The Eyes Will Hopefully Have It

I'm writing this post early this month because I can't be sure what kind of shape I'll be in for the few days before it actually goes live. I'm scheduled to have cataract surgery on both eyes Thanksgiving week.

I've been told by multiple people that this will be quick and painless and that my vision will be almost miraculously improved afterwards.  I certainly hope so, though I can't help but be nervous.  I've worn glasses since I was seven years old, but in the last several years my vision has deteriorated significantly.  I've had to bump up the font sizes on all my devices, and reading an actual book requires careful coordination of multiple factors--lighting, special glasses, etc.  Reading has always been a cornerstone of my life, so this has been an especially difficult thing for me to accept.  What I'm looking forward to the most, assuming the surgery goes as expected, is being able o simply pick up a book and read at my whim.  A simple thing that shouldn't be taken for granted.

I will take this opportunity to grouse about a pet peeve--movies and TV shows which require us to read text messages the characters are receiving or sending.  Yes, very nice, very modern, but also very much a pain for those of us who either have to ask somebody to tell us what the hell is going on or get out of our chairs to walk across the room, hitting rewind and pause buttons on the way.  There are some shows and films which do this well, for example by "popping out" the message to a larger size, but they're rare.

But I digress.  The point is, hopefully by the time my December column goes up I'll be living in a brighter and more sharply focused world, and I look forward to seeing you there.

SPEAKING OF READING: As we're going into the holiday season, what better gift for your family and loved ones than the gift of reading, specifically reading short mystery fiction?  

I'm consistently astonished at the number of writers who aspire to see their work in the hallowed pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine but who don't subscribe to those publications.  We're living in a time when so-called "legacy media" and the basic concept of literacy are in deep peril, and I think we should be doing everything we can to preserve them.  A subscription to either of these fine magazines (or to any other periodical, such as Black Cat Weekly) is an investment in the future of the genre we all love.  I challenge everyone reading this to give at least one gift subscription to at least one of these publications this year!

The Long Road to River Road

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I've never been good at setting goals, in either my life or my work. I've always just tried to do my best at whatever task, and never worried much about long-range planning. So far, that seems to have worked.

I look at my so-called literary career the same way. I discovered at an advanced age--mid-forties--that writing short fiction was something I truly loved to do, and ever since then, I've written a lot of stories and tried to write each one as well as I can. As for goals, I never set out to make much money or win awards or have stories selected for best-of anthologies or achieve any degree of fame or fortune. Thankfully, some of those good things happened anyway--except for the money/fame/fortune part--but when they did, they usually came unexpectedly, out of nowhere.

I do recall a few things I secretly hoped I might one day accomplish. Early on, I dreamed of someday getting published in either Alfred Hitchcock's or Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. I clearly remember that, because I grew up reading and enjoying those two publications. Later, I hoped to eventually be lucky enough to get something into one of the Akashic Books "noir" anthologies; I had great respect for those also, and thought it'd be supercool to be a part of one of them. Yet another pie-in-the-sky item, especially in more recent years, was to have a collection of my short stories published by Crippen & Landru. I've admired every book of theirs that I've seen and read, and I've long admired those who've been published there, a few of whom I've known for a long time. As luck would have it, about two years ago one of those friends, Josh Pachter, was kind enough to recommend me to publisher Jeffrey Marks at C&L.

I of course found Jeff to be as friendly and professional as I'd suspected he would be, and--to my great pleasure and relief--he seemed as eager as I was to put something together. So, after a trial submission and the resulting discussions about the lengths and styles and kinds of stories he was looking for, I eventually sent him a 90,000-word group of stories that I called River Road and Other Mysteries, later changed to River Road and Other Mystery Stories. As things turned out, both Jeff and the publication gods were in a good mood, and the book was accepted for publication. We kept the plans quiet for many months, but at last the contracts were signed, the stories were edited, the cover was designed, and the collection--my ninth book and eighth collection of short stories--was announced and released by Crippen & Landru this past week.

It probably won't surprise you that the book was great fun to piece together. For those who are interested, it's divided into three parts and contains mystery stories that first appeared in AHMM, Strand Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and others, including a number of crime anthologies, plus three stories that are new and previously unpublished. And it contains--I hope--something for almost everyone: gang wars, car chases, snowstorms, barren deserts, jewelry heists, bomb threats, dollhouses, mulewagons, casinos, rattlesnakes, bus trips, movie trivia, ballet performances, science fairs, ski resorts, roadside diners, private eyes, crime bosses, land swindlers, shoplifters, drug smugglers, missing wives, bank robbers, cat burglars, crooked cops, cardsharks, waitresses, fishermen, immigrants, dwarves, giants, acrobats, realtors, novelists, lawyers, housesitters, muggers, poets, bodyguards, sharpshooters, bank tellers, ex-cons, murderous spouses, gator hunters, Old West outlaws, peach farmers, bug thieves, treasury agents, snipers, dognappers, bootleggers, and moonshiners. And that's just the first story. (Not really.)

I must mention here that the title story--the last one in the book--was first published in one of my fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken's anthologies, called Prohibition Peepers: Private Eyes During the Noble Experiment. I chose that story to "represent" the collection for several reasons: (1) Its setting is my home state of Mississippi, which is where many of the stories in the collection take place; (2) it's a historical mystery, like several others in the book (this one's set in the 1930s, an era that's always interesting to write about); (3) it's a private-eye tale, like eight of the other stories; and (4) I thought its title, "River Road," had an appropriate ring to it. 

The actual book is available in two formats: (1) a softcover edition with seventeen stories and (2) a signed, numbered, and clothbound edition that includes a "bonus" story. Here's the Crippen & Landru site where you can order either one, and I'm told the book'll be available via Amazon and elsewhere within the next week. As I mentioned in the Author Notes, I hope folks will have as much fun reading these stories as I had writing them.

I also hope you and yours had a great Thanksgiving. Happy reading and writing to you all!

 

Practicing With Swordfishtrombones

When I did my run of Bouchercons (on and off from 2005 to 2008), it seemed like Tom Waits was it. In 2006, a bunch of us sat at a riverside cafe in Chicago, a group that included the late Ken Bruen, and spent maybe twenty minutes rolling through Waits lyrics. 

And is it any surprise? Jon Stewart once said, "I'd like to get drunk and pass out in a gutter with that guy." If Steely Dan's ramblers, gamblers, and assorted survivors tended toward the affluent or wannabe affluent, Waits's characters were just as likely to be found in a dive bar or sitting on a freeway ramp with a cardboard sign. And oh, could he spin a tale about how they got there.

The focus was on three albums: Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, and Mule Variations. The first was probably the most noir, which is like saying the Pacific Ocean is the wettest of oceans. You're still going for a swim in the Arctic.

One only need look at the spoken word "Frank's Wild Years," (which ironically does not appear on the album of the same name.) Waits sounds like a guy rattling off the tale of a down-on-his-luck salesman with a spent wife and a yappy dog. As he prattles on through one gravelly aside after another, he comes to how Frank, tired of it all, torches his house (presumably not his wife. The dog did not fare so well.) "all Halloween orange and chimney red. Never did like that dog."

The album's other spoken-word (and, let's be honest, full-on Beatnik) song is "Trouble's Braids." More of a poem recited over bongos, one can almost see Jack Kerouac reciting this story about a man on the run, hiding in the mud, staying away from the main roads, and building a fire in the backseat of an old Tucker. Neat trick, since Tucker only built 51 cars. He either torched a collector's item, or the car had been left rotting in a field, Either way, survival, set to a hypnotic bongo beat, was the first order of business. But you don't even need an explanation to understand why "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six" is noir. It actually inspired a short story I wrote called "Whittle You Into Kindlin'."

I wouldn't call Waits a rock musician. Certainly some of his music is rock, but I'd say he's more Americana, even if the label didn't exist for the bulk of his career. But his propensity for singing about America's losers in a rough voice made him attractive to crime writers, especially when he underwent renewed interest in the 2000s. He doesn't have a lot of range, but a friend of mine, a musician, said he had thirty-two distinct voices he used in his music. That's better than Bowie, who often sounds like he's singing with two other singers. (Mind you, Bowie did a lot of this with an expansive range even guys like Steve Perry could only dream of.) What made Waits's characters and narrators (many unreliable) real came from those voices. He opened his mouth and became these people.

The Ghosts of Turkeys are Among Us

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." —  WKRP In Cincinnati "boss" Arthur Carlson.

But, of course, they can fly.  I saw two of them the other day hanging out around the penitentiary (I do not even inquire as to the motivations of turkeys, or who they were visiting), and when our car came one of them flew right up, landed in a tree, and started rearly expectorating.  

I have a lot of turkey stories, including the memorable time which I shared before in 2021 - but a good story is a good story.  I was walking on a trail in Lake Herman State Park here in South Dakota. Now that park has (had - things have changed) wild turkeys, deer, fox, coyotes owls, hawks, seagulls, pelicans, and once in a while some eagles, roaming free. And this day, the flock of wild turkeys was right there, in the middle of the trail, eating and gobbling. Well, I did a big loop around them, because I didn't want to disturb them, then got back on the trail further up, and walked on.  But after a while, I heard there was this tremendous rushing sound behind me, almost like water. So I looked over my shoulder, and by God, there was the whole flock coming towards me. RUNNING towards me. So I stopped. And they all skidded to a stop around me.

So there they were: gobble-gobble-gobble. Hooking their necks and looking up sideways at me. Gobble-gobble-gobble. I mean, it was interesting, but I didn't have any corn with me or anything, and I don't speak Gobble, so after a while I said, "Well, you caught me, now what are you going to do with me?" Gobble-gobble-gobble. And after a while, they finally got tired and went on. And so did I, chuckling away. But later, I thought, "I wonder if that's how a wooly mammoth felt, surrounded by humans in the Ice age?" and then, "If turkeys ever learn how to make tools, we're screwed."  

"Vengeance is mine! Gobble-gobble-gobble!"

Flock of Wild Turkeys, 

waiting for someone like me to come along

by Sarov702 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132330541

The Great Wild Turkey in Flight

by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren - Wild Turkey, CC BY 2.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47672945

Speaking of turkeys, Allan and I were talking the other day and I said, "Have you ever noticed that Inspector Jacques Clouseau, Deputy Barney Fife, and Retired Corporal Foggy Dewhurst all have the same personality?  It's just different accents and countries."

Peter Sellers, The Inspector Clouseau Movies

Don Knotts, The Andy Griffith Show

Brian Wilde, Last of the Summer Wine

The most concise description of them all is a self-important, arrogant, interfering, and generally inept know-it-all who is nearly always wrong.  Hilarious without knowing why everyone's laughing.  And yet, somehow, loveable...  You know.  Turkeys.  Love them all.

And now for something completely different:

A Native American Prayer of Thanks:

Great and Eternal Mystery of Life, 

Master of the Universe, 

Creator of All Things, 

I give thanks for the beauty 

You put in every single one of Your creations. 

I give thanks that You did not fail 

in making every stone, plant, creature, and human being 

a perfect and whole part of Your Sacred world. 

I give thanks that You have allowed me 

to see the strength and beauty of Your creation. 

My humble request is that all of the children of earth 

will learn to see the same perfection in themselves. 

May none of Your human children doubt or question 

Your wisdom, Your grace, Your perfect, unending love. 

Amen.

Grace

Here’s another Brit procedural, which they’re so very good at. Having watched a bunch, British and other European cop shows – as I’m sure you have, too - I’ve noticed a very distinct national character in their approach. In the French series I’ve followed, Candice Renoir, The Art of Crime, Balthazar, they play fast and loose with actual police procedure, and focus on personal dynamics. This can be a positive, but not always. Balthazar is the worst offender, in this regard, to the point of being actively annoying, and I’ve stopped watching it. German shows, like the anthology series Tatort [“Crime Scene”], do personal, but it tends to be more toxic - alcohol, drugs, destructive family dynamics - so instead of enlarging, or reinforcing, the storyline, it works at cross-purposes, and sabotages the characters. Germans, as you’d expect, are rigid about protocol, but that doesn’t make the office politics any more authentic, when the paperwork is used as a dramatic convenience.

One of my new faves is the Irish series, Blue Lights, which manages the balance about right. If you’re unfamiliar with this show, the closest analogue is the Nathan Fillion police procedural The Rookie, on ABC. In other words, they generally avoid the cute, and the inner drama reflects and informs the outward plot elements. Brit shows, by and large, lean in hard on the crime, and the personal stuff is window-dressing. Inspector Lewis is in a relationship with the M.E., but it doesn’t get in the way of their work. Or, conversely, Jimmy Perez on Shetland can be distracted from essentials. It depends on the context.

Grace. Named after the lead character, Det. Super Roy Grace, based on the novels by Peter James. It’s an ensemble show, like most every detective series, but it rises and falls entirely on the appeal or integrity of the main actor. In this case, John Simm. He’s got a long list of credits, going back Rumpole, but I don’t think he got a featured lead until State of Play, a political thriller with David Morrissey. He wasn’t on my radar until Life on Mars, a strange curiosity that lasted two seasons, and a sequel, but was essentially dominated by Philip Glenister. And in spite of an early Caligula, and a turn as a mad genius villain on Dr. Who, he hasn’t really had a chance at a part that lets him breathe, not until Roy Grace.

As noted, any show depends on the support team, and this has a good one, individualized, and in their own right interesting, the strongest being Det. Sgt. Norman Potting, and the weakest ACC Vosper, Grace’s supervisor, who has the thankless role of scold, never a good look.

And, yes, there is a little too much backstory, Roy’s feet of clay (in this case, a wife who vanished), the weakness that could be incapacitating, but John Simm manages even to overcome this hoary device. There’s a scene where his new girlfriend, the pathologist Cleo Morey, asks him straight out, What if she walked in the door tomorrow? And he says, Not going to happen. She looks at him sadly, and says, That’s the wrong answer – and she gives him the right one. Grace is a very reserved guy, but in this scene, you see his emotions play across his face, and you can read every regret. Every thing he’s unable to express flickers behind his eyes. However he manages this, I’d call it acting.

One genuine caveat, which may discourage some people. The crimes themselves are often genuinely disturbing, and I mean creepy. The murderers, schemers, and manipulators are reptilian, and if you’re used to charming sociopaths with colorful justifications, these people are a lot more malign and pedestrian, as they are so unhappily in life.

Grace falls into a subset of the genre well beyond cozy – more sinister than Morse, not as icy as Happy Valley. Shot in and around Brighton, in the off-season, you get your fair share of grey, windswept shale, and moody water shots, which contribute to the general air of unease and gloom. It's not as relentlessly dour as I’m making it seem, but it could do with a few more streaks of sunshine. It reminds me a little of the newer version of Van de Valk, with Marc Warren - not cheerless, but stern. Like the weather on the English Channel, cloudy, with a light chop.

Thanksgiving Humor

Seven years ago, I ran this column Thanksgiving week. Since many people might need a laugh this year, I'm running it again, with minor edits. Happy early Thanksgiving to those of you in the US. 

It's two days until Thanksgiving, and I bet some of you are stressed. Maybe it's because you're cooking and ... it's the first time you're hosting, and you want it to be perfect. Or your mother-in-law is coming, and your turkey never lives up to hers. Or the weatherman is predicting snow on Thanksgiving and you're afraid that your relatives won't show up ... or maybe that they will.

Or maybe your stress stems from being a guest. Are you an introvert, dreading a day of small talk with the extended family? A picky eater, going to the home of a gourmet who makes food way too fancy for your tastes? Or are you a dieter, going to the home of someone who likes to push food and you're likely to spend the day going, "no thanks, no rolls for me," "no thanks, no candied yams for me," "no thanks, no cookies for me," ... "dear lord, lady, what part of no thanks don't you get?"

No matter who you are, or what your situation, Thanksgiving can cause stress. The best way to deal with stress is laughter. And that's where I come in. So set down that baster and get ready to smile, because I've got some fictional characters who've had a worse Thanksgiving than you.

Paul and Jamie Buchman from Mad About You
 

They tried so hard to make the perfect dinner ... only to have their dog, Murray, eat the turkey.


Rachel Green from Friends

All she wanted was to cook a nice dessert for her friends ... only to learn too late that she wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle. It did not taste good.


The Gang from Cheers 

Those poor Thanksgiving orphans. They waited hours for a turkey that just wouldn't cook ... only to then suffer the indignity of being involved in a food fight. (For anyone who's ever read my story "Biscuits, Carats, and Gravy," this Cheers episode was the inspiration.)


Debra Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond

She was determined to have a happy Thanksgiving despite her overly critical mother-in-law ... only to drop her uncooked turkey on the floor three times before flinging it into the oven. Yum.


Arthur Carlson from WKRP in Cincinnati

He wanted to create the greatest promotion ever, inviting the public to a shopping mall and providing free turkeys ... live ones ... only to learn too late that tossing live turkeys out of a helicopter from 2,000 feet in the air isn't a good idea. As God was his witness, he thought turkeys could fly.


Garner Duffy from "Bug Appétit"

I've written a bunch of funny Thanksgiving stories over the years. One had a food fight. One was set at a nudist colony. One involved ... well, the title gives you a hint. In 2018, "Bug Appétit" was published. Its main character, Garner Duffy, is a con man. And all he wants for Thanksgiving is to eat some good food at his mark's home before stealing her jewelry. He learns too late that her mother is ... an inventive cook. This story was a finalist for the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards, and the fine folks at Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine asked me to record it for them. You can listen to it here: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/eqmm/episodes/2019-04-01T06_10_35-07_00

I hope you're smiling and feeling less stressed by now, dear readers. Until next time, happy Thanksgiving!

Todd Snider

 Todd Snider, brilliant songwriter, died two weeks ago.  His last few weeks were bizarre enough to belong in one of his songs.

After years off the road because of debilitating pain issues he finished a new album and began a new tour. In Salt Lake City on Halloween night he reported being attacked at the venue where he was to be performing. Police found no evidence of such an attack and suggested alcohol or drugs might have been involved.  Two days later he went to the hospital in pain and, as I understand it, they thought he didn't need further treatment.  This led to an argument and he got arrested.

On November 14, back home in Nashville, he died of walking pneumonia.

Here are a few of his songs related to our field.