, Michael. "Who Wants to Kill Someone?" , in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine,  January/February 2024. 

Michael is our newest SleuthSayer. and this is his second hit on my list. 

Bruce  signs up for a hit TV show called Who Wants to Kill Someone?  The cast is flown to a Central American country and one member is assigned the role of murderer and is then actually expected to kill a fellow performer.    Bruce is given the role of murderer and learns that  not everyone is who they appear to be and the actual plot of the show is different than it seems - but no less dangerous.  

O'Connor, Paul Ryan. "No One Will Believe You,"  in Mystery Magazine, March 2024.

Ayden is a dishwasher at a restaurant in the South Bronx, sharing  an apartment with four people ( he gets the couch).  His troubles really begin when he gets mugged at gun point by the most famous actor in the world,

“You can’t get away with this,” Ayden said . “You’re a movie star . I know who you are . Everyone knows who you are .”

“No one will believe you,” Ted Pace said...

Pochoda, Ivy.  "Johnny Christmas,"  in Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir, edited by Tod Goldberg, Soho Crime, 2024.

The narrator, Davo, recently got out of the army and decides to get a tattoo.  He gets linked up to an artist named Johnny Christmas and immediately recognizes him as Mike Goldfarb, who he had known many years before at the Brooklyn House of Detention. Goldfarb was awaiting trial for running over his grandmother's landlord. Twice.    A nice character study.

Rusch, Kristine Kathryn, "The Bride Case,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2024.

This is Rusch's fourth appearance on the list. The narrator  is an attorney, on his way to an important homicide case, but  he  looks in on a colleague  trying her first divorce case.  Something goes wrong, life-changingly wrong, and the story shifts.  Later it changes again and we get to what the story is really about, as the narrator has to really think about his relationship with the law.

Troy, Mark, "The Car Hank Died In,"  in Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham, Down and Out Books, 2024.

Two horny teenagers decide the perfect place to fool around is the backseat of an old Cadillac.  Couple of problems with that: 1. The driver is about to take it out for gas.  2. This isn't just any old Caddy; it's the one where Hank Williams took his last breath and is used in parades on holidays, such as the next day.  Next problem: a cowboy with a gun and bad intentions.

Walker, Joseph S. "Come On Eileen," in (I Just) Died in Your Arms, edited by J. Alan Hartman, White City Press, 2024.

Fouth story on this list by my fellow SleuthSayer,

 Liam Walsh grew up in a neighborhood called Little Dublin, ruled over by Patrick Flynn.  His father worked for Flynn, and Liam adored Flynn's daughter, Eileen. At an off-to-college party for Eileen, Flynn shot Liam's parents, killing his mother and crippling his father. Years later Liam finds out what really happened...

Walker, Joseph S. "And Now, an Inspiring Story of Tragedy Overcome,"  in Three Strikes -- You're Dead!, edited by Donna  Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley, Wildside Press, 2024. 

And here is greedy Joe back with a fifth story.   That ties him with David Dean for the most ever (so far). 

Lonnie Walsh is a second generation mobster.  His sister dies giving birth to the daughter of Brant, her  worthless  husband.  Lonnie has to watch over little Kayla while trying to keep idiot Brant out of trouble. Things get more complicated when Kayla has the potential to be  a world-class figure skater, if her family's reputation doesn't interfere.

 

Wiebe, Sam, "The Barguzin Sable,"  in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April, 2024.

David Wakeland is a Vancouver P.I. At his mother's request he investigates the home invasion of a neighbor that included her murder and the theft of her precious fur coat, a relic that came over from Russia a century before.  It turns out that  the sable means many things to different people.  As one character says "You can't expect common sense from folks who wear weasel."

By the way, in the last month several SleuthSayers have presentied in this space  a review of their year's work.  I actually put mine up on a different site.  Feel free to take a peek.

An Elephant Standing

 I still get the morning paper thrown on my doorstep. It's a nostalgia thing. 

Frederick Roth, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

While leafing through its thin front section, I noticed a small article on page two, below stories about wildfires and the new administration. Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo, five elephants in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoon, were appearing before the Colorado Supreme Court. 

Not literally, of course, the building's floor and elevators weren't built for these litigants. 

The Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP), an advocacy organization, had filed a habeas corpus petition on behalf of the zoo animals. 

The Latin phrase habeas corpus roughly translates to "do you have the body?" The write requires the jailer to bring the incarcerated person before a judge to determine whether a person is being legally held in custody. The writ's roots go back to the Magna Carta. The jurist, William Blackstone, called it the Great Writ, for its ability to right wrongs. 

The Supremes denied the NRP's petition to order the creatures released from the zoo. They found that elephants could not seek habeas corpus relief to gain a "get out of jail free" card because habeas corpus does not apply to animals. 

While "great," the writ has limitations. As noted by the Colorado Supreme Court, habeas corpus applies to persons. That's how it was written in Colorado law. Although elephants are cognitively, psychologically, and socially sophisticated, they are not persons. The Court ruled that the elephants, therefore, lacked "standing." 

The legal concept of standing challenges a court's jurisdiction. Courts don't get to jump willy-nilly into anyone's business. Before a petitioner may ask a court to intervene, they must have standing to bring a suit or complain of action. In the words of Maryland's appellate judge, Charles Moylan, standing is the key to the courtroom's door. 

In Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo's case, the Court found that since they weren't persons and habeas corpus applies to persons under Colorado law, the elephants couldn't use the writ. 

Someday, we might discuss habeas corpus in more detail. Today, however, I'd like to pivot and zero in on the notion of standing. 

We're crime writers and readers. Although the elephant case presented an interesting news item, I don't see many nonhuman litigants in state criminal court practice. Standing most typically arises in search and seizure cases. Although the word standing isn't used much for reasons I'll develop below, it still remains an integral part of the thought process in criminal law. 

For years, standing was a property rights question. Did the litigant have a property interest in the place searched? Was the defendant also the owner of the locus of the search and seizure at issue? 

Then, in 1967, Charles Katz went to the US Supreme Court for running a gambling operation out of a phone booth in Los Angeles. Katz closed the phone booth door and did everything he could to protect his privacy. Sadly for him, Katz didn't know that the feds had mounted a listening device outside the booth. 

With Katz v. United States, the Court began changing the analysis. The Fourth Amendment didn't exist to safeguard places; instead, it was written to protect people in places where they should feel secure. Courts now centered their attention on the question of whether "the disputed search and seizure has infringed an interest of the defendant which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect." (The quoted language is from Rakas v. Illinois.)

What were once two questions: Do I have a property interest? And, was my privacy violated? The analysis telescoped into the one question asked in Rakas. 

Consider this example:

Fearing imminent police search, a chivalrous defendant hid his drugs in his companion's purse, where they were discovered during an illegal search. Although the search was unlawful, he had no expectation of privacy in her purse, so his Fourth Amendment rights were not violated, although hers were. The same illegal search might, therefore, invade one person's privacy but not another's. (Rawlings v. Kentucky)

You've likely read a novel in which the police, disguised as garbage men, collect trash to search for evidence. The same concept is at work here. If I've thrown it away, I've discarded my expectation of privacy. 

Phones are a good example of how rights may morph over time. 

Kalel Tonatiuh, CC

Katz's phone booth conversation was private because he closed the door and attempted to safeguard the call. The strict rule about phone booths has little relevancy these days.  Personal communications are conducted by cell phone. If I use my cell phone in a public place, I can't complain if someone reports half of the conversation--both halves if I decide that I want to discuss my illegal activities on speaker phone. 

When I began working as a prosecutor, police could, incident to a lawful arrest, go through an arrestee's phone if he had it in his possession. They could extract whatever useful evidence they might find. Over time, courts realized that the telephone Katz used, a mechanical instrument with no storage, was very different from a modern cell phone, a computer that also enables telephone calls. The US Supreme Court recognized a person's privacy interest in a phone's contents. Police can still look, but they must get a search warrant. The rules changed in keeping with the times and the technology. 

When writing about search and seizure issues, remember: 1. Defendants will always complain that their rights were violated. 2. Defense attorneys will always ask a court to suppress evidence of their client's guilt. Whether a court will deny the government the right to use the seized evidence requires posing a third question. 3. Does the defendant have a privacy interest that he jurisdiction is willing to recognize? 

The rules and details become cumbersome and fact specific. These three guidelines are easy to learn. You don't need to be an elephant to remember them. 

Until next time.  

“We love to work at nothing all day.” – Bachman Turner Overdrive

I noticed at the end of the old year lots of commentary on the radio and in print about the virtues of doing nothing.  I think the premise of all these pieces was that our modern lives are consumed by distractions and attention-seeking media, such that we never turn off our brains, or rather, never disconnect from the clamor to the degree needed to settled down our inner minds.  So not literally doing nothing, just not doing things that mess up your ability to ponder, evaluate, reconsider, plan and create in a quiet mental state.

I wholeheartedly subscribe to this premise.  I have always cultivated my skills at doing nothing for this exact purpose.  Also, to avoid doing things I should be doing, while feeling self-satisfied that I’m actually using the time for deep thinking.  There’s no better way to loaf around without feeling guilty, since what you are actually doing is properly attending to healthy cognition. 

The authors’ prescriptions for treating this ailment always include taking long walks, presumably without your iPhone.  My wife and I walk our dog every day, so check that box.  None mentioned a technique I’ve developed over decades I call “Rotting on the front porch.”  This involves sitting out there half the year with a drink, these days fruit juice, and maybe a plate of cheese and crackers, occasionally with some sliced Italian sausage thrown in.  The key to this meditative practice is to leave all your devices in the house, and only bring along the dog, who can teach us all about the rewards of serious rotting behavior. 

When my niece was a little girl, she and I developed “The Lying Down Game.”  I would often come to her house after a long day at work to spend some time, and my only ambition was to lie flat on my back and stare up at the ceiling.  She was intrigued by this, and would join me on the floor.  We’d consume a fair amount of time doing this, interrupted only by occasional comments – nothing more taxing than discussing her time at school, or exchanging inane, impossibly unfunny jokes, which were nonetheless funny to the two of us.

All of this would be quite familiar to the Buddha, who taught that a quiet mind was the path to enlightenment.  He believed that forcing oneself to think was a fool’s errand.  Rather, one merely needed the mind to work unobstructed, to have the thoughts flow in naturally and unimpeded.  I think he was on to something, and maybe after a few thousand years of testing out the theory we could acknowledge the value. 

I’ve been doing a lot of woodworking lately, the thing I do along with writing.  I see the two pursuits as being essentially the same.  There’s a strenuousness to woodworking that differs from merely tapping on a keyboard, but in both activities, I take a lot of breaks.  I just sit and look around at my surroundings, which I find pleasingly chaotic, but also orderly in their own way.  Like my mind.  Even if it might appear to be a jumble to the unpracticed eye, to me, everything is where it ought to be, or will be as soon as I get off my ass and make an adjustment.  Or rewrite a paragraph.

This practice has likely improved with age, as my physical strength declines inversely proportionate to my talent for brooding and hashing things out by simply looking around. 

I could write more, but I think a productive break is in order.

Police Reported Ahead

I was driving on the Interstate in an unfamiliar city over the holidays.  I had the GPS on my phone patched through the car stereo, giving me directions to my destination, but I wasn't expecting to hear one thing it suddenly announced: "Police Reported Ahead."

Sure enough, a few minutes later I passed an obvious speed trap.  My first thought: well, that technology would have made things a hell of a lot easier for the Bandit.

My second thought: who exactly did the reporting?  Are there drivers actually logging in to Google Maps, or whatever app I was using (I lose track sometimes) to report police activity?  Or does the thing somehow detect when people using it are pulled over?

I don't know why I found it so surprising.  It prompted thoughts I've had before, about how the very concept of privacy is falling by the wayside.  In this particular case, the omnipresent phone and all it represents may be working to foil police action, but far more often, we find that we've created a world where we take it for granted that our every action is monitored, our every utterance heard, our every message and transaction recorded somewhere.

The vast majority of people in society today willingly carry around a device that makes it possible to know where we go, how long we stay there, who else was present, and a great deal of what happened.  We're not just willing to carry these devices around--a lot of us would get violently upset if they were taken away.

Cash is disappearing from society, displaced by digital transactions that make anonymity essentially impossible.  Want to buy a beer at your local sporting event?  It's increasingly likely that your bank will know about it immediately.  It's not hard to imagine a world where the bank lets your car know how much you've had to drink, so it can decide whether to let you drive.

Security cameras, facial recognition technology, drones--good luck escaping them.  Leave some DNA at a crime scene a few decades ago?  You'd better hope none of your close relatives send a sample in for DNA testing.

We can applaud a lot of this--the Golden State Killer was arrested because a relative sent some DNA to a genetic testing service--while still finding the disappearance of privacy troubling.  From what I can tell, it's already something the younger generations of today don't even think about.  Having grown up in a digital world that's been harvesting data about them since they were toddlers, they regard the notion of a private life as akin to the notion of a horse and buggy.  It's cute, but it's simply not part of the reality they live in.

For we crime writers, this presents some special challenges.  I love the Parker novels by Richard Stark (which is to say, by Donald Westlake), but almost none of the heists that master thief Parker and his cronies pull off would be possible in today's world.  Entirely aside from the inescapable surveillance, there just aren't that many places any longer with giant piles of cash waiting to be stolen.  Today's master thieves use laptops, not handguns.  Not nearly as much fun to read about, and no fun at all to write.

Think about some of your favorite noir and crime films made prior to, say, 1990.  How many of them have plots that would still work if everybody had a cell phone?

So what's a poor crime writer to do?  One solution is to set stories in the past, which is something I've done a lot.  Frankly, it's something of a relief to write about a world where people still read newspapers, go to the library to do research, and sometimes get a busy signal when they try to use the phone.

Of course, the other option is to use our imaginations, recognizing that, however much the world has changed, people still commit murders, still take things that don't belong to them, and are still haunted by the mistakes they've made in the past.  I'm honored to have had stories in all five volumes to date of the superb anthology series MICKEY FINN: 21ST CENTURY NOIR, created and edited by fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken, who takes that subtitle seriously.  He wants stories set in the present day, with killers and crooks and PIs who have cell phones, and reading any edition of the series will demonstrate that it's still possible to tell compelling stories set in that world--which is to say, our world.

None of which prevents me from regarding this new age of surveillance with suspicion, or feeling nostalgic for the time before.  When I was twelve years old, I'd often get on my bicycle and be gone from home all day.  I didn't have a phone.  I didn't even have much cash.  Nobody knew where I was or what I was doing.  Today, for most families, that would be unthinkable.

But doesn't it also sound a little bit wonderful?

Is Reading Uncool? What the AJ Brown book-reading during football reveals

 I know this will come as a surprise to some here, but I really like watching football. I prefer CFL to NFL (Canadians don't need that extra 4th down, you know - we''re hardier than that -grin) But rarely a Bills or Chiefs game goes by, without my attention.

I've always considered football to be like a war game, from wars of long ago. Each play is a strategy, planned out in advance, and I admire that sort of intellectual challenge.  Physical skills combined with brains.

So you can imagine my amusement when AJ Brown (wide receiver with the Philadelphia Eagles) was caught on camera reading a real book, while on the bench during the game.

You'd think maybe the local farm pigs had sprouted wings and taken off over the field. Truly, the sports media went wild.

Toronto Columnist Cathal Kelly (the most humorous and erudite sports reporter I have ever read) said it best.  "I get that reading books isn't cool any more, and that buying books is the new collecting china. But it had not occurred to me how bizarre a behaviour it now seems to most people until Brown's story made headlines."

 A professional football player reading a book.

This immediately brought two things to mind:

1.  I get it, about the china. Brilliant comparison. When my mother died, I had the hardest time finding a home for her beloved china. I had my own set and had been recently widowed (far too young). My new condo had no space. Even my young girls did not want the heirlooms.

2.  When I moved from the house to said condo after being widowed, my real estate told me to "Get rid of the books. Put them in storage." Incredulous, I asked why. She said, "People will be intimidated by them." I pointed out that most were genre fiction - mysteries and suspense. Not exactly classic tomes. She said, "Doesn't matter. Most people don't read nowadays. They watch TV."

That's what she said - five and a half years ago - about the potential clients for a home that sold for well over a million dollars.

I know our publishers tell us that books sales are way down from 15 years ago. I hear from agents that the reading market is becoming older and dying out. But does that really mean books are uncool?

So I looked to my own family.  My second husband is a man who is an avid reader (bless him. He loves football too.) We have five children between us, all university educated. Only one, my youngest daughter, is a reader. The other four do not read for pleasure. Not even on Kindle.

What is going on here?  Why are the young not reading?  Is it the dreaded smart phone?  (I blame pretty much everything on smart phones.)

This really scares me. Reading takes us out of ourselves, and introduces us to a world beyond our own needs and wants. We all know, if you don't read history, you are bound to repeat it. If you never read about other people's feelings and problems, you become overly obsessed with your own. 

I worry that our younger generations will become so self-centered, so obsessed with their own lives, that they will fail to develop empathy for others.

What do you think? Do you see a connection between reading and the lack of empathy I see displayed today?

Melodie Campbell lives for books, and the writing of them. Her latest, The Silent Film Star Murders, comes out March 22. Available at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Indigo/Chapters, and independents.

Available for preorder now, at all the usual suspects.

 

What's in a Name?

I sometimes hear from authors who are agonizing over character names, and I can relate. Naming a character – particularly a series character – is almost like naming a child. You have to make certain you get it right, since the character (or child) is going got live with it for a long time.

Sometimes he names relfect the nature of the character, as with the film and TV trope of labeling a detective after a weapon or ammunition: Peter Gunn, Yancy Derringer, Bullitt, Magnum, Cannon, Baretta (homophones apply) and so on. Just about everyone has heard of Bulldog Drummond, the early 20th British sleuth who appeared in dozens of films, usually starring such classically handsome actors as Ronald Colman and Ray Milland. But one has to actually read the books by H.C. "Sapper" McNeile to realize that he's called "Bulldog" not because of his tenacity, but because he's homely as a hound.

My vote for the most deliberate and meaningful example of character naming comes from Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, where nearly every character's name reflects their nature or profession. The hero, of course, is Sam Spade – a spade being a tool for digging and digging through dirt is part of a P.I.'s job. His unbendingly loyal secretary is Effie, phonetically FE, the symbol for iron. His doomed partner is Miles Archer, whose last name evokes an obsolete means of defending oneself, which is obviously ineffectual against a bullet. The femme fatale is first introduced as Miss Wonderly, and indeed does seem wonderful, but she is later revealed to be Brigid O'Shaughnessy, as Irish a name as is possible which (correctly) implies that every word she speaks is so much blarney. The lead villain is Casper Gutman, and what better name for an obese man? One of his confederations is the rather exotic Joel Cairo, named for a locale that symbolizes exotic mystery for many Americans. Torpedo Wilmer Cook is a hot head, and a cook works in a hot kitchen. (Wilmer is also referred to as a "gunsel," which most people interpret as meaning a hired gun, but is really a form of "gonsil," the Yiddish term for the young male lover of an older man, which describes his relationship with Gutman (at least as implied in the novel and pre-code film version).

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

When I was first developing my character Amelia Watson, who is the second wife of Dr. John H. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame (based on the number of wives whose existences were mentioned by Arthur Conan Doyle, who did not bother to name Wife #2), I wanted a name that evoked an earlier time without sounding too antiquated. I considered "Agatha," but concluded that was too obvious and corny. "Amelia," though, was a name one did not often hear in the early 1990s, when Amelia was created, but if one happened to, it was not head-shaking.

Similarly, my subsequent character Dave Beauchamp went through several rounds of name consideration, but for a different reason. Dave is a contemporary Los Angeles private eye who is more hapless than most. In fact, one of his characteristics is that he faces almost nonstop humbling situations. I wanted his name to reflect that, chiefly through being something that everybody gets wrong on the first try. This was inspired in part by a running gag in the film Chinatown, in which the sinister antagonist Noah Cross constantly mispronounces Jake Gittes' name as "Gits." I recalled how when I first came to L.A., the airwaves were flush with ads for a certain "Dr. Beauchamp, Credit Dentist." While his name in the TV spots looked like it should be pronounced "Bow-champ," the announcer intoned, "Beach-um." That suited my purposes perfectly and even informed one of Dave's early humiliations: after paying for an ad in the Yellow Pages, he sees Beauchamp Investigations printed as Be a Chump Investigations.

Occasionally I play games with character names, just to see if anyone picks up on it. In one Amelia Watson story, the murderer is a moneyed, privileged fellow who can afford the best legal team to make certain he is acquitted. I named him Owen Jafford.

Check out the initials.

For my latest Dave Beauchamp novel, Freeze a Jolly Good Fellow! I initially gave my incidental and supporting characters serviceable, but rather arbitrary names. Then upon proofing the manuscript I realized that structurally, the book was an old Saturday matinee series in prose, completely with multiple death-traps and escapes. That was not my intent, but since I love old Republic Studios serials, it is what emerged. Having discovered it, I played into it even further by going back and renaming the supporting characters after stunt performers who worked at Republic in the golden age. I don't expect many readers to zero in on it, but I know it's there.

If I have a rule of thumb for naming fictional protagonists, it's this: remember that even though they're imaginary, characters all had a childhood. They did not (at least they should not) have spontaneously generated as adults. Extravagant character names are all well and good, but before you name your protagonist, say, Venus Flytrap, first imagine a child coming to the front door and saying, "Hi, Mrs. Flytrap, can Venus come out and play?" If that strikes you as risible, pick another moniker.

What Can be Done with Words...

First of all, there have been some fabulous posts written lately about words, language, etc. Thank you all for giving me something to look up to.

Secondly, thank you to Fred Clark, writer of the Slacktivist blog, for his marvelous "Trap Streets, Mountweazels, and Made Up Words." (Link is above) What you read is his, with a few notes of my own. So, let's get going!

I love this story from the Guardian, “A whimsical new exhibition assembles a range of books that don’t exist.”

This exhibit is just so much fun. It’s people both having fun and creating fun by designing and presenting editions of these “books that don’t exist.”

That includes several categories here, including “lost books” (real texts for which we have no surviving copies), “unfinished books,” and — my favorite section — “fictive books.” These are “books that exist only in other books”:

This includes Rules & Traffic Regulations That May Not Be Bent or Broken, a driver’s handbook mentioned in Norman Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, which looks much like a traveler’s manual from the 1960s. Or The Songs of the Jabberwock, bound in purple and printed backwards, “pretty much as Alice found it sitting right inside the mirror”, said [Reid] Byers. A copy of Nymphs and Their Ways, glanced by Lucy on Mr Tumnus’s shelf in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, decorated with a Romantic-era painting of bathing women. And a maroon-colored version of The Lady Who Loved Lighting by Clare Quilty, who was murdered by Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita – though, as Humbert Humbert is a famously unreliable narrator, we don’t really know if he even existed. It’s a unique specimen of the collection – “a book written by a character who does not exist, even in the book of origin. So it’s doubly imaginary,” Byers explained.

Oooh. This is like a library or book-shop version of my ever-growing playlist of songs that exist only in other songs (“The Tennessee Waltz,” “The Monster Mash,” “Night of the Johnstown Flood,” etc.).

But anyway, Adrian Horton’s article on this exhibit also taught me a fantastic, new-to-me word:

Imaginary Books is, as Byers will concede, a true and sincere gag, down to its listed “sponsorship” by the Mountweazel Foundation in Faraway Hills, New York. (A mountweazel being, of course, a term for a fake entry in a reference work, usually planted to catch copyright infringement.)

The etymology of “mountweazel” is just wonderful:

The neologism Mountweazel was coined by The New Yorker writer Henry Alford in an article that mentioned a fictitious biographical entry intentionally placed as a copyright trap in the 1975 New Columbia Encyclopedia. The entry described Lillian Virginia Mountweazel as a fountain designer turned photographer, who died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine. Allegedly, she was widely known for her photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, the cemeteries of Paris, and rural American mailboxes. According to the encyclopedia’s editor, it is a tradition for encyclopedias to put a fake entry to trap competitors for plagiarism. The surname came to be associated with all such fictitious entries.

That’s from the Wikipedia entry on “Fictitious entries,” which makes me wonder if Wikipedia itself has any. That entry also mentions “trap streets,” a form of fictitious entry that I’ve been fascinated with ever since I was a kid on a bicycle.

Back in middle school, my friends and I went everywhere on our bikes. We usually just wandered, but sometimes we planned long journeys using a road atlas of Middlesex County. That’s how we learned about trap streets.

Our journeys usually began from Doug’s house. He lived on Rosewood Drive, in Piscataway, a short street that ran between two dead ends, like the crossbar on a capital H.

but it’s not what our county atlas showed. That atlas included a street that didn’t exist. It had an “Elmwood Drive” connecting those two dead-end streets south of Rosewood. We were confounded by this mystery. We took the road atlas and pedaled down to the dead ends of both Glenwood and Redwood, confirming with our own eyes and feet that no such thing as “Elmwood Drive” existed where we stood. It was still all just scrubby woods with bike trails that we avoided because that was where the Big Kids hung out. (Avoiding the Big Kids is an important rule during the summers when you’re in middle school.)

We presented this mystery to Doug’s dad, who explained to us about “trap streets” and how map-makers had to invent and include small errors to defend their copyright against plagiarists who might try to steal their work. We were fascinated by this idea — particularly after he suggested that there were probably small, deliberately false details on every page of that road atlas.

Eve's Note 1: I have literally driven through small towns that don't exist on the road map, and I'm sure don't show up on GPS. Why not streets? Some great ideas here, fellow-writers!

Eve's Note 2: My favorite word of all in this article is: “[E[squivalience.” which is a made-up word meaning “the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities.” This needs to be spread far and wide.

Eve's Note 3: Imaginary books have been written about long before the Guardian article Fred mentions. In Colette's My Apprenticeships she writes about Paul Masson, writer who worked at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the Catalogue Department to stay live. One time Colette saw him working on a list of titles, and she asked what they were. He told her they were titles of books that the

Bibliothèque Nationale did not have, but should have and was putting them into the catalog. When she asked, "But why? If the books don't exist?" he replied, "Ah! I can't do everything."

Ah, indeed.

Conspiracy Theory

It’s one of the less happy conventions of the thriller or mystery story that when the whole thing unravels, it’s a letdown.  How many conspiracies turn out to be the brainchild of some pedestrian jerk-off living over his mom’s garage, playing 1^st-person shooter games?  (This is figurative, but once in a while literal.)  Snowpiercer, for example, is pretty lively for the first two acts, but when you get to the front of the train, and meet the sinister and over-sharing Ed Harris, it seems a little too familiar – the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.  You’re not the only one thinking, Is that all there is?

Bond villains after Thunderball are generally parodies, at least in the Sean Connery/Roger Moore pictures.  And once 007 penetrates the villain’s lair, he’s subjected to a data dump of verbal diarrhea, said villain expatiating on the weakness and complacency of humanity, and his own singular skills in exploiting them.  This is second cousin to the previous complaint. It demonstrates a lack of imagination. The guy had to publish with a vanity press.

Why is it that the quality of our villainy is so low?

I know Elon Musk is an ignorant and dangerous guy (and in fact I recently posted a Substack column about it:  https://gatesd.substack.com/), but he’s such a fatuous blowhard that it’s hard to take him seriously.  Much like Trump, another deeply frivolous windbag, neither one of them takes any responsibility for the drivel that comes out of their mouths.  As if they suffer from Tourette’s.  At the same time, their drivel can drive up the market in meme coin.  It’s both predictable and sad. 

You wonder why they take up all the air in the room.  It’s a hallmark of heavies, going back to Conan Doyle and John Buchan, that they won’t shut up.  They can’t switch it off.  Nayland Smith falls into Fu Manchu’s clutches, and Fu starts in with the triumphalist baloney.  Dr. No and James Bond.  It must be hardwired.  It’s the oddest God damn thing.  Is it just that Sax Rohmer and Ian Fleming themselves can’t help it?  Or is it in the character of these guys, to be the center of attention?  It’s more than literary convention.  Maybe it’s a tell, or a pathology.  The loudest voices usually have the least inner confidence.  They’re shouting down their own doubts.

There’s something funny about all this, and I don’t mean funny, ha-ha.  It’s disturbing enough that we’re persuaded to sympathize with Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs – the Tennessee jailbreak set-piece is a jaw-dropper not just because of its precision and discipline, and for its sudden reversals, but because Thomas Harris manipulates our expectations, and the biggest reversal is when we realize we’re hoping Lecter gets away with it – but it’s beyond creepy that Trump appropriates Hannibal Lecter, as a what, exactly?  An avatar, a role model, a dinner date?

What is happening, by the by, to our understanding of good and evil?  I was talking to a friend of mine, a few years back, about The Silence of the Lambs (her husband had recommended it to me), and I said something to the effect that your odds of being the victim of a serial killer were lower than being struck by lightning, you’re much more likely to be murdered by somebody you know, like your own husband (said husband being a very big and solidly-built guy), and she said, I’d really rather not consider that possibility.  She preferred the vicarious scares in Silence of the Lambs.  An epiphany.  I saw why somebody would prefer the vicarious shivers, and why you maybe don’t want to entertain the genuine threat, that the guy you’re sleeping with could murder you in your bed.  This is in no way to minimize the realities of domestic abuse, but only to say we recognize our comfort zone.  Silence of the Lambs is second-hand violence, once-removed from the immediate. 

From a safe distance, Trump and Musk seem as cartoon-y as Dr. No, or Snively Whiplash.  And perhaps their violence will be vicarious, performative and posturing, all bark and no bite.  But even the broadest of physical comedy depends on the laws of physics; the coyote runs off the edge of the cliff and hangs suspended in the empty air, and then gravity takes hold.  We look at these clowns, dressed in the plumage of affectation, and dismiss them as objects of ridicule.  Their malevolence is real enough, though, and gravity will bring us to earth.  The storyline’s a ribbon of clichés, but we greenlighted the picture before the script was finished, like Casablanca.  “You want my advice?  Go back to Bulgaria.”

2024 Year in Review: Writing and Other Things

In my December 31 SleuthSayers post, I discussed my year as an editor; in the following I discuss my year as a writer, and I discuss some of the other things with which I was involved.

WRITING

Productivity was down from last year, and nowhere near my best year (75 stories in 2009) with 10 original stories completed. This surpasses 2022 (9 stories) and 2021 (6 stories) but is fewer than 2023 (14 stories).

The shortest story was 1,800 words and the longest was 11,700 words, for an average of 4,730 words. All were crime fiction of one sub-genre or another.

ACCEPTED

Although I only wrote 10 new stories, I received 18 acceptances (including the first-ever collaboration with my wife, Temple), 13 originals and 5 reprints. This includes my sixth collaboration with Sandra Murphy, which means we’ve now placed every story we’ve completed, and this is the fifth accepted by a paying market.

PUBLISHED

In 2024, 12 original stories were published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; Crimes Against Nature; Dark of the Day; Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; Mystery Magazine; Mystery Tribune; Murder, Neat; Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked; Starlite Pulp Review; and Tough.

Also in 2024, 7 reprints were published in Crimeucopia, Storiaverse.com, Best Crime Stories of the Year, and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

Three editors are represented multiple times: Linda Landrigan published two original stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, John Conner published two reprints in Crimeucopia, and Storiaverse.com published three reprints as animated stories.

REJECTED

I received 11 rejections, which is 6 fewer rejections than acceptances, and any year in which acceptances outnumber rejections is a good year.

RECOGNIZED

“Beat the Clock” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, March/April 2023) was reprinted in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents The Best Mystery Stories of the Year and Best Crime Stories of the Year.

“Denim Mining” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May/June 2023) was nominated for a Derringer award.

“Dogs of War” (Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Volume 4), a collaboration with Stacy Woodson, was nominated for a Derringer award.

Early in the year I was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in recognition of my contributions to Texas literature.

FORTHCOMING

Including those accepted in 2024 and in previous years, I have stories forthcoming in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Chop Shop, Cryin’ Shame, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Gag Me With a Spoon, In Too Deep, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and Wish Upon a Crime.

SHORTCON

Early in 2024, Stacy Woodson, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Verena Rose, and I co-founded East Coast Crime, Inc., to present literary events about writing, editing, and publishing crime fiction, and in June we presented the inaugural ShortCon, the Premier Conference for Writers of Short Crime Fiction. Our second ShortCon will be presented Saturday, June 7, 2025, in Alexandria, Virginia, and we plan to continue this as an annual event. (Learn more here.)

MYSTERY IN THE MIDLANDS

I helped Paula Benson organize the 2024 Mystery in the Midlands, an online conference that emphasized writing and publishing short crime fiction. Paula has invited me to join her again in organizing the 2025 Mystery in the Midlands, again focusing on short crime fiction.

OTHER EVENTS

I participated—as a panelist, moderator, or presenter—at more live and online conferences, conventions, and presentations in 2024 than in any previous year. It’s unlikely that my attendance at live events will maintain this pace in the future, but online opportunities continue to present themselves.

MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA

I completed my first two-year term as an at-large board member of the Mystery Writers of America, and this year I begin my second two-year term.

LOOKING AHEAD

Until I prepared my two year-in-review posts, I had thought 2024 was a bust. In my December 10 SleuthSayers post “Life is What Happens…,” I wrote about how nothing seemed to go as planned.

This reminded how much perception and reality can be at odds. I still perceive 2024 as a disorganized mess, but I am far less dissatisfied with the year after toting up my accomplishments.

In response to my December 10 post, fellow SleuthSayer Joseph D’Agnese recommended reading Cal Newport’s book Deep Work, which, Joseph wrote, “talks about the fracturing of attention and how hard it is to get back into the groove after you’ve been interrupted.”

Although the holiday season may not be the best time to attempt changes in one’s work habits, I can say that the small adjustments I’ve made by applying what I learned from Newport’s book have started to pay off. I feel in control again and all of my projects are on track.

I’m hopeful for this year.

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“Coyote Run,” the eighth episode of Chop Shop releases February 1.

Car thieves and the chop shop that buys from them combine to create high-octane stories of hot cars, hot crimes, and hot times in Dallas, Texas.

After Cheryl Moore loses her job as a paralegal, she learns to support herself stealing SUVs from soccer moms and selling them to Huey’s Auto Repair. An opportunist more than a technician, Cheryl steps out of her comfort zone in “Coyote Run” when she boosts a Ford Transit van, and she’s not at all prepared to deal with the van’s cargo.

The Fallible Detective

We are in an age of superlatives, fond of the latest and greatest, enamored of super heroes and extraordinary feats. Detective fiction is not immune to these desires, which is perhaps why Holmes, Poirot, and Miss Marple, the three infallible, never to be corrected sleuths, are still crowding the shelves and showing up on screens big and small.

I'm personally very fond of them, but lately I have come to a renewed appreciation of the fallible detective. Not the comic type like Inspector Clouseau, but the competent, hardworking investigator who makes the occasional mistake and who owns up to error, like St. John Strafford.

Strafford, John Banville's detective, is a bit of an odd duck, being a Protestant police officer in very Catholic 1950's Dublin. A member of the Protestant Ascendancy, a fancy term for the descendants of the English colonization project that began in the 12th century, Strafford is a privileged and well educated member of the elite country house set. He is intelligent, quiet, a bit socially awkward, and almost terminally reserved.

Both saddened and relieved by the end of his marriage, Strafford admits he doesn't understand women, an insight that fails to keep him from unwise entanglements. Just the same, Under his cool courtesy, he has considerable sympathy as well as a strong desire to do the ethical thing. This is just as well because unlike some fictional detectives he is not infallible.

John Banville

Strafford's qualities are on display in The Drowned, the newest of Banville's Strafford and Quirke series, the latter being a pathologist who conducts post mortems for the Dublin police. Quirke and Strafford are on uneasy terms, being unlike in nearly everything but a concern for careful work and crime solving. The fact that Stafford is currently seeing Quirke's daughter Phoebe has not helped their relations, either.

The two of them were last seen in The Lock-Up, and one of the interesting things Banville does in the current novel is to shed not only light but doubt on the earlier case. It is an interesting strategy for a novelist and one that raises questions for his detectives.

The 1950's really were a different century as far as forensics goes. Cell phones with their useful location functions, advanced DNA testing, and CCTV footage are tools way beyond what even the best funded copper had in the '50's. Detectives in period novels like The Drowned must rely on interviews, observation, and knowledge of human nature.

This perhaps is what makes a good detective like Strafford a little more cautious, a little more careful, a little less certain that he's on the right track. Or perhaps a certain humility is just part of his character. Another cop on the case has no doubts whatsoever and backs his hunches up with a frequent resource to the third degree.

Indeed, at the end of The Drowned, it appears that the higher powers are about to make a serious mistake, one Strafford sees all too clearly. Is Banville setting up for another novel with yet another course correction? It would certainly be a different strategy and one that his intelligent, humane, and self-doubting detective would be ideal to handle.

The Spurious Scurrilous Scurril.

domesticated flying squirrel

Monday, our Chris Knopf persuasively wrote The Irresistible Sciurus carolinensis, i.e, the grey squirrel. I'm here today with a rebuttal. Much like Miss Bubbles LaFerne, squirrels are cute cuddly…

Homewreckers!

Yep. Wild squirrels let me pet them and I’ve had flying squirrels as pets– they’re small, like gerbils. I’ve met black squirrels, white squirrels, and red squirrels.

But at the moment, I’m leaning toward the rats-with-furry-tails philosophy. The Florida floods following Hurricane Ian persuaded rodents of all sorts to seek higher ground. In my area, the August Council of Rodent Emigration (ACRE) decided that meant Leigh’s attic.

Soffits, we laugh at you! Sciurus carolinensis moved in and never left. Invasive greys are known for driving red squirrels out of their traditional habitats. I know that feeling. They are…

black squirrel

Hometakers!

They refused rat bait (not intended for squirrels) and they discovered Valentine’s cockatoo food suited them quite nicely: sunflowers and salads and fancy nuts, thank you very much. During the recent cold snap– okay, what passes for a cold snap in Florida– the squirrel delegation decided they need not go out when fresh food is delivered downstairs.

Quite the overstayed guests, they are rude little…

Homemakers! (aka Make Themselves at Home)

New drywall– the gypsum board to replace that damaged in Hurricane Ian’s wake– represents a small barrier. The furballs gnaw windows above the fireplace to see what’s going on. The scene resembles one of those old gothic movies where spirits lean out of picture frames. That’s our squirrels, resting their elbows on their most recent window-to-the-world, wondering why Miss M is hurling pots and pans and curses at them. But once upon a time…

white squirrel

Home Fries!

Before Florida, I lived in a state forest in Minnesota. Lots of wildlife, lots of squirrels. Not by coincidence, the electrical power would sometimes go boom with an explosion like a shotgun blast.

The house had its own transformer high on a utility pole. You may have noticed squirrels like to climb, and the pole was no exception. From time to time, Squeaky or Squiffy or Squirmy's curiosity would come to the fore. One or another would climb on the transformer, shorting it out and blowing the fuse with a bang heard ’round the forest. Lois at the electric company would exclaim, “Glory be. Sounds like Leigh’s transformer blew again. Earl, you up for the trip?”

As a result of tripping the fuse link, Squiffy or Squirmy or Squeaky would be blown away, figuratively and literally. Funeral arrangements occurred the next day. Furry families requested sunflower seeds in lieu of sunflowers.

red squirrel

Home Savers!

After transformer blasts occurred a few times, I told the company’s lineman these untenable squirrel blasts were expensive for the electric company, the squirrel population, and me in the middle of critical lines of code on my computer.

“Oh,” Earl said. “Why don’t you request a squirrel sleeve?”

“Why has no one mentioned this?” I said. “What’s a squirrel sleeve?”

The device, as you might surmise, was a 20-inch / 50cm length of galvanized sheet metal wrapped high around the utility pole. Squirrels might ascend to the sleeve, but not climb past its slippery surface. No more Spiffys or Squiffys or Rocky Js would die on my watch.

My thoughtfulness won numerous Squirrelman of the Year awards, whereupon rodents everywhere figured I’d welcome them to my house and hearth.

grey squirrel

Homebody!

I concede a major point to Chris: If I could reincarnate as any karmic wheel-of-life creature, a squirrel would make a good candidate. Sure, they work hard, but the little acrobats play hard too, scampering and teasing, friends-with-benefits flirting and playing you-can’t catch-me tag.

They are smart and wily. Defeated homeowners have posted videos of incredible obstacle courses originally intended to keep the little buggers out of bird feeders.

Score:    Squirrels 137,528    Humans 0

Moreover, naturalists tell us squirrels are the only mammal that can survive a drop from any height. When they spread their limbs, loose skin of the abdomen flattens just enough to resemble a wing suit, letting them parachute safely to a landing. Better than a flat cat! How cool is that!

Rocky J Squirrel
© Geico, Jay Ward Prod. et al

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But chewing the wiring in someone’s old house?

Nuts to that.

So…

Any chance your karmic lineage includes a squirrel?

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wingsuit human flying squirrel © Squirrel.ws

Writing, Reading, and Readings

 

Wondering what that title means? Well, the first two words are things I like to do. The third, I'm not so sure about. 

I feel guilty saying it (so I usually don't), but I don't much like readings. That's not always true, of course--I've been to many readings I enjoyed. Much of it depends on the author and the book, or the subject of the book. What often happens, though, especially at book launches, is that I gladly stand in line to buy the author's book and then I sit and listen to him or her read to the group from the book I just bought, the very one I plan to read for myself when I get home. To me, that's like buying a movie ticket, settling into your theater seat, and then seeing a lengthy excerpt from what you're about to watch.

I had much rather have the author use that time to talk about the book she's written, or how it was written, or what inspired it, or some of her views on her past writing or her writing experiences in general. Sometimes that happens also, but not always. What I probably enjoy the most is the question/answer session, if there is one. I don't usually ask questions myself, but I always seem to learn something from what others ask, and the responses by the author. 

Before you start thinking I'm a complete Grinch, I should say that I'm more likely to enjoy group readings, where several writers--some familiar, some not--read a short bit from their own stories or novels. In that case, I'm not usually sitting there listening to words that I myself plan to read later--unless I'm so impressed that I then rush out and purchase something by that author. One thing I especially like about group sessions is the fact that those readings are short. In my opinion, the one supreme rule about author readings is that they should be short.  

For me, that goes both ways. I also don't usually enjoy reading aloud from my own writing. I realize it's often required and expected, and I've certainly done it when asked to, and I'm always grateful to have been asked to--but truthfully, I'm not overly fond of the sound of my voice. I find it hard, at times, to read aloud with the feeling and expression that seem to come so easily to some folks. Another thing is, I think the fiction that I write, since it was written with the intention of being seen on the page, is harder to convey when it's heard, in spoken words. Especially the dialog. Unless, of course, it's delivered by someone talented enough to do it well. Some of my stories that have been read for podcasts and other such presentations by professional readers or actors have sounded good, at least to me.

In what I suppose is a contradiction, I do like talking to groups of any size about writing, whether it's my own or the writing of others. I guess it's fortunate that I enjoy it, because I taught night classes in the writing and marketing of short stories for seventeen years at a local college. The fact is, I've always been fascinated by the writing process, especially fiction writing. And other writers seem to be interested in that as well.

Having said all of the above, I did do a reading this past Wednesday, at a library several hours away. They showed me a kind and warm welcome and I had a great time--but it wasn't only a reading. It was more of a presentation about mystery writing and my short-story writing, with a question-and-answer session and a booksigning afterward. I did at one point read some things from my latest book because they asked me to, but that wasn't the way the event was promoted, and thankfully no one made faces or blew raspberries or threw tomatoes during that part. Probably because I made sure to keep it brief.

What are your thoughts on author readings? Do you enjoy hearing writers read aloud from their own work--I know a great many people do--or would you rather they just talked about other things? Have you ever sat there thinking Okay, time to finish this up? Do you like to read aloud to a group from your own stories or novels or poetry? Do you initiate that, or is it something you do mostly because you're expected to? Some of my writer friends are also accomplished actors, and I suspect they enjoy doing readings, and do a fine job of it. What are some of your rules and preferences on the subject? Do you always try to leave enough time for Q&A? Please let me know in the comments. And don't worry, I expect a lot of disagreement on this.

I also have a self-imposed rule about my SleuthSayers posts, and since I'm approaching that upper-wordcount limit, I'll obey that rule now.

Over and out.