One Bite at a Time

Before COVID-19 I was a regular volunteer at the local penitentiary, what with AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project - Sioux Falls, of which I'm president) and the Lifer's Group (of which myself and my husband are the official volunteer supervisors).  This meant I was down there pretty much every week, and sometimes more than once.  Well, that came to an abrupt end.  No visitors, no volunteers allowed, for the foreseeable future.

Yes, I miss them.  And I've been trying to maintain contact.  I have permission to write to them, as long as the letters are non-personal and revolve around AVP or the Lifer's Group, and I do not put my personal address as the return.  And since I can't get in to get any responses they send to the in-prison chapel mailbox, it's a one-way communication.  Kind of frustrating.  But I keep doing it.

I know many people today feel - and say - that social distancing, and COVID-19 lockdowns are like being in jail.  To which, my simple answer is, no, it isn't.  Not at all.

Not unless you're spending your social distancing in a 6' x 8' concrete room with one wall that's nothing but bars, and inside the bars is a toilet, and against another wall are bunk beds, and you share this space with another inmate.  Who you may or may not like, but you probably have to live with, because if you refuse to share, that's a violation, and could land you in the SHU, which is an even smaller room, with even less stuff in it.  Not only that, there are guards who make sure you stay there up to 23/7, and enforce a wide variety of rules on behavior and speech that have to be read to be believed.

So, no. Staying at home is not at all like being in jail.

But we can learn a lot from inmates. And the first thing is how to do time.  It seems that to a lot of people, six weeks is way too long to have to be stuck indoors.  What if you had to do a year?  (There's a good chance there will be no effective vaccine for at least that long.)  What if you had to do more than that?  How does a person do a long stretch of time?  Well, one of our best inside facilitators, lifer Mighty Mark, said, "Well, it's like eating an elephant.  You take one bite at a time."

Every inmate has to learn - even if they're in for a short sentence - to NOT think too far ahead.  To NOT focus everything on their exit day (if any).  To NOT fume and fret and demand more than they can have.  To accept, in other words, what their situation is.  And then live, as much as humanly possible (and we are all human and frail) in the moment.  Right now.  This bite.  Chew.  Swallow.  Bite.  Repeat.

The big mistake most people do when they find themselves in confinement is to focus all their attention on:
(1) how horrible their situation is.
(2) how unfair the lawyer / judge / sentencing system is.
(3) how are they going to survive the next ____ months / years?
(4) how much the next ____ months / years is wasted time, time they'll never get back, no matter what, and it's just unbearable.
(5) how everyone has abandoned them.
(6) how alone they are.
(7) how useless / hopeless / tasteless everything is.
And on down the a long, long, long negative list of emotions, facts, realities, that are indeed unmistakable and undeniable.

A lot of them - especially the young men - lash out, towards themselves (there's a lot of cuttings, self-harm, and attempted / successful suicides in prison), towards other inmates (a lot of aggressive posturing, attacks, fighting), and even towards the COs (which never ends well for the inmate).  Some of it - even sometimes the self-harm - is showing off, to themselves and others that they've still got what it takes.  That they're the man, and no one better mess with them.  Rising in the pack, hopefully, to Alpha male.  The angriest - and ironically the most wounded - spend the most time in the SHU (solitary confinement), because not only is isolation the punishment for violence, but it's also where they put the suicidal.  (And those who are contagious.)

But, as the young inmates age, many of them come to realize that it doesn't work.  That sinking into violence or despair, aggression or depression, does nothing but make the time go longer and longer and longer...  And they realize (especially the lifers) that they have to make a life, a whole life, where they are.

Including friends.
Including hobbies.
Including goals.
Including education, perhaps even a career.
Including happiness.

BTW, a rip-roarer of book is Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.  Meet Edmund Dantes, sailor, who is falsely accused of treason and imprisoned for life - in solitary confinement - in the Château d'If (which still exists - see photo on the right).  After 8 years of solitary, he's suicidal, but then the Abbé Faria - digging his way out, a poor sense of direction - ends up at Edmund's cell.  Over the next 8 years, Faria teaches Edmund everything - language, culture, mathematics, chemistry, medicine, and science - so well that, after Faria dies and Edmund escapes (read how yourself), Edmund can pass easily as a Count, welcomed everywhere and anywhere.  This is one of the great swashbuckler thrillers, especially as the Count ruthlessly, tirelessly pursues his revenge - but the opening chapters are also a master class in how to survive doing serious time.  And how important education can be.

Another master class is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, an account of his years in the camps and how people survive horror beyond imagination.  He was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the  Holocaust - barely.  (See the Wikipedia summary HERE or, better yet, read it yourself.  I've read it more than once, and gained something new every time.)

"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not."

Remember, this is from a man who survived four - yes FOUR - concentration camps.

And there's a story about Viktor Frankl in another book called The Monks of New Skete:  In the Spirit of Happiness.

We had a friend who was in a Nazi concentration camp in the Second World War, a dog breeder, and he was digging in the trenches with the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, and Victor Frankl told him:  "This is where you've got to find your happiness - right here in this trench, in this camp." ...  For this is where we're supposed to find our happiness - where we are now, wherever that might happen to be, in all that we do, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves.  To experience happiness is to experience freedom.  No matter what may happen in life, nothing will be able to touch true happiness. ...  So we have come to understand that happiness is not only in our power to attain, it is our duty to attain.  - The Monks of New Skete, pp. 312-313

A handy list to help:

And a wonderful video of how they do it in prison, Path of Freedom, with Fleet Maull, a former inmate:

One bite at a time.
One beat at a time.
One breath at a time.
And repeat…

And now for some blatant self promotion:  My latest story "Brother's Keeper", set in Laskin, is in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.  I share space with many of my fellow SleuthSayers - Robert Lopresti, Elizabeth Zelvin, Michael Bracken, Mark Thielman, Janice Law, and many other fine writers.

A New York Minute of Silence and Smiling

A NEW YORK MINUTE OF SILENCE AND SMILING


by James Lincoln Warren

On Thursday, April 23, I received the following text message from Charles Todd:

“Angie has gone into septic shock and is not expected to last the day. Barry was allowed to gown up and go in a few hours ago. He will try to reach out to you in the next few. He appreciated everyone’s thought and prayers.”

Barry Zeman never did reach out to me.  But that’s because his beloved wife and my good friend Angela had died of COVID-19 even before I received Charles’s text. I found out the next morning after calling Charles, who gave me the dreadful news.

I’d known both of the Zemans for years, having met Barry first at an Edgar Banquet, and Angela about a year later. It didn’t take long before they weren’t just people I liked. They were dear friends, both of them, Barry for his gentlemanly demeanor, high intellect, and obvious adoration for his wife, and Angela at first because we agreed on almost everything regarding our creative passion: the crime fiction short story.  Later I learned to love both of them simply for who they were.

In the early 2000s, the newfangled thing among writers for publicity was this internet web log thingy.  I had tried on three occasions to get one off the ground without success, mainly, I think, because of a lack of name recognition—we genre short storyists are rarely among the most sparkling stars in the firmament. That all changed when I encountered the first “rotating” log by a group of midlist authors, and realized that short story writers are stronger together than we are separately. I approached Robert Lopresti and asked him if he would co-create with me such a blog for short story writers.  We both did a lot of recruiting and wound up with a stellar lineup—many of our regulars are regulars here on SleuthSayers—and decided to call the blog “Criminal Brief.”

One of my recruits was Angela Zeman. Not just because she was my friend, but because she was a damn fine writer with complete mastery of her craft. Her tenure at CB was short, because as long as I knew her, she had major and recurring health problems, although you wouldn’t know that from looking at her. She always looked fabulous.  Criminally brief as her membership among the merry band of bloggers may have been, it was brilliant.  Her column was called “New York Minute.”

Barry intends to have a “celebration of life” service for her after this debilitating plague finally abates, because, he says, he knows that Angela would much prefer that to solemn grief. She would want to be remembered with smiles and laughter, as I will always remember her when she invited a group of us to dine at the Friars Club in New York, where she was a member, for one of the most memorable evenings I’ve ever experienced.

And I agree with Rick Helms that a writer is best remembered for the words she left with us. So here are some excerpts from her brief career as a blogger that paint a pretty clear picture of her grace, wit, and thought.  Enjoy!

FIGHTING OVER THE GUN August 18, 2007

[ . . . Barry] requested I state clearly that the bad guy fired his gun. I had written that the protagonist found the gun later. My view was the police (NYPD), being shrewd types, would swiftly deduce (using information I won’t include here) the bad guy had taken a shot at the good guy. I’m being vague on purpose—the story will publish in a few months. Don’t want to reveal any spoilers.

Barry’s view was that I must fire the gun right out in print, to make sure the reader understood what happened. He insisted it would be a mistake to believe all readers would conclude the gun had been fired just because it made sense to me—and the cops. He insisted that if the reader didn’t catch on, the protagonist would seem like a murderer, not someone who acted in self-defense—thus blowing my ending. . . .

I thought it over, and then capitulated. I fired the gun, but my way. Instead of taking his advice to say, using non-cliché words, “a shot rang out,” I imagined instead what my protagonist would see, feel, hear, and think. Well, it was dark and snowing. The protagonist literally saw the bad guy reach out as if offering something to her, and she saw a flash.     


VIOLENT REACTION August 25, 2007

Story tellers often use violence and its sibling, pain, to entice the reader into making an emotional connection because violence and pain are practically the building blocks of character, and common to the human condition. Maybe sad, but definitely true. And as writers know, if the reader cares nothing about any part of our story, we’ve failed both story and reader.

I’ve heard readers say they refuse to read fiction (or view movies) that incorporate violence. Nobody questions their right to do so. (Note: media violence for children is a different subject.) However, could writers have genuine cause when they include violence in their fiction? Stanley Ellin wrote, and he’s definitely worth listening to: “I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his/her rope.”

If the conflict driving the plot is slight, the response will be slight. If the conflict is fraught with deep emotion—for instance, pain derived from violence—then the response will be deep, even if the response is rejection. Readers will always draw their individual lines in the sand; no writer can please every reader and would be crazy to try.


SPEAK LOUDER, PLEASE September 1, 2007

Last week I went to (no, not Manderly again) a neighborhood party. A fun party. I have fun neighbors. Not unexpectedly, because I live about twenty seconds south of Wall Street, I met some men and women who work in the Financial Sector. Now these lovely people were not 24 year old junior brokers. No, they were older “management” types from some fine institutions. After some chatter that included exalted names, large numbers, and planned IPOs, my turn came to introduce myself. I said, “I’m a mystery writer.”

I am. What else could I say? Conversation stopped. Who among you can guess their next question?

“Where do you get your ideas?”

You’d think all those Masters Degrees could ask something more original, but . . . they waited breathlessly for my answer, and I’m not that fascinating.

I possess a perverse nature, my friends. I considered saying: “I get my best ideas from listening to conversations like yours!” True. But I played ditzy blonde. I said vaguely, “Everywhere. I find ideas everywhere.” Still true, but somehow reassuring to them. (I only lie for money.) Their relief was visible, and, in my opinion, amazingly gullible. Think how many stories are written in a year. Include in that tally stories of all lengths, in all forms. In such a saturated field, how do writers produce fresh ideas? We dig, we read, we listen, we notice lots and lots of details. I mean, duh!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISS MACY! September 8, 2007

Today is my granddaughter’s first birthday . . . So out of my sore heart, I dedicate this column to her: in anticipation of all the stories I will read to her in future years. . . .

As Macy grows, she’ll play with marvelous toys and have access to a treasure-house of books. I’m sure of this, because I’m well acquainted with her parents, especially her mother! Miss Macy and her big brother Mr. Evan, 4, enjoy the fruits of their parents’ love and wise attention. However, soon it will be my particular pleasure to introduce the world of “Once Upon A Time…” to them both (and to their cousin, grandson Luca!), and to pass down the legacy my mother bequeathed to me: the universe.


CONJUNCTION JUNCTION October 6, 2007

In the recent flurry of newsprint devoted to Philip Roth, didn’t a critic mention Roth’s literary preoccupation with his penis? Wonder what emotion Roth’s penis made him feel, to which his fan base related?

Yes, I do happen to know my theme, but regretfully it has no relation to a penis, which might have been kind of fun.


MAKE ME LAUGH! October 13, 2007

And lest ye think that Joan [Hess]’s Maggody, population 755, relates in no way to reality, let me tell you about my Aunt Virgie, a hairdresser in Heath, Kentucky. Now, Heath merited the attention of few roadmaps, but it could be found. It bellied-up neatly to East Paducah, a larger tract of civilization which in turned closely nudged Paducah itself. Everybody’s heard of Paducah. Aunt Virgie practiced her art in the back yard of her little house. My uncle Phil had built her the shoppe out of cinder blocks. The interior was painted in her favorite color, violet—as was her own hair, and also the bathroom in their house.

When my mother took me to visit Uncle Phil, who was her brother—known to her as “Brother”—and Aunt Virgie, I spent much time hiding, fearful of Aunt Virgie’s styling repertoire. (My mother, ever bargain-minded, considered any free haircut a good haircut—for me, not herself.) Aunt Virgie often and loudly despaired of me ever catching a man, flat-chested as I was (at eleven.) She’d put her hands on the back of her hips and shake her Aqua Net cemented, violet curls in sorrow over my misfortune.

Maggody lives. Joan Hess—not only a storyteller, but a historian.
           

A River Runs Through It

Although I’ve written and sold short stories in a variety of genres, my crime fiction primarily fits within the subgenres of private eye, hardboiled, and noir. I’ve written many stories in which violence is on the page, sex is on the page, and the climax involves someone getting shot. (The crime fiction I wrote for men’s magazines—prior to their demise as viable markets—often involved climaxes of a different sort.)

While I’ve done well working within these three subgenres, I realize restricting myself to them limits the number of publications that might use my work and relying on shooting someone for a climax lends a certain predictability to my stories.

So, during the past handful of years, I’ve made a conscious effort to expand my crime fiction into other subgenres. “Sleepy River,” in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, is a good example.

STORY GENESIS

I envy fellow short-story writers—Art Taylor, John Floyd, Robert Lopresti, and several others—who write wonderful essays about the inspiration behind this story or that story. I often find those kind of essays difficult to write because I rarely know where my ideas come from.

For example, all I can find in my notes is that I created a Word document for “Sleepy River” on June 19, 2018, and I had, at some point prior to that, roughed out five pages of handwritten notes. There is nothing to indicate where the idea came from, but the key elements of the story—including a rough sketch of the dock where the story begins and ends—are in the notes.

GENRE-CHALLENGED

I’m uncertain what sub-genre “Sleepy River” fits into, but it’s clearly not private eye, hardboiled, or noir.

It’s about what happens to two young girls idling away their time during summer break. There’s no sex, no bad words, and only muted violence. But there are good guys, bad guys, and a dead guy. And nobody gets shot in the climax.

Enjoy.

Crime Writers, Give Me Magic—And Don't Explain It Away

When I shared the good news of the acceptance of a hard-to-place cross-genre short story on the Short Mystery e-list, I said: "I didn't even consider some of the usual mystery markets. When I write—or read—magic, I don't want it to be explained away at the end." I was thinking, for example, of Black Cat Mystery Magazine's submission guidelines, which stipulate: "We do not want stories that feature supernatural elements...unless thoroughly debunked by story’s end." My comment intrigued SleuthSayer Rob Lopresti, who wrote to invite me to write a piece in defense of magic in crime fiction.

The short story in question, "Roxelana's Ring," just out in the current issue of The J.J. Outré Review, is part of my Jewish historical Mendoza Family Saga. It involves jewel theft and a visit to my longtime protagonist Rachel Mendoza by one of her present-day descendants. Readers of the series first met Rachel as a 13 year old in hiding in 1493 after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Two stories about an older Rachel solving mysteries in 1520s Istanbul had already appeared in Black Cat. (Two more are currently in press, one with BCMM, the other in Jewish Noir 2.) But for this particular tale, I had to send the 21st-century Rachel back in time, and I couldn't explain it any other way than magic.

Some novel readers complain that stories are too short to satisfy them. They say a story doesn't give them time to engage fully with the characters or that it ends just as the reader is getting to know them. I try to write each story to refute such charges. For me, stories are like little novels. Complete in themselves, they must be rich in language, plot, and especially character. My novels contain more elaboration and complexity of plot and structure. But all my characters are as whole, as lifelike, as moving, as eloquent, and as much fun as I can make them, whether I'm presenting them in five thousand words or seventy-five thousand. The key to satisfaction, for me, is my commitment to character-driven fiction, both short and long—and as both writer and reader.

So to create plausible magic or supernatural beings that don't need to be debunked or treated differently from any other element in fiction, make them character driven. Charlaine Harris does this superbly. Her characters are as real as bread, so what does it matter if they're falling in love with vampires or hearing the dead speak under their feet? To me, those traits are more probable than their hitting their mark with every shot or disarming bombs at the last moment like the heroes of plot-driven novels. What I love about the best character-driven urban fantasy, SF, crime fiction, and cross-genre work mixing any and all of these is that it is first and foremost about the people and their story, their relationships, and that spark that makes us care about them, call it soul or heart or moral center or what you will. If the characters have that, neither the genre nor the length of the manuscript matter as much as we think they do.

I feel the same way about murder methods as I do about magic. Like most crime fiction authors, I enjoy discussing clever ways to kill people a bit too loudly in restaurants. But when I'm writing, I tend to keep it simple: a cord around the neck, a pillow over the face, a bang on the head with the proverbial blunt instrument. Let's do it fast and get on with the story.

In "Roxelana's Ring," the modern Rachel is holding a necklace that once belonged to her progenitrix, the first Rachel Mendoza, when she is unexpectedly whisked back to the 1520s. How? I have no idea, and I don't care. I'm much more interested in the fact that she comes to in the midst of a wriggling, giggling pile of Suleiman the Magnificent's concubines, "dressed," as she puts it, "not unlike sorority sisters at a come-as-your-dream-self slumber party." Aren't you?

20 to Go

Experts suggest the COVID-19 coronavirus took root in the US sooner than believed, possibly as early as January. Personally, I believe it infected state and federal executive branches much, much earlier.

I’ve been astonished to learn of deep-seated efforts to fire Dr Anthony Fauci. Thus explaineth the lovely Haboob:

Far left and right conspiracy theorists reach remarkably similar conclusions. Both insist Dr Fauci masterminded a Clinton Foundation-funded Deep State effort to develop a virus fabricated in a Wuhan lab. Their profit motive was to make lots of money selling the world a co-developed vaccine, but the virus got away from the Chinese. Parting from the left’s hypothesis, the ultra-right maintains that the greatest intellect the White House has ever known leapt into action, averting an Obama-driven disaster in which tens of victims might have perished were it not for this great man who saved the planet. Or something like that.

We don’t do politics or low crimes and misdemeanors, just death and destruction. It takes great writing to top the tales coming out of national and state capitals. Gathered here are twenty exquisite murder mysteries, some new, some classics, some unusual, many recommended by others (thanks Sharon), most lengthy for that immersive read.

As viruses simmer in the summer cauldron, enjoy reading in a cool arbor bower.

The Cartel	Don Winslow
Cult X	Fuminori Nakamura
The Eighth Girl	Maxine Mei-Fung Chung
The Historian	Elizabeth Kostova
The Honourable Schoolboy	John le Carré
L.A. Confidential	James Ellroy
The Last Tourist	Olen Steinhauer
The Luminaries	Eleanor Catton
The Man Who Loved Dogs	Leonardo Paduro
The Name of the Rose	Umberto Eco
Natchez Burning	Greg Isles
The Rule of Four	Caldwell & Thomason
The Secret History	Donna Tartt
Shantaram	Gregory David Roberts
Six Four	Hideo Yokoyama
Three Hours in Paris	Cara Black
What’s Left of Me is Yours	Stephanie Scott
The Witch Elm	Tana French
2666	Roberto Bolaño
and the novel that started it all…
A Study in Scarlet	Arthur Conan Doyle

What are your favorites?

Strange but True

My SleuthSayers colleague Melodie Campbell and I were swapping emails last week about how nice it is to receive a bit of good news and encouragement now and then, during these fearsome times. Melodie's writing news, in case you haven't heard, is that her novella The Goddaughter Does Vegas has been shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award. (Congratulations again, Melodie!)

This got me to thinking about some of the surprises and unusual things, both good and bad, that have happened to me in my 26-year writing "career." Here are a few that come to mind:

Believe it or not . . .

- Four of the first five short stories I ever submitted to magazines were accepted and published. (Boy this is easy, I thought.) The next thirteen--thirteen in a row--were rejected.

- On two separate occasions, due to printing errors, my stories appeared in a national magazine under someone else's byline. After one of those I received an email from a confused reader asking if I also write under the name Elizabeth Hawn.

- I once gave a presentation at a rural library and 75 people showed up. Several months later I did a similar talk at another library and two people attended, besides me. Both of them were library employees.

- I have twice received acceptance letters for stories I didn't write. File that under Excitement and
Then Disappointment.

- I have on three occasions been paid for stories in advance (before they were written). I wish that happened more often.

- When our oldest son's wife and their children were bumping across Africa on a tour last year, they saw another passenger in their van reading one of my books. That was a happy (for me) piece of vacation news.

- A customer at a chain-store signing once asked me to sign one of my books for him but not to personalize it, because he said he might change his mind before he checked out.

- Another man at one of my signings told me he'd enjoyed several of my books, especially the first one: A Time to Kill. He was less than pleased when I informed him that he had the wrong John.

- Bad surprise: Long ago, a movie project based on one of my stories was suddenly cancelled two weeks before filming was to begin. Cast and crew and locations were ready, original music was written, etc.--and everything stopped. Good surprise: In January 2019, fifteen years later, a Hollywood producer contacted me via my website to express interest in another of my stories (which thankfully wound up getting optioned). I almost didn't see his email--it went to my spam folder.

- I once submitted a short story (electronically, to the UK) and received an acceptance three hours later. Two other stories (to Kansas and to Michigan) received acceptances almost three years later. Rejections--too many to remember--have ranged from two days to two years.

- My payment for one of my stories was a lifetime subscription to the magazine. (A mixed blessing.)

- The agent I acquired to market my novels has instead helped me sell several short stories and the film rights and foreign rights to other stories. My novels remain unsold.

- I once (only once) shared a literary short list with Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Doug Allyn, and Gillian Flynn. Flynn won.

- A friend once told me she takes my books with her when she drives, and reads the stories at stoplights. I asked her not to mention that in accident reports.

- My magazine credits include The Shantytown Anomaly, Appalling Limericks, Barbaric Yawp, and Volcano Quarterly.

- Another booksigning incident: A lady who said we'd met long ago thanked me for using her as a character in one of my stories (although the character had a different name). I told her it was my pleasure. I had no idea who she was, so the whole thing was news to me.

- One of my stories was rejected two dozen times, and on the 25th try I sold it for $ 900. (Never give up!)



From Russia with royalties

Back to what Melodie and I were discussing the other day, which is the fact that bright spots often pop up during dark times . . .

The strangest and most surprising thing to happen to me lately came as a result of an email I received from a book publisher in Moscow last month. It came in via my website and (once again) landed in my spam folder, which--believe me--I have learned to check every day. Messages my computer thinks is junk sometimes turn out to be manna from Heaven.

This email informed me that the publishers had seen my short stories in the print edition of The Saturday Evening Post and would like to reprint those stories in a bilingual collection. We signed the contracts about two weeks ago. The book, to be called Selected Stories by John M. Floyd, will be released in both print and electronic formats by Publishing House VKN Limited, later this year. I'm told that one of the markets for the book will be readers who want to learn English--the stories will be featured with the original English text side-by-side with the literal translation into Russian with grammatical, lexical, and phonetical commentary.

Several of my writing buddies, including my fellow SleuthSayer Robert Lopresti, have secured unexpected book deals with publishers overseas, and even though I've had a number of individual stories translated and published in foreign magazines, this particular kind of arrangement is new territory for me. I owe sincere thanks to the publisher for its interest, to my agent for handling all the details, and to The Saturday Evening Post for featuring these stories in the first place.




A reborn identity

Like Melodie's recent award nomination, news of my upcoming book of stories is especially gratifying because it's further recognition of work that is already out there and had already achieved its intended purpose. When something you've created and sold and was published goes on to take on new life afterward, it's a good feeling, and an inspiration to keep sowing those seeds. And there are plenty of opportunities for that. You never know when or if something you've written might be seen and selected for an award, a movie adaptation, a best-of anthology, or some other kind of unexpected bonus.

Some of those bolts-from-the-blue can not only earn you more money, they can reach a whole new audience. My first exposure to the fiction of Tom Franklin, Annie Proulx, Brendan DuBois, and others came not from their novels or magazine appearances but from reprints of their shorts that I found in annual anthologies like Best American Mystery Stories and Best American Short Stories.



Lockdown in the boondocks

My point is, all of us writers have highs and lows, some experiences that are happy and some that are miserable--but patience, like hard work, usually pays off, in both the literary world and the real world. If you wait long enough (and shelter-in-place long enough?) good things will eventually happen.

Be safe, everybody. Keep writing.

Our Flitcraft Moment

I think there’s an argument that we’re all turning into Flitcraft. You remember him, don’t you? He was the everyman character mentioned briefly and so enigmatically about a third of the way into The Maltese Falcon. Flitcraft was at the center of a missing person job that stayed with Sam Spade long after the job tied up.

Spade shares the tale from his past with Brigid O’Shaughnessy in Chapter 7, while the two of them are waiting in a hotel room for Joel Cairo (aka Peter Lorre) to come over. It’s a story that has delighted and puzzled mystery lovers for ages, since the anecdote seemingly comes out of nowhere and doesn’t dovetail neatly with the rest of the plot. Hammett is known for being such a spare, tight writer, so he must have had a reason for sticking this bit in. So goes the argument.

I’ve read dozens of articles, academic or otherwise, about the so-called Flitcraft Parable over the years, and the analyses differ greatly, depending on who’s doing the thinking. That’s part of the Parable’s charm. It’s like Melville’s white whale—overdetermined as hell, and deeper, richer, fuller in nuance than any of us can imagine. Mostly, the Flitcraft Parable gets you thinking about how humans react to mortal peril, which, call me crazy, sorta kinda fits the zeitgeist.

Flitcraft left his real-estate office in Tacoma one day and disappeared. When Spade finally tracked him down, the poor sap confessed why he suddenly abandoned his job, wife, two kids, new Packard, and country club membership in Tacoma. All it took was a brush with death. A near miss.

Out on that street in Tacoma, Flitcraft narrowly missed being squashed flat by a falling beam from a nearby construction job. The beam took out a chunk of sidewalk, and sent a concrete chip into his cheek, leaving a scar. If I may oh-so-melodramatically surmise, in a flash Flitcraft saw that the life he was living was a pathetic sham. He was not the man he ever wanted to be. If life could be snuffed out so unpredictably, well, damn it, he was going to Stop Living the Lie! From this moment forward, he was going to do things differently. Get back to his roots. He was going to shake things up.

Sort of the way I was going to do six weeks back when my wife and I decided to grow our own food in the garden. Supermarket shortages be damned! We didn’t need to play the industrial food game! We’d fill our bellies with nutrients coaxed from the earth by our own two hands. That was right before we learned that the nation was facing a shortage of garden seeds.

No problem! We’d bake our own bread. Guess what? Remarkably, the nation is facing a shortage of flour and yeast. Well…okay, maybe we’d raise chickens the way we’d always talked about doing. Henceforth, we former big-city types were going to transform ourselves into rustic homesteaders! We’d gorge ourselves silly on golden-brown frittatas while we played jigsaw puzzles at night, mended our frayed garments, and exercised obsessively. Oh, and the whole while I’d grow myself a luxurious lockdown man-beard.

Well, you can imagine how that all played out. For every single thing I contemplated doing as an expression of my highly personal, spanking-new creative identity, everyone else on the planet was thinking of doing exactly same thing, causing runs on everything from backyard chickens, to jigsaw puzzles, to sewing supplies, to exercise equipment. And experts were reminding newbie beard-growers to disinfect their new scruff before they hugged loved ones.

Don’t get get me wrong. This pandemic is radically altering many people’s lives and careers. My state has never seen so many unemployment claims, as is yours, I’m sure. Businesses in our lovely mountain town have been devastated by the lack of tourists who were historically their biggest class of clientele. Brewers, tour guides, chefs, bartenders, and baristas are out of work, and desperate. Already I’ve heard of a local businessman, a dear friend, who is considering shuttering his shattered business and moving to Europe with his young, EU-born wife, especially if a certain politician is reelected in the fall. People like my friend are going full frontal Flitcraft: disaster sparks change.

The rest of us are flirting with Flitcraft Lite. Near disaster sparks change of a sort. Change, I might add, that may not outlive the pandemic. After all, the final biting irony of Hammett’s parable is that after resolving to change his life, Flitcraft ended up replicating exactly the same life he left behind. In his new life in Spokane, Flitcraft had set himself up in a successful car dealership, with a lovely new wife who was expecting their first child. Spade’s assessment of the outcome is marvelous:

His second wife didn’t look like the first, but they were more alike than they were different. You know, the kind of women that play fair games of golf and bridge and like new salad-recipes. He wasn’t sorry for what he had done. It seemed reasonable enough to him. I don’t think he even knew he had settled back naturally into the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma. But that’s the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.

I’m probably distorting the crux of Hammett’s parable, but the beams sure are falling big time right now. And I think there’s some truth to the notion that we humans are binary creatures. We are at heart either changing, or not. From an evolutionary perspective, true behavior change is time-consuming and dangerous. If you’re a Neanderthal hunter of big game, the tribe will go hungry while you learn how to hook and land your first coelacanth.

Look up, Mr. Flitcraft.Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

In the wacko HBO sci-fi series Westworld, based on the old Michael Crichton film from the 1970s, nefarious engineers conspire to implant the behaviors of real-life people (“guests”) into robot doppelgängers (“hosts”). Imagine! Your body dies, yet your brain lives on in a robot. A chance to live forever! A chance to live the life you were always meant to have. A chance, dare I say, to Shake Things Up!

Thing is, late in the second season, the mad geniuses discover to their horror that the zillionaire they brought back to life makes the same boneheaded decisions he made in life. Conclusion: Humans don’t change.

I understand the instinct of the individual to revert to previous behavior. I totally get that. I’ve made and abandoned far too many New Year’s resolutions not to. But what I am finding fascinating is the herd instinct toward sameness even in what is theoretically a very personal and trying moment of change. Somewhere in our DNA, the survival code is apparently written thusly: <alone:same> and <species:same>.

In a million lifetimes, a million simulations, O’Shaughnessy will always double-cross Spade, and while the thought of it probably makes our antihero a little sad, he’s expecting it.

In a million pandemics, a million Americans—hell, a million urbanites, suburbanites, Canadians, Minnesotans, D’Agneses, or genetically-enhanced, intelligent rutabagas—will all tend to make the same choices when their world is upended. They will panic-buy jigsaw puzzles and toilet paper. They will resolve to be better people. They will hug their children close, and privately wish they’d go back to school.

I’m sure that in one of those robot simulations, O’Shaughnessy is wearing a homemade shift dress and collecting free-range eggs out of a nesting box. But not for long. When the beams stop falling, she will revert to form, snatch up a gat, and come gunning for some unsuspecting sap. No wonder Spade drinks, and why I need one too.

***

Postscript: Mexico and Canada recently ratified the USMCA, a new pact the cheeky are calling NAFTA 2.0. I am not an attorney, but it appears that this joint legislation goes into effect in June 2020. When it does, I believe this means that Hammett’s book, currently in the public domain in Canada, will no longer be. (I am waiting for someone with actual expertise to weigh in on the matter. Lawyers, please speak up.) However, dedicated mystery fans should bear in mind that because of the public domain declaration, countless crappy paperback and ebook versions of this classic novel are flooding the Interwebs. Most of these versions were poorly produced; their “publishers” simply scanned copies of the paperback, and uploaded them to various retailers without bothering to proofread them. Please don’t buy these editions; if the reviews are any indication, you’ll be greatly disappointed by the quality. The only authorized editions are the ones published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (ie, Penguin Random House). This page will direct you to the correct edition at the retailer of your choice. And of course, the official prices of the authorized book are much higher than the bootleg editions. But come on. Did you really think you could grab the Falcon for 99 cents? Don’t be a palooka.

A Coronavirus Disappearing Act

My parents went missing on Saturday.

I contend–but cannot prove definitively–that the dog had nothing to do with this.

Here's how it all went down:

My wife and I have been discussing adopting a dog since just after the governor (Jay Inslee, Washington, for those of you playing at home) put the state on lock-down. In the six weeks since, we've been working from home, practicing social distancing, and doing our best to keep our son educated, socialized, safe and happy.

On the face of it, this seems to be an optimal time for pet adoption. Both of us being home pretty much full-time ought to help ensure a relatively painless transition for a newly-adopted pet into our home. Of course under the most ideal of circumstances, times like these can prove challenging. Not everyone deals with change all that well, and the "adjustment period" can often prove stressful.

Still, our seven-year-old has been asking about getting a dog for over a year. He's an only child. With the three of us now practicing social distancing and staying at home, he hasn't had anyone to play with aside from his mom and dad, in nearly two months. He's a great kid, a fine young man, with a giving heart and a wonderful sense of humor, and he likes playing with his parents, but my wife and I have of course been concerned about the effect this prolonged period of isolation might have on him. And of course, a dog would give him someone else new to play with.

So we started looking.

For those of you who haven't been paying attention, it seems as if the entire country has had much the same idea. Shelters are empty for the first time in, well, ever. This is overall a good thing. But we were frustrated for a while in our attempts to find a dog.

Right up until the moment when we weren't. As these things are wont to do, the opportunity, when it came our way, came fast.

Last Saturday my wife found a nine-week-old Golden Retriever/Rottweiller mix available to a good home. The apparent product of an "unscheduled breeding," he was, explained the fellow making him available, the pick of the litter. The picker had backed out unexpectedly, however, and he was now the final member of the litter in need of a good home.

So we came to an understanding, made arrangements and drove a half-hour down to Tacoma on very little notice to collect the newest addition to our family. The meet-up, examination of shot records and the puppy in question went off without incident.

And just like that, we had a dog.

That's when things got weird.

Now, our son is very close to his grandparents. And both sets of grandparents are dog owners and dog lovers. So we called grandma and grandpa, to tell them that, SURPRISE! their grandson now has a puppy!

I called my mom's cellphone from the road at 7 o'clock. My parents live east of Tacoma, in Puyallup, and in non-COVID-19 times, we would probably have stopped on the way home to give our son the opportunity to show off his new puppy.

But, times being what they are, we opted to err on the side of caution, and settle for a phone call. The call went to voicemail. So I left my mom a message and asked her to call us back.

Now, my mom is pretty conscientious about getting right back to someone if they leave her a message. So when the thirty-five minute drive back home passed without my hearing back from my mom, I sent her a text.

Nothing.

I called again at 8:30. And at 9:00. And then I started calling my dad's cellphone, too. I didn't expect a response (my father rarely carries his cellphone with him. Most of the time it can be found charging on their kitchen counter.

But my mom had recently gotten the new iPhone, and was having some trouble with it. A couple of nights previously she hadn't been able to answer her iPhone, so we had connected using my dad's iPhone.

No dice.

I should probably mention at this point that my parents are in their early 70s, and while for the most part pretty healthy, do have some health issues which put them in the high-risk category for COVID-19. At any other time, I'd have chalked their protracted silence up to not bothering to check their phones, and left it at that.

But we don't live in "any other time." We live in the Age of COVID-19.

So I texted my brother to ask whether he had heard from them this day. We talked on the phone a few minutes after 9:30.

Now, my brother is pretty level-headed. And we both tend to be pretty sanguine about our parents. He currently lives a few hours away, so it stands to reason that if there might be a problem with my parents, I'd be the one to go and check on them.

So when we talked about it, I explained the progression of events thusfar, adding that both my wife and I had also attempted to reach both of my parents via Facetime, still with no response. Then I said that I thought that if 10:00 rolled around and I still hadn't heard from my parents, I'd drive the thirty miles down to their place in Puyallup and check on them.

"You know, it's probably nothing," he said. "But yeah, maybe you'd better go. Let me know what you find out."

My wife and son were still up (only the puppy had gone to bed. And he was up and down all night). So they rode down with me.

By the time we got everyone dressed and back out into the car and down the road to Puyallup, it was nearly 10:45. My parents' lights were on, but their gate was locked, so I got creative and climbed through their front hedge, and knocked loudly at their front door.

Nothing.

I made my way around to the back door and checked on things before letting myself in with our key. My parents and their dog, a 90 pound yellow lab with a bark that can drive a nail, were nowhere to be found.

And wouldn't you know it? My dad's iPhone was in its accustomed place, charging on their kitchen counter.

I  used my parents' remote to open the gate, then went back out to the car, called my brother, and my wife and I talked with him about what to do. We decided to text my parents closest friends; a retired nurse and a still-practicing emergency room physician. We didn't call, because by now it was past 11, and the wife of this couple is still recovering from hip replacement surgery, and we didn't want to disturb them if they were already asleep.

My brother suggested I go back in, leave my parents a note and retrieve my father's phone, take it home and if we hadn't heard from my parents by morning, use it to start calling their friends. So I did that.

No sooner had I written the note and picked up my father's iPhone, than I received a text message from the couple of I had text asking if they knew anything about my parents' whereabouts.

Their friend's text read:

"Yes they were here for dinner and left less than an hour ago... please don't worry... they should be home any time now... I always have Berniece [my mom] text when they arrive at their house..."

So my parents skipped out on quarantine without telling anyone.

I immediately called my brother back to fill him in. No sooner had he picked up than I heard my parents's garage door begin to go up.

The prodigals, it seemed, had returned.

So I let my brother know what had happened, and that he could stop worrying. Before we hung up he said, "You gonna go talk to them?"

"You know it," I said.

"Tell them I'll call and yell at them tomorrow."

So that's what I did.

My wife (who is a genuinely lovely, caring person.) assured them that we were so relieved that they were okay. We had gotten worried.

By this point, after getting out of bed to drive back in the direction I'd already done a round trip to earlier in the day, with it getting up to midnight, my ire was competing with the relief I felt, and my folks, no doubt sensing this, were suitably abashed.

Which is funny, because my parents are independent, intelligent people. "Abashed" isn't really in their playbook. They're at the point in their lives where they don't really need to answer to anyone.

And yet here we were.

In a genuinely funhouse moment, I was reminded of getting caught sneaking out when I was a teenager. Except the roles were reversed.

As it turned out my mom hadn't heard her new iPhone ring. it hadn't even buzzed any of the times we'd called. She had inadvertently set it to "Silent," and that apparently meant it didn't even vibrate on that setting.

Needless to say this did nothing to lessen my antipathy for iPhones.

Anyway, our son got to see his grandparents, and we got to hear about how they had been sneaking out back and forth, their friends to their house one weekend, them to their friends on the next, without telling anyone. My dad explained their silence as not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. I guess because they were going out with friends and not us?

All ended well, all things considered. It was good to see my parents after nearly two months' time, and no harm was done. And I was crystal clear with them that in the current age, it's essential we stay in touch, and should–Heaven forbid–a similar situation arise in the near future, I'd do the exact same thing all over again.

And they would hear about it all over again.

And they will.

So, was it the dog's fault? Of course not. On the other hand, if we hadn't gotten him that day, would we have even known to be worried, or would those sneaky kids breaking curfew to go eat, drink, and play cards with their friends have just gotten away with the whole thing?

All I can say is that it's a danged good thing all three of them–my mom, my dad, and the puppy–are cute!

The Culprit?

See you in two weeks!

Robbing Victor to Pay Shanks

As I mentioned  here not too long ago, I think one of my writing strengths is premises and one of my weaknesses is plots.  A result of that is a notebook full of ideas which will probably never bloom into short stories.

Several pages of said notebook are devoted to Shanks, the crime-writing character who has appeared in a bunch of my stories.   Years ago I dreamed up this idea: Shank is on a committee trying to restore a Depression-era opera house in his city.  It would be called the World Theatre, which would let me use the title (snicker) "Shanks Saves The World."

I liked it a lot.  Only problem: What would my hero do to get the money for the restoration?

Sort of a big plot gap, right?  And so the story sat in my notebook for years.  But then I had a breakthrough.

I have mentioned before here that I also wrote a series of stories about Uncle Victor.  He is the elderly, eccentric relative of a crime boss.  His nephew reluctantly tolerates him because doing so was the last request of  the previous godfather.  So when Victor decides to become a private eye, nephew Benny pulls strings to get him a license.

Several stories about this odd duck made it into print but then my market for them, Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine, went the way of all periodicals and I moved onto other things.

However, I remembered that I had written a story in which an aging music producer hires Victor to hunt down some musicians he cheated and now wants to do right by  The draft was still sitting in my files.

So what if we offer Uncle Victor a well-deserved retirement and send Shanks to the producer instead, asking for a big donation for the theatre where, by a wonderful coincidence, some of the old man's bands used to perform?  And the producer says, to get my money you have to find these musicians I ripped off decades ago...

Suddenly I had a plot.  The result, titled (as you probably guessed) "Shanks Saves The World," is featured in the current (May/June 2020) issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.  It is my 31st appearance there, and Shanks' tenth.

I am especially glad the story made it into this issue because another Shanks story, a sort of sequel to this one, will coming out this summer in an anthology.  More on that in a later installment.

And speaking of more, if you want to read a completely different essay I wrote about "Shank Saves The World," you will find it at Trace Evidence, the AHMM blog.

And I hope you enjoy the story.  Now back to my notebook...

For the Love of Malice

In the spring of 2001, I was taking my first mystery-writing workshop. My instructor, author Noreen Wald, told us—all eight of us, I believe—that we had to go to Malice Domestic. I didn't even really understand what Malice Domestic was, but I knew I wanted to write mysteries, so if Noreen said I had to go, I had to go.

That was the beginning of my love affair with mystery conventions. Over the years I've been to Sleuthfest once and to Bouchercon nine times, but Malice is the convention I never miss. It's a place where I feel at home, among friends who love traditional mysteries, many of whom I now consider family. This year was to be my twentieth Malice, and not getting ready to drive to Bethesda on Thursday for the start of the convention just feels wrong. I'll miss the dinners and the panels—as the former program chair, I always have to plug the panels—and I'll especially miss the hugs. Remember when we all weren't afraid to get within six feet of one another, nonetheless to hug?

But just because Malice is canceled this year doesn't mean that we can't still celebrate the traditional mystery this week and the people who write and read them. The Agatha Award voting will be held later this week (links to read the nominated short stories are below), and the winners will be announced in a live stream Saturday night. The Malice board also will be announcing next year's honorees (who will be sharing the stage with the wonderful people who were supposed to be honored this year, in what I understand might be a supersized Malice), as well as the theme for the anthology to be published in the spring of 2021. I believe the Agatha board of directors will be sending out more information about all of that very soon.

And that brings me back to getting into the Malice spirit. I was talking last week with my friend and fellow SleuthSayer Art Taylor about it and how we could use my blog post today to do it. Art wisely suggested that since one of the great things about Malice is it allows readers to learn about new writers, it would be wonderful to have this year's Agatha short story finalists tell you, our SleuthSayers readers, about some great up-and-coming short story authors. I shared the idea with the rest of our fellow finalists, and they all were in faster than you can read flash fiction.

So, without any further ado, here are five short story writers whom we five nominees admire. I hope you'll check out their work.

Art Taylor, talking about Kristin Kisska (who recently joined our SleuthSayers family)

I admired Kristin Kisska's fiction before I knew that she was the one who wrote it—literally, since her name didn't accompany that first story. "The Sevens" was a blind submission for the 2015 Bouchercon anthology, Murder Under the Oaks, which I edited. Set at the University of Virginia in 1905, "The Sevens" stood out for its intriguing plot and its rich sense of both place and historical detail. It became Kris's first published story, and as editor, I was thrilled to introduce this tremendous talent to the mystery world. Since then, Kris has published short stories in several collections, including two Malice Domestic anthologies—Mystery Most Geographical and Mystery Most Edible—and Deadly Southern Charm from the Central Virginia Chapter of Sisters of Sisters in Crime. Checking her website as I write this, I found a more recent story I'd missed: "Prelude" in Legends Reborn. Score! And even better news: Kris just signed with a literary agent for her first novel. Save me a place in line for this next debut—book-length this time!

Shawn Reilly Simmons, talking about S.A. Cosby

I first met Shawn (S.A.) Cosby when I was invited to read at a Noir at the Bar event three years ago in Richmond, Virginia. All of the stories that night were good, but Shawn's was uniquely memorable—he writes gritty southern noir woven through with glittering threads of humor. Since that night in Richmond, Shawn and I have appeared together at N@TB events many times, and have downed more than a few cocktails together at Bouchercon in St. Pete and Dallas, where he won the 2019 Anthony Award in the short story category. He's one of the most upbeat and nicest guys in the mystery world, and each new story he writes brings that unique flair that is his alone. Shawn's newest story is "The King's Gambit," which will appear in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in June, and his novel Blacktop Wasteland will be published in July by Flatiron Books. It's described as Ocean's Eleven meets Drive with a southern noir twist, and it's recently been optioned for film.

Cynthia Kuhn, talking about Amy Drayer

I had the good fortune to meet Amy Drayer at the Colorado Gold conference, and she immediately impressed me with her smart, engaging perspectives on writing in general and mystery in particular. After she joined our Sisters in Crime chapter, I read her fantastic work and was even more impressed. Amy's writing is compelling, witty, eloquent, and thought-provoking. Her published short stories include "The Clearing" in False Faces: Twenty Stories About the Masks We Wear and "Honorable Men" in Shades of Pride: LGBTQAI2+ Anthology. "Schrodinger's Mouse" is forthcoming in Wild (Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers). She has written short fiction in genres ranging from horror to fabulism, literary flash to pop fiction. The first book in her wonderful Makah Island Mystery series, Revelation, also came out in March.

Kaye George, talking about Joseph S. Walker

Joseph S. Walker came to my attention when he submitted a story, "Awaiting the Hour," for my own 2017 eclipse-themed anthology, Day of the Dark. The story was stunningly good, and I was amazed I'd never heard of Mr. Walker before. I've certainly heard of him since. I gave a couple of stories from that publication to Otto Penzler, and he mentioned Joseph's in his annual publication honoring the best of mystery short stories. Joseph went on to win the Bill Crider Prize at Bouchercon 2019 in Dallas, then the Al Blanchard Award at New England Crime Bake. His latest published fiction is "Etta at the End of the World" in the just published May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

Barb Goffman, talking about Stacy Woodson

It seems appropriate for me to end this column talking about Stacy Woodson because I met her at Malice Domestic in 2017, when I served as a mentor/guide to Stacy and fellow Malice first-timer Alison McMahan. Since then Stacy has become one of my closest friends, not only because of our shared love of Mexican food (Uncle Julio's forever!) but because she is as passionate about short stories as I am. Everything she writes showcases not only her raw talent but also her heart. I was honored to edit her first published story, "Duty, Honor, Hammett," before she submitted it to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. It not only ran in the magazine's Department of First Stories in 2018, but it went on to win the magazine's annual Readers Award, only the second time in history an author's first published story took the top honor. Stacy has since gone on to be named a top-ten finalist for last year's Bill Crider Prize at Bouchercon, and she's placed a number of stories in Mystery Weekly, Woman's World, and EQMM, where her story "Mary Poppins Didn't Have Tattoos" will appear in the July/August issue. Stacy's most recently published story is "River" in the anthology The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell. "River," like so many of Stacy's stories, gives a window into her experience as a US Army veteran. Given Stacy's insatiable desire to learn and grow as a writer, I have no doubt you'll be reading much more from—and about—her in the future.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about these newcomers to the crime short-story field, who are already wowing readers. Please consider checking out their work. There are so many independent bookstores that could benefit from your business, especially during this pandemic. The stores might be closed, but many are still mailing books out.

And before we go, to those of you who were registered to attend Malice Domestic this year and who either transferred your registration to next year or donated your registration payment to the convention, it's nearly time to vote for the Agatha Awards. The electronic voting is going to begin soon (tomorrow or Thursday, I expect). It's not too late to read the short stories that are nominated for the Agatha. They are:

• "Grist for the Mill" by Kaye George, published in A Murder of Crows

• "Alex's Choice" by me, Barb Goffman, published in Crime Travel

• "The Blue Ribbon" by Cynthia Kuhn, published in Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible

• "The Last Word" by Shawn Reilly Simmons, published in Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible

• "Better Days" by Art Taylor, published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Just click on the titles. Happy reading, and I hope to see all of you next year at Malice!

How Low Will You Go?

Over the last two weeks, I've joined several other Connecticut crime writers on two podcasts from the Storyteller's Cottage in Simsbury. I've touted the venue before and love working with them. Now they're trying to keep their programs for writers functioning during the shutdown, and Lisa Natcharian invited several of us to discuss villains in our stories. I'll post the link to the podcast when it's edited and live, probably sometime in May.
Lisa came up with some provocative questions, and the topic for today is "How much evil can readers tolerate and how do you decide when to rein in a dark character?"

Her question made me look at my own writing again. I've sold nearly 30 short stories (a good week for Michael Bracken or John Floyd), and about half of them are from the bad guy's POV or have her/him getting away with it. Most of those stories involve revenge or poetic justice, and I seldom have a REALLY horrible person go scot-free. The comments on my website and Facebook Page indicate that readers like those stories, and some are among my special favorites.

Revisiting my novels, I was surprised to find how nasty some of my villains are, probably because I've worried lately that both my series characters are becoming more domestic in their private lives. Maybe I've done that unconsciously to contrast the "normal" and the dark side. But when I look at the bestseller lists, it's not just me.

If you look at those lists, you'll find Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Karin Slaughter, Meg Gardiner, Lisa Gardner, Laura Lippman, S. J. Rozan, Robert Crais, Stephen King, Harlan Coban, Tana French, Dennis Lehane, Don Winslow, Alison Gaylin, and a slew of other excellent writers, all of whom go deep. When I think back to the 90s, maybe the first book and film to come to mind is Silence of the Lambs, which presents two twisted villains.

I don't remember the last time I saw a cozy mystery on the list.

One of my undergrad history professors from days of yore said the best way to understand the minds and values of a civilization was to look at their popular arts. Plays, music, stories. . .

Remember, in Shakespeare's time, his most popular play was Titus Andronicus, which I usually describe as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in blank verse. It was a time of political turmoil, and his plays reflected that.

One of the other writers on the podcast said her readers know she won't get violent and won't use much profanity. Obviously, if you write cozies, your body count is lower. She doesn't read my books because she thought one of my covers was objectionable.

Maybe my readers want darker stories to help them cope with the real world, the way we tell ghost stories around the campfire. Remember Shakespeare's observation in King Lear:  "The worst is not/ So long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'"

Think of the Brothers Grimm, too. The original version of Cinderella involves the wicked stepsisters cutting off toes to make their feet fit the glass slipper, and birds pecking out those same stepsisters' eyes on their way to and from Cindy's wedding. The Greek tragedies wallow in gore.

Ditto slasher flicks, like Halloween and Friday the 13th.

We want to go waist-deep in the big bloody. Aristotle talked about catharsis. Maybe he's right. Maybe we've always been enticed by the horrific and crave a release. Maybe my history professor was right, too.

My most recent novels involve a serial killer who leaves the bodies of street people in abandoned buildings in Detroit, a cold case involving five people murdered in a home invasion, and a serial rapist. I think that as I watch the current social and political situation deteriorate, my inherited pessimism has become even stronger and it's coming out in my writing. Or maybe I do it to show that my life is nowhere near as bad as that of my characters. All I know is when I sit down at the keyboard, this is what comes out.

The book I'm vaguely resurrecting has a main character who is an alcoholic with an abusive husband, and I re-discovered things that excited me when I re-read scenes I had forgotten long ago. My last few short stories are darker, too. As long as people buy them, I'll keep going because people seem to need them.

When do I rein these characters in? I don't.

What's in YOUR holster right now?