16 May 2018

Five Red Herrings, Tenth School



by Robert Lopresti

1.  Derringer Days.  Yesterday the Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the winners of the Derringer Awards and I couldn't help but notice that I was one of them, specifically for Best Short.  "The Cop Who Liked Gilbert and Sullivan" appeared in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #23.  You can read what I had to say about it here and here.  Congratulations to my fellow winners, Brendan Dubois, David H. Hendricksen, and Earl Staggs.  But let's have a big round of applause for the winner of this year's Edward D. Hoch Memorial Gold Derringer for Lifetime Achievement.  That went to our own John M. Floyd!  Well deserved, too.

2. Free pictures!  It's always nice to find a new source for public domain illustrations.  (We bloggers love them, anyway.)  The Library of Congress very kindly sorted out the pictures on their website that are free for the taking.  (See the one below.)  Enjoy.


3. Underpaid through the ages. The University of Missouri Libraries has done a great service for anyone writing historical fiction.  Prices and Wages by Decades links you to actual government publications from the 1700s forward reporting on how much things cost and how much people were paid.  

4. Man With The Axe.  Last time I did one of these gather-alls I mentioned Lowering the Bar, which talks about the odd side of the legal biz.   I have to point out the story above which informs us that in a single incident a man in New York was charged with:
driving while ability impaired by drugs, driving while ability impaired by the combined influence of drugs, no license plates, unregistered motor vehicle, uninspected motor vehicle, operating without insurance, no front windshield, and no safety glass.

But on the bright side for him,  it turned out there is no law in the Empire State against driving around with an axe embedded in the roof of your car.


5. Shanks does Japan. According to an automatic translation app, the title of the book at the right is Sunday Afternoon Tea With Mystery Writer.  Could be, but in English it's Shanks on Crime. First time I have ever appeared in Japanese.  I wish Shanks a long and happy visit there.



8 comments:

  1. Rob, congratulations to you and John on your Derringers -- and to all the winners!

    And thanks for posting the wage and price guide. I'm always looking for things like that.

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  2. Good reference links. Always helpful. I use google translate and it seems to work fine. https://translate.google.com

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  3. Congratulations, Rob, all the Derringer Award winners, and a great big Huzzah! to John Floyd for the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Gold Derringer for Lifetime Achievement. Wow.

    I also thank you for the Prices and Wages site, and "Lowering the Bar". Wonderful.

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  4. Thanks, Paul. O'Neil, Here is what Google Translate made of my book: Sunday afternoon Mystery writer and tea (Mr. Genko Genki)by Robert Ropelesty

    Another free service: http://webtranslation.paralink.com/Japanese-Translation.asp# came up with:
    Sunday afternoon's tea with mystery writer (drug source inference paperback)by Robert lopresti

    The part in the parenthesis obviously is a problem for both, but I think the latter did better than the Google, don't you?

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  5. Great post, Rob, as usual. Thanks for the shout-out, and sincere congratulations to you on your Derringer win!

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  6. Congratulations on the Derringer! and on your debut in Japanese!

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  7. Rob, way to go on winning the Derringer and getting published in Japan.

    John, congrats on winning the Ed Hoch Award.

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  8. Great post, Rob, full of information I never would have thought to ask about.

    And congratulation to you and John. Well-deserved on both counts.

    ReplyDelete

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