Always Be Sure, Please, To Call It Research

This piece might be useful to some people. We shall see.

Recently I have noticed a number of writers talking about doing research for their fiction, especially historical fiction.  Well, I spent 41 years as a librarian helping people with research, so I thought I might offer a few bits of advice.

I'm not going to talk about sources because they change with some speed. And besides, I moderated a panel of librarians at Left Coast Crime this year and you can find some of our recommendations here.  

What I want to talk about is some principles on finding sources.    Here goes.

Principle 1. Wouldn't it be nice to have a highly trained research assistant at your command? Surprise! You do. They work at the public library and they are paid with your tax dollars whether you use them or not.  You can call, text, email, or visit.  Don't be shy.  If you give a reference librarian a question they can spend a couple of hours digging into you are making their day.

And here is a subclause that is probably out of date but worth mentioning: If you ask a librarian for research help be as specific as possible.  I think the use of search engines has probably made this problem less common, but when I started out a lot of people seemed to think they weren't permitted to ask for what they really wanted, so we had conversations like this one I had with a college student in the early eighties:

Q: Where are your books on religion?

A: Most are upstairs under the letter B (Note: We used the Library of Congress system). But are you after anything more specific?

Q: Yes, books on Islam.

A: Great. Any particular book?

Q: The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Well, that shrank suddenly, didn't it? (And by the way, the Autobiography is typically shelved under E for American history.)

Principle 2. A lesson I learned long before the Internet: No matter how obscure your subject is, someone thinks it is the most fascinating topic in the world.  Find that person and you may wind up begging them to stop giving you information.

One way to hunt for that source is to look for websites related to your topic. Can you find a way to contact the person who created it? Yahtzee!

Principle 3. You have probably figured out that not all information is available for free on the Internet. I am especially thinking of scholarly articles. You need to look at databases (a stupid term libraries use (mostly) for digital periodical indexes), but your public library doesn't have all the ones you were hoping for.

Okay, is there a college or university in your area?  You can look at their website and see what databases they have, but, of course, they are only available to their own students. Bummer!

Don't panic.  Contact the librarians there and ask: 1. Is your library building open to the public?  And if it is: 2. If I go there in person can I use your databases? 

The university where I am a professor emeritus lists 47 databases under the subject of History, including:

* American History and Life

* America's Historical Newspapers

* American Prison Newspapers

* Historical Statistics of the United States

And so on.  

Principle 4. What if you learn of the existence of the perfect article but no library you can access has it? You contact your public library but they say no;  getting you a copy would cost them a billion kajillion dollars because of the APAGEP Factor. (Academic Publishers Are Greedy Evil Parasites).

Go back to Principle 2.  The author of that perfect article is the person who finds your subject  so fascinating.  Contact them and they may be delighted to send you a free e-copy of their article.  You  aren't depriving them of anything because they wouldn't get any of that billion kajillion dollars anyway. (See APAGEP above.)

Principle 5. If you are trying to dig beyond the obvious search engine, familiarize yourself with the tools of Boolean logic.  For example, if you go to Google Scholar and search for:

private detectives  nineteenth century chicago boston 

...you will get less-focused results than if you search for: 

"private detectives" "nineteenth century" (chicago OR boston) 

Thus endeth today's lesson.  Best of luck with your research.  I hope you get an A+ or, better yet,  published.

EMERGENCY: Sherlock Holmes 2.0

 

Popcorn Proverbs 7

For the seventh time, here is a collection of quotations from some crime movies.  Answers are at the bottom.  The quotes are in alphabetical order by title.  Oh, and four are from the same director, and two of those have quotes from the same actor.  None of these flicks have appeared in my previous collections.  Good luck!

“What's on the menu?”
“Fun and games.”
“Will it be a mess to clean up?
“With any luck.” 

 

“Get some cops to protect our policemen!” 

 

“Where do you live?”

“I live where the land meets the sky. Where the eagle and the raven fly free. I live under the sun and the moon.”

“Where do you live?”

“I'm his neighbour.”

 

“Why didn’t you get a job?”

“They don’t grow on trees.”

“Why didn’t you starve first?”

“Why didn’t you?”

"I'm just gonna assume you're all criminals." 

“People don't commit murder on credit.” 

“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money - and a woman - and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it?”

“What a dramatic airport.”

“Chivalry may be dead but I didn’t kill it.”

 “I would make a great mother, don't you think?”

“Oh, my God. A child would be so lucky to have you as its host.”
“Thank you. It must be your powerful asexuality that makes you such a good listener.”

 

“The Pharisees were macaroni.” 

 

“I'm going to tell the truth.”

“Oh, it’s a work of fiction!”

 

“I've heard of the habitual criminal, of course. But I never dreamed I'd become involved with the habitual crime.”

 

“I’m from Quincy. Hot-wiring cars is part of the public school curriculum.” 

 

“I'm not chasing any parrot! I don't care if he's a field marshal!” 

 

“Tell her they may soon be leaving us. Leaving us for a long, long journey. How is it that Shakespeare says? ‘From which no traveler returns.’ Great poet.” 

 

“I write true crime novels based on fictional stories that I make up.”  

 

 

“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, kneeling on glass is my favorite pastime. It keeps me from slouching.”   

  
 “You give out my number again and I'll retire you with flowers.” 

“Which would be worse - to live as a monster? Or to die as a good man?”

“What do you think of me by contrast to your horse?”
“If I ever got the bit between your teeth, I'd have no trouble in handling you at all.” 

“The pastries are light as air.”

 “Germaine has very sensitive hands and an exceedingly light touch. She strangled a German general - without a sound.”

"God, I hope i live to regret this."

 

“My dear, I’m not a gangster. But I was in real estate for 20 years. I stop at nothing.”  

“Sell me this pen.” 

Ready?  Here are the answers...

“What's on the menu?”

“Fun and games.”

“Will it be a mess to clean up?

“With any luck.” -Kathryn St. Jean / George Woodhouse (Cate Blanchett/Michael Fassbender) Black Bag

 

“Get some cops to protect our policemen!” – Police Chief (Joe Miller) Cops

 

“Where do you live?”

“I live where the land meets the sky. Where the eagle and the raven fly free. I live under the sun and the moon.”

“Where do you live?”

“I'm his neighbour.”

-Cop (Bruno Bryniarski) / Frank Fencepost (Adam Beach) / Silas Crow (Ryan Rajendra Black) Dance Me Outside

  

“Why didn’t you get a job?”

“They don’t grow on trees.”

“Why didn’t you starve first?”

“Why didn’t you?”

-Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart) / Francey (Claire Trevor) Dead End

"I'm just gonna assume you're all criminals." -- Krause Will Poulter) Detroit

 “People don't commit murder on credit.” – Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) Dial M For Murder

 
“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money - and a woman - and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it?” – Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) Double Indemnity

 “What a dramatic airport.” -Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) High Anxiety\

“Chivalry may be dead but I didn’t kill it.” --        Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) Hit Man

 “I would make a great mother, don't you think?”
“Oh, my God. A child would be so lucky to have you as its host.”
“Thank you. It must be your powerful asexuality that makes you such a good listener.”
-Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek) / Michale Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

 

“The Pharisees were macaroni.” – Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans) Honey Don’t

 

“I'm going to tell the truth.”

“Oh, it’s a work of fiction!”

-Kendig (Walter Matthau) / Isobel (Glenda Jackson) Hopscotch

 

“I've heard of the habitual criminal, of course. But I never dreamed I'd become involved with the habitual crime.” -Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn) The Hot Rock

 

“I’m from Quincy. Hot-wiring cars is part of the public school curriculum.” – Cobby (Casey Affleck) The Instigators

 

“I'm not chasing any parrot! I don't care if he's a field marshal!” – Louis (Herbert Lom) The Lady Killers (1955)

 

“Tell her they may soon be leaving us. Leaving us for a long, long journey. How is it that Shakespeare says? ‘From which no traveler returns.’ Great poet.” – Abbott (Peter Lorre) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

 

“I write true crime novels based on fictional stories that I make up.” – Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) The Naked Gun (2025)

 

“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, kneeling on glass is my favorite pastime. It keeps me from slouching.”  Henrietta Lowell/Henry Graham (Elaine May/Walter Matthau) A New Leaf

 “God, I hope I live to regret this.” – Mincy (Betty Gabriel) Novocaine

 “You give out my number again and I'll retire you with flowers.” – Mailer (Robert Ryan) The Outfit

 “Which would be worse - to live as a monster? Or to die as a good man?” – Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) Shutter Island

 “What do you think of me by contrast to your horse?”

“If I ever got the bit between your teeth, I'd have no trouble in handling you at all.” – Johnny/Lina (Cary Grant/Joan Fontaine) Suspicion

“The pastries are light as air.”
 “Germaine has very sensitive hands and an exceedingly light touch. She strangled a German general - without a sound.” – H.H. Hughson / John Robie (John Williams/ Cary Grant) To Catch a Thief

 “My dear, I’m not a gangster. But I was in real estate for 20 years. I stop at nothing.” – Ferguson (Rupert Everett) Wild Target

 “Sell me this pen.” – Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) The Wolf of Wall Street

In The Zone

 I've been reluctant to bring up this topic because it smacks of woo-woo and I am a dedicated anti-woo-woo person.  In fact when I ride my bike around town people point at me and whisper to each other "There goes a dedicated anti-woo-woo person." At least that's what I hope they're whispering.

I just read an interesting quote from Frederick M. Knott.  He was the author of two classic plays of suspense which were made into classic movies of the same: Dial M For Murder and Wait Until Dark. Knott wrote: 

There was a time when this play was becoming more and more complicated so I stopped everything and reconstructed it, which is an agonizing problem bur it has certainly paid off. A reverse process seems to have set in now and it seems to get more and more simple, and I am getting what I call the bonuses, i.e., good little things that grow naturally out of the writing, more than I bargained for and that is always a good indication that one is on the right tack at last.

What interested me was his comment about those bonuses.  I believe he is describing what I think of as being in the zone.  Here's a definition from Crossidiomas: "Being 'in the zone' is a term that describes a mental state where an individual is fully immersed in their task or activity. It’s a feeling of being completely present and engaged with what they are doing, without any distractions or interruptions. When someone is in this state, they may feel like time has slowed down or even stopped altogether."

It's usually used to describe athletes but it applies to writers as well.  For me it is the experience when pieces of your story fit together unexpectedly, making connections you didn't expect.

A favorite example: Back in 2015 Bouchercon was held in Raleigh. They announced that they would have an anthology and I decided to send them a story.  The problem was that the story I had ready, "On the Ramblas," was about a pickpocket  in Barcelona.   Nothing wrong with that, but I figured a story with some connection to Raleigh had a better chance of making it into the book. 

The name of the Bouchercon was Murder Under the Oaks, so I thought I might increase the odds of connecting to the book if I could fit something about oak trees in.

I should explain that the first sentence of my tale was: "Tourists wandered down the Ramblas like sheep waiting to be fleeced" and there were several other places where tourists were metaphrically compared to animals. 

I looked on the web for "Spain AND oak" and guess what? It turns out that that country brags that it has the best ham in the world because of pigs that forage under oak trees, living on acorns.  And there was my connection between my metaphorical animal/tourists and the theme of the book.  Bonus! My story is the last one in the book because the editor Art Taylor liked the ending so much he wanted it to be the last thing readers read.

Here's another example I have written about before.  When my sister Diane Chamberlain began work on her first novel, Private Relations, she decided that most of the characters would live in a big house in Mantoloking on the New Jersey shore. She found an appropriate house, took photos, and used them for inspiration.

Later, looking at photo collections at our parents' house, she found a picture of herself, age 16, in front of that same home.  Of course, this was part of the subconscious mind, what I call the Miner, helping her out.  

 And now I am working on a short story whose plot requires a bunch of characters to sit around talking for a few minutes.  Problem was I had no idea what they should be chatting about.  But darn it, I needed them talking.  So I literally wrote FILL THIS IN and went on with the story.

A few pages later, wouldn't you know it, I realized I had another problem.  I planned to send this story to a mystery magazine, which of course meant there had to be a crime in it.  And there was, but it wasn't revealed until the ending. I knew that the average mystery reader, clever and sneaky, would wonder why no crime had appeared, which might lead them to suspect exactly what I was up to.

And then I saw that Problem 1 was the solution to Problem 2, and vice versa.  The characters would chat about various crimes! While the readers were trying to figure out which anecdote being discussed was the one the story was really about they wouldn't notice the rabbit I had up my sleeve.  Bonus!

As I've said before, sometimes writing is a hard slog, but when you're in the zone, it can be magic. Tell me about when it has happened to you...

Fourth Wall Down

I have been reading Montalbano's First Case And Other Stories, (2016) Andrea Camilleri's collection of tales about a Sicilian police officer.  I've enjoyed it a lot but there is one that I want to discuss.  I suppose I should issue a spoiler alert but since the surprise is mentioned on the back cover I won't feel too guilty.

One of the stories stands out from the others because it is much bleaker in subject than the rest.  It shocked me and I was not the only one because Salvo Montalbano stops everything and makes a phone call to a "seventyish man striking the keys of a typewriter in the Roman night."

The author informs his character "I'm just trying to bring myself up to date, Salvo. A little blood on the page never hurt anyone." 

That's called breaking the fourth wall: characters acknowledging that they are indeed characters.

Since then I have been trying to think of other examples in mystery fiction.  I think the most famous occasion comes in John Dickson Carr's novel The Hollow Man (1935) when his detective Dr. Gideon Fell provides "The Locked Room Lecture."  While listing every possible variation on the impossible crime the good doctor explains "we are in a detective story and we don't fool the reader by pretending we're not. Let's not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories. Let's candidly glory in the noblest pursuits possible to a character in a book."

I did a web search looking for more examples and most of what I found were something different than I was thinking, namely examples of authors writing themselves into their books as characters. Examples include S.S, Van Dine, Kinky Friedman, and Anthony Horowitz.

But getting back to the self-aware characters, Edmund Crispin's detective is Gervase Fen.  In The Moving Toyshop (1946) when he seems to be announcing random phrases he explains that he "was making up titles for Crispin."

I think there are more examples of writers playing this game outside of their fiction.  For example, Marjorie Allingham wrote an essay of sorts called "What to do With an Aging Detective" in which she chats with Lugg, the assistant to her protagonist Albert Campion about the difficulty of the great man getting too old to star in action novels.

The newsletter of the Private Eye Writers of America, Reflections in a Private Eye, often features authors interviewing their own characters.

And I have had a few out-of-story chats with my character Shanks.

But how do you feel about characters, especially series characters, admitting they know what's going on?  Does it damage the suspension of disbelief?

The Second Time Around

 

I came to a crucial decision recently. The second draft of a story is my favorite.

I go through a lot of drafts.  I agree with Gore Vidal who said "I have nothing to say, only to add."  The novella I plan to send to a magazine this month is on its eleventh draft. But Numero Dos is my darling.

The first draft, well, that's hard work.  Sometimes the words flow like a waterfall but on other days it feels like pushing a marble uphill with your nose. Just trying to get something down on paper.

But the second draft, ah... 

You see, it's the first time I actually get to read my story.  It exists from beginning to end.  I see it with all its gifts and flaws.  I usually find pieces that need to move to different parts of the story, and realize that whole paragraphs or even scenes didn't make it from my teeming brain to the computer screen.  This is the part of writing I like best.

After that each draft shifts more from the building process to the polishing process.  There is a danger, of course, in polishing too much, to the point where you lose the excitement that you started the story with. 

To be honest, if there were more markets available for my stories I would probably do fewer drafts.  Hey, I can only send so many stories per year to the three or four pro mags.  

But also, being honest, on that eleventh draft I still find a few improvements to make...

Emptying Pockets

My MMPB mysteries

The news may have slipped past you but last year the media was announcing the death of a familiar part of publishing.  It isn't exactly that the mass-market paperback is dead but that ReaderLink, the major distributor of paperbacks, has decided to stop dealing with them.  Which is not so much a killing blow as  a recognition that the format is fading away.

The mass-market paperback (MMPB) has been a staple since the 1930s.  I am putting up pictures of the  oldest ones I own.  One of the major publishers of them was Pocket Books, which tells you exactly what they were designed for: to fit into a man's pocket.  (Women were very lucky if their clothes had any suitable spaces.)  These were the books GIs took to the front. (My copy of Pocket Mystery Reader belonged to Sergeant Lawrence E. Hough in 1943.)

By the way, you may notice that three of the books I include here say Complete and/or Unabridged on the cover because in those early days  an MMPB often was a shortened version.  When I worked at a public library in the 1970s I had a hard time convincing an older patron that the paperback I had found her was complete.

MMPBs were so-called because they were sold in mass markets: grocery stores, drug stores, and so on.  Their competition was the trade paperback, typically the same size as a hardback, and only found in the trade, that is to say, bookstores.  Trade books are still around although ebooks continue to eat into their sales.

I have a special fondness for MMPBs, and here's why.

When I want to buy a new book, hardcover or trade, I go to my favorite independent bookstore.  But when I am going on a trip I go to my favorite used bookstore which has an amazing selection of thousands of MMPB mysteries.

So when I went to Egypt and Greece in January I headed to used-book-land with a special list of authors in my hand.  Take a look at the picture below and I am  sure you can see the factor that connected them.  And the beauty was, when I finished one I could leave it in a hotel or train and not worry about the cost.

I suspect the used book store will have old MMPBs long enough to last me out, but  you young whippersnappers may not be as lucky.

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?


 

  

Got Any Duck Food?

Last week I was complaining on Facebook about a number of small issues, the kind of annoyances that are sometimes called first world problems.

Example:
The company that services our furnace had called and said we were about due and would tomorrow be convenient?  We said it would be and set up an appointment for between 10 and noon.

I cleared the space around the furnace and we made sure to be home at the scheduled time.  At 12:30 we gave up and called the company. The clerk said she had no record of an appointment.  (Let me remind you: they had called us.)  She apologized and we set up an appointment for the 16^th.

An hour later I received an email from them confirming our appointment – for the 13^th. Right time, wrong day.

And that was how our week had gone, one stupid little annoyance after another, mostly involving companies who couldn't keep their own records straight.

I acknowledged that none of these were big problems but together they felt like being nibbled to death by ducks.

Someone wrote back delighted by the phrase and I wondered if it was possible they had not heard it before. And that got me wondering: where does it come from?

Which sent me to the Ngram Viewer. I have written about this tool before which lets you harness the power of the millions of publications scanned by Google to trace the use of a word or phrase.

The earliest reference it pulled up was from an 1813 book of proverbs: "One had as good be nibbled to death, or pecked to death by a hen."  They offer no explanation but it appears to mean that one stupid fate is as bad as another.

Two ducks.  See them both?

(On the same page the author helpfully explains that "to dine with Sir Humphrey" means to go without your dinner.  Glad we got that cleared up.)

Actually, the Viewer also pulled up a comic song from 1810 which says that if a person misbehaves with women "sic a fellow desarves to be nibbled to death by ducks, as the worm said to the fisherman."

In 1865 Thomas Mozley wrote that sitting through sermons in his childhood had given him the fidgets, which felt  like "being nibbled to death by ducks, or scraped to death with oyster shells."

In 1868 Charles Sturgeon wrote a pamphlet warning trade unionists that the government was treating them like a man who tickled his rich wives to death and said that if they follow along "you will deserve not only to be tickled to death but nibbled to death by ducks."

I finally found what was clearly the correct meaning (which is to say, mine) in an engineering magazine in 1874. The writer complained of "the old, old story:" a great man with a great idea nibbled to death by ducks.

Let's jump to modern times. Laura McCullough wrote a delightful article about the life of an academic administrator. She bought a box of 100 little rubber ducks and every time her work was interrupted she moved a duck from one box to another.  It made both her and the interrupters aware of some of the obstacles to her productivity. 

My faculty took it very well and joined in with the exercise in a playful spirit. One professor brought in a nice wicker basket for the ducks to live in at the start of their day. Her children decorated my “nibbled” box with pictures of ducks and the word “nibble” scribbled all over it.

And speaking of productivity, now that I have my (ahem) ducks in a row, I'm going to write some fiction.

But one more thing: if you don't understand the title, see this.

Bright Bay Babbles

Last time I promised (or threatened, if you prefer) to provide my favorite quotations from Left Coast Crime, held in February in San Francisco.  With no further ado...

"Sometimes I think I write books in order to research." Connie Berry

"You cannot know a city until you know it from the sidewalk up." - Rochelle Staab

"A short story is like a quick jab to the nose." - Vera Chan

"All good plans go to hell, don't they?" - Lori Rader Day

"Scottish marriage counseling: He'll do. Shut up." - Catriona McPherson

"The last ten pages of all my books I wrote the day they were due." - Wendall Thomas

"My second biggest fear is that I might spill food on myself, because I always thought in case of a famine I could boil my clothes." - Sara Paretsky

"My low expectations have been fulfilled." - Paul Levine

"This is book eight in a trilogy." - Catriona McPherson

"When I'm bored with a character I murder them." - Gordon Jack

"I'm a historical crime novelist and I also write historical crime novels." SJ Rozan

"It's very satisfying to sit at a passive-aggressive meeting and think 'I could take you down.'" - Vera Chan 

"My character's name is Joy because she's utterly joyless." - Susan Sherman

"In revision you take out everything that isn't the book." - Hank Phillippi Ryan

"A short story is finished when you cash the check." - Michael Bracken

"My finishing school was a waste of money."  - Catriona McPherson

"I thought [Saul] Bellow's writing would have been better if he ever had a real job and didn't have women supporting him all his life." - Sara Paretsky

"If you have a resolution it's commercial. If you don't it's literary." - Vera Chan

"I was amazed at how similar the social dynamics are between retirement homes and high school."  Gordon Jack

"Taxidermy is always funny." - Catriona McPherson

"You should imagine sending your story to the editor one sentence at a time." - Tom Andes

"Since I'm last I'm told I can talk as long as I want, right? Chapter One..." - Jennifer van der Kleut

"The smart money is always on Goliath." - C.R. Foster

Oh, and chag Pesach sameach to those who celebrate. 

Back to the Bay

Getting Historical with  Aubrey Hamilton, Diana R. Chambers, Karen Odden, S.J. Rozan

 I spent the last week in San Francisco, eating Rice-a-Roni and leaving my heart while wearing flowers in my hair.  Or something.

Actually, we were at Left Coast Crime, the West Coast's annual conference for mystery fans.  And we had a great time. 

Before I get into the details I want to say this: I mentioned the conference on FaceBook and a writer much better known than myself said that he had stopped going to cons years ago and it hadn't affected his sales.

I replied that I don't go to them for marketing purposes.  I go to be with my tribe, recharge my creative batteries, and maybe learn something.  All of which I did in San Francisco. 

Libraries Panel with Pat Sellers, Jenn Hooker, and Randal Brandt

I was on a panel about choosing the right period to write historical fiction about.  I also got to do a presentation about how my library spent almost two years investigating a crime and caught the man who had robbed over a hundred libraries.  And speaking of libraries, I moderated a panel on Libraries Helping Authors Helping Libraries.  It was great to see so many people interested in those institutions. One of our panelists, Randal Brandt, was the con's Fan Guest of Honor because of his work as the curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at UC Berkeley.

Swag

Mysti Berry and I co-sponsored a table at the LeftyAwards Banquet.  Since a lot of my stories are set in New Jersey I provided all of our guests with Garden State magnets and a real Jersey shore treat: Berkeley Candy's molasses salt water taffy paddles robed in dark chocolate. A piece of my childhood!

We also attended Author Speed-Dating (and let me tell you, it is much more fun to sit at a table and let 18 pairs of authors come to you than to be one of the authors trying to repeat your pitch at 18 tables).  The highlight for that might be the author who said their publisher had had an astronomer choose their publication date.  

Loot

Another highlight is the New Author Breakfast sponsored by Sisters in Crime (interesting to see how some of the rookies are much more relaxed and practiced than others), and a bunch of panels.  And we brought home a ton of loot, all free (unless you count the cost of airfare, hotel, and the conference, so we won't).

I also bumped into two SleuthSayers, Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson, who did their panels brilliantly (naturally).

Of course, since San Francisco is one of our favorite cities we also  threw in some time for sightseeing, which I won't bore you with.*

But the biggest highpoint of the conference for me personally happened at a panel on short stories. Vera Chan mentioned that Rex Stout wrote two novellas that started with the same chapter, but she couldn't remember the title.  Now, I frown on people who, during the question and answer period, offer a comment instead of  a question, but I couldn't resist.  When Q and A time came I raised my hand.  "That Rex Stout story is 'Counterfeit for Murder.'" 

There was a smattering of applause and Catriona McPherson, the moderator, said: "That's a librarian!"

Which indeed I am.

Next time: words of wisdom from the conference.

 * Cable cars, the Embarcadero, the Ferry Building, the Exploratorium, Chinatown, North Beach, the City Lights Bookstore, cable cars, Congregation Sherith Israel, Fisherman's Wharf, Musee Mecanique, Ghiradelli Square, cable cars.  I like cable cars.

When Irish Eyes Are Crimin'

 

My Irish-born Great Grandmother, Mary Scanlon

It was a summer day in the mid-seventies.  I was home from college and  on the phone with my friend Tim.  I asked if he had plans for the evening.

"I was thinking of going to a bar," he said, "but I've been there so often I feel like  a groupie."

And so I learned that some of the local Irish bars -- of which New Jersey had many -- featured live folk music most nights.  There was one group my friends and I were especially fond of: two men who both played guitar and sang.  One was American*, the other was raised in Ireland.  Occasionally they played with a third man on electric bass.

We saw them a lot in the next few years. Once we went into New York City to hear them at the Bells of Hell.  There an older gentleman cheerfully heckled them but they didn't mind, largely because it was Frank Herbert, the author of Dune.

Later we discovered another favorite band.  Oddly enough it was also two men, one American and one Irish.

For a fan of crime fiction Irish folk music had plenty of material.  There were the rebel songs ("Men Behind the Wire," "Come Out Ye Black and Tans," "Broad Black Brimmer,")   which another friend of mine cheerfully described as "terrorist music." (And boy, did one of those singers get mad about that.) And plenty of outlaw songs ("Whisky in the Jar," "Wild Colonial Boy,")  But don't forget songs of domestic violence and disharmony ("William Bloat," "Weela Weela Wallya,") Then there was "Danny Boy" which involves no crimes, but which one of the singers hated so much that frequent requests for it almost led him to violence.

But something came along (wearing diapers) that made evenings in the bar more difficult for us, and while that delightful obstacle has grown up and moved away,  here in the Pacific Northwet live music is not so common in Molly's O'Shamrock Erin Pub.

However, recently I got thinking about those good old days and wondering if I could write a crime story about them.  Turns out I could!  "Courtin' in the Kitchen," in the March/April issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine features a Jersey boy who brings his California wife back home for a wedding and runs into one of those musicians he used to know.  My story features an American and an Irish singer, but oddly enough, they were inspired by one member each of my two favorite bands.

And speaking of things long past, 2026 marks fifty years since I first submitted a story to EQMM.  Time to celebrate with an Irish coffee, methinks.

* I recently found out he was born in Ireland but to my ear he sounded American.

  

Pyramid Schemes

A Cairo pub

 Last month my wife and I took a tour of Egypt organized by the Biblical Archaeology Society.  It was amazing.  I'm trying to figure out what to tell you about it, since this is supposed to be about crime and writing.

So, crime. Several people worried about our trip: Was Egypt... dangerous?  

Well. It is a developing country.  Things are different there than any country I have been in before.  We never felt in any danger (except when our taxi driver decided to save time by going the wrong way up on a one-way street...  straight toward a car.  Yeesh.)

On the other hand, on several days we were accompanied on the bus by an armed man in plainclothes.  And every hotel and several museums had a metal detector..

The street sellers and beggars did make us feel harassed.  They were more aggressive than I am used to.  When my wife and I went for a walk in Luxor (against our guide's advice) we must have been met by half a dozen such folk, including a driver of a horse and wagon who followed us for blocks trying to convince us to take a ride.

And then there was our arrival at the Cairo Airport.  Our checked bag had not made it through the transfer at Frankfurt Airport (in spite of the plane being delayed for an hour there, sigh.) We were having trouble figuring out where to talk to someone about that.  I found an Information Desk and there was a woman standing in front of it.  We chatted for a couple of minutes and finally found our way to the right office.  While I was  waiting to fill out forms I said I needed to figure out where to get local money.

"Oh," said the woman, "I will take any currency."

And that's when the penny (or Egyptian pound) dropped.  She hadn't been behind the Information Desk.  She wasn't any kind of official helper.  She was another person looking to get money from tourists.  After that I didn't believe her advice, good or bad as it may have been.

None of this is a crime, of course.  But the ten men I saw fist-fighting each other in the street were definitely breaking some law.  We were on a bus, so no danger.  

But enough griping.  Let's start with the greatest highlight: I can't imagine anyone looking at  the pyramids and the Sphinx  and being disappointed.  They are stunning.    

And here is our first connection to writing.  Between the front paws of the sphinx you find what is called the Dream Stele.  (A stele is a stone notice board, usually with a curved top.)  It explains that Thutmose IV dreamed that the Sphinx told him that it was being smothered by sand and if he got it all cleared away the Sphinx would make him pharoah. So he did that and voila, he got the crown.

Modern scholars interpret this to mean that Thutmose  IV did not have a very strong claim to the throne so he made up this story as political propaganda.  

But it gets more complicated because the writing on the stele is later than that pharoah.  One guess is that the priests of the sphinx copied the text because it showed how important their statue was - a genuine kingmaker!

Most of what I knew about ancient Egypt before the trip came from Barbara Mertz.  She wrote a brilliant book called Red Land, Black Land, which shows no interest in pharoahs, mummies, or animal-headed gods.  What it does tell you about is the life of average people, the farmers, fishers, and so on.

Valley of the Kings

But Mertz did more than that, of course. Under the name Elizabeth Peters she wrote a wonderful set of mystery novels about Victorian Egyptologist Amelia Peabody.  Amelia loved pyramids but most years she and her husband dug in the Valley of Kings.  That's the desolate landscape where the pharoahs hid their tombs once they realized that building a pyramid was like hanging a neon sign that reads Hey thieves! Treasure in here! Alas, all the royal tombs in the Valley were robbed - except one - but at least they tried.

In the Valley we visited the tombs of Ramesses III and IV. Lucky for us the thieves couldn't swipe the wall decorations.   

K.T.

A minor character in Peters' novels is Howard Carter, a real-life Egyptologist.  She presents him as a nice guy and a good archaeologist, but incredibly unlucky.  Amelia often  tries to cheer him up  by promising that something will turn up.  The inside joke here is that in 1924 Carter found that only unrobbed pharoah's tomb - that of King Tutankhamun.

Ushabti

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which is magnificent and opened just a few months ago,  contains among its 100,000 plus artifacts 5,000 items from King Tut's tomb.  The tomb itself was tiny but packed like a moving van. Seems quite a lot turned up for poor Howard.  (By the way, ushabti are small figurines intended to serve the deceased in the afterlife.)

Amelia's favorite form of transport was a dahabiya, a barge-like boat for sailing up and down the Nile.  I would have considered myself lucky to have seen one but as it happened the owner of the tour company which planned our trip in Luxor arranged for the 40-plus members of our tour group to have a sunset cruise and dinner on his personal dahabiya.  Picture three decks including rooms to sleep 24.  Also one of the best meals we had in Egypt.  

Merneptah Stele

We also visited the Egyptian Museum, now known as the (Old) Egyptian Museum since GEM opened. It still has plenty worth seeing, including some written artifacts of note.  For example there is the 10-foot-tall  Merneptah Stele, containing the only mention of Israel found in ancient Egypt.  Pharoah Merneptah brags of destroying Israel, which appears to have been an exaggeration.

Amarna Letters

Those clay  pieces you see are part of the Amarna Letters, an amazing find.  Pharoah Akhenaten, arguably the first monotheist (ca 1350 BCE) forbid the worship of any gods but the sun disk and built a new capital city, Amarna.  After his death the city was abandoned and so archaeologists were able to find its untouched archive with thousands of letters to and from the monarchs of his day.

Photo by Schlanger

One more piece of writing-related history.  We visited the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo. The fascinating thing about this beautiful building is a small window in the women's balcony (up on the left), which led to a geniza.

The rules of  Judaism state that when a text that contains God's name (such as a Torah or prayerbook) is no longer usable it must be buried in a graveyard. Until that is convenient the papers are kept in a storeroom called a geniza.  As it turns out, nobody emptied the Cairo geniza for a long time. Researchers emptied it and found over 400,000 pieces of paper, some a thousand years old. More excitingly, they weren't just religious texts: they found personal letters, merchants account books, legal documents, etc.  The result is, scholars know more about the lives of eleventh-century Cairo Jews than they do about, say, Christians in Paris during the same period.

An old friend

The written word -- or hieroglyphs -- have power.

Oh, and in that same old section of Cairo I met an old friend in an underground bookshop.

It was quite a trip.