You Can Take the Kid Out of Middle School...

Eve Fisher

I was driving over to one of South Dakota's state parks last week, and I spotted a blue car with the following South Dakota licence plate:

FCK YOU

I instantly thought: Well, they seem nice.

No I didn't. Instead, I thought about going to the local Walmart to buy a paintball gun and, when I saw that car again, drive up and spray it heavily. Deeply satisfying.

But I didn't.

It's all so middle school, and I've already been there. The days of 12-13 year olds going on 18 (we thought). Pimply, snarly, sarcastic, selfish little know-nothings trying desperately to learn only the bad stuff in order to grow up fast, hard, tough... Ready to throw a riot or a fit, doing anything (especially insulting the teacher - if you could get a rise out of the teacher, that just made everyone's day) - to just get attention. And betraying each other for a laugh, a sneer or just more attention. Periodically someone would burst out in tears and storm out of the room, screaming at everyone. Generally after insulting the total crap out of someone who turned around and handed it right back to them (which of course was NOT the idea).

I remember we were reading "Lord of the Flies", and almost none of us were horrified at the behavior in it. The teacher asked what would have been different if it had been all girls instead of all boys? A lot said, oh, it would have been really different, girls don't do that kind of stuff. I disagreed and said so: that it would have been pretty much the same, and in some ways worse. Mean girls start young and stay late. 

Basically, the middle school motto is FCK OFF and/or this Famous Coat Message:

But they did care, they do care, and what they really wanted / want was to piss everyone off around them and / or get them in trouble. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate all of you - WHY IS EVERYBODY MAD AT ME???"  

Or, as Thornton Wilder put it in "The Skin of Our Teeth":

HENRY: What did they ever care about me? 

SABINA: There's that old whine again. Always thinking you're not loved enough, that nobody loves you. Well, start being lovable and we'll love you. 

HENRY: [Outraged.] I don't want anybody to love me. I want everybody to hate me! 

Sabina: Yes, you've decided it's second best...

The depressing part is so many people are still there.  

For example, How dare you do something I don't want you to do?

Sergeant Dusten Mullen showed up at the ICE protest run by Hamilton High School students masked and fully armed with an exposed handgun in a holster and two extra handgun magazines. (my emphasis added) Mullen said, "My plan is legitimately to just let them all assault me and you guys arrest them all, and I’ll keep it on film. I also have other people filming from a distance." According to police, Mullen also said that more protesters in support of him were on the way, some armed with rifles (my note - this apparently wasn't true), going on to say his goal was to "get all these kids in jail if they want to break the law." (LINK)

Ahem:  (1) It's not against the law to protest peacefully - it's one of our First Amendment rights.  and  (2) In these times of endless school shootings there's nothing legitimate about an unknown (remember, Mullen didn't announce who he was) armed masked man at a school doing his best to incite violence.

Some other interesting ways to twist real events to one's own reality:

"How dare you do what we tell you to do, you warlike heathens?"

Wounded Knee Massacre:

Back in the 1890s, the US Army / Government was convinced that the Ghost Dance spreading among the Lakota would destroy the U.S. government’s decades-long effort to “civilize” the Lakota, i.e., get them settled on the reservations (the size of which kept getting smaller every day), and take up farming like good civilized people. Things reached a head on December 29, 1890, after a group of 350 Lakota had been called to the Pine Ridge Agency and went, as ordered, with a detachment of the 7th Cavalry to a camp on Wounded Knee creek. At daybreak, the troops demanded all the guns (which BTW, were the Lakota's only way to hunt food, since their rations had been cut to the bone). There are differing reports of what happened next - other than the fact that it was a massacre, and the soldiers lost all control: nearly 300 of the original 350 - men, women, children and babies - were killed or wounded, with a blizzard preventing immediate search following the massacre.

One of The Mass Graves of Wounded Knee

"If you had just obeyed the orders you never got, you wouldn't have been killed"

The Amritsar Massacre:

This one happened when Asian Indians were mobilizing the Indian Independence Movement. Naturally, the British Raj was totally opposed to it, and passed the "Rowlatt Acts", which gave power to the police to arrest any Indian person on the basis of mere suspicion. And keep them arrested. 

On April 13, 1919, a large Asian Indian crowd gathered in the beautiful garden of Jallianwala Bagh, which unfortunately had only one exit. The local commander of Indian Army forces, Brigadier General Dyer had ordered that no Indian assemblies were allowed, but had only told his troops. Without warning, Dyer ordered his troops to block the exit and shoot toward the densest sections of the crowd. They shot for approximately ten minutes. Unarmed civilians, including men, women, elderly people and children were killed. A cease-fire was ordered after the troops fired about one third of their ammunition. He stated later that the purpose of this action "was not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience." There's nothing like killing them all to get them to obey, is there?

"How dare you not accept the deal I'm offering you, no matter what it says?"

The Destruction of the Summer Palace:

At the end of the Second Opium War, on October 18, 1860, Lord Elgin ordered the destruction as a "solemn act of retribution" to target the Qing Emperor personally and force the signing of the Treaty of Beijing. British and French forces burned the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) and destroyed the gardens, the treasures, everything. Total destruction.  It worked, but at the cost of something that was, according to Stuart McGee, then chaplain to the British forces, "arguably the greatest concentration of historic treasures in the world, dating and representing a full 5,000 years of an ancient civilization". Charles "Chinese" Gordon, who was no stranger to slaughter in China (he fought for the Emperor / Empress in the Taiping Rebellion), wrote "You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army."

BTW, the treaty literally gave foreign ambassadors have immunity for any and all actions and legalized the British sale of formerly illegal opium in China.  Most opium sellers instantly became foreign ambassadors.  And a few other things...

And a couple of more modern examples:

The Godfather

Recently:

"Some of the previous [Iranian] leaders are now no longer on planet Earth because they lied to the United States and they strung us along in negotiations, and that was unacceptable to the president, which is why many of the previous leaders were killed."  Karoline Leavitt, March 30, 2026.

BTW, classic middle school, all the way:   

The spat between the President and the Pope because Pope Leo spoke out in favor of peace.  Actually, that's the pope's job - back during the Gulf War, Pope John Paul II spoke against it, repeatedly, to President Bush, et al.  "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."  (Matthew 5:9)  

Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth praying at the Pentagon:

"They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.  'The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.'"  (Actually, it's from Pulp Fiction.)  (Link)

The original version:  

NOTE: There's nothing more middle school than trying to out-tough Samuel L. Jackson.

Oh, and just last week, Chicago police had to investigate because there was a bomb threat made against the Pope's brother.  We really are in middle school, and all the nosepickers are out.  (Link)

Social media right now is just a stew of on insults, invective, lies, damn lies, statistics, and bullshit – specifically in order to get another party to react and punch back. Preferably harder. Threats are rampant.  And the trouble with threats is that sooner or later the threatener must either fulfill it or back down, and either way someone (at least metaphorically) is going to end up stuck to the flagpole with a frozen tongue thanks to a triple-dog-dare.  That's middle school.

Sigh...

Look, what I want is a return to a country, a world of adults, who actually know things, like history, science, mathematics, literature, the arts, and who have probity:  integrity, honesty, moral uprightness, goodness, virtue.  

Who really do want and work for peace, human rights, liberty and justice for all. Not profit for some.

Who really do know how fragile this planet is, and even more, how fragile we are on this, our only home.

Image taken by Atemis II Commander Reid Wiseman 

from the Orion spacecraft's window

Location, Location, and... What Was It?

 I was looking at A Textbook Case this week, the SleuthSayers page I created as a sort of informal manual on writing fiction. It consists of about sixty essays I wrote here and at other blog sites.  

I noticed that I had only one piece about settings, and  that one was about imaginary places.  This didn't really surprise me because I am not a big fan of descriptions of setting.  Elmore Leonard famously advised us to leave out the parts people don't read, and that is how I tend to feel about those descriptions.  But I admit they have their place - sometimes.

You can find some excellent essays on setting here at the SleuthSayers website.  In one of them I found this comment from O'Neil DeNoux:  "Setting is not just the name of a place or time period, it is the feeling of the place and time period. It includes all conditions – region, geography, neighborhood, buildings, interiors, climate, time of day, season of year." 

Good starting place.  I began thinking about descriptions of setting that really stood out for me and a few came to mind:

* The beginnings of Chandler's novels.

* Elizabeth Peters' descriptions of Luxor and the Valley of the Kings  in various Amelia Peabody novels.

* Doyle's descriptions of  Dartmoor  in Hound of the Baskervilles.

* Tony Hillerman's description of the Navaho Reservation.

* Hong Bay in William Marshall's Yellowthread Street novels.

Personally I am much more interested  in interior settings: descriptions of houses and rooms.  How many full size reproductions have been made of 221B Baker Street?  Rex Stout provided a detailed plan of Nero Wolfe's famous office but that doesn't prevent people from arguing with it or (very common)  picturing it in mirror image.  

If you want a real master class in describing interiors in an interesting manner open any of Mick Herron's Slow Horse novels.  Near the beginning of each one you will find a description of Slough House; each version is different, and each is intriguing. 

All this came to mind because I have a story in the current issue of Black Cat Weekly and setting is important in it.  All the tales in my "Bad Day" series take place in Brune County, which is fictional, but "A Bad Day For Good Samaritans" centers on a park which is very much based on a real one in my city. 

 Well, here is a little report I wrote on Facebook in 2020 about something that happened to me: 

The pond this week

My story begins with a similar situation except the mother is nasty (conflict is the kernel of fiction).  So I went to some trouble to describe the place.  But the other scenes in the story are afterthoughts, with hardly more than a few words of description.

The pond in 2020

I suppose the point I am making is that you don't go deep into setting unless it is crucial to the story.  That could mean it is part of the plot (as in mine) or part of the mood.  But as always in short stories, the rule is not one word  should be included that doesn't move the story forward.

Now over to you: what are your favorite fictional settings?


 

  

Franchesca Ramsey wants a word with you.

 Not quite our main subject, but I think you will see the relevance, and sympathize... - Robert Lopresti

 

 

 

How do writers look at success?

Liz Zelvin with Lee Child

I have rubbed shoulders with a few writers whose success can be measured by the traditional yardsticks of fame and fortune: name recognition, sales in the millions, and New York Times bestsellers. (In the case of Lee Child, the shoulder-rubbing is figurative, since in terms of height as well as achievement, Lee's a mountain to my mole hill, even in this 2010 photo, when I was several inches taller than I am now.) For literary novelists, winning a Pulitzer or National Book Award are unassailable marks of success. For mystery writers, becoming an MWA Grand Master or winning an Edgar Award may be equivalent measures. For short story writers, a Pushcart Prize, a story published in The New Yorker, or a cover or lead story in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine has cachet. A novel or novella turned into a "major motion picture," aka a movie, or a popular TV series denotes success. Even making a yearly income the writer can live on is what many of the writer's peers would call success.

But what if none of these marks of traditional success comes your way? Can you still call yourself a success as a writer?

There's been a lot of talk on the Short Mystery list recently about the demise of markets and the lack of opportunity to make a living as well as the joys of getting a story accepted, especially in a milestone event eg for the first time or to a prestigious market. This made me think about my own measures of success, since I concluded years ago that both my successes and failures as a writer are genuine and made my peace with them. The failures have nothing to do with my talent or hard work as a writer, seventy plus years into my career. I can reframe them as disappointments, setbacks, or learning experiences, and let them go. The successes, whatever form they take for me, can bring me satisfaction, even joy, if I let them.

Here's an event that felt like success to me last month: my first novel, first published in hardcover by a major publisher 18 years ago, had two new readers on Kindle Unlimited, and other Kindle readers bought two novels, a novella, and one short story in the series, all but the novella originally published before e-books existed. I still have readers! New readers! They read the first novel and want to read the entire series all these years later. The numbers are minuscule and the royalties, especially for Kindle Unlimited, microscopic, but having new readers makes me feel I've succeeded as a writer.

Liz reads at Poets House, NYC

Moving the reader—or an audience—also makes me feel I've succeeded as a writer. My goal has never been fame and fortune in the first place, at least not since I passed my early twenties, when it hadn't happened, and I developed some common sense. I write to say what I have to say and make my readers laugh and cry. Finally, I believe I've succeeded as a writer because I know beyond all doubt that as a result of applying rigorous craft to an innate gift over many decades, I write well. Could I write Shakespeare's plays? No. Could a barrel of monkeys write my short stories? No.

I asked fellow members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society what defines success for them as writers. None of them fall into the rich and famous category, though quite a number of them are well published and winners of multiple prestigious awards.

Jeff Markowitz agrees with me about writing well: "The quality of the work itself may be the best measure of success. It's the one that keeps me in front of my computer, working on the next project."

Josh Pachter, who's been publishing for more than fifty years and had his share of kudos, says, "There's really only one metric by which I measure capital-S Success, and that's Am I having fun?"

Gary Earl Ross says, "After a ceremony honoring one of my old students, she introduced me to friends as her English professor and said she still needed to read my last book. I felt part of something much bigger than myself, the same way I feel when I interact with other writers. We’re rich in the ways that matter most."

Joseph S. Walker's views are similar. "I write because it's fun, it's personally fulfilling, and it's occasionally rewarding. It's the best way I've found of engaging with the world." Success? Joe says it's "having a story published because an editor/publisher liked it and accepted it (and, ideally, paid me for it); to keep writing, and to have the sense that I'm improving; to keep challenging myself to do new things--which takes me past the act of actually writing and into the broader world of being a writer. And finally--yes, knowing that a story has reached readers and, ideally, that they liked it. There are lots of ways in which you can learn that the story you threw out into the world actually meant something to somebody."

In the end, for each of us, success constitutes a unique blend of what writing means to us and what our work means to others.

"At the best of times when I write, when I'm done for the day I feel as if I'm coming out of a trance. It's gratifying." - Terry Shames

"The joy of having something in print—and having a reader tell me that they enjoyed something of mine they’ve read—is more of a high for me than a paycheck. Success also means finishing a story the way I imagined it in my head—that the pacing, voice, characterization and connections are all right and I’ve done my job properly. Even if no one reads a piece I write, I’ll know if it feels right to me." - Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier

"I regard myself as a successful working writer. I'll probably never make a lot of money at this, but I will be leaving a legacy, and a body of work. That gives me satisfaction." - A.L. Sirois

"It's your ability to write something that readers like and enjoy and love and can't put down. It's damned hard to involve readers with your writings to that extent, that they keep thinking about it for days and weeks afterward (or months and years)! - Yoshinori Todo

"I want everything to sell, the new and the old. Last month I sold one of my earliest mysteries and the newest one as well as a fantasy. I keep having new ideas; I’m not just finishing out old series. That is definitely success. I keep tackling new ways of doing things or learning something. That’s success because it means I’m still curious and accepting challenges. - Emily Dunn

"I write because I enjoy it. I like that there are a few people who say to me, "When is the next book coming out?" I am enjoying my life and, to me, that is the most important thing. As an older adult, I have found that those who feel most satisfied with their life - at this stage - are those who are doing, or have done, what they enjoy." - Elena Smith

"When a reader tells me they read and enjoyed my book, it puts me over the moon. I once had a woman I'd not met yet come to a sales event and tell me she came specifically to see me. That made my day far more than the sales did." - Rosalie Spielman

"A girl I met when she was four years old, sitting on her front porch reading, is now 35 and teaches high school language arts. She has influenced thousands of students to read and write. She says it’s all because she met me, because she saw me writing, and because I allowed her to go through my home library and borrow anything, any time she wanted to. Over the years, she’s kept up with every single one of my publications, read them and commented on them. That to me is success." - Bobbi Chukran

"I write almost daily. Love every minute. The pleasure is profound because I do exactly what I want to do. That is my measure of success. I've never been happier." - Wil Emerson

"I once got an email from a woman in Canada who was cleaning out her mother’s house after she died. She said she found a stack of my books. She hadn’t known her mother liked mysteries, and now she was reading them. That email was such a treat. A word of enthusiasm from a stranger once in a while can make all the difference." - Susan Oleksiw

"Writing from the heart, telling a story the way I want to tell it, and receiving positive reader feedback - that's success." - Catherine Dilts

Elizabeth Zelvin writes the Bruce Kohler Mysteries, the Mendoza Family Saga, and the Emerald Love Urban Fantasy Mysteries. The Old Lady Shows Her Mettle (2025) is Liz's third poetry collection over fifty years as a published poet.

Picture Imperfect

There's a bit by the comedian Stephen Wright. A friend asks if Wright would like to see a picture of the friend when he was younger, and Wright replies "Every picture of you is a picture of you when you were younger."

Which I would paraphrase this way: Time is a bastard.

I hate having my picture taken. Always have. I've never seen a photo of myself that I like. There are probably lots of deep psychological reasons we don't need to get into. Most of the time, this isn't a problem. It's not like there are people clamoring to take my picture on a daily basis.

But there's a part of being an author I didn't anticipate: people do want your picture. Specifically, they want a headshot, usually for promotional purposes--to accompany an interview or publication announcement, for example. This presented me with a dilemma. I certainly wasn't going somebody to take a professional headshot that I wouldn't like any more than what I could do with my own phone. So at the start of my career I just used selfies, of varying quality, when asked for a headshot.

Then, a few years ago, I started using this.

That's our cat, Imogene. Her original name, when we got her from the shelter eleven years ago, was Smudge, but my wife renamed her for a character in a movie she was fond of. She also had a persistent habit of sneaking up behind people (the cat, not my wife), so her full name, thank you very much, became Imogene Smudge Underfoot.

For the first time, I had a headshot I didn't mind using. Imogene blocks enough of my face to make me enigmatic, as opposed to flatly unappealing, but that hardly mattered since everybody would be looking at her anyway, what with her being so darn cute and all. Plus, it seemed appropriate to give her a little credit for my work, since one of her favorite things to do was jump into my lap while I was writing and insist that hands were for petting, not typing. It was part of her basically sociable nature. If she wasn't asleep, she wanted to be where the people were, which is a nice attribute in a pet for a guy who works at home.

Here's what I didn't think about, and, yeah, you probably see where this is going, so this is your chance to jump off while this is still a happy post. 

Imogene had a lot of health issues last year. With the help of a couple of determined and compassionate vets, we got her through that, and she had a great year of being, I believe, happy, comfortable, and very loved. Then, because time is a bastard, the issues came back, and a couple of weeks ago we had to make that most difficult of decisions that every pet owner has to make, sooner or later.

I do wish it had been later. It's an inevitable part of having a pet, of course, and I'll remember the eleven good years we had with her after I've forgotten, or at least dulled, the memory of the stressful final days. I'm sad, but I'll be okay.

But there's that damn picture. And what I never thought about was how I'd feel every time I see it, once she was gone. That photo shows up in a lot of places. It's in the back of my collection Crime Scenes. It's in convention programs and on websites. I'm likely to keep running across it for years.

Sigh. Every picture is of you when you were younger. When you had the best cat ever as your writing partner (a lot of you reading this probably think you have the best cat ever, to which I sez, everybody's wrong sometimes).

So, just a small tribute this month to Imogene Smudge Underfoot. Thanks for indulging me--and if you happen to run across that headshot, raise a glass to her, wouldja?

How to Maintain a Career in Fiction Writing

 Today, I'm combining the wisdom of two authors I much admire, Benjamin Stevenson and John Floyd.

Two nights ago, I hosted/interviewed Australian author Benjamin Stevenson on stage at the Centennial Theatre in Burlington, Canada.  To say I was 'outnumbered' is an understatement:  Benjamin's book "Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone" has sold a million copies!  I don't believe I've sold even half that if you were to combine all my books, short stories, and comedy pieces put together.  (Okay, the newspaper columns had audiences in the millions, but that wasn't fiction.)

It was an electric night on stage with Benjamin, as we both got our start writing standup.  Lots of fun!  But some of the things we talked about have really resonated with me after the event.

Benjamin said it takes him two years to write a book.  (It takes me one year.  I sit in awe of cozy writers who can write three a year, frankly.)  We both agreed on one thing:  We have to be really excited about a book project to sit down, bum in chair, and write every day until that one project is done.

Excited.  I've thought back to my own career as a novelist, and can see that this drives me as well.

I didn't start as a novelist.  I began life as a short story writer.  But when the short story market began to shrink, I started to think about meeting the challenge of writing a novel. 

My first series is still my bestselling individual series.  Rowena Through the Wall was epic fantasy, or what they would call Romantasy these days.  It was featured in USA Today some years ago, and took off (a top 50 Amazon bestseller, all books.)  That series was great fun to write, but once I finished it, it felt that fantasy was kind of done for me.  I looked around for something that would excite me. 

This brings me to John Floyd's column from a few weeks ago, The Old Genre Switcheroo, about moving between genres or subgenres.  I realized that this is what I've been doing.  It's how I've stayed excited, while continuing to write novels.

My next series was The Goddaughter mob caper series.  You can't get more different from dark ages fantasy than that!  A contemporary mob goddaughter in Hamilton doesn't want to be one, but keeps getting dragged back in to bail out her family.  

Totally different genres with different rules.  What they did have in common?  Both series were high comedy.   

When that series ended, I looked around for another genre or subgenre that I could get excited about.  Something that would challenge me, and provide a host of fresh ideas.

Which led to The Pharaoh's Curse Murders (out this week!) and the historical Merry Widow Murder series.  Still humorous, but with the challenge of a 1929 setting and - new for me - classic mystery plotting requirements.

Challenging and therefore exciting, for this writer. 

What does all this prove?  This is what I've learned:

The secret to having a multi-decade career in fiction writing is to be versatile.  Move where the market goes.  Keep yourself fresh by exploring new genres or sub-genres.  

Versatility.  Which begs the question, what's next for this writer, after The Kennel Club Murders, out April 2027?

I'm excited to see.  

Melodie Campbell is the winner of ten awards, including The Derringer and the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence, for her 21 novels and 60 short stories.  She didn't even steal them.

NOW AVAILABLE AT B&N, AMAZON, CHAPTERS/INDIGO AND INDEPENDENTS! 

 

 

In Cold Blood Revisited

 In 1966, Truman Capote claimed to have invented a new type of writing, the non-fiction novel. The result was his seminal work, In Cold Blood. In it, he depicts the 1959 murder of a prosperous farming family in Kansas. The murder actually happened and baffled authorities for Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The pair met in penitentiary, where a fellow inmate told them stories of working for Herb Clutter, the patriarch of the Clutter family. Specifically, he told them Clutter had a safe in his house holding $10,000. Which was not true as Clutter seldom carried cash.

The pair agreed they would rob the family once they were out of prison. They also agreed they would have to kill the witnesses to cover up their crime. But rather than simply walking in and shooting everyone in their sleep, Hickock raped the oldest daughter first, and the pair tortured Herb Clutter before killing him. The pair then fled to Mexico, pawning what they could take from the home (which did not include $10,000.) Smith had dreams of buying a boat and taking tourists out on deep sea adventures and finding sunken treasure. Hickock, stunted and slightly crippled from a car accident, just wanted to get high and debauch. The pair were cornered in Las Vegas two years later. Both men were hung in 1965.

Despite Capote's claims, In Cold Blood was not the first "non-fiction novel," or more accurately, true crime novel. There were others before it. But Capote's captured enough attention to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It also paved the way for LA District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi's book about the Manson Family murders, Helter Skelter. One thing that sets both these books apart is they don't really sensationalize the murders. Hickock and Smith are a pair of career criminals and drifters who might have been at home in Kerouac's On the Road if they were just a bit smarter and more sociable (and less violent. Merry pranksters these two were not.)  Manson doesn't need sensationalized. He and his followers brought their own flair for the theatrics, which actually makes them scarier.

What struck me about the killers in In Cold Blood is they could not articulate their motivations, especially Hickock. He was a violent thug who had vague resentment against anyone who thought they were better than him. Never mind he'd never met or talked to the Clutters before killing them. Smith seems to have trapped himself in the life, hitching his star to a more charismatic and fierce Hickock and constantly regretting it even as he goes along with the next scene. The pair was doomed from the start. The Clutters became collateral damage, as the innocent often are in these cases.