Showing posts with label Leigh Lundin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leigh Lundin. Show all posts

03 March 2024

Music, Neat


Many SleuthSayers enjoy a music background. I’ve long known Rob’s interest in folk music dating back to the classic electric zitherphone. Our Fran Rizer, no longer with us, was an avid bluegrass fan and picker. Liz Zelvin released an album. And I gathered Brian Thornton and Steve Liskow stay active in the music scene. Turns out Eve Fisher and Chris Knopf keep up as well. And then I learned Stephen Ross pretty much operates a home recording studio.

“Stephen, Lady Ga-Ga on line 2.”

After intense cogitation, I mapped out a trailer for our first anthology based on Deborah Elliott-Upton’s book cover. I loaded up tavern sound effects– laughter, tinkling glasses, breakage, yelps and more laughter. I snagged karaoke tracks featuring Chris Stapleton, George Thorogood, and a little bit drunk Lady Antebellum. But as much as I like ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ (the song at least, thank you, Melayna), the cuts didn’t quite match the mood of the book. But I knew who could.

I put out a call and a half dozen SleuthSayers responded gleefully when I proposed a nearly impossible task– coming up with a bar song amid a time crunch. Using groundwork laid by Lopresti and Liskow, the team figured out how to pull off a global effort. Thank you, everyone. Here is the song, composed and sung by Rob Lopresti, instrumentals by Stephen Ross.

Murder, Neat

sung by Rob Lopresti, keyboards and percussion by Stephen Ross

Following are Rob's clever lyrics. No alcohols were unduly harmed in the making of this song.

Murder, Neat

lyrics and melody by Rob Lopresti

Come in the tavern and kindly ignore
The ax in the bar stool, the blood on the floor
You’re in no danger. Here death has no sting
For this is crime fiction and not the real thing.

There’s bourbon for burglars, and robbers get rye
Cocktail or blackmail? One vodka per spy.
Here partners may swindle and spouses might cheat
When SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

The cops drop a beer in their favorite saloon
Where hardboiled detectives start drinking by noon
Amateur sleuths take red herrings and Scotch
While pickpockets covet your wallet and watch.

Femme fatales ask as they sip the champagne
Does gunpowder leave an indelible stain?
A dive bar is waiting down any mean street
Where SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

Murder, Neat. Murder, Neat
That’s the name of the book
Where convict and constable, conman and crook
Will pour you a ninety proof story of crime
To make you turn pages way past closing time.

In the back room there are gangsters today
Planning a caper to steal cabernet.
If you aren’t driving the getaway car
They’ve got pinot grigio and plenty of noir.

The mastermind villain advances the plot
And chuckles that arsenic sure hits the spot.
Each cozy village has pubs so discreet
Where SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

Murder, Neat. Murder, Neat
That’s the book you should choose
If you like your clues well-infused with some booze
You can buy it online or in bookstores downtown
But don’t steal a copy or we’ll track you down
When SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

18 February 2024

Razing the Bar


Imagine if you will a lonely pub, a neighborhood taproom caught between urban blight and city renewal, the setting for my story in the first SleuthSayers anthology, Murder, Neat. Its owner Barney and his loyal friend and assistant Grace serve those who wander in. One taciturn customer takes a table by himself. He rarely speaks and never removes his baseball cap.

As Barney locks up, baseball man thrusts a revolver in Barney’s throat. He demands Barney serve up Glenfiddich, an under-the-counter scotch far outside the affordable range of local patrons. Sipping his drink, the man commences a pattern of checking the time with his cell phone.

As menacing clues accumulate, Barney grows alarmed. He realizes robbery isn’t on the stranger’s agenda but his life is. Our bartender has minutes to figure out who the stranger is and why he wants him dead.

Plot Points

This is one of my shorter stories, weighing less than 2000 words. Almost a one-act play, it’s a quick read. The idea for it came quickly, too.

I’d been working on another story, one that hasn’t yet sold. In a flash of inspiration, I realized its crucial plot point could be applied to this new project in an almost unrecognizable way.

The original tale features a broken hi-tech genius in a gradually evolving twist. Now in a faster paced narrative, this new story in Murder, Neat centers around a bartender who struggles to count down a cash drawer. Place the two stories side by side, they are so different, few readers– including me– could identify the nexus, and yet without that plot point, the story would be entirely different.

Title Bout

John Floyd is especially adept coming up with smart titles. The hazard for many writers is the risk of an almost clever name, a title that sounds smart at first blush, but proves gratuitous and not particularly applicable.

Three miles down the street from me abides a tavern called The Bar Code. Its outdoor signage features a large scannable UPC code.

I toyed with a title of Bar Code, stretching its context to disguise the ragged gap in its meaning. It was cleverish, but not satisfactory. And then inspiration struck:

Razing the Bar

I was pleased. Best of all, you, my reader, will discover the title is especially apt. Do enjoy the read.

05 February 2024

The Fine Art of Collaboration


For some writers, collaboration is a fact of life; for others, it's a rare gift. I’m in the second category. I’m awestruck at the harmonious working relationship of writing duos who turn out seamless works, whether they’re bestselling series like the historical mysteries of Charles Todd and his mother Caroline (the other half of author Charles Todd until her death in 2021) or one-offs like the Edgar-nominated short story "Blind-Sided" (2021) by SleuthSayer Michael Bracken and James A. Hearn.

I've participated in a number of musical collaborations, starting in high school, when a friend and I achieved fame for presenting our parody of Hamlet to the tune of folksong "Putting on the Style," with guitars, in numerous English classes. For years afterwards, when I met someone who'd attended my very large high school, they'd say, "Ohh, you're the one who wrote "Hamlet!"

In the noughties, as Brits call the first decade of the present century, I took part in several songwriting workshops led by legendary singer-songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore, whose work defies classification, though he's received a couple of Grammy nominations in the contemporary folk category. Jimmie and the other members of his original band, the Flatlanders, hail from Lubbock, Texas, along with Buddy Holly and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. In a long career, he's learned a lot about creative collaboration. In his workshops, he makes songwriters work in groups. He believes the creative group process mirrors the process in the individual writer's head. As he put it, the dialogue in one case and the monologue in the other both go, "That's brilliant! No, that's stupid!" In my case, since I didn't get to pick the people, the group process ended in tears a few times. But I think he's right about how the process works.

Between 2010 and 2012, I had the great joy of collaborating with my friend Ray Korona on an album of songs that I'd written over the course of half a century. It's called Outrageous Older Woman. I produced the album, Ray co-produced and acted as sound engineer, and we collected a tremendously gifted array of backup singers and musicians to create an album of my music that sounded the way I'd heard it only in my wildest dreams. We spent many, many hours in Ray's basement recording studio in New Jersey, and every hour was a happy one. Ten years after Ray's untimely death from cancer, I still cherish a moment when we got exactly the sound we wanted for a solo passage from a fingerstyle guitarist (think Chet Atkins or Ricky Skaggs) after auditioning four different musicians for the descriptor "a git-tar picker who had lightning in his hands" in a song about a country music band. Ray and I exchanged a look of delight and perfect satisfaction that still warms my heart when I remember it. There's nothing like that "Got it!" moment in a good collaboration.

I've never collaborated on a pure writing project, as opposed to lyrics. Like the late Parnell Hall, I would have sold out and said yes to big bestseller Stuart Woods, if I’d gotten the call, or to James Patterson, like everyone else. Bestsellers aside, I’d do my best if invited to collaborate with a writer I respect and trust on a publishable project. But no one’s ever asked. I've had a handful of brilliant editors and quite a few bad ones, and I tend to trust my own judgment over that of most other writers. I hate writing by committee, and while I may dream occasionally of the perfect writing partner, I'm unlikely to encounter one.

My most recent collaboration was with fellow SleuthSayer and multi-talented writer, graphic artist, tech wiz, etc, my friend Leigh Lundin. After reading my post on my adventures checking out my DNA, Leigh had the bright idea of creating a cartoon that riffed on them. He thought it up and did all the work. I got to critique both the artwork ("My complexion isn't green." "Can you make the angry woman thinner?") and the text ("It's funnier if you mention the DNA." "No hyphen in storyteller.") as Leigh patiently produced one version after another. We were both busy with other projects, so it took more than a year, but we finally achieved our "Got it!" moment. Here's the result:

04 February 2024

Une Humeur Noire


Matches with Patches

On a September Friday in 1984, a new crime series debuted on NBC. The plot of the program was subordinate to its glossy appearance. As a director said, “The show is written for an audience … more interested in images, emotions and energy, than plot and character and words.”

The program focused on style rather than substance. Producers literally specified a pastel color palette, while simultaneously banning earth tone browns, beiges, and the color red. Crews repainted buildings to match color patches. The show’s look and feel built a peach and sea-foam green monument to the gods of cars, cash, and cocaine.

Mocs without Socks

Their stars posed as much as acted. The five season run set styles in cars, boats, handguns and holsters, houses, and men’s fashion and accessories. The word metrosexual wouldn’t appear for another decade, but the cast defined the term: pink T-shirts under Italian unstructured jackets, French linen trousers, European mocs without socks, carefully groomed beard stubble.

By now you’re hearing Jan Hammer’s Miami Vice theme, and yes, they featured damn good music of the era. Wikipedia after-the-fact defines its genre as ’neo-noir’, whatever that implies, but it’s all about mood.

Noire Afar

Une humeur noire means a dark mood, on the off chance I managed the français feminine endings in the title correctly. Mystery writers know noir, but here follows a different take.

Sometime after Crockett and Tubbs committed their last heartbreak, heartache, and visit to the STD clinic, a couple of English bands came out with real noire but with a twist. Rather than write a novel or film a movie and then add music, these groups created music and subsequently filmed vignettes that set mood and hint at a story. They aren’t by any means recent, but their take on retro-noire remains intriguing.

A Plot it’s Not

Here now is the group Pulp.

 
   
  This is Hardcore @ Pulp

 

A predecessor (and still active) group was Portishead. I’ve mentioned it before, a favorite of our colleague Paul Marks. Same idea– music first and then a video setting a premise and mood for a story– without the actual story, leaving you to fill in the blanks.

Here is Portishead.

 
   
  To Kill a Dead Man @ Portishead

 

Even today, this approach remains unusual and controversial, the telling of a story without a story. How can noir become bleaker than that?

25 January 2024

Where's the Stuff?


Eve Fisher avatar

by Eve Fisher and Leigh Lundin

 

My SleuthSayers compadre Leigh Lundin
sent me the following email the other day:

Leigh (avatar)
Leigh
      Eve, I've long wondered what happens to possessions when prisoners are incarcerated. Without a family or girlfriend or close friend, they wouldn't be able to pay a mortgage.
    But what about personal goods, valuables and items with sentimental meaning. It wouldn't be fair for, say, a landlord to keep them (unjust enrichment), but what does… or doesn't happen?

Well, I thought about that for a while, and decided that the outcome would largely depend upon whether or not the apartment or house was a crime scene in an ongoing investigation. Leigh also comments on foreclosure and eviction situations.

CRIME SCENE:

Right now, the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect is in jail, pending trial, no bail has been granted, and the police are combing that house from top to bottom for evidence. His personal goods, valuables, and items with (slight shudder appropriate here) 'sentimental meaning' are probably boxed up by now and in evidence rooms downtown.

The same is true of the 2022 Moscow, Idaho killings suspect, at least some of whose property – as well as his parents' – is in police hands. (BTW, I still disagree with demolishing the house where the victims lived before the trial – I know the police signed off on it, but still… Who knows what evidence still lurked there?)

And don't even think about keeping your laptop and cell phone if you've committed assault, manslaughter, or worse. The first thing law enforcement wants to see is your computer, email, texts, etc. And, as I've said many times before, do not put anything on any social media that can be used against you in a court of law.  

NOT A CRIME SCENE:

If you have money and are allowed to post bail, great, you don't have to worry about your property very much even if you are alone and no one cares. You go home, hire a good lawyer, and keep on keeping on. However, DO NOT try to saw the ankle monitor off, because you're gonna go right back to the slammer.

But say you're not allowed bail, or can't afford it, or get lost in the system? Or you get convicted and "catch a heavy case", i.e., go to prison for a long time?

Well, I'm not sure how long the landlord has to hold your apartment or your stuff until re-renting it and tossing the stuff out into the yard – or his pocket.

Leigh (avatar)
Leigh
  TL/DR: Once a Writ of Possession (eviction) is executed, and a landlord comes into possession of personal property, landlord is required to hold and give ten business days notice before disposing of goods. Eviction of a non-military tenant typically take 30-60, even 90 days. Eviction rarely takes less time but a bad renter can take much longer.
    The clock for eviction is partially spelled out by statute and partially how long it takes to get the case before a judge. See, eviction becomes a lawsuit. If a renter resists eviction, in most cases a landlord/landlady is frozen from taking further action until a judge’s decision: no harassing visits, no shutting off utilities, no interference in residents’ lives. The minimum is about a month, but an unscrupulous tenant or a squatter can draw eviction out months or more while not paying rent.
    An exception centers around a 7-day Notice to Cure involving situations that put the property at risk: accidental or deliberate damage, housing unauthorized residents, allowing unauthorized pets, violating association rules, dealing drugs, prostitution, and so on. In that case, a landlord may not only move faster, but can be forced to do so.
    Except for pictures and photos, tenants may not remove items affixed to the property, i.e, drapes, blinds, etc. I don’t find the procedure for final disposition spelled out in statutes. By tradition and under the watchful eye of a deputy, landlords set tenant's possessions ‘on the curb’. Landlords are not allowed to help themselves nor allow others, but over time, goods tend to scatter until picked up by garbage collectors.
    I’ve seen curb disposals in nice neighborhoods where furniture and household goods disappeared with a day or two. Contrary to common expectations, when a poor tenant was evicted in a not-nice complex, the lady’s personal goods remained untouched for a week.
    The homeowner can pay off the certificate any time within the seven year period.

And I have no idea what the bank / mortgage company would do, other than foreclose, and have someone clean it all out. Who knows where it goes then?

Leigh (avatar)
Leigh
  TL/DR: In a foreclosure, personal property rights transfer to the new owner.
    Foreclosure rules differ considerably in that a change of ownership is involved. The two main reasons I can think of are (1) failure to meet mortgage payments and (2) failure to pay taxes. Homeowner and condo associations have ways of forcing evictions, but other than suing homeowners into oblivion, I don’t know how they work.
    Obviously, if a homeowner doesn’t pay his mortgage, he risks losing his house. The note holder then can exercise his right to repossess the property. Unlike a tenancy, once a mortgagee take possession he can dispose of personal property as he wishes.
    Failure to pay taxes puts a property at risk but not immediate foreclosure. In Florida, an unpaid tax bill turns into a tax certificate, which the public may buy at auction. The certificate can not be redeemed within the next two years but must be cashed in before year seven, else it is forfeited. Between years 2 and 7, the holder can have the county clerk sell the property ‘on the courthouse steps’, a figurative term, no longer literal. The new owner taxes possession of any real and personal property left behind.
    I couldn’t find specific instructions, but it’s safer– and kinder– to attempt a ten day notice.

Worst Case Scenario:

Worst case scenario with family: Kalief Browder spent 1,000 days in Rykers Island because his family couldn't afford the $3,000 bail that was set, the criminal justice system was overcrowded, and between the judge(s) and his court-appointed attorney, his case was delayed for 3 years, without any trial at all. Eventually, it was dismissed. Tragically, two years later, he hanged himself. (Wikipedia)

BREAKING NEWS TIP:

If you really don't want law enforcement in your house, looking over your possessions and confiscating the same, don't shoot someone while wearing an ankle monitor. Luke Eagle Star, of Rapid City, SD, shot a woman in the arm about a week ago, and then ran. Police were able to track Mr. Eagle Star because he was still wearing his ankle monitor. They are currently working "to gather additional details," and I'll bet that apartment/house is going to get a real going over.  And considering that he MIGHT have shot his girlfriend, I'd say most of the contents are going to go out in the snow... (Rapid City)


Florida Statutes Ch 83§62, Ch 83§67, Ch 715§104, Ch 702§035-702§10

21 January 2024

Harsh Words


words (graphic)

One of our correspondents sent an article, ‘31 of The Most Hard-to-Pronounce Words in the English Language’. In actuality, the problem isn’t necessarily difficulty vocalizing the words, but associating their voicing and spelling. As their web page explains, English doesn’t always follow a strict likeness between its writing units (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). Remember the sound-alike spellings of ‘fish’? Ghoti? Pheti?

This disconnect can result in embarrassing mishaps.

  • A French friend asked directions to the ‘Moe-Jave Desert’.
  • A national brand of canned food advised the consumer to “let the air excape.”
  • Dan Quayle couldn’t spell ‘potato’.
  • George Bush Jr couldn’t pronounce ‘nuclear’.
  • I can’t spell, uh… More on that in a moment.

I’ve watched words change meanings such as ‘nimrod’. Originally it was a Biblical name, which came to mean sharpshooter or good hunter, and recently has now come to mean a dolt, an idiot.

words (graphic)

I’ve also observed words change pronunciation. Thanks to a horrible branding ad campaign, the word ‘chic’ changed from a pronunciation of ‘sheek’ to ‘chick’. Ugh. When I was a child, ‘pot pourri’ sounded like ‘POE poor-ree’. Years later when I heard my mother call it ‘paht POORy’, I questioned her about changing the pronunciation. She said, “I gave up.”

Yatch Yacth Yacht

A story circulates amongst boaters about a sea captain who each morning extracted a slip of paper from a drawer and read it before putting it away again. One night a deckhand sneaked in and read it. It said,

Port = left; starboard = right.
sailboats: ketch versus yawl

Me, I have difficulty recalling the difference between a ketch and a yawl… I know I want one, either will do. But my real nemesis is the word ‘yacht’.

I can NOT spell that damn word for anything. I had to look up the spelling for this article after getting it wrong TWICE.

In a similar vein, I suspect I’d have more than usual trouble with the word ‘height’ except I used it several times a week in my technical career (and still use it in SleuthSayers HTML). It’s downright cruel that its sister dimension, ‘width’, has a different ending, ‘th’ instead of ‘ht’.

Speaking of technical, I used to confuse trigonometry with nude sunbathing. ‘Tangential’ tended to come out ‘tangenital’.

The Good Housekeeping list dates back a few years and was picked up by Secret Life of Mom

Secret Life of Mom / Good Housekeeping™ Hard Words
accessory espresso lackadaisical nuptial scissors
anemone February library onomatopoeia specific
choir hyperbole mischievous pronunciation squirrel
colonel isthmus murderer remuneration supposedly
coup jalapeno niche rural synecdoche
epitome juror nuclear schadenfreude worcestershire

They ironically end the list with ‘vocabulary’. I suspect they omitted the word ‘yacht’ because no one could spell it. (Damn, I had to look it up again.)

In their word list, I have to be careful not to spell ‘expresso’ and step carefully when writing ‘mischievous’. Other challenging words rattle about in my head, but I’ll end with a historical note.

Mr Monk Mangles the Monastery

In the days before the printing press, monks copied manuscripts by hand. In a particular abbey, the original was copied once and stored away in a vault, and that copy would be copied, and its copies recopied, to propagate across Europe.

A novice approached the abbot and said, “Reverend Father, we’re doing it wrong. By recopying copies, any errors will be reproduced in subsequent versions. I believe we should always copy from the original.”

The abbot was impressed. He said, “You’re right, lad,” and descended to the vault. An hour later, monks passing the doorway heard sobbing. A friar grew brave enough to enter and ask the abbot what was wrong.

The abbot said, “The word celebrate… We left out the R.”

What are your word nemeses?

07 January 2024

Caesar and the Hotbox


Kaiser Henry J (1951)
Kaiser Henry J (1951)

Last week, RT wrote about his family’s Christmas, which shared touchpoints with my family. Among other things, both families owned Kaisers, supposedly a bit ahead of the pack in styling. Of interest to mystery fans, Kaiser sponsored early Dumont Network Adventures of Ellery Queen television shows.

We experienced a somewhat different Christmas Kaiser story. I was too young to know details, but Dad scrapped one of the Kaisers. I think he swapped engines or something, but the vehicle disappeared leaving only its rugged windows which he used to make hotboxes.

Hotboxes or hotbeds (sometimes confusingly called cold frames) are miniature greenhouses, bottomless wood frames with glass lids. They trap heat, moisture, and sunlight, allowing seedlings to get an early start and extend the growing season through autumn.

Dad built a row of hotboxes between the grape arbor and the orchard. The salvaged windows were sturdy and couldn’t be broken under ordinary use. The last garden vegetables were harvested late in the year and the hotbox was tucked into its, er, hotbed until next spring. Snow came and covered the landscape, but heat retention melted it over the hotboxes, exposing the glass.

Rat Terrier
Rat Terrier ©
AnimalBreeds.com

Did I mention our farm dogs? We had two, our venerable samoyed who looked like snow itself, and a ranch terrier named Caesar. It’s unfair to say Caesar was dumb just because he never studied Newtonian physics.

Ever watch a dog catch a frisbee? To calculate the launch point, speed, angle, curvature, and interception point requires an astonishing degree of calculus, and yet our dogs execute that program routinely. Just because Caesar skipped the class on heat conductivity and expansion would not normally have impacted his life. But miss that lesson he did and therein lies the flub.

So I’m outside in the snow and the terrier is out in the snow and the samoyed is out in the snow, and the fields and forests are beautiful on that gloriously cold day where temperatures hovered near zero Fahrenheit. Although I really wanted to tramp through the woods with my Red Ryder BB gun, I milked and fed and watered the livestock trailed by the dogs.

Last step was to feed the rabbits, stationed near the hotbeds. One of the hutches housed a peg-legged Bantam pullet that other poultry tormented. Thus Peggy lived amid the much nicer Easter bunnies.

So I was tending the rabbits and Caesar nosed along the hotboxes. He sniffed, and sniffed again. He raised his leg. Did I mention Caesar hadn’t passed the science section on heat expansion? In this case, ignorance was not bliss.

So he snuffled a box and raised a hind leg. He hovered. Some of you know what hovering is all about. His nose twitched. His bladder tickled. That signal in his canine brain switched on and, well you know, the tanks pressurized and began to expel warm body temperature liquid in a hot stream against cold glass and– here comes the physics lesson– it exploded.

Not like a cannonball, not like a bomb, but it exploded like tossing gasoline onto a fire with a deep, vibrant Whumph! Like a bull rider tossed from the back of a steer, the dog levitated sixteen feet in the air.

Caesar yelped an ancestral scream that harked back to Brutus and Cassius, a baying to end all bays, a yowl that echoed across the frozen landscape. Like a Tex Avery canine, his wheels were churning before he hit earth again. He shot through the orchard, ricochetting off trees and bouncing into sheds crying pitifully, not merely because his morning ceremony had been interrupted. The terrier was terrified.

Hotbox BC (before canine) Hotbox AD (after dog)
Hotbox BC (before canine)
© Gardeners.com
Hotbox AD (after dog)
© SleuthSayers.org

For the next week, he crossed and recrossed his legs, his eyes turning yellow from water retention. He slunk under one of the barns, peering out in fright.

Raccoons eventually evicted him and the day came when his urinary tract could bear no more. The samoyed and I politely turned our backs for the next twelve and a half minutes whilst Caesar drained the reservoirs and then collapsed in the snow.

The skittish dog could not be persuaded to attend our rabbits in the orchard. These were pre-cellular days, so he didn’t have to worry about anyone posting embarrassing videos on the Web. Still, word got around and squirrels would sneak up behind him, clap their paws and shout, “Bang!” and then laugh and laugh.

While he never fathered a pup, there’s no truth to the rumor Caesar went all friends-with-benefits with the cute spaniel in the next county or that her doggy-style birth control was a sharp bark.

Philologists might note that Kaiser is rooted in the word Caesar, but no one dared tell the dog. And that is the tale of Caesar and the Kaiser hotbox.

24 December 2023

Christmas Eve in 3D


Many years ago, SleuthSayers published a charming animated version of White Christmas as sung by the Drifters. This year I stumbled upon a 3D version. Given an excuse to compare and contrast whilst enjoying the Drifters, here are the two versions. Enjoy and a have a wonderful Christmas.

White Christmas, © 1942, composed by Irving Berlin, performed 1954 by the Drifters featuring Bill Pinkney (bass) and Clyde McPhatter (tenor).
 
   
  Original 2D animation by Joshua Held

 


 
   
  3D animation Dominique Gervais & Karen Dufour

 


Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

17 December 2023

9


Think of a number, any single digit number between 1 and 400. Need a hint? Let’s refine it to the largest decimal digit, the square of 3, the square root of 81. Another clue? Count the number of Greek Muses. It’s the Hebrew Sabbath day of the month (23:32 וַיִּקְרָא), a number signifying truth and completeness. It’s the number of Brahma the Creator and At-Tawbah (ٱلتوبة‎), the nth Surah of the Holy Qur’an. It’s the atomic number of fluorine, the number of circles in Dante’s Inferno, and the number of innings in baseball. You guessed!

It’s also how high FeedSpot, a RSS feed reader, ranked SleuthSayers out of nearly 400 crime and mystery blogs it follows.

№ 9.

Wow. Rumors that SleuthSayers is respected and well regarded in the criminal community have reached this troglodyte’s outpost. That’s thanks to you, loyal reader (you know whom I’m talking about), and the dedication of two dozen of the smartest writers this side of Dorothy and Dashiell.

We have good company. I’ve read and interacted with other blogs I consider top-notch: Criminal Element (#1), Crimespree (#8), Crime Readers’ Association (#19), Murder is Everywhere (#28), Crime Time (#22), Criminal Minds (#32), Crime Space (#49), and Femmes Fatales (#69).

Look who else is featured: Rob Lopresti (#47) and Michael Bracken (#37).

The list contains a number of intriguing new-to-me crime sites. Although no trophies or fat prizes are awarded, it’s nice to be recognized and be ranked so high.

FeedSpot’s original list offers considerable detail as well as 300 additional entries, but check the list below to get a quick Who’s Who of the mystery blogging world. Again, thank you.

What do you think? Criminal minds want to know. And now, a selection from the list:

1. Criminal Element - Original crime stories, exclusive excerpts, blog posts, giveaways Criminal Element
New York, US
45 The Crime Segments Crime Segments
Florida, US
2. Crime Fiction Lover - The site for die hard crime & thriller fans Crime Fiction Lover
UK
46 Indie Crime Scene Indie Crime Scene
unspecified
3. Crime Reads Crime Reads
unspecified
47 Little Big Crimes Little Big Crimes
Bellingham, Wash, US
4. Crime Writer Sue Coletta - Inside the mind of a crime writer Sue Coletta
US
48 International Noir Fiction International Noir
international
5. Crime by the Book Crime By The Book
New York, NY, US
49 Crime Space Crime Space
international
6. True Crime Diva True Crime Diva
unspecified
50 Vintage Crime - Crime and spy fiction from Poe up to 1950 Vintage Crime
Australia
7. The Venetian Vase Venetian Vase
UK
51 The Crime Fiction Writer's Forensics Blog Writer's Forensics
California, US
8. Crimespree Magazine Crime Spree Mag
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US
52 Crime Always Pays by Declan Burke Crime Always Pays
Ireland
9. Sleuth Sayers SleuthSayers
Ca, Fr, NZ, UK, US, ZA
53 Detectives Beyond Borders Detectives > Borders
international
10 Do You Write Under Your Own Name? Under Your Name?
UK
54 Jane Isaac - UK Crime Fiction Writer, Amazon Bestseller Jane Isaac
Northampton, England, UK
11 Crime Book Junkie Crime Book Junkie
UK
55 True Crime Reader True Crime Reader
unspecified
12 Kittling Books Kittling Books
Phoenix, Arizona, US
56 Scandinavian Crime Fiction Scandinavian Crime
unspecified
13 SHOTS Shots Mag
UK
57 Crime Scene NI Crime Scene N.I.
Northern Ireland, UK
14 The Rap Sheet The Rap Sheet
unspecified
58 Unlawful Acts Unlawful Acts
Wilmington, Delaware, US
15 In Reference to Murder Blog In Reference To Murder
US
59 Where The Reader Grows Where Readers Grow
New York, US
16 BOLO BOOKS Bolo Books
Maryland, US
60 COL'S CRIMINAL LIBRARY Col's Criminal Library
England, UK
17 AustCrimeFiction | Australia & New Zealand Crime Fiction Reviews since 2006 Aust Crime Fiction
Victoria, Australia
61 Rowmark | The Pauline Rowson website crime novels, events, news and blog Rowmark
England, UK
18 Raven Crime Reads Raven Crime Reads
UK
62 International Crime Fiction Research Group - Information and news about the activities of the Inter International Crime
Belfast, N.I, UK
19 Crime Writers/Readers Association Crime Writers' Assoc
UK
63 TheCrimeHouse - Everything crime fiction The Crime House
Sweden
20 Chapter In My Life Chapter In My Life
Glasgow, Scotland, UK
64 Steph Broadribb Steph Broadribb
London, England, UK
21 Hooked From Page One Hooked From Page 1
Essex, Ontario, Canada
65 Historical True Crime Detective Historical True Detective
US
22 Crime Time - There's always time for Crime..... Crime Time
UK
66 Past Offences - Classic crime, thrillers and mystery book reviews Past Offences
US
23 Euro Crime Euro Crime
UK
67 The Crime Warp - Writers' and Readers' Perspectives | A blog reviewing crime fiction and int The Crime Warp
Bradford, England, UK
24 George Kelley George Kelley
N Tonawanda, NY, US
68 Keeper of Pages Keeper Of Pages
England, UK
25 Do Some Damage Do Some Damage
unspecified
69 Femmes Fatales Femmes Fatales
unspecified
26 Cross Examining Crime Cross-Examining Crime
England, UK
70 Jim Fisher True Crime Jim Fisher True Crime
Pennsylvania, US
27 A Crime Readers Blog Crime Reader's Blog
UK
71 Chris Longmuir, Crime Writer Chris Longmuir
Montrose, Scotland, UK
28 Murder is Everywhere Murder Is Everywhere
international
72 Crime Time by Mathew Paust MD Paust
Hampton, Virginia, US
29 Type M for Murder Type M 4 Murder
unspecified
73 Chillers Killers and Thrillers Chillers Killers Thrillers
London, England, UK
30 Promoting Crime Fiction Promoting Crime
UK
74 Crime Fiction Ireland Crime Ire
Dublin, Ireland
31 Murder in Common Murder In Common
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
75 Unlawful Acts - Small Press Crime Fiction Unlawful Acts
unspecified
32 Criminal Minds 7 Criminal Minds
unspecified
76 Mystery Pod – Stephen Usery Mystery Pod
unspecified
33 The Invisible Event The Invisible Event
London, England, UK
77 Crime Scraps Review - All about crime fiction Crime Scraps Review
England, UK
34 JOFFE BOOKS | Leading UK publisher of crime fiction, mysteries, thrillers Joffe Books
London, England, UK
78 Permission to Kill Permission to Kill
unspecified
35 Cath Staincliffe Blog Cath Staincliffe
Manchester, England, UK
79 The Crime Review Crime Review
England, UK
36 Crime Worm Crime Worm
Scotland, UK
80 Fiction Formula Fiction Formula
US
37 Crime Fiction Writer Crime Fiction Writer
Hewitt, Texas, US
81 Northern Crime reviews Northern Crime reviews
Leeds, England, UK
38 Nobody Move! Armed Robbery
Albany, New York, US
82 Fair Dinkum Crime Fair Dinkum Crime
Australia
39 A Crime is Afoot JIE Scribano
Madrid, Spain
83 Mark McGinn Mark McGinn crime blog
Christchurch Canterbury NZ
40 Hawley Reviews Hawley Reviews
unspecified
84 True Crime True Crime
unspecified
41 Crime Watch - Investigating crime fiction from a Kiwi perspective Kiwi Crime
New Zealand
85 Crimezine - #1 for Crime Crimezine
Los Angeles, California, US
42 Chrissie Poulson Blog Christine Poulson
UK
86 Only Detect Only Detect
unspecified
43 Ron Franscell | An American Storyteller Ron Franscell
San Antonio, Texas, US
87 Crime Thriller Fella Crime Thrilla Fella
unspecified
44 Beneath the Stains of Time Moonlight Detective
unspecified
88 Crime Thriller Fella The Reader is Warned
unspecified