You Are Entitled to Read My Story

 

I am pleased as punch to report that the September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine features "Was That So Hard?" my 45th story there.  And since my first appearance in that august journal was in 1981 I can boast an average of exactly one story a year.  (We won't discuss how many years I submitted stories there before they bought one.)

The idea for this story came from Not Always Right, a website I have mentioned before. People anonymously submit reports on horrible customers.  I enjoy the site so much I use it as a reward: I won't touch it until I have written my quota for the day. It is a huge time sink but I have pulled three short stories out of it. 

"Shanks Has Reservations" (Black Cat Weekly #158) was inspired by a genuine scam that happened in a hotel. "Shanks Gets Lost" came from many tales of customers being rude to fast food clerks. (Black Cat #193) 

And now "Was That So Hard?" was inspired by many reports on rude customers, mostly in grocery stores.  (The title is something an entitled customer says, or more likely sneers, after some underpaid employee goes miles out of their way to be helpful.)  My protagonist is in charge of a high-end grocery store which, just before closing time, is invaded by a mob of the rudest, most entitled customers you could dream up.  Naturally there is a crime involved.

Finally, I want to examine a word I have used twice in this little piece: entitled.  When did it change its meaning? It used to mean that someone has the right to do something.  Now I hear it more often being used to mean that someone feels they have that right.

I checked Oxford English Dictionary and found that they traced that meaning back to Robert Coles' Privileged Ones, published in 1977.

 It is a matter of feeling 'entitled.' A child who has been told repeatedly that all he or she needs to do is try hard does not feel inclined to allow himself or herself much skeptical self-examination.

Took a few decades to get into the mainstream but now we're stuck with the new meaning and, worse, the people it refers to.  

I hope my story makes you feel a little better about it.

Whoa, Look at THAT!

So far this summer, I've spent a lot of time on the computer, especially when it's hot as blazes outside, and at least some of it's been productive. I've written and submitted a lot of stories and SleuthSayers posts, I've done some research for future stories, I've read and sent a bazillion emails, etc. But I have also wasted a lot of time. I'm good at wasting time.

My most recent time-waster is watching (believe it or not) movie reactions on YouTube. Yep, you heard me right: movie reactions. Google calls it "feature creators recording themselves watching and responding to films for the first time." There are many sites dedicated to this, like Cinebinge, Totally Whatever, Cinepals, The Reel Rejects, etc.--I think my favorite might be Popcorn in Bed--and, depending on the movie they're covering, they can be a lot of fun. Instead of choosing from a list of what movies each site offers, I usually search for phrases like "Jurassic Park reactions," "Godfather reactions," "Galaxy Quest reactions," and so forth.

The way it works is, you watch parts of a movie alongside one or two viewers, whose faces are shown as the movie plays, and you can see the reactions they have to certain things in the film. Often, and especially if they're filmmakers themselves, they'll make comments about what they're seeing, and that can be interesting too. 

I need to explain something, here. I'm one of those people who has always enjoyed going again with others--friends, family, whoever--to see a movie that I myself have already seen and liked. I remember going to the theater for Forrest Gump four times in the months after it was first realeased in the mid-'90s--once by myself, and the next three times with each of our kids--all of them were teenagers then. I got a real kick out of watching their reactions and finding out what they thought of it. Same thing if I'm streaming a film at home on TV or playing it on DVD with, say, one of our children or grandchildren. I get almost as much fun out of watching their faces as I do from watching the movie. I've probably shown the grandkids all of my favorites, at least those that are child-friendly, and I have many favorites.

So why am I telling you all this, in a mystery-blog post? Here's the thing. I have discovered that these viewer-reaction videos on YouTube aren't just fun: they can be informative to me as a storyteller. I won't say they teach me a lot that I don't already know, but they do confirm for me which parts of the story are the most important and interesting and moving to the viewer. And believe me, the viewers' reactions cover the whole gamut--surprise, concentration, fear, sorrow, suspense, delight, sometimes even tears or cheering out loud. And, again, you can see exactly what it is in the story that's making them feel that way. Plus, it's entertaining.

I'm sure this is obvious, but the things that create the biggest reactions are the sad scenes, funny scenes, dangerous or intense scenes, twists, reveals, etc. You can also tell, immediately, at what point the viewer begins to like the hero/heroine, or dislike the villain. You can see the value of a gripping opening, a sympathetic character, an action scene, a mid-story reversal, a slam-bang ending, a satisfying end to a character arc. The kinds of things that might be instructive and helpful to a writer.

I've always felt that the one most important thing a story must do is make the reader feel something--whatever emotion it is--and the more intense these feelings are, the better your story/movie/novel is going to be. And, even though I know I'm belaboring the point, these YouTube videos allow you to see it firsthand, in the viewers' faces, along with the reasons for those reactions.

So that's my pitch. Have you ever bothered to watch one of those videos? (I didn't even know, until a few weeks ago, that they existed.) If you haven't seen them and want to give it try, just think of a movie you enjoyed, search for it in YouTube along with the word "reactions," and take a look. They're silly but they're addictive. 

As for justification, I'll tell you the same thing I say to my wife when she walks in with frowns and eyerolls and says Good grief, what are you watching in here? I tell her it's research. I'm learning something.

Hey, it sounds good to me.

When Writing Historical Fiction: It's Better to Travel

(It's mid-August and I am enblow deep in end-of-summer projects. Haven't forgotten my promised follow up installment on celluloid Hammett. Will have that for your next go-round. In the interim this is a repost from a while back. Still useful. Hope you enjoy! - B.T.)

[Elmore] Leonard was originally no more a man of the West than was the Ohio-born dentist Zane Grey. While a kid in Detroit, Westerns enthralled him as they did most people in the 1930s and 40s. When he grew interested in writing during college Western fiction seemed a promising genre he could work in part-time. Unlike many writers then selling Western tales to pulps, though, Leonard insisted on accuracy, and kept a ledger of his research over the years, later crediting his longtime subscription to Arizona Highways Magazine for many of his authentic descriptions. All had to be genuinei: the guns, Apache terms and clothing; the frontier knives, card games, liquor, and especially the horses.

— Nathan Ward, from "Elmore Leonard's Gritty Westerns," in Crime Reads

It's certainly never a bad idea to follow the writing advice of the great Elmore Leonard. His Ten Rules For Writing are rightly famous as terrific advice for any writer of fiction. 

The Great Elmore Leonard

In those instances where Leonard's advice isn't readily available, it never hurts to follow his example, if at all possible. Take the one in the quote above from Nathan Ward's Crime Reads article on Leonard. For years Leonard apparently leaned heavily on the content of Arizona Highways magazine.

It's a fine notion. Now, don't get me wrong: it's always better to travel. There is no substitute for actually going to and spending time in the place you're writing about. But, if you're writing about someplace and you can't afford to go, read travel writers. For that matter, even if you can afford the investment in both time and treasure to visit the region where your work is set, read travel writers. No one can help you get a feel for a certain place like people who make their livings helping their readers get a feel for a certain place.

Take William Dalrymple. The British-born-and-raised son of a Scottish baronet, Dalrymple these days is best known for his recent run of riveting books on the history of the subcontinent: India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Dalrymple is a terrific writer and a first-rate historian who splits his time between a farm just outside Delhi, in India and a summer home in London.

William Dalrymple

But before he began to make a name for himself with books such as White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, The Last Mughal: the Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-1842, and The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence and the Pillage of An Empire, Dalrymple began his writing career as a travel writer, taking readers on a tour through the Eastern Mediterranean and the Holy Land (From the Holy Mountain: a Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East), and of course, chronicling the early days of his life-long love affair with India. With his first book In Xanadu: a Quest, published in 1989, Dalrymple chronicles his modern retracing of the journey of Marco Polo from Jerusalem in the summer palace of Kublai Khan in China. But it was with his second book, 1994's City of Djinns: a Year in Delhi, a memoir of his first visit to the city which has had such a tremendous impact on his adult life, that Dalrymple really began to make his mark.

And there is so much to this memoir which can be of use to the writer reading about the city. Here's an early excerpt laying out his introduction to Delhi and to India:

I was only seventeen. After ten years at school in a remote valley in the moors of North Yorkshire, I had quite suddenly found myself in India, in Delhi. From the very beginning I was mesmerized by the great capital, so totally unlike anything I had ever seen before. Delhi, it seemed at first, was full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter, filtered light through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes, an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a whiff of spices. Moreover the city—so I soon discovered—possessed a bottomless seam of stories: tales receding far beyond history, deep into the cavernous chambers of myth and legend. Friends would moan about the touts on Janpath and head off to the beaches in Goa, but for me Delhi always exerted a stronger spell. I lingered on, and soon found a job in a home for destitutes in the far north of the city. The nuns gave me a room overlooking a municipal rubbish dump. In the morning I would look out to see the sad regiment of rag-pickers trawling the stinking berms of refuse; overhead, under a copper sky, vultures circled the thermals forming patterns like fragments of glass in a kaleidoscope. In the afternoons, after I had swept the compound and the inmates were safely asleep, I used to slip out and explore. I would take a rickshaw into the innards of the Old City and pass through the narrowing funnel of gullies and lanes, alleys and cul de sacs, feeling the houses close in around me.

Now, I ask you. Can this guy set a scene, or what? Really helpful for drinking in the flavors, colors, scents and sounds of what on the face of it comes across as a truly unforgettable place. Really not a bad guide if you're interested in writing about modern-day India.

But what if, like me, you're a writer of historical fiction?

In Leonard's case, as stated above, he exploited a modern magazine to help give him local flavor not just for another region of the country, but for that region in another era. No mean feat. It's a testament to Leonard's talent, coupled with his singular vision that he was able to "world build" (to borrow a phrase from our friends who write speculative fiction) using these building blocks for his foundation.

So sure, you can (and should) definitely use your imagination to fill in the cracks. There is certainly no substitute for imagination in the fiction writer's tool kit. That said, you need more than one tool in order to get the job of writing fiction done. I've often felt like our "tool kit" as fiction writers should be more aptly called a "tool warehouse." And of course, another way to use travel writing as one of those tools, to help get the feel for a city or street, or region or state or county or what-have-you during a bygone time is to go and find travel writing from the time in which your work-in-progress is set.

I have a writer friend whose current work-in-progress is set during World War II. One of his major characters has a back-story in which he lived in Germany during the 1930s, in the run-up to the war. I referred him to A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube, the first volume in a superb three-volume memoir of a trip on foot across Europe, from Holland all the way to Turkey by travel writer, war-time British commando (the account of his part in a successful kidnapping of a German general in Crete is not to be missed), bon vivant, and (some say) one of Ian Fleming's models for his literary creation James Bond, Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Leigh Fermor set out for Constantinople (Istanbul) in December of 1933, less than a year after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had come to power. His narrative is replete with rich details about German life during that period, laying out how the Nazis had both a heavy and in some ways, a negligible impact on the country they would eventually drive to absolute ruin. Here is Leigh Fermor's initial impression of Cologne, the first major German city he visited:

After a first faraway glimpse, the two famous steeples grew taller and taller as the miles that separated us fell away. At last they commanded the cloudy plain as the spires of a cathedral should, vanishing when the outskirts of the city interposed themselves, and then, as I gazed at the crowding saints of the three Gothic doorways, sailing up into the evening again at close range. Beyond them indoors, although it was already too dark to see the colours of the glass, I knew I was inside the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. Except for the little constellation of tapers in the shadows of a side-chapel, everything was dim. Women knelt interspersed with nuns and the murmured second half of the Gegrüsset seist Du, Maria rose in answering chorus to the priest’s initial solo; a discreet clatter of beads kept tally of the accumulating prayers. In churches with open spires like Cologne, one could understand how congregations thought their orisons had a better start than prayers under a dome where the syllables might flutter round for hours. With steeples they follow the uprush of lancets and make an immediate break for it. Tinsel and stars flashed in all the shops and banners saying Fröhliche Weihnacht! were suspended across the streets. Clogged villagers and women in fleece-lined rubber boots slipped about the icy pavements with exclamatory greetings and small screams, spilling their armfuls of parcels. The snow heaped up wherever it could and the sharp air and the lights gave the town an authentic Christmas card feeling. It was the real thing at last! Christmas was only five days away. Renaissance doors pierced walls of ancient brick, upper storeys jutted in salients of carved timber and glass, triangles of crow-steps outlined the steep gables, and eagles and lions and swans swung from convoluted iron brackets along a maze of lanes. As each quarter struck, the saint-encrusted towers challenged each other through the snow and the rivalry of those heavy bells left the air shaking. Beyond the Cathedral and directly beneath the flying-buttresses of the apse, a street dropped sharply to the quays. Tramp steamers and tugs and barges and fair-sized ships lay at anchor under the spans of the bridges, and cafés and bars were raucous with music. I had been toying with the idea, if I could make the right friends, of cadging a lift on a barge and sailing upstream in style for a bit.

Again, this is quite a scene the writer is setting! So much good material, such a solid feel for the place. Leigh Fermor wrote the memoir some forty years after the trip, based on large part on the deep and thorough entries he made in his journal as an eighteen year-old looking for adventure in a rapidly changing world. And then he goes on to talk about his attempt to "make friends" in that timeless way young people have from time immemorial: he went to a bar:

I made friends all right. It was impossible not to. The first place was a haunt of seamen and bargees shod in tall sea-boots rolled down to the knee, with felt linings and thick wooden soles. They were throwing schnapps down their throats at a brisk rate. Each swig was followed by a chaser of beer, and I started doing the same. The girls who drifted in and out were pretty but a rough lot and there was one bulky terror, bursting out of a sailor’s jersey and wearing a bargeman’s cap askew on a nest of candy-floss hair, called Maggi—which was short for Magda—who greeted every newcomer with a cry of “Hallo, Bubi!” and a sharp, cunningly twisted and very painful pinch on the cheek. I liked the place, especially after several schnapps, and I was soon firm friends with two beaming bargemen whose Low German speech, even sober, would have been blurred beyond the most expert linguist’s grasp. They were called Uli and Peter. “Don’t keep on saying Sie,” Uli insisted, with a troubled brow and an unsteadily admonishing forefinger: “Say Du.” This advance from the plural to the greater intimacy of the singular was then celebrated by drinking Brüderschaft. Glasses in hand, with our right arms crooked through the other two with the complexity of the three Graces on a Parisian public fountain, we drank in unison. Then we reversed the process with our left arms, preparatory to ending with a triune embrace on both cheeks, a manoeuvre as elaborate as being knighted or invested with the Golden Fleece. The first half of the ceremony went without a hitch, but a loss of balance in the second, while our forearms were still interlocked, landed the three of us in the sawdust in a sottish heap. Later, in the fickle fashion of the very drunk, they lurched away into the night, leaving their newly-created brother dancing with a girl who had joined our unsteady group: my hobnail boots could do no more damage to her shiny dancing shoes, I thought, than the seaboots that were clumping all round us. She was very pretty except for two missing front teeth. They had been knocked out in a brawl the week before, she told me.

And that's just a taste. Leigh Fermor's three volumes here truly form a treasure trove: a window into a long-vanished world, and a feel for both the time itself and the timeless humanity of its cast of thousands. Well worth a read whether you're writing something set in Middle Europe during the 1930s, are a student of human nature, history, great writing, or (most likely) some combination of all of the above. 

Patrick Leigh Fermor (Right) in Crete, 1943

And that's all for now. Tune in next time when I I wrap up our tour through Cinema’s many adaptations of the work of Dashiell Hallett.

See you in two weeks!

The Strange Novels of Charles Williams

by Eve Fisher 

A long time ago, there was an informal group of writers, theologians, and intellectuals who collected (mostly) at C. S. Lewis' rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford, or The Eagle & Child Pub: The Inklings. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein are the most famous, but in his time, Inkling Charles Williams was highly praised by Lewis, Tolkein, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, and others for his amazing studies of Dante (The Figure of Beatrice inspired Dorothy Sayers' translation of The Divine Comedy), unique Arthurian poetry (Taliessin Through Logres), even more unique theology (Descent of the Dove and He Came Down From Heaven) and some almost completely unexplainable supernatural thrillers that I simply adore.

Charles Williams
by Kimberly Ferguson

Williams was a strange duck. A devout Anglican, he was known as the Magician, and was part of a mystical Christian group that practiced occult rituals while refusing to seek occult powers. Friends described Williams as a bundle of nervous, dynamic energy with 'raw charisma'. He was both passionately faithful to his wife, and carrying on a passionate, unconsummated affair with an Oxford University Press librarian. (He had to have influenced certain characters in Susan Howatch's Starbridge series.) And he wrote some of the best villains ever.

NOTE & WARNING:  Williams wrote his novels in the 1930s and 1940s, and was a man of his time, so he writes some things which are / can be offensive today: racist, sexist (although often his heroines save the day - and the world), etc.  I still enjoy them.  

My personal favorites (and I have read them all) are War in Heaven and Descent into Hell: 

War in Heaven - Opening line: “The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse.” That's one way to keep you reading.

Villains: Sir Giles Tumulty (who also shows up in Many Dimensions) - His book is being published by Persimmon Publishing, where the corpse was found. He's an explorer and antiquarian, with all the charm of a cobra. See how many insults you can find in this meeting between Sir Giles and a police inspector:

"Rackstraw?" Sir Giles had said impatiently, screwing round from his writing-desk a small, brown wrinkled face toward the inspector, "yes, he came to lunch. Why not?"

"No reason at all, sir," the inspector said, "I only wanted to be sure. And when did he leave you—if you remember?"

"About half-past two," Sir Giles said. "Is that what he ought to have done? I'll say two, if you like, if it'll help you catch him. Only, if you do, you must arrange for me to see the hanging."

"If he left at half-past two, that's all I want to know," the inspector said. "Did you happen to mention to anyone that he was coming?"

"Yes," said Sir Giles, "I told the Prime Minister, the Professor of Comparative Etymology at King's College, and the cook downstairs. Why the hell do you ask me these silly questions? Do you suppose I run round telling all my friends that a loathsome little publisher's clerk is going to muck his food about at my table?"

"If you felt like that," the inspector said, holding down his anger, "I wonder you asked him to lunch."

"I asked him to lunch because I'd rather him foul my table than my time," Tumulty answered. "I had to waste an hour over him because he didn't understand a few simple things about my illustrations, and I saved it by working it in with lunch. I expect he charged overtime for it, so that he'd be two shillings to the good, one saved on his food and another extra pay. I should think he could get a woman for that one night. How much do you have to pay, policeman?"

The inspector at the moment felt merely that Sir Giles must be mad; it wasn't till hours afterwards that he became slowly convinced that the question was meant as an insult beyond reach of pardon or vengeance. At the time he stared blankly and said soberly: "I'm a married man, sir."

"You mean you get her for nothing?" Sir Giles asked. "Two can live as cheaply as one, and your extras thrown in? Optimistic, I'm afraid. Well, I'm sorry, but I have to go to the Foreign Office. Come and chat in the taxi; that's what your London taxis are for. When I want a nice long talk with anyone I get in one at Westminster Abbey after lunch and tell him to go to the Nelson Column. We nearly always get there for tea. Oh, good-bye, policeman. Come again some day."

And there's Mr. Gregory Persimmons - Head publisher, fascinated by the occult, domination, control, little children, and the Holy Grail. Sir Giles is fascinated with Persimmons, more as an experiment than anything else:

"You're going mad, you know, Persimmons, and I like watching you."

"Mad?" Gregory said, with another snigger. "You don't go mad this way. People like my wife go mad, and Stephen. But I've got something that doesn't go mad. I'm getting everything so." He stretched out both arms and pressed them downwards with an immense gesture of weight, as if pushing the universe before and below him. "But I want the ointment."

"Better leave it alone," Sir Giles said tantalizingly. "It's tricky stuff, Persimmons. A Jew in Beyrout tried it and didn't get back. Filthy beast he looked, all naked and screaming that he couldn't find his way. That was four years ago, and he's screaming the same thing still, unless he's dead. And there was another fellow in Valparaiso who got too far to be heard screaming; he died pretty soon, because he'd forgotten even how to eat and drink. They tried forcible feeding, I fancy, but it wasn't a success: he was just continually sick. Better leave it alone, Persimmons."

"I tell you I'm perfectly safe," Gregory said. "You promised, Tumulty, you promised."

"My lord God," Sir Giles said, "what does that matter? I don't care whether I promised or not; I don't care whether you want it or not; I only wonder whether I shall get more from—" He broke off. "All right," he said, "I'll give you the address...  It'll save you some time and energy if you mention me. He's a Greek of sorts—I've forgotten his name. But he doesn't keep tons of it, you know. Now, look here, Persimmons. This is two things you have got out of me, and I've had nothing in return. You'd better ask me down to wherever you hatch gargoyles."

The Greek Chemist - Unique in all the characters I've ever read, because he's...  well, read and see:

"Who sent you here?" the Greek asked.

"Sir Giles Tumulty," said Gregory, "and others. But the others I cannot name. They say"—his voice began to tremble—"that you have an ointment."

"I have many precious things." The answer came out of an entire weariness which seemed to take from the adjective all its meaning. "But some of them are not for sale except to buyers."

"I have bought everything." Gregory leaned forward. "The time has come for me to receive."

Still the other made no movement. "The ointment is rich and scarce and strange," he said. "How do I know that you are worth a gift? And what will my master say if I mistake?"

"I cannot prove myself to you," Gregory answered. "That I know of it —is not that enough?"

"It is not enough," the other said. "But I have a friendship for all who are in the way. And priceless things are without any price. If you are not worth the gift, the gift is worth nothing to you. Have you ever used the ointment?"

"Never," Gregory said; "but it is time, I am sure it is time."

"You think so, do you?" the Greek said slowly. "There comes a time when there is nothing left but time—nothing.* Take it if you like."

*BTW, that line haunted me ever since I first read it. It was the center on which I built my story "For Blood".

Later, when the Grail has been found and taken and taken again, the Greek is even more infintely weary when someone suggests taking and destroying the Grail because it's a stronghold of power, and all such strongholds must be destroyed...  

"We can do it if you like," he acquiesced. "If it is worth while."

"It is a stronghold of power, and we can tear it to less than dust. I do not understand you."

"It doesn't matter," he answered. "You will understand one day. There will be nothing else to understand...  It is all one; in the end it is all one. You do not believe each other and neither of you will believe me. But in the end there is nothing at all but you and that which goes by. You will be sick at heart because there is nothing, nothing but a passing, and in the midst of the passing a weariness that is you. All things shall grow fainter, all desire cease in that sickness and the void that is about it. And this, even for me, is when I have only looked into the bottomless pit. For my spirit is still held in a place of material things. But when the body is drawn into the spirit, and at last they fall, then you shall know what the end of desire and destruction is."

And another character's reaction to Persimmons' attempt to tempt him with the "delights of worshipping treachery and malice and cruelty and sin":  

"Satanism?  Satanism is the clerk at the brothel."  

There's some words to live by. 

Descent Into Hell - Another masterpiece of supernatural thriller, complete with dopplegangers, dancing bears, Lilith, and a man who provides a new definition of Gomorrah; also a hanged man, a hanging man, a succubus, a martyr, a poet, a dying woman, a dead man, and a few rippling graves.  

Ere it shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust,

The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,

Met his own image

Walking in the garden.

That apparition, sole of men, he saw.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound

OTHERS:

The Place of the Lion - Platonic Ideals burst through in raw form in a small English village...

Many Dimensions - Sir Giles Tumulty is back, seeking the Stone of Solomon that gives its possesser access to other space, worlds, dimensions, and times...

The Greater Trumps - The original Tarot deck, and a chess set to die for...

All Hallows Eve - Two dead women, walking through London, looking for...

and more...

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

I happened to find some of my short stories – in fact of most of us SleuthSayers - are appearing on Amazon Kindle for $0.99 with semi-bad AI covers.

Did I miss a contract? Not read the fine print? Should I / we be getting a nickel or a dime each, or is this simply the secondary market?  

Inquiring minds want to know.

PS:  I call it a semi-bad AI cover because there isn't a robot or android anywhere in "For Blood."  I know, details, details...  😉

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

For a little over a year, I've been attending the monthly meetings of a mystery book club at my local independent bookstore. It's been a lot of fun, particularly since they tend to choose books that don't quite match my normal reading tastes, with a strong emphasis on recent cozies and domestic thrillers. It's always good to read outside your comfort zone.

This month, though, the club made one of its periodic forays into classic territory, with Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train. Several members, it turned out, are Christie enthusiasts who have read all her works, often more than once, while others were encountering her for the first time. This led the group to consider an interesting question: what book did the hardcore Christie fans think would make the best introduction to her work for a new reader?

I immediately thought this would make good fodder for a SleuthSayers column. Considering some of my own favorite writers and series characters, what one book would I choose for a new reader, and why? What story would best capture what I loved about that author, and be most likely to bring the newbie back for more? 

So here's how I'd answer the question for ten (or nine, depending on how you count) members of my personal pantheon. 

REX STOUT: I've written before about my love for Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, and the Manhattan brownstone they call home. This is definitely a series where I wouldn't give a new reader book #1 to start with. Fer-de-Lance is a fine novel, and Wolfe himself is already there almost complete, but I don't think Stout had yet refined Archie's voice. Given how important the brownstone is to what I find most appealing about the books, I'd also eliminate the entries where Wolfe ventures out into the wider world, though some of those (Some Buried Caesar, Too Many Cooks) are excellent. Ultimately, my choice would be And Be A Villain, in which a man is murdered during a live radio broadcast. Wolfe and Archie are at their sharpest, the key supporting characters are present in fine form, and the mystery itself is satisfyingly complex, with a surprising resolution. Some would object to this choice on the basis that the novel is the beginning of the "Zeck trilogy," introducing the only recurring villain in the Wolfe stories, but I think the book stands up fine on its own.

AGATHA CHRISTIE: It means forgoing the pleasures of Poirot, but in my view there's no finer way to meet Dame Agatha than And Then There Were None (hey, are all my choices going to start with "and"?). What's not to love? A fiendishly clever plot with plenty of inventive twists, an incredible setting, a cast of memorably nasty characters--everything great about Christie is on full view here, including the darkly cynical tone that gives her work such lasting depth. The atmosphere in this one is anything but cozy, and there's a reason writers are still ripping this premise off after almost a century. Now, if you must have Poirot and his little gray cells? It may be too easy an answer, but I'd have to go with Murder on the Orient Express. (If you must have Miss Marple, you must ask someone else, as the character's never done much for me.)

ROBERT B. PARKER: I've also written before about how formative the Spenser novels were for me when I began reading adult crime fiction. I still relish them, but there are particular challenges in introducing them to a new reader. The first Spenser, The Godwulf Manuscript, isn't much more than a Chandler pastiche, with little indication of what would later make the character distinctive. The second, God Save the Child, introduces Susan Silverman, but is one of several early books in the series with gender politics that have aged very poorly. The book I've reread most often, A Catskill Eagle, relies heavily on the reader's prior knowledge of Spenser and Susan's relationship. So my recommendation for the reader new to Spenser is The Judas Goat, in which our man goes to Europe to track down a group of terrorists. The case is fast-paced and exciting, and Spenser is formidable without yet being the invincible superman he'd be in the later books. The climatic showdown, at the 1980 Montreal Olympics, is a terrific action sequence. Most importantly, the book has the lively, funny interactions between Spenser and Hawk that are usually the highlights of any Spenser outing.

RICHARD STARK: Once again, I've written before of my devotion to Stark's novels about the coldly efficient professional thief Parker, for my money the best series of crime novels ever written. They're all great, but I think one perfect entry point is The Score, in which Parker joins a gang with a seemingly foolproof plan to rob every business in a small mining town in a single night. As always, things go wrong, and the pleasure comes from watching Parker scramble to deal with the multiple complications and still walk away with the loot. In addition to the novel, the comic book adaptation by the late, great Darwyn Cooke is most definitely worth seeking out.

DONALD E. WESTLAKE: Stark, of course, was a penname of Westlake's. While Stark's Parker novels are the best straight crime books ever written, Westlake used his own name on the Dortmunder series, about a thief cursed with the worst luck of anyone in the genre, and darned if they're not, by a mile, the best comic crime capers. It's kind of not fair that one guy should be so damn good at both. I think most Dortmunder fans would recommend new readers simply start with the first book, The Hot Rock, but I'd actually go with a much later entry, Drowned Hopes. Here, an ex-con recruits Dortmunder and his regular crew of misfits to help with an unusual problem: the town where he buried his loot is now underwater, thanks to a dam built while he was in prison. Worth the price of admission just for the scene where Dortmunder tries scuba diving. For bonus points, the novel also includes an unusual crossover: in one chapter, the characters from Joe Gores's DKA series make an appearance. Gores and Westlake cowrote the chapter, which also appears in the DKA novel 32 Cadillacs. So this book can actually introduce you to two top-tier crime series!

JOHN D. MACDONALD: Just as Hawk is vital to the best entries in the Spenser series, so the most memorable books about Travis McGee, MacDonald's "salvage consultant" hero, tend to be the ones with the most involvement from Meyer, the philosophically inclined economist who serves as McGee's unlikely best friend. So while it might seem perverse to choose the next-to-last novel in the series as an entry point, I'd still go with Cinnamon Skin, in which Meyer is central to the plot and present in almost every scene. When Meyer's beloved niece and her new husband are killed in a boat explosion, he and McGee set off on a cross-country quest to find and punish the guilty party. There's some great detective work in this one, and a memorably cold-blooded bad guy. Of course, the McGee books are only a fraction of the work put out by the highly prolific MacDonald. For a non-series taste, try The Executioners, which has been the basis of three (increasingly unfaithful) filmed versions under the title Cape Fear.

ED MCBAIN: Choosing a starting point for the 87th Precinct novels is just about impossible, partly because of the sheer scope of the series (55 novels over fifty years!), partly because it features a sprawling ensemble cast instead of a single hero. There are a few plot threads which run through several novels--Detective Steve Carella's relationship with his wife, the recurring villain The Deaf Man--but by and large you can read the series in pretty much any order. It's been persuasively argued that the books really constitute a single long novel, one of the greatest ever written about New York City (thinly fictionalized as Isola in McBain's universe). McBain didn't invent the police procedural, but the 87th Precinct is surely the grandest incarnation of the form in mystery fiction. Forced to choose an introduction, I might go with Eight Black Horses, in which the Deaf Man returns to exact revenge. It's got a clever plot and shows the main characters at their most human--but I might be choosing it just because it's one of the ones I've most recently reread.

LAWRENCE BLOCK: Two of the greatest figures in the history of the American PI were introduced in the 1970s. Robert B. Parker's Spenser is the paragon: well-read, absolutely committed to an admirable code of honor, a superb cook, irresistible to women, and very nearly undefeatable with either a gun or his fists. As much as I love Parker's writing, by the last third or so of the series, Spenser had become essentially superhuman, impervious even to aging, and the endless scenes of him and Susan congratulating each other on the perfection of their relationship had gotten a little old. Spenser's contemporary, Block's Matt Scudder, is a much different, and ultimately much more human and thus more compelling, character. Scudder tries to do the right thing, but he's deeply flawed, most notably by his alcoholism, which remains a central theme of the series even after he joins AA and sobers up. You could start the series from the beginning, but to jump in at a point where Block has fully mastered Scudder's voice and world, go with When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, a flashback novel set during Scudder's drinking days that features a compelling plot and one of the all-time great titles.

SUE GRAFTON: Sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one. There's no doubt that Grafton got better with experience, but there's also no doubt that her "alphabet" series about California PI Kinsey Milhone was strong from the start. Watching Milhone's character develop over the course of the series is one of its main pleasures, and best appreciated if you're with her from the start of her journey: "A" is for Alibi. It's not a perfect book (you'll see the end coming a mile away), but it will make you eager to spend more time with the character. It remains a tragedy that the series never reached Z. 

STUART M. KAMINSKY: The (IMHO) underappreciated Kaminsky had several series characters, including Florida process server Lew Fonesca, Chicago cop Abe Leiberman, and Moscow inspector Porfiry Rostnikov. I frequently return to them all with pleasure, but my favorite is Toby Peters, a down-on-his luck PI working in Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s. Peters works for a different celebrity in every book, and Kaminsky, an accomplished film scholar in his professional life, fleshes out the stories with rich detail about the period and the biographies of the real-life figures Peters encounters. As in all of Kaminsky's series, there's an expansive and highly entertaining cast of supporting characters and an engaging combination of melancholy and humor. Mostly because it's where I started, I'd direct new readers to the second Peters entry, Murder on the Yellow Brick Road.

Agree? Disagree? Who are your favorites, and what do you think would make the most effective starting points for readers new to them?

AND NOW, THE NEWS

Edited by Adam Meyer, In Too Deep: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Genesis came out from Down & Out Books last year, shortly before that publisher went, well, down and out. As a result, the book never got the attention it deserved. I'm delighted that, earlier this month, a new edition of the book was published by Audecyn Books, and is now available in both print and electronic editions. It's a great set of crime stories, including contributions from my fellow SleuthSayers Stacy Woodson, Michael Bracken, and Barb Goffman. My story, "Just a Job to Do," is about a bodyguard, assigned to a mobster's wife, who develops her own ideas about what protection really means. Don't miss your second chance at this one!

How to Win the Toughest Game

Melodie here.  In my May post, I quoted good friend and colleague Lisa de Nikolits.  
Today, I'm pleased to host Lisa on Sleuthsayers, who wrote this wonderful post - possibly one of the best I've ever read on here (and I rather like my own, so that is some praise!)  I particularly like the comparison of writers to elite athletes!  How true.  Not to mention, ego-inspiring <smile>  

How to Win the Toughest Game
Five Ways Not to Lose the Plot—Including Your Own

by Lisa de Nikolits 

Writing. Surviving (and thriving) as an author has never been easy. And right now, it feels tougher—and often more bizarre—than ever.

Let’s go back to the iconic opening line of Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

I bet Mr. Dickens couldn’t have imagined AI, social media, the price of paper and shipping, or the increased number of players on the field, all jostling for real estate and their name in lights.

Add to that, cuts in government funding to the arts sectors, tariffs and a world that feels chaotic with war and disaster.

How can we cope? Even more importantly, how can we thrive?

My strategies are simple, and I sum them up in Five Ways Not to Lose the Plot—Including Your Own

1.               Think Like a Sports Pro

2.               Be Judicious with Social Media

3.               Have Realistic Expectations

4.               Revisit Your Slush Pile

5.               Celebrate the Wins

1.               Think Like a Sports Pro.

This is one of my favourites. I found these fridge magnets a decade ago and I’ve used them as writing mantras ever since. They sum up the dedication, discipline, relentless hard work, single-minded passion and blinkered focus that’s necessary to be on the field, never mind succeeding on the field. Athletes get injured, grow old, adjust to change, fail on a global stage in front of millions of people, encounter rivals, face scorn and derision from analysts, failed former players and couch potatoes who all think they could do it better. They are vilified on social media or held fleetingly aloft as gods. None of this is dissimilar to writing. So, train your brain to think like an athlete because as an author, you are an athlete. Protect your mental health, improve your stamina, do the rehab (in our case, the rewrites), accept the losses and never lose sight of your end goal.

I’d also like to talk about the idea that writers must produce four to five books a year to succeed. This has become a kind of shorthand in indie publishing and one that I’ve seen at conferences and online. Its origin story comes from a specific ecosystem—rapid-release, series-driven genres where visibility is tied to frequency and algorithmic momentum. But it is not a universal rule of writing, nor is it a guarantee of success.

“Super successes” of indie romance, crime or cozy bestsellers are realistically more likely to be extraordinary outliers, and not typical outcomes, in the same way that Fifty Shades of Grey is still cited to “prove” that self-publishing is the fastest route to commercial success. What it actually represents is something far more rare: a highly unusual trajectory that became visible precisely because it is not typical. Both ideas—high output as a necessity, and viral success as a model—belong to the same category of publishing mythology. They describe what has happened, not what can be reliably reproduced.

I feel it’s important to talk about this because it ties into the sporting analogy. There are phenoms in every sport, but their meteoric rise is theirs, rather than a strategy for most athletes to follow.

So, ask yourself, who are you on the sports field? Where do your specific talents and strengths lie? We’d all like to be phenoms but sometimes we’re just the hopefuls on the bench, training our hearts out, and hoping that our game day will come. One thing’s for sure; the harder you train, the more consistently you show up, the more chance you’ll have of being not only being on the playing field but succeeding in delivering your personal best. 

2. Be Judicious with Social Media.

Social media is a series of black holes within black holes. And the big question is always, does social media even sell books? The answer, unanimously, is “indirectly.” In other words, social media rarely sells books directly, but it can create visibility, credibility, and a sense of urgency that might lead to book sales.

Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Threads, Bluesky, Substack, Goodreads, Wattpad are just a few, some of which are already on their way out.

I recently attended a webinar titled “Promoting Books Without Social Media” by author brand/marketing expert Andréa Guevara. 1,600 authors showed up, proving that I wasn’t alone in wanting to find alternative avenues of book promotion.

My takeaway was that instead of chasing daily visibility across an (unrealistic, unreliable) ever-expanding list of platforms, we need to shift to systems that endure—libraries, book clubs, podcasts, interviews, festivals, and word-of-mouth ecosystems where a single meaningful appearance can generate momentum over months rather than minutes. In this model, marketing isn’t about feeding algorithms; it’s about becoming findable in the right places, at the right time, for the right reader.

However, even in an approach like this which rejects social media dependency, there is a strong caveat: social media still plays a role as a discovery layer. Several irate authors indicated their discontent in the sidebar chat of the webinar: “I thought this was about NOT using social media” and I understood their point. I too was disappointed because the webinar demonstrated that we have to use social media to get off social media. Social media points readers towards alternative avenues such as events, and direct relationships but it’s the unavoidable first step.

Another caveat is that we live in a world where it’s increasingly tough (and expensive) to get invited to festivals as an author or even just attend them. The reasons for this are myriad and would take an entire post in and of itself to delve into. Book tables can be costly at festivals even when shared. The cost of memberships can mount up.

And one could spend 24/7 hours a day and countless dollars on mentorships, coaching, paying for giveaways, book tours, Facebook ads, Google ads or book software programs that promise the world—and the list goes on.

I’ve always likened social media to gardening. I dedicate an hour a day, no more, to posting, liking, commenting, swiping, supporting, and seeing what’s out there. Then I walk away from my garden, knowing there are countless weeds I didn’t get to pull but I did what I could, in my allotted time. 

3. Have Realistic Expectations

As authors, we’re not entering a small pool of books. We’re entering a flood.

The scale of publishing today is difficult to overstate. Globally, estimates suggest around 2.2 million new books are published every year, and when self-published titles are included, the number can climb to nearly 4 million new books annually.

Self-published books now make up a substantial share of total annual releases—often estimated at well over 40% of all new titles, and in some datasets, outnumbering traditionally published books by a wide margin.

But volume does not equal reach.

Across both traditional and self-publishing, most books sell very few copies. Industry analyses and sales data consistently suggest that:

·                  the majority of books sell fewer than a few hundred copies in their lifetime  only a small percentage ever break into significant commercial success self-published books tend to have a wider spread of outcomes, from zero sales to occasional high performers, but most cluster at the low end of the scale

Traditional publishing offers distribution, editing, and credibility—but not guaranteed sales. Self-publishing offers control and speed—but not guaranteed quality, discovery or sales.

 

For small press and debut authors, the reality is even more sobering: most titles receive modest attention unless they benefit from sustained marketing, series momentum, awards recognition, or unexpected and uncontrollable external amplification. In other words, “being published” is not the milestone it once was. Visibility, not publication, is the scarce (and most valuable) resource.

 

Going back to my sporting analogy, we’re on a very crowded playing field.

 

The expectation, then, cannot be “success as default.” Publishing is not a finish line; it is a game in motion, played across shifting ground where visibility has to be earned and re-earned.

 

In the older model of traditional publishing, the contract itself often carried an unspoken identity shift: I am now a success. To be published was to be legitimized. Writing and recognition arrived together, and the role felt, if not secure, at least clearly defined and established.

 

That equation no longer holds in the same way.

 

Now, publication is little more than a ticket to entry on the playing field and victories are scarce. The game continues long after the book is released, and the conditions of play have changed: there are more players, more noise, more competition for attention, fewer guarantees of being seen at all. And yet this is not a reason for disillusionment—it’s a reason for clarity.

 

Because once you understand the nature of the game, you stop mistaking it for something it is not. You stop expecting permanence from limited exposure. You stop equating publication with victory. And you start building strategies that match reality rather than myth.

 

The question is no longer whether a book is good enough to be published—because these days, almost any book can be published—but whether, once it is in play, it can be found. And from that more grounded place, success becomes not a default assumption, but something you can influence, recognize, and hopefully sustain.

 

 4. Revisit Your Slush Pile
 

I recently went back to my slush pile, and it was a useful reminder about something important: writing is a long game, and I’m not the same player I was fifteen or twenty years ago.

 

Back to Think Like a Sports Pro: Athletes get injured, grow old, adjust to change, fail on a global stage in front of millions of people, encounter rivals, face scorn and the derision from analysts, failed former players and couch potatoes who all think they could do it better.

 

Visiting my slush pile felt like stepping onto an old playing field and immediately being aware of how differently I move now.

 

I feel more nimble, confident and dexterous. I used to overplay (overwrite) everything, overthink every pass (sentence), and try to hold the entire match (short story/novel) together with terrified caution.

 

Now I see the patterns more clearly. I trust myself more which means I trust the play more. And a huge difference is that I don’t panic when the ask shifts.

 

It was interesting to dissect the evolution of my writing—to see what my strengths were at the time, and to notice how clearly my weaknesses are visible to me now. I am, without question, a better writer in terms of dialogue, structure, pacing, and shaping a narrative from beginning to end. I no longer stack literary ideas like a Jenga tower and hope that no one breathes too hard near the table. Back then, I was afraid that if I removed one piece, the whole structure would collapse. I played as if stability mattered more than quality and that challenging the structure would result in complete loss. I don’t have that fear anymore.

 

And what surprised me was how much value was still there in the earlier work. Concepts, images and fragments of insight—sometimes there’s no more than a line or a few words in a sentence, but those fragments aren’t games I lost, they were unfinished plays that, with my years of training and focus, still have potential. I learned that three or four concepts/sentences/ideas could be welded together and forged with new beginnings and new endings. I could, by experience, diligent studies, faith in my imagination, age and wisdom, create a different formation with a different outcome and end up with a piece of work I’m really proud of.

 

What I understand now—and I didn’t understand then—is that the slush pile isn’t evidence of failure. It’s my own personal archive.

 

But what I also realized is this. I used to think that a story was finished when really, it was 8% done. Only 8%. That’s not a lot. Now I know I have to work harder—a lot harder. It takes more time than I thought it would. And not because I’m older and slower but because I recognize all the requisite nuances, and I know how long those nuances can take. I can spend more than an hour on a paragraph and sometimes a paragraph can take an entire day.

 

Younger me was in such a hurry to get published. Being published was everything. And don’t get me wrong. Nothing beats the thrill of having your story or novel in print or online. But I realize now that there’s much more to it. Once my first draft is complete, I have to go the other 92%. And that’s the hard work. Those are the reps. That’s what sculpts. The rewriting, self-edits, the line edits, the stepping away, the coming back, the asking for input and then trusting myself to deliver.

 

Now I am not afraid of collapse because it’s part of the game and better players don’t run away from facing their mistakes in the hopes that no one else will see them either and that somehow, the world will embrace the half-finished play as magnificent.

 

Better players study their plays and pick them apart. Instead of relying on flashy sleights of hand to fake a play, better players get into the mechanics.

5. Celebrate the Wins

 
Let’s go back to where we started: Writing. Surviving (and thriving) as an author has never been easy. And right now, it feels tougher—and often more bizarre—than ever.

 

And let’s revisit the iconic opening line of Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities one more time: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

 

And, given Be Judicious with Social Media as well as Have Realistic Expectations, one might feel discouraged at this point.

 

Which is when I go back to Think Like a Sports Pro. Have you ever watched the winning locker room after the championship is won? The champagne showers are so crazy the players have to wear goggles.

 

And it’s never been more important to celebrate our wins. The grass is always greener on the other side and there’s always someone (or a crowd!) doing better than you and winning that accolade you hoped would be yours.

 

Stay blinkered. Stay in your lane and count your wins. And you’ve got them, or you wouldn’t be here. Sit with them and look at them. Breathe in the moment. Give yourself a pat on the back. And if you didn’t win today, there’s always tomorrow. Someone’s gotta win, right? There’s no reason it can’t be you.

 

Remember the fridge magnets. I’d love to know which one appeals to you the most. I think I’d go with Billie Jean King. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.”

Thank you for reading this post. If you enjoyed it, please visit my website, lisawriter.com, and order a copy of one of my books, sold wherever books are sold. Or ask your local library for a copy. And if you’d like to go one step further, leave a rating or review. It all counts and it’s all appreciated.

Now available at Amazon, and all the usual suspects! (I've ordered my copy - Melodie)